Lucifer and the Angel Read online

  The Duke had thought that he would undoubtedly flirt with the two pretty married women who had been invited.

  But he had noticed that during dinner George was paying Anita too much attention and he had thought it was a mistake.

  Lord Greshame was smooth, sophisticated and a philanderer whom most Society ladies did not take seriously.

  He was invited to all the best parties, first because he was an unattached man and secondly because he made himself so charming.

  The Duke was aware that the women to whom he declared himself devoted laughed at his protestations and often behind his back would say,

  “Poor George! He is always seeking the grande passion, but after so many false starts, how can he ever hope to be first past the winning post?”

  At the same time the Duke liked him and had thought that George Greshame would make the party, as far as he was concerned, at least tolerable.

  He walked from the ballroom into two or three of the anterooms where a number of couples were sitting and talking, some more intimately than others.

  There was no sign of Anita or of George Greshame and he wondered if she could have been so foolish as to go with him into the conservatory.

  The girls who could be led into the conservatory during a ball were always something of a bad joke, but the Duke thought that Anita would not be aware of this.

  The conservatory at Ollerton, which had been erected only thirty years ago, was exceptional. Not only was it larger and better designed than most of the conservatories attached to other houses, but it contained plants and flowers that had been brought from all over the world to make it a botanist’s delight.

  There were azaleas from the Himalayas, lilies from Malaysia, and a number of plants from South America which had never been seen in England before.

  The orchids were exceptional and at Ollerton it had become customary for corsages of them to be sent to the rooms of the lady guests before dinner and buttonholes to the rooms of the gentlemen.

  The Duke had noticed that Anita was wearing some small star-shaped orchids that he had thought were very appropriate on her gown, which, he was aware, was a perfect example of the type of gown a debutante should wear.

  It was of white tulle that framed her shoulders like a soft cloud and there were tiny diamantes like dewdrops scattered on it and over the full skirt.

  They made Anita shimmer as she moved and the Duke had felt, as he had noticed her dancing in the ballroom, that her gown made her seem as if she were illuminated with a special light.

  He thought it was not her gown that people would notice, however, but the excitement in her eyes, and he thought somewhat cynically that there was at least one person who was finding the evening a joy, which was the exact opposite of his own feelings about it.

  He opened the door of the conservatory and felt the warm fragrance of the flowers hit him with the force of a wave.

  Then, as he moved inside, he heard a little voice say,

  “N-no – please – I want to go – back to the Duchess!”

  “I want to kiss you first,” a man replied.

  “I have told you – I do not want to be kissed. Leave me – alone!”

  “You say you do not want to be kissed, but I will make you realise it can be very enjoyable and quite frankly I want to be the first man to touch your lips.”

  “No – no! – Let me – go!”

  There was a note of panic in Anita’s voice, which the Duke recognised and he moved quickly through the foliage of a large eucalyptus plant to see Anita struggling desperately against Lord Greshame, who was pulling her into his arms.

  He saw the Duke first and, as his hold relaxed, Anita fought herself free of him.

  Then, as she saw who stood there, she ran instinctively towards the Duke, to hold onto him as if he was a lifeline and she was drowning.

  He could feel her trembling against him, but he did not put his arms round her, he merely looked over her head at Lord Greshame, who appeared to be somewhat abashed.

  Then the Duke said quietly,

  “My mother is asking for you, Anita.”

  She did not answer, she merely moved away from him without looking up and he could hear her footsteps running over the marble floor towards the door.

  There was an uncomfortable silence until the Duke remarked,

  “Cradle snatching, George?”

  Lord Greshame pulled the lapels of his evening coat into place.

  “A pretty little thing,” he replied, “but very unsophisticated.”

  “Very!” the Duke agreed drily. “I therefore suggest that you leave her alone!”

  Lord Greshame smiled.

  “Don’t sound so pompous, Kerne. Someone will teach her the facts of life sooner or later, and after all, she is only a reader for your mother.”

  The Duke understood exactly what his friend implied and it annoyed him not only for Anita’s sake, but because he thoroughly disliked the type of man who pursued defenceless Governesses and even servants in other people’s houses.

  He had not thought before that George Greshame might be one of them, but now he decided that their friendship, if that was what it had been, was at an end, and in the future he would certainly not invite him to any party he gave at Ollerton.

  Aloud he said,

  “I think you have the wrong impression. Anita Lavenham is here as my mother’s guest. Her grandfather was the Earl of Lavenham and Bective and her aunt is the Countess of Charmouth.”

  “Good God, I did not know that!” Lord Greshame ejaculated. “I thought she had been invited to eat in the dining room only to make the numbers right.”

  “That is where you are mistaken,” the Duke replied.

  As he spoke, he walked from the conservatory, not waiting to see whether Lord Greshame followed him or not.

  As he walked back to the ballroom, he realised that it was Anita’s frankness that had put her into a position that she could never have envisaged.

  He wondered how many other people in the house party had thought, as evidently Lord Greshame had, that she was little more than a paid attendant on the Duchess.

