48 A Marriage Made In Heaven - The Eternal Collection

Barbara Cartland

Description

The Duke of Buckhurst, handsome, wealthy, a brilliant horseman and known to everyone as ‘Buck’ has sworn that he will never marry. Cutting a swathe through the sophisticated beauties of the Beau Monde, who are drawn to his sardonic charm like social butterflies to a bright light, he has only one requirement for his amours – that they are safely married to someone else. That is until he discovers that his heir apparent, his dissolute cousin Edmund, has married an actress.Horrified that a common showgirl will become the next Duchess and bring his family name into disrepute, the Duke is forced by his family into finding a bride. Bored by the very thought of being tied to a young, inexperienced young woman, he sets his loyal sisters the daunting task of choosing a suitable wife within the month, so that he can be married before the Royal races at Ascot. With time running out, Buck’s sisters are in despair – until they meet Lady Samala Wynn, the daughter of the honorable but impoverished Earl of Kenwyn. Lovely, innocent and angel-faced, she seems the ideal bride, but can they persuade her to marry their rakish brother, Buck? For Samala is a young woman with her own ideas about marriage – and they include love and romance. But can a marriage between two strangers, built on a foundation of the groom’s resentment and the bride’s family duty, ever bring happiness and love? As the Duke, furious at the prospect of losing his freedom, dallies with the latest married woman to fall all too eagerly into his arms and Samala worries how her beloved father will cope living alone in his crumbling estate, it seems that this is a match that is doomed to bring nothing but sadness. "Barbara Cartland was the world’s most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery.She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation.Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world.She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven. Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed.Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone’s life."

Sujets

• Downton Abbey
• Mills & Boon
• Thomas Hardy
• Jane Austen
• Harlequin

Informations

• Publié par: M-Y Books
• Date de parution: 14 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782132394
• Langue: English

Extrait

Authors note
In the United Kingdom, the heir to a hereditary Peerage or Baronetcy usually inherits not only the
Dukedom, Marquisate, Earldom, Viscountcy or Barony, but also the ancestral home and the family
fortune.
The traditional right of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son inherited practically everything,
was designed to preserve the large family estates intact and undivided, thus ensuring a fitting
background for each successive heir. In the same way the paintings, furniture, silver and other articles
of value in the family home were all entailed onto the next heir, so that the current title-holder could
not sell them and dissipate the family fortune.
Titles normally descended in the male line only, so that if the Head of a Family has no son, his
male next of kin, who may be only a distant cousin, is his heir presumptive.
It is a fact that in the case of a few ancient Peerages, both English and Scottish, the succession
can, in default of a male heir, fall to a female. But this occurs only when this right of succession has
been granted specifically at the time of the creation of each Peerage.
Through history this has also been the case for inheriting the Crown. But in 2011
Commonwealth leaders agreed to change the succession laws so that both the sons and daughters of
any future United Kingdom Monarch have equal right to the throne. The ban on the Monarch being
married to a Roman Catholic was also lifted.
Under the old succession laws, dating back more than three hundred years, the heir to the
Throne was the first-born son of the Monarch. Only when there were no sons, as in the case of the
father of Queen Elizabeth II, George VI, did the Crown pass to the eldest daughter.
The succession changes will require a raft of historic legislation to be amended, including the
1701 Act of Settlement, the 1689 Bill of Rights and the Royal Marriages Act 1772.
Chapter 1
1827

