The Bargain Bride

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1818-1

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1818The members of White’s Club sitting in the Morning Room looked up in some surprise as the Earl of Blakeney burst through the door.

“For God’s sake fetch me a drink!” he called to one of the Club servants.

Seeing Lord Fulbourne on the other side of the room, he flung himself down in one of the leather chairs beside him.

“I am finished, Charles,” he said. “Completely and utterly finished!”

“I presume,” Charles Fulbourne answered haughtily, “that you have lost your money.”

“I have lost all I own and a damned sight more besides!” the Earl replied. “Unless somebody is ready to bail me out, the next time you see me will be in the Fleet Prison!”

Lord Fulbourne looked at him in surprise.

The way his friend was speaking made it sound just as if his reference to the Fleet Prison was not a joke but a reality.

“How can you have been such a fool again,” he asked in a lowered voice because he now realised that the whole room was listening, “as to play when you know you cannot afford it?”

“It was my only chance to pay off some of my creditors, but now Cayton can go whistle for his money. You cannot get blood from a stone!”

As if the mere mention of his name conjured him up, Lord Anthony Cayton, a tall, good-looking young man, came into the room.

He glanced around, saw the Earl and walked towards him.

“If you think you are going to get away without paying me, Blakeney,” he said angrily, “you are very mistaken! You have welshed on me before, but this time I will have you thrown out of the Club.”

“I will throw myself out,” the Earl retorted.

He rose from his chair as he spoke and then confronted Lord Anthony. The two young men glared at each other like ferocious beasts.

There was now a faint smile on the faces of some of those listening. They seemed to know that the Earl and Lord Anthony had quarrelled a fortnight ago over possession of a very pretty ‘Cyprian’.

That the Earl had won had so infuriated Lord Anthony who had then sworn his revenge.

It did not appease him when he learned that, finding the Earl’s pockets were ‘to let’, the Cyprian had then left him within a week for a rich ‘protector’.

“I am going to call you out,” Lord Anthony informed him aggressively.

“You can call me out until you are blue in the face,” the Earl retorted, “I am going off to the country to see if I have anything saleable left. But I do promise you that any pickings that remain after the tradesmen have got their hands on it will be ‘chicken feed’.”

“If you say very much more,” Lord Anthony replied, “I will knock you down!”

As it seemed that this was exactly what he intended, Lord Fulbourne rose to stand between them and saying,

“Stop it you two! You know as well as I do, Anthony, that David has not a penny to his name.”

He turned to the Earl and went on,

“And so you, David, have no right to gamble when you are well aware that your house is falling around your ears and those who rely on you have not enough to eat.”

The way he spoke made the Earl look slightly shame-faced for a moment or two.

Lord Anthony turned on his heel and, muttering beneath his breath, walked out of the Morning Room.

Lord Fulbourne put his hand on the Earl’s arm.

“Go home, David,” he suggested in a quiet voice. “I have a feeling that things are more desperate than you realise.”

“I know how desperate they are,” the Earl replied, “and the best thing I can do is to blow a piece of lead through my head!”

He left as he spoke and there was a buzz of voices as the members who had been stunned into silence by the drama taking place in front of them, began to discuss it.

Lord Fulbourne sat down again and, as he did so, a man rose from a chair in the corner where he had been reading The Times and sat down next to him.

“My name is ‘Winton’,” he now began. “I knew your father and I have only just returned to England and so I am curious to know what all this fuss is about.”

Lord Fulbourne looked round and realised that this man was someone he had never seen before.

He guessed that he was around thirty-four years of age and had a distinctive presence that gave him an air of authority.

He was also handsome with a distinctive square chin.

But Lord Fulbourne thought that there was something hard about his eyes and the firmness of his mouth.

It was an arresting face and he wondered who the newcomer was and how he had become a member of White’s.

The most exclusive Club, and one of the oldest in London, it was noted for having as its members only the most blue-blooded aristocrats.

It was also harder to get elected to White’s than to any other club in St. James’s.

Because the man opposite him was waiting for an answer to his question, Lord Fulbourne said,

“You heard the Earl of Blakeney is ‘below hatches’ and that is unfortunately the truth. He inherited a large amount of debts when his father died and so he has managed to exist by selling anything that was saleable from his ancestral home.”

He realised that Mr. Winton, if that was his real name, was listening intently and he added,

“I believe his debts have reached such proportions that the tradesmen are forcing the sale of everything that is left.”

“And if he cannot pay them?” the man called Winton asked, “does it really mean he will go to the Debtors’ Prison?”

“It is certainly a possibility,” Lord Fulbourne now admitted. “The tradesmen are tired of gentlemen who live on credit and he was informed a week ago that they intend to take action against him and show him up as an example to other young gentlemen who are so irresponsible.”

Mr. Winton was silent for a moment before he said,

“I think I remember the late Earl.”

