That Antonia was a year younger did not perturb either her father or her mother.
The Countess had already stated categorically that she was not going to have two unmarried daughters ‘out’ at the same time.
She said it in a way which made Antonia sure that she thought it unlikely that her younger daughter would ever get married, and even if she did it would be to no-one of any importance.
As Antonia regarded herself in the mirror she was not surprised.
Unlike Felicity’s her hair was dark, or very nearly so. It was not, unfortunately, the jet black tresses beloved by romantic novelists.
Instead it was an indecisive colour, dark enough to give her dark eye-lashes for her grey-green eyes, but not, she thought, enough to make her skin seem the dazzling white that was so fashionable amongst the young ladies of fashion.
“It is shadowy,” Antonia said to herself disparagingly. “I wish it were red and my eyes a vivid green ... then perhaps someone would notice me!”
It was difficult to look outstanding in the clothes she wore as they were always those which had been discarded by Felicity, and Antonia knew that the colours which suited Felicity’s Dresden-china appearance did nothing to flatter her.
But she was too inexperienced and not interested enough to worry about it.
The only thing that did concern her about clothes was her riding habit.
While she was not allowed to be fitted as Felicity was by a London tailor, the local man in St. Albans did his best because he liked Antonia and she was so pleasant to him.
She took him a pot of honey because his wife had a persistent cough during the winter, and she talked to him about his children.
She was also considerate when he told her that he had not finished her habit because a fox-hunting gentleman was wanting a pair of breeches who was a good customer and a better payer than the Earl.
“I understand, Mr. Jenkins,” Antonia said. “But do try to make me have a small waist and see that the jacket fits really well over the shoulders. I am not worrying about myself so much, but it does show off to advantage the horse I am riding.”
“That’s true, M’Lady,” Mr. Jenkins replied.
Antonia found later that he had spent far more hours on her habit than the small amount of money he received for it justified.
What she did not tell Mr. Jenkins, and what she certainly would not have told her father, was that Ives occasionally permitted her to ride the Duke’s horses.
She exercised them with him and the stable-boys and found it impossible to say how thrilled and delighted she was at the opportunity.
“It’s a real pity, M’Lady,” Ives remarked, “that ye can’t ride one of these horses out hunting. Then ye’d give ’em something to talk about!”
“I would indeed!” Antonia agreed. “And think how jealous everyone would be! But they would be certain to tell His Grace and then I would be back on the other side of the boundary where you first found me.”
This was a joke between them and Ives laughed.
“That’s true, M’Lady. Oi’ve never forgotten how ye looked with yer big eyes peeping at me from between the branches. It annoyed me at first to think ye were spying on us, until Oi realised it was a real interest ye were showing and we got to know each other.”
“We did indeed, Ives,” Antonia replied, “and it was the luckiest day of my life.”
She used to think she could put up with any disagreeableness at home so long as she could get away and be with Ives and the horses.
It compensated her for the unhappiness she often felt at being unwanted.
When she had been very young and she had first realised that she was a constant irritation to her father because she was not a boy, she had cried bitterly because she could not please him by changing her sex.
As she had grown older and learnt from the Nurses and other servants that the Countess in bringing her into the world had suffered so badly that the doctors said it was impossible for her to have another child. Antonia began to understand how deeply disappointed her father had been.
“The Earl was convinced he would have a son,” the old Nanny told her. “The cot and everything else was decorated with blue ribbons, and he was to be called Anthony, which is a family name as you well know.”
“So that is why I was called Antonia!”
“Nobody had thought you would be a girl. Then as they expected both you and your mother to die, you were christened a few hours after you were born.
“ ‘What name is she to be given?’ the doctor asked me. “ ‘The baby was to have been called Anthony, Sir,’ I replied, seeing that your poor mother was incapable of speech. “ ‘Then it had better be Antonia,’ he remarked.” Antonia had tried to make up for her unavoidable deficiency by being a son to her father.
She would ask if she could go out shooting with him. She would beg him to take her riding.
But she soon realised that even to look at her annoyed him and reminded him of the son he would never have. So instead she kept out of his way, and soon no-one in the house worried about her unless she was late for meals.
Then she was severely punished.
So she soon learnt to tear herself away from Ives, however absorbed she was in his stories. Or to run into the house after she had been riding, giving herself just time enough to change into a suitable gown and walk breathlessly but demurely into the Dining-Room before the Earl was aware of her absence.
Now, Antonia thought as Felicity sobbed against her shoulder, the attractive and undoubtedly, if she ever met him, irresistible Duke was likely to become her brother-in-law.
It was impossible for her, spending so much time at Doncaster Park, not to hear the servants gossiping, and it was not only the servants who talked of their master but also her mother’s friends.
Because the Duke was the most important and certainly the most interesting person in that part of Hertfordshire, he was an endless topic of conversation to everyone in the vicinity of Doncaster Park.
