Forced to Marry Page 2

  When hostilities were over, he became one of the most admired and sought after young gentlemen in the Beau Monde.

  He was outstanding as a horseman, which made him automatically a Corinthian, and he was an acclaimed pupil of Gentleman Jackson’s Academy in Bond Street.

  He was also a swordsman who, it was said, had defeated two European champions.

  He was an undisputed expert whether with a gun at game birds or with a pistol in a duel.

  The stories about him were, of course, repeated and re-repeated by the employees on both his estate and Sir Robert’s.

  Gytha had thought of him as a hero ever since she could remember.

  But the sad thing was that she had never met him.

  She had, however, seen him, which had been enough to stir her imagination and make him part of her dreams.

  That after the War he should have chosen to journey round the world was, she thought, exactly what she might have expected him to do rather than spend his time going from one beautiful woman’s boudoir to another’s.

  In fact the story that she heard from the country people was that he had no intention of getting married. He wished to remain a bachelor for many years.

  This merely added to the aura that surrounded him in her imagination.

  She could never picture Lord Locke running after money as her cousins were doing.

  Or spending his time ingratiating himself with a disagreeable old man like her grandfather just to get something out of him.

  “Nothing will stop me from watching the steeplechase,” she said to Hawkins. “We will go to the rise by Monk’s Wood, where it will be easy to see the whole course.”

  “I’ve heard as how his Lordship’s altered it since he were here last.”

  “In what way?”

  “He’s extended it, made the jumps higher and more difficult.”

  “I wish I could jump over them,” Gytha sighed wistfully.

  But she knew that however much she might watch and admire Lord Locke, it would be impossible for her ever to meet him.

  The steeplechase had now swept away her misery and the horror of what her grandfather had planned for her.

  When she went back to the house, she was smiling.

  She no longer was thinking about herself, but about Lord Locke.

  *

  The next day, to Gytha’s joy, the sky was clear.

  The slight frost that had made the lawns white when she had first opened her window had cleared away in the morning sunshine.

  She had no Governess at the moment as the last one had been dispensed with by her grandfather on her eighteenth birthday.

  There was fortunately no one to ask questions as to where she was going and her grandfather would not be down until nearly eleven o’clock.

  It was therefore easy to hurry to the stables as soon as she had finished breakfast to find that Hawkins was waiting for her.

  She mounted Dragonfly and he was riding an equally fine horse by the name of Samson.

  They set off, making it appear to the stable lads and the Head Groom that they were heading for a short ride the way they usually went and with no other intentions in mind.

  “Keep away from the main roads. Miss Gytha,” the Head Groom advised her just as she was moving off.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “There be a number of carriages travellin’ to The Hall, miss.”

  “Then we will certainly do our best to avoid them,” Gytha replied casually.

  Only when they had ridden out of earshot did she see that Hawkins’s eyes were twinkling.

  He was a wiry, athletic little man, who was now getting on in years.

  But her father had always said that he would rather have Hawkins with him in a tight corner than anyone else he knew.

  “What is more,” her father had added, “there is nobody who can make me as comfortable as Hawkins, whether it means strangling a chicken for my dinner or making me a bed in a pig sty!”

  Her mother had laughed.

  Then she said with a sob in her voice,

  “Oh, darling, if only I could come to look after you. But I am afraid you would not want me to be a ‘camp follower’.”

  “I like to think of you here, my precious,” her father had replied, “with all the things we have chosen together for our home. But I promise you, I will not stay away for one minute longer if it is possible for me to return to you.”

  He had looked at her mother in a way that Gytha knew was an expression of love without words.

  Then they had moved into each other’s arms and Gytha had crept from the room knowing that for the moment they had forgotten her very existence.

  But her father had never come back from the campaign and their house where he had been so happy was shut up.

  Then there were only the large, gloomy empty rooms of The Hall and her grandfather’s querulous voice.

  Continually he was finding fault with somebody or something.

  For the time being, however, as Gytha rode away on Dragonfly, she forgot everything but the excitement of the steeplechase.

  She would see once again the man who was inevitably the hero of the stories she told herself at night after she had blown out the candles by her bed.

  They rode through the Park as if going in their usual directions just in case any of the people in the house might be watching them.

  Then, doubling back through the woods, they set off at a sharp gallop.

  They crossed the fields to where about two miles away Lord Locke’s boundary adjoined her grandfather’s estate.

  It was here that there lay the much-contested wood.

  It had severed relations between the two families who had lived side by side for so long that it was impossible to think of the County without them.

  “Such a stupid feud!” Gytha’s mother had once said. “When Papa and I live at The Hall, I have every intention of holding out the hand of friendship to every one of our neighbours, including Lord Locke.”

  ‘That is what I shall do if Grandpapa leaves me the house and his money,’ Gytha told herself.

  Then she remembered the conditions that went with it.

