Love in the Highlands Read online

  "And she wants me to marry – who?"

  "Prince Stanislaus of Kadradtz, a thoroughly unpleasant character, drunken, violent and unprincipled. Also, I believe he does not wash."

  Lavina shuddered.

  "I could never marry a man who did not wash," she said.

  "Of course not," agreed the Duke. "So we have to think of a plan to save you, and the best way is for you to be engaged to someone else. Even the Queen would have to respect that, if your fiancé were sufficiently prominent – and of a decisive character."

  Lavina frowned.

  "My fiancé? What fiancé?"

  "The Marquis of Elswick," explained the Duke. "Your only hope is if he will pretend that you and he are engaged until the Queen has found another bride."

  "The Marquis of Elswick!" Lavina echoed, astounded. "Certainly not. Anyone but him."

  "I know he has the reputation of being a very disagreeable man," the Duke began.

  "And it's well-deserved," Lavina said.

  "You have met him, my dear?" her father asked, surprised. "You never told me."

  "It wasn't exactly a meeting, Papa. It happened three years ago, when I was visiting the Bracewells. He chanced to call in one evening."

  "Now there's a thing!" exclaimed the Duke. "I've never heard of him dropping in like that before."

  "I've heard that Lord Bracewell owes him money," the Earl mused.

  "Ah, that would account for it," said the Duke wisely. "So, my dear Lavina, you thought Elswick's manners cold and unpleasant."

  "I believe that is the general opinion of everyone who meets him," she said stiffly.

  "But that needn't stop you accepting his help," the Duke pointed out.

  "But why should he want to help me? I've heard about how much he dislikes women. Surely he will hardly want to marry me?"

  "There is no question of him marrying you," the Duke replied. "All he has to do is to say he is engaged to you. Then later, when the trouble is over, you will thank the Marquis very much for his kindness, and the two of you will end the engagement by mutual consent."

  Lavina pressed her hands to her cheeks.

  "Oh Papa, you must save me. I don't want to leave you. Can this idea possibly work?"

  "It must," said the Earl grimly. "So we must leave quickly, before a courier arrives here from Her Majesty."

  Lavina gave a cry.

  "Oh yes, let us go now."

  Suddenly she turned to the Duke, and flung her arms about him.

  "Thank you for everything, Uncle Bertram."

  The Earl also advanced on his friend and shook his hand.

  "We are forever in your debt," he said. "Thank you a thousand times for warning me. If Her Majesty asks you where I am, perhaps you should say – "

  "Good lord, m'dear fellow," the Duke burst out in alarm, "I'm not going to say a word. Once let her get the idea that I know anything and my life won't be worth living."

  Then he gave them both a wink and added,

  "Just the same, I'll keep you informed of every Royal move, when I return to Windsor Castle."

  "I am more grateful than I can ever say," the Earl repeated.

  "So am I," Lavina said.

  She put her arms on the Duke's shoulders, and kissed his cheek.

  "If you save me I will thank you and love you more than I can ever express in words," she told him.

  The Duke smiled at her.

  "Your father has been extremely kind to me in the past, and I have always wanted you both to be very happy," he answered. "Anything I can do at any time, I only need your command to go ahead."

  "You are wonderful," Lavina said and kissed his cheek again.

  Then she ran into the hall and put on the coat which the butler already had in his hands. Then she sped out to the carriage. Her father joined her.

  The next moment they were rumbling away on the first part of their journey.

  "We've escaped," Lavina breathed. "But only for the moment. Oh Papa, we must escape for good. You must save me!"

  The Earl put his arms around his daughter, holding her tightly. His face was very set and determined.

  *

  It was a long drive from London to Ringwood Manor in Oxfordshire, and Lavina had much time to think.

  What she had told her father about her one meeting with Lord Elswick had been true, but not the whole truth.

