“The Duke of Buckhurst!” she whispered to herself.
Although her voice was barely audible, she felt as if it rang out round the four walls and touched the ceiling.
*
Driving away, the Marchioness of Hull gave a deep sigh and thought that, incredible though it seemed, her quest was at an end.
It was only when she and her sister had made out a list of eligible girls from aristocratic families whom they could welcome as Buck’s wife that they realised they had been over-optimistic in thinking that anybody they invited to marry him would jump at the opportunity.
One after another the fathers of the girls on the list had firmly turned down the proposition without even giving them a chance to discuss it.
The Duke of Dorset was extremely blunt.
“I am not such a fool,” he said acidly, “as not to be aware that to be the Duchess of Buckhurst has great social advantages, but, as I am extremely fond of my daughter, I wish her to have at least a sporting chance of happiness in any marriage I arrange for her.”
The Marchioness had been unable to answer this and he had added,
“I like Buck, he amuses me and his horses always beat mine, but I cannot envisage a worse hell for any woman than to be married to him. I don’t believe for one moment that simply because he has been forced into marriage he will change his ways and become a reformed character.”
He spoke sarcastically and every other father had said much the same thing.
They were all aware of the reason for the Duke’s precipitate marriage and the Marchioness and her husband knew that nothing they could say could gloss over the fact that he was taking a wife only because their cousin Edmund had married Lottie Linkley.
The Marquis also had the uncomfortable feeling that none of the families whom they approached were amused by the fact that for the first time in his life Buckhurst was having to do something he disliked and was not getting his own way as he always had ever since they had known him.
He knew that Elizabeth and Margaret were beginning to despair as their list of eligible young girls grew shorter and shorter, until they were finally left with the Earl of Kenwyn’s daughter and with the anxious knowledge that time was running out.
“I will drive over to The Priory tomorrow afternoon,” the Marchioness said, “but if the Earl refuses to entertain the idea, I cannot imagine where we can go next.”
“Kenwyn is miserably poor,” the Marquis replied. “His house is falling in ruins about him and I have heard that he refuses all invitations in the County because he will not accept hospitality that he cannot return.”
“It sounds a very honourable way of behaving,” the Marchioness observed.
“He is indeed an honourable man,” her husband agreed. “He has always been exceedingly proud, and I doubt if he will agree to Buck’s proposition that the marriage should take place on the 2nd of June.”
“Why must he always make things so difficult?” Margaret asked plaintively.
“Buck is used to getting his own way,” Elizabeth replied, “and he will never understand that none of these families have any wish for their daughters to become the Duchess of Buckhurst if that includes having Buck as a husband!”
Margaret gave a little cry of horror.
“If Buck heard you say that, he would have a stroke!”
“But it’s true,” her sister replied. “Quite frankly, if the Earl refuses, he really is our last hope. We shall have to start all over again and it will be quite impossible to do it in the time.”
“Well, you tell Buck! I am not going to try anymore,” Margaret said sharply.
“Nor am I,” the Marquis said.
Elizabeth sighed.
“I can only pray that, since the Earl of Kenwyn is so poor, he will realise the advantages there would be not only for his daughter but for himself to have Buck as a son-in-law.”
She smiled as she added,
“If there is one thing on which we all agree, it is that, although Buck may have his faults, he is extremely generous and I cannot believe, however much he dislikes having a wife, he would allow his father-in-law to have to skimp and save and be as poor as a Church mouse.”
“Then for goodness sake,” Margaret said, “make that clear to the Earl.”
Before Samala came into the room, the Marchioness had thought that, however persuasive she was being, she had failed.
She had realised that her husband had been right when he had said that the Earl of Kenwyn was proud and, when she had said the marriage was to take place on the 2nd of June, she saw that his chin went up as if he regarded such haste as an insult.
She thought too that Samala would understandably insist on seeing the man she was to marry and she would therefore have to go back and admit defeat.
Then, amazingly, the girl, when she learnt who her suitor was, had accepted him without any more to-do.
‘Perhaps it is the glamour of racing or perhaps she has heard of how handsome Buck is?’ the Marchioness thought.
Whatever the explanation, she had succeeded and now for the moment their troubles were over, although she was half-afraid that Samala might back out at the last moment.
‘The whole proposition is ridiculous!’ she said to herself, just as she had ever since Buck had set down the conditions for his marriage.
At any rate it was a relief to know that they need not go on listening to the truth about Buck and indeed she felt as if she had reached the top of a high mountain when she had thought that its peak was beyond her reach.
*
The Earl walked back from the front door to the study, intending to ask Samala for an explanation as to why she had accepted the Duke of Buckhurst without any further deliberation.
‘I want her to be happy,’ he said to himself, but he knew that, when she was gone, he would miss her desperately and the empty poverty-stricken house would become intolerable.
‘The whole idea is absurd!’ he told himself. ‘I shall tell her to refuse the man and we will go on as we are.’
