The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) Page 2

  “I could not help the man standing on the train of my gown, Mama. I said when I fitted it that it was too long.”

  “It looked so elegant when you walked into the room,” the Countess said.

  Her eyes rested on her elder daughter and the irritation which had expressed itself in lines round her mouth seemed to fade.

  Felicity Wyndham was in fact very pretty. She had china-blue eyes, fair hair and a skin which was invariably referred to as ‘strawberries and cream’.

  She had a beguiling way of looking at her parents that made it hard for them to deny her anything, and the Countess was already calculating how she could persuade her husband to give her enough money to buy Felicity another gown.

  On the other side of the table Antonia sat unnoticed.

  She had no wish to draw attention to herself; for if she did she was quite certain she would be sent on an errand or made to listen to what was being said while her food grew cold.

  Accordingly she applied herself to eating her eggs and bacon without glancing up, until her father gave such a loud exclamation that it seemed to reverberate around the Dining-Room.

  “Good God!”

  “What is it, Edward?” his wife enquired.

  “When did this letter arrive?” the Earl asked.

  He picked up the envelope and without waiting for a reply went on:

  “It was delivered by hand. It has not been sent by post. Why the devil was it not brought to me at once?”

  “Really, Edward, not in front of the girls?” his wife admonished.

  “Do you know who this is from?” the Earl enquired.

  “No, of course not! How should I?”

  “It is from Doncaster!”

  The Earl paused, an expectant look on his face as if he were a conjurer about to produce an unexpected rabbit from a hat.

  “Doncaster?” the Countess repeated. “Do you mean the Duke of Doncaster?”

  “Of course I mean the Duke!” her husband snapped. “There is only one Doncaster as far as I am concerned! Our neighbour in Hertfordshire, Emily, who has never invited me inside his house since he inherited!”

  The Earl spoke with a bitterness which showed that this was an old grievance.

  “Well, he has written to you now,” the Countess said. “What does he want?”

  The Earl stared down at the letter as if he could not believe his eyes. Then he said slowly:

  “His Grace asks, Emily, if he can call on me at three o’clock to-morrow afternoon. He informs me that he thinks it would be to our mutual advantage to have a closer association between our two families than has hitherto existed and he hopes that he may have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of my daughter!”

  The Earl’s voice died away and he realised that the three people seated at the table were staring at him with their mouths open, looking not unlike three goldfish in a bowl. The Countess recovered first.

  “I do not believe it!” she said. “Give me the letter, Edward. You must have made a mistake!”

  “There is no mistake,” the Earl replied, “unless my eyesight is at fault!”

  He threw the letter across the table to the Countess. It landed in a dish of marmalade from which it was hastily retrieved.

  The Countess held it in her hands, staring at it in the same fascinated manner that her husband had done.

  “Why does the Duke say that he wishes to ... meet me?” Felicity asked in a frightened voice.

  The Countess looked at her daughter and there was a sudden light in her eyes that had not been there before.

  “You will be a Duchess, Felicity!” she said. “Think of it—the Duchess of Doncaster! I never thought—I never dreamt that we should ever aspire so high!”

  “I would have wagered it being 100-1 against Doncaster,” the Earl remarked.

  “But why? Why me?” Felicity enquired.

  “He must have seen you somewhere. He must have fallen in love with you!” the Countess said ecstatically.

  “There is nothing like that about it,” the Earl remarked sharply. “There is some other reason and I will find out what it is, before I am very much older!”

  “Are you inferring, Edward, that the Duke would wish to marry Felicity for any other reason except that he wants her to be his wife?”

  “I am not saying, after reading that letter, that he does not wish her to be his wife,” Sir Edward replied. “I am merely saying that he has not fallen in love like some beardless boy. Doncaster is a man, Emily, and a man who by all accounts has more women fawning around him than he has horses in his stables. If he wants to marry Felicity—and I find it hard to believe it—then there is something behind it, you can bet your shirt on it!”

  “Really, Edward, I do dislike those vulgar racing expressions!” the Countess retorted. “If the Duke does wish to marry Felicity, then we should go down on our knees and thank God for such a miracle without trying to find ulterior motives for his proposal!”

  The Earl rose to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” the Countess enquired.

  “I intend to answer this letter,” the Earl replied, “then I am going to White’s. If old Beddington is there, which he will be, he will tell me the latest scandal and what Doncaster has been up to lately.”

  “You will not mention that the Duke is coming here tomorrow?” the Countess said quickly. “We may be mistaken. He may have very different intentions.”

  “I am not a fool, Emily,” the Earl said. “If there is any blabbing to be done, it will not be done by me.”

  He went from the room, and as the door shut sharply behind him the three women left at the table looked at each other.

  “I can hardly believe it!” the Countess said.

  “But I do not want to marry the Duke, Mama!” Felicity said in a small voice.

  Her mother did not appear to hear her as she stared down at the Duke’s letter as if the words written on the thick vellum paper must be printed indelibly on her mind.

  Felicity would have spoken again, when she received a sharp kick on the ankle which made her wince.

