Real Love or Fake Read online

  “You are – leaving?”

  There was no doubt of the astonishment in Daphne Burton’s voice and the expression of consternation on her face.

  She looked very attractive and so genuinely concerned.

  It flashed through the Marquis’s mind that Willy had been mistaken and that she was really attracted to him as a man.

  She had certainly seemed to be so all the time they were next to each other at the dinner table.

  He did not speak and after a moment she said hesitatingly,

  “I-I thought – I believed – that you and I could be – together as I have wanted to be for – so long.”

  “That is what I too had hoped,” the Marquis replied, “but I hear that your husband is back from Paris so, of course, there is now no question of our being alone.”

  He was watching her very carefully as he spoke.

  He knew by the surprised flicker of her eyes and the way she drew in her breath that Willy had been right.

  There was just too long a pause before she exclaimed,

  “Henry – back? What are you saying? He is not expected until tomorrow.”

  “I think you are mistaken,” the Marquis said. “Goodnight and I must thank you for a most enjoyable dinner.”

  He raised her hand perfunctorily to his lips and, while she was still speechless at what had happened, he went from the room.

  He was down the stairs and into the hall as the last of the other guests were passing through the front door.

  His carriage was waiting and, as he drove away, he felt that he had won again, but this time it was a hollow victory.

  He had been saved by a hair’s breadth from being made a fool of and it was a lesson that he would never forget.

  Then he realised that the carriage was now taking him home.

  He decided he could not bear to go to bed so early to think about Daphne Burton and how easily she had deceived him.

  He put up his cane to tap on the glass window behind his coachman and the horses came to a standstill.

  The footman then jumped down from the box and opened the door.

  The Marquis gave him an address and the footman climbed back up onto the box again.

  He had for some time been without a mistress, who was as much a normal part of a rich man’s possessions as his horses.

  Then two months earlier he had, after some deliberation, installed a very attractive. Gaiety Girl in a pleasant house in St. John’s Wood.

  Dolly Leslie was in The Toreador, which was to be the last show to take place at the old Gaiety Theatre.

  Then it was to be pulled down and a new Gaiety Theatre would be opened in October.

  This would entail the passing of one of the most famous theatres ever to entrance the populace. It was indeed a part of English history.

  The old streets around it that went back to Tudor times were also to be pulled down and London was changing.

  One thing fortunately had not changed for a long time and that was the beauty of the Gaiety Girls and the fact that they were unique in England. They had brought something entirely new to London that had not been known before.

  Lovely as Goddesses the Gaiety Girls floated through the theatre world with a grace and beauty that was all their own.

  George Edwardes had become known as the best picker of feminine charm anyone had ever known.

  From 1868 onwards the Gaiety shows had shone, glittered and entranced with an irresistible magic and all London flocked to see them.

  The Marquis would have been inhuman if he had been impervious, as no man was, to their charm.

  But he thought that Dolly Leslie was even more magnetic than the other girls the moment she appeared on the stage.

  It had not been hard to convince her that she would find it impossible to discover another man so attractive or so generous as himself.

  At least three nights a week when he was in London he sat in his box at the theatre enjoying the shows and watching Dolly.

  He would then took her out to supper at Romano’s.

  After that they would go back to the house that he had made so attractive not only for Dolly but also for himself.

  He had furnished it with the same concentration he gave to his large houses. He had installed a bathroom, which was sensational, and stocked the cellar with fine wines.

  Not surprisingly he also chose the servants as he meticulously chose everything else, so that, when he stayed the night with Dolly, he was as comfortable as if he was in his grand house in Park Lane.

  When he was with her on Tuesday, he had told her that he would not be seeing her again that week.

  On Wednesday he was going to the races and would stay the night with friends in the country. On Thursday he was dining out and on Friday he intended to go to Kyne for the weekend.

  Dolly volubly claimed how much she would miss him.

  He had consoled her by giving her a very expensive diamond bracelet that he had bought that afternoon in Bond Street.

  She thanked him very prettily and he told himself when he left her that it would be difficult for any man to find a more enchanting mistress.

  It took some time for his carriage to reach St. John’s Wood.

  The Marquis calculated that Dolly would have been home from the theatre for nearly two hours by now.

  She would have driven from the stage door in the carriage that he had given her and drawn by a horse that he had bought at Tattersalls.

  She would undoubtedly be thrilled to see him and, because it was a surprise, she would be even more ardent than usual.

  He told himself that in future he would stick to girls like Dolly and be extremely wary of embarking again on any affaire de coeur with a woman of his own class.

  It was the King, when he was Prince of Wales, who had made it possible for a gentleman to have affairs with women who could be described as ‘ladies’.

  Before that there had been a rigid distinction between a mistress and a lady.

