Love and the Gods Read online

  He had no wish to be tied down to one woman, as he expressed it so vividly, and he wished to enjoy himself and continue to play the field.

  It was not at all surprising that quite a number of beautiful women had already lost their hearts to the Duke.

  And he had said to his grandmother the last time she had stayed with him that he had no intention yet of settling down and he would not take a wife until he met the right person.

  “How can you talk like that, dearest David?” his grandmother had asked. “From what I hear, every young unmarried girl in London is at your feet.”

  “If you said, ‘is gazing at my strawberry leaves’, you would be more correct,” the Duke replied sarcastically. “As you know, Grandmama, the ambition of every young girl is to be a Duchess.”

  He paused before he added sharply,

  “But I have no intention of marrying some giggling little debutante who wants to capture me as a prize with which to impress her contemporaries!”

  “Really, David, you do talk nonsense. Of course women want to marry you for yourself and not entirely for your title.”

  The Duke forced himself not to interrupt as she battled on,

  “At the same time, if a girl is really beautiful, as your mother was and comes from a reasonably suitable family, it is exactly who you require in a wife and we will welcome her with open arms.”

  “I realise that, but as you well know, Grandmama, I find it difficult to be attached to one woman for any length of time.”

  He saw that she was about to argue with him and so he carried on hastily,

  “Shall I say that I enjoy the pursuit, in the same way as I enjoy watching one of my horses race. But once it has passed the winning post, then I begin to think of what will be the next race to interest me.”

  His grandmother looked exasperated.

  “You know as well as I do, dearest, that you have to marry someone. I do think it is time you took life more seriously and more important than anything else provide us with an heir to the Dukedom.”

  “I quite understand what you want, Grandmama, but remember that it is I who will have to live with the much acclaimed Duchess!”

  He sighed.

  “I find that women after only a short acquaintance invariably repeat themselves endlessly and tell me stories I have heard before. Then, although I know I should not say it, frankly they become unspeakably boring.”

  His grandmother had flung up her hands.

  “Really, David, you are impossible! How can you have been bored with Lady Emma who was, I thought, one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen?”

  “I agree with you there, but apart from her beauty she has nothing to say and the last time I dined with her I yawned the hours away.”

  He wanted to make his grandmother laugh, but she just wrinkled her nose.

  “You are really impossible, David,” she repeated. “The trouble is that you are regrettably far too clever for the average woman, but it is essential for you to be married even if you don’t settle down.”

  The Duke did not continue the conversation, simply because he had heard it so often and found it tedious.

  Instead he insisted on taking his grandmother to see the latest objects he had collected on a journey to Africa and she had to admit they were unusual and interesting additions to his other treasures.

  He had followed the example of his ancestors, who had collected not only pictures and furniture but objects of historical interest.

  His house in Park Lane and his castle in the country were the envy of all his contemporaries, as, when he had inherited the title, he found numerous treasures that had been passed down through the ages by his ancestors and he had seen none of them before.

  He did not want people to envy him or to applaud his purchases and thus he only showed his most recent acquisitions to the more intelligent members of his family. After his grandmother had stopped pleading with him to marry, she had been enchanted with some exquisite carvings and strange weapons over three hundred years old.

  “I cannot think, David,” she said, “how you were clever enough to find these fascinating objects.”

  “I think the right answer to that, Grandmama,” the Duke replied, “is that I take infinite trouble, as few others do, to learn the language of the people I meet in parts of the world where the usual sightseer never ventures.”

  “I well remember,” she smiled, “as a little boy you talked with a French maid I had. She was so thrilled when you asked her in French to tell you what she was doing and for the French word for everything you took to her.”

  “She was very helpful to me,” the Duke answered, “just as I have found other women in many parts of the world who were only too willing to assist when I wished to learn their language.”

  “And of course to make love,” she grinned at him. “Although I would hate you to marry a foreigner, if she is pretty and clever, I would be only too happy to accept her.”

  The Duke laughed.

  “I am afraid, Grandmama, the women I have learnt from and found to be the best teachers, were old and their appearance was not of any particular note.”

  He paused before he added,

  “What I was making use of was their brains that at the time were of more interest to me than anything else.”

  His grandmother threw up her hands again.

  The Duke knew it was with difficulty she prevented herself from arguing with him, as she was well aware that most of the marriageable ladies in the Social world they lived in were not particularly noted for their brains.

  She left him, after begging him once again to take a bride.

  The Duke then walked into his library and looked round at the numerous volumes, many of which he had collected himself.

  He thought that if only they could live and breathe he would be only too glad to ask them all to be his wife!

  He knew so well what the conversation would be tomorrow evening when he was dining alone with one of the most admired women in the Beau Monde.

  She would undoubtedly flirt with him with a charm that could not be equalled even by the French.

