The Temple of Love

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1900-1

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1900Driving from the Station towards Government House, the Duke of Inglebury hardly noticed the familiar overcrowded streets of Calcutta.

There was an endless stream of humanity, a confusion of bullock carts and the inevitable hawkers of rice cakes, bananas and betel nuts.

His thoughts were in fact far away with the magnificent building of the Taj Mahal.

Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the new Viceroy, had arrived in India in 1898.

His great love of architecture had soon made him aware that its architectural heritage had been allowed, through the indifference of the Indians, to be almost irretrievably damaged.

He had therefore set himself yet another task in his already abnormally large brief as Viceroy.

It was to set in motion a programme of restoration, which he himself would personally supervise.

His concern was not limited to Hindu and Islamic monuments, but he was also keenly interested in the British India buildings of the Georgian period.

It was, the Duke was thinking, as he had thought before, very appropriate that Lord Curzon should find in Government House, Calcutta, a replica of his own ancestral home in Derbyshire.

It was, in fact, the Earl of Mornington, who in 1798 had decided that the existing Government House, which was in no way superior to the mansions of the leading Calcutta citizens, was unworthy of his station.

He had ordered that it should be pulled down and the Palace he erected on the site was to become a symbol of the growth of British power.

It had been finished in four years and, although the cost of over sixty-three thousand pounds was considered excessive, it was undoubtedly the finest Government House in the world.

The splendour of its Ionic facade was matched only by the admirable simplicity of its great rooms.

The adaption of a plan of Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire gave it a central block containing the State Apartments joined to four wings by curving corridors.

If the Viceroy appreciated it, so did the Duke.

He had not hesitated when he had received an invitation from Lord Curzon asking him to proceed to India immediately.

The Viceroy had explained that he needed his help with the improvements that he intended to make at Government House.

Also he wanted his advice on the beautiful and unique Temples of India, which were falling into dilapidation because no one had the sense to realise their historical value.

The Duke was intrigued and he actually had another motive for wishing to leave England at this particular moment.

During the autumn shooting season he had become involved with Lady Charlotte Denington.

The Duke would have been very stupid if he was not aware that he was undoubtedly the greatest matrimonial catch in Britain at that particular time.

He had inherited the Dukedom unexpectedly, owing to the death of two more direct heirs.

He noted that had not been pursued so ardently when he was a mere Subaltern in the Royal Horse Guards.

Although extremely good-looking and well born, he had not been over-blessed with worldly goods and so he had reached the age of twenty-seven without being pressured up the aisle in marriage.

He, in fact, enjoyed himself with the sophisticated and very beautiful women who the Prince of Wales surrounded himself with.

When he had unexpectedly become the fourth Duke of Inglebury, everything had changed.

It was obvious to him that now ambitious mothers spoke to him in a very different tone of voice from the one that they had used previously.

Suitable young women were scattered in front of him like rose petals in the hope that one of them might become his Duchess.

He had, however, made up his mind that he had no intention of marrying until everything he possessed was in good order and until he found somebody he considered worthy to bear his name.

The Burys were an ancient family dating back in history over very many generations.

As far as the Duke could ascertain, there had been a few rakes among them, but they had certainly never been involved in any scandal nor had they done anything to besmirch or despoil the family name.

Marriage was therefore for the time being out.

Instead he busied himself with making Ingle Castle one of the most comfortable as well as most magnificent private houses in England.

He had no wish to share it with anybody until, as he told himself, he was considerably older.

At the age of thirty-three, he considered himself to be still a young man.

This was not surprising because, as he was so intelligent, most of his friends were older than him and he found that they welcomed him in their company.

George Curzon, who had become Viceroy at the age of thirty-nine, had always had a great affection for the Duke.

He had been determined soon after he arrived in India to invite him as one of his guests.

The Duke, as it happened, had so many matters to attend to in England that he would not have accepted Lord Curzon’s invitation so quickly or with so much pleasure if it had not been for Lady Charlotte.

He had been aware during the Season of the previous year that wherever he went she was invariably present.

Acclaimed by everybody as one of the great beauties of the century, she was at the age of twenty- seven at the height of her loveliness.

It would have been impossible for any hostess to give a ball or a large dinner party without including her.

She certainly charmed almost every man she came in contact with.

The daughter of the Duke of Cambria, she had run away when she was seventeen with Philip Denington.

He was extremely handsome, in fact, devastatingly so, and to a girl of seventeen he must have appeared like a young God.

He was, however, of little social standing and the Duke of Cambria was furious.

There was nothing he could do about it but accept his son-in-law with a good grace.

