Flowers For the God of Love Read online

  “But why? Why should he do that?” Quenella asked.

  “My dear, no logical explanations are necessary when it conies to Diplomacy and the Royal word is accepted when it comes into conflict with that of a mere Official.”

  “The whole thing is intolerable,” Rex Daviot exclaimed. “I see quite clearly how the Prince intends to bring Teutonic pressure on your niece to do what he wishes.”

  “I will not be his – mistress,” Quenella said in a low voice.

  “The decision rests entirely with you, my dear,” Sir Terence replied.

  “But – can he really – harm you, Uncle Terence?”

  “I am afraid so. I was, I admit, extremely frank in what I said to him when I learnt of his behaviour towards you. We were alone and there were no witnesses, but His Royal Highness will never forgive me for uttering several home truths.”

  “He is lucky you did not knock him down,” Rex Daviot said.

  “Then there would indeed have been a scandal,” Sir Terence replied. “That, of course, is what I would have liked to do. But you know as well as I do that he would somehow have got his revenge.”

  “I should have thought that is what he is doing now,” Rex Daviot commented.

  “Not exactly, His Royal Highness is attempting to put Quenella in the position where she is forced to listen to what he has to say. I imagine he means to apologise and then start to woo her all over again.”

  “I will not listen to him!” Quenella said positively.

  “If you stay in Hampshire with Baroness von Mildenstadt as your chaperone, you will have little choice.”

  Quenella drew in her breath.

  “And you really mean that, if I refuse to go, then he will take steps to destroy your career?”

  “He will certainly try,” Sir Terence agreed. “He may not succeed, but a great deal of harm could be done to my work, which is far more important than my reputation as an individual.”

  “You have just told me of my importance in India,” Rex Daviot interposed, “and I am not flattering you, Sir Terence, when I say that you are vital to the Empire and also to Europe.”

  The two men looked at each other and they knew that they were both thinking how Britain felt herself threatened by the ever-growing might of the German Empire.

  As if he felt that he had said enough, Sir Terence said,

  “I have told you both what the situation is. Now I am going to leave you to discuss it and I would like to add that I will accept without argument anything you decide. You have your lives in front of you. Mine, although I have a few good years left, is on its last lap.”

  Without saying anything more, Sir Terence walked across the room and left, closing the door behind him.

  For a moment there was silence and then Quenella rose to her feet.

  “It’s intolerable! Absolutely intolerable that any man, let alone a Royal Prince, should behave in such a despicable manner!”

  She stood looking down at the fire as she spoke, the flames lighting the almost classical perfection of her small straight nose and her curved lips.

  Watching her, it struck Rex Daviot that her lips were not those of a cold or indifferent woman.

  There was something warm and sensual about them and he wondered if her almost icy reserve hid a nature that was the exact opposite.

  Aloud he said,

  “I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I can only say that in my opinion it would be a disaster of the first magnitude for Great Britain to lose your uncle at this particular moment in time.”

  “Uncle Terence has told me,” Quenella replied after a moment, “that the only way I can – extract myself and him from this mess would be to – marry.”

  “Your uncle is right there. If your engagement was announced undoubtedly with the congratulations of the Queen, it would be a genuine excuse for you to refuse the Ambassador’s invitation and to leave England immediately.”

  They both knew that he meant if she married himself, but Quenella continued to stare into the fire and again there was an uncomfortable silence.

  At last she said,

  “Uncle Terence said that you – too had a – problem.”

  “My problem is far more simple,” Rex Daviot replied. “I am to be offered the position of Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, but I cannot afford to accept.”

  He felt that this sounded rather bald and he continued,

  “To be truthful I am already in debt because of my father’s illness. My instinct is to refuse the offer and return to India as an ordinary serving soldier.”

  “My uncle said that it was extremely important that you should be the Lieutenant-Governor.”

  “It’s not the only way that I can serve my country, but I admit that it would make things easier for me to carry on the work I have been doing for some years. But to be frank I have no wish to be married and certainly not to someone I have not met until this evening.”

  Quenella did not reply and he went on,

  “That sounds perhaps too blunt, but we must speak frankly with each other. I think it is the only thing we can do.”

  “Of course,” Quenella nodded, “and may I say I too have no wish to marry anyone. I loathe men! I loathe and detest them. They are nothing but animals!”

  She spoke in a manner that was all the more arresting because she did not raise her voice.

  Instead the words seemed to come from within her with a repressed violence that startled Rex Daviot, although he had expected such a reaction.

  “I understand,” he said. “But for you what is the alternative?”

  Quenella gave a sigh.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I suppose I could go into a – Convent. At least there the Prince could not follow me!”

  “Without a genuine vocation I can imagine no life that could be more restricting and more constraining to someone like yourself.”

  “Why should you say that?” she asked aggressively.

