The Duke Comes Home Read online

  ‘They will die!” she said aloud.

  She looked again at the lit window of the study as if she could send the words like a plea for help to the Duke.

  She had reached the bottom of the steps and suddenly, as she looked at the open casement she saw something hanging from it to the ground.

  It was a drop of about twelve feet and she saw trailing down the wall and onto the ground was a thick rope.

  For a second the full significance of it did not strike her.

  Then with a cry of horror she ran up the steps, opened the front door, and hurried across the hall.

  Only, as she reached the study door, did she pause for a moment and think that what she was expecting was absurd.

  There was no sound coming from inside the room and she was sure when she opened the door that she would find the Duke sitting either at the desk or in an armchair.

  ‘1 cannot see him again,’ she thought. ‘Not tonight at any rate.’

  Then, as she started to turn away, she heard a man’s voice speaking and, because she had to know what was happening and who was with the Duke, she turned the handle.

  The door opened and she gave an audible gasp.

  Inside the room there were two men. They were dark-skinned and at one quick glance she realised that they were not English but had come from the East.

  One man was at that moment lifting a miniature down from where they hung on the side of the fireplace and putting it into a sack with the others he had already removed.

  The other man was standing at the desk with the gold inkpot in his hands and he stared at her in an ominous manner.

  “What do you think you are doing?” she asked furiously. “How dare you come here and steal what does not belong to you?”

  The man at the desk put down the inkpot and walked towards her.

  “Are you Ilina Bury?”

  He had a decidedly singsong voice and mispronounced her name, but at the same time was intelligible.

  “I am Lady Ilina Bury,” Ilina replied, “and you will put back those miniatures on the wall and leave the house immediately or I will call the servants and have you – taken before – the Magistrates.”

  As she spoke, with a sudden tremor of fear she knew that, if she called out or screamed, no one would hear her.

  The servants slept too far from the study to hear anything that happened and, even as she confronted the two men, she was aware of how helpless she was.

  “You the person we look for,” the man said.

  “Why? Why should you be looking for me?” Ilina enquired.

  His lips twisted in his dark face she thought unpleasantly before he replied,

  “You give us Nizam’s jewels. That’s what we want.”

  For a moment Ilina was too astonished even to feel afraid.

  “The Nizam’s jewels?” she repeated. “I don’t know how you have heard about them, but they do not exist.”

  “That not true.”

  The man came nearer to her.

  Now, as she thought that he might be going to lay hands on her, she turned, thinking that she must run away and escape.

  But it was too late.

  He put out his hand and caught hold of her wrist.

  “Give us jewels. If not, you hurt.”

  Ilina gave a cry and twisted her wrist, but his fingers were like steel and the other man put down his sack and came to her side.

  She saw that he was holding a sharp pointed knife in his hand.

  “I promise you I am – telling the – truth,” Ilina stammered insistently. “The Nizam’s jewels that were – brought to this house many, many – years ago were – hidden and have – never been found.”

  “I make her tell.”

  As he spoke, the other man lifted his knife towards her face.

  She shrank away with a scream and at that moment through the half-opened door came the Duke.

  “What the devil is going on?” he asked furiously.

  Without wasting time he brought his riding crop, which he held in his left hand, down with a slashing blow on the arm of the man with the knife.

  He dropped it with a yell and the Duke punched him full in the face and felled him.

  The other man moved quickly.

  He released Ilina’s wrist, put his arm round her neck and, holding her tightly against his chest, dragged her backwards.

  Then he fumbled in the pocket of his coat and, as the Duke, having settled the man with the knife, turned towards him, he brought out a pistol.

  “I kill you,” he said and levelled the pistol at the Duke.

  Ilina, with a compulsive movement of her right arm, managed to knock his hand upwards.

  She did not think, she only acted instinctively.

  As the man who held her pulled the trigger, there was a violent explosion and the bullet went wide, hitting the portrait of the second Duke that stood over the writing desk.

  The Duke rushed forward as the man struck at Ilina with the pistol.

  As she fell, her head caught the ornamented edge of the desk, a scream was stifled in her throat and she knew nothing more.

  *

  The Duke, having knocked the man with the pistol unconscious, tied him up with the cords he took from the sides of the curtains.

  He then turned his attention to the first man. He was moaning and blood was coming from his mouth.

  The Duke tied his hands behind his back before he picked Ilina up gently from the floor.

  He was holding her in his arms when Singh appeared in the doorway.

  “I hear shot, Master?”

  “You did,” the Duke replied. “These thieves were disturbed by her Ladyship and they fired at me.”

  Singh regarded the two Indian men on the floor, smiled and remarked,

  “Master done well. They go prison.”

  “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Get more rope, Singh. There is some hanging from the window. Make certain they cannot escape. Then lock them in.”

  “I do that.”

  The Duke did not wait to see his orders carried out, but took Ilina out of the room across the hall and up the staircase.

  She was very light and her face, when he looked down at her, was so pale that he wondered how badly hurt she was.

