The Marquis thought that was a relief at any rate!
Yet naturally he did not say so.
He merely took her arms gently from around his neck and pressed her back against the lace-edged pillow.
“You are very lovely,” he sighed, “but like me, you need your beauty sleep.”
“Not if I can be with you, Euan.”
Her voice was low and seductive as she went on,
“I love and adore you. Oh, Euan, you are really so wonderful. No one has ever had a finer lover. How can I ever let you go?”
The Marquis thought she was once again trying to catch him in a trap – to make him hers when all he wanted at this very moment was sleep!
It took him another ten minutes before at last he managed to climb out of bed and start to dress.
Hermione protested again as he did so.
“How can you leave me when I need you so much? Tonight we have not had to worry that Gerald might return. He is on his way to Doncaster and will be away for three days and three nights.”
The Marquis did not answer and she continued,
“We can be together tomorrow, and after luncheon, which I know you are having with the Beauforts, as I am, we can return here. Oh, Euan, it will be marvellous!”
The Marquis pressed his lips together.
He had found the letter he had received from Lord Waincliffe more interesting than the luncheon party he had accepted.
But he thought, as he was planning what he would do, the luncheon would be dull affair.
As he was silent, Hermione gave a little scream.
“You are not thinking of avoiding the Beaufort’s party?” she asked. “The Prince of Wales is certain to be there and he always likes talking to you.”
The Marquis knew this to be true.
If there was one person he had no wish to offend, it was the Prince of Wales and he always enjoyed himself at Marlborough House more than anywhere else.
The Prince was quickly bored and so he gathered around him the most interesting and intelligent men and, of course, without question the most beautiful women.
Then the Marquis remembered that he was not after all going to the Beaufort’s party as he was having luncheon with the Prince of Wales at Marlborough House.
It would, he thought, be a mistake to tell Hermione.
“Yes, indeed,” he said aloud, “I will see you at the Beauforts, but I am afraid I have to leave for the country as soon as luncheon is over.”
“Leave for the country!” Hermione almost shrieked as she sat bolt upright up in bed. “How can you possibly go to the country when we can be together?”
He did not answer and she rambled on,
“I have been counting on our dining here tomorrow night. In fact, I have refused at least three invitations in order to be with you.
“Then you must forgive me, but I have to go home. There are difficulties only I can solve.”
“How could that mean more to you than I do?” she asked angrily.
Because there was a deep reproach in her voice, the Marquis responded,
“No one, as you know, matters more than you. But sadly I have my responsibilities and this is one of them.”
She threw herself back against the pillows, making a cry of agony.
“I have so looked forward to this. Oh, Euan, how can you be so unkind to me when I love you – I love you!”
As she repeated the words, her voice rose.
The Marquis reflected that what he disliked more than anything else was hysterical women.
He might have guessed before now that, if things did not go exactly as she herself desired, Hermione would become overemotional.
“You must not upset yourself,” he told her, as he buttoned up his waistcoat. “You know I would hate you to be unhappy.”
“I am only happy when I am with you. I love you, I worship you, Euan. If you leave me, I will kill myself. I cannot face life without you!”
The Marquis had heard all this before – yet so far no one had actually committed suicide on his behalf.
Where the great beauties were concerned, they had soon replaced him with another man.
He looked in the mirror and saw by the light of the candle by the bed that he was looking as neat and as smart as when he had arrived.
He turned round and moved towards the bed where Hermione was lying, looking like the Goddess of Love.
Her figure was superb and indeed a number of men had compared her with Venus and she had no doubt that she was, in every man’s eyes, the perfect woman they all longed to find.
Her dark hair was falling over her shoulders and her arms were outstretched in a manner her lovers had always found irresistible.
She could not believe that the Marquis would be able to leave her.
“Kiss me, Euan,” she cooed very softly. “Let me tell you just how handsome you are and how my heart is beating at your touch.”
Her voice was deep and seductive and the Marquis again thought that he had heard all this many times before.
He knew quite well that if he kissed her, she would pull him back down onto the bed.
Then it would be even more difficult than it was already for him to escape.
“You are so very lovely, Hermione,” he said, going towards the door, “I can only thank you for giving me such a rapturous and sublime evening.”
“Kiss me, Euan,” she begged. “Kiss me.”
She lifted herself up so that he could see the beauty of her body.
But the door was open and he was already halfway through it.
“Sleep well, Hermione,” he called, “so that you will look even more beautiful at luncheon tomorrow.”
As she gave a little cry of protest, he was gone.
She heard him walking along the passage that led to the top of the stairs and for a moment she could not believe that he had not listened to her.
