A Duel With Destiny Read online

  “Is that when I start at Eton, my Lord?” Mark asked.

  “Yes,” the Marquis answered, “and I intend to tell you a great deal about the school, which will make it seem less strange and frightening when you arrive there.”

  “Thank you, my Lord, thank you very much!” Mark answered and added irrepressibly, “You will not forget my horse?”

  “I promise you that I will send for you or come and collect you myself the moment I return from London.”

  The Marquis smiled and added,

  “You might spend the time between in catching up with your lessons and getting ahead. It would be a pity for them to interfere with the time you might be riding.”

  He spoke lightly, but Rowena knew that Mark understood that it was an order.

  “I promise I will do so,” he answered.

  As the Marquis was talking to Mark she waited just inside the hall door, feeling that it would be rude to move away. At the same time she was aware because of the emotions within her that she would be wise to go.

  “Now everything is settled satisfactorily,” the Marquis smiled, “and I hope, Rowena, that you too will be looking forward to my return.”

  With Mark listening there was nothing she could do but to curtsey.

  She would not have given the Marquis her hand, but he reached out and took it and, before she could prevent him, he raised it to his lips.

  She had taken off her gloves while he was talking and now she felt his mouth against her bare skin.

  Involuntarily her fingers tightened on his.

  He raised his head and looked into her eyes, his face close to hers.

  In that moment they were both very still.

  Then the Marquis put his hat on his head.

  “Goodbye, Mark,” he said. “Take care of your sister. She is a very special person.”

  He climbed back into the phaeton, Sam released the horses’ heads and they started off before the groom had scrambled into the seat beside his Master.

  Because she did not wish to see him go Rowena went into the house leaving Mark waving from the steps until the horses were out of sight.

  Rowena had reached the top of the stairs when Mark hailed her from the hall.

  “I say, Rowena, could anything be more marvellous? You don’t think he will forget?”

  “No, I am certain he will not,” Rowena replied dryly.

  She walked towards her room, but Mark’s voice arrested her again.

  “Is Papa angry with me?”

  Rowena turned back to lean over the banisters.

  “Papa does not know, Mark. I did not tell him. You are to promise me that you will not mention that you went away as it would upset him terribly.”

  “No, of course I will not mention it,” Mark answered. “It was jolly decent of you, Rowena, not to tell him.”

  “He had left the house and did not see your note. I will tear it up and we will forget that it ever happened. Is that understood?”

  Mark nodded.

  Then he gave a cry that seemed to echo round the hall.

  “Hunting, Rowena! I am going to hunt. Just think of it!”

  ‘It’s no use,’ Rowena thought, ‘the Marquis has captured him completely.’

  He had won the battle over Hermione and Mark and, she had to admit, where her father was concerned as well.

  That left only Lotty, who was too young to matter, and herself.

  “He shall not win!” Rowena said aloud as she reached her bedroom. “If he is prepared to use any means and any weapons to get his own way, then I must use the only one I have left.”

  *

  Rowena, travelling to London by stagecoach, was wondering whether the Marquis’s superlative horses drawing his big-wheeled phaeton, which could travel four times as quickly, would pass them on the road.

  She thought, however, as she had left so early in the morning that it was unlikely.

  She was hoping as she sat squeezed between a farmer’s fat wife and an even stouter gentleman who was travelling as a representative of a wine firm, that her father would not be worried when he read the letter she had left for him.

  For the first time since she could remember Rowena had lied.

  She had told him that she was journeying to London at the Marquis’s suggestion to see about clothes for Hermione to take with her to Florence. She thought that she might stay one night, if not two, and felt sure that he and the children could manage without her.

  Her father would be surprised, but Rowena thought that in his usual trustful way he would not suspect that she was doing anything but what she had said that she intended to do.

  ‘If I fail,’ she told herself, ‘then I can come back this evening.’

  She was certain that any searching questions there might be would come from Hermione and not her father.

  The stagecoach rumbled along the country roads, throwing up a great deal of dust until the roads improved, there were more houses and they had reached the outskirts of London.

  It was then Rowena wished she had taken a seat on top of the coach, knowing that she would not have been so hot and uncomfortable and would have been able to have a better view as they entered the City.

  But she had been afraid that the Marquis might notice her as he sped past and that was the one thing she was determined must not happen under any circumstances.

  It was unlikely, and yet it was a possibility, and she was resolved that in this venture, if in nothing else, she could take no risks.

  It was quite by chance that yesterday evening she had turned almost unconsciously to the social column in The Morning Post to see if there was anything written about the celebrations for the Duke of Wellington that the Marquis had referred to.

  She knew that the Prince Regent’s party would be written up after the event, but she told herself that she was not concerned with the social aspect. It was the tributes the ordinary people were paying to the hero of Waterloo that were interesting.

  To her surprise Rowena found that a most elaborate gala was being arranged in the London Parks to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile and the centenary of the accession to the English throne of the House of Hanover.

