The Odious Duke

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1824-1

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1824The Duke of Selchester tooled his fine team of four prime, perfectly matched chestnuts with consummate skill round the corner from Alford Street into Park Lane.

He then had only a very short distance to travel before he pulled into the gravel sweep in front of the imposing pillared entrance of Selchester House and then he drew his horses to a standstill with a style that was unmistakable.

As he did so, he took his watch out from his waistcoat pocket and exclaimed,

“We have beaten the record, Fowler, by five minutes and thirty-five seconds!”

“I were real sure Your Grace could do it,” his groom replied. “A remarkable piece of drivin’, if Your Grace will permit me to say so!”

“Thank you, Fowler.”

The Duke stepped gracefully down from his phaeton. His servants watching him were admiringly conscious that in his many-tiered driving coat, with his high hat at an angle on his dark hair, his fine Hessian boots shining from the application of champagne they received every day and he was very much a Corinthian.

“A Non-pareil” was the expression used to describe him by the younger members of White’s Club, who followed slavishly the way that he tied his cravats, the cut of the coats fashioned on him by Mr. Weston and the innumerable little individual quirks of fashion that he introduced from time to time.

None of his imitators, however, could quite emulate the Duke in the way he carried himself and the way in which he could firmly set down an impertinence or the shadow of a presumption by a mere look in his eyes and an infinitesimal lift of his eyebrows.

Well over six feet with a superb carriage, the Duke, as he passed through the door of Selchester House, seemed to tower above his array of liveried footmen despite the fact that none of them was employed unless they topped six feet.

He handed his hat to one, his gloves to another and then allowed the butler, an elderly man with a face just like an Archbishop, to remove his driving coat, thus revealing one of his famous whip-cord riding jackets, which fitted without a wrinkle across his broad shoulders and over which his tailor had spent sleepless nights before bringing it to the perfection demanded by its owner.

Only Mr. Weston, cutter and fitter to the Quality, was aware that, although the Duke seemed so thoroughly at ease in his clothes, he was in fact a difficult gentleman to dress.

It was certainly not the fault of his figure, which, with his great breadth of shoulder tapering to narrow hips, was a tailor’s dream. It was rather that the Duke had the rippling muscles of an athlete for His Grace was proficient at boxing and fencing besides his spending many hours in the saddle, which made it hard to achieve the effect of effortless languor that the fashion demanded.

The Duke now, although he had been driving at an inordinate speed for nearly three hours, was not in the least fatigued. Alert and with an air of satisfaction, he walked across the marble hall with its huge family portraits and inlaid French furniture bought by his grandfather for a song at the time of the French Revolution towards the Garden Salon.

Two footmen in the Selchester livery of blue and yellow flung open double mahogany doors and His Grace passed through them into a really delightful room running the whole breadth of the house.

It had no less than five windows opening onto the large garden that lay behind the enormous grey stone mansion that was enriched by turrets that had been built by the Duke’s grandfather.

The garden, bathed in spring sunshine, was ablaze with daffodils and crocuses. The formal walks, like the paved terrace, were edged with hyacinths and tulips which, all of identically the same height and growth, gave by their uniformity the impression of being like soldiers on parade.

It was the King when he was the Prince Regent who had teased the Duke a few years earlier by calling him ‘His Most Noble Perfection’ and the joke had become a fact rather than a jest.

Almost unconsciously he had begun to expect perfection around him so that everyone in his household strove not only to serve him to the very best of their ability but almost to perform miracles because he expected it of them.

He had been sure, His Grace thought now with complacency, that his horses could quite easily beat the record from Epsom to London set by Lord Fletcher, a notable whip, three years earlier.

He was much looking forward to telling the “Four Horse Club” of his achievement and he well knew that it would infuriate a number of his contemporaries who had themselves tried over and over again to achieve a new record and failed.

The Duke sat down at his desk to look at a large pile of invitation cards that had been set there by his secretary and several unopened letters with the handwriting or a faint fragrance proclaiming them as being of an intimate nature.

The Duke glanced at them without any particular interest. Then, as with an air of boredom, he picked up one of the letters and an emerald-studded letter-opener shaped like a dagger, his secretary, Mr. Graystone, came into the room and stood bowing respectfully.

A grey-haired man of middle age, it was on his shoulders that the smooth running of His Grace’s residences rested. And chief among them were Selchester Castle in Kent, Selchester House in London, a Hunting Lodge in Leicestershire and an enormous mansion in Northumberland.

The engagement of senior staff, the p*****t of wages, both those of the households and of the estates, were all under his jurisdiction.

He had, it was true, the services of Solicitors and accountants, Major Domos and junior secretaries to help him, but his was the hand that kept the whole complicated Ducal state in motion.

Yet never for a moment did Mr. Graystone approach his Master with anything but humble servility, a commendable attitude that the Duke accepted without question.

“Good evening, Graystone,” the Duke said. “Have you anything of import for me? And pray do not bore me with all the problems from the country for I am in no mood for them at the moment.”