  For a moment the sunshine was eclipsed and she seemed to be encompassed by a fog that she could not penetrate.

  Then she forced herself to forget everything but the thrill of seeing, as she was quite certain she would. Lord Locke win his own steeplechase in triumph.

  They rode slowly through the wood and, when they emerged on the other side of it, Gytha found herself where she wanted to be.

  It was on a high rise from which the ground swept down into a valley.

  It was there that the steeplechase would take place and she could already see that there were a considerable number of spectators standing beside each fence.

  As Hawkins had told her, there were now more fences and higher ones than there had ever been in the past.

  At the Starting Post some of the riders and their horses were already slowly circulating.

  All were obviously on very well bred animals.

  And riding them were smart young gentlemen who must have come down from London and there was no mistaking their tall hats set at a jaunty angle on their heads.

  Even at a distance Gytha was aware of their meticulously tied cravats, their well-cut riding jackets and, above all, their highly polished boots.

  Then, as she was looking from one to another of them, a black stallion came trotting up to the Starting Post.

  With a leap of her heart she recognised Lord Locke at once.

  There was no one, she thought, who could ride as well as he did.

  Nor was there any horse to equal the one he rode.

  She looked at him and could see that there was little change in his appearance since she had last seen him over a year ago.

  If anything she thought that he looked even more handsome than he had then.

  Once, out hunting, she had passed him at a gate and she had been able to look closely at one of
the most unusual faces that she had ever seen.

  It was not only that he was so good-looking.

  There was something raffish about him, she reflected.

  He had the face of a buccaneer, a pirate, a man who found life extremely enjoyable and was determined by hook or by crook, to gain the very best of it for himself.

  She did not know why she felt that she knew so much about a man who she had never even spoken to.

  Yet every time she had seen Lord Locke, even in the distance, he seemed to stand out amongst all other men.

  Even including the contemporaries he was surrounded by.

  She could see them now, laughing and talking to him.

  Then it was clear that he was giving orders, although she could not hear what was said, and they obeyed him.

  The horses were now all in line and the spectators were watching the spectacle intently.

  Until, as they moved forward at Lord Locke’s command, there was the sharp report of the starting gun.

  And they were off.

  Gytha held her breath.

  It was so exciting that, without intending to, she must have urged her horse forward.

  He was then moving down from the rise and nearer to the Racecourse.

  All the riders had taken the first fence and there was only one refusal at the second.

  By the time they reached the third, Gytha could see clearly that Lord Locke’s black stallion was ahead.

  Not by much, for he was obviously holding him on a tight rein, but definitely ahead.

  She was sure that already he was smiling his strange cynical smile triumphantly.

  It was a foregone conclusion that he would win.

  On they went, over the water jump, and now a hedge that seemed even higher than the rest. There were two falls and another horse ran out.

  By now they were reaching the far end of the course and it was easy to see the fences and that Lord Locke’s stallion was taking them effortlessly.

  On and on, until finally there was a long stretch down to the Winning Post.

  It was here, Gytha knew, that Lord Locke would be giving his horse its head.

  There were only three others left at the front of the field to challenge him.

  It was a close finish.

  But at the last moment, almost as if Lord Locke lifted his mount to do so, the black stallion spurted forward.

  He won what had been a very gruelling steeplechase by a length.

  Gytha was following it all with concentration.

  She was willing, although she was not aware of it, Lord Locke’s horse to take every fence.

  Down the final stretch to the Winning Post she could hardly breathe.

  Now that it was over she felt for a moment almost as exhausted as if she had been riding herself.

  “What did I tells you, Miss Gytha?” Hawkins asked. “I knows his Lordship’d win. There’s nobody to touch him, nobody!”

  Gytha agreed with him.

  But for the moment she could not speak and Hawkins went on,

  “It’s a pity we can’t tell him, miss, how much we’ve enjoyed watching him and I’d like to see that horse close to.”

  “So would I,” Gytha replied.

  “I’ve always said,” Hawkins continued on conversationally, “’twas a cryin’ shame that his Lordship’s not welcome at The Hall seein’ as how your father saved his life.”

  For the first time since the race had begun Gytha turned to look at Hawkins.

  Now there was an expression of surprise in her large eyes.

  “What do you mean – saved his life?”

  “Didn’t the Master ever tell you about it?” Hawkins enquired.

  “No, he did not,” Gytha answered. “When did he save Lord Locke’s life?”

  “’Twas when we were in Portugal, miss, at the first battle when his Lordship were engaged in after he’d joined the Regiment.”

  “What happened?” Gytha asked.

  “We comes upon a troop of them Frenchies unexpected like and afore we knows what’s a-happenin’, his Lordship, though he hadn’t inherited in them days, had his horse shot from under him.”

  Gytha made a little murmur, but did not interrupt the flow.

