The Lioness and the Lily

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1841-2

Now he told himself that he was entirely right in thinking that women with loose morals should be barred, whatever their breeding, from contact with respectable women.

He and Lady Louise had both been aware when they said ‘goodbye’ that they were, as the Earl had said to himself, ‘ships that pass in the night’.

She had made no suggestion that they might meet again and the Earl, who had a great many duties in the near future, had actually not even thought of her.

He supposed vaguely that they might meet at balls or perhaps at another house party, but as far as he was concerned the episode was over, though he admitted that she had certainly added to the more ordinary amusements that he had expected to find at Windsor Castle.

Then yesterday, out of the blue, he had been struck by a thunderbolt when he had least expected it.

The Earl had received an invitation to dinner at Buckingham Palace, a semi-State affair that was one of the many entertainments arranged to herald the Season of ‘Drawing-Rooms’, State Visits, balls and public appearances of the Monarch.

He thought it rather amusing to be asked now as himself, the Earl of Rockbrook, rather than merely as an Officer in attendance on his General.

He was acutely conscious of the aristocratic sound of his title when he was announced upon his arrival in stentorian tones by one of the Royal servants.

The Queen greeted him graciously and with the smile she kept especially for handsome men.

On being presented the Earl went down on one knee and raised his right arm with the back of the hand uppermost.

The Queen laid her hand on his so that he could brush it with his lips.

On rising the Earl bowed silently to Her Majesty and then to Prince Albert before he moved away to look for a familiar face.

He thought how colourful the huge drawing room, which had been redecorated by George IV, looked with all the ladies glittering with diamonds and the gentlemen wearing uniform or Court dress with a claret coloured coat, knee breeches, white stockings, black-buckled shoes and a sword.

He saw with a feeling of pleasure, the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, whom he admired and liked.

Sir Robert could be rather stiff on occasions and was certainly different from his charming and handsome predecessor, Lord Melbourne, but the Earl had an interesting political conversation with him that lasted until it was time for dinner.

He thought the food and the service had improved since the Prince Consort had taken it in hand and, looking at him sitting in the centre of the table opposite the Queen, he thought that he was starting as he meant to go on, but that there was a great deal for him to do.

He was aware that while the ordinary people had now accepted His Royal Highness and were enthusiastic whenever he appeared in public, the upper classes remained wary of him while the whole Royal Family was still openly antagonistic.

‘I wonder what makes him so unpopular?’ the Earl questioned.

He thought it strange that Prince Albert’s prudence, his cleverness, his enterprise in the hunting field and his talents as a musician and singer besides his accomplishments on the ballroom floor all aroused dislike and jealousy rather than admiration.

The truth was, the Earl knew, that the Prince Consort, however hard he tried to be English, appeared determinedly and often arrogantly German.

He suddenly felt a sympathy and commiseration for him.

He was far from home and everything that had been familiar and it was not natural for any man to have to play ‘second fiddle’ to a woman even if she was the Queen of England.

‘Marriage, any marriage, could be the devil in such circumstances,’ the Earl ruminated.

He thought as he had often done before that he was glad he was not married and that life as a bachelor had all the compensations that any intelligent man could want.

‘Someday I must have a son,’ he thought, remembering that he was now the Head of a Family whose continuity must be assured. But that was a long way ahead and at thirty-two there was certainly no need for there to be any hurry on his part.

When the Queen and the Prince Consort had retired, it was then time for everybody to say their ‘goodnights’ and, after having a good last word with the Prime Minister, the Earl was moving towards the door when the Duchess of Torrington came towards him.

Wearing an outsize tiara in front of the three white feathers on her head, a veritable cascade of pearls over her ample bosom and with the train of her gown well over the three and a quarter yards, which was the recognised minimum length, she was a formidable figure.

“I was just going to write to you, my Lord,” she said formally, “but this will save me from doing so.”

The Earl inclined his head expecting to receive an invitation. As he did so, he remembered that the Duchess was the mother of Lady Louise and so he decided that he would refuse.

“May we welcome you as our guest at Torrington Castle on Friday of next week?” the Duchess asked.

The Earl opened his lips to say he was afraid that he was already engaged, but then the Duchess continued,

“I understand from my daughter, Louise, that you have a special reason for wishing to talk to my husband.”

She gave the Earl a toothy smile and went on,

“He will be looking forward to seeing you and may I say, my dear Lord Rockbrook, that you have made me very very happy.”

She patted the Earl on the arm with her fan and then moved away leaving him stunned.

