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  “If only we had met earlier, before I was married.”

  They said it wistfully and plaintively and sometimes even angrily.

  The Earl always had to prevent himself from replying that if they had met when she was a debutante, he would not have given her a second glance.

  They had wept when he left them, but they had always known that the love affair must eventually come to an end.

  Most of them had been careful of their reputations and they ensured that their husbands did not feel affronted and insulted by the Earl’s attentions.

  Hermione’s husband was already a sick man when the Earl first met her.

  He had, therefore, not thought that he was in any way encroaching on any possession that Lord Buckworth was incapable of appreciating.

  “Married!”

  He was in a situation, he thought, as dangerous as any he had faced in all of his life.

  As he walked on, he told himself that being married to Lady Hermione would be undiluted hell.

  She was everything that no man would ever want in his wife and that she should take over his mother’s place as the Chatelaine of Garle was unthinkable.

  She was beautiful, no one could deny that.

  She was so physically alluring and the most insatiable woman he had ever known.

  Yet now, he admitted to himself that if he was honest, he was slightly ashamed of being attracted to her.

  He had been interested in her in the first place because of all he had heard about her from other men.

  She was notorious for her behaviour and the manner in which she flouted all convention.

  She apparently never gave a single thought as to what was being said about her.

  No one could argue that she was not an outstanding personality or that her blood was not blue.

  She had inherited a place in Society that could not be denied her.

  At the same time the Earl admitted again that he had been extremely stupid.

  Hermione had reached an age at which, if her husband died, she would wish to remarry without much delay.

  Naturally it would have to be to a man who could give her a position in Society which was unassailable.

  The Earl knew a number of hostesses whose doors were closed to Lady Hermione.

  It was rumoured that the Queen had struck her off her list for the balls and other State functions at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

  He had not discovered if this was true, but the Earl felt sure that it was.

  Apart from anything else, just how could he possibly marry a woman who would turn out to be a disgrace to his father’s name?

  It would be unthinkable for her to take the place that the Marchionesses of Garlestone had traditionally held at Court.

  ‘I have been a blind fool,’ the Earl chided himself as he turned into Park Lane.

  It was then, as he neared his father’s house, that he found himself unexpectedly thinking of Lady Maulpin.

  For the past two years the Earl had been protective of his father and, without a wife to restrain him, the Marquis had become almost absurdly generous.

  He could not refuse anybody who approached him for help.

  There were literally dozens of young men to whom the Marquis had behaved in a fatherly manner when they were in trouble.

  He paid their debts and sent them abroad if they were involved in a scandal.

  He even, on one special occasion, had prevented one impertinent youngster from fighting a duel.

  At first the Earl had just been amused by his father’s concern for other people, in particular the very young.

  Then he realised that the Marquis was going too far.

  He had consulted his father’s Solicitors and they told him that his father was spending far too much money on wasters who had turned to him for financial help.

  The Earl had accepted his father’s open-handedness as he understood that he was lonely without his wife.

  But, although the Marquis did not realise it, the Earl knew that he was being taken advantage of by those who he had been so generous to.

  It was natural therefore, when his father received Lady Maulpin’s letter, for him to be highly suspicious.

  “So why on earth should they come to you, Papa?” he had asked his father. “After all you have not even seen Sir Frederick for a long time.”

  “Friendship does not depend upon time,” the Marquis said. “He was always such a very good friend to me and, however many years passed without our seeing each other, we always seemed to pick up the conversation where we had left off.”

  “Of course I do understand,” the Earl agreed. “But Sir Frederick is one thing and his widow and daughter quite another.”

  “But, of course, I must have them here,” the Marquis insisted. “How can I refuse?”

  As he had no wish to upset his father, the Earl had not pressed his objections.

  He had thought that if he should find that these people were over-demanding or fast becoming an encumbrance, he would somehow have to get rid of them.

  He had imagined that the new Lady Maulpin would be a middle-aged woman of about forty and as she apparently had so few friends, she was doubtless plain and a bore.

  Sir Frederick’s daughter would be like all debutantes, gauche and tongue-tied. She would also be in need of the polish that she would achieve when she married.

  Because he was determined to protect his father from unwelcome guests, the Earl had deliberately been at home when Amalita and Carolyn arrived.

  The butler had announced them.

  When they come into the room, he had thought that there must be some mistake.

  They could not possibly be the two women who were coming to London from the country.

  Carolyn was undeniably beautiful.

  He had not expected that Sir Frederick, even with his good looks, could produce such a daughter.

  But Lady Maulpin was an enigma.

  He had been aware that she was a little nervous when she arrived, which in many ways was understandable.

  But he also knew a few minutes later that she regarded him in a somewhat hostile manner.

  It was not because he was so conceited that he was surprised.

  He could not imagine why she was not pleased to see him or find him as attractive as all women did.