  “We were outnumbered by about six to one,” Hawkins went on, “and your father had already given orders to retreat. There were nothin’ else we could do and then when Lieutenant Locke crashes to the ground, he pulls in his horse, bends down, and says to him, ‘jump up behind me, laddie, and be darned quick about it!’

  “He gives him a hand, pulls him up and then gallops orf with bullets whistlin’ round his ears!”

  Gytha gave a sigh.

  “It sounds very like Papa.”

  “’Twas a miracle, miss! He coulda bin shot down himself stayin’ behind like that when the rest of us, followin’ his orders, was a-gallopin’ away!”

  Hawkins laughed and added,

  “I bets when his Lordship thinks about it, he’s grateful to your father for bein’ alive, specially like when he wins a race like we’ve just witnessed.”

  “I am sure he is,” Gytha said quietly.

  She looked down below at Lord Locke receiving the congratulations of the crowd clustering around him.

  The other riders were coming in slowly.

  Then she had an idea!

  An idea so fantastic and so revolutionary that she could hardly dare express it even to herself.

  Chapter two

  Lord Locke rode triumphantly with a smile on his rather hard lips towards his house.

  There had been the usual congratulations from those who had taken part in the steeplechase and a great number from the spectators who also wanted to shake his hand.

  It was therefore getting on in the afternoon before they finally reached Locke Hall.

  Luncheon was awaiting them and a number of the competitors were by now extremely hungry.

  Lord Locke, however, had made it a principle never to ride immediately after a large meal.

  He therefore paid no attention to those of his guests who were grumbling at the long delay.

  He knew, however, that his chef would have excelled himself in providing a superlative repast.

  He had already, before leaving this morning, seen his wine steward and had told him what drinks were to be provided.

  He looked forward to steeplechases even when he was travelling around the world.

  He went to out of the way places, because he had an urge to be, amongst other things, an explorer.

  Now he had proved, as he had expected, that his horse was better than anybody else’s and he therefore went out of his way to praise generously the others that he had defeated. He knew that it was to the chagrin of their owners.

  However everybody was very good-humoured about it.

  They were, in fact, prepared before the steeplechase started for their host to be the winner.

  At the front door of the impressive mansion, which had been rebuilt by his grandfather in the middle of the last century, there were a number of grooms waiting for the riders.

  As Lord Locke dismounted, he patted the black stallion that had carried him to victory and said to his groom,

  “Hercules behaved exactly as I expected he would and I know that you are as proud of him as I am.”

  “’E be best ’orse we’ve ’ad in the stable, my Lord,” the groom replied.

  He knew that Lord Locke agreed with him without his having to say so.

  Lord Locke walked up the steps into the hall with most of his guests following him.

  Then he stopped dead.

  Standing at the bottom of the stairs, obviously posing deliberately against the gold and crystal balustrade, was a woman.

  As Lord Locke stared at her, she moved forward.

  In a low sensuous tone he remembered so well she asked,

  “Are you pleased to see me, Valiant?”

  Surprised was rather the word, Lord Locke thought or even more appropriately – astounded.

/>   However, knowing that it would be a mistake to say so, he merely replied,

  “I was told, Zuleika, that you were out of England.”

  “I returned to this country two days ago and heard that you were here as well.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes saying a great deal more than her lips.

  It was impossible to imagine that anyone could be more beautiful.

  Princess Zuleika El Saladin was one of those mysterious personalities who suddenly appear like a meteor in the social sky.

  They are difficult to fit into any particular category or, in fact, to understand.

  The Princess had appeared in London directly after the War was over and her enemies, and, of course, she had many, said that she had been waiting on the ‘touch-line’ to see who was victorious.

  Exquisitely beautiful, no one knew exactly what her nationality was or where she came from.

  She claimed proudly to be Russian.

  Those who grew to know her well, as Lord Locke did, suspected that she more likely came from South of the Black Sea than from North of it.

  But she took no one into her confidence and it was therefore difficult to refute her assertion that she was Russian.

  She had been married at one time to a Nobleman of her claimed nationality and only later to another husband of Turkish origin.

  It was his name she used now, calling herself ‘Princess Zuleika’ which she asserted that she was entitled to in her own right.

  She added ‘El Saladin’ almost as if it was a challenge to those who were obviously curious about her.

  Her husbands, if that was the polite name for the men in her life, had between them left her an enormous fortune.

  She bought one of the largest houses in Mayfair and then proceeded to entertain in a manner that was a delight to those who had nothing else to occupy their minds.

  Her balls and Receptions offered extravagant hospitality and were original in many different ways.

  Moreover they followed each other in quick succession and not to be invited was a stigma that few people were brave enough to endure.

  The Princess had dark flashing eyes, an exquisitely lissom figure and jewels that might have come from an Aladdin’s cave.

  It was quite obvious that she would be pursued by every man in the Beau Ton.

  But the moment the Princess set eyes on Lord Locke she pursued him relentlessly.