The Keys of Love Read online

  “Madam, it seems as if you are in distress,” he said at last in a low voice.

  “I? N-no. I am just enjoying the night air.”

  The Duke opened his mouth as if to say more, but a complaining voice sounded behind him.

  “Who has now interrupted us, Joseph? We were just settling down so cosy together.”

  Henrietta blinked in dismay as Romany Foss rose from the bench.

  “Oh, it’s you,” sniffed Romany. “What are you after out here, I wonder?”

  Henrietta stepped back a pace, her mind in a whirl.

  Romany had said ‘Joseph.’ She had used the word ‘cosy.’ ‘Cosy together!’ It was right, she was the Duke’s fiancée, and she could speak this way and yet the words struck like the fangs of a snake at Henrietta’s heart.

  “I am sorry to have intruded ” she stammered. “I-I will go back.”

  “Wait, madam!”

  The Duke put out his hand.

  But Henrietta had fled.

  She meant to retrace her steps. She meant to seek the solitude of her room, the comfort of her canopied bed, where secret tears could be shed into her pillow.

  Papa, she thought with a sob, as she stumbled up the stone steps. What would he think of her if he could see her now?

  The Duke. He had been courting Romany, there on the bench in the shadow of the wall. Courting her in the pale light of the moon. No doubt their engagement would be publicly announced at any moment.

  She groaned as she thought of Romany entwined in the Duke’s arms.

  I am jealous, she admitted to herself. Jealous!

  She stood recovering her breath for a moment and then looked round.

  She was in some kind of alley, narrow, with high hedges on either side. It curved to the right ahead of her and when she looked back, it curved to the left.

  She had not noticed the various twists and turns of whichever path she had followed. Now she did not know whether to go forward or back.

  After some deliberation, she went forward.

  The path veered right and there was a fork. She had the choice of two alleyways and she chose the left one. That too twisted and turned, bringing her to another fork.

  Taking the right this time, within minutes she found herself at a dead end.

  Then it dawned on her that she was in the maze!

  Now her heart began to beat with trepidation.

  She had no idea how extensive the maze was and no memory of how she had first entered it.

  She must now start by retracing her steps and this she did, or thought she did, but all the alleys looked alike. For all she knew she was going round in circles.

  She must leave some marker to indicate which way she had passed, like Theseus in the Minotaur’s labyrinth.

  Then an idea came to her.

  The black flounce!

  It was already loose and was flimsy enough for her to be able to tear it into pieces.

  She ripped hard at the flounce. As it tore away, the neckline of her dress came with it, exposing the upper part of her breast. Her alabaster skin gleamed in the moonlight.

  Shivering, she ripped a piece off and attached it to a bush. Then she walked on, thereby preventing herself from traversing the same alley twice.

  But her ingenuity did not help her find the way out. After a quarter of an hour she was exhausted and beginning to despair.

  The night air felt no longer sweet, rather it was chill and unpleasantly moist.

  Soon all she wished for was somewhere to rest.

  As if in answer to her prayers she staggered at last into a clearing in which stood a stone seat. With a cry she sank upon it, barely noticing how cold it was to the touch.

  She looked around then and her heart sank.

  There was no doubt but that she was at the centre of the maze. She would never find her way out tonight.

  The torrid sense of nightmare that had slowly been enveloping her all evening now fell fully upon her like a heavy shroud.

  Under its weight, her limbs turned to ice, her teeth chattered and she lost all control. Her wail of misery was loud and the sobs that followed rent the night air like nails.

  How long she wept she did not know.

  Only when her breath seemed to freeze in her throat did her cries subside. Now she lay, cold as the tomb, her tears hanging on her cheeks like ice.

  She was dimly aware of a soft cape falling around her shoulders and strong arms lifting her.

  Shivering and almost unconscious, she felt herself held against a warm breast. Her own breast, half exposed, the skin icy and white as snow, rose and fell heavily.

  A tender hand wrapped the cape more tightly about her and then brushed the hair from her forehead.

  “What has driven you to run so wildly through the night?” came gentle and concerned tones.

  She was too tired to think. She could barely grasp whose voice it was until at last a name came to her.

  “Joe!” she murmured, as she felt firm hands reach beneath her body and lift her carefully up.

  “Joe!” she sighed as her head fell drowsily against a firm strong shoulder.

  And “Joe,” she breathed again, as her eyes closed and she fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Henrietta woke to find herself in her own bedroom at Merebury, gazing up at the canopy over her bed.

  Raising herself unsteadily onto her elbow, she saw that the fire in the wide hearth had been banked high and was sending out a rosy comforting glow.

  Nanny dozed in a high chair in her old shawl.

  At the window a tall figure leaned, gazing out at the dark sky.

  The Duke!

  Henrietta’s breath caught in her throat and she sank back onto the pillow.

  ‘What is he doing here?’ she asked herself wildly.

  Indeed, what was she doing here?

  She had no memory of climbing up the stairs. The last thing she remembered that she had been in the gardens. She had heard a voice say who’s there? and then

  She almost cried out as the ensuing events flooded back into her mind.

  Romany, the maze, the cold, the fear. Then those strong arms lifting her from the chilly stone bench!

