A Very Unusual Wife Read online

  Author’s note

  The basic psychological principles of Karate are concentration, calmness and confidence.

  Bare-handed fighting was being developed in both India and China before Bodhidharma first arrived in China in 520 AD. He was however, called the ‘original propagator of the Martial Arts concept’.

  With the special breathing technique he created the basis for the legendary system of weaponless fighting and mental concentration.

  Kung Fu was Buddhist-inspired and for centuries Buddhist monks in China and Japan have studied Kempo.

  Ju Jitsu differs in that blows are struck not with the clenched fist but with the minor or little finger edge of the palm.

  Ju Jitsu does not depend as much on the psychological side of the art as Karate.

  On the monument of its most famous teacher, Funakoshi, is written, There are no offensive techniques in Karate.

  Chapter One

  1846

  The Earl of Warnborough threw the letters he had opened down on the table with what sounded suspiciously like an oath.

  “Bills! Bills! Bills!” he cried. “Do I ever get anything else in this house? I cannot imagine how you can spend so much money!”

  He looked across the table in a hostile manner at his wife, who merely replied,

  “I am sorry, George dear, but everything is very expensive at the moment and I do try to economise!”

  “Then all I can say is that you are not very successful,” the Earl said disagreeably, “and it means I shall have to give up the hounds!”

  There was a cry at this from all his three daughters who were sitting round the table.

  “Oh, no, Papa! You cannot do that!”

  “I shall have to,” the Earl muttered gloomily. “What with the horses eating their heads off, wages rising and you girls becoming more expensive every day, things cannot go on as they are.”

  “You have been very generous to me, Papa,” Lady Mirabel his eldest daughter said, “and, although I know that you grudge the money Mama had to pay for my gowns, Robert Warrington has proposed and as soon as he is out of mourning, we shall be married.”

  There was a faint smile on the Earl’s lips as he remembered how rich his future son-in-law was.

  He had rather hoped that since Mirabel was so lovely she would marry a man with a more illustrious title.

  But Sir Robert was the seventh Baronet and, what was even more pleasing, he was extremely wealthy.

  He had fallen in love with Mirabel and would have married her at the end of last year if he had not been in mourning for his mother, who had been in ailing health for some years.

  He was, however, determined that they should be married in November and Mirabel was now thinking apprehensively that it would be disastrous if her father refused to pay for the elaborate and expensive trousseau that she and her mother were planning.

  As if the Countess was thinking the same thing, she said coaxingly,

  “I am sure George dear, as you are so clever, you will find some way out of our difficulties and I know it would break the girls’ hearts if you really gave up the hounds.”

  She was thinking that it would also break her husband’s heart for he adored the pack he had been Master of for over fifteen years, taking over from his father before him.

  It was so much a part of their existence that it was impossible for those sitting round the breakfast table to imagine Warne Park without the meets that took place there every season.

  There was also the Hunt Ball when the ballroom was filled with pink-coated men and elegantly gowned women and the hunt breakfast at which the Earl was especially hospitable to any new members, as well as to those who had supported the hunt for many years.

  “We have to economise somewhere,” he said in a firm voice, “and if you are suggesting that I should sell anything in the house, the answer is ‘no!’ Everything has to be kept for Desmond, which is only fair.”

  The way he spoke made his daughters glance at each other with a knowing look in their eyes and a smile on their lips.

  They all knew that Desmond was the apple of his father’s eye. They had only to suggest that in a few years he would want the hounds to remain as they were and the economies would have to come from somewhere else.

  After fathering three daughters and finding the third was a dismal disappointment when he had so eagerly wanted a son, the Earl had given up hope of having an heir.

  Then, almost like a miracle, when his wife had thought that a fourth child was impossible, Desmond had arrived.

  He was the son the Earl had always wanted and he was, in fact, completely besotted by the small boy, now four, who was still in the nursery but for whom great plans had been made for the future.

  First the best Public School, then the best University and what could be better than Eton and Oxford.

  Then, of course, after a trip round the world to ‘widen his horizons’ as the Earl said grandly, he would help his father look after the estate until it became his.

  Almost as if they had rehearsed it together, Mirabel and Deirdre now said as one voice,

  “But you must be aware, Papa, that Desmond will want to ride with our own hounds and, of course, become Master of them when you are too old to carry on.”

  On the other side of the table Lady Elmina’s eyes were twinkling as she knew that, without having to fight a battle that meant even more to her than to either of her sisters, victory was assured.

  Not that she was really apprehensive, knowing how much her father loved his horses and looked forward all the year to when the hunting season came round again.

  She had the feeling that however much he groaned and grumbled he would be prepared to sell the clothes off his daughters’ backs rather than part with something that meant so much to him and, as it so happened, to her.

  The Earl, having been bitterly disappointed that his third child was yet another girl, had treated her in a different way from his two elder daughters.