  She looked across the table and saw her sister frowning at her warningly and the words she was about to say died on her lips.

  “We must go upstairs at once and decide what you will wear to-morrow afternoon when the Duke calls,” the Countess said after a moment. “I think it will have to be the pale blue: it is so becoming with your eyes. But then, so is the white with the turquoise ribbons threaded through it.”

  She gave a sound of exasperation.

  “There is no time to buy you anything new, so it will have to be one or the other! Oh, dear, I do hope you have not made them dirty!”

  Rising from the table the Countess bustled away and her daughters followed her.

  Only as they reached the door of Felicity’s bed-room did she turn and say sharply:

  “There is no reason for you to hang about, Antonia. I am sure you have plenty to do, and if you have not, I will find you something. You know that you have to help tidy the Sitting-Rooms. You cannot expect Janet to do everything!”

  “No, of course not, Mama,” Antonia replied.

  She moved away as she spoke, giving Felicity a warning glance and at the same time a touch on her arm which told her sister she would be back later.

  There were always innumerable jobs in the house for Antonia. They were understaffed and she was invariably expected to fill in for deficiencies in housemaids, lady’s-maids and even footmen.

  It was Antonia who made the Sitting-Rooms presentable, who cut the sandwiches for tea when they entertained, who pressed and mended her mother’s and Felicity’s gowns, and who was sent on messages from the top of the house to the bottom.

  But she was used to it and it did not unduly perturb her. This morning however she wished that she could be in the bed-room with Felicity while the Countess was choosing her gown for to-morrow, simply because she was afraid that Felicity would betray herself.

  To learn that she had
not done so was a relief, when finally an hour later Antonia entered Felicity’s bed-room to find her alone.

  As soon as she saw her sister, Felicity ran across the room to put her arms round Antonia and burst into tears.

  “What am I to do? Oh, Antonia, what am I to do? I cannot marry this Duke ... you know I cannot!”

  Antonia held her sister close, then she said:

  “Come and sit down, Felicity, and let us talk about it. You can see what it meant to Mama and Papa.”

  “I know! I know!” Felicity sobbed. “They are not going to listen to me ... whatever I say ... but I love Harry. You know ... I love him, Antonia!”

  “Yes, dearest, but Harry is not a Duke.”

  “He loves me,” Felicity said, “and I promised I would marry him as soon as he can approach Papa.”

  Antonia gave a little sigh as she wondered how she could possibly explain to Felicity that, whatever Harry Stanford might say now, the Earl was not going to listen to him.

  The son of the Squire who owned an attractive Manor House on a very small estate, Felicity and Antonia had known Harry ever since they were small children.

  They had met him at parties and, as they had grown older, out hunting. It was difficult for Antonia to remember when first she realised he had fallen in love with Felicity and she with him.

  They had all known that it was impossible for Harry to approach the Earl when Felicity was only seventeen, and being only three years older himself he had certainly not enough money to keep a wife.

  His circumstances were not much better at the moment. As he was an only child he would inherit on his father’s death, his estate, such as it was, and there was also a bachelor uncle who had always promised to make him his heir.

  Harry had wished to ask the Earl’s permission to marry Felicity before they came to London for the Season, but Antonia had advised them against it.

  “Papa and Mama have been saving up for years so that Felicity can have a proper Season in London and be presented at Court,” she said. “As you know, it should have happened last year just before Felicity was eighteen. But when Mama’s father died we were all plunged into mourning, and so Felicity’s debut had to be postponed.”

  “Supposing she meets someone else?” Harry had asked despondently.

  “I think it unlikely,” Antonia replied, “that she will ever love anyone but you.”

  It was strange, seeing that Antonia was a year younger than her sister, that everyone referred their problems and troubles to her, and that was another role she played in the household. Even her mother was more inclined to ask her advice rather than Felicity’s.

  “What am I to do?” Harry Stanford had enquired helplessly.

  “Wait until the Season is over,” Antonia advised. “Then when we are back in the country you can approach Papa. I am sure he will be more amenable then.”

  What Antonia really meant was that there was a chance for him unless Felicity had had a very advantageous offer of marriage.

  She privately thought it unlikely.

  Although Felicity was extremely pretty and men fluttered around her in the proverbial manner of moths around a flame, they thought twice before proposing marriage to a girl who had no dowry and only the possibility of 500 acres of not particularly productive Hertfordshire land when her father died.

  That of course was if the estate was not sold and divided equally between his two daughters, which Antonia always doubted.

  But while Felicity had received much flattery and never lacked partners at a Ball, up to date there had been no positive approach to her father and no suggestion of anything more permanent than a flirtation in the garden.

  Now out of the blue the Duke of Doncaster had appeared, and Antonia knew that it put to an end any hopes Harry Stanford might have of becoming Felicity’s husband.

  “I want to marry Harry! I love him! I will never love anyone else!” Felicity was saying.

  When she raised her face, looking lovely despite the tears which ran down her cheeks, Antonia felt desperately sorry for her.

  “I think you have to face facts, dearest,” she said. “Papa would never permit you to marry Harry when you could be a Duchess.”

