Revenge of the Heart

  Author’s Note

  The reign of Czar Alexander III of Russia opened with a persecution of the Jews that was unequalled until fifty years later, when Adolf Hitler assumed power in Germany. The Czar ordered that one third of the Jews in the country must die, one third emigrate and one third assimilate.

  This appalling programme resulted in thousands of Jews being murdered and their property confiscated, while 225,000 desolate Jewish families left Russia for Western Europe.

  In 1892 the Emperor’s brother, the Grand Duke Serge, evicted thousands of Jewish artisans and small traders from Moscow. Cossacks surrounded their quarters in the middle of the night while police ransacked every home, driving the unhappy people out of their beds. Classed as criminals, they were forced along the roads to nowhere.

  In the summer of 1894 it was announced that Alexander III was suffering from dropsy, the result of kidney damage he had suffered in a train disaster. Desperately ill and shrunken to half his size, he lingered on until finally dying on 11 November.

  His son Nicolas II, whom the Prince of Wales once described as ‘weak as water’, reigned until 1917. The following year the Bolsheviks assassinated him and his family.

  Chapter One

  1894

  Warren Wood walked into the Hotel Meurice and made himself known to the receptionist.

  He had not been in Europe for nearly a year and only after the receptionist had sent for the manager was he duly recognised.

  “It is delightful to see you again, Monsieur Wood!” he said in excellent English. “I hope you enjoyed your trip abroad.”

  ‘Trip’ was hardly how Warren would have described his journey through North Africa in which there had been moments of delight, but a great deal of acute discomfort, besides times when his life had been in danger.

  He was, however, too glad to be back in Paris to be argumentative, so he merely asked if he could have a room, if possible the one he usually occupied and if his luggage, which he had left at the hotel nearly a year ago, could be sent up to him.

  All this was promised with a politeness he had always found characteristic of the French.

  Then, as he would have turned away from the desk, the manager said,

  “I have some correspondence for you, monsieur. Would you like it now or shall I send it up to your room?”

  “I will take it now, if you have it handy.”

  The manager disappeared into an inner sanctum and returned with a large packet of letters fastened together with string.

  Warren Wood took it, put it under his arm, then waited for the page that was carrying a piece of his small baggage to go ahead and show him the way.

  The room, if not the same one in which he had stayed before, was identical and on the Fourth Floor, from which he had a delightful view of the roofs and trees of Paris.

  As he stood at the window while the porters brought in his luggage, he thought there was nothing so attractive and beautiful as Paris in the sunshine.

  High above the houses with their grey shutters, which he thought when driving from the station he would recognise anywhere in the world, rose the Eiffel Tower, nine hundred and eighty-four feet high, which had been completed for the Exhibition which had taken place five years before.

  Its metal structure, as one Frenchman Warren had met at the time had boasted, was symbolic of the creativity, vigour and brilliance of France.

  But at that moment, Warren had not been interested in anything else except his own feelings of frustration and despair.

  Almost as if the Tower silhouetted against the sky made him remember what he had determined to forget, he turned from the window, tipped the porters who were waiting expectantly and sat down in an armchair to look at his letters.

  He was surprised there were so many and he wondered who, except his mother, could have bothered to write to him after he had left England.

  Then, as he undid the string and removed the neat band of paper that held the letters together, he looked at the one on top of the pile and stiffened.

  For a moment he could hardly credit what he was seeing.

  Yet there was no mistaking the flamboyant lettering, the pale blue envelope that was so familiar and the subtle, seductive scent of magnolias which personified the writer.

  He stared at the envelope as if it fascinated him, and yet at the same time he was afraid to open it.

  Why, he asked himself, should Magnolia, of all people, be writing to him here in Paris?

  That she had done so meant that she must have obtained his address from his mother, who was the only person who knew where he would be staying on his journey home.

  He told himself that if there was one person he did not wish to hear from at this moment, it was Magnolia.

  Then with a frown between his eyes and a tightening of his lips he carefully opened the envelope.

  Warren Wood was an extremely good-looking young man, but his appearance had altered in the last year from the personification of an elegant ‘man-about-town’ to become more intensely masculine and at the same time harder and more ruthless.

  It would have been impossible to live through the experiences he had shared with Edward Duncan without learning that life was not just a round of amusements and pleasure, as it had been in the past, and that it could never be the same again.

  At times on their journey in Africa Warren had thought that he could not stand it any longer and must admit the elements, the incredibly unpalatable food and most of all the camels had defeated him.

  If there was one thing Warren had grown to hate, it was the camels. They were lazy, tiresome, unpleasant beasts, difficult to handle, smelt abominably and at first riding them had made him feel seasick.

  After nearly a year’s endurance he had learnt to master them, but he knew that while he loved horses and could not imagine his life without dogs, the camel was undoubtedly his bête noire.

