The Spirit of Love
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2020
Copyright Cartland Promotions 1980
eBook conversion by M-Y Books
Barbara Cartland, who sadly died in May 2000 at the grand age of ninety eight, remains one of the world’s most famous romantic novelists. With worldwide sales of over one billion, her outstanding 723 books have been translated into thirty six different languages, to be enjoyed by readers of romance globally.
Writing her first book ‘Jigsaw’ at the age of 21, Barbara became an immediate bestseller. Building upon this initial success, she wrote continuously throughout her life, producing bestsellers for an astonishing 76 years. In addition to Barbara Cartland’s legion of fans in the UK and across Europe, her books have always been immensely popular in the USA. In 1976 she achieved the unprecedented feat of having books at numbers 1 & 2 in the prestigious B. Dalton Bookseller bestsellers list.
Although she is often referred to as the ‘Queen of Romance’, Barbara Cartland also wrote several historical biographies, six autobiographies and numerous theatrical plays as well as books on life, love, health and cookery. Becoming one of Britain’s most popular media personalities and dressed in her trademark pink, Barbara spoke on radio and television about social and political issues, as well as making many public appearances.
In 1991 she became a Dame of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to literature and her work for humanitarian and charitable causes.
Known for her glamour, style, and vitality Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime. Best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels and loved by millions of readers worldwide, her books remain treasured for their heroic heroes, plucky heroines and traditional values. But above all, it was Barbara Cartland’s overriding belief in the positive power of love to help, heal and improve the quality of life for everyone that made her truly unique.
The Barbara Cartland Eternal Collection is the unique opportunity to collect as ebooks all five hundred of the timeless beautiful romantic novels written by the world’s most celebrated and enduring romantic author.
Named the Eternal Collection because Barbara’s inspiring stories of pure love, just the same as love itself, the books will be published on the internet at the rate of four titles per month until all five hundred are available.
The Eternal Collection, classic pure romance available worldwide for all time .
This is the five hundredth book I have written and I have chosen for it my favourite period – the Regency.
I owe dozens of plots for my books to my dear friend, the late Sir Arthur Bryant. He used to laugh when I told him that I plagiarised his brilliant books and said that he was delighted for me to do so.
I owe so much to his books The Years of Endurance 1773-1802, The Years of Victory 1802-1812 and The Age of Elegance 1812-1822.
When Sir Arthur gave me his last book, The Spirit of England, he inscribed it,
‘To Barbara who understands so well.
With the affection and admiration of the Author.
I must therefore dedicate this, my five hundredth book, THE SPIRIT OF LOVE
To Sir Arthur Bryant
One of our greatest historians whose books, fascinating, human and inspiring, will live forever in the hearts
Of those who love ENGLAND.
The Marquis of Midhurst drove down Piccadilly, fully aware that all the passers-by were staring at his horses.
He was feeling particularly proud of the pair he was driving now which he had bought two weeks previously at Tattersalls Salesrooms.
He was really astonished when he had first seen them because he could not imagine that anyone who possessed such magnificent horseflesh would be willing to part with them.
When he learned that their owner had died, he then understood.
They had come from the North and there were a number of other active bidders when the sale started.
However they were eventually knocked down to the Marquis and he was delighted to be the possessor of them.
He found that they had been extremely well trained in addition to their obvious beauty.
When they were attached to his new phaeton, which was yellow with black wheels and shafts, he knew that they made a spectacle that was outstanding.
He turned down St. James’s Street and hoped that some of his friends would see him pass from the window of White’s Club.
He thought that after he had seen the Prime Minister he would go back to the Club and hear their comments on his new acquisition.
What had given him particular pleasure when he had inherited his father’s title and vast estates was that he could now buy spirited horses that would always outpace any others on the Racecourse.
It went without saying that he was himself an outstanding rider and had been victorious in a number of arduous Steeplechases.
But there is always a penalty for everything.
He had on his father’s death to leave the Army and this had taken away some of the glitter from the sublime possessions that he had inherited.
He had been wounded in Spain while serving with the Duke of Wellington’s Army and sent back to England to recover.
As he reached Portsmouth despite Napoleon’s ships, which were out to sink everything that moved in the Bay of Biscay, the third Marquis of Midhurst died.
His son was then informed that he must not re-join his Regiment.