  “Your uncle has told me that you are intelligent and I can see that you are sensitive and receptive. I suspect too that you have a vivid imagination.”

  She looked at him as if she resented that he should have concerned himself with her feelings.

  Then she said grudgingly,

  “I suppose I must admit – that you are putting into words what I have thought myself.”

  “I think the important thing is to think not about ourselves but about your uncle,” Rex Daviot suggested. “The reason I came here tonight is that I am worried about him.”

  “He has been – so kind to me,” Quenella said. “I like talking to him and being with him. Why did this have to – happen? Why to me?”

  It was a question Rex Daviot thought with a hidden smile that had been asked all down the centuries by men and women when confronted with personal problems.

  ‘Why did this happen to me?’

  It was the cry of those who must struggle against the inevitable even while they know that they can do nothing about it.

  He thought that to tell Quenella at this moment that her beauty would always be a temptation to men and that inevitably she would find it difficult to control their desires without being tactless.

  It was, of course, unlucky that she should have incited a German Princeling to behave in a manner that was both insulting and brutal.

  Now Rex Daviot said aloud,

  “I think we both have to admit that we have only two choices, either we save your uncle or save ourselves at his expense.”

  As he finished speaking, he felt as if he had pronounced an ultimatum that seemed to echo round the room.

  Then he saw Quenella slowly raise her chin and for the first time since they had been speaking she turned to look him full in the face.

  “What do you plan to do, Major Daviot?” she enquired.

  It was more of a challenge than a question and without hesitation Rex Daviot replied,

  “Because I consider your uncle’s career to be far more important than
mine and because he has dedicated his life as I have to Great Britain, I am asking you to be my wife!”

  He saw her strange eyes seek his face as if she attempted to look beneath the surface, perhaps to ensure that he had no ulterior or more personal motive.

  Before she could speak he went on,

  “As we both know, it will be a marriage of convenience and may I say that, while I will treat you with the respect I would naturally give the woman who bears my name, I will not assert my rights as a husband nor ask any favours that you are not prepared to offer me.”

  They both knew that this was what Quenella had feared and he saw a faint flush rise in her cheeks.

  It made her, if possible, look more beautiful than she had appeared before. At the same time she seemed a little more human and a little less of a stone statue.

  Rex Daviot waited for a moment and then she said,

  “If that is your promise – if you swear that our marriage will be strictly one of business and expediency – then I am prepared to – marry you!”

  Rex Daviot rose to his feet.

  “Thank you. And now that that is decided may I suggest that we call in your uncle and make plans.”

  He did not wait for Quenella’s agreement but walked across the room and left her to seek Sir Terence.

  He was waiting for their decision in the small study on the ground floor and there was an expression on his face that told Rex Daviot as he entered that he had been apprehensive.

  He rose slowly as the younger man said,

  “I suggest you come back to the drawing room, Sir Terence. We have many things to decide and we need your help and advice.”

  Sir Terence held out his hand.

  “Thank you, Rex, and, although you may not believe me at this moment, my Irish clairvoyance tells me that you will never regret this day.”

  “I hope not. I shall do my best to make Quenella happy.”

  He could not help a faint note of sarcasm in his voice and by the quick glance Sir Terence gave him he was aware that the older man understood what he was feeling.

  They walked in silence up the stairs to the drawing room.

  Sir Terence put his arm round his niece’s shoulder and kissed her.

  Rex Daviot noted that she did not respond towards him, only accepted the gesture in a manner that told him that she shrank even from her uncle because he was a man.

  *

  Driving back to the Travellers Club, Rex found himself thinking that he had never after many years of encountering strange situations been in one that was so extraordinary.

  He had never dreamt when he came back to England that such a crisis could be waiting for him and that within the space of twenty-four hours he would find himself facing a decision that would affect the whole of his life.

  It seemed incredible that he should be embarking on marriage with a woman who obviously disliked him and who had extracted a promise from him that she would never be anything but his wife in name only.

  But Quenella would undoubtedly grace the position and the title that he had now committed himself to.

  Because it seemed so formidable, he had a sudden longing to be back in India.

  He would much rather have been in the midst of enemies disguised as a fakir and knowing that, if one slightest suspicion that he was not what he pretended to be crossed the mind of any man watching him, his blood would stain the ground.

  He had lived with danger for so long and he had not thought as he entered the India Office that he was embarking on another adventure.

  Yet because it was so intimate it would, he was sure, cause him more worry and more anxiety than anything that he had ever done before.

  ‘What shall I do with a wife?’ he wondered to himself savagely. ‘And such a wife!’

  He had seen the repugnance in Quenella’s eyes when her uncle talked of their marriage and thanked them both for having such consideration for him.

  “I have no need to tell you,” Sir Terence said, “what this means to me. All I can say is that I have known you both for some time and you are both individuals, you both have strong characters and each in your own way is unique.”

