Never Forget Love

Chapter One ~ 1818-2

“I am going to try to think up some special treat for you, so you had better make yourself a new gown.”

“A new gown!” Nerissa exclaimed. “How do you think I can pay for one?”

“’Where there is a will there is a way’,” Harry replied lightly. “It is what Nanny always said and perhaps the best thing we can do is to have a day of fasting and the money we save will go on decking you out like the Queen of Sheba!”

“That is certainly an idea,” Nerissa laughed. “I can see exactly the sort of gown I should buy after such a gruesome sacrifice.”

“I tell you what I suggest – ” Harry began.

What he was going to say was forgotten because there came a loud and unexpected rat-tat on the front door.

Brother and sister looked at each other.

“Who can that be?” Harry asked. “Whoever it is they sound very impatient. So are you expecting the duns or the bailiff to confront you with an unpaid bill?”

“No, of course not,” Nerissa replied huffily.

She took off the apron she had worn while she was preparing and clearing the luncheon and walked from the dining room across the hall to the front door.

Harry did not move, but picked up a large crumb that had been left on the table and put it into his mouth.

Then he heard his sister give an exclamation that was almost a cry of astonishment.

As he rose to his feet, he heard Nerissa saying,

“It cannot be! But it is! Delphine!”

“I thought you would be surprised to see me,” a sophisticated voice answered and Harry walked from the dining room into the hall to stare in astonishment at the woman who had just arrived.

She was dressed in the peak of fashion with a high-crowned bonnet trimmed with small ostrich feathers and its colour matched her gown, which was covered with a cape trimmed with fur.

She walked two steps further into the house and looking round commented,

“I had forgotten how small this was!”

“We thought you had forgotten us,” Harry said bluntly. “So how are you, Delphine, or is that an unnecessary question?”

Then the vision stopped still to stare at him, taking in with shrewd eyes his height, his looks and his untidily tied cravat.

“How you have grown, Harry,” she exclaimed.

“It is not surprising when you have not seen me for six years,” Harry replied. “And I must say, you look very ‘up to scratch’!”

“Thank you,” Delphine said with just a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

Then she carried on in a different tone that was almost brusque,

“I want to talk to you both and I suppose that there is somewhere where we can go to sit down?”

“Come into the drawing room,” Nerissa said. “It is unchanged and I am sure you will remember it.”

She opened the door at the far end of the hall and went into a low-ceilinged room that her mother had always used on special occasions.

In it was all their best furniture and all the most precious things they possessed. And the most attractive of the Stanley ancestors hung on its panelled walls.

Delphine walked into the room, her silk petticoats beneath her gown swishing with an expensive sound as she did so.

Then, taking off her cloak with its costly fur edging, she handed it to Nerissa before she seated herself in an armchair at the side of the fireplace.

She was, however, not looking at her sister but at the room.

“This is just as I remember it,” she said, “and, of course, it looks its best in the evening in candlelight.”

“We don’t often sit in here since Mama died,” Nerissa told her. “Instead we use Papa’s study or the morning room when Harry is at home.”

As she spoke, she did not think her sister was listening and she wondered why Delphine was here and how she could suddenly appear without giving them any prior warning.

Four years older than Harry and five years older than Nerissa, Delphine had, when she was eighteen, married Lord Bramwell. He had seen her by chance at a garden party given by the Lord Lieutenant of the County and had lost his heart.

He was a very much older man and Delphine’s mother had been doubtful if her daughter was wise in accepting his proposal of marriage.

“It is something you should think about very carefully, dearest,” she had said, “because after all you have not met many men and Lord Bramwell is very much older than you are.”

“He is rich and important, Mama, and I do want to marry him,” Delphine had replied obstinately.

She had not listened to her mother’s pleas for her to take her time in considering whether it was a wise move nor would she agree to a long engagement.

Because there was no other valid reason why Mr. and Mrs. Stanley should not agree to their daughter marrying Lord Bramwell, Delphine had her own way in everything and was married with what seemed almost precipitate haste.

And when she had driven away in his smart carriage drawn by four well-bred and well-matched horses, she had passed out of their lives.

Looking back Nerissa could hardly believe that it had happened.

One moment Delphine had been one of the family and happy, Nerissa believed with their father and mother, her sister and Harry in their ancient Elizabethan house known as Queen’s Rest.

The next minute she had vanished completely and, as far as they were concerned, she might never have existed.

She had been in Paris when her mother had died four years later and she had not returned home for the funeral. She had written her father a short rather cold letter of condolence and that was the end.

To Nerissa, who had loved her sister simply because she was one of the family, it had seemed completely incredible.

Even the excuse that Lord Bramwell lived in London and had a country house in a County far distant from theirs did not comfort her in losing one of themselves.

“I wrote to her for her birthday,” Nerissa said once to Harry, “but she never replied.”

“Delphine has no further use for us,” Harry remarked. “She is very smart now and is acclaimed as one of the beauties of St. James’s.”

“How do you know that?” Nerissa asked.

“Friends at Oxford have talked about her and her name is always in the social columns. Last week they said that she was the most beautiful woman at Devonshire House, which is known for having more beauties per square inch than anywhere else in the country!”

