A Hazard of Hearts Read online

  He came a little nearer to her and continued. “I want you to marry me, Serena. Now! At once! Today!”

  He spoke with an urgency and now Serena was staring at him, her eyes wide and the astonishment on her face very plain to see.

  “Nicholas, what do you mean? Why?”

  “There is no time to be lost, Serena. It can be done by Special Licence or if that is impossible we can leave tonight for Gretna Green.”

  “But, Nicholas, are you deranged?”

  Nicholas passed his hand over his forehead.

  “No, I am being very sane, Serena, and you have to agree. It is the only thing you can do, I tell you.”

  “Nicholas, dear, suppose you tell me from the very beginning – what this is all about.”

  She looked at him with anxiety.

  She had known him ever since they had been children together. He was her first cousin and was indeed the heir to Staverley as she had no brothers. But always he had been a quiet, rather reticent young man. They had played with each other and teased each other as children, but in most things Serena had been the leader, Nicholas seldom took the initiative. He was in character both conventional and careful.

  His father had left him a little money, not much, but enough to be comfortable on and he had recently gone to London to pay his respects at Court. He was fond of his cousin, as Serena was well aware, but it was the affection of a brother for a sister rather than of a man for a maid.

  The last thing Serena had ever expected to hear was a proposal of marriage from Nicholas.

  “Sit down, Nicholas,” she suggested.

  At that moment the door opened and Eudora came in with a bottle of wine and a glass on a tray.

  “A repast will be ready in a few minutes,” she said. “In the meantime I thought Mr. Nicholas would take a glass of wine.”

  “Set it down, Eudora,” Serena said quietly.

  Eudora did as she was told and went from the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Without waiting for an invitation Nicholas walked across to the side table, poured himself out a full glass of wine and drank it off quickly.

  And then once again in a wild, distraught manner he passed his hand over his forehead.

  “Now, Nicholas, please tell me – everything.”

  Nicholas took a breath as if it was difficult for him to find appropriate words and then at last he started to speak in a voice abrupt, raw and very unlike the slow fashionable drawl he had recently affected.

  “Uncle Giles had been losing heavily for the last three days. It seemed not to matter what he did, he never held a winning card. Then yesterday evening his luck began to change. He made a few thousands, not a fortune, but enough to gain back what he had lost. I had been watching and, when his opponent rose from the table saying that he must get to Almack’s before it closed, I said to him, ‘come and have something to eat, Uncle Giles’. He smiled at me. ‘That is a good idea, Nicholas, my boy,’ he said. ‘It seems a long time since I ate.’ He rose from the table and then at that moment the door of the card room opened and – someone came in.”

  Nicholas paused.

  “Who was it?” Serena asked.

  “Vulcan!”

  “The Marquis of – Vulcan?”

  Nicholas nodded.

  “That man!” Serena exclaimed. “It was because of him we had to sell the Van Dykes.”

  “Yes, I know. He looked across the room and saw Uncle Giles.

  “‘Ah, Sir Giles,’ he said. ‘I have been hoping we should meet again. Would you care to have your revenge?’

  “‘My Lord,’ I interrupted, ‘my uncle was just coming with me to have something to eat.’

  “He stared at me as if I was a lackey and then spoke again direct to your father.”

  “‘Well, Sir Giles, are you willing?’

  “Your father sat down at the table.

  “‘I am at your service, my Lord,’ he said.

  “I could do nothing more, Serena. I did my best.”

  “Yes, yes, Nicholas, I understand. Of course you did. Go on.”

  “They began to play. Your father’s luck had gone. He lost and lost again. He went on losing. At last he staked – this house.”

  “Oh, no, Nicholas – not that?”

  “Yes, Serena.”

  “And he lost?”

  “He lost.”

  Serena put up her hands for one moment to her eyes.

  “I cannot bear it, Staverley is – my home.”

  “That is not all,” Nicholas went on harshly.

  “What then?”

  “Uncle Giles rose from the table.

