The Unwanted Wedding Read online

  It was his wedding night and whatever the future held it was important that he should start his marriage in the correct manner and his wife should have no reason to complain about him.

  He opened the door and went into the hall.

  There he saw to his surprise that the front door was open and thought it was a strange time of night for anybody to be calling.

  But there was no carriage outside, only a footman standing in the doorway looking out over the low wall and strip of garden that separated the house from the pavement in Park Lane.

  The man did not move and after a moment as the Duke reached the bottom of the stairs, he asked,

  “What are you waiting for, James?”

  The footman started and turned back into the hall, saying,

  “I were waiting, Your Grace, for Her Grace to return.”

  The Duke thought he could not have understood him. He had always thought that James a rather stupid young man and now he asked,

  “What are you talking about? Her Grace is upstairs.”

  James shook his head.

  “No, Your Grace, she went out about ten minutes ago.”

  The Duke stared at him incredulously.

  “Did you say,” he asked speaking slowly and clearly, “that Her Grace left the house?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “I cannot believe it!” the Duke exclaimed beneath his breath.

  As he walked towards the door, he asked,

  “Did Her Grace say where she was going?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  The Duke considered this until James said nervously as if he was afraid that he personally had done something wrong,

  “Her Grace put on the cape that were lying on the chair and told me to open the door for her. I did ask Her Grace if she required a carriage.”

  “And she refused?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  The Duke could not understand it. Where could Honora possibly be going at this time of the night and why?

  Still speaking slowly so that James could not fail to understand what he wanted he asked,

  “When Her Grace left the house, did you see which way she went?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “I thinks it strange that Her Grace should be going out at this time of night and I watches as she walks out onto the pavement, stands for a moment, then crosses the road almost as if Her Grace were trying to get into Hyde Park.”

  The footman glanced at the Duke, saw that he was listening intently and went on,

  “I sees Her Grace stand for a moment looking through the railings. Then she walks down the other side of the road and I thinks to meself she were looking for a gate.”

  “The Park is closed at this hour of the night,” the Duke said sharply.

  “Yes, I knows that, Your Grace, but I somehow thinks ’though I may be wrong, that Her Grace doesn’t.”

  The Duke thought that was very likely. At the same time why on earth should Honora want to go into Hyde Park after dark, when it was crazy of her to be walking about alone?

  “I am sure she has not gone far,” he said almost as if he spoke to himself.

  Then he walked out of the house and as Honora had done onto the pavement.

  He stood there looking down the road, which now seemed to be deserted except for a carriage stopping at a house lower down, which the Duke knew belonged to some friends.

  It struck him that if they saw Honora walking about alone at this time of the night they would think it extremely strange and would also question why he was standing on the pavement alone on his wedding night.

  Instinctively he stepped back so that he was in the shadows cast by his own house and only when the carriage had driven away did he once again go out into the street looking for Honora.

  Now there was no sign of anybody and, although he stood there for some minutes, the whole place seemed quiet and deserted.

  Because it was impossible for him to be inactive he started to walk down Park Lane hoping there might be some chance of seeing Honora.

  Then he thought that, if she wished to run away from him, she might have gone to her uncle’s house in Grosvenor Square.

  In which case, he reasoned, she would have gone up Park Lane when she left the house and not down.

  He had no idea whether or not she had any close friends in London, but he could not help hoping that if she had and had gone to them they were not the sort of people who would talk.

  He could imagine the news that she had run away from him would be a titbit of gossip that would sweep like wildfire through the Social world.

  That he, the most eligible and pursued bachelor in Mayfair, had lost his wife on the very day of their marriage would lose nothing in the telling.

  He could almost hear the sniggers and the jokes that would be made about it.

  He knew too it would enhance the story if it were known that he was tramping the streets looking for his reluctant bride and so he would look a complete fool.

  ‘How in God’s name could she do anything so reprehensible?’ he asked himself savagely.

  He turned as he spoke and walked quickly back to the house.

  James was still standing in the open doorway and, as the Duke walked past him, he said,

  “I imagine Her Grace will be returning shortly. When she does so, inform me at once. I shall be in the sitting room.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  The Duke walked back to the room where they had been earlier and automatically went to the grog tray in the corner.

  But when he reached it he found that he had no desire to drink and instead pulled back the curtains to look out onto the garden at the back of the house.

  There was a moon, which with the stars gave enough light to see the great trees that had been planted in his grandfather’s time, and the flowerbeds, which in the daytime were a riot of colour.

  But the Duke was worrying about Honora and now, for the first time, he was thinking of how young she was and how inexperienced.