  He even thought they reminded him of some of his friends and acquaintances, and had once said to Edward,

  “I shall certainly avoid these people in the future!”

  To which Edward had laughed almost derisively.

  When they left each other the morning before at Marseilles, he had said,

  “Goodbye, Warren! I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed your company and what a delight it has been to have you with me.”

  He spoke so sincerely that Warren felt almost embarrassed thinking of the times when he had cursed himself for accepting Edward’s invitation.

  However, he knew when he looked back on these last months that they had enriched his character and broadened his horizons in many ways that he had never anticipated.

  And yet now, the first thing he had found on his return was a letter from Magnolia.

  And it was because of Magnolia that he had gone to Africa to forget.

  *

  He had been sitting in his Club in St. James’s with a large glass of brandy beside him when Edward had sat down in an adjacent chair.

  “Hello, Warren!” he had said. “I have not seen you for some time, but then I have been in the country.”

  “Hello!”

  The tone of Warren’s voice made Edward look at him sharply.

  “What is the matter?” he asked. “I have not seen you look so down in the dumps since you were beaten in the long jump at Eton!”

  Warren did not reply, he only looked down at the glass beside him and so Edward asked in a different tone,

  “What has upset you? Can I help?”

  “Not unless you can tell me the best way of putting a bullet through my brain!” Warren answered.

  His friend looked at him searchingly before he enquired,

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very! But I suppose
if I did shoot myself it would distress my mother, who is the only person I can trust in this damned crooked, filthy world in which everybody lies, and lies and lies!”

  He spoke so violently that Edward glanced around the room hoping he was not being overheard.

  Fortunately there were only two other members, elderly and half asleep, in the big leather chairs at the other end of the room, oblivious to everything except themselves.

  “It is not like you to talk like this,” Edward remarked. “What has happened?”

  Warren had given a bitter laugh and Edward, who had known him since they had been at school and Oxford together, realised he had had a lot to drink, which was for him very unusual and he was now at the talkative stage.

  “Tell me what is wrong,” he said coaxingly.

  As if he was glad to have somebody with whom to share his feelings, Warren replied,

  “It is not a very original story, but I have just learnt that the only thing that counts is a man’s possessions – not himself!”

  “You cannot be speaking of Magnolia?” Edward asked tentatively.

  “Who else?” Warren replied. “When I took her down to stay at Buckwood it never crossed my mind that she was not, as she had assured me, as much in love with me as I was with her.”

  He paused and his fingers tightened on his glass as he said fiercely,

  “I loved her, Edward, loved her with my whole heart! She was everything I wanted in a woman and as my wife.”

  “I know that,” Edward replied quietly, “but what happened then?”

  Again there was that bitter and unpleasant laugh before Warren replied,

  “You may well ask! She met Raymond!”

  Edward stared at him.

  “Do you mean your cousin? But, good Heavens, he has only just come of age!”

  “What did that matter, beside the fact that he is an Earl?”

  In a mocking, sarcastic voice Warren went on,

  “My dear Edward, you must realise, as I was stupid enough not to do, that all a woman needs to make her happy is a title and money. What the man himself is like is utterly and completely immaterial!”

  Edward would have spoken, but Warren continued,

  “He may have bow legs, crossed eyes and warts on his nose, but if he is likely to become a Marquis, then the idea of being his wife supersedes every other feeling in what she quite erroneously describes as her – heart!”

  He choked over the last word and drained what was left in his glass, then put up his hand to attract a waiter.

  Fortunately there was not one in the room at that moment and then Edward said,

  “Before you get too drunk, Warren, tell me the whole story. I am not only interested, but very sympathetic.”

  “Thank you, old boy!” Warren replied. “I suppose I can trust you not to let me down, although I swear to God I will never trust a woman again – never!”

  “But surely,” Edward protested, “Magnolia does not intend to marry Raymond?”

  “Oh, yes, she does!” Warren replied. “And now I look back, I realise she made a dead set for him the very moment we walked into Buckwood! I suppose, now I think about it, Raymond did not stand a chance as soon as she looked at him with her large dewy eyes!”

  Edward knew this was very likely true.

  Magnolia Keane was not only beautiful, but she had practised the art of fascinating men until, as Edward was well aware, she could exert an almost hypnotic influence on anyone she desired.

  He had known quite a lot about Magnolia before she met his friend Warren Wood, and the first time he saw them together he had thought it a mistake for him to become embroiled with her.

  Coming from a good county family, Magnolia had migrated to London determined to find herself a rich and important husband.

  It should have been easy, Edward thought, considering how extremely beautiful she was, while her father, who was Master of a well known pack of foxhounds, was popular and had a number of friends in sporting circles.

  But Magnolia’s father was not a rich man and while by a great deal of scrimping and saving Colonel Keane could afford to take a house in London for the Season, it was not in the most fashionable area and he did not contemplate giving a ball for his daughter.

