The Blue Eyed Witch

Chapter One 1800-2

Young in years, for she had not yet reached her twenty-sixth birthday, Lady Brampton had the age-old wisdom of Eve and the Adam she was determined to keep in her very special Garden of Eden was, as the Marquis knew, himself!

Married when she was seventeen to a man much older than she was and who rapidly degenerated into an invalid, Lady Brampton had taken London by storm.

She was beautiful! She was well-bred! She was wealthy!

What was more, her Dresden china looks disguised a fiery temperament that made her take and discard one lover after another, as in turn she quickly tired of them.

That was until she met the Marquis. Then what should have been an amusing ‘affair’ and an entertaining interlude became, as far as Lady Brampton was concerned, an affaire de coeur in which her heart was completely and irrevocably captured.

The Marquis felt as if he had unexpectedly been caught in a whirlpool of such overwhelming strength that it was dangerous.

Nadine Brampton pursued him until even he, who never put himself out for anyone and rejoiced in his reputation of being egotistical and supremely selfish, found it hard not to be overwhelmed by her persistence.

If the Prince was troubled by Lady Jersey, he was certainly be-devilled by Lady Brampton to the point when for the first time he was not certain how to end a liaison which had grown both tedious and exasperating.

Lady Brampton bombarded him with notes, presents and invitations.

She called at his house at unpredictable moments, ignoring the fact that she jeopardised what little remained of her reputation in so doing.

She contrived, by some method of her own, to be at every party, every entertainment, every theatre at which the Marquis was present.

If he rode in the park, she appeared and rode beside him. When he was in attendance, which was practically every day, on the Prince at Carlton House, it was almost automatic that, as soon as he arrived, Lady Brampton would be at the door begging for an audience with His Royal Highness.

Because the Prince was good-humoured and liked pretty women, it was difficult for the Marquis to persuade him to send her away.

Only tonight had it been impossible for her to be present, which the Marquis thought again had been the only redeeming feature of the evening.

He doubted if the imitation Tahitian revels would lift the cloud under which the Prince was suffering and he was quite certain that tomorrow he would have to listen to another long recital of complaints about Lady Jersey, and a dramatic exposition of his ever-increasing desire to make it up with Mrs. Fitzherbert.

If the Prince was taking pains to avoid Lady Jersey, Mrs. Fitzherbert was equally determined to avoid him.

She had given up going to Brighton. She had sold the lease of Marble Hill and was in fact living quietly in a small house at Castle Hill, Ealing, where at the moment she refused to consider the possibility of a reconciliation.

“A link once broken can never be rejoined,” she had said to the Marquis when to help the Prince he had pleaded with her to listen to what His Royal Highness had to say.

The Marquis had taken with him presents which included a locket containing a miniature of one of His Royal Highness’s eyes painted by Richard Cosway and a bracelet with the words rejoindre ou mourir.

Mrs. Fitzherbert had accepted the gifts, but she still refused to meet the giver.

“I shall go mad! I shall die if she will not have me!” the Prince declared dramatically. “Oh, my heart! My heart!”

The Prince was in such a state that the Marquis, like many of his other friends, thought he really might become seriously ill. But there was nothing they could do about it.

‘Our positions of course are entirely different,’ the Marquis told himself ‘There is no danger of my making myself ill over Nadine Brampton. At the same time, I have to take some action where she is concerned. This cannot go on!’

The Marquis’s lips tightened as he thought that owing to her persistence there was every likelihood of his becoming a laughing stock.

He was very aware that in the past he had broken a great number of hearts.

It was inevitable, since he was not only so good-looking but also had a kind of cynical indifference to love which made women pursue him all the more frantically.

They all started the same way, confident that where others of their s*x had failed they would be successful.

The mere fact that he looked at them was enough encouragement to make them believe that this time it would be ‘different’, this time he would fall in love.

But invariably and disconcertingly quickly, they found they were mistaken.

The Marquis was generous when it came to presents. His compliments were more polished and certainly more intelligent than those of any of his contemporaries and he had an exceptional expertise in ‘making love’, as every lady on whom he bestowed his favours was ready to declare without contradiction.

But that was all!

No one could storm the inner citadel of the Marquis’s heart.

No one could be sure after a night of love that they had possessed anything except his body or that even his mind had found them as alluring as his lips had averred.

“You are inhuman!” one lovely lady had told him. “Do you think you are a God, condescending to those who dwell below you? Why else should you be so aloof, so out of reach?”

The Marquis had kissed away her anger, but she had known despairingly that when he left her it was quite likely that she would never see him again.

“You know, Oswin,” the Marquis’s closest friend, Captain George Summers, had said to him, “if you changed your horses as often as you change your women, the country would run out of thoroughbreds!”

The Marquis had laughed.

Captain Summers had served with him in the Army and, because they had shared the hardships of war, he allowed him a familiarity which he permitted no one else.

“Women are dispensable,” he said. “Which is why, George, I shall never marry!”

“But you will have to!” Captain Summers argued. “My dear Oswin, it is expected of Marquises. They have to produce heirs!”