  They would talk of love as it concerned them both and she would undoubtedly flatter him because he was so handsome.

  After that, they would talk about her and about her exquisite beauty and pulsating body until the dawn came.

  Then he would walk home.

  Unlike most of his contemporaries the Duke did not on these occasions keep his carriage waiting for him round the corner.

  Even if the lady’s house was some distance from Park Lane, he always walked home.

  He felt he needed to blow away the hours they had spent together and he wanted to start a new day as the stars began to flicker out and the first rays of the sun rose in the Eastern sky.

  The moment when the darkness vanished and the day began again convinced him more than anything else that all he had just experienced was just a passing fancy and that there was a great deal more to come of which he was not yet aware.

  It was the expectation of the next day that to him made life exciting.

  Far too many people, he had often thought, lived in the past, thought in the past, remembering only the past.

  For him it had always been the future, the surprise and excitement of the unknown and the thrill of finding something new, something he had not seen before.

  Inevitably, like the passing of one day into another, and one night into day, it was tomorrow that counted and he quickly forgot yesterday.

  He knew this as surely as if he listened to a voice that came from inside his brain.

  Whatever his relatives may say and however much his grandmother might plead with him, it was what lay ahead that mattered.

  What he had not yet experienced in life made him even more determined than ever not to marry.

  ‘There is still so much of the world I have not seen and so many beautiful women I have yet not met,’ he told himself, ‘and I must be free to seek the unknown.’ />
  Finally, he would go to sleep in his own bed with the first light of the day creeping up on the horizon.

  *

  As the Duke drove on, he was not thinking of his grandmother’s pleadings but of what he might find waiting for him at Windsor Castle.

  Her Majesty’s urgent message might easily prove to be nothing of any real consequence.

  Yet his instinct told him that she needed him for something unusual that he could not even guess at.

  ‘I am just being over-imaginative,’ he mused as he passed through a small village. ‘There was nothing new at Windsor Castle when I was last there, except for one Lady-in-Waiting who was definitely younger and prettier than the rest!’

  He thought, if he was asked to stay on for dinner, he might see if she was as entrancing as she looked.

  However, perhaps she would be as dull as most of the others were – he had known them for too long to expect anything but the usual banal conversation.

  It could become more interesting when there were foreigners visiting Her Majesty, especially if they came from a country he had not yet visited or he had very little knowledge about.

  Because he had travelled so much, such countries were becoming fewer every year.

  Nevertheless, on his last visit to Windsor Castle he had met a man from the Balkans, who had travelled a great deal in Asia and the Duke had found that what he told him was different from anything he had known previously.

  In fact, the conversation had been so interesting he had almost set out for Asia as soon as he returned home.

  Then he told himself that he was sure there were other places of great interest.

  He had not wished to be involved in the diplomatic warfare that was currently taking place between Russia and Great Britain.

  There was no disguising on whose side the Queen was and she spoke angrily and contemptuously about the Russians. She was furious at their behaviour in attempting to make the Balkans part of the Russian Empire.

  ‘There are already too many engaged in trying to prevent what they are doing,’ the Duke thought, ‘for me to take any part in it.’

  He had then forced himself to be more interested in North America than he had been previously.

  Yet now, as he neared Windsor Castle, he had an uncomfortable feeling.

  It was that Her Majesty was going to persuade him to become involved in her confrontation with the Czar.

  The Duke, when he left school, had for some years been in the Army and his family had in consequence been terrified that he might be killed in action, as there was no close relative to take his place.

  It was after he had served in three campaigns that he had been persuaded to pay more attention to his estates and that naturally included his many thoroughbreds and the beautiful women who pursued him.

  He had enjoyed his years in the Army and yet he was now finding that, unless there was someone especially interesting for him to meet, he was bored.

  The daily round of amusements in the Social world was invariably a repetition of what had occurred yesterday, the day before and the day before that.

  Even the women he made love to talked to him in the same way as the one before, and the one before that, had done.

  ‘I must think of something new to do,’ the Duke reflected as he passed through Eton and across the river.

  Now he was in the town of Windsor and The Castle was just ahead of him.

  For a moment his thoughts seemed to soar into the air.

  He had a distinct feeling that the sky was opening for him on a new and exciting project – something he had never done before.

  Then he laughed at himself.

  Everything was just as it had always been.

  There was nothing new about the sentries standing at the gates or the imposing castle itself.

  ‘I am not stepping forth into a new tomorrow,’ he thought sadly, ‘but merely looking back on what I saw and heard yesterday and the day before.’

  The door was opened by a servant, who smiled at him and whom he knew by name and then an equerry appeared who had obviously been waiting for him.

  He was a young man and the Duke could not help thinking that he was wasting his time at Windsor Castle. He might have been more active in the great world outside, perhaps in a Regiment or in attendance on the Viceroy of India or on a British Ambassador to some obscure country that ordinary English people knew very little about.