  He knew that she slept in the West wing and he was relieved when he reached to find that there was a light burning in the passage and another inside a room where the door was open.

  He walked into the schoolroom and guessed that an open door on one side of it would lead to a bedroom.

  He was not mistaken and when he put Ilina down very gently on the bed, he fetched a candle from the sitting room so that he could examine what damage had been done to her.

  Her eyes were closed, her face was ashen and he thought that there were still stains of tear-marks on her cheeks.

  But there was also a flaming red patch on her forehead where the Indian had hit her with the pistol.

  When he moved her head gently to one side, he found that there was blood on his fingers and on her hair at the back.

  He was wondering what he should do when Singh came into the schoolroom.

  “Can I help, Master?”

  “Yes, Singh,” the Duke replied. “Fetch either Mrs. Bird or that old housemaid to put her Ladyship to bed. Then have a look at this wound on her head. I am sure you are as good as doctor as anyone we can get hold of at this time of night.”

  “Leave to me, Master,” Singh bowed.

  The Duke looked down at the blood that was now staining the pillow behind Ilina’s head.

  As he had thought when he saw her in the stables, she looked very young, frail and vulnerable.

  He wondered what would have happened to her if he had not seen her going into the house when he was returning from his ride.

  Only Ilina, he thought, would have tackled the burglars alone without first fetching help.

  He knew that was because she was defending the treasures that meant so much to her, treasures that he had t
old her he intended to destroy.

  There was a strange look in the Duke’s eyes as he sat waiting for Singh to return.

  *

  The following afternoon the Duke was in the study with Mr. Wicker.

  There was no sign of the commotion of the night before. The miniatures had been put back in their place and the two thieves had been taken to the Police Station.

  The Duke had discovered that the man who was ready to shoot him was a Parsee and a jeweller from Bombay and the other man a Muslim who lived in Hyderabad.

  “I am afraid it is my fault that they came here in search of the Nizam’s jewels,” he said to Mr. Wicker.

  “How can they have known about them, Your Grace?”

  “When I received your letter informing me that my cousin was dead and I had inherited the title,” the Duke answered, “I talked about it to my friends in Calcutta. I also told the story, because it seemed interesting, of the Nizam’s jewels, which had never been found and which my father had told me successive generations of Burys had searched for unavailingly.”

  Mr. Wicker was listening intently but did not answer and the Duke continued,

  “Everything in India is known and repeated. It was inevitable that the story of my inheritance and my predecessor’s will should appear in the local newspapers.”

  “And those men decided to make the long journey to England to steal the jewels?” Mr. Wicker asked incredulously.

  “The Nizam of Hyderabad has his own diamond mines,” the Duke explained, “and is always spoken of as being one of the richest men in India if not in the world.”

  “If they had found the jewels, I suppose that their journey would have been worthwhile,” Mr. Wicker remarked. “It would certainly be helpful in the present situation.”

  “If they are found, they belong to Lady Ilina,” the Duke answered.

  He had already explained to Mr. Wicker that he was aware of Ilina’s true identity and the solicitor said,

  “It would make me very happy, Your Grace, if the fifth Duke’s legacy, which was made in what I may say was deplorably bad taste, could become a reality.”

  “How could he do such a thing?” the Duke asked.

  “I am afraid, Your Grace, that we have to face the unpleasant fact that during the last years of his life the late Duke was not in his right mind. The way he treated his daughter was abominable. There is no other word for it.”

  The Duke did not speak and Mr. Wicker went on,

  “When a girl of her age should have been going to balls and enjoying herself with young people, her life was nothing but a living Hell.”

  “There must have been relatives who could have helped her,” the Duke said sharply.

  “Her father would not have them inside The Abbey. He hated them all and Lady Ilina did her duty to him in a way that I can only describe as heroic.”

  “He certainly did not thank her for it.”

  “As I have said, Your Grace, the Duke was not in his right mind after his son was killed and he himself became crippled. But that does not excuse his behaviour and I can only beg Your Grace to help Lady Ilina, however difficult it may be for you to do so.”

  As he spoke, Mr. Wicker looked at the Duke’s clothes as Ilina had done and thought that his hope that the new inheritor of the title might have been a rich man was as illusory as the Nizam’s jewels.

  As if he knew what his visitor was thinking, the Duke said,

  “Perhaps Mr. Wicker, we should get down to business and you should tell me exactly what I owe your firm for managing the estate and for the pensions I understand you have paid pending my return.”

  Mr. Wicker took a deep breath and told him.

  *

  The Duke walked into the schoolroom to find Emily, the elderly maid, nodding in an armchair by the fireplace. She was looking tired and old.

  She had been with Ilina all day, helped by Singh, who had carried everything upstairs that was required and had also bandaged the wound at the back of Ilina’s head.

  The old woman rose with difficulty to her feet as the Duke said,

  “Go to bed, Emily. You have done splendidly. I am very grateful.”

