“Why do you not stay at The Castle?” she asked poutingly. “The King has asked you often enough to be his guest and you know full well that he likes having you with him.”
“I prefer to be on my own,” the Earl replied, “especially in Race Week, when I want to think about my horses.” “And not about me?” Lady Sydel enquired.
He made no reply and she said almost angrily,
“Why must you always be so irritatingly elusive? I would believe it was a pretence if it were not habitual.” “If I don’t please you, there is an obvious answer,” the Earl remarked.
Lady Sydel made a helpless gesture with her hands, her long fingers seeming almost too frail for the enormous rings she wore.
“I love you, Valient!” she said. “I love you, as you well know and I want to be with you.”
“My party, as you are equally aware, is a bachelor one,” the Earl replied.
“And where will it take place now that you cannot go to the inn at Bracknell as you intended?”
“I have rented Langston’s house. It is, I believe, quite near the Racecourse.”
“Langston? Do you mean that handsome boy who I understand has not a penny to bless himself with?”
“I imagine that is a fairly accurate description,” the Earl replied dryly.
Lady Sydel laughed.
“In which case you will doubtless find yourself in some crumbling old Manor, extremely uncomfortable, with the rain leaking through holes in the roof onto your head.”
“It would undoubtedly please you if that proves to be the case.”
“You had much better come to Windsor Castle with me.”
Her voice was very soft and alluring, but the Earl yawned and she said hastily,
“His Majesty is expecting you to dinner on Tuesday.” “I have told him that I will dine with him on Thursday after I have won the Gold Cup.”
“You are very sure of yourself!”
“I am sure of my horse and that almost amounts to the same thing.”
“It’s so bad for you, Valient, that you should always win what you desire, whether it is a horse or a woman.”
The Earl appeared to consider this for a moment.
Then he replied cynically,
“I think the odds are on the latter category.”
“I hate you!” Lady Sydel exclaimed. “And if you are thinking of Charis Plymworth I swear I will scratch her eyes out!”
The Earl did not reply and after a moment Lady Sydel said,
“I think I know why you will not come to The Castle on Tuesday evening. You are dining with John Dysart and Charis Plymworth is staying with him.”
“If you know I am already engaged, why press me to accept another invitation?” the Earl enquired.
“I could hardly believe you would be so treacherous, so abominably cruel to me!”
The Earl raised his eyebrows and took a sip of his brandy before he replied,
“My dear Sydel, I have never tied myself to any woman’s apron strings and let me make it clear, once and for all, I am not tied to yours!”
“But I love you, Valient! We have meant so much to each other and I believed that you loved me.”
There was a break in her voice that was very moving, but the Earl merely rose to his feet and set his glass down on the mantelpiece.
“Dramatics, as you are well aware, bore me, Sydel. I will say goodbye and look forward to seeing you in the Royal Box at Ascot.”
He bent to kiss her hand, but she held up her arms to him.
“Kiss me, Valient, kiss me! I cannot bear you to leave me. I want you! I want you desperately! I would kill you rather than let you love another woman!”
The Earl looked down at her, at the passion flaring in her eyes, at her head thrown back and the invitation in her arched half-naked body.
“You are very beautiful, Sydel,” he said in a voice that did not make his words sound particularly complimentary, “but at times your protestations of affection become a bore! I will see you at the races.”
He walked without haste towards the door and without looking back left the room.
Alone Lady Sydel gave a cry of sheer exasperation. Then with her clenched fists she pounded one of the silk cushions on the chaise-longue until exhausted she flung herself back to stare despairingly at the painted ceiling above her.
Why did the Earl always leave her frustrated and almost desperate?
She told herself she had in fact been rather stupid with him. She should have known by this time, having had innumerable lovers, that when men are satiated by lovemaking they want to be soothed and flattered – not engaged in a controversy such as had just taken place.
But her insatiable jealousy made her indulge in scenes and sulks which, while they had other men on their knees, invariably left the Earl unmoved.
“Curse him!” she exclaimed aloud. “Why should he be different?”
She knew the answer only too clearly – he was different! Because of it she had sworn that she would make him as slavishly enamoured of her as she was of him.
Yet it seemed that she had succeeded in making him her lover only when it suited him and was not sure that he was any more enamoured of her than he had been of dozens of other women.
Lady Sydel had originally been confident that where she was concerned everything would be different.
Was she not the most acclaimed beauty in the whole of the Beau Monde? Had not her looks and her fascination been extolled by every womanizer and roué? Was it not a fact that she had only to snap her fingers to have any man she fancied prostrate at her feet?
Yet she knew indisputably that the Earl eluded her.
Even when he made love to her, she realised that his mind and certainly his heart, if he had one, were not hers. She now thought despairingly that, since Lady Plymworth had appeared on the scene, he was not even as attentive as he had been in the past.
“I hate her! God, how I hate her!” Lady Sydel cried. She had only to think of Charis Plymworth with her dark red hair and slanting green eyes to feel murderous.
