While he never expected that any pure young girl would have any experience of love-making, he had never dreamt that anyone he married would be so completely ignorant.
“I am sure whatever happens could be – very wonderful,” Elmina carried on in a low voice. “At the same time I know from what I have read that it is something that should mean a very great deal to the bride and to the bridegroom. That is why I asked myself how, when you had seen me only a very few times, I could now mean anything – special to you.”
The Marquis did not know what to say and she added,
“And yet – perhaps when you grow to know me – and, if you were not too disappointed in my appearance – I could mean something – just a little different from all the other beautiful ladies you have – made love to – but who have been unable to hold you – and you have left them.”
The Marquis drew in his breath.
He felt as if he was advancing deeper and deeper into a maze, which he could not for the moment see his way out of clearly.
“I do understand what you are saying to me, Elmina,” he said after a long pause, “and strangely enough, now I think about it, I see that this is a sensible way for us both to approach our marriage.”
“You understand – you really understand?” Elmina cried.
“I think I do,” the Marquis answered, “and therefore all I can say is that we will give it a try.”
Now Elmina’s eyes were dazzling.
“Thank you, thank you. I was so afraid that you would not understand – and I promise you I will try very hard to be – exactly the wife you want – and not disappoint you.”
“I do not think you will do that,” the Marquis said. “Now, if I agree to give your suggestion a try, will you promise me something else?”
“What is that?”
“That you will be completely frank and truthful about everything that concerns us both and, when you think I have won the race, you will tell me so.”
Elmina smiled.
“I think you will know that for yourself and thank you very much for being so kind.”
The Marquis rose to his feet.
“I am now going to bed, Elmina, to think over what we have said to each other. I want you to go to sleep so that you will not be tired tomorrow morning when we go riding.”
“I shall not be tired and I am looking forward to it very much.”
As she looked up at him, her pale hair shining silver in the candlelight and her eyes seeming to glitter, the Marquis wondered if he should kiss her and then decided that it was against the rules.
Instead he picked up her hand and just touched it with his lips.
“Goodnight, Elmina,” he said, “and I look forward to racing you tomorrow in more ways than one!”
Elmina gave a little laugh.
“I shall do my very best to beat you.”
The Marquis too was laughing as he left the room.
*
The next morning Elmina came downstairs when the hands of the grandfather clock in the hall showed that it was only ten minutes to eight.
She had thought that she would be first, but the Marquis was already taking his tall hat from one of the footmen and she thought that he looked particularly handsome wearing his white riding breeches and shining boots.
She had been most particular in her choice of riding habits for the trousseau.
Her mother was not in the least interested in these, so she had been able to choose three.
This seemed rather extravagant, but she knew that to herself they were far more important than gowns.
The one she was wearing this morning was a summer habit of dark blue silk material, which was a perfect frame for her hair and white skin.
She had several lace-trimmed petticoats beneath the very full skirt and the closely-fitting jacket accentuated her figure and her very small waist.
Her blouse had a small bow at the neck, which was of a paler blue than the habit itself.
The same colour was echoed in the gauze that surrounded her high-crowned hat and hung down her back.
She was, however, for the moment quite unconcerned with her appearance, thinking only of the Marquis and the horses that were waiting for them outside the front door.
A stable boy was holding her horse while Hogson was in charge of Samson, the Marquis’s stallion, and both grinned at her when she appeared.
“Good morning, Hogson. Good morning, Jim!” she said in a friendly way.
“Mornin’ my Lady!” Jim answered. “Skylark’s real frisky this mornin’. ’E ain’t bin exercised since the day afore yesterday, ’cos we ain’t ’ad a minute to spare.”
“I am glad about that!”
Elmina realised as she spoke that the Marquis, coming down the steps behind her, had heard the conversation and he said sharply,
“If Skylark is too much for you, there are plenty of quieter horses in my stables.”
He looked at Hogson somewhat accusingly as he spoke, but the Head Groom, who was well aware that Elmina could ride anything and control any horse however obstreperous, said,
“’Er Ladyship’ll hold ’im, my Lord!”
“I hope you are right,” the Marquis said in an ominous tone.
Afraid that he might insist on her having a quieter animal, Elmina, without waiting for him to assist her into the saddle as he expected to do, seemed almost to fly into it without any help.
There was therefore nothing the Marquis could do but mount Samson and ride ahead.
Elmina followed him, aware that Jim was right and Skylark was indeed in a very skittish mood.
He was in fact, as Hogson knew, a horse she had a great affection for and whenever she went to the stables, Skylark was the first horse she visited.
He had been almost uncontrollable before she had made a regular practice of talking to him. Then by helping Hogson saddle him she had made him much more amenable than they had ever expected in so short a time.