  The Duke had brought her here to her bed.

  Her cheeks flushed as she realised that she was no longer in the green dress she had worn to perform with the orchestra, but in her own white night shift.

  The Duke must have called on Nanny to come and disrobe her. What could Nanny have thought to see her so dishevelled, her hair loose, her breast half exposed?

  She peeped at the Duke and now saw that he had something clutched in his hand.

  To her astonishment she recognised her dress, its green skirt trailing on the ground,

  She closed her eyes.

  Seeing the Duke’s lithe figure outlined against the window, she could not help but recall the comfort of being held against his strong chest. She had been delirious and was unconscious in his arms yet she was sure that she had heard his heart beating and sure she had felt his kiss brush her damp hair.

  Stretching with pleasure at her reminiscences, she opened her eyes.

  The Duke was now standing at the foot of the bed, watching her.

  Meeting her startled gaze, he put a finger to his lips and moved quietly to her side.

  “You have slept well?” he whispered.

  “I-I think I have. B-but what time is it?”

  He held up a hand in reply, indicating that she must listen and she heard the first faint chime of a distant clock.

  One, two, three

  As each note struck, the Duke’s gaze intensified.

  His eyes seemed to burn through her shift to the very flesh beneath. She felt pinned under his scrutiny like a butterfly. She could not avert her gaze or close her eyes against the blaze of his passionate interest.

  The chimes faded away.

  “Three o’clock,” mumbled Henrietta wonderingly. “I have been asleep some four hours
or so?”

  “You have indeed.”

  “H-have you been here all along?”

  The Duke gave a faint smile.

  “Most of the time. When I carried you in here from the maze I called for Mrs. Poody. You seemed peaceful, but we were both reluctant to leave you alone. Mrs. Poody took up her watch by the fire, giving me leave to come and go through the night.

  “If your breathing changed, it was agreed I should send for the doctor. We thought our mutual watch the best procedure as neither of us wished to alarm the household.

  “I left you alone for a while as I had other business to attend to.”

  Henrietta wondered miserably if he meant, by that, Romany Foss.

  “But then,” went on the Duke, “I returned and have been here ever since.”

  “I m-must thank you for your d-dutiful attention,” stammered Henrietta.

  His gaze swept once again over her prone figure.

  “It was rather more than duty that held me here,” he confessed.

  His gaze fell and lingered on her hand where it lay idly on the satin quilt.

  His features were suddenly consumed with such a look of ardent hunger that, even to her, his next question came as no surprise.

  “May I take your hand?” he asked eagerly.

  Henrietta threw a fearful look towards Nanny in her chair, but the old lady did not stir.

  “If you so w-wish, Your Grace,” she murmured.

  The Duke gave a rueful smile.

  “A little while ago you called me Joe,” he reminded her. He lifted her hand and was turning it over and over in his as if marvelling at its composition.

  “It is so pale so translucent the veins so near the surface,” he said softly.

  Sighing he brought it to his lips lips that trembled as they pressed against her palm.

  Henrietta drew in her breath.

  What did the Duke mean by such an intimate act as this? He was not like all the others who had courted her.

  He could have no interest in her fortune, for he had no idea she possessed one. Furthermore, he was already wealthy in his own right.

  It was reckless of the Duke they were not alone in the room he had a fiancée it was reckless and wrong and yet and yet Henrietta could not condemn him.

  As he clasped her palm to his lips a second time she felt strangely heady, as if champagne bubbles were dancing through her veins.

  Her lips parted as she gave an involuntary moan.

  She felt him tense at the sound.

  His breath hovered on her palm a second longer and then he let go of her hand.

  She glanced perplexedly up at him. His features had tightened and his voice conveyed a mocking tone.

  “I wonder,” he murmured, “if this is the real you?” Henrietta, brought cruelly back from her moment of

  self-abandon, repressed a sob.

  “The r-real me?”

  “Come now,” he laughed. “With all the powder and paint removed by your companion’s ministrations, I might add you do look again like the girl I met in the courtyard. Harrietta Reed. I ask again is this the real you?”

  What could Henrietta say? It was too late to reveal her true identity. So she nodded miserably.

  The Duke remained silent, struggling against some instinct not to say the words he was about to say.

  Yet say them he did.

  “Miss Reed has many suitors, I hear,” he muttered.

  “S-she does?”

  The Duke’s eyes had fixed on her lips.

  “Could I but know how many mouths have been venturing there,” he sighed abstractedly.

  Henrietta was appalled. What tales about her were circulating and engendered by whom?

  “You are thinking of Eddie?” she probed.

  “Mr. Bragg! For one, yes,” the Duke snorted.

  “For one?” Henrietta’s voice rose in indignation.

  Nanny shifted in her chair.

  “Hush, hush,” he gestured to Henrietta.

  “How can I hush, Y-Your Grace, when you impugn me in such a manner?”

  The Duke clenched his hand and then relaxed it.

  “Forgive me. It’s just that it troubles me that I am so torn. I do not know who or what to believe regarding your nature. There is so much I wish to learn about you.”

