Revenge of the Heart

Chapter One 1894-1

Chapter One

1894Warren Wood walked into the Hotel Meurice and made himself known to the receptionist.

He had not been in Europe for nearly a year and only after the receptionist had sent for the manager was he duly recognised.

“It is delightful to see you again, Monsieur Wood!” he said in excellent English. “I hope you enjoyed your trip abroad.”

‘Trip’ was hardly how Warren would have described his journey through North Africa in which there had been moments of delight, but a great deal of acute discomfort, besides times when his life had been in danger.

He was, however, too glad to be back in Paris to be argumentative, so he merely asked if he could have a room, if possible the one he usually occupied and if his luggage, which he had left at the hotel nearly a year ago, could be sent up to him.

All this was promised with a politeness he had always found characteristic of the French.

Then, as he would have turned away from the desk, the manager said,

“I have some correspondence for you, monsieur. Would you like it now or shall I send it up to your room?”

“I will take it now, if you have it handy.”

The manager disappeared into an inner sanctum and returned with a large packet of letters fastened together with string.

Warren Wood took it, put it under his arm, then waited for the page that was carrying a piece of his small baggage to go ahead and show him the way.

The room, if not the same one in which he had stayed before, was identical and on the Fourth Floor, from which he had a delightful view of the roofs and trees of Paris.

As he stood at the window while the porters brought in his luggage, he thought there was nothing so attractive and beautiful as Paris in the sunshine.

High above the houses with their grey shutters, which he thought when driving from the station he would recognise anywhere in the world, rose the Eiffel Tower, nine hundred and eighty-four feet high, which had been completed for the Exhibition which had taken place five years before.

Its metal structure, as one Frenchman Warren had met at the time had boasted, was symbolic of the creativity, vigour and brilliance of France.

But at that moment, Warren had not been interested in anything else except his own feelings of frustration and despair.

Almost as if the Tower silhouetted against the sky made him remember what he had determined to forget, he turned from the window, tipped the porters who were waiting expectantly and sat down in an armchair to look at his letters.

He was surprised there were so many and he wondered who, except his mother, could have bothered to write to him after he had left England.

Then, as he undid the string and removed the neat band of paper that held the letters together, he looked at the one on top of the pile and stiffened.

For a moment he could hardly credit what he was seeing.

Yet there was no mistaking the flamboyant lettering, the pale blue envelope that was so familiar and the subtle, seductive scent of magnolias which personified the writer.

He stared at the envelope as if it fascinated him, and yet at the same time he was afraid to open it.

Why, he asked himself, should Magnolia, of all people, be writing to him here in Paris?

That she had done so meant that she must have obtained his address from his mother, who was the only person who knew where he would be staying on his journey home.

He told himself that if there was one person he did not wish to hear from at this moment, it was Magnolia.

Then with a frown between his eyes and a tightening of his lips he carefully opened the envelope.

Warren Wood was an extremely good-looking young man, but his appearance had altered in the last year from the personification of an elegant ‘man-about-town’ to become more intensely masculine and at the same time harder and more ruthless.

It would have been impossible to live through the experiences he had shared with Edward Duncan without learning that life was not just a round of amusements and pleasure, as it had been in the past, and that it could never be the same again.

At times on their journey in Africa Warren had thought that he could not stand it any longer and must admit the elements, the incredibly unpalatable food and most of all the camels had defeated him.

If there was one thing Warren had grown to hate, it was the camels. They were lazy, tiresome, unpleasant beasts, difficult to handle, smelt abominably and at first riding them had made him feel seasick.

After nearly a year’s endurance he had learnt to master them, but he knew that while he loved horses and could not imagine his life without dogs, the camel was undoubtedly his bête noire.

He even thought they reminded him of some of his friends and acquaintances, and had once said to Edward,

“I shall certainly avoid these people in the future!”

To which Edward had laughed almost derisively.

When they left each other the morning before at Marseilles, he had said,

“Goodbye, Warren! I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed your company and what a delight it has been to have you with me.”

He spoke so sincerely that Warren felt almost embarrassed thinking of the times when he had cursed himself for accepting Edward’s invitation.

However, he knew when he looked back on these last months that they had enriched his character and broadened his horizons in many ways that he had never anticipated.

And yet now, the first thing he had found on his return was a letter from Magnolia.

And it was because of Magnolia that he had gone to Africa to forget.

*

He had been sitting in his Club in St. James’s with a large glass of brandy beside him when Edward had sat down in an adjacent chair.

“Hello, Warren!” he had said. “I have not seen you for some time, but then I have been in the country.”

“Hello!”

The tone of Warren’s voice made Edward look at him sharply.