  In St. James’s Park, a Chinese Pagoda was being erected and a picturesque yellow bridge ornamented with a bright blue roof.

  In Green Park there was an embattled Gothic Castle over a hundred feet square and in Hyde Park booths, stalls, arcades, kiosks, swings and roundabouts.

  Lanterns were to line Birdcage Walk and the Mall and it was reported that five hundred men had been at work for a month to produce the ‘most brilliant fireworks ever seen in the country’.

  The Morning Post promised a spectacle of ‘unparalleled splendour’, but Rowena wondered what all this had to do with the Iron Duke.

  It was hard after so many years of war to realise that peace had come at last and the privations they had all suffered from would gradually disappear.

  ‘Perhaps food will be cheaper,’ Rowena told herself hopefully.

  She knew that already the farmers were apprehensive that without the War they would no longer be so much in demand.

  ‘I expect on the whole it will make very little difference to us,’ Rowena mused.

  She could understand that the Marquis, who she had learnt while he was staying in their house, had served under Wellington for five years, must be present when his Commander was the guest of honour at Carlton House.

  But while there was no mention of the Marquis or of the Prince Regent’s party in The Social Gazette, there was a paragraph that Rowena read several times before she put down the newspapers to stand thinking reflectively in her father’s study.

  This, she told herself, was the weapon that she had been seeking, a weapon that she could fight the Marquis with and defeat him once and for all.

  The question was, dare she use it?

  Then she told herself that she had nothing to lose. If she was rebuffed, ignored or insulted, no one would know but herself
. She would never in any circumstances let her father learn of what he personally would think of as a betrayal.

  The thought of her father made Rowena hesitate. But she told herself that the vital thing was to make the Marquis understand once and for all that she would not do what he asked of her.

  ‘Oh, Mama, help me!’ she prayed, raising her eyes to where hanging over her father’s desk there was a portrait of her mother painted soon after they had been married.

  Rowena had inherited her mother’s hair and eyes, her heart-shaped face and sweet expression. Yet at nineteen she felt that she was immeasurably older in so many ways than her mother had ever been.

  She had no longer the trusting faith that she met the world with before she encountered the Marquis. He had disillusioned her and destroyed her ideals.

  ‘I loved him,’ she thought, ‘I loved him wholeheartedly and it seemed when he kissed me as if our love was a part of God.’

  But it had been nothing of the sort. It had merely been a temptation of the Devil and once again Rowena told herself that she hated him and everything he stood for.

  It was then that she had made up her mind.

  “I will go to London,” she said aloud.

  *

  The stagecoach rumbled into the yard of The Two Headed Swan at Islington and the passengers alighted.

  Although she felt shocked at the amount of money she was spending Rowena realised that from there she would have to hire a Hackney carriage to take her to Curzon Street.

  She had no idea of how otherwise she could get there and moreover to waste time would mean that there would be no chance of her returning home that evening.

  The driver of the Hackney carriage knew Dunvegan House where she asked to be taken and only when it stopped outside a tall gloomy mansion did Rowena realise that her hands were trembling and her mouth felt dry.

  Nevertheless having paid off the driver she walked firmly up the steps and raised the knocker on the door.

  It was some seconds before she heard footsteps and the door was opened by a very old servant wearing a livery in which he appeared to have shrunk so that it hung loosely from his shoulders.

  If he appeared decrepit, the two footmen behind him with powdered wigs were tall and upstanding and Rowena saw that the inside of the hall, while cluttered with heavy ponderous furniture, was impressive.

  “I wish to speak with the Earl of Dunvegan.”

  “Is his Lordship expecting you?” the old butler asked in a quavering voice.

  “No,” Rowena admitted. “But will you please tell his Lordship that his granddaughter desires to speak with him.”

  She saw the surprise in the old man’s eyes. Then he shuffled across the hall to open a door.

  “Will you wait in here, miss?” he asked.

  The room was decorated with tasselled curtains of dark red velvet that precluded most of the light and huge pieces of mahogany furniture.

  Rowena hardly looked around her.

  She was waiting breathlessly for the butler’s return.

  It seemed to her that she waited a long time, it might have been months rather than minutes.

  Then there were the shuffling footsteps on the uncarpeted marble floor and the door opened.

  “Will you come this way, miss?”

  He could not move quickly and Rowena could not help wishing that one of the footmen had escorted her.

  Moving at a snail’s pace they came to two impressive double doors, which the butler flung open.

  It was a big room looking out to the back of the house and sitting stiffly upright beside the empty hearth was an elderly man.

  Rowena had only to look at him to know that he was exactly what she had expected her mother’s father would look like.

  An aristocrat with his clear-cut Roman nose, shrewd perceptive eyes under heavy eyebrows, a mouth and chin that bespoke an obstinacy and a determination equalled only, she thought, by that of the Marquis.

  He seemed to be a long way away as Rowena walked towards him.

