Never Laugh at Love Read online

  She gave a little sigh of sheer happiness.

  “Do you not understand?” she asked. “It means that Edward has gone to Sheldon and I can remain here until the end of the Season!”

  “He will really allow you to stay here alone?”

  “Not alone,” the Countess corrected, “but with my God-daughter, chaperoning her in the most respectable manner to all the most important parties – and to Almacks. In fact I shall be a dowager, Garth, sitting on the dais and behaving with the utmost propriety.”

  “Not as far as I am concerned, I hope!” the Duke objected.

  The Countess laughed.

  “No, of course not! But that is what Edward believes and you know what a stickler he is for doing the right thing. Especially when it concerns one’s duty! That is what I persuaded him I owed to – ’

  She paused.

  “What is the girl’s name? I ought to remember. I was at her Christening. An – Anthea! Yes, of course. Anthea!”

  She laughed.

  “Anthea Forthingdale! Poor girl. What a mouthful!”

  “It is, as you say, a piece of good fortune. I could not have borne your being taken away from me to Sheldon. It would have been very hard for me to find an excuse to drop in there.”

  “There will be no need for you to have any excuses to come here,” the Countess said. “And not only has Edward gone, but he has also taken that doddering old butler with him who I am convinced was always spying on me and of course his personal valet and the groom who has been with the Sheldons for forty years – which is far too long for any servant to stay with anyone!”

  She threw out her hands in an expressive gesture.

  “So I have new staff and an open door and an open heart, my dearest, irresistibly handsome Garth!”

  The Duke did what was expected of him and took the Countess in his arms.

  *

  It was an hour later that the Countess, looking at herself in her mirror as she dressed for dinner, thought how satisfactory life could be when one managed to get one’s own way.

  She had not exaggerated when she told the Duke that she really was in despair at being taken to the country at a moment’s notice, just because her husband was bored with London.

  Unless Lady Forthingdale’s letter had arrived to save her, she would have had to do as her husband wanted. She had been married when she was only eighteen in the same hasty manner as her friend, Christobel, but in her case it was a very different marriage.

  The Earl of Sheldon, immensely rich and of considerable Social importance had been a widower for ten years when he saw his future wife in the crowded ballroom at Devonshire House.

  She had been among a number of debutantes, who were present at one of the lavish and exclusive balls which were given by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and attended by everyone who was of any importance in the Beau Monde.

  Delphine had not been particularly outstanding amongst the other girls of her age. It may have been her red hair that attracted the Earl or perhaps it was her youth, which to a man satiated with sophistication had a charm of its own.

  Yet the explanation may simply have been that love is unpredictable and no one can be quite certain where Cupid’s arrow is likely to strike next.

  Whatever the reason, the Earl, who, since he had been widowed, had devoted himself to much older and more experienced beauties, had danced for the first time in many years with a debutante and lost his heart.

  Delphine had been both intrigued and overwhelmed by his importance.

  But even if she had wished to refuse such a matrimonial catch, it would have been impossible for her to do so. Her father and mother were not unnaturally delighted at their daughter’s success and she was whisked up the aisle almost before she knew what was happening to her.

  There was no doubt that at first she had been extremely happy.

  The luxury with which her husband enveloped her and the sophisticated Social world into which he introduced her had an allure that kept her an adoring and faithful wife for at least ten years.

  During this time she presented the Earl with two sons and a daughter and then she began to think about herself. The Earl was getting older and he found the country far more satisfying than London.

  What was more, he bad little in common with the Prince Regent.

  In fact, he resented the manner in which the heir to the throne, growing more and more frustrated at not being King, expected fulsome adulation, uncritical flattery and undivided attention from all who surrounded him.

  The Earl was too much of an individualist and too egotistical himself to find Carlton House anything but a bore.

  While too experienced Socially to show his boredom, he found it so much easier to live in the country where no demands were made upon him.

  Delphine, on the contrary, found in London all that she desired in the way of amusement and interest.

  This narrowed down eventually to any gentleman who was prepared to succumb to her charms and cast his heart at her feet.

  The years had brought her a wholehearted appreciation of her particular attractions and she had no desire to hide them under a bushel.

  She was beautiful, she was chic and the Earl’s position made it easy for her to become a leader of the gay, raffish and extravagant Society, which revolved round Carlton House.

  After she took her first lover, she had felt guilty.

  But by the time their numbers had multiplied considerably, she was concerned only with keeping her husband in ignorance of what was now vital to her happiness.

  She was in fact rather in awe of the Earl.

  Although she could beguile and entice him into doing most of the things she wished, there was a hard core of obstinate determination on which she could make no impression.

  This was obvious when it came to a choice between London and Sheldon and on anything that concerned the honour of the family.

  No amount of entreaty, pleading or defiance would move the Earl on these matters and Delphine knew it. It was therefore, as she had said, a miracle that she had been reprieved at the eleventh hour from having to leave London – and more important – the Duke.

  She had as it happened, achieved the zenith of a long treasured ambition when she succeeded in attracting the Duke of Axminster.

