A Gentlemen In Love

Chapter One-2

Richard gave a groan.

“I cannot imagine anything more depressing,” he said. “Have you ever been to one of those balls where young girls predominate? It is about a thousand times more formal and more boring than Almack’s.”

“That is what I suspected,” the Earl said, “but the only alternative is to ask someone like Lady Melbourne to introduce me to the right sort of young woman. And look what happened to George Byron.”

He was thinking, as he spoke, of how disastrous Lord Byron’s marriage had been and how Lady Byron, now he had gone abroad, was working up a case for divorce with details of cruelty and infidelity that were making the scandalmongers lick their lips.

“I am not going to have that sort of thing happening,” the Earl went on firmly. “I will choose my own wife and I will have no meddlesome interference.”

“She will have to be of the highest breeding,” Richard said. “After all, your mother was the Duke of Dorset’s daughter and no one gives himself more airs than the present Duke.”

He paused and then added quickly in case the Earl should think that he was criticising,

“And quite right. The Dorsets were never part of the Carlton House set. At least that is what my father told me.”

“It’s true,” the Earl replied, “and I certainly would not allow my mother’s place to be filled by any doxy. At the same time to be truthful I find a lot of my Dorset relations extremely dull. They have allied themselves with the King and Queen and spend most of their time decrying the morals, manners and extravagances of our friend Prinny.”

“And of quite a lot of other people as well,” Richard added, “but that is the sort of background your future wife must come from.”

The Earl put down his cup with a little clatter.

“In books it is always so easy,” he said. “The hero meets the heroine, they fall in love, he turns out to be a Prince in disguise and she is not the ‘goose-girl’, but the daughter of a King.”

Richard drew back his head and laughed.

“Where on earth have you heard such stories?”

The Earl laughed too.

“My first Governess, who used to read to me fairy stories every night before I went to sleep, was an incurable romantic. I suppose because children are impressionable, I remember them when I have forgotten a whole number of other much more important things.”

“You will have to see that your children are brought up from a very early age on historical facts and philosophy.”

“It’s no use telling me what I should do with my children until I have them and before I have children I have to find a wife! Come on, Richard, help me! You are not being very constructive.”

“Ever since I have known you,” Richard replied, “you have always set me impossible tasks. I remember at Eton you used to demand delicacies that were out of season and quite unobtainable within the school bounds. When we were in the Army, I was sent foraging when there was not a pig or a chicken within a hundred miles of where we were camped. And now I have to find you a wife! ”

He threw up his hands and exclaimed,

“Dammit all, Vargus, it’s far simpler to provide you with a dozen doxies of the first water!”

“I can find them myself,” the Earl replied.

“That reminds me,” Richard exclaimed, “I promised to look in on Genevieve this morning. If you have not met her, it is something that should be a definite part of your education.”

“Who is Genevieve?” the Earl asked without much interest in his voice.

“She is the latest addition to Madame Vestris’s ballet at the King’s Theatre.”

“I have met Madame and, although her legs are exceptional, she is too flamboyant for my taste,” the Earl remarked.

He was speaking of the dazzling young actress, who, it had been said, ‘sang like an angel, danced like a sylph and possessed the most shapely legs in the world’.”

“I agree with you,” Richard said, “but Genevieve is different. She only arrived from France about a fortnight ago, in fact just after you left, and she has taken London by storm.”

“I seem to have heard that story before.”

“I know, Vargus, but she really is exceptional. She not only dances well but she also has a charm that does not come off with the greasepaint. Come and meet her and you will see that I am not exaggerating.”

“I will come,” the Earl replied, “if you promise to accompany me to at least two of the balls that are taking place tonight.”

Richard groaned and the Earl added,

“One of them will not be too bad, because it is at Ashburnham House.”

“The Princess de Leivens!” Richard exclaimed. “At least she introduced us to the waltz, even though she has the sharpest tongue that ever graced an Embassy.”

The Earl laughed.

“She is too clever to cause a diplomatic incident, but I often wonder how long it will be before the Russian Ambassador is recalled.”

“He will not be, if his wife can prevent it. The Princess likes England. Or should I say the English.”

Richard rose to his feet as he spoke and shouted for his valet.

“Jarvis!”

The man came hurrying into the room to help him into the exceedingly smart cutaway coat with long tails, which, because it fitted without a wrinkle, had obviously been made by Weston.

“You will find the Princess will be only too willing to assist you in your search, Vargus,” Richard remarked.

There was, as he spoke, a twinkle in his eye as if he knew that he was being provocative.

“I have already told you, I will have no interference from women of any sort,” the Earl replied, “and everything I have said to you, Richard, is, of course, in confidence. If you betray me, I swear I will call you out!”

Richard laughed.

“Since you are a far better shot than I am, it would be sheer murder and you would have to flee the country. After all those years in the Peninsula I suspect you have had enough of foreign parts.”

“I certainly have!” the Earl said fervently. “Quite frankly, Richard, I am glad to be home. But there is a devil of a lot to do.”

He gave a sigh.

