A Shaft of Sunlight Read online

  If Lucien had not been there, she thought, she would have been brave enough to ask him if anything was wrong.

  But there had really been no opportunity and after the Duke had joined them in the garden they had immediately walked back to the house where he had made his farewells to his grandmother.

  “Shall we see you tomorrow?” the Duchess had asked.

  “I have no idea,” the Duke replied in a cold voice that made Giona look at him in surprise.

  “Well, Giona and I will be waiting eagerly for your return whenever it may be,” the Duchess replied. “I hoped you would have luncheon with us.”

  “I will think about it.”

  The Duke kissed his grandmother’s cheek in a perfunctory fashion and walked towards the door.

  He had not spoken to Giona, but she followed him into the hall and looked at him pleadingly as he took his tall hat from one of the servants and he threw his evening-cape over his arm.

  She could not help remembering how he had loaned it to her to enter the village inn pretending to be his sister, and she thought if he was not in such a strange mood she would have been able to make him laugh about it.

  He was, however, moving to the front door while she said wistfully,

  “Good-night Your Grace.”

  He did not look at her, he did not turn his head. He merely replied,

  “Goodnight!” as if he was speaking from the icy reaches of the North Pole.

  “Goodnight, and thank you!” Lucien said.

  She wondered if he would have said more, but as if he realised he was keeping his Guardian waiting he hurried after him to jump into the closed carriage.

  They drove away and Giona watching until the carriage was out of sight, felt as if it carried her heart with it.

  It was not until several hours later in the darkness of her bedroom that she admitted to herself she loved the Duke.

  “I love him! I love him!” she whispered into her pillow and knew it was like looking at the moon, or because to her the Duke was Apollo, the sun.

  “He saved me – he brought me hope and gave me a new life. How could I ask for – anything more?” she whispered to herself.

  But she knew in fact that she wanted a great deal more from him. She wanted him as a man, she wanted him to approve of her, to admire her, and most of all to love her!

  She asked herself how she could be so absurd or indeed so presumptuous and yet the answer was very obvious.

  Nobody could control love and she was aware it was only because she was so ignorant about it that she had not known the moment she saw him that he had taken her heart from her and it was no longer her own.

  “I love – him! I love – him!”

  There seemed to be nothing else to say and she tossed and turned until the stars outside faded and the first golden fingers of the dawn crept up the sky.

  It was only then she fell asleep with the word ‘love’ still on her lips.

  *

  Giona awoke early and was dressed long before it was possible for her to go to the Duchess’s room.

  Because the Duchess had been a beauty she could not bear anybody to see her until she had powdered and rouged her face and her lady’s maid had arranged her hair.

  Only then with the windows open, flowers scenting her room, and looking elegant against the lace trimmed pillows was the Duchess prepared to see any members of her household who wished to consult her, and of course Giona.

  “It is a lovely day?” the Dowager said when Giona reached her bedside. “I hope that when my grandson visits us he may take you driving.”

  “I would love that!” Giona exclaimed, “but perhaps he has more important things to do.”

  “I doubt it,” the Duchess said firmly, “but I wish now I had suggested it to him yesterday afternoon. You have been cooped up here long enough, and it would be quite safe for you to drive around parts of the estate where you are not likely to be seen.”

  Giona gave a little sigh.

  “There are so many things I want to talk about to His Grace.”

  There was something so wistful in the way she spoke that the Duchess said quickly,

  “I am sure he will realise that and will join us for luncheon. Tell Agnes I want to get up so that I shall be ready for when he comes.”

  The Duchess noticed the eager way in which Giona ran across the bedroom to find her lady’s maid and she thought there was no doubt the child was in love with her grandson.

  It was something she had hoped would not happen because she was well aware of the Duke’s reputation for loving and leaving the women who pursued him.

  But last night she had changed her mind.

  The Duchess had had too many love affairs of her own not to recognise the signs when a man was jealous.

  She was quite certain that the reason why the Duke had walked so purposefully into the garden and had come back with a frown between his eyes, behaving in a manner which showed he was keeping himself strictly under control, was that his feelings towards Giona were not only those of compassion.

  The Duchess thought that any other girl of Giona’s age would be too young for an experienced, sophisticated man of twenty-nine, but she had not been with her these past weeks without learning how intelligent she was.

  What was more, travelling all over the world had given her a very different outlook from that of the girls who had seen nothing but their schoolrooms before they were pitch forked into Society.

  “Giona does not think about herself,” the Duchess thought, “but about nations, peoples, politics and religion, and those are the subjects that will keep a man interested eventually rather than a pretty face.”

  At the same time, the Duchess was apprehensive.

  Nobody knew better than she did how unpredictable her grandson could be, and who indeed could know for certain whether what he was feeling was love or merely boredom?

  He had made Giona his responsibility, but her apparent interest in a younger and very handsome man might make him decide abruptly that she no longer interested him or had any claim on him.

  Then the Duchess told herself she was sure that was not true.

