Rivals For Love

CHAPTER ONE - 1790-1

CHAPTER ONE

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1790Lady Elva Chartham brought down her pistol and fired at the target, which she had attached to a tree.

Now she walked forward to see where the bullet had gone and noted with satisfaction that she had hit the bull’s eye.

She took three more shots, each time being equally successful and then with a smile on her lips she walked back through the garden towards the house.

She had always been determined to shoot as well as her father who was an outstanding shot, but he had said firmly that it was quite unnecessary because she was a girl.

If she had been a boy, it would have been the first skill he insisted upon.

“As I intend to travel all over the world, Papa,” Lady Elva told him, “I think it is essential for me to be able to protect myself.”

Her father had laughed.

“I shall make quite certain, if you do travel, my dearest, that you will have someone responsible to protect you who can cope with pirates, robbers or any other scoundrel you may encounter.”

Her father’s words sounded excellent at the time, Elva considered, but she had not yet undertaken a journey abroad. Whenever she had suggested a trip, she had been told firmly that she must finish her education first.

Now her studies were over.

As the Earl of Chartham’s only daughter she had been an instant success the moment she had appeared in London.

She received invitations to a large number of balls, receptions, luncheons and other festivities at which girls of her age were invited if they were debutantes.

However, she had come home without any warning after only three weeks in London.

Her father was away in the North of England and she was well aware that when he returned he would have a great deal to say to her on the subject.

In the meantime she was enjoying herself in the way she wanted.

She rode for many hours every day on the best horses in her father’s stables and she was also teaching herself to shoot, since no one else would take the time to instruct her.

She walked into the family home, which was a fine example of Charles II architecture that had been in the Chartham family for several generations.

The butler, Beecham, hurried forward.

“I’ve just been looking for you in the stables, my Lady,” he said reproachfully. “But your Ladyship weren’t there.”

“I was in the garden,” replied Elva, “and you can put this away for me.”

She handed to him the pistol she had been using, which was actually one that her ancestors had used for duelling.

Beecham looked at it in astonishment, but before he could say anything he remembered why he had needed to speak to her Ladyship.

“Lady Violet has arrived, my Lady,” he intoned, “and is waiting for you in the drawing room.”

“Aunt Violet!” exclaimed Elva in surprise. Then as if she knew the reason for her visit, she smiled.

“I will go to her at once, Beecham, I expect you have already asked her Ladyship if she requires anything to eat or drink.”

“Her Ladyship said she’ll wait until teatime, my Lady.”

By the time he had finished speaking Elva was hurrying down the passageway and when she reached the drawing room door, she rushed in to find her aunt, Lady Violet Grange, standing at the window. She was looking at the large flock of white pigeons clustering around the fountain.

“This is a lovely surprise, Aunt Violet!”

Her aunt turned round in delight.

Lady Violet had been a great beauty in her time. She had married a penniless young man which had been a disappointment to her relations. Because she had been a huge success in London they had expected her to marry someone of great importance, of course, with a title.

Instead she had fallen head-over-heels in love with Edward Grange the first time they met and he had lost his heart to her completely.

They insisted on being married as soon as possible.

Edward Grange was in the Diplomatic Service and he had taken his wife to many different parts of the world where he had been posted to British Embassies.

It had surprised Lady Violet’s relations, but not her, that he rose so quickly to the top of his profession. He was sent to many of the most influential Embassies until eventually he became a British Ambassador and was knighted by the Prince Regent.

Of course, Lady Violet’s choice of a husband was then applauded by everyone, whereas in the past it had been assumed that she had just thrown herself away on someone of no significance.

Elva ran across the room towards her aunt thinking that while she loved her it was quite unnecessary for her father to have sent her on what would prove a hopeless mission.

The two kissed each other and Lady Violet began with a smile,

“I expect you know why I am here, Elva.”

“I felt sure that Papa would write to you for help,” replied Elva. “But do not waste time in reproaching me, because I have no intention whatsoever of going back to London.”

“But why not? That, Elva, is what really interests me. Why did you suddenly run away and return home? What has upset you?”

She moved as she was speaking towards the sofa which faced the fireplace and sat down.

Elva did not speak and her aunt continued,

“Your father is astonished and I think rather angry. What intrigues me is the reason why you ran away.”

“I will tell you exactly why, Aunt Violet. I was so bored.”

Lady Violet stared at her.

“Bored?” she echoed.

“If you think it is amusing to go to one ball after another, to be one of a crowd of giggling girls who are all terrified they will not be asked to dance by a lot of stupid stuck-up young men, you are very much mistaken.”

She paused for a moment.

“The only thing the girls are frightened of is that they will be a ‘wallflower’ and the other girls will laugh at them. I must have been to eight balls and after the last one I told myself ‘enough is enough’.”