  “I have no wish to be a Duchess,” Felicity said. “I just wish to live quietly with Harry. I have much enjoyed the Season and the Balls, Antonia, but I kept thinking of him and how much more fun it would all have been at home.”

  Antonia knew this was the truth, and she thought apprehensively that there was no doubt that Felicity would be unhappy living a life of pomp and circumstance.

  She also knew a great deal more about the Duke than anyone else in the family did; she could in fact have answered her father’s queries about the Duke’s motives for his proposal very nearly as competently as the old crony he was going to consult at the Club.

  As their estates marched with each other, the Duke owning some 10,000 acres, Antonia had always been extremely curious, not so much about him as about his horses.

  The one love of her life was horse-flesh and while she had ridden since she was a small child she had always been allotted the worst and oldest horses to ride which neither her father nor her sister required.

  Nevertheless it was Antonia who managed by some magic of her own to enthuse the laziest and sometimes the most aged beast into action, and who was invariably in front of the field out hunting and in at the kill.

  But it was impossible for her not to realise almost since she could walk that just over the boundary hedge were the most magnificent thoroughbreds that any lover of horses could desire.

  What was known as The Chase was a long gallop which ended abruptly at the Earl of Lemsford’s boundary.

  The part of Hertfordshire where Doncaster Park and The Towers, in the Earl’s estate, were situated was undulating, wooded and a large part of it was cultivated.

  But only a mile from the Duke’s mansion The Chase provided a flat, perfect stretch of parkland which had once extended for another quarter of a mile into what was now owned by the Earl of Lemsford.

  Ives, the Duke’s head groom who had lived in Hertfordshire all his life, soon became aware that there was always a small girl staring wistfully over the fence as he and the stable-lads took the horses for their morning gallop.

  As the small girl grew older her friendship with the elderly man meant a great deal to both of them.

  He even came to say himself:

  “Ye knows as much about horses, M’Lady, as Oi knows meself!”

  “I wish that was true,” Antonia would answer. “Now tell me about the day the Duke’s horse won the Derby.”

  There is no man who does not enjoy an attractive audience and Ives was no exception.

  He had no children of his own and the tales he used to relate to Antonia would hold her spell-bound, her eyes fixed flatteringly upon him until he would describe so vividly the races he had attended that she felt as though she had been there herself.

  It was only a question of time before Antonia was introduced to other members of the Duke’s household.

  Mrs. Mellish, the Housekeeper, who often found that time lay heavy on her hands, was prepared to guide the very appreciative young lady from next door round the great mansion.

  But it was the Curator, Mr. Lowry, who taught her the most.

  The Earl had no appreciation of the arts and if his ancestors had ever possessed pictures or furniture of any value they had long since been sold.

  Only rather badly executed portraits of the Wyndhams remained, because they were unsaleable rather than because they were appreciated.

  But Doncaster Park was filled with pictures, furniture and objets d'art and treasures which had been collected over the centuries, each one contributed by a member of the Casterton family and having a history that Antonia found absorbing.

  Because Mr. Lowry taught her far more than did the inadequate Governesses provided by the Earl, Antonia, after she was fifteen, spent more time at Doncaster Park than she did in the School-
room at The Towers.

  The Governesses, realising that she counted the least in the family, were not concerned by her absence and concentrated on trying to instill the very meagre knowledge they themselves possessed into Felicity’s mind.

  Because she was very pretty they decided, like her parents, that she would not require many talents, and education was therefore not important.

  There was only one thing that the Countess did insist upon and that was that both her daughters should speak fluent French.

  “All ladies of good breeding can speak French,” she said loftily, “and as people are going abroad more and more, just in the same way as foreigners come here, it is essential that you should both speak with a Parisian accent.”

  The fact that she and her husband were invited to a large party given when Louis Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie came to England in 1857 accentuated her determination that her daughters should not be lacking in this accomplishment even if they possessed few others.

  Antonia found French easy and she liked the old retired Mademoiselle who came to The Towers from St. Albans twice a week to give her and Felicity lessons.

  “I cannot remember all those tiresome verbs,” Felicity would cry despairingly.

  But Antonia had not only mastered the verbs but was soon chattering away to Mademoiselle finding out many things she wanted to know about France and especially Paris.

  Unlike the other Governesses who concentrated on Felicity and ignored Antonia, Mademoiselle reversed the procedure.

  Because Antonia had a natural ear she taught her and let Felicity sit silent, deep in her own thoughts, which certainly did not concern French.

  “There are two things anyway I know a lot about,” Antonia told herself once. “The first is horses, and that is thanks to Ives, and the second is French, thanks to Mademoiselle!”

  Mr. Lowry found some books at Doncaster Park which satisfied both interests, and because they seldom conversed with their younger daughter the Earl and Countess would have been surprised if they had known how knowledgeable she was, or how widely and extensively she read.

  As soon as the Earl could do so he dispensed with the services of the Governesses, thereby saving their meagre salary and keep. Despite the fact that the family was in mourning Felicity was considered now to be grown up and no longer in need of lessons.