A Duel with Destiny
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2015
Copyright Cartland Promotions 1953
eBook conversion by M-Y Books
Barbara Cartland, who sadly died in May 2000 at the grand age of ninety eight, remains one of the world’s most famous romantic novelists. With worldwide sales of over one billion, her outstanding 723 books have been translated into thirty six different languages, to be enjoyed by readers of romance globally.
Writing her first book ‘Jigsaw’ at the age of 21, Barbara became an immediate bestseller. Building upon this initial success, she wrote continuously throughout her life, producing bestsellers for an astonishing 76 years. In addition to Barbara Cartland’s legion of fans in the UK and across Europe, her books have always been immensely popular in the USA. In 1976 she achieved the unprecedented feat of having books at numbers 1 & 2 in the prestigious B. Dalton Bookseller bestsellers list.
Although she is often referred to as the ‘Queen of Romance’, Barbara Cartland also wrote several historical biographies, six autobiographies and numerous theatrical plays as well as books on life, love, health and cookery. Becoming one of Britain’s most popular media personalities and dressed in her trademark pink, Barbara spoke on radio and television about social and political issues, as well as making many public appearances.
In 1991 she became a Dame of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to literature and her work for humanitarian and charitable causes.
Known for her glamour, style, and vitality Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime. Best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels and loved by millions of readers worldwide, her books remain treasured for their heroic heroes, plucky heroines and traditional values. But above all, it was Barbara Cartland’s overriding belief in the positive power of love to help, heal and improve the quality of life for everyone that made her truly unique.
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The fête given at Carlton House on August 1st, 1815, by the Prince Regent as a personal tribute to the Duke of Wellington is factual, as are the descriptions of the celebrations in the London Parks.
Genealogy no longer concerns itself exclusively with the lineage of the highly placed, but has an equal concern for all sorts and conditions of men. The Registration Act of 1836 made it compulsory in England to register births, marriages and deaths.
State records can be consulted at the Public Records Office in Chancery Lane, London where there are historic documents such as the Domesday Book (1086-87) and Magna Carta (1215). In the United States of America interest in genealogy goes back to the early days of British settlement. The first families of Virginia constituted themselves a planter autocracy and used armorial bearings.
Coming back from the village Rowena turned into the small unkempt drive that led up to the house and saw with a sudden constriction of her heart that there was a phaeton standing outside the front door.
There was no need to question who owned the black and yellow vehicle with its shining silver accoutrements and the four magnificent chestnuts pulling it.
A groom with a cockaded top hat and yellow turnovers on his boots was standing at the horses’ heads and Rowena knew that the Marquis would be inside the house.
It was four days since he had left for Swayneling Park and she had thought as he drove away that she would never see him again.
Not that she wanted to, she told herself fiercely. She had even decided that she would not say goodbye to him, but he had been too clever for her.
After a sleepless night when she had cried intermittently with an abandonment and a despair that she had not known since she was a small child, with the dawn she had felt pride come to her rescue.
She told herself that however deeply she was wounded, however unhappy she would be, she would not allow the Marquis the satisfaction of knowing that he had completely annihilated her and that she could no longer stand up to him.
She had a feeling that he would not be defeated easily and that somehow he would try to persuade her to agree to what he desired.
There was an obstinacy about him that was unmistakable and what she knew was an iron determination to have his own way.
But she was resolved, as she had never been resolved before, that though he might break her heart she would never agree to become his mistress.
“I love him! I love him!” she had sobbed into her pillow.
But even the new ecstatic emotions he had aroused in her did not prevent her from recognising what was right and what was wrong or knowing that her mother would have been shocked and horrified by what he had suggested.
Although she tried to be practical, Rowena had all her life been idealistic and romantic.
Because her father and mother had been so happy, because they lived in a world where nothing mattered except their love for each other, Rowena had always imagined that one day she would find a man for whom she would feel the same.
She had been conscious that her mother’s love for her father was very moving and very vital.
Mrs. Winsford would listen for the first sound of the wheels coming up the drive and, if it was the time she was expecting him to return, she would drop everything she was doing and run to the front door to greet him on the steps as he alighted from his gig.
Then his arms would go round her and locked together they would move into the house to kiss in the hall with a tenderness that was unmistakable.
“You are so beautiful, my dearest one!” Rowena heard her father say often, “that I can never look at you without thinking that I am the most fortunate of men.”
He had laughed and added,
“People think I am poor, but actually I own the most precious treasure in the whole world and that is you!”
As she became adolescent and began to think about love, Rowena had hoped that one day a man would look at her as her father looked at her mother and his voice would deepen when he spoke to her.
