The Sign of Love Read online

  “The Empress’s heart is very much intact,” the Duke stated. “But I think she will be glad that we should support de Lesseps, who actually is married to a cousin of hers. Although I find Franz Josef rather a dull stick, the Grand Duke Michael is always fun.”

  “Then you will go,” Lord Milthorpe exclaimed, “and, if you leave me behind, Varien, I swear I shall cut my throat!”

  “Of course I have no intention of leaving you behind, George,” the Duke replied, “and while we have luncheon we will plan our party. There is plenty of room aboard The Jupiter for all our special friends.”

  “I had forgotten that you have your new steam yacht,” Lord Milthorpe replied, “and what could be a better christening for her than a voyage to the Suez Canal?”

  “The Prince of Wales will die of envy,” Sir Charles said. “I hear that the Khedive of Egypt is giving fantastic parties.”

  “‘Fantastic’ is just the right word when it comes to a series of Arabian Nights!” Lord Milthorpe smiled.

  “Well, that is settled,” the Duke said with just a touch of boredom in his voice as if the enthusiasm of his friends grated on him. “You must both tell me who you particularly wish to ask and my secretary will send out the invitations right away.”

  He spoke almost as if the subject was closed and then Sir Charles piped up,

  “I have just remembered something, Varien. I don’t think I shall be able to come.”

  “Not come, Charles? Why not? You are not going to tell me you prefer hunting to being in Egypt? Besides I daresay we can arrange a gazelle hunt for you, which is rather amusing if you have not taken part in one before.”

  “I would prefer nothing to being on board The Jupiter as you well know, Varien.”

  “Then what is the obstruction?” the Duke enquired.

  There was a pause before Sir Charles replied,

  “My daughter arrives back home from abroad tomorrow and I have not yet made any arrangements for her to be chaperoned. I can hardly leave her alone in London.”

  “Your daughter?” Lord Milthorpe exclaimed. “I had almost forgotten that you had one!”

  “Bettina has been at school in France. She should really have made her debut this year, but her Godmother, Sheila Buxton, was ill. And now she has died.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lord Milthorpe answered. “A damn fine woman. I was always fond of her.”

  “So that leaves you with a daughter on your hands, Charles,” the Duke pondered slowly.

  “It does,” Sir Charles agreed with him rather heavily.

  “Then she must come on the trip,” the Duke suggested, “because quite frankly, Charles, we cannot do without you to keep us all amused and in good temper.”

  Sir Charles’s eyes lit up.

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “Of course I meant it. What does one more matter? I tell you what I will do, I will ask a young man for your girl and why not my Heir Presumptive?”

  “Do you mean Eustace?” Lord Milthorpe wanted to know.

  “Of course I mean Eustace,” the Duke replied. “It will do my half-brother good to get away from his sermonising and eternal lobbying of my friends in the House of Lords. They keep complaining about him, saying that he tries to make their flesh creep and at the same time blackmails them into emptying their pockets.”

  Neither of the two gentlemen he was speaking to answered him.

  The Duke knew that it was because they were not prepared to criticise his half-brother to his face and were trying to find something pleasant to say about him.

  “It’s very kind of you to ask Bettina, Varien,” Sir Charles remarked after a moment, breaking the silence. “I only hope that the child will not be a bore, but she certainly used to have plenty to say for herself.”

  “If she is anything like her father, she will be the life and soul of the party,” Lord Milthorpe observed.

  ‘Thank you, George,” Sir Charles said. “I do my best to sing for my supper!”

  The Duke laughed.

  “And you do it very effectively, Charles. You know as well as I do that no party is complete without you.”

  Sir Charles was just about to reply when the butler entered the room and announced in lofty tones,

  “Lady Daisy Sheridan, Your Grace, and the Honourable Mrs. Dimsdale.”

  The two women, both exceptionally beautiful, stepped into the room and, as the Duke walked forward to welcome them, there was no doubt from the look in Lady Daisy’s eyes and the expression in his that they meant something special to each other.

  She gave him both her gloved hands and he raised them to his lips.

  “I am sorry we are late,” Lady Daisy began. “Kitty insisted on buying a profusion of new bonnets, which neither of us can afford, but we do so hope you will think we look dazzling in them.”

  “Could I think anything else?” the Duke asked.

  There was an amused twist to his lips and a cynical note in his voice.

  He knew quite well who would be expected to pay for the bonnets and it would, he reckoned, have been inconceivable for Daisy and Kitty to come to luncheon without some request that would involve him in opening his purse yet again.

  He knew Daisy’s little ways too well.

  Married to a hard-gambling husband she would have found it impossible to keep up her reputation of being one of the best-dressed women in London unless her lovers met her many bills.

  The Duke was only too willing to do what was required of him. But he thought it a pity, as he had thought often before, that Daisy made it quite so obvious.

  As if she knew that he had acquiesced in her demand, he felt her fingers tighten on his for a moment.

  Then, with a grace that made her move like a swan over a lake, she held out her hand to Lord Milthorpe.

  “Dear George,” she said, “I knew you would be here and it’s lovely to see you.”

