Читать книгу 273. The Elusive Earl - Barbara Cartland - Страница 2

The 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 idiot!” 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.

It was, however, with reason that he was nicknamed ‘The Elusive Earl’.

Ever since he had left school he had been pursued by ambitious mothers and by women who found both his handsome face and his well-filled pockets desirable.

But he had eluded every effort to lure him into the matrimonial net and was extremely fastidious in selecting the recipients of his affections.

It had, however, amused him, when Lady Genevieve was the toast of St, James’s and pursued by every buck and beau of the Social world, to sweep her off from under their very noses.

She had made no pretence that he was the first man to capture her heart. Nor was he the first lover she had taken after her husband’s death.

But during the months that they had been together she had made it very clear that she intended that he should be the last. Lady Genevieve’s heart was a vacillating organ and the Earl was never quite certain how much her protestations of true love rested on the fact that he could provide for her as lavishly as she desired and give her a position in Society that would be unequalled by anyone outside the Royal family.

The Helstones had Royal blood in their veins and it was known that their genealogical Family Tree with all its quarterings was a headache to the College of Heralds.

Apart from that the Earl had achieved on his own merits a position of importance in the House of Lords, which made him a person to be reckoned with and his opinion to be sought. And no one would deny that he reigned supreme in the sporting world.

He had concentrated on breeding thoroughbreds and had actually imported Arab stallions as the earlier breeders had done to improve his own strain.

Delos, however, the horse that had won the race at Newmarket, was a direct descendant of the famous Eclipse, which had sired so many great racehorses and whose successes were still spoken of with bated breath in racing circles.

Eclipse had been named after the great eclipse that occurred in 1764 the year of his birth and had been bred by William, the Duke of Cumberland, who died, however, a year later.

The horse was bought at the Duke’s disposal sale by William Wildeman, a Smithfield meat salesman, for seventy-five guineas.

Eclipse made his first appearance on a Racecourse in the ‘Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Plate’ at Epsom in 1769. His breath-taking performance made everyone with a knowledge of horseflesh realise that here was a phenomenon that would stand out for all time in the history of racing.

The Earl of Helstone as a boy had heard his father talk of Eclipse and of his win being recorded by the famous words ‘Eclipse first, the rest nowhere’.

He had a strong feeling that Delos or one of the other horses in his stable, might prove to be what he sought. But one could never be sure until the animal had run in a number of the great races on the flat.

‘Perhaps to own an ‘Eclipse’ or a horse to equal him,’ the Earl told himself now, ‘would be the most satisfactory ambition that a man could ask of life.’

He looked up at a picture over the mantelpiece. It was a portrait of Eclipse painted by George Stubbs.

The dark chestnut colour of the horse was set off by a white blaze and white stocking on his off hind leg. He was a big horse by the standard of his time, standing fifteen hands three inches.

He had a great length from hip to hock, a short and powerful forearm and long sloping shoulders.

These qualities had given him his tremendous stride, which, when combined with a fiery aggressive temperament, won for him an indelible place in the annals of the turf.

Lord Yaxley followed his friend’s eyes and commented,

“I grant you Delos made a spectacular finish today. Do you think he can win the Derby?”

“I have not yet made up my mind if I will enter him,” the Earl responded.

“You will be pressed to do so,” Lord Yaxley said.

“I assure that you I shall follow my own judgement in the matter,” the Earl answered. “Nobody yet has been successful in pressing me to do anything I did not wish to do.”

His friend, looking at him across the hearth, decided that this was most certainly true.

He knew better than anyone else how determined and unyielding the Earl could be once he had made up his mind.

He was extremely fond of him and they had indeed been friends ever since they had been children in their perambulators.

They had been to the same school, served in the same Regiment and strangely enough they had inherited their titles and estates in the same year.

But, while the Earl was immeasurably richer and more important on a Social scale than Lord Yaxley, who was comfortably well off and there were few prestigious families in Great Britain who would not have welcomed him as a son-in-law.

“To win the Derby would be a satisfaction that I do not think could be achieved by any other race,” Lord Yaxley said.

