Count The Stars

Chapter One 1825-1

Chapter One

1825“Major Stanley, Your Grace,” the butler announced.

The Duke of Brockenhurst put down the newspaper he had been reading and looked up expectantly.

Into the library came a vision.

Freddie Stanley was wearing the traditional shining breastplate and high brightly polished riding boots over the white buckskin breeches of the Life Guards.

He had left his wide-cuffed white gloves and his flamboyant, shining silver helmet with its hanging plumes, which had been designed by the King when he was Prince Regent, in the hall.

“You dazzle me, Freddie,” the Duke exclaimed mockingly.

“Damn it all,” his friend replied, “I was handed your message just as I was going on parade and as it seemed so urgent I came the moment I was free.”

Crossing the room with his spurs tinkling he seated himself rather gingerly in an armchair opposite the Duke.

“What’s all this flap-doodle?” he enquired. “I expected to find the house burnt down or to learn that you had lost your fortune on the Exchange, although I imagine that would be impossible.”

“It’s none of those things,” the Duke said in a more serious tone of voice. “The fact is Freddie, I am bored.”

“Bored!” Freddie exclaimed. “You don’t mean to tell me that you have brought me here at a gallop to tell me something I have known for the last two years.”

“You have?”

“Of course I have. It is not surprising.”

“What do you mean it is not surprising?” the Duke asked.

“I will answer that when you tell me why you have suddenly discovered what has been palpably obvious to everyone.”

The Duke shifted a little restlessly in his chair.

“I realised it last night,” he replied, “when I knew it was impossible for me to ask Imogen to marry me.”

Freddie Stanley looked astonished.

“Are you telling me,” he asked after a distinct pause, “that you intend to cry off?”

The Duke nodded.

“But my dear Brock,” Freddie expostulated, “everyone has been expecting the announcement for months. Wentover has stalled his creditors on the assumption that you will pay his debts once Imogen is your wife.”

“I suspected that,” the Duke said. “But why the hell I should be expected to pay for Wentover’s extravagances, especially the diamonds he has given that pretty Cyprian he has in tow, is past my comprehension.”

“It wouldn’t have made much of a hole in your pocket,” Freddie replied briefly. “But I don’t see how you can do it at the eleventh hour.”

“I haven’t actually asked her to marry me.”

“No. But you made it pretty obvious, pursuing her as you have.”

The Duke’s lips twisted cynically as he remarked,

“If you ask me, I was the one pursued.”

“All right, but you did not run away. You gave parties for her in London and in the country, and danced with her at least four or five times at the ball at Windsor Castle – I saw you with my own eyes.”

“I am not denying all that,” the Duke answered testily. “What I am telling you, Freddie, is that I suddenly realised last night that, beautiful though she is, Imogen has the brains of a three-year-old child!”

“I could have told you that,” Freddie commented laconically.

“It’s a pity you refrained from doing so!”

“What was the point? You would not have listened! You were too busy using your eyes instead of your ears where she was concerned.”

“That was exactly what I realised last night!”

There was a pause and then Freddie said,

“You had better tell me about it.”

The Duke drew in his breath.

“I danced with Imogen for the third time at the Richmond’s ball and then we went into the garden. With the moon shining, the Chinese lanterns and all the romantic trappings, I was just about to kiss her, when she said something.”

“What did she say?” Freddie asked curiously.

“I cannot really remember,” the Duke replied. “It was something so banal – so obvious – that I was suddenly aware that it was the sort of remark I would hear her make for the next fifty years and knew I just could not stand it.”

“You really might have discovered this before!”

“I know – I know,” the Duke said testily. “But better late than never. I reiterate, Freddie, I have not asked her to marry me.”

“Then what are you going to do about it?”

“That is what I am asking you,” the Duke replied.

Freddie with some difficulty sat back further in the armchair.

“It is all very well, Brock, but if you don’t marry Imogen, what is the alternative? In your position you have to produce an heir.”

“Plenty of time for that.”

“I know, but if it’s not Imogen, it will be someone very like her.”

“Good God, are you telling me all the women in the Beau Monde are as stupid and brainless as she is?”

“I suppose they are at that age,” Freddie said reflectively. “As you well know, they come out of the schoolroom with only one fixed idea in their heads – ”

“To get married,” the Duke finished.

“Of course and to the highest bidder – and who higher than a Duke?”

“I will not do it!” the Duke said angrily.

There was silence before Freddie replied,

“In that case, unless you are prepared to face the music, which means Wentover’s anger and Imogen’s tears, you had better make yourself scarce.”

“I have been wondering most of the night if that is what I should do.”

“Where have you considered going?”

The Duke shrugged his shoulders.

“Does it matter? I own, as you well know, half a dozen houses in different parts of the country and there is my yacht in the harbour at Folkestone.”

“I suppose you are hoping I will come with you.”

“It did enter my mind,” the Duke replied with a faint smile.

Freddie thought for a moment and then he said,

“I think you are making a mistake.”

“By not marrying Imogen?”

“No – in running away in so obvious a fashion.”

“Damn it all! I am not running away,” the Duke answered. “I am making a strategic withdrawal.”

Freddie laughed.

“A pretty phrase for not facing the enemy.”

“Stop jibbing at me and help me,” the Duke begged. “That is why I have sent for you.”

He paused before he went on,

“I am well aware I am behaving in a somewhat reprehensible fashion. If Imogen would not make me a good wife, I would certainly make her a bad husband.”

“That is very true,” Freddie agreed, “and if you ask me, marrying anyone because it is expected of you is asking for trouble.”

The Duke groaned.

