160 Love Finds the Duke at Last Read online

  There was just time for Hopkins to snatch up his coat and hat which were certainly not smart livery, when the Duke started moving the horses.

  As they had not been out for the last two days, they moved immediately into a fast pace and went down the drive with the dust swirling up behind them.

  Fortunately the gates were open and the moonlight showed clearly that the road to the village was empty.

  The Duke therefore set off at a pace which made Hopkins gasp for breath.

  As they sped along, he wondered what could have happened to make the Duke drive faster than he had ever known him drive before.

  As it was late at night and the road to London was almost empty, they arrived in what was record time.

  The last star was fading in the sky and the first rays of the sun were appearing in the East.

  It was seven o’clock in the morning when the Duke reached Penelope’s house.

  Handing the reins to Hopkins, he hammered on the door until it was opened by a surprised-looking housemaid.

  “I wish to speak to Lady Penelope at once,” he said walking in through the door which was only half-open.

  “She ain’t been called yet, sir,” the maid told him.

  “That does not matter,” the Duke replied sharply, “I know the way.”

  The housemaid gasped as he hurried past her and started to climb the stairs, as she said afterwards, ‘as only a madman would go up ’em.’

  The Duke knew the way to Penelope’s bedroom.

  Without knocking he pushed the door open.

  Penelope was in bed.

  She had just opened her eyes but, because it was so early had closed them again.

  Now as she heard heavy footsteps and someone approaching the bed, she opened her eyes and screamed when she saw it was a man.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” she shrieked.

  Then, as light from the side of the curtains showed her the Duke’s face, she said,

  “Ivan! What are you doing here?”

  “I have come to see you,” the Duke replied, “and you are going to tell me who you have paid or who you have told to kidnap Devinia and carry her away from The Castle.”

  He could see by the expression on Penelope’s face that she knew what he was saying.

  She pulled herself up on the pillows as she said,

  “What has happened to Devinia is nothing at all to do with me.”

  “You are lying,” he said accusingly. “You know as well as I do it was on your very instructions that she was captured by some foreigners and I suspect, again on your orders, she has been taken to a country where fair-haired women are exceedingly welcomed by a Czar or a Sultan who are always looking for them.”

  He was speaking harshly.

  But he saw just for a moment a look of satisfaction in Penelope’s eyes that what he had said was the truth.

  It was what she had planned to be rid of Devinia.

  “Come along,” the Duke said angrily, “there is no time to waste! You will tell me where you have sent her or I suspect sold her.”

  “I just don’t know what you are saying,” Penelope replied. “In fact I think it is most insulting and you have no right to be here bursting into my bedroom before I have been called. I am sure that Papa will have a great deal to say on it.”

  “I am not concerned with your father or anyone else except you. Unless you tell me at once where you have sent Devinia I will make it very unpleasant for you.”

  “I really don’t know what you are talking about,” Penelope retorted, “and, if you want to tell me your silly ideas about Devinia, then you can wait until I have had breakfast. Then I will be delighted to entertain you.”

  “I thought you might take that attitude,” the Duke answered. “As I know exactly what will happen to Devinia if she reaches one of those countries where the fair-haired women are appreciated, I demand that you tell me the truth now.”

  “And if I refuse to?” Penelope questioned.

  “Then I will tell you what I intend to do,” the Duke replied. “Because I am aware that Devinia would rather die than suffer as a concubine to some foreign Devil, who would pay you for anything so revolting, I am determined that you shall tell me the truth.”

  Penelope tossed her head.

  “And if I do not?” she enquired.

  “Then I am going to make it impossible for you to look as attractive as you are at the moment and to be, as you believe, the most beautiful debutante in London.”

  As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a large knife and opened it.

  “What are you saying? What are you doing?” she asked and there was now fear in her voice.

  “I am saying that unless you tell me immediately where you have sent Devinia, I intend to make it quite impossible with the marks that will be on your cheeks for you ever again to be the most beautiful woman in London.”

  “What you are saying is nonsense – ”

  “I mean exactly what I am saying.”

  He opened the knife and now he took it in his hand.

  “Tell me the truth where you have sent Devinia or I will mark your cheek in a way that will destroy your looks for ever.”

  Penelope drew in her breath.

  Then, as the knife drew nearer to her, she said with almost a shriek,

  “She has gone to – the Sultan in Istanbul. I hate you for treating me in this way.”

  “The Duke shut the knife and put it into his pocket.

  “I think you are so despicable,” he said, “that no decent man, if he knew what you had done, would ever speak to you again.”

  Penelope did not answer and he went on,

  “As far as I am concerned that is what I feel about you. You are fortunate that I have not punished you as I should have by taking away your looks.”