  After all, she had said tonight that she had been in Florence for the last two years and he supposed it that had never occurred to her that she should not go out alone in London, especially after dinner.

  He tried to remember if she was wearing any jewellery, thinking if she was, it might attract thieves.

  Because the idea of her being attacked made him nervous, he walked across the room and opened the door, which he had shut when he entered it, so that he could hear anything that happened in the hall.

  He would know at once when Honora returned.

  ‘I must make it clear to her that this sort of thing must never happen again,’ he told himself.

  Then insidiously, as if somebody was whispering in his ear, he began to realise that there were other dangers she might encounter besides thieves.

  She was lovely in her own way and, he suspected, very innocent. Suppose a man spoke to her? Would she know what to do?

  Because the idea really perturbed him he thought perhaps he should send for the Police to look for her, but once again he knew that there was no more certain way of inviting the scandal he dreaded.

  However much he admonished the Policemen not to talk, he was quite sure they would know him as a sportsman besides being a Duke and a householder and would be unable to keep such a dramatic search a secret.

  ‘What can I do?’ the Duke asked himself and thought that never in his whole life had he felt so helpless.

  ‘There must be something!’ he insisted.

  There was no answer except to wait and hope that Honora would return unaware of the commotion she had caused.

  Because he could not help himself, the Duke went again to the front door.

  After looking up and down the road again, he walked a little way down Park Lane, only to see no sign of anybody except a prostitute in the distance.

&n
bsp; As she was walking towards him and he had no wish to be accosted by such a creature, he turned and walked quickly back into the house.

  He did not speak to James and once again went back to the sitting room thinking despairingly that in a little while there would be no point in waiting for her.

  After that he could only hope that in the morning Honora would return from wherever she was staying.

  He tried to convince himself that she had gone to someone she knew and again he considered going to Grosvenor Square just in case she had reached her uncle’s house by one of the streets leading off Park Lane.

  But he could imagine nothing more humiliating than rousing the household, which would be asleep by this time, to ask if they had any news of his wife.

  ‘I cannot do that, but what can I do?’ he asked himself, and once again there was no answer.

  Just when he was feeling that the only sensible thing was to make some pretence of going to bed, he heard James’s voice and knew that he was speaking to somebody at the front door.

  He went quickly into the hall and saw that the footman was talking to a man who was handing him some pieces of paper.

  He walked up to them.

  “What is it? What do you want?” he asked.

  At the sharp voice of authority the man looked up at him nervously, but at the same time there was an almost jaunty note in his voice as he replied,

  “If you be the Duke of Tynemouth, I’ve brought you two letters.”

  The way he spoke rather than what he said made the Duke certain that this in some way concerned Honora.

  Without saying anything he took the letters James was holding and, moving a little way into the hall where the chandelier afforded him more light, he opened one of them.

  He saw it was from Honora and, before he read it, he said sharply,

  “Tell that man to wait!”

  “You’d better come inside,” James said to him.

  The man stepped back before he replied,

  “I’ll be waitin’ out ’ere and if ’is Nibs don’t agree, I’ll be orf!”

  The Duke ignored what he said and started reading slowly what Honora had written to him.

  His lips tightened as he did so.

  Then he opened the other letter, which was in a different handwriting.

  It was, however, written on the same type of cheap paper as Honora’s but in an uneducated hand and there were several blots of ink on it.

  He read,

  “Come alone with the messenger. If you talks to the Police, you’ll never see your wife again.”

  The Duke read it through and then said to James,

  “Order my carriage and be quick about it! Tell the man who brought these letters to wait!”

  James looked startled, then hurried to obey his orders.

  The Duke did not stop to see that they were carried out, but went from the hall to his secretary’s room in another part of the house.

  He knew there was always a certain amount of money kept in the house in case he needed it, but he doubted if there was as much as five hundred pounds.

  Only as he reached the room and lit the candle on his secretary’s desk did he remember that as tomorrow was Friday the money for the wages would have been drawn from the bank.

  The servants in the house were paid monthly, but the grooms and coachmen received their wages weekly.

  As he found the key to the safe, he opened it and found as he expected that there was money for his own use in notes of large denominations.

  The wages for the outside staff had already been put neatly in piles ready for distribution the following day.

  He counted them quickly and put them into a large envelope.

  Together with the notes he always carried in his pocket and which were put there by his valet whatever he was wearing he had just a little over five hundred pounds.

  He closed the safe, blew out the candle and walked back to the hall.

  He saw as he reached it that James had invited the messenger inside and he was standing against the door.

  The Duke wondered if he had taken the opportunity to steal anything and then decided that would not be likely when the sum of five hundred pounds was to be handed over to him or his confederates.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” the man replied surlily.