  As he reached the ballroom, the Duke was wondering how he could set right what had been initiated by himself when he had saved Anita from the elderly Parson in Harrogate.

  Then, as the orchestra began another of their romantic waltzes, he knew how he could make her position clear without having to put it into words.

  He saw that she was already at his mother’s side and he wondered if the Duchess was aware that Anita was upset.

  He walked through the dancers to join them, and he knew, as he saw the expression on his mother’s face, that she was.

  The Duke, however, looked at Anita.

  “May I have the pleasure of this dance?” he enquired.

  He saw what had undoubtedly been a terrified look in her eyes lighten and without waiting for her to answer him he put an arm round her waist and drew her onto the dance floor.

  She was very much smaller than his other partners, but, as he had somehow expected, she was as light as a piece of thistledown and he found that she had a natural sense of rhythm.

  In fact as they moved round the floor he had the idea that they were floating rather than dancing and he also knew that she was still trembling a little from the fear that George Greshame had evoked in her.

  “Forget what happened,”, he said quietly. “But let it be a lesson to you never to go into a conservatory alone with a man unless you want him to make love to you – ”

  Anita gave a little shiver.

  “He asked me to – do so and I did not like to – refuse. When I found there was nobody else there, I knew it was – wrong.”

  “Not exactly wrong, but somewhat indiscreet.”

  Anita gave a little sigh.

  “If Mama was here, she would have told me about – these things. But as you see, I am very – ignorant.”

  “You will learn by trial and error as we all have to do,” the Duke c
autioned.

  “I know,” Anita said in a low voice, “but he – frightened me.”

  “I told you to forget him.”

  “I was so happy and it has been such a wonderful experience to go to my first ball,” she murmured, “but I never expected men to be – like that.”

  “Like what?” the Duke asked, because he was curious.

  “Like the Reverend Joshua, wanting to – marry me when he had only seen me – two or three times – and like – Lord Greshame trying to – kiss me when he had never – spoken to me until we met each other at – dinner.”

  Looking down, the Duke could see the perplexity in her small, flower-like face and he thought that he could understand the feelings both of the Reverend Joshua and of George Greshame.

  Lightly, because he felt he must stop her from becoming introspective about herself, he said:

  “I think my mother would be able to tell you better than anyone else of the penalties of being a beautiful woman.”

  Anita was silent for a moment, then she said in an incredulous little voice,

  “Are you saying – that you really – truly think I am – pretty?”

  The Duke could not help smiling.

  He was quite certain that no other man in the room to whom Anita might have asked the question would realise that she did not desire to be complimented, but was genuinely and completely unaware that she was not merely pretty but incredibly lovely.

  But he knew that her lack of self-consciousness, which he had noticed so often before, sprang from the fact that she was very humble about her appearance.

  And when he saw her sister Sarah he had known why.

  Sarah was spectacular and colourful. She was the type of English Rose who was admired as the ideal of beauty by artists of every type.

  When the Duke had learnt who she was, he had thought her golden hair, her blue eyes and her pink and white complexion would draw the eyes and evoke the admiration of every man in the room.

  Anita was different.

  She was like a small white violet for which one had to search amongst the green leaves before it was found or perhaps a better simile was that she resembled the tiny star-shaped orchids that were pinned to her gown.

  They were very rare and the Duke was exceedingly proud that he had managed to grow them in the conservatory at Ollerton.

  But he knew that the majority of people when they inspected his orchids were far more impressed by the purple Cattleya and the crimson Sophronitis and barely noticed that one he preferred.

  The answer to Anita’s question was easy and he wanted her to believe him.

  “I think you are very pretty,” he declared, “and you will appreciate that I am stating a fact, not paying you a compliment.”

  For the first time since they had been dancing together, the stars were back in her eyes and he felt she was no longer trembling.

  “Now I am happy again!” she exclaimed. “And I promise I will never be so foolish as to go into the conservatory again, unless there are lots of other people with me.”

  “And perhaps it would be wiser not to go to Church!” the Duke teased.

  “I shall enquire first if the Vicar is married,” Anita replied and he laughed.

  He noticed that for the rest of the evening, as he danced with his other guests, including Lady Rosemary and Alice Down, Anita was careful to return to the Duchess’s side as soon as each dance was over.

  She was never short of partners and more than once, as she danced past him on the floor, he could hear her lilting voice talking animatedly to the man she was dancing with.

  Sometimes too she would be laughing the gay joyous little laugh that came spontaneously to her lips as it might have come from a child’s.

  In the early hours of the morning, when the guests who were not staying in the house finally departed, the Duke turned to the Duchess,

  “I think, Mama, you should go to bed. I am sure your doctors would disapprove of your keeping such later hours.”

  “I have enjoyed every moment,” the Duchess said simply. “But Anita has already told me that I shall be very stiff tomorrow, so I will obey you.”

  As the Duchess spoke, Anita came running to her side, followed by two stalwart young footmen carrying a chair in which, when the Duchess had been incapacitated with rheumatism, they had taken her up and down the stairs.