For a moment he thought that he must be mistaken in what he understood her to mean. Then he knew that there was no mistake and he was in a position from which he could see no possible way of extricating himself.

The Duke of Torrington was of great importance in Court circles, the Duchess was a hereditary Lady-of the-Bedchamber and if they had decided, or rather if Louise had decided it for them, that he was to be an acceptable son-in-law there was nothing he could say or do except to make Louise his wife.

The Earl was aghast at the idea. For one thing, while she might arouse him passionately, he did not particularly like her as a person and she was in no way the right type of wife that he envisaged as eventually sitting at the end of his table and bearing his children.

Thinking it over, he knew exactly what he required of the woman who would bear his name.

Firstly she would be a beauty and have a presence. She would be tall, dignified and capable of doing justice to the Rockbrook diamonds.

Secondly the Earl on considering the hypothetical wife to whom he was not yet prepared to give a name and was certain that he would not wish to marry anyone who aroused in him the sort of emotions which he considered rather embarrassing.

He would have to have an affection for his wife, that was obvious. He would treat her with the greatest propriety and do his best to protect her from any worries and domestic problems that might arise.

He supposed he had always felt, ever since he was old enough to think about it, that the women to whom one accorded respect were very different from those with whom one enjoyed one’s lighter moments.

In the Countess of Rockbrook he required exemplary behaviour, a lady in the fullest sense of the word and someone who would be a compliment to himself in his home.

He knew that Lady Louise could be none of these things. He was aware that he was by no means the only man who had enjoyed her favours and was quite certain that, when they were married, she would behave in the same audacious manner as she had at Windsor Castle.

“Ready for anything her caprice or passion excite her to do.”

It had really been said of Lady Augusta, but it was no less true of Lady Louise and so he was absolutely appalled at the thought of marrying a woman for whom, if he was to be honest, he had less respect than for a prostitute who walked Piccadilly as soon as it was dark.

‘What am I to do? In God’s name, what am I to do?’ he asked himself.

He had left London early in the morning without coming to any conclusion, thinking somehow that he would feel safer when he was at Rock Castle.

But now it seemed only to accentuate his disgust and fury at having to install Lady Louise in his ancestral home as his wife.

He threw himself down in a chair in the library and stared at the colourful leather covers of the books as if they could supply an answer.

The door then opened and the butler came into the room followed by a footman carrying a tray of drinks.

“Luncheon will be ready, my Lord, in a quarter of an hour, but I thought your Lordship might care for something to drink.”

“I will have a brandy,” the Earl said.

He usually would have asked for a glass of sherry or Madeira, but he was feeling so heavy-hearted that he needed something much stronger, although nothing was strong enough to take away the menace that threatened him.

When he was alone, he told himself that he must take some course of action although he was not certain what it could be.

He could, of course, refuse to accept the Duchess’s invitation and go on refusing to have the expected talk with the Duke until Lady Louise gave up the chase.

Yet he was well aware that she was quite capable of informing her father and mother that he had seduced her when they were staying at Windsor Castle.

That would start the same type of scandal and quarrel that had taken place between the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke of Beaufort when it had been rumoured that Lady Augusta Somerset was pregnant.

There had been in that case, some grounds for the rumour, false though it was, but Prince Albert had firmly believed it to be true.

Both he and the Queen had refused to speak to Lady Augusta when she appeared at Court and had ordered the ladies there not to do so either.

When finally he was solemnly assured that the story was unfounded, the Prince had answered that he ‘supposed therefore they must believe it was so’.

It had left the Cambridges ‘by no means satisfied’ and the Beauforts ‘boiling with resentment and indignation”.

The Earl could hardly imagine anything worse at the beginning of his new life as Head of the Rockbrook Family than to suffer the same type of scandal and gossip about himself and Lady Louise.

Yet the only alternative as far as he could see was to fall into the trap that she had set for him and marry her.

What made it even more infuriating was that he knew that if he had not inherited the title she would never have given him another thought.

The Duke of Torrington would never have accepted a penniless, even if well-connected young Army Officer as a suitor for his daughter, but the Earl of Rockbrook was, to put it vulgarly, a very different ‘kettle of fish’.

The Earl felt he was in the same danger he had once experienced on the North-West Frontier of India when he and his platoon had been surrounded by savage tribesmen and heavily out-numbered.

They had known that all they could do was to wait for an inevitable and bloody death.

The Earl and his men had actually been rescued at the very last moment, but now he could see no relieving force or any hope of one on the horizon.