Love is Innocent

Chapter 1 1887-2

The huge white villa above the town with its fantastic and exotic tropical gardens had been built by his father and it was large enough to house fifty guests.

There was really no reason why the Duke should not fill the villa with his friends except that he had looked forward to a few weeks’ quiet after what had been a strenuous winter.

This was partly owing to his many sporting activities, but also because he was deeply concerned with the political situation. Although many of his friends did not realise it, he had great influence in the House of Lords.

“It will be fun to be in Monte Carlo again!” Lady Millie said firmly, “and we cannot go on playing this ridiculous game of hide and seek any longer! Besides in a month’s time I can put away my black gloves and know that I am a free woman!”

There was no mistaking what she meant by ‘free’ and the look that she gave the Duke was an open invitation for him to declare himself.

And yet the words had not come to his tips.

He had supposed vaguely at the back of his mind that it was inevitable that he should marry Lady Millie, but somehow something prevented him from saying so.

His friends made it quite clear, in fact too clear, that they thought it was a foregone conclusion.

It irritated him when his name was linked with Lady Millie’s obviously and then hostesses said with meaning behind the words,

“I have put you and dear Millie together – of course!”

He told himself it was foolish to expect an element of surprise after the love affair had gone on for so long. Yet he felt that, because it was so obvious, some of the mystery and some of the thrill was lacking.

It had been there at first, but now they were moving along the path that all his other affaires de coeur had taken, a path that had grown familiar through the years by the tread of too many feet.

Millie would make him an acceptable wife and Society preferred that there should be no surprises where their ranks were concerned and that members of one aristocratic family should marry a member of another.

From this point of view Millie would be the right wife, the Duke thought. She would also look very beautiful in the Atherstone diamonds and would undoubtedly make him an excellent hostess.

At the same time deep in his heart he knew that something was missing, although he was not certain what it was.

When Millie was in his arms, when her lips sought his greedily, he felt himself drowning in her sensuous exotic fragrance, which seemed to numb all criticism.

Then he could forget everything except the passion she aroused in him.

When they reached Monte Carlo, he found that he had an unexpected aversion to making love to her under the very noses of his other guests.

He could not explain this sudden revulsion even to himself.

It was just that he did not like the knowing look in his men-friends’ eyes, the faint smile on the lips of the other women, the manner in which they took it for granted that he would spend the night in Millie’s bedroom.

There was something in the way they said ‘goodnight’ just as there was something in the way they said ‘good morning’ that annoyed the Duke.

Also something fastidious in himself rebelled against creeping along his own corridors after everyone was supposed to be asleep to enter Millie’s bedroom surreptitiously and close the door quietly.

He knew that she would be waiting for him almost like a tigress in her lair, her arms reaching out to hold him captive and make him forget everything but her insatiable desire.

For the first two or three days after their arrival in Monte Carlo, Lady Millie said nothing.

He knew that she looked at him with speculation which gradually became resentful and he knew too what words were hovering on her lips.

But she was too astute and too experienced to reproach him directly.

At the same time there was an accusation in the very manner with which she spoke to him and the occasional sharp little note that crept into her voice.

The Duke could be very obstinate and very ruthless if he wished.

He told himself he would not be coerced or bullied into doing anything he did not wish to do.

It was one thing for a woman to attempt to excite his desire, another to demand it as if it was her right.

And yet he knew that Lady Millie believed she had a right over him – a right that she expected would soon be expressed for all the world to recognise by an invitation to their wedding.

The sunshine was golden and warm at Monte Carlo, the garden was a dream of loveliness, the Casino filled with friends and acquaintances.

The Emperor and Empress of Austria, the Dowager Empress of Russia, the Kings of Sweden, Belgium, Serbia and the Queen of Portugal were all staying at the Hôtel de Paris.

There were in the Casino an inordinate number of Russian Archdukes and Maharajas with the demi-monde of Paris dazzlingly bedecked with ospreys and incredible jewels.

The Beau Monde rubbed shoulders with them as they stood around the roulette tables and listened for the click of the white ball.

“Gaming is a great leveller,” someone said to the Duke ironically.

But the evenings were an excitement of win or lose that never failed to enthral.

Then last night in the Casino the Duke had run into the Countess of Minthorpe, a grande dame of the old school and a close friend of Queen Victoria.

She was one of the few hostesses in London who were important enough to declare openly their disapproval of the ‘Marlborough House Set’. This was the fast and raffish collection of rich, gay and beautiful people who circled round the Prince of Wales and his lovely Danish wife.

