“I do so wish it was true,” replied Selina. “But you cannot imagine my world.”
“We have delayed long enough,” said the Marquis firmly. “Now the time has come when you must tell me everything.”
CHAPTER THREE
There was a short silence.
Then slowly, almost as if compelled to do so, Selina told him everything. First how her father had tragically died, and then how her mother, lonely miserable and in poor health, had married again as she was too unhappy to face life alone.
“I was too young at the time to be of any help to her. She was alone and sad and I think she turned to my stepfather simply because she needed comfort.”
“I can easily understand. Do go on.”
“She married a certain John Gardner, who is very rich. My mother’s father was Lord Franklin and I think he felt that marriage to an Earl’s daughter would provide him the place in Society that all his money could not to buy him.
“He wanted to be socially equal to landowners, who were not impressed by his money. He always felt like an outsider and it made him bitter.
“He tried hard to present himself as a great landed gentleman. His shipbuilding business is in Portsmouth, so you would think he would want to live there.
“But great landowners do not live close to trade, so he bought this enormous estate in Hampshire, because he thought it would give him the right background. It takes him two days to drive to Portsmouth.”
“Which is foolish of him,” the Marquis observed. “But there is no end to the vanities of snobbery. Now, tell me, where do you come into all this?”
“He is determined to use me to further his Social ambitions. If only you could witness him introduce me as Lady Selina, as he used to introduce my mother as Lady Edwina.
“I could have easily put up with him if he had been a genuinely kind man, but all he thinks about is money and what it can buy him.
“He sent me to Finishing School in France because he felt it would make me more aristocratic and ‘polished’, but he brought me back after only one term. I think he was afraid for me to be out sight for too long in case I escaped.
“He has a friend who is also in business and as rich as he is. The friend has a son whom he wants to move into Society, which apparently at the moment is taking little, if any, notice of him.”
“How does he mean to do so?” the Marquis asked.
“By marrying me,” Selina replied in a low voice.
“Marrying you!”
“He desires to ‘acquire’ me, because I am a lady,” she explained ironically. “And my stepfather is determined that I shall agree.”
“But why? If Gardner has these social ambitions and money, why doesn’t he try to marry you to a title?”
“I too wondered about that. I think he knows it’s impossible. He is such a dreadful man that nobody with a title would marry me if it meant taking him into the family for all his money. So this is the next best thing.
“There’s always been a kind of rivalry between him and Ralph Turner as to who can make the most money and who can do the best deals. Turner is a lot richer, but my stepfather is ahead of him at the moment, because of me.”
“Because you are Lady Selina?”
“That’s right. To him I am a bargaining chip. He will use me to unite the two fortunes and Peter Turner and I will live so lavishly that Society will have to accept us. That’s what he thinks will happen.”
“What’s he like, this man he wants you to marry?”
“I’ve never met him, but I’ve met his father. He is a horrible little man who drinks from dawn until dusk and breathes whiskey fumes over the whole world.”
“Meaning you?”
“Yes,” she admitted with a shudder.
There was silence for a moment. Then the Marquis exploded,
“I’ve never heard anything so disgraceful.”
“How can I marry a man I have never even seen and let him touch me?”
“Of course you must not do so! I can understand why you ran away. In fact, there was nothing else that you could do. We have to think of a solution to this problem.”
“Do you really mean it? Please, please help me. I have no one else to turn to.”
“But surely your mother had friends you could stay with or perhaps relations who would take you in?”
“I wanted to go to them when Mama died, but he wouldn’t let me. I could hardly go to them now, because they just don’t know me. Papa and Mama were so happy together they did not worry about their relations. I doubt if they’d really be pleased if I turned up on their doorstep.”
“As I have said, I can fully appreciate why you’ve run away. But are you quite sure that your stepfather will force you to marry this man?”
“I am quite certain from what he has already said that he will force me up the aisle, whatever my objections.”
There was a fear in her voice that told the Marquis her feelings were very real and she was not exaggerating.
He rose from the sofa and walked to the window. She saw him draw from his pocket the letter that had just arrived.
He read it through again before putting it back into the envelope.
He seemed sunk in thought and Selina wondered if he was regretting that he had promised to help her.
After all, why should her troubles be of any interest to him, when he clearly had troubles of his own?
She pressed her lips together just in case she should plead with him for help again. She simply must not do so.
Then, as if the Marquis had made up his mind, he turned from the window, walked to the sofa and sat down.
Taking Selina’s hand in his he began,
“I have an interesting proposition to make to you. An idea, which if you agree, would help us both.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“Of course, I shall be glad to help you in any way I can after all your kindness to me.”
“Thank you so much, Selina. The fact is that I have a problem which is as difficult for me as yours is for you.”
Selina thought this was unlikely. It seemed to her that men always found it easier to escape their dilemmas than women, but she responded,
“Tell me how I can help you.”
