She was determined, and she was in fact under a soft feminine, and attractive exterior, a very determined woman, that her two sisters should make brilliant marriages that would astound their friends in Baltimore.
The Duke believed that in pressing first his favourite aide-de-camp and then Lord Kiniston, to marry two of the most charming girls he had ever met, he was doing them a good turn.
He was not concerned that Lord Kiniston was obviously resisting such a suggestion, for he took it for granted that at thirty-three it was time his Second-in- Command settled down and that, when the Occupation came to an end, he would leave the Army and retire to look after his huge estates in Berkshire.
The Duke had seen Kiniston Hall and had been extremely impressed by it and he knew that any American would find the great house, which had been built by Robert Adam, irresistible.
He therefore talked about it to Elizabeth Caton and was aware that in her eyes Lord Kiniston seemed surrounded by an aura of glamour that would have been less appealing to any English girl.
‘I have done my best for the boy,’ Wellington said to himself.
He always thought of his Officers as ‘my boys’ and they could never be entirely supplanted in his imagination even by his own sons.
In fact the Duke of Wellington’s ideal life was an Army mess and his ideal family the ‘military family’ of his aides-de-camp.
Being unhappily married, he wanted to play ‘Cupid’ to other men and, like all authoritative personalities, he thought he knew what was best for other people.
Lord Kiniston, who had sized him up the first moment he met him, was aware that this was a great danger where he was concerned.
He had no wish to quarrel with the man he admired above all others or to have any animosity between himself and his Commanding Officer.
At the same time he had evaded marriage up until now with a skill and adroitness that had made him feel that he was too wily a fish and far too clever ever to be caught.
Now he knew that the net was closing in.
If he was not careful, it would be a choice between Lillian, who had already begun to bore him or a young American girl he had nothing in common with.
He was quite certain that she too would bore him to extinction within a few months of their being married.
‘What shall I do? What the devil shall I do?’ he asked himself at night when he went to bed.
The problem haunted him as soon as he awoke every morning and, although he tried to evade it, it was with him all day.
It was with a feeling of relief therefore that he received a letter from his secretary.
It was as if being in a beleaguered fortress he had learnt that a relieving Army was on its way to his rescue.
His secretary wrote that arrangements had been made for Lady Charis Langley to arrive at Cambrai on the day he had chosen, accompanied by Mrs. Belton.
He was not quite certain how it would all work out, he just knew, and here his intuition and imagination had begun to work, that he had taken the right action at the right time.
Lord Kiniston would not have been so brilliant a Commander on the battlefield if he had used only his mind in command of his men and not also his intuition.
Sometimes he was aware of danger long before it actually happened. At other times he was confident of victory when everybody else was envisaging defeat.
Now he felt as he heard the Major Domo’s voice announce, “Lady Charis Langley, my Lord!” as if it was a trumpet call of victory.
As he walked slowly across the room, he realised that everything Willy had said about her beauty was true and she was quite one of the loveliest young women he had ever seen in his life.
Then, as he said,
“It is delightful to welcome you, Lady Charis, and I am glad that you have arrived here safely,” he took her hand in his.
As he did so, he was aware that her fingers quivered in a way that he could not understand and, when he looked into her large and very beautiful eyes, he saw to his astonishment that she was afraid.
For a moment he thought that he must be mistaken and then, because he was very experienced where women were concerned, he knew that she was not pretending, but was definitely frightened.
“I must introduce you to my friends,” he said, but he did not for the moment relinquish her hand and he had the feeling, although he might have been mistaken, that she clung to him as if for support.
Then, as he introduced her first to Lady Lillian, who gushed an insincere welcome, then to several other guests, he was still surprised that she seemed unsure of herself and only Willy was able to make her give a soft musical little laugh.
“Lady Charis, I have been stalking you for years,” he said, “and now at last, when I am respectably and conventionally introduced to you, it is the most exciting moment of my life!”
His words sounded so strange to Alecia, who had never been paid a compliment, that she laughed and Willy said insistently,
“It’s the truth! I have seen you once in London and I have prayed fervently ever since that I might one day meet you and talk to you.”
“It is – very – kind of you to be so – flattering,” Alecia stammered.
She had been afraid when Lord Kiniston started to introduce her to everybody that there might be somebody there who knew Charis fairly well.
She had never for a moment imagined that there would be a large dinner party of fashionable people the very night she arrived in Cambrai.
She had somehow thought that she would be alone in the house with perhaps just Mrs. Belton as a chaperone.
When finally the Major’s wife came hurrying into the room, full of apologies for being late, Alecia realised that there were fourteen people for dinner and quite a number of them were staying in the château.
Mrs. Belton had warned her that Lady Lillian was hostess to Lord Kiniston and she herself had also made it very clear to Alecia who was in charge.
“I hope,” she said when dinner was over, “that you are comfortable in your room, Lady Charis. I chose one that has the early morning sun, as I felt that was what you would appreciate and, of course, it is one of the best rooms in the house.”
