Never Forget Love Page 3

  Delphine looked slightly shamefaced.

  “I admit I forgot,” she answered after a moment as if she had no desire to annoy Harry.

  “Well, that shows how much your promises are worth,” Harry teased. “So Nerissa and I would much prefer to be paid in advance.”

  Nerissa made a little sound of dissent, feeling that it was very embarrassing to hear Harry talking to her sister in such a way.

  Then, as if she half-appreciated his distrust, Delphine had laughed and drew an envelope from her bag.

  To Nerissa’s astonishment it contained the money that she had promised them in notes and she said quickly before anyone else could speak,

  “We must put the notes in a safe place and then in a Bank as quickly as possible.”

  “That is sensible of you,” Delphine approved, “for, if you lose them or they are stolen, I am certainly not paying out a second time.”

  Harry had taken the money from her and said,

  “Thank you, Delphine, I can assure you every penny of this will be put to very good use.”

  “As long as you carry out what I have asked you to do, Harry, I am not complaining,” Delphine said sharply. “But I shall be extremely angry if you make a mess of it.”

  There was a note in her voice that told Nerissa how important this dinner was to her and how much she wanted to impress the Duke with her distinguished home.

  But it was not in the least pleasant to know that neither she nor Harry were thought good enough to meet their sister’s future husband.

  After Delphine had gone, Harry remarked,

  “It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Just think what we can do with all this money.”

  “I wish we could have refused it,” Nerissa murmured in a low voice.

  To her surprise Harry agreed,

  “That is just what I felt like doing! It would have given me the greatest pleasure to tell Delphine that we would not accept payment for helping her, but would do so simply because we are the same flesh and blood.”

  He spoke harshly and Nerissa knew that his pride was hurt.

  Then he said lightly,

  “I am prepared to dress up as a Greek God or pretend I am a baboon if it means I can buy a decent horse and some clothes in which, for a change, I am not ashamed to be seen.”

  Because he sounded just like a small boy receiving a Christmas present, Nerissa did not express her own feelings, but she knew that she felt that Delphine was degrading not only the two of them but the whole family.

  ‘Once she is a Duchess, we shall never see her again,’ she told herself, remembering how Delphine had behaved after marrying Lord Bramwell.

  There was, however, so much to do that she had no time to think, but only to get down to work.

  Delphine had not been exaggerating when she said that she had brought everything they would require for the dinner.

  When Nerissa saw the large amount of food that was piled on the kitchen table, she could hardly believe her eyes.

  There was a leg of baby lamb such as she had longed to buy for her father and a salmon that she knew had been caught fresh from the river that flowed only a few miles from the Marquis of Swire’s house.

  Somehow in some clever way of her own, Delphine had persuaded the Marquis’s chef to put in everything that was required for the cooking, fresh pats of butter, a huge pot of thick cream, herbs and young vegetables fresh from the garden.

  There was also fruit that Nerissa guessed must have come from the Marquis’s hothouses.

  There were all the ingredients for soup to start the meal with and small fresh mushrooms for the savoury to end it.

  Nerissa could not help being amused when she knew that, although when she had been at home, Delphine had never expressed any appreciation of the delectable dishes that her mother had cooked for them, she had obviously noted how they were made and at this moment was putting her memory to good use.

  When Harry had gone off blithely to look at every available horse in the neighbourhood, she had worked methodically to have everything ready for the evening meal.

  She had laid the table in the dining room, putting fresh candles in the rooms as Delphine had suggested and found time to pick the flowers that were coming into bloom in the garden and arrange them in bowls in the drawing room, the hall and the dining room.

  ‘If I had time,’ she thought, ‘I would like to polish all the furniture but I doubt if His Grace would notice it anyway.’

  She had asked Harry to tell her more about the Duke of Lynchester and to her surprise he knew quite a lot.

  “He is not only admired,” he said, “because he is a Duke and you should hear my friends at Oxford talking about him, but also because he is the most notable sportsman in the whole of England.”

  He thought that Nerissa looked at him slightly quizzically and he went on,

  “It is true he has the finest horses that anybody could afford, but he is also a magnificent rider himself, a Corinthian and a pugilist besides being, as I was told last term, a champion fencer.”

  Harry spoke in an awed voice and was surprised when Nerissa laughed.

  “I don’t believe it!” she said. “There must be a snag somewhere!”

  Harry grinned.

  “Of course there is, but it is something I should not be telling you.”

  “Tell me,” Nerissa urged him.

  “If you want to know the truth, he is a devil with the women,” Harry replied, “and in my own mind I very much doubt if he will marry Delphine.”

  “But she is so certain he will!”

  “Many other women have been certain before her. The sister of one of my friends, who was a widow after the Battle of Waterloo, threatened to kill herself if the Duke would not marry her.”

  “Kill herself?” Nerissa cried.

  “Apparently he led her to believe that he really loved her and then inevitably became bored and went off after someone else.”

  “He sounds horrible and cruel,” Nerissa exclaimed.

  “I have no reason to stick up for him,” Harry stated, “but actually that is rather unfair. If a women pursues a man, she should not whine and complain if he then eludes her and lets her down.”

