The Odious Duke Read online

  Travers drew his breath.

  “That was certainly conclusive,” the Duke commented.

  “You’d have thought so, sir,” Travers said. “But owin’ to the horses having to rest seein’ they had just returned from London, the Captain had to stay for two more days and he made the most of the opportunity!”

  “What do you mean,” the Duke enquired.

  “The Master had as good as told the Captain that Miss Verena was an heiress, hadn’t he? He’d always ignored her before as if, bein’ little more than a child she was of no interest to him. But now he sets out to captivate her. There was another pause before he battled on,

  “All charm and graces, Captain Giles was to Miss Verena. She was hypnotised by him as if he were one of them phoney snake charmers that used to hang about the Barracks and make us pay to watch their tricks.”

  There was a frown between the Duke’s eyes as Travers continued,

  “It fair made me sick, sir, I don’t mind tellin’ you, to see a cheap charlatan hoodwinkin’ a lovely young lady like Miss Verena with tales of his bravery. From the way he talked you’d have thought he’d fought Boney single-handed!”

  “Miss Verena was fascinated by him, I suppose,” the Duke said in a low voice as if he spoke to himself.

  “But, of course, she were,” Travers replied. “She’ll come back from London, sir, havin’ not enjoyed herself half as much as she had expected. The Master did his best, but he is old and the lady we stayed with were gettin’ on in years. “Miss Verena met no one young who she could enjoy herself with and, although I knows nothin’ of such matters, sir, it seemed to me that the gowns her Governess bought her in Biggleswade made her appear a bit of a dowd.”

  Travers shook his head.

  “Now Miss Verena has developed tastes of her own and very pretty she looks, but in those days she was naught but a child and I think she were a trifle cast down as if she had not been a success.”

  “I am sure you are right, Travers,” the Duke said.

  “Then, sir, almost as soon as we returns, Captain Giles arrives and manoeuvres himself into a position of advantage, so to speak. I could see it all happenin’ before my very eyes. The compliments he paid her and the way he kisses her hand goodnight, pulls her chair out, opens the door and helps her on with her coat, all the things he’d not troubled to do on previous occasions, but which Miss Verena had never known from any other gentleman.”

  Travers dropped his voice.

  “‘You’re entrancin’, Verena,’ I hears him sayin’ to her. ‘When I am bivouacking on a windy plain or in the hot darkness of an Indian night, I shall think of your eyes and all my discomforts will be of no consequence for I shall only remember you’.”

  Travers gave a disdainful snort.

  “That be just the sort of stuff young females fall for, sir, specially when they’ve not heard it all afore.”

  “I will take your word for it, Travers,” the Duke said with a faint smile.

  “Before the Captain left I learns, sir, exactly how he had tied things up. When I calls him on the mornin’ of the day he was leavin’, he says to me, ‘Travers, when the General dies, I wish you to get in touch with me immediately. My Club will always find me. You must send a message to me there so that I can post here with all speed to look after Miss Verena’.

  ‘I daresay that the Master had already made proper arrangements, sir,’ I replied. ‘Perhaps he will be appointin’ a Guardian or such like should Miss Verena not be of age’.”

  Another pause before Travers started again,

  “‘There’s no need for you to trouble your head with such matters, my man,’ the Captain says to me, all lofty-like. ‘I shall be Miss Verena’s Guardian for, as soon as the General is dead, we will be married. Though don’t you go tittle-tattlin’ to him, Travers, as it is none of your business. And if you were to do such a thing, I would see that you were turned out without a pension’.”

  Travers snorted again.

  “There were a lot I could have said to him, sir, but I’ve learnt after bein’ with the Master so long that nothin’ is ever gained through speakin’ back to a superior Officer whatever Regiment he might be in. So I says polite-like, ‘at which Club would you wish me to address you, sir? The United Services Club,’ he replied, ‘and send the message post-haste, do you understand’?”

  The Duke looked disapproving of his Club and Travers went on,

  “I thought, of course, that the Captain would slip me a coin for my pains, which I half-intended to refuse to accept, but not a bit of it! Off he goes with his cheque for two thousand pounds from the Master and a lot of smarmy affectionate farewells for Miss Verena. ‘I shall be thinking of you day and night,’ I hears him say, ‘until we meet again’.”

  “I am somewhat surprised at Miss Verena agreeing to deceive her grandfather,” the Duke observed.

  “In a way she did nothing of the sort,” Travers answered. “Because she’s always been so open, that very night I hears her say to the Master,

  “‘Grandfather, Giles said he will look after me if anything happens to you’. ‘I am quite certain that he would be willing to do so,’ the Master replied sarcastically. ‘But you will oblige me, Verena, by having nothing to do with that young man! He is a bad lot, just as his father was a bad lot before him. And his mother had no right at all to add my name to his. Winchcombe-Smythe indeed! Smythe is what he is called and snide is what he is by nature’!”

  Travers sighed and continued,

  “‘I like him, Grandpapa,’ Miss Verena then says bravely.

  “‘Then you can just unlike him,’ the General shouted. ‘He will not enter this house again, do you understand?’

