72. The Impetuous Duchess Read online

  “We also believe that where one woman has created a difficult situation another can put things right. It’s up to you, Jabina!”

  “I will do my best,” Jabina promised, “but I will not be with him for long.”

  “I think we must both try to persuade Drue to prolong his visit to Paris,” the Vicomte suggested.

  There was a light in Jabina’s eyes.

  “Do you think you could do that?” she asked. “There is so much I want to see! So much I want to do that is amusing and exciting in this wonderful city. Its people are so gay!”

  “I like to hear you say that!” the Vicomte said. “So many of your countrymen have abused mine that it is a delight to hear something nice for a change.”

  He raised her hand, which he still held in his, to his lips.

  “We must go back to Drue,” he said, “or he will suspect that I have designs on you. I have no wish to fight a duel with my oldest friend.”

  “I don’t think he would care if you were interested,” Jabina said in a low voice. “I think he would be glad to be rid of me.”

  “I should not be too sure of that!” the Vicomte replied. “At the same time you must make certain that if you do leave him he will miss you more than at the moment seems possible.”

  “What I am concerned with now,” Jabina said, “is that you should persuade him to stay in Paris. Please! Please try!”

  “I will certainly do my best and not only for your sake but also for mine. I cannot tell you what pleasure it is for me to see Drue again and relive the happy times we spent together when we were young.”

  He gave a little laugh.

  “I should not like to tell you of all the escapades we took part in or indeed the plans we made together for the future. But then neither of us had visualised war between our two countries.”

  “War!”

  Jabina gave a little shiver.

  “I have the feeling,” she said, “that that is what Drue, when we find him, will be talking about.”

  They walked back to the house and found, as Jabina suspected, that Drue, standing by the buffet in the supper room was talking with a number of young men. As they drew near them she heard the word ‘Bonaparte’ and knew that she had been right in her supposition.

  “1 wondered what had happened to you both,” the Duke said as Jabina and the Vicomte joined him.

  He did not sound particularly interested.

  “Are you ready to leave? I have my carriage outside,” the Vicomte asked.

  “I think we are both tired,” the Duke replied. “It has been a long day.”

  “But a very exciting one!” Jabina added quickly.

  “There will be many more things to do tomorrow,” the Vicomte promised. “Let me take you home and I will call for you in the morning.”

  “To do what, may I ask?” the Duke enquired.

  “See the sights,” the Vicomte replied. “Your sister will have to visit the Louvre, the Trivoli gardens, Notre Dame and, of course, the Great High Panjandrum himself – our First Consul!”

  The Vicomte’s voice sharpened as he spoke of Bonaparte and perhaps to tease him the Duke said,

  “I would rather like to meet the man who, whatever else you may say about him, has single-handedly united France after the Revolution.”

  “Not entirely!” the Vicomte snapped.

  “No, not entirely,” the Duke conceded, “but very nearly! While to us your regime seems a Military despotism, the people of France see Bonaparte as their only defence against the Priests, the aristocrats and the foreigners.”

  “I don’t intend to let you needle me into quarrelling with you, Drue,” the Vicomte said. “You are like all the idiots who come to Paris to be fascinated by the Corsican. I have listened to all of them drooling on about him and all I can say to you is, try living in France and see what you feel about him then!”

  “What concerns me more at the moment,” the Duke said in a different tone, “is that everyone I have spoken to so far appears to think that a revival of hostilities is inevitable.”

  “I would not be surprised,” the Vicomte replied.

  “I have just been told,” the Duke went on, “that our Ambassador, Lord Whitchurch, has definitely left for England.”

  “I wonder if that’s true,” the Vicomte queried. “There have been so many rumours this past week or so that he is leaving, then he is not, or that he has left and someone has fetched him back.”

  He laughed.

  “What you have heard may easily be just wishful thinking from those who want England to win our battles for us.”

  “I very much hope that is true,” the Duke said, “but, if it is not, then Jabina and I ought to return home.”

  “We will find out tomorrow,” the Vicomte said soothingly. “I have friends who are very close to Bonaparte. It is not a position I should wish to be in myself, but at least they will tell me exactly what is in the wind.”

  “Then let’s spend a peaceful night without worrying,” the Duke suggested.

  They said ‘goodbye’ to their hostess and the Vicomte escorted them to his carriage, an elegant vehicle driven by two coachmen with a footman standing up behind,

  They stepped in and drove a little way, the Duke and the Vicomte speaking of the past and the parties they had enjoyed when they were young.

  Then unexpectedly the carriage stopped not in the Faubourg St. Germain as Jabina had expected it to do, but outside the garishly lit entrance to what was obviously a dance garden.

  The Duke looked out of the window in surprise and the Vicomte said,

  “Do you remember this place, Drue? We used to come here often enough. In those days it was called Le Jardin du Roi. Now it has moved with the times and is called Le Jardin de la Liberté, but it is still very gay.”

  “Oh! Could we – could we go in for a moment?” Jabina begged.

  The Vicomte looked at the Duke with a smile.

