Love for Eternity

CHAPTER ONE ~1879-1

CHAPTER ONE ~1879“I am sorry, dearest, but the Queen insists that I go to Balmoral and I simply cannot refuse.”

Lord Melford spoke very apologetically.

His wife, however, pouted her lips and then walked angrily across the room.

“How could Her Majesty upset everything, just as we have planned it?” she asked. “I think it’s most unfair and very annoying.”

“I agree with you,” her husband replied, “but I am afraid, my dearest, our Paris trip is off for the moment.”

Penelope Melford reached the window.

As she stood gazing out, her husband thought that the sun catching her dark hair was very attractive.

His wife one of the great beauties of London and when she had ‘come out’ as a debutante she had been a sensation.

He had married her before she had time to be spoilt and after they were married she became an acknowledged Society beauty.

Whilst he was very proud of her, he often thought that having such a beautiful wife was a great responsibility.

Lord Melford was much older than his wife and he was nearing forty-five, while Penelope had just celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday.

She had, of course, enjoyed marrying someone who was so close to Queen Victoria and who had such a fine reputation in the House of Lords.

Needless to say the other debutantes were jealous of her.

At the same time she had learned as she grew older that she had a wide choice of men, who surrounded her every time she appeared at a party.

It was not only the perfection of her features.

It was also the dazzling white of her skin and her large eyes with a touch of green in them.

Penelope was vivacious, amusing and witty.

She was brought up by a clever father and she knew exactly how to appeal to a man’s mind as well as his body.

She recognised now that her husband was definitely worried at having upset her and so she turned towards him with a smile on her lips.

“Of course, Arthur,” she said, “you have to do what the Queen wants, but I was so looking forward to being in Paris with you.”

“We will go to Paris another time, I promise you,” Lord Melford answered.

She drew a little nearer to him.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “I have ordered a gown which I must have for the ball at Devonshire House.”

There was silence and after a moment she went on,

“You know that you always want me to be the most spectacular person there and it is really a wonderful gown from the designs they sent me.”

Still Lord Melford did not say anything.

After a long moment in a small and almost childish voice, Penelope said,

“Perhaps, dearest, I can just run over for two days for the gown and then come back.”

She gave a sigh and added,

“And there will be nothing else to do while you are away.”

Lord Melford considered this suggestion.

“You cannot go alone,” he pronounced.

“No, of course not,” Penelope agreed. “But I could take my Aunt Muriel with me. You will remember Lady Lindley, you have met her several times at family parties. She is dull but very responsible.”

Lord Melford laughed.

“I am sure she is. I think if she went with you and you stayed at the Vicomte’s house which he has offered us, you will be safe. Equally I shall worry a great deal about you.”

“I will be very well-behaved and then come home as quickly as possible,” Penelope promised him.

Her husband put his arms around her.

“I doubt if you will be any of those things. At the same time, my dearest one, I know you need that gown and therefore you had better go to Paris. But promise me you will be good.”

“I promise! I promise!” Penelope cried. “But, dear Arthur, it will not be the same without you.”

“I only wish I could come with you.”

Lord Melford kissed his wife and she then cuddled herself against him.

“So the truth is,” she murmured, “I have married a man who is so popular that everyone wants him, including the Queen!”

“I wish that was true,” Lord Melford said. “But I have a wife who, unfortunately for me, attracts every man she meets and they continually buzz around her like bees round a honey-pot!”

Penelope smiled.

“You are quite safe, my dear, as long as they keep buzzing!”

Lord Melford laughed again.

“Well then, keep them doing so until I come back, I have to leave very early on Wednesday morning.”

He kissed his wife and went from the room.

When he had gone, Penelope gave what was almost a little childish jump of delight.

She had won.

She had got what she wanted.

It was something she wanted very much indeed.

She sat down at the writing desk and wrote a letter.

It was brief and she put it into an envelope and addressed it.

Then she walked slowly into the hall and ordered her carriage. It was a Victoria drawn by two horses and, as the sun was shining, the hood was down.

It was fifteen minutes later when she drove away from Melford House in Park Lane.

She was aware that everyone on the pavement was admiring her and quite a number of passers-by recognised her.

She had given instructions for the coachman to take her driving in Rotten Row.

But first they were to stop at a house in Berkeley Square, which meant them driving away from Hyde Park.

The carriage stopped outside Welbourne House and Penelope handed the footman the note she had written.

After he delivered it, she was driven back towards Hyde Park and eventually they reached Rotten Row.

There were a large number of other Victorias and carriages parading up and down the Row. Also she saw a number of gentlemen on horseback and a few ladies.

Penelope’s coachman drew up about the centre of Rotten Row where they usually rested.

