The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) (2 page)

She raised her lips as she spoke towards his.

Just for a moment he hesitated, then as he bent forward her arms were around his neck pulling him down upon her
...

He tried to resist but it was too late.

Her lips, wildly passionate, held him captive, and he felt the fire that was never far from the surface rising within him to match the fire which was burning in her.

He had the feeling that he was surrendering himself not only to her violent exotic desire but also at the same time to the loss of his freedom.

But for the moment it was not important!

The Earl of Lemsford slit open the letters which lay beside his place at the breakfast table one by one.

The Butler had provided him with a silver letter-opener engraved with the Lemsford coat of arms.

That it needed cleaning passed unnoticed by the Countess who, seated at the other end of the table, was admonishing her daughter Felicity for having torn her gown the night before.

“I cannot think why you are not more careful, Felicity. If you danced the waltz more sedately these accidents would not happen.”

“I could not help the man standing on the train of my gown, Mama. I said when I fitted it that it was too long.”

“It looked so elegant when you walked into the room,” the Countess said.

Her eyes rested on her elder daughter and the irritation which had expressed itself in lines round her mouth seemed to fade.

Felicity Wyndham was in fact very pretty. She had china
-
blue eyes, fair hair and a skin which was invariably referred to as ‘strawberries and cream’.

She had a beguiling way of looking at her parents that made it hard for them to deny her anything, and the Countess was already calculating how she could persuade her husband to give her enough money to buy Felicity another gown.

On the other side of the table Antonia sat unnoticed.

She had no wish to draw attention to herself; for if she did she was quite certain she would be sent on an errand or made to listen to what was being said while her food grew cold.

Accordingly she applied herself to eating her eggs and bacon without glancing up, until her father gave such a loud exclamation that it seemed to reverberate around the Dining
-
Room.

“Good God!”

“What is it, Edward?” his wife enquired.

“When did this letter arrive?” the Earl asked.

He picked up the envelope and without waiting for a reply went on:

“It was delivered by hand. It has not been sent by post. Why the devil was it not brought to me at once?”

“Really, Edward, not in front of the girls?” his wife admonished.

“Do you know who this is from?” the Earl enquired.

“No, of course not! How should I?”

“It is from Doncaster!”

The Earl paused, an expectant look on his face as if he were a conjurer about to produce an unexpected rabbit from a hat.

“Doncaster?” the Countess repeated. “Do you mean the Duke of Doncaster?”

“Of course I mean the Duke!” her husband snapped. “There is only one Doncaster as far as I am concerned! Our neighbour in Hertfordshire, Emily, who has never invited me inside his house since he inherited!”

The Earl spoke with a bitterness which showed that this was an old grievance.

“Well, he has written to you now,” the Countess said. “What does he want?”

The Earl stared down at the letter as if he could not believe his eyes. Then he said slowly:

“His Grace asks, Emily, if he can call on me at three o’clock to-morrow afternoon. He informs me that he thinks it would be to our mutual advantage to have a closer association between our two families than has hitherto existed and he hopes that he may have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of my daughter!”

The Earl’s voice died away and he realised that the three people seated at the table were staring at him with their mouths open, looking not unlike three goldfish in a bowl. The Countess recovered first.

“I do not believe it!” she said. “Give me the letter, Edward. You must have made a mistake!”

“There is no mistake,” the Earl replied, “unless my eyesight is at fault!”

He threw the letter across the table to the Countess. It landed in a dish of marmalade from which it was hastily retrieved.

The Countess held it in her hands, staring at it in the same fascinated manner that her husband had done.

“Why does the Duke say that he wishes to
...
meet me?” Felicity asked in a frightened voice.

The Countess looked at her daughter and there was a sudden light in her eyes that had not been there before.

“You will be a Duchess, Felicity!” she said. “Think of it—the Duchess of Doncaster! I never thought—I never dreamt that we should ever aspire so high!”

“I would have wagered it being 100-1 against Doncaster,” the Earl remarked.

“But why? Why me?” Felicity enquired.

“He must have seen you somewhere. He must have fallen in love with you!” the Countess said ecstatically.

“There is nothing like that about it,” the Earl remarked sharply. “There is some other reason and I will find out what it is, before I am very much older!”

“Are you inferring, Edward, that the Duke would wish to marry Felicity for any other reason except that he wants her to be his wife?”

“I am not saying, after reading that letter, that he does not wish her to be his wife,” Sir Edward replied. “I am merely saying that he has not fallen in love like some beardless boy. Doncaster is a man, Emily, and a man who by all accounts has more women fawning around him than he has horses in his stables. If he wants to marry Felicity—and I find it hard to believe it—then there is something behind it, you can bet your shirt on it!”

“Really, Edward, I do dislike those vulgar racing expressions!” the Countess retorted. “If the Duke does wish to marry Felicity, then we should go down on our knees and thank God for such a miracle without trying to find ulterior motives for his proposal!”

The Earl rose to his feet.

“Where are you going?” the Countess enquired.

“I intend to answer this letter,” the Earl replied, “then I am going to White’s. If old Beddington is there, which he will be, he will tell me the latest scandal and what Doncaster has been up to lately.”

“You will not mention that the Duke is coming here tomorrow?” the Countess said quickly. “We may be mistaken. He may have very different intentions.”