“I agree with you,” the Earl remarked. “But if I don’t enter Delos, there is always Zeus or Pericles.”

“The trouble is you have too many plums in the pudding!” Lord Yaxley smiled.

“Still gunning for me, eh, Willoughby?”

The Earl rose to his feet to walk across the comfortably furnished room.

“And after the Derby, I suppose I try for the Gold Cup at Ascot and after Ascot the St. Leger?”

“Why not?” Lord Yaxley enquired.

“The same old round,” the Earl remarked. “You are right, Willoughby, I am beginning to find it a dead bore. I think I will go abroad.”

“Abroad?” Lord Yaxley expostulated, sitting up in his chair. “What on earth for? And surely not during the Season?”

“I think it is the Season that I find so extremely dull,” the Earl remarked. “Those endless balls and parties. The invitations pouring in. The chatter, the gossip and the scandal. I have done it so many times before. My God! It is a headache.”

“You are spoilt, Osric, just spoilt,” Lord Yaxley exclaimed. “Why, there is not a man in the whole country who would not give his right arm to be standing in your shoes.”

“I wish I could think of something that I was prepared to sacrifice my right arm for,” the Earl replied.

Lord Yaxley was silent for a moment, his eyes on his friend’s face.

Then he asked him quietly,

“Something in particular is making you blue-devilled?”

The Earl did not reply, but sat in front of the fireplace, looking into the flames.

“It is Genevieve, is it not?” Lord Yaxley quizzed him after a moment.

“Partly,” the Earl admitted.

“What can she have done?”

“As a matter of fact if you want to know the truth,” the Earl said, “she tells me that she is having a baby!”

Lord Yaxley looked at him in astonishment and then he said sharply,

“It is not true!”

The Earl turned from his contemplation of the fire to look at his friend.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean what I say,” Lord Yaxley answered. “It is a lie, because Genevieve had told my youngest sister a long time ago that, owing to a fall whilst out hunting when she was a girl, the doctors have said it is impossible for her to bear a child.”

He paused and then he added,

“That was one of the reasons why I was so afraid that you might marry her. It is not my business, of course, and I do not want to interfere, but I would have told you before you took her up the aisle.”

The Earl sat back again in the armchair.

“Are you sure of this, Willoughby?”

“Dead certain. My sister, who was at the same school as Genevieve, told me about the accident at the time. When she married Rodney, he was longing for her to give him a son. According to my sister they consulted half-a-dozen doctors, but there was nothing that could be done about it.”

There was silence for a moment and then he added,

“If you ask me, Genevieve is determined to get you by hook or by crook and the whole story is a concoction in the hope that you will behave like a gentleman.”

The Earl rose to his feet.

“Thank you, Willoughby. You have indeed taken a load off my mind. And now I think we should retire to bed. If we are going to watch the gallops, we must leave the house at six o’clock promptly.”

“Well, all I can say is that I am glad I did not drink deep!” Lord Yaxley remarked as they walked towards the door.

He knew that the Earl had no desire to discuss the subject of Lady Genevieve further.

At the same time Lord Yaxley was glad that the Earl had raised the subject first and he had been able to give him without embarrassment the information that had been hovering on his lips for a long time.

Close though they were, Lord Yaxley was indeed aware that the Earl could be extremely reserved where his love affairs were concerned and he well knew as they walked up the stairs towards their bedrooms that only in exceptional circumstances would he have admitted, as he had tonight, what was troubling him.

‘Blast Genevieve!’ Lord Yaxley said to himself as they parted on the landing and went to their respective bedrooms.

He was certain that it was the thought of being forced to marry the delectable widow that had spoilt the Earl’s enjoyment of winning the race this afternoon and made him more than usually remote and difficult.

But with or without the problem of Genevieve, Lord Yaxley had been aware for some time that the Earl was bored with the social round and his own proverbial luck, which made everything he touched turn to gold.

‘Osric is right!’ he told himself as he got into bed. ‘What he needs is a war or a similar challenge to give him an incentive.’

It was all the fault of having too much money, Lord Yaxley decided.