  “I hope you have not been tempting Kitty into new depths of extravagance,” he said. “I have just bought two exceedingly fine hunters and have not yet been able to pay for them.”

  “Nonsense!” Lady Daisy retorted. “You are as rich as Croesus and the only trouble is you cannot count your shekels.”

  “That is something no one can say about me,” Sir Charles smiled.

  “No, indeed,” Lady Daisy replied, “but we all know how much you would give us if you could.”

  “I think,” Sir Charles said after a moment, “that is one of the nicest things that anyone has ever said to me.”

  “You deserve it, Charles. Now tell me what you three musketeers have been talking about before we arrived.”

  “The answer should be obvious, but it’s not,” Sir Charles answered.

  “Not talking about us?” Lady Daisy questioned. “I have never heard anything so outrageous! Varien, are you being untrue to me? I cannot bear it.”

  “On the contrary,” the Duke said, “we have thought of something that will amuse you far more than the hunt balls, the pheasant shoots and the dreary round of house parties that fill your diary at the moment.”

  “What can you be suggesting?” Lady Daisy enquired.

  “That we should all attend the Opening of the Suez Canal!” the Duke replied and waited for the shriek of excitement that followed his words.

  Chapter Two

  As the train drew into Waterloo Station, Bettina, leaning out of the window, saw her father.

  She thought that it would be impossible to miss him even in the largest crowd imaginable and no one else looked so smart, so dashing or what his friends called ‘a regular swell’.

  With his top hat on the side of his head and with a carnation in his buttonhole, he was leaning on his Malacca cane and looking at the incoming train somewhat anxiously.

  Bettina opened the door of her carriage and jumped onto the platform to run towards him.

  “Papa! Papa!” she cried. “I knew you would be here waiting for me.”

  She flung her arms round his neck and, as she ki
ssed him, he asked,

  “What the devil happened to you? I was getting really worried.”

  “I was afraid you would be,” Bettina answered.

  “When your luggage arrived alone, I imagined all sorts of terrible things.”

  But he was smiling and his eyes were twinkling and, as he looked at his daughter, he exclaimed,

  “Good God, you have become a beauty! I was expecting the little girl I remembered and not someone who looks just like your mother when I first met her.”

  “Thank you, Papa,” Bettina laughed, “and I want you to thank the gentleman who has been very kind to me, very kind indeed. The Mistress, who was escorting me to England, had a heart attack and died at Dover.”

  “So that is why you are late!”

  “You can imagine how terrible it was. I would not have known what to do if it had not been for Lord Eustace Veston.”

  She looked around as she spoke and saw the young man in question advancing towards her down the platform.

  “Here he is, Papa,” she went on before Sir Charles could speak. “Please tell him how grateful you are.”

  Sir Charles’ gratitude was very sincere and Lord Eustace’s sombre face seemed to relax a little as he accepted his thanks and told him what arrangements he had made about the dead Mistress.

  “It was a pleasure to do what I could for your daughter. Sir Charles,” he said at length, “and may I say that she behaved calmly and with great dignity under extremely distressing circumstances.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” Sir Charles replied and then added as if he had nothing more to say to Lord Eustace,

  “We must find your luggage, Bettina. I told a porter to look after it until the next train came in.”

  “It was clever of you, Papa, to think that was when I would arrive.”

  She held out her hand to Lord Eustace.

  “Thank you again so very much,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I would have done – without your help.”

  “I am glad that you have found your father and you are now in safe hands,” Lord Eustace replied.

  He took her hand, raised his hat and walked away.

  Bettina looked after him a little wistfully, she had somehow hoped that he would say that they must meet again.

  Then, at the delight of seeing her father, she forgot everything but the joy of being home.

  She had so much to tell him and so many questions to ask that they had reached the house in Eaton Place before she remembered with a little pang in her heart that her mother would not be there to greet her.

  It struck her as soon as she entered the small hall that the atmosphere had changed and the house did not look the same.

  There were none of the little touches that Lady Charlwood had made the house so charming with and it had always seemed a perfect background for her and her happiness.

  In the first place there were no flowers and Bettina saw at once that the lace curtains needed washing and the covers in the drawing room were faded and shabby.

  But her father, she thought, looked as prosperous as he always did. His clothes fitted him as if he had been poured into them and were naturally in the very latest fashion set by the Prince of Wales.

  Sir Charles had married young and was now only just forty, but he had the figure and looks of a much younger man.

  “If I have grown up, Papa,” Bettina pointed out impulsively. “You have not grown a day older, in fact I think you look younger.”

  “You flatter me,” Sir Charles protested, but she saw that he was pleased.

  “What have you been doing, Papa,” she went on. “What exciting house parties have you attended and is the Prince of Wales still your greatest friend?”

  Sir Charles laughed.

  “What a lot of questions all at once. Yes, the Prince still honours me with his friendship and I spend a great deal of time at Marlborough House. But perhaps I enjoy the company of the Duke of Alveston even more.”

  Bettina wrinkled her brow.

  “I seem to recall you speaking about him. Yes, of course, I remember that Mama did not approve of him.”

