The Race for Love

Chapter One ~ 1885-1

Chapter One ~ 1885The Duke walked into the dining room and two of the ladies having breakfast hastily rose to their feet.

“Good morning, Hermione,” he said, his eyes resting for a moment with appreciation on his daughter’s pink-and-white beauty.

“Good morning, Papa,” Lady Hermione answered.

Without speaking the Duke glanced towards the girl who had risen from her seat at the other side of the table.

“Good morning, Uncle Lionel!” she said quickly.

The Duke made no response and, with a sound curiously like a groan, he sat down at the head of the table.

The butler hurried to place in front of him on a silver stand a copy of The Times, which had been carefully ironed in the pantry.

A footman, having first filled his cup, set a pot of hot coffee in front of him and another footman offered a crested silver dish.

“Sweetbreads again?” the Duke asked. “What else is there?”

“Kidneys, Your Grace, bacon and eggs and salmon kedgeree.”

The Duke reflected, then with an expression on his face as if all of them were distasteful, he helped himself to the sweetbreads, which had been offered to him first.

“You must be tired, Lionel,” the Duchess said in a solicitous voice. “The train was later last night than I have ever known it.”

“The Railway service gets worse and worse!” the Duke said. “I had hoped to take a train that arrived earlier, but I was prevented from doing so.”

“Prevented?” the Duchess questioned.

“That is something I intend to relate to you.”

He spoke in a significant voice that his wife interpreted as meaning that he did not wish to speak until the servants had left the room.

The silver rack of hot toast was placed at his side and also a gold bell.

Then the butler and the footmen withdrew and, as the door closed behind them, three pairs of expectant eyes were turned towards the head of the table.

The Duke was a good-looking man. He had been considered very handsome in his youth, but now his hair was turning grey and there were lines on his face that made him at times look older than he actually was.

However, he carried himself with a dignity and an air of consequence that made him outstanding wherever he appeared.

It was well known that Queen Victoria, who had a penchant for handsome men, liked the Duke to be in attendance upon her.

Although it necessitated many journeys to London, the Duke was nevertheless flattered that Her Majesty frequently asked his advice and insisted on his presence at innumerable Court functions.

The Duchess had not weathered the years as well as her husband. She had been a pretty fair-haired girl when the Duke married her, but now she looked somewhat faded, although this did not make her any the less of a significant personality.

She had a presence that made strangers nervous and resulted in most of the parties that took place at Langstone Castle seeming very stiff and somewhat of an ordeal for those who took part in them for the first time.

Lady Hermione Lang was the pride of her father’s heart. She was extremely pretty with an unblemished English complexion, fair hair with touches of gold in it and pale blue eyes the colour of a thrush’s egg.

It was doubtful if she would have received so much attention and acclaim had she been born a nonentity and of no social standing.

But, as she was a Duke’s daughter, the glamour of her position added an aura to her looks that made those who saw her and read about her in the Society papers believe her to be more beautiful than she was in actual fact.

The other young occupant of the breakfast table was very different.

Alita Lang was the Duke’s niece.

She lived with her aunt and uncle under sufferance and she never appeared in what was known as ‘the front of the house’ except when the family was alone.

While Lady Hermione was dressed in the very latest fashion with a gown draped in the front and finished with elaborate embroidery that swept into a bustle at the back, Alita’s gown was very different.

An extremely ugly shade of brown without any trimming made by an obviously unskilled hand, it made her skin appear sallow and perhaps accounted for the manner in which her uncle looked at her disdainfully and quickly looked away again.

It was well known that the Duke had an eye for pretty women.

His wife could have related times of deep unhappiness when he had been fascinated by some charmer years younger than himself and she had found herself neglected at balls or ignored even in her own drawing room.

Alita, however, was too used to the manner in which she was treated by her relatives for it to have any further power to hurt her.

And, as if their attitude made her indifferent to her looks as well, her hair was dragged back into an untidy bun at the back of her head.

She made no effort to prevent tendrils escaping from the confines of the pins and there were wisps trailing untidily on each side of her face.

The eyes she now looked at her uncle with were grey and they seemed to match her hair, which was an unusual colour. Someone had once described it as ‘ash’.

“You are an ash-blonde,” one of her Governesses had said to her.

But that was long ago in the past, when her appearance had been of importance not only to her father and mother but also to herself.

Now she seldom even bothered to look in the mirror in the morning when she rose and, if she did so when she changed for dinner, it was merely to see that she did not look so unkempt as to evoke a reprimand from her aunt.

“What I have to tell you,” the Duke said now with a slow pomposity that often infuriated his contemporaries, “is that Yeovil, who was poor D’Arcy’s trustee, kept me late at the Club discussing the sale of Marshfield House and estate.”

“It has been sold?” the Duchess exclaimed. “Then why did no one tell me about it?”

“I am telling you now, my dear,” the Duke said.

“I asked Mr. Bates only a week ago if they had heard of a purchaser,” the Duchess went on in a complaining voice, “and he assured me that the house was too big to be interesting to many people. ‘The trustees are hoping they’ll find a millionaire!’ he said to me.”

