Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
The following day, John Campbell began packing for his journey to Scotland. He’d spent the morning with his steward making sure the hops were on their way to the breweries with which he had contracts, and all loose business ends were dealt with until his return. After lunch, he returned to the library to write a letter to his parents, advising them when he would arrive at Inveraray and was much relieved to see his secretary walk through the door.
“Robert, thank heaven you are back today! King George has finally given me consent to recruit in the Highlands. After months of indecision and procrastination he has ordered me to leave immediately. I hate to spring this on you the moment you return, but do you think we could be ready to travel tomorrow?”
“Of course, Lord Sundridge. As soon as I deliver my report on Ireland, I’ll gather the files and papers pertaining to Scotland.”
“Ah, yes, Ireland.” John leaned back in his chair, not wanting Hay to learn that he now believed the trip had been unnecessary. He reached for a decanter of port on the side table and filled two glasses. “Sit—wash the dust of the road from your throat.”
Hay drained the glass and shuffled his papers. “First, as you suggested, my lord, I traveled to County Mayo to inquire about Theobald, Viscount Mayo, and his daughter, Bridget. I have to report that the viscount has no such daughter, unless of course she is illegitimate. ’Tis rumored he has a number of by-blows.”
“I see.” John steepled his fingers.
“In Roscommon I had a little difficulty finding Castle Coote, mainly because it isn’t a castle at all. Castlecoote is a small manor house in need of repair. John Gunning, more suited to gambling than farming, recently sold the house and land to a nearby farm. The family had no social connections whatsoever, but the unusual beauty of their two daughters was spoken of by everyone in the district. The family reportedly moved to Dublin so that the Gunning sisters could earn their living as stage actresses.”
“Thank you, Robert,” John said calmly. “We’ll leave at first light if you can be ready.”
When Robert Hay left the library, John Campbell sat quietly for a full minute. Then he picked up the decanter and hurled it across the room with a foul oath. He strode to the stables, saddled Demon, and rode from the valley as if the devil were on his tail.
After a bruising gallop, he finally drew rein. What the hell is the matter with you? Did you have some ridiculous plan in the back of your mind to make Elizabeth Gunning your wife? Christ Almighty, man, even if she were from minor nobility, your family would never accept her! Suddenly, Elizabeth’s scent filled his nostrils and he knew that the things Robert Hay had told him made no difference to his feelings for her. Familial duty made marriage out of the question, but she enchanted him and he intended to have her. John laughed mockingly at his own foolishness. Surely, even secretly, you never dreamed of making her your wife?
Bridget Gunning paid another visit to the Drury Lane casting hall and distributed sixpences to the out-of-work actors, then she penned anonymous notes to the fashionable newspapers, tipping them off about where the Gorgeous Gunnings could be seen. The day before they were to attend the royal drawing room at St. James’s Palace, Bridget insisted that she and her daughters take an afternoon walk in Hyde Park, before the weather turned cold.
Accompanied by their maid, the Gunning ladies took a carriage to Park Lane. When they arrived, Bridget instructed the cabman to wait for them. Elizabeth and Maria no sooner opened their parasols and began their stroll when a crowd began to gather, shouting and pointing at them. The crowd quickly became unruly, and it turned into a mob scene. Emma valiantly struck out with her umbrella at the men who were trying to touch the girls, and a throng of genteel ladies gathered to defend the Gunnings. By the time the police were summoned, Bridget had ushered her daughters back into the carriage, and the culprits vanished.
On the drive back to Great Marlborough Street, Bridget pressed her lips together in outrage. “The king shall hear about this!” she declared, much to Maria’s delight and Elizabeth’s horror.
The crush at the royal drawing room at St. James’s Palace was a testament to the unwritten law that such invitations could not be declined. Though it was fashionable for Society’s matriarchs to complain in public, in private they were prideful as peacocks to parade themselves and their pubescent daughters at Court.
