The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) (8 page)

Then she asked herself why she was putting the Marchioness into the past tense.

She was making it very obvious that as far as she was concerned the liaison she had with the Duke would continue as soon as they returned from their honeymoon.

Antonia moved round the Salon looking at the gold snuff-boxes which were arranged on one table, at the
Sevres
china which decorated another.

She thought the blue and white porcelain was like the Marchioness and told herself with a little sigh that there was no china which even remotely resembled herself.

It was a dispiriting thought and with a wistful expression she was contemplating the fine bronzes which ornamented the mantelpiece when the door opened and the Duke came into the room.

“I must apologise, Antonia,” he said. “Our uninvited caller had no right to drive you away in that arbitrary manner.”

“I realised she wanted to see you
...
alone,” Antonia replied and added in a low voice, “She is very
...
beautiful
...
I can
...
understand what you
...
feel for her.”

The Duke stiffened.

“Who has been talking to you?”

Antonia looked at him in surprise.

“Did you expect me not to
...
know that you
...
love the Marchioness and she
...
loves you?” she enquired. “Everybody knows
...
that!”

“Everybody?” the Duke asked incredulously.

“But of course!” Antonia replied. “And most people
...
I think
...
know that you
...
married because the Queen had more or less
...
commanded you to do so.”

The Duke was absolutely astounded.

“How can such a story have got about?” he enquired. “I cannot credit that anything so intimate and secret could be known except by the people concerned.”

“Well, Colonel Beddington told Papa,” Antonia answered, “and I ... I also heard it from another
...
source.”

“Who told you?” the Duke asked abruptly.

“I would
...
rather not say,” Antonia answered.

“I insist on you telling me,” he said. “As you have already said so much, I might as well know the rest. Who told you?”

Antonia hesitated for a moment, then as if the hardness of his voice and the look of his eyes compelled her, she replied hesitatingly:

“The Marchioness’s
...
lady’s maid is the sister of Mrs. Mellish’s daughter-in-law
...
who is
...
married to one of your
...
grooms.”

“Good God!”

There was no doubt the Duke was surprised into being almost speechless.

“Are you telling me,” he asked after a moment, “that this is known to all the servants at the Park?”

“Not all of them,” Antonia answered. “But they always know what you do
...
and they talk
...
just as the ladies talk in Mama’s Drawing-Room
...
except that they are not
...
spiteful about it!”

The Duke looked at her enquiringly and she explained: “The servants you employ are proud of you! They like to think you are a kind of Don Juan, Sir Lancelot and Casanova all
...
rolled into one. They boast about your
...
love-affairs just as they boast about your successes on the race-course. It is a credit to the whole Estate that you should be such a successful
...
lover.”

Antonia paused, but as the Duke apparently had nothing to say she went on:

“It is rather different where Mama’s
...
friends are concerned. They want to
...
snigger. They do that about everybody
...
but as you are so important and so much more exciting than anyone else
...
naturally everything you do is a special
...
tit-bit with which they regale each other!”

“You absolutely astound me!” the Duke exclaimed.

“I think because you are so
...
attractive and so
...
important,” Antonia said after a moment, “you must
...
expect people to be
...
interested in you, and I think too I
...
understand about all the
...
beautiful ladies whom you have loved.”

“What do you understand?” the Duke asked.

There was a note in his voice that should have warned
Antonia that he was angry, but she was to intent on following the train of her own thoughts to be aware of it.

“I could not think at
...
first,” she replied, “why you had to have so many women in your life. Then I thought perhaps it was rather like having a
...
stable. One would not want only one horse, however good, however
...
outstanding. One would want lots of thoroughbreds! Perhaps it is a sort of race in which they all try to reach the
...
winning-post, the prize being your heart!”

She spoke confidently because it was like a story she had told herself.

“I would have never believed any woman of my acquaintance would say anything so vulgar and ill-bred!” the Duke exclaimed angrily.

He did not raise his voice but his tone was icy and like a whip-lash.

For a moment Antonia was still as he glared at her.

Then he saw the colour flood in a crimson tide up her small face until it burnt itself against her eyes.

He saw her tremble, and she turned away from him to stand at the table which held the snuff-boxes, looking down at them with her head bent.

There was something about her slight figure which made him realise that she was very young and very vulnerable. He felt unaccountably that he had struck a child.

“I am sorry, Antonia, I should not have spoken to you like that,” he said after a moment.

She did not reply and he had the feeling that she was fighting to control her tears.

“What you told me was so utterly surprising,” the Duke went on, “that I was quite unnecessarily rude. I have asked you, Antonia, to forgive me.”

“I ... I am
...
sorry,” Antonia whispered.

“Will you please turn round?” the Duke asked. “I find it difficult to apologise to your back!”

For a moment he thought she would refuse to do as he asked. Then she turned towards him and he saw there was still a stricken look in her eyes which made him feel ashamed.

“Come and sit down, Antonia,” he suggested. “I want to talk to you.”

She moved across the room and he found himself thinking she was like a young colt, a little unsteady and unsure of herself, yet ready to trust everyone until she learnt the hard way that not everyone was trustworthy.

Antonia sat down on a sofa and the Duke thought her grey-green eyes were more expressive than any woman’s he had ever known.

Before the Duke could speak Antonia faltered:

“Because I have
...
never been
...
alone with anyone like
...
you, I said what
...
came into my head without
...
thinking. It was very
...
foolish of me ... I will try not to do it again.”

She seemed so humiliated and spoke so humbly that it made her seem even more vulnerable than she had been before.