  “‘Yes, Grandpapa,’ she answers.”

  “Was that all?” the Duke asked as Travers stopped speaking.

  “The General was never that clever with women,” Travers remarked sadly. “An exceptional Commander, as you well know, sir, a martinet expectin’ to be obeyed whatever he asked of his troops and a man one was proud to serve. But, where very young females were concerned, he were as lunk-headed as a ploughboy!”

  Travers sighed again.

  “If the Master had had more experience, sir, he’d have asked Miss Verena to give him her word of honour to have nothin’ more to do with Captain Giles. And because she loves him I believes she would have kept it. But no, the Master just abuses the Captain and orders her to forget him and you knows just as well as I do, sir, if there’s one thing that makes a female partial to a man it’s to think that he be hard done by!”

  “That is true enough,” the Duke agreed.

  “So there we are,” Travers exclaimed, “with Captain Giles waitin’ to hear of the Master’s death and Miss Verena spendin’ her time trainin’ herself to be a soldier’s wife.”

  The Duke was to be well aware that this was the truth because later in the afternoon when Verena poured out his tea, she asked his help.

  “I am very determined not to be a complete ignoramus if it comes to another war,” she told him. “Travers has shown me how to peg down a tent, how to cook on an open fire with the type of utensils used in field kitchens. But there must be other useful things I can learn. What do you suggest, Major?”

  “I suggest you stay at home,” the Duke replied.

  “That is the sort of remark you would make!” she said scornfully. “Giles has much more fire and enthusiasm than you. Did I tell you what the Duke of Wellington said to him after the Battle of Waterloo?”

  “Several times,” the Duke said tartly.

  “Well, then you shall hear it again,” Verena said defiantly. “He said, ‘Captain, if I had a few more young men like you under my command this battle would have been over yesterday’.”

  The Duke, who did not believe a word of it, asked sourly,

  “And who, may I ask, related this to you?”

  “Giles, of course.”

  Then she paused.

  “I know what you are thinking!” she said ac
cusingly. “You think that he was boasting because he told me about it. But I don’t believe that any man could receive such a glowing compliment and not wish to tell it to someone he has an affection for. As Giles himself said to me, ‘I would rather have heard that than received fifty decorations’.”

  “You have seen his medals, of course,” the Duke quizzed her.

  Verena shook her head.

  “Giles was not wearing uniform when he came here. But, oh, how I would love to see him in his red tunic. He must look magnificent!”

  “I am sure he does,” the Duke remarked coldly.

  “He is not quite as tall as you, Major” Verena went on, “but, do you know, I have never asked you what Regiment you were in?”

  “The Life Guards,” the Duke replied.

  “The Regiment the Duke of Wellington led himself at Waterloo!” Verena exclaimed. “I might have known, having seen Salamanca, you could not bear to go to war without your horses, could you?”

  “I should certainly feel very lost without them,” the Duke answered.

  “If I was rich,” she said with a wistful look in her eyes, “I should buy horses! Horses and more horses. I would have an enormous stable and then I would not want friends or a husband or children or anything else. Just horses! They love you for yourself and they know instinctively that you love them.”

  “I can see that any man who captures your fancy will have to look like a horse,” the Duke remarked.

  She gave a gurgle pf amusement.

  “Perhaps he will be a centaur!”

  The Duke laughed and then Verena commented,

  “But people do resemble animals. I really wish you could see Lord Upminster. He looks exactly like a large porker ready for market!”

  “Of what animal do I remind you?” the Duke asked her curiously.

  She considered for a moment and then she responded,

  “But, of course, it is not at all difficult where you are concerned. Napoleon called the Duke of Wellington ‘The Leopard’. Grandpapa said he meant it as an insult, But ‘The Leopard’ and those close to him who were called ‘Leopards’ destroyed the ‘Victorious Eagles’!”

  “Indeed we did,” the Duke said, remembering the jokes there had been about Napoleon’s sneering disparagement of the hideous Leopard.

  “I thought when the gardeners carried you here on the gate,” Verena went on, “that you looked like a Roman gladiator who had lost his fight in the Colosseum. But now I know that you are a Leopard, like the Iron Duke. Tenacious, unconquerable and triumphant!”

  “Thank you,” the Duke, answered. “I would far rather be a Leopard than any other animal, I can assure you!”

  “And what am I?” Verena enquired.

  “A small, irritating and extremely noisy mosquito,” the Duke replied to her instantly,

  “How can you be so horrid? For that you shall only have gruel for supper. I will go now and countermand the very succulent dishes cook is preparing for you.”

  “I apologise, I do really,” the Duke .answered. “But it is impossible not to tease you.”

  “Then what am I like?” she asked.

  “I really don’t know. At times you spit at me like a tiger cat, but at other times you are almost endearing, like the little red squirrel I used to have as a child. It would sit on my shoulders and snatch at the nuts that I offered him.”

  “I think I would rather be a songbird,” Verena suggested.

  “No resemblance. Shall I tell you instead that, when I first met you, I thought you were like an elf! Those supernatural little creatures who hide in trunks of old trees, peep at one through the thick branches and leave rings on the green lawns where they have danced the night away!”