  Nerissa looked at her brother as if she did not understand.

  Then she asked,

  “What do you suggest she does?”

  “Let him chase her!” Harry replied. “The man should be the hunter not the hunted.”

  He spoke in a way that made Nerissa’s eyes twinkle.

  “Is that what you are, Harry?”

  “Of course. But I have to admit that, without a penny to my name, no woman with any sense would chase me except for my handsome face!”

  “That is the most conceited remark I have ever heard!” Nerissa exclaimed and threw a cushion at him.

  Harry threw it back and then they were laughing and for a while the Duke was forgotten.

  When about an hour and half before the dinner and Harry had come downstairs carrying some clothes over his arm, Nerissa had asked curiously,

  “What do you have there?”

  “I thought as Delphine was determined to make us into servants,” he replied, “I might as well do it properly. I remembered that we had some of our grandfather’s old livery up in the attics and I found a coat that fits me, although it is rather tight, a pair of white knee-breeches and a striped waistcoat with crested buttons on it.”

  “I had forgotten they were there,” Nerissa exclaimed. “If you can get into them, you will certainly look the part.”

  “I left my own evening clothes at Oxford. You know I always wear an old velvet coat here to be comfortable. But I don’t expect that Delphine would be very impressed with that on the family butler!”

  Nerissa looked at Harry reproachfully.

  “I am quite sure that she would be horrified if you appeared looking harum-scarum, but nevertheless far more like a gentleman than a servant.”

  “Now I will be able to make my sister p
roud.”

  Harry laughed and held up a white wig that his grandfather’s footmen had worn.

  Having cleaned the silver buttons he went upstairs to put on the clothes while Nerissa thought that she should remind her father once again about what to expect.

  He had been surprised when she told him that Delphine had called and was bringing the Duke of Lynchester over the following evening especially to meet him.

  “Lynchester!” her father had exclaimed. “Well, it will certainly be interesting to talk to him about his house. It is exactly what I want for my chapter on Elizabethan architecture. I believe there is no house in the country so well preserved as Lyn.”

  “We are going to make a special effort to please the Duke so do not be surprised at what you have to eat, Papa or that we have someone waiting at table.”

  “Waiting?” her father murmured. “Who will that be?”

  “Farmer Jackson’s eldest son, George,” Nerissa replied quickly. “Apparently he is quite proficient at it so you need not worry that he will make mistakes.”

  She had chosen Farmer Jackson’s son because he was tall like Harry and she thought that her father, who was always incredibly vague, would never suspect for a single moment that the temporary butler was really his own son.

  A short while later, when Harry came into the kitchen wearing the family livery and his hair covered with the wig, she thought for one moment that he looked ridiculous.

  Then she knew that the clothes were exactly what a servant in a Big House would have worn as a gentleman’s footman or outrider.

  “As you said – we are doing Delphine proud.” she remarked.

  Then she laughed as Harry assumed a broad country accent saying,

  “Good day to Your Grace, and I ’opes as ’ow Your Grace’ll enjoy the evenin’ with us country bumpkins.”

  “Oh, Harry, don’t make me laugh,” she pleaded. “At the same time, if you do anything like that, Delphine will be furious and I am sure she will ask for her money back.”

  “I would love to pull her leg,” Harry said, “but, as you wisely point out, it is not worth risking those lovely golden guineas that are going to buy me a horse which I am determined to win the next Point-to-Point with that Swire has arranged on his estate.”

  “If you do enter for it, you will have to be careful not to let him realise who you are,” Nerissa warned. “He might tell the Duke and, as far as he is concerned, you and I just don’t exist.”

  “I will remember,” Harry nodded, “but I cannot think why Delphine is not honest enough to admit that she has a brother and sister.”

  As he spoke, he looked at Nerissa and anybody watching him would have realised that there was suddenly a dawning look in his eyes.

  The two sisters were very much alike, but for the first time Harry saw that Nerissa, who, as the youngest of the family, had always seemed a child and now had grown into a lovely young woman.

  He did not say anything, but he told himself that it was only right that Delphine should pay for her deception, which was both insulting to them and, as regards the Duke, positively feline.

  *

  The Duke’s carriage drew up outside the front door at exactly ten minutes to seven and Harry already had the door open and had rolled a very old piece of red carpet over the steps.

  He gasped with admiration when he saw the horses draw to a standstill.

  He knew that each one would have cost far more than Delphine had given Nerissa and him in payment for their services.

  He could not help wishing that just for once in his life he might have the opportunity of driving such thoroughbreds or better still riding them.

  But he remembered his role and waited at the open doorway as a footman resplendent in the Duke’s livery climbed down from the box on the carriage to open the door.

  The Duke stepped out and at first glance Harry knew that all the things that he had heard said about him by his friends were true.

  Never had he imagined that any man could ever look so tall, so broad-shouldered and so elegantly and fastidiously dressed and at the same time be so athletically masculine.

  ‘That is what I want to look like myself,’ Harry thought.

