A Hazard of Hearts Read online

  “Have you missed me lately?” she asked in a low voice.

  For a fleeting second Justin took his eyes from the road ahead and looked down at her.

  She saw his lips part in a sudden smile.

  “I never have a chance to miss any other woman when I am with my mother.”

  Isabel digested this information for a moment in silence. It was true, she was sure of that. She had heard a well-known wit remark only a few days ago, ‘the Marchioness of Vulcan treats her son as though he was her lover and who knows better than both of them what that treatment should be?”

  Feeling that she had somehow made a false move towards the close intimacy that she so greatly desired, Isabel changed her tactics.

  “Are you excited at the thought of your journey’s end?” she enquired lightly.

  “I have long ceased to be excited in anticipation of anything,” Justin answered.

  “What a lot of things you miss,” Isabel sighed, “for I declare, Justin, that half the joys of life are to be found in anticipating what is going to happen.”

  “And regretting it when it does,” Justin parried.

  “You are getting old and cynical,” Isabel mocked him.

  “Maybe.”

  Justin flicked the horses with his whip and they went a little faster.

  “I wish I understood you,” Isabel went on, “you are a strange person, Justin, and no one has your confidence. When one tries to get near to you, there is always a barrier.”

  “How unprepossessing you make me sound,” he answered. “It is amazing that you bother with me.”

  “Bother!”

  There was almost a sob in Isabel’s voice as she repeated the word and then lightly, because she was afraid that he might be bored with any expression of her real feelings, she said,

  “I don’t believe that you enjoy half the things you do, Justin.”

  There was a moment’s silence and Isabel suddenly was sure she had said something so true that he could find no words to answer her with,

  ‘Why then does he do them?’ she wondered and felt, as she had felt so often before, that she was beating frantically against a brick wall that stood between her and the man she loved.

  “Justin,” she said pleadingly and then was well aware that there was relief in his voice as he said,

  “Here come the others, they must have been held up. We will let them get even with us and then show them what we can do. Pray Heaven we don’t lose the way.”

  There was no chance of further intimacies. Peter Burley was determined to win his wager. Apart from the money it would be no mean triumph as he well knew. His horses were as good as the Marquis’s pair of chestnuts, but his driving could never compare with Vulcan’s.

  More than once the horses were neck and neck, but the chestnuts turned in at the gates of Staverley Court two lengths ahead of Peter Burley’s greys.

  Isabel gave a shout of joy that echoed strangely across the deserted Park.

  “Oh la, that was grand fun, Justin. Peter was certain he could beat you. I heard him tell Gilly so just before he started. After you had been driving all day he thought he had a good chance of winning.” Lord Vulcan said nothing and after a moment Isabel added, “there must be an element of luck in it too. You are lucky, aren’t you, Justin? Are you never feared that your good fortune will desert you?”

  “What do you call my good fortune?” he asked.

  In the darkness of the trees the moonlight showing through them wove a strange pattern on the drive.

  “Your good fortune?” Isabel repeated. “Look what it has gained you at cards in the past, and now this – ”

  They had come to a turn in the drive and the house lay before them, the moonlight was full on its grey beauty, the stone terrace and the great wide sweep of lake beneath were a picture in light and shade.

  The house was exquisite, there was no denying that and yet Isabel felt for a moment that something was lacking. Then she knew what it was. She had never, if ever, approached a house without its windows being filled with light and without the warm glow within showing forth a welcome across the intervening darkness.

  “Have you thought, Justin,” she asked, “that it is late for country folk? Everyone will be asleep.”

  “Then we will wake them,” he replied.

  “They will have been watching for you day after day, wondering when you would come, waiting perhaps to curse you for your new suzerainty and then, when they are asleep, suddenly you are there.” She laughed. “Lud, but it is an amusing thought and, if the poor devils but knew, so like you!”

  Lord Vulcan said nothing, but drove over the bridge that spanned the lake and turned into the wide gravel sweep in front of the house.

  As he drew up at the front steps, the groom asked,

  “Shall I pull the bell, my Lord?”

  “Yes, and ring it loudly.”

  The groom sped up the steps to do as he was told. He tugged at the heavy iron chain hanging on one side of the door. They heard the bell clang a long way away, a mournful empty sound.

  Isabel shivered.

  “Perhaps everybody is dead. Let’s go away and come another time,” she moaned.

  Peter Burley drove up beside them.

  “Strap me if it wasn’t a good race, Justin, for all that you beat me. I thought I had you once or twice.”

  Lord Gillingham was looking up at the house.

  “This is a nice little place you have acquired, Justin. But they hardly seem anxious to make your acquaintance, no one is astir.”

  “Why should they be when they did not know we were coming?” Isabel asked pettishly. “But I wish they would hurry up and open the door. I would welcome the chance to warm myself at a fire.”

  Lord Vulcan’s groom was still pulling at the bell.

  There was a sound of footsteps, a creaking of locks and a clanging of chains and then slowly the big front door swung open.

  An old man stood there, staring out into the night, an ancient coat of livery held across his chest with one hand.