  He had a reputation for being not only difficult, but also extremely fastidious.

  He was naturally pursued by every matchmaking mother the length and breadth of England.

  He was also sought after, chased and hunted relentlessly by the Ladies of Fashion, who counted their successes as a Red Indian might count the scalps on his belt.

  It had taken time, a great deal of manoeuvring and a lot of luck before the Duke became aware of Delphine’s enticements, but finally she ‘hooked’ him.

  It was a triumph all the sweeter because she was in fact genuinely enamoured of the most eligible bachelor of the ‘town’ and a veteran of an inordinate number of amatory campaigns.

  It was not only his great possessions or even his undeniable good looks.

  There was a kind of arrogance about him which appealed to women and which Delphine found very much more exciting than the humble devotion of her previous lovers.

  She always had the feeling, and it was a challenge, that she was very much more in love with the Duke than he was with her.

  That she used every wile and every sophistication she had ever learnt, combined with an expertise that came from long practice, and still could not be sure of him, made the chase even more exciting!

  Delphine was determined that sooner or later he would become her abject slave like all those upon whom she had previously bestowed her favours.

  *

  “Will your Ladyship wear the emeralds tonight?” her maid asked.

  Delphine started.

  She had been staring at herself for so long in the mirror that she had for the moment forgotten where she was or what she was doing.

  “The emeralds, Maria!” she said. “And
that reminds me – there will be a young lady coming to stay here and she will be arriving on Friday.”

  “On Friday, my Lady?”

  “That is what I said,” the Countess answered. “She will occupy the bedroom at the back. It will be quieter for her there than the room next door to this.”

  “It’s very small, my Lady.”

  “That will not matter,” the Countess said loftily. “People who come from the country, Maria, are not used to the noise of the London traffic and, as you well know, the room beside mine overlooks the street.”

  “Yes, of course, my Lady, I didn’t think of that”

  “We will do everything to make Miss Forthingdale comfortable,” the Countess declared.

  As she spoke, she thought with satisfaction of several hostesses she knew with daughters who had just made their debut.

  Tomorrow she would call on all of them and persuade them to include Anthea in their parties and take her to many of the entertainments to which they would be escorting their own daughters.

  ‘That will leave me free,’ the Countess said to herself. ‘Free to be with Garth.’

  She gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

  Then, as the maid fixed the emerald tiara on her red hair, she told herself that he was hers, completely and absolutely hers, in a way she was sure he had never belonged to another woman.

  ʽAnd why not?’ she thought with a little sigh of satisfaction. ʽI am far more beautiful than any of them!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Anthea arrived in London in a state of luxury that was a vivid contrast to the discomfort of the first part of the journey.

  Lady Forthingdale had at first been horrified at the idea of Anthea travelling alone to Eaton Socon.

  She declared it would be impossible unless Anthea went by post chaise and they could find someone to accompany her.

  “You are forgetting, Mama,” Anthea said, “that such a way of travelling would be extremely expensive. To hire a post chaise for me alone would cost an astronomical amount.”

  Lady Forthingdale knew this was true and, when she did not reply, Anthea said firmly,

  “I shall go by stagecoach and I assure you I shall be very well chaperoned by the dozen or so of my fellow passengers.”

  “But I do not – ” Lady Forthingdale began, only to be silenced when Anthea added firmly,

  “Either that, Mama, or I cannot afford to go to London at all. You know you have left all money matters in my hands and I assure you it will be very difficult to find the fare even as it is.”

  Only when she was alone with Thais did Anthea talk about clothes and cry despairingly,

  “I know exactly what you are going to say, Thais, but I cannot afford to buy myself even one more gown unless you are all to go hungry.”

  “Perhaps your Godmother will be generous enough to provide you with something to wear,” Thais suggested.

  Anthea smiled.

  “We can pray she will do that, but of course I must not drop even the slightest hint of my fervent hopes. It would be far too pushing!”

  Thais laughed.

  “Take some of your old frocks which you wear in the garden and which are patched. That should bring it to her notice, if nothing else does!”

  “I have a feeling, Thais, that you would fare far better in London than I shall,” Anthea said. “Supposing you go in my place?”

  “No, of course not! And besides the Countess is not my Godmother.”

  “It seems extraordinary,” Anthea said reflectively, “that after all these years she should be so pleased to hear from Mama and so kind as to have me to stay with her.”

  “Mama says, once a friend – always a friend.”

  “I know,” Anthea replied, “but we do seem to have been sadly lacking in them since Papa was killed.”

  “I know this house was cheap,” Thais said with a little sigh, “and that is why Mama bought it. But you have to admit, Anthea, it’s a dead and alive hole. Why, you even have to travel three miles to reach the main road where the stagecoach passes.”

  This was true and Anthea could not gainsay it.

  It only confirmed her determination that somehow she must save the girls from wasting their attractions and never being seen by anyone but the villagers.

  It was therefore with a feeling that she was setting out on an extremely important adventure that Anthea left home the following morning, knowing she had a very long journey ahead of her.