He did not pretend, however, to be upset when Philip Denington, riding recklessly in a steeplechase, broke his neck.

By this time Charlotte was twenty-four and surprisingly there had been no children of the marriage.

When her year of mourning was over, the Duke and his wife were determined that their daughter should not make a second mistake.

The Duke then opened up Cambria House in Park Lane.

The first parties they gave there were enough to establish Charlotte as a beauty, who was destined to take London Society by storm.

If her husband had looked like a God, she certainly now looked like a Goddess.

She was tall, fair and with a full almost voluptuous figure, which was the fashion at the moment.

Her skin was the pink-and-white that was proverbially English and her eyes were the bright blue of forget-me-nots.

Moreover, her years with Denington, who was a much older man, had taught her how to be witty and amusing. She would also flirt with any man who approached her in a manner that held him spellbound.

The Duke would have been inhuman if he had not found Lady Charlotte attractive.

He soon learned that the Social world that they both moved in had made up its mind that they were ideally matched for each other.

When he dined at Marlborough House, which he did frequently, Lady Charlotte was always sitting on one side of him.

When he was the guest of one of the great hostesses who London abounded with, she was there as if it was her right.

He was well aware that they were talked about.

Many of the things that were said to him in his Club as well as in the ballrooms had a double entendre that insinuated that he was taking a long time in making up his mind.

The Duke could, when he wished, be as cool, aloof and as authoritative as Lord Curzon, who was frequently called an ‘eighteenth century aristocrat born out of his time’.

The Duke also certainly resembled one and had the grand manner that matched his love of splendid houses and architectural treasures.

He could if he wished be very awe-inspiring and he would set down any impertinence by raising his eyebrows or with just a look from his steel-grey eyes.

When friends went too far in revealing their curiosity as to how soon he would announce his engagement to Lady Charlotte, they felt as if they had encountered an iceberg.

It was true, however, that the Duke was asking himself if he would ever find anybody more suitable to be the Duchess of Inglebury.

Charlotte would grace the Inglebury jewels, which were as magnificent as those owned by Princess Alexandra.

When he went to stay with the Marquis of Normington for a pheasant shoot the last week in October, he was not in the least surprised to find that Lady Charlotte was a guest as well.

She was looking, he thought, extremely alluring, even in the sensible tweeds that she wore to accompany the guns.

She sat with him at the first drive and made him laugh and flirted with discretion in front of his loader in a manner that he could not help admiring.

She would certainly be an admirable hostess at Inglebury House in Park Lane and would also, he thought, be equally at home in the country.

Not that he had invited her to Ingle Castle for the simple reason that it would seem too obvious to those who watched them like hawks.

It was there that he would be expected to what was vulgarly called ‘pop the question’ in the Orangery or in the enormous Picture Gallery.

This was one of the first rooms in the house that he had redecorated.

When he shot with an undeniably skilful right and left a brace of very high pheasants, he thought that Lady Charlotte’s admiring little gasp of surprise was very alluring.

‘What am I waiting for?’ he asked himself later that evening.

She had come down to dinner wearing a gown of blue chiffon that echoed the colour of her eyes.

He realised that all the other women in the party were jealous of her, just as all the men were envious of him.

Even more so than usual everybody was making it obvious that it was only a question of time before they were married.

And this annoyed him.

He therefore said nothing when the Dowager Marchioness of Normington, who was nearly eighty, slapped his hand playfully with her fan, as he said ‘goodnight’ to her.

“You are too tardy, young man,” she said in a creaking voice. “Remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare and just be careful that the tortoise does not slip in front of you when you least expect it!”

She laughed at her own joke, displaying her yellowed teeth as she did so.

The Duke felt himself stiffen. He disliked more than anything else his affairs being talked about in public.

He was well aware that several other guests had heard what the Dowager had said and were sniggering.

He had let his valet assist him to undress in silence and only when he was alone did he tell himself that he was fed up with people’s curiosity and their endless interference with his private life.

He would marry whom he pleased and when he pleased and he would be damned if he would be pushed into it by old women or anybody else who had the impertinence to try to meddle in his life.

It was then, to his astonishment, that the door of his bedroom opened and Lady Charlotte came in.

He had not expected her, although it had crossed his mind that, as a widow, it might be expected that she should have a lover.

If, however, there had been men in her life, nobody had told him about them.

Because when they met she always seemed to concentrate on him, he had never thought that there had been anybody else in a more intimate position.

Now it flashed through his mind that, as he had not even kissed her, she might have been piqued by his indifference.