The Countess had, however, greeted the Duke most affably and he had responded with his usual courtesy until she said in her distinct well-bred voice,

“I hear that you danced with my granddaughter, Daphne, at the Marchioness of Salisbury’s ball last week.”

With some difficulty the Duke remembered a rather nondescript and shy debutante to whom he had been introduced by his hostess and had therefore been obliged to ask her to dance.

“You also had supper together, I believe,” the Countess of Minthorpe continued.

Again after a distinct hesitation the Duke remembered that he had taken a married woman down to supper, but the girl he had danced with at the beginning of the evening had sat on his other side.

He could not recall now whether he had spoken to her or not, but he was quite prepared to believe that she had been there.

“Yes, yes, of course!” he said. “She is just out this Season, I believe.”

“That is right,” the Countess of Minthorpe confirmed, “and I was telling His Royal Highness of your interest in Daphne. He very graciously intimated that both he and the Princess Alexandra would expect to be the first to be told the good news!”

The Countess of Minthorpe smiled, inclined her head graciously and moved away to leave the Duke staring after her bemused.

What she had intimated could not be true! Yet he knew that it was and that the Countess could make life very difficult for him.

He had not forgotten that his friend the Marquis of Dorset had been pressurised into marriage in just such a manner by an ambitious mother enlisting the co-operation of the Prince of Wales.

The Marquis had done no more than take the girl in question for a walk in the garden during a house party.

“You are getting the girl talked about,” His Royal Highness had been prompted into saying. “You must behave like a gentleman and ask her to marry you.”

Dorset had obliged, but the Duke of Atherstone told himself that he had no intention of being caught in the same manner.

At the same time it infuriated him. He had been so careful not to get involved with any young woman or to give any match-making Mama the excuse of taking him to task.

Because he was upset, even though he did not show it, by his encounter with the Countess of Minthorpe he walked over to the roulette tables in search of Lady Millie.

She was standing watching the wheel spin, looking, he thought, extremely beautiful.

There was a spray of ospreys in her hair. She wore an emerald green gown that was daringly décolleté and the diamonds around her neck and in her ears echoed the glitter in her eyes.

Someone had once told Lady Millie that she sparkled like champagne and she had not forgotten it.

She was always sparkling like a fairy on a Christmas tree and invariably the men who clustered around her laughed at her witticisms, at her remarks with their risqué innuendoes, and the double entendre she could make of the most simple sentence.

To the Duke, feeling as if he had received a body blow from the Countess of Minthorpe, she seemed safe and familiar, part of the world he understood – a world that was very far removed from the Social marriage market in which debutantes were paraded like horses in an arena.

He joined a group of men talking to Lady Millie and they moved aside for him in a manner that showed they thought that he had a proprietary claim.

“Oh, there you are, Draco!” Lady Millie said as the Duke reached her. “I have been looking for you. Give me five thousand francs, I have lost all my money!”

The Duke drew a wallet from the breast pocket of his evening suit.

He drew out the francs and gave them into Lady Millie’s hand.

She took them from him slowly and without haste.

Then she looked up into his eyes and sighed,

“At least – you are rich!”

There was no mistaking the meaning behind the words or the look of frustrated resentment.

Just for a moment the Duke was still and then he turned and walked away and out of the Casino.

He knew quite well that Millie was striking at him because she had waited for him the last four nights in vain.

She knew in asking for the money in such a manner she was asserting her authority, showing the other people present that she had a claim on his wealth and that she could command it.

Perhaps if he had not already been incensed by the Countess of Minthorpe’s words, Lady Millie’s taunt would not have inflamed him to the point when he knew that if he stayed in the Casino any longer he would lose his temper openly.

The Duke had always prided himself on his self-control. He never raised his voice to a servant, he never quarrelled with anyone in words.

Instead if he was annoyed he assumed an icy detachment, which was more effective than if he shouted or stormed at the person he was incensed with.

His voice could be like a whiplash even though the words he actually used were not offensive. Generations of pride and authority made him more awe-inspiring in his silence than anything he said.

At the moment he hated Lady Millie and the whole social structure that seemed to be encroaching on him, pressing him, harrowing him, forcing him into a corner, to escape from which he would have to fight his way out!

He stood for a long time on deck until the ship was well out to sea and Monte Carlo looked like a fallen star in the distance, then he turned and went below.

Not to sleep, but to lie thinking of himself and a future that seemed unpleasantly full of hazards and obstacles.

Now, coming into Algiers it was somehow a relief to think that he had put the whole width of the Mediterranean between himself and the tiresome Social world he lived in.

He had been there before and it seemed to him that he needed the contact between the glittering, superficial, flamboyant Society playground of Europe and the oriental mystique of Algiers.