“That is – very kind of you,” Alecia managed to say.
Lady Lillian went on,
“If there is anything you want, you must tell me. I try to prevent my dear cousin from having to trouble himself over small domestic matters that men always find so boring.”
Alecia did not speak and she went on,
“Of course I shall do my best to find you suitably charming and attentive young men to amuse you while you are here, but I am afraid that your Guardian is a very busy man and so conscientious that he seldom has time for anything but work.”
She did not realise, Alecia thought that the one thing that would best please her would be to have as little to do with her so-called Guardian as possible.
She thought that even if she had not listened to Mrs. Belton’s gossip, she would have suspected that Lady Lillian of being very close and intimate with Lord Kiniston.
When the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner, Lady Lillian went to his side and engaged him in a very confidential conversation that could not be overheard by anybody else.
Although it was obvious that he wanted to talk to others of his guests, she was always near him, listening to what he said and making the conversation, whenever it was possible, centre on herself.
‘I don’t like her!’ Alecia thought.
She herself was listening rather than talking and, as if he realised it, Willy came to sit beside her and say,
“I expect you are tired after your long journey, but I have been waiting to hear the witty remarks with which you are credited in London and which I suspect are often at someone else’s expense.”
“I hope not,” Alecia replied. “I would not wish to be unkind to anyone here when they have all been so kind to me.”
“You really think that?” Willy asked.
He could not help,
as he spoke, having a quick glance at Lady Lillian, who was looking in their direction and at the same time standing so near to Lord Kiniston that her arm was touching his.
Because she was afraid that she would make some faux pas and give herself away by mistake, Alecia said,
“I wonder if it would be possible for me to go to bed? It has been a very long day and I am feeling rather tired.”
“Of course. I am sure you can!” Willy said. “It is just because you are so beautiful that no one for a moment will believe that you need any beauty sleep!”
“Do you talk to everybody like that?” Alecia asked.
“Like what?” Willy asked.
“Paying them compliments to which it is difficult to find an answer.”
Willy laughed and it was a spontaneous sound.
As he did so, Lord Kiniston came up to them to ask,
“What is amusing you, Willy?”
“Lady Charis is being unkind to me,” Willy complained. “You will hardly believe it, Drogo, but she does not appreciate my compliments.”
“I was not – complaining,” Alecia said quickly, “it is just that they seem – very exaggerated!”
“I am sure they do,” Lord Kiniston said. “You should learn a lesson from the French, Willy, and be more subtle.”
“Now you are being unkind to me too!” Willy grumbled, but his eyes were twinkling.
Then he added,
“Actually, Lady Charis is eager to go to bed. I expect she is finding us country bumpkins rather dull after all the glamour and excitement that she enjoys in London.”
“No, no – of course not – that is not – true!” Alecia exclaimed.
Then she realised that he was not being serious and she looked up at Lord Kiniston, saying,
“Please – if it does not seem rude – I am very tired.”
“But of course,” he said. “There is no need to say goodnight to everybody, just come with me, which I am sure you would prefer to causing a disturbance.”
“Yes, please. I would not want to upset anybody,” Alecia said hastily.
They walked across the room and, although Lady Lillian watched them go, she did not say anything.
Lord Kiniston opened the door leading into the hall and Alecia saw that there were rows of silver candlesticks all containing unlighted candles at the bottom of the stairs.
Lord Kiniston lit a candle and handed it to her and, as she took it from him, she curtseyed and he said,
“Sleep well, Lady Charis. Tomorrow we will have a talk about the reason that I have brought you here, but I am sure for the moment that you are very tired.”
“Yes, I am,” Alecia agreed.
As she looked up at him, he realised that there was still an expression of fear in her eyes and, as she turned her head away, he knew that she was shy. She walked up the stairs and he watched her, knowing that as every other woman did, when she reached the top she would turn back to look down at him and say ‘goodnight’.
But Alecia walked on, holding her candle carefully and with her head bent.
As she disappeared from sight, Lord Kiniston stood thinking that she was very different from what Willy had said about her.
‘She is very lovely,’ he told himself. ‘But what in God’s name is making her afraid?’
Chapter four
As soon as the dinner guests had left, Lord Kiniston retired to bed.
He was worried about his own position, but he found himself thinking, as he undressed, of Charis and how strange it was that anyone with her reputation of being a social personality should be so afraid.
‘What can have upset her?’ he asked himself and remembered too how she had seemed shy, not only when she arrived but also when she had gone upstairs to bed.
She was certainly, he thought, very beautiful in an unusual sort of way.
As he was used to sophisticated and very experienced women, he was not prepared for a white skin that hardly needed a touch of powder or lips that had obviously not used the crimson salve with which Lady Lillian and the other women adorned their faces.
He thought too that there was something touchingly young about Charis.
