The Unwanted Wedding Read online

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There was the thunder of hooves and the horses raced neck and neck towards the end of the ride, before their riders reined them in.

  As they came to a standstill, Honora cried,

  “I think you won by one small ugly little nose!”

  The Duke laughed.

  “Are you insulting me or my horse?”

  “I would hate to insult Warrior,” Honora replied, “who has a soft very lovable nose, while, of course, a Duke’s nose is always disdainful and condescending!”

  “I cannot imagine why you should think that!” he exclaimed almost aggressively.

  “As an alternative to being magnificent, omnipotent and arrogant, it can also be cynical, supercilious and by nature bored.”

  The Duke laughed as if he could not help it.

  Then he said,

  “I wonder if there is anything in the rules or in your vocabulary, Honora, which permits one to spank a Duchess?”

  She gave a little chuckle before she retorted,

  “You will have to catch her first!”

  She touched her horse lightly with her spur and the next minute was riding wildly away from him through the Park towards the house.

  It took the Duke a second or two to turn and follow her and by that time Honora, riding superbly, had almost reached the gate that led into the garden.

  Only as he caught up with her, did she say breathlessly,

  “I surrender and I am quite prepared to say, if you prefer, that it was Warrior’s nose that was in front.”

  “I will let you off this time,” the Duke said mock-seriously, “but remember, there is one adjective you have not applied to Dukes, which is that they can be very revengeful.”

  Honora chuckled.

  “I don’t think that you would ever be like that.”

  “Why not?” the Duke enquired curiously.

  “Because you are not the revengeful type. I know you can be angry – very angry – but you are not the sort of person to sulk and cogitate and plot how to gain your revenge.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “Are you using your instinct, Honora, where I am concerned?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “How could I do anything else?”

  She smiled at him as she spoke and he thought that he had never known anybody so unselfconscious or who seemed to enjoy life every second she was living it.

  When they had reached his hunting lodge in Leicestershire for their honeymoon, the Duke soon realised that Honora was very different from what he had expected.

  He had never imagined that a woman could laugh so light-heartedly and find so many things amusing.

  Honora’s was not the rather artificial laughter of the sophisticated beauties with whom he had amused himself, who always laughed as if they were trying to remember to make it sound like ‘a peal of bells’.

  Instead Honora’s laughter came spontaneously and unaffectedly and she laughed with her eyes as well as with her throat.

  The Duke found to his surprise that the four days they had spent together so far of their honeymoon had been for him so different from any days he could remember that he could hardly credit his own enjoyment of them.

  With Honora the Duke knew that he had never laughed so much or been so amused by things that ordinarily were of no interest to him or else too trivial to evoke a discussion.

  He felt as if everything she said had a new meaning and in some extraordinary way had a funny side he had never known before.

  When he rose in the morning, he found himself looking forward to showing Honora another part of his estate, deciding with her which horses they should ride, and answering the hundred questions she had for him on subjects that he had never previously discussed with anyone.

  What was more, he felt as if she gave him a new appreciation of the countryside.

  After living in Florence for two years, to her the country was like coming home to something very dear and familiar.

  “Look at the green of that field!” she would exclaim suddenly. “Could anything be more beautiful? I only wish that after all I could paint.”

  “You must try to express it in music,” the Duke suggested.

  “It makes me wonder if hearing is as wonderful as seeing,” she said reflectively. “If you had to make the choice, which would you choose to be – blind or deaf?”

  It was the sort of question that the Duke had never been asked.

  Because he was trying to keep to their pact that they should be entirely truthful with each other, he often had to hesitate and think before he gave her a reply.

  Now as they rode through the gates into the garden and up towards the house Honora said,

  “I think this is the happiest day I have ever known!”

  There was a rapt little note in her voice, which the Duke did not miss and he replied quietly,

  “I have enjoyed it too.”

  They had set off quite early in the morning after breakfast to visit an outlying part of the Duke’s estate, where there was a farm he wanted to inspect.

  After they had done so, they rode beside a stream, over the meadowland yellow with buttercups and had a luncheon of bread and cheese at a black and white inn situated on a village green.

  They sat outside in the sunshine and drank home-brewed cider, which the Duke warned Honora was very intoxicating.

  “If you fall off your horse,” he smiled, “I expect I can carry you back on mine.”

  “That would be very ignominious and I am sure that properly behaved Duchesses are never drunk.”

  “Certainly not!” the Duke agreed and she laughed because he had answered her so seriously.

  She gave him a little glance from under her eyelashes as she asked,

  “Are you nervous that I might do anything to disgrace you?”

  She was speaking without thinking.

  Then she remembered that, when she had been captured by the two men who had taken her to Kate, the Duke had been afraid that they might talk or that Lord Roxton might have seen her.

  Because he knew what she was thinking, he said quickly,

  “That is all forgotten and the answer to your question is that I am quite sure, now I know you, that you will be an exemplary Duchess.”

