The Unwanted Wedding Read online

  “Do you know what the place is where you were taken?” he enquired.

  There was a little pause before Honora said in a faltering tone,

  “I thought it – must have been – a kind of – playhouse.”

  The Duke was surprised.

  “Why should you think that?”

  “There were – two girls there – and they were – painted as if they were – going on the stage – and – ”

  She paused.

  “Go on.”

  “While one of them was talking to me a gentleman, who she said was Lord Roxton, shouted for her.”

  “Roxton?” the Duke said sharply. “Did he see you?”

  “No.”

  The Duke gave a sigh of relief before he asked,

  “And you thought he had come to see a play?”

  “I heard him shout, ‘I want Elsie! She gives a better performance than any of you!’”

  The Duke was silent.

  He found it incredible that anyone who had been in the brothel where he had found Honora would not be aware what it was or the reason why the women were painted and dressed as Kate had been.

  Then the indignity of knowing that his wife could have been at the mercy of such people and he had been forced to pay an exorbitant sum to get her back made his rage sweep over him again uncontrollably and he said angrily,

  “I find it hard to believe that anybody could be such a fool!”

  As he spoke, the horses came to a standstill outside Tynemouth House.

  The footman jumped down from the box and, as he opened the door of the carriage, the Duke saw that James was still standing waiting at the front door.

  He alighted and, as Honora followed him, he remembered to offer her his hand.

  He, however, let go of her hand as soon as they reached the steps and hurried up them into the hall, leaving her to follow him.

  Because his last remark brought the tears to her eyes, she found it difficult to find the way.

  Then, as she stepped into the hall, she felt as if the staircase ahead of her and the lighted chandeliers over her head began to swim dizzily around her.

  She stood indecisive, unable to move any further and put out her hand to feel blindly for something to hold on to.

  She heard James exclaim,

  “Is Your Grace all right?”

  Then the floor seemed to rise up and cover her as somebody saved her from reaching the ground.

  Then there was only darkness.

  *

  The Duke, carrying Honora upstairs, was aware of how light she was and, as he looked down at her closed eyes and her head turned against his shoulder, he could see the vivid red mark left by Kate’s hand.

  She had dropped her cloak when she fell and it struck him that she looked like a flower that had been buffeted about in a wild tempest and had its petals bruised by it.

  It was not like him to have poetical thoughts and, as he carried her to the top of the staircase, then along to her bedroom, he suddenly felt ashamed of his anger against anything so small and fragile and, as he now knew, very inexperienced and incredibly innocent.

  ‘This should not have happened,’ he blamed himself. ‘I should have prevented it.’

  As he reached the door of Honora’s bedroom, he saw that it was ajar and pushed it open with his foot and carried her inside.

  As he did so, Emily, who had been sitting in a chair waiting for her Mistress, jumped to her feet.

  “What’s happened to Her Grace?”

  “Your Mistress has fainted.”

  He put Honora very gently down on the bed.

  “Undress her and put her into bed,” he said, “and I will fetch her something to drink.”

  “Oh, my poor lady!” Emily exclaimed. “Whatever made her faint?”

  The Duke did not reply. He was relieved to learn that, after he had left the house, James had obviously not talked to the other servants but had remained on duty in the hall.

  He went downstairs again and, as he passed the footman, he said,

  “I gather, James, that you have not spoken to anybody about what happened this evening.”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “I congratulate you on behaving in a most sensible manner,” the Duke said, “and I trust you to keep everything that occurred to yourself.”

  James flushed at his Master’s praise and replied,

  “I’ll say nothin’, if they be Your Grace’s wishes.”

  “They are,” the Duke confirmed, “and I trust you, James, to keep quiet about it.”

  “Very good, Your Grace,” James replied.

  The Duke left him and went to the sitting room.

  He hesitated for a moment, undecided whether to take Honora a glass of champagne or a glass of brandy and then decided that brandy would be the best.

  He added a little water, then carrying the glass climbed the stairs slowly, thinking as he did so that it would be wise to give Emily time to get Honora undressed and into bed.

  When he entered the room, he saw Honora’s gown lying over a chair. She was now in bed with her head resting against the pillows and her eyes still closed.

  “Her Grace spoke to me,” Emily said as the Duke reached the bed, “but I’m certain she still feels queer.”

  “I am sure she does,” the Duke answered.

  He slipped his arm behind Honora’s head.

  “I want you to drink a little of this,” he said quietly. “It will make you feel better.”

  Honora’s eyelashes flickered and, as if she must obey him, she took a tiny sip of the brandy from the glass he held against her lips.

  Then, as the fiery liquid burned its way down her throat, she made a little exclamation and tried to push the glass away.

  “Drink a little more,” the Duke said firmly and knew that she was feeling too weak to refuse to do as she was told.

