103. She Wanted Love (3 page)

“Now listen to me,” her stepfather began.

“I am listening,” Eleta replied. “At the same time it’s so wonderful to be here and to have the same things to eat that I loved when I was a child and the same servants running the house as they have always done.”

“I am glad you appreciate it,” Cyril Warner said in a terse voice.

“I suppose we are all the same,” Eleta sighed. “We enjoy ourselves when we are away, but it is wonderful to come home.”

She was aware that Cyril Warner stiffened and then she asked,

“What is it? What are you trying to tell me?”

“I told you that I wanted to talk to you, Eleta. I therefore want your full attention.”

“Of course that is what you will have. Equally you must not mind me enjoying my tea. Mrs. Buxton will be so upset if the plates go back untouched.”

“I am not concerned with Mrs. Buxton’s feelings one way or the other,” he snapped. “And what I have to say concerns your future and that is much more important.”

He spoke sharply and Eleta stared at him.

“Concerns my future,” she repeated slowly. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that I have arranged your marriage and I am sure it will give you the same pleasure as it gives me.”

“
My marriage
!” Eleta exclaimed. “What do you mean? How can you arrange my marriage?”

“Much more easily than I thought it would be,” her Stepfather answered. “Unless living in France has made you less intelligent than I believe you to be, you will be delighted at what I have to tell you.”

With a huge effort Eleta made herself ask slowly and in what she hoped was an ordinary voice,

“What have you arranged?”

Cyril Warner sat back in his chair.

“I have arranged that you will marry, as soon as possible, the Duke of Hazelware.”

Eleta stared at him.

“You have arranged my marriage?” she questioned. “How could you possibly do that? I have never met the Duke of Hazelware. In fact I don’t think that he was a friend of either my mother or my father.”

“But he is a friend of mine and a most important one. He is in fact exactly the man I want as the Chairman of my new Company which he has promised to be. He will also benefit by having you as his wife. So that there is no reason for you to feel that he is condescending to you.”

“I cannot imagine that what you are saying is true,” Eleta cried. “Why should I marry the Duke of Hazelware whom I have never met? And it is not my concern whether he is Chairman of your Company or not.”

Cyril Warner laughed and it was not a particularly pleasant sound.

“If you will allow me to explain the circumstances through which I obtained such a consequential husband for you,” he said, “you will understand that it is a question of our both giving and receiving.”

“What do you mean by that?” Eleta demanded.

“Well, I want an influential figure like the Duke as Chairman of my Company and he is anxious not only to have an heir, which he does not have at the moment, but also to be able to afford one.”

Eleta stared at him.

“Are you then saying that the Duke is marrying me because I have my father’s money, which I am well aware is very considerable?”

“That is the first intelligent remark you have made since you came home. As I have said, it’s a question of give and take. While I want the Duke for my Company, he will benefit from the fact that you are a very lucky young woman in the matter of money.”

“As you are referring to the money that belonged to my father and of course to my mother,” Eleta said. “I have every intention of spending it, as they would want me to do on supporting those charities my mother was particularly interested in and in keeping up the estate which my father gave not only his money to but his love and attention.”

“You are quite right and, with regard to the estate, the Duke will of course share it with you and will, I am sure, thanks to his vast experience, have many new ideas.”

Eleta was silent for a moment and then she said,

“How old is this Duke?”

She knew as she spoke that it was a question he did not wish to answer and he looked uncomfortable, as Eleta continued,

“If you don’t tell me the truth, I can easily look him up in
Debrett’s Peerage
– there is one in the library.”

“He is not a young man, of course he is not,” her stepfather replied. “But he is, I am sure, very young in his outlook. Therefore you will benefit by his experience of life which you have not yet had.”

“You have not answered my question,” Eleta said quietly. “How old is the Duke we are talking about?”

Reluctantly and almost as if she had bullied it out of him, he replied after a long pause,

“Well, I think perhaps he is a little over fifty.”

Eleta laughed.

“Do you really think that I would want to marry a man who is old enough to be my grandfather? The answer is quite simply ‘
no
’.”

Cyril Warner sat back in his chair.

“Are you really so stupid, Eleta, as to think that is your final word?”

“Of course it’s my final word. Have him on your Board, which I am sure is a very wise move, but I have no intention of marrying an old man and certainly not one who is marrying me for my money!”

There was silence for a moment and then he said,

“You have forgotten one thing.”

“What can that be?” Eleta asked suspiciously

“That I am your Guardian by Law,” her stepfather replied, “and you have to obey me until you are twenty-one. That, as I ascertained this morning, does not happen for nine months and by then you will be on my instructions married to the Duke of Hazelware.”

Eleta stared at him.

“Do you really intend to force me up the aisle with someone I have no wish to marry, an old man who is marrying me for what I possess and not for myself?”

“All young women want a title,” he replied.

“I already have a title and I have no wish to be a Duchess.”

“Unfortunately or maybe fortunately,” he answered, “the Duke is extremely necessary to me and I therefore can think of no other way to attract him than to offer him your hand in marriage.”

“I think you must be mad if you believe I will agree to anything so ridiculous,” Eleta stormed. “If my mother was alive, she would most certainly not allow you to even suggest anything quite so unpleasant to me.”

“But, Eleta, your mother is not alive and I want to make it completely clear to you that I have gone into this very carefully. There is nothing you can do but obey me until you are twenty-one.”

“I will not – ” Eleta began, but he interrupted,

“It is then you will have complete control over your fortune and yourself. But until then you have to obey your Guardian by Law and I, at present, hold that position.”

He spoke as if he was addressing a crowd of stupid and uneducated people and there was an expression in his eyes and in the tone of his voice that told Eleta all too clearly that he meant to have his own way.

She realised, because she was extremely intelligent, that she was at the moment at a complete disadvantage.

