Lucky in Love E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Dashing Selby Harle, Lord Harlestone, has a reputation in London as a 'ladies man' and at the instigation of the influential Princess of Wales is all but blackmailed into marrying a Society beauty he does not like let alone love. And so he decides to escape to America, where he has invested some of his fortune in cattle ranching. In the wilds of Colorado, where the gold and minerals rush is at fever pitch, even this man of the world is shocked by the brazen houses of pleasure in Denver where 'madams' shamelessly ply their trade. He is even more appalled when a gang of rough cowboys arrive at one such house with a helpless young waif offering her for sale, who has just lost her mother and father to the Red Indians. The girl's name, they say, is Nelda Harle. Could this be the daughter of his estranged cousin, 'Handsome Harry', a notorious gambler and 'card sharp'? Selby feels duty bound to 'purchase' the girl for her own protection and proposes to send her safely home to England as soon as he returns to New York from his associate's Denver Ranch. Nelda turns out to be a glorious beauty of eighteen and even more stunning when dressed in fashionable gowns. Fate and love intervene when Arapaho Indians attack the wagon train she is travelling in and Nelda bravely saves Lord Harlestone's life. And he comes to realise that there is so much more to this young beauty than meets the eye.

Leseprobe

Author’s Note

The Indian Ute tribe mentioned in this book was uprooted when the Agent in the White River Indian Company sent for military aid.

A Major T.T. Thornburgh with a troop of one hundred and eighty men was sent South from Fort Steele. They were ambushed in Mill Creek. The Major and thirteen of his men were killed.

Reprisals on the part of the Militia were forbidden by Washington and it was decided to move the Northern Utes into Utah.

Mining in the mountains flourished in the late 1880s and early 1890s and Colorado became known as the ‘Silver State’.

The enormous cattle ranches lasted for only a short time. Overgrazing, the growing demand for agriculture rather than meat and a crippling cold winter in 1887 with excessively heavy snows killed great herds of stock.

Chapter One ~ 1880

Lord Harleston looked round the ballroom of Marlborough House and yawned.

It was late and he had finished what he called his ‘duty dances’ and suddenly had no wish to dance with any of the beautiful women who always surrounded the Prince of Wales.

It was not only that he was not particularly interested in any one of them at this moment but also that he felt saturated with the aura of Royalty that always pervaded Marlborough House despite the fact that the parties were more amusing there than anywhere else in London.

‘I must be growing old,’ Lord Harleston grumbled to himself.

He knew that a few years ago he would have found such an evening absorbing and would have enjoyed every moment of it.

Now he had had enough of a good thing.

As the parties for the Prince of Wales followed hotly one after another, Lord Harleston found, whether they were given by the leading hostesses palpitatingly eager to entertain His Royal Highness or at Marlborough House where the exquisite Princess Alexandra reigned supreme, they were all very much the same.

What was more he thought that the jokes were all the same as was the extravagance, the over-rich food and bottle after bottle of superlative wines.

Because he was taking a jaundiced view of the evening, Lord Harleston was not interested, as he usually was, in the superb pictures and the treasures of the house.

He was one of the Prince of Wales’s friends who really appreciated art and architecture and Marlborough House in Pall Mall, which had been built by Sir Christopher Wren for the first Duke of Marlborough, pleased him whenever he visited because it was in its own way a work of art.

It had quite a history of its own.

Originally allotted to Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold in 1817, it had next been handed over to Queen Adelaide who lived there until her death in 1849.

Queen Victoria had asked for an Act of Parliament to be passed assigning the house for the use of the Prince of Wales on his nineteenth birthday.

Since then the Government had spent sixty thousand pounds on modernisation and additions, while one hundred thousand pounds had been spent on furniture and carriages.

In Lord Harleston’s opinion the money had been well spent, although the public and the more radical Members of Parliament most definitely thought otherwise.

Now approaching forty the Prince of Wales with Marlborough House and Sandringham was comfortably housed and no one could say that he did not make the most of them.

