The Star of Love Read online

  “I have heard gossip in The Dancing Footman,” Watkins agreed, adding with a haughty sniff, “I discourage it firmly.”

  “Good man. And of course there is no need to trouble my mother and grandmother with this story.”

  “My lips are sealed, my Lord.”

  “I’ve told my cousin I won’t pay another penny.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “No matter how much he threatens me with scandal.”

  “No, my Lord.”

  “I know I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “And that’s final.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “And don’t just stand there pretending to agree with me,” the Earl said wrathfully, “when you know you expect me to yield, as I have in the past.”

  Thus appealed to, Watkins merely gave a shrug full of helpless sympathy.

  The Earl sighed.

  “I know,” he said. “What’s worse, he knows. That’s why he’s left the bills behind.”

  *

  “My darling girl!” Lady Arnfield descended on her niece, arms wide, and enveloped her in a warm embrace.

  “Welcome, welcome!”

  Lady Cliona eagerly hugged her back.

  “Dear aunt,” she said. “I have so much looked forward to coming to visit you.”

  The two women stood back to gaze on each other. Lady Arnfield was in her fifties, with a tendency to dress slightly too young for her age. The large crinolines that were the current fashion did not flatter her plump figure, and her love of extravagant decoration flattered it even less. But her manner was sunny and her face merry and kind.

  The young woman smiling back at her was nineteen and had the slim, elegant figure to set off her fashion to perfection. Her waist was tiny, so were the little feet that peeped out from under her crinoline. Her face was pretty and full of mischief, and with her shining golden hair she at first might have given the impression of a charming doll.

  It was her eyes that belied that impression. They were blue, almost violet, and they had depths that seemed designed to lure a man in to seek out the soul that resided there.

  Part of her attraction was the fact that she seemed unaware of her charms. In a hectic London season she had flirted and laughed with her many admirers, but there was an instinctive simplicity and truth about her that drew as many men as her beauty.

  But just now her aunt was chiefly concerned with pleasurable thoughts about what a sensation her niece was going to make in the neighbourhood. Few debutantes had enjoyed the roaring success of Lady Cliona. Prospective husbands had flocked to her, attracted as much by her charm as by her fortune, but Cliona had refused them all.

  Now that the season was over, Lady Arnfield had plans for her niece.

  The first stage of those plans consisted of taking her up to her room, and exclaiming with joy as Lady Cliona’s maid unpacked her trunks.

  There were piles of delicate underwear, embroidered petticoats, stockings, scarves, frilly handkerchiefs. There were dresses for the morning, dresses for the afternoon and dresses for the evening in satin, silk and lace.

  There were tea gowns and promenade gowns, and riding habits, and riding boots and shoes for every occasion. There were necklaces and tiaras and rings and brooches and ear rings.

  Lady Arnfield lived comfortably, for her husband was Sir Kenton Arnfield, Lord Lieutenant of the county. But they did not possess one third of Cliona’s fortune and she had never seen anything like this wardrobe.

  “My aunt Julia, who sponsored my London season, thought I was rather a spendthrift, I fear,” admitted Cliona. “As you know, I didn’t complete the whole season because I didn’t reach London until May, and she wasn’t sure I would need all of these clothes.”

  “Wasn’t she indeed?” said Lady Arnfield, in a voice that boded ill for her sister Julia. “Well she never did have any sense of the right way of doing things.”

  “And I’m afraid she was further shocked when I bought more new clothes only last week,” said Cliona with a face full of demure mischief. “She said such extravagance was quite unnecessary for the country.”

  “Then she’s a fool,” said Lady Arnfield. “And when I see her I shall tell her so.”

  Cliona began to dance about the room as though the train journey from London had not tired her at all. Which, indeed, was the truth.

  “What a lovely room,” she said, spreading her arms, turning and turning like a top.

  “Goodness child, you’ll be giddy,” her aunt exclaimed.