  “Your mother disapproved of a great number of my friends, but Alveston is a very good chap, although perhaps his reputation is somewhat on a par with the Prince’s.”

  He paused and then looking at Bettina he said,

  “In fact the Duke is the half-brother of your new young man.”

  “My new young man?” Bettina repeated in bewilderment.

  “Lord Eustace Veston.”

  “So that is who he is!” Bettina exclaimed. “In which case why did he say that he had never met you?”

  Sir Charles then poured himself a glass of sherry from the grog tray without asking his daughter if she would like one.

  “The Duke and his half-brother do not get on,” he answered. “But he intends to ask him to come on this trip that I am taking you on. That you have already met him in such weird circumstances is, I consider, a very useful introduction.”

  “What trip, Papa?” Bettina asked.

  “You have been invited, Bettina,” Sir Charles said slowly and dramatically, “to join the Duke’s party for the opening of the Suez Canal.”

  Bettina stared at him for a long moment incredulously and then she said in a voice that seemed caught in her throat,

  “Do you – really mean that – Papa?”

  “Of course I mean it. When I told the Duke that you were coming home from France, he said that I could bring you with me.”

  “I can hardly believe it!” Bettina cried. “As you can imagine, they talked about nothing else in France. It all sounds so thrilling and fabulous. The Empress will be there too!”

  “And a great number of other people,” Sir Charles said, “including us!”

  He sat down in an armchair as he spoke, crossed his legs and, as Bettina stood in front of him, he looked her up and down appraising her, she felt, almost as if she was a horse.

  “You have exactly three days,” Sir Charles said at length, “in which to dress yourself in fitting clothes as is due a Lady of Fashion.”

  “Papa!”

  Bettina’s exclamation was a cry of horror.

  “It’s impossible! I have nothing – nothing to wear at all! I expected you would let me come home last April for the Season and so I made everything I had at school do until then.”

  She paused and drew in her breath.

  “When you said that it was impossible because Godmama was ill, it seemed such a waste of money to buy new gowns for just a few more months at school. So everything that is not too small for me is in rags.”

  “I rather anticipated something like this,” Sir Charles said, “and, knowing women as I do, I was certain that your first request on crossing the threshold would be for a trousseau.”

  “Not a trousseau, Papa,” Bettina expostulated, “just a few evening gowns and, of course, some dresses for the day.”

  “It’s going to be a rush,” Sir Charles conceded, “but you will have to buy what you can. Your mother’s clothes are all upstairs. They will be too old for you, but perhaps the shop she always went to, what was it called, can alter them, especially if you buy some new gowns at the same time.”

  Bettina’s eyes lit up and then she asked in a hesitating voice,

  “Can we – afford it – Papa?”

  “No,” Sir Charles replied. “We cannot afford it and to tell the truth, Bettina, I have not a penny to my name at the moment. Nothing but debts, damn them!”

  Bettina gave a deep sigh.

  “Well, perhaps. Papa, I had better not join the Duke’s party. I could not bear it that you should – be ashamed of me.”

  Sir Charles rose to his feet.

  “Don’t be a fool, child. This is your big chance. You will meet more eligible gentlemen with Alveston than you are ever likely to meet being paraded round the ballrooms with a lot of other unfledged debutantes.”

  He paused before he added,

  “Besides who cou
ld be a more suitable parti than Eustace Veston?”

  Bettina looked at him with startled eyes.

  “Surely – you are not – suggesting, Papa – ”

  “Why not? Lord Eustace may not be a Duke, but he is in my opinion very unlikely to inherit his half-brother’s title and his fortune. Equally he is well-heeled and you could not marry into a better family or a more aristocratic one.”

  Bettina looked away from her father and then moved across the room to stand holding onto the back of her mother’s favourite chair.

  “I had not – thought to be – married so quickly,” she said in a low voice.

  “You are over eighteen and the sooner you have a Wedding ring on your finger the better! Besides, quite frankly, Bettina, I cannot afford to keep you.”

  “Oh – Papa!”

  The words were hardly audible, but he heard them.

  “It is not that I don’t want to,” Sir Charles said quickly. “You know that. I like having you with me. We have always been friends, you and I. The truth is, I cannot afford to keep myself unless I make money by gambling, but the cards have been running against me of late.”

  “You know how it upset Mama – when you played for high stakes,” Bettina said.

  “There is nothing else I can do in the company I keep,” Sir Charles answered, “and to be honest, Bettina, I enjoy it. However – ”

  He paused and Bettina knew that he was thinking of those anxious moments at the end of the month when the tradesmen’s bills came in and the servants expected to be paid their wages.

  In the old days her mother used to look at him with apprehensive eyes, knowing that there was never enough money for all their needs.

  Sir Charles walked across the room and back.

  “It is like this, Bettina. I have a damned good life. I receive more invitations than I can accept and people like the Prince of Wales and Alveston honour me with their friendship. They always say that no party would be complete without me.”

  There was just a touch of boastfulness in his voice before he went on,

  “But it all costs money. It may give me a roof over my head and all I can eat and drink and even mount me when I want to hunt. But I still must have the clothes to do it in and a valet to look after me.”