She had not imagined that love would come to her in the shape of anyone so magnificent, so outstanding or in fact so unique as the Marquis.
But now she told herself it was inevitable that living the restricted quiet life she had lived for nineteen years she would fall overwhelmingly and hopelessly in love with him.
‘I might have know that what he felt for me was not love but something quite different,’ she told herself bitterly.
Innocent though she was in many ways, Rowena could not have been a doctor’s daughter and not be aware of the tragedies that happened even in a village as small as Little Powick.
There were girls who found themselves having unwanted babies, married women who were beaten up by their husbands because they had been caught behaving improperly with another man and a suicide, which had left an indelible mark on Rowena’s mind.
She had known the girl who died, a pretty feckless child, for she was little more, whose innocence had attracted the innkeeper, a coarse, rather brutal man, married to a weak wife who had little or no influence over him.
All the village knew that they were meeting down by the river, but no one was brave enough to interfere and the Vicar was too indolent.
It was a brief and doubtless tempestuous affair that the innkeeper was soon bored with.
He returned to his bawdy friends in the bar and the girl, who had been swept off her feet by his fervour, drowned herself in the shame of learning that she carried his child.
There was such an uproar in the village and so much unpleasantness was engendered by the tragedy that the innkeeper moved away to another locality and was replaced by a more decent man.
But that, Rowena had thought, did not bring back to life the pathetic victim who, because she had taken her own life, was not even allowed to rest in the village Churchyard.
‘If I do what the Marquis wants,’ she thought, ‘I should be no better than poor little Bessie and I might easily finish up the same way.’
She decided that the only thing she could do was never to see the Marquis again and she had no intention of saying goodbye to him.
But when the moment came for him to leave he sent Johnson to find her.
Rowena had hidden herself in Mark’s room, tidying his clothes, taking a variety of strange objects out of his trouser pockets and laying on the bed those clothes that needed mending.
“Ah! Here you are, miss,” Johnson said from the door. “His Lordship would like to say goodbye to you.”
Rowena drew in her breath.
“The doctor is not at home?” she asked.
Johnson shook his head.
“No, miss. He drove off nearly an hour ago and said goodbye to his Lordship before he left.”
Rowena longed to refuse to come downstairs and to send a message to say that she was too busy. But she felt that such rudeness would surprise Johnson and it would also be, the Marquis might think, a score in his favour.
In the battle between them she would not yield an inch and she was certain that he would continue to fight her with every weapon at his command.
She could still hear him saying,
“I always get my own way.”
In this instance he was going to be disappointed!
And she wanted to make him aware of it.
“I will come down at once,” she said to the valet and took a quick glance at her reflection in the mirror.
She was looking very pale and there were lines under her eyes from the tears she had shed and the fact that she had been unable to sleep.
Fiercely, because she would not give the Marquis the satisfaction of seeing how much he had upset her, she rubbed her cheeks until there was some colour in them.
Then holding her chin high she swept downstairs, conscious as she did so that the Marquis was standing in the hall watching her.
She did not look at him as she sank down in a deep curtsey, saying as she did so,
“I am so glad that your Lordship has a nice day for your drive home. I am sure my father will have told you to rest on arrival. I am afraid, my Lord, that you will find it quite an ordeal having been incapacitated for so long.”
Rowena thought with satisfaction that her voice sounded calm and impersonal.
Only as she realised that Johnson had left the hall and they were alone together did she feel her heart flutter uncomfortably.
“I have a great deal to thank you for, Rowena,” the Marquis said.
“There is no need for you to say more than you have said already, my Lord,” she replied. “I am only glad that my father has been able to restore you to good health.”
He took a step nearer to her.
“Rowena!”
She felt herself quiver at the depth in his voice, but turned hastily away to walk through the open front door and out onto the steps.
She stared at his phaeton with its magnificent horses, at the groom holding the reins and a footman waiting to assist his Master before he sprang up onto the seat behind.
“I want to talk to you,” she heard the Marquis say behind her in a voice that only she could hear.
“Goodbye, my Lord! I wish you a very pleasant journey and good health in the future,” she responded firmly.
“Au revoir, Rowena,” he replied quietly.
Then because it was impossible for him to do otherwise he climbed into the phaeton.
“Does your Lordship wish to drive?” Rowena heard the groom ask.
“No, Sam, you tool them for the moment,” the Marquis replied.
The groom saluted, the footman sprang up behind and the horses started off.
The Marquis raised his hat, his eyes on Rowena’s face, but deliberately she did not look at him.
Only when the phaeton was almost out of sight did she take a quick glance at his square shoulders and the arrogant carriage of his head and feel the tears come into her eyes.
She walked into the house to slam the door violently behind her.