  “Dear Aunt Martha, of course I won’t. At a ball I dance and dance all night without getting giddy.”

  “They say you were the belle of the season,” sighed her aunt. “Admirers galore, and too many proposals to count.”

  “Naturally,” said Cliona in a teasing voice. “Dear aunt, a girl with money always gets proposals. It’s a tribute to her bank balance, not to herself, and she’s a great ninny if she imagines otherwise.”

  “Oh, but I’m sure some of them must have been in love with you,” countered Lady Arnfield, shocked by this unmaidenly realism.

  “After ten minutes?” Cliona asked irrepressibly. “That was my fastest proposal yet. I can’t tell you how conceited it made me. Think how I was brought down by the discovery that my swain betrothed himself to another heiress the next day. I was merely the first on his list, you see.”

  “Cliona!”

  “Don’t be shocked, dear aunt. What would you have me do? Believe that I really was the most beautiful, ravishing female the world has ever known? A paragon of virtue and delight –”

  “I think I’m going to be ill,” Lady Arnfield said frankly.

  “That’s precisely how I felt.”

  “Men really talk to you like that?”

  “Some do. And it’s fatal because I simply cannot bear having my intelligence insulted. Imagine how conceited I would be if I believed all that nonsense!”

  “It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Lady Arnfield agreed.

  “Sometimes,” Cliona mused, “I wonder if my Uncle Solomon was really doing me a kindness when he left me all that money in his will.”

  “It’s the only good thing he ever did for any of his family,” Lady Arnfield observed. “Spending so much time abroad, exploring. Nasty, dirty, dangerous occupation. Still, he collected all those lovely gold treasures that made him so rich. And all the better for you.”

  Cliona sighed. “I almost feel that he left me too much. I have more money than anyone needs.”

  “Nonsense, my dear, a woman can never have too much money,” asserted Lady Arnfield decisively.

  “Do you think so?” Cliona murmured, half to herself. “I’m not so sure.”

  “Well obviously your experiences have been unlucky, but not every man is a fortune hunter. You must have met a few that you liked. Wasn’t there anyone who touched your own feelings – just a little?”

  Cliona nodded. “Just a little,” she said impishly. “Just long enough to flirt the evening away and then forget about him.”

  “So you’re not – in love?”

  “Not the slightest. Isn’t it sad? You’d think I would have fallen victim by now, but no. Sometimes I feel that I am waiting for something.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “I’m not sure. Just ‘something’. ‘Something special’.

  That’s all I know.”

  Cliona ceased her restless wanderings about the room and came to rest at the window that looked out over the surrounding countryside.

  “Aunt Martha, what is that?”

  “Where, my dear?”

  “Beyond the trees. It looks like a fairy castle, all towers and turrets, riding against the clouds.”

  “Yes, it is beautiful isn’t it? That’s Hartley Castle, home of the Earl of Hartley. He and your uncle are great friends and great rivals too, because the Earl is the only man in the county with a better stable than ours.”

 
; Cliona, a notable horsewoman, clapped her hands in delight.

  “I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “So you shall, soon. But for now it’s almost time to dress for dinner. Your uncle will be home at any moment. He would have been here to meet you, but he had an important meeting to attend. As Lord Lieutenant he has many duties.”

  “Of course. I’m looking forward to meeting Uncle Kenton again. Now, what shall I wear for dinner?”

  The two ladies passed a pleasurable half hour, finally settling on a gown of blue satin and gauze, which set off Cliona’s eyes admirably.

  Then Lady Arnfield retired to her own room while Cliona’s maid Sarah began to carry up water for her bath. It was bliss to wash off the dust of the journey. Afterwards she donned her gown and settled down for Sarah to dress her hair.

  When she had finished there was no sign of Lady Arnfield so, being an independent girl, Cliona slipped out into the corridor and down the great stairs into the drawing room. A pair of French windows stood open, and beyond them was a large, well tended garden, full of flowers and shrubs.

