Lovers in London (7 page)

Lanthia giggled.

“I can now understand why the Conté became so incredulous when you introduced him to your fiancée!”

“I believe I sounded reasonably convincing, but I will have to be even more convincing this evening. And I am totally banking on his behaving decently and keeping our engagement a secret.”

Lanthia gave a little cry.

“What shall we do if he tells everyone?”

“I don't think he will, Lanthia, as it would be too much of a cad's trick and the Conté, unpleasant though he is, comes from one of the oldest families in Spain. No one can say he is not an aristocrat!”

“Then our pretend engagement,” added Lanthia, as if she was working it out for herself, “need not be for very long.”

“Shall we say for just as long as you stay here at
The Langham
?” suggested the Marquis.

“I expect to leave here in two or at the outside three days.”

“Then it will not require a great deal of acting! Let me thank you for being so kind and understanding and very much braver and more sensible than any other woman would ever have been.”

He thought as he spoke he was very lucky that she had not simply denied what he had invented on the spur of the moment. She might easily have told both him and the Conté to leave her sitting room at once.

Because he really was extremely grateful, he raised her hand to his lips.

“You have been so wonderful already,” he told her, “and I am asking you to be even more wonderful tonight. I will try not to be more of a nuisance than I can help.”

“I cannot believe this is really happening,” Lanthia sighed.

He knew from the way she spoke that it really did seem to her like something out of a book or a scene from a play.

“I am so very fortunate, Lanthia, to have found you. Now I must hurry as I need to write a note to the Duke and leave it on the way to my house.”

He picked up his hat and walked towards the door.

“Until ten minutes to eight,” he bowed, “and try to look even more beautiful than you do at the moment.”

It was a compliment he would have made to any of the beauties with whom he was usually associated.

He saw Lanthia's eyes widen in surprise and then a faint colour came into her cheeks.

‘She is very young,' he told himself as he walked down the stairs. ‘At the same time few young girls would have shown such self-control or would have behaved so well. I do believe we have really got the Conté guessing, even if he is not yet entirely convinced.'

He was pondering that he had contrived so many harrowing escapes in his life, but this was easily one of the nearest.

In the writing room on the ground floor of the hotel he wrote a quick note to the Duke of Sutherland.

He told him that a young lady to whom he owed a great debt of gratitude had arrived in London unexpectedly and he would be eternally grateful if he might bring her to the party tonight.

“
I will explain more about it,
” he ended, “
the next time we are alone and I know the story will amuse you.

Please grant me this favour.

Yours,

Rake.
”

He had known the Duke for many years and knew that the Duke was very fond of him. Consequently every autumn he stayed at Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland to shoot grouse.

The Duke and his wife Anne were almost totally estranged from each other. Since the Duchess, as Mistress of the Robes to the Queen, joined the Court at Windsor Castle, he had become infatuated with various pretty women.

The Duke was frequently part of the ‘fast set' the Prince of Wales was so openly attached to, along with the very beautiful German born Duchess of Manchester who, it was said, had a number of distinguished lovers.

The Duke of Sutherland owned four stately homes, a number of smaller houses and a million and a half acres of land.

His London home, Stafford House, was well known as one of the most attractive houses in the city and was currently undergoing refurbishment and redecoration in several of the largest reception rooms.

It was so impressive that Queen Victoria had once said to the Duke's mother, Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland,

“I come from my house to your Palace!”

Tonight's party at
The Langham
should have been held at Stafford House and the Marquis was well aware how unusual it was for the Duke to entertain anywhere other than under his own roof.

The party in honour of an American the Duke had stayed with in New York came under threat when it became clear that the workmen would not have finished the magnificent new dining room in time for guests.

As his visitor was only staying for two days in London, the Duke eventually abandoned the Stafford House plans and a dinner party for over fifty guests was arranged at
The Langham
.

The Marquis's chaise was waiting for him outside and he drove as fast as possible to Stafford House, where the groom handed in his note.

Without waiting for an answer he drove on to his house in Park Lane and by the time he arrived it was after seven o'clock.

It was with a sense of relief that the Marquis went straight up to his bedroom to change for dinner and his valet already had his bath arranged for him in front of the fireplace.

When he had bathed and was dressing, he reflected that what had occurred this afternoon was something that had never happened to him before.

He could not comprehend why the idea of saying he was engaged to Lanthia Grenville had suddenly sprung into his mind.

He could have invented some other explanation as to why he was in a room alone with a pretty woman.

He had hardly been given a chance to look at her before the Conté burst in.

When he did he saw how young she was, but at the same time realised that she was quite obviously a lady.

Even so, he thought, it might have been expected of him to be in the company of a pretty girl for very different reasons altogether.

‘I must have sensed instinctively she was a young lady,' he told himself, ‘who might have been shocked and horrified at such a suggestion nor would she have looked the part!'

Thinking it over, he was convinced that because she looked so young and, to use an unusual word,
pure
, the Conté had almost accepted the explanation that she was his fiancée.

And definitely not just a pretty woman who for the moment he found desirable.

It was difficult for him to put it all into perspective and yet the Marquis knew that he had to fully convince the Conté tonight that Lanthia really meant something to him.

He would then, hopefully, desist from forcing him into a duel.

At exactly twenty minutes to eight he hurried down the stairs. The butler and two footmen were waiting in the hall to open the door and help him into his closed carriage. One of the footmen handed the Marquis his tall hat and another placed his evening cape round his shoulders.

