The Prisoner of Love Page 5

  Now she could no longer see the horse or the rider, but she knew that they would be passing through the shrubbery which was planted on the West side of the house, where the bushes, high and concealing because they had been there for so long, reached right up to the door of the Tower.

  There were plenty of places for the Earl to tie up his horse and doubtless Iris would already have opened the door at the bottom of the Tower and the one into the Duke’s bedroom.

  ‘It’s disgraceful of him!’ Sorilda exclaimed. ‘He is a gentlemen and he is a neighbour. Although Uncle Edmund does not like him, that is no reason for him to behave so abominably.’

  She thought that the Earl, who not only looked handsome but also had a presence that was unmistakable, should not stoop to deceive someone like her uncle.

  In a way she supposed she was disappointed in him.

  But now she remembered that she had heard Huxley and the other grooms saying things that she had not noticed particularly at the time, but which might have told her, had she been interested, that the Earl was very much a ladies’ man.

  They had, of course, been careful what they said in front of her, as they thought of her as a child.

  But the innuendos had been there and she could remember similar suggestions put in a more refined way by the guests who had sat round her uncle’s table.

  “I hear Winsford is making quite a name for himself in London,” she now recalled hearing one old gentleman say at dinner.

  “In what way?” the Duke had asked somewhat coldly.

  “He has an eye both for a horse and for a pretty woman,” the gentleman had boomed, speaking unnecessarily loudly because he was deaf.

  The Duke had looked down his nose and the ladies at the table had pretended to blush.

  “Come on, your Grace,” the gentleman had said. “Don’t pretend to be surprised. You were a bit of a dog yourself in your youth!”

  Her uncle, Sorilda remembered, had seemed rather pleased at the compliment.

  “That is not surprising, my dear Duke,” the gentleman’s wife had said, patting him on the arm with her fan, “you were always the most handsome man that ever graced the Hunt Ball and I remember all too well how we girls always prayed that you would ask us to dance.”

  “And that is what the girls of today are doing,” the gentleman said. “Only now they are praying that young Winsford will notice them. A large number, I understand, have had their prayers answered!”

  He laughed at his own joke until he choked and by the time he had been patted on the back and made to drink some water the conversation had changed to another subject.

  In the back of Sorilda’s mind she had thought that the Earl was as successful with woman as he was in breeding horses, only somehow she had not expected him to pursue somebody like her step-aunt into the very precincts of the Nuneaton stronghold.

  ‘It’s disgraceful!’ Sorilda said to herself again and opened her book determinedly.

  *

  As it happened, the Earl of Winsford had been surprised when the previous day the Duchess’s note had been brought to him.

  He had just been about to leave the house to ride round the estate with one of his friends, Peter Lansdown.

  As he disliked keeping the horses waiting, he had opened the note impatiently not bothering even to glance at the writing or guess from whom it had come.

  When he had read what the Duchess had written, he had stood still for a moment as if it both surprised and intrigued him.

  “What is it, Sholto?” Peter Lansdown enquired. “If you are going to cancel our ride, I shall be extremely annoyed! It’s my last chance of trying out your superb horses as I have to leave exceedingly early tomorrow morning.”

  “That means I shall be alone,” the Earl said.

  “I am sure there are plenty of people to join you, if that is what you desire ’ his friend replied, a note of amusement in his voice.

  The Earl however did not appear to be listening.

  Instead he seemed to be debating something with himself and his friend thought that he was obviously considering what he should do.

  Then with a smile that had something mischievous about it, he said,

  “Ride ahead of me down the drive, Peter. I will not be a moment, but I have to answer an invitation.”

  As he spoke, he hurried from the hall, scribbled a reply to the Duchess’s note and came back only a minute or so later to hand it to his Major Domo.

  “Send this to Nuneaton Castle.”

  “The groom who brought the note is waiting, my Lord.”

  “Then give it to him.”

  As the Earl spoke, he walked swiftly across the hall and down the steps to where his horse was waiting.

  He mounted and rode after his friend who had only reached the bridge that spanned the lake.

  “Have you made a momentous decision?” Peter Lansdown asked as the Earl joined him.

  They had been friends for many years, had served in the same Regiment and had both supported Prince Albert whole-heartedly in his desire to marry art with commerce and show the world an Exhibition of Culture that would astound everyone.

  Peter Lansdown was a Member of Parliament and his voice in the House of Commons had continually put the Prince’s point of view to those who had been hostile from its very inception.

  “I have just received an invitation which has surprised me,” the Earl admitted as they rode side by side.

  “I should have thought that you were too old and certainly too experienced to be surprised by anything a woman might suggest,” Peter Lansdown laughed.

  “How do you know it was a woman?” the Earl enquired.

  “That was obvious from the expression on your face,” his friend answered, “and I would also wager one hundred to one on that you accepted the proposition in question.”

  “That was your fault.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are leaving me alone and quite frankly, Peter, like most Englishmen, I dislike eating by myself.”

