The Irresistible Buck

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1802-2

A footman hurried to open the door for him and he passed into the long book-lined salon which, with its lapis-lazuli pillars and carved gilt cornices, was one of the most beautiful rooms in London.

“Wine, my Lord?” the footman asked.

“I will help myself,” Lord Melburne replied.

As the door closed behind the footman, he stood for a moment staring at the note in his hand before he opened it.

He knew only too well who it was from, and he wondered whether this was, in fact, the answer and the solution to the problems that had beset him in the carriage.

Should he get married? Would that state prove more pleasant and at least quieter than the continual lamentations of droxies?

Slowly, it seemed, almost reluctantly, he opened the letter.

Lady Romayne Ramsey’s elegant, somewhat affected handwriting was characteristic and yet anyone who had a knowledge of such things would have sensed at once that there was also determination in the fine strokes of her pen.

The note was short.

“My dear Unpredictable Cousin,

I had anticipated that you would call on me this evening, but I was disappointed. I have many things concerning which I desire to speak with you. Come tomorrow at 5 o’clock when we can be alone.

Yours Romayne.”

There was nothing particular in the note to annoy his Lordship, yet suddenly he crumpled it in his hands into a tight ball and threw it into the flames of the fire.

He knew in that moment exactly what Romayne Ramsey was after as he had known for a long time that she intended to marry him.

A distant cousin of his, she had presumed on their slight relationship to include him in her intimate circle of friends long before he had made up his mind whether he wished it or not.

And yet it would have been churlish not to be pleased. Lady Romayne was the toast of St. James’s, the most beautiful and the most acclaimed ‘Incomparable’ that the Carlton House Set had known for years.

She had been married when she was but a child, married hastily because her parents had been afraid of her beauty. It was not their fault that Alexander Ramsey, a worthy country Squire, who was excessively wealthy, had broken his neck out hunting just before Romayne’s twenty-third birthday.

Long before her mourning had conventionally ended, she had come to London, taken a house, found herself a complaisant chaperone and set St. James’s by the ears.

She was lovely, she was vivacious, she was witty and she was rich. What more could any man want of a wife?

And she had chosen Buck Melburne to be her husband.

He was aware of this if no one else was. He was too experienced and too sophisticated in the ways of women not to realise how well planned were her little subterfuges of needing his advice, of asking his opinion, of relying on him as a relative to escort her to Royal functions and to sponsor her as she had no husband to do it for her.

She wove her web about him like a diligent and crafty little spider, but, he told himself, he was not caught yet. It might indeed be the solution and it might be what he wanted, but he was not sure.

Romayne would look magnificent in the Melburne jewels. She would grace his table and his house in the country with an elegance that was undeniable.

He also realised that there was something dark and passionate in the depth of her eyes when they were alone, that when he kissed her hand goodnight, her breath came more quickly between her parted lips and the laces at her breasts were tumultuous.

He had been so very near to surrendering to her enticement, to the unspoken invitation he saw in her eyes and the way that she would invariably ask him to see her into the darkness of her house when they had been at a party.

There were candles lit in the open door of her bedroom and yet Buck Melburne, for all his reputation as an inveterate lady killer and for never refusing a beautiful woman’s favour, had not succumbed to Lady Romayne.

The trap had been too obviously baited. He felt a repugnance against doing exactly what was expected of him, of participating in a campaign that had been planned down to the tiniest detail and of which he knew the inevitable end.

‘Damn it, I like to do my own hunting!’ he said to himself once as he had come from Lady Romayne’s house, well aware of the invitation offered and unexpectedly feeling a cad because he rejected it.

Nothing was ever overtly said and yet they both knew that they faced each other just like duellists. She was taking the offensive, trying to gain an advantage to force him into a corner and he was fighting not for his life but for his freedom.

The flames burned Lady Romayne’s letter to ashes and, as it crumpled into nothing, Lord Melburne said again aloud,

“Be damned to all women! A man would be well rid of the lot of them!”

*

When he set off the next morning, tooling his high perch phaeton, the sunshine glittering on the silver bridles of his perfectly matched horseflesh, he was in a surprisingly good mood.

It was a relief, he thought, to be getting out of London. Inevitably one stayed up too late, drank too much and talked a lot of nonsense. Even the duel of wits across the card tables at White’s Club or the glittering elegance of the Receptions at Carlton House, lost their interest if one had too much of them.

