Lost Enchantment

Chapter 1 1803The Marquis of Alton was blue-devilled, which meant that everyone in the whole of Alton Park from his personal valet, who had come down with him from London, to the lowest scullion, was affected by his Lordship’s temper. He had arrived unexpectedly long after midnight and, because he was in one of his black moods, it seemed that nothing was to his satisfaction. The chef, shaken into wakefulness, performed miracles in providing a cold collation in under fifty minutes, but even so his Lordship looked disdainfully at it and, having nibbled at a few dishes, left the rest untouched, which cast a shadow of despondency over the whole kitchen staff. Also, on entering the huge baronial dining room and glancing in a disparaging way at the shining array of silver, which had with unprecedented speed been taken from its shrouds of green baize to ornament the table, his Lordship had remarked sourly, “Short of footmen, are we, Westham?” The old butler, who had been at Alton Park since he had started as pantry boy to his Lordship’s father, replied apologetically, “As I was not aware that your Lordship was honouring us with a visit, I allowed four of the younger men to repair to the village to drill with the Volunteers. They were keen, my Lord, and I felt it was my patriotic duty to encourage their enthusiasm.” There was nothing his Lordship could reply to this and after a moment Westham ventured, “What news is there of the War, my Lord? We know little here, but what we do learn sounds extremely ominous.” His Lordship remained silent and the butler continued, “They are saying, my Lord, that this year of 1803 will be known for ever as the Year of Invasion.” “If we are invaded,” his Lordship said in his most uncompromising voice, “then I can assure you, Westham, that we shall repel Bonaparte with every weapon at our command.” There was a moment’s silence, but, as his Lordship glanced with no show of interest at a succulent boar’s head garnished with fresh peaches, the butler then said, “The Volunteers are most dissatisfied at the idea of carrying pikes, my Lord.” His Lordship had pushed back his plate with an angry gesture. “There are not enough flintlocks for everyone, Westham, and pikes can be an intimidating weapon if used with intelligence.” His Lordship did not sound very convincing even to himself and it made him even angrier that his own men who had joined the Volunteers should be treated in such a shoddy fashion. However, it was not policy to say so and the Marquis could only curse the Addington administration silently as he had cursed it so often before. Refusing the rest of the dishes that were awaiting his approval, he walked from the dining room. “A glass of port, my Lord?” Westham cried in despair after him. His Lordship did not deign to answer, but he would have been honest if he had admitted that he had already consumed enough wine that evening, which was in part the cause of his ill temper. * It must have been the unusual amount of wine, he told himself the following morning after spending a restless night, which he had drunk at dinner with the Prince of Wales that had been the cause of all his troubles. One always ate and drank too much at Carlton House, but this had been an exceptional occasion when the Prince was entertaining on an even grander scale than usual and a large number of his guests were extremely unsteady on their feet by the time they left the dining room. The Marquis had not been unsteady, but he had certainly been in a receptive mood and it must have been for that reason that he had listened to Lady Leone Harlington when she had sought him out as the gentlemen joined the ladies and looked at him provocatively from under her eyelashes. “It is a long time since your Lordship has honoured me with a visit,” she said in her soft seductive voice, which had enticed more men into committing indiscretions than anyone could possibly count. “You have missed me?” the Marquis asked. Lady Leone turned her face towards his with a gesture that adoring swains poetically compared with the beauty of a swan arching its long white neck. “You know that I have missed you,” she replied softly. “Justin, what has gone awry between us?” “Nothing I am aware of,” the Marquis replied and, although he spoke with an effort of sincerity, they both knew that he lied. “Are you not running away from the inevitable?” she enquired. “The inevitable?” he questioned. “You know that I intend to marry you,” she answered bluntly. Even in his slightly befuddled state the Marquis sensed the iron determination beneath the gentleness of her voice. Yet, because he had dined too well, her presumption had only amused him. It was later, much later, that he found himself seated on a comfortable sofa in the Countess of Harlington’s salon with Leone beside him. At the reception that had followed the dinner at Carlton House she had never left his side and he realised that she had flaunted him as her escort as a man might flaunt a trophy he had won in battle. There had been more to drink, more to eat, and while caution told him that he was putting his head into a noose, some cynical part of his mind told him that Leone was right – it was inevitable. They had known each other since childhood and while the Marquis had grown up to become the most elegant, the most handsome and the most sought-after Corinthian in the whole of the Bon Ton, Leone, when she emerged from the schoolroom, had become overnight the toast of St. James’s, the ‘Incomparable of Incomparables’ and without exception the most talked-about young woman in London. Even while the Marquis was away fighting in the War he heard of her escapades, her daring, her adventures and a thousand ways in which she contrived to get herself criticised by the older generation. He