  That was why the Duke had enjoyed his visits to Nepal and many other places with which few of the Social world were familiar and he had visited China and found it most uncomfortable but intensely interesting.

  He had been planning that he would one day go to Tibet and it was only his deep interest in his horseflesh that had prevented him from doing so.

  He enjoyed, if nothing else in England, the racing that was taking place at this particular time of year and almost every day his horses were running and winning at some fashionable Racecourse.

  The equerry was now taking the Duke up the stairs to Her Majesty’s private apartments.

  “Have you been busy since I left two weeks ago?” the Duke asked him.

  The equerry smiled.

  “We are always busy, as Your Grace well knows. Her Majesty always wants to hear about what is happening in other countries, so we have had endless Ambassadors coming here day after day.”

  “Has anything unusual happened?” the Duke asked him hopefully.

  The equerry shook his head.

  “Not that I am aware of. But I regret to say that they don’t always tell me.”

  The Duke knew this to be true.

  The Queen liked to keep everything to herself and especially from her eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who was longing to become involved in the affairs of State.

  They reached the Queen’s private apartments.

  The equerry in charge bowed to the Duke.

  “Her Majesty was certain you would not be long, Your Grace,” he said. “She has been expecting you this last half-hour.”

  “I came more quickly, thanks to my new team of horses, than I have ever done before.” The equerry laughed.

  “You know as well as I do, Your Grace, that Her Majesty is waiting impatiently at the end of the journey, so she inevitably thinks everyone is late even if they have flown on wings to get here!”

  The Duke laughed because he knew that this was correct.

  “Well, I am here now and I hope you have a cool drink waiting for me, because it was hot and dusty on the way down.”

  “I will order one at once,” the equerry replied.

  Then he opened the door of Her Majesty’s sitting room.

  As the Duke was announced and passed into the room, he heard the Queen give a little cry of delight.

  He walked towards her and bowed respectfully and, when she held out her hand, he kissed it.

  “Do sit down, David, because I have so much to tell you,” the Queen began. “I have an important task for you to undertake.”

  “I am glad to hear that, ma’am. In fact it was what I was hoping I might hear.”

  “You are not telling me,” the Queen said somewhat sardonically, “that you are feeling disenchanted with the gay world that surrounds my son?”

  The Duke hesitated for a moment before he replied,

  “Not exactly, ma’am, that would be ungracious to those who have been very kind to me. I was just hoping something new would happen, when Your Majesty’s letter arrived.”

  The Queen laughed.

  “I knew without you telling me that you would be glad to get away. Although most people in your position, as you well know, would be furious at leaving England in the middle of the Season.”

  “If that is what I have to do, ma’am, then I can only say that, if it is an unusual and unexpected mission, I will be only too delighted to hear about it.”

  The Queen settled herself a little more comfortably in the chair she always sat in.

  And then she asked the Duke,

&nb
sp; “I don’t know whether or not you have ever met the brother of Princess Alexandra, who is now King George of Greece?”

  “Indeed I have, ma’am, but not recently. And I do know that he was offered the throne when he was only eighteen.”

  The Queen smiled.

  “I thought you would be well informed, David. Of course, as you are aware, George, as he now calls himself, was Prince William of Denmark, but accepted the throne eagerly and has greatly enjoyed being the King of Greece.”

  Knowing well that Prince William had only been the second son of the King of Denmark and had never expected to rule anywhere, the Duke was not surprised that he enjoyed his position of King.

  He also knew that since he had been on the throne there had been a noted expansion of Greece’s frontiers, beginning with the cession of the Ionian Islands by Great Britain.

  The Duke now wondered how all this concerned him.

  He remembered, which had much amused him at the time, that the Prince’s father had regarded the Greek throne as a doubtful proposition when it was first offered.

  He had therefore not immediately told his son of the offer, but the Prince, however, discovered it himself by reading a newspaper wrapper round a sardine sandwich!

  He was delighted at what he read and rushed home and after some difficulty he persuaded his father to let him go to Greece and, despite being so young, his enthusiasm and his intelligence made him, as the years passed by, an excellent King.

  Although he was sometimes homesick, he never left Greece during his first four years as King and he threw himself into learning the language and getting to know his people.

  The Duke had been sure that because he was so young, it had been a rather lonely road for him. He had to rely a great deal on the advice of Greek politicians, many of whom hoped to exploit him for their own purposes.

  But he had turned out to be more astute than they expected.

  This all passed through the Duke’s mind.

  As if the Queen was aware of what he was thinking, she waited for a moment and then said,

  “Now I want you to go to Greece and give King George something he will value enormously. But it must be done secretly or I know that there will be trouble with our own people.”