The Star of Love Page 5

  “Yes, it has come to this and you know very well why, so let us not deceive ourselves. Does she have any money?”

  “I would imagine her to be reasonably prosperous but not a great heiress. At least, I hope she isn’t a great heiress, since I couldn’t – that is, I imagine there’s little fear of that. The Arnfields are not enormously wealthy and Lord Locksley had a reputation as a very heavy gambler. I doubt there was much left when he died.”

  “Then you cannot afford to marry her.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking of – ” He checked himself.

  There was no deceiving his mother.

  “Just arrange the dinner party please, Mama. I want everything to be of the very best and the invitations should go out as soon as possible.”

  He left the room quickly before she could ask any more questions.

  *

  “Cliona, my dear girl, it was very naughty of you to gallop off alone like that.”

  Lady Arnfield had shooed the maid out of Cliona’s bedroom, so that she might help her niece take off her riding habit and enjoy a comfortable gossip at the same time.

  “I know, dear Aunt Martha and I’m sorry. You will make sure Uncle Kenton knows it wasn’t Harris’s fault, won’t you?”

  “I promise you Harris won’t get into any trouble. shall blame it all on you. Will that satisfy you? Cliona?”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt,” she said, giving herself a little shake.

  “You were in another world, my dear. What has made you so thoughtful?”

  “Oh nothing, it’s just – have you ever plunged into something thinking it was going to be a delightful joke, and then discovered that it wasn’t funny at all? In fact it was terribly sad and serious and all you wanted to do was to make it right.”

  Cliona saw her aunt’s baffled face in the mirror and recovered herself.

  “Take no notice of me. I’m in a strange mood. It makes everything look different.”

  “A good lunch will put you to rights.” She rose to depart. At the door she looked back to say,

  “Don’t worry about your mood. I’m sure it will pass soon.”

  She bustled out, leaving Cliona gazing at her reflection in the mirror, thinking how altered it looked already.

  The reflection smiled back at her, with a mysterious smile, full of joy and discovery, and the secret knowledge they had shared since this morning.

  ‘Oh no,’ she murmured. ‘Somehow, I don’t think it will pass.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The dinner party was set, not for the following day, but the one after, and the invitations were despatched that afternoon. The acceptances came back immediately. Nobody was going to refuse the honour of dining at the castle.

  “The Honourable Mr and Mrs Dalrymple are coming,” said Lady Hester. “The vicar and his wife, also their married son and daughter who are visiting.”

  They were sitting in the drawing room after dinner. Tea had just been served. The Dowager Countess was assiduously working on a shapeless piece of embroidery that had occupied her for years. Lady Hester was compiling a guest list.

  “Sir Kenton and Lady Arnfield, and their niece Lady Cliona,” continued Lady Hester.

  She paused for a reaction. Receiving none, she stole a glance at her son, but he was leaning back in his armchair, studying the painted ceiling with great attention. She glanced up, seeking in the smirking cherubs and winged warriors some hint of what made the ceiling so fascinating to her offspring. Failing to find it, she returned to her task.

  “Lord and Lady Markham have accepted,” she said, “and also –”

  “And also your favourite nephew, whom you neglected to invite,” came a merry voice from the doorway.

  Everyone looked up sharply, and Charles jumped to his feet.

  “Freddy, by all that’s wonderful! It’s good to see you.”

  He strode across the room, hand outstretched to grasp the hand of a bright faced young man of about twenty. Freddy Mason was Lady Hester’s nephew by one of her many sisters.

  His merry spirit and sweet temper made him a family favourite. Both Lady Hester and the Countess smiled at him with pleasure, and he kissed them before accepting the glass of wine Charles poured him, and then settling himself comfortably onto the sofa.

  “And to what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?” asked Charles, “surely your family home is nearby?”

  “Ah, well – ” Freddy began uneasily.

  “The university term has finished,” Charles continued remorselessly, “so even you can’t have been sent down.”

  “No, I wasn’t sent down,” Freddy confirmed eagerly.

  “Then you must have failed your exams,” Charles finished triumphantly.

  “I didn’t – exactly fail –”

  “But you didn’t – exactly – pass either, did you?”

  “I say, old fellow, I thought you’d be glad to see me – family ties and all that.” Freddy said, sounding aggrieved. He sighed heavily. “But, I see how it is, a chap should know when he isn’t wanted.” He began to rise.

  “Stop,” Lady Hester ordered imperiously. “You cannot leave before the dinner party. I need another man to make up the numbers.”

  “You see, I am good for something,” said Freddy immediately.

  “Stop playing the giddy fool and come upstairs,”

  Charles adjured him. “Tell your man to take your things up to your usual room –”

  “Actually, old chap –”

  “Of course, you’ve already done so. How foolish of me.”

  “Well, you’re such a curmudgeon that I thought I’d better settle in before you could throw me out,” countered Freddy innocently.

  Charles clapped him on the shoulder and the two men left the room, laughing and talking.

  But once they had reached Charles’s room Freddy’s ebullient manner became more subdued.

