CHAPTER ONE
–
1864

“Damn you to hell! Do you hear me!”

Over the desk one pair of blazingly angry eyes met another pair, cold but no less angry. The man with the blazing eyes backed off first, swinging away to move into the large bay window and stand with his back to the other man.

“Damn you!” he repeated in a more controlled tone. “You are a smug hypocrite and you don’t even have the honesty to admit that you hate me.”

The man behind the desk shrugged wearily.

“Would admitting it make any difference, John?”

“It would be honest. Why not just say that I’m a thorn in your flesh and that your world would be a brighter place if I died tomorrow – or preferably today?”

Charles Baxter, tenth Earl of Hartley, thought for a moment before saying quietly, “in other words, you’d like me to behave as badly as you do yourself?”

His cousin, the Honourable John Baxter swung round from the window as he faced his cousin across the elegant desk where the Earl kept his papers.

“You could never behave as badly as I do, cousin,” he sneered. “You haven’t the gift for it. Behaving really badly is an art, one in which our family used to excel. By Jove, at one time this family made its mark. We could out-drink, outride and out-wench anyone in the county.”

“And you regard that as something to be proud of?” the Earl asked, and this time his eyes were really cold.

“Oh stop being so sanctimonious! It was a triumph. It was how a great family was expected to behave.”

“Yes, as though you were above the law, and oblivious to anyone else’s wishes or needs. You call that greatness? I call it contemptible.”

“The Hartleys were Titans, and the world knew it. But now? Look at us! You’ve become a virtuous prig and there’s only me to keep the glorious traditions going.”

The two cousins might have come out of the same mould, so alike were they. Both in their thirties, both six foot tall, long of leg and broad of shoulder, both with dark hair and eyes of deep brown.

Their faces too had been alike at birth, but John’s already showed the effects of dissipation. A ceaseless round of pleasure and idleness had blurred his once sharp features, and a nature in which petulance and selfishness had conquered all else had left a discontented droop to his mouth.

His frame too bore the signs of self-indulgence in a thickening of the waist that even the most expensive cut to his coats could no longer hide. A man once called ‘as handsome as a young God’ was beginning to look more like a satyr.

By contrast, the Earl still had the lean, upright figure that spoke of country pursuits, long hours in the saddle and vigorous exercise. He both ate and drank in moderation and the contours of his face were still youthful, something that seemed to drive his cousin John into paroxysms of rage.

John was indeed in a temper now, caused by the Earl’s refusal to pay a huge debt that he had carelessly tossed to him.

It had arrived in the post three days ago, as so many had done before it. And Charles had promptly sent it back.

The response had come quickly. John had come raging up to Hartley Castle and stormed into the library.

“What the devil do you mean by sending these back to me?” he shouted, tossing the bills onto the desk.

“My letter means exactly what it says,” Charles had replied. “I’ve paid too many of your debts in the past and this time I’m refusing.”

“You always refuse, in the beginning,” John had replied with the air of sneering assurance that was common with him. “And you always yield in the end.”

“This time I shall not.”

“You always say that, too.”

“Listen John, I have other claims on me. As head of the family –”

“But are you, I wonder?” Charles ignored this remark. He had heard the story too often before, and knew that responding always led to a fruitless conversation going round in circles.

“I’m responsible for the welfare of many of our relatives,” he continued. “Too often I’ve put your gambling debts ahead of their needs.”

“And you’ll do it again unless you want a nasty scandal,” said John, as Charles knew he would say. “How the newspapers would love to be able to print, ‘Hartley heir imprisoned for debt’!”

“You’ve blackmailed me too often with that threat,” Charles responded in a measured tone that showed he was trying to keep his temper. “This time I shall not allow it. The answer is no.”

“How you enjoyed saying that!” John had snapped.

“It gives me no pleasure.”

“Liar! It gives you every pleasure, because you hate me. Admit it, you hate me!”

But this admission Charles steadfastly refused to give, even though it came closer to the truth than he cared to face. There had once been a good deal of affection between them, and although it had long been replaced by hostility on one side and weary exasperation on the other, the memory of that affection kept him from any open admission.

Not receiving the answer he demanded, John stormed across to the window, hurling the word ‘hypocrite’ over his shoulder.

Still Charles refused to be provoked and John began to wander around the great library, staring up at the shelves that climbed right to the ceiling, row on row of leather bound books that few Hartleys (according to Charles) had ever bothered to read.