  “‘My Lord,’ he said to the Marquis, ‘you have won from me all the money I possess in the world and now I have lost my home to you. I must bid you ‘goodnight’ because I have nothing left to wager.’”

  “I can hear him saying it,” Serena said, “and he would have said it – proudly.”

  “He did,” Nicholas answered. “Lord Vulcan looked up at him, the cards still in his hands, and said,

  “‘It’s a pity, Sir Giles. I had hoped to give you your revenge. Have you nothing else on which you can try your luck?’

  “He played with the cards as he spoke. Your father seemed almost hypnotised by them, watching them as if he longed to feel them in his hands again. At last he said, very very quietly,

  “‘I have one thing more.’”

  “What could – it have been?” Serena asked.

  Nicholas looked away from her.

  “I-I cannot tell you, Serena.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Nicholas, of course you can tell me,” Serena answered. “Do go on.”

  “It was you!”

  “What – what do you mean?”

  “Uncle Giles said, ‘My Lord, I have one thing left and this time, if you play me, I believe you will lose. I have a daughter and when she marries she will inherit eighty thousand pounds, but only when she marries, you understand. Are you prepared, my Lord, to wager all I owe you for your freedom?’”

  With a swift movement Serena walked across the room and stood beside the open window.

  After a moment she spoke and her voice was steady if faint.

  “Go on, Nicholas.”

  “The Marquis smiled. If I had had the pluck, Serena, I would have struck that smile from his lips, but I could only stand there watching and wondering where this madness of your father’s would lead him.

  “‘You agree?’ Uncle Giles asked.’

  “‘I agree,’ the Marquis replied.

  “They began to play. In three minutes it was over and – Lord Vulcan had won.”

  Serena closed her eyes.

  For a moment the world spun round her.

  “What then?”

  “Uncle Giles left White’s Club without a word. I followed him. I tried to speak to him but he shook me off. ‘Leave me be, Nicholas,’ he said. ‘I wish to wallow in the Hell of my own making’. He strode up St. James’s Street and I followed him a little distance behind as I did not know what to do. At Piccadilly he stood hesitating for a moment. There was a man approaching him, a gentleman by his dress, but obviously, it seemed to me, slightly the worse for drink. I saw your father go up to him and deliberately jostle him to one side.

  “‘Out of my way, sir,’ he said.’

  “The gentleman stared at him.’

  “‘Will you kindly pay a closer attention to your manners, sir?’ he replied.

  “‘My manners are my own affair,’ Uncle Giles said in an intentionally provoking tone and taking his gloves he slapped them against the stranger’s face.”

  “Oh no!” Serena cried.

  “He did it deliberately,” Nicholas went on. “There was obviously only one course for the stranger to take. He asked for your father’s card, handed him his own and said that his seconds would call upon him in a few hours. I went up to Uncle Giles and offered him my services. He accepted them and took my arm genially enough. ‘We will go to my rooms in Half Moon Street, Nichola
s, my boy,’ he said and somehow he seemed quite cheerful. But I was staring at the stranger’s card. I had seen the name engraved there – Mr. Michael Blacknorton.’

  “‘Uncle Giles,’ I cried, ‘you must be crazy. Do you know who that man is? He is a much-vaunted shot with a pistol.’

  “‘I thought I recognised him,’ your father answered and I knew then that I had not been mistaken. As I suspicioned, he had picked the quarrel on purpose.”

  “Why? Why?” Serena asked.

  “You know why,” Nicholas answered her. “Cannot you understand, Serena? He had lost Staverley and – you.”

  “Yes, I think I understand.”

  “Mr. Blacknorton’s seconds were round within an hour,” Nicholas continued. “I tried to insist on rapiers, but your father agreed immediately to pistols. He sat drinking and talking until the dawn broke and then we went to a field outside the village of Chelsea. Surprisingly Uncle Giles seemed cheerful and almost at peace with himself. He shook my hand and said,’

  “‘Look after Serena as best you can, Nicholas and tell her to forgive me. I don’t deserve her prayers’.”

