He had almost reached the door when he heard Kristina scream and a moment later she ran out of the study almost bumping into him.
“What is the matter?” the Earl started to ask.
But she shot past him, running down the passage towards the hall.
The Earl entered the study.
Sir Geoffrey, as he expected, was standing in the centre of the room. He was a good-looking man nearing fifty whose hair was just beginning to turn grey. He was always a very cheerful, jovial person.
The Earl remembered him coming to the Hall ever since he had been a child.
“This is a surprise, Sir Geoffrey, and I am so pleased to see you.”
“And I am delighted to see you, my dear boy,” he replied. “I only learned last night when I returned home from staying with a friend that you have been – married.”
He rather hesitated over the last word.
Then before the Earl could respond he added,
“I am afraid, although I do not understand why, that I have upset your wife.”
“What happened?”
“Well, I was quite overcome when I saw how beautiful she is, I knew of course you would marry someone lovely, but your wife is certainly exceptional.”
The Earl did not speak, so after a moment Sir Geoffrey continued,
“I am afraid, although of course I had no intention of doing so, that I upset her.”
“In what way?”
“I just said how glad I was to hear of your marriage and as I had known you for a very long time, I thought the first thing I should do was to kiss the bride!”
The Earl drew his breath and now he understood.
It was just like Sir Geoffrey to ingratiate himself with a pretty woman. It was his cheerful and friendly way of behaving with nothing in the least sinister involved.
A kiss could never have upset an ordinary woman, but Kristina was not ordinary.
The idea of a strange man kissing her had forced her to scream and run away.
The Earl thought quickly before he said,
“I am sorry this should happen, Sir Geoffrey, but my wife has suffered an unfortunate experience and at the moment holds a terror of being touched by a stranger.”
“Of course I had no idea,” Sir Geoffrey exclaimed, “and I apologise for distressing her in such a way. You must assure her that I just wanted to wish her every happiness as she is now your wife and I have known you for so many years.”
“Yes, yes of course I understand,” the Earl said, “and let me offer you a drink.”
“I think I must have something to drink your health.”
Sir Geoffrey accepted a whisky and soda and asked,
“I was told and I hope I am right, that your wife is the daughter of David Randon?”
“Yes, that is so, do you know him?”
“I have met him once or twice and thought him a most interesting man. As a matter of fact he married one of my relations.”
The Earl became interested, realising, although it seemed extraordinary, that he had no idea of the name of Kristina’s mother. It had not occurred to him to ask her.
“Who was it?” he enquired.
“Her name was Lady Elizabeth Norton and her father was the Marquis of Nortonford.”
The Earl looked at him in surprise.
“Are any of her relations alive?” he asked Sir Geoffrey, “because I have not met any of them.”
“They live in Yorkshire, my dear boy. I imagine the Marquis died a long time ago and I do remember hearing that Lady Elizabeth died in America.”
“Yes, that is true, but I do not believe my wife has received any communication from the present Marquis of Nortonford if there is one.”
“I believe the title has died out, although there may be a few cousins in that part of the world. It always seemed such a long way from here.”
“That is true. Yet I think it would be nice for my wife to meet her mother’s relations if they exist.”
“I will try and find out for you,” Sir Geoffrey offered. “I used to know one who married the daughter of my aunt. He must now be getting on in years and I have not heard from him for some time.”
“Find out what you can, I know my wife will be grateful and so will I.”
“I will do my best,” Sir Geoffrey promised. “And you must bring your beautiful wife to dine with me. I cannot say my house can compete with yours, but at the same time, and this always annoyed your father, it is a hundred or so years older!”
The Earl laughed.
“I remember you both arguing about it and I wondered at the time why a hundred years should matter one way or the other.”
“A man has to be proud of something and what could be better than his home?”
“You are quite right,” the Earl agreed, “and I am very proud of mine.”
“I see you are undertaking repairs and not before time, I might say. I can imagine you have a great deal to do.”
“So much that I sometimes think the task will never be completed, but I have some new horses I would like to show you.”
“There is nothing I should enjoy more,” Sir Geoffrey said. “Perhaps I could call tomorrow or the next day. cannot stop now, I have the Lord Lieutenant waiting to see me and you know how long-winded he can be.”
“I remember my father saying the same!” the Earl laughed.
Sir Geoffrey walked towards the door and when they reached the hall, the Earl escorted him down the steps.
“Will you pay my respects to your wife,” Sir Geoffrey said before he climbed into his carriage. “Tell her how much I regret upsetting her.”
“It was a mistake and something best forgotten,” the Earl replied a little sharply.
Sir Geoffrey patted him on the shoulder and stepped into his carriage.
The Earl shut the door and as he drove off he walked back in to the house deep in thought. Instead of going to his study he walked up the stairs.
He was sure that Kristina would have gone to her bedroom.
Without knocking he opened the door and walked in to find her sitting on the side of the bed.