  “I see no reason why not. It is up to Drue.”

  “I am sure Jabina would like to see where we misspent our youth,” he said.

  With a little cry of delight, Jabina jumped out of the carriage as soon as the footman opened the door.

  The garden was brilliantly lit with lanterns and there were crowded tables at which people were sitting drinking wine and watching the dancers.

  Coming straight from a sedate and elegant ball it was impossible not to notice the noise that came both from the orchestra and the customers.

  There was the wild chattering of voices and laughter and even shouts and cheers as those who were dancing sped at an incredible rate around the polished floor.

  It was not bawdy or in any way vulgar, just the expression of sheer joi de vivre. Jabina listened and watched with shining eyes, feeling more excited than she had the whole evening.

  The guests at the ball had moved to slow dignified waltzes, French contre dances and English gavottes.

  In the garden the waltzing was so quick that the couples seemed almost to twirl round the floor and the other dances were spirited and obviously physically exhausting.

  The Vicomte ordered two bottles of wine. It was weak and very inferior to that which they had drunk at the ball, but Jabina could not help thinking that the atmosphere in the garden was intoxicating enough in itself.

  She watched for a little while and then, as another waltz struck up, she put her hand on the Duke’s arm.

  “Please, will you dance with me?”

  He looked at her in surprise and she thought for a moment that he would refuse.

  Then the Vicomte said,

  “You used to be rather an expert at the light fantastic, Drue, or have your feet lost their cunning?”

  “Perhaps I had better find out,” the Duke replied.

  He rose as he spoke and led Jabina onto the dance floor.

  She had somehow expected him to be stiff and clumsy. Instead to her surprise he danced exceedingly well, far better than any of her partners at the ball.

 
He also held her more closely and she found that she could follow his steps quite easily. In fact they danced together as if it was something that they had done a hundred times before.

  He whirled her round the floor and she found herself laughing up at him, enjoying the dance far more than she had enjoyed anything the whole evening.

  It was difficult to talk since the noise around them was deafening, but it was exciting for Jabina to know that they moved in unison and to be aware that they were undoubtedly the best-dressed and most outstanding couple in the whole garden.

  When they returned to the Vicomte, he clapped his hands together.

  “Bravo!” he cried. “The fair charmers who taught you Drue would be proud of you!”

  “I think now we should go home,” the Duke suggested.

  “Can we come here another evening?” Jabina begged. “It is fun – much more fun than anywhere I have ever been in my whole life!”

  “You will find bastringues like these all over Paris,” the Vicomte said. “You will have to persuade Drue to let you sample them. No one knows better than he does how amusing they can be!”

  The Duke did not answer.

  The Vicomte teased him all the way back to the Faubourg St. Germain and the apartment.

  As they stepped out of his carriage he said,

  “Au revoir, my Lady until tomorrow. I shall be counting the hours.”

  “So shall I!” Jabina said gaily. “Thank you for such a wonderful time.”

  A tired flunkey closed the outer door behind them and Jabina and the Duke went up the stone staircase that must once have known the great aristocrats of France until they reached the sitting room of their suite.

  “It has been a wonderful evening,” she smiled.

  Then, because the Duke did not speak and she felt slightly piqued by his silence, she said,

  “I was a big success! I was – really! Several extremely handsome Frenchmen wished to kiss me!”

  “And I presume you allowed them to do so?”

  There was an angry note in the Duke’s voice that made Jabina start.

  Suddenly she remembered all that the Vicomte had told her and realised that perhaps the Duke would think she had been behaving in the way his mother had done.

  She saw the scowl between his eyes and quickly she threw out her hands towards him.

  “No! No!” she cried. “It’s not true!”

  “You were lying?” the Duke asked.

  “Yes,” she answered, “or rather – exaggerating. Just one of my partners said when we were dancing that he would like to – kiss me because I looked like a child at her first party.”

  She spoke very quickly, her voice tumbling over the words because she was ashamed and embarrassed at having to explain herself.

  It seemed to her that the scowl between the Duke’s eyes was still there.

  “I was only boasting,” she said. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

  “I cannot understand why you should wish to deceive me with such falsehoods,” the Duke said in a reproving tone.

  Jabina turned a little away from him.

  “You never asked me to dance when we were at the ball,” she said. “You never told me that I looked – pretty and I wanted you to think I did.”

  There was a silence and then the Duke said,

  “I had no idea that you valued my opinion, but for what it is worth I thought that there was no one to equal you.”

  Jabina turned round to look at him, her eyes very wide.

  “Do you mean that? Do you really mean it?”

  “I never say anything I don’t mean,” the Duke replied quietly.

  Then he walked away from her across the salon to the door of his bedroom.

  “Goodnight, Jabina,” he said in measured tones and the door closed behind him.

  Jabina stood for a moment looking after him.

  It was then at that very moment she knew that she loved him!

  *

  Jabina was late in rising because, although her maid brought her a pot of hot chocolate at nine o’clock, her eyes were still heavy with sleep.

