A Very Special Love

Chapter One ~ 1869-2

If he knew that he was not likely to be leaving the house where he was dining much before two o’clock, he would order his carriage accordingly.

It always irritated him to know that his coachman and his horses were waiting outside and resenting the fact that they were kept out so late.

Now, as he stepped into his carriage, the footman put a light rug over his knees.

The Marquis thought to himself as he did so that like a fox he was running to ground and there were just a very few seconds to save himself from being torn to pieces by the hounds.

How could he have imagined that Yasmin Caton would sink so low as to try to deceive him with the oldest trick in the world?

If it had not been for Harry Blessington’s mother, he would be in an impossible position.

He would have had to agree to Yasmin’s insistence that he should marry her the moment she was free.

A lesser man might have refused to do so because the child was her husband’s in the eyes of the Law.

But that, the Marquis knew, would be at the expense of betraying his every instinct of how a gentleman should behave.

It was something that would make him ashamed of himself for being what the members of White’s would undoubtedly call a ‘bounder’.

Women could cheat and no one thought the worse of them. In fact as one wit had said,

“No lady has to be a gentleman!”

But the unwritten laws of being a gentleman were very strict and any man who broke them was liable to be thrown out of his Club and ostracised by his friends.

At the same time, when he reached his house in Park Lane, the Marquis had to face the fact that he was not yet entirely out of the woods.

If Lord Caton died, and it seemed inevitable that he soon would, Yasmin would surely continue to try to deceive him.

Although he had avoided a scene tonight by not telling her what he suspected to be the truth, there would inevitably be scenes and flaming rows in the future.

The whole scenario made him shudder.

If there was one thing that the Marquis really disliked it was tears and recriminations from a woman he was no longer interested in.

It always meant cries of ‘why do you no longer love me?’

‘What have I done to lose you?’ and

‘How can you be so cruel?’

It made him feel as if he would never be able to show any interest in a woman again for the rest of his life.

And yet inevitably a few days later he would see another lovely woman and be aware of the invitation in her eyes and the provocative pout on her lips.

Then he would feel once again the first warmth of desire and know that sooner or later she would end up in his arms.

“The real trouble with you, Rayburn,” Harry had said to him once, “is that you are too damned good-looking!”

The Marquis had laughed.

“That is hardly my fault!”

“Your father was one of the best-looking men I have ever seen,” Harry had gone on, “and your mother was lovely. I can understand how he found it difficult to find anybody to take her place although there must have been plenty of applicants.”

‘That was true,’ the Marquis thought now.

When his valet had helped him undress and, when he had climbed into bed, he found himself thinking of his mother rather than Yasmin.

When she had died, she was still beautiful even though her hair was white and her face was lined.

As a young girl she had been breathtakingly lovely, but it was not only her beauty that mattered, the Marquis thought, it was because she was so sweet, gentle and loving.

What was more he was quite certain that the only man who had ever touched her had been his father.

She would no more have thought of being unfaithful to him than of flying to the moon!

‘How could I possibly contemplate marrying someone like Yasmin, beautiful though she is?’ he asked himself, ‘and have to wonder how many men sitting at my table have been her lovers or are likely to become so?’

At the same time the debutantes he had met, and there were not many, seemed gauche, plain and usually painfully shy.

They had, of course, been paraded in front of him whenever their ambitious Mamas had the chance at balls and house parties where the hostess had an unmarried daughter and even at dinner parties too.

He would find himself seated next to a girl of eighteen and know exactly why she was his dinner partner.

How could he ever marry someone, however suitable from a worldly point of view, who would bore him stiff from the moment he put a ring on her finger?

His thoughts were once again on Yasmin and before he went to sleep he made up his mind if possible never to see her again.

He was quite certain that she would bombard him with her letters, but that was nothing unusual.

If and when Lord Caton died, they were not likely to run into each other at any party because for a year, following the example set by Queen Victoria, she would have to forgo all social activities.

*

When the Marquis was called at eight o’clock the following morning, he felt as if, after a terrible nightmare the night before, that the sun was now shining.

He went down to breakfast in a buoyant mood.

Then, almost as if the ghost of Yasmin was still haunting him, he had a sudden longing for the country.

He knew that today he was supposed to have luncheon with the Prince of Wales and tonight there was a dinner party for a ball where he would meet his special friends and many of the beauties who were captivating the Social world at the moment.

He had the feeling that every beautiful woman would look to him like Yasmin and he would be suspicious that beneath the surface there were lurking lies, deceptions and danger.

‘I will go to the country,’ the Marquis decided firmly.

He rose from the breakfast table and walked into his study, which was an attractive room overlooking a small garden at the back of the house.

He knew as he did so that the butler would notify his secretary where he was and his secretary would bring his letters to him there.