  “I gather things are getting worse,” he said.

  “Now what makes you say that?” Charles asked jovially. “Look around you. Do you see anything wrong?”

  “I see a number of spaces where there used to be valuable antiques,” said Freddy frankly.

  “I disposed of a few pieces I have no further use for.” Charles tried to keep up the bright front, but it faded before Freddy’s expression.

  “What is it?” he asked heavily.

  “I was in London last night,” said Freddy, “and I went out with a few friends, just to relax after the strain of exams, you know.”

  “You went somewhere disreputable, I suppose.”

  “Just a little place where a fellow can do a bit of gambling.”

  Charles groaned.

  “And John was there losing even more money, I suppose?”

  “Well no,” replied Freddy, “he happened to be on a winning streak for once. But it’s very rare. I was talking to one of the stewards who sees him in there a great deal. Sometimes he does win a lot.”

  “I didn’t know that. Not that it makes any difference since he obviously loses it all again.”

  “There’s a cloud over his winnings too, a lot of suspicion –”

  “Oh God!” Charles groaned.

  “But they cannot catch him cheating, and nobody knows how he does it. I gather he haunts several of these dens so that one place doesn’t get tired of him and throw him out. So, he wins a lot and loses a lot.”

  “And this time he was winning, so what worried you?”

  “The way he was talking about you.”

  “Oh that,” Charles sighed. “He’s in a rage because I wouldn’t give him any more money yesterday.”

  Freddy nodded. “That explains it. He was drunk and hurling abuse at you.”

  “What was it this time? Did I steal his inheritance?”

  “Yes, he told anyone who would listen. But they’d all heard it before and weren’t interested. Nobody believes it, Charles.”

  “But it damages the family, just the same.”

  Suddenly he moved over to the w
indow and threw it open. The sun had set over the valley and lights were coming on in the houses he could see. There was the village and beyond it the farms. And there, to one side, was the home of the Lord Lieutenant, his wife and his niece.

  “Look down there,” he said to Freddy, who came to stand beside him. “Most of them are ‘my’ people. My tenants. My employees. They rely on me to look after them, keep their homes repaired, charge them reasonable rents and plough that rent back into the farms instead of bleeding them white and spending the money on myself.”

  “I know some landlords do that,” agreed Freddy. “But you’ve never been one of them.”

  “I’ve prided myself on being a good landlord, but now I wonder how good. There are repairs out there that weren’t done as soon as they should have been.”

  “Because of John?”

  “Because of John. I’ve sold things where I felt they wouldn’t be noticed, because once people start to notice the gaps – as you did – then the outside world will start to find out how bad things are. And that is something I could not bear.

  “I am proud, maybe too proud for the situation I find myself in. My pride makes me try to live up to my situation, my title. It makes me wince at the thought of the outside world knowing the truth. But soon everyone will know. I keep thinking I should sell some of my race horses –”

  “No,” Freddy protested. “It’s the big local festivity, seeing your horses win. And the world really would notice that.”

  “That’s what I tell myself. But they’ll be the next to go, unless John’s winning streak continues. But it won’t. How can it? What really infuriates me about John is that because of him others will suffer.”

  “Don’t pay him any more,” Freddy said violently.

  “And if he goes to prison? That touches my pride too.”

  “Charles, you’re not saving him from prison, you’re just postponing it. He’ll drain you of every penny and when there’s none left he’ll go on spending. He’ll end up in a debtor’s gaol and all your sacrifices will be for nothing. So why make them?”

  “It’s easy to say that, Freddy, but I still cling to the hope that I can save everything I love, and the people to whom I owe a duty.”

  He refilled Freddy’s glass.

  “You’ll hardly credit my mother’s suggestion for solving the problem,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. “She wants me to marry money.”

  “Are you in love with any money?” Freddy asked at once.

  “I believe the idea is that I should first find some money and then arrange to fall in love with it,” said Charles wryly. “I suppose if I had any idea of my duty, that’s what I would have to do.”

  Freddy gave his irrepressible grin.

  “I heard you were rather good at falling in love,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You’re still a legend at Oxford.”

  “I didn’t know that,” replied Charles, startled.

  “Your amatory career is spoken of in hushed tones.

  And there’s one particular story about the Dean’s wife –”

  “That’s enough of that,” said Charles hurriedly. “It’s very late and you’ve had a long journey.”

  “And you want me to go to bed?” Freddy asked. “Certainly not. This conversation is becoming very interesting.”

  “My ‘amatory career’ has been much exaggerated,” said Charles vaguely.

  “Don’t be a spoil sport. Were you really a ‘rake and a hellion’?”

  Charles grinned. “Yes. But in my own defence I plead that I inherited the title much too young. No man should be an Earl at twenty-one. Too much, too soon. It ruins the character.

  “I soon realised that if I pursued a young girl, or even flirted with her, her parents would get to work, attracted by the title and soon I’d be forced to offer for her.

  “And she was very unlikely to refuse. I say that without conceit, because I know it wasn’t myself that was the attraction.”