“No indeed, Your Grace. There are no problems. I only came to inform Your Grace that the arrangements that you requested have been made for your departure tomorrow. The horses have been sent ahead and all three of your hosts have signified their delight at being honoured by Your Grace’s presence. I have, however, purposely left unspecified the actual time of your arrival at each house.”

“Quite right,” the Duke approved. “I dislike being constrained.”

“Is there anything else Your Grace will require?”

“No, thank you, Graystone. I am grateful for your attention.”

The kind words of condescension seemed to lighten up the worried expression in Mr. Graystone’s eyes.

“Your Grace is most gracious,” he said and, bowing went from the room.

The Duke sat for a moment, the letter opener in one hand, a letter that exuded the cloying fragrance of gardenias in the other.

Then on an impulse he threw both down on the desk and, rising to his feet, walked languidly upstairs to change for dinner.

There were two valets awaiting his appearance, an elderly man who had served his father and who had known him as a child and a younger man who had only been in the Ducal service for ten years.

They removed His Grace’s boots, helped him out of his clothes and when he had taken his hot bath in front of the fire in his bedchamber, enveloped him in a big lavender-scented Turkish towel.

The Duke accepted such ritual as too familiar for him to notice it. He was assisted into his close-fitting evening pantaloons, the elder valet shaved him with an expert hand that had never been known to falter, a shirt of the finest lawn, frilled and goffered by women from his estate in his own country laundry was buttoned across his muscular chest by the younger valet.

Then all three men considered the serious question as to what style of cravat the Duke should wear around his neck to hold high the points of his starched collar.

“His Majesty is very partial to the mathematical, Your Grace,” the elder valet suggested.

“And a sad mess he makes of it!” the Duke retorted. “The King’s neck is far too thick and his chin too heavy for anything but a simple neck cloth!”

“We can all be thankful that it will be many years before the same could be said of Your Grace,” the valet replied with an admiring smile.

“I have a feeling, Jenkins, that I shall never give my horseflesh a sore back!” the Duke remarked.

“No indeed, Your Grace, that is certain, for Your Grace’s physique is remarkable. I was sayin’ to Mr. Weston only last week, Your Grace, that there’s not an ounce of spare flesh on Your Grace’s body.”

“I think that tonight I will wear the Waterfall,” the Duke decided reflectively.

“I was just about to proffer that very suggestion for Your Grace’s consideration,” his valet said enthusiastically. “Only someone with a high neck like Your Grace’s and a gentleman of Your Grace’s presence could attempt the very intricate folds that are, I am told, the despair of Lord Fleetwood’s valet! In fact, Your Grace, after castin’ two dozen neck cloths away, ’tis said that both his Lordship and his man burst into tears.”

“It would not surprise me,” the Duke said laconically. “If ever there was a ham-fisted creature, either with the ribbons or with a cravat, it is Fleetwood!”

“Quite so, Your Grace, and I hears that Your Grace broke the record today. May I offer my most humble congratulations on a feat that would have given extreme satisfaction to Your Grace’s father.”

“A top-sayer himself, was he not, Jenkins?”

“Indeed, His late Grace was unrivalled in his day and yet I often think that Your Grace has the edge on him.”

“I wish I could believe that,” the Duke replied good-humouredly.

Having shrugged himself with some difficulty into his evening coat, which was cut so tight that he required the assistance of both his valets before it was finally adjusted to his full satisfaction, he then proceeded slowly down the carved gilt stairway.

A footman scurried to open the door and His Grace then entered the anteroom adjoining the long dining room, which, with its marble pillars and gold-leafed cornice, was considered one of the finest achievements of its architect.

In the anteroom two footmen offered His Grace a glass of wine.

The Duke accepted a glass of matured Madeira and was sipping it appreciatively when the butler announced,

“Captain Henry Sheraton, Your Grace.”

A gentleman with a pleasing countenance and as elegantly dressed as His Grace but without quite his distinction and his air of consequence, came into the room.

“Good evening, Harry,” the Duke greeted him. “You are late! I had begun to think you might have forgotten our arrangement this evening.”

“Not so bird-witted! Been looking forward for the last three days to seeing the new Cyprians that the Abbess has procured from France! My apologies if I kept you waiting.”

Harry Sheraton spoke in a fashionably clipped way that his friends had now become used to,

“I was but roasting you,” the Duke answered. “I have returned from Epsom only in the last hour. I broke the record!”

“You did. My congratulations!” Harry Sheraton exclaimed. “Was hoping you would do it. Bumptious fellow, Lumley, has been boasting all over White’s that he would achieve easily it with those roans he bought at Tattersalls last month. Ask me, they are not all they are puffed up to be! But nothing will convince Lumley they are not prime horseflesh.”

“I would never accept Lumley’s opinion if I was buying an army mule!” the Duke exclaimed.

“Nor I!” his friend replied. “God, Theron, do you remember those blasted cattle we had to cope with in Portugal? Never forget the way they and the horses stampeded in that colossal thunderstorm before the Battle of Salamanca!”

“The lightning reflected on the musket barrels almost blinded me,” the Duke replied. “It also made me decide that I could never look at a damned mule ever again! Do you recall how many of the Officers were smothered in the folds of their tents when the mules got caught in the ropes?