  Nicholas’ voice broke. There was a moment’s pause before Serena asked with tears running down her cheeks,

  “Did he hurt Mr. Blacknorton?”

  “He fired into the air,” Nicholas answered, “and I think Blacknorton meant only to wing him, but your father turned as if to be square to the bullet. It struck him just above the heart and he died almost instantly.”

  “Oh, Nicholas, if only I could have been with him!” Serena sank down in the window-seat and hid her face in her hands.

  “There was nothing any of us could do,” Nicholas said. “Peter Vivien was with me and I left him to make all arrangements to have your father brought back here while I came on ahead to tell you what had happened and – to persuade you to marry me.”

  “It’s kind of you, Nicholas, but – we have never loved each other.”

  Nicholas Staverley became slightly red in the face.

  “I have always been very fond of you, Serena. We have been together more or less all our lives. We would get along famously, I daresay.”

  “Without love? Dear Nicholas, I know you mean it very kindly, but it would ruin your life and you know it.”

  “That is nonsense, Serena,” Nicholas said, speaking as though they were in the schoolroom again. “We are fond of each other and we know one another well. We could live at The Gables for the time being.”

  “Within sight of Staverley – when it is no longer ours?” Serena asked softly and there was a bitterness more than of tears in her voice. “I have not forgotten, Nicholas, that you have lost it too. One day it would have been yours and Staverleys have lived here since the reign of Henry VIII. Oh, Nicholas, I am sorry, both for you and for myself.”

  In answer Nicholas walked across the room and sat down beside her in the window.

  He put his hand over hers and held it close.

  “For the Lord’s sake, Serena, listen to me. You don’t understand! You cannot wed Vulcan!”

  “Why not? Presuming that he will offer for me.”

  “I don’t even trust him to do that. He is a bad fellow, Serena! No, I am not talking in an exaggerated way. It is fashionable at the moment to be dashing and a roué, but he is all these things and more. He is inhuman. Everyone is afraid of him and there are all sorts of rumours always being repeated and whispered about him.”

  “What sort of rumours?” Serena asked.

  “I don’t really know. I have always kept out of his way because people have said such things about him. But you can ask anybody in London and they will tell you that no respectable woman can afford to be seen in his company. There are women always about him, of course, he attracts them just as sugar attracts flies, but he only takes what he wants and leaves them disconsolate and broken.”

  There was so much misery in Nicholas’ voice that Serena looked at him, sensing instinctively that he had a special reason for speaking so vehemently.

  “But what can I do?” Serena asked.

  “You cannot wed him,” Nicholas said firmly. “I will ride over to the Bishop, ask him for a Special Licence and we can be married before Vulcan arrives.”

  “Would that be – honourable?” Serena asked.

  Nicholas hesitated for a moment.

  “There is no question of being honourable where the Marquis is concerned. I believe even the Prince of Wales said to him the other day, ‘Justin, I never actually believed in the Devil until I met you’.”

  “And because he is bad you suggest that we behave badly, Nicholas?”

  “Faith, Serena, how you do catch up on a fellow!” Nicholas said impatiently, getting to his feet. “I say the only way out of this coil, and a sorry coil it is, is for you to marry me and, when Vulcan arrives to claim you, he will find you are already tied.”

  Serena rose to her feet and walked across the room. For a moment there was only the soft rustle of her dress to break the silence. At the end of the room there was a portrait of her father. It had been painted about fifteen years earlier and he looked young and joyous and carefree as he sat on a great roan mare and held his three-cornered hat in his hand.

  Serena stood for a long time looking at the portrait.

  At length she said quietly,

  “I never remember his doing a dishonourable thing, Nicholas. He was a hopeless gamester, he would gamble on anything. I recollect when I was a child I told him that I thought it was going to rain. It was of vital importance that it should not rain that day because I had been promised a picnic by my Nurse. I desired the treat so much that I felt pessimistic about it taking place, I suppose. Anyway, he laughed at me and said,

  “‘I will wager you that it does not.’