“It’s finished! It’s over! That is the end!” she cried aloud and wondered why everything seemed so dark and without hope.
*
In the days that followed Rowena had forced herself to try to keep the Marquis from her mind and it was only at night that it was impossible not to remember the feelings he had evoked in her when he had held her in his arms and to dream that once again his lips were on hers.
As she had suspected, it was not easy for the family to adjust itself to the normal routine they had known before the Marquis had come to stay.
“I am fed up with this boring food,” Hermione had said crossly at luncheon that day.
“It’s all we can afford,” Rowena retorted sharply, “and the sooner you realise it’s the truth the better!”
Hermione groaned.
“If only the Marquis would have another accident or Papa could find another wealthy patient.”
“It’s all very well to fuss about food,” Mark said glumly, “I don’t suppose I shall ever have another chance of riding decent horses.”
“Stop grumbling, both of you!” Rowena ordered. “And, Mark, if I have another bad report about your lessons from the Vicar, I shall speak to Papa. You know how upset he would be to think that you are wasting your time.”
This was true and it also was the one effective threat that Rowena could hold over the children’s heads.
They all loved their father and, because the doctor was never angry when they behaved badly but instead was deeply hurt and worried, it was in fact the greatest punishment they could be given.
Mark had mumbled something as he left the dining room, while Hermione had stoically finished her plate of rice pudding before she said,
“Mark is right. It’s horrible now the Marquis has gone and I believe you miss him too, even though you will not say so. You certainly look miserable enough!”
“I am nothing of the sort!” Rowena snapped. “And if you don’t hurry to Miss Graham’s you will be late. You know as well as I do, Hermione, it’s a struggle to pay her fees, small though they are.”
“I want to have drawing lessons,” Hermione pouted. “Miss Graham cannot even draw a straight line, let alone teach me.”
Rowena did not answer and after a moment Hermione continued,
“Not that I expect any sympathy from you. I believe you are jealous because the Marquis gave me such a marvellous present and gave you nothing.”
“Hurry up, Hermione, you are going to be late.”
Rowena tried to speak quietly and calmly, but perhaps something of what she was feeling showed in her voice or her face for quite suddenly Hermione flung her arms around her.
“I am sorry, Rowena,” she cried. “I love you and it was horrid of the Marquis not to give you a present. I will save up and give you something you really want to make up for it.”
“Thank you, dearest,” Rowena managed to say and then Hermione had gone.
She felt guilty when she thought of the turquoise pendant hidden at the back of the drawer in her bedroom, but she could not speak of it nor could she bear to look at it again.
She considered whether she would return it to the Marquis and then she felt that it would be undignified.
They had often laughed as a family about people who broke off an engagement and sent back each other’s letters and presents.
“Thomas Seaton spent a fortune courting Betty,” Hermione had related of one broken engagement in the village, “but it all went on chocolates! She can hardly give those back, can she?”
‘One day perhaps I will sell the pendant,’ Rowena reflected, ‘and buy something for Hermione or for Mark.’
For the moment she could not open the box it reposed in and could not bear to look at the heart-shape of the turquoise which the Marquis had said was symbolic.
But now he was here in the house and presumably waiting to see her.
As she walked up the drive, her footsteps growing slower and slower as she neared the house, she tried to think what she should do.
Living in such a small building she could not possibly avoid him for long and the last thing she wished to do was to arouse any suspicion in the minds of the family that she might have quarrelled with the Marquis.
She knew Hermione and perhaps her father would ask innumerable questions if they thought that anything was wrong.
There was nothing she could tell them, for it would be an intolerable agony to talk about what had happened.
‘I will behave normally,’ Rowena told herself. ‘He shall not have the satisfaction of driving me into hiding or even thinking that he has made me miserable.’
That was a very inadequate word, she thought, to express what she felt.
Despondency and despair were perhaps nearer the mark or perhaps the real truth was that he had smashed her ideals and destroyed her hope of happiness.
‘Any man who comes into my life in the future I am bound to compare with the Marquis,’ Rowena mused.
She knew too that it would be impossible for any other man to arouse in her the same feelings of ecstasy and rapture that the Marquis had done.
That, she was certain, could happen only once in a lifetime.
Her mother had said once,
“When the right man comes into your life, darling, when you fall in love as I fell in love with your father, you know that it is your destiny and nothing can alter or change it.”
Mrs. Winsford had given a deep sigh.
“Your father and I were meant for each other from the very beginning of time and when we met I knew it was written in the stars that we should love each other until we die.”
‘That is what I feel for the Marquis,’ Rowena told herself, ‘but, as he does not feel the same about me, his destiny can never include me.’
