The Dangerous Dandy

Chapter One ~ 1799-2

Lord Dorrington knew this to be true. By law a parent or Guardian could arrange a marriage without the consent of the parties concerned if they were under age.

Alyna gave a little shiver.

“What is the time?” she asked.

Lord Dorrington drew his watch attached to a gold fob from his waistcoat pocket.

“It’s a quarter to midnight.”

“And the announcement is to be made – at midnight!” Alyna cried with a note of panic in her voice. “Do you understand that, if I am not back in the ballroom in a few minutes – they will come looking for me? That is why your Lordship must go away and forget – that you have ever seen me.”

She rose to her feet as she spoke and added with a touch of irony,

“You will doubtless be able to read about it in The Times the day after tomorrow. I shall perhaps merit – a line or two such as,

‘It is with deep regret we announce that on the night of May 3rd 1799 the body of a young woman was recovered from the Thames near – ’”

Her voice died away as Lord Dorrington also rose and she looked up into his eyes.

“Are you really so cowardly?” he asked scathingly, “that you run away from the first battle?”

“Cowardly?”

Alyna repeated the words beneath her breath.

“I am sure I am right in thinking that your father was at one time a soldier,” Lord Dorrington said slowly. “I know at any rate that one of your relatives was a General.”

“That was – my uncle,” Alyna said. “He commanded the Grenadier Guards and my father also served in the Grenadiers.”

“Then I cannot believe that they would be very proud of you at this moment,” Lord Dorrington said.

There was a long silence.

Then Alyna gave a deep sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of her being.

“I will – try once again to make Mama – understand,” she said hesitatingly. “But, if the engagement is announced at midnight, she will never listen. She will say it’s too late – however much I try to persuade her.”

“Yes, I can understand that,” Lord Dorrington remarked, “and therefore you must leave immediately.”

“If I go back to the house,” Alyna said, “they will be looking for me. I am sure the Prince will be – waiting.”

She shuddered as she spoke and Lord Dorrington saw the gleam of terror in her eyes.

“Why does he frighten you so much?” he asked.

“I wish I knew,” Alyna answered. “I tell myself that it is stupid and childish and yet every time he comes near me I feel as if there is a cobra in the room. I want to scream and run away and yet sometimes I am unable to move. There is some power in him – something almost – hypnotic.”

“Then you must make every excuse not to be alone with him,” Lord Dorrington said.

“I know,” Alyna agreed, “I have told myself that. But I think he orders Mama to do what he wants. And she wishes so much – to please him.”

Lord Dorrington appeared to be about to ask another question and then he changed his mind.

“I must help you to escape,” he said in a matter of fact voice. “It would doubtless compromise you if it was known that I drove you home in my carriage, but that is a risk we must take.”

“He must not see me leave,” Alyna said quickly.

“No, I realise that,” Lord Dorrington replied. “So what I am going to suggest is this – follow the balustrade along the bank of the river until you come to the end of the garden. Beyond it is the main road.”

He paused and went on,

“I think, if I remember rightly, it is bordered not by a wall but by a yew hedge. I have the feeling that you will be able to negotiate it.”

“Where shall I meet you?” Alyna asked.

“I am going back to the house,” Lord Dorrington replied. “I shall make my farewells to Lady Glossop and thank her for a very pleasant evening. I will then stop my carriage on the road near the bridge. Keep in the shadows of the yew hedge and don’t come forward until you see me alight from the carriage.”

“I will do that.”

“You promise?” Lord Dorrington asked sharply. “I trust you to meet me there.”

“If you mean that I might throw myself in the river when you have left me,” Alyna said in a low voice, “I will not do so. You are right, I have been a coward. But it’s difficult – very difficult!”

“I will meet you on the road in four to five minutes time,” Lord Dorrington said. “Now do as I tell you, Alyna, just follow the balustrade.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and questioning in the light from the lantern.

“You are very kind to me,” she said softly. “Why?”

“I have a feeling that I shall ask myself that very same question before the night is out,” Lord Dorrington said with a faint smile. “In the meantime, Alyna, as it is drawing near to midnight, I suggest that you start moving quickly towards the road.”

At his words Alyna gave a nervous glance over her shoulder as if she were afraid of someone appearing from the direction of the house.

Then without speaking again, with her hand on the grey stone of the balustrade, she walked through the fragrant shrubs and disappeared.

Lord Dorrington walked in the opposite direction.

He moved slowly with an air of fashionable languor across the lawns and in through the open French windows of the ballroom.

The tapers in the huge crystal chandeliers shed their light on the elegance of the Beau Monde dancing sedately on the polished floor of the ballroom.

The women guests shimmered with jewels, tiaras surmounted their elaborately arranged hair and their full-skirted, draped, embroidered, fulsomely trimmed gowns also glittered with gems.

The men were equally magnificent, bestrewn with decorations, and on some silk-stockinged legs beneath the conventional white satin breeches there glittered the Order of the Garter.

The younger men, following the fashion set by Beau Brummel and the Prince of Wales, were less ornate, but their high intricately tied cravats were a decoration in themselves.

In 1799 wigs were no longer worn, except by the powdered flunkeys with their gold-braided heavily-buttoned liveries, as they carried great silver trays laden with crystal glasses of champagne amongst the guests.

Lord Dorrington, moving purposefully through the throng, managed to avoid conversing with a number of people who wished to engage his attention.

He found his hostess. Lady Glossop, in an anteroom off the main ballroom talking to a lady he recognised as Lady Maude Camberley. Beside them was a dark skinned, over-decorated stranger, who Lord Dorrington guessed was the Prince.

