Never Forget Love Page 6

  Yours,

  Delphine.”

  Nerissa read the note through twice.

  ‘She is still very angry with us,’ she thought, ‘but there is nothing either we or she can do about it and at least Harry will be grateful that the Duke still expects us to be his guests.’

  She could not help feeling that she was being treated as a charity child, but, when the trunk arrived, Nerissa could not repress the excitement she felt, which was entirely feminine.

  It was years since she had bought a new gown and, the moment she opened the round-topped leather box and saw what it contained, she then felt her spirits rise and knew that not even Delphine could make her feel miserable at this moment.

  The gowns were all the latest fashion and in perfect condition for Delphine would never wear anything that needed even the slightest repair.

  Many of her gowns she had discarded after she had worn them only once in case those who criticised her should recognise them again,

  Nerissa was not to know that on her return to London she had told her maid to take out of the trunk anything that was at all elaborate or would, in her opinion, draw attention to her sister.

  Nevertheless everything she had sent was in Nerissa’s eyes so beautiful and so new that, as she ran to try them on, she felt as if she was dancing on air.

  There were three evening gowns and four day ones, a travelling dress and coat, besides what she had not dared to hope for, a very attractive riding habit.

  She thought at first that there was only one trunk, but there were several smaller boxes, which contained shoes, bonnets, gloves and bags.

  Even Harry had been impressed by Delphine’s generosity until he read the note that she had sent before leaving Swire.

  Then he said,

  “I am sure that you would like to throw them in her face, as I would!”

  Nerissa gave a little cry.

  “They are mine now and I could not bear to part with any of them. Although they were given grudgingly, one should never ‘look a gift horse in the mouth’!”

  Harry laughed and put his arm round Nerissa and unexpectedly kissed her.

  “You are very sweet and I hope one day I find a husband for you who will look after you and see that you have everything you want for yourself.”

  “I want nothing at the moment except for the days to go quickly so that we can see Lyn and ride the Duke’s horses.”

  “Amen to that!” Harry agreed fervently. “I am going to Oxford today to beg, borrow or steal some decent clothes so that you will not be ashamed of me.”

  “Can you do so?” Nerissa asked. “Of course I would never be ashamed of you anyway.”

  “When I tell the best tailor at Oxford that I intend to spend quite a lot of money with him, I am sure that he will fit me out somehow in the meantime, especially,” Harry grinned, “when I tell him where I am going.”

  Nerissa thought that this was an odd thing to do, but she said nothing.

  She knew how much Harry resented being badly dressed when all his friends were so smart.

  She then found herself remembering how exquisitely tied the Duke’s cravat had been the night he came to Queen’s Rest and how the points of his collar rested exactly in the right angle above his chin.

  ‘If Harry expects to look like the Duke, he is going to be disappointed,’ she ruminated.

  Next she told herself that no one could ever look more attractive or be kinder and more understanding than her brother.

  “Why should we answer to anyone?” she asked her reflection in the mirror.

  She tilted her chin upwards in a gesture of pride that came from her Stanley antecedents.

  Up to the very last moment it seemed as if they would never be ready to leave on Friday morning when the Duke’s carriage arrived for them.

  Nerissa guessed that the Duke would have arranged with the Marquis that his horses and their drivers could stay the night at his house so that they would not have far to come when Friday arrived.

  Where Nerissa was concerned, there were a million issues to attend to and she thought that in order to finish them she would have to stay up all night on Thursday.

  Her father’s clothes had come from a good tailor but they had, of course, deteriorated over the years.

  It meant hours of sponging and pressing with hot irons to make them look even fairly respectable.

  Needless to say Marcus Stanley was not in the least interested. All he was concerned with was to bring his chapter up to date so that he could put in Lyn at the last moment and miss nothing that would contribute to his whole picture of Elizabethan architecture.

  When, however, he was dressed in his best clothes and had tied his cravat that had been ironed and pressed a dozen times to make it look new, Nerissa thought to herself that it would be difficult even for Delphine to find fault.

  “You look very smart, Papa,” she said aloud and kissed his cheek.

  “So do you, my dear,” he replied in surprise.

  Because she could not help being thrilled with her own appearance, Nerissa pirouetted round the hall in front of him.

  And displaying her muslin gown with its blue ribbons and a travelling cape of the same blue that was echoed in the trimming of a very expensive and attractive bonnet to match.

  It was Harry who was most thrilled when the Duke’s travelling carriage arrived and they found that it was drawn by six fine horses.

  “I expected four,” he confessed to Nerissa in awestruck tones.

  “It is a long way to Lyn,” Nerissa replied, “and I expect His Grace has no wish for us to be late.”

  Their luggage was packed in the back of the carriage and they settled themselves against the comfortable padded seat, which was wide enough to hold all three of them.

  “It is a good thing we are all thin,” Harry observed. “I hate travelling with my back to the horses.”

  “So do I,” Nerissa nodded, “and it is what you used to make me do when I was small and I doubt if you would be more polite now.”

