It did not strike the Duke that he should resent her familiarity with his private affairs.
Instead he replied,
“I have no alternative. If this party is a failure, there must be another and yet another. But the end will be the same. I cannot escape!”
Almost as if he could not bear to think of it, he touched Thunderer with his whip and the stallion responded by breaking into a gallop and there was now no chance of continuing the conversation.
Only when they reached home and Anita went up to her bedroom to change did she stand at the window looking out over the Park over which she had just been riding.
The sunshine was glinting on the huge oak trees and on the lake, on which white swans moved with exquisite grace.
‘Please, God, let him find someone who will make him happy,’ she prayed in her heart.
Then quickly, because she thought the Duchess would be waiting for her, she began to change into one of her beautiful new gowns.
As she expected, because they had travelled in the Duke’s train and had driven in his comfortable carriages from the halt, the majority of the party arrived exactly on time.
The Duchess was waiting for them in the silver salon, which was on the ground floor, and Anita had put on one of her prettiest gowns.
“Do you want me to be there, ma’am?” she asked. “Perhaps you and His Grace would prefer to receive your guests alone?”
“No, of course not, dear child,” the Duchess replied, “and I think you will be a great help, since this house party is very unlike Kerne’s usual ones.”
“You mean because the girls you have invited are so young?”
“Exactly!” the Duchess agreed.
“There is no reason why they should be difficult to talk to or not enjoy themselves,” Anita said. “I am sure Sarah is the life and soul of every party she goes to in London. Mama used to say that Sarah always made a party go.”
“I hope you will do the same,” the Duchess said with a smile.
Anita knew that Her Grace was apprehensive, but she could not understand why.
The Marquis and Marchioness of Doncaster came into the salon first and the Duke was obviously delighted to see them.
Their daughter, Lady Rosemary, was presented to the Duchess, and immediately Anita knew why she was not in the least suitable to be the wife of the Duke.
There was something “horsy” about her, there was no grace in the way she walked and she shook hands almost as a man might have done.
The Earl and Countess of Clydeshire’s daughter was, however, very different.
She was tall, golden-haired and blue-eyed and was in fact, Anita thought, extremely pretty.
She had a quiet, rather repressed manner of talking, but that, Anita guessed, was because she was shy.
She moved to her side to ask her if she had had a good journey.
“It was the first time I have been in a private train and I thought it very luxurious,” Lady Millicent answered.
“I thought it was fascinating,” Anita said, “and I could hardly believe it was real.”
“It was real enough to me!” Lady Millicent replied in a voice Anita did not understand.
There were other friends of the Duke’s who had been on the train, one a married couple who were extremely keen on racing and the other a slightly older man called Lord Greshame.
“Glad to be here, Ollerton!” he said now to the Duke. “I have always maintained that you have the best horses and the most comfortable houses in the whole country.”
“That is exactly the sort of compliment I like to receive, George,” the Duke replied. “I think you know everybody except Miss Lavenham.”
Lord Greshame shook hands with Anita, but before he could speak to her, Lord and Lady Downham and their daughter Alice were announced.
They had driven down from London and had managed, as Lord Downham averred in a loud voice, to beat his previous record by ten minutes, fifty seconds.
Lady Alice was, Anita thought, looking at her, rather a disappointment.
She was of course tall, fair and blue-eyed, but she had a somewhat sulky expression, was too fat to be attractive and there were undoubtedly spots on her chin.
‘Lady Millicent will certainly have it all her own way!’ Anita thought and wondered what the Duchess would think of this prospective daughter-in-law.
There were a number of other guests who arrived in the next hour, making the number staying in the house up to twenty.
“You must be very busy downstairs,” Anita said to the maid who looked after her when she was getting her bath ready.
“Not as busy as we are sometimes, miss,” the maid replied. “His Grace has had as many as forty guests staying in the house, and that means, as most of them brings a lady’s maid or a valet, nearly forty extra in the servants’ hall and housekeeper’s room.”
“Then it is a party for you too,” Anita added with a smile.
“That’s what I feels, miss, although the older ones grumble.”
“I expect they enjoy it really.”
She remembered how Deborah often grumbled when there were extra people to meals at home. But during the time when there had been very few visitors she had complained because, she said, there was no life about the place.
‘There is certainly plenty of life at Ollerton!’ Anita thought.
When she was ready and looked at herself in the mirror, she could hardly believe that the attractive, fashionable reflection she saw was really that of Anita Lavenham.
She had written long letters to both her sisters to tell them what was happening to her, and Sarah had replied saying how delighted she was and how she had to make the very best of her opportunity of meeting influential people at Ollerton.
She had written.
