The Unwanted Wedding Page 8

  As usual she made sure that Honora appreciated what was being done for her.

  “I see you have been given the Queen’s room,” she said when they arrived. “I hope you know enough history to be aware that Queen Elizabeth stayed here when she was a girl and again when she was on the throne.”

  As Honora obviously had no idea of this, her aunt sneered,

  “I cannot think what they taught you in that expensive school, but I suppose, being foreigners and, of course, jealous of the British, they played down our achievements by cracking up their own.”

  Honora longed to say that the teachers had actually taught her the history of every important country in Europe, but she knew to say so would be a mistake.

  The Countess rattled on,

  “Try to make a few intelligent remarks about The Castle – not to the Duke, for he will not listen to you, but his family will be only too ready to say that he should have married somebody with more brains.”

  She did not wait for Honora’s answer, but left the bedroom in a manner that told her that she was contemptuous of everything her niece could do.

  Honora did not understand and fortunately because she was so young and innocent it never crossed her mind that the Countess was suffering agonies in knowing that another woman would fill the place in the Duke’s life that she longed for.

  Nevertheless she was too clever in the presence of his relatives to make herself anything but charming and she praised Honora publicly, saying that in every way she would make the Duke a very suitable wife.

  Only Honora sensed the insincerity of the way she spoke and it made her feel uneasy and very thankful that her uncle was there.

  “Help me, Uncle George,” she said as they went down to dinner the first night. “I am frightened of these strange people who are looking at me as if I was a freak in a circus.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “Not a freak, my dear.”

  “That is what I feel like,” Honora said, “and now I know exactly what the ‘Bearded Lady’ feels and perhaps the calf with six legs.”

  The Earl laughed again.

  “How can you know about such things?”

  “I read a book when I was in Florence which described King George IV’s Coronation and the fete that took place in Hyde Park where there was a huge circus and a number of very strange sideshows.”

  “If you talk to your future relatives in such a way,” the Earl answered, “I am sure they will be scandalised!”

  “I am trying to appear brave,” Honora confessed, “but I really am very afraid.”

  “Just stay close to me and leave the Duke’s relatives to your aunt. She is much more capable of coping with them than you and I are.”

  When the Earl spoke to her like that, Honora thought, it was almost like having her father with her again.

  Therefore, when she went into the drawing room, she was smiling and many of the people there thought she looked like a breath of spring.

  Again there were a great many congratulations and good wishes to listen to, again there were toasts and another speech from the Duke.

  When dinner was over, most of the guests sat down at the card tables and just as Honora thought that the Duke was coming across the room to speak to her, her aunt said,

  “I presume you can play the piano?”

  “Yes, Aunt Aline.”

  “Then go and play it, but softly, so that it will not disturb those playing bridge. It will give you something to do.”

  Obediently Honora went to the large piano that stood in an alcove of the room where they had gathered after dinner.

  It was not the magnificent drawing room where they had first assembled, but a room adjoining it, which, Honora was to learn later, was always used when the guests wished to play cards.

  There were some very fine pictures around the walls which she told herself she would look at later and, as she sat down on the piano stool, she noticed that the Duke and her aunt were the only two people in the party who were not occupied.

  They were talking intimately together and she only hoped they were not talking about her or that she had done something wrong.

  Then, as she started to play, she forgot everything but her enjoyment of the music.

  No one had been interested that she had won the music prize at the school each year that she had been there.

  Because she was such a good musician the Mother Superior had insisted on her having extra music lessons rather than waste her time drawing and painting at which she was not very proficient.

  To Honora it was a joy and delight to be able to play music, which to her Italian teacher was more important in life than eating and drinking.

  “Music must not only lift your heart,” he said, “but the hearts of all who listen to you. Therefore don’t play with your fingers but with your soul!”

  Because he spoke so eloquently and Honora understood what he was trying to say, she tried to express her thoughts and her feelings in music and the last six months before she left Florence had begun to compose.

  She was far too afraid of being laughed at by the other girls to tell them what she was doing, but she had played one melody to her teacher, who had listened to it intently and said,

  “That is a beginning! The mists are clearing away and, if you go on, you will find your way to a Paradise that is waiting for all real musicians. It is there they link their compositions with God.”

  She was thinking of what he had said now as she played first some classical music and then because she was sure that nobody was listening she played the last piece she had composed herself.

  Without realising it, she was expressing her fear for the future and her longing for the love she felt she was now losing – the love she had thought one day she would find with the man she married.

  She was concentrating so intently on what she was doing that for the moment, as her fingers rested at the end of a melody that came from the very depths of her being, she was not aware that somebody was standing near the piano.

  Then she raised her eyes and gave a little start as she saw that the Duke was beside her.