  “I have already told you that is unnecessary where you are concerned. But if you dislike it happening even occasionally, there is one very easy remedy.”

  “What is that?” the Earl asked.

  He was only giving his friend half his attention and it was obvious that his mind was elsewhere.

  “You could get married!”

  “Good God, it’s not a case of melancholia!” the Earl exclaimed, “and incidentally marriage is something I have no wish for now or at any time!”

  “You cannot be serious?”

  “I am very serious. Marriage, my dear Peter, is not for me! I am a born bachelor. To be tied to one woman, however attractive, would make me feel as if I was imprisoned in a dungeon from which there was no escape!”

  Peter Lansdown laughed.

  Then he said,

  “I had no idea you felt so strongly on the subject, although I was well aware that you have been extremely skilful in eluding the bait that has been dangled over your nose ever since you were eighteen!”

  They had reached the top of the drive and, as they turned towards the Long Gallop, Peter Lansdown drew in his horse to look back at the house.

  It was a little below them and with its background of green trees looked overwhelmingly magnificent in the spring sunshine.

  “Admiring my possessions?” the Earl asked.

  “I was just thinking that sooner or later you will have to change your mind and at least produce an heir,” Peter Lansdown replied. “You know as well as I do that your Cousin Hubert is not the right type of character to wear your Coronet with dignity!”

  They both laughed, the Earl somewhat wryly.

  His heir presumptive was a young man who had refused all social responsibility and instead spent most of his time in Paris painting excruciatingly bad pictures and enjoying himself exuberantly with the women who patronised the nightlife of the French Capital.

  He had grown a beard, wore the velvet coat of the artist, a huge floppy tie and, when he remembered, a beret on the side of his head.

  “I simply cannot imagine Hubert at Winsford,” Peter Lansdown said, “so stop talking nonsense, Sholto, make up your mind that in the next ten years or so you will have, for the sake of the family, to embrace the bonds of Holy Matrimony.”

  “I am damned if I will!” the Earl retorted. “I enjoy life as I am and, as I have said, any woman I married would soon become such a crashing bore that I should find myself murdering her!”

  “Beget your heir first!” Peter Lansdown advised. “Then you can drop her in the lake or push her off the roof and nobody will be in the least concerned!”

  The Earl threw back his head and laughed.

  “Peter, you are incredible! If I listened to you, I should not only become a criminal but a murderer and that would certainly not embellish the family escutcheon!”

  “Remember that I am very willing to help you,” Peter Lansdown said. “In the meantime enjoy yourself.”

  “That is exactly what I intend to do,” the Earl replied. “Why should I say no to any rich peach which is ready to fall into my lap?”

  He thought as he spoke, that was a very good description of Iris.

  She was exactly like a peach in her softness and the way she managed with her fair hair and pale blue eyes to have a kind of bloom on her that other women lacked.

  The Earl had in fact admitted to himself that he had been quite disappointed – or was the right word ‘piqued’ – when so soon after they had met she had accepted the Duke of Nuneaton and had become a bride before he could get his hands on her for the second time.

  They had been introduced at a house party given by one of the Earl’s more dashing friends for the St. Leger race meeting that took place in Yorkshire.

  The moment the Earl had walked into his friend’s house, having just broken the driving record from London, he had seen Iris and knew that it had been worth the effort to come so far.

  The house party was, however, surprisingly respectable because the host had been obliged at the last moment to find accommodation for his mother who unpredictably had wished to attend the race meeting.

  This rather constricted the behaviour of the other guests, who were used to being very free and easy in that particular house for these particular races.

  It was therefore, not on the first night, but the second that the Earl, as he knew was expected of him, found his way to Iris’s bedroom.

  With his vast experience of women and his expertise that had gained him the reputation of being the best lover in London, the Earl had sensed that beneath Iris’s angelic appearance lurked the burning fires of a passionate woman.

  He was not disappointed and he had felt when he returned to his bedroom as dawn broke, that it had been an enjoyable if predictable night.

  The following day he had left after the racing and, while he looked forward to seeing Iris again in London, when he had opened The Times on his return, it was to find her marriage to the Duke of Nuneaton had already taken place.

  He had a feeling that this was not the end of the story and, when he danced with her at the State Ball he had known that marriage had not damped down the fires raging within her.

  At the same time he had hesitated before deliberately assisting his neighbour’s wife to infidelity.

  One of the Earl’s principles had always been not to make love to a woman in her husband’s house when he was to all intents and purposes a friend. Yet it would have been impossible in the country for Iris to come to him without her servants being aware of it.

  He knew in consequence that he had either to refuse her invitation or throw his principles overboard.

  He remembered the Duke had never liked him and had often gone out of his way to make him feel that he took very much second place in County affairs when he was present.

  What was more, he resented the attitude the Duke had taken over Prince Albert’s building of the Crystal Palace.