  She sent a message that she would not breakfast with the Duke and rose leisurely, taking time to admire her new gown, which had been delivered, the maid told her, at eight o’clock in the morning.

  “The seamstresses have been working all night, m’mselle,” the maid said, “and they promised that another evening gown will be delivered later in the day.”

  “I cannot believe that I could get anything done as quickly in London,” Jabina said.

  “People are poor in Paris,” the maid replied simply, “and orders such as His Grace gave yesterday are a Godsend to those who often have few customers. Besides many who order do not pay.”

  “Has His Grace paid for these?” Jabina asked.

  “Yes, indeed, m’mselle,” the maid answered. “His Grace paid for everything as soon as it was delivered. It is much appreciated, I can assure you, m’mselle. Some of the aristocrats have bills outstanding for years and tradesmen can go bankrupt through having a multitude of debts.”

  “I have always hated the idea of owing money,” Jabina said.

  She felt glad that the Duke was as punctilious at paying as he was in other ways.

  She had been unable to sleep when she first went to bed for thinking of him.

  ‘Can it really be true?’ she asked herself, ‘that I have fallen in love with a man who dislikes me and who finds me both irritating and a nuisance?’

  She knew now that she had felt drawn to him before the Vicomte had explained the reasons for his solemnity and desire for an obscure and quiet life.

  She found herself yearning over him at the thought of his hurt and unhappiness when his mother left him.

  She remembered how she had suffered when her own mother had died and how her father had become more and more dour and unapproachable.

  The light had gone out of their house as the light must have gone out at Warminster when the Duchess had run away.

  And yet, while she felt for the Duke, she could not help in a way understanding his mother’s desire for gaiety, for change and for love.

  It must have been very exciting, Jabina thought, when she had a son who was nearly grown up, to be wooed by a man who loved her to such distraction that he was prepared to take her away from England, perhaps to live abroad for the rest of their lives.

  She could understand that for an Englishman to leave his country and all that was familiar was perhaps more of a wrench than it was for a woman.

  Men’s lives were taken up with sport, with the society of their contemporaries and with their estates and responsibilities.

  Yet Lord Beldon had been prepared to throw all that away for the love of a woman older than himself.

  In return the Duchess of Warminster had sacrificed her son.

  ‘How could she do that?’ Jabina asked herself.

  She could almost feel the anguish that the young Drue had known. It had come like an explosion, as the Vicomte had described it, and that was very understandable.

  Children never expected their parents to be almost physically torn and twisted by emotions as they were themselves. Parents always seemed to be inviolate and free from such distraction.

  To Drue, Jabina told herself, it would have been an added shock to realise that his mother was not infallible, a woman who would put illicit love before husband, family and honour.

  As usual when Jabina heard or read a story, she lived through the experience of those who were part of it.

  Now she could feel the Duchess’s indecision as to what steps she should take and then the desperate moment when she finally made up her mind.

  She could imagine the sense of loss, which to her husband must have been intolerable and a physical pain. While Jabina could visualise finally the bewilderment, suffering and misery of Drue.

  ‘I Must help him. I must try to make him happy,’ she told herself and fell asleep thinking of how different and how elegant he
had looked in his new clothes.

  She was dressed and the maid was arranging her hair in the new fashion when the woman said,

  “Will you excuse me, m’mselle, while I fetch you some coffee? It is after ten o’clock and I know both you and His Grace will be ready for it.”

  “I am indeed!” Jabina said, “and, having missed my breakfast, I am hungry. Bring me one of those delicious brioches at the same time.”

  “I will, m’mselle,” the maid replied.

  She left the room while Jabina put the last finishing touches to her hair and admired the elegant lines of her new gown.

  It was of green muslin, extremely simple and designed with a skill that made it, with its green velvet ribbons from Lyon, chic and elegant.

  There were frills of lace around the hem and the small puff sleeves were fashioned entirely of the same lace.

  For the daytime it was very transparent and Jabina could not help wondering what her father and her acquaintances in Scotland would say if they could see her.

  She was quite certain that they would be deeply shocked!

  She was smiling at the thought when she heard the door of her bedroom open.

  “You did not take long!” she turned to say to her maid.

  Then she saw to her surprise that it was the Vicomte who stood there.

  “Good morning – ” she began.

  “Quickly!” he interrupted in an urgent tone. “Bring any money and jewellery you have with you, but nothing else. You are leaving!”

  “Leaving?” Jabina echoed. “What do you mean?”

  “War has been declared between England and France,” he answered, “and Bonaparte has ordered the arrest of all British travellers in the country.”

  “It cannot be true!” Jabina ejaculated.

  “It is true and there are soldiers on their way to take you and Drue to prison.”

  Through the open door into the sitting room Jabina could see the Duke coming from his bedroom.

  She snatched up a silk shawl she had bought the day before and took the bag containing her mother’s jewellery from its hiding place where she had put it the night before on the top of her wardrobe.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” the Vicomte was saying. “They will be here at any moment.”

  Jabina ran into the salon.

  The Duke was standing in the centre of the room and without thinking, because she needed his protection, she slipped her hand into his.