The fact that he never concerned himself with local people when he was in residence did not stop their tongues wagging or their learning in one way or another of his various love-affairs.
Antonia was so insignificant and made herself so quiet and unobtrusive that it was easy for the ladies talking around the tea-table to forget that she was there.
She would hand round the sandwiches and cakes, pass the cups of tea, and then retire into a corner of the Drawing-Room, out of sight, out of mind, but listening with rapt attention to everything that was said when it concerned the Duke.
She knew when one love-affair ended, she knew when the next one began
She heard of jealous husbands who found it difficult to prove what they suspected, she learnt over and over again of women who proclaimed to all and sundry that their hearts were broken and that life would never be the same once the Duke had loved but left them.
It was as fascinating as some of the romantic novels that had been lent to her, not by Mr. Lowry, who would not have allowed anything of that sort in the Library, but by the Governesses who passed the long dreary hours when they were alone in the School-room reading of the love they were never likely to experience in their own lives.
Antonia thought the books a lot of nonsense, until she found that some of the episodes in them were much more true to the Duke’s life than ever she had imagined they could be.
“I wonder what it is that makes women go wild where he is concerned?” she asked herself.
She looked at the pictures of him hanging on the walls of Doncaster Park.
Although they showed an exceedingly handsome and fine-looking man she felt there was something missing, something she could not explain to herself but which she was sure was not portrayed by the artists.
She had, it was true, seen the Duke when he was riding on The Chase which he always did when he was staying at Doncaster Park.
But on Ives’s instructions she kept well out of sight, merely peering at him over t
he boundary fence and thinking how magnificently he rode, so that he did in fact seem to be part of his horse.
He was usually at a gallop when he passed her so that it was impossible to see his face closely or the expression in his eyes.
Antonia had always wished to meet him and now it seemed she was likely to do so, not to-morrow, for she was quite certain that her mother and father would not allow her to be present when he called to see Felicity, but later when the engagement was announced.
At the thought of an engagement Antonia’s arms tightened around Felicity.
She knew how this was going to hurt her sister and she could not help thinking from what she knew of the Duke that Felicity would be unable to cope with him.
She was a sweet, gentle girl, but as Antonia knew only too well, extremely stupid in many ways and very vulnerable if she was not cosseted, fussed over and loved.
Would the Duke do that? And was it likely that he would want to?
“What shall I do, Antonia? What shall I do?” Felicity sobbed despairingly.
And Antonia found herself thinking of the Marchioness of Northaw.
CHAPTER TWO
The Duke was finishing his breakfast, which had been a substantial one, when the Butler came to his side to say respectfully:
“Excuse me, Your Grace, but Lady Antonia Wyndham has called to see you.”
The Duke was surprised into thinking that he must have been mistaken.
“Lady Antonia Wyndham?” he repeated.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“At this hour?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The Duke looked even more astonished.
“Has she come alone?”
“No, Your Grace. She has a maid with her who is waiting in the Hall. I have shown Her Ladyship into the Library.”
The Duke put down his knife and fork and lifted a cup of coffee to his lips.
He always ate a large meal at breakfast-time, believing it to be important to his health. He preferred coffee to any other beverage and was never known to touch alcohol, however much he had indulged the night before.
He had made it a rule, and he organised his life on rules that he made for himself, that he would always rise early.
When he was in London he rode in the Row before it became fashionably crowded with the Ladies of Quality who wished to gossip with their friends and the Pretty Horse Breakers who were intent on showing off their mounts.
To call on him at half past seven in the morning was something which had not yet been attempted by any lady, however persistent she might be in pursuing him.
As he finished his coffee and took a last glance at The Times which he had propped up in front of him on a silver stand, the Duke was wondering what this early visit could mean.
How was it possible that the Earl of Lemsford’s daughter should not know that it was extremely unconventional, not to say reprehensible, for a lady to call at a bachelor establishment.
He was also irritated to think that she would make him late for his ride.
Already the stallion that he had ordered from the stables would be waiting for him outside the front door, and undoubtedly any delay on the part of his master would make it hard for the stable-boys to hold the animal.
The Duke therefore walked purposefully and without a welcoming expression on his face into the Library.
As he entered the room a small figure turned from the window and at his first glance he realised that the girl who had come to see him was not in the least what he had expected.
He was quite sure that the Marchioness had described her as having fair hair and blue eyes.
Had she not said that was the right colouring for a Duchess and would become the Doncaster diamonds?
Then as he recalled the conversation he remembered that in fact the Marchioness had said that the girl she had chosen for his wife was called Felicity.
The Duke looked at Antonia and was not impressed.
For one thing she was badly dressed in an extremely ill-fitting gown of faded blue gabardine and her bonnet, which was small and inexpensively trimmed, seemed to obscure most of her hair.