Because he lived out of the Social world, the Earl knew very little about the Duke, apart from his sporting success and the tales of his indiscretions and his raffish reputation had not percolated to The Priory.
In fact, as the Earl disliked gossip of any sort and he actually saw very few people, he had no idea that the Duke’s love affairs were the talk of London.
All the same, he still thought it very odd that Samala should be immediately willing to marry him, although he knew that from a worldly point of view, that it would ensure that she was safe and protected for the rest of her life.
“But will that make her happy?” he asked aloud.
He was determined to ask her that question, but, on entering the study, he found that she was not there.
*
The Duke received the letter sent by a groom to his house in Newmarket telling him that his bride was to be the Earl of Kenwyn’s daughter and her name is Samala.
He read the words his sister had written and noted with a cynical twist to his lips that she had added,
“Samala is very pretty – in fact I think the right word is ‘lovely’ and she will certainly grace the Buckhurst diamonds.
As I expect you know, the Wynn family is as old and as distinguished as ours. The Earl is good-looking and has a delightful manner, but they are very very poor.
The house is beautiful from the outside, but very poverty-stricken within and there appeared to be no servants. I had the feeling that most of the rooms were shut up.
The garden is uncared for and the drive pot-holed, but Samala is like a lily amidst such dilapidation and I don’t think you will be disappointed.”
The Duke could hardly bother to read to the end of the letter and pushed it into a drawer and went from the room to find that one unexpected guest had arrived uninvited.
If he had decided that he had no wish to start a love affair on the eve of his marriage, the Baroness von Schluter had very different ideas.
He had no sooner arrived in Newmarket and installed himself in his large and imposing house to welcome the house party, which would arrive the next day and which consisted mostly of men, when the butler came to tell him that there was a lady to see him.
“A lady?” the Duke enquired. “Who is it?”
“She did not give her name, Your Grace. She only said that it was of the utmost importance that she should see you at once.”
The Duke looked impatiently at the clock.
He had been just about to go upstairs to dress for dinner and, if there was one thing he disliked, it was having to hurry over his bath and, even more, to be late for a meal.
He thought he might tell the lady, whoever she might be, to go away and come back again tomorrow. Then he thought that would be even more irritating.
He therefore walked rather disagreeably into the morning room, where the butler had left his unknown visitor.
Then, as he opened the door, he saw who was there and that she was extremely lovely and seductive in the same manner that had intrigued him at their first meeting.
“This is a surprise!” he exclaimed as he walked across the room.
She held out her hand and, as he kissed it perfunctorily, the Baroness said,
“I have come to throw myself on your mercy, Your Grace. I arrived in Newmarket to find that the rooms I had booked at the hotel have, through some mistake, not been kept for me and, unless I sleep on the Downs, I have nowhere to lay my head.”
The Duke did not believe a word of it. At the same time the way she spoke was very enticing and her broken accent fascinated him.
“You are alone?” he asked.
“My husband may join me later,” she replied, “but some senior politicians have just arrived from Paris and he could not leave London.”
Again the Duke was quite certain that this was untrue, but there was no point in saying so.
“Please, mon cher,” the Baroness pleaded, looking at him under her long eyelashes, “let me stay here with you tonight and perhaps tomorrow I shall be able to find other accommodation?”
There was therefore nothing the Duke could do but install her in one of the many comfortable and empty rooms in his house.
She not only sparkled like a twinkling star at dinner, but also made it very clear as the evening ended what she expected from him.
Because he found her very attractive and because the principles that had made him cancel their dinner together the night before seemed now rather far-fetched and unnecessary, the Duke had succumbed, as he had always done all his life, to his own desires.
He found that she was, as he had expected, both passionate and exciting and the spark they had seen in each other’s eyes the first time they met became a raging fire from which it was impossible to escape.
There was no question of the Baroness leaving the next day or the next.
When the racing ended at Newmarket, as the Duke had no wish to return to London, to hear his friends talking about his forthcoming marriage and gloating over his discomfiture, he had taken her to one of his other houses, a very delightful hunting lodge in Leicestershire.
While he was there, he really did not think very much about his marriage and, when the Marchioness wrote to tell him that the Earl of Kenwyn’s daughter would be his wife, he merely thought that everything was going as planned.
This at any rate would stop Edmund from borrowing on his chance of becoming the Duke and Lottie’s unborn child would cease to have any particular relevance.
He allowed himself to forget everything but the allurement and the fascinating accent of the Baroness and the fire that leapt higher and higher when they touched each other.
*
Exactly a week after the Marchioness had called at Kenwyn Priory, Madame Bertin arrived in a post chaise with a pile of boxes containing gowns that made Samala gasp when she saw them.
It was so long since she had had a new gown or even seen the pictures in The Ladies Journal that she really had no idea what the fashion was. Although she thought to herself that, if she had anything as lovely as the Marchioness had been wearing, she would be very happy.
