The Unbreakable Spell

  Author’s Note

  A swordstick is a walking stick which conceals a sharp rapier-like steel blade. Swordsticks date from the 1730s and continued in production until the late nineteenth century.

  In 1820 Calais could be reached from Dover in three hours and the passage even in bad weather rarely took longer than five or six.

  Of the public transport available in France the diligence was the quickest and the horses, which were changed every twelve miles, travelled at a gallop. There were thirty and a half posts between Calais and Paris.

  The only comfortable way, however, was for travellers to take their own horses and well-sprung carriages. This was, needless to say, very expensive.

  CHAPTER ONE 1820

  Rocana was sitting sewing in the window seat of what had been the schoolroom of The Castle when the door was burst open.

  She looked up to see her cousin and realised at one glance at her lovely face that something was wrong.

  “What is it, Caroline?” she asked.

  It seemed as if for a moment Lady Caroline Brunt found it impossible to reply.

  Then as she walked towards Rocana she said furiously,

  “I will not do it! I will not marry him whatever Papa may say!”

  “Marry!” Rocana exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

  Caroline sat down on the window seat and clasping her hands together answered,

  “You will not believe what has – happened!”

  Rocana put down the lace she was mending with very small stitches that trimmed the Duchess’s gown.

  “Tell me about it,” she said in her soft voice. “I can see it has upset you.”

  “Upset me!” Caroline exclaimed. “I am furious and completely devastated, but I do not know what to do – about it!”

  There was something pathetic in the last words and Rocana bent forward to put her hand on Caroline’s.

  “Tell me,” she begged.

  “Papa has just told me that he has invited the Marquis of Quorn to stay for the Steeplechase that takes place on Wednesday,” Caroline replied, “and the Marquis has intimated that he will ask me to marry him!”

  “The Marquis of Quorn!” Rocana exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I am sure! And when I declared firmly that I have no intention of marrying him, Papa merely said ‘I don’t wish to argue about it, Caroline, you must talk to your mother’.”

  Both girls were still, knowing that it was impossible to talk to the Duchess, for if she had made up her mind nothing and nobody would be able to alter it.

  There was a silence until Caroline jumped up to say again,

  “I will not marry him! I will not! You know that I love Patrick and he was waiting for an opportunity to approach Papa.”

  Rocana did not say anything because she had always been certain that Caroline would never be allowed to marry Patrick Fairley.

  Their nearest neighbour, the son of a Baronet and a very charming person, there was nothing wrong with him except that the Duchess was extremely ambitious for her daughter and had set her sights very much higher than on a mere country gentleman.

  Usually Caroline was quiet and obedient to her mother’s wishes and in every way an exemplary daughter.

  Only Rocana knew how much falling in love had changed her and perhaps for the first time in her life a little of her mother’s strong will had become evident in her.

  It was not surprising that she had fallen in love with Patrick, a boy she had known all her life, because it was only in the last two months that Caroline had emerged from the school room to become a Social debutante.

  Before that no Social life had been organised for her, and in accordance with normal custom, when the Duke and Duchess entertained, she did not join the party, but ate with her cousin and her Governess upstairs.

  It was therefore inevitable, since she met Patrick Fairley almost every day when the girls went riding to exercise their horses, that not only would he fall in love with her but she with him.

  Only Rocana realised what was happening and wondered when it was found out what the Duchess would say.

  Actually, she did not wonder, she knew only too well.

  The Duchess had pushed her husband into every position of authority in the county and had forced him against his will to take up his hereditary duties at the Palace.

  The Duke was an easy-going man who was perfectly content to spend his time in looking after his estate and enjoying himself with his horses and dogs.

  His only extravagance was to keep a number of racehorses that seldom came in first, but gave him the excuse of attending race meetings, which to his relief did not interest his wife.

  It must have been on these occasions, Rocana thought now, that he had become acquainted with the Marquis of Quorn who moved in a very different circle from that of the Duke and Duchess of Bruntwick.

  It would have been impossible, even in the depths of the country, not to have heard of the Marquis, who was a close friend of the Prince Regent, but at the same time was a very different character from the Bucks and Beaux who surrounded His Royal Highness.

  The Marquis was by all accounts not only one of the richest noblemen in the country, but also the most successful at everything he undertook.

  Even the Duke could not help extolling his successes on the Racecourses, where his horses ‘walked off’ with every prize.

  He was also known to be an exceptional shot and a pugilist who had boxed with ‘Gentleman’ Jackson and Mendoza and he had also distinguished himself in the war, receiving several medals for gallantry.

  If he was a hero in the stables, he was also whispered about in every drawing room.

  Rocana could remember hearing more from the servants than from her aunt’s friends what was not meant for her ears.

  Although it did not particularly interest her, she had heard of the Marquis’s many love affairs, some of which had ended in tragedy.

