The Bargain Bride Page 4

  “H-how can I possibly marry somebody I have – never seen before today?” Aleda murmured.

  “He has at least offered you marriage,” the Earl retorted.

  Both realised that he was referring to Sir Mortimer Shuttle, and Aleda shuddered.

  “But – if I marry him, I will – become his wife.”

  “The alternative then is for you to starve here while I remain behind bars,” the Earl remarked.

  Aleda drew in her breath.

  There was no doubt that this was just what David’s creditors intended and she knew that she could not sacrifice anyone she loved to what would be a living Hell.

  At the same time – marriage – to a man she had never seen or spoken to until this very moment!

  How could she in any way contemplate anything quite so horrible, so unnatural and so against everything that she believed in and stood for?

  David’s hand was on her arm and he said in a voice that was not only pleading but she knew was fearful,

  “Please, Aleda, help me! How can I possibly go to prison with no hope of ever coming out?”

  It was the cry of a small boy and David was no longer the dashing Earl of Blakeney.

  He was the child who had told her once long ago that there were ghosts in the Long Gallery.

  They had trembled together when their Nanny had been late in lighting the candles because they thought that they could see and hear apparitions from another world.

  She was remembering too how David had broken his leg out hunting.

  He had cried when the doctor set it, but had hidden his face against her shoulder so that no one should see his tears.

  How could she fail him now?

  Just how could she do anything but agree to this monstrous outrageous idea from a complete stranger?

  Mr. Winton was coming back from the far end of the library with forceful footsteps on the wooden floor for the rugs had all been sold.

  David was looking at Aleda and she knew instantly that he was praying without words that she would save him

  And there was nothing else she could possibly do.

  “I – agree!” she muttered.

  Her lips felt almost far too stiff to let the words pass through them.

  David straightened his shoulders and, as Mr. Winton came back to them, he said,

  “My sister and I, sir, have agreed to accept your proposition and, of course, we are very grateful to you for making it.”

  “Very well,” Mr. Winton said. “So I suggest that you and I return to the Banqueting Hall. There is no need for your sister to be present while we come to an arrangement with the somewhat unpleasant gentlemen who wish to have you prosecuted.”

  “I am sure that would be best,” the Earl agreed.

  He looked at Aleda.

  “You wait here,” he said, “and we will come back as soon as everyone has gone.”

  They went from the library, closing the door behind them.

  Aleda next sank down into a chair as if her legs would no longer support her.

  Could she be dreaming? Was it really possible that she had just agreed to the most outrageous proposal of marriage that any woman could ever receive?

  She untied the ribbons of her bonnet and then pulled it off her head to fling down on the floor.

  Then she put her head against the back of the chair and tried to think.

  How was it possible that this extraordinary man should not only want to buy the house and the whole estate, which could be nothing but a liability, but also wish to marry her?

  She tried to think of one reason why he should do so.

  Then it struck her forcefully that the only possible one was that, having come back to England, as he had said, from abroad and presumably having a few friends in London or in the Shires, he wished to enter the Social world.

  He might have money, but that would not on its own open the doors of the great hostesses to him.

  Nor would he be likely to come in contact with the Prince Regent.

  Everything was now slipping slowly into place in her mind as she thought that, if he was a ‘Social climber’, he would have reasoned it all out to himself like a mathematical problem.

  He would have realised that what he needed was a house he could be proud of and a wife with the right social qualifications that he did not possess himself.

  She was Lady Aleda Blake. If she could have afforded to go to London, she could have enjoyed the Season that her mother had always wanted for her.

  So she would have been invited to endless balls, Receptions and Assemblies that were the real privilege that every debutante coveted.

  ‘That is the explanation,’ Aleda reflected to herself.

  She felt curiously elated that she had found the solution to a difficult problem.

  Equaly she was to marry this man she did not know, a man who had chosen her cold-bloodedly simply for her usefulness.

  She clenched her fingers together as she told herself that she hated him.

  She would hate him even more when she was forced to bear his name.

  She had told David when they had talked of Sir Mortimer Shuttle that she hated men and because of this hatred she had intended never to marry.

  Now she knew that she would just hate her husband and she would also despise him.

  Then she heard voices in the distance and she knew that the tradesmen were leaving.

  They now sounded cheerful, but she remembered how they had shouted and screamed at David like wild animals waiting to devour their prey.

  At least she had saved her brother from that humiliation and she supposed that the knowledge that he was free would have to satisfy her for the rest of her life.

  She now wondered vaguely just what Mr. Winton had in mind for David to do.

  She could not imagine what work he could do that he would not find arduous if not impossible.

  “How can we have found ourselves in this mess?” she asked aloud. “How can our lives, which were at one time so happy and secure, have reached the point where we are accepting charity from a complete stranger?”