  Thais and Chloe drove her in the ancient carriage pulled by Dobbin, which was their only conveyance, to the crossroads where the stagecoaches to Harrogate passed once a day.

  The stagecoach was not full and Anthea obtained an inside seat without any difficulty.

  She passed the next fifteen miles chatting to a local farmer, who had known her father and was only too pleased to have someone to whom he could air his grievances.

  These concerned the disgraceful manner in which the Government, now the war was over, was treating the farming community.

  “They wanted us – we were important when ʽNappy’ was making threatening noises just across the Channel,” the farmer rambled on bitterly, “but now he’s beat, we’re beat too! Nobody is interested in us any longer.”

  Anthea tried to be consoling, but she was glad when she reached Harrogate and could change her conveyance for a more important looking stagecoach. It was almost full, so that she was fortunate to get a seat.

  She was, however, squeezed between a fat woman with a squealing child and an elderly invalid who insisted on having both the windows pulled up.

  Before they reached the posting inn where they were to rest for the night, Anthea had nursed the child, retrieved a number of ducklings that had escaped from a basket in which they were being carried to market and listened to the invalid denouncing the expense of a treatment in Harrogate.

  She also found the stagecoach insufferably hot and most uncomfortable.

  She was in consequence so tired that she slept peacefully on the hard bed that was provided at the posting inn.

  And having passed an undisturbed night she was the only passenger who was bright and smiling at the hurried breakfast served by a tired and surly waitress at 5.30 the following morning.

  All this made the comfort and attention that was waiting for her at The White Horse at Eaton Socon more delightful.

  The Abigail whom her Godmother had sent to meet her was not, as she had feared, an elderly and perhaps disagreeable maid who would look down her nose at a young lady from the country.

  Instead Emma, a girl of not more than twenty-two who was obviously excited at being entrusted with such an important mission, greeted her.

  “Miss Parsons, that’s the head housemaid, miss, always gets carriage sick – so she works herself into such a fever when her Ladyship said she was to come to meet you that she was shakin’ like a leaf – she was really!”

  “I am sorry that I have caused such a commotion,” Anthea smiled.

  “’Twas a bit of luck for me, miss,” Emma said. “I feels like a real lady, coming all this way in a slap-up carriage. I’ve never been in one before.”

  It was quite obvious that Emma was a chatterbox and, while Anthea was too tired the night she arrived at The White Horse to talk to anyone, she was quite prepared to listen as they set off for London the next morning.

  Emma, sitting opposite her on the small seat of the well-padded carriage, seldom drew breath.

  “I have never been to London,” Anthea confided.

  “It’s a awful big City, miss,” Emma replied. “But there’s lots of gaieties and entertainments for everyone, high or low, and ’tis not surprisin’ that her Ladyship likes it better than Sheldon.”

  She saw that Anthea was listening attentively and went on,

  “We was actually packin’, miss. The trunks had been brought down from the attics when your mother’s letter arrives. I was helping Miss Maria, that’s her Ladyship’s maid, and her Ladyship rushes into the room crying,
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  “We’re saved, Maria! We’re saved! Unpack the trunks! We are staying in London! Oh, Maria, I am so thankful!”

  Anthea was surprised.

  At the same time she thought here was the explanation why her mother’s letter had received so quick a reply.

  “Her Ladyship does not like the country?” she ventured, not wishing to appear too inquisitive.

  “She hates it, miss. We all knows that, and ’tis not surprisin’. I’ve heard her say that Sheldon Castle’s like a prison – and that’s what it looks like, besides being miles from anywhere.”

  “And you too like London?” Anthea asked.

  “I’ve got me reasons,” the maid replied coyly.

  “You mean you have a young man.”

  “How did you know, miss?” Emma asked. “He’s ever so nice, but he works in London and, if I had to go with her Ladyship to Sheldon, it’s ten to one he’d find someone else. You can’t leave a man lyin’ about like with no one to look after him!”

  Emma’s chatter told Anthea quite a lot before they arrived.

  It was obvious that the excuse of chaperoning her Godchild had been very welcome to the Countess and she also gathered that there were a profusion of balls, parties and other festivities to enjoy on her arrival.

  She could not help feeling a little worried when she knew how few clothes her trunk strapped to the back of the travelling carriage contained.

  She had brought her own new gown and also Thais’s best and two of her mother’s. They had sat up late altering the waists and shortening the hems.

  All Lady Forthingdale’s daughters could sew well. Their old Nanny had seen to that and thanks to Nanny’s teaching they could copy a pattern quite skilfully from the latest magazines, which showed the most elegant toilettes for every type of occasion.

  The only difficulty was that, judging by the sketches, the austerity of the gowns worn during the war had given way to much more elaborate fashions.

  Now the skirts were scalloped with lace or frills, sometimes caught up with bunches of flowers and bodices, while still décolleté and high-waisted, were decorated in the same manner.

  Anthea knew the gowns she had brought with her were pretty and undoubtedly became her. At the same time they were very plain and of course made of the cheapest possible materials.