Maria Gunning, in her new powdered wig, preened by fingering the white roses that Beth had sewn onto her gown. Elizabeth followed with tentative steps, wearing the gold tissue ball gown. She wore her own hair, which garnered stares and prompted one matron to gush, “Do tell where you bought the glittering gold hair powder!”
Receiving the lion’s share of attention from King George and Augusta, Princess of Wales, was the Duchess of Devonshire and her two daughters, Rachel and Cat. In point of fact, it looked as if the duchess were the one holding court, even though her gown was as nondescript as her face, and her wig was an old-fashioned gray.
Elizabeth dreaded the moment when the duchess and her mother were introduced, for God alone knew what accusations the Devonshire Dragon would make about the Gunning sisters. She was greatly relieved when Charlie arrived. “You look so pretty in your pale peach gown.” They had chosen it to complement Charlotte’s dark hair, but this evening she wore the requisite wig.
Dorothy Boyle greeted Bridget and immediately whispered behind her fan, “The fellow coming this way in the puce satin is Orford’s cousin, Horace Walpole. He’s the greatest gossip in Society, with a rapier wit and a tongue that can cut glass. Show the cynical swine deference, unless you wish to be eviscerated.” Dorothy lowered her fan. “Horace, darling, do allow me to introduce the honorable Bridget Gunning and her daughters, Maria and Elizabeth.”
“Lady Burlington, you have anticipated my desire, but then you’ve had so much practice.” He raised his quizzing glass and examined the sisters. “The Beauties!” He swept Bridget with a glance. “Undoubtedly take after their father.”
When Bridget laughed at his audacious remark, he was flattered. “Allow me to present your beautiful daughter to the king, madam. My cousin Orford has strutted before him long enough. Once he is wed to a Devonshire, he’ll think himself a Prince of the Realm.”
Maria simpered, placed her hand on Walpole’s puce sleeve, and glided forward to meet her monarch.
Elizabeth stepped back, hoping to make herself inconspicuous yet feeling slightly rebuffed. She jumped nervously at a voice from behind her and turned to face the Duke of Hamilton.
He bowed formally before Elizabeth. “May I have the honor of presenting you to the king, Mistress Gunning?” Garbed in pewter-gray silk, he made Walpole look garish.
“Your Grace . . . there is no need.” She lowered her lashes demurely, wondering why he had come to her rescue yet again.
“There is every need for the most beautiful lady at Court to be presented to His Royal Highness,” he said gravely. “Come, my dear.” His words sounded avuncular, and because of dissipation he looked much older than his twenty-nine years.
Elizabeth suffered the pinch her mother delivered without flinching, then she placed her hand on the duke’s silk sleeve.
As he led her forward, he was aware that every eye was upon them. “Never hide your beauty,” he murmured. “Lift your chin.”
Used to obeying authority, Elizabeth immediately complied. They arrived at the king’s side just as Walpole introduced Maria. Beth almost gasped at the words that came from her sister’s mouth.
As she arose from her curtsy, Maria said, “Your Royal Highness, I’ve always longed to see a coronation!”
A blanket of silence fell as everyone realized she could not see a coronation unless the king died. Suddenly, Walpole tittered at the gauche remark, then King George’s bulbous eyes popped back into his head, and he laughed at the beautiful girl’s social blunder.
Hamilton stepped forward. “Your Majesty, it gives me great pleasure to present to you Mistress Elizabeth Gunning.”
As Elizabeth sank into a graceful curtsy, King George’s appreciation for female beauty was visible to everyone. He gazed at the golden goddess then stared hard at Hamilton, misliking the duke’s proprietary attitude. “We are indeed pleased. Mistress Gunning shall remain at our side.”
Hamilton bowed and stepped aside to join his friend Will Cavendish. “I don’t dismiss so easily,” he drawled. “The lady is far too innocent for the king’s lechery.”
Will’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. “Since when did you consider innocence a virtue, James?”