  As he spoke, he walked out of the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

  In the hall there were quite a number of servants who had been roused by hearing that he had gone upstairs to Lady Penelope’s room.

  They did not try to stop him, but stared at him as he walked swiftly past them.

  Climbing into his phaeton he said to Hopkins, who handed him the reins,

  “Now we have to hurry!”

  “Where are we goin’, Your Grace?”

  “To Dover,” the Duke replied. “I intend to beat every record in getting there.”

  He almost snapped out the words.

  Hopkins gulped as the horses sprang forward and turned into the main road.

  ‘I’ll be ever so surprised,’ he thought to himself, ‘if we get there alive.’

  *

  It was, however, midday when the Duke reached Dover.

  Going to where his yacht was tied up, he found, as he expected, that the messenger from The Castle, by riding one of his fastest horses, had arrived there an hour earlier.

  “You’ve not given us much time, Your Grace,” the Captain said as he stepped aboard.

  “I don’t have very much time to spare,” the Duke answered sharply. “Set to sea immediately, Captain.”

  “May I know where we’re going?” he asked.

  He spoke somewhat nervously as he was not used to seeing the Duke in such a strange mood.

  “For the moment we are heading for the Bay of Biscay and then to the Mediterranean,” the Duke informed him. “Later I will tell you exactly where I want to land and I only hope that you are as fast as I have always believed you to be.”

  He spoke in such a way that the Captain stared at him.

  Then the Duke turned back to thank Hopkins and to give him orders to take the horses back to The Castle as quietly and easily as possible.

  He then returned to his yacht and told the Captain,

  “Full steam ahead!”

  The Captain did as he was told.

  Only when they were in the English Channel did the Duke say to Captain Davenport,

  “Did you notice, and I know you are very sharp-eyed where ships are concerned
, if there was one leaving early this morning. It would probably have been flying the flag of the Ottoman Empire.”

  The Captain wrinkled his brow before he said,

  “Now you mention it there was a ship leaving about eight o’clock. As you so rightly say it has always been my interest to count the ships which are in harbour and wonder if they can move as swiftly as I can.”

  He laughed at his own joke.

  But, as the Duke’s face was unmoved, he said,

  “Yes, Your Grace, you are right. There was one ship and now I think about it, I am sure that it was carrying the flag of the Ottoman Empire.”

  He hesitated before he added,

  “I also seem to remember it had a crew of natives.”

  “That is what I want to know,” the Duke answered.

  Going into his own cabin, he closed the door and Captain Davenport stared after him with a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘I suppose once we get to sea he’ll tell me what all this is about,’ he said to himself. ‘It was very lucky that we were ready to move so quickly and that I took on board yesterday enough food and fuel and everything else we are likely to need on what might be a long voyage.’

  He gave a sigh as he added to himself,

  ‘Thank goodness I have not been caught napping.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Devinia had felt the blankets falling over her, she had fought with both hands to keep them off her face.

  Then, as she felt herself lifted up, she realised with a growing sense of horror that she was being kidnapped.

  For a moment she could not believe that what she was thinking was true.

  She tried again to push the blankets away from her face and then, as she realised that she was being carried by men, perhaps there were four of them, she knew that she had no chance of winning however hard she struggled.

  She tried to think clearly where they had come from and what they were doing, but without any enlightenment.

  Then she found herself dumped into the back of a carriage and she thought that she must be on the back seat.

  As the horses started off, she realised that she was being carried away from The Castle.

  Where were they going?

  Where was she being taken?

  The questions ran through her mind and repeated and repeated themselves.

  Then, as she heard the men talking and speaking a language that she knew was foreign, she was aware that this was all part of a plot.

  She was being taken out of England simply because in that way she could not be with the Duke.

  It just seemed impossible and incredible.

  Yet as they travelled on she became more and more convinced that this was Penelope’s doing.

  On her instructions, or rather her arrangements, she was being taken from the Duke in a manner which would ensure absolutely that he would never see her again.

  ‘How could this happen to me?’ Devinia asked.

  And yet it was happening and there was nothing she could do about it.

  ‘How could anyone be so cruel as to do this to me?’ she whispered to herself.

  But the answer was right there clearly and she had to accept it.

  She had taken the Duke away from Penelope and now Penelope was having her revenge.

  Who else would have known that a dog whining in pain would have brought her straight out of her room and downstairs and then outside to see what was happening?

  Who else, except Penelope, would want her to be taken away to some foreign land so that the Duke would never find her?

  The whole horror of it swept over her and now she was praying fervently for help.

  ‘Help me, God, please, please help me! Save me from these horrible men!’

  Then, as she was so desperately afraid and because she felt so helpless, she called out to the Duke.

  Calling him with her mind and her body and most of all her fear of what lay ahead for her.

  “Help me! Help me!” she kept calling out over and over again, but there was no one to hear her.