The eyes she raised to him however were very large in her pointed face and he saw that she was nervous.
“I hope Your Grace will ... pardon me for calling at such an ... early hour.”
“It is certainly an original way of our becoming acquainted,” the Duke replied. “Am I correct in thinking it is your sister I am to meet this afternoon?”
“Yes,” Antonia replied, “my sister, Felicity.”
“I thought I had not been mistaken in the name.”
Then with a gesture of his hand the Duke said:
“Will you sit down, Lady Antonia, and tell me to what I owe this unexpected visit?”
Antonia sat down on the edge of a comfortable sofa and regarded her host with wide eyes.
He was far better looking, she thought, than he had appeared when she had seen him riding on The Chase, and now they were at close quarters she realised what it was the artists had not included in their portraits of him.
It was a raffish, perhaps cynical, but certainly mocking look which they had omitted whilst striving to portray his clear-cut features, broad brow and deep-set eyes.
“He is much more attractive than they portrayed him!” Antonia told herself.
The Duke had seated himself opposite her in a wing-back arm-chair.
He crossed his legs and she saw that his riding-boots were exquisitely polished and wondered if it would be impertinent to ask him what was used on them.
Then she remembered that Ives could find this out for her and she determined she would ask him to do so when she next went to Doncaster Park.
“I am waiting, Lady Antonia,” the Duke said with just a note of impatience in his voice.
“I ... I think,” Antonia said a little hesitatingly, “and I ... hope you will not think it an impertinent guess, that when you call on my father this afternoon you will ask for my sister’s hand in ... marriage.”
There was a noticeable silence before the Duke replied: “That was my intention.”
“Then would you ... mind very much asking for ... me instead?”
The Duke sat bolt upright in surprise. Then as he realised after a perceptible pause that he had not been mistaken in what she had said, he replied:
“I think you should explain yourself a little more clearly. I must admit I am wholly at a loss to understand what is happening or why you have come here with such a suggestion.”
“It is quite easy to understand, Your Grace,” Antonia replied. “My sister, Felicity, is in love with someone else!”
The Duke was aware of a sensation of relief.
“In which case it is quite obvious that she will refuse my proposal and there is in fact no point in my calling on your father this afternoon.”
He thought to himself as he spoke that this set him free from carrying out the Marchioness’s plan and she could hardly blame him if the girl she had chosen to be his wife would not accept him.
“Papa is expecting you,” Antonia replied, “and is of course extremely excited, and so is Mama, at the thought of having you as a son-in-law.”
“I can hardly marry your sister if she does not want me,” the Duke said, with a smile on his lips.
“You do not suppose she would be allowed to say so?” Antonia asked scornfully. “As it happens neither Papa nor Mama have the slightest idea that she is in love. Harry, the man in question, has not up to now been able to speak to Papa.”
The Duke looked at Antonia, a little uncertainly she went on:
“You cannot be unaware that Felicity would be forced to marry you whatever her feelings are?”
“That is ridiculous!”
Even as the Duke spoke he knew that what this strange girl was saying was undoubtedly the truth.
He was too well versed in the social world not to know that as the most eligible bachelor in the country every matchmaking Mama would wel
come him as a son-in-law.
Any girl he chose as his wife would be compelled to marry him willy-nilly, whatever her secret feelings might be on the matter.
It had however never crossed his mind in this instance that there would be any opposition where Felicity Wyndham was concerned.
He had not really thought of her as a person, but just as a complacent, compliant young woman who would be overwhelmingly grateful that he should condescend to offer for her.
“I am afraid I am not pretty like Felicity,” Antonia said, breaking in on his thoughts, “but as it does not really matter to you what your bride looks like so long as she fulfils her duties and produces an heir, I think you will find one Wyndham sister is very like another.”
The Duke rose to his feet.
“Who told you it did not matter what my wife looked like?” he asked sharply.
Antonia hesitated for a moment and he had the idea that she was choosing her words with care before she replied:
“It is obvious, Your Grace, is it not? You have not seen Felicity and she has never seen you ... but you are prepared to offer her marriage and everybody has been saying for a ... long while that you need an ... heir.”
“I cannot help thinking this is the most extraordinary conversation to have with a young girl,” the Duke said. “Does your father know you are here?”
“No, of course not!” Antonia replied. “Mama thinks I am attending early Communion with Janet, who is our maid. It was my only possible excuse for escaping from the house when there is so much to do in preparation for your call this afternoon.”
“You really wish me to consider your extraordinary proposal seriously?”
“Why not?” Antonia enquired. “Felicity has cried all night and is making herself ill at the thought of marrying you. I have to do something to help her, and apart from my looks I would make you a better wife than she would.”
There was an irrepressible smile at the corners of the Duke’s lips as he asked:
“How can you be certain of that?”
The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) Page 3