“Since I met Mistress Gunning.” He turned and saw the look of jealousy on Maria Gunning’s face because her sister was receiving attention from the king. He tucked the information away in hope that he could make use of the rivalry. The Earl of Coventry joined Hamilton, and he too was consumed with jealousy.
“Why the devil has Horace Walpole attached himself to Maria? Not even a title, yet he insinuates himself into royal circles!”
“Your precious Maria is safe with Walpole, George. The inveterate gossip’s wrist is too limp to even masturbate.”
The fourteen-year-old heir to the throne approached Maria Gunning and lifted her hand to his lips. When she bobbed him a curtsy, he stared down her rose-strewn bodice.
Maria spied her opportunity and told the impressionable youth about how she had been accosted yesterday while walking in the park. As she hoped, the outraged Prince of Wales immediately reported the incident to the king. Within minutes, Maria and her mother were summoned to the king’s side.
Elizabeth wished the floor would open up and swallow her as her mother answered the monarch’s questions, displaying histrionic outrage as if she were acting the lead role in a drama, which of course she was. Elizabeth stood mute, unable to control the blush that suffused her cheeks. Inwardly, she shrank even farther at the solution King George proposed.
“By order of the king, you shall have an armed guard of a dozen soldiers with halberds each and every Sunday afternoon, so that you may walk in our Hyde Park unmolested, what!”
Since Bridget Gunning had received royal attention, the Duchess of Devonshire condescended to acknowledge her. Dorothy Boyle, however, was not so fortunate. The duchess cut the countess dead.
“I don’t believe it,” Lady Burlington declared to the assembly at large. “When I spoke to Catherine Hoskyns,” Dorothy used her maiden name, “she looked through me as if I were invisible!”
“I’ve always found the Duchess of Devonshire delightfully vulgar,” Horace Walpole drawled. “Far be it from me to repeat gossip, but I believe I overheard her call your delightful daughter, Lady Charlotte, a baby face.”
“Baby face?” Usually shrewd, Dorothy Boyle was at a loss.
“Well, she is little more than a child, after all. Perhaps she fears Will is in danger of robbing the cradle,” Walpole supplied.
The Countess of Burlington flew into a rage. “Since when did robbing the cradle ever stand in the way of the Devonshires when it came to marrying wealth? She’s apparently oblivious to the number of baby faces the Devonshires have married in their time!” She saw that Walpole was drinking in every word and gave him something he could repeat. “Middle-class! That’s what the Hoskyns were. She’ll never be an aristocrat if she lives to be a hundred, which is precisely the age both she and her clothes look these days!”
The royal drawing room was talked about for months. Not only had it introduced the Gorgeous Gunnings to the Court of St. James, it also had been the setting where the deadly, virulent feud began between the Duchess of Devonshire and the Countess of Burlington.
Dorothy Boyle had not suffered such a personal affront since she had discovered her husband’s peculiar predilection for his own sex.
Conversely, Bridget Gunning was the happiest of mothers. The king’s decree guaranteed the fame of her daughters, as Londoners began to gather outside their house in Great Marlborough Street hoping for a glimpse of the beauteous Gunning sisters. Bridget reasoned that where there was fame, surely fortune would follow.
Rachel and Orford’s engagement party was held in early October, and the wedding date was set for November 15. When Bridget Gunning opened their wedding invitation, she was disappointed to learn that the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire was to be married at Chatsworth, their ancestral home in Derbyshire.
“We are not going to the wedding,” she informed Maria and Elizabeth. “We cannot possibly afford to travel to Derbyshire. We’ll have to think up some plausible excuse.”
To Bridget’s delight and her husband’s sorrow, fate provided one in the death of Jack Gunning’s father. Her delight turned to fury, however, when the will was read and everything was left to her husband’s oldest brother. The moment they returned from St. Ives, she gave her husband his orders. “You must make the rounds of the moneylenders and borrow on the strength of your inheritance.”