The Earl was so unbelievably rich that there was really nothing that he could not buy.

Horses, women, possessions, they all required little effort on his part. Perhaps it was a surfeit of success that had made the Earl grow cynical and, even to his best friends, there was now a hardness about him that was increasingly perceptible.

It showed clearly in his face.

It was almost impossible to imagine that a man could be more handsome, but even when there was a glint of amusement in his eyes, those who knew him well seldom found that there was anything soft or gentle about his expression.

He expected perfection in the performance of duty by his servants and his employees and he was seldom disappointed.

His houses and estates were admirably administered and, if there were minor difficulties and problems, they were not brought to his notice.

He employed the best Agents, Managers, Attorneys and endless secretaries. He was the Commander-in-Chief, who planned all the campaigns and they were always successful.

‘He has too much,’ Lord Yaxley said to himself again before he fell asleep, wondering what could be the solution.

After the next day’s racing, the two Noblemen drove back together to London, the Earl tooling his phaeton, drawn by a team of superlative horses and covering the mileage in what was, they were certain, record time.

As they reached Helstone House in Piccadilly, Lord Yaxley said,

“Am I meeting you at dinner tonight? I believe that we have both been invited by the Devonshires.”

“Have we?” he asked indifferently. “My secretary will have a list of my engagements.”

“And that reminds me,” Lord Yaxley said. “Are you going to stay with Lady Chevington again for the Derby? I am sure she has asked you.”

“I believe I did receive an invitation from her,” the Earl replied.

“Do you intend to accept?”

There was a moment’s pause. Then, as the Earl drew his horses to a standstill outside the front door, he answered,

“Why not? It is far the most comfortable house near Epsom and at least her parties are sometimes amusing.”

“Then we can go together,” Lord Yaxley said. “Will you drive me down, Osric, unless you have other plans?”

“I shall be delighted to give you a lift.”

The two men parted, Lord Yaxley being driven by the Earl’s groom back to his lodgings, which were only two streets away.

The Earl walked across the hall and into the library.

He was there only for a moment before his secretary, Mr. Grotham, came into the room and bowed.

“Anything important, Grotham?” the Earl enquired.

“A great number of invitations, my Lord, but I will not trouble you with them now and several private letters. I have put them on your desk.”

The Earl walked over to the desk and saw four envelopes written in what was obviously female handwriting.

Mr. Grotham was always too tactful to open any letter or note that he thought might be personal and after years of service with his Lordship he was extremely astute in recognising a woman’s hand.

The Earl saw at once that three of the letters were from Lady Genevieve. There was no mistaking her rather untidy and over-elaborate style and, as he looked down at them, his lips tightened.

He had not referred again to the matter that Lord Yaxley and he had discussed last night, but the anger that the information had aroused still seethed within him.

How dare she attempt, he asked himself, to catch him by the oldest trick in the world and how could he have been such a fool as to credit for one moment that she was telling him the truth?

When he had started his love affair with Genevieve, he had no intention of it becoming serious. He had expected it to be just a light-hearted liaison between two sophisticated people who understood the rules of the game.

That Genevieve had fallen in love with him, according to what she had told him, had not perturbed him in the slightest, except for the fact that she seemed determined to proclaim her affection for him noisily and incessantly.

He found her desirable, extremely fascinating, and one of the most passionate women he had ever known in his life.

She amused him and he had paid for her favours with diamonds, rubies and a stream of exorbitant bills from Bond Street dressmakers. He had also provided her with a carriage and horses that were the envy of all her friends.

Never for one moment had the Earl considered marrying Lady Genevieve Rodney.

She was the type of woman who, he knew from past experience, was incapable of being faithful either to a husband or to a lover.

He was quite certain that, should the temptation arise, she would not hesitate to deceive him behind his back by taking to her bed any man who aroused her desires.

But what he did not realise was that Genevieve found him irresistible, simply and solely because, as had been said so often about him, he was elusive.

There was something about the Earl that no woman had ever been able to capture.

