The Disgraceful Duke Read online

  “I have arranged for Glencairn’s Attorney to attend us after dinner, Ravenstone,” he said. “I hope that will not be inconvenient?”

  “No, of course not, sir,” the Duke replied.

  “I sent him a draft of my intentions this morning, which I asked him to translate into legal language. All I will have to do is to sign the documents. It would be a help if you would witness my signature.”

  “I am at your service,” the Duke replied.

  The McCraig looked at Shimona.

  “I think, my dear,” he said, “you will be pleased with my arrangements!”

  “I am sure – I shall,” Shimona answered.

  “I am leaving to you personally my wife’s jewellery,” The McCraig went on. “I think you will find the sapphires, which are unique, will become you, but then so will all the jewels.”

  “B-but – please – I cannot – ” Shimona began frantically and then she saw the Duke frown and the words died away on her lips.

  She knew that The McCraig would think it very strange if she refused to accept the gift he offered her.

  Then she thought quickly that, of course, the jewellery would be bequeathed in the name of Katherine McCraig, Alister’s real wife.

  “It is very – kind of you, sir,” she managed to stammer to The McCraig.

  “I can think of no one I would rather own it than yourself.”

  Shimona drew in her breath.

  The pretence and deception were far harder to bear than she had anticipated and she was thankful when they could move into the dining room where the conversation in front of the servants was of other subjects.

  The Attorney, who looked exactly like a caricature of his profession, Shimona thought, arrived with his black bag containing the documents and a number of large white quill pens with which they could be signed.

  They sat around a table in what Shimona learnt was the breakfast room and the Attorney read aloud in a dry crisp voice the long legal document that he had prepared on The McCraig’s instructions.

  Although he was very long-winded about it, the disposition of the money was quite clear and straightforward.

  Alister McCraig was to receive one hundred thousand pounds for his immediate use and he was, on his great-uncle’s death, to inherit his entire fortune and any personal effects that were not already entailed onto the Chieftain.

  The value of the whole amounted to a very large sum and Shimona thought that, after he had heard the contents of the will, Alister McCraig seemed to walk taller and to have a pride and a presence that had not been there before.

  She remembered how the Duke had said that Alister’s father had quarrelled with The McCraig and she thought that it was unfair that he should have suffered through a disagreement that was not of his making.

  It had not only left him poor, but maybe also with a sense of inferiority.

  Perhaps it was for that reason that he had married Kitty Varden, she thought perceptively, as an act of defiance because he wished to assert himself.

  She was sure, despite the fact that he was somewhat insignificant, that Alister McCraig was at heart a nice human being.

  The Attorney’s voice seemed still to rasp in their ears after he had left.

  The Duke had insisted on them all drinking a glass of champagne to celebrate what he said was a special occasion and they wished The McCraig a safe journey home.

  “I am going to insist that you both come to see me in the spring,” The McCraig said to Shimona and Alister. “If it had been possible, I would have liked to take you back with me now.”

  Alister parted his lips to protest, but The McCraig went on,

  “I know you will have many other commitments. But next spring I shall not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

  “It is something we will both look forward to,” Alister said.

  “And so shall I,” The McCraig replied with his eyes on Shimona.

  She smiled at him, hoping that she would not have to lie again, feeling that every word of deception she uttered seemed to stick in her throat.

  It was still early, but The McCraig wished to retire to bed and, although Shimona hoped that there would be some excuse for her to talk to the Duke alone, they all moved in a body across the hall and seemed to expect her to follow The McCraig up the staircase.

  It may have been her imagination, but Shimona fancied that the Duke did not look at her, as he bowed in return to her curtsey.

  She went to her bedroom where Nanna was waiting.

  “You should not have waited up, Nanna,” she exclaimed. “You must be tired and, as you well know, I am quite capable of putting myself to bed.”

  “If other servants don’t know the right way to behave – I do! ”Nanna answered.

  “What has upset you now?”

  “I told you this is a bad house and that’s what it is!” Nanna retorted. “The menservants were drinking too much below stairs – disgusting I call it I – and the maidservants from all I hear are no better than they ought to be!”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “It’s not somethin’ I should be repeatin’ to you, Miss Shimona, but you might as well know what sort of place you be in.”

  Shimona was well aware that this was all a thinly disguised attack upon the Duke and, because she was quite certain that Nanna would have her say whatever she replied. she asked a little wearily,

  “What has happened?”

  “I can hardly believe it, Miss Shimona,” Nanna replied, “but on the floor above us there is at this moment a baby that had no right to be born into the world.”

  “A baby?” Shimona enquired. “How do you know?”

  “The Head Housemaid told me about it,” Nanna said. “Not that she knows her place. She wouldn’t be accepted in any household I’ve worked in.”

  “What did she tell you?” Shimona asked.

  “That one of the kitchen maids, little more than a child she is, gave birth to a baby three days ago.”