He supposed it was because he had not met many young girls. In fact, when he thought about it, the Caton sisters were the first he had known at all intimately.
Being American, both Elizabeth and Louisa were very self-assured and he had never known either of them to show even the slightest sign of shyness.
They teased the younger Officers in a way that no English women would have attempted and appeared very much at their ease, even with the Duke himself.
“I like spirited young women,” the Great Man had said on several occasions and Lord Kiniston had thought that that was indeed the right word to describe them.
There was, however, nothing spirited about Charis, and he was sure that she was as gentle as the softness of her musical voice.
What puzzled him was that after all her social success in London she seemed embarrassed when she was paid compliments, except for Willy’s, which were so obvious as to be a joke.
Once during the evening he was sure when one of the Subalterns was talking to her that he saw her blushing.
‘She is certainly an enigma,’ he thought to himself as his valet left him and he climbed into bed.
He had chosen what was obviously the Duc’s room in the château for himself because it was the most spectacular Stateroom and the best furnished.
It also had a large bed draped with red satin curtains and the Due’s Coat of Arms was embroidered above the headpiece.
Lord Kiniston lay back against his pillows and found himself still thinking of Charis.
He was aware that Lillian would be waiting for him, but for some reason that he did not wish to explain to himself, he had no desire to visit her tonight.
When he had told Willy that she had outstayed her welcome, he had meant it.
Because he liked organising things, it irked him to have anyone giving orders in his house and arranging everything in the way that they thought best rather than what he wanted himself.
When he had first come to Cambrai, there had been so much to do in housing the troops, seeing that they were properly fed and keeping them occupied so that they did not encroach on the French population that he had been glad to let Lillian have things her own way.
Now he knew that it had been a mistake.
He had not thought then that she would be determined to marry him and that her first step would be to establish herself as the chatelaine of his house and the hostess whom everybody would treat as if she was already his wife.
‘I must get rid of her somehow,’ Lord Kiniston thought and knew that really the most effective way would be to give in to the Duke and marry Elizabeth Caton.
Then he knew that would be equally disastrous and so utterly alien to everything he wanted, that he shied away from the idea like a nervous horse.
“I will not marry anyone!” he said aloud.
As he spoke, the door opened and Lillian came in and for a moment he stared at her incredulously.
It had always been understood that he approached her at night and it was in fact an unwritten law in an affaire de coeur that the woman was pursued by the man, especially when it concerned the bedroom.
This was palpably untrue in many ways and yet when it came to the sexual enjoyment of two people, there were very few women, however brazen, who would go to a man’s bedroom rather than wait for him to come to hers.
Lillian was looking very alluring as she moved sensuously towards the bed, her negligée as diaphanous as her nightgown beneath it.
Despite frills of lace and bows of velvet, it was impossible not to be aware that she had a perfect body that offered everything that any man could desire.
Lord Kiniston looked up at her coldly as her eyes glinted in the candlelight.
“Why are you here, Lillian?” he asked.
His voice was hard and there was an expression in his eyes t
hat would have been awe-inspiring to anyone less persistent than Lillian.
“I want to talk to you, Drogo.”
“I think it’s rather too late for that,” he replied. “I have had a long day and quite frankly I am tired.”
“Poor darling,” she murmured. “In that case I will just kiss you goodnight and let you go to sleep.”
She bent forward as she spoke and too late Lord Kiniston realised that he should have prevented her from touching him.
Her lips were hungry and very demanding and, because she was exceedingly experienced in igniting desire in any man she herself wanted, Lord Kiniston finally succumbed to the fire that consumed her.
While her body responded, his mind was still critically aloof and berating him for being a fool.
Only when dawn broke and Lillian left him, slipping away with a smile on her lips and the belief that he was hers, did Lord Kiniston find himself determined that he could not allow this to continue.
He was aware as he had never been before in his life that he wanted very much more from a woman than a physical passion and he knew that Lillian appealed only to what was least estimable in his character.
He knew that it was his own fault that he had become involved, which did not make the situation any better.
As the first fingers of light appeared beneath the curtains, he told himself that he would not marry Lillian, although she was confident he would do so and somehow he would rid himself of her completely.
Because he was exceedingly strong and kept himself athletically fit, Lord Kiniston, after only a few hours’ sleep was not tired and rose from his bed without any regrets when his valet called him.
He knew that the Duke was expecting him at his château and had asked him to breakfast so that they could discuss the request of the French for the repatriation of thirty thousand soldiers from the Army of Occupation.
He arrived at exactly two minutes to eight, looking exceedingly smart in his uniform and very alert.
The Duke, as might be expected, descended from his bedroom at exactly one minute to eight and, having greeted Lord Kiniston, walked into the dining room with him.
One of the things the Duke enjoyed was having a confidential discussion at breakfast. Some of his Officers after a night of hard drinking or of feminine companionship found this a painful ordeal.
Love Casts Out Fear Page 6