The library was a combination of shabby grandeur and comfort. Leather sofas and armchairs, worn rugs, a huge fireplace, empty now that it was summer, but in winter sporting a blaze to warm the heart as well as the hands.

Where the walls were not covered with books, there were many sporting prints and trophies. It was the library of a gentleman, an Earl, and a man who loved his country pursuits. And every inch of it seemed to fuel John’s anger.

“I won’t accept your refusal,” he snapped.

“It is useless continuing this conversation,” said Charles. “I have told you a thousand times that your extravagant way of life must stop.”

“And I have told you a thousand times to go to the devil! It gives me great pleasure to tell you so again.”

“John, you can’t go on spending money that isn’t yours.”

“Why not?”

“Because you impoverish others who have a greater claim on it.”

“Nobody has a greater claim than I,” John shouted.

“And you know why.”

“Let us not go into that again –”

“Because you’re afraid,” John sneered. “You’re afraid to bring the truth out into the open, afraid of the world knowing that it is I, not you, who is the true Earl of Hartley –”

“You have taken leave of your senses,” said Charles in disgust. “This particular ‘truth’ is one you’ve been peddling for years to anyone who’ll listen and your father before you. And nobody has yet believed you. Why should I be afraid if you say it again?

Go ahead, John. Tell the world that our fathers were twins, and that your father was truly the elder son, but a drunken midwife muddled them. That’s the story isn’t it? Tell anyone you like but don’t tell me, because like the rest of the neighbourhood, I know it isn’t true and I’m bored with it.”

A lesser man would have quailed before the malevolence in John’s eyes. He truly could be said to hate his cousin.

“How do you know it isn’t true?” he demanded viciously.

“For one thing because our grandmother has always dismissed the story as nonsense. Good heavens John, our fathers were her babies. Who could know the truth better than she? She’s told you time without number to forget this myth, just as she told your father.”

“She’s lying,” John said feverishly. “She’s against me too. You all are.”

“If people are against you, it’s because of your behaviour. You lie, you cheat, you seduce women, you spend money you don’t have and others suffer – ” He wasn’t allowed to finish. Slamming his hand down on the pile of bills on the desk, John shrieked,

“Will you pay these?”

“No,” said Charles bleakly. “I will not.”

“By God!” John breathed, “I won’t stand for this.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

The Earl’s voice was final, and it drove his already maddened cousin into a frenzy. Slipping his hand into an inner coat pocket, he pulled out a small pistol and held it to his cousin’s head.

“Don’t drive me too far,” he gasped.

Perhaps a wise man would have placated John at that moment, but there was in Charles a vein of stubbornness that was like granite. It made him shrug his shoulders, even while he could feel the cold steel against his forehead and said, “

I don’t respond to threats, you ought to know that by now. The answer is still no.”.

“I’m warning you –”

“Don’t warn me. I’m not impressed. Either fire that thing or put it away.”

“If I fire you’ll be sorry.”

“No, I won’t because I’ll be dead. You’ll be sorry because you’ll be arrested for murder, but it won’t trouble me one way or the other.”

Charles regarded his cousin with a hint of amusement. “You wouldn’t get away with it, you know. Everyone knows you’re here, and you’re my heir, and you’re the first person they’ll think of. Still, it would solve your debt problems, I can see that.”

John breathed hard. “You dare to torment a desperate man?”

“For pity’s sake, stop talking melodramatic rubbish!” Charles said, irritated to the point of tempting fate.

Whether his gamble would have resulted in tragedy they were never to know. For the next moment the door opened and Watkins, the butler, entered and saw John holding the pistol to Charles’s head.

“Mr John, sir!” he exclaimed horrified.

Watkins had known them both as boys and no dramatic atmosphere could survive his fatherly intervention.

The intent drained out of John’s face and he took a step back, lowering his arm.

“To the devil with both of you!” he said angrily.

“It was only a joke, Watkins,” Charles soothed him. “You know how incorrigible we both are.” His smile at John was an invitation to return, at least for a moment, to their childhood friendship. “You don’t think that thing is loaded, surely?”

It was a fatal thing to say, as he knew the moment the words were uttered. After that John had no choice but to pull out the pistol again, take swift aim at a china figure on the mantel piece and shatter it to fragments with a bull’s eye.

“Now you know better,” he said and stalked out.

“My Lord,” Watkins said, pale and shaking. “I never was so shocked.”

“Don’t make too much of it, old friend,” Charles said kindly. “You know him. It was all play acting. He wouldn’t really have fired at me, you know.”