  Only when she reached the hearthrug did she stop to look at him, her eyes very wide and anxious in her small face,

  “ You are my granddaughter?”

  The voice was sharp and there was nothing elderly about it.

  Rowena curtseyed.

  “I am Rowena Winsford.”

  “You are very like your mother.”

  “Yes, but she was very beautiful.”

  “Has she sent you to me?”

  “She is dead. She died two years ago.”

  “Dead!”

  There was a note in the old man’s voice that told her this was a shock, something he had not expected.

  “She died soon after Christmas because it was so cold. She had pneumonia and we could not afford fuel to keep the house warm.”

  Rowena thought she saw his lips tighten, but she was not certain.

  She had the feeling that he was too self-controlled to reveal an emotion of any sort.

  “Why have you come to see me?”

  “I need your help.”

  “Can your father not give you that?”

  “I am not asking for financial help,” Rowena said quickly. “It is too late for that. It would have helped Mama, but you know that she would not have approached you.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  Then the Earl of Dunvegan said,

  “You had better sit down and explain yourself.”

  This was a considerable concession, as Rowena was aware. She saw that there was a chair near the one where he was sitting and she sat down gratefully, feeling that her legs were weak as if she had suffered from a long illness.

  “Where have you come from?”

  “We live in the country not far from Hatfield.”

  “And you knew I was in London?”

  “I saw it in The Morning Post.”

  “But I live in Scotland as perhaps you are aware.”

  “Mama told me about you shortly before she died. I had no idea until then who she was before she married or that she had run away with Papa.”

  “She doubtless told you that when she left my house she ceased to be my daughter?”

  “Yes, she told me that is what you had said, but she loved Papa and she was very very happy with him.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Then, as if he could not control his curiosity, the Earl asked,

  “And you are her only child?”

  “No, there is Hermione who is sixteen, Mark who is twelve, and Lotty who is eight.”

  “I hope your father can afford them.”

  “We manage.”

  “Then why do you need my help?”

  “That is what I want to tell you,” Rowena said. “I want to make it very clear that I am not begging. Mama had the same pride that you had and she told me that I had your obstinacy.”

  Just for a moment there was a faint smile on the Earl’s lips as he asked,

  ‘‘Are you obstinate?”

  “I think so, certainly with regard to one thing. And that is why I am here.”

  “And what is that?”

  Rowena hesitated for a moment and then she said,

  “It concerns the Marquis of Swayne.”

  “I know him. What has he to do with you?”

  “He wants me to become his mistress!”

  “His mistress? What the devil is your father doing about it?”

  There was no doubt that Rowena had startled the old man, as she had intended.

  “Papa knows nothing about it. The Marquis had an accident and was brought to our house anf I nursed him.”

  “And fell in love with him, I suppose?”

  Rowena paused for a moment.

  “Yes – I fell in love with him and I thought he was in love with me.”

  “So he offered you his – protection.”

  There was no doubt of the sneer behind the words.

  “I thought, because he said that he loved me, that he wished to marry
me,” Rowena said simply.

  There was silence.

  Then the Earl of Dunvegan said,

  “He was not prepared to make a doctor’s daughter his wife, I presume.”

  “No, and ever since I refused him, he will not leave us alone.”

  Speaking quickly Rowena told her grandfather what the Marquis was doing.

  “Papa believes that he is being generous because he saved his life,” she said. “How can I tell him that he is simply trying to blackmail me into agreeing to what he wants?”

  “You would not consider accepting such a proposal?”

  “Do you think that Mama would have countenanced it? She was your daughter. You know how she would never do anything to hurt anyone. She believed in God and everything that was right and good.”

  There was a little throb in Rowena’s voice.

  Then, as her grandfather did not speak, she went on,

  “I have a plan by which I believe I could get rid of the Marquis. But I cannot do so except with your help.”

  “What are you suggesting?” her grandfather asked.

  Hesitatingly and a little shyly Rowena told him.

  He listened to her and, when she had finished, he said,

  “And you think that he will then ask you to marry him?”

  Rowena stiffened.

  “Do you think I would marry him in those circumstances?” she asked. “Not if he was the last man in the world! Never! Never!”

  She drew in her breath. Then, as if she was afraid that her grandfather would not believe her, she said,

  “I hate him! I hate him for his behaviour towards me and for what he suggested, which I know is wrong and wicked!”

  Her voice seemed to ring out round the dark room. Then, as the Earl still did not speak, Rowena moved from the chair to kneel beside him.

  “Please help me, Grandfather,” she said. “There is no one else I can ask. I am afraid of him – afraid that he will get the family into his clutches – and then I shall be unable to go on – defying him.”

  She looked up at her grandfather as she spoke and felt for one moment that she had failed and that he was going to refuse.

  Then slowly, very slowly, the hard line of his mouth twisted into a smile.

  “I think,” the Earl said as if he chose every word with care, “that the Marquis of Swayne needs a sharp lesson!”