Desire of the Heart

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1903“Drogo! Thank God you have come!” Lady Bedlington waited until the butler had closed the door and so she was now certain that she could not be overheard before she spoke, but even so, her voice was low, hardly above a whisper. Yet there was no mistaking the dramatic intensity of it and the smile on the lips of the man watching her from the other end of the room faded. It was perhaps one of the few occasions when Lily Bedlington was not thinking about her appearance and yet she had never looked more beautiful. Suffering gave her face an almost spiritual loveliness and her blue eyes, that were often surprisingly vacant, were dark now with the violence of her feelings. “What has happened?” The question was quick and worried, yet somehow the Duke of Roehampton’s voice seemed to ease some of her tension and Lily gave a sigh and held out both her hands to him. “Oh, Drogo! Drogo!” she cried. “I knew you would come as soon as you received my note.” He took her hands in his and raised them to his lips. She watched his face as he did so, the clear aristocratic features, the deep-set grey eyes beneath straight uncompromising eyebrows, the square chin and firm rather obstinate mouth. A handsome face, a face that had made so many women’s hearts beat more quickly when they looked at him, a face that had ensnared and captivated Lily Bedlington as she had never thought it possible to be ensnared or captivated by any man. His lips were warm and insistent. Now he turned her hands over in his and kissed the soft palms lingeringly and passionately. Lily Bedlington felt herself quiver. For a few moments she closed her eyes. Never in her whole life had she known such ecstasy, such a wild glory of love as with this young man, ten years younger than she was, had brought her. Lily had been acclaimed as a beauty almost since she was a child. There had never been a time when she had not been pursued and flattered, admired and worshipped by every man she came into contact with. Her beauty had remained unrivalled and yet it seemed to her now that it had been an unawakened beauty, a beauty that must still wait for the kiss of a Prince Charming before it came to the zenith of perfection. And then Drogo had fallen in love with her! She had known him, of course, almost since he was born, for his mother was a good close friend of hers. He had always been an attractive little boy, but she had not thought of him as a man until he came back from a world tour about six months before and they had met as if for the first time. Then, Lily thought, she had learned what love really meant. She opened her eyes and, taking one of hand from his, laid it against Drogo’s cheek. He still retained the other one and now he was kissing her wrist and the blue veins leading down to it, pushing back the frill of her sleeve to find the dimpled bend of her arm. His eyes were raised to Lily’s as he did so, a daring invitation in them that she knew only too well. Abruptly, with a little cry, she turned away from him. “Don’t look at me like that, Drogo,” she commanded. “You don’t understand.” With her back to him she drew a tiny lace-edged handkerchief from her belt and applied it to the corner of her eyes. “Darling, tell me what this is all about,” Drogo asked her. He stood watching her and the sun, coming through the window that overlooked Hyde Park, shone on her bent head, glinting on her skilfully arranged curls. When it was down, her hair fell almost to her knees and the Duke remembered how often he had buried his face in the silken fragrance of it. No one could be more beautiful, he thought, watching Lily. The pink and white of her skin, the gold of her hair and the blue of her eyes were all essentially English. “An English rose” was how she was described so often that it had become banal and yet it was true and there was something essentially English as well in the lovely flowing lines of her body. Her waist was tiny and she was inordinately proud of it, but there was grace and dignity as well as beauty in every movement she made and in every gesture. “What is worrying you?” the Duke questioned impatiently. Lily turned towards him. “George has found out!” she whispered faintly and, as she spoke those fatal words, her lips trembled and two large tears ran down her cheeks. The sight was too much for the Duke’s self-control. In two steps he was at her side and had taken her in his arms. For a moment he held her closely and in return she clung to him, the strength and urgency a comfort beyond words. “Don’t cry, darling, I cannot bear it,” he muttered but, when his mouth sought hers, she pushed him from her. “No, no, Drogo! You have to listen. It is serious, don’t you understand it? George has been very angry. He has forbidden us to see each other again.” “But that is ridiculous and absurd,” the Duke asserted. “Yes, yes, I know. I argued with him and I pleaded. I said everything I could think of, but it was hopeless. Someone saw us in Kew Gardens just last week. They told George and he remembered that, when he had asked me where I had been that day, I told him I had been at the dressmakers. I believe he has been watching us for some time and this has merely confirmed all that he has suspected. Drogo, what are we to do?” In answer the Duke put his arms around her shoulders. “Come away with me now,” he urged. “We can go abroad. George will divorce you and we can be married.” “Are you crazy? How could I do such a thing? How could I endure the scandal and the horror of it? Of being cut by my friends and of not being able to go to Court? Oh, no, Drogo, you know such an idea is impossible.” “But I cannot give you up – I will not!” There was something desperate in the Duke’s tone now and, miserable though she was, Lily Bedlington felt a complacent