Love Climbs In

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1817-2

He looked defiantly at his friend as he spoke and saw the faint smile on the Marquis’s lips.

“All right I know exactly what you are thinking, that there would not be anyone more attractive than yourself. That may be true at the moment, but what about as you grow older? What if you are ill? Do you think Dilys would sit sewing, or whatever damned thing women do, by your bedside?”

Freddie spoke with a sincerity that was unmistakable and now the Marquis walked a little restlessly up and down the carpet.

“If it is not to be Dilys,” he then asked, “who else is there?”

“A thousand women, all far more suitable for the position than she is!”

The Marquis went on walking and both men were thinking of the woman who they were talking about.

Lady Dilys Powick had startled London from the moment that she became a debutante.

The daughter of the Duke of Bredon, she had the entrée to every stately home and an invitation to every ball and Reception that took place in the Beau Monde.

Six months after leaving the schoolroom she ran away with a penniless young man in a Foot Regiment and married him secretly.

She followed him to Portugal when his Regiment was sent there and behaved so outrageously amongst the camp followers that she was sent home in disgrace.

A few months later her husband was killed in action, but she hardly bothered to give him a thought and certainly made no pretence at mourning.

She was in point of fact far too busy setting London by the ears.

Her behaviour caused her to be ostracised by all the leading hostesses, but because she was beautiful, outrageous and undoubtedly amusing, her house was invariably almost under siege from her numerous admirers.

She picked and chose her lovers in a manner that made those she refused all the more determined to enjoy her favours.

But the Marquis of Troon had been persona grata from the moment he appeared on Dilys’s horizon and for the last six months they had been inseparable.

She had not only taken part in all his pranks, but had in many cases instigated them and what she had said and done had lost nothing in the telling either in the St. James’s Clubs or in the boudoirs of those who hated her.

To the Marquis she had been a kindred spirit, which he told himself was everything he required.

There was nothing too daring for Dilys to undertake, there was no challenge that she refused and her lovemaking was as satisfying and fiery as any man could ever desire.

As the Marquis continued pacing the carpet, Freddie rose to help himself to another glass of champagne from the bottle that had been left in a large silver wine-cooler on a side table.

“There is another thing you have forgotten, Serle,” he then said. “You may think I am old-fashioned, but I think it is essential to marriage.”

“What is that?”

“You are obviously not in love with Dilys.”

“Not in love? Then what the hell do you think I feel for her?”

“Quite a number of things that I need not enumerate,” Freddie replied, walking back to the fireplace with the full glass in his hand. “But none of them are love.”

“How do you know?”

“I have seen you through too many love affairs for me to number, all of which amused, fascinated and even captivated you for a time, but they were none of them love, as I think of it.”

“Then what is love ‘as you think of it’?” the Marquis repeated in a sarcastic voice.

“It is what my father and mother felt for each other and what I would like to feel myself before I settle down.”

“You will have to be a little more explicit than that,” the Marquis stated. “I knew your father and mother and they were always very kind to me, but I never thought that there was anything particular about their relationship with each other.”

“It is not the sort of thing they talked about in public,” Freddie said in a slightly embarrassed voice. “But when my father died, my mother said to me, ‘Freddie, dear, I have nothing to live for now and all I want to do is to join your father.’ She followed him four days later.”

“I had no idea of that,” the Marquis said after a pause. “You don’t mean she killed herself?”

“No, of course not,” Freddie answered. “But he was her whole life and when he was no longer there she just gave up breathing.”

“You have never told me this before.”

“I would not have told you now,” his friend replied, “only I thought that it might make you understand what I am talking about.”

“I am not certain I do understand,” the Marquis said, “but it is making me think.”

“That is what I want you to do.”

The Marquis sighed.

“Neither you nor I, Freddie, are likely to feel like that about any woman.”

He paused before he went on.

“Yes, I do understand what you are trying to say to me. Of course I do. But I am not the romantic sort.”

He saw the expression on his friend’s face and laughed.

“All right! All right! There have been a lot of women in my life and I would not pretend otherwise, some of whom have been damned attractive. Do you remember that little doe-eyed girl in Lisbon?”

The Marquis ceased speaking for a moment and then said,

“No, let’s not get off the track. You are telling me that I have to feel some strange emotion that I have never felt before and then I shall know that I am in love.”

“That is part of it,” Freddie said, “but I have a feeling there is something more.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I think that in every marriage there has to be a common ideal in the relationship, something that you are aiming for together.”

“What I am aiming for,” the Marquis said, “is to have a son.”

“You are being deliberately obtuse. When we used to debate with each other and our friends at Oxford, you know we talked about a great many things we have not mentioned since.”

“Of course we did,” the Marquis agreed, “but it was high-flown balderdash analysing our souls and worrying over what happened in the next world. I have often thought that we wasted a hell of a lot of time talking when we might have been chasing pretty girls.”

“You did that too,” Freddie remarked in a tired voice. “Try to concentrate on what I am saying, Serle, because it’s important.”

“To me or to you?” the Marquis asked quickly.

“To both of us I suppose,” Freddie replied. “I will tell you one thing, our friendship will never be the same if you marry Dilys.”