  She thought that he would extract an outrageous return for the money he was prepared to spend on her brother and herself.

  Nothing could be more humiliating, she felt, than to know that Mr. Winton was making such obvious use of her and that her marriage was to be nothing more than a business transaction.

  ‘He is exactly the same as the rough tradesmen who wish to destroy David,’ she told herself, ‘and I loathe him.’

  As if her feelings made it impossible for her to sit and she had to stand defiantly to face what was coming, she rose to her feet.

  As Mr. Winton had done, she stood with her back towards the fireplace and stared at the bookshelves.

  The bright sunshine coming through the windows filled the room with a golden haze that hid the dilapidation and made it for the moment seem like a Fairy Palace.

  Then Aleda heard footsteps coming down the passage.

  “I hate him!” she said aloud. “I hate him!”

  Her voice seemed to ring out and yet it was a soft and very musical sound.

  Then the door opened.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mr. Winton and the Earl came into the library.

  Behind them was a groom with a tray and on it there was a bottle of champagne.

  Almost without realising it, Aleda then noticed that the three glasses with it were odd and one of them was slightly cracked. The groom put the tray down on a table and Mr. Winton said,

  “I will pour it, Jed. You see to the luncheon.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The man went from the library and Mr. Winton said,

  “I took the precaution of bringing my luncheon with me and I hope, as your household is very busy, that you will join me.”

  He sounded polite but Aleda thought that he was well aware that there was no one in the house to cook except for herself and that once again he was being charitable.

  She did not speak, but her brother said,

  “Thank you very much indeed. I am afraid that we would have found it difficult to entertain you.”

  Mr. Winton did not reply. He was busy pouring champagne into the three glasses.

  He handed one to Aleda and, looking at her penetratingly in a way that she totally disliked, he said,

  “I hope you will drink to our future happiness.”

  She thought that he was being sarcastic and wanted to reply that there was little chance of her, at any rate, being anything but miserable.

  Yet she knew that it would be a mistake to antagonise him, so she merely inclined her head as she took the glass from him.

  “Now, before we have luncheon,” Mr. Winton said, “I think, Blakeney, you must be curious to know what I have in mind for you.”

  “I am cerainly curious,” the Earl admitted, “and I cannot imagine what work I could possibly do that, as you said, would prove lucrative.”

  Because she was feeling nervous, Aleda walked away from the fireplace to go to the window.

  She stood looking out blindly, thinking that she had stepped into a nightmare and was wishing that she could wake up.

  “What I decided when I returned to England,” Mr. Winton was saying behind her, “was that I would now build up a Racing Stable and from what I have observed since my return home and judging by the conversations I have had with several owners, I think the best place to buy horses is in Ireland.”

  The Earl made a little murmur, but he did not interrupt him as Mr. Winton continued,

  “I am therefore suggesting, Blakeney, that you go to Ireland on my behalf with a man I have chosen to be the Manager of my Racing Stable. He is very experienced and I have heard that you are a very fine rider. Between you, you should b
e good judges of horseflesh that will win the Classics for me.”

  “Do you really mean that?” the Earl asked. “It seems to me incredible and something I would like to do above all else.”

  “I thought that would be your attitude,” he said, “and I shall not only pay you for your services and I think you will find it a generous amount, but you and my Manager can then spend any amount you like on horses that you both believe are worth it.”

  Aleda heard her brother draw in his breath.

  She knew that what he had heard would not only thrill him but, at the same time, she realised that it would take him away from London.

  In Ireland he would not drink so much and spend money he did not possess with his raffish friends.

  “Then that is all settled,” Mr. Winton said, “and you leave at the end of the week.”

  “At the end of the ‒ week?” the Earl repeated.

  Then, as if he realised that he had nothing to keep him in England, he said,

  “That will be perfectly all right as far as I am concerned, but what about my sister?”

  “I have not forgotten her,” Mr. Winton replied, “and, as I am sure that you will wish to give her away, we will be married the day after tomorrow, which is a Thursday, from the house I have rented in London.”

  Aleda stifled a cry of horror.

  She wanted to say that it was impossible that she could not possibly be married in such a hurry.

  Then she asked herself what she was waiting for?

  The house they were now in would belong to Mr. Winton and, if he wished her to leave, she had nowhere to go.

  As she thought more about it, she was glad that he had not decided that they should be married in the village Church where she had been Christened.

  She felt that she just could not bear all the people who had known her since she was a child, becoming aware that she was marrying the man who had bought the estate.

  They would doubtless be thinking that she had sold herself to the highest bidder!

  She was aware that David and Mr. Winton were waiting for her to agree to what had been suggested.

  As she wondered wildly what she could possibly say now, the door opened and the groom who had brought in the bottle of champagne announced,

  “Luncheon’s ready, sir.”