  Honora gave a little sigh.

  “If only Mama was alive it would not be difficult and Papa would have looked after me and prevented me from making any faux pas.”

  “That is now my job,” the Duke said.

  “When we go – back to London you may find it very – boring to have a wife who keeps asking you – questions.”

  He could not help feeling it was something she had thought of before and he said,

  “I enjoy your questions, and that is the truth, but I am beginning to be afraid I shall not have an answer to them all.”

  “I am sure you will,” Honora replied, “and shall I tell you that it is very exciting for me to have a private encyclopaedia all to myself?”

  The Duke laughed and then he said,

  “While I think about it, I have an idea that is the most flattering compliment I have ever received.”

  “I should have thought, as you have had so many, you are blasé about them by now.”

  “I am just wondering,” the Duke replied, “whether you are teasing me or shooting at me, Honora.”

  She gave a little chuckle, which he thought was very attractive, before she replied,

  “You are much too grand for me to tease you and I am definitely too frightened to shoot at you!”

  The Duke replied unexpectedly,

  “When your face is in repose, Honora, you look like a small angel, but when you are talking to me there is a dimple that appears to be mischievous and a look in your eyes that has nothing at all to do with Heaven.”

  “If you are insinuating that I am a small devil,” Honora replied, “I shall definitely be affronted. At the same time I feel it would be more exciting than to be one of those snooty-nosed angels who sit perpet
ually round a sapphire sea twanging a harp.”

  “I thought you were musical!” the Duke said quickly.

  Honora laughed.

  “You always have an answer. That is why it is such fun talking to you, as I am sure dozens and dozens of beautiful ladies have told you in the past.”

  The Duke wanted to say that, while there had been quite a number of beautiful women, his relations with them could never have been described as ‘fun’.

  That was what he was enjoying with Honora and now, as they saw the house just ahead of them with the grooms waiting for the horses, he said,

  “I think that after such a long day you should lie down before dinner, while I polish up my brain and think of new ways of confronting you.”

  “That is unfair,” Honora objected. “You are trying to take a mean advantage. As it is, I feel a poor, crushed little ignoramus.”

  “Not a very apt description!” the Duke replied dryly. “I will think of a better one by dinnertime.”

  He saw her dimple as she pointed out,

  “And I, of course, will have to lie awake deciding how best I can entertain my Lord and Master!”

  The Duke did not answer because at that moment the grooms hurried to the horses’ heads and, having dismounted, he helped Honora from the saddle.

  As he lifted her to the ground, he thought once again how light she was and yet he was aware that she could handle the wildest and most obstreperous horse in a manner that he admired.

  They walked up the steps side by side and, as they reached the front door, Honora said,

  “Thank you again for a lovely – lovely day.”

  She looked up at the Duke as she spoke and he thought that her eyes had captured the sunshine and that he had never seen a woman who looked so happy unless he had been making love to her.

  When they went into the house, Honora started to climb the stairs while the Duke, having handed his hat, gloves and whip to a footman, walked into the library.

  It was a very attractive room and the walls were covered with books except where there were some fine pictures of horses by Stubbs.

  As he expected, there were a number of letters on his desk that had arrived by post after he and Honora had left that morning and there were also the newspapers arranged neatly on a stool in front of the fireplace.

  He glanced at the letters and decided that they did not interest him and he would leave them until later.

  Instead he walked towards the newspapers thinking that it had been a relief these past few days to be almost out of touch with both the Social and the political world.

  Then to his surprise he heard the door open and the butler announce,

  “The Countess of Langstone, Your Grace!”

  For a moment the Duke was still.

  Then he put down the newspaper he had just picked up and turned.

  Aline Langstone came sweeping into the room looking resplendent and very beautiful in a gown of pink silk covered with a pelisse in the same shade.

  As the butler closed the door, she held out both her hands and said in the caressing tone she always used when they were alone,

  “Ulric, darling, I had to see you!”

  The Duke ignored her outstretched hands and enquired,

  “What are you doing here, Aline?”

  “I am on my way to stay with the Stillingtons,” she replied, “and, as I had virtually to pass your door, it gave me an excellent excuse to tell you how much, my dearest, I have been missing and longing for you.”

  The Duke was aware that in fact she had extended her journey by at least fifteen miles and there was a hard expression in his eyes which she did not understand as he replied,

  “I think, Aline, it was most indiscreet of you and, if it becomes known you have come here, it will doubtless give rise to a great deal of gossip.”

  The Countess shrugged her shoulders.

  “If anybody hears of it, which is unlikely, I shall explain that I brought you some rather important wedding presents, which actually you will find in the hall and George is not joining me at the Stillingtons until tomorrow.”

  “I am on my honeymoon, Aline,” the Duke replied, “and I think it was a great mistake for you to come here.”

