PURE AND UNTOUCHED
For the first time in his life the Duke felt like murdering somebody, and he knew that what he wanted was undoubtedly an eye for an eye and compensation for the murder of his ideals. But what he was planning now was far more subtle, far more intelligent, and far more hurtful.
Lady Marguerite poured out the wine for him, then seated herself beside him to ask gently:
“What has happened, Raven?”
“I do not want to talk about it,” her brother replied harshly. “But I want you to find me a wife who is pure and untouched!”
Author’s Note
The fear engendered by the cruel, eccentric, tyrannical Czar Nicholas I (1825-55), undoubtedly the most alarming sovereign who ever reigned, changed the lives of his fifty million subjects.
There is nothing with which he did not interfere and nobody was safe from his jurisdiction.
If the fire bells rang in St. Petersburg, he ran out and told the firemen what to do about it. He banished Prince Yussupov to the Caucasus because he was having a love affair of which his mother did not approve.
When the daughter of a courtier was treated badly by her husband, he had the marriage annulled and wrote majestically, “This young person shall be considered a virgin.”
The Tsar’s Secret Police known as The Third Section were terrifying, merciless and inescapable. All Russia lived under the shadow of fear which continued even after Czar Nicholas’s death.
Chapter 1
1889
The door of the Library opened and Mr. Matthews, Private Secretary and Comptroller to the Duke of Ravenstock, crossed the room quietly to where his employer was writing at a desk in the window.
He stood respectfully waiting to be noticed and after several seconds the Duke raised his head to ask impatiently,
“What do you want, Matthews?”
“I thought I would inform Your Grace that a present has just arrived from Marlborough House from Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales.” The Duke appeared momentarily interested. “What is it?”
“A rose bowl, Your Grace.”
The Duke groaned.
“Not another?”
“This is a very fine example, Your Grace, of early Georgian silver.”
“That means another letter that I shall have to write personally.”
“I am afraid so, Your Grace.”
“Well, put it on the list and make it short. I don’t intend to spend my honeymoon writing letters.” “I feel sure, Your Grace, that those who have to wait for your expressions of gratitude will understand the reason.”
The Duke smiled and it brought such an expression of charm to his face that Mr. Matthews thought it was understandable how many women found the Duke irresistible.
Tall, broad-shouldered and outstandingly handsome, he was not only the most attractive man in London but also the most raffish.
His exploits on the turf, the stories of his escapades which, when they reached the ears of the Queen at Windsor, incurred her displeasure and most of all the gossip about his innumerable love affairs, lost nothing in the telling being both printed in the more disreputable newspapers and passed in whispers from mouth to mouth from the drawing rooms of Mayfair to the parlours in suburbia.
There was no doubt that the Duke was amused by his notoriety and paid no attention to his critics.
He played up the implication of his name by choosing black not only as the predominant colouring of his carriages but also for his racing colours.
At every race-meeting as the Duke’s horse, which was almost invariably the favourite in its race, came galloping towards the winning post, there would be shouts of, “Raven Black! Raven Black!” echoing down the course.
The Duke was known as a seducer of women, who were only too eager to be seduced by him.
This was further evidence of what his detractors called his ‘shocking wickedness’, but to his friends it was his irresistible ‘fascination’.
Now at last, when those who loved the Duke including all his relations had given up hope of his ever settling down and being married, he had fallen in love. For years everybody had expected his wife would be one of the few available beauties belonging to the exclusive circle in which he himself moved.
The likely candidates were almost invariably widows, because at the age of thirty-four it was not likely that the Duke would be interested in young girls for the simple reason that he never met one.
The Prince of Wales had set the pace with love affairs which included the beautiful Lily Langtry and it was now well known that he was head-over-heels in love with the alluring Lady Brooke.
The Duke’s love affairs ran the gamut from the more spectacular actresses to the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting and each liaison surpassed the last in causing raised eyebrows and disapproving exclamations.
The Duke, however, sailed serenely through life, finding that he was easily bored with the women who surrendered far too quickly and making those who pursued him not only frustrated but extremely unhappy.
‘I like to be the hunter,’ he said to himself, but it appeared that few women were content to watch him pass by without giving chase.
He had only to look at them with that questioning in his eyes for them to reach out their white hands to touch him and almost before he knew their names to throw arms around his neck.
“What the devil have you got, Ravenstock,” the Prince of Wales asked him once, “that I do not have?” “Impertinence, sir!” the Duke had replied.
The Prince had laughed uproariously.
“I believe that really is the answer!” he had said between guffaws.
Even so, when the Duke’s love affairs seemed to be lasting a shorter and shorter time, and the lines on his face were becoming a little more cynical, those amongst his friends who were genuinely fond of him wondered what could be done.