  Three years ago she had been seventeen, on the verge of making her debut in London society. As she had no mother, Lady Bracewell had agreed to sponsor her, and she had visited the Bracewells at their London home to gain a little polish before the night of her ball.

  The Bracewells had given a few impromptu dances to help her "get in the way of things before you become a debutante," as her kindly hostess had said. There were many Bracewell offspring, whose young friends were invited to make up the numbers, and they made a very merry party.

  One evening, as they were dancing, the front doorbell had rung, and the butler had admitted Lord Elswick.

  Lavina had been struck at once by how romantically handsome and melancholy he looked. Tall, dark, with a lean face, noble brow and fine features, he had seemed the very image of a story-book hero.

  She had only a brief glimpse of him, as he had been conducted straight into his host's study, but he had made an indelible impact on her heart.

  A few minutes later there was an interval so that the dancers could drink lemonade and catch their breath. Lavina used it to put her head together with the young Lady Helen Bracewell, her dearest friend.

  "Isn't he handsome?" Helen giggled.

  "I think he looks just like Childe Harold," Lavina breathed.

  She knew Helen would understand this as they had sighed together over Lord Byron's world-weary haunted hero. In a poem of five cantos, Childe Harold wandered the world, especially the exotic locations, seeking an escape from boredom and melancholy.

  Haunted by tragedy, he took refuge in beauty. The world laid its joys before him, and he greeted them with a faint smile that hinted at suffering bravely borne.

  Helen's schoolboy brother had snorted with contempt.

  "What a clown the fellow is, drivelling with self-pity!"

  The girls had driven him off with loud cries of indignation. Lavina especially had been wrathful. How, she wondered emotionally, could anyone be so unfeeling as to speak of the beautiful, agonised Harold, in such a heartless way?

  Harold had haunted her dreams by night and her fevered imaginings by day. She had been quite sure that when she went into society she would find no man who lived up to his romantic presence.

  And then the door had opened, and 'Harold' had walked in, pale, dark-eyed, intense, moving loftily above the vulgar crowd.

  She was sure that she read suppressed emotion in the brief bow he gave to Lady Bracewell, and secret suffering in the indifference with which he surveyed the dancers.

  Ah, she thought, with the passionate fervour of seventeen, such pleasures were not for him. They could not assuage the secret wound that blighted his life.

  She was not sure what that secret wound might be, but when Helen whispered that he had been abandoned by his bride on the very day of the wedding, everything became perfect.

  The dance resumed. As she turned this way and that Lavina tried to keep her eyes on the door through which he must come when his meeting with Lord Bracewell was over.

  She knew what must happen when he emerged. Lady Bracewell would invite him to join the impromptu ball. He would do so, reluctantly. Then he would see her and grow still as heavenly recognition swept over him. They would gaze into each other's eyes, each knowing that the die was cast.

  He would forget the heartless female who had abandoned him, and henceforth think only of Lavina.

  The thought was so glorious that there was suddenly an extra spring in her step, and she bounced about spinning dizzily. The other young dancers stopped to watch her, while her partner stepped back to let her dance alone.

  Oblivious to everything but h
er own joy she whirled and spun in an ecstasy of delight. For a glorious moment the whole world was hers to relish.

  The music slowed, then stopped as she sank into a deep curtsey while the other young people applauded her. When she lifted her head she was looking straight at Lord Elswick.

  He was staring at her very hard, but his expression was a blank. With the confidence of extreme youth she interpreted that blank to please herself. Obviously he was stunned by her beauty and grace.

  Lady Bracewell was talking to him now, smiling, indicating the young people. Lavina edged a little closer so that he could see her better.

  And then he shrugged, turned away, and over his shoulder came floating back the terrible words,

  "My dear Jemima, you must forgive me, but I have better things to do than romp with children."

  From the mature heights of twenty Lavina could see that, as insults went, it was fairly mild. Since she had not made her debut she was, officially at least, still a child. So it was barely an insult at all, merely a statement of fact.

