The Unwanted Wedding Read online

  She had not forgotten that he had asked her if she had composed and he had not seemed surprised when she told him that she could.

  ‘Perhaps he is musical,’ she said to herself, ‘and that at least would be one point in his favour.’

  She was not certain what the others might be, but she had the uncomfortable feeling there were very few of them.

  She had seen his enormous library at The Castle and was aware that the books had been collected over the centuries, but she had not liked to ask him if he himself enjoyed reading.

  She would also have liked to discuss with him what were his special interests in Parliamentary affairs.

  She studied the newspaper reports of debates in the House of Lords to see if he had made a speech, but could not find one and thought perhaps that was because he was so involved with getting married.

  Now that she was back in England she read the newspapers very carefully every day.

  Although they had lived in a small unimportant village, her mother and father had always kept up with what was happening in the political world and especially the controversies concerning reforms that could affect country life.

  She was sure the Duke knew a lot about this since he owned so many estates, but once again it was impossible to ask him about it when they were never alone.

  Every day her trousseau grew larger and larger and she began to think she would never live long enough to wear all the gowns her aunt had bought for her.

  It seemed as if she was feverishly spending money in a way that Honora could not understand.

  She thought that the Duke would have the idea that she was extremely extravagant if he saw the number of trunks she would have to take away with her from Langstone House.

  ‘What is the point of so many gowns,’ she asked herself despairingly, ‘when he is not likely to admire me in even one of them?’

  *

  At the ball given by the Duchess of Richmond, the Duke of Tynemouth and the Countess of Langstone moved nonchalantly from the ballroom into the garden.

  Without speaking they walked through the shadows of the trees, which were decorated with Chinese lanterns and beyond the lights where few of the dancers had penetrated.

  “This is driving me mad!” the Duke began, breaking their silence.

  “I know,” the Countess said caressingly, “it has been maddening both for you and for me, but there is nothing we can do about it.”

  “The whole thing is unnatural and a dead bore!”

  “I agree with you, but after your marriage it will be better.”

  “Why should you think that?”

  “Because, dearest, there will be no more of this formal and necessary entertaining and once your honeymoon is over we will be able to see each other without any difficulties at all.”

  There was silence and what the Duke was thinking was so obvious that Aline said quickly,

  “There is no need to worry about Honora. You can leave her in the country or in London, whichever you like, and we can have quiet little parties with our real friends and we will be together as it is impossible to be at this moment.”

  “If I have to drink one more toast or make one more damned silly speech,” the Duke said, “I will chuck the whole thing up and go abroad.”

  There was a little silence.

  Then Aline said in a very soft voice,

  “How can you be so cruel when I am thinking only of you? And, darling man, have you thought what you might be doing at this moment in Saxe-Coburg?”

  “I know! I know!” the Duke retorted derisively. “But the whole thing is like a very bad play that will not come to an end and I have no intention of going on much longer.”

  “You have to for both our sakes,” Aline said softly.

  As they were speaking, she had been drawing him without his being aware of it into one of the arbours that had been arranged in various parts of the garden.

  This one was in shadow and, instead of sitting down on the seat with its soft cushions, she moved close to the Duke and put her arms round his neck.

  He kissed her roughly and almost angrily as if he was relieving his feelings rather than enjoying what he was doing.

  Then, as Aline drew closer and still closer to him, his kisses became more passionate.

  She knew that once again she had swept away his depression and the rebellion that she had sensed was not very far from the surface.

  It was a long time later that they walked slowly back to join the crowds moving under the trees and returned to the ballroom.

  As they did so, the Countess enjoyed a sense of triumph that once again she had held the Duke captive and no one, not even his wife, would be able to take him from her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Honora looked out of the window and saw it was a lovely day for her wedding.

  The sun was shining, the flowers were a kaleidoscope of colour in the garden and the flags on top of the marquee where the tenants and estate workers were to celebrate were moving only very slightly in the soft breeze.

  It would prevent anybody from feeling too hot, she thought, and the windows of the ballroom where the reception was to be held would all be open.

  For the last few days she had felt as if she moved in a dream and now the day of the wedding had actually come she could not believe it was real.

  There had been so much to do and her aunt had become more disagreeable and more vitriolic every moment, so that only by shutting herself away in a fantasy world could Honora ignore the future that was looming nearer and nearer.

  When she did think about it, she was frightened, but fortunately when she went to bed at night she was too tired to do anything but fall asleep.

  Now she found herself wondering if at the last moment she should run away.

  She could imagine the consternation it would cause and the row that would ensue, but at the same time she would be free – free to be herself and not just the Duke’s wife.

  She could not think of herself as a Duchess. She would be merely one of his possessions with, as far as he was concerned, as much freedom as if she was a chair or a table.

  ‘If I was a horse, he would pay more attention to me,’ she thought several times.

