The Devilish Deception Read online

  Author’s Note

  Scottish titles, unlike the English, if there is no son, can be inherited by a daughter.

  The Countess of Seafield, whose father was killed in the war, succeeded her uncle as Chieftain of the Sutherland Clan. Her eldest son will, in due course, inherit the position from her.

  The loyalty of the Clansmen of Scotland to their Chieftains to whom they still look for help and guidance is very touching and the Scot will dream of his homeland wherever he may be in the world.

  In Canada, where nearly all the early British settlers were Scots, after several generations they still talk of Scotland as if they might return there at any moment.

  A Scot is not only an adventurer, a builder, an innovator and explorer – he is also a survivor both physically and mentally.

  chapter one 1886

  The Duke of Invercaron found it impossible to sleep.

  He turned over in bed and told himself that it was ridiculous and the sooner he fell into unconsciousness the better.

  Then, almost as if a voice was telling him so, he knew that the reason for his sleeplessness was that there was something wrong.

  It was, however, extremely irritating that he had no idea what it was or why it should affect him to the extent of being unable to sleep peacefully as he usually did after a long day.

  It had, in fact, been a very long day and one that he had known from the moment he rose that morning would be if not positively disagreeable at least somewhat embarrassing.

  But he had told himself firmly it was something that had to be done almost as if in obedience to a Regimental order concerning which there could be no argument.

  When he had embarked on his way home from India two months ago, he had felt, as he left the steaming heat of Calcutta, as if he was setting off on a voyage that was so strange and so unexpected that he could not visualise what would happen at the end of it.

  When he had opened the telegram informing him of his uncle’s death and that he had now inherited his title, Talbot McCaron, as he was then, thought at first that it was a joke.

  It flashed through his mind that his brother Officers, who were always up to some prank or another, were pulling his leg.

  Then, as he read slowly and carefully the letter that had been waiting for him when he returned from a campaign on the Northwest Frontier, which had been extremely hazardous, he knew it was the truth that he was now the Third Duke of Invercaron.

  After that everything seemed to happen so quickly that he had hardly time to catch his breath.

  He had, of course, been given leave of absence by his Colonel, although they had both known that it was only a question of time before he must resign his Commission and leave the Regiment to take up the duties that awaited him in Scotland as Chieftain of the Clan McCaron.

  “We shall miss you,” the Colonel had said sincerely, “and, although it is best left unsaid, I know that the ‘Powers that Be’ are extremely grateful for the way in which you have been able to help them over matters we are unable to discuss at the moment.”

  “I shall miss you too,” Talbot McCaron admitted reflectively.

  “I know you will, my boy,” the Colonel had said sympathetically. “At the same time it is only right that you should now marry and settle down, for no wife would want her husband deliberately walking into danger as you have been doing these last few years.”

  The two men smiled at each other knowing that what they were referring to was so secret that it would be a mistake to elaborate on it even to each other.

  With the good wishes of his fellow Officers ringing in his ears, the new Duke had set off for Calcutta, where the Viceroy had summoned him.

  What he minded more than anything else was saying goodbye to his Sepoys with whom he had fought side by side in dozens of skirmishes, when they had all known that it was only thanks to good luck and good judgement on the part of their Officer that they had come through more or less unscathed.

  Every time Talbot McCaron lost one of his men he felt the pain of it as if he was losing a limb and, when he was finally steaming up the Red Sea, he told himself that no Scottish Clansman could have given him more loyalty and devotion than the Indians who had served under him.

  He had been surprised when he reached London to find how many people wished to see him.

  The last time he had been home on leave he had spent two weeks of it enjoying the theatres, the balls and the parties at which an extra man was always welcome.

  He had, however, refused a great number of invitations because if he was looking for social life there was always plenty of it in the hill stations in India.

  Instead he had spent more money than he could really afford in taking one or two beautiful Gaiety Girls out to supper and found them alluring and very amusing in a different way from the amusement that was always waiting for a handsome young bachelor in India.

  But now that he was the Duke of Invercaron everything was very different.

  To begin with, his first appointment was with the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Marquis of Lothian, who had talked to him very seriously about his plans.

  “I am afraid,” he said, “you will find that your uncle, being so ill for the last years of his life, let everything become rather lax. When I was last in the neighbourhood, I visited him at The Castle and it was obvious that both your future home and the crofts on the estate needed a great deal of money spent on them.”

  The Duke looked at him apprehensively.

  “Money, my Lord?” he repeated. “I have already been warned that it is in singularly short supply.”

  “I am aware of that,” the Marquis answered.

  The Duke’s lips twitched and he asked somewhat cynically,

  “Have you any suggestions, my Lord, as to how I can acquire a commodity so desirable in what I know of old is a very beautiful but unprofitable part of Scotland?”

  The Marquis had laughed.