  Even one breath of scandal in the Social world meant that the woman concerned was ostracised by all her friends and to all intents and purposes she ceased to exist.

  The Prince of Wales, however, had moved from Lily Langtry to the alluring Lady Brook, who he was genuinely in love with.

  He continued through numerous social boudoirs until at the moment he was attracted by the fascinating Mrs. Grenville and she was accepted from the very beginning of their affair by Princess Alexandra.

  It was all such a reversal of anything that had happened in the past that it was hard for many of the puritanical Dowagers to believe all that they heard.

  Now, because he felt angry and bitter, the Marquis told himself that they were right.

  He would take care in the future to confine himself to a mistress and she would be faithful to him for as long as he was her protector and the Society ladies could remain with their husbands.

  He only hoped as his carriage rolled on that Henry Burton and his wife were asking themselves how it was possible for him to have become aware of what they had planned for him.

  At the same time it was small consolation to think that it was only due to Willy that he was not at this very moment being ignominiously humiliated without having any defence.

  The carriage turned in at the small ‘in-and-out’ drive in front of the Villa in St. John’s Wood..

  Then, as the horses came to an abrupt standstill, the Marquis was aware that there was another carriage in front blocking the entrance to the front door.

  For a moment he thought that it must be his own carriage that had brought Dolly back from the theatre.

  Then he realised that it was long after midnight. By this time the coachman, unless she had been somewhere else first, would have taken it round to the Mews at the back of the house.

  Curious to know what had happened, he opened the carriage door himself and stepped out.

  He walked across the grass to approach the carriage, which he could now see was drawn, unlike his own, by only
one horse.

  There was a coachman on the box sitting in such a relaxed attitude that it was obvious he expected to have a long wait.

  Then, as the Marquis looked at the man, an idea flashed through his mind.

  He drew nearer to the carriage to stare at the crest that was painted on the door.

  One look at it told him what he had already begun to suspect and he knew that the owner was inside with Dolly.

  It was a young Peer who had been pursuing her before he appeared on the scene.

  She had told him that she found Lord Brora amusing and had allowed him to take her to Romano’s on several occasions.

  But his Lordship was not over-endowed with this world’s goods and Dolly had said quite frankly that he could not afford her.

  The Marquis had not been particularly interested in this at the time.

  Except that he had a feeling of jubilation at having ‘pipped another man at the post’ and making sure that, like his horses, he came in first.

  Now, as he stared at Lord Brora’s crest, he told himself furiously that, if he was correct in his suspicions, then Dolly was breaking all the rules of the game.

  It was understood that a man’s mistress, if he was generous towards her, was faithful to him so long as he paid the way, most especially if he provided her with a house.

  To make quite certain that in thinking the worst he was not mistaken, the Marquis passed the carriage, climbed up the two steps to the front door and opened it with his key.

  The structure of the house was very simple. There was a long sitting room on one side with a bedroom directly above it.

  On the other side of the hall there was a small dining room and a kitchen behind it. Above there was another bedroom, which the Marquis had divided into a dressing room and a bathroom.

  The hall was in darkness and he opened the door into the sitting room to find that all the lights had been extinguished.

  As he stood there, he heard from the room above the sound of voices and then a light laugh.

  He stood for a moment as if turned to stone. Then, with the same icy calm that he had started the evening with, he walked slowly out of the house, shutting the door behind him and climbed back into his carriage.

  The coachman was already backing the horses out into the road and, as the footman jumped down to open the carriage door for him, the Marquis ordered briefly,

  “Home.”

  He had been deceived not once by a woman but twice and that was something he vowed would never occur again.

  It was certainly a situation that he had never experienced before.

  He could hardly believe it possible that he of all people should be treated so treacherously not only by Daphne Burton but by his mistress as well.

  He had, he felt, been exceedingly generous towards Dolly, who he had believed had a real affection for him.

  That she had failed him was just as humiliating as if he had been found naked in bed by Burton.

  ‘Damn them both!’ he swore to himself beneath his breath. ‘And damn all women for being treacherous and untrustworthy!’

  As he drove on, the Marquis told himself that never again would he believe anything that any woman said to him.

  As he arrived home, the night-footman opened the door and he walked past him without speaking.

  He went up to his bedroom at once and rang for his valet.

  He seemed somewhat surprised to see him back so early, but was too tactful to remark upon it.

  He helped the Marquis undress and then, taking his evening clothes over his arm, he went to the door, saying before he left,

  “Goodnight, my Lord.”

  The Marquis did not reply, he merely blew out the candles to lie thinking furiously that he was completely disillusioned.

  Equally he had no intention of letting anybody know about it.

  Tomorrow his secretary would be told to pay Dolly off and order her to leave the house as rapidly as possible.

  Regrettably, he thought, he would not therefore be able to attend the last night at the Gaiety Theatre before it closed.