  “I shall just have to wait and see,” she said with a little sigh as her lady’s maid came hurrying into the bedroom to help her rise and dress.

  Knowing it would be some time before the Duchess appeared, Giona walked downstairs wondering what she should do with herself.

  She knew what she really wanted, because she was so eager to see the Duke again, was to watch for the appearance of his horses in the drive.

  “Please, God, let him come soon!” she prayed.

  It was perhaps a very trivial thing to pray for, and yet she knew it came from her heart with an intensity she could not control.

  “Come soon! Come soon!”

  She felt as if every step she took on the stairs repeated the words, that they flew towards him on wings and he would be aware how much she needed him.

  Then just before she reached the bottom of the stairs she heard the sound of wheels and thought with a leap of her heart that her prayer was already answered and the Duke was there.

  Then she saw old Simpson move very slowly on his rheumaticky feet towards the open door and a man’s voice said,

  “Tell Miss Stamford Oi be wantin’ to speak wi’ er.”

  “Miss Stamford!” Simpson exclaimed in surprise. “There’s no-one here of that name.”

  “Aye, there be,” the man said. “Oi means the young lady as be a-stayin’ ‘ere.”

  “Miss Andreas? Is that who you’re referring to?” Simpson enquired.

  “Tha’s right. Tell ‘er t’come to the door.”

  When Giona had heard the man ask for her she had stood still and was now standing on the bottom step of the stairs and holding onto the banisters.

  She thought with a sudden contraction of her heart that something was wrong.

  Then it flashed into her mind that only one person would call her by her rightful name and t
hat was her uncle.

  Wildly she thought she must hide, but as she was about to turn and run back up the stairs Simpson looked in her direction aware that she was there, and the man to whom he was talking saw her too.

  “Tha’ be ‘er!” he said in a voice that seemed to ring out.

  Before Giona could move, before she could turn round and run up the stairs he had stepped into the hall and picked her up in his arms.

  She gave a scream of terror, but before she could protest or realise what was happening he had run down the steps with her and lifting her up bundled her onto the seat of a High-Perch Phaeton.

  As she gave another scream of sheer fright and terror she realised who was driving the horses and felt her voice die against her lips.

  “Tie her in, Jake!” Sir Jarvis said harshly, and the man fastened a thick leather strap round her waist that held her imprisoned to the back of the seat.

  Then he stepped back and swung himself up into the seat behind as Sir Jarvis whipped up his horses and they were off.

  “What – are you – doing? Where are you – taking me?” Giona tried to gasp, but her voice was incoherent.

  Her uncle turned his eyes from the horses he was driving to look at her and she thought the expression on his face was the most terrifying and evil thing she had ever seen.

  “I am taking you back where you belong,” he said, “and I will make sure that you not only never escape again, but regret having made any attempt to do so!”

  “Y – you have – no right to do this to me – ” Giona tried to say.

  “I have every right,” Sir Jarvis replied grimly. “I am your Guardian and you will certainly cease to talk of ‘rights’ by the time I have finished with you!”

  There was something so ominous in the way he spoke that Giona felt almost as if he drained away her life from her and already she was dying as she had been when the Duke had rescued her.

  She wondered how her uncle could have discovered where she was, and what the Duke would do when he found she had gone and if she would ever see him again.

  She knew Sir Jarvis did not speak lightly when he told her he would make sure she would be unable to escape another time, and she knew without him putting it into words what treatment would be awaiting her at Stamford Towers.

  As if he was aware of what she was thinking he said,

  “Just as you are strapped into this Phaeton beside me, so in future I will see that you are chained to the wall of your room. You will be treated like a prisoner, Giona, and you will receive the same punishment as any felon or criminal, for that is what you are.”

  Giona shut her eyes.

  The way her uncle spoke made her feel she was already enduring the whiplashes she would undoubtedly receive later, and she only hoped that if he intended to kill her, as she was sure he did, he would do so quickly.

  Then to her surprise she realised Sir Jarvis was slowing his horses.

  She opened her eyes and saw that they were in a narrow lane where the branches of the trees met overhead.

  It was like a tunnel except that the sunshine was percolating through the leaves making a pattern of gold, which she would have thought beautiful if she had not been so terrified.

  “Is this the right place, Jake?” Sir Jarvis asked the man who was sitting behind him.

  As he spoke another man appeared from the bushes beside the road and as she looked at him Giona saw that he was exceptionally burly and thickset.

  There was something about him, which made her think of a prize-fighter, and she was sure that was what he was.

  A moment later the man who had been sitting behind them joined him.

  Giona stared at them in terror and knew that her first supposition was right.

  They were pugilists, and because neither of them was wearing a coat she could see their muscles bulging beneath their cotton shirts, which they wore with a handkerchief round their necks.

  “Give me a hand with the horses,” Sir Jarvis said sharply.

  The man called Jake did as he was told and pulled the horses across so that the Phaeton now blocked the lane completely.

  When this had been done to Sir Jarvis’s satisfaction the horses put down their heads and started to crop the grass, which to Giona’s surprise he allowed them to do.