If she defied the law, she would have no support and would finally have to agree to his outrageous idea.

She wanted to scream and she wanted to hit him.

She wanted to fight for her freedom.

But she knew that she was powerless to do so.

She therefore slowly and deliberately cut herself a piece of cake and put it on her plate before she said,

“I must say, Step-papa, that this is a great shock to me as soon as I have arrived home. Perhaps we should go into more detail and you could explain to me more fully why the Duke has come into our lives or rather into my life without my having met him.”

“But of course you will meet him,” Cyril Warner replied, “but he is in the Midlands at the moment where he has a dilapidated castle which is urgently in need of repair, but he should be back tomorrow or the day after.”

“You think that he will then make me a proposal of marriage?” Eleta managed to say.

“He has already told me that he is delighted at the idea of marrying someone young, beautiful and of course with a large fortune”

He paused, but as Eleta did not speak he continued,

“He was married at one time, but his wife died without giving him any children and he has not been able to afford to be in London often lately.”

He gave a snide laugh before he added,

“He has managed, I think with some difficulty, to remain a bachelor.”

“I suppose you want him on some new project?”

“I want him badly,” her stepfather answered. “Not that he knows anything about ships or the material which goes into them, but his name will mean a great deal to me and to those who work with me.”

Cyril Warner’s voice rose sharply as he added,

“As you must know, all Dukes are deeply respected in this country and abroad, especially in America.”

There was a note in his voice that told Eleta far better than words that America was where the Duke would shine. If he was to represent her stepfather’s products, they would automatically be of great interest to the Americans.

There was silence for a moment, then Eleta said,

“And the Duke can do this without involving me.”

“Sadly the truth is that His Grace is exceedingly hard-up. I have not yet visited his ancestral home, which is in Nottinghamshire, but I am told it is in urgent need of repair which he cannot afford.”

He seemed to Eleta to glare at her as he went on,

“The cost of restoring it to what it was a hundred years ago will mean little to you, but it should be a great satisfaction when you become the reigning Duchess with an estate which is as perfect as your father made his estate in Northamptonshire.”

“Which is mine,” Eleta asserted. “What will happen to it if I am busy, as you suggest, in Nottinghamshire?”

“I am sure with all the education you have had,” her Stepfather replied sarcastically, “two estates will not be too much for you and you should be able to manage them as competently as your mother managed this house.”

“I think perhaps, Step-papa, that you are being very optimistic, but naturally I would like to see His Grace’s house before I commit myself one way or another.”

“You would be wasting your time – ”

He was almost shouting the words at her and he continued,

“You will marry the Duke as soon as it is possible to arrange the marriage. Because we will need to make everyone aware of such a splendid occasion, it must take place immediately. At the beginning of next month would be best, just before the Royal Ascot races.”

“I see you have arranged everything,” Eleta said. “But you must understand my feelings.”

She was about to say much more, but her stepfather broke in, almost snarling the words,

“You have to marry the Duke and I cannot wait for you to have airs and graces about it. You will marry him when I can arrange a date with him as soon as he arrives here. All you have to do is to spend a considerable amount of money on a wedding gown, which must be outstanding, and of course we can invite at least five hundred people if we use the garden in the centre of the Square.”

From the way he spoke, Eleta was aware that he had planned every move and there would be little point in her arguing.

She therefore rose from the tea table and stipulated,

“As I have been travelling since early this morning, you will understand that I must now go upstairs and rest.”

“I have a great many more things to say to you,” he replied. “You must therefore make an effort to come down to dinner. I have your mother’s list of friends who must all be invited and you must have made many friends at your school and they too should receive an invitation.”

“Yes, Step-papa, I understand, but I really am very tired and you must forgive me if I go now and lie down.”

She walked across the room as she was speaking, but he made no effort to rise or to open the door for her.

He merely watched her with what she thought were suspicious eyes as she walked out of the room.

She deliberately closed the door quite quietly and then she forced herself to walk to the hall and up the stairs.

There were two footmen on duty there and, as she had not seen them before, she greeted them and they said that they were glad to see her back.

As she reached her room, she found the old lady’s maid, who had looked after her mother, waiting for her.

Because it was a familiar voice and brought back memories of her childhood, Eleta kissed her warmly.

“If there is anyone I was hoping to see here when I returned home, it is you, Betty.”

“I was hopin’ you’d not forget me, my Lady.”

Betty was now in late middle-age and her hair was going grey, but, when she smiled, Eleta thought it was the same smile she remembered Betty giving her in the cradle.

“Oh, Betty, I am thankful you are here,” Eleta said. “I suppose you have some idea of what my stepfather has been saying to me.”

“We all knows he’s determined that you’ll marry the Duke,” Betty replied.

“How could he think I would do such a thing?”

“I was wonderin’ that meself, my Lady, but you knows what the Master be like. He never ever listens to anythin’ he don’t want to hear.”

“I know that,” Eleta said, “which is why I stopped arguing with him, but you can be sure that I will not marry the Duke and no law will force me.”

She spoke with a violence that had not been in her voice when she was downstairs.

Betty looked at her, then hurried across the room to make quite certain that the door was shut before saying,

“I knew you’d feel like this, my Lady, but what can you do?”

“What I have every intention of doing,” Eleta said slowly, “is to run away!”

Betty stared at her.

“Run away?” she repeated.

“Yes. How can I do – anything else? You know as well as I do, I cannot marry a man I have never seen – who is old and is marrying me – only because I am rich.”

The words seemed to tumble from her lips.

“Now don’t you upset yourself, my Lady. I know it’s terrible, but you’ve got to think it out.”

“I’ve thought it out already. I intend to run away as quickly as I can and will never, never come back here until Step-papa is thinking very differently.”