  Harry laughed.

  “Remember we all have to be on our best behaviour with sister Delphine waiting to find fault with us. I am terrified that she will be ashamed of her countrified relatives.”

  Nerissa knew that this was the truth and so she sent up a little prayer to Heaven that she would not make any mistakes.

  She thought that she should try to remember all the things that her mother had told her about Big Houses and how people behaved at grand parties.

  She felt in fact more and more apprehensive until at exactly the time the Duke had said they would arrive, the horses turned in at the huge impressive wrought-iron gates that she knew was the entrance to Lyn.

  There was a long avenue of lime trees in front of them and then at the end of it she saw for the first time the house she had heard so much about but had never supposed she would actually see.

  Never had she imagined that anything could be quite so beautiful, so like a Fairytale and so enormous and yet give an insubstantial ethereal impression as if it might float away into the sky at any moment.

  “It is certainly big enough!” Harry remarked in awestruck tones as they then proceeded towards it.

  “It is beautiful!” Nerissa exclaimed. “I only hope it does not vanish before we reach it.”

  Harry laughed and, as if he understood what she was saying, he pressed her hand.

  “You are looking beautiful too,” he smiled, “so cheer up and remember we are going to buy two horses when we go home again.”

  “That will be excellent.”

  “There are bound to be many here that we shall long to own,” Harry murmured almost beneath his breath.

  He was looking to where he could see in the distance the arrangements that had been made for the Horse Show tomorrow.

  Already there were a number of horses being walked around a miniature Racecourse for their riders to inspect the jumps and there were tents and booths, which would cater for the expected crowd and t
hey passed them before they proceeded down the last stretch of the drive that led to the front door of Lyn.

  Then, as they drew up outside what seemed to Nerissa to be the most beautiful doorway she had ever seen, she told herself that this was an experience that she must remember every detail of because it was something that would never happen to her again.

  *

  Afterwards Nerissa could only look back on a kaleidoscope of pictures that seemed to flash in front of her eyes as they passed through the Great Hall with its Minstrels’ Gallery and magnificent marble fireplace and along corridors draped with tapestries.

  Only then did they reach what the butler told them was the Red Library, where the Duke would be waiting for them.

  After that it was difficult to remember anything except how spectacular he had looked against the books that covered the walls below a high ceiling that irresistibly drew Marcus Stanley’s eyes upwards.

  “Welcome to Lyn,” the Duke said and to Nerissa’s relief he was alone. “I hope you have had a pleasant journey.”

  “It was very comfortable,” Marcus Stanley answered, “and thank you for the delicious luncheon that was provided for us at the inn where we stopped.”

  “I always take my own food on long journeys,” the Duke said loftily. “What one usually finds at wayside inns is usually quite inedible.”

  Before her father could answer the Duke said to Nerissa,

  “And what do you think of my house so far, Miss Stanley?”

  “I am so afraid that it will vanish before I have had time to see it,” Nerissa answered.

  The Duke laughed.

  Then they were shown the bedrooms which had been allotted to them so that they were near each other.

  After Nerissa had been helped by two maids to change from her travelling clothes into a simple afternoon gown that was trimmed with lace run through with little velvet ribbons, they went down to where tea was waiting for them in the Long Gallery.

  Here many of the Duke’s house party were already assembled and amongst them, of course, was Delphine.

  Nerissa felt her heart beat a little quicker because she was nervous as Delphine detached herself from where she was talking to two elegantly dressed young gentlemen and moved towards them to exclaim in a somewhat affected voice,

  “Dearest Papa! How wonderful to see you. I do hope that the journey has not been too terribly exhausting.”

  “Not in the slightest,” Marcus Stanley replied. “As I have already assured our host, I am delighted to be here. It is indeed even finer and more impressive than I expected it to be.”

  “That is how we all feel,” somebody said who was listening and there was a ripple of laughter.

  The Duke then introduced Nerissa to a number of people and, while she indeed found it impossible to remember all their names, she found to her surprise that they were very friendly and in fact kindly.

  “Is this your first visit here?” an elderly lady asked her, who she gathered was the Duke’s aunt.

  “Yes, ma’am, and you can imagine how delightful it is for my brother and me to come to the most famous house in England.”

  The lady laughed.

  “You must say that to our host. He appreciates compliments about his house far more than compliments about himself, which is unusual in young people these days.”

  “I have never had any compliments,” Nerissa said without thinking, “but, if they were personal, I can imagine that they would be quite embarrassing.”

  As she finished speaking, she found that the Duke was beside her and had heard what she had said.

  “Never had any compliments, Miss Stanley?” he enquired. “Are the gentlemen who live in your part of the world blind?”

  Nerissa looked at him a little suspiciously before she commented,

  “That is a compliment and a very clever one.”

  The Duke laughed spontaneously.

  “I can assure you that in a few years you will be quite blasé about all the flattering things that are said to you, but for the moment enjoy them as they are and do not be too critical.”