But Elizabeth Hull, who had been a beauty, was well aware that clothes were very important and besides, at the back of her mind, she thought that perhaps, despite her brother’s avowed antagonism to marriage, he might eventually come to love his own wife.
Her brain told her that this was very unlikely. At the same time she was a romantic at heart and, although her sister Margaret laughed at her and her husband usually failed to understand what she was talking about, she wanted to believe that, as in the Fairy tales, Prince Charming lived happily ever afterwards.
She knew that her brother’s love affairs, if that was the right word for them, had always been with sophisticated, exquisitely dressed beauties who used every known artifice to make them shine like a crystal chandelier and sparkle like fireworks.
She also realised that Samala’s halo of golden hair, her blue eyes and her very young, almost child-like face had a beauty that was unusual, although she had the uncomfortable feeling that her brother would not appreciate it.
At first she had been so thrilled and delighted that Samala had accepted the amazing proposition of being married in under three weeks that she had not really thought very much about the bride, but only of the bridegroom.
Now, because she was a kind woman and was very much aware of how difficult Buck could be, she set out to make Samala into a beauty and to enhance the qualities that were essentially hers.
They were, she knew, very different from those of the woman with whom her brother was currently amusing himself.
It was not surprising that the Baroness had followed her brother to Newmarket and that he had taken her from Newmarket to Leicestershire.
The Marchioness had seen the Baroness and she knew that her dark hair, flashing eyes and sensuous, voluptuous body were very much to Buck’s taste, where Samala was in every way the exact opposite.
*
Because Margaret wanted to meet her, the Marchioness, her sister and her husband drove to The Priory two days after Elizabeth’s first visit and found Samala arranging flowers in the study.
She was quite unselfconscious and unperturbed by their arrival, greeting them politely and, the Marchioness thought, showed a grace that was somewhat unusual in so young a girl.
It did not seem to worry her that she was wearing a very old cotton gown that had been washed until the colour had left it and that she had grown out of it until it was too tight over her breasts.
Her hair was arranged casually in a chignon because she had been riding, and both the Marchioness and Lady Bredon appreciated that she made no apology for herself or the house and only hurried to the kitchen to make tea and bring it to them on a tray.
“I am afraid there are no cakes or biscuits,” she said, “but if you would like some sandwiches, I can pick a cucumber from the garden.”
“No, we are not hungry,” the Marchioness said quickly, “only a little thirsty after the journey and this tea is delicious.”
As she spoke, she knew that it was the very cheapest tea available and Samala gave a little smile to show she appreciated her tact and pretended not to notice that Lady Bredon, having sipped from her cup, put it down and did not touch it again.
They talked for a little while. Then the Earl came in and seemed surprised to see them back so soon.
The Marquis, however, greeted him effusively and they were soon talking about horses and the difficulties the farmers were having in the country and they obviously had no wish to include the ladies in their conversation.
“Some of your gowns will be here the day after tomorrow,” the Marchioness said, “and I wonder, dear child, if you would like me to come over and help you to choose from the sketches that Madame Bertin is bringing you.”
“I would love you to do that, if it is no trouble,” Samala answered. “At the same time, please, you must not be too – extravagant a
nd give me – too many lovely things.”
She lowered her voice as she added,
“It is rather – embarrassing for Papa to feel he cannot provide me with my trousseau.”
“I thought you would feel like that,” the Marchioness said, “but, if you had been somebody rich, I would have bought a large diamond brooch or perhaps a necklace for my future sister-in-law. But I knew you would consider it much more practical to have pretty gowns and all the accessories to go with them.”
Samala laughed.
“Much more practical,” she agreed. “I cannot imagine that anybody would be very impressed if I was wearing a diamond brooch or a sparkling necklace with this gown!”
Because she was so unselfconscious and her laughter seemed to ring out in the sunshine, both the Marchioness and Margaret Bredon were entranced by her.
Going home, Lady Bredon said,
“She is lovely and I think we are very fortunate to have found exactly the right wife for Buck and somebody who will undoubtedly make him a very good Duchess.”
“I only hope Buck thinks so!” the Marquis remarked.
Then there was silence while all three were thinking that Buck would have very little in common with the country girl who had never had a pretty gown until now and who knew nothing of the world in which he shone so brilliantly and at the same time so devastatingly.
“Is that woman still with him?” Margaret asked in a low voice.
The Marquis nodded.
“I heard from one of my friends this morning and he told me that he had dined with Buck the night before last. She was there and the life and soul of the party!”
They looked at one another in dismay and then, as if there was nothing more to say, they drove on in silence.
Chapter 3
Coming back from riding with her father, Samala thought how happy they always were when they were together.
They had had a long ride and talked a great deal about the estate, about their difficulties over the old people whose houses needed repairing and about the school in the village, which was very inadequate and, as the Earl had said despairingly, required a new teacher.
A Marriage Made In Heaven Page 4