“Why not?”

Freddie did not reply and the Marquis said slowly as if the idea had suddenly percolated into his mind,

“You are not telling me, you are not saying that you and Dilys – ?”

“That is not the sort of question you should be asking me,” Freddie interrupted.

“Then you have!” the Marquis exclaimed. “Good God, I had no idea.”

“I think you will find yourself in the same uncomfortable position with a large number of your friends,” Freddie said, after a moment as if he was goaded into a reply.

The Marquis walked across to the window and looked out on the green velvet lawns stretching down to the gleaming lake lying below the house, which was spanned by a stone bridge of perfect architectural proportions.

His eyes were on the swans moving slowly across the silver water, but Freddie was sure that he was looking with a new perception into the future and seeing a very different picture from the one he had conjured up before.

There was a long silence before the Marquis said irritably,

“I cannot think, Freddie, why you should come here and upset me and try to alter the plans I have made for myself.”

“If I have upset them, then I can only say that I am sincerely glad,” Freddie remarked.

“Damn you!” the Marquis swore. “There are times when I actively dislike you and this is one of them.”

He had not turned around as he spoke and Freddie, looking at the squareness of his shoulders silhouetted against the light, smiled a little ruefully.

He knew that his friendship with the Marquis was far too deep and too vital to both of them to be destroyed by anything.

At the same time he thought it would be more pleasant if the problem of Dilys had not been raised the very moment after his arrival.

Again there was silence until, as if the Marquis had suddenly made up his mind, he said in a different tone,

“Anyway the question of my marriage can be shelved for the moment at least until after tonight.”

Freddie stiffened.

“What is happening tonight?” he asked.

“Well, it was intended as a grand gesture of goodbye to my freedom and all that sort of thing.”

Freddie looked apprehensive.

“You have not already proposed to Dilys, have you?”

“No, not in actual words, but I rather think that she is already wondering whether or not she should wear a white veil at our Wedding.”

Freddie let out a sound of protest.

“God Almighty, Serle,” he began, “she would be the laughing-stock – ”

He stopped.

“You are roasting me! I might have guessed. Well, let me hear the worst. What have you planned for tonight?”

“A Midnight Steeplechase,” the Marquis replied.

“Is that all?” Freddie questioned. “I thought it would be something new and original. I hate your steeplechases. You always win!”

“This one is going to be different,” the Marquis said, “and what is more the prizes are well worthwhile.”

“What do you call ‘worthwhile’?”

“A thousand guineas!”

“That will cost you nothing. You always come in first.”

“Five hundred guineas to the second and a hundred for third place.”

“That gives somebody a sporting chance,” Freddie admitted. “But what is so original about a Midnight Steeplechase? You have had them before. Your last one left my best horse lame for a month.”

“You should be a better rider,” the Marquis retorted, “and tonight you will have to be.”

“Why?”

“I intend introducing certain handicaps.”

Freddie groaned.

“I just knew that there was going to be something dangerous about it, in which case I am not going to take part.”

“Can you really be so chicken-livered?” the Marquis jeered at him.

“Certainly,” his friend replied. “I consider my life too valuable to throw it away on some schoolboy’s taunt of ‘I ride better than you’. You should grow up, Serle.”

“I will call you out if you talk to me like that,” the Marquis fumed. “This will be a race for grown-ups, I can assure you.”

“If you think I am going to ride in my nightshirt with my eyes bandaged or sitting backwards in the saddle you can count me out.” Freddie retorted. “My father always said theat steeplechases were for fools who want to risk their necks and the more foolish of them end up in the churchyard. That is where I have no wish to be at the moment.”

“Stop being a spoilsport, Freddie,” the Marquis ordered. “Whether you take part or not, there will be at least twenty competitors present because they have already accepted.”

“So you have been planning this nonsense for a long time?”

“For the last three days since I decided to get married,” the Marquis replied. “I told myself if I survived the steeplechase, then I could survive marriage. It seemed that there was nothing much to choose between them except that the steeplechase would undoubtedly be more enjoyable.”

“The truth is that you are seeking danger,” Freddie pointed out. “Now tell me what the conditions are that make this particular Chase unique.”

“I thought it would be amusing,” the Marquis said slowly, as if he was choosing his words carefully, “if every contestant rode as if he only had one arm and one eye. It’s damned difficult, as it happens, to see with one eye when you are used to using two.”

“And that means,” Freddie said, “you will find it hard to take your fences and undoubtedly break your neck! It’s too big a gamble. I will be the referee and use two eyes.”

“Forsett has already agreed to do that,” the Marquis replied. “He disapproves, but at the same time he is completely just and everyone will accept his decision should there be any controversy.”

Freddie knew this was true where Lord Forsett was concerned.

He was older than the Marquis and himself and he had been too badly wounded in battle to be able to race his horses or to walk without a stick.

They all respected him as a brave man and it was true that, whatever decision he made, they would accept.

“Forsett or no Forsett,” Freddie said, “I can only hope that you have ordered plenty of stretcher-bearers to pick up the casualties and Surgeons to set broken arms and legs, besides grave-diggers to bury those who fall on their heads.”