The Earl Elopes

CHAPTER ONE 1872-1

CHAPTER ONE

1872The Earl of Bourne, driving his team of chestnut horses, was thinking with great delight how excellent they were.

He had purchased them at Tattersalls a fortnight earlier.

Their previous owner had died and left a huge pile of debts and thinking of debts made the Earl remember that he had not yet paid for this superb team.

The reason that he was going home was to see his father about his overdraft.

The Duke of Shelbourne had made it very clear the last time that his son, Clive, had come to see him.

His large number of huge bills were something that was not to occur again.

Unfortunately the Earl had by now been enjoying himself in London.

And that was expensive, especially when his wild extravagance included an extremely attractive young girl who was a dancer at The Drury Lane Theatre.

As he drove out of London and the traffic was less, the Earl increased the pace of his horses.

He thought that he would like to achieve the record to Shelbourne Towers in Oxfordshire and there was little reason to doubt that he would be successful.

Reflectively he began to rehearse in his mind what he would say to his father.

He knew that conversations about money invariably ended in a flaming row and this, however, did not only just apply to money.

The Duke of Shelbourne was a very rich man and he could therefore well afford his only son’s extravagance.

What infuriated him was that the boy had refused to marry.

“We have to have an heir to all this,” the Duke had said not once but a thousand times.

“I do realise that, Papa,” the Earl invariably replied. “But there is plenty of time and I will be extremely careful not to die without having provided you with a grandson or two.”

He meant this to be a joke, but the Duke did not think it funny.

He had suffered agonies when the Earl had been serving abroad with his Regiment.

The moment he returned and decided he wanted to resign his Commission, the Duke had heaved a large sigh of relief.

“Now,” he said to his relations, “Clive will settle down and have a family. Heaven knows, there are enough women for him to choose from!”

The Duke appreciated that his son was at the top of the list of London hostesses as a most eligible bachelor.

He was not only the heir to the Dukedom, he was outstandingly handsome, intelligent and good at any game he turned his hand to.

He also, as those who knew him well were aware, had considerable charm.

This with his good-looks made him irresistible to women.

The Duke knew perfectly well that there was not an important family in the whole of the country who would not welcome his son with open arms and they would be proud to boast that he had married one of their daughters.

At twenty-eight Clive was still unmarried.

He was wise enough to keep well away from the debutantes who were a snare for any bachelor and deftly avoided invitations from his father’s friends with young daughters.

Instead he enjoyed himself with married ladies who had complacent husbands.

And he really enjoyed the allure of the women he saw behind the footlights and he met them in the many nightclubs he frequented with his gentlemen friends.

The only difficulty was that such pleasures were extremely expensive and his father resented having to pay for them.

As the Earl drove on, he was totting up a list of the items he was carrying bills for.

The horses he was driving had been very expensive, largely because there had been several others older than himself bidding for them.

The diamond bracelet he had given the adorable Fifi had naturally delighted her and there was, however, no doubt that his father would consider the cost involved an unnecessary frippery and luxury.

‘For the pleasure she has given me,’ he thought defiantly, ‘I should have given her the necklace to match it!’

But he knew that he was not brave enough to do so.

As it was there were enormous bills for clothes and there was also a big bill for a party he had given for one of his friends on his birthday.

It had certainly been a success and they had drunk an abnormal amount of champagne. And the entertainers whom the Earl had engaged for the night had cost rather more than the wine.

He knew that his father would be very annoyed when he saw the pile of bills.

Undoubtedly once again he would beg him to settle down.

He could take over the running of one of the large estates that had been owned by the Dukes of Shelbourne for generations and there was certainly a wide choice all over the country.

The present Duke quite rightly thought that all this would be an attraction to any man.

Shelbourne Towers had ten thousand acres of land surrounding it.

There was a very pleasant house at Newmarket where the Earl kept his racehorses and there were three thousand well-tended acres attached to that property.

The Duke owned a castle in Scotland with twenty-two thousand acres of moorland, which provided him with the best grouse shooting in the country.

Besides this, there were several rivers that were teeming with salmon.

There was another house, the Earl remembered, in Huntingdonshire that had belonged to his mother’s family and she had left it on her death to her grandson ‘when he married.’

It was, he knew, just another inducement to push him up the aisle and, because it annoyed him, he had not paid a visit to this house or its surrounding acreage since his grandmother had died.

‘The whole thing is ridiculous,’ he told himself as his horses increased their speed. ‘There is plenty of time for me to produce a dozen heirs. I will marry when I find someone to live with who will not bore me after the first twenty-four hours.’

He thought it over and then changed the target to twenty-four months.

‘If I can survive that length of time, I can survive anything,’ he mused.