The Duke of Buckhurst brought his team of horses to a standstill outside the impressive front
door of his house in Park Lane.
As he did so, he pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and said in a tone of satisfaction,
“One hour, fifty-two minutes! A record, I think, Jim!”
“Two minutes better than last time, Your Grace,” Jim answered from his seat at the back of the
phaeton.
With a smile on his rather hard lips, the Duke stepped out onto the red carpet that had been
hastily run down the steps by two white-wigged footmen wearing the distinctive family livery.
The Duke walked into the marble hall with its magnificent double staircase rising to the first
floor and a butler took his tall hat and driving gloves.
“The Marchioness and Lady Bredon are in the salon, Your Grace,” he said respectfully.
“Damn!” the Duke ejaculated under his breath.
He was about to turn in a different direction when he heard footsteps behind him and his
brother-in-law, the Marquis of Hull, came in through the open door.
“Hello, Buck, I see you have arrived!” the Marquis exclaimed unnecessarily.
“What is going on,” the Duke enquired, “a family conclave?”
“I am afraid so,” the Marquis answered.
The Duke of Buckhurst’s lips tightened, but he did not say anything for the moment. Then he
remarked,
“Tell my sisters I am back, Arthur, and will not keep them waiting long and see that the
champagne gets them into a better mood than I anticipate they would be otherwise.”
The Marquis of Hull did not laugh, he merely walked rather pompously towards the salon, while
the Duke went up the staircase and into his own rooms.
He had been told that his sisters wished to see him while he was in the country and he was
already expecting that as usual they would be reproaching him for some misdemeanour.
While he considered it none of their business, he was well aware from experience that they
would be very voluble on the subject.
The Duke’s two sisters were older than him and, when he arrived in the world as the answer to
his father’s dreams and ambitions, he had been in most people’s opinion abominably spoilt from the
time he was in the cradle.
Certainly his two sisters had done their best to spoil him and the task was completed as soon as
he grew up by innumerable beautiful women who pursued him, pandered to his every whim and
were prepared to entrust him not only with their hearts but with their reputations.
It was not surprising, since he was exceedingly handsome, rich and the head of one of the most
important families in the country, that the Duke was not only spoilt but had a reputation as a roué
that had made his name a byword in Society.
Because it was impossible for anything to be hidden from gossipmongers, he was a cartoonist’s
delight and a newspaper was seldom published without making some reference to him in their
columns, so that the populace looked on him as a figure they could admire, envy and applaud.
When he appeared on the Racecourse, he was cheered from one end of it to the other much
more loudly than the King, which was not surprising, and whenever he drove down Piccadilly he was
admired not only by the Beau Monde but also by every crossing-sweeper.
“’E’s not only a sportsman, but also a man!” one lorry driver was heard to say and that just about
summed up the Dukes attraction.
It was inevitable that he should, in the opinion of those who considered themselves to be pillars
of Society, go too far.His love affairs, which multiplied every year, needed little exaggeration to make them
scandalous, and the mothers of debutantes, though ambitious for a distinguished and aristocratic
sonin-law, hurried their girls away from the man they feared might contaminate them.
These precautions were quite unnecessary since the Duke was not interested in young girls,
preferring sophisticated women whose husbands were either too complacent or too cowardly to object
to the time he spent with their wives.
Nevertheless, the members of his family incessantly worried about the gossip that the Duke
evoked with everything he did and were even more worried that at thirty-four he showed no signs of
settling down and providing an heir to the title and the vast estates.
As the Duke changed from his driving clothes, he thought with a cynical twist of his lips that
when he went downstairs he would undoubtedly hear the usual long-drawn-out plea for him to
marry and live a more conventional life.
“Why the devil should I?” he asked aloud and his valet, who was helping him dress and had been
with him for many years, did not respond, knowing that the Duke was talking to himself and not to
him.
“Tomorrow I am going to Newmarket, Yates,” the Duke said, “and, as I shall want you there
when I arrive, you had better leave in the brake an hour before I do.”
“I anticipated that, Your Grace,” Yates replied, “and I’ve got everything packed.”
“Good!”
However, the Duke was thinking of something quite different as he left his bedroom to walk
slowly down the stairs.
No man could have looked smarter or more magnificent.
Although the Duke would have been extremely annoyed if he had been told that he was a
‘Dandy’, he was undoubtedly a ‘Beau’, or perhaps his nickname of ‘Buck’, which had been his ever
since he was a schoolboy, suited him better.
The difference between him and those who slavishly strived to be a ‘Tulip of Fashion’ was that
he wore his clothes, which fitted him to perfection, as if they were a part of him and he was
completely unconscious of them.
At the same time no one wore more skilfully or more elegantly tied cravats and Yates knew that
the polish on his master’s Hessian boots was the envy of every other valet in the Beau Monde.
The Duke reached the hall and, as the front door was open and he saw the spring sunshine
outside and a slight wind moving the young green leaves of the trees in Hyde Park, he had a sudden
impulse to return to the country and not face his family who were waiting for him.
If there was one thing he disliked more than anything else, it was the reproaches and
recriminations of his sisters.
While they were too afraid of him to say as much as they really wanted to, the Duke was quite
certain that the next half hour would be an uncomfortable one in which, whether he liked it or not,
he would be on the defensive.
‘Damn them! Why can they not leave me alone?’ he thought as the butler hurried ahead to open
the door of the salon.
He walked into the room, conscious that there was a sudden silence as he did so, which obviously
meant that the three members of his family had just been talking about him.
His elder sister, the Marchioness of Hull, had been a great beauty as a girl and her marriage to
the Marquis had been considered most appropriate and an excellent match.
His second sister, Margaret, had married Lord Bredon, who was considerably older than she
was, and he was not only exceedingly wealthy but an important Member of the House of Lords and
had a very enviable position at Court.
Now, as three pairs of eyes watched him, the Duke walked across the Aubusson carpet, thinking
as he went that while at times they irritated and annoyed him, his family was a very attractive one and
he had every reason to be proud of them.
“How are you, Elizabeth?” he asked fondly, kissing the Marchioness on the cheek.
Before she could reply, he kissed his younger sister and walked away from them to where there
was champagne waiting for him on a silver tray.He poured himself a glass of it, then return