It was pleasant to know that he was driving the most expensive and the best-bred horses that could be found in anyone’s stable, that his new high perch phaeton was lighter and better sprung than the one built for the Prince of Wales.

And he was going to see Melburne again.

There was something about his home that had always delighted him and, while he did not visit it as often as he might wish, it was always a satisfaction to him to know that it was there.

The great house, which had been rebuilt almost entirely by his father to the design of the Adam brothers, stood on the site of older and less spectacular mansions, which had housed generations of Melburnes since the time of the Norman conquest.

As a child, he had loved the gardens, the shrubberies, the lakes, the forest and the great broad acres stretching away over the countryside towards the blue of the Chiltern Hills.

Melburne! Yes, this was the time of year to see Melburne, when the miracle of spring would transform the gardens into a Fairyland of blossom and fragrance.

It was almost irritating to remember that the real object of his coming to the country now was to visit Sir Roderick Vernon. His nearest neighbour and an old friend of his father, Sir Roderick had been very much a part of his childhood.

Hardly a day passed when Sir Roderick with his son Nicholas did not ride or drive over to Melburne or Buck had not accompanied his father to The Priory. The two old gentlemen had argued over their estates, quarrelled over the boundaries and yet remained firm friends until Lord Melburne’s father had died at the age of sixty-four.

Sir Roderick had lived on and Lord Melburne, calculating the years as he drove, realised that he must now be nearly seventy-two. He remembered hearing that he had not been well of late and wondered if he was dying.

It was then his conscience smote him for not having gone to The Priory earlier, as he had been asked to do. The letter was clearly urgent and yet it had seemed unimportant beside the attractions of Liane and the many social engagements that he had committed himself to.

He tried to remember the letter now. It had been written by a woman, someone of whom he had never heard. Clarinda Vernon.

Who was she?

Sir Roderick had no daughter and, when he had last visited The Priory there had been no one there except for the old man himself, bewailing the fact that his son Nicholas seldom left London to visit the estates that he would one day inherit.

Nicholas had been a considerable disappointment to his father. He had got into the wrong set in London and indeed Lord Melburne seldom saw him and, if he did, did his best to avoid him.

There were unpleasant stories about Nicholas’s behaviour, but Lord Melburne could not remember them now. He only knew that he no longer cared for his childhood friend, in fact, they had hardly spoken to each other since they had left Oxford University.

What had the woman said in her letter?

“My uncle, Sir Roderick Vernon, is ill and greatly desires to see your Lordship. May I beg you to visit him at your earliest convenience.

I remain, my Lord,

Yours Respectfully,

Clarinda Vernon.”

This had not told him much except that the old main was ill.

‘I should have gone last week,’ Lord Melburne said to himself and pushed his horses a little faster, almost as if it was not too late to make up for lost time.

He did not stop at Melburne on the way, as he longed to do, but drove straight to The Priory. It was less than a two hour journey from London and he turned in at the ancient iron gates, noting with satisfaction that despite the speed they had travelled at his horses had stood the journey well and were neither overheated nor in the least fatigued.

The drive was an avenue of ancient oak trees, their branches meeting overhead to make a tunnel of green. As he journeyed on down the drive, Lord Melburne was suddenly aware of someone coming towards him.

It was a woman on a horse and he noted almost automatically that she rode well yet was keeping to the centre of the drive and making no effort to draw aside to let him pass.

Then to his surprise she drew her horse to a stop and waited for his approach, knowing that he must also check his horseflesh and bring them to a standstill.

She sat waiting for him with an imperiousness that definitely irritated him. She did not raise her hand, she just waited and he had an absurd impulse to challenge her by driving over the grass and passing her.

Then, as if in obedience to her unspoken command, he drew in his reins.

Without haste, moving her horse forward, she came to him and stopped by the driving seat. Even so they were not level and she still had to look up at him.

At the first glance he was astonished at her loveliness. He noticed, because he was well versed in women’s fashions, that she wore an old habit that was outdated and yet the worn green of its velvet threw into prominence the whiteness of her skin.

Lord Melburne thought he had never seen a woman with such a white skin and then as he looked at her hair he understood. It was red, and yet it was not, it was gold – he was not sure.

It was a colour that he had never seen before or even imagined, the gold of ripened corn flecked with the vivid red of flames leaping from a wood fire. It just seemed to shine in the sunlight and was caught unfashionably into a bun at the nape of her neck. She wore no hat.