That, however, was at the moment little comfort to Lord Harleston and yawning again he decided that he must somehow manage to go home to bed.

As he thought of it, loud laughter came from the corner of the room where the Prince of Wales was obviously enjoying himself with his friends.

The Prince’s friends were another bone of contention and Queen Victoria was not alone in her disapproval of them.

The Times condemned his patronage of ‘American Cattle Drovers and Prize Fighters’ while other critics spoke harshly of his intimate friendships with men whose names were ‘distinguished by riches rather than birth’.

Lord Harleston certainly did not come into this category, but his reputation as a rake and a roué certainly evoked the Queen’s displeasure, which was, Lord Harleston thought somewhat cynically, not unjustified.

Because he was extremely good-looking, wealthy and an acclaimed sportsman, there was practically no lady in the Prince of Wales’s set who would not think it a feather in her cap to captivate him if only for a short while.

A short while was indeed all it ever was, because, if Lord Harleston was bored with parties, he was equally quickly and easily bored with women.

When he pursued them, or rather they pursued him, he found that once the chase was over there were seldom any surprises or novelty in the liaison.

It was inevitable that he should therefore have gained the reputation of being a heartbreaker and the stories of his infidelity were passed from boudoir to boudoir and from beauty to beauty, as they lamented amongst themselves that even in their moment of victory they had lost him.

There was yet another burst of laughter from the Prince, echoed immediately by the remainder of the group and Lord Harleston was certain that the hilarity had been caused by the lively Portuguese Ambassador, the Marquis de Soveral.

He was noted for his wit and charm and the Prince treated him almost as if he was the Court Jester.

Lord Harleston hesitated, debating whether he should join the Prince of Wales’s party or try to slip away unnoticed.

Before he could make up his mind the Prince saw him and beckoned him to his side.

“I want to talk to you, Selby.”

Lord Harleston moved obediently towards the raised finger.

“I am listening, sir.”

“Not here,” the Prince replied in a low voice.

He slipped his arm through Lord Harleston’s and drew him out of the ballroom, just as another dreamy waltz began, and along a short passage into one of the sitting rooms that had been arranged for those wishing to sit out.

Decorated with a profusion of Malmaison carnations, which scented the air, it looked very enticing with its lowered lights and cushioned sofas, but the room was empty.

To Lord Harleston’s surprise the Prince of Wales closed the door behind him and walked across the room to stand with his back to the flower-filled chimneypiece.

Lord Harleston looked at him slightly apprehensively.

He was wondering what the Prince of Wales wished to say that necessitated such secrecy in the middle of a dance.

It could hardly be anything to do with finance. Although the Prince was permanently hard up, the Sassoons and the Rothschilds were now advising His Royal Highness on his finances and Sir Anthony Rothschild, who had recently been created a Baronet, had arranged for the family Bank to advance him money when he was in difficulties.

Similar services were also offered to the Prince by Baron Maurice von Hirsch, an enormously rich Jewish Financier whose entrée into English Society had been sponsored by him.

The Prince cleared his throat, which gave Lord Harleston the idea that he was slightly embarrassed.

Then almost as if His Royal Highness ‘took the plunge’, he began,

“I really want to talk to you, Selby, about Dolly.”

“Dolly?” Lord Harleston questioned him, reflecting that this was the last thing he had expected the Prince to say.

Dolly was the Countess of Derwent and Lord Harleston had enjoyed a fiery affaire de coeur with her. It had lasted over six months, which was longer than he maintained most of such associations before they were given the inevitable dismissal because he had lost interest.

Since both the Countess was one of the most beautiful women in England and Lord Harleston had a great many rivals, he found it amusing to have a prior claim to what many of his friends desired.

He revelled in knowing that they ground their teeth with fury every time he appeared with the Countess on his arm and she was looking at him rapturously.

That she had fallen head-over-heels in love with him had not been particularly surprising as it seemed to be inevitable in all of his love affairs.