  “Here in the house?”

  “Upstairs, as I’ve just said.”

  “Do they know who the father is?”

  Shimona was almost afraid of the answer.

  “Apparently one of the grooms,” Nanna replied. “A married man with a wife and three children, so he’s not prepared to stand by her.”

  “Poor girl!” Shimona murmured.

  “Poor girl indeed!” Nanna exclaimed. “And what do you expect with such an example from those who should know better?”

  Shimona did not need to ask what Nanna meant, knowing she was determined to have her say.

  “There’s parties that take place in this house, Miss Shimona, when the Duke comes here for the huntin’, that I would not soil your ears by repeatin’. I was told about them downstairs and they were enough to make any decent person’s hair stand right up on end!”

  “I do not think it is any of our business, Nanna.”

  “I should hope not!” Nanna retorted. “As I’ve already said, Miss Shimona, a bad Master means bad servants, for there’s always fools ready to follow those who set a bad example.”

  There was no use in arguing, Shimona thought.

  When at last Nanna had left her, still muttering to herself and she was alone, she could not help feeling sorry for the girl upstairs who had given birth to an illegitimate baby.

  Had she perhaps been wildly in love with the man she had given herself to? Had she thought that nothing mattered save the feelings that they had for each other?

  And if she was young, had she been aware of what the probable consequences of such an action might be?

  She remembered how she had said to the Duke that the circles from a stone thrown into a pond would cast ripples outwards indefinitely.

  Was it really the example of the Duke that had caused his kitchen maid to produce an illegitimate child?

  How could they have known when they tried to save Alister McCraig from the consequences of an uncomfortable marriage that she would be left all the j
ewellery that had belonged to The McCraig’s wife?

  One thing led to another and it was so easy for people to be hurt or even destroyed by a wrong action.

  Shimona remembered that she had not said her prayers and, because she was still unhappy about the strange barrier between her and the Duke, she prayed that he might find happiness.

  ‘Make him happy, God,’ she prayed. ‘Let him clear himself of all that is wrong and wicked, and please, whatever sins he has committed, do not let there be any ill consequences from them.’

  She prayed for him from the very depths of her soul, thinking that one unavoidable consequence was that she loved him.

  For good or bad, whatever happened in the future, she would love him and go on loving him all her life.

  It was a love, she was sure with an inescapable conviction, that would defy time and she would never be free of it.

  She had known that, even when she thought she would never see the Duke again, and now she had snatched one more day with him.

  He had said when he came to her home that he would never let her go, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that he had changed his mind.

  It was nothing he had put into words, she just knew it instinctively, as she knew that her whole being reached out towards him.

  She longed for him and for the closeness they had known when he had held her in his arms in Ravenstone House.

  There they had been one and Shimona thought despairingly that perhaps never again would she know the rapture and wonder of feeling that they were part of the Divine, which he had given her.

  “I love him!” she whispered into her pillow.

  Then irresistibly and unmistakably she knew what she wanted and, although she knew it was something she should not say, she prayed aloud,

  “Oh, God, make him love me enough to want to – marry me!”

  *

  It had been a tiring day and Shimona drifted away into a dreamless slumber.

  She awoke suddenly to feel she was still travelling, the wheels were still rumbling beneath her and there was the soft sway of the phaeton and the jingle of the harness.

  Then she opened her eyes and remembered where she was.

  The fire had died down, but the coals were still glowing and she could see the outline of the bed against them.

  Everything seemed very quiet, but she felt as if something had disturbed her.

  ‘I am being imaginative,’ she told herself, and yet she found herself listening.

  What she expected to hear she had no idea, she just listened.

  She could hear nothing but the sound of her own heart.

  ‘I must go to sleep,’ she thought.

  Even if the McCraig left for Scotland tomorrow, the Duke had promised at dinner that he would take her and Alister to see his horses, which meant they would not return to London until the following day.

  Shimona felt her heart leap at the thought.

  She would be able to talk to him. There was so much she wanted to know, so much she wanted to learn from him.

  She could ride and well. Her mother had insisted upon that, because she herself had always been an extremely good rider.

  When they could afford, it they had hired the best horses from a livery stable and either rode in the Parks or even sometimes ventured outside the City into the open countryside.

  Shimona thought that she would like the Duke to see her on a horse, for she was sure that he would admire a woman who rode well.

  But never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she would be able to ride anything so superlative as the horses that the Duke owned.

  “Do you own racehorses?” she had asked him at dinner.

  “I have some in training,” he replied, “but I really prefer steeplechasing when I can ride my own animals. I like to do things for myself, not watch other people doing them for me,”

  Alister had laughed.

  “Is that why I never see you at a mill, Uncle Yvell? I believe in fact that you are a rather good pugilist.”

  “I box sometimes at Gentleman Jackson’s rooms,” the Duke answered.