Harry had laughed and Nerissa knew that it amused him,

But for her it was not only incredible but she felt deeply hurt that her sister no longer cared for her or even for their father.

Now, looking at Delphine, she could at least understand how she had been acclaimed as the most beautiful woman in London.

Delphine was very lovely. Her hair was the gold of ripening corn, her eyes a vivid blue and her complexion flawless.

She was the same type as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and the other lovely women whom Nerissa heard about from Harry and who were lauded by the young men who followed the Prince Regent’s lead.

Delphine was thinner than she remembered her and she had developed, Nerissa thought, a kind of seductive sinuous movement with her hands and her long neck had something very sensitive about it.

Now, as Harry also seated himself, there was a little pause before Delphine began,

“I thought you would be surprised to see me, but I have come back because I want your help.”

“Our help?” Harry expostulated. “I can hardly imagine how we could help you. I have heard about your husband’s horses and I know he won the Two Thousand Guineas two years ago.”

There was a little pause before Delphine stated,

“My husband is dead!”

“Dead?”

Nerissa sat bolt upright in astonishment.

“Do you mean to say, Delphine, you are a widow? But why has no one told us?”

“I suppose you cannot afford the newspapers,” Delphine said scathingly. “Actually he died twelve months ago and I am now out of mourning, as you can see.”

“I am very sorry,” Nerissa said softly. “Do you miss him very much?”

“Not in the slightest!” Delphine replied coolly. “That is why I need your help.”

“He cannot have left you penniless? Oh, Delphine, how can we possibly ‒ help you?”

“No, of course not!” she snapped. “I would hardly come here asking you for money. As a matter of fact I am extremely well off. It is something quite different from that.”

“Then what can it be?” Harry asked. “Incidentally, Delphine, you have hurt Nerissa and Papa very much by not communicating with us all this time.”

Delphine made a graceful movement with her hands.

“It was difficult. My husband was not interested in my family and why should he be?”

“So you were glad to be rid of us,” Harry added bluntly.

“It was not exactly like that,” Delphine answered. “I had set out on a new life and I wanted to forget the miseries of the past.”

“Miseries?” Nerissa questioned.

“All that pinching and saving, never having decent clothes and never really enough to eat.”

Nerissa drew in her breath, but she said nothing and her sister went on,

“But we are still of the same blood and I cannot believe that you will not do for me what I want.”

“Tell us first what it is,” Harry suggested.

The way he spoke made Nerissa certain that he was thinking, despite what Delphine had said, that she must be wanting money in some way and the only possible economy they could make would be for him to leave Oxford.

Instinctively and without her being aware of it, Nerissa put out her hand towards Harry as Delphine said,

“It may surprise you, but I am going to marry the Duke of Lynchester!”

It was now Harry’s turn to be astonished and he sat up in his chair and exclaimed,

“Lynchester? I don’t believe it!”

“That is not very complimentary,” Delphine said. “I thought you would be very proud if I was the wife of the Premier Duke of Great Britain, the most important of all in the Peerage.”

“If you want the truth,” Harry observed, “I think it would be a miracle. When are you to be married?”

There was a perceptible pause before Delphine replied,

“To be truthful he has not asked me yet, but I know he intends to do so.”

“Then if you will take my advice,” Harry said, “you will not count your chickens before they are hatched. I have heard a great deal about Lynchester. Who has not? Although his horses gallop past the Winning Post to carry off every trophy, no woman has yet managed to gallop him up the aisle!”

“But that is what I intend to do,” Delphine responded in a hard voice.

As if she felt that Harry was questioning her ability to do so, she looked at him rather aggressively and brother and sister’s eyes met across the room defiantly.

Then Nerissa said,

“If the Duke will make you happy, dearest, then, of course, we will give you all our good wishes and I am sure, when you tell Papa about your engagement, he will be very proud.”

“He will also be very interested,” Harry interposed, “because Lynchester has the finest Elizabethan house in the country and it is the period that Papa is working on at the moment.”

“If that is so,” Delphine said quickly, “then it could be a great help.”

“Help for what?” Nerissa asked.

Her sister was silent for a few moments.

And then she said,

“Now try to understand what I am going to tell you. The Duke of Lynchester has been pursuing me for the last two months and I am almost certain that it is only a question of days before he asks me to be his wife.”

She made a little sound that was almost a cry of triumph and then went on,

“Just think what that will mean. Next to the Royal Family I shall then be one of the most important people in the country. I shall be the chatelaine of at least a dozen houses, the most magnificent being Lyn in Kent. I shall be able to wear jewellery that will make every woman I meet green with envy and I shall go down in history as being the most beautiful of all the Duchesses of Lynchester!”

The way she spoke made Delphine’s voice sound as if it was accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets.

Then Nerissa said very quietly,

“Do you love him ‒ very much?”

“Love him?” Delphine asked.

There was a short pause before she went on,

“But he is a difficult man, one never knows for certain what he is thinking besides being cynical with all those women falling at his feet and pleading with him just to notice their very existence.”