  As the Marquis knew, the Earl had a sharp and very astute brain.

  The Prime Minister, Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, had said to him the previous week,

  “Dammit all, David, you are exactly the man I want for the job. Why will you not go to Vienna as I have asked you to do?”

  “Because, Prime Minister,” the Earl answered him, “I know exactly what it will entail and at this moment I am enjoying myself in London.”

  “So I hear,” Mr. Disraeli said dryly, “and, of course, I understand.”

  Then with his beguiling, or what his enemies called his ‘cunning’ manner, he went on,

  “I have known you ever since you were a small boy, David, and you are so much cleverer and so much more intelligent than you will allow the world to know. That is why I need you. I do need your help at this moment.”

  “You will have to wait until the winter, or perhaps it may be a bit sooner,” the Earl had replied. “But, of course, I find it a great compliment that you should wish me to do your ‘dirty work’ for you!”

  Mr. Disraeli then threw himself back in his chair and laughed.

  “You are really so incorrigible!” he complained. “One day I shall doubtless find something to tempt you with, but for the moment I can think of nothing except that the women of Vienna are all very beautiful.”

  “I have seen them,” the Earl said, “and I promise you I will seriously consider the next proposition you put to me. For the moment, however, you will have to find another mug.”

  Mr. Disraeli laughed again.

  Then he said,

  “The trouble with you, David, is that you have been spoilt ever since you were in the cradle. Women fin
d you irresistible. But I am not interested in your good looks and charm. It is your astute brain that I want.”

  “You are trying to catch me in a very clever way!” the Earl retorted. “Unfortunately for you I know your methods only too well. While Her Majesty has succumbed to your blandishments, I am still, albeit with some difficulty, able to resist them.”

  The Prime Minister then threw up his hands in a most impressive gesture.

  “Very well,” he said, “you win for the moment. But I shall not give up.”

  The Earl held out his hand.

  “You have always been so very kind to me,” he said, “and I know how much Papa admires you. When you have a minute to spare, come and see him. He is often lonely and so I have no wish to leave London at this moment.”

  Mr. Disraeli’s eyes twinkled.

  “Now you are using my own methods against me,” he complained. “Very well, David, but do not forget I shall come knocking at your door and perhaps next time you will let me in.”

  As they walked towards the door, Mr. Disraeli put his hand on the Earl’s shoulder.

  “You are a naughty boy, David, but we all love you and well you know it.”

  The Earl had laughed as he went out into the corridor and Mr. Disraeli was smiling as he went back to his desk.

  Now, as he neared his home as dawn broke, the Earl remembered how the Prime Minister had praised his brain.

  He felt all the surer that there was something about Lady Maulpin that was not quite right.

  He could not think what it was, but at the same time the suspicion intrigued him.

  He was also intrigued by her beauty.

  How could it be possible that anyone so lovely could be completely unknown and had never set foot in London?

  He gathered from the conversation that she was about twenty-five or twenty-six.

  Her late husband’s very close friendship could never be forgotten.

  How then could anybody who had seen her with him, or even just heard about her, have forgotten her?

  As he walked into the house, the Earl tried to persuade himself that his ideas about her were unfounded.

  Later in the morning he would find that neither of the women were as beautiful as they had seemed on arrival.

  On an impulse he had then invited Lady Hermione and some of his friends to dinner.

  His idea was to compare them with Lady Maulpin and her stepdaughter.

  He had been certain that side by side with the lovely, sophisticated women with whom he spent all his time, they would pale into insignificance.

  They would then look like the ‘country cabbages’ they actually were.

  Although he well knew that his father heartily disliked Lady Hermione, he had asked her to dinner.

  It was simply because he intended to see her later.

  Another reason was that in doing so he had defied his conscience. It was pricking him because he had refused to help the Prime Minister.

  Only by proving to himself that Lady Hermione was too irresistible to be left could he then justify his decision to stay in London.

  She had certainly made a very theatrical entrance into the drawing room and he was well aware that there was a likeness between the two women.

  They were both dark, they both had green eyes, and were about the same age.

  When Lady Hermione had arrived with her feathered bustle fluttering behind her, he noticed that Lady Maulpin had given a little gasp and the Earl saw her gazing at the newcomer in astonishment.

  Then he realised that, if it was just a question of points Lady Maulpin in her so elegant unflamboyant gown and wearing only some modest jewellery, was the winner.

  When they had gone into the dining room, the Earl, to his surprise, found that Carolyn was sitting on his left.

  He had a sudden idea why she had been seated there and he looked at his father and read his thoughts.

  It made him want to laugh.

  Could his father believe that he would be interested in a girl of eighteen who had never been to London before?

  There was no doubt that Carolyn was beautiful.

  Her golden hair and blue eyes were an Englishman’s dream of what a really beautiful woman should look like.

