The Tree of Love Read online

  Now she realised she had to meet him in person!

  Suddenly she wished that she could turn the fiacre round and somehow return to England.

  At least there she could be herself and she would be among people who would sympathise with all that she was feeling because they too had suffered from the war.

  The fiacre now rumbled to a standstill outside an extremely impressive house. It had iron gates admitting to a beautiful and well-cultivated garden.

  “We have arrived at our destination, Miss Linbury,” the Courier announced proudly.

  “I am most grateful to you for looking after me so well,” Shenda managed to say.

  She paid him out of the money her father had left for her and added a large tip.

  The driver of the fiacre waited for the gates to open and they drove in as servants appeared at the front door.

  Shenda alighted and her luggage was taken down from the front of the fiacre.

  It was then that she wondered, if the Duke refused to accept her, what she should do and where she should go.

  Already the Courier was saying his farewells, as she thanked him again for his courtesy and he drove away.

  She suddenly realised that she did not know where to find him to take her home if needs be.

  A major-domo was waiting at her side and with an effort Shenda forced herself to speak to him in French,

  “I have come to see – His Grace the Duke.”

  “Please come this way, mademoiselle.”

  The major-domo led her along a lengthy passage and into an elegantly furnished reception room.

  She guessed that it was where those who wanted an audience with the Duke waited until he was ready for them.

  The door was closed and she was alone.

  She asked herself again frantically if it had been a stupid idea to come –

  Supposing the Duke refused to see her?

  Supposing he sent her away without even reading her father’s letter?

  Where could she go and what could she do?

  These thoughts passed through her mind almost as clearly as if someone was saying it all aloud.

  Then the door opened and a young man in uniform, who was obviously an equerry, entered the room.

  He looked at Shenda with surprise and, as he walked towards her, she rose to her feet.

  “I have come to see the Duke of Wellington with a letter for him from my father, the late Lord Linbury.”

  The equerry bowed.

  “His Grace is rather busy at the moment,” he said, “but I am sure he will be delighted to see you as soon as he is free.”

  Shenda gave a little sigh of relief before the equerry asked her,

  “Have you just come from London?”

  “Yes, and it was a somewhat difficult journey, but actually we were quicker than I expected.”

  “Is this your first visit to Paris?”

  “Yes, but, of course, I have read and heard so much about the City that I almost feel I have been here.”

  The equerry laughed.

  “We felt the same at first, but I have now been here so long I am beginning to forget London and all the people I knew there.”

  He was, Shenda recognised, making her feel at ease and at the same time it was somewhat comforting not to be turned away immediately.

  She also realised to her surprise that he was looking at her with an expression in his eyes she had not expected.

  She could not think of anything further to say and then he remarked,

  “There is so much I want to hear about London and about England if it comes to that. I do hope I will have a chance to talk to you after you have seen His Grace.”

  “That would certainly make me feel more at home than I am feeling at the moment,” she replied nervously.

  The equerry smiled at her.

  “Everyone is frightened before they meet the Duke, but I assure you that, when you know him, he has a charm which puts even the most aggressive foreigner at his ease.”

  He had a twinkle in his eye and Shenda laughed as he walked towards the door.

  “I will go and see if the last caller has gone and don’t worry, I am quite certain His Grace will be delighted to meet you. You are English, and what can be more pleasant when one is so far from home than to meet someone who speaks the same language from the country we belong to?”

  He was gone before Shenda could think of a reply.

  She told herself he was certainly the kindest young man she could hope to meet.

  ‘He knew that I was apprehensive,’ she reflected, ‘and now the Duke of Wellington does not seem half as intimidating as he did before I came here!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Duke’s guest rose to his feet saying,

  “I cannot thank Your Grace enough for your help and, of course, your inspiration. I know that no one ever leaves you without saying the same thing.”

  The Duke of Wellington smiled.

  “I am always delighted to hear it again.”

  His guest, who was the newly arrived Ambassador of one of the smaller countries represented in Paris, walked to the door, followed by his wife who had scarcely spoken since they arrived.

  She was, however, exceedingly attractive with, the Duke speculated, Russian blood in her.

  As he bent over her hand in Parisian fashion, he felt her fingers twitch beneath his.

  He rang the bell, an equerry then opened the door and the Ambassador walked out of the room.

  Before the door closed, his wife came running back saying as she did so,

  “I have left my handbag behind!”

  It was on the chair where she had been sitting and she picked it up.

  Then, as she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that neither her husband nor the equerry were to be seen, she moved close to the Duke and whispered,

  “Come and see me tomorrow at five o’clock. I will be alone.”

  His eyes glinted as he looked down at her and then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

  Before he could say anything or move, she had run across the room and disappeared out of the door.

  The Duke gave a little laugh. It was something that often happened to him, but he never failed to find it surprising.