  “‘But it will,’ I said miserably, ‘I know it will.’

  “‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘if it does not, I will give you a pony. You have been asking for one long enough.’

  “I gave a shout of joy, but he lifted his hand.

  “‘Not so fast, not so fast, what do you stake in return?’

  “I thought wildly of my small possessions. He noticed the doll that I always carried in my arms.

  “I adored that doll. It was called ‘Louise’ and I went nowhere without her, she even slept with me at night.”

  “‘Your doll against a pony,’ he said.

  “I agreed, but even as I did so there was a lump in my throat and I knew that even the joys of a picnic and a pony would never compensate me for the loss of Louise. I was right, it never did. I lost the wager, of course, and later that afternoon I took Louise to my father.

  “‘Do you – really – want Louise, Father?’ I asked.

  “He saw the pleading in my eyes, but he shook his head.

  “‘A debt of honour must always be paid,’ he said firmly and took the doll from me. He locked her up in the cupboard in his study. I used to go in there without anyone knowing and speak to her through the closed door.”

  “Did you ever get her back?” Nicholas asked.

  “I was too proud to ask for her,” Serena replied, “and I think it was four or five years later that my father, looking for some lost deeds, came across Louise.”

  “‘What in the name of fortune is that thing doing there?’ he asked and I thought then of the nights I had crept into the deserted study and asked Louise if she was all right, of the times that my arms had felt empty and aching because there was no Louise to hug. I did not tell him what I felt – I could not, but I knew then that one should never gamble with the thing one loves.”

  Serena’s voice was choked, and she threw out her arms with a gesture of despair.

  Nicholas went across the room to her.

  “You are going to marry me,” he asserted masterfully.

  “But I am not,” Serena replied through her tears.

  “Don’t be so bird-witted, Serena,” Nicholas said sharply. “I know what is best and you will do as I bid you.”
>
  Serena laughed even as the tears were falling down her cheeks.

  “Oh, Nicholas, you are so funny. You never could make me obey you even though you were three years older and you are not going to succeed now. I am going to stay here and face it out. Maybe, when his Lordship sees me, he will not want me.”

  “To tell the truth, Serena,” Nicholas said, “I don’t believe for one moment that he will marry you. Everyone in London has tried to catch him at one time or another and no one has succeeded. There is someone now who is very much in love with him and he will not have her.”

  Nicholas’ voice changed and suddenly Serena understood that here was where Nicholas was personally concerned in the story.

  “Who is she?” she asked softly.

  “Lady Isabel Calver,” Nicholas answered. “You will never have heard of her, she is a widow. She was married when she was only a child in the schoolroom and her husband was killed fighting against Napoleon. She is lovely, Serena, the loveliest woman I have seen in my life and Vulcan will have none of her.”

  “In which case, Nicholas, he is not likely to wed me,” Serena answered, “but, dear cousin, thank you for asking me and thank you for your thought of me. I do appreciate it, I do really.”

  “That is very nicely said, Serena,” Nicholas replied awkwardly. “But I know that you are making a mistake. The fellow is not to be trusted. If he does not marry you, he will somehow contrive to get his hands on your fortune.”

  “He will have to be clever to do that,” Serena said. “You know what the Trustees are like.”

  “Well, there is nothing more I can do,” Nicholas said.

  “There is nothing any of us can do,” Serena said, “except remember – that my – my father is on his way here.”

  “I had not forgotten, Serena.”

  “Will you speak with the Vicar?” she asked. “I will inform the household. But first you must have something to eat, Nicholas.”

  “I will for I am tired to death. I have been up all night, worrying myself into a fever about you. You will live to regret the day that you would not agree to my plan.”

  “Maybe,” Serena replied, “but at the same time, Nicholas, the Staverleys have never run away0 and I am not going to be the first to start, not even though it means marriage with – with the Devil himself.”