  But as it happened, the Earl had mainly been attracted to women with dark hair.

  There had, however, been some fair heads and the odd redhead in his past.

  Now, as he turned in at the gates of Garle House, he found himself smiling at his own thoughts.

  His father had arranged the dinner table so that he had the devil on one side and an angel on the other.

  ‘The good and the bad,’ the Earl murmured beneath his breath and he wondered if anyone would think it funny except for himself.

  Suddenly, as he walked up the steps to the front door, he could see Lady Maulpin’s eyes watching him from the other end of the dinner table.

  He was quite certain that she was thinking, as he had, that he was sitting between the good and the bad.

  A sleepy footman let the Earl into the house.

  In an hour’s time the housemaids would be bustling downstairs to start cleaning the floors.

  The Earl gave the footman his cape, his top hat and his cane.

  “Goodnight, James,” he said as he turned towards the staircase.

  “Goodnight, my Lord,” James replied.

  The Earl walked along the corridor towards his room.

  Most of the candles in the sconces had already been extinguished and there were, however, enough left alight for him to see his way clearly.

  He passed the door of the room where Lady Maulpin was sleeping and he wondered what she would think if she knew that he had returned home so late.

  He had the idea that despite her age, she was ignorant of the ways of the great Social world and of the men and women who were her contemporaries.

  Then he told himself that he was being imaginative.

  What he was telling himself was sheer nonsense.

  Every woman he knew and especially any as beautiful as Lady Maulpin looked at every man as a prospective lover and she merely considered on which of them she would bestow her favours.

  ‘That innocent look is very effective,’ the Earl mused, ‘but I am not such a ‘greenhorn’ as to be deceived by it.’

  He had told his valet not to wait up for him and so he undressed himself and climbed into bed.

  As he did so, he was thinking that, if he wished to forget Hermione, he could not do better than to turn his attention to the lovely Lady Maulpin.

  She was here in the house and perhaps he had been remiss in not paying her the attention that she would have expected as a house guest.

  Carolyn was clearly his father’s idea for getting him away from Lady Hermione but he had nothing in common with a girl so young.

  Furthermore she doubtless had little to say to anyone but platitudes.

  If Lady Maulpin had been the wife of Sir Frederick, she must at least be intelligent.

  The Earl had not seen him for years but he was known as a brilliant, clever and charming man whom everybody loved.

  He would not have married, the Earl reasoned, unless the woman he chose as his wife had something in her that was different.

  The more he thought of it, the more he decided that Lady Maulpin was worth exploring.

  He still could not understand why she had looked at him in a slightly hostile manner when they first met.

  Now he thought of it, she had seemed to avoid him when dinner was over.

  There was nothing he could actually put his finger on.

  And yet when he had made an effort to talk to her, she had been engaged with somebody else.

  Even stranger she had not seemed in the least eager to join his party when they left Garle House.

  Carolyn had certainly enjoyed herself.

  He had left her in the care of his young cousin and he thought that they were just the right age for each other.

  Anyway it would have been ver
y difficult for him to do anything different with Lady Hermione clinging to him like a leech and she had made quite sure that he danced only with her.

  *

  The Earl should have fallen asleep.

  Instead he asked himself why Lady Maulpin had been so obviously content to stay behind with his father.

  He was aware that at dinner she was watching him and thinking disparagingly of Lady Hermione.

  The indication was, of course, that like his father she thought that Carolyn would make him a suitable wife.

  The Marquis had surely told her that he had married when his wife was not yet eighteen.

  The Earl had loved his mother deeply and had been broken-hearted when she died.

  He was studying at Oxford University at the time.

  He could remember it only too well when he was told that she was dead and that he felt as if the sky darkened.

  The domes and spires of Oxford had crashed to the ground.

  The Earl had known exactly what his father must be feeling without her.

  He had done everything he could to rouse him from the depression that at first he had sunk into.

  It was after that that the Marquis had started to be so generous to those who turned to him for help.

  While the Earl was grateful for anything that made his father happy, he was very determined that he should not be imposed on.

  He well knew how the word had gone round London that, if it was just a question of money, the Marquis would give it liberally.

  If it was an appeal for introductions, or a visit abroad, then the petitioner never asked in vain.

  Now the Earl was aware that his father intended to give a party to introduce Carolyn and Lady Maulpin to the fashionable world.

  He was also arranging for the girl’s presentation at Court and would undoubtedly provide her with anything she required, even the right sort of gown that would be necessary.

  ‘As long as it is not a Wedding gown!’ he thought to himself.

  He closed his eyes and began to fall asleep.

  Suddenly he found himself wondering yet again how it was possible for Lady Maulpin to look so innocent.

  It was as if she was an unmarried girl who just knew nothing about love.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I have had such a lovely day” Carolyn announced to the Marquis when she came down the stairs to dinner.