  Nevertheless, as she was very pretty, he thought he would definitely call on her tomorrow afternoon.

  He walked slowly to the window and stood taking in the sun-kissed air before he rang the bell again.

  He was thinking, as he had so often done before, of the extraordinary way he had moved up in the world.

  What had happened became ever more astounding to him every day.

  He had had a sad childhood, his mother finding him gauche and unattractive and as he often said of himself, ‘I was a shy reserved boy.’

  He found himself thinking of Ireland.

  As a penniless First Lieutenant in a Foot Regiment he had been no match for Kitty, the girl he had first wanted to marry in the spring of 1793. After many visits to Kitty’s Dublin family home he had declared his intentions, only to have them dashed by her family who thought that, as the third son of a large family, he looked to have little in the way of prospects

  Thinking herself in love with the dashing young man, but powerless to choose her own husband, Kitty had no choice but to comply with her father, Lord Longford, who turned him down not once but twice.

  The Duke was subsequently promoted to the rank of Captain in the 18th Light Dragoons, then to Major and finally to a Lieutenant Colonel in the 33rd Foot.

  Yet he was still not rated important enough by the relatives of the pretty Irish girl he believed he loved.

  Looking out of the window, the Duke thought how fantastic his life was now.

  Everything had changed when he left Portsmouth bound for India at the age of twenty-seven.

  He could see himself now standing on the deck of the S.S. Rockingham with high hopes.

  Nine years later he returned home still a bachelor, but with an experience of
women that was to remain with him all his life.

  He went out as the Honourable Arthur Wellesley, but left as Sir Arthur Wellesley K.B., the victor of Assaye and half-a-dozen other hard fought battles.

  He also left behind him many attractive, young but married women who wept when they bid him farewell.

  He was considered exceedingly handsome despite a long pale face and a markedly aquiline nose.

  But his clear blue eyes were as compelling as his personality.

  The ladies, who had found him irresistible in India, were always married and, when they encountered him, their husbands were soldiering in another part of the country.

  Looking back, the Duke knew he had never actually lost his heart and yet he had certainly found the glamorous and elegant ladies of Calcutta intriguing.

  The Regimental Mess proved a place for meeting beautiful women that often led to the excitement of a new affaire-de-coeur.

  There would be many delicious wines starting with champagne, superb food, charming company followed by horseplay and by the next morning a hangover.

  His brother, Richard, arrived in India in 1798 as the Governor General and this gave Arthur even more standing than he had already.

  Richard was talked of as living, not like a Lord, but like a King Emperor whilst Arthur found himself even more pursued by the deserted wives of busy soldiers.

  When he left India, he was in fact better experienced in the ways of love than any of his contemporaries, although he had still never lost his heart.

  Kitty’s family who had turned him down as just not good enough for their sister now communicated with him.

  They informed him that, as she had waited for him all this time, he would now be accepted as her suitor.

  Although he had not seen her for years, he decided in April to visit Ireland and marry his little Irish beauty.

  His clergyman brother Gerald was to marry them and the wedding ceremony took place in the residence of the Longfords on the 10th April 1806.

  If he had altered while he was away – so had Kitty.

  “She has grown ugly, by Jove!” he muttered to his brother before the ceremony took place.

  He was thirty-seven years old by then and she was thirty-four, with much of her girlhood prettiness faded.

  In comparison, he had enjoyed a fiery love affair with the famous courtesan Harriette Wilson, the previous year. It was clearly impossible for Kitty, an aging virgin, nervous, shy, timid and exceedingly thin, to arouse him in the same way that beautiful and experienced Harriette had done.

  The Duke turned away from the window.

  The spark between them seemed to have been extinguished over their years apart and never was re-ignited, as they had so little in common.

  If he was honest, she often irritated him and despite giving him two sons, he preferred to be away from her.

  Sighing heavily he tried to push his thoughts away from how disappointing his marriage had been.

  If he had used common sense he would not, after so many years of being told he was not good enough for Lord Longford’s daughter have married her.

  But he was an honourable man, and it had seemed the honourable thing to do at the time.

  Now he harboured no wish to think further of what had happened, nor how much he had enjoyed himself before his marriage.

  He rang the bell rather more sharply than usual and one of his equerries immediately opened the door.

  “Who else is here to see me?”

  “It’s a Miss Linbury, Your Grace.”

  “Bring her in.”

  He was wondering why he should recall the name – he was sure that he had known no woman called Linbury.

  Then, as Shenda came into the room, his remarkable memory made him exclaim even before she reached him,

  “Your name is Linbury! Any relation to the Lord Linbury, who I well remember meeting several times when I stayed with the Salisburys?”

  Shenda smiled.

  “Yes, of course. My father went to quite a number of their parties and told me he had often met you there.”

  “Then I am delighted to see you – and interested to learn why you are in Paris.”