It was, of course, in keeping with his reputation of being a heartbreaker that, when he had intimated to Dolly that everything was over between them, she had wept bitterly and thrown herself literally as well as metaphorically at his feet to beseech him not to leave her.

But even while he had tried to be sympathetic, Lord Harleston was aware that, beautiful though she was, Dolly, when one saw her too frequently, was indeed a bore.

She never said anything that he did not anticipate she would say and, if she ever made a witty remark, which was seldom, it was at the expense of one of their friends and was in a way at variance with the beauty of her face.

Somebody had once told the Countess that she looked like a Rossetti angel and she had tried to live up to that description ever since, assuming a soulful expression that had begun to irritate Lord Harleston because he knew that it was affected.

“I love you, Selby,” she cried, “and I thought you loved me! How can you leave me after all we have – meant to each – other? ”

It was a question that Lord Harleston had heard a hundred times before, but he had still not found an appropriate answer that did not appear brutal.

However, when he had finally extracted himself from Dolly’s clinging arms, he had decided that the best thing he could do was not to see her again.

After sending her a mass of expensive flowers and a keepsake that had cost him a considerable amount of money at Cartier’s, he dismissed the unpleasantness of it from his mind in a manner that had become almost a habit.

All this had happened ten days ago.

Since then a great number of notes had been delivered to Harleston House in the Countess’s unmistakable handwriting, but, as he had no intention of replying to any of them, he had not even opened them.

Because it was so unusual for anyone, even the Prince of Wales himself, to talk to Lord Harleston of his intimate affairs, a liberty that he greatly disliked, he waited somewhat irritably.

“We are old friends, Selby,” the Prince said in a slightly over-hearty manner, “and therefore I feel that I can be frank with you.”

“But, of course, sir,” Lord Harleston replied, hoping that he would be nothing of the sort.

“The truth is,” the Prince went on, “that Dolly has been talking to the Princess.”

Lord Harleston stiffened.

He could hardly believe that Dolly Derwent had been so indiscreet as to complain to Princess Alexandra of his behaviour.

Yet now, as he thought about it, he realised that because she had so little brain, it was in fact the sort of thing she might well do.

Princess Alexandra was deeply respected by everybody who met her. Her gaiety, her sense of fun and of the ridiculous made her play the part of wife to the unpredictable Prince of Wales to perfection.

Everybody who saw her was struck by her beauty and her extraordinarily youthful appearance, but her increasing deafness prevented her from enjoying many of the social activities that she had once delighted in.

She also, with extraordinary self-control and dignity, rarely displayed any of the jealousy she felt when her husband, although he treated her always with the greatest courtesy and respect, made it obvious to the world that he preferred the company of his ‘other ladies’ to that of his wife.

At the moment, as Lord Harleston knew, the Prince was deeply involved with the exquisitely beautiful Mrs. Lily Langtry and Princess Alexandra had bowed to the inevitable and raised no objection to another of the Prince’s inamoratas being invited to Marlborough House.

There was a pause while the Prince again cleared his throat.

Then he said,

“The Princess has therefore told me to suggest to you, Selby, that Dolly would make you an excellent and certainly very acceptable wife.”

If the Prince had exploded a bomb at Lord Harleston’s feet, he could not have been more astonished.

He had made it a rule never to discuss his love affairs with his friends and he had also made it very clear that he had no intention of allowing anyone, and that included his relatives, to speak to him of marriage.

When he had been young, he had often been nagged by his father and mother, his aunts, uncles, cousins and anyone with the name of Harle into choosing a wife.

Young women from suitable families, almost as soon as they had stepped out of the schoolroom, were brought to his notice and the points in their favour were discussed and elaborated on as if they were horses.

He had finally succumbed simply because he was sick to death of hearing the word marriage drummed into his ears and proposed to the Duke of Devonshire’s daughter who was both good-looking and a good rider.