  “You express it well and I can only agree that I know of no place more beautiful than the Strath in which the McCarons have lived for centuries, but only a miracle could make it yield a profit.”

  “That is what I was thinking on my way here from India,” the Duke said. “Quite frankly I am considering shutting up The Castle in order to live more economically and trying to establish some industry that would provide at least a living wage for some of our younger men.”

  The Marquis looked at him in astonishment.

  “Shut up The Castle?” he exclaimed. “I never thought I would hear a McCaron suggest that!”

  “It would at least be a practical move,” the Duke said defensively.

  The Marquis sat back in his chair and looked at the Duke as if he was some unheard of phenomenon whom he had encountered by sheer chance.

  Then he said almost angrily,

  “It is impossible, utterly impossible, for you to do such a thing! Your Castle has been the rallying point for the McCarons for centuries! I know that those of them who have travelled to all parts of the world and live almost in exile in other countries would, if it was no longer there, feel as if they had been deprived of something very precious.”

  “I know that,” the Duke agreed, “but, while with three lives between me and the Dukedom I never imagined I would ever become the Chieftain, I frequently thought over the problem of what it entailed and when my father was alive we often discussed it.”

  There was silence for a moment as both the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Duke were thinking of how his uncle’s eldest son had been killed fighting in Egypt and his second son had been drowned in a storm at sea, which had smashed his fishing boat on a rocky coast and there had been no survivors.

  Then the Marquis said in a different ton
e of voice,

  “There is something I am going to suggest to you, although I expect that somebody has already done so the moment you set foot in England.”

  “Actually when I arrived home late last night,” the Duke replied, “I found a great many messages and letters waiting for me, but I thought it polite to call on you first.”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “I am gratified. At the same time I find it rather uncomfortable to say what should more suitably be said to you by one of the older members of your Clan.”

  The Duke looked apprehensive.

  “Now you are making me realise,” he said after a moment, “why Sir Iain McCaron of that Ilk has left no fewer than half a dozen messages saying that he wishes to see me immediately on my arrival!”

  He spoke somewhat ruefully and the Marquis gave a short laugh.

  “Sir Iain will doubtless be long-winded about it,” he said, “but I can tell you quite simply – it is that you should marry!”

  The Duke stiffened and stared at the Marquis as if he could not have heard him aright.

  “Marry?” he ejaculated. “That, my Lord, is indeed something I did not expect you to say! If I cannot afford The Castle, I certainly cannot afford to take a wife!”

  “That surely depends on the wife,” the Marquis replied. “The lady who is being considered as most suitable to be your Duchess is – ”

  Before he could go any further, the Duke interrupted sharply, saying,

  “Considered to be my wife? Who has considered this? And why should anyone interfere with what I have always thought was something very private and personal?”

  He drew in his breath before he continued.

  “I certainly need nobody, and I mean nobody, to choose my wife for me or to interfere in any way in a matter that I consider concerns me and me alone!”

  The Duke had not raised his voice, but he spoke with a touch of steel that those who had been under his command would have recognised as indicating that he was extremely angry.

  The Marquis, however, seemed quite unabashed.

  He merely said in a conciliatory voice,

  “I can understand your feelings, my dear fellow, but you must be aware as a Scottish Chieftain that your people, to whom you are not only a leader but father, shepherd and protector, are more important than personal prejudices or, in this case, your somewhat sensitive feelings.”

  Now there was a definite scowl on the Duke’s handsome face before he retorted,

  “I would like to know, my Lord, exactly what you are suggesting before we become any further involved.”

  “That is what I wish too,” the Marquis said, “and I can only ask you to hear what I have to say without being too prejudiced.”

  His considerate tone made the Duke feel that he had been somewhat hasty.

  Equally he told himself that, if the Secretary of State thought that he was going to manipulate him into marriage, he was very much mistaken.

  There had, of course, over the years been a number of women who had tried by every means in their power to entice him up the aisle.

  He had carefully avoided the young girls who came out to India in order to get married and he spent his time either with married women whose husbands were toiling away in the heat of the plains, or else with widows who were usually too sensible to want to marry a penniless Captain or, as he became later, a Major, however attractive he might be.

  Even so, once they were involved, their caution and their principles flew out of the window and with their arms around his neck they would beg him to marry them.

  “We will manage,” they would say. “I know we will manage! I have a little money of my own and we will be so happy, darling, that nothing else will be of any significance.”

  He had, however, been wise enough to avoid the adoring eyes that filled so quickly with tears and the quivering lips, which sought his even before he was ready for them.

  He had known that however attractive and alluring they might be, the Regiment, the men who served with him and his secret exploits known only to the very highest of his superiors were more exciting, more intriguing than any woman could be – that was to say, considered on a permanent basis.

  He had since then made up his mind never to marry unless by some miracle he could afford it and that meant never.