  To the Earl it seemed simple loyalty on the part of those who were frequently at Buckingham Palace and were trusted both by the Queen and her Consort to support the Prince in the project that could do nothing but good for the country and might conceivably improve foreign relations with the whole world.

  It was perhaps this thought more than anything else that made the Earl decide that if the Duke could not look after his own wife it was not for him to teach him his business.

  What was more, he thought, it would certainly be a pleasure to see Iris again and to find the fire burning fiercely on those softly curved lips, which looked as if they never uttered anything more arousing than a prayer or a psalm.

  Only as he rode through the twilight towards The Castle did the Earl ask if he was making a fool of himself and taking unnecessary risks in pursuit of a woman whose favours he had already enjoyed.

  As he reached the boundary between the two estates, he very nearly turned back.

  He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was inviting danger, although why he should feel like that he had no idea.

  ‘I must be getting old if I cannot embark on an ordinary adventure without soul-searching,’ he told himself scornfully, ‘and God knows I am too young to enjoy sitting alone and listening to my conscience!’

  He crossed onto the Duke’s land and told himself that ten years ago, when he first came down from Oxford, he would have thought this was a thrill that could not possibly be missed.

  He could only find himself hoping as he rode on that Iris after all would be worth the trouble he was taking over her.

  The Earl had often found in his love affairs that the expectation and indeed the thrill of a first encounter could never be equalled on subsequent occasions.

  Indeed, in his experience it was fatal to revive a love affair that had once seemed over. However, that was not true in Iris’s case because one fiery night could hardly constitute a love affair.

  And yet, he told himself, he might have done better to leave well alone and, when it came down to it, he had no desire to upset the Duke, which he would undoubtedly do if he had the least idea of what was happening.

  Then he told himself that Iris would certainly know on which side her bread was buttered.

  He had made it very clear to her as he had made it to all women that he was a lover not a husband and that his intentions were strictly dishonourable and nothing and nobody could change him.

  ‘She is certainly old enough to look after herself,’ the Earl excused himself, ‘and there is no reason why I should play nursemaid.’

  He had reached the side of the West Tower and found as he rode through the bushes there were plenty of stalwart boughs on which to tie the reins of his horse.

  Having dismounted he saw the door of the Tower just ahead of him and as he drew nearer he realised it was slightly ajar.

  The sky overhead was now almost dark and the first evening star was twinkling above the top of the Tower.

  The Earl looked up and seeing the arrow-slit windows thought that in earlier times doubtless by now he would be lying on the ground with an arrow in his chest.

  Then, with a smile on his lips, he mocked at his own fancy and, pushing open the heavy oak door, started to climb up the twisting stone steps towards a gleaming light.

  Chapter Three

  Sorilda realised that she was feeling cold.

  When she lit the candles to go on reading, she had drawn the curtains to keep out the moths but had left the window open. Now there was a night breeze moving the curtains and she felt it penetrating through her thin dressing gown, although not until this moment had she felt the chill of it.

  She rose to her feet realising as she did so that, although she had forced herself to try to concentrate on her book, one part of her brain was continually occupied with the Duchess and the Earl.

  She told herself that it was really ridiculous to be so shocked and yet she knew that the way they were behaving offended not only her sense of propriety but also against an instinct for everything that was beautiful.

  It had continually surprised her that her step-aunt who was so exquisitely lovely should have such an unpleasant character, but she had never for one moment suspected that she was immoral as well.

  It was like, she thought, finding a canker in what appeared to be a perfect fruit or an earwig in the heart of a lily.

  ‘I will not think about it,’ Sorilda told herself determinedly.

  She went to the dressing table and took the pins from her hair, knowing, as it fell over her shoulders, that it was greasy from the pomade that Harriet had applied to it and hating her step-aunt because she was determined to make her look as unattractive as she could.

  Once a week Sorilda washed her hair, when it was a joy to see the red-gold of it falling in soft waves against her white skin.

  It always reminded her of her mother and she thought how appalled she would have been to see the mess and ugliness of the hair she had brushed with such pride ever since Sorilda was a small child.

  Now because it gave her something to do, she brushed out her long tresses, feeling it becoming more buoyant with every stroke until it fell over her shoulders in a cloud of red glory.

  It was still dank and limp on top of her head and because she disliked this so much, she rubbed it with a towel until much of the grease was removed and she could see it glinting in the candlelight when she looked in the mirror.

  As she stared at her reflection, she knew that in the morning Harriet would come to apply more of the pomade and to scrape it back into a hard bun at the back of her head, which was often so tight that it hurt her.

  She had given up protesting because it only meant that her step-aunt would rant and rave at her and she would feel humiliated because she was so helpless and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Now, as she thought of the disgraceful way in which the Duchess was behaving, Sorilda felt that it would have an effect on the very atmosphere of The Castle.

  Then she told herself that this was an exaggeration.

  The Castle had survived, just as the Eaton family had, despite crimes of every sort and description and there must have been Duchesses in the past who had behaved as badly as, if not worse than Iris.