“Everyone was indeed very fond of him,” Lord Fulbourne remarked, “but he was a gambler and his children have to suffer the consequences.”

“His – children?” Mr. Winton questioned.

“David has one sister,” Lord Fulbourne replied, “who, if she could have a Season in London, would most undoubtedly be an ‘Incomparable’.”

He paused before he then continued as if choosing his words with care.

“She is very lovely, in fact beautiful is the right word, but, unlike her brother, she is too proud to take what she cannot pay for. She therefore always stays in the country.”

“A sad story,” Mr. Winton said, “and I think I am right in saying that the Earl of Blakeney’s house is in Hertfordshire.”

“Blake Hall is just about twenty-five miles from here,” Lord Fulbourne answered, “and it is there the tradesmen are intending to confront him with their bills.”

He sighed before he added,

“I suppose that those of us who can afford it must turn up and buy something we do not want just for friendship’s sake.”

His reluctance to do anything of the kind was very obvious, and Mr. Winton gave him a penetrating look before he said,

“It is always interesting in such circumstances for a man to see how many real friends he really has.”

There was no doubt that he was speaking cynically.

He rose to his feet as he spoke and then walked back to the chair he had vacated in a corner of the Morning Room.

*

It was late in the afternoon when, driving in a phaeton that he had not paid for and with good horses he had borrowed from a friend, the Earl of Blakeney arrived back at Blake Hall.

As he drove in through gates that needed painting and past lodges that were empty with their windows all boarded up, there was a despairing expression on his face.

As the house came in sight at the end of the drive, it looked, with its mellow bricks that had become an enchanting pale pink over the years, very beautiful.

But, as he drew nearer he could then see broken windows that had not been repaired and the tiles that had fallen from the roof.

Moss, grass and weeds were growing in the cracks in the steps leading up to the front door.

As the Earl drew his horses to a standstill, he shouted at the top of his voice.

It was a sound that echoed round the house until it reached the stables.

An old man with white hair appeared slowly from round the corner and it took him, the Earl thought, an inordinate amount of time to reach the horses’ heads.

“I weren’t expectin’ you, my Lord,” he said in a croaking voice.

“I was not expecting to come,” the Earl replied sharply as he stepped down from the phaeton. “Put the horses in the stable, Glover. They will be collected tomorrow.”

“Very good, my Lord,” Glover replied.

He was grumbling beneath his breath as he led the horses away towards the stable.

The Earl walked in through the front door, which was open.

The hall with its dark oak panelling was too familiar for him to notice the endless dust on the floor or the fine diamond-paned windows that bore the heraldic Coat-of-Arms of the Blakeneys, were both dirty and cracked.

He threw his high hat down on a table that needed polishing and again shouted at the top of his voice,

“Aleda! Aleda!”

There was no reply and he was about to shout again when there was the sound of footsteps.

A moment later his sister came running into the hall.

“David!” she exclaimed, “I was not expecting you.”

Her brother did not reply to her and, standing in front of him as she looked up into his face, she said,

“What has – happened? What is – worrying you?”

“Everything,” the Earl answered. “Is there anything to drink in this dung heap?”

“There is water – or there may be a few coffee beans left.”

The Earl made a sound of disgust and walked across the hall and opened the door into the drawing room.

It was beautifully proportioned with windows looking out on what had once been the Rose Garden.

The furniture, however, was very sparse and uninspiring.

There were marks on the walls where the pictures had been removed and what had obviously been a mirror was gone from the mantelshelf.

Also missing were the Dresden china figures and the Sèvres clock that the Earl well remembered as a child.

He turned to stand with his back to the empty fireplace in which the brass fire-irons had clearly not been polished nor the fire basket had been blackened.

His sister then followed him into the room and now she said apprehensively,

“You had better – tell me the worst – David!”

“Very well,” her brother replied, “my creditors are coming here tomorrow to demand that we sell everything that is left in the house and thinking that they can find a fool to buy the house itself.”

Aleda gave a little cry of horror.

“Surely you – cannot mean – that?”

Her brother did not answer and after a moment she said,

“I always believed that the house was – entailed so that it – could not be – sold.”

“That is what Papa believed,” the Earl replied, “but actually, the ‘entailment’ or whatever that thing is called, lapsed after the seventh Earl died without having a son and, although a cousin inherited, he was not in the direct male line and that broke the entail.”

“I had no – idea of – that,” Aleda said in a low voice.

“If Papa had known it, I am certain that he would have sold the house, lock, stock and barrel!” the Earl said sharply, “and now that is what I have to do.”

His voice was bitter as he continued,

“I cannot imagine that we will get anything for the mess it is in at present and after the War was over, nobody seems to have much money.”

“But, David – what are – you going to – do?” Aleda asked him in a frightened voice.

“If the tradesmen have their way, I shall go to prison!”

She gave a cry of horror.

“Oh – no – not that.”

“They are determined to make an example of someone who they consider has defaulted on them in a major way.”