Hide and Seek for Love (6 page)

David was deeply touched.

“That is very kind of you, Colonel, and I know how much I will miss the men I have enjoyed training and my brother Officers have been extremely kind to me.”

“I suppose it is
Fate
and when Fate takes a hand in our lives there is nothing we can do about it!”

David decided that he must be right.

*

Later that night as the Steamship moved out of port, he stood on deck.

He watched the lights of Calcutta until he could not see them any longer.

Then he knew with a deep sigh that a chapter of his life had closed.

It had encompassed so much that he found it hard to believe it was really at an end.

There had been the Regiment, the thrill of his first mission in
The Great Game
, when he had been very near to death at least half-a-dozen times and there had been his many encounters with India's enemies, at all of which he had triumphed, as in the last encounter at Fort Tibbee, he had always been overwhelmingly successful.

At least he could say that, if he had done nothing else, he had made British rule a little stronger than when he had first set foot on Indian soil.

His only failure was Stella.

He had believed, perhaps foolishly, that she really loved him and he had thought about her every night when he went to bed.

He had been determined that if he survived his last mission over the frontier and his fight for Fort Tibbee, he would ask her to be his wife.

Although she had not known about it at the time, he was today in very different circumstances.

But impulsively, because she looked so lovely and desirable, he had then asked her the all important question without any preliminaries.

She had refused him – but she would not have done if she had known that he had inherited an ancient title that anyone would be proud of.

That, David told himself, was something he did not need from the woman to whom he would give his heart.

He wanted love.

The real love that his parents had shared.

The real love that to him was something wonderful and sacred.

Then he thought that he was a fool.

He was asking too much.

All women, and he despised them for it, wanted not a man who laid his soul at their feet, but who could place a diamond tiara on their head.

And whose rank would make the servants and shopkeepers address them respectfully.

David looked up at the moon.

‘I was asking for far too much,' he told the moon cynically.  ‘It is something that will
never
happen to me.'

 

David had plenty of time to think about himself in the seventeen days it took the Steamer to reach England.

He had not thought much about his family for years simply because he had hated his grandfather, the Marquis, and had more interesting issues to think about in India.

But now when he looked back, he remembered that his grandfather had been the eighth Marquis of Inglestone.

The Marquisate went back to the twelfth century.

His grandfather had married a daughter of the Duke of Dunstead and she had given herself as many airs as her husband did and they behaved, David thought, as if they were Royalty and expected everyone to bow to them.

His grandfather was little more than forty when his wife died, having borne him two sons and not surprisingly, he soon married again.

Lady Elizabeth Falcon was very different from his first wife.  She enjoyed her life, was very intelligent and an excellent rider.

She had been married before but without children and made the Marquis a little more human.  She was one of those people who made friends easily and thus she never found herself lonely.

They had not been married for a year when a son, Richard, was born and he took after his mother, not only in looks, as he was a handsome lad.

When he went to Eton, he became Head of School and Captain of Cricket and later at Oxford he took a First.

The Marquis, although he did not often say so, was proud of his son and was determined that he should make a good marriage.

After Oxford Richard went abroad for a short time and came back thrilled with his time in France and Spain.

It was then his father had said to him,

“I have arranged for your marriage – ”

Richard had stared at him in astonishment.

“My marriage!” he exclaimed.

“I wish you to marry the daughter of the Duke of Sheldon – and her father is delighted to be united with our family.”

“If I marry anyone,” Richard had stated firmly, “I will marry someone I love and who loves me.  I would not think of making an arranged marriage.”

“You will do as you are told,” his father told him sternly.  “I will brook no nonsense from you, Richard, and I have already arranged for the Duke to bring his daughter to meet you and the rest of the family next week.”

Richard did not reply, as he knew of old that it was hopeless and a great mistake to argue with his father.  He had done so when he was young and had been overruled.

Two days before the Duke had arrived at Ingle Hall with his daughter, Richard left home and disappeared.

The Marquis was furious at his behaviour, but there was nothing he could do.

When, a few months later, he received a letter from his son, he almost had a stroke.

Richard informed him that he had married someone he was deeply in love with and who loved him.

“
Her name,
” he had written, “
is Elizabeth Anson.
 
Her father, who you will never have heard about, is a most
distinguished scientist who has travelled all over the world
and written several books on his discoveries.

We are blissfully happy and I do hope that you will
welcome Elizabeth when I bring her home.
”

The letter was written from Spain.

It was not until several weeks later that the Marquis had learnt that his son was in London and that he was able to communicate with him.

He then informed Richard that he had disobeyed his orders and behaved in a scandalous fashion.  In addition he had then cut him off without a penny and he was no longer welcome at Ingle Hall.

The letter had not troubled Richard at all as he was madly in love with his wife and she worshipped him.

Their love was to increase over the years and when David was born, he merely added to their happiness.

David had a somewhat strange upbringing that was bizarrely different from his father's.

Richard had not been especially upset at being cut off without a penny, as he had money of his own.

His Godfather, who had been a very distinguished Statesman, had left him quite a considerable sum and this had grown while Richard was at Eton and Oxford, as he had no need to spend any of it.

Now it paid for him, his wife and their small son to travel, as he always wanted to do, around the world.

David therefore had the strangest education any boy could possibly experience.