When she saw the Earl she started and looked at him enquiringly.
The Earl shut the door behind him.
“I have come to ask you,” he said in a harsh voice she had not heard before, “why you behaved to an old friend of mine like a foolish uncontrolled schoolgirl?”
There was silence before Kristina replied,
“He tried – to kiss me.”
“How could you be so stupid?” the Earl asked. “Sir Geoffrey Hallet is an old family friend and has known me ever since I was a small boy. As he told me, he thought you extremely pretty and was paying you a compliment in suggesting that he should ‘kiss the bride’.”
Kristina did not answer, but the Earl noticed that she had gone very pale.
“Any woman who has any sense understands that if a man admires her, he pays her extravagant compliments and kisses her hand or perhaps, if he is elderly, her cheek.”
He drew in his breath before he resumed,
“You cannot be so idiotic as to think there is anything sinister in what is a perfectly ordinary code of behaviour by an older man to a young woman.”
“I did not – think it was like – that,” Kristina murmured.
“Whatever you thought or did not think, you might try to behave like a lady. Can you imagine you mother screaming and running out of the room in such an overdramatic theatrical manner? Incidentally Sir Geoffrey knew your mother and is actually a distant relative of yours.”
“He knew – Mama!” Kristina managed to say.
“He knew your mother and he told me, as no one else bothered to do, to what a distinguished family she belonged. I cannot think she would be very proud of her daughter who has insulted an older man in a manner one would hardly expect from a guttersnipe.”
Kristina gave a compulsive movement and then pressed her hands together.
The Earl saw there were tears at the
back of her eyes. Yet she was still looking at him as if she was mesmerized and unable to look away.
“What you have to understand is that as you are married to me you have a certain position to maintain. Not only because it should come naturally to you as well-born and a lady, but also as an example to the people who look up to you and whose children will try to emulate you.”
He paused for a moment.
“I am only thankful there was no one here from the village today to see the way you behaved. Get into your head once and for all that because God has given you a pretty face, quite a number of men will try to kiss you. You have to learn to accept it as a compliment, while being clever enough to prevent them from actually achieving their objective.”
“Why should – they want to kiss a – pretty woman?” Kristina asked in a very low voice.
“Because if a man is a man and normal he finds a pretty woman irresistible and that is how life should be. Eventually he falls in love and if he is happily married his wife fulfils his dreams and other women no longer attract him. Until that happens he will find a pretty girl beguiling.”
The Earl sensed as he spoke that this was a subject that Kristina did not know about nor understood.
He could almost see her thinking about it and turning it over in her mind.
Then she said,
“Did you want to – kiss me when you first – saw me?”
“If I had seen you for the first time at a ball or a party and had not known who you were, I would certainly have wanted to kiss you. As you know, we met under very different circumstances, and neither of us was in what one might call a normal position when we were married.”
“Yes, I can – see that,” Kristina said. “And I am – sorry.”
The last word seemed to be almost dragged from her lips. As she spoke tears ran down her cheeks.
She looked so lovely that it was with the greatest difficulty that the Earl did not rush forward and take her into his arms. Every nerve in his body told him it was what he wanted.
But he knew it was too soon and he must wait.
He started to walk towards the door.
“Are you – very angry – with me?” Kristina asked in a voice he could hardly hear.
“No, not really,” the Earl replied.
He left the room closing the door behind him.
Kristina covered her face with her hands. How could she make the Earl understand that she had acted purely impulsively?
She had been suddenly afraid of the gentleman who unexpectedly had put his arm round her and she had not stopped to think that he was old nor did it occur to her that he was just behaving like an elderly family friend.
‘Oh, how could I have been so foolish?’ she demanded of herself.
Now the tears ran faster down her face.
*
Later she was still feeling miserable, although she had stopped crying, when Martha came into the room.
“Oh, you’re upstairs already, my Lady,” she exclaimed. “I’ll get your bath ready and tell one of the footmen to bring up the hot water.”
Kristina walked towards the dressing-table so that the lady’s maid should not see her tear-stained face.
“I’ve been hearing,” Martha began as she laid the bath-mat on the carpet, “how His Lordship’s given his name to Mrs. Robinson’s new baby. Real kind of him that is and Mrs. Hunt says the whole village is thrilled at the news.”
“I am sure they are,” Kristina said in a muffled tone.
“But then his Lordship’s always been a fine gentleman, Mrs. Hunt’s been telling me how he struggled to help everyone when he hadn’t a penny to his name, and how he never complained when there weren’t enough to eat for a small rat let alone a fine upstanding young man!”
Martha paused for breath.
Kristina felt she must say something and murmured,
“It must have been very hard for him.”
“Hard is not the right word for it. He struggled but it were too much for him. The house was falling down, the fields were untilled and some of the old people in the village was almost starving! It were terrible they say.”
“I am sure it was.”