  “Do not be so stuffy, darling,” Aline replied, moving a little closer to him. “I am here and I want you to tell me that you are glad to see me and that you still love me.”

  She lifted her face to his and there was no mistaking the expression in her eyes or the invitation on her lips.

  The Duke however made no response except to stare at her in a way that she found bewildering.

  She did not know that at this moment he was suddenly finding, incredible though it seemed, that Aline Langstone no longer appealed to him either as a beautiful woman or as one he desired.

  The Duke was used to his love affairs, and there had been a great many of them, coming to an end slowly but inevitably.

  But he had never known such an absolute finish to an affaire de coeur, what might almost be called a ‘fall of the curtain’ as he felt at this moment.

  He had been so easily aroused by the Countess in the past and had thought that her beauty drew him not merely as a man but as a connoisseur, and he could hardly believe that at this moment she evoked no response in him whatsoever except one of irritation.

  He was incensed that she should have followed him to the country and that she should dare to intrude in an unprecedented manner in the first few days of his honeymoon.

  He was aware that, if people heard of it, it would confirm any suspicions that had been in their minds before he married Honora.

  Because Aline thought that she knew how to cajole him when he was being difficult, she put her hand, palm downwards, on his shoulder and turned her face up to his in a manner that in the past he had always found irresistible.

  The fire in her eyes, her red lips parted slightly and waiting for his, had never failed to make him forget everything but her closeness, which could arouse him in a way that no other woman had ever managed to do.

  But now, as the Duke looked down at her, he felt nothing but an urgency to get her out of the house before Honora was aware of her arrival.

  He remembered, almost as though it was being whispered in his ear, that she had confronted Honora with the choice of marrying him or of going into a Convent.

  He could hardly believe it possible that any woman could have behaved in such a brutal manner, least of all one who had meant something in his life.

  Almost as if it was one of the questions that Honora had asked him in the last few days, he heard a voice say,

  “Is she a good or a bad woman?”

  There was no need for him to think about it.

  Aline was bad and he knew now that he should have been aware of it with the instinct which came first from his mind and then from his soul.

  He stepped back, saying in the icy cold voice he could use very effectively when he wished,

  “I am not going to offer you any refreshment, Aline, as I think you should be on your way.”

  She stared at him in complete astonishment and for a second or so her hands were still outstretched as they had been before he moved away.

  Then she asked incredulously,

  “Are you telling me, Ulric, that your feelings towards me have changed?”

  “My dear Aline, must we have a post mortem on the past?” the Duke enquired. “As you know only too well, I am now a married man, and it would be a great mistake for anything to spoil what I hope will always be a pleasant and friendly relationship between my wife’s relatives and myself.”

  Aline gave a little scream before she said,

  “How can you talk to me like that? Are you bewitched? What can have happened to change in just a few days what we felt for each other and the happiness we found together?”

  “I think I have thanked you before for ‘the happiness’ as you call it,” the Duke said slowly, “and now, Aline, let me show you to your carriage. You have
quite a distance to go before you reach the Stillingtons.”

  He passed her before she could prevent him and walked towards the door.

  She stood almost as if turned to stone before she put out one hand and cried pleadingly,

  “Ulric! Ulric!”

  Her voice seemed to vibrate round the room and, as if the Duke was concerned, although it was impossible, that they might be overheard, he paused.

  His eyes were as hard as steel as he said,

  “Pull yourself together, Aline. As we are both aware, servants talk and so do those who are in attendance on Her Majesty.”

  Because of the implication of what he was saying, the colour seeped into the Countess’s face, but her eyes narrowed and her lips seemed to spit at him as she retorted,

  “I understand what you are doing, Ulric, and I hate you, do you hear? I hate you!”

  She had, however, in view of what he had said, lowered her voice to little more than a whisper.

  The Duke merely opened the door.

  As he moved into the hall, there was nothing the Countess could do but follow him and he said in a clear tone that could be overheard by the servants waiting at the front door,

  “It was exceedingly kind of you to bring me these wedding presents. As you say, they are of such importance that Honora and I will have to write immediately to thank for them.”

  The Countess had reached his side by this time and, as they walked on together, he continued,

  “I am only sorry that you cannot wait to see Honora. We have only just come in from riding and she is resting, but I know she will be very upset to have missed you.”

  They passed through the front door and, as they were going down the steps, the Duke went on,

  “Please give my best wishes to your husband and, of course, we are both writing to thank him and you for the magnificent reception you gave for our wedding.”

  As he finished speaking, he raised the Countess’s hand perfunctorily to his lips and then stood back to allow her footman to help her into her carriage.

  The door was closed, the footman jumped up on the box and the horses started off.

  The Duke did not wait to see her go, but walked quickly up the steps and back into the house.

  Only as he reached the library again, did he feel as if he had fought a desperate battle in which he had been overwhelmingly victorious, but not without inflicting casualties.