‘She is a damn nuisance,’ he thought to himself. ‘But how can I get rid of her?’
It was impossible for him to do so.
Against his will, Michael found himself drawn under the glittering trees and into the darkness beyond them.
The soft light in that part of the garden came only from the moon and stars above.
“At last we are alone,” Alice breathed softly.
“I have brought you here because I want to tell you how wonderful you are and how much I love being with you.”
“And I enjoy being with you,” he responded untruthfully, “but I have no wish to be rude to my hostess.”
He would have moved away as he spoke, but Alice stood in front of him.
“I want you to stay with me,” she said. “I love you, I love you, and when I told Papa that we were so happy together, he was delighted. He said you were just the son-in-law he always wanted.”
Michael was too shocked to speak.
Son-in-law?
Taking advantage of his stillness, Alice slipped her arms about his neck.
“You don’t have to hide your feelings while we are alone,” she whispered, pulling his head down.
His lips were against hers.
‘If anyone should see us now,’ he thought wildly.
He tried to disengage himself without being brutal, but her arms were like ropes about him.
And then there was a loud yell from somewhere in the darkness.
“Good Heavens, what’s that?” he cried, managing to release himself at last.
“What does it matter?” Alice asked.
“It sounds like some creature in pain,” he said. “We must render assistance.”
“Someone else will do that,” Alice replied, growing petulant as she sensed her victory being snatched from her.
“My dear girl, we really must – Winton, whatever has happened?”
“I fell over some dashed tree root,” Win said, limping out of the shadows. “Took a nasty tumble.”
His person was as immaculate as ever and he did not look like a man who had taken a tumble, but Michael was all solicitude, giving Win his arm.
“Let’s get you back to the house,” he offered.
Alice glared.
It was wonderful how Win’s limp became more pronounced when they reached the house. He threw in the odd groan for effect, enabling Michael to say to his hosts,
“I should take my friend home as soon as possible. If a cab could be summoned – ”
A footman hurried to the cab rank just around the corner and within a few minutes the two men were making their escape.
Michael hurried away without meeting Alice’s eyes.
*
“I am deeply in your debt, Win.”
It was two hours later and they were deep in the heart of the Davenham Club. Having played cards and sustained heavy losses, they were now engaged in drinking brandy.
“Well I had to do something, old fellow,” Win said. “From where I was standing I could see that you were in a bad way. Desperate measures were needed.”
Michael grinned.
“You certainly saved the day. The way you were yowling I thought there really was something wrong with you.”
“But what are you going to do next time?” Win wanted to know.
“I cannot afford a next time. I will have to leave London.”
“Where will you go?”
“Perhaps it is time I went to see my castle.”
Win stared. When Michael spoke of the castle he meant the ancient home of the Danesburys that had fallen into such a state of disrepair that no Danesbury now wanted to live in it.
“I suppose I should have shown some interest in the place before now,” Michael admitted ruefully, “but I never expected to succeed to the title. When my uncle died three years ago, he was still young enough to marry and beget an heir.
“And then suddenly he was gone and I became the Earl. Since then I suppose I have not paid enough attention to my responsibilities, chiefly because I have been concentrating on making money.”
Michael’s father had left him only a modest fortune and the money he had inherited from his uncle was barely adequate.
But he possessed brains and good contacts. He had taken some of his inheritance, borrowed from the bank, and invested in the railways that were fast covering the country.
Now he was a very rich man indeed.
“I could afford to put that place in order,” he mused. “So I suppose it is my duty to do so. It is what all my relatives have been telling me for the last three years.”
“This sudden interest in your duty would not have anything to do with Alice Randall, would it?” Win enquired cynically.
Michael grinned.
“I suppose it might. Dash it all, Win, do women ever think of anything else but marriage?”
“You are an Earl, my dear boy. You are twenty-seven and good-looking, so my sisters assure me. And you are intelligent.”
“How would you know?” Michael demanded. Win was more famous for his charm and good nature than the sharpness of his wits.
He acknowledged this dart with his usual amiability.
“True, I confess it. But you are more intelligent than me. That much I can be certain about. You are also wealthy and unattached. What else but marriage do you expect them to think about?”
“Do they never think of love?” Michael asked.
Win laughed.
“Love looks its best when it has a tiara glittering on its head and diamonds around its neck!”
“So they all seem to think. Well, I am off for a spell in the country. If the castle is as bad as they say, at least it will act as a form of protection from determined females.”
“Where exactly is this place?”
“About forty miles South of London, near a little village called Hedgeworth. I think I will leave tomorrow.”
Win shifted uncomfortably.
“Actually, old boy, you wouldn’t like some company, would you?”
“If you mean yourself, I would be delighted. But Win, have you thought? I gather the place is in very poor repair. We will be living rough. You are a gentleman of London Society. You are only at ease amid elegance and comfort.”