“The people I employ have grown old, the estate has been neglected and, because everyone was concentrating on the War, there have been practically no repairs done on the houses, barns, fences or anything else.”

“That should keep you busy,” Richard remarked, “but enough, you are depressing me! Come on, Vargus! Let’s go and call on Genevieve.”

“I am not certain that I feel very friendly towards French women at the moment,” the Earl commented.

His friend laughed.

“Does it matter what her nationality is, as long as she is attractive? And let me assure you that French women, like French wines, are, I find, far more delectable than the English variety.”

Carrying his hat and cane Richard started to walk down the stairs of his lodgings as he spoke and smiling, the Earl followed him.

Outside the house in Half Moon Street there was an exceedingly smart phaeton drawn by two superfine horses, Richard glanced at them with a touch of envy in his eyes before he climbed into the seat beside the Earl.

A groom wearing the Hellington livery released the horses’ heads and, as the phaeton moved off, ran to spring up into the small seat behind the Earl and his friend.

Driving with an expertise that had made him in the short time he had been back in England an acclaimed ‘Corinthian’, the Earl turned into Piccadilly.

A number of people walking along the pavement stopped to stare at the arresting picture he made with the smartness of his phaeton, his horses and, of course, himself.

With his tall hat at exactly the right angle on his dark hair, the Earl drew the eyes of every woman within a small radius and appeared supremely unaware that their hearts beat quicker at the mere sight of him.

If there was one thing he disliked, it was a reference to his looks and he had already threatened to thrash any man who spoke of him as a ‘beau’.

“It is only a fashionable term,” Richard had protested,

“I don’t care! It’s insulting for any man to be called beautiful, or for that matter a “dandy”, and it is certainly not the way I wish to be described.”

Richard had teased him, but had been too wise to use the term himself.

He was well aware that, although the Earl kept his temper under control, he had one and he had no wish to have it expended upon him personally.

They drove along Piccadilly towards the King’s Theatre, which was situated in the Haymarket.

“If your French woman is as attractive as you describe,” the Earl said, “she does not live in a very salubrious neighbourhood.”

They were passing, as he spoke, through the dusty streets around the theatre, which, in the winter, were a quagmire of mud.

“She has wisely not been in a hurry to make her choice of a protector,” Richard replied quickly, “well aware that she will have a large number of applications for the position.”

“Which you are thinking might include me!” the Earl questioned.

“It has flashed through my mind,” Richard admitted. “Why, has she refused you?”

Richard shook his head.

“Do you really think I qualify? If I cannot afford to buy a decent horse, I certainly cannot afford to keep an attractive woman.”

“Then why are you so interested in her?”

“As it happens, she had an introduction to me from Raymond Chatteris. You remember Raymond?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“When he was in trouble over a married woman, it was a question either of pistols at dawn or skipping the country, so he went to Paris in April.”

“And met your friend Genevieve.”

“Exactly!”

“He has obviously been very generous in paying back an old debt.”

The Earl’s voice was somewhat mocking.

“I think, as it happens,” Richard replied quite seriously, “he really wanted to do her a good turn and he trusted me to guide her for the first month she is in England. I don’t think I shall be wanted after that.”

“You are beginning to intrigue me,” the Earl said, “and by the way, Richard, what is her full name?”

“Just ‘Genevieve’.”

The Earl looked puzzled and Richard explained,

“It is what she called herself in France where, I understand, she had a small part in the Théâtre de Variétés. When she arrived in London and found how the Vestris calls herself ‘Madame’ and names all the cast on the programme as Monsieur this and Mademoiselle that, she decided to do the exact opposite and be just ‘Genevieve’. It’s original, you must admit.”

“I wonder who told her that would be a good thing to do?” the Earl asked mockingly.

They drove on and Richard directed the Earl to a small hotel situated at the back of the King’s Theatre.

“She usually receives when she is having her hair done,” Richard explained, as the horses were drawn to a standstill. “I hope we are not too late. You will find her very attractive en déshabille.”

There was a cynical twist to the Earl’s lips, but he made no reply.

As he stepped into the small vestibule of the hotel, he thought that Richard was diverting him far from what had been his intention when he called on him this morning.

He was not for the moment interested in acquiring another mistress. His last one had been selected, he admitted now, rather hastily when he first returned to London and had been a failure.

It was not the money he had expended on her that had irked him, but the fact that he considered he had wasted his time and shown, perhaps for the first time in his life, a lack of good taste.

Fay had, as it happened, been outstandingly lovely. It was only when he got to know her a little better that he had found her inane conversation and the way she giggled at everything or nothing got on his nerves besides the fact that she was greedy almost to the point of absurdity.

It had been his own fault, he admitted, that he had ever become involved and he told himself as Richard led him up the stairs to the first floor, that he would never again act in haste.

Richard knocked on a door, which was opened by a maid somewhat theatrically attired in a mob cap trimmed with lace and an apron that matched it.

“M’mselle expectin’ you, monsieur,” she said in broken English and then saw, with a look of surprise, that Richard was not alone.