  But she felt too shy to force herself upon the Duke and try to talk to him.

  Anyway it would have been impossible because her aunt always seemed to find something for her to do whenever the Duke came to the house that involved her either going upstairs or to the garden or the stables.

  Innocently Honora had explained this to herself by supposing that her aunt was scared that she might once again tell the Duke that she had no wish to marry him.

  ‘What would be the point when I have no choice except to do as I am told?’ she asked herself ruefully.

  Now, at the very last moment, she wondered if she dare disappear and deprive the wedding of the bride.

  Then she knew that she had nowhere to go and, what was more, she was quite certain that her aunt would have her brought back.

  She would also doubtless explain her absence by pretending that she had been taken ill and the arrangements would be made all over again for her marriage.

  ‘There is nothing I can do,’ she thought despairingly and could only send out a desperate prayer to her mother and father to help her.

  She was praying all the way as she drove with her uncle to the Church. She knew from the number of invitations her aunt had sent out that it would be packed to bursting, but what she had not expected was the huge crowd of sightseers from the village and the estate who were waiting outside.

  Her uncle’s closed carriage was drawn by horses wearing flowers on their heads, their manes plaited with white ribbons and, as she stepped from it, loud cheers broke out.

  Women touched her for luck and cried, “God bless you, dearie!” or “you’ll be happy with the handsomest man who ever walked this earth!”

  The village women were clearly not the only ones who admired the Duke.

  Honora h
ad been aware of the fulsome compliments her relatives had paid him and, as they kept telling her how lucky she was, she could hear the genuine admiration in their voices and see a look almost of adulation in their eyes.

  ‘He should be marrying somebody who feels like that about him,’ she told herself a hundred times.

  While she had to admit that he was exceedingly handsome, that he rode magnificently and that from what she had heard he was also intelligent, she had had no chance of learning of any other qualities he might have.

  Because her aunt was always telling her how stupid she was and found fault with everything she did, she wondered if she spoke about her in the same way to the Duke.

  ‘If we are to be even remotely happy,’ Honora reasoned, ‘we shall have to talk to each other about other things besides our wedding and I wish I knew what interests him besides horses.’

  Because she felt it was important, she had taken the trouble to read the sporting pages of the newspapers every day and to learn the names of other racehorse owners.

  She had tried to ask a few questions of her uncle, but she realised immediately that not only had the Earl no wish to talk about the Duke, but, as she had thought before, he disliked him.

  It seemed strange considering what a close friend he appeared to be with both her uncle and her aunt, but she was too shy to ask the Earl point-blank what he thought.

  Instead the conversation always seemed to get round to her father, which from her point of view was far more interesting and enjoyable.

  However, she was very careful not to mention either her mother or her father in front of her aunt.

  She was by now, quite accustomed to the scathing remarks the Countess made about the debts her father had left behind him and the opportunities he had missed by not making a good marriage.

  “Anyway,” she had said, “you will make up for his deficiencies on that score and don’t forget that as a Duchess you should spend a great deal of time looking after the poor on your husband’s estate and also visiting hospitals, orphanages and schools.”

  As she had repeated this several times, Honora hoped that once she was married her aunt would not organise her life in the same way as she was doing so now.

  ‘I need to have time to read, to think, and to – talk to – the Duke,’ Honora told herself.

  She was not quite sure why she felt it was so vital that they should talk to each other.

  But the mere idea of spending the rest of her life surrounded by people having parties every night and still being an outsider because she could not share their jokes or their memories, horrified her.

  “I will run away!” Honora said aloud.

  She thought as she did so that it would then be too late for the Queen to insist on the Duke marrying Princess Sophie.

  Anyway there would have to be a decent interval before he could become engaged for the second time.

  The cheers of the crowd followed her into the cool dimness of the ancient Church.

  It had been enlarged at the same time as her grandfather had redecorated the house.

  Nearly all the guests had somehow managed to be seated with the exception of a number of tall good-looking ushers, who had shown them to their seats.

  One of them smiled at Honora as she entered the Church and, because there was no mistaking the admiration in his eyes, she somehow felt a little comforted and was not so nervous.

  Nevertheless she held on tightly to her uncle’s arm as they moved slowly up the aisle to where the Duke was waiting for her at the chancel steps.

  As she stood beside him, Honora was vividly conscious that once again he was hating her and resenting the part he had to play of being a bridegroom.

  Although she tried to pray, she found it hard to think of anything but the feelings of the man beside her.

  When he put the wedding ring on her finger, she knew that as he did so he was almost at the point of refusing to go on with it.

  If she had wanted to run away, so had he, and she wished that she could have talked to him beforehand, so that they could perhaps have made an arrangement by which they could have both escaped.

  It was too late now, the Bishop had given them his blessing and they were moving into the vestry to sign the register.