The answer to their question appeared in the shape of Lady Cleodel Wick.
The Duke met her quite by chance when he was staying in a house party which included the Prince of Wales at Warwick Castle, which was not far from the castle owned by the Earl of Sedgewick.
The Earl and Countess and their daughter Lady Cleodel had come over for dinner and the Duke, who was sitting next to the nineteen-year-old, found himself astounded by her beauty and fascinated in a way he had not experienced for many years.
Mourning had prevented Lady Cleodel from appearing before in the Social world and she was a year older than the other debutantes who were being presented at Court at the beginning of April.
The Duke knew that if he had ever before seen the golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty in the crowded Throne Room at Buckingham Palace, he would have remembered her.
Looking at her now in the light of the silver candelabra on the table, he thought it would be impossible for any woman to be so lovely.
While her hair was the shining gold of a sovereign, it was really extraordinary that her blue eyes should be fringed with dark lashes.
She had explained when he had enthused about them that she owed them to some Irish ancestor.
When she spoke, it was with a soft, hesitating little voice which he would have found extremely seductive if he had not realised how young and pure she was.
He talked to her all through the meal to the palpable annoyance of the lady on his other side and, when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room, he had gone straight to Lady Cleodel’s side to say that he would call on her the following day.
She had not been fulsomely grateful as any other woman would have been. Instead she said,
“I must ask Mama if we will be at home. We have many engagements in the afternoons, even though we are in the country.”
The Duke made c
ertain that the Countess would receive him and, when he returned to London, he had called at Sedgewick House where he found to his surprise that Lady Cleodel was not always readily available.
On several occasions, when she must have been aware that he was coming, she had gone out.
He had danced with her at every ball they both attended and the Duke for the first time in his life had to wait his turn to partner Lady Cleodel and one night, to his astonishment, he was unable to obtain a single dance owing to the fact that her programme was already full.
When two weeks later he proposed and was accepted, he had found even then that she was elusive.
The kisses that other women had been all too eager to give him even before he asked for them were, he thought sometimes, not exactly refused, but undoubtedly avoided.
The Duke would seize every possible chance of being alone with his fiancée, but she always kept him at arm’s length.
“No, no, you must not touch me,” she cried when he tried to take her in his arms. “You know Mama would not approve of our being alone together if she knew of it.” “Why should she know?” the Duke asked.
“If my hair was ruffled and my lips looked – kissed, she would be – angry with me!”
“But I want to kiss you,” he insisted.
“I want it too,” Cleodel said softly, glancing up at him from under her dark eyelashes, “but Mama would be cross and then she would prevent us from being alone again.”
This was something new in the Duke’s experience and he had to be content, even whilst he mocked himself at his own self-control, with kissing Cleodel’s fingers instead of her lips.
He told himself that because she was so young he must have both patience and understanding.
At the same time the grace with which she moved, the things she said in her soft little voice which told him how much he had to teach her about life and love, made him become more and more infatuated.
The Sedgewicks made no pretence about not being delighted at the prospect of having such a distinguished and wealthy son-in-law.
Although the Earl had a large estate, he was not a rich man. He had indeed expected because of her beauty that his daughter would marry well.
What he and his wife had not anticipated was that she would catch the most eligible bachelor in the county with a social position ranking only just below that of a Royal Prince.
If they were surprised, it was nothing to the astonishment of everybody else. But it was only the Duke’s most intimate friend, Harry Carrington, who was brave enough to say so to the prospective bridegroom.
He had just returned from Scotland where he had been salmon fishing on the Spey, and at first had thought it must be a joke. “You always told me you would remain a bachelor until you were on your last legs!” he said to the Duke when he found him alone at Ravenstock House.
“That is what I fully intended,” the Duke replied, “until I met Cleodel.”
“I have already been told that she is very beautiful,” Harry said tentatively, “but at nineteen, how will she cope with you?”
“There will be nothing to cope with,” the Duke replied.
He saw the smile of incredulity on his friend’s face.
“I know I said that I would not marry because, not only did I think I would never find a woman who would not bore me after a short time, but also because I had no intention of having a wife who would be kissing my best friend as soon as my back was turned.”
“Are you insulting me?” Harry asked.
“No, merely stating facts,” the Duke said. “The wives of all my best friends have been eager for me to make love to them and, while I am not prepared to refuse the favours that come my way, I am not going to pretend to you that I think it is a particularly desirable way of living.”
Harry stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.
“My dear Raven,” he said at length, “I had no idea you felt like that.”
The Duke’s eyes twinkled.
“To be frank, it was not something that particularly worried me until I met Cleodel.”
“Worried you?” Harry exclaimed. “When I think of all those gorgeous creatures – ”
The Duke put up his hand.