“What else can I do with my relatives at me day and night, talking as if I was Methuselah and implying that in a year or so I shall be incapable of breeding?”

Freddie put back his head and laughed,

“That is one of the few penalties of being a Duke. There are not many others.”

“I am not so sure about that,” the Duke replied. “I find myself bound by a great many restrictions which other people, like yourself, do not have to endure.”

Freddie looked at him speculatively and then he said,

“Do you want to hear the truth, Brock? Or will you find it disturbing to come out of your Cloud Cuckoo Land?”

“Is that where you think I live?”

“I don’t think – I know.”

“All right, tell me the truth – it’s bound to be unpleasant.”

“I have been thinking about you for some time,” Freddie began slowly. “The truth is that you are too important, too handsome, too rich, too damn sure of yourself.”

“Thank you,” the Duke answered sarcastically.

“You asked me for the truth and now you are going to hear it. It is that you are not in touch with reality, both people and the circumstances in which most of us live.”

“That is too much!” the Duke expostulated. “What you are saying is that my life as I live it is too soft. It certainly wasn’t soft when you and I were serving in Wellington’s Army.”

“That was ten years ago,” Freddie replied. “You sold out after Waterloo when your father died and since then you have been cosseted, acclaimed and fussed over as if you were a rare species that must be kept at all costs from the contamination of the world outside one of your Ivory Castles.”

The Duke sighed.

“I suppose you are right – ”

“Just look at the way you live,” Freddie said. “Your servants treat you as if you were a bit of Dresden china. You have Comptrollers, secretaries, agents, managers, who see to all your affairs!”

The Duke made a sound of expostulation, but did not prevent Freddie from continuing,

“When they are not fawning on you and kissing your boots, there is every lovely woman in the social world yearning to go to bed with you or to marry you.”

“Do I hear a note of envy in your voice?” the Duke asked.

“It might be there if I did not know you so well,” Freddie admitted, “but I have watched you growing more cynical and more bored every year. I have told myself a dozen times that I would rather be me than you.”

“I suppose if we were in a fairy story or a French farce,” the Duke said, “we could change places. Wearing my clothes, you would become the Duke and I would go clanking off back to the Barracks in your place.”

“As that is not possible, I have a better idea.”

“What is it?” the Duke asked.

“First, it is quite obvious that you have to disappear. Secondly, I think it would be good for your soul, if you have one, to think about yourself and your future.”

“That is something I do quite frequently.”

“Then you will have to think again,” Freddie stated firmly. “Of how to find a different way of life from the one you are living now. You cannot go on pursuing and raising expectations in maidens’ breasts only to leave them desolate at the Church door.”

“Curse you, Freddie! It’s not a thing I do often,” the Duke expostulated.

“What about Charlotte?”

“Charlotte assumed that I meant marriage,” the Duke replied. “But, as you know, my intentions were strictly dishonourable.”

Freddie laughed.

“The one thing about you, Brock, is that you are always straightforward in your infamy.”

“The same answer applies to Louise if you were thinking of mentioning her,” countered the Duke.

“I had no intention of doing so, as it happens,” Freddie replied. “Louise was certainly not an innocent little flower, she knew what she wanted and at one moment I thought she was going to get it.”

“She deceived me for quite a considerable amount of time,” the Duke admitted.

Freddie bent forward and then winced as his breastplate stuck into him.

“What are you looking for, Brock?” he asked with a serious note in his voice.

“I wish I knew,” the Duke answered. “I just know that I am dissatisfied and, as I have already told you, unutterably bored.”

“Do you really think if we go off together to Cornwall, Wales or even Scotland you will feel any different?” Freddie asked. “No, Brock, you would still be pampered and restricted and, when we come back to London, you will be just as bored as you are now.”

“Then for God’s sake tell me what I can do,” the Duke demanded testily.

“I doubt if you will like it.”

“I will listen to any suggestion you make to me.”

“Very well,” Freddie answered. “What I suggest is you go off alone and incognito.”

“I often travel under one of my other names.”

“I did not mean calling yourself Lord Hurst and travelling with your horses, your servants, your coachmen, your valet and a couple of outriders,” Freddie said scornfully. “When I said alone – I meant alone.”

The Duke looked puzzled.

“Let me explain,” Freddie went on, “and if it makes it any easier, I will make it a wager.”

The Duke listened as his friend continued,

“I bet my Canaletto which is the only really valuable thing I possess, against your team of chestnuts, that you will not ride from here to York, alone, unaccompanied, incognito, without giving up because it is too tough and sending for your servants and horses.”

Freddie had spoken slowly as if he was choosing every word with care.

Now the Duke was staring at him as if he did not hear him aright.

“You will really risk your Canaletto on such an absurd bet?” he asked.

“I have always rather fancied your chestnuts.”

“It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!” the Duke exclaimed. “Of course I can do it if I want to and with the greatest ease.”

“Are you refusing my challenge?”

“I am just wondering what good it will do.”

“It might give you a new angle on life, a new appreciation of living.”

“I very much doubt it. I imagine the roads will be dusty, the inns I will stay at atrocious and unless I enjoy the company of tramps and yokels, the conversation will be somewhat limited.”

“That is up to you,” Freddie said practically. “I think you might find it an adventure.”

“I doubt it!”

The Duke rose as he spoke to walk towards the table in the corner of the library, on which there was a profusion of drinks, a bottle of champagne in a silver wine cooler and cut glass decanters of Madeira, sherry, brandy and claret.

“What will you have Freddie?” he enquired without turning round.

“You should have asked me before,” Freddie said. “However since I wish to drink a toast to your future I think it should be champagne.”