had returned to London when an armistice was declared between France and Great Britain to find Leone at the peak of her beauty. He had found it amusing to flirt with her when they met, but he did not make any push to become one of the circle of infatuated bucks who followed her adoringly. The Marquis already had the reputation of a gay Lothario and there were countless ladies of fashion ready to fall into his arms and ready, if he as much as looked in their direction, to make open for him a way into their hearts and their bedchambers. In a very short time the Marquis’s love affairs were the talk of every Club. Society, ever eager for succulent titbits of gossip, exaggerated the number of husbands he had cuckolded and his many affaires de coeur, but there was, in fact, little room for exaggeration. The Marquis, refusing no feminine favours, at the same time grew increasingly more cynical. He had enjoyed the cut and thrust of war and he had gloried in having to fight to win. It was in contrast almost banal to find how easy a different sort of conquest could be and how inevitably boring it was to be the pursued rather than the pursuer. He also became aware that most people thought a match between Leone and himself would not only furnish a respectable ending to her somewhat flamboyant escapades, but would also be an advantage to them both. It was time Leone settled down, it was time she married and, while she had everything to gain with regard to rank and wealth by becoming the Marchioness of Alton, she was also not averse to winning for herself the most sought-after bachelor in the length and breadth of the country. From the Marquis’s point of view the situation was even simpler. It was important that he should be married. His relations continued to tell him so until he avoided them, because the subject made him yawn, but when Mr. Pitt had started on the same track he was astonished. “What you want, Alton,” the former Prime Minister said almost aggressively, “is a wife.” “A wife?” the Marquis queried in surprise, “Yes, a wife,” Mr. Pitt repeated. “It has been over a month now since, on my return to the House of Commons, I asked you to ferret out the Napoleonic spies in our midst and one in particular. But you have got no further in discovering who this traitor may be. It is always the women who have secrets whispered to them on the pillow and repeat them to their bosom friends the following morning.” “I assure you, sir,” the Marquis said with a little twist of his lips, “that I hear a deal of female chatter.” “That I can well believe,” Mr. Pitt assented, “but I still think you would learn more if you had a wife constantly by your side, a wife who perhaps would not spend so much time prattling about love as your present fair charmers do.” The Marquis put back his head and laughed. Then he said quite seriously, “I am prepared to oblige you, sir, by devoting my time, my wealth and anything else you may ask of me in trying to solve your immediate problems, but even for the sake of my country I am not prepared to shackle myself to some empty-headed chatterbox, whose conversation when the War is over I would have to endure for what would seem an eternity of time.” Mr. Pitt had smiled and then said, “I understand only too well your devotion to bachelorhood, but at the same time, Alton, this is damned serious. I am absolutely convinced that the traitor is someone close to the Government, someone in one of our most vital Ministries. But God knows whether it is the Admiralty, the War Office or the Foreign Office!” “Then you do admit, sir, that you have given me a difficult assignment,” the Marquis smiled. “I know no one who could do it better,” Mr. Pitt declared, “but I still think you need a wife to help you.” It was with Mr. Pitt’s words ringing in his ears that the Marquis had looked down at Leone seated beside him on the sofa, her dark seductive eyes half closed with a passionate intensity that he knew was not all pretence. He was well aware that she was trying with every womanly wile she had ever known to entice him into declaring himself. “Oh, Justin,” she purred softly, “you know we would deal well together. We could give the most sought after parties in London and we could entertain at Alton Park. We would be, if it is not conceited to say so, the best-looking couple the Bon Ton has ever seen. And besides all that, I have a decided partiality for you, as you well know.” There was a feline sensuality in the manner in which her eyes slanted at him from beneath her dark lashes and there was an open invitation in the pouting red lips raised towards his. “You are very lovely, Leone,” the Marquis said thickly and put out his hand to touch the rounded whiteness of her long neck. There was no telling who had made the first move, but the Marquis found himself kissing her passionately and with a certain brutality that she somehow evoked in him by her very compliance. It was the sophisticated kiss of two people easily aroused to passion and, as the Marquis drew her closer and closer, he could not help wondering in some detached part of his mind how many men had kissed her in just this way before, how many men had held the soft warm seductiveness of her body in their arms and found their breath come quicker at the fiery response of her lips. Leone’s arms were round his neck and, as he crushed her almost breathless with the violence of his desire, he might at that moment have said the words she was longing to hear had they not been interrupted. There was a sudden noise in the hall outside the salon and a male voice called, “Leone, are you there?” It was the Viscount Thatford returning home from a party and Leone had drawn herself reluctantly from the Marquis’s arms. “It’s Peregrine,” she said with a note of anger in her voice.