“I’ve already borrowed on my nonexistent inheritance once,” he said dryly, “and repayment is overdue.”
“They don’t know it’s nonexistent. You must borrow from Peter to pay back Paul. Why are you so feckless?”
The couple sniped at each other for hours, and when Lady Charlotte stopped by to invite Elizabeth to go for an afternoon carriage ride in the park, she jumped at the chance to escape from the distressing atmosphere.
“I’m so sorry your grandfather passed away,” Charlie murmured.
“I hardly remember him. We went to live in Ireland when I was a little girl, but I know my father mourns him.” She changed the subject. “When are you leaving for Derbyshire?”
“We’re not.” Charlie hesitated, then confided, “We didn’t get an invitation, and my mother is absolutely livid at the insult.”
“But your mother and the Duke of Devonshire seemed like old friends in Ireland, and Will and his sisters accepted your mother’s invitation to Chiswick. What has happened?”
“Mother tries to keep it all from me, but I believe I am to blame for the sudden enmity. The Duchess of Devonshire is not pleased that Will wants to court me.”
Elizabeth was shocked. Charlie was the epitome of what every débutante should be. Not only was she exceedingly pretty, sweet, and innocent, she was one of the wealthiest heiresses in England.
“She called me a baby face. She obviously thinks I’m far too young to become her son’s wife. Will sent me a note, asking me to meet him in the park. I hope you don’t mind, Elizabeth?”
“Of course I don’t mind, but won’t you want to be private?”
Charlie blushed. “We’ve been private too often, I believe.”
Will Cavendish spotted the carriage as soon as it turned in to the park. He had practiced what he would say to Charlie several times. The last thing in the world he wanted was to hurt her. When the driver stopped, he rode alongside. He was relieved to see she had Elizabeth with her rather than her maid. He was urbane enough to know that servants could not always be trusted.
“Hello, Elizabeth.” His eyes immediately sought Charlie. “I must apologize for my mother’s unforgivable breach of manners in not issuing a wedding invitation to your family. She’s lived in the country so long she doesn’t realize her rustic, provincial ways are unacceptable in London Society.”
“It’s all right, Will, I understand. It’s Mother who is angry.”
“And so am I . . . I only just learned of it, and I let her know exactly how I felt about such a slight. Please forgive me, love?” God, it’s a damn good thing you have no idea of the vitriol that gushed forth from her when I announced that I was serious about you, Charlie. Her words are still ringing in my ears: “The Burlingtons are a family who attract scandal! Both the earl and the countess are morally bankrupt! For years, the woman has conducted a blatant liaison with the Duke of Grafton, while it is common knowledge that Richard Boyle enjoys a physical relationship with his architect, Kent. We’ll not be tainted by them!”
When Charlie flushed with pleasure at the endearment, a wave of protectiveness swept over Will. She was so innocent it brought a lump to his throat. “Once this wedding is out of the way, and Father and I return to London, I mean to ask your parents for your hand in marriage. My intentions are completely honorable, Charlie, and my father supports me in this, despite what my mother thinks.”
“What does she think, Will?” Charlotte asked softly.
It was his turn to flush. “She thinks you are too young for me, Charlie, but we know better, don’t we, love?”
She nodded trustingly.
“Elizabeth, may I give John Campbell a message for you?”
“John will be at the wedding?”
“I expect he and his family will be there.”
Tell him I miss him. Tell him I want him to come home. Tell him I love him!“Tell him . . . just tell him . . . I remember.”
In Scotland, John Campbell could not forget Elizabeth Gunning. Asleep or awake, her image haunted him. All during October and early November he and his captains rode over Argyll, through the craggy Grampian Mountains, recruiting troops for Argyll’s Highland regiments. It was a race against time before the snows came to block the mountain passes. There was no lack of eager volunteers who weighed the advantages of regular army pay against eking out a living that often verged on starvation, especially during the long, cruel winter months, fast approaching. So Campbell had the task of selecting the fiercest, fittest, and finest men and sending them to Inveraray for a month’s training under his father’s exacting eye. After that they would winter in Glasgow with other Highland regiments, where they would complete their training.