  It was said, although it might not be true, that more than one beautiful lady had committed suicide when he left her, while others had pined away with broken hearts.

  It was also related that he had fought a number of duels, which he invariably won, with jealous husbands who had ‘called him out’ to defend their honour.

  To Rocana he had become like a fictional character in a book and, although she told herself he was too fantastic to be true, she found herself adding up his exploits as if each was a further chapter to all that she had already learned about him.

  Now to hear that he intended to marry Caroline took her breath away.

  When she could speak, she asked,

  “Do you know the Marquis?”

  “I have met him about three times, I suppose,” Caroline replied. “Lady Jersey introduced him to me at Almack’s, and I was well aware she was doing it out of spite as he had no wish to dance with a debutante!”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing, I was too shy,” Caroline replied. “Besides, he was scowling because he had no wish to dance, least of all with me!”

  “When did you see him again?”

  “I cannot remember at which ball it was. Perhaps the one at Devonshire House.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He came up to speak to Papa about a race meeting they had attended the day before. There had been an objection over the way one of the horses had run or something tiresome like that.”

  “Go on,” Rocana prompted.

  “When they had talked for some time, Papa said, ‘you have met my daughter Caroline?’

  The Marquis bowed and I curtsied and he said,

  ‘We danced together at Almack’s.’

  “I was surprised he remembered and I said, ‘yes,’ a
nd he did not speak to me again.”

  “What happened the next time?”

  “He had to talk to me then because I was sitting next to him at dinner, but he did not say much because he was engaged in conversation with the lady on his other side, who was certainly not going to allow me to capture his attention if she could help it!”

  Caroline paused.

  Then she added,

  “He is stuck up, full of his own self-importance, condescending and, if you want the truth, I dislike him!”

  “Then how can you marry him?” Rocana asked.

  “I cannot do it! I cannot!” Caroline cried. “I know this is all Mama’s doing! If she could not find a Prince or a Duke for me, then a Marquis was the next best thing!”

  Rocana thought privately that from what she had heard the Marquis was far more important than any Duke.

  But she could understand that Caroline would feel helpless and inevitably miserable with a man who was overbearing and had a reputation like the Marquis.

  At the same time he might well be looking for a wife, because sooner or later he must have an heir to inherit his title, his wealth and his vast possessions.

  Although Rocana had not seen any of the other debutantes, she could not believe that any of them could be more beautiful than Caroline.

  Her cousin in fact typified the traditional ‘English Rose’.

  She had a perfect pink and white skin, large, rather pale blue eyes and fair hair which any poet would describe as ‘the gold of ripening corn’.

  She was graceful, she was usually very sweet tempered and it was too much to ask that on top of all these attributes she should be very intelligent as well.

  When they had their lessons together, it was Rocana who always outstripped anything their Governess could teach her on any particular subject and she had therefore had to carry on where they left off and educate herself.

  When she had first come to live at The Castle after her parents’ death, she had thought it was a prison in which she was incarcerated for life and she was so miserable that she thought she must die.

  Then she discovered the huge library which had awoken her interest and made her feel she had something to live for.

  It was her mother who had taught her from when she was very small to be curious to the point where she wanted to learn more about anything she heard being talked about.

  It was her mother who had taught her French, which was her own native language, and had made her aware that, marvellous though the British thought themselves, there were other countries and other people in other parts of the world.

  “You have to be broad-minded, my darling,” she said. “The more you learn and the more you study, the more you will be able to see other people’s points of view and understand their feelings as well as your own.”

  It was something it had been very hard to do during the war when, because the English were fighting against her mother’s native country, not only many of their so-called friends ostracised her, but also her husband’s nearest relatives.

  It was a long time later after she had come to live at The Castle that Rocana realised, although it seemed incredible, that the Duke had actually been jealous of his younger brother and the Duchess of her mother.

  As was usual in the great aristocratic families of England, the eldest son had everything.

  The Duke of Bruntwick had his title, The Castle and a huge estate, while his younger brother had a small allowance which meant he was continually in debt.

  Because everybody loved ‘Lord Leo’, as he was always known, although he had been christened ‘Leopold’, he was welcomed wherever he went, and his real friends accepted his French wife for his sake.

  It was, however, very difficult, as Rocana realised, for her mother who adored her husband and had no wish to embarrass him.

  She had been the daughter of the French Ambassador to England during the Armistice of 1802.

  Lord Leo had seen her at a party in London and had immediately known she was what he had been looking for all his life.

  Very good-looking, popular, a man’s man, though at the same time women were wildly attracted to him, Lord Leo had a charm that few people and no animal could resist.

  If he had fallen in love with Yvette de Soissons, it was not surprising that she had fallen in love with him.