  ‘I am married! I am married!’ Honora kept telling herself and she thought that the Duke must be saying the same thing.

  She could feel his resentment vibrating from him almost like streaks of lightning.

  Then somebody, she was not sure who it was, raised her veil and drew it back over the diamond tiara her aunt had lent her.

  “I suppose,” she had said grudgingly, “you could have had some of the Tynemouth tiaras to choose from. There are certainly enough of them. But the Langs would think it strange and my jewels are quite as good as theirs.”

  It did not seem worth making a fuss about it one way or the other, Honora thought, but she was too wise to say so.

  Instead she knew that despite her feelings, she looked exactly as everybody would expect a bride to look, except that her gown was more sensational than most brides could afford and the jewels on her head and round her neck glittered like a constellation of stars.

  Then, having spoken not one word, she was walking down the aisle on the Duke’s arm.

  Once again, as they came out into the Church porch, there were cheers while rose petals were thrown at them and on the path in front of them.

  Because it was traditional, her aunt had arranged that they should drive back to the house in an open carriage.

  Now the children from the village ran alongside it as they drove along the oak-lined avenue and there were more employees to wave as they passed.

  It took only a few minutes to reach the house where the servants helped Honora to alight and she and the Duke walked down the corridor that led to the ballroom.

  Because Honora had no friends in England her aunt had dispensed with bridesmaids and to help her move more quickly one of the footmen lifted up her short train.

  This made it difficult for her to say anything to the Duke and by the time they reached the ballroom her aunt and uncle, who had followed them in another carriage, were already there.

  They had entered the house by a side door to reach the position where they would receive their guests.

  An hour later Honora began to think that her hand would drop off from all the handshakes she received and she was also surprised at the number of strange people who kissed her.

  If people were over-affectionate towards her, it was nothing to what the Duke was enduring and she could hear those he greeted cooing at him in caressing tones.

  It was her uncle who brought her a glass of champagne, saying as he did so,

  “You must be feeling exhausted, my dear, and it is almost time to cut the cake.”

  It was then that Honora glanced at the Duke and saw by the expression on his face that he was longing to get away.

  Her aunt had told her in her usual sharp voice that brooked no argument that she was to change her clothes immediately after they had cut the cake.

  “I have not asked where we are going when we leave here,” Honora had said.

  She knew for some reason she could not understand that the question made her aunt even more annoyed than she was already.

  “You are staying tonight in London. Then doubtless after that Ulric will inform you of his plans.”

  Honora found it surprising that her aunt did not know, but again she was aware that it would be unwise to ask too many questions.

  She was merely glad that they would not have too long a journey, as London was only two hours’ drive from Langstone Hall.

  The cake, which had been laboriously cooked by her uncle’s chef, was cut with a sword, somebody proposed their health and the Duke replied with a few words.

  Then Honora found herself being piloted upstairs by the Countess to where Emily, who had been chosen to go with her on her honeymoon as a lady’s maid, was waiting.

  “Now
hurry up! You know it is always a mistake to keep a man waiting!” the Countess said harshly and went from the bedroom leaving Honora and Emily alone.

  “You looked lovely, miss – I mean – Your Grace!” Emily exclaimed. “Everyone’s a-sayin’ there’s never been such a beautiful bride.”

  “I am glad they think so,” Honora replied.

  She was, however, thinking that there was certainly one person who did not think so, if he had even noticed her at all, and that was the man who was now her husband.

  When she thought about him, it was as if there was a lump inside her breast that grew heavier and heavier as she changed.

  The moment had now come when she would be alone with the Duke and his dislike and resentment of her.

  “Help me, Papa,” she murmured beneath her breath.

  “Did you say somethin’, Your Grace?” Emily enquired.

  “I was only talking to myself,” Honora replied. “Give me my bonnet, Emily. We must not keep the horses waiting.”

  “You’ll be in London long afore I am, Your Grace, with the ’orses you’re travellin’ with.”

  Honora looked surprised and Emily asked,

  “Didn’t you know ’Is Grace is takin’ you in ’is phaeton?”

  “I had no idea, but I am very glad,” Honora answered. “It will be pleasant to be out in the open air rather than cooped up in a carriage.”

  She thought with relief that it would also preclude the necessity of talking to the Duke.

  She had the feeling that at the moment it was the last thing she wished to do, although it was something she had wanted before.

  She felt that he would be even more incensed than he had been before at having to drive away from his friends and relations with a strange woman whom he had married only to escape from a German Princess.

  ‘Perhaps once we are alone it will be easier to get to know him,’ Honora thought.

  At the same time she was aware of the feeling in her breast that was heavy and depressing and her lips felt dry.

  It was then, as she was just finishing tying the ribbons under her chin, that her aunt came back into the room.