  “What is it you want, gentlemen?”

  “It is the Marquis of Vulcan, your new owner,” the groom remarked in shrill tones.

  “I did not instruct him to say that,” Justin said in a quiet voice, but it was obvious that he was amused.

  The old man looked startled.

  “The Marquis of Vulcan,” he repeated. “I will tell Miss Serena. Come in, my Lord. I will light the candles.”

  Lord Vulcan sprang down from the box and went round to the other side of the phaeton to help down Lady Isabel. She clung to him for a moment as he held her in his arms.

  With the utmost dexterity he set her on the ground and she was free.

  “I feel as if I was going to Church,” Lord Gillingham said as they walked up the steps into the darkened hall. The old man was lighting candles in the crystal brackets set high on the wall on either side of the fireplace. In a moment or two there was a mellow glow of light and then he lit a fire in the big fireplace.

  “I will inform Miss Serena,” he was muttering to himself as he walked away.

  “La, but it is cold,” Isabel said, holding out her hands to the flames creeping up the logs, but as yet giving no warmth.

  “It’s not a bad place!” her brother said, looking around him.

  “Do you think your bride will offer us a drink, Justin?” Sir Peter Burley asked. “My tongue is so thick with dust, your dust, that I can hardly speak.”

  “We must do our best for you,” Lord Vulcan smiled.

  At that moment the old retainer came shuffling back.

  “Is there any wine in the house?” Lord Vulcan asked.

  “Yes, my Lord. Certainly, my Lord. I will fetch a bottle right away. I was to beg your Lordships to make yourselves comfortable and Miss Serena will be down in as short a space of time as possible. Will you have a chair, my Lord?”

  The old man pushed four high-backed chairs forward so that they formed a circle round the fire. />
  “Wine is what we want, my good man,” Sir Peter Burley said impatiently.

  “Yes, my Lord. Certainly, my Lord.”

  The old man shuffled away again.

  “I shouldn’t keep him on the staff,” Sir Peter laughed. “He should have been retired half a century ago.”

  “If you look closely at the place,” Lord Gillingham said critically, “you will see that it is somewhat dilapidated. Sir Giles must have been pressed for some time. Shall we have a look at the other rooms?”

  “It would be more polite to wait,” Lord Vulcan replied, “and frankly, Gilly, I am in no hurry to view the rest of my property. The sample I see before me is quite discouraging enough.”

  Isabel turned from the fire with an impish smile.

  “Mayhap the lady is as dilapidated as her surroundings. I would not miss your handling of this situation for anything in the world.”

  “We have not seen her yet,” Lord Gillingham reminded his sister. “If she turns out to be a beauty, you will be ready to scratch her eyes out.”

  “She won’t be,” Lady Isabel retorted confidently.

  “Here comes the wine,” Sir Peter said. “Let’s be grateful, Justin, that at least you have inherited one bottle if no more.”

  The old butler filled the glasses with shaking fingers.

  “Have you more of these?” Lord Vulcan asked.

  “A few bottles, my Lord. A few bottles.”

  “Then fetch another one.”

  “At once, my Lord. At once.”

  The old man was gone again.

  The fire burned up and gradually the warmth crept out into the room. Isabel sat down in a chair on one side of the fireplace holding out her hands to the blaze.

  “I am feeling sleepy,” she yawned. “Let’s hope your pock-marked beauty does not keep us waiting too long.”

  “The night is still young,” Sir Peter replied.

  “We will not be back before midnight,” Lord Gillingham remarked.

  “What matter if we are not?” Lord Vulcan answered.

  He glanced up.

  At the far end of the hall was a wide staircase with a balustrade of carved oak. The head of the staircase had been hidden in a deep shadow, but now there was a light approaching, the flickering orange glow casting strange shadows as it moved.

  Then suddenly there was the light of a silver candelabrum held high by the strangest creature his Lordship had ever seen, a wizened, dwarfed woman, big-headed with a tiny misshapen body, her eyes deep pools of darkness.

  She stood at the head of the staircase holding the candelabrum high in her hands, while into the light, her hand on the head of a great brown mastiff, came a girl.

  For a moment she stood very still, looking down at the little group of people by the fireplace and then slowly she moved forward, her fair hair haloed around her head, her sweet face pale in the candlelight.

  She wore a simple gown of white muslin, her arms were bare and there were no jewels or ornaments around her neck.

  Utterly lovely in her simplicity and in complete silence she descended the stairs into the hall.

  Chapter Three

  Serena woke early in the small oak bed that she had slept in since she was a child.

  The light was coming through the curtains revealing to her the familiar outlines of the room that had once been her nursery and which she still preferred for her bedroom despite the fact that she could, had she wished, have slept in one of the bigger and grander rooms of the house.

  She had loved her nursery as a child and it had come, as the years passed by, to afford her a refuge, a place where she could escape from the cares and troubles of trying to run a household without money, from the grumbles of the old servants and even from her ever- increasing anxiety about her father.