“Perhaps, dearest, one of the Duke’s friends may take a fancy to you, and if he does, please be practical. You may never have such an opportunity again! Although I agree that it was ridiculous of Great-Aunt Matilda to expect you to marry an aged Parson, I am sure you will realise that the alternative, when the Duchess is tired of you, is to go back to Fenchurch and become an old maid.
I am saying nothing yet, because it might be unlucky, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that I might, I just might, have very special news for you in a few weeks. Oh, Anita, please pray that what I am wishing for will come true, because it is what I want more than I have ever wanted anything before.”
‘Sarah is in love,’ Anita thought as she read the letter, and because she loved her sister she prayed very hard that Sarah might be given her wish.
Later that evening, when they were all sitting talking in the drawing room, which was one of the most beautiful rooms in the house, at the Duchess’s suggestion Anita moved to the piano.
The Duchess had already told her when they had been talking about the party that she thought music always made people relax and took away some of the stiffness between those who had just met one another for the first time.
Anita therefore chose soft, rather romantic music, knowing that in fact she played it better than the more classical studies that were really Her Grace’s favourites.
“Mama taught me to play,” she had told the Duchess. “She was really good. I only strum to amuse myself.”
“I think you play very prettily,” the Duchess said. “It is a talent more women should have, and a very attractive one.”
Anita therefore played what she thought would make a happy background for the Duke’s guests, but her thoughts swept away towards her own family.
‘Please, God, help Sarah find a husband,’ she prayed again in her heart, ‘and let Daphne find one too, but prevent me from having to be in a hurry to choose anyone.’
She was praying so intensely that her eyes were closed and she started as she heard the Duke say,
“What are you thinking about in the darkness of your mind?”
She opened her eyes to find that he was leaning on the piano, looking at her.
&nb
sp; “I – was thinking.”
“About whom?”
“My sister Sarah.”
“I heard when I was in London that she was a great success. In fact, I forgot to tell you, I actually saw her at one party I attended.”
“Did you think she looked pretty?”
“Very, but you are not in the least like her.”
“I know,” Anita admitted. “Sarah is the beauty of the family.”
Her eyes lit up as she added,
“If you have heard she is a success, perhaps what she is wishing for has come true. Actually, I was praying that it would.”
“What is she wishing for?”
“I think, although she has not exactly said so, that she is in love,” Anita confided.
“Then let’s hope she catches the man on whom she has set her heart,” the Duke remarked.
Anita felt that the way he had said this grated on her, but she knew it was impossible to find fault with him.
Sarah was in fact trying to catch a husband and Daphne was doing the same thing.
‘It is something I will never – never – do!’ Anita silently swore to herself.
Then she realised that the Duke was still gazing at her and, although it seemed impossible and she could not explain how, she felt that he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Later you will change your mind,” he said, almost as if she had spoken aloud.
“Then you will be like every woman, chasing some wretched man when nature intended that he should chase you.”
The way he spoke was so harsh, so unpleasant, that Anita stared at him wide-eyed and the music died beneath her fingers.
Then, before she could reply, before she could even deny the charge he had levelled at her, he walked back to his guests.
Chapter Five
The Duke, having performed four duty dances with the most distinguished of his guests, thought the moment had come when he must dance with the girls who had been invited for his inspection.
He had already decided, as Anita had done, that the only one who was even possibly acceptable was Lady Millicent Clyde.
Although her father, the Earl, was somewhat of a bore in the House of Lords, he certainly appreciated good horseflesh and his house in Huntingdonshire was extremely comfortable.
The Duke had realised the moment the ball started that his mother – or perhaps, if he was fair, Anita – had been right in decorating the ballroom and making it, if nothing else, a good talking point.
The guests who had come from the County were both surprised and delighted by the decorative effect of Venice, and the orchestra which had come down from London provided exactly the right type of music.
This was sometimes soft and romantic and at other times gay and spirited and, even if the Duke had wished to find fault, he would have found it impossible not to be aware that the party was going with ‘a swing’.
He knew too that it was a delight he had not expected that his mother was so well and had actually danced with the Lord Lieutenant.
She was looking exceedingly beautiful and was wearing a satin gown of dove-grey, which had been made fashionable by Princess Alexandra, against which the unique Ollerton sapphires looked magnificent.
The Duke thought, as he had so many times before, that it would be impossible for him to find a wife who looked as lovely as his mother or had a character like hers.
He was well aware that the compliments she was paid by everybody present came not only because they admired her but because they loved her.
She had been instrumental in so many reforms that were vitally needed in the County and she had never been too busy to listen to the troubles of other people whether they were high or low in rank.
It seemed to the Duke as if his father’s words kept echoing incessantly in his ears when he had said, ‘they don’t make women like that these days!’.
However, duty was duty, and as he walked across the room to where Lady Millicent was standing beside her mother, the Countess, he knew exactly where his duty lay.
Lady Millicent was actually looking very attractive and Anita had thought so when they had all congregated before dinner in the silver salon.