  But at seventeen her sensibilities had been lacerated. Suddenly she became aware of her breathless state, her tousled hair, her flushed cheeks. She had behaved like a hoyden and now she looked like one.

  Oh heavens! Oh, disaster!

  Worse still, she heard the sound of a suppressed giggle from behind her.

  Like every beauty she already had her enemies, girls of her own age who professed friendship but seethed with envy, and were secretly glad to see her crest lowered. And now they could laugh at her.

  That night she had sobbed into her pillow and sworn that she would never, never forgive Lord Elswick as long as she lived.

  Now, sitting in her carriage on the way to ask his help, she supposed she would have to forgive him. Anything was better than being forced into marriage with Prince Stanislaus.

  But she wished it had been anyone but Lord Elswick.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Earl's family had lived in Oxfordshire for five hundred years.

  In 1390 King Richard II had made Baron Ringwood a grant of lands and money. The Baron had built a magnificent country house which each generation had improved upon in size and value.

  In the Civil War the Ringwoods had been staunchly on the Royalist side, resulting in Charles II elevating the title to an Earldom. Ringwood Place was now an imposing residence with a grand exterior of white stone, and an extensive park where peacocks wandered, uttering their eerie screams.

  Lavina had been born there, and she loved the place. Since she had been old enough to remember, the grounds, and the lake where she had learnt to swim, had always seemed like fairyland.

  Now the prospect of leaving it, and the country she loved, filled her with dread.

  How could her father persuade the Marquis of Elswick to agree to a fake engagement, when it was well known that he loathed women?

  It came from the way he had been treated when he was very young. He was, in fact, not quite eighteen, and was attending Oxford when he fell very much in love with a pretty girl whose father had bought a house on his estate.

  The girl and the young Viscount, as he was then, had met and fallen in love while they were out riding.

  He had loved her madly, and been sure that she loved him equally. He was determined to marry her in the face of all social difficulties, including his parents' opposition.

  But he had no money, except what his father allowed him, and if he married her he would be cut off without a penny.

  Undeterred, he set the wedding date, certain that his father would relent. In this, he was wrong.

  "But it doesn't matter," he told his bride. "What does it matter if we're poor, as long as we love each other."

  But she had wanted money and the delights it would bring. On what should have been their wedding day, she had run off with another man, leaving her groom, abandoned and ridiculous, at the altar.

  He had never got over it.

  "I hate all women!" he had said once. "I trust none of them, and I swear they will never torture me again as I have been tortured now."

  He became well-known in the county for hating women, and entertained mostly men at the castle he had inherited when his father died.

  He frequently travelled abroad, but never seemed to form any attachments there.

  In many ways he was a benefactor to the part of the world where he lived. He helped to improve the county and was a generous friend to a number of people who were in trouble, or too poor to look after themselves.

  He was a member of several London clubs, and was popular with the men who frequented them. It was there he met those who waited on the Queen, including Lord Ringwood.

  He was thirty-three, yet gave the impression of being older, because of the legends that had swirled around him for more than a decade.

  "I really can't believe that he is going to help us," Lavina sighed as they discussed matters during the journey.

  "He might, simply because he would disapprove of anyone being forced to marry someone they did not love."

  "But would that overcome his dislike of women?" Lavina asked. "On the contrary, it might give him pleasure to refuse his help to a woman, and send her away to be unhappy."

  The more she thought about it, the gloomier the prospect became.

  At last Ringwood Place came into view. The carriage swung through the main gate for the journey through the grounds. There were the familiar trees that Lavina loved, the great pond, with contented ducks paddling on it. Even in her distraught state the sight of these well-loved signs of home had the effect of calming her.

  As soon as they reached the house Lavina sent for the housekeeper and ordered a light lunch that could be served quickly. The sooner they were on their way to Elswick Towers the better.

  Then she hurried up to her bedroom where her trunks had already been carried. Jill, her maid and Mrs Banty, her dresser, were already at work, unpacking.