  “Her Ladyship’s still unconscious, Your Grace,” Emily answered. “She’s been a bit restless the last hour or so, turnin’ from side to side.”

  “It often happens with concussion,” the Duke replied. “As you know, the doctor said that there was nothing we could do but keep her quiet.”

  “I knows, Your Grace, but I ought really to stay with her Ladyship.”

  “I will do that,” the Duke said. “You and Singh can look after her in the daytime and I will manage the nights.”

  He had said the same thing to the doctor, who had replied with a sigh of relief,

  “If you can’t manage, Your Grace, I don’t know what I can do about it. I can’t get a nurse for you. There’s no one with any nursing experience here, except for a midwife or two. And they’re not the sort of women that Lady Ilina should have about her. If we were in London it would be a different story.”

  “We will manage,” the Duke said. “My man Singh is very skilled in treating wounds and has nursed me on several occasions when I have gone down with fevers, which I can assure you are not particularly pleasant in the East.”

  “So I have always heard,” the doctor had said. “I’ll come again tomorrow, Your Grace, and I promise you there’s nothing we can do except hope that Lady Ilina will sleep it off.”

  He walked towards the door and, as the Duke accompanied him, he said,

  “There has never been any young woman I have admired as much or who deserves more from the future.”

  The Duke did not speak and the doctor went on,

  “Her patience and her devotion to her father are something I cannot even describe in words. All I can say is that if ever there was an angel on this earth, it’s Ilina Bury.”

  “You knew her mother, I suppose?”

  The doctor smiled.

  “Another angel, Your Grace. One of the loveliest women I’ve even seen. There was no one who didn’t adore her and her daughter has taken her place in the hearts of everyone who lives on the estate and in the villages round about.”

  If the Duke had not quite believed this, he had proof of it later that afternoon.

  Singh told him that there were three children at the front door, asking for him. Surprised, he went to find out what they wanted and discovered that they were carrying huge bunches of flowers.

  They explained to him that they had brought them from their mothers and grandmothers who lived in the village, but it was too far for them to come themselves.

  However, signed on a piece of paper were the names of those who had sent the bouquets, three of them being only able to make a cross.

  The Duke took the flowers and the oldest girl, who was aged about ten, said to him,

  “Will you tell ’er Ladyship we wants ’er to get well quick and we all misses ’er?”

  “I will tell her Ladyship,” the Duke replied, “and I suggest that before you go home you see Mrs. Bird in the kitchen and ask if she has a piece of cake for you.”

  The smiles on their faces expressed their gratitude better than words.

  Hurriedly they ran round the side of the house to the back door and the Duke was left with bunches of cottage flowers in his hands.

  He gave them to Singh and told him to put them in Ilina’s rooms.

  Now as Emily shuffled towards the door, making an effort to curtsey as she reached it, he saw that there was one large bowl of spring flowers on the schoolroom table.

  He looked at it, remembering what the children and Mr. Wicker had said.

  Then almost automatically his eyes went to the picture over the mantelpiece.

  There was no need for anyone to tell him who it was. There was a close resemblance to Ilina and also to the portrait of her mother in the drawing room.

  The Duke looked at the smile on the young man’s lips and the twinkle in his eye a
nd, although he did not say the words aloud, he thought,

  ‘He would have made a far better Duke than I am.’

  He had brought up a newspaper with him, intending to read it in the sitting room.

  The door into Ilina’s bedroom was open so that he could hear her if she called out or became restless.

  He decided first, before he settled himself for his vigil, to see how she looked.

  He went into the bedroom.

  The bed was that of a young girl with white muslin curtains falling from a corolla of small gilt angels.

  The curtains over the windows, which were now faded, had, when they had first been hung, been bright with pink roses and bows of blue ribbon.

  It was a very young room and the flowers in it seemed synonymous with its owner.

  Ilina’s nightgown, which fastened at the neck, had little frills of lace round the collar and on the sleeves. With her fair hair falling over her shoulders, she looked little more than a child.

  Singh, with experienced skill had not covered the wound at the back of her head with a full bandage, thinking that if it encircled her forehead it would make her too hot.

  Instead he had somehow managed to secure it at the back and told the Duke unless she was very restless, it would not fall off.

  She looked as if she was asleep rather than unconscious and the Duke noticed that her long eyelashes were naturally dark against the whiteness of her skin.

  Even so she did not look happy and he knew that he was responsible for the little drop of her lips and the faint line between her eyebrows.

  He sat looking at her for quite some time and then, walking back into the schoolroom, he sat down in the same chair that Emily had found comfortable and picked up The Morning Post.

  Jacobs had fetched it from the village, as the Duke had found that among all the other economies, Ilina had not been able to afford a newspaper.

  He found himself uninterested in the English news.

  After a moment he threw it down on the floor and sat back in the chair, his eyes going up to the picture above his head.

  He wondered what David Bury, if he had survived and become the sixth Duke, would have done about the house and estate and the lack of money.