Punished with Love

Chapter One 1883-2

Toni laughed as she spoke and Latonia looked at her questioningly as she asked,

“Are you in trouble?”

“Of course I am!” Toni replied. “Am I ever in anything else? And, dearest, you have to help me. I cannot do without you.”

“What is it this time?”

“I am in love!”

Latonia clasped her hands together.

“Oh, Toni, how exciting! Who is he?”

“The Marquis of Seaton!”

Latonia gasped.

“I don’t believe it! How did you meet him and what has his father to say about it?”

It was not surprising that Latonia was astonished.

The Marquis of Seaton was the eldest son of the Duke of Hampton, the most important person in the County, who gave himself such airs that he considered the local people beneath his condescension.

Although he could not ignore Lord Branscombe, he had quarrelled with him over the boundaries of their adjoining estates and the two Noblemen had therefore not been on speaking terms.

When they were girls, Latonia and Toni had often seen the Marquis out hunting and had longed to make his acquaintance.

He was older than they were, exceedingly handsome and an excellent rider. But, as Latonia had often thought, it was as easy to meet the man in the moon as to become acquainted with the Marquis of Seaton.

Now it appeared that Toni had not only met him but was in love with him and Latonia listened with rapt attention to all that her cousin had to tell her.

“I saw him almost the first night I was in London “ Toni related. “We were at a small musical party and it was rather dull. I was not surprised when he disappeared before we were introduced, but I was determined to meet him sooner or later. I tried to find out from Cousin Alice who were his friends and which houses he visited.”

“Was that difficult?” Latonia asked.

“Not really,” Toni answered. “Everyone gossips about everyone else and I soon discovered that the Marquis was having an affaire de coeur with a very attractive married woman”

She thought that Latonia looked shocked and she added laughingly,

“All gentlemen run after married women because they are safe. They never speak to girls if they can help it because they are terrified that they might be caught!”

“I can understand that, Toni,” Latonia said. “But you look lovely, much lovelier than when you first went to London.”

She was speaking the truth.

Her cousin had grown more sophisticated and certainly more alluring than she had been in the past.

Perhaps it was because she was more sure of herself and, of course, the gown she wore, which had obviously come from a most expensive and inspired dressmaker, gave her an added glamour.

“Go on about the Marquis,” Latonia prompted.

“It took me over a month before I met him,” Toni continued, “and when I did, I was determined to make him fall in love with me just to pay him out for all the years that stuck-up Duke never asked us inside Hampton Towers!”

“He would not have asked me anyway,” Latonia pointed out.

“You will be asked in the future, because I intend to be the Marchioness of Seaton.”

Latonia gave a little gasp.

“What will the Duke say to that?”

“He will have to forget the quarrel he had all those years ago with Papa and forget his grandiose ideas of marrying his son off to a Princess.”

“A Princess?”

“You don’t suppose he would think anyone else good enough for the son of an Almighty Duke of Hampton?” Toni answered.

Then she gave a laugh and threw out her arm with an expression of delight.

“Oh, Latonia, Latonia! It has been such fun! I was determined to capture Ivan and I have succeeded, except that in making him fall in love with me, I have fallen in love with him!”

“You really love him?”

“I adore him,” Toni replied. “I cannot tell you how attractive and how wonderful he is!”

She gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

“It is like all the Fairy stories come true. I love Ivan, he loves me and everything will be perfect once the Duke has – agreed.”

“You are certain he will?” Latonia asked in a low voice.

“He will agree – or he will die,” Toni said. “Either way, Ivan and I will be married.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Duke is very ill,” Toni explained. “I think he has heart trouble rather like Papa had. That is why Ivan has said we must wait a little while before he tells his father that he intends to marry me.”

“Supposing the Duke refuses?”

“Ivan is afraid that the shock of his opposing his father might kill him.”

“Then you must certainly wait,” Latonia said firmly.

“I have told Ivan that I am prepared to do so for a limited amount of time,” Toni said. “But he is as impatient as I am for us to be married and be together, so we will not have to wait long.”

“You really think the Duke will agree?”

“He will have to,” Toni replied and now there was a hard note in her voice. “Nothing and nobody will make me give up Ivan and I know that he feels the same about me. Besides, it is poetic justice.”

“You mean that you will eventually be the Duchess of Hampton?” Latonia asked.

“I mean just that,” Toni agreed, “and I shall take great pleasure, Latonia, in inviting all the people to Hampton Towers who have been excluded by that stuck-up autocratic couple of snobs all these years.”

“Toni, you must not speak about your future in-laws like that!”

“Why not?” Toni enquired. “I am not marrying them. I am marrying darling Ivan and he is a very different sort of person. He is warm and loving and he worships me – he does really, Latonia.”

“I am not surprised,” Latonia said, thinking that she had never before seen her cousin looking so pretty and attractive.

“We are going to be so happy and I will tell you something that will amuse you, Ivan will find my fortune very useful.”

Latonia raised her eyebrows.

“Are you telling me that the Duke is not as rich as we thought he was?”