  For a moment he did not speak.

  Then he asked,

  “Where did you learn to play like that?”

  “I-in – Florence.”

  “Of course, I forgot, you were at school there. And is that your composition or somebody else’s?”

  She was surprised that he should ask the question or have the slightest idea that she was capable of composing anything.

  “It is – mine,” she replied without really thinking, “but I was not aware that – anybody was – listening.”

  He smiled at her before he said,

  “I will keep your secret.”

  When he walked away, she looked after him in surprise and as she did so she saw her aunt come back from the door where she had been speaking to somebody who was leaving.

  She put out her hand to touch the Duke on the arm.

  She looked up at him as she spoke and with the candlelight from the chandelier glistening on the huge tiara she wore on her dark hair, she looked exceedingly beautiful.

  Then to her surprise, as she watched them, Honora saw the Duke seem deliberately to turn away from her aunt, while she was still speaking to him.

  He walked to the far end of the room and, when he sat down at one of the card tables, Honora saw by the expression on her aunt’s face that she was angry.

  She wondered what had gone wrong.

  At the same time she hoped apprehensively that it was nothing to do with her, which might make her aunt even more disagreeable than she was already.

  *

  The following days at The Castle she never had a chance to speak to the Duke alone. Not that she really wanted to be with him, but she thought it rather strange that he never attempted to talk to her.

  The first morning that she went out riding, her uncle was with her before the Duke joined them. They had, however, only gone a little way down the dr
ive before two other male cousins came riding after them.

  Although Honora found it rather exciting to be the only woman in the party, she had the feeling that the Duke was deliberately leaving her to ride beside the Earl while he talked to the other two men.

  It was the last night at The Castle, when most of the other guests had already left, that the Countess exploded her bombshell.

  “I believe, Ulric,” she said to the Duke, “it would be a good idea if you were married in the first week of next month.”

  “Why should you think that?” the Duke asked sharply.

  “I cannot help feeling,” she explained, “that it would be better both for you and for Honora to be married quickly, rather than have to put up with house party after house party, all exactly like the one we had this week.”

  The way she spoke made Honora look at her in surprise because she thought it would be impossible for anybody, except in the same circumstances as herself, not to enjoy the party that had just taken place.

  The Duke, as she had expected, had been a perfect host.

  There was everything available for those who wished to be energetic and for those who did not there was The Castle itself to interest them besides delicious meals and various pleasant neighbours invited both for luncheon and for dinner to relieve any monotony for those who were staying in the house.

  Her mother had often explained to her how things were done in grand houses and she appreciated the enormous number of quiet well-organised servants there were.

  One had only to think of something one wanted for it to be there.

  She expected now that the Duke would tell her aunt that she must be excessively critical to find fault with what had seemed perfection – a superb performance to rival even the most polished production on the stage.

  To her surprise, he said instead,

  “I should have thought that there was no hurry, but if that is what you want – ”

  “I am only thinking of you,” the Countess said softly, “and I had not realised until now how many relations we both have, all of whom are determined to have their pound of flesh!”

  “They are certainly making sure of that!” the Duke agreed. “I have had a dozen letters from cousins I did not even know existed who wish to be invited to stay.”

  “There you are!” the Countess exclaimed. “George and I have had exactly the same experience. I think if I hear one more tiresome woman asking me if I really think you will be happy, I shall scream!”

  The Earl looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

  “They could hardly expect you to say that the bride and bridegroom would be unhappy!”

  To Honora listening there was just a perceptible little pause before her aunt said in the insincere tone she had grown to recognise,

  “No, of course not, and naturally I said they would be divinely happy!”

  Because Honora could not bear to listen to any more, knowing that her intuition was now concerned with herself and not liking what she was hearing, she rose.

  Without being asked she went into the next room leaving the door open.

  If she just disappeared, she thought, her uncle and aunt might think it rude, so she just did what she wished to do, like everybody else in the party, and sat down at the piano.

  Only by listening to music did she feel she could escape from the questions that kept asking themselves in her brain and from the feeling that she was being carried down a torrent in a vessel over which she had no control.

  She had been playing for some minutes when she heard footsteps and knew before he came to the piano that it was the Duke who had come to her from the drawing room.

  She was also aware that he had closed the door behind him.

  He came to the piano and, although she did not stop playing, she made the sound a little softer.

  “I wanted to see you, Honora,” he said, “for I am sure you must think me very remiss for not having given you an engagement ring before now.”

  Because that had never crossed Honora’s mind, she stopped playing and looked at him in surprise.

  “An engagement ring?”

  “It is usual,” the Duke replied dryly. “I have one for you that has been in my family for many years. Your aunt told me your size and I have had it altered.”