  Then he thrust his left hand, which was nearest to her, into the pocket of the riding-coat he wore.

  She had been too frightened to look at him until now, and she realised it was a tiered caped coat in which she had seen him before, but she wondered why he needed it as it was a warm day.

  As his hand went into the pocket he appeared to be testing something and with a frightened stab of her heart she was sure it was a pistol.

  Then he took the reins in his left hand and drew from the other pocket of his coat a second pistol, which he looked at to see that it was cocked before he held it on his knee.

  “What – are you doing? What are you – waiting for?” Giona asked.

  She thought her uncle would not answer her question, but he replied,

  “I thought you would like, my dear niece, to see me destroy the man who has taken it upon himself, doubtless at your instigation, to menace my security.”

  Giona gave a little gasp and he went on,

  “This of course, is something I cannot allow, and so as you have interfered and aroused his curiosity you will watch him die!”

  “W – what are you talking about? What are you saying?” Giona asked frantically.

  “You know what I am saying,” Sir Jarvis said. “It will of course be very unfortunate that the most noble Duke – such a handsome man – should have been set upon by Highwaymen – such an unscrupulous lot – and left for dead on his own land.”

  The way he spoke made Giona give a scream of sheer terror.

  “How can you consider such a – thing? How can you want to kill anybody – least of all the Duke?”

  “If he dies it will upset you and that is why, you tiresome little bastard, I have brought you here to witness his death!”

  “How can you do such a thing? And it was not – true what you – told me! Papa and Mama were married! I have seen the record of it!”

  Giona almost shouted the words at him and once again Sir Jarvis looked at her with an expression of such loathing that she shrank away from him as far as the strap around her waist would allow her to do.

  “So the inquisitive Duke has found that out? That is another reason for me to exterminate him, just as I intend later to exterminate you!”

  “You are mad!” Giona gasped, “but if I must die – please do not kill him! He was – only being kind and helpful.”

  “Very kind and very helpful!” Sir Jarvis mocked, “and anxious, I understand, to bring me to justice, which is something I have no intention of allowing.”

  “Talk to him – beg him to – spare you,” Giona pleaded, “but please do not kill him.”

  “Because you are obviously besotted with the man,” Sir Jarvis said, “I know now I was right in thinking that it would perturb you to watch his execution. And what could be more appropriate than that you should be wearing the finery that he has obviously paid for while you do so?”

  His eyes travelled over her gown, then came back to her face to say,

  “You obviously wish to look your best for the Duke, but let me tell you something, before he appears, if you scream or make any attempt to warn him, I will smash this pistol into your face so that in the future no man will look at you except in horror!”

  He saw the terror in Giona’s eyes and added,

  “A broken nose and no teeth are not attractive! No, Giona, you will be silent.”

  “Please, please – ” Giona began, wanting desperately to plead not for herself but for the Duke.

  Then Jake, looking up the road ahead of him, exclaimed,

  “Oi finks he be a-comin’, Guv!”

  “Then do exactly as I told you,” Sir Jarvis ordered.

  Giona saw the other man draw a pi
stol out of the pocket of his coat.

  Giona held her breath.

  She could hear as distinctly as Jake had the sounds of horses’ hoofs in the distance, until round the corner a little way ahead of them she saw first a pair of perfectly matched horses and a second later the man who was driving them.

  There was no mistaking the angle at which the Duke wore his riding-hat or the breadth of his shoulders in his tight-fitting, whipcord grey jacket.

  He must have seen them as soon as they saw him for he began to draw in his horses.

  Then as they drew nearer Giona saw that Hibbert was sitting beside him and wondered frantically what she should do.

  She knew that her uncle had not spoken idly when he had said he would smash her face with his pistol. But she told herself that was immaterial if she could save the Duke’s life.

  She was sure there was not a remote possibility that while driving on his own estate he would be carrying a pistol with him.

  Having broken her nose and teeth as her uncle had threatened he would still shoot and kill an unarmed man.

  “What shall I do? What shall I – do?” Giona asked herself frantically and could only watch with terrified eyes the Duke coming nearer and nearer.

  As he finally brought his horses to a standstill he saw Sir Jarvis waiting for him and also Giona.

  “Good morning, Your Grace!” Sir Jarvis said mockingly.

  “I imagine you are waiting to speak to me,” the Duke replied. “Do you intend that we shall shout at each other, or shall we alight and talk in a more civilised manner?”

  “As you have somebody to hold your reins,” Sir Jarvis replied, “and I do not wish to trust my niece with my horses, I suggest you come to me.”

  As her uncle spoke Giona realised that Jake must have hidden himself, and though she wanted to cry out that the Duke must not alight she could not for the moment see what she would gain by doing so.

  The Duke handed Hibbert the reins and as he alighted, the second prize-fighter came from behind the bushes with his pistol in his hand pointing it at the Valet.

  Then so swiftly that it made Giona catch her breath Jake rushed at the Duke and attempted to strike at him.