“I would make no demands on you, for one thing,” Antonia replied, “and I would be quite happy staying in the country when you were in London. In fact, I would be very content to be at Doncaster Park.”
“And you really think you would like to marry me?” the Duke asked.
His question surprised Antonia into telling the truth.
“If I could ride your horses,” she answered, “I would marry...”
She checked herself quickly.
She had been about to say: ‘the devil himself!’ but realised it would have sounded extremely rude. So she substituted a little lamely:
“... the owner of them!”
The Duke had not missed her hesitation before the sentence was finished.
“You sound as if you know my horses,” he said. “I suppose, since you live next door, you have seen them?”
“I have watched them on The Chase,” Antonia said. “They are magnificent! Especially Red Duster. I think you have a winner there!”
“I think so too,” the Duke agreed, “but until a horse has won his first race one can never be sure how he will shape when he is actually on a course.”
“Ives is confident that he will prove to be as good as, if not better than his sire,” Antonia said.
The Duke looked at her speculatively.
“I have a feeling, Lady Antonia, that you have in fact a more intimate knowledge of my horses than you have gained just by looking over the boundary that separates our lands.” He saw the colour come into her face as Antonia realised she had more or less betrayed herself.
“I am ... very interested in ... horses,” she said not very convincingly.
“Especially mine!” the Duke said. “So much so that you are prepared to marry me for them!”
“It is not exactly like that,” Antonia said a little shyly. “Any girl would be deeply honoured at the idea of being your wife, but Your Grace must admit it is a little difficult to be sure of what a man is like until one has at least met him—or for that matter a horse until one has ridden him!” She knew the last sentence was impertinent, but she could not help adding it.
“And of course you know my horses better than you know me!” the Duke remarked.
There was a mocking note in his voice which she did not miss.
“I know you must think it very strange for me to come here and make the suggestion that I have. Mama would be absolutely horrified! But there was really nothing else I could do to save Felicity.”
Again Antonia realised that her choice of words was not particularly flattering and she added quickly:
“If she were not already in love I feel sure Felicity would have been delighted by your proposal, as any other girl in her position would be.”
“And if, as you say, she is in love,” the Duke said, “then the only alternative is for me to marry you.”
“I really would do my best to make you a good wife,” Antonia said gravely. “It is not only that I know a little about your horses, I am also very interested in Doncaster Park and all the treasures it contains. Mr. Lowry has told me about your ancestors and I can understand why you are very proud of them.”
The Duke did not speak and after a moment Antonia went on:
“I have not been well educated, except that I have read a lot.”
“No doubt the books in my Library?” the Duke remarked. Antonia realised he was more perceptive than she had imagined he would be.
“Quite a number, Your Grace,” she admitted truthfully, then added quickly:
“I hope you will not be angry with Mr. Lowry because he lent me your books. I have known him for years, ever since I was quite small, and he realised how very inadequate my Governesses were to teach me the things I wanted to know!” The Duke did not speak and she went on:
“Because I asked so many questions he would often lend me a book on the subject. I was very careful of them!” Antonia looked at the Duke anxiously.
“I think I must commend Mr. Lowry for adding to your knowledge,” he said after a moment, “and I am glad that my books, which I often think are sadly wasted in that large Library, should have been put to some really useful purpose.”
Antonia gave a little sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Your Grace. I should be very distressed if Mr. Lowry found himself in trouble on my account.”
“You were telling me about your education,” the Duke prompted.
Antonia gave him a smile that transformed her pale face. “I am afraid,” she said, “that what I know about horses, the knowledge I have acquired from your books and a capacity for speaking French comprise my entire repertoire.”
“You have no other talents?” he enquired.
“None that I know of! I never have time to paint in water colours or embroider cushion-covers.”
She gave a little sigh.
“I suppose that shows I am not very feminine, but then I ought to have been a boy!”
The Duke raised his eye-brows and she explained:
“Papa longed for a son and was quite certain that I would be one. I was to have been christened Anthony.”
“I see,” the Duke said. “So to make up for it you have become what is known as a ‘tom-boy’.”
He looked as he spoke at the unbecoming bonnet on her hair which he saw was not dressed in a fashionable manner.
He also glanced at her ill-fitting gown which had been made for Felicity and now had been altered, although not at all skilfully.
He had not expected a young girl to have the elegance, the chic or the sophistication of women like the Marchioness whom he had found so desirable and indeed so irresistible.
But vaguely at the back of his mind he had thought of a debutante in spotless white with wide innocent blue eyes, golden hair, and looking something like the angels in the picture-books his mother had read to him as a child.
Antonia did not look in the least like an angel and in fact her appearance was not at all what he had envisaged in his wife.
As if she realised what he was thinking Antonia said a little nervously:
“I am sure I could look ... better than I do now if I could wear a new gown which had been chosen especially for me.”