“I have some delightful and most respectable cousins,” the Marquis answered, “all of whom could take my place admirably. Any of them would uphold with ease the dignity of the title.”

“It is nonsensical to make up your mind on such an important subject at your age,” Captain Summers said. “At the same time you should be thinking of settling down. You cannot spend the rest of your life mopping up the Royal tears and changing your bed night after night.”

“You certainly have a point there,” the Marquis said. “I am sick of creeping up creaking stairs and tiptoeing down ill-lighted passages. I shall confine myself to visiting the very agreeable house I have purchased in Chelsea, which is most appropriately near Chelsea Hospital, founded by Nell Gwynn.”

“Do you fancy yourself as another Charles II?” Captain Summers asked with a grin.

Then he exclaimed,

“You are not unlike him, as a matter of fact! Charles II, from all accounts, always monopolised the prettiest women at Court, and a new face without fail distracted his attention from a familiar one.”

“He became deeply embroiled with Barbara Castlemaine!”

Captain Summers looked at the Marquis knowingly.

“Lady Brampton is talking big,” he said. “Are you aware that his Lordship is dying? It is doubtful if he will live another two months. Then, Oswin, she will walk you down the aisle.”

“She will do nothing of the sort!” the Marquis retorted savagely. “I have told you, George, I have no intention of getting married and certainly not to Nadine Brampton!”

“She would look spectacular in the Aldridge tiaras,” Captain Summers remarked.

“She might do that,” the Marquis agreed.

But as he spoke, he thought with a kind of horror of Lady Brampton’s possessive hands fastening themselves claw-like round his back.

He had never imagined a woman could be so persistent about what he was determined should be unobtainable.

“Curse it, George! I shall have to go away! I have a damned good mind to join my Regiment again and fight against Bonaparte.”

“There would be no welcome for you there,” George Summers said.

“Why the devil not?” the Marquis enquired. “I was a good soldier, as you well know.”

“I am not denying that,” his friend replied, “but they don’t want Marquises in the field, and I cannot imagine you doing nothing but marching up and down Wellington Barracks.”

The Marquis did not answer and Captain Summers went on,

“If you should be taken prisoner, you would be too important a feather in Bonaparte’s cap for him not to make a victory out of it. I assure you, Oswin, if you rejoined you would not be sent overseas!”

Sitting now in his armchair, the Marquis remembered the conversation and knew that his friend, George Summers, had not been talking idly.

At the same time he had spoken the truth when he had said it was impossible for him to stay in London indefinitely, playing nanny to the Prince and scheming to avoid Lady Brampton.

He was quite certain that tomorrow he would find himself listening all over again to the Prince’s lamentations and undoubtedly, like the rest of his Royal Highness’s friends, carrying hysterical messages to Ealing.

When he was not doing that, there would be Lady Brampton waiting for him, finding out at what time he would be riding, discovering where he would be dining and, if she could not do that, knocking at his door in Berkeley Square.

‘I am going to the country,’ the Marquis decided. He rose to his feet, ready to tug at the bell-pull to summon the butler. Then he paused.

If he went to Aldridge House in Hertfordshire, there was every likelihood that Nadine Brampton would follow him.

She had done that before, arriving when he had chosen a small house party with care and making it almost impossible for him to turn her away without causing a scene that would reverberate throughout the Beau Monde.

He had the feeling that at the moment she would welcome a scandal.

She wanted people to talk about them and he was shrewd enough to realise that by that means she thought she would be able to force him, once she was a widow, to restore her damaged reputation by offering her the protection of his name.

‘Blast it! I am like a fox who cannot even run for cover!’ the Marquis said to himself.

Then he had an idea.

The day before, his secretary and general factotum, Mr. Graham, had brought him a letter from one of his agents in the country.

Because the Marquis had so many properties, he had agents in charge of each one, who sent detailed reports of their activities every month to Mr. Graham at Berkeley Square.

The Marquis’s secretary did not trouble him with these unless they required his personal instructions on a problem that was beyond his jurisdiction.

A recent report from Ridge Castle had been a case in point and Mr. Graham had drawn his attention to a paragraph in the report which read,

“There has been a lot of local unrest amongst the farm workers since Sir Harold Trydell died. Sir Caspar, who has inherited the Trydell Estates, is making many local difficulties, changing traditions in a manner which is deeply resented not only by the farmers, but also by the labourers themselves.

I have the feeling, perhaps unfounded, that, if things go on as they are, we may have riots on our hands. I hope I am mistaken, but I would like his Lordship’s authority to do what I can to soothe the rising feelings of resentment perhaps by employing more of the local men ourselves and thus alleviating distress.”

“Sir Harold is dead then!” the Marquis had exclaimed when he handed the report back to Mr. Graham.

“He died three months ago, my Lord. I did tell you at the time, but perhaps you did not hear me.”

“It certainly comes as a surprise to me now,” the Marquis said. “I never cared for Caspar Trydell. It’s a pity his elder brother was drowned.”

“It was indeed, my Lord,” Mr. Graham said. “You knew Mr. John, I believe.”

“We were friends when he was a boy and lived at The Castle,” the Marquis replied.