He had left her when she still wanted him.
Then, as she realised he had really gone and that she was alone, she struck at the pillows in sheer rage with her clenched fists.
She had been so certain he was completely hers.
When Gerald had gone to the races at Doncaster, she had known this was the opportunity they had both been waiting for.
So she could hardly believe that the Marquis was telling her the truth, when he had declared that he would be leaving London tomorrow to go to the country.
How could he possibly leave her?
For the first time in nearly two weeks they had been able to make love without being afraid. There had always been the chance that the door would open and her husband would walk in.
It had been, Hermione believed, one of the great occasions in her life.
She had captured the Marquis of Millbrook!
Of course she had met him at many different parties and he had always been taken up with some woman or else he had left early because he was very obviously bored.
She had known that she had captured his attention when they had met at Marlborough House four weeks ago.
It had been a triumph for her, as the competition was intense.
The Prince of Wales had chosen to invite all the most outstanding beauties to a special party with only his most special gentlemen friends.
Hermione had admired the Marquis for a long time and had tried by every means in her repertoire to attract his attention.
He had always been polite and courteous whenever they met, but he had not shown any desire to see her again.
The invitations she had sent to him on behalf of her husband and herself were always refused. He wrote that it was regrettable that he was already engaged and had signed the letters himself. She was sure that they had been written by his secretary and he had merely added his signature.
Then, when she least expected it, he had sat next to her at a dinner party at Marlborough House.
Before the evening was over, she had realised her dreams had come true.
They had met subsequently
several times and she had become more and more infatuated by him, but it was, however, impossible for them to make love, because her husband was always with her.
Besides, he harboured what she considered to be a quite unreasonable dislike of the Marquis.
“He is far too pleased with himself for one thing,” Gerald pronounced, “and I find his love affairs exceedingly tedious.”
“I expect you are jealous,” Hermione had retorted, “because the Marquis is such a success with women. The Duchess of Devonshire was saying only the other week, he was undoubtedly the most handsome man in Mayfair and his love affairs would fill at least three books!”
“It’s the sort of thing women would think,” Gerald had replied sourly. “Let me make it clear, I have no wish to entertain that Marquis in my house.”
He walked out of the room as he spoke to her and slammed the door behind him.
She knew it was because he was jealous and he had every reason to be so, as she was so beautiful she had been pursued by almost every man in the Beau Monde since she married.
But whatever Gerald might think or do to prevent it, she was determined that the Marquis should be hers.
She was certain that she would hold him as no other woman had ever been able to do.
“I cannot think why he left me,” one of her friends had sobbed. “I loved him with all my heart, but suddenly for no reason I could understand, he went away.”
She cried again before adding,
“The next thing I knew he was with another woman and one I have always hated, who naturally was delighted to be able to crow over me because I had lost him.”
Hermione had not felt particularly sorry for her.
But now she was lying alone in her exotic bedroom, which was scented with flowers and French perfume.
She felt a horror that the Marquis might have left her for ever.
*
Walking home, because their houses were near to each other, the Marquis felt the cool night air a relief.
He had escaped and for once it was without tears from another trap that had been set to catch him.
It was absurd, he told himself.
Yet he had always felt, when a woman surrendered herself to him, that it was really he who had surrendered his freedom, which was so precious to him.
He thought somewhat cynically that he knew every twist and turn of the game and every word they would utter to keep him their prisoner and prevent him from slipping out of their grasp.
Of course, he found women attractive.
Of course, he was well aware that other men were envious of him because he attracted women so easily.
But at the same time there was something he did not understand.
Why, when a lovely woman twined her arms round him and told him passionately of her love, should he want to escape?
It was a strange feeling he could not control and it prevented him from surrendering himself as completely as the woman surrendered herself to him.
He loved a woman for her beauty.
He loved the way she would flirt with him as soon as they met, the look in her eyes that told him only too clearly that she wanted him to make love to her.
Sometimes, when they had particularly possessive husbands, it was impossible and then he thought he would be missing something he would have greatly enjoyed.
But on most occasions they would surrender far too quickly.
In many cases, as with Hermione, they themselves organised the love affair.
This would mean that he did little to bring the affair to a climax – they would manipulate him into it rather than him forcing himself upon them.
He knew as he walked back down the empty and silent street that if he was honest he did not even want to see Hermione again.
She was beautiful and had responded to him in a way that had ignited the fire in him.
But that was all.
‘What more do I want?’ he asked himself, as he turned into Park Lane.
He did not know the answer to this question now any better than he had before, he only knew that something vital was missing, something that affected his mind rather than his body.