  She then remembered how some times the Duke seemed to read her mind and to know what she was about to say before she even said it.

  Then she told herself that the whole situation was impossible.

  How could the Duke know she had been carried away? If he had been aware of it, he would have appeared before she was actually covered up and carried by the men to their carriage.

  Perhaps they would drive on for hours and hours before they finally came to a standstill.

  ‘This just cannot be true, this cannot be happening to me,’ she screamed in her mind.

  She wondered whether she was being taken away to a house, a prison or some strange place that she had never heard of.

  And then to her surprise she was lifted out of the carriage and the four men were carrying her over stony ground.

  Then what she thought, although it really seemed impossible, was a smooth hard surface that might be wood.

  Then suddenly so that she gave a little scream, she was picked up and she realised that the men were carrying her into a ship.

  As if to confirm her impression, she next heard the sound of another ship in the distance.

  She could now hear the engines throbbing as if they were impatient to put to sea.

  To Devinia, it was all almost like a nightmare that there was no awakening from.

  Then suddenly she was put down and, although she could not see where she was, she was almost certain that it was a cabin aboard a ship.

  ‘Where are they taking me? Oh, God save me!’ she prayed. ‘Why am I being taken away from my country? Oh please, please, Ivan, save me! Save me! Save me!’

  The words throbbed in her forehead.

  Then she kept repeating them, although now when she was aware that the ship was moving beneath her, it was hard to breathe.

  The weight of the blankets which covered her had made her breathless ever since she had left The Castle.

  Now she hoped that they would be removed or else she might suffocate and die.

  For a few moments she thought even that would be better than being kept a prisoner of these people, whoever they were, who had carried her away.

  Then, as if her mother and father were speaking to her, she recognised that she must be brave.

  Whatever was happening she must meet it with her usual confidence and belief that, if she was in danger, God would send someone to help her.

  ‘Help me! Please help me!’

  Again she was crying out in her mind to the Duke.

  It was then that she heard footsteps near her and was aware that two people, she thought they must be men, were removing the blankets covering her.

  Because she thought it wise, she lay very still and did not try to move even when the last blanket was pulled away.

  She found herself lying, as she had thought that she was, in the cabin of a ship.

  Then she was aware that the two men at her head and the man at her feet, were natives.

  She tried to guess what nationality they were.

  She knew that they were not French nor Italian, but came from the East.

  She stared at them and then realised that they were staring at her.

  Then one man, who seemed to be older than the others and had, she thought, something about him which made him appear to be better bred or more educated said,

  “You all right? You not hurt?”

  He was speaking to her in broken English and she answered him by saying,

  “No, I am not hurt. But I want to know why you have carried me away and – who you are working for?”

  She spoke slowly and distinctly as she was sure that otherwise he would not understand what she said.

  To her surprise he replied,

  “You be told everything later, but not now.”

  Now that she could see him more clearly, he was dark-skinned and came from a country that she still could not put a name to.

  With an effort she sat up and
the man asked her,

  “You hot? You want drink of water?”

  “Yes, please,” she replied. “I was very hot under all those blankets”

  She looked at what had enveloped her and saw that they were Eastern looking as the material was rough.

  But she had to admit that they were clean and had not, she thought, been used before she had been enveloped in them.

  Slowly and a little unsteadily she rose to her feet.

  By this time the ship was out at sea and moving roughly through the waves.

  To save herself she caught hold of the bed and realised that, as it was not a berth and attached to the wall, it was actually a bed in the middle of the cabin.

  This told her that she was in the main cabin of the ship that she was travelling in or, as the English would call it, ‘the Master cabin’.

  She stood against the bed as she demanded,

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “The Captain tell you all later,” the man who spoke English answered.

  Then, picking up the blankets that had covered her, they went from the cabin closing the door behind them.

  Then Devinia was aware that the key had been in the lock.

  By this time the ship was moving quicker and still quicker and she went to the basin to wash her face and her hands.

  There were clean towels and, after she had washed, she felt a little better, but she was still desperately afraid as to where she was being taken.

  The cabin, although it contained a bed, was not that large and she thought that it was furnished and decorated in a foreign fashion and not what one would have expected from an English owner.

  Because it was hot she took off her dressing gown.

  Feeling that there was nothing else she could do, she got into the bed.

  It was clean, but the bedclothes were rough and smelt musty and certainly would not have been accepted by any English owner of a ship.

  She was thinking how desperately thirsty she was and hoped that the man, who had asked her if she would like a drink, had not forgotten, when the key in the lock was turned and someone knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Devinia called out.

  A man who was obviously a servant, came into the cabin carrying a tray, a jug, and a glass and what she hoped was lemonade.

  He set the tray with its contents down beside her on the bed and said,