A Duel With Destiny Read online

  He came a step nearer and now Rowena knew that he would put his arms around her.

  If he did so she thought wildly that she would be lost.

  She wanted the touch of his lips more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.

  She wanted to feel the rapture and the wonder that had seemed to transport her into the sky and had been more perfect, more wonderful and more divine than anything she had ever dreamt of or imagined.

  “I want you!” the Marquis said and now his voice was deep with passion.

  Rowena gave a little cry like that of an animal caught in a trap.

  Even as his arms reached out to hold her, she turned and ran, pulling open the door and tearing across the hall and up the stairs as if all the devils of Hell were at her heels.

  She rushed into her bedroom, locked the door and flung herself down on her bed feeling as if her whole body was throbbing and pulsating because she wanted him more and more with every breath she took.

  ‘Oh, God, help me!’ she prayed and thought in that moment that even God had forsaken her.

  *

  When Doctor Winsford told Hermione and Mark what the Marquis had planned for them, they were at first stunned into silence.

  “To Florence?” Hermione exclaimed. “Did he really say that he was sending me to Florence?”

  “To a Finishing School there, where only the elite of Society send their daughters,” her father explained. “His Lordship has chosen it because you will have there the best art teachers available and that is what he thought you wanted.”

  “I cannot believe it!” Hermione said. “I never dreamt – never imagined I would ever leave this village and see the world – but Florence – Italy! Oh, Papa, how can I ever thank him?”

  “We are all very grateful,” the doctor replied. “At first I felt much embarrassed by his generosity, but he persuaded me to accept it for your sakes and I cannot believe that he would do anything that was not right.”

  “Of course he is right,” Hermione said, “and Papa, I will work so hard that you will all be very proud of me.”

  “I am sure you will, my dear,” Dr. Winsford replied.

  “But there is one thing I must ask,” Hermione said and it was almost a cry. “What about clothes?”

  “The Marquis has thought of that too,” Dr. Winsford answered. “He told me that his sister, who has a daughter just a little younger than you, will choose you exactly the right gowns and all the other things you require if you will send her your measurements.”

  “I must be dreaming!” Hermione murmured.

  Mark had been rather quiet and now Dr. Winsford said,

  “I know how thrilled you will be, Mark, to attend a school with boys of your own age, and Eton, where the Marquis was himself, is undoubtedly the best Public School in England!”

  Rowena suddenly felt that she could bear no more.

  She went into the kitchen to help Mrs. Hanson with the dinner to find her full of grumbles now that the kitchenmaid had returned to Swayneling Park and she had to do everything herself.

  “I’m gettin’ too old to work without ’elp, Miss Rowena,” she said, “and that’s the truth.”

  “You will find it less arduous in the future,” Rowena replied. “His Lordship is sending Miss Hermione and Master Mark to boarding school.”

  She could not help the bitterness sounding in her voice as she spoke.

  Mrs. Hanson merely gave an exclamation of astonishment and then said,

  “’Tis kind of ’is Lordship, very kind, and I knows ’ow pleased your dear mother would be, God rest her soul. But I ’ad my suspicions that ’is Lordship were sweet on you, Miss Rowena, and now I’m a-certain of it!”

  “You are mistaken!” Rowena said quickly.

  “Not I!” Mrs. Hanson retorted. “I might be deaf, Miss Rowena, but I’ve got eyes in me ’ead. I knows more about what’s goin’ on than people gives me credit for. You mark my words, ’is Lordship’ll be poppin’ the question one of these days and a finer more upstandin’ man it would be ’ard to find.”

  Rowena flounced out of the kitchen, feeling there was no escape from the Marquis wherever she went.

  It did not assuage her feelings to find that after his call he had left behind him the usual great hamper of fruit, pâtés, meat and chickens such as they had received during the time he was ill.

  ‘To eat one mouthful would choke me!’ Rowena told herself fiercely.

  Nevertheless when the food came to the table she was forced to eat it because there was nothing else.

  She was still very conscious of what she thought of as ‘the Marquis’s underhand methods of behaviour’ when they went up to bed.

  All through supper Hermione could talk of nothing but the excitement of going abroad and her father seemed more relaxed and happy than he had ever been since her mother’s death.

  Just before the meal was served a knock on the front door was answered by Mark, who had rushed into the study where the rest of the family were assembled and handed his father a note.

  “This has been brought by a slap-up groom,” he said excitedly, “riding the most magnificent roan! He is waiting for an answer, Papa.”

  Dr. Winsford looked at the note in surprise, then opened it and read it carefully.

  “Who is it from?” Rowena asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

  “It is from General Franklin of Overton House,” Dr. Winsford replied.

  “General Franklin? We have not heard from the Franklins for years.”

  “He tells me that he has had such a glowing account of the way I treated the Marquis after an accident that he would wish me in the future to attend him and his entire household. He has asked if I would call on him tomorrow morning.”

  “How exciting, Papa!” Hermione exclaimed. “Overton House is very impressive. I have seen it from the road and always longed to go to the parties they give.”