He hesitated, as though he could not think how to begin.
“Recently,” he answered at last, “I was staying with a family I’ve known for years, who have always been very kind and helpful to me.”
He stopped.
Selina wondered why this story should upset him, as it obviously did.
“On this occasion there was a large house party and we had dancing after dinner every night. One girl, called Felicity, was a particularly good dancer and I competed with two other men to secure her as my partner – ”
He smiled as he continued,
“I was more successful than they were.”
“Was she pretty?” Selina ventured to ask, her eyes twinkling.
“Yes, very. At first I thought how attractive she was, but gradually I found that she had little conversation. She danced like a dream, though.
“It was very hot, so near the end of the evening I walked out into the garden for a breath of fresh air. I was looking at a fascinating old well when Felicity joined me.
“I asked how she was such a good dancer. She told me she had perfected her skills on a recent visit to France, where she had been taught by a Frenchman called Pierre, who was such an expert dancer that he had once appeared on the stage.
“After that he had earned his living by becoming a private tutor of dancing. She had taken many lessons with him and at last fell in love with him.”
“How romantic!” cried Selina. “Did he fall in love with her?”
“Apparently very much so,” he answered. “But her father is a Duke and the Frenchman knew that there was no chance of him ever being able to marry her.”
“Did she realise this?”
“Oh, yes. She recognised that her father would never
allow her to marry a Frenchman who earned his living by teaching young girls to dance.
“When it was time for her to return to England, they declared their love, although they knew it was hopeless.
“They said goodbye to each other and she returned to England. She lived in the eye of the social whirl, going to every ball of the Season. But no partner meant anything to her because she was always thinking of Pierre.
“Oh, poor girl, I am sorry for her,” said Selina. “It must be terrible to know you can never marry the man you love. I suppose it would be impossible for her to make her father change his mind.”
“Completely impossible. Now I had better tell you the rest of the story. We sat for a long time at the well. I was sympathetic to Felicity, but there was nothing I could really say.
“After a long time we walked back to the house to find most of the party had gone to bed. There were only a few men having a last drink before they turned in.
“Therefore picture my amazement when her father, the Duke, accosted me and accused me of ruining his daughter’s reputation.
“I apologised and explained she was only telling me about her visit to Paris. But he insisted that everyone had been scandalised by our being out there alone for so long, and he only hoped I had ‘behaved myself decently’ and asked her to be my wife.”
Selina gave a gasp.
“Did he really say that?” she asked, astounded.
“Yes, he did. I couldn’t think what to say. It had never struck me for a moment that anyone would consider it extraordinary, since we were sitting in the open air and could be seen clearly from the house and by anyone in the garden.”
“What else did he say?”
“He told me again that it was my duty to propose and ‘save her reputation’.”
“And what did you do?”
A glimmer of humour flickered in his eyes.
“I asserted myself.”
“How?” she asked hopefully.
“I told him that he was talking nonsense and went to bed. I know this will probably strike you as feeble, but it was the best I could think of on the spur of the moment. I hoped it would then be the end of it.
“However, I have just received a letter from him, saying that he is coming to see me tomorrow afternoon and he will expect me to ‘behave like a gentleman’.
“Otherwise he intends to go to the Queen and tell her how I have ruined his daughter’s life. He feels that the Queen will insist on me not causing a scandal.”
“But the Royal family has always been in the midst of scandals,” said Selina sceptically. “Even I know that.”
Royal scandals had been legendary since the times of the Prince Regent and had scarcely diminished when he succeeded to the throne as George IV. Since his death, three years earlier, his brother had reigned as William IV.
William’s domestic life with his wife Adelaide was a model of propriety, if you ignored the ten children he had first sired by his mistress. That poor lady had been cast aside so he could settle down into marriage and with good luck father an heir.
In this he had failed. Now the country was looking to the future when his niece, the young Princess Victoria, would ascend to the throne and there would be an end to Royalty’s improper ways.
“What you say is quite true,” the Marquis admitted. “But Queen Adelaide is determined to bring propriety back to the Court. She fears the rise of Republican sentiment if excesses cannot be curbed, not only amongst Royalty, but also the aristocracy.
“She would not look kindly on a complaint from the Duke and he is relying on her to force my hand.”
Selina gave a cry.
“How horrifying!” she exclaimed. “But why is he doing this? I simply do not understand.”
The Marquis looked a little startled.
“At the risk of sounding immodest, I believe I am considered a reasonably good catch.”
“But not to him, surely?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean he is a Duke, which is a peg higher than a Marquis. Surely he wants to marry Felicity off to another Duke? Or even a Royal Prince?”
“Ah, I see what you mean. A mere Marquis might be considered coming down in the world – ”
“If you were a Duke, it certainly would be.”
