The King Without a Heart

CHAPTER ONE 1888-1

CHAPTER ONE 1888The Duke of Starbrooke finished the family prayers and the servants filed out of the dining room.

When they had gone the family moved to the table where breakfast was waiting for them and the butler and two footmen began to serve them.

As they did so the door opened and a young girl came nervously into the room.

She was small, slight and very pretty, but the expression on her face at the moment was one of anxiety.

She walked up to the Duke and bent to kiss his cheek.

“Why were you not at prayers, Titania?” he asked sharply.

“I am sorry, Uncle Edward, but I was delayed when I came back from riding.”

“Delayed?” questioned the Duchess of Starbrooke from the end of the table. “That is only a word to cover up your carelessness in not noting the time.”

“I am sorry, Aunt Louise,” murmured Titania. “

So you should be,” replied the Duchess. “If I have any more nonsense I shall tell your uncle to forbid you to ride each morning. It is a waste of time anyway.”

Titania gave a gasp.

Yet as she sat down at the breakfast table, she knew it was her own fault.

It had been a lovely morning and as she had ridden through the woods that she loved, she had forgotten everything and for the moment she was feeling happy.

She reached a pool in the woods which was her favourite place, because she believed that the water nymphs lived there.

It was then that she realised that time was marching on and if she was late for prayers she would be in trouble.

She had ridden Mercury back as quickly as she could.

Even so, when she had changed her clothes and run downstairs the dining room door was closed.

She could hear her uncle’s stentorian voice reading a prayer and those who had been listening to him intoned a respectful amen.

Then as the servants began to move out, she hurried in knowing that she was in trouble.

However, to her relief there was no long lecture, which she would normally have received on such occasions.

The Duke, in a surprisingly good humour, was looking down at his letters, which had been placed as usual beside his plate, after having been carefully sorted by his secretary.

Bills and requests for money were dealt with in the office and only the private letters were taken to the Duke. There was one which he had opened first and he was reading it with a faint smile on his hard lips.

From the end of the table the Duchess was watching him quizzically, but she was far too controlled to ask him the contents of the letter before he was ready to tell her.

Sitting opposite Titania on the Duke’s right was her cousin Lady Sophie Brooke, who had just enjoyed a Season in London and undoubtedly had been one of the most important debutantes of the year.

The Duke had given a ball for her and was planning another a little later in the summer to take place here at Starbrooke Hall.

All the notable neighbours in the County would be invited and Titania was wondering if there was any chance of her being allowed to attend this ball.

She had not been taken to London when the first ball was held, the excuse being that she was still in mourning for her father and mother. This was not strictly true as the twelve months, which was considered the correct period for mourning, had been over for three weeks.

Titania had been sensible enough to face the truth that her uncle did not want her at the London ball!

It was not only because he was ashamed of her mother, but because she was so much prettier than her cousin.

Titania was not in the least conceited, but she recognised that she closely resembled her mother and while the Starbrooke family had been excessively rude to her father, Lord Rupert Brooke, everyone else had spoken about his wife’s beauty.

They understood exactly why Lord Rupert had fallen in love with her.

The Duke of Starbrooke was like his father.

The fifth Duke had been determined to keep the blood of the Starbrookes as blue as it had been for the last two hundred years and had arranged his son’s marriage with Princess Louise of Hughdelberg.

It was not a particularly important Principality, but there was a distant connection with Queen Victoria and no one could say Princess Louise was not the perfect wife for the next Duke.

Unfortunately the second son, Lord Rupert Brooke upset his father’s plans.

He had insisted on marrying a commoner.

He had gone to Scotland for the salmon fishing and was staying with a distinguished friend, where he always enjoyed a freedom he did not have at home.

If he wanted to go riding, he rode, without there being a fuss about it. In the same way if he wanted to go fishing he would leave the castle and just walk down to the river.

He did not have to be accompanied by ghillies or anyone else unless he particularly asked for them.

As it happened, Lord Rupert liked to be alone, especially in Scotland, as he found it a tremendous relaxation after the pomp and ceremony observed in his own home. And indeed for that matter in most of the great ancestral houses in which he stayed as a visitor.

“You can do as you please, Rupert, whenever you stay with me,” his friend had said.

Lord Rupert often thought it was the one holiday in the year when he could really enjoy himself.

His friend, the Chieftain of a famous Clan, was fey because he was a Scot. He could understand people’s inner feelings far better than any Englishman could possibly do.

This year, when Lord Rupert had come to stay, there were no other guests in the castle and he and the Laird spent the evenings discussing the issues that interested them both and it was what they had always done when they were at Oxford together.

