The Elusive Earl

Chapter One ~ 1838The horses thundered into the straight and then the crowd on Newmarket Heath watching them uttered a loud sigh as they realised that the favourite, wearing the blue and red colours of Lord Arkrie’s stable, was in the lead. Then a furlong later the gentlemen watching the race from the Jockey Club saw through their glasses another horse coming up on the outside. He was moving easily on the course and with an assurance that seemed to be lacking in the rest of those on the field, who were now bunched together on the rails. Steadily he drew up on the other horses until at the last moment the crowd realised what was happening and there was a roar of appreciation. For a moment the two horses were neck-and-neck and then the outsider, wearing orange with black crossed belts, colours well known in the racing world, passed the Winning Post a length ahead. Now there was no mistaking the cheer that rang out and Lord Arkrie, turning from the front of the Jockey Club stand, remarked sourly, “Blast it, Helstone! I do believe you are in league with the Devil himself! That was my race!” The Earl of Helstone made no response to the outburst, but merely turned slowly to walk from the stand towards the unsaddling enclosure. On the way he received congratulations from his friends, some sincere, some envious and a few sarcastic. “Must you take all the prizes, Helstone?” one elderly Peer demanded in a disgruntled voice. “Only the best of them,” the Earl replied and passed on to leave the Peer spluttering as he was unable to find a suitable retort. He reached the enclosure just as his horse Delos was led in amid the claps and cheers of the motley hordes who always frequented Newmarket Heath. The Earl’s jockey, a thin somewhat cadaverous-looking young man, who seldom smiled, swung himself out of the saddle. “Well done, Marson!” the Earl exclaimed. “Your timing was excellent.” “Thank you, my Lord. I did exactly as your Lordship told me.” “With excellent results,” the Earl said briefly. He patted his horse and went from the unsaddling enclosure, not waiting for the results of the weighing-in. As he walked back towards the Jockey Club, he was joined by his friend, Lord Yaxley. “That is a comfortable number of guineas in your pocket, Osric,” he remarked. “Not that you need them.” “Did you back him?” the Earl enquired, His friend hesitated for a moment. “To be truthful, I hedged it a little. Arkrie was so certain that his animal would come in first.” “He has been boasting about it for weeks,” the Earl remarked. “So you decided to show him up?” Lord Yaxley countered with a smile. “Well, you have certainly been successful. I believe he staked three thousand guineas on the race. He will be a bitter enemy from now on.” “That will be nothing new,” the Earl replied. They reached the Jockey Club stand and went to the bar at the back. “May I offer you a drink?” the Earl enquired. “I think it is the very least you can do, Osric,” Lord Yaxley replied. “Damnit all, money always goes to money! That is what my old father always used to say.” “You should trust your friends,” the Earl said coldly. “I told you that Delos was a good horse.” “The trouble is just that you did not say it positively enough,” Lord Yaxley complained. “Arkrie was shouting the merits of his beast from the rooftops.” The Earl said nothing but merely accepted the glass of champagne that had been poured out for him. Lord Yaxley raised his glass. “Your good health, Osric,” he said, “and may you, as you always do, go on succeeding in everything you undertake.” “You flatter me,” the Earl remarked dryly. “On the very contrary,” Lord Yaxley contradicted, “you are abominably, infuriatingly and invariably first past the post. And not only on the Racecourse!” He gave his friend a sly glance as he spoke and then he said with an irritated note in his voice, “Curse it, Osric, but you might look a little more elated. After all, you have just won one of the best races of the Season and shown once again that your thoroughbreds are superior to anyone else’s. You ought to be jumping for joy.” “I am far too old, my dear fellow, for such youthful exuberance,” he answered. “Besides, although it is extremely satisfactory to prove that my horses are superior, with my trainer and jockey prepared to do what I tell them, I can see no reason for any extravagant elation.” Lord Yaxley put his glass down on the table with a bang. “You exasperate me, Osric,” he said. “There are times when I miss the man you were in your youth, when we were wild and irreverent and everything seemed to be so amusing and an adventure. What has happened?” “As I have just told you, we have grown older,” the Earl remarked. “I don’t believe it is age,” Lord Yaxley said. “I think it is just being satiated, over-stuffed with all the good things of life, like attending one of those dinners that used to be given at Carlton House in my father’s day.” He drank some more champagne before he went on, “He has so often talked of how there would be thirty-five entrées and the Prince Regent ate so much that he could hardly rise from his chair at the end of the meal!” “I may have many faults,” the Earl pointed out, “but I do not over-eat.” “No, but you indulge yourself in other ways,” Lord Yaxley parried shrewdly. Someone came up at that moment to congratulate the Earl on his win and there was no chance of further conversation. But later on that evening, in his host’s elegant house on the outskirts of the town, Lord Yaxley returned to the assault. “I suppose you know, Osric,” he said, “that you will have offended a large number of your friends by leaving the dinner given in your honour so early?” “I doubt if anyone has noticed our departure,” the Earl replied. “They were, all of them, too foxed to count heads.” “And