Forced to Marry Read online

  He would have been inhuman if he could have withstood her campaign.

  However, he was wise enough to realise that he was becoming too deeply involved and to cut loose from the Princess was one of his reasons for deciding to spend a year travelling around the world.

  He visited countries that had been out of reach to Englishmen during the long isolating years of the War.

  He had gone to London immediately on his return to learn, and it was a relief, that Princess Zuleika was in France.

  Now, when he least expected it, she had reappeared.

  Not in London, but in the country, where he had never thought to see her.

  He raised her hand to his lips in Continental fashion.

  Then he moved across the hall with her beside him towards the salon, where he had ordered champagne to be waiting for him and his guests.

  He had chosen his party carefully and had deliberately made it a bachelor gathering.

  All of them were competitors in the race, thinking that when men wanted to talk about horses, women were an unnecessary distraction.

  “Do you intend to have luncheon with me?” he asked the Princess as they walked to the salon.

  “Among other things, my dear Valiant,” she replied. “In fact, although you omitted to invite me to stay, I am nevertheless here as your guest.”

  Lord Locke stared at her.

  “Have you come alone?” he asked incredulously.

  She laughed and it was a very attractive sound.

  “I would not offend your puritanical sensibilities by doing anything so foolish! No, I have brought with me two chaperones in the shape of Lucy Compton and Caroline Blackstone.

  There was a sarcastic twist to Lord Locke’s lips as he replied conventionally,

  “How delightful!”

  He knew that Lady Compton and the Countess Blackstone were each having a wild and indiscreet affaire de coeur with riders in his steeplechase.

  He was quite certain therefore that they would have been only too willing to agree to the Princess’s suggestion that they should arrive with her at Locke Hall.

  Uninvited, but nevertheless to be eagerly accepted by their paramours.

  Lord Locke and the Princess had not been in the salon for more than a few seconds before they were joined by some of the competitors in the steeplechase.

  A few seconds later Lady Compton and the Countess entered the room and there was an expression of surprised delight at their appearance.

  Lord Locke thought a little wryly that he would now be expected to provide female company for the other gentlemen.

  They would otherwise feel themselves neglected and this annoyed him.

  He had been much looking forward, after several hectic parties in London, to dinners at which they could talk politics and sport.

  Also he wanted to spend the next two days in the saddle.

  All that must now be changed with the Princess’s arrival.

  Short of making a scene, he had no idea how he could get rid of her.

  He was well aware that everything that was said or done, if there was anything unusual about it, would be repeated verbatim in every Club in St. James’s.

  He saw that there was a glass of champagne at everybody’s side and then left the room to change his riding coat and stock before luncheon.

  Extremely fastidious, Lord Locke was a follower of the Beau Brummell school.

  A gentleman must be spotlessly clean in his habits.

  And he would not think of sitting down to a meal in a crumpled shirt or cravat or in the coat he had just been riding in.

  Despite the fact that the time was getting on and he was hungry, he changed his shirt, also his coat and cravat before returning to the salon.

  He felt restored after what had been a really strenuous race.

  Nobody seemed to have noticed his absence except the Princess and she moved at once to his side.

  She put her hand, with its long slender fingers, on his arm.

  Looking up into his eyes, she said softly,

  “You are pleased to see me again?”

  It was difficult for Lord Locke not to give her the answer she required.

  Then leaving her, he started to move his guests into the dining room.

  As they all expected, the food was outstanding.

  The luncheon was a very genial occasion with everybody toasting him as the winner of his own steeplechase.

  As well they were drinking to the beautiful eyes of the three women who had joined them.

  Lord Locke, however, realised uncomfortably that the Princess was being indiscreetly familiar.

  Despite his long absence abroad, he was again encountering the same difficulties that had sent him from England a year ago.

  He was quite certain that the Princess had taken a large number of lovers in his absence.

  Yet he had the uncomfortable feeling that in her own way she was true to his memory.

  It was not only, as she had told him so often, that he was the most ardent lover she had ever had.

  It was also that she had not found anybody of similar social standing to marry her.

  It was the knowledge that she was intent on marriage that had frightened Lord Locke away in the first place.

  He had told himself so often he had no intention of marrying anyone.

  Even if he did, it would certainly not be to a woman who was as outrageously promiscuous as the Princess.

  She sharply offended his sensibilities.

  At the same time she was the most passionate and undoubtedly the most beguiling woman he had ever met.

  He was well aware before he left England that every one of his contemporaries had been wildly jealous of his position in Princess Zuleika’s life.

  Lord Locke had enormous self-control and he had a determination that once he had made up his mind no one could shake it.

  He had decided that enough was enough.

  He had other things to do in his life besides making love to Zuleika, however attractive she might be.

  He knew that everybody was talking about their liaison and that her brilliant and fantastic parties were given entirely for him.