“And that is exactly what they have found!” the Duke remarked.

“A millionaire?”

“A multi-millionaire!” the Duke added firmly.

“Oh, Papa, that sounds exciting!” Hermione exclaimed.

“It is very exciting, Hermione,” the Duke answered. “I was introduced to the gentleman in question two days ago at Windsor Castle by the American Ambassador.”

“The American Ambassador?” the Duchess queried.

“The purchaser of Marshfield House, my dear, is an American!”

The Duchess looked obviously disconcerted, but, before she could express her feelings, the Duke went on,

“Clint Wilbur is, I assure you, a most personable young man. I have invited him for dinner tonight.”

“Tonight?” the Duchess cried and it was almost a shriek. “But there is no time to arrange a party.”

“We don’t really need a party,” the Duke said. “I thought that it would be pleasant for Mr. Wilbur to meet us as a – family.”

He looked at Hermione as he spoke and the Duchess, who was not an obtuse woman, did not fail to understand what he was thinking.

“But an – American!” she said, as if he had spoken his thoughts aloud.

“The Wilburs, I understand, are a respected and distinguished family,” the Duke said. “The Ambassador told me that they are related to the Vanderbilts and to the Astors.”

“Is he really so rich, Papa?” Hermione enquired.

“I am informed that he is one of the richest and most eligible bachelors in America and he owns an astronomical number of oilfields, railroads, shipping lines and Heaven knows what else!”

As if the Duchess had finally got the message, she said,

“We must certainly do our best to help Mr. Wilbur settle in. But why should he wish to buy such a large estate in England?”

“That brings me to another piece of information,” the Duke said in a tone of satisfaction. “Wilbur told me that he is interested in buying some horses, especially hunters. He will hunt with the Quexby.”

Now the Duke looked at his niece and, as if he thought that her attention was wandering, he said sharply,

“Did you hear what I said, Alita?”

“Yes, Uncle Lionel.”

“Then kindly see that the horses which you spend so much time on look their best when Mr. Wilbur comes to see them.”

“I will do that, Uncle Lionel.”

“I will discuss with Bates the prices we should ask for them.”

“I have a much better idea of what they would fetch in a sale room than Mr. Bates has,” Alita ventured.

There was a momentary silence after she had spoken, as if the Duke resented her being so knowledgeable.

Then he replied grudgingly,

“Very well, I will discuss it with you. This is your chance to prove that the large amount of money you have inveigled me into spending on the stables has been worthwhile.”

“I am sure Mr. Wilbur would find it difficult to find better horses to purchase, at least in this part of the country,” Alita said.

“I hope you are right!” the Duke replied.

“Don’t sell too many horses, Papa,” Hermione pleaded petulantly. “I want some of your best ones to carry me out hunting this year. Those I rode last Season were far too wild. They frightened me!”

Alita looked across the table at her cousin and thought, as she had so often before, that it was really a mistake for Hermione to ride at all.

She was always afraid of her horse, however quiet it might be, and she looked far more attractive attending a meet in a carriage or a pony cart and then driving home without taking part in the sport.

But Hermione was well aware that, if she wanted to meet gentlemen without the stiff formality that existed in her parents’ house, the best place was in the hunting field.

Every winter, therefore, she forced herself to hunt with the fashionable Quexby foxhounds, even though, as her cousin was well aware, she hated every minute of it.

“How many horses will Mr. Wilbur want?” the Duchess enquired.

“Let’s hope he will buy the lot!” the Duke said. “God knows we need the money.”

The Duchess sighed.

“I was going to speak to you on that subject, Lionel, but I decided to wait until you returned from Windsor.”

“If you are about to ask me for an increase in your housekeeping allowance or for any quite unnecessary decorations in The Castle, you can save your breath!” the Duke said.

He spoke sharply and then turned his attention to The Times, opening it out with a great rustling of the pages and folding it neatly so that he could read, as he always did, the editorial first.

“It is all very well, Lionel, for you to talk like that,” the Duchess said plaintively, “but the curtains in the drawing room are almost threadbare and Hermione must have some new gowns this winter. She cannot appear at the balls wearing the same clothes she wore last year.”

Alita knew that, once her aunt embarked on a list of the things she required for the house and her daughter, it would be an endless monologue.

Hastily she pushed back her chair.

“Will you please excuse me, Aunt Emily?” she asked. “After what Uncle Lionel has told us, I have a great deal to do.”

“I will come down to the stables in about an hour’s time,” the Duke said. “Then we will discuss the prices of the animals we decide to sell.”

“Very good, Uncle Lionel.”

Alita went hastily from the room and the Duke remarked,

“That girl looks more like a scarecrow every day. Can you not tidy her up a bit?”

“What is the point?” the Duchess asked. “You know as well as I do that nobody sees her. But what I want to talk about, Lionel – ”

She was off again on the familiar tack and Alita, running down the corridor, was thankful that she had escaped.

She went up the staircase two steps at a time and, rushing into her bedroom, threw off the gown she had worn for breakfast and put on her riding habit.

It was very old, worn and almost threadbare, but it had come from a very expensive tailor and the cut of it had not been lost in the years that it had been in service.