“But Elva, you had other amusements as well as balls!” questioned Lady Violet quizzically.

“I could walk in the Park and meet the same people I had seen the night before,” retorted Elva. “I could go to luncheons where, because Papa possesses a title, I was paired off with whomever the hostess considered to be the most distinguished young man present.”

“But surely you enjoyed it all, my dear?”

“Enjoy it?” fumed Elva. “Most of those men did not have a brain in their heads!”

“How can you be so sure? After all, as you said yourself, they come from distinguished families.”

“I suppose some of them might possibly become distinguished in another twenty years. In which case I might have enjoyed talking to them, but I was just not prepared to wait that long!”

Lady Violet made a gesture.

“Listen, dearest Elva, now you are grown up you can do many more things that you were not allowed to do before. But you have first to make your appearance as a debutante.”

“I have appeared, I have done it and now I have come home,” asserted Elva firmly. “And I can assure you, Aunt Violet, that I am not going back!”

“What about the balls you have already accepted and all the other invitations I have seen on your writing table?”

“I have told my Papa’s secretary to refuse the lot. Nothing and no one is now going to force me to go back to London, not even you, Aunt Violet, and you know how much I love you.”

Aunt Violet’s eyes softened.

“And I love you, Elva, and I always have, just as I loved your mother. She was one of the most charming and beautiful women I have ever known.”

She paused for just a moment before she added very quietly,

“And you resemble her in every way. Really, what more can you want?”

“I do want a great deal more,” insisted Elva. “And as I guessed that sooner or later I was bound to have this conversation, I have been making a list in my mind of what I do want out of my life.”

“Then tell me about it, my dear, because you know I have to convince your father that what you are doing is reasonable. At the moment he is really very angry with you!”

“It is all very well for Papa to feel like that, but he is enjoying himself fishing, which is what he likes, and so I can see no reason why I cannot do what I like.”

“And what is that?” asked her aunt cautiously.

“I want to travel abroad and see something of the world. I have no intention of being married off to some idiotic young man, who thinks that I am a good catch just because I am Papa’s daughter.”

Lady Violet gave a little grunt of irritation before she responded,

“No one is asking you to get married when you are only eighteen, but a great many girls are fortunate enough to fall in love during their first Season.”

Elva laughed scornfully.

“If you call it falling in love to be pushed up the aisle, Aunt Violet, because the man has a title and knows his family will approve of you because you have one too, and some money as well, which is always useful! That is not what I want.”

Lady Violet was silenced for a moment.

She considered it a great mistake that Elva had money of her own. She had been left what many people would call a fortune by one of her Godparents. Most girls of her age were completely dependent on their parents and their fathers would be in a strong position of being able to threaten, ‘I will cut you off without a penny.’

“Now let’s talk sense, dearest,” Lady Violet battled on. “I am sure your father will arrange to take you abroad a little later on when it suits him. But you know at the moment he loves his salmon fishing and you will therefore have to wait until he comes home.”

“I am quite prepared to wait,” agreed Elva, “but do you know what going abroad with Papa would be like?”

Lady Violet did not reply and she continued,

“We will go to Paris where I will be bidden to the same sort of balls as in London. We might go as far as Hamburg or Baden-Baden, which will be very much the same as Paris or London. That is not my idea of travel!”

“What then do you really want to do?”

There was a short silence.

“I dream every night of journeying to strange and unusual places. I want to see the world I have read about in books – the Middle East, the desert, perhaps even the Himalayas.”

For just a moment Lady Violet could not think of a reply.

Then she said,

“I am sure it will all happen to you in time. I have seen much of the world myself, as you know, because I fell in love with Edward.”

She stopped for a moment before she added softly,

“But I married him because I loved him and if we had been forced to spend our lives in a small village I would have been just as happy.”

She spoke with a sincerity that Elva found very moving.

“You are exceptionally lucky, Aunt Violet, but I can assure you that when I looked round the ballrooms in London, I saw no one there with the intelligence of Uncle Edward. Unless they were at least sixty years old!”

Lady Violet laughed.

“You are just making a story out of it, Elva. You have not really tried out London properly. Be a good girl, come back with me now, and you can stay with me if you like before we depart for Madrid, where you know Uncle Edward has just been appointed Ambassador.”

“I should love to stay with you, Aunt Violet, but you know quite well that you are only asking me so that I can go to more of those ghastly balls. I really cannot waste my time all over again, listening to endless idiotic remarks of even more brainless young men.”

Lady Violet laughed as if she could not help it.

“Can you tell me then what I am to say to your father, my darling Elva? I wrote and told him I would come down to the country to see you.”

“Tell him that I am just impossible and you have now washed your hands of me,” suggested Elva impishly. “You can tell him too that I am perfectly content here at home and if I marry at all it will be to one of his horses!”