  Her mother had died when she was nine years old. Serena had loved her dearly, but Lady Staverley had suffered from ill-health after a riding accident. As long as Serena could remember she never left the house, receiving guests as she lay on a couch in the drawing room and later, when she grew worse, retiring to her bedroom and being often in such excruciating pain that death was in many ways a welcome release.

  Sir Giles, who had loved his wife devotedly, had few friends. He was liked in the County, but his more stolid neighbours could never understand or sympathise with his passion for gambling and his visits to London were spent entirely in gaming Clubs so he made no friendships there.

  It was a lonely life that he lived at Staverley after his wife’s death and it was even lonelier for his only child. All too soon Serena realised that, unless she made an effort to keep the household together, the place would sink from bad to worse and eventually become only a shambles of dust and ill-service, of fretful servants and empty unaired rooms.

  Before she was twelve years of age she had taken command. In a year or so the servants learned to obey her and when anything was wanted on the estate the tenants came humbly to ask her to intercede on their behalf with her father.

  It was a strange position for a young girl, yet Serena accepted it easily, finding strength within herself to meet the daily demands upon her. She was rewarded by the affection that her father developed for her and the fact that the Staverley estate was, as far as funds allowed, looked after and cared for as it would never have been without her resolve and authority.

  It was now for the first time, as she lay in her comfortable bed, that she realised the full import of what her father’s death was to mean to her. Even when they had laid Sir Giles to rest in the little churchyard at the far end of Staverley Park, it had only seemed a strange unreal dream.

  It had all happened too suddenly, too unexpectedly and, although there were tears in Serena’s eyes so that she held blindly onto Nicholas’s arm as they turned back towards the house, some part of her was still crying out pathetically that it was not true and she would awake and find that things were as they had always been.

  The interval between her father’s burial and the coming of the new owner of Staverley had only increased Serena’s sense of unreality. She was used to being alone and as day succeeded day and there was no sign of the Marquis of Vulcan, she began to doubt the wild tale that had burst from Nicholas’s lips and of which there had been no further confirmation.

  Had Nicholas imagined it all? Had the story of that crazy game of cards that had lost both Staverley and herself to a stranger been only a figment of Nicholas’s imagination?

  Day after day went by and Serena waited, at first starting at every sound and scanning the drive not once but a dozen times in the hour for the sight of a strange carriage or an unknown horseman.

  “If he is coming, why does he not he come?” she would ask Nicholas impatiently, always to receive the same reply,

  “No one knows, no one can guess what Vulcan will do. I have told you, Serena, he is a strange man and a bad one.”

  It was cold comfort, but somehow the delay had the effect of taking the edge both from Serena’s misery at her father’s death and also from her own dread of the future.

  Although she had to a certain extent hidden her fears from Nicholas on that first momentous morning, she had been by no means as calm and assured as she had appeared. She had learnt very early in life not to show her feelings too easily and, especially where men were concerned, to hide anxiety behind a smile and to control the questions that rose too quickly to untempered lips.

  Every night since her father’s death Serena had prayed not only for him and that he might rest in peace, but also for herself.

  She was alone! She told herself that fact over and over again and yet her future was pledged and her freedom enchained. She would not have been human if she had not wondered continually what Lord Vulcan was like. Nicholas’s description of him had not been reassuring, but Serena knew that Nicholas had personal reasons for disliking the Marquis, even so, because Nicholas was a reliable person, it was wise to take notice of what he said.

  When, the night before, Serena had been
awakened from sleep by Eudora coming to her room to tell her agitatedly that the Marquis and a party had arrived, she had felt at first only annoyance that she should, as it were, have been caught off her guard.

  She had never imagined that he would come when she was asleep and she had planned so often in her mind that she would meet him in a cool and composed manner – the acknowledged Chatelaine of Staverley Court, even though she must hand it over to his keeping.

  It had all been upsetting and disturbing, a quick scurry into her clothes with Eudora fussing over her hair, the difficulty of trying to remember at the same time whether the engraved glasses were ready for use and if there were enough candles in the chandelier to light the drawing room.

  “I never thought he would come at night!” Serena cried.

  “Maybe it is the time that suits him best,” Eudora said darkly.

  “How many people did old Beaston say there were with his Lordship?” Serena questioned.

  “Three, but he was so bemused that there may easily be more than less.”

  “You must see that Beaston brings up the best wine, Eudora, and find two more crystal goblets. I stupidly expected that his Lordship would come alone or with only a man of business.”

  At last she was ready and, as Eudora lifted the big silver candelabrum from the dressing table to light them through the passages, she took one last look at her reflection in the mirror and felt somehow relieved that the wild beating of her heart did not show in the calmness of her face.

  She was comforted by the presence of Torqo, her great mastiff. He had slept on the mat outside her room since her father died, although his real place was in the kennels. She had been thankful that he was there.

  When he walked with her down the long flight of stairs to the hall she did not feel so lonely or so insignificant among these smart elegant people from London versed in the ways of the fashionable world and knowledgeable in all the things that she herself knew so little about.