  He forced her to take several more sips until, as the colour came back into her cheeks, he took the glass away and laid her back against the pillow.

  She looked up at him and, as if she had forgotten what happened and was repeating what she had said before, he heard her murmur,

  “I am – sorry, very sorry – ”

  The Duke put the glass down on a table beside the bed and said to Honora,

  “I am going to undress and then I am coming back to talk to you for a little while before you must go to sleep.”

  He did not wait for Honora to reply, but said to Emily,

  “Finish looking after your Mistress, but leave the lights. I will put them out later.”

  Emily bobbed him a curtsey and the Duke went through the communicating door into his own room.

  The brandy had made Honora feel that now the darkness was gone and she was able to ask,

  “What, happened? How did I – get here?”

  “You fainted, Your Grace,” Emily replied, “and His Grace carried you up the stairs.”

  “He must think I am a – nuisance.”

  “No, Your Grace. I thinks he were very perturbed. He tells me to undress you and went down to fetch you some brandy.”

  Honora gave a little sigh.

  She was thinking how angry it must have made the Duke when she had not only behaved in such a foolish manner but had also fainted when she returned.

  She was sure that he must have found it a terrible bore to carry her upstairs and she remembered how her father had always said that men disliked scenes of any sort.

  ‘I must tell him how sorry I am,’ she thought and felt miserably that already she had been a failure as a Duchess.

  ‘I should never – never have married him!’ she whispered.

  Emily released her hair from the pins that held it in place and it fell over her shoulders in curls on each side of her face.

  She was wearing one of the fine lawn and lace nightgowns which her aunt had bought for her trousseau and which, because they were a little revealing, made her blush when she first saw them.

  Then she told hersel
f comfortingly that nobody was likely to see them and it was only now that she was glad she could pull the lace-edged sheet high up over her chest.

  Emily finished tidying the room and then, carrying Honora’s gown, went to the door.

  “Goodnight, Your Grace, I hopes you sleep well,” she said. “I won’t call you early until I finds out what time his Lordship wishes to leave.”

  “Thank you – Emily,” Honora managed to say.

  She felt as she spoke a sudden limpness come over her and she wished that she could be alone in darkness and try to sleep.

  Even as she thought it, the communicating door between her room and the Duke’s opened and he came in.

  He was wearing a long dark robe, making him seem even more impressive than he was usually and almost instinctively Honora pressed herself back against the pillows as if she would shrink from him.

  He looked down at her for a moment before he sat down on the side of the bed to say,

  “I am not going to talk to you for long, Honora, because I think you must be very tired after all you have been through today.”

  Because she found it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying Honora could only repeat what was in her mind.

  “I-I am – sorry – very – sorry for being – such a nuisance.”

  “I expect,” the Duke said quietly, “nobody has ever warned you of the dangers there can be in going out into the streets of London alone at night?”

  “I-I realise now – it was very – stupid of me to – do so, but – I wanted to – think.”

  “What did you want to think about?”

  He saw the colour come into her face and added,

  “I suppose about me.”

  Honora nodded.

  “Perhaps it would be wiser,” he said, “if you told me what is puzzling you instead of trying to work it out for yourself, especially in the darkness outside.”

  Honora looked away from him and replied in a voice that he could hardly hear,

  “I-I don’t – think I can – do that.”

  “I think you should,” the Duke advised. “After all, we are married, Honora, and it would be sensible not to have secrets from each other.”

  As he spoke, he thought what a hypocrite he was in that he had very many secrets that he hoped she would never know about.

  Then he thrust these thoughts about himself to one side as he insisted,

  “Trust me. I promise I will try to understand.”

  Because his voice was kinder than she had ever known it before Honora replied,

  “I-It was – something Aunt Aline said to me today and – which I did not – think would – h-happen.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Aunt Aline said – the sooner I had a – baby – the better – and you – said when I-I – left you that you would – n-not be – long.”

  Although she spoke incoherently, the Duke understood.

  “And that frightened you?” he asked.

  “I – never thought – I never imagined because we were being – married in such a – strange way – that you would – that we would have a – baby before we had even talked to each other.”

  The Duke was silent for a moment.

  Then he said,

  “I must apologise to you, Honora. I see I have been very remiss and I understand now exactly what you are feeling.”

  He saw a light come into her eyes and she said looking at him,

  “Do you – really understand? And you are not – angry with me about it?”

  Before he could reply she said,

  “I know how much you have been – hating me – and I could feel it all the time we were being married – and because you hate me – I do not – want you to give me – a baby.”

  The Duke found it difficult for the moment to find words in which to answer her.

  Then he replied,

  “I want you to believe me, Honora, when I tell you it was not you I was hating but the fact that I had been forced to marry so precipitately in order to avoid, as I told you frankly, becoming the husband of Princess Sophie.”