  Then, as his sister stepped elegantly from the carriage in rustling silk and, with a whiff of exotic perfume, passed by him into the hall, he managed to bow his head subserviently and take the Duke’s top hat from him and help him off with his evening cape.

  Delphine did not wait for Harry to announce them, but moved eagerly like a young girl across the hall and through the open door of the drawing room.

  “We are here, Papa,” she cried out, forcing what seemed to be a spontaneous lilt into her voice.

  Nerissa, on Delphine’s instructions, had arranged that her father would be waiting for them at the end of the drawing room.

  However old his evening clothes might be, Marcus Stanley looked most distinguished and very much a gentleman.

  Delphine kissed him lightly on the cheek saying as she did so,

  “It is wonderful to see you again, Papa, and looking so well. May I introduce the Duke of Lynchester, who has kindly brought me here?”

  “I am delighted to meet you,” Marcus Stanley said holding out his hand, “and I have in fact all the afternoon been reading about Lyn and your ancestor who originally built it.”

  The Duke’s rather severe expression lightened in a smile as he replied,

  “I know which book you mean, Mr. Stanley, and I feel it must have been very heavy going.”

  “On the contrary I found it absorbingly interesting and giving exactly the information I require for my own book at the particular point I have just reached. So meeting you now could not be more opportune.”

  “Before you start on your favourite subject, Papa,” Delphine interposed, “I want you to pour us a glass of champagne. I am aware that once you start on early English architecture, no one will speak to me for the rest of the evening.”

  She looked at the Duke as she spoke and he replied,

  “You know that is untrue. But to make you happy, I promise, however interesting your father may be, I will still remember you are present.”

  “I hope I can compete with the glories of Elizabethan England,” Delphine said, “but I am rather afraid that I will be overlooked.”

  “I think you are fishing for compliments,” the Duke remarked.

  And his eyes rested on her appreciatively as Delphine was very much aware.

  She had taken a great deal of trouble with her appearance that evening knowing it would be a mistake to look too flamboyant or to make the Duke suspect that she was in any way showing off.

  Instead she wore a gown of periwinkle blue that accentuated the blue of her eyes and which, coming naturally from Bond Street, had been extremely expensive but still managed to look deceptively simple.

  She also wore round her long neck a necklace of turquoises and diamonds and there were turquoises in her ears as well as round her wrists.

  They were very much less ornate than most of her other jewels that the Duke had already complimented her on.

  She glanced round the drawing room, noticing with relief that the candlelight concealed most of the threadbare carpet and faded curtains.

  “It is lovely to be home,” she said in a soft girlish voice, “and, when a house means as much as this house means to me, it does not matter whether it was built four hundred years ago or yesterday. What is important is that is has always been a place of love.”

  The Duke did not answer her, but Delphine was sure that his hard eyes softened and she thought that his glance lingered for a moment on her lips as if he longed to kiss them.

  By the time Harry had announced in a slightly gruff voice, so that his father should not recognise it, that dinner was served, Delphine told herself with satisfaction that the evening was already going well.

  Although her father was talking somewhat ponderously of his book and the exhaustive research he had made of the Elizabethan p
eriod, the Duke was only too willing to speak of his own house and the labour and care that had been expended there to produce one of the finest examples of architecture of Elizabeth’s reign.

  “It seems extraordinary to us now,” the Duke was saying as they sat down at the dining room table, “that the materials came from so many places at the cost of what must have been an enormous effort in those days.”

  “I have always heard how exceptional Lyn is,” Marcus Stanley answered.

  “I can honestly say that there is not a house to equal it in the whole length and breadth of the land,” the Duke said boastfully. “My father said once that he had never found a woman who could keep him entranced, captivated and enthralled as Lyn managed to do. When I am there, I sometimes feel like saying the same thing.”

  Delphine gave out a little exclamation of horror and the reproach in her eyes was very moving.

  “Is that what you still think?” she asked.

  “Shall I say there are exceptions to every rule?” the Duke replied.

  The smile she gave him in response was radiant.

  Dinner was superlative and Harry, fetching the last course from the kitchen, announced to Nerissa,

  “His Grace has praised every dish so far and has left nothing on his plate, so you have certainly fulfilled your part of the contract.”

  “Has Papa any idea who you are?” Nerissa asked him.

  “He never gave me a second glance. He is just centuries away supervising the building of Lyn and, if he had looked at me, he would very likely have thought I was a ghost.”

  Nerissa laughed and handing him the savouries said,

  “Take them in quickly before they get cold and after that there is only the coffee.”

  “Thank goodness!” Harry exclaimed.

  Nerissa put coffee ready in the silver coffee pot she had cleaned earlier in the day and poured some of the cream that Delphine had brought into a prettily fashioned silver cream jug that matched it.

  When Harry finally came back from the dining room, he sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and sighed,

  “Thank God that is all over.”

  “You remembered to leave the decanter of port in front of Papa?”

  “I remembered everything,” Harry answered, taking off his wig and throwing it down on the table. “And now, if you will forgive me, I am going to take off this coat, which is far too tight under the arms and makes me feel as if I was in a straitjacket.”