“Elegance and comfort take money, old boy, and I have none. I lost a pile in the last hour and the Pater isn’t going to be pleased. I thought I might put off that meeting by throwing myself on your mercy.”
“Of course. As I said, I am in your debt. I will be glad to help you in any way I can. But when we reach the castle and you find yourself living in a pigsty, don’t say I did not warn you.”
“You have my word on it,” Win replied.
As they left the club he asked anxiously,
“You don’t actually mean a pigsty, do you?”
Michael’s chuckle floated back on the wind.
*
“Papa! Papa, are you there?”
Bettina Newton paused in the garden of her home in the heart of Hedgeworth village, looking round for her father. Everywhere she turned she saw herbs and flowers in full bloom and she delayed for a moment to enjoy them.
She was like a flower herself, twenty years old, with fair golden hair and glowing skin. Her eyes were an incredibly deep blue.
She wondered if her father was in the garden, tending to his herbs. She needed to see him because she had been to visit a sick woman in the village and she wanted his advice.
Even after working with him for a year or so, she was still uncertain of what to do when someone had contracted an unfamiliar disease.
She often thought it strange that a soldier, which her father had been until he retired, should know so much about curing the sick.
But before he was in the Army and afterwards, he had loved gardens and everything which grew naturally.
After he had served in India and elsewhere in the East, he had grown to know even more about flowers and herbs.
He had learnt the way they should
be made to grow so that they were not only beautiful to the eye, but also helpful in a great number of ways to the body.
When he left the Army he had retired to Hedgeworth, where he had lived many years ago and of which he maintained very fond memories. For the last four years he and Bettina had lived here very happily and his reputation had grown, sometimes to the annoyance of the local medical profession.
Bettina had often thought it extraordinary that the ordinary physicians, especially those who only attended country people, knew so little about the natural remedies which were to be found in flowers and herbs.
It seemed to her that these benefits came from God, while what the doctors provided came only from men and were not natural or what the body really needed.
She hurried into the house, through the hall and down the passage and finally found her father in the library, where he had his desk.
As she opened the door he raised his head and said,
“You are back, my darling, rather sooner than I expected.”
“I need something for Mrs. Brown,” she replied. “She is coughing so badly and the medicine the doctor gave her has had no effect.”
The Major gave a sigh as he rose from his desk.
“I was just designing a new path so that we can reach the river from our garden,” he said. “I am sure that when you see the plan you will think it is as pretty as I intend it to be.”
“Dearest Papa, I know you would much rather be working on your new garden, but I am really worried about Mrs. Brown.”
“You worry yourself about too many people,” her father said. “Before we came to live here the village was quite content with the doctor, if he would condescend to come to them.”
“But they have you now.”
“Yes and I believe they send for me because they think I am more interesting and certainly more amusing than Dr. Smythe.”
Bettina laughed.
“That would not be difficult,” she said. “He is so gloomy that I am sure he makes people feel worse as soon as they see him. They much prefer you.”
“Yes, and it makes Dr. Smythe furious,” he responded wryly.
Because he was so successful the Major found it impossible to refuse to do what he could for the people who asked for help.
But it frustrated him, because it prevented him from working on his garden, which he loved and adored.
He was, in fact, preparing to write a book as his daughter had insisted he should do.
In it he would show not only how to arrange a garden to make it beautiful, but also to make sure it contained healing herbs.
If people praised him he would say,
“You forget how much I have travelled. Since I was in the Army I was lucky enough, at Her Majesty’s expense, to have seen a great deal of the world. I have learnt from those countries, especially in the East, that the Almighty, not mankind, has provided a cure for almost every human illness.”
Bettina knew that he had chosen to return to this house because of its large unkempt garden that he could transform.
And yet she realised that part of him wanted to be on the move again. He was too clever a man to be shut away in this backward place. He needed to be exploring the world, in search of new plants.
It was only the lack of money that kept him here.
‘Then perhaps I should be glad that we are short of money,’ she said to herself. ‘I will try to be glad but – I would not mind just a little more.”
The Major was a gentleman and he lived like one, but in a very modest way. He had a tiny private income and a small Army pension. Their life was reasonably comfortable, but every comfort was achieved by clever management.
The house was the largest in the village and they needed the room for all the Major’s books and botanical specimens.
A middle-aged couple lived at the back. Mrs. Gates was the cook and Mr. Gates worked in the garden, but only under the Major’s strict supervision. It was his constant complaint that he was not allowed to prune and tend as he wished, but must follow his Master’s strict rules.
In addition he drove the shabby gig that they kept for very special occasions. These included dinner with the Mayor or the Lord Lieutenant, for, despite his straightened circumstances, Major Newton was known as a man of learning and cultivation.
The addition of a scullery maid completed the roster of servants. If there was any domestic work left over to do, Bettina would roll up her sleeves and do it herself.