“That is the truth,” Toni answered. “Ivan thinks that his father may have mismanaged things and has also overspent with his grandiose ideas, wishing to appear more important than anybody else. Ivan tells me that there are always twelve footmen on duty at Hampton Towers.”

“Twelve!” Latonia exclaimed.

“And the Duke travels with six outriders instead of four.”

There was silence for a moment and then Latonia asked,

“Has His Grace already picked out the Princess he wishes his son to marry?”

“Of course he has!” Toni replied. “And Ivan says that he has the choice of not one but several, mostly from German Principalities but nevertheless of Royal blood.”

Latonia was silent.

She was thinking that while the Branscombes were an old and respected family and the new Lord Branscombe was the fourth Baron, they did not compare with the Duke of Hampton, whose ancestors included many members of different European Royal families.

Toni looked at her and laughed.

“I know what you are thinking,” she said, “but you need not waste your time worrying about me. Ivan loves me and I love him and not all the Dukes or a whole cavalcade of blue-blooded Royal Princesses are going to stop us from marrying each other!”

“Oh, I am glad, dearest!” Latonia said warmly. “Not because you will be a Duchess but because you will be happy as Papa and Mama were. Nothing mattered to them except each other and their love and that is what I have always prayed both you and I will find one day.”

“As I have found already. When you meet Ivan you will understand why he is the only man I have ever met who makes my heart beat quicker and with whom I feel I want to spend the rest of my life.”

Riding now towards The Castle, Latonia wondered a little apprehensively if Toni’s impetuous summons had anything to do with the Marquis.

‘Surely,’ she wondered, ‘nothing can have gone wrong?’

She had not yet met him, although there was no doubt from the notes that arrived every day, as well as flowers and other presents, that he was as infatuated with Toni as she was with him.

They also managed to meet regularly but secretly, so that their interest in each other was not repeated to the Duke.

As the Hampton and Branscombe estates marched with each other, there were plenty of woods just on the boundary on each side, where two people on horseback could disappear amongst the trees and when they rode home in different directions, no one would have the slightest idea that they had been together.

“Does not your Head Groom think it rather strange that you ride alone?” Latonia asked.

“It is something I have always done, as you know, except when I am riding with you,” Toni answered, “so he is used to it. Once or twice I have told him that I was meeting you.”

Latonia gave a little cry.

“Oh, do be careful not to tell lies in which you might be caught out!” she said. “He may know I have no decent horses of my own at the moment.”

“Why did you not tell me?” Toni asked. “I will send you over two immediately.”

Latonia looked embarrassed.

“I did not mean that.”

“Well, you should have. We share everything as we always have and, as soon as possible, I want you to move here and be with me.”

“I am longing to do that,” Latonia answered, “but Miss Waddesdon has been so sweet in coming to live with me after you went to London that I cannot send her away.”

“I will tell you what we will do,” Toni said. “As soon as that tiresome woman whom Cousin Alice chose is no longer here to chaperone me – and she drives me crazy with her eternal chatter – both you and Miss Waddesdon can come to The Castle.”

“That would be lovely!” Latonia said.

“It will make it a lot easier,” Toni said with satisfaction, “and with any luck you will be able to move in next week or the beginning of the week after.”

Latonia had been looking forward to it so much because she loved being with Toni and she thought now that it would be very disappointing if Toni’s urgent summons meant that their plan had to be changed.

As she rode down the drive and saw The Castle ahead of her, she thought it would be fun to be back in the great house that she had found so intriguing as a child.

There had been so many places in which to play hide-and-seek, while the nurseries, which had seemed as big as the whole manor house, had held every type of toy, game and doll that any two small girls could have wished for.

Then, as she drew nearer, it suddenly struck Latonia for the first time that The Castle in the future would belong not to Toni but to her uncle.

As it was the family house of the Branscombes, Kenrick Combe would live there when he returned from India and, as Latonia had never met him, she thought perhaps she would no longer be the welcome guest that she was now.

Ever since she could remember she had either been staying at The Castle or else running in and out as if she had as much right to be there as Toni herself.

Now almost like a shadow across the sunshine she realised that when Toni married and the new Lord Branscombe was in residence, she would be a stranger, expected to ring the bell and wait for the door to be opened to her.

As if she was determined to enjoy the privilege of being welcome as long as she could, she dismounted at the front door, handed her horse over to a groom and ran up the steps.

There was only one footman on duty in the hall and he was busy at the far end of it, tidying some papers that had been blown about in the wind.

“Good morning, Henry!” Latonia said as she passed him.

He looked round at her and grinned.

“Morning, Miss Latonia.”

“Where is Miss Toni?”

“Upstairs in ’er room. She said I were to send you straight up to ’er soon as you arrived.”

He made no effort to show her the way, since, of course, it was unnecessary and Latonia was already halfway up the stairs before he had finished speaking.

She ran along the broad landing at the top of them and hurried towards one of the main bedrooms that Toni had occupied since she had grown up.

Before that Toni, and Latonia when she was with her, had slept on the second floor.

Latonia reached her cousin’s door and without knocking opened it and walked in.