  Shenda held out the letter from her father.

  “My father is dead,” she replied, “and he wrote this letter to you before he died.”

  “Dead! I am very sorry to hear it.”

  “He had not been well for some considerable time – but he forced himself to write – this letter.”

  Her voice trembled as she uttered the last word.

  He gave her a quick glance before sitting down at his desk indicating a comfortable chair for Shenda.

  She sank into it.

  Then the Duke read the letter and as he did so, he was remembering how much he had liked Lord Linbury.

  They had met in India as well as at Hatfield House, and he found more amusement there than anywhere else he was invited and it had become a second home for him – in fact the type of home he would have liked for himself.

  The Great Hall, the minstrel gallery, the library, the lake, and the maze in the Park all delighted him.

  He had been at Hatfield House when his only son was born and later Lady Salisbury accompanied by her two daughters visited Kitty in Ireland to see the baby.

  At the same time inviting the Duke once again to stay with them for the foxhunting.

  It all now flashed through his mind and he recalled the first time he had met Lord Linbury as a fellow guest.

  They had talked together when dinner was over and he had been most impressed by everything the older man had to say.

  They had become real friends, and the Duke had looked forward to meeting him again whenever he visited Hatfield House.

  As he read the letter Lord Linbury had inscribed to him, he could hardly believe that what he was reading was true and yet he could understand the many difficulties that had faced the dying man.

  The greatest of them being the future of his dearest daughter.

  He now addressed Shenda,

  “I am very sorry to hear that your father is dead and that your brother was killed at Waterloo.”

  “They both admired you very much, Your Grace.”

  “I am flattered, but equally I am wondering what I can do about you.”

  “I know it is really too much to ask and I do feel embarrassed at coming here, but I did not really know what else I could do.”

  “What about your relatives?”

  “It sounds extraordinary, Your Grace, but actually they do not exist. There are perhaps one or two old cousins who I have not seen for years. But I am quite certain they would have no wish to have me to live with them even if they could afford it.”

  The Duke looked down at the letter again.

  “I presume,” he quizzed, “your father had very little to leave you.”

  “Only the old house, which is falling down, and the estate which has not been properly cultivated for years, and my stallion that I have left with a farmer who I know will look after him.”

  The Duke did not speak.

  He was thinking that he had been left with a huge number of problems and difficulties by practically every country now represented in Paris, besides, of course, by the Parisians themselves.

  But he had never yet had a young woman without a penny in the world placed in his care.

  He was puzzled as to what he could say and do.

  What made it even more complicated was that at present he was deeply engaged in an affaire-de-coeur with the famous opera singer Madame Giuseppina Grassini.

  It was one of his strangest and in many ways his most outrageous affair.

  Madame Grassini had been Napoleon Bonaparte’s mistress at one time and her voluptuous charms, her lovely contralto voice and her obvious expertise in singing great music made her irresistible to any man.

  She spoke a mixture of Italian, French and English and wore a multi-coloured style of dress that had a ‘gypsy’ look about it.

  She
had amassed a large fortune from the gifts she demanded and received from her many lovers.

  She was most talkative, impulsive and at the same time exceedingly beautiful.

  Their first meeting was when she sang at a banquet the Duke had held in Paris for the Czar of Russia.

  The Duke had been entranced by her performance and had gone further and been enchanted by her as well.

  Of all his many love affairs he often thought that this one was the fieriest and the most satisfying.

  Because of his infatuation with her, he had thought out an idea of making her The Queen of the Evening and she became the first singer to be admitted to Society.

  At the party the Duke gave for the Czar he seated her on a sofa on a platform in the ballroom, never left her side and then he took her into supper in front of everyone.

  It was therefore not surprising that a great number of the titled English ladies present considered it an insult to them and their Social status.

  But the Duke was quite oblivious and did not listen to any rebukes nor did they trouble him in the slightest.

  She had now been his mistress for nearly a year, but at the back of his mind he had a strong feeling that their love affair was coming to an end.

  At the same time it was impossible for him to invite this young innocent girl in front of him to stay in his house even if he provided her with a chaperone.

  He thought that the one person he might just ask for help was Madame de Staël.

  This brilliant woman of letters had fascinated him and he saw her practically every day in Paris.

  Her wit and wisdom were always irresistible and she entertained the intellectuals of the day in her home.

  However, he was quite certain she would not want to be hampered with a young girl.

  ‘What the devil can I do?’ the Duke asked himself as he saw Shenda watching him with worried eyes.

  “This is a somewhat difficult situation for you,” he began, “and also, as it so happens, for me.”

  “I was certain that was what you would feel, Your Grace, but perhaps if I could stay somewhere respectable, there would be some useful work I could undertake.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “And what do you think that could be?”

  Shenda made a helpless gesture with her hands.