  “There is nothing of i-interest to learn. I have been in America for some years w-working with the o-orchestra and am now returning to to ”

  “To seek your fortune perhaps?” he suggested drily. “A husband, an estate?”

  Tears stung Henrietta’s eyes.

  First the Duke was kissing her palm, then he was insulting her! He obviously struggled with his interest in mere Harrietta Reed, finding such interest demeaning to his status.

  “I d-don’t need a fortune!” she blurted out. “I have my own.”

  A shadow crossed the Duke’s forehead.

  “Not garnered from playing the piano, I’ll warrant.”

  “W-what do you mean?”

  The Duke shrugged and turned away from the bed.

  She sat upright to look for her dressing gown and saw with misgiving that it was draped over a nearby chaise.

  Glancing at the Duke, she slipped her feet out from under the covers and felt for the steps by her bed.

  He turned back and saw her, poised there on the top step, as if trapped in the flare from his eyes.

  Her shift was thin and could not disguise the lithe curves of her body, the outline of her breasts, the thrust of her hips. Her hair fell in a blonde sweep to her waist and her colour was high under the Duke’s roving scrutiny.

  “What do you seek?” he asked, his lips twitching.

  “M-my dressing gown,” she pointed.

  He fetched her gown and held it open before her.

  “Put out your arms,” he ordered and reached across her and helped her slip her left arm into its sleeve. Then he reached a hand behind, drawing her gown along her back so that her right arm could find the other sleeve.

  The Duke’s face was so close to her own that their breaths mingled. For an instant his lips came tantalisingly close to hers. Then he seemed to admonish himself, for he drew suddenly back.

  “There. You are respectably garbed. For once.”

  Stung, she watched the Duke move to the window and stoop to pick up the green dress and lay it over a chair.

  “Y-Your Grace?”

  “Yes?”

  “H-how did you know I was in the maze?”

  The Duke’s features softened as he remembered.

  “I heard your sobs from afar. I was worried when you fell silent.”

  “And how were you able to find me? Do you know the intricacies of the maze so well?”

  “I had not been in the maze since I was a boy. But was led to you by this.”

  He drew from his pocket a portion of black flounce.

  “I used the torn pieces to prevent me going over my tracks,” explained Henrietta.

  “Most ingenious.”

  He ran it through his fingers as he surveyed her.

  “Tell me, Miss Reed, where will you be lodging in London?”

  “I d-don’t know. We have not yet decided.”

  “Surely Mr. Bragg has seen to it that lodgings are secured for his players?”

  Henrietta did not know what to say to this.

  “There is no relationship between Mr. Bragg and me,” she responded at last, “that would make it incumbent upon him to be responsible for my welfare.”

  The Duke’s eyes flashed.

  “In that case, Miss Reed, allow me to put at your disposal a house of mine in Bloomsbury.”

  “A h-house of yours?” Henrietta was taken aback.

  “It is not the largest of my properties, but I am sure it will suit you. Until you can find something of your own. I am often in London and will be able to visit you.”

  Henrietta’s eyes widened.

  “You would visit there w-with Miss Foss?”

  “Miss Foss?�
� the Duke exploded. “Why on earth would I bring Miss Foss?”

  How much more might have been discovered there and then would never be known, for at that moment Nanny started up from her chair and stared dazedly about her.

  “What is happening? Henrietta?”

  Henrietta’s heart leapt into her mouth. Nanny had called out her real name! Had the Duke noticed?

  She could not be sure and must despatch him from the room before Nanny could reveal any other details.

  She hurried over to Nanny.

  “Y-yes, Your Grace, thank you, that would be most convenient for us,” she cried over her shoulder. “Perhaps we can discuss it later, for now I must tend to Mrs. Poody

  her heart is not good.”

  “My apologies,” the Duke murmured and moved to the door and as he opened it, he turned to glance back.

  “I will anticipate our next encounter with pleasure,” he bowed and then he was gone.

  Nanny regarded Henrietta with a puzzled frown.

  “What was that you said about my heart?”

  “Oh, Nanny, it was nothing, nothing.”

  Henrietta kissed her on the cheek and then flung her arms about her, as if to reassure herself that there was one fixed point in her increasingly turbulent universe.

  “You seem to have recovered at any rate,” muttered Nanny, pleased at this affectionate attention.

  Henrietta did not feel recovered at all. She felt full of a strange fever, her thoughts tumbling in her head, her blood roused in her veins.

  There was no doubting the source of this sickness.

  It lay in the Duke’s gaze, his touch, his attention, though of all these were illicit.

  Henrietta felt a sob rise in her throat.

  With every fibre of her being she longed to feel the Duke’s lips again on her all too ardent flesh.

  *

  It seemed an endless night.

  Henrietta tossed and turned under the quilt, finally throwing it from her.

  The chimes of the distant clock sounded. Each note struck in tandem with a beat of her heart.

  One, two, three the Duke had left her soon after three four. Four o’clock.

  Her head throbbed and her throat was parched.

  She fell back, clutching the damp sheets to her. A moment ago she was too hot. Now she felt chill.

  “N-Nanny,” she moaned out and then as her senses started to swim, “J-Joe.”