  So he had made his plans and left London unexpectedly.

  He let only his most intimate friends know where he was going as he did not want Zuleika taking it into her head to follow him.

  He had bought her a very expensive present and had sent it to her with a letter thanking her for all she had meant to him.

  He made it quite clear that a chapter of their lives was finished.

  They would, he said, be unlikely to see each other in the future.

  But now, like a genii in an Eastern story, she was here.

  He could not think how he could be rid of her and he knew how persistent she could be in pursuing anything she wanted.

  Even if a man was made of steel or stone it would be hard to resist her blandishments.

  Looking around the dining room table he was aware that every man present, with the exception of the men beside Lucy Compton and Caroline Blackstone, was fascinated by her as if by a snake.

  But once again she was directing her whole being towards him.

  He was conscious of her magnetism, which had some Oriental power in it that was like magic.

  The luncheon had been excellent and he had been wise enough, knowing that they would start late, to order only a few courses.

  They therefore rose from the table earlier than might have been expected and it was what ordinarily would have been teatime when they left the dining room.

  “I expect some of you will want to rest after such a strenuous morning, but I am going to the stables to see how our horses are faring,” Lord Locke then told them.

  “I hope they have plenty of champagne to celebrate their achievement in jumping over all your new fences!” somebody quipped.

  As he walked down the passage, Zuleika put her arm through Lord Locke’s to say,

  “Don’t leave me, Valiant, I want to t
alk to you.”

  “I expect we will do that later,” he replied. “I have made my plans, Zuleika, not knowing that you would surprise me.”

  Zuleika’s lips pouted at him and her eyes narrowed a little.

  He knew that she was willing him to respond to her as he had done so often in the past and almost roughly he shook himself free of her clinging arm.

  He left her in the hall and, walking out through the front door, set off towards the stables.

  One of his closest friends, Peregrine Westington, then caught up with him.

  “What are you going to do about the Princess?” he asked bluntly.

  Perry had been at school with Lord Locke and had served with him in the same Regiment.

  He was one of the few people he ever confided in and he replied now,

  “I have no idea! What can I do? I had hoped, Perry, that she would have forgotten me by now.”

  Peregrine Westington laughed.

  “There have been a great many men dancing attendance upon her in your absence, but, to put it bluntly, Valiant, no one you could consider a rival.”

  Lord Locke’s lips tightened and Perry added reflectively,

  “It’s just like her to spring herself suddenly upon you like a leopardess in the jungle.”

  As he spoke, Lord Locke thought that was exactly what Zuleika was like.

  A black leopardess, stalking her prey and springing unawares when least expected.

  They had reached the stables by this time and there was no chance of saying anything more.

  Lord Locke went from stall to stall, admiring first Hercules, then not only his own horses but all those that had run in the race.

  But part of his mind was busy with the problem of what he could do about Zuleika.

  Every instinct warned him not to become involved a second time, as he had been before he went abroad.

  Yet, he knew the Princess’s persistence only too well.

  He could not think how he could circumvent her without causing much uncomfortable and disagreeable gossip.

  He was, in fact, at the moment discomfited with a feeling almost of helplessness.

  If there was one thing that Lord Locke disliked, it was the type of man who left a woman weeping bitterly because she had lost him.

  Alternatively she swore vengeance and incited her friends to start up what could become almost a minor war in Social circles.

  He had seen it happen so often.

  He had always thought that the man in question must have played his cards very badly or else he was particularly insensitive.

  He had enjoyed many love affairs.

  But he had always managed to remain friends with the lady in question when their affaire de coeur came to an end.

  Although some hearts may have ached, their owners were too proud to humiliate themselves by saying so.

  Zuleika was different.

  She was in many ways primitive and barbaric, not only in the violence of her love-making but in her determination to captivate and enslave any man she desired.

  Lord Locke knew that if he told Zuleika she could not stay in his house after arriving in such an unprecedented manner, she would undoubtedly contrive to make him appear a brute.

  She would arouse half the Social world in her defence.

  ‘What the devil am I to do?’ he asked himself again.

  He reached the last stall and absent-mindedly patted the horse belonging to a friend.

  Its groom extolled its good points although Lord Locke did not hear a single word.

  He then started to walk back towards the house and Perry was trying to placate him.

  “I have been thinking,” he said, “that you had better invite some of the neighbours to dine tonight. That at least will relieve the situation a little.”

  “I have already thought of that,” Lord Locke replied. “The difficulty is that when I have been away for so long, they may feel resentful at being invited at the last moment.”

  “I should tell them the truth,” Perry suggested. “Say that some friends have arrived unexpectedly from London and that you are therefore turning what was planned as a party for competitors only into something larger.”

  “I suppose that is what I had better do,” Lord Locke said wearily, “but between ourselves, it’s a damned nuisance!”