Almost immediately two young gentlemen rode up, very smart in their top hats and frock coats, and came to the carriage to speak to Penelope.

“I really must tell you, Lady Melford, that you are looking even more beautiful than usual,” one of them said.

While the other gentleman added poetically,

“Hyde Park seemed dark until you arrived.”

Penelope smiled at them and made them laugh.

However she kept looking at the riders moving past the Victoria and waving her hand to one man as he raised his hat and bowing politely to another.

There was no doubt that every man passing tried to catch her eye.

She was undoubtedly far more beautiful than any other woman in Rotten Row.

She very carefully scrutinised everyone passing and yet Penelope did not see the one person she was looking out for.

As she was such a social success, it would have been impossible for her not to have had a few very discreet affaires-de-coeur.

Of which, of course, her husband was unaware.

Penelope was far too clever and Lord Melford did not have the slightest suspicion that she was interested in any other man.

In fact, whenever an affair happened, she was more affectionate and more loving to him than she was at any other time.

Many people, especially his family, told him, when he had married such a young girl, that he was making a mistake.

He very sincerely believed that no man could have a more successful marriage.

His only sadness was that so far Penelope had not presented him with a son and heir.

It was what he needed desperately to inherit his title when he died.

“Just don’t worry about it so much, dearest Arthur,” Penelope said, soothingly whIs only sadness was that sHis

enever they discussed it. “It is just one of those things that take time. We must pray that it will happen sooner or later.”

Actually she had no wish to lose her figure, which was perfection itself.

And it made every man who was infatuated with her compare her to a Greek Goddess.

At the same time there had been no one of any real interest in her life until last week.

She had gone to a party given by the Duchess of Bedford.

The moment she sat down at the dinner table she was acutely aware of the man who was sitting on her right.

She had never met him before, although she had heard of him.

He was even more handsome and more attractive than she had been told.

The Marquis of Welbourne had been abroad a great deal recently and that was the reason why they had not met previously. He had spent some time in India and the best part of a year in Egypt.

His father had died while he had been away and he had become the fourth Marquis while the Earldom went back to the twelfth century.

Penelope had been told of his magnificent house in the County of Huntingdonshire and the moors at his Castle in Scotland gave him the best grouse shooting in the whole country.

She had not been particularly interested.

Then she saw the Marquis himself and she realised immediately why women eulogised about him but they had found him difficult.

“He is often as far away and elusive as the moon,” one woman friend told her.

Penelope had not understood what she had meant by this until she had spoken to the Marquis herself.

There was something aloof about him.

Something which told her that he would not be easy to capture and that he was extremely conscious of his own importance.

As they sat at the dining room table, Penelope said,

“I have heard so much about you, my Lord, I began to think that you were just an illusion.”

The Marquis smiled and countered,

"And I, of course, have heard of the beautiful Lady Melford.”

The way he spoke did not make his words sound as complimentary as they should have been.

“Now that we have met,” Penelope went on, “I hope that you will tell me about yourself and why you have a reputation for being insultingly discriminating as to who you admire.”

The Marquis chuckled.

“I hope that is true, but I prefer the unusual rather than what everyone expects me to admire. So I am always looking for the exceptional.”

“I can understand that,” Penelope replied. “But I do feel sorry for those you sweep on one side as not being good enough.”

By the time that dinner was finished Penelope, by making every effort had, she thought, made him interested in her.

They moved in the same social circle and therefore they met again the next night and the night after.

When they danced together, Penelope admitted that the Marquis attracted her more than any man she had ever met.

It was something unique that vibrated from him in spite of the fact that he remained somewhat disdainful as if the people round him were not good enough for him.

Then Penelope started to intrigue.

It was not in the least difficult to find out who were the Marquis’s closest friends.

She invited them to dinner so that they invited her back or else she would call on them at lucheontime when she knew that the Marquis would be dining with them that day.

“What are you doing tonight, dearest?” she would say. “Arthur has to make a speech in the House of Lords and I am feeling lonely.”

Of course she was then invited to dinner.

She always appeared surprised when she found the Marquis there.

She felt that he had no idea that she was pursuing him, while she was finding him the most difficult man she had ever met.

They danced at the Duchess of Devonshire’s ball and then they went into the garden, which was behind the great house in Piccadilly.

Penelope deliberately walked away from the lights that decorated the flower beds.

There was darkness under the trees beyond them.

Afterwards she could never remember who moved first.

She did not know if it was her or the Marquis.

She was in his arms and he was kissing her.

It was as exciting as she thought that it would be.

A burning fire seemed to rise in both of them and the flames reached their lips.

From then on it was difficult.

Yet somehow Penelope arranged that the Marquis came to the house when Arthur was in the House of Lords.