Mr. Barrett was an elderly man, who had been with his father during the last years of his life and his staying on was the chief reason that the Marquis’s estates were run so well.

His houses were kept stocked with excellent staff and his engagements carefully detailed so that none was ever forgotten.

The Marquis had already seated himself at his flat-topped Georgian writing desk when Mr. Barrett came into the room.

“Good morning, my Lord,” he said respectfully. “I am afraid I have rather more letters today than usual.”

As he spoke, he placed two piles down on the desk, one the Marquis knew were private letters that Mr. Barrett was too discerning to open.

The other and larger pile was of invitations and appeals from charities, which ran into an astronomical number during the year.

“Is there anything pressing here, Barrett?” the Marquis asked.

“No more than usual, my Lord, except that there is a Priest here who wishes to see you.”

“A Priest?” the Marquis asked. “Begging, I suppose! Surely you can deal with him?”

“He has called, my Lord, regarding Miss Zia Langley.”

The Marquis stared at him as for a moment as he could not place the name.

Then he asked,

“Do you mean Colonel Langley’s daughter?”

“Yes, my Lord. You will remember that she is your Lordship’s Ward.”

“Good Heavens!” the Marquis exclaimed. “I had forgotten all about her! Now I think of it, the girl was being brought up by one of her relatives.”

“That is correct, my Lord, I knew that I could rely on your memory,” Mr. Barrett said admiringly. “When Colonel Langley was killed, his sister-in-law, Lady Langley, had the young lady to live with her and sent her to a good school.”

“And what has happened since? Why am I involved?” the Marquis asked.

“I think your Lordship must have forgotten, although I did tell you six months ago, that Lady Langley had died.”

The Marquis could not remember this, but he did not interrupt and Mr. Barrett went on,

“The notice of it was in the newspapers because Lady Langley left her niece her fortune, which was a quite large one.”

The Marquis thought in that case he would not be expected to support his Ward whom he had never seen.

The background to all this was that Colonel Terence Langley had been his Commanding Officer when he was in the Household Brigade.

He was a charming man and a magnificent rider and he had befriended the Marquis as soon as he joined the Regiment. Because they were both absorbedly interested in horses, they had spent a good deal of time together apart from their Regimental duties.

Colonel Langley had stayed at Oke Castle and the Marquis had stayed in the Colonel’s house in the country when he was arranging a Point-to-Point or a Steeplechase.

There had been one occasion, he now recalled, when there was a race on a particularly dangerous course and before they set out the Colonel had said,

“I suggest that all you young men, if you have anything to leave, should make a will just in case anything nasty happens to you.”

This advice was a tradition and they had all laughed. Some of them had made ridiculous wills, which they read out aloud.

When they had finished, somebody had asked the Colonel somewhat impertinently,

“What about you, sir? Have you not made your will?”

“Not for a long time,” the Colonel admitted.

“Then come on,” everybody shouted, “you cannot give orders and not do what is right yourself!”

Good-humouredly and, the Marquis thought later, because they had all had a great deal to drink, the Colonel had written a will in which he distributed his worldly goods.

He had left his house to his wife, his horses to his brother, his polo ponies to an Officer of the Regiment and his pigs and cows to various friends.

Only when he had finished, after bequeathing a number of other items, did the Marquis ask,

“What about your daughter? We have never been allowed to see her, but I believe you have one.”

“I am not having all you young bloods turning her head,” the Colonel answered. “But now you mention it, Rayburn, I will leave her to you. You are the richest of this bunch and at least, if I am not here, you can give her a ball and make her the belle of the Season.”

The others had laughed uproariously at this.

But the Marquis, who had not then come into his title, had replied that, if the Colonel should die that day, the only ball he would be able to pay for would be a football!

Everybody thought this very funny and they were cracking jokes as they mounted their horses for the Steeplechase in which fortunately nobody was killed.

It was just over three years later that Colonel Langley was involved in a fatal carriage accident.

After his death it was discovered he had never made a later will than the one that he had made before that Steeplechase.

His wife was killed with him and the Marquis, as he was now, then found himself the Guardian of the Colonel’s daughter.

He had, however, been staying abroad with friends when the Colonel and his wife were buried and Mr. Barrett had duly sent a wreath with the correct message to the funeral.

He had waited until the Marquis returned before he told him of what had occurred.

“Good God!” the Marquis had exclaimed. “What am I to do with a child on my hands? How old is she, by the way?”

“She is fifteen, my Lord, and there is no necessity for you to worry about her. In your absence I was in touch with her aunt, Lady Langley, the Colonel’s older sister. She is having Miss Zia to live with her and will arrange for her education.”

The Marquis had given a sigh of relief.