Even in the closest moments of intimacy she always knew that she did not possess him, that he was not completely and wholeheartedly hers. So because the Earl eluded Genevieve, perhaps for the first time in her life, she being the seeker not the sought, she fell in love!

She did not possess a deep nature and her emotions were very much on the surface, but she was a fiery creature with an insatiable craving for any man who took her fancy.

With the Earl she found that her heart was unsatisfied however competent a lover he proved in every other way.

She so wanted him at her feet. She wanted him subservient as other men had been. She wanted to capture him and. because he eluded her, she made up her mind to marry him.

Apart from any personal desire in the matter, the Earl was a parti to whom no female in the length and breadth of the country was likely to say ‘no’.

Apart from the many tales of his vast fortune, his estates and his priceless possessions, a woman had only to look at him, tall, broad-shouldered, handsome and confidently very sure of himself, to feel her heart turn over in her breast.

Genevieve exerted every wile in her extensive repertoire to enthral the Earl.

She found it easy to arouse his desires and he was extremely generous. But he never professed to love her and there was always a cynical twist to his lips and a slightly mocking note in his voice when he talked to her.

She knew only too well that she was not essential to him. When he left her she was never quite certain when she would see him again. She was not even sure that he missed her when he was away from her.

In fact he drove her crazy!

“When are you going to marry me, Osric?” she asked daringly one night as she lay close in his arms and the flames of the fire gave the only light in her flower-scented bedroom.

“You are greedy, Genevieve,” the Earl replied.

“Greedy?” she questioned.

“Yes,” he answered. “I gave you a diamond necklace yesterday. Last week it was rubies, and I think the week before that it was an emerald brooch that took your fancy. And now you want more!”

“Only a small gold ring,” she whispered.

“That is the one thing I cannot afford.”

“But why? We would be happy together, you know we would.”

“What do you call happiness?” the Earl questioned evasively.

“Being with you,” Genevieve replied. “You know that I make you happy.”

She moved nearer to him and threw back her head so that her lips invited his.

He looked down at her and she could not read the expression in his eyes.

“I love you,” she breathed. “Marry me, please, marry me!”

In answer he had kissed her passionately and the fire that, in both of them, was never far from the surface burst into a blaze.

They were consumed by the great heat of it and it was only later when she was alone that Genevieve remembered that he had not answered her question.

Now the Earl was angry and his eyes were hard as he looked down at the three letters on which his name was inscribed with the same dashing imperious flourish.

Deliberately he reached for another letter, which was in a writing he did not recognise.

“If you don’t need me now, my Lord, and have no further instructions,” Mr. Grotham said respectfully, “may I retire?”

“I believe I am dining at the Devonshire’s tonight?” the Earl asked him.

“Yes, my Lord, I have ordered your carriage.”

“What answer did you make to Lady Chevington’s invitation to Epsom?”

“You said you would think about it on your return, my Lord.”

“Accept,” the Earl said briefly.

“Very good, my Lord, and may I congratulate your Lordship on your win today?”

“The grooms told you, I suppose?” the Earl said. “It was very satisfying. I think Delos will prove to be a great horse.”

“I hope so, my Lord. I hope so indeed.”

“Did you have a few shillings on him?” the Earl asked.

“Yes, my Lord, as did all of the household. We all have great faith in your Lordship’s judgement.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Grotham left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

The Earl realised that he was holding a letter in his hand and slit it open. He read it and then stood staring at it in surprise.

Written in a very elegant and neat hand, in the centre of a plain sheet of paper, were the words,

“If your Lordship would hear something very much to your advantage, will you be on the South side of the bridge over the Serpentine at nine o’clock tomorrow, Friday morning? It is of the utmost import.”

‘What the devil does this mean?’ the Earl asked himself.

There was no signature and he thought perhaps it was a hoax.

He had in the past often received letters from women who he did not know, but they had always signed their names and been very careful to ensure that their addresses were on the writing paper so that he could get in touch with them.

But there was nothing with this note except for the bald message.

He thought that it might perhaps be a method of publicising a new night haunt, but that was unlikely seeing that there was no address. The same applied to a letter that might have come from one of the pretty Cyprians who were always on the lookout for new clients.