The Senior Officers at the War Office and the Prince Regent himself explained that, if a Nobleman of his high standing was taken prisoner or killed, it would be a major triumph for Napoleon Bonaparte, who was definitely in need of considerable success in his constant war against all of Europe.
The Marquis had been angry because he enjoyed being a soldier. He loved his Regiment and had already received two awards for gallantry.
He knew, however, that the Senior Officers and the Prince Regent were talking sense.
Therefore he said to himself that it was no use ‘kicking against the pricks’.
‘Perhaps I can serve my country in some other way,’ he pondered.
So far, however, he had not been asked to do anything concrete and instead concentrated on enjoying himself.
This was not in any way difficult, considering that he was very handsome, besides being of social consequence and extremely rich.
There was not a woman in all of London who did not dream of attracting the Marquis’s attention and every woman certainly made every effort to do so.
In fact, as one of the Marquis’s contemporaries moaned,
“The trouble with you, Midhurst, is that as soon as you enter a room, the tempo rises. How can we poor ‘also rans’ possibly compete with that?”
The Marquis chuckled.
At the same time he was well aware that he had a wide field to choose from in London.
He would have been inhuman if he had not enjoyed picking out the prettiest and most attractive women who fluttered their eyelashes at him.
He was very involved at the moment with one of the most exciting women he had ever met.
Lady Georgina Langford was a recognised beauty at twenty-seven and had been the toast of St. James’s for several years. She did not seem likely to relinquish her leading role and the fact that she was known as ‘the Tigress’ was certainly justified.
The Marquis, with all his experience of women, had indeed never met a woman more passionate or more insatiable.
Lady Georgina had eloped when she was only eighteen with Walter Langford, who had little to recommend him except a handsome face.
He was known in all the Clubs as an inveterate gambler and he had pursued a number of women before he persuaded the Duke of Cumbria’s daughter to run away with him.
The Duke was predictably furious.
Lady Georgina had been married to Walter Langford at the Mayfair Chapel, where the Parson asked no questions and required no credentials from those he married.
The Ceremony was nevertheless legal and so there was nothing that the Duke could do. And Walter most definitely enjoyed being his son-in-law.
His Grace, however, held very tightly onto the purse strings as might have been expected under the circumstances.
Walter Langford therefore made no trouble when his wife accepted expensive presents from her coterie of admirers.
There were jewels, furs, and other gifts that he could not possibly have afforded himself at any time.
To everybody’s surprise the marriage seemed to be a happy one and there were no scenes or reproaches when Lady Georgina was engaged with her latest conquest.
There were fortunately no children of the marriage. The Langfords managed to live in a style that could never have been financed by Walter’s success or lack of success at the card tables.
From the Marquis’s present point of view, the fact that Walter was not jealous of him and Georgina was available when he required her made things very convenient.
He was thinking as he drove past St. James’s Palace that he was to dine with her tonight and he also intended to take her a present of a delightfully pretty bracelet that he had seen in an expensive jeweller’s window in Bond Street.
It would certainly embellish the whiteness of her hands with their long fingers and he smiled to himself as he thought of how she would thank him.
He had already learnt that Walter had gone to Newmarket for the races.
The Marquis turned his horses into Pall Mall and then he ceased to think about Georgina.
Instead he was wondering why the Prime Minister had asked to see him on a matter of some urgency.
He had met the second Earl of Liverpool before on various occasions, but had not been particularly impressed by him.
He had been born ‘Robert Jenkinson’ and had played a few minor parts in a number of Governments ever since he had grown up.
Equally his handling of the long war of attrition against Napoleon and the French had not been outstanding.
The Marquis, like many other people, thought wistfully of Pitt, who had died in 1806.
As he moved through Horseguards Parade towards Downing Street, he was thinking that, although the Prime Minister did his best, he was hardly in the class of those Prime Ministers who had made a real impression on the public and on the enemies of England.
Reaching Downing Street, he drew up his horses with a flourish outside Number 10 and handed the reins to his groom.
As the door was opened to him, he walked in, wondering once again why he had been sent for.
He was told that the Prime Minister was waiting for him in his sitting room.
As he was escorted there, the Marquis wondered if any man at any time had politically to face such problems as the Prime Minister of England at that particular moment in history.
The war had gone on year after year.
Now there was indeed a glimmer of hope that it might end before too long.
It required a very strong man to make sure politically that, if we did win the war, we did not lose the peace.