  “I suppose you know the penalty for playing this sort of game?” the Duke asked.

  The man did not reply and the Duke thought that, as he looked an inferior sort of creature, it was unlikely he was anything more than an underling to those who thought themselves in a strong enough position to demand five hundred pounds from him.

  He therefore said nothing more but merely waited, feeling as he did so a growing fury and frustration at having to comply with what had been demanded from him by blackmail.

  He actually waited only five minutes before there was the sound of carriage wheels outside and James had come hurrying back through the house to open the front door again.

  But to the Duke it had seemed more like five hours and when he stepped into the carriage it was an added infuriation that he was forced to carry with him the messenger who had brought him the letters.

  The man gave the coachman directions where to go in such a low voice that, as the carriage moved off, the Duke asked,

  “I presume you are prepared to tell me where we are going.”

  “You’ll see when you gets there,” the man replied.

  The way he spoke with what the Duke recognised as a triumphant note in his voice made him want to punch the man in the face or shake him until he received the answer he required.

  Then he knew that the best thing he could do was to behave in a dignified manner and he only hoped that when he reached his destination he would not find that it was some sort of trap in which he would find himself a prisoner as well as Honora.

  Then he assured himself that it had all been done on the spur of the moment resulting from Honora’s foolish action in going out of the house alone.

  As soon as the miscreants, whoever they were, received the five hundred pounds they had asked for, there would be no more difficulties.

  He, however, was not entirely optimistic and, when the horses came to a standstill, one glance at the house they had stopped at told the Duke where they were!

  As he looked, he felt his anger rising furiously and knew it was going to be very difficult for him to hold his temper.

  The sight of Kate, however, made him take control of himself and only when she had taken the money from him and counted it did he say in a voice that cracked like a whip,

  “Now take me to my wife. One word to anybody about this you understand and I will have you closed down.”

  “You can trust me not to talk, Dook,” Kate said pertly, “and the best thing for us both, as you well knows, is to part with no hard feelings.”

  Because what she said made a sort of common sense, the Duke did not reply but merely tightened his lips.

  Kate walked jauntily ahead of him across the hall to open the door of the room where Honora was waiting.

  “Here she be, safe and sound!” Kate exclaimed, as she opened the door.

  The Duke walked into the room and Honora rose shakily to her feet.

  “You – have come!”

  She was not certain whether she said the words aloud or whether they were merely a cry from her heart.

  The Duke did not reply, he only offered her his arm.

  Because she was trembling, she put her hand on it, then tightened her fingers as if to make certain that he was there by holding on to him.

  He drew her from the room, passed Kate in the hall without speaking and descended the steps outside to where the carriage was waiting.

  Only as the Duke had helped Honora into it and was just about to follow her did Kate, standing in the lighted doorway, shout after him,

  “Don’t forget, Dook, always glad to see you, if you’ve got nothin’ better t
o do!”

  As she finished speaking, she gave a loud laugh and the sound of it seemed to flare out into the darkness of the night like the light over the doorway.

  Then, as the carriage drove off, she slammed the front door.

  As the Duke sat down beside her, Honora was vividly conscious of his anger and knew that it was what she had expected.

  “I-I am – sorry.”

  “How can you have done anything so crazy, so insane, as to go out at night by yourself?” the Duke asked harshly.

  Because of the uncompromising way he spoke and the agonies she had suffered while waiting, tears filled her eyes and feeling her voice was choking in her throat she could not answer him.

  She knew too that, if she did manage to speak, she would burst into tears and, feeling sure that he would hate a scene, she merely clenched her fingers together in an effort not to cry.

  As if for the first time he was thinking of her rather than of himself and his own feelings, the Duke asked in a different tone,

  “They did not hurt you?”

  As he spoke, he remembered the impression he had of her when he entered the gaudy pink bedroom was not only that was she very pale, her eyes seeming to fill her whole face, but there also had been a red mark on her cheek.

  Before Honora could reply he asked,

  “What happened to your face?”

  “That – woman – struck me,” she managed to answer. “She – asked me my – name and when I – told her – she hit me because she did not believe – I was a – Duchess.”

  The Duke stiffened, thinking of the indignity of his wife being struck by a woman like Kate.

  Then somewhat dryly he said,

  “But you managed to convince them.”

  “One of the – men had a – newspaper, which – described our – wedding.”

  “That was lucky.”

  He suddenly realised what would have happened to Honora if she had not been able to convince Kate that she was married to a rich man.

  He was well aware how many pretty young girls from the country disappeared in London when they arrived seeking work in respectable households.

  By lies and other devious means they were enticed or kidnapped into bawdy houses after which there was no escape.