The Earl had on occasions been invited to parties by women he did not know. These had turned out to be either orgies or an assignation with a fair charmer who then expected to be heavily reimbursed for her favours.

This letter could be neither of these things and perhaps, the Earl thought, it was in fact exactly what it purported to be – a message inviting him to a rendezvous where he might learn something to his advantage. Although what that could be he had no idea.

There was no doubt that the handwriting was educated and the writing paper expensive. He rang the bell that stood on his desk and instantly the door was opened by a footman.

“Send Barker to me,” the Earl ordered.

A few seconds later his butler came into the room.

“You wanted me, my Lord?”

“Yes, Barker. Can you remember who brought this note?”

He held out the envelope as he spoke.

“Yes, my Lord,” the butler replied. “I was in the hall as a note had just been delivered for your Lordship by a groom wearing the livery of Lady Genevieve Rodney.”

“And this one – ” the Earl enquired.

“ – was brought to the door by a ragged small boy, my Lord. I was in fact surprised that the letter looked as it did, seeing who delivered it.”

“Did you ask him where he came from?” the Earl enquired.

He knew that Barker was extremely inquisitive and that little went on in the household of which he was not aware.

“As it happened, my Lord,” Barker replied with dignity, “I thought it wise to ask the boy some questions.”

“What did he tell you?” the Earl asked.

“He informed me, my Lord, that a lady had given him sixpence to bring the letter to this house. He’s a boy who hangs around the square, my Lord, hoping for a chance of holding a horse or running a message.”

“So that is all he told you?”

“That’s all, my Lord.”

The Earl told himself as he put the note down that it would be ridiculous to put himself out to meet some unknown person who wrote in such a manner and that if he did so he would undoubtedly find that it was a new method of touching him for a small loan.

Then, as he rose from his desk, leaving Lady Genevieve’s letters unopened, he knew that however much he might jeer at himself for being so curious, he would undoubtedly be on the South side of the Serpentine bridge tomorrow morning at nine o’clock!

*

The Earl went to bed later than he had intended because he had become involved in a political argument at Devonshire House, which went on into the early hours of the morning.

He was therefore somewhat disagreeable when he was woken from a deep sleep by his valet at his usual hour of eight o’clock.

His bath was all prepared for him on the hearthrug in his bedroom in front of the fire. Because he disliked the water getting cold, the Earl resisted an inclination to lie back against his pillows and rose from his bed.

Twenty minutes later he descended to the breakfast room to look with a jaundiced eye at the long row of silver dishes laid out on a side table.

He inspected them and, telling Barker to help him to the kidneys cooked in cream, he sat down at the breakfast table.

When the kidneys came, he waved them away and asked for a plain lamb chop.

When he had eaten, he began to feel better and told himself that the reason he was not feeling in his usual good health was the fact that the rooms at Devonshire House had been over-heated and that the brandy supplied by the Duke had been of inferior quality.

As he had told Lord Yaxley, he seldom drank to excess and, while he had not been in the slightest degree drunk last night, he had, however, sipped the brandy while they were talking until it was nearly dawn.

He therefore had found it difficult to sleep when he eventually reached his bed and that, combined with the long drive back from Newmarket, had made him unusually fatigued.

He decided that what he needed was fresh air and went out the front door to find that a black stallion that he had bought only the previous week at Tattersalls was awaiting him.

Suddenly the Earl found that both his headache and his disagreeableness had dispersed in the spring sunshine.

The horse was magnificent, there was no doubt about that.

His muscles were rippling under his shiny black coat as he tossed his head and pranced about in a manner that told the Earl that he was an animal worth breaking in to his touch.

Two grooms were striving to hold the stallion steady and, finding it impossible to keep their hold on him as the Earl swung himself into the saddle.

As the animal bucked and reared to show his independence, it took the Earl a little while to get him under control.

They set off down Piccadilly and had reached Hyde Park before the Earl knew with a sense of triumph that once again he was the Master.

There was nothing the Earl enjoyed more than a battle with a horse that was determined not to be subservient to his will.