  “I agree with you, but it will at least relieve you from having what will in effect be a tête-à-tête with Zuleika.”

  Lord Locke did not reply.

  Having entered the house, he went to his study and wrote half a dozen notes.

  Then he rang for his secretary to send grooms with the invitations round to the nearest houses in the neighbourhood.

  “I am hoping these people will be at home, Stevenson,” he said to his secretary.

  Mr. Stevenson was a middle-aged man who had looked after the house and estate while Lord Locke was away fighting in the War or travelling.

  He looked at the names and replied,

  “I am sure, my Lord, that all these people are in residence and will be only too delighted to accept your Lordship’s invitation.”

  “You had better think out a further list of those who might come from further afield for tomorrow night,” Lord Locke suggested. “Tonight we will play cards after dinner and for tomorrow you had better engage a band of some sort.”

  Mr. Stevenson did not show, even by the flicker of an eyelid, that he was surprised.

  He was used to his Lordship changing his plans.

  He did not appear to think it impossible at a moment’s notice in the depth of the country to find an orchestra and he was aware that it would be expected to be of outstanding excellence.

  He merely bowed, and, taking the letters, left the room.

  He carried out his instructions so efficiently that ten minutes later the grooms were leaving the stables on fast horses.

  Lord Locke, to give himself and the household time, had ordered dinner unfashionably late.

  He knew that that would be a surprise in itself.

  He thought, however, that, if they were available, most of his neighbours would be consumed with curiosity to see him now that he had returned.

  Also they would wish to find out who had joined what was reputed to be a bachelor party.

  He was thinking that he must tell his other guests what had been planned.

  Then the door of his study opened and Zuleika came in.

  She looked so lovely that it was impossible for Lord Locke not to admire the brilliance of her dark eyes in the perfect oval of her face.

  Her hair was jet black with mauve lights in it.

  It made a striking contrast to her magnolia skin, which any man who saw it longed to touch.

  Her gowns were always moulded to display every curve of her perfect figure.

  As she moved sinuously towards Lord Locke, he thought a little cynically that she appeared to be naked beneath her gown.

  It was more than likely that was the truth.

  She did not speak, but simply walked across the room until she stood in front of him.

  Then without touching him she tried to put pressure on him by the power of thought and the magnetism of her desire.

  For a moment they just looked into each other’s eyes.

  Until with what was obviously an effort Lord Locke walked away to stand with his back to the fireplace.

  “You should not have come here, Zuleika. It will cause a great deal of unnecessary and unpleasant gossip.”

  “Why should we care?” Zuleika asked.

  Her low voice was somehow as sensual as if she actually declared her passionate desire for him.

  “I have to think of my family,” Lord Locke answered loftily. “Before I left England my grandmother was complaining that we were being talked about and I do not want that to happen again.”

  Zuleika laughed and it was derisively.

  “Dearest foolish Valiant, do you really think I care what your grandmother or anyone else says? I have missed y
ou, I want you, and now that you are back we can be together as I always intended us to be.”

  There was a determination in the last few words that made Lord Locke angry.

  “I think, Zuleika,” he replied, “I should make myself very clear. I admire you and I want us always to be friends, but in my position it would be a mistake for people to know too much about my private life.”

  He paused to smile beguilingly before he added,

  “And, as you are well aware, it is very difficult to be private where you are concerned.”

  “It is something I have no intention of attempting,” Zuleika retorted. “You know what I want, Valiant, or do I have to tell you?”

  She spoke in a low voice.

  Walking very slowly, she now reached his side again.

  Then she threw back her head.

  She looked so beautiful that it seemed impossible for any man to refuse her.

  The invitation in her eyes and the provocation of her lips were irresistible.

  Lord Locke did not move.

  After a second she said so softly that he could hardly hear the words,

  “Must I ask you what you will not ask me?”

  It was then, when he was wondering frantically what he should say, the door opened.

  To his utter relief Perry walked in.

  He saw at a glance what was happening and in an ordinary conversational tone he said,

  “Oh, here you are, Valiant. I thought I should warn you that somebody has called to see you and insists on speaking to you however busy you may be!”

  “That sounds as if somebody has come to complain,” Lord Locke managed to reply.

  He turned away from the Princess, saying as he did so,

  “I am sorry, Zuleika, but I suggest you rest before dinner, which will be late because we are being joined by a number of my neighbours as guests.”

  Just for a moment there was a flash of anger in her eyes as she realised immediately why they had been invited.

  Then in dulcet tones, almost like the cooing of a dove, she said,

  “A party! How delightful and how sweet of you, dearest Valiant, to give it in my honour.”

  She reached out to touch his arm as she passed him and to smile up into his face.

  Then she glided from the room so gracefully that her feet hardly seemed to touch the floor.

  Only as the door closed behind her did Lord Locke give a sigh of relief and say,