‘I will kill her, and I will kill him!’ she told herself, speaking with a ferocity that meant she was on the verge of one of her temperamental rages which terrified her household and at times even herself.
Lying on the chaise-longue she tried to imagine herself striking with a sharp knife the smile from Charis Plymworth’s enigmatic face, then turning on the Earl.
She wondered what she would feel if she had him lying dead at her feet, the blood oozing from a wound in his heart.
Then she told herself that life without him would be insupportable and somehow, by some means, she must ensure that he remained her lover.
“Charis Plymworth shall not have him!”
Her voice seemed to ring round the walls of her boudoir, to mingle with the exotic perfume she always used and the fragrance of the tuberoses with which, since someone had once told her they exuded the scent of passion, she always surrounded herself.
She rose from the chaise-longue to walk to a gilt-framed mirror which stood at the end of the room.
She stood in front of it, looking at the curves of her body which men always described as belonging to a Greek Goddess, the round white column of her neck, at the passion which still lingered in her eyes and on her lips.
‘He can rouse me as no other man has done before,’ she told herself. ‘I cannot lose him. I will not lose him!’
*
The Earl, driving himself in his high-perch phaeton, wondered why women always became abandoned either mentally or physically after they had been unusually passionate during the act of love.
It seemed to release something within them which at other times they kept under control.
He decided that he was already bored with Sydel’s clinging possessiveness and almost insane jealousy.
‘I was a fool to become involved with her,’ he thought.
He decided that when he returned to London from Ascot that he would not call again at h
er house in Bruton Street, where the gossips said spitefully the steps were almost worn away with her lovers tramping in and out.
‘She is beautiful,’ he told himself, ‘but that is not everything.’
Knowing the remark was banal he smiled as he made it, then asked himself what he did want from a woman.
There had been so many in his life, but always after a very short while he grew bored, as he knew now he was bored with Sydel Blackford.
But Charis Plymworth was waiting for him. She had made that clear at their last meeting and he would see her on Tuesday night when he dined with Lord Dysart.
It might be rather difficult to say anything very intimate on that occasion, for he had the idea that Dysart rather fancied Charis and, if he did, there was no reason why he should not marry her.
The Earl was aware that Charis, like Sydel, was looking out for a husband.
They were both widows, but while Sydel Blackford’s aged husband had died of a heart attack leaving her exceedingly wealthy, Lord Plymworth had been killed two years ago and Charis was not well off.
The Earl, dwelling with a little smile on her red hair and green eyes, thought it would be amusing to dress her.
Long experience had made him an expert in what became a woman and he had paid too many dressmakers’ bills for them not to respect his judgement and hastily put his suggestions into operation.
‘Green,’ he thought, ‘and naturally she will desire emeralds to wear with it. Peacock blue would also be exceedingly effective and diamonds to glitter in her small ears and against her hair.’
He hoped when she let it down it would be long, soft and silky.
Sydel’s hair was thick but not particularly soft beneath his hands.
He remembered one woman – what the devil was she called? – who had hair that was like pure silk and which had reached below her waist.
Cleo? – or was it Janice? He never had been good at names.
With a start the Earl realised that, deep in his thoughts, although he had been driving superbly at the same time, he had reached Trevarnon House in Grosvenor Square.
Large and impressive, he had improved it out of all recognition after he had inherited from his father and like the Prince Regent had collected pictures that were the envy and the admiration of a great many connoisseurs.
He had, as it happened, a number of family portraits that were unique in themselves.
There was the first Earl of Trevarnon painted by Van Dyck, those that followed him by Gainsborough, Reynolds and a recent one of himself by Lawrence because the Prince Regent had insisted upon it.
The Earl entered the large hall in which stood a number of statues that he had also bought with discrimination.
His Major Domo hurried forward to take his high-crowned hat and gloves.
“Have you arranged everything for tomorrow, Hunt?” the Earl asked.
“Everything, my Lord.”
“As I told you, there are few servants at Langston Manor, so we shall have to make up any deficiencies.”
“I’ve seen to that, my Lord. The chef is bringing two kitchen boys with him and the footmen I’ve chosen are not above giving a hand in the household if necessary.”
“Thank you, Hunt, and as you are coming yourself there will be no need for me to give the arrangements another thought.”
“No, my Lord. And I’ve made sure the chef will bring most of the food he requires. In Race Week it’ll be difficult to purchase anything locally.”
“I am sure it will be,” the Earl replied.
He walked away as he spoke towards his library dismissing the problem of Ascot from his mind as he dismissed the thought of Lady Sydel.
Hunt would see to everything. He always did.
Nevertheless, on the following morning the Earl decided that he would arrive early at Langston Manor before his other guests were expected.
Like all born organisers he could not resist, even with the most experienced servants, Major Domos and Comptrollers, checking things for himself.
A perfectionist in many ways, he saw no reason to suffer any discomfort if it was unnecessary.