Then the Marquis stepped into his carriage.

His coachman already had instructions as to where to take him.

*

At
The Langham
Lanthia was quite certain she was living in a dream.

Could it really be possible that these two men had burst into her sitting room?

Firstly the Marquis, who, she had to admit, was one of the most handsome men she could ever have imagined.

Secondly the Conté, who she instinctively felt was a cruel wicked man she would not trust.

He was dangerous. There was no doubt about that.

She was frightened that he would have his revenge somehow on the Marquis, however brave he might be.

She found it very hard to believe that she was really going to attend the very grand dinner party that was to take place here in the hotel this very evening.

She went in to see Mrs. Blossom and found that she was already in bed.

“Are you feeling any better?” Lanthia asked her.

“I shall be all right, dear child. It is just my head, but I am sure that after a good night's sleep I shall be myself again.”

Lanthia was going to tell her about her invitation to the Duke's dinner party at the hotel, but then she thought it would be a mistake.

“What about your dinner?” she enquired instead.

“I want nothing when I am like this, my dear. All I want is to sleep and I confess that I am going to take a little laudanum. Only a little so that I shall sleep soundly.”

“Then I hope nothing will disturb you,”

Lanthia bent down and kissed her.

“Thank you for being so kind to me today and I am sure the gowns we bought will be a great success.”

“I am certain you will look very pretty in them all.”

Mrs. Blossom closed her eyes and Lanthia tiptoed from the room.

Back in her sitting room she knew she had to hurry.

It was a blessing that she had brought with her the pretty gown her mother had given her last year for her birthday.

She had only worn it a few times, but she still thought, even after viewing all those glamorous models today in the shops, that it was very attractive.

The gown became her as it was soft and white and it seemed to envelop her as if she was an angel floating on clouds in the sky.

She had not intended to bring it to London with her, but her mother had said,

“As it fits you so well, dearest, I should take it with you so that you can compare it with the gowns you buy. If you remember, we took a long time getting it made exactly as we wanted it to be.”

Lanthia knew this to be true and it crossed her mind as she dressed that the Marquis might otherwise have been disappointed.

The gowns she usually wore when she was dining alone with her father and mother and the one she had worn last night with Mrs. Blossom were much simpler.

She put up her hair in the way her mother arranged it for parties.

When she was finally ready, she looked at herself in the mirror. She was looking for faults, but could not find any.

In fact she thought that she looked smart enough to go to any party given by a Duke.

‘I do hope I don't make any mistakes,' she said to herself. ‘Equally it will all be very exciting and something to tell Mama about when I go home.'

It might have seemed rather shocking if it had been necessary to drive on to somewhere else with the Marquis without a chaperone and she knew her mother would have disapproved.

Now she would only have to walk downstairs with the Marquis and no one could say there was anything at all wrong in that.

She wondered vaguely what excuse he would give the Duke for bringing her to his party, but it did not seem to matter too much.

In fact because everything was happening to her in such a strange way, nothing seemed in any way real.

It was just like one of the stories she told herself as she rode through the woods.

*

At precisely a quarter to eight the Marquis knocked on the door of the sitting room and Lanthia opened it.

She had expected him to look very smart, but in his evening clothes he was overwhelming.

He saw at a glance that Lanthia was exactly as he wanted her to be.

It had struck him as just his good luck to discover anyone so exquisite and so perfect for the part he wanted her to play.

In fact he could not imagine there was a woman in the whole of the City of London who could look so lovely and so perfectly dressed for the occasion.

“I very much hope I will not do anything wrong tonight or make the Conté suspicious,” said Lanthia, as he did not speak.

“I think anything you say or do will be completely and absolutely right,” replied the Marquis eventually. “I am thinking of all the compliments you will receive tonight and it is fortunate that unlike the Conté I will not challenge everyone to a duel who makes them!”

Lanthia laughed as he had meant her to do.

“I am sure that will not happen, but tell me quickly about our host tonight. I have been trying to think if I have ever heard anything about him.”

“I expect you have,” replied the Marquis, “because he is, in his own way, quite famous. He is married, but he and the Duchess more or less live their own lives.”

Lanthia was listening and he continued,

“The Duchess is very religious and when in London she attends the Church of Scotland with her own piper in full ceremonial dress sitting beside her!”

Lanthia gave a little laugh and then wondered if she had been rude.

“When she is at home in Stafford House, she reads novels lying on a sofa under a red satin eiderdown. She is surrounded by many mynah birds and parrots that perch on everything including the head of her old retriever!”

Lanthia chuckled again.

“What does the Duke do about it?” she asked.

The Marquis's eyes twinkled.

“Come and see for yourself,” he said mysteriously and escorted her through the door.

They walked down the corridor with the Marquis praying that the two Spaniards would not come out of their room as they passed their door.

He thought it might make things more difficult than they were already if they were forced to go down in the lift together.

Downstairs the Duke's guests were already arriving and pouring in through the hall.

The Marquis had attended several formal dinner parties at
The Langham
and he reckoned that the Duke would have taken the whole of the large dining room, which was known as the
Salle à manger
.

To reach it they were required to pass through a small courtyard with a fountain playing in the middle of it.

Lanthia had never seen this fountain before and she wanted to stop and admire it, thinking just how fascinating it was.

The water caught the lights as it streamed towards the sky and turned into tiny rainbows.

The Marquis however moved her on.

They walked up some steps to the entrance to the
Salle à manger
where the Duke was receiving his guests.