He was not in the least in love with her, but, as the Duke favoured the suit because the Devonshires were hard up and Selby Harle, as he was then, thought it best to get the whole charade over and done with, he had taken the fatal step.

A month before the Wedding and with the Wedding presents arriving daily, his fiancée had run away with a penniless Officer in the Brigade of Guards whom, it was eventually disclosed, she had loved since she was a child.

Selby Harle was not by any means broken-hearted, but he did feel that he and his family had been made fools of and it was a slap in the face that he could not forgive.

He was furious, bitter and cynical not because he had lost his future wife but because he considered it was entirely the fault of his interfering relatives, who in no circumstances would he ever listen to again.

When his father died the following year and he became the Head of the Family inheriting the houses, enormous estates and a fortune that had been accumulated over the centuries, he had made it quite clear that now he was his own Master he would take advice from nobody.

In the succeeding years his relatives became rather frightened of him.

He was a law unto himself and could be ruthless if anybody incurred his displeasure with consequences extremely unpleasant for them.

In fact at this moment it flashed through his mind that he should tell the Prince of Wales to mind his own business, but he knew that it was something he could not do and, after a moment’s uncomfortable silence, he said,

“I most deeply regret, sir, that the Princess should have been been worried by this trivial matter.”

The Prince shuffled his feet before he continued,

“It has certainly perturbed the Princess who feels that your association with her could damage the Countess’s good name. There is therefore only one reparation you can, as a gentleman, make in the circumstances.”

Lord Harleston felt his anger rising inside him and for a few seconds it was impossible to speak.

At the same time he was well aware how skilfully Dolly Derwent had caught him in a trap that for the moment he could see no way of escape from.

Princess Alexandra seldom, if ever, interfered in the intrigues and love affairs taking place all around her amongst those who called themselves ‘The Marlborough House Set’.

If she closed her eyes to the infidelities of her husband, she closed them as well to the way all his friends went from one love affair to another almost without drawing breath.

The majority of the ladies involved were married already and, while the lovers of the beautiful Lady de Grey, the Marchioness of Londonderry and a dozen other beauties were whispered about, gossiped over and laughed at, the Princess remained aloof, apparently unaware of what was being either said or done.

The difference where the Countess of Derwent was concerned was quite obvious. She was a widow.

She had been married soon after she left the schoolroom to the elderly Earl of Derwent, who in his sixties still had an eye for a pretty woman and what was more significant, needed an heir.

His wife, who had died two years earlier, had presented him with five daughters and he believed, as so many men before him had, that a young girl would bring him the son he desired more than anything else in the world.

The beauty of Dolly, or rather Dorothy, as she had been christened, was further enhanced by the fact that she was healthy and came from a family of six children.

Her father was a country gentleman with no pretentions of being noble, but who was of good stock and he hoped that his beautiful daughter would marry well.

That he was overwhelmed with gratitude by the Earl’s proposal went without saying and Dolly, who was allowed no say in the matter, was hustled up the aisle.

For six years both she and her elderly husband prayed that they might be blessed with a son, but finally the frustration and disappointment of it was too much for the Earl and he died.

He left Dolly an acclaimed beauty at twenty-five with enough money to live comfortably in London.

When her mourning was over, she had two or three brief love affairs with married men, who were rapturously entranced with her, but were unable to offer her marriage.

Then she had met Lord Harleston.

She had been warned about him by her friends who not only told of his reputation but assured her that she had as much chance of marrying him as flying into the sky.

“Make up your mind, Dolly,” one friend had said, “that he is as unobtainable as the sun and just as hot to handle. You will get your fingers burned if you entangle yourself with him and it will spoil your standing in the marriage market.”

“I can look after myself,” Dolly had assured her.

They were the fatal last words of many a woman where Lord Harleston was concerned.

She had fallen completely in love with him just as experience had taught him to expect, but because Lord Harleston was quite certain that her feelings were no deeper or more intensive than her brain, he had not even listened when she had threatened to kill herself.