  “I could never be critical about anything here,” Nerissa said, “and – please – when may I see the whole house, Your Grace?”

  The Duke looked at her in surprise.

  Then he said,

  “That is an awesome task to undertake the moment you arrive. I think I remember suggesting to your father that we leave the exploration of Lyn until after the Horse Show tomorrow.”

  “Yes, of course, I remember that now,” Nerissa said. “It is just that everything is so beautiful and I am so afraid I might miss something.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “Now that is a very ingenious compliment, Miss Stanley, and one I do appreciate.”

  Nerissa blushed as she observed,

  “I am sure, Your Grace, that you are so used to people eulogising over your house and everything you do that you must at times find it rather boring.”

  “Who told you that is what they do?” the Duke asked.

  “Harry, as it happens.”

  “I hope Harry is discreet in everything he tells you.”

  Nerissa remembered how Harry had had a great deal to say about the Duke’s love affairs and, because the Duke’s question confused her, she could only look away from him and feel the colour once again coming into her cheeks.

  The Duke laughed softly.

  “You must learn not to believe everything you hear and to judge people for yourself.”

  “I try to do that,” Nerissa replied. “Mama called it ‘using one’s instinct’. She was always very insistent that we should never believe unkind or cruel things about anybody unless we were conclusively convinced that what was said was true.”

  “That is definitely the correct way to behave,” the Duke confirmed. “I often think that people are in such a hurry that they accept other people’s judgements instead of using their own and very seldom, as you say, use their perception.”

  “I suppose that is difficult until one is older and wiser and, of course, very much more experienced.”

  “That is something that will come eventually,” the Duke said. “In the meantime let me suggest that you wait for a little while and use your perception.”

  He moved away from her as he spoke to talk to someone else and she thought that it was rather an odd conversation to have with the Duke of Lynchester on only the second time she had met him.

  Delphine came to tell her that it was time that they all went upstairs to change for dinner and, as soon as they were alone, she began,

  “You are not to push yourself, Nerissa. You have come to this party, which I think was a mistake, simply because the Duke was feeling kind to Papa and because he wished to please me. Therefore you will keep out of his way as much as possible!”

  “Yes, of course,” Nerissa agreed humbly.

  Then, as there was no maid in the room and no one to overhear her, she asked her sister,

  “Has His Grace asked you yet to marry him?”

  “I call that a most impertinent question,” Delphine replied, “but I will pander to your curiosity by telling you that it is just a question of time. That is naturally the real reason why he invited you here so that you could meet some of the members of his family and it would not be such a shock when he announces his marriage to me.”

  “A shock?” Nerissa questioned.

  “Of course, it will be. Everyone has been trying to persuade the Duke to marry for years and years. He has always resisted the idea and made it quite clear that he preferred being a bachelor and no one could influence him in any way until he was absolutely ready to present his Duchess to the world.”

  Delphine’s voice seemed to trill on the word ‘Duchess’.

  She walked across to the mirror and continued preening herself in front of it,

  “Think how lovely I shall look in a diamond tiara that is almost like a crown! There is also one of emeralds and yet another of rubies, which will not be so b
ecoming, and another of sapphires, which will definitely enhance the gold of my hair and the blue of my eyes.”

  “You will look supremely beautiful, Delphine,” Nerissa said sincerely. “Will I be able to see you?”

  There was a little pause before Delphine replied,

  “To be truthful I think it is unlikely. I cannot be bothered to trouble myself with relics of the past, which is what a family always is. I want to meet new people, to do new things and most of all to conquer the Social world.”

  “In other words you will have no time for Harry and me,” Nerissa asserted forlornly.

  “To be honest I think it would be a mistake, a very grave mistake, to encumber my life with either of you,” Delphine said. “I have certainly done my best for you at the moment. I have brought you here, given you a lot of money and shown you a world that I know you had no idea even existed.”

  It flashed through Nerissa’s mind that she could point out to Delphine that none of this had been her original intention.

  The money she had given them had been payment in a form of bribery so that somewhat reprehensibly they would help her to deceive the Duke into believing that they lived in quite a different way from what was the truth.

  Then she told herself that there was no point in arguing.

  Delphine, even as a small child had always believed what she wanted to believe and so Nerissa was sure that she was thinking to herself how kind and generous she had been to her poor poverty-stricken relatives and no one could expect anything more from her.

  ‘Whatever else happens,’ Nerissa mused, ‘I shall have seen Lyn and that is something I shall never forget.’

  Aloud she said,

  “Thank you, Delphine, for everything and I shall try to do exactly what you want while we are here.”

  Delphine turned from the mirror to look at her before she responded,

  “What I want, quite frankly, is for you to keep away from the Duke! You are too pretty, Nerissa, for my peace of mind, so just keep out of sight – ”

  She paused and then added in a threatening tone of voice,

  “If you don’t, I will send you home or make you stay in this bedroom all the time you are here.”