Next morning Lord Rupert went down to the salmon river alone. He was carrying his own rod and a landing-net in which, when he had hooked and played his fish, he would take it from the river.

He had caught two salmon, when to his astonishment he hooked a really big fish.

It was bigger than any salmon he had ever seen in the river and he was determined not to lose it. He played it firmly but not roughly, knowing that because it was so heavy he must be careful not to snap his line.

The fish had come straight from the sea and fought like a tiger to regain its freedom.

It was a fearsome battle which Lord Rupert relished and he was equally determined to take home this great fish as a trophy for which he would certainly be congratulated.

The huge fish jumped and jumped again and as Lord Rupert let out his line, he was beginning to fear that the fish would get away.

He needed to find a way to lift it out of the water as the net he had brought with him was far too small and he had very stupidly left his gaff on the bank.

It was then to his relief, he realised that he had attracted an audience.

Coming down a path which led to the part of the river where he was standing was a young woman. He was not able to look at her, although one glance told him that she was present.

Instead he raised his voice,

“Can you help me, please?”

“Yes of course,” the young woman answered.

“You will find my gaff on the bank.”

“Yes, I can see it.”

Now he had secured some help, it was only a question of a few minutes before he could bring the salmon in.

The girl gaffed it and then handed the fish to him to lift out of the river as it was far too heavy for her.

It was an extremely large salmon and would, Lord Rupert thought, weigh over twenty pounds and he was certain that his host would be delighted, as it was unusual to find such a large fish in this part of the river.

Then he looked at the girl who had helped him and was astonished.

Smiling at him, because he had been so successful, was the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen.

She had a beauty that was different from any of the many lovely women whom Lord Rupert had associated with in London.

Because he was so handsome and the son of a Duke, he was invited to every party and every ball as well as to every alluring candlelit dinner given in Mayfair.

But of all the women he had pursued and who had pursued him, he had never seen anyone quite so lovely as the girl he was looking at now.

It was difficult for him to explain her difference from the others.

Her heart-shaped face was very young and innocent.

There was nothing flirtatious or provocative in the way she was looking at him with her large grey eyes, which seemed to fill her whole face and there was something magical about them.

In the same way she seemed to belong to the river and the moors rather than to the world in which he lived.

She was simply and correctly dressed, but Lord Rupert could see that her hair under her bonnet had touches of red that proclaimed to him her Scottish ancestry.

Yet he had never seen a Scot who looked like her and he wondered if she was real.

It was later when he came to know her that he believed she was in fact part of a dream that had always been in his heart, but he thought it was something he would never find.

As Lord Rupert looked at Iona, Iona looked at him.

Something passed between them that was beyond words and was indeed inexplicable.

Quite simply they fell in love at first sight.

There was no question of Lord Rupert thinking again, as his father had begged him to do, nor would he postpone the date of their marriage.

He and Iona had found each other and nothing else in the world mattered.

Lord Rupert’s father, the Duke, was furious, although he admitted that Iona was a lady and her father a respectable Chieftain of a small clan.

“But that,” he shouted furiously to his son, “is not good enough for the Starbrookes.”

It was doubtful if Lord Rupert listened or understood what was being said to him, as he was head over heels in love and merely counting the days until he could marry Iona.

He paid his own family the compliment of taking her to Starbrooke Hall with her parents before the wedding actually took place.

Because he behaved like a gentleman, the Duke was polite to Iona’s father and mother, but when he had his son alone, he raged at him.

“All right she is beautiful, I am not arguing about that,” the Duke had thundered. “But all down the centuries the Brookes have married their equals and nothing you can say can make this woman our equal.”

When Iona and her parents returned to Scotland, Lord Rupert travelled with them and they were married quietly by the Minister of the Kirk where Iona had been christened.

When they left on their honeymoon, Lord Rupert took his wife first to Paris and then on to Venice, Athens and Cairo. He wanted her to see the world and he hoped it would amuse her as much as it had always fascinated and interested him.

She loved every moment of their honeymoon and everything they experienced, just in the same way that she loved him.

They were so perfectly attuned to each other that they never had to explain to the other what they were thinking or what they wanted as they each knew instinctively.

When Titania was born, both Lord Rupert and his wife adored their small daughter and it did not worry him that it would be very difficult for Iona to have any more children.

Her home was a home of love and joy because her parents were so supremely and completely happy and they both cherished their only child.

Titania travelled with them, sleeping in many strange places. Sometimes in a tent or on the back or a camel.

Occasionally she cuddled up between her father and mother in the open air, when they were exploring unknown territory and could find nowhere else to sleep at night.

It was an education which most boys would have enjoyed, but most girls would have found uncomfortable.