  “The General is asking me to be his medical adviser,” the doctor said. “That does not mean that we shall receive any social recognition, Hermione.”

  “You never know,” Hermione answered irrepressibly. “He might take a fancy to you, Papa, as the Marquis has, and we would all benefit. Write to him quickly and say that you will be delighted to call tomorrow.”

  “That is just what I intend to do,” Dr. Winsford said and sat down at his desk.

  “Have I any decent writing paper, Rowena?” he asked.

  Rowena brought him what he required, but found it impossible to join in the general speculation and excitement over the prospect of a new and wealthy patient.

  It was all part of the Marquis’s plan to make her change her mind and once again she compared him to an octopus reaching out his tentacles, making escape from him impossible.

  ‘I hate him!’ she told herself.

  Yet she felt again the thrill that ran through her when he told her of his love for her.

  *

  The next day, after a restless night when she was afraid to fall asleep in case she dreamt of him, Rowena came down to breakfast to find that Mark had already had his and gone.

  “Master Mark was very early this morning,” she said to Mrs. Hanson.

  “I thinks ’e’s a-goin’ on a picnic, Miss Rowena.”

  “A picnic?” Rowena asked. “He is doing nothing of the sort! He has lessons with the Vicar at eleven o’clock.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought ’e means to do,” Mrs. Hanson replied. “He asks me to pack some sandwiches in a bag and I gives ’im several slices of ’am that came yesterday from Swayneling Park, a real juicy ’am it be, too, miss, such as I’ve not seen for many a year.”

  “Did he actually say he was going on a picnic, Mrs. Hanson?” Rowena persisted.

  “I can’t rightly recall what ’e says, Miss Rowena. ’E just asks me for the sandwiches, stuffs ’em in a knapsack ’e were a-carryin’ and was off.”

  Rowena looked at the cook with bewildered eyes and then ran upstairs to her father’s b
edroom.

  She knocked and when she entered found that her father had just finished shaving.

  He had been called out during the night and was therefore later in rising than usual.

  “Sorry to bother you, Papa,” she said, “but did Mark say anything to you last night about going on a picnic?”

  The doctor considered for a moment.

  “I don’t think so, Rowena. When I came home, I talked to him until he went to bed about going to Eton. But Hermione was so excited about Florence that I don’t think that Mark had a chance to say very much.”

  “Now I think of it he was rather quiet at dinner,” Rowena reflected. “I suppose he wants to go to Eton?”

  “Of course he does!” Dr. Winsford said. “What boy would not be thrilled at the chance of being sent to the best school in England?”

  He finished tying his cravat and, as Rowena helped him into his coat, he said wistfully,

  “I wish your mother could know what is planned for Hermione and Mark. It is everything she would have wished for them, especially Hermione. She will be very beautiful one day, my dear, like you.”

  Rowena did not reply and after a moment Dr. Winsford said a little diffidently,

  “You don’t mind, my dearest, that the Marquis’s plans have not included you? I felt it was strange when he did not give you a present after you had nursed him so competently.”

  “I have no wish, Papa, to be under the Marquis’s patronage.”

  “I would not like you to feel hurt or resentful,” Dr. Winsford said.

  There was so much tenderness in his tone that Rowena bent forward and kissed him.

  “I feel neither of those things, Papa, and, if it makes you happy for the Marquis to do so much for the children, then naturally I am pleased about it too.”

  “That’s my good girl,” Dr. Winsford said, patting her shoulder.

  Rowena knew that he was bewildered at the way the Marquis was apparently ignoring her. But it was impossible to explain to him the Marquis’s real motives and very underhand ones they were for this excess of generosity.

  ‘He is even putting barriers up between my family and me,’ she thought, ‘so that we can no longer be frank with each other.’

  “I must hurry over my breakfast,” Dr. Winsford was saying. “I have a lot of work to get through this morning if I am to be at Overton House at two o’clock this afternoon.”

  “I am glad you have put on your best suit, Papa.”

  The doctor smiled.

  “Your mother always considered first appearances to be important.”

  “You look extremely handsome and very smart!” Rowena told him.

  The doctor hurried downstairs. Rowena tidied his bedroom and started to make the bed.

  A little later she heard her father leave and knew that he had taken Hermione with him to drop her at Miss Graham’s house at the end of the village.

  Rowena glanced at the clock and saw it was only nine o’clock and she thought again how strange it was that Mark had gone out so early.

  He was usually the difficult one to get out of bed, being wide awake in the evening and exceedingly drowsy when it was time to get up.

  ‘I hope he is not going to skip his lessons,’ she murmured to herself. ‘The Vicar gets angry when he plays truant.’

  She walked into her father’s study, repressing as she did so the memory of how magnificent the Marquis had looked the day before standing with his back to the fireplace, his dark hair reflected in the mirror behind him.

  Then as she went to her father’s desk to try to put some semblance of order into the papers scattered all over it, she saw there was a note propped up against the ink-pot.

  She only had to read the word “Papa” on it to know who it was from.

  Without hesitation she opened it to find that Mark had written,

  “Dear Papa,

  I don’t wish to go to school. I want to be with horses, so I am going away to earn my living.