A sleepy night-footman let him into his large and grand house and he handed the man his hat and cane.
“Goodnight, James.”
“Goodnight, my Lord.”
The Marquis then walked up the stairs and along the corridor to his own room, which was as was large and magnificent as the rest of his London house.
Everything had been left ready for him, so he only had to undress himself and climb into bed.
He deliberately did not keep his valet up as other men did and anyway he had no wish to speak to anyone when he was tired.
He also disliked giving his servants anything to talk about where his love affairs were concerned.
He was quite certain that below stairs they would speculate as to who was his latest conquest and compare the time he came home at night with other evenings when they knew he was out with a particularly famous beauty.
He was still asking himself just why he no longer wished to stay with Hermione, as he drew back the curtains and opened the window wider.
He was looking out over the trees in Hyde Park and thought that if it had not been closed for the night he would have liked to walk down to the Serpentine.
Then he told himself there was a long day in front of him tomorrow and so the sooner he went to sleep the better.
Yet, when he finally climbed into bed, he found himself ruminating again that yet another of his love affairs had come to an end.
He was still not at all certain why.
It was the sort of question he had asked himself a dozen times and had never found an answer.
Hermione was indeed beautiful – in fact, her beauty had been acclaimed in every magazine and she actually rivalled the Jersey Lily in the number of people who stood on chairs in Hyde Park to see her drive past.
She was witty and well educated and she listened more attentively to him than other women managed to do.
Then why, why, he asked himself when she had told him they could be together for another two nights, had he not wished to be with her?
If the truth be told he had actually, when dressing that evening, thought that perhaps he would not go to the country after all tomorrow.
He felt certain that Lord Waincliffe merely had something boring to discuss with him about their adjoining estates – the poaching might be more aggressive than his gamekeepers had bothered to tell him or maybe there were too many foxes.
The burning fire within himself and Hermione had risen higher and higher.
They had both been consumed by it.
Yet he had known at the back of his mind that it was not what he sought, but he was unable to tell himself exactly what that was.
He only knew that, as she expressed her love and delight in him, what he murmured in response was no more than automatic.
He had said it so often and, even as the words left his lips, he knew that they were not the truth.
He wanted something else, something intangible to which he could not put a name.
He was only too well aware that his reputation was appalling and he was teased at the Club by those who knew him well. It did not worry him and he was quite prepared to laugh at himself.
He was especially amused when mothers with their beautiful daughters hurried them out of his sight, but he had never been interested in debutantes. He realised only too well that, if he did, he would then be hurried up the aisle immediately by her ambitious parents.
If he attempted to protest, he would be confronted by the traditional rules of the Social world.
If a young virgin’s character was put at risk, the only possible reparation for any gentleman was to offer her a wedding ring.
The Marquis had therefore been very careful and so all his affaires-de-coeur were with married women whose husbands were either complacent or had business or their own entertainment elsewhere.
Even so, with a long trail of broken hearts behind him, he was still seeking the unseekable.
‘What do I want?’ he asked himself again as he gazed out of the window. ‘What is missing?’
He could not give himself an answer to any of his questions and it annoyed him that he was so stupid, as he pulled the curtain to.
Blowing out the candle, he climbed into bed.
Tomorrow he would go to the country.
And before he left, he would send Hermione a huge basket of orchids and a letter thanking her for a delightful and unforgettable evening.
He would then inevitably receive a long stream of letters from her, each of them complaining more violently than the last that he had not been to see her and that she had waited for him in vain.
He did not like to think how many such letters he had received on exactly the same theme and to which he had made no reply.
The letters had always asked him finally before the correspondence ceased why he no longer wanted them.
Why he refused their love? In fact, to put it plainly, why he had not been eager to be in bed with them again?
The truth was that he had no valid answer and he could not reason it out even to himself.
But just as the curtain had fallen on a number of other beautiful women, he knew he had no wish to even see Hermione again.
Why? Why?
The words seemed to hang above him in the quiet darkness.
When at last he fell asleep, it was to dream that he was climbing up a high mountain.
When eventually he managed to reach the top, there was nothing there – the mountain itself did not exist!
*
He woke with a start when his valet called him at eight o’clock sharp and drew back the curtains.
The Marquis recalled what had happened last night.
How he had left Hermione much earlier than she expected and in consequence he had had an exceptionally long night’s sleep.
Quite suddenly, it occurred to him that it would be a joy and a delight to be in the country.
He would be alone at The Castle.
Yet, he would have to attend the luncheon first at Marlborough House – that went without saying.
But he was determined to leave at a reasonable hour as the journey would take him at least four hours.
The Winning Post Is Love Page 5