  But what really drew Cliona’s delighted attention was the sight of a small, mischievous spaniel, with a ball that he had dropped onto the lawn, gazing at her hopefully.

  “You darling!” she exclaimed. “Of course I’ll come and play.”

  The next moment she was out of the window and skimming down the three steps onto the lawn, seizing the ball and throwing it into the distance. The spaniel barked his pleasure and began to chase it, with Cliona following, laughing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Hartley Castle had been in the possession of the Hartley family for six hundred years. Starting as mere Barons, they had risen to Viscounts and then to Earls.

  During all that time they had increased their wealth due to their friendship with whichever Monarch happened to be on the throne.

  The castle had been added to, made less draughty and more comfortable and luxurious. An apartment was always set aside for visiting Royalty, and only two years ago the Prince of Wales had honoured them with his presence.

  Charles’s mother lived in an apartment in the east wing and his way to it took him along the great picture gallery, where hung pictures of almost all the family, going back for twelve generations.

  Here he paused for a moment to regard some of the portraits, for his cousin’s remarks about family history had made memories become alive again.

  Here was his grandfather, the ninth Earl, when he had just succeeded to the title. There he was again, a year later, with his new bride. Next was the ninth Countess, holding her newly born twin sons, Simon and Arthur.

  There were several portraits of the sons themselves, for they had been identical and so splendid looking that their portraits had been painted many times. Simon and Arthur at five, with matching angelic faces, at ten, still beautiful, but now Arthur was developing a scowl that all the painter’s tact could not disguise.

  By that time Arthur had heard the story of the swapped babies and seized on it, convinced that he, and not his brother, was the true heir. The family had dismissed it as childish fantasy, persuading themselves that he would grow out of it. But he never did.

  The brothers had married in the same year and their sons, Charles and John had been born within a few months of each other.

  Since they both resembled their fathers, it followed that they too looked like twins and the double portraits started again. Charles and John, childish and charming at six – Charles and John on horseback. They had been close friends then, before John had become infected by his father’s obsession.

  And then Simon had died unexpectedly from pneumonia, leaving a grieving widow and a sixteen year old son, Charles, now heir to the Earldom.

  Charles could still clearly remember the day of his father’s funeral when he had stood by the grave, fighting back tears, his mother’s hand tucked into his arm. Beside him stood his grandfather, sternly repressing grief at the death of his son.

  On the other side of the grave stood Arthur, in black from head to foot as befitted a man who had just lost his twin brother. Charles had looked into his face, so heartbreakingly like the dead man’s. Perhaps he was seeking comfort in that resemblance. If so, he found none.

  His uncle had stared back at him with a savage hostility so powerful that the grief stricken boy had instinctively turned away.

  Then his eyes had sought John, whom he still thought of as a friend.

  Never more.

  John’s face showed the same terrible anger as his father’s. It was like watching one face.

  Charles had known in that moment that he had lost his friend.

  His grandfather had lived another five years, dying the week after Charles’s twenty-first birthday. Now Charles was the tenth Earl of Hartley, lord of all the lands around, landlord of a dozen villages and farms, squire, friend and father to ‘his’ people.

  It was a heavy burden for a very young man, made heavier by the bitter resentment of his Uncle Arthur and cousin John. His accession had opened up old wounds.

  Those wounds had never healed. And now Charles realised that they never would.

  He found his mother in her sitting room accompanied by his grandmother, the widowed ninth Countess, and Jezebel, a large long-haired cat of repellent aspect, who disliked Charles as much as he disliked her.

  Just why his mother, a lady of unquestioned virtue, should have chosen to name her pet after a biblical harlot was something he had never understood.

  “Bless you, my dear,” his mother said, greeting him with a kiss. “We saw John galloping off down the drive, and we hoped you would come to tell us all about it.”