you, of course, are always excessively sober,” Lord Yaxley remarked. He threw himself down in a comfortable leather arm chair in front of the log fire, which was burning brightly. “If there is one thing I really dislike,” the Earl said, “it is drinking myself under the table and being, in consequence, unable to watch the morning gallops.” “You sound sanctimonious!” “I thought you were complaining that I indulged myself too often,” the Earl said with a twist of his lips. “Not where food and drink is concerned,” Lord Yaxley said, “but in other ways.” “Then if it is not wine it must be ‘women and song’, although I cannot imagine why you take it upon yourself to give me a lecture.” “It is because I happen to be very fond of you,” Lord Yaxley answered, “and because we have been friends for such a long time, I just hate to see you growing more bored and more indifferent year by year.” “Who said I was bored?” the Earl enquired sharply. “It is very obvious,” Lord Yaxley replied. “I was watching your face on the course today. There was not even a glint of satisfaction in your eyes as Delos beat Arkrie’s horse. That is unnatural, Osric, as you well know.” The Earl did not reply but merely lay back in his deep armchair staring at the flames. “What is the matter?” Lord Yaxley asked in a different tone of voice. “Is it Genevieve?” “Perhaps.” “Do you intend to marry her?” “Why should I?” “Unlike Arkrie she is proclaiming her love for you to all and sundry.” “I cannot prevent her from making a fool of herself,” the Earl said, “but I assure you that it is not based on any encouragement from me.” “She would look well at the head of your table and undoubtedly most ravishing in the Helstone diamonds.” The Earl said nothing for a moment and then he persisted slowly, “I have no wish to marry Genevieve.” Lord Yaxley gave a little sigh. “Quite frankly, Osric, I am glad. I was not certain if your heart was involved or not but Genevieve would doubtless bore you in time just as much as every other charmer you have discarded one by one.” He gave a short laugh and then added, “Have you ever noticed how she always sits so that you are looking at her profile? She told me once that someone, I have forgotten who, had said to her that, if Frances Stewart had not been the model for Britannia, they would have chosen her.” “Frances Stewart, if my history is still correct,” the Earl said with a sarcastic note in his voice, “refused her favours to King Charles II, which was why he remained infatuated with her until her face was disfigured by smallpox.” Lord Yaxley laughed again. “So no one can accuse Genevieve of refusing you.” The Earl did not reply and after a moment Lord Yaxley continued, “But then you never are refused, are you, Osric? I am beginning to think that that is the trouble.” “What trouble?” the Earl enquired. “It could account for your boredom. Now that I think about it, it must in time become tedious to know that you are always going to turn up the winning card, always bring down the bird you aim at and always be in at the kill.” “More flattery!” “At the same I am speaking the truth and you know it,” Lord Yaxley said, “and the truth is you are bored, Osric.” “Then what do you suggest I do about it?” the Earl enquired. “I wish I could answer that question. There must be some prize you covet somewhere, some mountain you have not yet climbed or some battle you have not won.” “Perhaps a war would be a solution,” the Earl remarked. “At least then one would be dealing with the fundamental effort of staying alive.” “You know, I am not certain,” Lord Yaxley said as if he was following his own train of thought, “that it would not be best for you to get married! It might induce you to spend more time in the country for I do realise that that huge mansion of yours, filled with the portraits of your ancestors, would be excessively gloomy if you lived in it by yourself.” “You think that marriage would be a solution?” “Not for Genevieve, she would not settle down anywhere!” Lord Yaxley said quickly. “But there must be a woman somewhere who would take your fancy and would not bore you to tears.” “There are quite a number.” “I am not talking about love affairs, you i***t!” Lord Yaxley exclaimed. “I am talking about marriage to a nice, respectable young woman who will give you children, especially a son. That at least would be an interest that you have not tried so far.” “But to obtain a son I would have to suffer all the banal conversation and the half-witted meanderings of the respectable young girl,” the Earl said. “I assure you, Yaxley, Genevieve would be preferable to that!” “I must admit, I looked over this Season’s debutantes at a ball last week,” Lord Yaxley said. “I had to put in an appearance because it was being given for one of my nieces. I have never seen a more depressing sight.” “That is the answer to your suggestion.” “A debutante would be far too young for you, that I agree,” Lord Yaxley conceded. “We will both be thirty next year and that is far too old for nursery games.” “And what is the alternative?” ‘There must be a sophisticated, charming, intelligent widow about somewhere.” “So we are back to Genevieve again.” There was silence between them as they were both thinking of the alluring, irrepressible and at times outrageous Lady Genevieve Rodney. She had been widowed two years previously and the moment she was out of mourning she had set the Social world by the ears by the way that she defied convention. But the gentlemen all found her irresistible and her small house in Mayfair was besieged day and night by her innumerable admirers. It was not surprising that she had set her cap at the Earl of Helstone. He was not only one of the richest men in the whole of England but he was, in many women’s opinion, by far the best-looking.