  “I know it made you very – angry,” Honora said, “but when I – tried not to agree to marry you – Aunt Aline made me – do so.”

  The Duke frowned.

  “How did she make you do that?”

  “She told me I must either marry you – or become a – nun,” Honora said simply.

  “Do you mean that?”

  Honora nodded.

  “She said she would send me to the Convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor the – next day – and I knew it would be – wrong for me to take – the veil when I have no vocation to do so.”

  “It was a diabolical idea,” the Duke said, “and you were right to refuse.”

  “So – even though I had no – wish to marry you,” Honora said, “I – could not – escape.”

  She made a little sound that was very young and lost as she added,

  “Because neither of us wished to be – married and I know – how much you hated it – I am sure it would be – wrong for us to have a baby when it was not born – of love.”

  As the Duke found it impossible to find the right words in which to reply, Honora went on,

  “When I was – small I remember somebody saying to Mama,

  “‘How beautiful your little girl is! I suppose that is why you called her ‘Honora’.

  “Mama smiled and replied,

  “‘As you are aware, Honora means “beauty” and my husband and I knew she would be beautiful because she was born of love.’

  “The friend laughed and said,

  “‘That is certainly true. I have never known two people as much in love as you and your husband. It makes us all very envious’.”

  Honora told the tale in a soft little voice.

  Then she said,

  “I think – perhaps if we have a baby born in – hate, it will be – ugly – or even – deformed.”

  The Duke drew in his breath.

  Then he put out his hand and laid it over Honora’s.

  “I am sure what you are saying is unfounded,” he said, “but I think, Honora, it would be wise for us to start again and get to know each other a little better before we think of starting a family.”

  He felt Honora’s fingers tremble beneath his.

  Then she said,

  “S-suppose we – never fall in love with each other – and you continue to – hate me?”

  “I have already explained I was not hating you personally,” the Duke replied. “If we both try to forget our wedding and what led up to it, perhaps we could play a game of pretending we had just met and both thought it would be interesting to get to know each other better.”

  Honora gave a tiny laugh that was somehow unsteady.

  “I-I think that might be – rather exciting.”

  “Very well, then that is what we shall do,” the Duke said, “but you must promise me three things.”

  “What – are they?”

  “That you will not run away from me, that you will not go into danger as you did tonight and that you will trust me and tell me what you are thinking and feeling.”

  He felt her fingers stiffen as if she was surprised.

  Then she said,

  “Suppose what I am thinking – makes you angry?”

  “I see no reason why anything you think should make me angry,” the Duke said, “and shall I say I shall take a chance on it and you must do the same?”

  She gave him a little smile.

  “It might be very wonderful to be able to talk to you as I used to talk to Papa. Ever since he – died there has been nobody I could – really talk to about things that matter to me – and it has been – very lonely.”

  Because the way she spoke was very pathetic, the Duke’s hand tightened on hers before he said,

  “I shall look forward to our conversations, but now I think you should go to sleep without dreaming and without being afraid.”

&nbs
p; “I am – no longer afraid of you,” Honora said, “at least – not at the moment.”

  “You are quite sure of that?”

  “Quite sure and I can sense that you are feeling – differently about me than you did before.”

  “I suppose now I think about it,” the Duke said, “I can also sense what you are feeling. And I think, Honora, that just as you knew I would come and save you tonight, you know that I will always help you if I can, however difficult the problem may seem.”

  “Will you – really do that?” Honora asked. “I may be a terrible nuisance – and perhaps cost you – more money.”

  Unexpectedly the Duke said,

  “Look at me, Honora!”

  She turned her eyes to his and he thought that he had never before looked into eyes that were so clear, innocent and unspoilt.

  “What I want you to understand,” he said very quietly, “is that where you and I are concerned money is not important, nor is anything else except that we must both try to understand each other and make our marriage a success.”

  His voice deepened as he went on,

  “It may not be easy, but if we both try very hard and trust each other, then I believe all the difficulties and problems will melt away.”

  As the Duke finished speaking, Honora’s eyes were still fixed on his and he found it hard to look away.

  He wondered if he should kiss her as he would have kissed any other woman in the same circumstances.

  Then he thought that she would not understand and was afraid of spoiling the vibrations between them and of making her afraid.

  Instead he smiled in a way that many women had found irresistible and rose from the bed.

  “Go to sleep now, Honora,” he said. “We will not leave early tomorrow morning, and if you are feeling too tired we can stay here for another day, but I am looking forward to showing you my horses.”

  “I want very much to see them,” Honora said.

  The Duke opened the communicating door and then blew out the candles by her bed.

  “Goodnight, Honora!” he said. “Go to sleep quickly.”

  “I will – try,” Honora said in a small voice, “and thank you for being – so kind.”

  She saw the Duke pause and, as he looked back at her, she added,

  “So – very kind and – understanding.”

  He closed the door and she was alone.