  “I imagine you could guess most of it,” replied Charles, kissing his grandmother, and seating his long legged figure on the sofa beside her. “He presented me with another wad of bills which he expects me to pay and I refused.”

  “Perfectly right,” his mother said in her high voice, which had a slight hoot. “He’s a bad boy. You should not give in to him. You’ve been much too indulgent.”

  Charles suppressed the despair that this pronouncement induced in him. His grandmother was old and increasingly out of touch with reality. She seemed to regard John as no worse than an ill-behaved youngster who could be admonished. The truth, that he was heartless, cruel and selfish, seemed to have passed her by.

  Charles tried hard to protect her, but her lack of understanding increased his sense of isolation.

  “I’m afraid John makes it hard not to be indulgent,” he said, speaking mildly. “He spends the money first and tosses the bills to me. He knows I’ll pay rather than let him go to prison and besmirch the family name.”

  “Heavens what a thought!” exclaimed his mother.

  Before her marriage she had been Lady Hester Coledale, seventh daughter of an impoverished Earl with too many daughters and only one son.

  With only a tiny fortune, she was considered lucky to have secured an Earl’s heir as her husband. She became Lady Hester Baxter and the future Countess of Hartley. All seemed set fair.

  But she never became a Countess. The death of her husband while his father was still alive had blighted her hopes and now her life was centred on her son.

  In middle age she was still slender and elegant with the remains of girlish prettiness and a giddy, inconsequential way of talking that often masked a disconcerting sharpness of mind.

  “I often think John’s quite mad,” she said now, working at her embroidery. “His mind is fixed on one issue and nothing else makes the slightest impression.”

  “Yes, maybe he is a little mad,” Charles mused. “He considers himself wronged.”

  “Stuff and nonsense!” asserted Lady Hester robustly.

  The other two looked at her.

  “Stuff and nonsense!” she repeated. “Piffle and balderdash. He believes it because he wants to, just as his father did.”

  “I suppose there couldn’t possibly be any truth in that old story of the confused mid
wife, mama?” Charles asked curiously.

  “Confused? You mean drunk, don’t you?”

  “Well – I was being delicate.”

  “Don’t be. It’s an annoying habit. Say what you mean.”

  “I beg your pardon,” he said meekly. “But could it be true?”

  “Of course not,” his mother replied, “for the very good reason that it’s impossible. Mrs Kenning, the midwife, could not have confused the babies, because she was never with them both together.

  “She was perfectly sober when she arrived, or your grandfather would have thrown her out. She helped with Simon’s birth, but then the nanny took him away. Mrs Kenning stayed with the family, waiting for the second baby.

  “While the nanny was showing Simon off to his father in another room, Arthur was born and a nursery maid took charge of him. Mrs Kenning was paid handsomely, went out to The Dancing Footman and spent every penny on gin. That’s where the story originated, mark my words.”

  His grandmother now joined in the conservation and sighed as she contemplated her younger son, now no longer with her.

  “Poor Arthur!” she said. He was the brilliant one. Simon was sound and steady, but Arthur was dazzling. He could ride better and learn better, so of course he began to think he was better. He felt that fate had cheated him. From there it was a short step to deciding that Mrs Kenning had cheated him.”

  “Perhaps in a way he had been cheated, if he really was the brilliant one,” Charles mused.

  “Not at all!” she stressed decidedly. “Brilliance is quite out of place in the English aristocracy. Fortunately you show no sign of it.”

  “Thank you, Grandmama,” Charles said, his eyes dancing with appreciation.

  “However, I have to say that you could have dealt with John more cleverly. It’s time you thought of something. I don’t want to be thrown out into the streets at my time of life.”

  “No, no, it’s not as bad as that,” Charles hastened to assure her, adding under his breath, “Not yet, at any rate.”

  *

  Sir Kenton Arnfield reached home late that afternoon to be met by his butler with the news that Lady Cliona had arrived, and both ladies were now in their rooms dressing for dinner.