If, during the five days he was to spend at Ascot, there was anything lacking he had not thought of, he could send a groom back to London. His Comptroller would see that it was despatched to him immediately.
He prided himself that he had been rather clever in finding at the very last moment an alternative to The Crown and Feathers.
He was well aware there was not a house in the vicinity of Ascot, from Windsor Castle to those belonging to or hired by his friends, in which he would not be a welcome guest.
But he had long made it a rule that, where large race meetings were concerned, he preferred to be with his horses and independent of other people’s whims and fancies.
He also found that women were a distraction he could well do without when he wished to concentrate on the racing.
Soon after breakfast at which he ate sensibly and well, drinking coffee and not alcohol, he set off from London tooling a team of chestnuts that were the envy of every Corinthian in the whole of St. James’s.
He would have liked to drive six horses as he was accustomed to do in competition with the Prince Regent, who had been painted in a high-perch phaeton driving to Ascot with of course an attractive woman beside him.
But the Earl had learnt of old that on the crowded roads round Ascot six horses could be an encumbrance and would restrict the pace at which he travelled rather than add to it.
It was a sunny day and already exceedingly hot, and the road, as the Earl had anticipated, was crowded with coaches, tilburies, chaises, carts and gigs.
As he drew nearer to Ascot, having twice changed horses on the way so as not to slow the pace at which he wished to travel, he was amused to notice slow-moving wagons covered with leafy branches of trees to protect a load of country folk from the heat of the sun.
These vehicles were so overcrowded that the Earl’s lips tightened at the thought of the suffering that was being caused to the wretched animals which drew them.
There were a number of phaetons similar to the Earl’s and splendid barouches with painted panels displaying the crests or coat of arms of their owners.
There were naturally a number of horses at which the Earl gave a second glance only to decide that they did not equal his own.
He drew nearer to the course and began to look for the turn which Gerard Langston had told him would lead him to The Manor.
The thick fir trees of Windsor Forest bordered the road on either side until, so unexpectedly that he almost missed it, the Earl saw a dusty lane winding into the wood.
He supposed that this was where he was intended to go, but he slowed his team hoping as he did so that he would not be obliged to turn round as this appeared to be an impossibility amongst the tree trunks.
Then in front of him he saw two ancient lodges which appeared to be uninhabited and some iron gates which fortunately were open.
‘This must be Langston Manor,’ the Earl told himself.
He thought that the appearance of the lodges and gates did not augur well for the condition in which he might find the house itself.
If Sydel was right, it would prove to be a crumbling Manor with holes in the roof and perhaps too small for his party.
For a moment, as he drove down the moss-covered drive, the Earl regretted that he had not accepted the King’s invitation to Windsor Castle. At least there he would have a comfortable bed.
Then, with a twist of his lips, he thought that if Sydel had anything to do with it he would not spend much time in it and decided that however uncomfortable he was he would rather be on his own.
The drive turned and suddenly he saw in front of him Langston Manor.
It was not in the least what he had expected and was indeed far more attractive than he had imagined possible.
It stood surrounded by trees and he saw at a glance it was not only very old but also larger than he had thought it would
be.
Spread out in front of him, the sun glinting on its diamond-paned windows and the pigeons sitting on its gabled roof, it seemed to the Earl as if it was something that had stepped out of a Fairy story.
He almost expected it would vanish and he would find himself staring at the ruins of what had once stood there.
But he knew he was being imaginative and it was in fact real, although it seemed impossible that he had been coming to Ascot all these years and never been aware of its existence.
He thought too that it was very quiet and peaceful as there appeared to be nobody about.
He remembered how at other places he had stayed there had invariably been the noise of carriages, grooms and ostlers hurrying and scurrying, their voices shouting as he appeared.
Driving slowly so that he could take in the house and its surroundings, the Earl finally drew his team to a standstill outside the front door.
His groom jumped down from the back of the phaeton and, as he went to the leader’s head, the Earl remarked,
“We must find someone, Jim, to direct us to the stables.” “I thinks they be over there, my Lord,” Jim replied. He pointed as he spoke and the Earl could see now a roof a little beyond the house.
“I will ask,” he said.
He walked in and found himself in a hall with a carved staircase curving up to the first floor.
It was very attractive and the Earl was instantly aware of the fragrance of flowers and saw that they came from a bowl of red and white roses arranged on a table at the bottom of the stairs.
It encouraged him to see that the house was as attractive inside as was its outer appearance. It struck him that it was a home and he wondered if young Langston had a mother.
He walked across the hall and looked into what he saw was the drawing room.
Again there were flowers arranged on tables and through the open French windows he could see a garden which was a riot of colour with great banks of crimson rhododendrons interspersed with bushes of white lilac.
The Earl’s eyes came back to the room.
He saw that it was shabby, but at the same time everything in it was in perfect taste.
The pictures on the panelled walls needed cleaning, but he had a feeling that they would be interesting to look at more closely later.
The Ghost Who Fell in Love Page 3