“What is the matter?” he asked. “I have not seen you look so down in the dumps since you were beaten in the long jump at Eton!”

Warren did not reply, he only looked down at the glass beside him and so Edward asked in a different tone,

“What has upset you? Can I help?”

“Not unless you can tell me the best way of putting a bullet through my brain!” Warren answered.

His friend looked at him searchingly before he enquired,

“Are you serious?”

“Very! But I suppose if I did shoot myself it would distress my mother, who is the only person I can trust in this damned crooked, filthy world in which everybody lies, and lies and lies!”

He spoke so violently that Edward glanced around the room hoping he was not being overheard.

Fortunately there were only two other members, elderly and half asleep, in the big leather chairs at the other end of the room, oblivious to everything except themselves.

“It is not like you to talk like this,” Edward remarked. “What has happened?”

Warren had given a bitter laugh and Edward, who had known him since they had been at school and Oxford together, realised he had had a lot to drink, which was for him very unusual and he was now at the talkative stage.

“Tell me what is wrong,” he said coaxingly.

As if he was glad to have somebody with whom to share his feelings, Warren replied,

“It is not a very original story, but I have just learnt that the only thing that counts is a man’s possessions – not himself!”

“You cannot be speaking of Magnolia?” Edward asked tentatively.

“Who else?” Warren replied. “When I took her down to stay at Buckwood it never crossed my mind that she was not, as she had assured me, as much in love with me as I was with her.”

He paused and his fingers tightened on his glass as he said fiercely,

“I loved her, Edward, loved her with my whole heart! She was everything I wanted in a woman and as my wife.”

“I know that,” Edward replied quietly, “but what happened then?”

Again there was that bitter and unpleasant laugh before Warren replied,

“You may well ask! She met Raymond!”

Edward stared at him.

“Do you mean your cousin? But, good Heavens, he has only just come of age!”

“What did that matter, beside the fact that he is an Earl?”

In a mocking, sarcastic voice Warren went on,

“My dear Edward, you must realise, as I was stupid enough not to do, that all a woman needs to make her happy is a title and money. What the man himself is like is utterly and completely immaterial!”

Edward would have spoken, but Warren continued,

“He may have bow legs, crossed eyes and warts on his nose, but if he is likely to become a Marquis, then the idea of being his wife supersedes every other feeling in what she quite erroneously describes as her – heart!”

He choked over the last word and drained what was left in his glass, then put up his hand to attract a waiter.

Fortunately there was not one in the room at that moment and then Edward said,

“Before you get too drunk, Warren, tell me the whole story. I am not only interested, but very sympathetic.”

“Thank you, old boy!” Warren replied. “I suppose I can trust you not to let me down, although I swear to God I will never trust a woman again – never!”

“But surely,” Edward protested, “Magnolia does not intend to marry Raymond?”

“Oh, yes, she does!” Warren replied. “And now I look back, I realise she made a dead set for him the very moment we walked into Buckwood! I suppose, now I think about it, Raymond did not stand a chance as soon as she looked at him with her large dewy eyes!”

Edward knew this was very likely true.

Magnolia Keane was not only beautiful, but she had practised the art of fascinating men until, as Edward was well aware, she could exert an almost hypnotic influence on anyone she desired.

He had known quite a lot about Magnolia before she met his friend Warren Wood, and the first time he saw them together he had thought it a mistake for him to become embroiled with her.

Coming from a good county family, Magnolia had migrated to London determined to find herself a rich and important husband.

It should have been easy, Edward thought, considering how extremely beautiful she was, while her father, who was Master of a well known pack of foxhounds, was popular and had a number of friends in sporting circles.

But Magnolia’s father was not a rich man and while by a great deal of scrimping and saving Colonel Keane could afford to take a house in London for the Season, it was not in the most fashionable area and he did not contemplate giving a ball for his daughter.

This meant that the invitations she received were not as numerous as they would have been if she had been able to reciprocate in the usual manner.

The whole process of bringing out a debutante was very much a ‘cutlet for a cutlet’ and on that basis Colonel and Mrs. Keane and their daughter Magnolia had not been invited to any balls given by the leaders of London Society!

This therefore resulted in Magnolia meeting considerably fewer eligible bachelors than she had hoped.

She did not, in fact, receive a single proposal of marriage during her first Season and, although a great many men admired her, unfortunately most of them were already married.

In consequence the Dowagers gossiped about her and her name was crossed off a number of the lists that every hostess kept punctiliously.

The following year, after having shone like a star at a number of Hunt Balls and attended race meetings and point-to-points at which she was inevitably encircled by a group of admiring men, both old and young, Magnolia came to London again.

She was determined that this time she would end the Season with an engagement ring on her finger.