They had a number of tussles before finally the Earl, pressing his tall hat firmly down on his head, took the stallion at a sharp pace down the row.

Away from the fashionable part where it was considered socially incorrect to gallop, the Earl gave the horse his head and galloped him hard over the grass until there was a glimmer of silver ahead and he realised that they were nearing the Serpentine.

Pulling his mount to a trot, he took his gold watch from his vest pocket and looked at the time.

It was in fact just on nine o’clock!

He had intended not to be punctual, it never hurt to keep someone as importunate as the writer of the note waiting, but owing to the speed that he had galloped at he was in fact on time.

Steadily he rode towards the bridge and saw as he drew near to it that there was nobody there.

‘It must have been a hoax,’ the Earl told himself wryly.

Nevertheless, as he was curious to know why anyone should take the trouble to play such a trick on him, he pulled the stallion to a standstill and stood gazing at the long silver stretch of water in front of him

The horse fidgeted a little and the Earl had just made up his mind to leave and continue with his ride when he saw coming towards him through the trees a woman riding at a pace which almost equalled his own a little while earlier.

She was wearing a green riding habit and the veil that encircled her hat flew out behind her like a flag.

He stood waiting as she drew nearer and he noticed with an experienced eye that she was riding an extremely well-bred animal.

Then to his astonishment, as the horse came nearer, seeming to gallop straight at him, the woman threw herself from the saddle to fall to the ground directly in front of him.

The Earl was so surprised that for a moment he could only stare at her. Then hastily, as she appeared to be lying still, he dismounted, tied his stallion’s reins with an expert hand to a post on the side of the bridge and went to her side.

As he reached her, he saw that her eyes were closed, but as he bent down and put out his hands, she opened them.

“Are you the Earl of Helstone?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I am all right,” she answered him in a surprisingly firm tone. “But I have something to tell you and we shall have to be quick about it.”

“What is it?” the Earl asked.

She had obviously suffered no damage and was in no pain but she continued to lie on the ground, although now she supported herself on one elbow and her head was raised.

She was very attractive, he thought, with fair hair with a touch of red in it showing under the brim of her dark hat, a very white skin and large grey-green eyes that seemed almost to fill her small face.

She was young, the Earl realised, and yet her voice had a decisive note in it that he did not associate with a young girl.

“You have been asked,” she then began, “to stay with Lady Chevington for the Epsom Races?”

“I have,” the Earl answered.

“You must refuse! Write and make any excuse you like, but on no account accept the invitation.”

“But why?” the Earl asked in bewilderment. “And why should it concern you?”

The girl was just about to answer him when there was the sound of thudding hoofs and a groom came hurrying towards them.

He was middle-aged and, when he saw his Mistress lying on the ground, he exclaimed in consternation,

“What’s ’appened to you, Miss Calista? ’Ave you ’urt yourself?”

“No, I am all right, Jenkins,” the girl replied. “Go and catch Centaur.”

“Now, Miss Calista, you knows I won’t be able to do that – ” the man started.

The Earl looked up at him sharply.

“You heard what the lady said. Catch her horse and bring it here.”

The groom recognised the voice of authority at once and touched his cap.

“Very good, sir.”

He spurred the horse he was riding and moved away.

The girl raised herself until she was in a sitting position. Then to the Earl’s astonishment she puckered her lips together and emitted a long low whistle to be followed by a shorter one.

The horse she had been riding immediately raised his head from where, a little way to the left of them, he was placidly eating the grass.

The groom had nearly reached him, but at his approach the horse then turned, trotting away for a dozen yards to put down his head again. The groom followed him only for the same thing to happen.

The Earl looked down at the girl beside him,

“You taught him to behave like that?” he said. “And he did not throw you, you threw yourself off!”

“Of course Centaur would never throw me,” the girl answered, “but I wanted to talk to you and, if Jenkins had thought that we had met by arrangement, he would have told Mama.”

“Who is your mother?” the Earl enquired.

“Lady Chevington!”

He looked at her in perplexity.

“Then why are you telling me I am not to accept your mother’s invitation to Epsom?”