  “And you fence also,” Alister said. “If you are not careful, they will call you a Corinthian.”

  “They have many other more appropriate titles for me,” the Duke said cynically.

  As if he thought it would be a mistake for The McCraig to know too much about the Duke’s reputation, Alister changed the subject.

  But Shimona had heard the bitterness in the Duke’s voice and, because she loved him, she wanted to say something that would make him smile and forget his unpleasant thoughts whatever they were.

  ‘How can he be all the things they say he is?’ she asked herself now. ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe what anyone says.’

  She felt that she wanted to proclaim her faith in him to the world. She wanted to defend the Duke against his enemies. She wanted to hold him in her arms and protect him as if he was a child who was being bullied.

  ‘I suppose that is love,’ she thought. ‘Love that makes me want not only the ecstasy of his loving me but also to mother him, to look after him and save him from anything that could hurt him.’

  She lay in the darkness feeling that her thoughts and prayers were winging their way towards him.

  Then, as she lay there, she was aware of something strange.

  It was not what she heard, although she felt it was what she had been listening for, but something she smelt.

  She lay for some moments to make sure that she was not mistaken and then she knew that it was smoke.

  She jumped out of bed and reached for her winter dressing gown, which Nanna had laid over a chair by the bed.

  It was made of turquoise blue velvet and warmly lined with thick satin. Shimona put it on and slipped her feet into little silver boots lined with fur that she always wore when it was cold.

  She buttoned her dressing gown high at the neck and down the front and, as she did so, she pulled the bell sharply two or three times.

  It must be late she thought, but the bell would ring upstairs and one of the housemaids would hear it.

  Whether they did or not, she must arouse everyone, for now the smell of smoke was stronger than it had been before.

  Even as she turned towards the door Shimona heard a bell begin to ring and the cry, far away, but coming nearer, of, “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  As Shimona reached the door, it was flung open and the Duke stood there.

  He saw Shimona and said quite calmly,

  “The house is on fire. Go downstairs and out into the garden.”

  He did not wait for her answer, but turned to run along the passage and she knew that he was going to warn The McCraig.

  She noticed that he was still wearing his evening clothes and knew it could not be as late as she had thought, as he had obviously not yet gone to bed.

  She moved out onto the landing and looking over the banisters saw a turmoil in the hall where men were moving pictures and furniture out of the sitting rooms.

  Alister also in his evening clothes was directing them through the open front door.

  Shimona was just about to descend the staircase when there was the sound of panic-stricken voices, women were screaming and down the stairs from the top floor came a number of servants.

  The women, who had obviously been aroused from bed, wore shawls or blankets over their nightgowns and they were being propelled down the stairs by the men who were still in their livery.

  “Come on! Get on with you! You’ve got to get out of here!” one of the men was saying roughly.

  Shimona remembered what Nanna had said and thought that he was the worse for drink.

  She stood to one side to let them rush down the stairs. Then she saw that one woman was being carried by a footman and, as she passed, Shimona heard her cry weakly,

  “My – baby! My – baby!”

  No one appeared to hear or to take any notice, but, all down the staircase, Shimona could hear
her crying even above the noise and commotion that the others were making.

  ‘They have left the baby behind!’ she told herself.

  The smoke was not yet very thick, although it was beginning to sting her eyes. She looked up the staircase and saw that it was clear and the fire, wherever it was, was not on the top floor of the building.

  Impulsively, without thinking it might be dangerous, she ran up the stairs to see if she could find the baby who had been left behind.

  Before she reached the top landing, she heard it crying and, as there was an oil lamp outside the bedrooms, it was not difficult to locate which one contained the child.

  She found it lying on the bed and she knew that the servants in their haste to get the mother to safety had overlooked the fact that the baby was lying beside her.

  It was a very small baby and for its size it seemed to make quite an inordinate amount of noise.

  It was wrapped in a shawl and Shimona pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it in that too.

  Then she started back down the stairs.

  She could not move very quickly because she was not only hampered by the child in her arms but also by the fact that her velvet dressing gown reached to the floor and she was unable to lift it.

  When she reached the lower landing, the smoke had become much thicker and, when she tried to move through it, she saw the staircase down to the hall was now in flames.

  For the first time Shimona realised the danger that she was in.

  Now she hurried away along the passage feeling that there must be another staircase that would take her down to the ground floor.

  The smoke seemed to grow thicker and thicker. She groped her way through it and felt cold air on her cheeks.

  A moment later the smoke cleared and she saw in front of her a long window, which was open.

  ‘I must have missed the staircase,’ she thought.

  Looking through the window, she saw that it led out onto a flat roof and realised that the window opened out from the main building onto one of the side wings that she had noticed when she first arrived.

  It seemed to be the obvious move to go out onto the roof rather than brave the thick smoke, which had obscured the staircase she was trying to find.