  He gave a grunt of self-mocking laughter. “I learned that the hard way. I fell madly in love and came to the verge of declaring myself. But just in time I overheard her tell a friend that I bored her to tears. It was only my title that made her give me a second glance. She was a thousand times more worldly wise than I.”

  “Lord, what a story!” Freddy exclaimed.

  “Oh, I’m grateful to her. She taught me a lesson that I couldn’t have learned any other way – not so quickly and thoroughly anyway.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I avoided young girls like the plague, and turned my attentions elsewhere.”

  “To married women. I know.”

  “How do you know?” asked Charles wrathfully.

  “I hear the talk.”

  “Such talk will scorch your young ears.”

  Freddy grinned. “My young ears have already been scorched. It’s too late to protect me now, so let’s hear the rest.”

  Charles sighed as those days came back to him.

  He had discovered that the world was full of wives who were not averse to a flirtation, or more. Often they were married to men their parents had chosen for them. They had done their duty and filled their nurseries with their husband’s offspring, and now they were ready for romance with a handsome young man.

  “You have to be careful not to antagonise the husbands,” he told Freddy. “Choose carefully. A man who enjoys long fishing trips is a good idea. If he goes abroad a lot, that’s even better. Diplomats are very useful.”

  “Good Lord!” Freddy exclaimed suddenly. “That story about the Under Secretary in Paris, and his wife wouldn’t go with him because of the children – they told him he’d been promoted to Prussia, and he hurried home to tell her, and they say her lover only just escaped out of the bedroom window in time.”

  Charles regarded him blandly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Of course you haven’t.”

  “And if you intend to embark on a disreputable career, you’ll have to be more discreet than that. No gentleman of honour ever discusses the windows he’s jumped out of.”

  “But did you ever – ?”

  “What – ?”

  “After the girl you told me about, did you ever actually fall in love again?”

  “Oh yes,” murmured Charles. “Far too often for my own good, or theirs.”

  “But I mean – was it real?” It took Charles a long time to answer.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “It always felt real. And yet – ”

  He fell silent. He was fond of Freddy, but he couldn’t tell him about the sudden dissatisfaction that assailed him, a realisation that when love was ‘real’ too often, it had never been real at all.

  He had told his mother that he sought love, speaking like a man who had never known it. And now he wondered if he had understood himself better than he had suspected.

  Suddenly he couldn’t bear this conversation any longer.

  “That’s it, young man,” he said, rising quickly and hauling Freddy to his feet. “Now you really are going to bed.”

  And Freddy who, beneath his light hearted ways, had a lot of insight, squeezed his shoulder and left without a word.

  Left alone, Charles intended to go to bed, but instead he wandered restlessly round his room. The talk with Freddy had unsettled him, recalling the man he had been years ago and who now seemed nothing like himself.

  In fact, he rather disliked that younger self. There was a selfish, calculating side to him that made a displeasing memory for a man grown older, wiser and more generous.

  He had enjoyed his love affairs, which had been passionate on both sides. Despite his modest words he knew that women found him personally very attractive. He was, in many ways, an experienced and fascinating lover, as more than one high-born wife had told him.

  Even now he could vividly remember the wonderful nights, the infatuation, and the hint of danger. It had been brilliant and exciting.

>   ‘Life should always be as glorious and happy as this,’ he had told himself once.

  That had been his guide when one romance ended and he was free to seek another.

  Now he thought he must have been rather a callow young man to have expected life to be nothing but a round of pleasure. Yet he could still recall the thrill of kissing some beautiful woman for the first time.

  Whether he had been flirting or in love, his heart had turned over, and he had felt a quiver of excitement which no other pleasure had given him. And he had known that the lady loved him equally.

  In those days his feelings had been easily engaged. He had loved, in some cases adored the woman he was making his, whose kiss had been like a touch from the stars themselves.

  But he had never yet wanted any of them to run away with him, or to remain with him for the rest of his life.

  He had always found that no matter how intense the bliss, it soon faded and passed.

  Sooner or later, he would be seeking the same passion with another beautiful woman. And another. Because while they could satisfy his senses, they could never content his heart.

  Now he knew that it was this contentment that he had always secretly sought. And if he made the dutiful marriage his family needed, then his last chance would have gone.

  Well, let it go.

  He told himself it would be better if he stopped making a fuss and simply bite the bullet, as other men had done before him.

  And then, without warning, into his mind came the girl he had talked to that morning by the river. The beautiful girl with sunlight in her hair, who had told him gently and sweetly that she would pray for all his troubles to be over.

  ‘Now I know I’m getting addled in the head,’ he told himself with grim humour. ‘She almost persuaded me that she could cast a spell that would make everything right. It’s time I came down to earth.

  ‘She is lovely, but what of that? She has no money. I can’t afford to allow myself to become attracted to her.’

  He tried to persuade himself to finally silence the inner voice that told him there were other more important issues.

  She was gentle and innocent and for the first time it occurred to him that his own colourful past might set too great a barrier between himself and such a girl.