“The Most Honourable Marquis of Midhurst,” the butler who was escorting the Marquis announced in a loud voice as he opened the door to the sitting room with a flourish.
As the Marquis walked in, he realised that the Prime Minister was not alone.
The Secretary of State for War, the Viscount Castlereagh, was with him.
He was an old friend and, when the Marquis had shaken hands first with the Prime Minister and then with the Viscount, he said,
“It is delightful, Castlereagh, to see you again.”
“And I have been looking forward to seeing you,” the Viscount replied. “Have you now recovered completely from your terrible wound?”
“I still limp a little, which really infuriates me, but, thank God, I can ride a horse and I still have two legs!”
The Prime Minister and the Viscount both laughed heartily and then they all sat down in comfortable armchairs placed near the fire.
“I have a message for you from Wellington, who has asked in his despatches how you are,” the Viscount remarked. “He also told me to tell you that he misses you.”
“And I miss him,” the Marquis replied. “You will know that above all things, I wanted to return to my Regiment.”
“We just cannot go into all that again!” the Prime Minister intervened quickly. “We have asked you here, Marquis, because we have a very tricky situation in your County.”
The Marquis raised his eyebrows.
“In Hampshire?”
“Exactly,” the Prime Minister replied. “And we thought that it was something that you could deal with your usual aplomb.”
The Marquis was becoming more and more curious as to what it could possibly be.
The question that sprang to his mind was answered before it could reach his lips.
“Perhaps you are wondering why we have not already approached the Lord Lieutenant?” the Prime Minister said. “The answer is simply that the Earl of Portsmouth is an old man and has indicated that he wished to retire at the end of this year.”
“I thought that was what he might do,” the Marquis commented.
“And, of course,” the Prime Minister went on, “you will take his place.”
The Marquis, who had already assumed that this was as a foregone conclusion, merely nodded his head.
“Now the reason that we have asked you to come here,” the Viscount said, “is that we are desperately worried about the ships that are leaving from Portsmouth Harbour.”
The Marquis looked surprised.
“I know, of course, that there are a great number of them.”
“We have now divided the troops we send out to Wellington between Portsmouth and Plymouth,” Viscount Castlereagh explained, “but the many casualties from Portsmouth are continuing to give us a great deal of anxiety.”
“Casualties?” the Marquis queried.
“The ships put to sea at night, as you know,” the Viscount responded. “The troops board them at dusk and, when they reach the open sea, they wait until it is dark before they move any further.”
The Marquis, who knew this, nodded his head.
“Every man aboard them,” the Viscount went on, “is warned never to divulge to anyone the exact date and time of a ship’s embarkation.”
The Marquis was well aware of this and so he said nothing.
The Prime Minister spoke next,
“What Castlereagh is trying to say,” he said, “is that for the last month the ships leaving Portsmouth have been attacked by French vessels that appear to be lying in wait for them as if they already knew the date and time they could expect them.”
The Marquis drew in his breath.
“Are you telling me that there are spies in Portsmouth who are extracting information from the troops, which results in the French Navy knowing exactly when ships carrying them will leave the Harbour?”
“That is what I am trying to say,” the Prime Minister agreed, “although it seems almost impossible.”
“I suppose that nothing is impossible in war,” the Marquis remarked. “But it is difficult to understand how the information obtained through careless talk can be carried so quickly across the Channel to the French Navy, what is left of it after the Battle of Trafalgar.”
He spoke the last words scathingly and Viscount Castlereagh said rapidly,
“It would be a mistake, Midhurst, to underrate their intelligence, especially if it enables them to destroy our forces before they even have a chance of going into battle under the Duke of Wellington.”
“I agree with you,” the Marquis replied, “but what do you suggest should be done about it?”
“That is exactly why we have asked you to come here today,” the Prime Minister said. “Portsmouth is in your County. Besides which, if there is any man who can cope with this particular situation, it is yourself.”
“You flatter me,” the Marquis replied.
At the same time he knew that he had on two separate occasions changed a defeat into a victory by being perceptively aware of what the enemy would do next.
“Wellington informed me,” Viscount Castlereagh said, “that it was you who had advised him, before you were invalided home, that as soon as he crossed the Pyrenees into France he should foster goodwill with the civilian population.”
The Marquis did not confirm this.
However, he had worked out that if the English were to retain numerical superiority in the field, they could spare no troops to hold down territory in the rear.