“True, but you have to consider the current state of the market,” he said with apparent seriousness. “Dukes are in short supply and unmarried ones virtually non-existent, and I cannot offhand think of any unmarried Princes.
“So, in default of any better prospect, he is forced to make do with just a mere Marquis. It’s a great sacrifice for him, of course, but a man must do the best he can!”
Selina chuckled, appreciating the way his dry wit matched her own. She was unused to men who talked with this kind of drollery as John Gardner’s friends got drunk and bawled with laughter at infantile jokes.
“Well, you must not give in. Not just for your own sake, but for hers. How can this poor girl marry you if she loves another man?”
“Not every woman is as brave and spirited as you,” the Marquis observed. “She would never dare run away.”
“I suppose you could run away,” suggested Selina, “but you’d have to hurry if he is coming here tomorrow.”
“I have a better idea if you will agree to it.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“How do I come into it?”
“I thought that I could introduce you to him as my fiancée!”
At first Selina was taken aback, but then the plan appealed to her.
“I see. Yes, of course, he cannot ask you to marry his daughter if you are already promised to someone else?”
“Exactly, Selina, then he’ll go away and I’ll do my best not to come into contact with him in the future.”
She realised he was in a tight corner and she could not see any other way out for him.
And why should she not help him? Her own best safety anyway might lie in remaining here for a day or two.
The Marquis was now looking at her almost with an expression of pleading in his eyes.
“I promise you that no one will know what we tell the Duke. He isn’t likely to talk about it and all we have to do is lie low until it is forgotten.”
Selina took a deep breath.
“All right. If you really think it will help you, I will agree that we are engaged.”
A light came into the Marquis’s eyes.
“Thank you, thank you. It is an awful thing to ask someone to do, but it could solve the problem for both of us. Neither of us wants to be forced into a marriage with somebody we do not love.”
“I agree. I always believed I would find someone to love, as my mother loved my father, and he would love me in the same way. I will not settle for anything less and nor must you.”
“I don’t intend to,” he asserted. “However long it takes. And it may take a very long time indeed. I’ve been rather slow in looking round for a wife, because there are women who will marry me for the title alone and that is not what I want. I’ve even thought perhaps I’ll never marry.”
“For shame, sir,” she teased. “Have you no thought for your family?”
“Oh, the line itself is safe enough. I have a younger brother who already has a wife and two sons. I consider it absolves me from all responsibility.”
“Now that was a very unwise thing to say!”
“You think it’s tempting fate?” he asked anxiously.
“Worse still, it is tempting young ladies who cannot bear to see a man go free. If I was like them, I would tilt my lance at you now, not because you are a Marquis, but because you have just proclaimed your independence and I just could not resist the challenge!”
He frowned as if he was considering her seriously.
“But you don’t think you would be likely to do so?”
“It wouldn’t be fair since we are working as a team now. Besides, I might fail, and that would put me in a bad temper.”
&nbs
p; “Which would be very inconvenient, I do see.”
“We must concentrate entirely on our chief aim,” insisted Selina with a touch of sternness. “No distractions or else – disaster.”
“Agreed. So let’s be practical. I can give you my mother’s engagement ring to wear. I have a portrait of her wearing the very ring. Come, I’ll show you.”
He seized her hand and hurried unceremoniously out of the room and into the library.
“There!” he cried, pointing to the wall.
The portrait was of a beautiful woman with her arm resting on a table and her engagement ring clearly visible.
“I will bring the Duke in here. You will sit near the picture and we’ll make certain he notices the ring. Why are you laughing? Have I said something funny?”
“Not at all. It’s merely that you are so changed suddenly. You were so quiet and grave and now you are like a jumping bean!”
He grinned.
“It wasn’t very polite of me to haul you away like that, was it? I am sorry. It must be the effect you have on me. You are a bit like a jumping bean yourself!”
“I am?”
“What other young lady would brave the world as you have done. My dear, I am so glad we have met. I was feeling a little depressed before you flamed into my life.”
“Even before the Duke’s letter?”
“Yes, even before that. For some reason everything around me seemed dull and conventional. But who could feel like that with you around?
“Now I think the most sensible thing we can do is to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep to be fresh for the trials that will face us tomorrow. I usually go for a ride in the early morning. Would you care to join me?”
Selina’s eyes lit up.
“On one of your marvellous horses?” she enquired.
“My stables are at your disposal, ma’am.”
Selina laughed.
“Oh, how I wish that was true.”
“If wishes were horses, beggars might ride,” the Marquis quoted and she laughed again.
“I’ll tell Mrs. Musgrove to have you called at seven thirty – unless that is too early for you?”
“No, that will be perfect.”
Together they walked into the Great Hall. The candles, which they were to take upstairs, were alight and standing in gold holders at the bottom of the stairs.
The Triumph of Love Page 4