  Honora did not speak, but she saw that he held in his hand a small velvet box.

  Putting it down on the piano in front of her, he opened it and as he did so Honora saw that the box contained a diamond ring, which was certainly very beautiful.

  One very large diamond in the centre was surrounded by a circle of smaller diamonds, which made it very impressive. But she thought after a swift look at it that it was so large that she wondered if she could really wear it.

  “This ring,” the Duke said looking down at it, “has a history that I am sure my Curator would enjoy telling you. In fact it figures in several of the books about the family.”

  “Thank you very much,” Honora said automatically.

  “I suppose conventionally,” the Duke added, “I should put it on your finger.”

  Honora held out her hand.

  As she did so, she remembered her mother saying,

  “When your father gave me my engagement ring, it was not a very large one because he was very hard-up at the time, but to me it was the most marvellous jewel in the whole world and had a magic about it that it has never lost.”

  She smiled ,as if she was looking back at the past, saying,

  “I think what thrilled me even more than the ring was that your father kissed my finger a dozen times and then the ring, before he put it on and said,

  “This is one of the chains with which I intend to bind you to me for life!”

  Honora remembered giving a little cry.

  “Oh, Mama, how romantic! I can imagine Papa saying lovely things like that.”

  “He always says lovely things to me,” her mother replied in a soft voice.

  “I hope it fits,” the Duke said, bringing Honora’s mind back to the present.

  “Yes, perfectly, thank you.”

  “I am pleased you like it,” he said briskly. “My mother was the last person to wear it and she always believed it was a very lucky ring.”

  “I hope that is what it will be for me,” Honora said, looking down at her hand.

  She did not, however, think that the Duke had heard her, for he had opened the door and walked back into the drawing room where she thought her aunt was waiting for him.

  *

  The preparations for the wedding filled everybody’s mind and conversation for the next three weeks until Honora felt that there could be nothing more left to say.

  Every night at dinner parties the people talked about it and every day she was occupied with fittings and shopping for her trousseau.

  Sometimes her uncle took her driving with him or because she begged him to do so, he rode with her either in Hyde Park when they were in London or in the country at Langstone Hall.

  They were not entertained again at The Castle and the reason for this, although Honora did not know it, was that her aunt could not bear to think of her being fawned upon as their future hostess by the Duke’s relatives and friends.

  She had seen it happen all too clearly on their first visit and realised that she had been brushed on one side as unimportant.

  Honora in the future would be the Duchess who would invite the Duke’s friends to The Castle and they therefore wanted to make certain that they ingratiated themselves and would not be forgotten.

  The idea made the Countess want to scream with fury, but years of scheming to get her own way had taught her not only how to act, but also how to control her feelings.

  “There are so many people in our County who want to meet the future bride and bridegroom,” she said to the Earl, “that I have no intention of boring myself by staying at The Castle again until after the wedding is over.”

  He had looked at her in surprise.

  “You alway
s told me how much you enjoyed the Duke’s home,” he said. “In fact you have in the past compared it rather unfavourably with mine.”

  “I find it uncomfortable,” the Countess said.

  Then, because she felt the Earl found it hard to believe her, she said in the caressing tone that always captivated him,

  “I am not envious, darling, of anything anybody else has. You have given me everything I could possibly desire. Langstone House is home to me and that is where I want to be.”

  The Earl was delighted.

  After that the weekend parties took place in Buckinghamshire, but to Honora they were very little different from that at The Castle.

  There were still people pouring in for every meal, all relations of some sort, and she never had a chance of speaking to the Duke alone, even though she was actually beginning to think that it was something she would like to do.

  ‘I am sure there are things we should talk about,’ she thought as their marriage drew nearer and nearer, ‘and I should get to know him.’

  But how she could do that when they never sat next to each other at meals and her aunt seemed always to be guiding him away from wherever she was going, she was not sure.

  He certainly came riding with her and her uncle when they were in Buckinghamshire, but he never joined them in London and in the country he would often ride ahead or jump high fences, which her uncle would not allow her to attempt.

  “I like jumping, Uncle George,” she protested.

  “Then get the Duke when he is your husband to lower the jumps on his private Racecourse,” the Earl had answered. “At the moment they are too high for any woman.”

  Honora wanted to reply that she was determined if she had the chance to try the jumps as they were and was certain, despite her uncle’s apprehension, that they would not be too high for her.

  She had ridden with her father since the time she could walk and, although their horses were not as well bred or expensive as either the Earl’s or the Duke’s, she was quite certain that no jump would be too high nor was she frightened of them.

  Because she found that her aunt disapproved of almost everything she said and snubbed her openly, she had learned to say very little.

  She thought a little wistfully that she would like to talk to the Duke and find out what interested him.