  This meant that the invitations she received were not as numerous as they would have been if she had been able to reciprocate in the usual manner.

  The whole process of bringing out a debutante was very much a ‘cutlet for a cutlet’ and on that basis Colonel and Mrs. Keane and their daughter Magnolia had not been invited to any balls given by the leaders of London Society!

  This therefore resulted in Magnolia meeting considerably fewer eligible bachelors than she had hoped.

  She did not, in fact, receive a single proposal of marriage during her first Season and, although a great many men admired her, unfortunately most of them were already married.

  In consequence the Dowagers gossiped about her and her name was crossed off a number of the lists that every hostess kept punctiliously.

  The following year, after having shone like a star at a number of Hunt Balls and attended race meetings and point-to-points at which she was inevitably encircled by a group of admiring men, both old and young, Magnolia came to London again.

  She was determined that this time she would end the Season with an engagement ring on her finger.

  There was no engagement ring, but she did meet a distinguished Baronet eighteen years her senior, who became her constant companion and in private pursued her as relentlessly as any hound pursues a fox.

  Magnolia played him as skilfully as a fisherman would play what appeared to be a hooked fish, but at the last moment, when she had actually started to plan her trousseau, he got away.

  She could hardly believe it was true when he told her that he had made some extremely unfortunate investments and found it would be impossible for him to keep up his house and estates unless, to put it bluntly, he ‘married money’.

  Magnolia decided to put a good face on what was a disastrous setback and a humiliation she was determined not to acknowledge.

  The moment she realised she had lost her Baronet, she told her friends most convincingly that she had found it impossible to marry a man who was so much older than her and ‘set in his ways’.

  “It may be very stupid of me,” she had said, “but I want somebody I can not only love, but also laugh with, and enjoy life as poor James found it impossible to do.”

  If a few people guessed the truth, the majority merely assumed that, as Magnolia was so beautiful, she had plenty of time to find somebody who really suited her.

  Only Magnolia herself was aware that time was passing and if she were not careful she would find herself on the shelf.

  She was well aware that most men married a girl because she was young and innocent, and who they considered to be an ideal wife.

  If they wanted anything else, there were always the sophisticated beauties who were to be found in the ‘Marlborough House Set’, and who were acclaimed wherever they went by the public and in the newspapers.

  At nearly twenty-one Magnolia was desperate when she met Warren Wood.

  He was everything that she thought a man should be, handsome, exceedingly well bred and welcome in the most distinguished Social circles.

  His father, Lord John Wood, was the younger brother of the Marquis of Buckwood and, as Magnolia was well aware, there was no family in the whole of the British Isles more respected and admired than that headed by the Marquis.

  The house from which the first Marquis had taken his name stood on an estate that had been given by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Walter Wood after he had sunk three Spanish galleons.

  He had brought her not only the spoils of victory, but also some exceedingly fine pearls, which he had taken from his prisoners.

  As soon as Magnolia met Warren she told herself that he was her fate.

  Although, as far as she could ascertain, he did not have much money, she knew that eve
ry social door would be open to her as his wife and she would undoubtedly embellish the ‘Marlborough House Set’.

  Warren, who at twenty-eight had enjoyed a great number of love affairs with the beauties who found him both handsome and charming, was surprisingly bowled over by Magnolia.

  There was something irresistible, he thought, about her large, dark liquid eyes, and her soft white skin, which really did have the texture of a magnolia.

  It was only later that he learnt that she had not in fact been christened ‘Magnolia’, but the more commonplace ‘Mary’, and had changed to a more glamorous name when she was old enough to appreciate her own charms.

  She was in fact very beautiful and attractive and had, when she wanted to use it, a charm that few people, especially men, could resist.

  Unfortunately for Magnolia, at the time when he proposed, her mother had died most inconveniently two months earlier.

  This meant that it would be considered extremely improper and heartless for her even to think of an engagement until at least four more months had elapsed.

  Then they would still have to wait another three months before they could be married.

  Magnolia had no intention of starting off her marriage on the wrong foot from a Social point of view.

  She had therefore accepted Warren’s proposal with alacrity, but told him that for the time being it must be a precious secret between the two of them.

  “I understand, my darling,” he said, “and of course I will do anything you want, except that I cannot wait one moment longer than is absolutely necessary to make you my wife.”

  “I love you! I love you!” Magnolia had said. “If it is difficult for you to wait, it is equally hard for me!”

  He thought nobody could be more adorable as he kissed her passionately and she had appeared a little shy.

  Then she had extricated herself from his arms while still holding closely to his hand.

  “We must be very careful that we are not talked about,” she said. “At the same time, darling, wonderful Warren, I would love to meet your family.”

  He smiled.

  “I expect you really want to see Buckwood!” he said. “It is the most beautiful house in the world and I only wish for your sake that I owned it!”