  He realised as he stopped speaking that Verena was looking at him with an incredulous expression in her eyes.

  “So you know about elves,” she commented softly.

  “I was a lonely child,” he explained. “My sister was older than me and I imagined many things until they beat them out of me at school.”

  “What sort of things?” Verena asked intently.

  He knew that he had intrigued her and for the first time they had found a closeness quite different to the frank friendly relationship that they had enjoyed since they met.

  “Elves in the woods,” he replied, “goblins burrowing inside the hills and mountains, nymphs and sprites in the streams and waterfalls and then dangerous frightening dragons hidden among the pine trees!”

  As the Duke spoke, he thought about Harry Sheraton and mocked at himself. Then Verena’s voice, breathless with wonder, made him forget everything but the two gold-specked eyes.

  “Dragons,” she repeated, her voice thrilling with excitement. “So you believed in them too! I thought that there was no one else who would understand.”

  “And, of course, I was the Knight in Shining Armour,” the Duke said, “who killed the dragons!”

  “And the goblins helped you?”

  “They showed me the way. I hid in their tunnels inside the hills and they left messages for me under the ancient trees and by the side of the enchanted stream.”

  “And the birds warned you when the dragons were abroad,” Verena cried. “I never dreamt – I never knew there was a man in the whole wide world who knew of such secret things!”

  “It must have been because you were aware of these mysteries too,” the Duke said, “that I thought you were like an elf.”

  “Oh, I so wish with all my heart that I really was an elf,” Verena replied passionately, “and that I could bring you some very special magic that you have never known before.”

  There was silence for a moment and then, almost beneath his breath, the Duke murmured,

  “Perhaps you have ‒ ”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Duke was awake for a considerable part of the night worrying over Verena, trying to decide how he could induce her to go to London, at the same time wondering whether it was really wise for her to do so.

  It was, although he did not realise it, the first time he had ever been seriously concerned about someone else’s difficulties that did not directly affect his own comfort or contentment.

  He awoke in the morning to find himself irritated by the knowledge that he still had no solution to the problem.

  Fate, however, was to make the decision for him!

  Having told Travers the night before that he would get up early the next morning and come downstairs, the servant arrived with a jug of hot shaving water as soon as the Duke had finished breakfast.

  Having shaved the Duke in a most competent way, he then assisted His Grace to dress.

  The Duke was ready and glad at finding himself clear-headed and with a deal more energy than on the previous day when Verena knocked on the door.

  “How are you?” she asked when the Duke had ordered her to enter.

  She stood inside the room, inspecting him with a critical eye before she exclaimed,

  “You look better! You do really and there is so much I want to show you in the house and grounds. I am well aware also that you are longing to see Salamanca.”

  Travers had left the room as she spoke and the Duke, standing in the sunshine by the window, watched her move towards him, noting that her simple sprigged muslin gown revealed the slim perfection of her young body and how the sunshine was somehow reflected in her eyes.

  “What does it feel like,” she asked as she reached his side, “to be going back into the world again?”

  “It is a strange feeling,” the Duke answered seriously. “For seven days I have been isolated in this room. It has been a little world in itself. It was almost like being in a small ship on the wide ocean with yesterday behind me and tomorrow somewhere over the horizon.”

  “Have you been very bored?” Verena asked.

  “You know I have not,” he answered in his deep voice.

  There was something in his eyes that made her turn her face towards the window.

  “Salamanca is waiti
ng for you,” she said rapidly. “Would you like Travers to help you down the stairs or will you lean on me?”

  “I assure you I can manage quite competently by myself.”

  “You must be careful. Remember that the doctor has said you must not do too much too quickly.”

  The Duke had no time to answer because at that moment Travers appeared in the doorway.

  “Miss Verena, come quickly!” he cried with a note of urgency.

  Without question Verena turned, ran from the room and the Duke heard her speeding down the passage to her grandfather’s bedchamber.

  He waited and knew instinctively what had occurred.

  In less than five minutes Verena came back.

  There was no need for the Duke, seeing the stricken expression in her eyes and the pallor of her cheeks, to be told what had happened.

  Then, almost as if she moved without conscious thought, compelled by some instinct stronger than her own will, she walked towards him and like a child seeking consolation hid her face against his shoulder.

  The Duke’s arms went around her.

  He held her close without speaking and knew that she was not aware of him as a man but just as a source of comfort.

  As he smelt the sweet fresh fragrance of her hair, he was conscious that above all else he wanted to protect her.

  She had turned to him in her distress and he knew that if it was in his power he asked only that he could stand between her and anything that might disturb and frighten her.

  Verena was trembling, but he could perceive that she was fighting valiantly to stop the tears that her grandfather despised.

  After some time she said in a low broken voice,

  “I was expecting it, but – somehow it is so – final.”

  “It always is,” the Duke commented gently.

  “He would not have wished to linger as he was,” Verena said almost beneath her breath. “He wanted to die like a soldier.”

  The Duke’s arms still enfolded her, but she now moved a little and he set her free.

  She walked to the window to stand staring out into the garden.

  “I must be brave,” she whispered almost to herself.