“I am not a fool, Emily,” the Earl said. “If there is any blabbing to be done, it will not be done by me.”

He went from the room, and as the door shut sharply behind him the three women left at the table looked at each other.

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

“But I do not want to marry the Duke, Mama!” Felicity said in a small voice.

Her mother did not appear to hear her as she stared down at the Duke’s letter as if the words written on the thick vellum paper must be printed indelibly on her mind.

Felicity would have spoken again, when she received a sharp kick on the ankle which made her wince.

She looked across the table and saw her sister frowning at her warningly and the words she was about to say died on her lips.

“We must go upstairs at once and decide what you will wear to-morrow afternoon when the Duke calls,” the Countess said after a moment. “I think it will have to be the pale blue: it is so becoming with your eyes. But then, so is the white with the turquoise ribbons threaded through it.”

She gave a sound of exasperation.

“There is no time to buy you anything new, so it will have to be one or the other! Oh, dear, I do hope you have not made them dirty!”

Rising from the table the Countess bustled away and her daughters followed her.

Only as they reached the door of Felicity’s bed-room did she turn and say sharply:

“There is no reason for you to hang about, Antonia. I am sure you have plenty to do, and if you have not, I will find you something. You know that you have to help tidy the Sitting-Rooms. You cannot expect Janet to do everything!”

“No, of course not, Mama,” Antonia replied.

She moved away as she spoke, giving Felicity a warning glance and at the same time a touch on her arm which told her sister she would be back later.

There were always innumerable jobs in the house for Antonia. They were understaffed and she was invariably expected to fill in for deficiencies in housemaids, lady’s-maids and even footmen.

It was Antonia who made the Sitting-Rooms presentable, who cut the sandwiches for tea when they entertained, who
pressed and mended her mother’s and Felicity’s gowns, and who was sent on messages from the top of the house to the bottom.

But she was used to it and it did not unduly perturb her. This morning however she wished that she could be in the bed-room with Felicity while the Countess was choosing her gown for to-morrow, simply because she was afraid that Felicity would betray herself.

To learn that she had not done so was a relief, when finally an hour later Antonia entered
F
elicity’s bed-room to find her alone.

As soon as she saw her sister, Felicity ran across the room to put her arms round Antonia and burst into tears.

“What am I to do? Oh, Antonia, what am I to do? I cannot marry this Duke
...
you know I cannot!”

Antonia held her sister close, then she said:

“Come and sit down, Felicity, and let us talk about it. You can see what it meant to Mama and Papa.”

“I know! I know!” Felicity sobbed. “They are not going to listen to me
...
whatever I say
...
but I love Harry. You know ... I love him, Antonia!”

“Yes, dearest, but Harry is not a Duke.”

“He loves me,” Felicity said, “and I promised I would marry him as soon as he can approach Papa.”

Antonia gave a little sigh as she wondered how she could possibly explain to Felicity that, whatever Harry Stanford might say now, the Earl was not going to listen to him.

The son of the Squire who owned an attractive Manor House on a very small estate, Felicity and Antonia had known Harry ever since they were small children.

They had met him at parties and, as they had grown older, out hunting. It was difficult for Antonia to remember when first she realised he had fallen in love with Felicity and she with him.

They had all known that it was impossible for Harry to approach the Earl when Felicity was only seventeen, and being only three years older himself he had certainly not enough money to keep a wife.

His circumstances were not much better at the moment. As he was an only child he would inherit on his father’s
death, his estate, such as it was, and there was also a bachelor uncle who had always promised to make him his heir.

Harry had wished to ask the Earl’s permission to marry Felicity before they came to London for the Season, but Antonia had advised them against it.

“Papa and Mama have been saving up for years so that Felicity can have a proper Season in London and be presented at Court,” she said. “As you know, it should have happened last year just before Felicity was eighteen. But when Mama’s father died we were all plunged into mourning, and so Felicity’s debut had to be postponed.”

“Supposing she meets someone else?” Harry had asked despondently.

“I think it unlikely,” Antonia replied, “that she will ever love anyone but you.”

It was strange, seeing that Antonia was a year younger than her sister, that everyone referred their problems and troubles to her, and that was another role she played in the household. Even her mother was more inclined to ask her advice rather than Felicity’s.

“What am I to do?” Harry Stanford had enquired helplessly.

“Wait until the Season is over,” Antonia advised. “Then when we are back in the country you can approach Papa. I am sure he will be more amenable then.”

What Antonia really meant was that there was a chance for him unless Felicity had had a very advantageous offer of marriage.

She privately thought it unlikely.

Although Felicity was extremely pretty and men fluttered around her in the proverbial manner of moths around a flame, they thought twice before proposing marriage to a girl who had no dowry and only the possibility of 500 acres of not particularly productive Hertfordshire land when her father died.

That of course was if the estate was not sold and divided equally between his two daughters, which Antonia always doubted.

But while Felicity had received much flattery and never lacked partners at a Ball, up to date there had been no positive approach to her father and no suggestion of anything more permanent than a flirtation in the garden.

Now out of the blue the Duke of Doncaster had appeared, and Antonia knew that it put to an end any hopes Harry Stanford might have of becoming Felicity’s husband.