“I am the one to do the apologising, Antonia,” the Duke insisted. “I want you always to say what comes into your head. I want you to be frank with me. If we are to make our marriage work, I think it is essential there should be no pretence between us. Do you agree?”

Antonia looked down and her lashes were very dark against her cheeks.

“I
...
may say
...
things you do not
...
wish to
...
hear.”

“I want to hear about anything and everything that interests you,” the Duke said. “I also always want to be told the truth. I made a mistake just now when I snapped at you for telling me just that. My only excuse is that like you I have never been married before!”

He smiled in a manner which much more experienced women than Antonia had found irresistible.

“Is it
...
wrong of me,” Antonia asked after a moment, “to speak of the
...
ladies you have
...
loved?”

“It is not wrong,” the Duke answered, “but perhaps a little unusual. However I would much rather you talked about them than bottle up inside you what you think.”

She looked up at him and once again he was reminded of a colt which having received a blow, was afraid to approach nearer even though it wished to do so.

“Worst of all, I beg you not to take what my Nurse used to call ‘umbridge’,” he went on. “It is an emotion to which I have a positive aversion!”

Antonia gave him a wan little smile.

“I will ... try not to ... do that.”

“I think that, before we were so unnecessarily interrupted a little while ago, you were about to say something to me,” the Duke remarked. “Will you tell me what it was?”

As he spoke he saw the colour burn once again in Antonia’s cheeks.

“I
...
think
...
perhaps it might make you
...
angry.”

“If I promise not be angry but to consider quietly and seriously everything you have to say to me,” the Duke asked, “will you tell me what it was you wished to say?”

Antonia turned her head sideways to stare at the empty fireplace.

The Duke noticed for the first time that she had a small straight nose, a firm little chin and delicately curved lips.

It was only a fleeting impression, before Antonia looked back at him.

“I ... I was going to ask you a
...
favour,” she said in a low voice, and the Duke realised she had made up her mind to be frank.

“I realise you will think it very
...
ignorant of me,” she went on, “but I do not know, when a man and woman get
...
married, exactly how they have a
...
baby. I think perhaps it is because they
...
sleep together.”

She glanced nervously at the Duke, then looked away again.

“I thought,” she continued in a very small voice, “that as you are ... in love with
...
somebody else, and as we do not
...
know each other very well... I might ask you just to
...
wait a little before we
...
had a
...
baby.”

As she finished speaking and her voice faltered away into silence Antonia gripped her fingers together and held her breath.

The Duke rose to his feet and stood with his back to the mantelpiece.

“I am glad you were brave enough to tell me what you were thinking, Antonia,” he said, after a moment.

“You are
...
not
...
angry?”

“No, of course not!” he replied. “I think in the circumstances you have been extremely sensible in sharing with me what was in your mind.”

He paused for a moment, then went on slowly.

“You must try to believe me when I tell you I had no idea that my association with the Marchioness was common knowledge in the country or that it would ever reach your ears.”

“
Perhaps I
...
should not have
...
told you.”

“I am very glad you did,” the Duke said. “I am glad too, Antonia, that we can start our life together on a solid foundation. Will you promise me something?”

“What is it?” Antonia enquired.

“That you will keep no secrets from me,” the Duke replied. “Not at any rate about important things. However difficult they may appear. I feel somehow we can thrash them out together and find a solution even to the most tricky problem.”

He smiled at her again and he saw a little of the nervousness go from her eyes as he went on:

“I think what you have suggested is extremely wise, and I agree that we should get to know each other a great deal better before we do anything so fundamentally important as starting a family.”

He saw that Antonia was looking puzzled and after a moment he asked:

“What is troubling you?”

He knew that she was looking at him as if she was wondering whether she dare say what she was thinking. Then she said:

“I have told you I am very ignorant
...
but what I cannot
...
understand is why if
...
when you
...
sleep with me we might
...
have a baby
...
while when you sleep with
...
other ladies like
...
the Marchioness, they do not
...
have one?”

The Duke could not help thinking that this was the most extraordinary conversation he had ever had in his whole life. But he replied very carefully:

“That is one of the questions I would like to answer when we know each other better. Please trust me to explain everything in the future which I am a little reluctant to do tonight.”

“Yes ... of course,” Antonia said. “Thank you for being so
...
kind and not being
...
angry with me.”

“I will try never to be angry with you again,” the Duke said. “But like you I am rather inclined to speak without thinking.”

“It is so much
...
easier,” Antonia said. “And I have a feeling that if everybody thought before they spoke, there would only be many uncomfortable silences.”

“That is true,” the Duke smiled. “And now, as we are leaving for Paris to-morrow morning, I suggest, Antonia, that you go to bed. You must be tired after all we have been through to-day, and it must also have been rather tiring going over the jumps last night!”

Antonia was very still. Then she said in a frightened voice:

“You
...
knew?”

“Yes, I knew. I heard what you had done,” the Duke said, “and I can hardly credit it possible. Those jumps, if Ives carried out his instructions correctly, are the same height as those on the Grand National course!”

“It was your new horse,” Antonia said. “It was very
...
presumptuous of me to ride him
...
but we waited until it was nearly dark and you
...
never came.”

“It was my loss,” the Duke said. “Have you forgotten, Antonia, that my horses are now yours? I distinctly remember saying in the Marriage Service—‘With all my worldly goods I thee endow’.”

There was an unmistakable light in Antonia’s eyes.

“I should be very
...
very grateful and
...
honoured if I might
...
share them with
...
you,” she said after a moment.

“Then we will share them,” the Duke replied. “Just as we will share our thoughts and perhaps, when we get to know each other better, our feelings!”