“You mean ...” the Duke began.
“I am the younger sister, Your Grace!”
Antonia could not help smiling at his perplexity.
What did the Duke know about being poor, she thought, of striving to make ends meet, wondering where the money would come from to pay the bills that poured in day after day?
He had always lived in the lap of luxury. He had always been a rich man with great possessions, the owner of a proud title.
“How can he possibly understand,” she asked herself scathingly, “what ordinary people have to put up with in their lives?”
Because she suddenly felt annoyed and at the same time slightly deflated by his scrutiny, Antonia rose to her feet.
“I think, Your Grace, I should go now,” she said. “My father will be waiting to greet you at three o’clock this afternoon. If you feel you could not contemplate having me as your wife, I shall quite understand. Felicity is very lovely and perhaps in time she will grow fond of you.”
“You appear to have set me a problem, Lady Antonia,” the Duke said. “My choice appears to be between a young woman who, if she is truthful, will hate the sight of me, and another who is enamoured of my horses and not in the least of me as a man!”
He spoke sarcastically and Antonia answered him without thinking:
“It might be very inconvenient for Your Grace to have a wife who was much interested in you for yourself.”
“What are you suggesting by that?” the Duke enquired and now there was an icy note in his voice that had not been there previously.
“Only that in the sort of marriage you envisage, Your Grace ... an arranged marriage ... which is to bring an ... advantage to both parties, it would be best, if you had ... other interests, that your wife should have ... some too!” There was a pregn
ant silence.
Then the Duke said: “And where you are concerned it would be my horses?”
“Exactly!” Antonia said.
She had the feeling that he was annoyed, if not positively angry, at what she had suggested and thought despairingly that she had messed up the interview: now there would be no chance of his doing what she wished.
She was certain that when he came to see the Earl in the afternoon he would ask for Felicity’s hand and not hers.
“I have tried and failed!” Antonia told herself. “I can do no more.”
She curtsied very politely and as she rose said:
“I must thank Your Grace for listening to me, I deeply regret that I have delayed you from going riding.”
“I shall think with great care about all you have said to me, Lady Antonia,” the Duke said, “and whatever my decision I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you this afternoon.”
“That, I can assure you, is very unlikely,” Antonia replied, “unless of course you ask for me.”
She gave him a quick glance and he thought her eyes had a sparkle of defiance in them.
Then before he could reach the door she had opened it herself and was hurrying across the Hall to where her maid was waiting.
The Butler let them out and the Duke stood staring with an expression which was almost one of stupefaction, until the door closed behind them.
“Good God!” he muttered to himself.
He knew that he was more surprised by Antonia’s appearance and what she had said to him than by anything that had happened in his life for a very long time.
‘The whole situation is absurd—utterly absurd!’ he thought as he rode towards the Park.
He avoided the Row where he was certain to meet a number of acquaintances, and galloped in the less fashionable part on the other side of the Serpentine.
Although after an hour’s exercise he undoubtedly felt better in himself, he still found it impossible to decide his future.
Everything had seemed comparatively simple when Clarice had persuaded him that Felicity Wyndham was exactly the type of wife he required and beguiled him into writing to the Earl of Lemsford.
It was true, the Duke thought, that at the back of his mind he had assumed that any woman he honoured would be content to live in the country except on special occasions.
Although the Marchioness had said it would be easier for them to see each other when they were both in Hertfordshire he had the uncomfortable feeling that there might be prying eyes and just as many gossiping tongues in the country as there were in London.
Now for the first time the full impact of what he was about to do seemed to strike him like a blow.
Could he really contemplate spending a lifetime with a woman in whom he had no interest and who, even if she did not interfere with his love affairs, might prove an intolerable burden in other ways?
“What would we talk about?” the Duke asked himself as he slowed the stallion, now not so frisky, down to a trot.
If he married Antonia, he told himself, it would undoubtedly be about horses.
He had not missed the light in her eyes when she spoke of them or the excitement in her voice.
The Duke was not used to women showing interest in other subjects when he was present.
If their faces lit up, it was when they looked at him! If their voices deepened with excitement, it was because he excited them!
Antonia certainly did not look like the type of woman he had envisaged as bearing his name.
Yet there was something about her which made it difficult for him to dismiss her as completely unattractive.
Her clothes were lamentable, but at least she was conscious of their deficiencies and she might, as another woman would put it, ‘pay for dressing’.
“The whole thing is ridiculous!” the Duke told himself. “How can I possibly marry a girl who comes to my house early in the morning and offers herself to me in place of her sister?”
Then he thought it was really no more extraordinary than marrying the sister he had never met.
He realised that neither the Marchioness nor himself had for one moment considered the possibility that the girl they had chosen for such an enviable position might positively dislike the idea and in fact be in love with somebody else.