“Spare me the reminiscences for, as you know, I never talk about my affaires de coeur.” “Which is a good thing,” Harry agreed. “But tell me how Lady Cleodel is different.”
“You will see for yourself,” the Duke replied evasively. When Harry met Cleodel later in the day he had understood.
Besides being beautiful, her face had what he supposed was a look of purity and she was certainly very different from the sophisticated and experienced women with whom the Duke had associated in the past.
As he watched them together, he told himself that the Duke would be alert to protect her against the advances of other men like himself and it would indeed be a case of the poacher turned gamekeeper.
That would keep him out of mischief, Harry thought with satisfaction and because he really had a deep affection for his friend he was delighted that he had found happiness.
Since there was no reason for a long engagement and the Sedgewicks were terrified they might lose the Duke, the wedding was fixed for late in June just before the Season came to an end.
It had to take place after Royal Ascot since the Duke had several horses running at that meeting and, because it would have been very inconvenient to have it in the country during the Season, it was decided the ceremony should be held at St George’s Church, Hanover Square.
Cleodel was so busy buying her trousseau that the Duke found it hard to see very much of her, but occasionally he asserted himself and, because he was in love, complained that he was being neglected.
“I have no wish to do anything so – unkind,” Cleodel said gently, “but I must have gowns in which to look – beautiful for you.” “Are you really buying them for me?” the Duke asked.
“But of course!” she replied. “Everybody has told me how fastidious you are, so I am very – afraid of – failing you.”
“You are perfect just as you are,” the Duke said, “and all I want is for us to be married so that I can take you away alone and tell you how lovely you are.”
“That will be very – exciting.”
“I will make you excited,” the Duke said, “and it will be the most thrilling thing I have ever done in my life!”
He spoke with a sincerity in his voice that surprised himself.
Then he put his arms around Cleodel and kissed her very gently, for he was aware that if he was in the least passionate or demanding she would be frightened.
On one occasion she had held him at arm’s length saying,
“Please – please – ”
“I do not mean to frighten you, my darling,” the Duke said quickly.
“It is not that I am really – frightened,” Cleodel said, “but as I have never been – kissed before, I feel – almost as if you are making me your captive and I am no longer myself.”
“It is I who am the captive,” the Duke said. “Forgive me, my sweet, and I will not be rough with you again.”
He kissed her hands, turning them over to kiss their soft pink palms and thought as he did so that no woman could be more attractive and at the same time more difficult to capture.
The women who had loved him in the past found his behaviour not only incomprehensible but infuriating. “Raven is the most fascinating devil who ever stalked London,” one of them said, “but in the guise of a Saint I find him depressing.”
“I agree with you,” another of the Duke’s loves added, “but make no mistake, that chit straight out of the schoolroom will have lost him before Christmas.”
“I am willing to wager that it will not last even as long as that,” was the spiteful reply.
Strangely enough the only person who did not admire Cleodel was Harry, but he was far too tactful to say anything to the Duke or to his other friends, who he was certain would repeat any criticism h
e made about the future Duchess.
But to himself he thought there was something about her that was not entirely natural.
He could not put his finger on it, but it was as if she was with her innocent little ways really too good to be true.
The Duke, however, was carried away on the wings of bliss, counting the hours until he could see his future bride again like any boy with his first love.
Because Ravenstock House in Park Lane was so much larger than the house the Earl owned in Green Street, it was decided that the Reception should be held in the former and the Duke with his usual passion for perfection was organising every detail.
The guests were to be received in the ball room which opened out into the garden.
The presents were to be displayed in the picture gallery and the Duke planned that the whole house should be decorated with flowers brought from his country estate at Ravenstock Hall and arranged by his own gardeners.
It would be impossible to accommodate all his estate workers, tenants and farmers in London and he therefore gave orders that only the heads of each department should sit in the gallery of St George’s.
In the country a huge marquee was to be erected on the lawn where all the others would start their celebrations late in the afternoon.
This meant that if the Duke and his wife travelled after the Reception from Park Lane straight to Ravenstock Hall by his private train they would arrive in time to receive their congratulations and good wishes.
He would make a short speech thanking them, after which there would be an enormous display of fireworks.
The bride and bridegroom would have to spend the first night of their honeymoon at Ravenstock Hall, but to the Duke it was somehow very fitting that he should take his bride home on their wedding-night to the house of his ancestors.
It had never troubled him before that he had no heir to succeed him, but now he told himself nothing could be better or more perfect than that his son should be born to two people who loved each other as he loved Cleodel and she him.
“Tell me you love me,” he had said to her insistently the previous evening as they sat in the garden of Devonshire House where they were attending a ball.
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