  In India the average Officer found it hard enough to pay his Mess bills let alone embark on providing for a wife and children.

  He knew that in his new position in Scotland he would have to take on the responsibilities of his Clan and what he suspected would be a large number of outstanding debts, but it had never crossed his mind on the voyage home that he would also be saddled with the extravagance of a young woman, who would be inhuman if she did not occasionally want a new gown.

  As the Duke waited now for the Marquis to speak, he thought, if this was the sort of nonsense that was waiting for him at home, then the sooner he shut The Castle, left one of his relatives in charge of the estate and went back to India, the better.

  But, even as he thought of it, he knew that it was only a pipe dream and something that he would be unable to do because of his sense of duty.

  At the same time, while he guessed what was coming, he steeled himself to say quite firmly and irrevocably that it was something he would not do.

  “I expect,” the Marquis of Lothian said slowly, “you remember that the Clan Macbeth borders on your land and their house is actually not more than ten miles from The Castle.”

  “Yes, I remember the Macbeths, although I have not seen the Earl for at least fifteen years,” the Duke replied. “I remember also that as a boy we always despised our neighbouring Clans and especially the Macbeths because, when we fought with them in the old days, we had always been victorious.”

  The Marquis laughed.

  “You would have hated them if they had beaten you! But you always had the advantage of having finer fighting men and more skill when it came to a raid into enemy territory.”

  “I see that you have done your homework, my Lord,” the Duke said a little sarcastically.

  “Because one of my relatives married a McCaron, I have had your history drummed into me for years,” the Marquis replied. “That is why it concerns me personally that you should be in the plight you are now in and I feel that I should do something about it.”

  The Duke did not answer.

  He merely reiterated to himself that, if it was a question of marriage, the answer was ‘no.’

  “The Earl of Dalbeth died six months ago,” the Marquis went on.

  “I had no idea of that,” the Duke exclaimed. “I must have missed the announcement in the newspapers.”

  “He was an unhappy man after his first wife passed away. He married again and, because his daughter, Jane, did not get on with her stepmother, he sent her to school in Italy and in the holidays she lived with her grandmother.”

  The Duke was listening, but with a somewhat cynical expression on his face and his lips were set in a tight line.

  “As I expect you remember,” the Marquis continued, “that the Earl unfortunately had no other children. So on his death Lady Jane became the Countess of Dalbeth and Hereditary Chieftain of the Clan.”

  “I am sure that she will perform her duties very capably,” the Duke remarked.

  The Marquis ignored the interruption and went on.

  “What nobody expected was that a month or so after her father’s death and her return from Italy, it was learnt that she had been left an enormous fortune by her Godmother, a member of the Dalbeth family, who had married an extremely rich American but had never had any children.”

  The Marquis paused before he said,

  “I think he made his money in oil and, when he died, left it all to his wife. Anyway, Lady Jane is now a millionairess several times over and the elders both of the Dalbeths and of your own Clan consider that nothing could be more appropriate than that you and she should be married.”

  For a moment the Duke was st
ricken into silence. He was too quick-brained not to realise what this would mean not only to the McCarons but also to the Macbeths.

  If the new Countess was very young and doubtless a rather stupid young woman, for her to be a multi-millionairess without the help and guidance of a man with the authority of a husband would be disastrous.

  With such a fortune there would undoubtedly be a large number of applicants for the post, but, knowing the elders of his own Clan and their Macbeth counterparts, he could imagine them shaking their grey heads at the perils and pitfalls that would be waiting for their young Chieftain.

  While it was obvious he himself would gain enormously from such a marriage, she would in turn have the security of a Scottish husband who was at least trustworthy and in whose veins ran the same sort of blood as in her own.

  The Marquis, watching the Duke’s face, knew what he was thinking and said,

  “Iain McCaron has been to see me and so has Duncan Macbeth with two other relatives of the young Countess. They were almost frantic in their anxiety about what should be done.”

  “I should have thought that they were very pleased,” the Duke said cynically.

  “They were pleased from one point of view,” the Marquis agreed. “At the same time they were terrified because Jane is so young and has been, I understand, educated in a Convent that she might be swept away from them by the first young man who takes her fancy.”

  “He might prove to be an excellent husband and, even if he was not Scottish, might be prepared to settle in our native land,” the Duke remarked.

  Even as he spoke, he knew that he was only prevaricating and that the Marquis was quite right in saying it was unthinkable that a young girl who was so rich should not be looked after and guided when it came to marriage.

  As the law stood, a woman’s fortune became her husband’s immediately she had his ring on her finger, and millions of good Texan money could, in the hands of the wrong man, vanish like fairy gold as quickly as it had come.

  “That is the proposition,” the Marquis was saying, “that will be put to you both by your own people and by the Macbeths. I can promise you that they have gone very carefully into the excellent reports of your career in the Army and the fact that last year you received a medal for gallantry.”