“My dear Lord Dorrington,” Lady Glossop gushed, holding out her gloved hand, “you cannot be leaving us!”

“It is with deep regret that I must do so,’’ Lord Dorrington replied. “But I have an appointment to meet His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales at Carlton House and I am afraid I am already late.”

“Then, if His Royal Highness is expecting your Lordship, I must not detain you,” Lady Glossop said. “But his gain in the pleasure of your company is certainly our loss.”

“You are very gracious,” Lord Dorrington murmured.

“I am only sorry you cannot stay for a little ceremony that is just about to take place,” Lady Glossop said.

As she spoke, she turned to Lady Maude Camberley.

“I think, Maude, you know Lord Dorrington.”

“We have met,” Lady Maude said coldly.

“We have indeed.”

Lord Dorrington gave her so brief a bow that she instinctively stiffened as if at an insult.

“And, of course, you must know Prince Ahmadi,” Lady Glossop went on. “Your Highness, may I present Lord Dorrington, who is without exception the best dressed man in London.”

“I have heard of your Lordship,” Prince Ahmadi said with a flash of his white teeth.

“I am flattered,” Lord Dorrington drawled in a tone that conveyed the opposite.

He looked the Prince over as he spoke and thought that he could understand Alyna’s fear of him.

Prince Ahmadi was handsome in a fleshy flamboyant fashion. He was taller than might have been expected and had an assured polished manner that could only have come from a Western education.

At the same time there was something exotic and very Oriental about him.

Perhaps it was the boldness of his black eyes, which were too close together. Perhaps it was the sensual fullness of his lips, which had a touch of cruelty about them.

It was not difficult to understand that anyone as young and sensitive as Alyna would find him terrifying.

“May I thank you once again,” Lord Dorrington said to Lady Glossop.

He turned and walked without appearing to hurry from the anteroom across the marble hall to where the linkmen were calling the carriages.

“I dislike that man!” Lady Maude remarked when he was out of earshot.

“I cannot imagine why you accord him the importance of even thinking about him,” the Prince said. “After all, like so many ineffectual Englishmen, he is nothing but a clothes peg!”

“I find him delightful,” Lady Glossop said firmly, as if she resented her guests being criticised. “I have known Ulric Dorrington for many years and, despite his addiction to fashion, he has, I believe, a great deal of intelligence.”

Neither of her guests however was listening to her.

“I wonder where Alyna can be,” Lady Maude asked sharply. “I told her to come back to my side as soon as each dance ended.”

“I last saw her about twenty minutes ago,” the Prince said. “She was with a vacant-looking fop whose cravat was already wilting in the heat.”

“I expect they have gone into the garden,” Lady Glossop said. “It’s very hot.”

“Alyna is not supposed to go into the garden,” Lady Maude snapped. “If I have told the child once, I have told her a thousand times that girls who sit out at dances earn the reputation of being fast.”

“After tonight I shall have the privilege of looking after Alyna for you,” the Prince said suavely. “I shall be very attentive. When she is in my care, Alyna will not make mistakes.”

Lady Maude smiled at him.

“No, Your Highness, I am sure you will look after her perfectly. After all the poor child needs the protection of a man like yourself. It has been hard for us both since my dear husband died.”

She made her voice sound quite plaintive.

The Prince, however, was not listening, while his dark eyes were searching the crowd of dancers moving back into the ballroom from the garden for the beginning of another dance.

There was no sign of Alyna.

*

Lord Dorrington’s well-sprung carriage, drawn by a fine pair of perfectly matched roans, came to a standstill just before the bridge.

A footman jumped down from the box, but almost before he could open the door a small figure in white came running from the shadows of the yew hedge to clamber into the carriage.

“You have come!” she said breathlessly. “I was so afraid – you would change your mind.”

“I think those are the words I should be saying to you,” Lord Dorrington said with a faint smile. “What is your address?”

“36 Hertford Street,” Alyna replied.

The footman arranged a rug over Alyna’s knees and the carriage started off.

It was not far from Chelsea to Hertford Street, where Lady Maude had rented a small and uncomfortable house for the Season. But the roads were narrow and the carriage could not proceed at any great speed.

“Did you see Mama?” Alyna asked.

“She was waiting for you with Lady Glossop,” he replied, “and Prince Ahmadi was also with them.”

“You met him?”

“Yes, I met him.”

“Can you now realise what I – feel about him?”

“I think perhaps I can,” Lord Dorrington said. “But, Alyna, you will have to marry some time. Even if you evade the Prince, there will be other men.”

“I shall never marry, never!” Alyna replied. “I hate men! Do you understand, I hate them!”

“Have you much experience of the species?” Lord Dorrington enquired with a hint of laughter in his voice.

“I know you think that I am very ignorant and perhaps foolish,” Alyna said, “but I met a number of young men when I was in Bath. There was even one gentleman who offered for me, but, as he had no money, Mama would not entertain the idea of my marrying him I am thankful to say.”

“Perhaps you have been unfortunate in the men you have met,” Lord Dorrington suggested.

Alyna shook her head.

“I talked about it with Papa,” she said, “and he agreed that I would not be happy married to the type of young man who was most likely to wish to make me his wife.”

“Why should your father have thought that?” Lord Dorrington asked in surprise.

“Because I am too clever!” Alyna said.

In the light of the lantern that lit his carriage, Lord Dorrington looked at her in astonishment, then threw back his head and laughed.