A Very Unusual Wife

Chapter One 1846-1

Chapter One

1846The Earl of Warnborough threw the letters he had opened down on the table with what sounded suspiciously like an oath.

“Bills! Bills! Bills!” he cried. “Do I ever get anything else in this house? I cannot imagine how you can spend so much money!”

He looked across the table in a hostile manner at his wife, who merely replied,

“I am sorry, George dear, but everything is very expensive at the moment and I do try to economise!”

“Then all I can say is that you are not very successful,” the Earl said disagreeably, “and it means I shall have to give up the hounds!”

There was a cry at this from all his three daughters who were sitting round the table.

“Oh, no, Papa! You cannot do that!”

“I shall have to,” the Earl muttered gloomily. “What with the horses eating their heads off, wages rising and you girls becoming more expensive every day, things cannot go on as they are.”

“You have been very generous to me, Papa,” Lady Mirabel his eldest daughter said, “and, although I know that you grudge the money Mama had to pay for my gowns, Robert Warrington has proposed and as soon as he is out of mourning, we shall be married.”

There was a faint smile on the Earl’s lips as he remembered how rich his future son-in-law was.

He had rather hoped that since Mirabel was so lovely she would marry a man with a more illustrious title.

But Sir Robert was the seventh Baronet and, what was even more pleasing, he was extremely wealthy.

He had fallen in love with Mirabel and would have married her at the end of last year if he had not been in mourning for his mother, who had been in ailing health for some years.

He was, however, determined that they should be married in November and Mirabel was now thinking apprehensively that it would be disastrous if her father refused to pay for the elaborate and expensive trousseau that she and her mother were planning.

As if the Countess was thinking the same thing, she said coaxingly,

“I am sure George dear, as you are so clever, you will find some way out of our difficulties and I know it would break the girls’ hearts if you really gave up the hounds.”

She was thinking that it would also break her husband’s heart for he adored the pack he had been Master of for over fifteen years, taking over from his father before him.

It was so much a part of their existence that it was impossible for those sitting round the breakfast table to imagine Warne Park without the meets that took place there every season.

There was also the Hunt Ball when the ballroom was filled with pink-coated men and elegantly gowned women and the hunt breakfast at which the Earl was especially hospitable to any new members, as well as to those who had supported the hunt for many years.

“We have to economise somewhere,” he said in a firm voice, “and if you are suggesting that I should sell anything in the house, the answer is ‘no!’ Everything has to be kept for Desmond, which is only fair.”

The way he spoke made his daughters glance at each other with a knowing look in their eyes and a smile on their lips.

They all knew that Desmond was the apple of his father’s eye. They had only to suggest that in a few years he would want the hounds to remain as they were and the economies would have to come from somewhere else.

After fathering three daughters and finding the third was a dismal disappointment when he had so eagerly wanted a son, the Earl had given up hope of having an heir.

Then, almost like a miracle, when his wife had thought that a fourth child was impossible, Desmond had arrived.

He was the son the Earl had always wanted and he was, in fact, completely besotted by the small boy, now four, who was still in the nursery but for whom great plans had been made for the future.

First the best Public School, then the best University and what could be better than Eton and Oxford.

Then, of course, after a trip round the world to ‘widen his horizons’ as the Earl said grandly, he would help his father look after the estate until it became his.

Almost as if they had rehearsed it together, Mirabel and Deirdre now said as one voice,

“But you must be aware, Papa, that Desmond will want to ride with our own hounds and, of course, become Master of them when you are too old to carry on.”

On the other side of the table Lady Elmina’s eyes were twinkling as she knew that, without having to fight a battle that meant even more to her than to either of her sisters, victory was assured.

Not that she was really apprehensive, knowing how much her father loved his horses and looked forward all the year to when the hunting season came round again.

She had the feeling that however much he groaned and grumbled he would be prepared to sell the clothes off his daughters’ backs rather than part with something that meant so much to him and, as it so happened, to her.

The Earl, having been bitterly disappointed that his third child was yet another girl, had treated her in a different way from his two elder daughters.

It was, strangely enough, with Elmina that he discussed the running of the estate and the wellbeing of his horses. She helped him with the training of the young animals he bred or bought cheap and turned them into first class hunters for himself and his family or else sold them at a good profit.

It was Elmina who went out shooting with him in the autumn if he had no other guests and trudged over the fields in the wind and rain, regardless of possible damage to her complexion.

Her sisters told her she was a fool to risk her looks, but she enjoyed being with her father and actually found, although it seemed incredible, that she was bored by their long conversations about the latest fashions or, after Mirabel had been presented at Court, the gossip about the love affairs of people she had never seen.

As Elmina was the youngest, she inevitably wore all her sisters’ cast-off clothes and, as she was not yet officially a debutante, the opinions of the Social world and its fashions did not concern her.