She knew that the reason why Hogson had brought Skylark for her the first day of her marriage was that he knew the horse meant so much to her. But the Marquis was not to know that they had ever met before.
Skylark performed his usual tricks, bucking and shying at everything that moved.
At the same time with his ears back he was listening to Elmina talking to him and telling him it was important that he should behave himself.
As soon as the Marquis, riding ahead, was free of the oak trees in the Park, he moved Northwards and Elmina knew that he was heading for the gallops.
This was on a level piece of land below, which was the ground he always used as a steeplechase and from where she and Chang had watched the riders.
The sun was shining, the hay had already been cut and the gallops were in perfect order for what she knew was to be a key race between herself and her husband.
He pulled in his horse to let her catch up with him and she was aware that the reason for his going ahead had been to show the way across the Park.
Now he said,
“These are my gallops, Elmina. I think that we should take some of the freshness out of Skylark.”
“Of course!”
She dug her heel in lightly as she spoke and Skylark was off.
He leapt forward and it took the Marquis several seconds to catch up with her.
Then they were galloping neck and neck at a speed that seemed to blow the breath from between their lips.
It was as if the two horses knew instinctively it was a competition that was important to their riders.
Skylark strained every nerve in his body to keep ahead of the Marquis’s stallion which was in perfect condition and not used to being outrun by any other horse.
It was, in fact, on Skylark that Elmina had seen him win the steeplechase the previous winter.
For the moment, however, she could think of nothing but keeping Skylark under control and feeling almost deafened by the sound of the horses’ hoofs thundering over the dry ground.
Th
ey reached the end of the gallops in what Elmina was certain must be record time.
As they passed a white post, which she knew was not only considered the winning post but also a warning that they must draw in their horses, she could have sworn that there was not an inch between the two animals.
She accordingly began to tighten her reins on Skylark and she knew that the Marquis was doing the same to Samson.
Then, as the two horses came down to a trot and she could breathe, she turned a laughing face towards her husband.
“I would like to claim that I won,” the Marquis said, “but as you well know I cannot do that!”
“I think it was a dead heat.”
There was a lilt of excitement in her voice that he did not miss.
“I expected, as your father’s daughter, that you would ride well, but I do not know any woman or any man for that matter, who could have controlled Skylark as you did.”
Elmina bent forward and patted the horse’s neck.
“He is an old friend,” she said without thinking, “and we understand each other.”
Then, as she realised what she had said, she looked at the Marquis apprehensively.
“So you have seen my horses before!” he exclaimed. “I thought it was strange that you should know the stable boy by name.”
“Guilty, my Lord!”
“When have you visited my stables and by whose invitation?”
Elmina then told him the story of how her horse had cast a shoe and she had asked Hogson if the blacksmith was available.
“And what happened after that?”
Elmina and the Marquis were now going slowly back the way they had come along the gallops and he knew from the way she did not look at him that she was embarrassed.
“I imagine you went round the house. I thought last night it was strange that you were able to find your way to your bedroom without anybody’s assistance.”
“You are more observant than I expected!”
“I am not sure whether that is a compliment or an insult or perhaps both.”
“I admit I have been to Falcon on many occasions, so now you can understand that if I wanted to marry you for your horses, I also fell in love with your library.”
The Marquis laughed and it was a genuine sound of amusement.
“If you give me any more surprises, I shall have a heart attack! Quite frankly, Elmina, I am beginning to be afraid of you!”
“I do hope not!” she said impulsively and then realised that he was teasing her.
“To any suspicious-minded person it would appear that you decided to marry me long before I was aware that you even existed.”
“You can hardly think that, considering your letter came like a bolt out of the blue. When Papa read it, he could not believe that it was not a joke.”
“Why should your father have been surprised? I had already discussed the matter with him at White’s.”
Elmina laughed.
“Papa had no idea what you had said to him at the time. He told us that there was a lot of noise coming from some of the younger members and, what was more, you were talking into his deaf ear!”
The Marquis laughed until the sound seemed to echo round them.
“Everything about you is unusual, Elmina,” he remarked, “and it never entered my head that your father had not heard what I said.”
“He only knew what it was all about when you put it in your letter.”
“Then what happened?” the Marquis asked.
“When he read it aloud to us at breakfast, Mirabel said that she loved Robert and intended to marry him and Deirdre revealed for the first time that she was secretly engaged to Christopher Bardsley.”
“So that left you.”
“That left me,” Elmina repeated, “and, when I said that I would be willing to marry you, both Papa and Mama said I was too young. I think, although they did not say so, that they were thinking of your reputation.”
She smiled at him provocatively, but before he could answer she rode ahead out of the gallops towards the steeplechase course below them.
Because it was impossible for two people to ride side by side on the narrow pathway, the Marquis only caught up with her when she had reached the starting post.