“Not meaning to, perhaps. But with his finger shaking on that trigger, can you be sure what might have happened?”

“I suppose not,” Charles agreed. He gave a rueful smile that made his rather stern face charming. “I was mad to defy him, wasn’t I?” I suppose in my own way I’m just as rash as he is. But I will not be bullied, even by a pistol.”

He rubbed a hand over his tired eyes.

“Forget about it Watkins,” he begged. “It was a passing mood.”

“If your Lordship says so,” the butler said woodenly.

The Earl grimaced. “Not much escapes you, does it? After all the years you’ve worked for us, does this family have any secrets left?”

“Not where Mr John is concerned, my Lord. And I hope I do not need to assure your Lordship that I have never discussed family secrets.”

“Of course you don’t need to tell me that, Watkins. Although I imagine the worst is known fairly widely.”

“I have heard gossip in The Dancing Footman,” Watkins agreed, adding with a haughty sniff, “I discourage it firmly.”

“Good man. And of course there is no need to trouble my mother and grandmother with this story.”

“My lips are sealed, my Lord.”

“I’ve told my cousin I won’t pay another penny.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“No matter how much he threatens me with scandal.”

“No, my Lord.”

“I know I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“And that’s final.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“And don’t just stand there pretending to agree with me,” the Earl said wrathfully, “when you know you expect me to yield, as I have in the past.”

Thus appealed to, Watkins merely gave a shrug full of helpless sympathy.

The Earl sighed.

“I know,” he said. “What’s worse, he knows. That’s why he’s left the bills behind.”

*

“My darling girl!” Lady Arnfield descended on her niece, arms wide, and enveloped her in a warm embrace.

“Welcome, welcome!”

Lady Cliona eagerly hugged her back.

“Dear aunt,” she said. “I have so much looked forward to coming to visit you.”

The two women stood back to gaze on each other. Lady Arnfield was in her fifties, with a tendency to dress slightly too young for her age. The large crinolines that were the current fashion did not flatter her plump figure, and her love of extravagant decoration flattered it even less. But her manner was sunny and her face merry and kind.

The young woman smiling back at her was nineteen and had the slim, elegant figure to set off her fashion to perfection. Her waist was tiny, so were the little feet that peeped out from under her crinoline. Her face was pretty and full of mischief, and with her shining golden hair she at first might have given the impression of a charming doll.

It was her eyes that belied that impression. They were blue, almost violet, and they had depths that seemed designed to lure a man in to seek out the soul that resided there.

Part of her attraction was the fact that she seemed unaware of her charms. In a hectic London season she had flirted and laughed with her many admirers, but there was an instinctive simplicity and truth about her that drew as many men as her beauty.

But just now her aunt was chiefly concerned with pleasurable thoughts about what a sensation her niece was going to make in the neighbourhood. Few debutantes had enjoyed the roaring success of Lady Cliona. Prospective husbands had flocked to her, attracted as much by her charm as by her fortune, but Cliona had refused them all.

Now that the season was over, Lady Arnfield had plans for her niece.

The first stage of those plans consisted of taking her up to her room, and exclaiming with joy as Lady Cliona’s maid unpacked her trunks.

There were piles of delicate underwear, embroidered petticoats, stockings, scarves, frilly handkerchiefs. There were dresses for the morning, dresses for the afternoon and dresses for the evening in satin, silk and lace.

There were tea gowns and promenade gowns, and riding habits, and riding boots and shoes for every occasion. There were necklaces and tiaras and rings and brooches and ear rings.

Lady Arnfield lived comfortably, for her husband was Sir Kenton Arnfield, Lord Lieutenant of the county. But they did not possess one third of Cliona’s fortune and she had never seen anything like this wardrobe.

“My aunt Julia, who sponsored my London season, thought I was rather a spendthrift, I fear,” admitted Cliona. “As you know, I didn’t complete the whole season because I didn’t reach London until May, and she wasn’t sure I would need all of these clothes.”

“Wasn’t she indeed?” said Lady Arnfield, in a voice that boded ill for her sister Julia. “Well she never did have any sense of the right way of doing things.”

“And I’m afraid she was further shocked when I bought more new clothes only last week,” said Cliona with a face full of demure mischief. “She said such extravagance was quite unnecessary for the country.”

“Then she’s a fool,” said Lady Arnfield. “And when I see her I shall tell her so.”

Cliona began to dance about the room as though the train journey from London had not tired her at all. Which, indeed, was the truth.