She was just wondering now as she finished her breakfast how quickly she could slip away to the stables before her mother found some task for her to do in the house, when the butler came into the room with a note on a silver salver.

He took it to the Earl at the end of the table, saying pompously,

“This has been brought by a groom, my Lord. He’s waiting for an answer.”

The Earl glanced at the note without much interest.

“Who is it from, Barton?”

“The Marquis of Falcon, my Lord!”

The Earl stiffened and sat upright.

“Falcon? What the devil does he want?”

“Really, George, not in front of the girls!” the Countess exclaimed. “I had no idea the Marquis was in residence.”

“Neither had I,” the Earl replied. “He spoke to me at White’s last week, but, as there was a hideous noise being made by some of the younger members, I did not actually hear what he said.”

“Perhaps it’s an invitation, Papa!” Deirdre suggested.

Mirabel laughed.

“That is as likely as the Marquis asking himself to luncheon! We have never been invited to Falcon in eighteen years and we are not likely to be asked now.”

The Earl took the note from the salver, opened it and then spent some time searching for his spectacles, which were not in the pocket he expected them to be.

When he had placed them on his nose, he peered again at the letter in front of him, staring at it for such a long time that eventually his wife asked,

“What is it, George? What does the Marquis want?”

“Good God!” the Earl ejaculated. “I cannot believe it! Or else my eyes are deceiving me!”

“What has happened? What does he say?” his wife enquired.

Elmina was about to leave the table, but, now curious as to what the letter contained, she sat down again.

The Earl stared once more at the piece of paper he held in his hand. Then, as if he was suddenly aware that not only his family but also his butler was waiting with understandable curiosity, he said,

“I will ring, Barton. Tell the groom to wait.”

“Very good, my Lord!”

There was just a faint note of disappointment in the elderly butler’s voice.

He had been with the family for over thirty years and he was always eager to know what was going on as soon as, if not sooner than, it actually happened.

The Earl, however, waited until the pantry door had shut behind him before he said,

“I can hardly believe that this is not some joke. Falcon suggests that he should marry my daughter!”

For a moment there was complete silence.

Then the Countess exclaimed,

“You must be mistaken! Surely he cannot write anything like that out of the blue without any preliminaries?”

“Now that I think about it,” the Earl said heavily, “that must be what he was saying to me the other night at White’s. To tell the truth, my dear, I had drunk rather a lot of port with old Anstruther and, as Falcon was also on the side of my bad ear, I just nodded and smiled at what he was saying, not realising that I was agreeing to anything like this!”

“I can hardly believe it!” the Countess cried.

“Personally, I consider it an insult!” Mirabel said firmly. “Thank goodness I don’t have to marry him!”

“What do you mean – not marry him?” the Earl asked.

He looked at his eldest daughter as if he had never seen her before, then said slowly,

“The Falcon tiara is very becoming!”

Mirabel gave a little scream.

“What are you saying, Papa? What are you thinking? You know I intend to marry Robert and you have already given your consent.”

“Your engagement is a secret at the moment and has not yet been announced.”

Mirabel gave another scream.

“You promised, Papa! You know you promised, and no gentleman would ever go back on his word.”

The Earl gave a little sigh and looked at his second daughter.

Deirdre had already anticipated this and she said,

“Before you say another word, Papa, I have no intention of marrying the Marquis of Falcon! I have always disliked him for the discourteous way he has treated us when we have been out hunting and in any case, although I have not told you about it, Christopher and I have an understanding.”

“Christopher Bardsley!” the Countess exclaimed. “Oh, Deirdre why did you not confide in me? I have hoped so much that he would be attracted to you.”

“He is very attracted,” Deirdre answered, “but it has not been possible for him to speak to Papa while his father is so desperately ill and is expected to die at any moment.”

“I quite understand,” the Countess said in a soft voice, “and I am sure, dearest child, that you will be very happy with such a charming young man.”

She was thinking as she spoke that while Christopher was handsome and had, she thought, the best manners of any young man who came to the house, his father, Lord Bardsley, who lived about fifteen miles away, had a very fine estate, which Christopher would inherit with the title as soon as he died.

“Thank you, Mama,” Deirdre said. “I thought you would understand. I have not spoken of it before because Christopher said it would seem heartless when his father was dying.”

“That is all very well,” the Earl said sharply, “but what am I to say to Falcon?”

“I will marry him, Papa!”

If Elmina had fired a pistol in the breakfast room, she could not have caused more surprise.

They all turned to stare at her and the Earl said in a not very complimentary fashion,

“You? Of course he cannot marry you!”

“Why not?” Elmina asked.

“You are too young for one thing,” the Countess interposed.

“I shall be eighteen next week,” Elmina said, “and you must remember, Mama, that your only excuse for not presenting me at Court this Season was that you could not contemplate three girls on your hands and that Papa would grumble at the expense.”