“You are not to attempt to jump these fences,” he said firmly, “they are too much for a woman.”
Elmina did not answer. She only brought her whip lightly down on Skylark’s flank and he moved off with the speed of a cannonball.
He had taken three of the fences before the Marquis was within speaking distance.
Then, as Elmina expected him to order her to stop, he merely shouted as he galloped beside her,
“If I don’t beat you this time, I will give up my riding!”
It was a challenge that she could not resist and she urged Skylark on, at the same time being careful at every fence as she had no wish to fall, which would give the Marquis an indisputable victory.
But try as she could, and Skylark certainly did his best, he was just ahead of her at the last fence and Samson passed the winning post at least half a length ahead.
She knew as they drew their horses to a standstill that the Marquis was delighted to have proved himself the victor, but he said to tease her,
“Not at all bad for a woman! But you must try to do better another time!”
“That is extremely ungenerous of you!” she retorted. “Skylark jumped as well as Samson even though his legs are a little shorter!”
The Marquis’s eyes twinkled as he said,
“You were both magnificent, as you know full well! Let’s go home. I feel I have earned my breakfast the hard way!”
As they rode back, Elmina thought that she had never in her life enjoyed herself so much.
She had the feeling that, unless she was very much mistaken, the Marquis was already beginning to think about her in a very different way.
But she could not be sure of anything except that, thanks entirely to Chang, she had started off her marriage as she had wanted to do.
Now she could only pray that by relying on her instinct and ‘looking inwards’ she could make it what she hoped. But she was half-afraid that she was asking too much.
Chapter Six
Elmina awoke with a feeling of happiness.
For a moment she thought that it was time to get up and then realised it was still dark and there was no light coming from between the curtains.
She therefore lay thinking of how much she had enjoyed the first week of her marriage and how wonderful it had been.
She had had no idea that it could be so entrancing to be alone with a man as clever and intelligent as the Marquis. Moreover, so many interesting things had happened that she hardly had time to think during the day.
When she went to bed at night, she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
The second day of their marriage, as if the Marquis had been thinking it over, he said,
“I am not only intrigued by the fact that you have learnt Karate but also feel that it is extremely infradig for me to be beaten physically by my wife in a combat I know absolutely nothing about.”
Elmina looked at him enquiringly as he went on,
“I therefore suggest that either you teach me this science that you are so proficient at or we ask your instructor to do so.”
“Do you mean that?” Elmina cried excitedly. “But, of course, Chang will teach you! I am only his pupil and I have never yet beaten him in even the most elementary throws.”
When the Marquis agreed, she thought that it was the most thrilling thing that could happen and she wrote a note to her father asking if she could borrow Chang for a few days.
She then wrote another note to Chang, telling him to bring his special clothes with him.
The Earl was rather puzzled by her request, but felt it was something that he could not refuse and a few hours later Chang arrived.
The Marquis had instructed the groom who took the note to lead a
horse for Chang on which he could return.
In the meantime Elmina had arranged a room on the same floor as their bedrooms that she learnt was not often used.
When she told the housekeeper that she wanted all the furniture removed and a number of mattresses put down on the floor, Mrs. Leonard was astounded.
“What can you want something like that for, my Lady?” she enquired.
“His Lordship is thinking of building a gymnasium,” Elmina replied having thought this out before. “In the meantime this will have to do for my special exercises and I have no wish to slip on the polished floor.”
“No, indeed not, my Lady! I quite understand!” Mrs. Leonard said, although Elmina was sure that she was finding it all very perplexing.
The Marquis said that the first thing he wanted was to see his wife in combat with Chang.
She was so thrilled that he was interested that, when she put on the black pantaloons and the tunic she had made herself, she noticed that the Marquis’s eyes were twinkling when he looked at her and she therefore was not embarrassed.
Because she was completely unselfconscious, she had no idea that the Marquis had been amazed when he realised that once she was dressed in the morning she seldom, like other women, looked in a mirror and never appeared to expect him to comment on her gowns.
Now that she was dressed to all intents and purposes as a boy, he saw how slim she was and also admired the athletic suppleness of her body.
He sat in a chair at the side of the room and listened with close interest while Chang explained what was happening.
He learnt that first very great care must be taken to ensure that the hand in the shape of the fist was correctly formed.
“A loose fist, my Lord, would suffer damage if struck against an attacker!” Chang said.
He then showed the Marquis the Seiken Tsuki, a blow to the solar plexus, which Elmina parried cleverly and struck back at him.
What interested the Marquis particularly was the Mae Geri, a blow with the ball of the foot. It was this blow that Elmina had used to knock him down on their wedding night.
When Chang and Elmina demonstrated the Mawashi Geri, a blow with the foot to an opponent’s head, he knew that this it was something he had to learn.
A Very Unusual Wife Page 10