  Mrs Banty was a middle-aged woman with an air of imperious authority, whose pride was to be able to locate any of Her Ladyship's garments and suitable accessories at any time, day or night. That ability was to be tested now.

  "I'm going to Elswick Towers," Lavina told her, "and I want to look utterly superb."

  "The pink," Mrs Banty said without hesitation, pointing to a trunk that, to the casual eye, looked just like the rest. "It is in there."

  In moments they had extracted a 'visiting' costume of pink silk, trimmed with four flounces, each surmounted by a band of purple velvet ribbon. The over-skirt was of a heavier, ribbed silk known as faille. This was a lighter shade of pink, trimmed with white lace, with purple velvet ribbon and bows.

  Working like the expert she was, Mrs Banty produced the perfect accessories, a tiny parasol of the same pale pink as the overskirt, and a white chip bonnet, trimmed with purple velvet ribbon, and tiny pink rosebuds.

  The ensemble was completed by the daintiest pair of black kid walking boots.

  As soon as she had finished her lunch Lavina sped upstairs to put on the dress that Mrs Banty and the maid had lightly pressed and brushed out.

  Reverently they helped her put it on. When everything was in place Lavina regarded herself in the mirror, wondering if this was all a dream. Surely there was a kind of madness in running away from London at a moment's notice, to throw herself on the mercy of a man who hated women?

  But then she took another look at the magnificent creature looking back at her, and she had to admit that she was proud of what she saw. This was no romping child, but a great lady of the highest rank. She looked glorious enough to enchant any man. But could she move the heart of Lord Elswick? Or was he as heartless as the world said?

  There was a knock on her door. It was her father.

  "Are you ready my dear?"

  "Quite ready, Papa," she announced in a firm voice, and walked out with her head up.

  Down below, an open carriage was waiting for them, drawn by two white horses. The coachman got onto the box and they drove
away, Lavina using her little parasol to protect her face against the brilliant sun.

  It was twelve miles to Elswick Towers and the route lay across open country. England in summer was at its most beautiful, and as they bowled along the lanes Lavina vowed again that nothing would make her leave this place, no matter what she had to do.

  Even if it meant enduring Lord Elswick.

  Suddenly she sat up straight, her attention riveted.

  "What is it, my dear?" her father asked.

  "Over there, Papa," she said, pointing to a figure on horseback, about a hundred yards away. "Isn't he magnificent?"

  "He?"

  "The horse."

  Horses were Lavina's passion and all her attention was for the animal, which was black and glossy, the most magnificent horse she had ever seen. His skin was like satin, and although he was a huge beast he moved as gracefully as a dancer, soaring easily over hedges and streams, galloping strongly and seemingly without effort.

  Only belatedly did she look at the man, whom she realised was riding bareback without saddle, reins or stirrups, holding onto the huge animal's mane and controlling him without effort. He wore only breeches and a shirt that was unbuttoned, showing a broad, muscular chest.

  At first she thought he must be a groom, but then something familiar in the set of his dark head made her heart start to beat more strongly.

  "Elswick," she whispered.

  "Eh – what?" her father demanded. "By George yes! It is Elswick."

  The Marquis was in the distance now, getting smaller and smaller, heading in the direction of Elswick Towers which had appeared on the horizon.

  As they neared it, Lavina could not help being impressed by the castle which had been restored and added to by the Marquis's father. It was a building of great splendour and magnificence, which cast Ringwood Place into the shade.

  In the centre of the main wall was the huge keep, a tower with battlements, at the top of which was a flagpole, telling the world whether or not the Marquis was at home.

  The pole was empty now, but as Lavina watched, the flag was hauled right up to the top. Lord Elswick had returned.

  As they drove nearer to the castle, crossing the bridge over the stream which ran in front of it, she could not help but be impressed by the flowers which were a brilliant colour at the base of the walls. Also the huge beautifully carved portico over the front door.