“What a lovely room,” she said, spreading her arms, turning and turning like a top.

“Goodness child, you’ll be giddy,” her aunt exclaimed.

“Dear Aunt Martha, of course I won’t. At a ball I dance and dance all night without getting giddy.”

“They say you were the belle of the season,” sighed her aunt. “Admirers galore, and too many proposals to count.”

“Naturally,” said Cliona in a teasing voice. “Dear aunt, a girl with money always gets proposals. It’s a tribute to her bank balance, not to herself, and she’s a great ninny if she imagines otherwise.”

“Oh, but I’m sure some of them must have been in love with you,” countered Lady Arnfield, shocked by this unmaidenly realism.

“After ten minutes?” Cliona asked irrepressibly. “That was my fastest proposal yet. I can’t tell you how conceited it made me. Think how I was brought down by the discovery that my swain betrothed himself to another heiress the next day. I was merely the first on his list, you see.”

“Cliona!”

“Don’t be shocked, dear aunt. What would you have me do? Believe that I really was the most beautiful, ravishing female the world has ever known? A paragon of virtue and delight –”

“I think I’m going to be ill,” Lady Arnfield said frankly.

“That’s precisely how I felt.”

“Men really talk to you like that?”

“Some do. And it’s fatal because I simply cannot bear having my intelligence insulted. Imagine how conceited I would be if I believed all that nonsense!”

“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Lady Arnfield agreed.

“Sometimes,” Cliona mused, “I wonder if my Uncle Solomon was really doing me a kindness when he left me all that money in his will.”

“It’s the only good thing he ever did for any of his family,” Lady Arnfield observed. “Spending so much time abroad, exploring. Nasty, dirty, dangerous occupation. Still, he collected all those lovely gold treasures that made him so rich. And all the better for you.”

Cliona sighed. “I almost feel that he left me too much. I have more money than anyone needs.”

“Nonsense, my dear, a woman can never have too much money,” asserted Lady Arnfield decisively.

“Do you think so?” Cliona murmured, half to herself. “I’m not so sure.”

“Well obviously your experiences have been unlucky, but not every man is a fortune hunter. You must have met a few that you liked. Wasn’t there anyone who touched your own feelings – just a little?”

Cliona nodded. “Just a little,” she said impishly. “Just long enough to flirt the evening away and then forget about him.”

“So you’re not – in love?”

“Not the slightest. Isn’t it sad? You’d think I would have fallen victim by now, but no. Sometimes I feel that I am waiting for something.”

“Waiting for what?”

“I’m not sure. Just ‘something’. ‘Something special’.

That’s all I know.”

Cliona ceased her restless wanderings about the room and came to rest at the window that looked out over the surrounding countryside.

“Aunt Martha, what is that?”

“Where, my dear?”

“Beyond the trees. It looks like a fairy castle, all towers and turrets, riding against the clouds.”

“Yes, it is beautiful isn’t it? That’s Hartley Castle, home of the Earl of Hartley. He and your uncle are great friends and great rivals too, because the Earl is the only man in the county with a better stable than ours.”

Cliona, a notable horsewoman, clapped her hands in delight.

“I can’t wait to meet him.”

“So you shall, soon. But for now it’s almost time to dress for dinner. Your uncle will be home at any moment. He would have been here to meet you, but he had an important meeting to attend. As Lord Lieutenant he has many duties.”

“Of course. I’m looking forward to meeting Uncle Kenton again. Now, what shall I wear for dinner?”

The two ladies passed a pleasurable half hour, finally settling on a gown of blue satin and gauze, which set off Cliona’s eyes admirably.

Then Lady Arnfield retired to her own room while Cliona’s maid Sarah began to carry up water for her bath. It was bliss to wash off the dust of the journey. Afterwards she donned her gown and settled down for Sarah to dress her hair.

When she had finished there was no sign of Lady Arnfield so, being an independent girl, Cliona slipped out into the corridor and down the great stairs into the drawing room. A pair of French windows stood open, and beyond them was a large, well tended garden, full of flowers and shrubs.

But what really drew Cliona’s delighted attention was the sight of a small, mischievous spaniel, with a ball that he had dropped onto the lawn, gazing at her hopefully.

“You darling!” she exclaimed. “Of course I’ll come and play.”

The next moment she was out of the window and skimming down the three steps onto the lawn, seizing the ball and throwing it into the distance. The spaniel barked his pleasure and began to chase it, with Cliona following, laughing.

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