  He gave a little laugh before he added,

  “It almost seems as if the Fates decreed that you should come together.”

  If that was true, Rex Daviot thought bitterly, the Fates had their ingredients rather badly mixed up.

  He had known as he said ‘goodnight’ that Quenella only with the greatest effort at self-control had resisted the impulse to say that she had changed her mind.

  She wanted to cry out that she would not go through with what was a hollow mockery of a marriage and, as far as she was concerned, it would be an undiluted purgatory to be the wife of any man.

  Rex Daviot felt too that there was something personal about her antipathy for him.

  But he tried to convince himself that he was being imaginative and it was just reaction from the uncomfortable and difficult decision that she had been forced to make.

  There had been a great deal to talk over when Sir Terence joined them in the drawing room.

  “You may think I am being over-apprehensive,” he said, “but I don’t trust the Prince. When a man as spoilt and self-opinionated as he is is swept off his feet by love, he will let nothing stop him. And I mean nothing.”

  “Can you really call that – love?” Quenella asked scornfully.

  “Call it what you like,” Sir Terence replied, “but the Prince has lost his self-control where you are concerned. You have driven him mad to such an extent that he has ceased to count the cost of his actions and that is always dangerous.”

  Rex Daviot knew that he was not speaking without reason and he asked,

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I am suggesting that the sooner you are married and out of this country the better,” Sir Terence replied. “I may sound theatrical and over-dramatic, but it is more for Quenella’s sake than my own. She must be taken out of the Prince’s sight,”

  “I agree with you,” Rex Daviot nodded, “and as I want to return to India quickly, I suggest that you should arrange an audience with the Queen as soon as possible and then we can be married by Special License the following day.”

  He paused to add a little vaguely,

  “I believe one has to give twenty-four hours’ notice for a Special Licence.”

  He thought as he spoke that it sounded ridiculously far-fetched that he should be married by Special Licence to a woman he had only seen this evening for the first time.

  “I will inform the Queen and everyone who will listen,” Sir Terence said, “that you and Quenella have had an arrangement between you that nothing could be done about while you were still in India.”

  He smiled wryly before he continued,

  “Now Her Majesty with her well-known predilection for match-making has smoothed out all the difficulties and you will spend your honeymoon at Government House at Lucknow.”

  “It sounds quite plausible,” Rex admitted.

  “The person I have to convince is the Prince through the German Ambassador,” Sir Terence replied, “and I think that the best way for me to do so would be to call at the Chancellery immediately you have left and give Baron von Mildenstadt the glad tidings.”

  Rex hesitated for a moment before he said,

  “You don’t think it would be wiser to wait until after we are actually married?”

  Sir Terence was silent and then at last he spoke,

  “Yes, perhaps you are right. Even at the last moment that devil might think up some excuse to persecute Quenella or even to have you bumped off! I would not put it past him.”

  “Then let our marriage be a secret until we are actually on the high seas,” Rex suggested.

  He told himself as he spoke that the whole thing was absurd.

  How could they possibly be so threatened by the Ruler of a small German Principality that they were forced to run away from their own country?

  But h
e had lived too long with danger not to know that it was always foolish to underestimate one’s enemies.

  He also had an enormous respect for Sir Terence and he knew that with his knowledge of men and his even greater knowledge of the motivations behind them, Sir Terence would not talk of danger unless it was very real.

  “That is what you must do,” he said now.

  “If, of course, Quenella agrees,” Rex cautioned.

  He was deliberately forcing her to express an opinion because he felt that she was standing aloof from what was happening.

  “I – agree.”

  Now, looking back, Rex could hear the reluctance in her voice.

  It was a soft voice, he thought, soft and musical, and yet there was that hard icy quality on top of it that was unmistakable and in its own way somewhat intimidating.

  Then he told himself that that was the one thing he would never be intimidated by or subservient to his wife.

  She might be rich, she might be offering him as much or more than he could offer her. At the same time in this in particular they sank or swam together or rather they saved Sir Terence or left him to drown.

  As the carriage he was travelling in drew up at the Travellers Club, Rex Daviot decided that he could not face his own company any longer.

  He was in London in the heart of a Capital where there was every form of entertainment for men who were bored, depressed or like himself apprehensive about the future.

  The night was still young and there would be plenty of time to sleep on the voyage to India.

  The coachman was waiting for him to alight, but instead he shouted up,

  “Go to The Empire.”

  Then, sitting back as the horse started up again, he planned an evening that he knew for a young Subaltern isolated in the hot plains of India would be one of uninhibited, wild and exuberant enjoyment

  *

  When Rex Daviot had said ‘goodnight’, Quenella had gone up to her bedroom.

  She had the idea that her aunt would be awake and waiting to hear what had happened.

  Sir Terence had not communicated to his wife the reason why he had insisted that they should dine en famille and Rex Daviot should be the only guest.