He had heard it far too often for it to upset him and it had become such a hackneyed phrase in his ears that he did not when he left her even give it a second thought.

She had not, of course, destroyed herself, she had been cleverer than that. She had set out to destroy him!

Because Princess Alexandra had made a unique position for herself in the Social world, both the Prince of Wales and Lord Harleston were aware that, when she did take a woman’s part against either her husband or a lover, it was almost impossible for the gentlemen concerned not to acquiesce immediately in whatever was asked of them.

The Prince, having said what he had to say, was obviously becoming more and more embarrassed.

“I know you have made a vow never to marry, Selby,” he carried on, “but you know as well as I do that sooner or later you will need an heir, a boy who will appreciate the shooting on your estate, just as I am looking forward to being invited in October.”

“Yes, of course, sir,” Lord Harleston murmured.

He was actually thinking that, if Dolly had not produced a son for Derwent, there was every chance, although admittedly he had been a much older man, that she might be one of those infertile women who Nature had not bestowed the blessing of motherhood on.

What was more he had no wish to marry her and was damned if he would be pressurised into it.

There was, however, for the moment one thing he could say,

“I hope, sir, you will thank Her Royal Highness for concerning herself with my life and assure her that I am deeply grateful for the honour she accords me.”

He hoped as he spoke that his voice did not sound as sarcastic and angry as he felt.

The Prince of Wales, who was never very perceptive, and especially after dinner, was relieved by his attitude.

“That is damned sporting of you, Selby, and now let’s talk about your horses. Do you intend to win the Derby?”

As he spoke, he put his arm across Lord Harleston’s shoulder and moved him towards the door.

The unpleasant interview was over and the Prince could now allow himself to return to his friends with an easy conscience.

As soon as they reached the ballroom, Lord Harleston moved respectfully away and, as the Prince made no effort to detain him, he left Marlborough House.

Climbing into the small comfortable carriage he used in London he drove back to his house in Park Lane.

As soon as his sleepy valet had left him and he was alone, he made no attempt to get into bed, but stood at the window looking out over the trees in Hyde Park and wondering what the devil he could do.

He had been in many tight spots in his life, he mused, but never one like this.

He recalled how once he had slithered down a drainpipe from a second floor window when a jealous husband who suspected that he was being cuckolded had returned to his home unexpectedly when he was in an extremely compromising position with his wife.

On one occasion in France he had been involved in a duel, which fortunately had ended without scandal. Being a quicker and better shot he had deliberately merely grazed his opponent and the referee had declared that honour was satisfied.

There had been innumerable other occasions when he had escaped detection and exposure by a hair’s breadth, but this was different, very different.

He acknowledged to himself that he had received what was in effect a Royal Command to marry a woman who he was no longer interested in and to whom he had no wish to be tied for the rest of his life.

‘What can I do? What the devil can I do?’ he asked in the darkness and the question was still ringing in his ears the following morning when he woke up.

He had left instructions with the night-footman that a message was to be sent to his friend Captain the Honourable Robert Ward first thing in the morning asking him to come to Harleston House immediately he received it.

Lord Harleston was therefore not surprised when, while he was sitting at breakfast in the morning room, Robert Ward was announced.

A good-looking attractive man of his own age, Captain Ward had served in the Life Guards until the previous year when he had retired to manage his family estates because his father, although he was taking an unconscionable time about it, was dying.

He had, however, found life in Hampshire dull and repetitive and spent a considerable amount of his time in London where he had lodgings in Half Moon Street.

He came into the morning room now looking rather white about the gills and saying as he did so,

“What has happened that you want me at this ghastly hour? I only went to bed at four o’clock!”

“Four o’clock?” Lord Harleston repeated. “I suppose you were playing cards at White’s Club.”

“I was on a winning streak,” Robert Ward answered. “Then needless to say I lost most of it.”

“I have told you it’s a mug’s game,” Lord Harleston replied unsympathetically.

“I know,” Robert Ward said sitting down at the table, “but I don’t suppose you brought me here to preach to me.”