She was very small Lord Melburne thought and he realised that while her face was tiny, heart-shaped and with a little pointed chin, her eyes were enormous. Strange eyes for a red-head for they were the very deep blue of a stormy sea rather than hazel flecked with green that might be expected with such colouring.

‘She is lovely, unbelievably lovely,’ Lord Melburne told himself and then, as he raised his hat, the girl on the horse in a cold voice without smiling, almost demanded,

“You are Lord Melburne?”

“I am.”

“I am Clarinda Vernon, I wrote to you.”

“I received your letter.”

“I expected you last week.”

It was an accusation and Lord Melburne felt himself stiffen.

“I regret it was not convenient for me to leave London so speedily,” he answered.

“You are still in time.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I must speak with you alone.” she asserted.

He glanced at her in surprise feeling they were already alone. Then he remembered the groom behind him on the phaeton.

“Jason,” he ordered, “go to the horses’ heads.”

“Very good, my Lord.”

The groom jumped to the ground and went forward to hold the leader of the tandem.

“Shall we speak here,” Lord Melburne asked, “or would you rather I come down?”

“This will do,” she said, “if your man cannot hear.”

“He cannot hear,” Lord Melburne replied, “and if he did he is trustworthy.”

“What I have to say is not for servants’ ears,” Clarinda Vernon remarked.

“Perhaps I had best get down,” Lord Melburne suggested.

Without waiting for an answer, he sprang lithely to the ground. It was a relief after sitting so long, he thought, to stretch his legs.

“What about your horse?” he asked. “Would you like Jason to hold him too?”

“Kingfisher will not wander away,” she answered and then before he could assist her she dismounted with a lightness that seemed as if she almost floated from the saddle.

She slipped the reins over the pommel and turning walked up the drive into the shadows of one of the great oak trees. And Lord Melburne followed her.

She was indeed tiny, even smaller than she had seemed when mounted on her horse. Her waist, even in her worn habit, could easily, he felt, be spanned by a man’s two hands and her hair as she moved away from him was like a light will-o’-the-wisp beckoning a man across a treacherous marsh.

He found himself smiling at his own imagination.

‘Damn it all, I am getting romantic,’ he thought.

He had certainly not expected to find anyone quite so exquisite, so unusual or indeed so beautiful at The Priory.

Clarinda Vernon came to a stop under one of the oaks.

“I had to speak to you before you see my uncle,” she said and now Lord Melburne was aware that she was nervous.

“He is ill?” Lord Melburne enquired.

“He is dying,” she answered. “I think he has only held on to life so that he should see you.”

“I am sorry. If you had been more explicit in your letter, I would have come sooner.”

“Indeed I should not have asked your Lordship to forgo your amusements unless it was absolutely necessary.”

There was a note of sarcasm in her voice that made him glance at her in surprise.

There was a little pause and then she went on,

“What I have to say will perhaps be difficult for you to – understand. For my uncle’s sake it is imperative that you accede to his wishes.”

“What does he want?” Lord Melburne asked.

“My uncle.” Clarinda replied, “is disinheriting his son Nicholas. He is leaving The Priory and the estate to – me. And because it means so much to him and because he is dying, he has one idea and one idea only in his mind that ‒ no one can change.”

“Which is?” Lord Melburne asked as she paused.

“That you should – marry – me!”

Now there was no mistaking the nervous tremor in her voice and the colour rose in her pale cheeks. For a moment Lord Melburne was too surprised to say anything.

Then before even an exclamation could come to his lips Clarinda added quickly,

“All I am asking of you is that you will agree. Uncle Roderick is dying – he may be dead in the morning. Don’t argue with him – don’t cause him unnecessary distress – just agree to what he asks. It will make him happy and it will mean nothing – nothing to you.”

“I really don’t think this is something that I can decide on the spur of the moment,” Lord Melburne began, for once in his life almost bereft of words.

Then Clarinda Vernon looked up at him with what he could only describe to himself as a violent hatred in her eyes.

“Indeed, my Lord, you need not be afraid that I should hold you to your promise once my uncle is dead for I assure you that I would not marry you – not if you were the last man in the whole world.”

There was so much passion in her low voice that it just seemed to vibrate between them.

Then before Lord Melburne could collect his senses and before he could find anything to say and before he even realised what was happening, Clarinda gave a little whistle.

Her horse came obediently to her call and she vaulted unaided into the saddle and was galloping away down the drive towards The Priory as if all the devils of Hell were at her heels.