  It was, strangely enough, with Elmina that he discussed the running of the estate and the wellbeing of his horses. She helped him with the training of the young animals he bred or bought cheap and turned them into first class hunters for himself and his family or else sold them at a good profit.

  It was Elmina who went out shooting with him in the autumn if he had no other guests and trudged over the fields in the wind and rain, regardless of possible damage to her complexion.

  Her sisters told her she was a fool to risk her looks, but she enjoyed being with her father and actually found, although it seemed incredible, that she was bored by their long conversations about the latest fashions or, after Mirabel had been presented at Court, the gossip about the love affairs of people she had never seen.

  As Elmina was the youngest, she inevitably wore all her sisters’ cast-off clothes and, as she was not yet officially a debutante, the opinions of the Social world and its fashions did not concern her.

  She was just wondering now as she finished her breakfast how quickly she could slip away to the stables before her mother found some task for her to do in the house, when the butler came into the room with a note on a silver salver.

  He took it to the Earl at the end of the table, saying pompously,

  “This has been brought by a groom, my Lord. He’s waiting for an answer.”

  The Earl glanced at the note without much interest.

  “Who is it from, Barton?”

  “The Marquis of Falcon, my Lord!”

  The Earl stiffened and sat upright.

  “Falcon? What the devil does he want?”

  “Really, George, not in front of the girls!” the Countess exclaimed. “I had no idea the Marquis was in residence.”

  “Neither had I
,” the Earl replied. “He spoke to me at White’s last week, but, as there was a hideous noise being made by some of the younger members, I did not actually hear what he said.”

  “Perhaps it’s an invitation, Papa!” Deirdre suggested.

  Mirabel laughed.

  “That is as likely as the Marquis asking himself to luncheon! We have never been invited to Falcon in eighteen years and we are not likely to be asked now.”

  The Earl took the note from the salver, opened it and then spent some time searching for his spectacles, which were not in the pocket he expected them to be.

  When he had placed them on his nose, he peered again at the letter in front of him, staring at it for such a long time that eventually his wife asked,

  “What is it, George? What does the Marquis want?”

  “Good God!” the Earl ejaculated. “I cannot believe it! Or else my eyes are deceiving me!”

  “What has happened? What does he say?” his wife enquired.

  Elmina was about to leave the table, but, now curious as to what the letter contained, she sat down again.

  The Earl stared once more at the piece of paper he held in his hand. Then, as if he was suddenly aware that not only his family but also his butler was waiting with understandable curiosity, he said,

  “I will ring, Barton. Tell the groom to wait.”

  “Very good, my Lord!”

  There was just a faint note of disappointment in the elderly butler’s voice.

  He had been with the family for over thirty years and he was always eager to know what was going on as soon as, if not sooner than, it actually happened.

  The Earl, however, waited until the pantry door had shut behind him before he said,

  “I can hardly believe that this is not some joke. Falcon suggests that he should marry my daughter!”

  For a moment there was complete silence.

  Then the Countess exclaimed,

  “You must be mistaken! Surely he cannot write anything like that out of the blue without any preliminaries?”

  “Now that I think about it,” the Earl said heavily, “that must be what he was saying to me the other night at White’s. To tell the truth, my dear, I had drunk rather a lot of port with old Anstruther and, as Falcon was also on the side of my bad ear, I just nodded and smiled at what he was saying, not realising that I was agreeing to anything like this!”

  “I can hardly believe it!” the Countess cried.

  “Personally, I consider it an insult!” Mirabel said firmly. “Thank goodness I don’t have to marry him!”

  “What do you mean – not marry him?” the Earl asked.

  He looked at his eldest daughter as if he had never seen her before, then said slowly,

  “The Falcon tiara is very becoming!”

  Mirabel gave a little scream.

  “What are you saying, Papa? What are you thinking? You know I intend to marry Robert and you have already given your consent.”

  “Your engagement is a secret at the moment and has not yet been announced.”

  Mirabel gave another scream.

  “You promised, Papa! You know you promised, and no gentleman would ever go back on his word.”

  The Earl gave a little sigh and looked at his second daughter.

  Deirdre had already anticipated this and she said,

  “Before you say another word, Papa, I have no intention of marrying the Marquis of Falcon! I have always disliked him for the discourteous way he has treated us when we have been out hunting and in any case, although I have not told you about it, Christopher and I have an understanding.”

  “Christopher Bardsley!” the Countess exclaimed. “Oh, Deirdre why did you not confide in me? I have hoped so much that he would be attracted to you.”

  “He is very attracted,” Deirdre answered, “but it has not been possible for him to speak to Papa while his father is so desperately ill and is expected to die at any moment.”

  “I quite understand,” the Countess said in a soft voice, “and I am sure, dearest child, that you will be very happy with such a charming young man.”

  She was thinking as she spoke that while Christopher was handsome and had, she thought, the best manners of any young man who came to the house, his father, Lord Bardsley, who lived about fifteen miles away, had a very fine estate, which Christopher would inherit with the title as soon as he died.