  To do so would inevitably make his friends, who would expect to see him afterwards with Dolly at Romano’s, ask questions.

  Willy would also be curious, although he would not ask what had happened tonight when he had dined with Daphne Burton.

  Because he was still smarting at the way he had been treated, the Marquis had no wish to be in a defensive position.

  Nor did he wish to let people suspect for one moment that he was not his ordinary victorious self.

  He recognised that he could not bear to have anybody pity him or for that matter to have Lord Brora and Dolly talking about what had occurred.

  They would, of course, know.

  Lord Brora’s coachman would certainly tell him that the Marquis had arrived, walked into the house and immediately come out again.

  And there would then be no doubt about it when Dolly received her Notice to Quit.

  He wished almost childishly that he had not given her a bracelet on Tuesday that had cost a considerable amount of money and was far better than any of the other jewels she owned.

  Then he told himself that he must go away.

  The only answer to his problems was to disappear where no one could ask him questions and no one would suspect that he had been made to look a fool by two women.

  He realised that any suspicion of the truth would create a story that would fly around London and doubtless amuse the King.

  His Majesty had always enjoyed tittle-tattle, especially if it concerned a woman or in the Marquis’s case two of them!

  ‘I will have to go away,’ the Marquis mused.

  Then he had an idea.

  The last time the King had visited Kyne he had remarked when he visited the Picture Gallery,

  “I see, Kyneston, that you are rather short of Dutch pictures. I know you have always admired those at Buckingham Palace that were bought by King George IV and I have always been grateful that he had the sense to acquire them when no one else was interested.”

  “You are quite right, Sire,” the Marquis had replied, “and I will look out for some of the Dutch Masters.”

  “They are not as pretty as the French,” the King conceded, “and that certainly applies to their women! But they are good value and I have always been an admirer of Cuyp.”

  “So have I, Sire,” the Marquis replied.

  Now, as the conversation came into his mind, he thought that it was a message from the Gods when he most needed their help.

  There was sure to be a sale of good pictures of some sort taking place in Amsterdam and no one would be surprised if he went there to see what he could add to his collection.

  He gave a sigh of relief.

  At the last moment, when he had felt that he was drowning, he had been thrown a lifeline.

  He would leave London tomorrow.

  Chapter Two

  Lela walked out through the front door and looked up at the sun coming through the trees.

  “It’s a lovely day, Nanny,” she said with a lilt in her voice.

  “It’ll be hot later,” Nanny replied, as if she must find fault with something.

  Lela was not listening to her.

  She was thinking how exciting it was to be in Holland and to see the beauty of The Hague around her. The red brick houses with their strange gables were a delight every time she looked at them.

  She thought that nothing could be more exhilarating than that at this moment she was going to the Mauritshuis Museum.

  She walked on a little way until, almost without thinking, she spoke her thoughts aloud.

  “I am sure that Step-Papa – will not find me here!”

  “I hopes not too, Miss Lela,” Nanny answered.

  Lela gave a little shiver.

  Every night she had prayed fervently that it would never enter her stepfather’s mind that she had crossed the North Sea and come to Holland.

  She could remember only too
vividly how horrified she had been when she returned home a month before after having been away for nearly three years.

  She had been thrilled when she left her Finishing School in Florence at the idea of seeing England again, although she knew that it would bring back the agony of losing her mother all too vividly.

  But she had thought that there would be compensations in being back in her own country.

  She had, however, been bitterly disillusioned.

  When her father had been killed in the last year of the Boer War, her mother’s world had fallen to pieces.

  She had been so overwhelmingly in love with her tall handsome husband.

  She had in fact loved him passionately from the first moment she had first seen him.

  It was not surprising, because Captain Harry Cavendish was not only exceedingly good-looking but had exuded charm what was irresistible both to men and women.

  As soon as Mildred Warde saw him, she had found it impossible to find any other man in the Regiment attractive.

  As Harry thought the same about her, it was only a question of time before they were married.

  They were so much in love that the whole room seemed to light up when they were together.

  But, of course, nothing is ever perfect and the parents on both sides asked what they were going to live on.

  Harry had a small allowance from his father besides his pay as a soldier and Mildred had what was little more than ‘pin money’.

  Harry, however, swept every objection aside.

  After they were married they were too happy to notice that their surroundings were not as luxurious as they might have wished.

  They had settled down in a small house in the country and were content with their horses and their one child, a daughter.

  Then the Boer War started and Harry, who was on the Reserve, was called up immediately.

  As was to be expected, he distinguished himself. After being mentioned in despatches several times, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the supreme decoration for valour in the British Army.

  Mildred was very proud of him, but at the same time she was desperately afraid for her husband because he was in constant danger.

  Her anguish was proved only too true when a few months later he was killed in battle.