She had reached the phaeton by this time and the groom at the horses’ heads raised his hat.
She saw that it was Sam who had come quite a number of times to the house when the Marquis had been ill.
“Good afternoon, Sam,” Rowena said. “That is a beautiful team you have there.”
“’Is Lordship be real proud of ’em, miss,” Sam answered, “and they brought us ’ere quicker today than we’ve ever managed afore, but then ’is Lordship was a-drivin’.”
The pride in his voice was unmistakable and Rowena smiled at him as she went up the steps and into the house.
The Marquis’s tall hat was on a chair in the hall and she hesitated a moment wondering where he would be.
Then to her relief she heard voices coming from her father’s study and knew that he was at home.
She was just about to go upstairs and take off her bonnet when the door opened and her father said,
“I thought I heard your voice, Rowena. We have a visitor!”
“What a surprise!” Rowena exclaimed sarcastically.
She walked into the study and saw the Marquis standing with his back to the fireplace.
Although she told herself he now meant nothing to her, her heart turned over in a most alarming fashion and it was difficult to breathe.
“Good afternoon, Rowena,” the Marquis said. “I was hoping that I should see you before I left.”
“I must not detain your Lordship.”
“I think, my Lord,” Dr. Winsford said, “we must tell Rowena of your generosity. I can hardly believe myself that there is so much kindness in the world.”
Rowena glanced sharply at her father.
“What has happened?”
“His Lordship has said, my dear, that he wishes to be responsible for both Mark’s schooling and Hermione’s. He thinks that Mark is an outstanding boy, as I have always thought myself and, where Hermione is concerned, we will be able to ascertain whether she has any real talent for drawing or not.”
“I personally think it’s just her imagination,” Rowena said stiffly.
“We shall find out the truth because his Lordship intends to send her to a Finishing School in Florence where she will have the best teachers that Italy can provide.”
‘Florence?” Rowena exclaimed.
The word seemed to echo round the study as her eyes met the Marquis’s defiantly.
She was well aware of what he was trying to do.
He was trying to manipulate her family into accepting him as she had refused to do.
He was binding them to him, not with bands of steel, but with something far more subtle and far more indefinable.
“I have made enquiries,” he said, “and I find that the best Seminary for young ladies of Hermione’s age is in Florence. In fact one of my nieces will be a pupil there next year and, if Hermione starts this September, she will be able to look after her.”
“Have you agreed to this – Papa?” Rowena asked in a voice that shook.
“I was at first reluctant to impose on my ex-patient’s good nature,” Dr. Winsford replied. “But he has in fact convinced me that I must not stand in the way of my children’s future.”
“I am sure that he was very persuasive,” Rowena remarked.
“I have, of course, worried for a long time about Mark’s schooling,” the doctor confessed. “The Vicar tells me that he has an exceptionally quick mind. In fact everybody who has taught him up to date has said that he is very advanced for his age. If, as the Marquis suggests, he goes to Eton, he will have a chance in life that I could never provide for him.”
“Eton?” Rowena quizzed.
Because she felt that she needed some air she took off her bonnet and walked to the window.
The sun seemed to halo her head with gold, but she looked out with blind eyes into the garden.
She was thinking frantically of what she could say, how she could prevent her father from being inveigled into the Marquis’s clutches, for that was what it amounted to.
‘He is like an octopus,’ she thought, ‘encircling us all until we will find it impossible to escape.’
“I quite understand that this is somewhat of a shock to you, Rowena,” Dr. Winsford said. “You have looked after the family so splendidly since your mother’s death and I cannot think what I could have done without you.”
He put his hand on her shoulder.
“But at the same time, my dear, both Hermione and Mark can now receive an education which I could not even dream of giving them.”
“Yes – Papa.”
Rowena found it hard to say the words, but she managed to utter them and Dr. Winsford looked relieved, as if he had been afraid that she might protest against his decision.
He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.
“If your Lordship will excuse me,” he said, “I am already late and I have a large number of calls to make.”
“Of course!” the Marquis replied courteously. “I have spoken, doctor, of the splendid manner in which you looked after me to a number of my friends in the County. I think you will find in the future that there will be many more calls on your time even than you have at the moment.”
“It is extremely kind of you, my Lord.”
The two men shook hands.
“You certainly look in perfect health,” the doctor said, “but don’t do too much too quickly. Remember you had a lucky escape with regard to internal injuries and a body does not heal itself after that sort of accident within a few days or weeks.”
“I promise you that I am being as careful as you advised me to be.”
“I am glad of that.”
“I will return either tomorrow or the next day with the papers we talked about,” the Marquis said.
“I shall look forward to seeing you,” the doctor replied.