  In spite of the disapproval of the Duke and Duchess of Bruntwick and the anxious concern of the Ambassador, they were married within a few months.

  To say they were happy was to put it mildly.

  They were ecstatic and everything was perfect until hostilities broke out again between Britain and France.

  The Ambassador returned to Paris and, although he was a rich man, he was unable to send his daughter any money.

  “I am just an encumbrance!” Rocana heard her mother say once when she did not know that she was listening.

  “What do I want with money?” her father asked, “when you have given me the moon, the stars and a happiness that Midas himself could not exceed?”

  He had swept her into his arms and kissed her until they were laughing because it was so wonderful to be together, and Rocana had known from that moment that money could not buy love.

  She was made aware as soon as she came to The Castle that she was an object of contempt.

  Seldom a day passed that the Duchess did not point out that she was not only an orphan but a penniless one and that she had to be grateful to her uncle not only for a roof over her head, but for every crumb of food she put into her mouth.

  “Extravagant, irresponsible and utterly improvident, that is what your father was!” she would say contemptibly. “As for your mother – !”

  There was no need for words for the Duchess to describe what she thought of her dead sister-in-law.

  When Rocana looked in the mirror and knew she resembled her mother, she realised why the Duchess hated them both.

  The Duke of course had made an arranged marriage, as was usual, and as it was the merger of two great families, it had been considered very commendable.

  The Duchess’s father, the Duke of Hull, had given her a very large dowry and on his death she had inherited several squares and streets in London, the rents of which every year came to quite a considerable sum.

  She had given the Duke the heir he desired and had intrigued until he was appointed Master of the Horse to the King, a position in which at the moment he had little to do since the Monarch was dying.

  The Duchess then produced Caroline some years later, who fortunately took after her father and inherited the good looks of his family.

  There had been beautiful Duchesses of Bruntwick all down the centuries and yet, because her mother was so lovely, Rocana had managed to combine the beauty of both her English and her French ancestors in a manner which made her unique.

  It also resulted in her being kept by her aunt from taking any part in family Social activities from the time she left the schoolroom.

  As she was nearly a year older than Caroline, this meant their companionship was confined to their bedrooms and the schoolroom and, unless the family were alone, Rocana did not go downstairs for meals.

  At first she could hardly believe that her aunt really intended to isolate her in such a way and thought perhaps she was just prolonging her mourning for her father, who had died a year after her mother.

  Then the Duchess had spelt it out to her very simply,

  “I never approved of your father, Rocana,” she said in her sharp voice, “and, as you know, your mother was an enemy of this country, an alien, who should in my opinion have been imprisoned whilst we were at war. I therefore have no wish for you to meet Caroline’s friends or impose on her when we are entertaining.”

  She paused before she went on spitefully,

  “You can try to make yourself more useful than you are at the moment by helping with her gowns and tidying her room when the housemaids are busy. When we go to London, you will of course stay here!”

  I
t had taken Caroline’s old nanny to make it clear to Rocana why she was being treated in such a way.

  “Now don’t upset yourself, dearie,” she said when she found Rocana in tears. “Her Grace’s just jealous and there’s no other word for it.”

  “Jealous?” Rocana asked incredulously.

  “She always was plain, even when she was young, and now with lines on her face and a stout figure you could hardly expect her not to see the difference between herself and your mother!”

  “I never thought of her being jealous of Mama!”

  “Of course she was jealous!” Nanny said sharply. “Just as His Grace was jealous of Lord Leo. How could he help it when everybody loved your father? He rode better than His Grace and always beat him in any Steeplechase or Point-to-Point, even when they was young boys!”

  Rocana had stood in front of the mirror and realised that while she had fair hair, which was characteristic of the Bruntwicks, her eyes, because her mother was dark, were not blue like Caroline’s, but a strange colour that in certain lights seemed almost purple.

  “Pansy eyes,” her father called them and told her mother that hers hypnotised him so that he could never escape from them.

  They certainly were strange, Rocana thought, against her pink and white complexion, which again was part of the Bruntwick tradition.

  But her face was heart-shaped, which she had seen in so many portraits of her French ancestors and when she smiled she had a mischievous twist to her lips which was unlike the perfect Cupid bow in Caroline’s face.

  She remembered her father saying to her mother once,

  “I think, my darling, you are a witch. You have certainly bewitched me! Perhaps you are the reincarnation of Morgan le Fay or one of the mediaeval witches who were burned at the stake because the people were frightened of them!”

  “Are you frightened of me?” her mother asked softly.

  “Only frightened of losing you,” her father replied, “and you know, as well as I do, that a man has only to look at you to find you irresistible!”

  Her mother had laughed and said,

  “If they do it is only a compliment to you, my darling. As far as I am concerned, there is only one man in the whole world and I shall use every spell I know to keep him captive!”