“I will call the whole thing off,” the Duke decided. “I will send a note to the Earl—tell him I have made a mistake—that unfortunately circumstances prevent me from calling on him and I have no desire to meet his daughter!”
He knew even as he spoke the words to himself that to do so would be to insult the Earl gratuitously and unforgivably. Moreover it would involve him in explaining to the Marchioness why he could not do what she had asked of him.
She had set her heart on becoming a Lady of the Bedchamber and the Duke knew that the Queen would not have been speaking idly when she had implied it was more or less a condition of the appointment that he should find himself a wife.
“Dammit!” the Duke ejaculated. “Royalty has no right to interfere with one’s private life.”
But even as he spoke he knew that in the Society in which they moved Royalty was always interfering.
If there were rules and restrictions as regards Buckingham Palace, there were always innumerable difficulties and problems arising for those who were close friends of the Prince of Wales.
The Duke had only to enter Marlborough House and be alone with the Heir to the Throne to find himself involved in situations that required him to strain every intellectual faculty to find a solution.
“You are a good fellow, Athol! I cannot think what I would do without you,” the Prince had said not once but a dozen times in the last year.
And the Duke knew that at least he had certainly earned the Prince’s gratitude.
In February he had been deeply involved when His Royal Highness had been subpoenaed to appear in the divorce case Sir Charles Mordant brought against his wife.
Twelve letters from the Prince to Lady Mordant, who was by now in a lunatic asylum, were read out in Court.
Although they were innocuous and the Prince was completely exonerated of having any part in the breakup of the marriage, a whirlwind of public condemnation arose.
The Duke, like most of the Prince’s friends, had a hard time defending him.
He had vowed then that he would take care never to find himself in a similar position, which the Queen described as being ‘painful and lowering’.
But marriage!
He was back with his own problem again.
It had already kept him awake, tossing and turning for two nights before he finally had written to the Earl of Lemsford, and felt that the die was cast.
He realised it was time for him to return home to change after his ride.
He had a meeting to attend in the House of Lords at eleven o’clock and he would be late if he did not hurry.
He felt a sudden reluctance to leave the Park until he had made up his mind one way or the other.
“Shall I marry the girl or shall I somehow get out of the mess in which I find myself?” he asked himself aloud.
His horse pricked his ears at the sound of his voice, and quickened his speed and, as the Duke touched him with his spur, broke into a gallop.
It might not solve anything, but at least he felt better because he was travelling at speed.
“What did he say? What happened?” Felicity asked.
Antonia had only just returned home to be in time for breakfast at half past eight.
When Felicity had looked at her across the table with questioning eyes, she had been unable to give her an encouraging smile for the simple reason she was now sure she had failed in her quest.
The Earl and Countess discussed all through breakfast the Duke’s visit in the afternoon, going over and over for the hundredth time what should be said and what the procedure should be.
“You will first see His Grace alone, Edward,” the Countess decided. “Then you will send for
me, and what we have now to decide is whether I shall bring Felicity in with me or wait until after I have talked with the Duke myself.”
Antonia had heard the arguments for and against so many times that she could no longer give it her attention.
Instead she concentrated on deciding exactly what she should say to Felicity.
It would not be fair to raise her hopes. At the same time to tell her categorically she had failed would be to precipitate another flood of tears.
And that, Antonia thought, would solve nothing.
Now walking across Felicity’s bed-room, Antonia said slowly:
“The answer is, Felicity, I really do not know!”
“What do you mean, you do not know?” Felicity asked frantically. “Will he marry you instead of me? Surely he must have told you if he would!”
“He said he would think about it.”
“How can he want me? How can he?” Felicity asked despairingly. “You told him I was in love with somebody else?”
“I made it quite clear. But after all there is no reason why that should worry him when he is in love with the Marchioness!”
“And if he is, surely it cannot matter to him who he marries, whether it is you or me?”
“I more or less said that,” Antonia admitted, “but I am not as pretty as you, Felicity! Duchesses should be outstanding and beautiful, as you well know!”
“You certainly look dreadful in that old gown of mine,” Felicity said. “What on earth made you wear it?”
“I have nothing else,” Antonia said simply. “Your green one is so tight it is almost indecent! And I have had no time to mend the pink one which had burst its seams through sheer old age! After all, you wore it for years before it was handed down to me.”
“If there had been time you could have altered one of my new gowns,” Felicity said.
“And what do you suppose Mama would have said to that?” Antonia asked.
She realised how distressed her sister was looking and said soothingly:
“It may be all right, Felicity. We must just pray he will think it better to ask for me, since I am willing to marry him, than for you who cannot bear the idea.”
“I will not marry him! I would rather die!” Felicity said dramatically. “I belong to Harry ... I always have. I could not ... I could not let another man ... touch me!”
The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) Page 4