He had nurses who spoke to him in Arabic and he learnt Copt from some Egyptians who were friends of his father.  He became virtually word perfect in ancient and modern Greek when they had lived in Greece for quite a considerable time.

Apart from this, Richard, with his own excellent if conventional education, enjoyed teaching his son all he had learnt himself.

They were blissfully happy, as three people seldom are happy, as they travelled from country to country and Richard always felt that there was somewhere in the world he had not yet explored.

David was nearly twenty-one when disaster struck.

When they were in North Africa, his father caught a fever, which was known to have no cure.

It was lethal in his case and he died in three days.

His wife and son both found it hard to believe that anything so terrible could happen so quickly.

The British Embassy provided a burial in a small cemetery and the Ambassador arranged for the widow and her son to return to England.

David's mother was so prostrate with misery that he had to arrange everything.

What worried him was that his father had left very little money, so that by the time the funeral was paid for and the lodgings where they had been staying, he only had just enough for their travelling expenses.

Because they had then no home in England, he had thought that the only thing he could possibly do was to go to the family house in Kent, Ingle Hall.

He had never been there himself, but his father had often told him how magnificent it was, having been built in Elizabethan times.

Every generation had contributed to the collection of pictures, furniture, china and silver and, having been strictly entailed from one generation to the next, it had just grown and grown.

Ingle Hall was now one of the treasures of England.

As he had never seen it, it was difficult for David to realise not only its beauty but also its significance and because his father had been exiled, he always expected to be exiled himself.

But since his mother was, in addition to her grief, in poor health, he decided to take her to the family home until they could find a house of their own.

The Ambassador had very kindly sent a cable to the Marquis, informing him of David and Lady Richard Ingle's imminent arrival.

When their ship reached the white cliffs of Dover, David thought that this was another land of discovery for him, like those he had enjoyed with his father.

They had a particularly tiring journey, ending in a post chaise before they finally reached Ingle Hall.

It was past six o'clock in the evening and David's mother was completely exhausted.

“I am sorry, darling, to be such a nuisance,” she had murmured earlier in the day.

“You are nothing of the sort, Mama, and as soon as we reach Ingle Hall, you must go to bed at once and stay there until you feel better.”

She had smiled at David and put up her hands to touch his cheek.

“You have been so kind and wonderful to me and I know that your father would be very grateful.”

Tears came into her eyes when she spoke about her dear husband and her son bent down and kissed her.

“You have been so very brave, Mama, and we must only hope that Grandpapa will be pleased to see us.”

He knew as he spoke that his mother was thinking that this was most unlikely.

He had not told her that at present their situation was desperate as he only had a few coins left and he hoped that when he contacted his father's Bank he would find that matters were not as bad as they seemed.

But he was mature enough to realise that they had spent a great deal of money recently on their journeys.

His father had once or twice said that if things grew worse then both of them would have to seek out some way of earning money.

David had thought at the time that it would not be so difficult as there was no one as clever as his father and he was sure that he could put his many languages to good use.

Actually neither he nor his mother had ever thought about money very seriously – it had always been left in his father's hands.

They arrived at Ingle Hall and as they drove up the drive, David was most impressed by the huge ornamental gold-tipped gates.

At his first sight of the house, he realised that his father had not exaggerated in his description of it.

It was very large and impressive with its mellowed red bricks and fascinating Elizabethan chimneys and it was almost breathtaking in the sunshine.

The post chaise drew up outside the front door and two footmen ran a red carpet down the steps.

David helped his mother out carefully and she was, he realised, almost on the verge of collapse, but with her usual bravery, she raised her head and walked up the steps on his arm.

A formidable butler with white hair addressed her,

“Welcome and we were expecting you, my Lady, and his Lordship's waiting for you and Mr. David in his study.”

David smiled at him.

“You must be Newman.  My father often spoke of you and how kind you were when he was a little boy.”

Newman looked delighted.

“All of us loved Lord Richard,” he said, “although he be a real pickle from the time he were born!”

David laughed.

“I can well believe it.”

Slowly, because it was impossible for his mother to move quickly, they both followed Newman down a high-ceilinged corridor.

He stopped at a door and opened it to announce,

“Lady Richard Ingle, my Lord, and Mr. David.”

David realised that he was in the enchanting study his father had often described to him.

There were books in inlaid marquetry cabinets and pictures that would be the envy of every art collector.

From a Regency writing table glittering with a gold inkpot, the Marquis rose.

It was the first time that David had ever seen his grandfather and he was neither as imposing nor as autocratic looking as he had expected.

Over the years he had shrunk, and now aged eighty-seven, he was not the domineering figure he had been in earlier days.

Yet when he spoke, his voice was still sharp, hard and aggressive,

“So you have come home after all these years – ”

David could not shake his hand, because his mother was supporting herself on his right arm.

“As you will have heard, Grandpapa, my father has died of an Eastern fever and after we had buried him I have brought my mother back to England.”

“So I can see, but that is no concern of mine!”

The way he spoke was so obviously unpleasant that David's mother gave a little exclamation.

David moved her to a chair and helped her sit down and then he walked a few paces nearer to his grandfather.

“I think you can see, Grandpapa, that my mother is not in good health and the shock of losing my father has almost been too much for her.  I know we have a great deal to say to each other, but I would be exceedingly grateful if you would allow her to rest and then it would be best if she could see a doctor.”