“Because,” the girl answered, “if you come to stay, she will make you marry me!”

For a moment the Earl thought that she must be joking, but as he looked into her eyes, he realised that there was a serious expression in them and there was little doubt that she meant what she had just said.

There was a faint smile on his lips as he parried,

“I assure you that I can look after myself. If I do stay in your house for the Races, I will make no offer for your hand if that is what is worrying you.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Calista replied to him sharply. “You don’t understand what I am trying to say. You will not have the chance of offering for me nor I of refusing you, which I assure you I should. You will be forced to marry me. You will be tricked into it and there will be no honourable escape.”

The Earl rose to his feet

“I am sure you mean well in trying to warn me,” he said, “but I don’t quite understand why you should be so perturbed. I promise you, Miss Calista, I have no intention of marrying anyone.”

“And I have no intention of marrying you,” she replied almost rudely. “But if you do disregard my warning and then accept Mama’s invitation, she will contrive that we shall be married.”

The Earl laughed.

“I just cannot imagine any circumstances in which I could be coerced into accepting a situation that is none of my making. You may rest assured, Miss Calista, that what you fear will not happen.”

Calista rose to her feet.

“You are a fool,” she said. “I might have realised I was wasting my time in writing to you.”

She shook the dust from her riding habit and added,

“Why do you think the Duke of Frampton married my eldest sister, Ambrosine, or the Marquis of Northaw my younger sister Beryl?”

She waited as if she expected the Earl to reply but, as he said nothing and only looked at her speculatively, she said,

“They found themselves engaged to be married because Mama had made up her mind to have them as sons-in-law. Now she has chosen you as – my husband!”

“The idea obviously fills you with horror,” the Earl said, a sarcastic note in his voice.

“I imagined you would have more sense than to treat it as a joke. You are spoken of as being intelligent,” she said, “but I was obviously misled. All right come to Chevington Court, but I swear I will not marry you whatever happens.”

“What could happen?” the Earl enquired.

“You will see,” she replied ominously. “And let me tell you that Mama will win a bet of one thousand guineas the day our engagement is announced in The Gazette.”

“I assure you that she will be a loser,” the Earl said.

He thought that Calista gave him a contemptuous glance before she looked to where the groom was still vainly trying to catch her horse.

It was quite obvious that the animal was playing a game.

No sooner did the groom reach his side and bend forward to take hold of the reins than he moved away, tantalisingly near but just out of reach.

Calista gave another shrill whistle, a single note and now without a moment’s hesitation the animal came trotting up to her, the stirrup swinging as he moved.

She put out her hand, patted his neck and he nuzzled his nose against her cheek.

“Did you teach your horse these tricks?” the Earl asked.

“Of course,” Calista answered. “He understands everything I say to him. That is why he is called ‘Centaur’!”

“A creature half-horse, half-man,” the Earl smiled.

“I am glad to see you are more proficient in Greek than you are in good sense,” Calista remarked.

She looked beyond the Earl to where his stallion was trying to free himself from the bridle which held him to the post.

“What a magnificent horse!” she exclaimed in quite a different tone of voice.

“He is my new acquisition,” the Earl said. “Had I realised the part I was expected to play this morning, I would have brought a quieter animal.”

He went towards the stallion as he spoke to untie him.

The horse reared up, his front hoofs waving above the Earl’s head.

He talked quietly to the animal and, after patting his neck, swung himself lithely into the saddle almost before the stallion realised what was happening.

He turned the horse round to find that Calista had mounted as well.

“Thank you, sir, for your kindness in assisting me,” she said loudly and he realised that she spoke for the groom’s benefit.

“Bow to the gentleman, Centaur,” she commanded.

To the Earl’s surprise, her horse put out one front leg, bent the other and then lowered his head.

Next, without looking at the Earl again, Calista rode away.

He watched her go, realising that she had an excellent seat and rode superbly.

Then, as he thought of what she had said to him, the strange way that she had behaved and the manner in which she had thrown herself from her horse at his feet, the Earl smiled.

‘I must certainly discover what lies at the bottom of all this,’ he told himself.