Long hours in the saddle riding through the majestic mountains gave John much time for thought and introspection. The magnificent vistas of purple mountains made him realize that all this land would one day belong to him. Invariably, whenever he crossed a wild stream where stags watered, he wished he could share its breathtaking beauty with Elizabeth. He never saw a loch without remembering them naked together in the water. The thought triggered his body’s response to her and left him with a hungering ache in his groin that sometimes reached his heart.
Cold rain brought back memories of riding to Sundridge with Beth held captive between his thighs, and at night, if they made a campfire to cook or stay warm, the flames conjured visions of him making love to her with his mouth as they lay before the fire. Before he slept, he always fingered the golden curl that lay in his breast pocket. Once sleep claimed him, his dreams were so sensually erotic he awoke with a savage need that felt like torture.
John knew no other female had ever affected him in this way. He told himself it was likely because he had never previously hesitated to slake his passion and rid himself of his sexual energy before it built into an obsession.
John arrived back home at Inveraray Castle the second week in November, in time to settle a mild dispute between his parents. His mother whisked him into her private sitting room, before his dominant father had a chance to influence his opinion.
Mary Bellenden Campbell handed her son the invitation to the Devonshire wedding being held at Chatsworth. “I have to send my response no later than today, and your father is being stubborn.”
John grinned. “When was he ever anything else?”
“Well, that’s the pot calling the kettle black! You’re every bit as stubborn as your wretched father.”
“I’m putty in your hands when you flatter me like that.” His arm went about her shoulders. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Persuade him to take me to Chatsworth. You go and tell him you’d like to see your friend William, while I accept this invitation and give it to a courier.”
He watched her sit down at her desk and pick up a pen. “You are a devious, manipulative woman, pitting a son against his father.”
She gave him back his words. “I’m putty in your hands when you flatter me like that. Besides, you pit yourself against him on a regular basis . . . and against my wishes too,” she added.
“First I’m stubborn, then I pit myself against your wishes.”
She tapped the invitation with a long, elegant finger. “You know, John, you could have married Rachel Cavendish if you’d played your cards right. I believe she had a tendre for you.”
He schooled his face in serious lines. “Do you really think so? The thought of marrying Rachel Cavendish never entered my mind.”
His mother’s mouth curved in an indulgent smile. “Don’t mock me. Has the thought of marrying anyone ever entered your mind?”
“How could it not, when you are forever thrusting potential wives upon me?”
“I wish you would be serious, John. You are not getting any younger . . . you’ll be twenty-nine, or is it thirty, next birthday? By the time your father was your age, he had given me two sons and planted a daughter beneath my heart. As the heir to Argyll, it is your duty to marry and have children.”
“I am aware of all my duties, Mother.” His tone told her the discussion was over. He changed the subject. “Pen your acceptance. I’ll go and persuade Father.”
“Christ Almighty, I’m up to my arse in raw recruits. I’ve no got time fer muckle nonsense like weddings”—Argyll raised a bristling white brow—“unless it’s yours!”
“Your saving grace is your sense of humor, Father.”
“I’m no jesting. I’m serious.”
“That’s what makes it so bloody funny. Anyway, you know you’ll take her to Chatsworth. Why are you pretending otherwise?”
“Ye think Mary Bellenden has me wrapped round her finger?”
I know she has.“An old warhorse like you? Of course not! But it does give you pleasure to indulge her upon occasion.”
“Why is she so set on visiting the Duchess of Devonshire?”
“Perhaps because as Duchess of Argyll she will put her in the shade? But more likely it’s Chatsworth she enjoys visiting, and weddings hold such an irresistible fascination for women.”
“They enjoy watching the condemned mon go to his execution!”
“And you wonder why I’m in no rush to put my neck in the noose?”