Her gown of white lace billowing out from a small waist was in a fashion that had been set by the Empress Eugenie and which was particularly becoming for young girls.
Her eyes were blue and her hair was exactly the right burnished gold that the Duke had insisted he required in his wife.
“May I have the pleasure of this dance?” he asked her.
As he spoke, he expected Lady Millicent’s blue eyes to light up with the glint of excitement that he had always seen in any woman’s eyes when he invited her to partner him on the dance floor.
But Lady Millicent merely inclined her head and it was the Countess who said eagerly,
“That would be delightful, my dear Duke, and you will find that Milly is a very good dancer.”
“I am sure I shall,” the Duke replied briefly.
Then, as the orchestra began to play a waltz by Offenbach, he led her onto the dance floor.
As he did so, he was aware that she was also the right height that he had stipulated as being important in someone who would do justice to the Ollerton diamonds and the five strings of oriental pearls that had once belonged to a Maharajah of India.
One of the Duke’s ancestors, who had been one of the first Governor Generals, had bought them for what now seemed a ‘song’, and every subsequent Duchess had found them extremely becoming.
‘Pearls must be worn against the skin,’ they had been told and they had not needed this encouragement to drape themselves in what had often been valued at ‘a king’s ransom’.
“I hope you are enjoying yourself at Ollerton, Lady Millicent,” the Duke said as they moved sedately over the polished floor.
“Yes, thank you.”
Her reply was conventional and her voice undoubtedly flat.
“I am sure you find the decorations of the ballroom unusual and I must admit they surprised me when I first saw them.”
“It looks very pretty!”
“You have never been to Venice?”
“No.”
The Duke thought with a rising feeling of irritation that this was hard going.
Persevering, he continued,
“It is a City I find very beautiful and, of course, as I expect you have been told, it is the perfect place for honeymooners.”
To his surprise, Lady Millicent stiffened and missed a step.
Then she said,
“I believe the canals make it very unhealthy.”
“I think it depends in which part of Venice you stay,” the Duke replied. “Near the lagoon you have the advantage of the tides.”
“All the same I would not like to visit Venice.”
He decided, from the way in which Lady Millicent spoke, that this was definitely the end of that subject and he told himself that if she had no wish to talk he was quite prepared to remain silent.
Then across the room he saw his mother watching him and knew he must make a further effort.
“Your father has some excellent horses,” he said. “Are you fond of riding?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then what do you enjoy?”
There was a definite hesitation before Lady Millicent replied,
“Quite a – number of things.”
The Duke knew that, if they had actually been married at this moment, he would have wanted to shake her.
Instead, he said with an undoubtedly cynical note in his voice,
“That is certainly very enlightening!”
“I cannot think why you should be – interested.”
The words came almost inaudibly and yet he heard them and he told himself that it was impossible for the Clydeshires not to have been aware why they had been invited to Ollerton.
The Earl and the Countess had stayed there on several previous occasions and they would have seen that the parties the Duke
usually gave never included young unmarried girls.
But the rule had been altered and it had been his mother who had written the letters of invitation, which would have told anyone with the Social consciousness of the Countess exactly why the party was being given.
The Duke thought too that the Countess, having seen her daughter’s rivals, would have come to the same conclusion as he had – that she was definitely the ‘favourite’ in the race.
‘Would they, in the circumstances, really have said nothing to Lady Millicent?’ he wondered to himself.
If they had not done so, that could account for the fact that she was obviously making no effort at all to make herself pleasant, but perhaps she was so unintelligent that she actually had nothing to contribute to the conversation.
At least when he had spoken to Rosemary Castor and Alice Down during the day they had responded in a manner which left him in no doubt that they were anxious to find favour in his eyes.
The Duke was still puzzling over Lady Millicent’s behaviour when the dance came to an end. Without even smiling at him, she immediately moved to her mother’s side, as was conventional and there was nothing the Duke could do but follow her.
“I was thinking what a charming couple you made on the dance floor,” the Countess twittered.
“Thank you for a most enjoyable waltz,” the Duke said politely.
He would have turned away, but his mother, who had been sitting next to the Countess, put out her hand towards him.
He moved quickly to her side.
“You feel all right, Mama? You must not dance if it is too much for you.”
“I am enjoying myself immensely!” the Duchess replied. “I never expected to be here this evening except in a wheelchair!”
The Duke was about to pay her a compliment when she said in a low voice,
“Can you see if Anita is all right? I have not seen her for some time.”
“Yes, of course,” the Duke replied. “With whom was she dancing when you last saw her?”
“With Lord Greshame.”
The Duke frowned.
He had noticed that at dinner Anita was sitting next to George Greshame.
He had been invited to this particular party because he was a very good mixer, besides being an excellent bridge player.
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