Lord Harleston did not answer as the butler asked Captain Ward if he would partake of breakfast.

“For God’s sake don’t mention food!” was the reply. “Give me a brandy.”

The butler put a glass at his side, poured some Napoleon brandy into it and then left the decanter on the table.

Lord Harleston waited until the servant had left the room.

Then he turned to his friend,

“Robert, I am in trouble!”

“Again?” his friend queried, sipping the brandy appreciatively.

“It is really serious this time.”

Because of the way he spoke Captain Ward put his glass down on the table and looked at his host.

“What can you have done, Selby?” he asked. “I rather imagined that you were fancy-free at the moment.”

“I was until last night.”

Captain Ward raised his eyebrows.

“At Marlborough House?”

 “Exactly, at Marlborough House!” Lord Harleston repeated.

Robert Ward rose and poured himself out some more brandy.

“You had better tell me about it. Thank God your brandy is good! I am beginning to feel better.”

“That is more than I am,” Lord Harleston countered.

“I am listening.”

Robert Ward sat ready to listen carefully and, almost as if he could hardly bear to say the words, Lord Harleston told his friend exactly what had happened the night before.

He knew as he finished that Robert was listening to him with such wide-eyed attention that he had not even raised his second glass of brandy to his lips.

There was silence and then Robert exclaimed,

“Good God! I would never have thought that Dolly Derwent had the intelligence to do anything so clever as to confide in Princess Alexandra!”

“I cannot believe she had the brains even to plan it,” Lord Harleston said scathingly. “It must have occurred after a tea party or something when she found herself alone with Her Royal Highness. Then, because she has been weeping and whining all over London, it all came out.”

“That would not surprise me,” Robert agreed. “But what are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do?”

“Marry her, I suppose.”

Lord Harleston brought his fist down on the table with such force that the silver and china on it rattled.

“I am damned if I will settle down with her for life! She already bores me to distraction.”

“It will bore you more not to be invited to Marlborough House, Selby, and the Princess can be pretty difficult if she is thwarted.”

Both men were silent knowing that this was true for, although Princess Alexandra appeared so sweet, gentle and beautiful, it was recognised amongst those who knew her well that she could be very obstinate, unpredictable and at times inconsiderate.

One of her Ladies-in-Waiting had confided to Robert Ward that the Princess paid little heed to the welfare of those who served her and she herself had often received a sharp blow from her Mistress’s long steel umbrella for some offence during a drive in an open carriage.

When this same Lady-in-Waiting was discovered to be having a mild flirtation, it was nothing more than one of the Gentlemen-at-Arms, she was packed ignominiously off to the country.

She was not allowed to return to London for six months, while the Gentleman-at-Arms was cold-shouldered by the Princess for almost the same period in an obvious and very uncomfortable fashion.

There was a long silence while Lord Harleston wondered frantically what he could do and felt as if he was trapped so completely that he was already handcuffed and leg-shackled in the bonds of Matrimony.

Robert sipped his brandy until his glass was empty.

Then he exclaimed loudly,

“I have an idea!”

“What is it?”

“There is only one thing you can do unless you agree to marry Dolly.”

“What is that?” Lord Harleston asked dully.

“Go abroad.”

“What good will that do?”

“Don’t be stupid, Selby. If you are not here, you cannot marry anyone. If you can stay away for a few months, the whole thing will blow over and be forgotten. What is more there are plenty of men courting Dolly, as you well know, and it is ten to one that if you are out of reach she will find somebody else’s arms preferable to no one’s.”

Lord Harleston sat up.

“Do you think that it is possible?”

As he asked the question, he was thinking that he had aroused passions in Dolly Derwent that she had never known before and his long experience of women had taught him that once they had tasted the fires of love it was hard for a woman to live without them.

He then thought how much it would depress him to be exiled. He would miss the Derby and not be able to watch his horses run at Royal Ascot.

Then sharply, as if he had made up his mind, he asserted,