So far since he had been in London after he had left his Regiment he had not been in the slightest attracted to any young unmarried woman.

He had not even seen one who made him feel it imperative for him to take the trouble to get to know her.

He had spent so much time with those who were on the stage.

He liked women who walked lightly in the way that made it impossible for a man not to notice their charms and the exquisite curves of their figures.

He liked a woman he could laugh with and one who had a quick repartee that was amusing and provocative.

How, he asked himself again, was he going to find anything like that in a young girl who had just left the schoolroom?

She would doubtless have been badly educated by a Governess who knew little more than she knew herself.

Vaguely at the back of his mind he had a plan.

Perhaps in ten years’ time he would find a widow who was still young enough to give him the much wanted heir.

She would be experienced in the ways of the world and would keep him amused and content.

This all passed through his mind.

He was driving now through the countryside with the sun shining on the sprouting cornfields and primroses were glinting yellow in the hedgerows.

‘Tomorrow,’ the Earl thought, ‘I will ride over Papa’s acres that I know are the envy of the local landlords and see how well we ‘plough the fields and scatter’.’

He always enjoyed one special activity when he went home.

No matter how difficult his father was there were always the horses in the stables.

The Duke prided himself on having a better stable than anyone else and his horses won a great number of the Classic races every year,

The Earl had been able to ride almost before he could walk.

He had naturally joined the Household Brigade because it was a Cavalry Regiment, but he had, however, thought that the horses provided by the Brigade were not good enough for him.

He had usually supplied his own charger and he was teased by his fellow Officers as having more horses than women.

“It’s not surprising,” the Earl would reply. “I find them more attractive, swifter and easier to control!”

They had all laughed at this, but they envied him.

He remembered now that his last mount, of whom he had been incredibly fond, would be waiting for him at Shelbourne Towers.

He reproached himself that he had not been home for some months and the horse would undoubtedly have missed him.

‘If Papa is not too disagreeable about my bills,’ he told himself, ‘I must stay in the country for a week or so and ride Crusader every day as he would expect me to do.’

The idea cheered him up and it made him not so apprehensive as to what would occur when he arrived at his home.

Driving to Shelbourne Towers usually took about three hours and the Earl stopped on the way for luncheon at the cosy Posting inn he always patronised.

The publican was delighted to see him and greeted him warmly.

By the time he had sat down at the luncheon table, a bottle of his favourite champagne had been put on ice and the chef was preparing the special dishes that they knew he favoured.

“It’s bin too long since you visited us, my Lord,” the publican said. “But I’ve seen your name in The Court Circular and knows your Lordship’s been enjoyin’ ’imself in London.”

“There are just too many parties,” the Earl replied, “and I am looking forward to being back in the country.”

“That’s just as it should be, my Lord,” the publican said, “and I’m sure there’ll be a right big welcome for you at The Towers.”

The Earl was not certain of this, so he did not reply.

He merely enjoyed every mouthful of the excellent dishes the inn’s chef had cooked for him.

It meant, of course, that he must leave a large tip for him with the publican.

When he came out of the inn, he could see that his groom had watered the horses and the rest had made them eager to be on their way again.

He patted each horse before he climbed into the driving seat.

He was thinking, as he did so, that he had never seen a team to rival them.

“Everyone’s been admirin’ your ’orses, my Lord,” the groom said. “Most didn’t believe it’d be possible to find four with exactly the same colour and markings.”

“I am so lucky to have anything so unique,” the Earl replied, “and I hope that His Grace will admire them too.”

He thought, as he spoke, that it would be essential for his father to see the horses before he saw the bill.

Then once again, as he drove off, he was wondering what sort of reception he would receive when he finally did arrive.

Shelbourne Towers had been in the Ducal family for five hundred years.

It had been altered considerably from the original design, but fortunately when each generation had added to it, they had still kept some of the oldest features.

With their intricately carved wood panelling and diamond-paned windows the principal rooms were most attractive.

It had been a perfect place for a small boy to play ‘hide and seek’ and the Earl did so with his friends or with any of the servants who could spare the time.

He had loved all the secret passages that had been added in Cromwell’s time.

The Royalists had hidden in them when they were being sought by the Roundheads and the Priests’ Hole and the little Chapel were both intact.

What the Earl had enjoyed most was being able to peep into the main rooms without anyone knowing that he was there.

If his father caught him prying on his guests, he would be exceedingly angry, but the Earl had continued to do so.

He learned of affaires-de-coeur that no one else was aware of and there were matrimonial rows which he now remembered vividly.

It made him more determined than ever not to get married, unless he was forcibly compelled to do so or if he really fell in love.