sense of satisfaction. Yes, he loved her, loved her as much as she loved him, if not more, this handsome, elegant, eligible young man, whom all the ambitious mothers in London were besieging on behalf of their daughters. They had all tried to catch him, but he was hers, bound to her by a love stronger and more passionate than anything those old harridans had ever imagined in their wildest dreams. “We have been so happy,” Lily moaned. “How can I lose you now?” the Duke asked. She freed herself from his arms and walked across to the fireplace. “There is nothing we can do about it,” she said in a voice of despair. “Nothing! After George had spoken to me, I lay all night trying to think of a way out but there is not one.” “Come away with me!” The words were spoken urgently and roughly, yet even as he said them the Duke knew how hopeless it all was. Lily was not the stuff that heroines were made of. She would never stand being ostracised and he knew as well as she did that the Society they both belonged to would forgive an erring man but never an erring woman. Even when she was his Duchess, doors would still be shut to her, faces would be turned away and voices would lash at her. It would be an unendurable crucifixion for someone who had all her life belonged to the most exclusive and elite Social set. For perhaps the first time the Duke realised that love definitely took second place to being persona grata at Court and that love such as he felt for Lily and she for him would never stand up to the cold blast of Society disapproval. For a moment he was overwhelmed by a bitterness that made him angry and indignant. Spoiled all his life, he was used to being denied nothing he wanted and at this moment he wanted Lily more than he had wanted anything else in the world. His lips were suddenly set in the hard, obstinate line that those who knew him well would have recognised as a sign of aggressive determination. “I will not give you up!” Lily put her fingers to her white temples. “George is adamant. He talked of taking me away to the country and then he decided that was not convenient because I have to chaperone his niece. Yes, I am to be punished for our happiness. George will see to that.” She threw out her arms with a sudden theatrical gesture and the bitterness in her voice deepened as she exclaimed, “Think of it – a chaperone at thirty-four!” Lily was actually thirty-eight as they knew, it but this was not a moment for argument. “I didn’t know George had a niece,” the Duke said. “I knew of it, but I had never dreamt of her coming here,” Lily replied. “She is Bertie’s daughter. You remember Bertie, George’s younger brother? Or perhaps you don’t. You are too young. He was always a tiresome irresponsible creature although he had great charm. He was an inveterate gambler and no one could stop him. George paid up time and time again until eventually he was sent off to Ireland to breed horses.” He paused for moment before continuing, “He married Edith Withington-Blythe, her father was the Marquis of Langholme. Her family were furious, but she ran away with him and there was nothing they could do about it. I never saw either of them after they left England. About two years ago they were both killed in a carriage accident. George went over to the funeral and he told me that there was a child and he had arranged for her to stay on with Edith’s cousin who had lived with them as a sort of housekeeper.” “And now I suppose the cousin has died,” the Duke said. He was listening to Lily’s story only out of politeness. It seemed more important to him to watch her face, to note the gestures of her hands and the movement of her head. Soon all these things would be taken from him, he would only be able to see her at a distance in her box at the Opera, moving up the stairs at Londonderry House and curtseying at Buckingham Palace. She would be aloof and dignified, outwardly as cool and unemotional as her name and he only would know how she could be awakened to a passion as fiery and tumultuous as his own. But now George Bedlington stood between them, with a drawn sword in his hand. “Yes, the cousin has died,” Lily went on. “And what do you think? It now appears that the girl has been left a fortune, an enormous incredible fortune. No one knew anything about it, but she had an American Godmother, a friend of Edith’s. It appears that, when the child was born, this American woman put aside for her some shares in an oil well and then forgot all about them. It is one of those wells that has been exploited these past few years and the girl has been informed by lawyers that she is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.” “Good Heavens! What an extraordinary story!” The Duke’s attention was arrested now in spite of himself. “It is fantastic, isn’t it? Of course George should have been informed about this a year ago, but the old cousin was ill and did not bother and only now she is dead has it all come to light. George has arranged for the girl to come to England and I am to chaperone her for what is left of the Season.” “You will be in London, we can see each other, we must!” There was a sudden light in the Duke’s eyes and a lightness in his voice. “It’s no use, Drogo. We dare not meet after today. George said I might see you once to tell you what he had decided and then it must be goodbye. He doesn’t want any scandal of course. He agreed that we should meet in the ordinary way at other people’s houses and that you should be invited here on formal occasions but, if he hears that we have met at other times, alone or in secret, he will insist on my retiring to the country. I just could not bear it, I could not! I hate the country. You know it bores me. To sit in Bedlington Castle, year in and year out, with only a lot of ghastly fox-hunting Squires to talk to would drive me insane.”