104. A Heart Finds Love (3 page)

“There be brides and brides,” Brooks said. “If you asks me, Miss Alnina, you could have got more than that.”

“I have not received anything yet,” Alnina replied. “But we will soon find out if you are right, Brooks, and I am wrong.”

Brooks did not reply.

But she heard him mutter to himself as he carried her empty tray out of the dining room towards the kitchen.

*

She would have been most interested if she had known that at the very moment when she was arguing with Brooks about her advertisement, the Duke of Burlingford was reading
The Times
in his London house.

It had been put neatly down on his breakfast table on a silver stand, which had been used by his grandfather.

He glanced at the headlines, but then he was really thinking how extraordinary it was that he should be seated in a beautiful carved chair at the head of the table.

He was now ensconced in a house that he had only visited three or four times before it became his.

In fact, he still felt as if he was in a dream from which he would not wake up.

He found it quite impossible to believe that he was now actually the Head of the Family and he had never in his wildest dreams thought it would be possible.

John Ford, as he had been born, had at an early age wanted to travel.

When he left Eton, where he had a good education, he had rejected his father’s advice that he should go on to a University.

Instead he had set off to explore the world and he had found it so much more fascinating and educational than any University could have been.

He had travelled for four years and then he returned home because he learnt that his father was ill.

His father owned a nice comfortable, medium-sized house in Worcestershire and he was not very interested in anything that took place outside his own County.

He was, however, an ardent enthusiast for sporting activities. He rode to hounds, had a small but excellent shoot of his own and was a patron of a local cricket team and this he had founded and financed.

He had only one son with his wife, who was not particularly strong.

When she died, he was quite content to live on his own with only periodical news of his son.

He saw very little of the Head of the Family, who was the Duke of Burlingford, the owner of an enormous estate in Sutherland in Scotland as well as a family house in Berkeley Square.

Once a year the Duke expected his relations to visit him in the huge house which had been given to the first Duke by Charles II for his loyalty and support.

When John Ford met his relatives there, the Duke entertained them lavishly and they would go home thinking what a charming man he was.

It was obvious that his care for the family would be continued by his son who was very like him.

His son, however, seemed to have no wish to marry and the older members of the family pressed him to choose a charming wife. But at thirty-one he was still a bachelor despite their protests.

John Ford, however, was not particularly interested in the Dukedom or his cousin, who was five years older than he was.

“You go, Papa,” he would say when a summons to a family get-together arrived.

It was an order that few of his relations were brave enough to refuse.

“You should take more of an interest in the family,” his father would reply.

“I know, Papa, but you know how boring it is with all those old relations and the Duke lecturing us at almost every meal.”

His father had laughed.

“I will tell him you are in Timbuktu. I did that last year and he accepted it. But I cannot help thinking as I am getting old that just as he keeps telling your cousin that he should marry, I should be saying the same to you.”

John had, however, refused.

Then, when he was in South America, his father had died unexpectedly during an extremely cold winter.

He thought perhaps that his father had been right and he should find a wife.

As it happened, he fell in love quite unexpectedly with a young girl who was the beauty of the Season.

One of his relatives had invited him to stay for a ball she was giving for her daughter, Marcia, who had just come out and John, who was twenty-three, had accepted because he could not think of a good enough excuse for refusing.

He had gone to the ball, thinking that he would enjoy himself far more if he went to his Club and played bridge.

Marcia was only eighteen, exceedingly pretty and undoubtedly one of the sensations of the Season.

They had danced together and when John, a little later, asked her to marry him, she accepted.

He was in a seventh Heaven of delight and indeed so apparently was his future wife.

The wedding was announced and planned to take place in a month’s time.

John was very busy redecorating his home and he wanted it to be a fitting background for the beauty of his future wife. His father had left it exactly as it was when he inherited and there was therefore a great deal to do to make it what John considered perfect for Marcia.

She liked pink, so the bedroom was decorated for her in that colour and he bought new curtains and re-gilded the carved and gilt-canopied bed, which had been there since his ancestor had been given it by Charles II.

It was not a large house and did not in any way compare with the Ducal residence, which was very big and very imposing.

“We will be very happy,” John had told his pretty fiancée, “and there are so many places I want to show you in the world. So we will travel as much as we can.”

Marcia agreed to everything.

The wedding was finally fixed for the second week in May and it was then that John had a letter from the Duke telling him that he was unable to be present at the wedding.

However, he would be giving John, as a member of the family, a picture of one of their ancestors and also a canteen of silver engraved with the family crest.

John thanked him politely and then hurried back to Marcia, only to find what he had never expected in his wildest imagination.

Waiting for him at his home was a letter and, when he opened it eagerly, it was to read that Marcia would not be marrying him as had been planned.

She had fallen in love with a young man who was a Viscount and would, when his father died, become an Earl.

To John it was a blow he had never anticipated.

He realised cynically and with a bitterness he did not attempt to hide that Marcia had only become engaged to him because he was related to the Duke.

There was no thought of his inheriting the title, so she had eagerly accepted the Viscount instead.

Rather than face the sympathy of his friends, John had left England immediately.

This time he went to Russia and spent some time in the Caucasus and when he finally returned home he was three years older and very cynical about women.

“I have made a fool of myself once,” he told his friend William Armstrong, who had accompanied him on several of his trips, “but once bitten, twice shy and now I will never marry.”

It was easy to say that when he was just John Ford and of no particular consequence.

Now it was very different.

By what had seemed an impossibility, he became the Duke of Burlingford.