She did it willingly, but she longed for some small luxuries, like good clothes. She made herself a new dress once a year and while she made it well, she would have much preferred to be able to afford a proper seamstress and a touch of fashion.
The deep blue dress she commonly wore was good enough in its way, but she often covered it with a large white apron. If the weather was hot and she was working in the garden, she covered her hair with a white cotton sun bonnet.
In short, she frequently looked like a servant. Of course, it did not matter in the village, where everyone knew that she was a lady. But sometimes it depressed her a little.
She wandered out into the garden again to collect some mint to be used in the cooking of her father’s dinner.
As she strolled amid the blooms, she gazed up at the great building that filled the view.
Everyone knew that the castle belonged to the Earl of Danesbury, but nobody seemed to know any more than that.
The Earl had never been to see it and nobody in the village even knew what he looked like.
‘If only he were to come here,’ she thought wistfully. ‘He could make the whole area more prosperous. And it would be lovely to have just a little excitement.’
Then she remembered her school days and how the other girls had looked down on her because their fathers boasted titles and hers did not.
‘Oh, what difference would it make?’ she sighed to herself. ‘If, by some miracle the Earl did come to live here, I am the very last person who would ever be asked to meet him.’
CHAPTER TWO
For a journey of only forty miles Michael decided to use his own post-chaise rather than take the train.
On leaving the club he and Win travelled straight to Win’s rooms and instructed his valet to start packing his clothes for departure in the morning.
“And prepare for a siege, Joshua,” Win said in a voice of doom. “We are going into unknown territory. His Lordship describes the place in the darkest terms.”
“A pigsty,” Michael confirmed, grinning.
Joshua blenched, but did not flinch.
“There is still a skeleton staff at the castle,” Michael said, “but that is all I know. There will not be much in the way of creature comforts.”
Joshua stood to attention.
“I am prepared, my Lord.”
“Stout fellow!” Win exclaimed emotionally.
Grinning, Michael left them.
Leroy, his own valet was equally stoical about the horrors in store for him and by the time they were ready to leave, he had packed up almost all the clothes Michael possessed.
“We’re going into the country, my Lord,” he declared in the voice of one facing execution. “And it will be necessary to maintain standards.”
Michael did not contradict him, but he was privately looking forward to dressing more quietly than he could in London.
When the morning came he scandalised his faithful henchman by insisting on wearing his plainest suit and a hat that made Leroy blench.
The hat was called a ‘wideawake’ and was a low-crowned, wide-brimmed creation made of felt that looked, Leroy thought, like an upturned breakfast cup on a very large saucer.
It was decidedly informal, made for country wear, preferably by the lower orders. Michael had started to wear one during his extensive travels, before he had inherited his title. Now he refused to part with it.
This morning he perched it defiantly on his head.
Nobody, thought Leroy in horror, would have guessed that th
is was one of the finest sprigs of the British aristocracy. But he made no comment, knowing that, behind an amiable temper, Lord Danesbury hid an awesome obstinacy.
Before leaving, Michael spoke to his butler.
“If anyone asks for me, you are to say that I have gone to the country. You are not certain where, but you think it’s somewhere in the North of England.”
“I understand your Lordship does not wish to be followed.”
“Exactly. And make sure that no one in the house answers any questions put to them.”
Finally he had a word with his secretary, instructing him to cancel all his invitations.
“And I do employ a skeleton staff, don’t I? It occurs to be that I might have imagined it and will arrive to find the place totally deserted.”
“Your Lordship pays the wages of a Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, just to ensure that the place isn’t left completely empty,” replied the secretary.
Arriving at Win’s rooms, he found that his friend had taken exactly the opposite sartorial direction to himself and was dressed with extreme finery, as though in defiance of Fate. His frock coat was elegant and his top hat was perfection.
“Good grief, Danesbury!” he exclaimed, on seeing Michael’s attire. “What on earth is that thing on your head?”
“It’s my wideawake. Have you never seen one before?”
“Thankfully no and I shall endeavour to avert my eyes so that I do not have to see it again. You don’t seriously expect me to be seen with you dressed like that? People will think you are my man.”
“Nonsense, Win. You dress your man far better than this!”
Laughing, they climbed into the post-chaise, while their valets followed behind in a fourgon with all the luggage.
It was a brilliant summer’s day and the two young men were in high spirits as they left London behind, both in their different ways fleeing trouble.
For lunch they stopped at a country inn and ate outside, enjoying the sunshine and the feeling of freedom. One or two people gave them odd looks.
“It’s the way you are dressed,” Win muttered. “I told you, everyone will think you are a servant and they wonder why we are eating at the same table.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Michael grinned
‘How good it feels to eat country food and drink country ale,’ he thought. They climbed back into the chaise and spent the next couple of hours watching the scenery stream by.
Royalty Defeated by Love Page 2