“But now everything’s different,” Martha resumed in a satisfied tone. “And it’s your Ladyship they’re calling an angel who’s come down from Heaven to help them and that’s what you be!”
Kristina thought that at present she did not feel the least like an angel.
In fact she was so miserable she thought she would not go down for dinner.
But she wanted to see the Earl.
She wanted to be with him.
She wanted to talk to him and listen to what he had to say to her.
‘He is not the least like the man I thought I had married,’ she told herself. ‘He is kind and thoughtful and I have failed him when I should have helped him.’
A footman entered with big cans of hot and cold water. Martha poured them into the bath and mixed them to exactly the right temperature before adding a bath essence which Kristina had bought in Florence.
When she had finished bathing, she dried herself with a towel which came from the linen cupboard and smelt of lavender.
“What does your Ladyship wish to wear tonight?” Martha asked.
Katrina walked to the wardrobe and chose one of the prettier dresses she had brought with her from Florence.
It was white and ornamented with diamante. Its blue sash was the colour of Kristina’s eyes and it was tied round her tiny waist with a big bow which fell down behind her until it touched the ground.
She hoped that perhaps the Earl would admire her.
Then as she looked at herself in the mirror, she wondered if he might want to kiss her.
He had said it was the biggest compliment a man could pay a woman and he had not yet complimented her in such a way.
‘How could he when I tried to run away from him as soon as we were married?’
She thought now that she had been very stupid.
Her father had married her off to a man she had never met. At the same time because he loved her mother and her mother had loved him, he must have known the type of man with whom she would be happy.
It had not been entirely because of the Earl’s title that he had seemed so suitable or that her father had known his father, but perhaps because he was extremely astute where men were concerned and he had known that the Earl was what she actually wanted in a husband.
She remembered her father saying that he never required a reference from anyone he engaged. He knew instinctively when he talked to them whether they were trustworthy and whether they would serve him as he wished to be served.
He had certainly used his intuition where the Earl was concerned.
‘He is the right person for me,’ Kristina mused ‘and I was idiotic not to realise it as soon as I saw him.’
But she remembered she had been conscious of how angry he was feeling while they were actually being married which was understandable.
Like herself the Earl felt no desire to be pitchforked into matrimony nor to be saddled with a wife he had never even seen simply because she had money.
‘I have been foolish, very foolish!’ Kristina was saying over and over again as she dressed.
Martha did up her gown at the back.
Then Kristina opened a drawer in the dressing-table and took out her jewellery-box, which she had not opened since she had married the Earl.
She had not been worried as to whether she looked attractive or not and yet tonight she wanted to look her best.
Her father had given her the jewellery belonging to her mother after she had died and had told her not to wear it until she was old enough to do so.
She had of course a few other pieces of her own – a pearl necklace, a pretty bracelet and a little diamond broach she sometimes wore on the front of her gown.
When she had returned to England she had felt no need to dress herself up.
But tonight she had made t
he Earl angry.
She knew she would not be able to sleep unless he forgave her and they were as happy as they had been during the last few days.
There had been so much to talk about and so much to occupy their minds and yet there were still a number of parts of the estate which neither of them had visited.
There were houses and cottages where they still had to call and they had not yet discussed the site for their racecourse.
“We will go to Royal Ascot this year,” the Earl had said, “and we will not only look at the horses, but at the jockeys. A good jockey is most important if one wants to win races.”
“Yes, of course,” Kristina agreed. “I would love to go to Ascot. I have heard so much about it and how spectacular the meeting is.”
“That is all a woman thinks about,” the Earl teased. “You will be looking to see if your hat is better than everyone else’s, while I watch the jockeys to see how they are riding.”
“You know quite well that is what I shall be watching too,” Kristina retorted. “But I think we should be more successful – if we rode our own horses.”
“A woman rider at Ascot,” the Earl exclaimed, “would undoubtedly make everyone, including the Prince of Wales, die of shock!”
“It would be thrilling – at any rate!”
They had both laughed at the idea.
But Kristina had not been conscious of the Earl’s thoughts that because she was so beautiful, perhaps it would be a mistake for him to take her to Royal Ascot.
The Prince of Wales, as everyone knew, had a very roving eye. He had already caused a sensation in the social world by his love affair with Lily Langtry.
It was a question that the Earl had not asked himself and yet now he wondered what he would do if His Royal Highness showed an undue interest in his wife.
Lily Langtry’s husband might discreetly disappear, but the Earl however appreciated that it was not something he could ever do nor would he tolerate the Prince flattering Kristina.
Aloud he said, “I think we would be wise to keep Ascot for next year when we might be running our own horse.”
“That would be even more thrilling!” Kristina exclaimed. “Oh, please Michael, let us get ahead with the racecourse and begin to build our racing stable.”
“We will definitely go to Newmarket for the next meeting,” the Earl promised.
Learning to Love Page 11