  Don’t worry about me. I have taken half a sovereign from Rowena’s housekeeping money and will pay it back as soon as possible.

  With love to everybody,

  Your affectionate son,

  Mark.”

  Rowena read it through at first quickly and then more slowly.

  Her lips tightened before she then said aloud,

  “This is the Marquis’s doing – this is all his fault!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I took the liberty while you were away, my Lord, of ordering a number of new paints and the gold and silver leaf that Mr. Gaynor required for his work.”

  “Quite right, Ashburn,” the Marquis replied. “I hope you ordered in large quantities as I have some further work for Mr. Gaynor to begin immediately.”

  “I will see there is enough, my Lord.”

  The Marquis signed some papers lying on his desk and handed them to his secretary.

  “This letter,” he remarked, “can wait – ”

  He was interrupted as the door opened.

  “Excuse me, my Lord,” the butler said, “but there is a lady to see you – a Miss Winsford. She says it’s urgent.”

  For a moment the Marquis was still.

  And then he said,

  “Show her in, Newman.”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  The butler withdrew and Mr. Ashburn moved towards the door.

  Before he reached it, it opened again and the butler announced,

  “Miss Rowena Winsford, my Lord!” and Rowena came into the room.

  She was looking very pale and her bonnet, although plain and cheap, did not disguise the sun-tints of her hair or the translucence of her blue eyes.

  The Marquis rose to his feet, Mr. Ashburn bowed and withdrew as Rowena walked towards the desk.

  As the door closed behind his secretary the Marquis asked quietly,

  “What has happened?”

  “You may well ask,” Rowena replied in a low voice. “This is your doing!”

  She held out Mark’s letter towards him as she spoke and he took it from her, well aware that she would not have come to Swayneling Park unless something very untoward had happened.

  The Marquis read the note and then he said,

  “I am sorry that this has occurred. I should have talked to Mark myself. I should have anticipated that he might feel apprehensive at being removed from the environment he is familiar with and sent away to a strange place.”

  “I don’t believe that would have troubled him if he had not become obsessed with your horses,” Rowena commented bitterly. “I told you that you were upsetting the whole household and this is the only one of the disasters that will be the direct result of your interference.”

  “Suppose we sit down and discuss it?” the Marquis suggested.

  “There is nothing to discuss,” Rowena replied. “I am here because I wish to speak with your grooms and find out what they have said to Mark and what stories they have told him. He obviously has some idea in his mind as to where he could go to work in someone’s stables.”

  Just for a moment she paused and then she added in a quieter tone,

  “I do ‘t imagine that he would come here.”

  “I agree that is most unlikely,” the Marquis said, “but we will find out.”

  He crossed the room to where beside the magnificent chimney piece there was a bell-pull.

  He tugged at it and almost immediately the door opened and a footman in the Swayneling livery with crested buttons stood waiting for his command.

  “Tell Sam to come here immediately!” the Marquis ordered.

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  The door closed again and now the Marquis, with a smile that many women had found beguiling, said,

  “Will you not sit down, Rowena, and may I offer you a glass of wine? Or perhaps you would prefer some chocolate.”

  “I want nothing, thank you,” Rowena answered, “except information about Mark.”

  She did not look at the Marquis a
s she spoke, but his eyes were on her face as he went on,

  “I can only tell you how sorry I am about this. I offered what I thought was the best for your family. You know as well as I do that Mark should go to school.”

  “My brother and sister are not your responsibility.”

  “Why not?” the Marquis enquired, “as I intend to make you mine.”

  “That is something I have no intention of becoming!”

  Rowena’s eyes were stormy as she carried on,

  “I know you think that you have been very clever, my Lord, in earning the gratitude of my father and making Hermione almost hysterical at the idea of going to Florence. But as far as I am concerned it has only made me hate you more than – I was hating you already!”

  “You really believe that is true?” the Marquis asked.

  There was a note in his voice that made her heart beat even more violently than it had been doing ever since her arrival.

  As she had driven up the drive in the chaise with young Lawson, who was the only person she could think of who would bring her quickly to Swayneling Park, she had been overcome by the magnificence of the Marquis’s house.

  She had expected it to be impressive, but not so beautiful.

  It was in fact one of the finest buildings not only in the County but in all of England.

  It had been built in the reign of Elizabeth I by one of her most favoured Statesmen and the Swaynes had managed all through the centuries to hold positions of power without losing either their heads or their possessions under the succession of different Monarchs adhering to different religions.

  From Protestant Elizabeth, through the stormy times of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, they not only survived but flourished.

  Swayneling Park was a monument not only to the brilliance of their minds but also to the manner in which their marriages had brought them great fortunes and more estates.

  “Nice looking building, isn’t it?” Edward Lawson asked with a sidelong glance at Rowena.

  She was well aware that during the time it had taken for his horses to bring her here he had been attempting to flirt with her, but she had been too agitated and tense even to be amused by his overtures.

  His description, Rowena thought, was hopelessly inadequate, and she could not but feel that the building was a fitting frame and background for the magnificence of the Marquis.