  “Thank you, Mama,” Deirdre said. “I thought you would understand. I have not spoken of it before because Christopher said it would seem heartless when his father was dying.”

  “That is all very well,” the Earl said sharply, “but what am I to say to Falcon?”

  “I will marry him, Papa!”

  If Elmina had fired a pistol in the breakfast room, she could not have caused more surprise.

  They all turned to stare at her and the Earl said in a not very complimentary fashion,

  “You? Of course he cannot marry you!”

  “Why not?” Elmina asked.

  “You are too young for one thing,” the Countess interposed.

  “I shall be eighteen next week,” Elmina said, “and you must remember, Mama, that your only excuse for not presenting me at Court this Season was that you could not contemplate three girls on your hands and that Papa would grumble at the expense.”

  She paused and then, as nobody seemed to have anything to say, she added,

  “I am quite old enough to be married and I am prepared to marry the Marquis!”

  The Earl looked at his daughter as if she was a young horse and he was considering her points.

  “The question is,” he said heavily after a moment, “whether the Marquis would be prepared to marry you.”

  “He cannot be very particular, Papa, for as far as we know, he has never noticed either Mirabel or Deirdre, so I imagine that any one of your daughters would be just as acceptable as another.”

  The Countess drew in her breath.

  “I still feel, George, that this is an insult! How can he write to you, asking to marry one of your daughters without approaching you in the proper manner first?”

  “I have just explained to you that Falcon must have approached me the other night, when I could not hear properly what he was saying to me. He has now put it in writing and you cannot pretend that he is not a man anybody would welcome as a son-in-law.”

  The Countess was silent.

  She was thinking of the Marquis’s importance in the Social world, his huge estate, which matched with theirs, his immense wealth and the fact that in her experience everybody spoke of him with awe.

  It was as if he was an inhabitant of a different planet from the one they lived in.

  Now the Earl looked at Elmina again, as if to make sure that he was not mistaken.

  Then he said coaxingly to Mirabel,

  “Surely, my dearest, you must realise the position you would have as the Marchioness of Falcon? Hereditary Lady-of-the-Bedchamber, persona grata at Court and there is never a distinguished visitor from abroad who does not expect to be entertained at Falcon.”

  “Then they are more fortunate than we are! We live within five miles of the house and hear about it from everybody we meet, but never once, Papa, have we been invited to the balls, the garden parties or even the steeplechases that take place there!”

  “I ride in them,” the Earl retorted sharply.

  “That is very kind of him, is it not?” Mirabel said scornfully. “He could hardly ignore you, since occasionally he hunts with your hounds! But how often has he asked you and Mama to dinner?”

  There was no reply, so she added,

  “I cannot recall a single instance since I was old enough to notice what you did and where you were going.”

  The Earl was silent.

  He knew that Mirabel was only saying what he himself had said a thousand times to his wife in private.

  “I call it a damned insult!” he had repeated over and over again. “Falcon thinks the people who live next to him in the County a
re not good enough to cross his threshold.”

  “I suppose, darling,” the Countess had said with a little sigh, having heard all this before, “the Marquis thinks that we are old and boring. We cannot really blame him when he is acclaimed and run after by every beauty in the Kingdom and, of course, by every ambitious Mama!”

  “Well, all I can say,” the Earl growled, “is that the father had better manners than the son!”

  Whatever was said about him, the Marquis had gone his own way.

  He had entertained at his enormous and magnificent house only those he wished to have as his guests and, although his neighbours ground their teeth in fury and the women bit their nails, the coveted invitations never came!

  But, of course, news of the gaieties of the Marquis’s hospitality swept towards them on the wind.

  The Earl looked down again at the letter.

  “Well, what are we going to do about this?” he asked.

  “Let Elmina marry him, Papa, if that is what she wants,” Deirdre said before anybody else could speak.

  There was a little tremor in her voice which told her sisters she was terrified that her father might insist on her throwing over Christopher Bardsley, with whom she was very much in love, because a bigger fish was being dangled in front of her eyes.

  “I am quite certain that, when the Marquis suggested he should marry my daughter, he was thinking of Mirabel,” the Earl said. “After all, she has been about London and he has doubtless seen her at the Devonshire’s or the Richmond’s balls.”

  “If he did see me,” Mirabel said quickly, “he did not pay me the compliment of even one glance in my direction. He was, if you want to know, extremely busy with Lady Carstairs, whose grace and beauty, according to the magazines, is greater than any that has ever before graced a London ballroom!”

  “I agree with that,” the Earl said spontaneously and then caught his wife’s eye.

  “Come along! Come along!” he said in a loud tone. “The groom is waiting and I have to give his Lordship some sort of answer!”

  “Tell him that you accept his proposal, Papa,” Elmina said, “and invite him to luncheon or dinner – but not before the end of next week.”

  Her father looked at her enquiringly and she went on,