  The Duchess looked at it doubtfully.

  “I am able to walk!” she protested.

  “Not tonight,” Anita said. “Please, ma’am, be sensible, otherwise I shall have to spend all tomorrow brewing herbs!”

  The Duchess laughed and capitulated.

  “You and Kerne both bully me unmercifully,” she sighed, “but I suppose there is nothing I can do about it.”

  “Except to say goodnight quickly,” Anita replied. “And you know, ma’am, you have been the undisputed and unrivalled belle of the ball!”

  “That is true,” the Duke agreed, “and I wish I had said it first!”

  “It is not like you to be pipped at the post, Ollerton!” one of the guests remarked.

  “I must be growing old,” the Duke replied.

  “That is not true,” Anita said, “but just occasionally an outsider creeps in when you least expect it.”

  The Duke and those who were standing near were laughing as she followed the Duchess being carried from the ballroom.

  “That is the most attractive child I have met in years!” an elderly General remarked.

  The Duke thought he might say the same, but, before he could speak, the Countess of Clydeshire was gushing at him, telling him what a wonderful dance it had been.

  While her mother was speaking, Lady Millicent stood at her side and the Duke thought she was deliberately not looking in his direction, nor in fact was she making any effort to say a word of appreciation.

  ‘The girl is a bore!’ the Duke thought to himself.

  At the same time, when he looked at Lady Rosemary Castor and Alice Down he knew that he could not contemplate seeing either of them at the end of his dinner table or being obliged to present them to the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

  ‘Perhaps Lady Millicent will improve on further acquaintance,’ he thought. ‘If not, I am done with her and I will not ask her to marry me.’

  Then he knew that if he did not, it would mean, as he had told Anita, more house parties like this one – more mothers like the Countess, fawning over him in anticipation that he might become her son-in-law.

  There would be more days wasted in entertaining people whom he considered bores when he might be amusing himself on the Racecourse, playing polo or associating with the Social crowd who circled round the Prince of Wales.

  He knew that once he was married, these things would never be the same even in the case of the Prince of Wales.

  At the moment the Prince never gave a party at Marlborough House to which he was not invited and the same applied to all his married friends.

  “How could we have a party without you?” Lady de Grey had said to the Duke only a few weeks ago. “You keep all the beauties on their toes in anticipation that they may be the next to catch your roving eye and their husbands tolerate you, however audaciously you behave, for the simple reason that they know you are very well aware of your own importance and will never cause a scandal.”

  This was the kind of plain speaking for which the beautiful Lady de Grey was famous and the Duke had not been offended. He merely thought, as he was thinking now, that when he was married things would be different.

  Of course there would be occasions when he would entertain and be entertained without his wife, but because he had a sense of propriety he knew that they would be few and far between and that as a general rule they must be seen together whenever they were in public.

  He felt a wave of resentment sweep over him and decided once and for all that he would not go through with this farce to please the Queen or anybody else.

  Then once again he envisaged his cousin’s red an
d bloated face and his vulgar wife, garishly gowned and heavily over-jewelled, swaying as she walked because she had had too much to drink.

  How could he allow them to live at Ollerton, to entertain at the family house in London and to inherit his other possessions all over the country?

  With an effort the Duke forced a smile to his lips.

  “I hope,” he said to Lady Millicent, “as you do not particularly care for riding, that you will let me take you driving tomorrow afternoon? There is an attractive folly not far from here built by one of my ancestors that is well worth a visit.”

  “Oh, what a wonderful idea, my dear Duke!” the Countess exclaimed almost before he had finished speaking. “Of course Milly would love to see the folly.”

  “Then that is agreed,” the Duke said, aware that Lady Millicent apparently thought her mother had said quite enough and therefore was making no effort to speak.

  “Now we must all go to bed if we are to be at Church tomorrow morning,” the Countess said. “I hear, Duke, that you always read the lesson.”

  “When I am in residence.”

  “Then we shall look forward to hearing you,” the Countess gushed. “I am certain that you read as well as you do everything else, which of course is perfectly!”

  The Duke inclined his head at the compliment and then turned to say goodnight to his other guests, some of whom were already beginning to yawn.

  “A most enjoyable evening,” they all chorused.

  They walked towards the hall, where there were footmen waiting for them with lighted candles in silver candlesticks which every guest at Ollerton traditionally carried upstairs to bed, even though the new gas lighting had been installed in the bedrooms.

  The Duke, who was having a word with his butler, climbed the stairs last.

  “Will you be riding as usual, Your Grace?” the man enquired as the Duke put his foot on the first step.

  “Of course,” the Duke replied, “and, as it is Sunday it had better be eight-thirty instead of nine o’clock.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  As the Duke walked up the stairs, he wondered who would be riding with him, but he suspected that no one would be energetic enough to get up early.

  Then he had the conviction that that would not apply to Anita and he was sure that his horses would be a greater draw than the comfort of her pillow.