The Duke and his son and heir had decided that they would go to Scotland in August to shoot grouse and to fish for salmon.

In the previous year they had found it a long and tedious journey overland, so they had decided that this year they would go by sea.

The Duke’s Scottish castle and estate lay a long way to the North and to travel by sea seemed a far more comfortable and more sensible way of getting there.

Then there blew up, however, an unexpected and unusually violent storm in the North Sea and they had very nearly reached their destination when the ship they were travelling in was driven onto a rocky shore.

There was no chance of saving anyone on board and both the Duke and his son were drowned.

John Ford was informed with difficulty, because he was in Nepal at the time, that he was now the tenth Duke of Burlingford.

To say that he was pleased was not entirely true.

He was surprised, in fact astonished, and thought it would undoubtedly be rather a bore to become Head of a Family that he had paid very little attention to in the past.

Then when his friend, William Armstrong, arrived to see him, almost the first thing he said was,

“You will hardly believe me, William, but what I am thinking now is that we can buy that mountain in the Caucasus.”

William stared at him.

“We were certain that there was gold in it, but we did not have the money to bid for it at the time.”

William gasped in astonishment.

“Are you still thinking of the prospect?” he asked.

“Indeed I am. You must remember how much we enjoyed that trip through Georgia and on to the Caucasus.”

William nodded and the Duke went on,

“We were both convinced that the mountain which we climbed and inspected so carefully contained gold.”

“They say that about many of the mountains in the Caucasus,” William commented. “But, as it would have cost a fortune to make sure of it, we had to leave well alone.”

“Of course we did then, but now I have plenty of money and there is nothing to stop us from buying that mountain.”

“Now that you are talking about it, I can tell you something I discovered last year when you were not with me,” William said. “I went to Georgia and actually met the owner of the mountain you were so interested in.”

“You met him! You never told me.”

“What was the point?” William asked. “I recalled how disappointed you were when, after we were certain we had found gold, we were told its owner had no intention of selling.”

“I remember that.”

“Now I was told,” William went on, “that he might sell it, but wants a high price for it. I had no wish to upset you by saying that it was ‘hands off’ as far as we were concerned.”

“Of course it was then,” the Duke agreed. “But now I am a Duke, although Heaven knows I will make a very bad one, I am determined that whatever you may say or think, that particular mountain will be mine.”

William lay back in his chair and laughed.

“You are always the same, John,” he sighed. “You make up your mind about something and then nothing will make you change it. Who would believe for one second that, having become a Duke when you had least expected it, your only thoughts are of buying a mountain, which, if you obtain it, it may quite easily be a disappointment.”

“Nevertheless it will be a satisfaction to me,” John replied, “simply because I had thought it could never be mine. Therefore I will at least have achieved something in my life.”

“I think you have already achieved a great deal. Very few people know the world as well as you know it and we have had a great deal of fun, even though we had to travel on the cheap.”

“I want that mountain!” the Duke insisted firmly. “And now I can afford to buy it.”

There was a pause and then William remarked,

“I have just told you that I met Prince Vladimir Petrov late last year. He is a tough creature and has one ambition in his life, I was told.”

“What is that?” the Duke asked.

“He wants his daughter, and he has only one, to marry an English Nobleman.”

“Are you making this up, William?”

“No, I am telling the truth. It did not sound all that interesting, especially as I am never likely to have a title. Therefore I merely thought that perhaps sooner or later the Prince would achieve what he wanted.”

“Why on earth should he want an Englishman for his daughter?”

“I think because the Czar and Queen Victoria are at daggers drawn,” William answered, “the Prince wants to be different. Also, as Britain is very powerful, if there is a war, he wants to be on the winning side.”

“Well, all I can say is that I am sure, as his daughter is a Princess, that she will find some idiot who will marry her. But it will not be
me
.”

“Don’t you be too certain about that, John. These Russians, especially when they are Georgians, are not only determined when they have an aim in life, but are also extremely shrewd and even unscrupulous about it.”

“What are you trying to say to me?”

“I am trying to save you from yourself,” William replied. “I am quite certain, if we go back now and tell the Prince we want to buy his mountain, he will think, because you are a Duke that you are exactly what he wants for his daughter.”

There was silence for a moment.

Then William said,

“Don’t be stupid, John. You know as well as I do there are a dozen different ways a man can be forced to the altar even if he does not want it. Remember that Russians are extremely clever at achieving what they desire.”

“I want that mountain,” the Duke said stubbornly.

“At the expense of your freedom?” William asked.

“No certainly not! I have told you before and I will tell you again that, after the way I was treated, I have no intention of marrying any woman, however attractive she may be.”

“Very well then,” William said. “Unless you want to commit suicide or provide yourself willy-nilly with a Russian wife, you must not go to the Caucasus.”

The Duke knocked his knuckles together.

“I intend to go,” he asserted, “and no one, not even you, William, will be able to stop me.”

William made a helpless gesture with his hands, but the Duke went on,

“There must be ways and means of insuring myself against the bonds of matrimony. In fact I will bet you a thousand pounds to a threepenny bit that I purchase the mountain without being married to the Princess, whatever she may look like.”

“I will certainly take you up on that,” William said. “At the same time be sensible, John. I cannot allow you to walk straight into a fiery furnace.”

He paused for a moment before he continued,

“Everyone told me when I was there last year that Prince Vladimir is absolutely determined that his daughter should marry an English Nobleman. He was even writing to Queen Victoria about her.”

“I don’t suppose for one second that Her Majesty would even reply to that.”