  “I think that we should eat as early as possible,” Mr. Winton said to the Earl, “as I have two things to do before I return to London.”

  “What is that?” the Earl asked him.

  “I want your sister to take me round the house and after that I suggest you show me a little of the estate. Perhaps I could meet some of the farmers and the cottagers in the village.”

  “Yes, of course,” the Earl readily agreed.

  “Then let’s go into luncheon.”

  He looked at Aleda as he spoke and, as if he compelled her to do so, she walked towards the door and they followed her.

  Although she was stunned by what Winton had planned for her and was also frightened and angry, Aleda had to admit that the luncheon was delicious.

  She had eaten only a slice of toast and honey for breakfast and very little rabbit for dinner the night before.

  She found therefore when they had sat down in the breakfast room where luncheon had been laid out, that she was ravenously hungry.

  She knew that David was too and it was an effort for both of them not to gobble the delicious pâté they were served with first. This was followed by fresh salmon that had been caught the day before and after that there was chicken in aspic and stuffed with oysters.

  If only Mr. Winton had not been there, Aleda thought, she and David would have been not only enjoying the dishes but laughing because it was just like having a meal with the Gods on Mount Olympus.

  At first, because he realised just how hungry they were, Mr. Winton said very little.

  But once the first pangs of their hunger had been assuaged he began to talk about the house.

  He extracted very skilfully, Aleda thought, its history, first from David and then from herself.

  “The Blakes had been Statesmen and Generals all down the centuries,” the Earl added. “As I expect you already know, they figure in a dozen history books that you will find in the library.”

  “I prefer to listen to what you tell me,” Mr. Winton replied.

  He spoke to David, but he was in fact looking at Aleda and she thought scornfully that he was thinking how much the Blake Family Tree would support him in his determination to shine in the Social world.

  ‘I suppose,’ she told herself caustically, ‘that we should give him some return for his money.’

  She therefore deliberately spoke of the importance of their ancestors at the Courts of Queen Elizabeth and King Charles II.

  She related how they had been trusted by leading Statesmen in the reign of Queen Anne and was voluble about the General whom the Duke of Marlborough had praised a dozen times in his despatches.

  Only when she had paused for one moment from eulogising over their success and importance did she have a suspicion that Mr. Winton’s eyes were twinkling.

  It was as if he was quite aware of just why she was being so informative.

  ‘I hate him!’ she said to herself over and over again.

  She longed to stand up from the table and order him to leave the house.

  ‘If only we could find some treasure hidden in one of the chimneys,’ she thought, ‘or concealed in a secret room we have not yet discovered.’

  They were stories she had told herself many times recently when she had lain awake at night.

  It was just impossible to sleep because she was so hungry and also because she was so apprehensive about the future.

  She was beginning to realise now that the only treasure they were likely to find was in Mr. Winton’s pocket.

  The ‘crock of gold’ at the far end of the rainbow was only ‘Fairy Gold’, which was what David had spent in London with disastrous consequences.

  Then, as the thoughts rushed through her mind, she became aware that Mr. Winton was watching her.

  She had the terrifying feeling that he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  Coffee completed their meal and it was made from the finest fragrant coffee beans that Aleda had not been able to afford for a very long time.

  “If you have finished,” Mr. Winton said, “I think we should start our tour of inspection of the house. I will tell my servants to put everything left over into your larder and there are some other dishes that I brought from London that I am sure you will enjoy this evening.”

  Again Aleda wanted to insist that they could manage very well without his help.

  She knew that was untrue and with Glover having so much to do in the stables, it was unlikely there would even be a rabbit to cook this evening.

  They would indeed be very hungry unless they could dine on what Mr. Winton provided.

  Aloud she said,

  “As you have already seen the library and the Banqueting Hall, the only other important room on this floor is the drawing room.”

  She then opened the door and, when he had looked inside without comment, she walked on towards the staircase.

  As she walked up ahead of him, she was vividly conscious of him coming up behind her and felt as if his grey eyes were boring into her back.

  She opened the doors of the State Bedrooms one by one.

  In the first two there was a ghastly mess made by the fallen ceiling and the plaster from it was scattered over the floor and on the four-poster beds.

  In the next room she drew back the curtains for him to see a fine painting on the ceiling and fine carving over the doors.

  There was no furniture except for the bed, which no one had wished to buy because it was so large.

  They went from room to room which were just as empty, except that occasionally there was a chair that was broken or a gilt-framed mirror that was cracked.

  Now they came to the room where Aleda herself slept.

  She had collected everything together that was not saleable and draped her bed with muslin curtains.

  There was the scent of the flowers that she had arranged on her dressing table and the chests of drawers on either side of her bed.

  She saw Mr. Winton looking at them.

  She wondered if he really did understand that, because they were beautiful and unspoilt, they somehow compensated for the dust and devastation in the rest of the house.