The Disgraceful Duke Read online

  She had to stoop to get through the window and did so with care so as not to hurt the baby.

  It had ceased crying and was only whimpering as if it was hungry.

  It was easy to walk on the roof and Shimona moved towards the parapet, realising that the light, which made it easy for her to see her way, came from the fire in the downstairs rooms of the main part of the house.

  The flames were crackling ominously even as she reached the parapet, which was about a foot high.

  She looked down into the garden below and saw the household congregated on the lawn.

  They also saw her, because, although Shimona could not hear what they said, she could hear their raised voices and she saw several hands pointing in her direction.

  The flames were hot and she moved further along the building until she reached the end of it.

  ‘Now they have seen me,’ she told herself, ‘it should be easy for someone to find a long ladder so that I can climb down into the garden.’

  She turned and gave a frightened gasp as she realised what a hold the flames had by now on the house.

  From where she was standing, she could see them belching out like crimson tongues from the lower windows and the smoke was rising in a black cloud high above the roof.

  ‘It is a good thing I saved the baby,’ she told herself. ‘It would have had no chance of surviving.’

  She looked down below and saw through the smoke that there were men running in the garden towards where she was standing and she thought that she could discern a ladder in their hands.

  Then to her consternation she was aware that the flames were not only widespread in the main part of the house but were now appearing at the side of the wing she was standing on.

  ‘This wing also must have caught fire,’ she thought and felt fear beginning to flicker inside her almost like the tongues of fire that were consuming the house.

  Again she looked over the edge of the parapet.

  The smoke made it difficult to see what was happening, but as yet there was no sign of any rescue party.

  She looked back again towards the flames and then with a leap of her heart she saw a figure coming towards her from the open window and knew who it was.

  The Duke came to her side and she saw that his white cravat was singed and there were dirty marks on his face.

  “Why did you not do as I told you – ” he began and then he saw the baby in her arms.

  “They – forgot the – baby,” Shimona answered automatically.

  But her heart was singing with happiness because he had come for her and she was no longer afraid.

  He looked down into her eyes and then he put his arms round her and held her as close to him as he could without hurting the baby in her arms.

  “How could you do anything so absurdly brave?” he asked. “I heard a woman crying about losing her baby, but I did not realise that it was in the house.”

  “It is – quite safe,” Shimona said a little incoherently.

  It was difficult to speak because the Duke’s arms and the closeness of him made her feel that nothing else was of any importance except the fact that they were together again and there was no longer a barrier between them.

  She felt the Duke’s lips on her forehead and then he went to the side of the balustrade to shout,

  “Hurry up with the ladder!”

  As he spoke, Shimona saw the tongues of fire rising above the parapet only a few yards from them.

  The Duke must have seen it too for he turned back and began to take off his evening coat.

  “It’s not going to be easy,” he said, “because you have to hold the baby, but I want you to do exactly as I tell you and not be afraid.”

  “You are with – me,” she whispered, “that is all that – matters.”

  He had taken off his coat and now he made her put her arms into the sleeves and because she was so small they covered her hands. Then he pulled the rest of the coat high up over her shoulders so that it was over her head.

  He covered the baby’s face with the blanket and said,

  “Keep your head down and on no account look up. Just trust me to guide you.”

  As he spoke, he pulled her backwards to the edge of the parapet, then he lifted her in his arms and stepped onto the ladder.

  He was holding Shimona close against him so that he covered her back, one arm encircled her waist, the other held onto the side of the ladder. Her head was bent until she could see nothing and was in complete darkness.

  They went down very slowly and now Shimona could hear the roar of the flames, the crash of falling masonry and she knew that if the Duke had not been holding her she would have been desperately afraid.

  Then step by step by step, they went lower and lower, until suddenly the Duke released her, other arms took hold of her and someone lifted the baby from her arms.

  She tried to pull back the coat from over her face, but she was being carried away from the noise of the fire and, when finally she managed to see what was happening, she was blinded by the glare of it.

  The flames, now out of control, were leaping higher and higher and she saw the ladder on which they must have descended collapse at the same time as the roof of the building fell in.

  She saw Alister’s face through the smoke and realised that he had carried her away.

  “The – Duke – ” she murmured. “Where – is – the Duke?”

  “He will be all right,” Alister replied. “I am going to carry you to a place where you will be out of danger.”

  “The Duke – must have – been – burnt!” Shimona insisted.

  “They are improvising a stretcher for him,” Alister answered. “He will be following us.”

  Shimona tried to content herself with this information but, as Alister carried her across the garden and a little way down the drive, she could think of nothing but the flames leaping over the falling ladder.

  She knew that, as the Duke had guided her down, having given her his coat, he had protected her with his own body.

  Alister carried her in through an open door and set her down on the floor in a small front room, which was neatly furnished.

  “This is your first guest, Mrs. Saunders,” he said to a middle-aged woman who was arrayed in a red flannel dressing gown.

  “I’ll look after her, Mr. McCraig,” the woman replied.

  “They are bringing His Grace here as well, Mrs. Saunders. I am afraid that he has been burnt in the fire and he will need the use of your best bedroom.”

  “It’s all ready, sir,” Mrs. Saunders answered. “My husband was certain you’d wish to use the house as soon as we hears the fire had broken out.”

  “A lot of people will have to be accommodated,” Alister said, “but if you will look after His Grace and this lady, then that is all I will ask of you.”

  “I’ll do my best, you knows that, sir,” Mrs. Saunders answered.

  Alister turned to Shimona.

  “You are all right?”

  “I am all right,” she replied. “Please – find out – what has happened to the Duke.”

  Even as she spoke, she heard the sound of men’s feet and a moment later she saw four men carrying a narrow gate on which they had laid the Duke.

  Shimona looked at him and gave a cry of sheer horror.

  He was lying face downwards and his back was bare while only the tattered remnants of his fine lawn shirt remained on his wrists and round his neck. The whole of his back had been burnt raw.

  “Take His Grace upstairs!” Alister commanded.

  With great difficulty the men negotiated the narrow stairway up to the landing while Mrs. Saunders had gone ahead to open the door of the front room.

  “We need a doctor,” Shimona cried out.

  “I know that,” Alister answered, “but he lives at least six miles away and I am told he will not come out at night.”

  Shimona for the first time felt panic-stricken.

  She did not need to be told how ser
iously injured the Duke was. Then to her relief she saw Nanna coming through the doorway.

  She put out both hands towards her.

  “Oh, Nanna. His Grace is terribly burnt. What can we do about it?”

  It was a child crying for help and Nanna automatically responded.

  “We’ll look after him, Miss Shimona. Don’t you worry.”

  Then she went up the stairs and Shimona followed her.

  As she reached the top, she heard Alister say,

  “I will be back later.”

  Then he was gone and a moment later the men who had carried the Duke upstairs passed her on the small landing and left the house.

  The Duke was lying on his face in the centre of a big double bed that seemed almost to fill the room.

  Mrs. Saunders was staring at his back.

  In the light from the candles she had lit it was even more horrifying than it had seemed in the dim light downstairs.

  “It’ll kill His Grace,” she said after a moment. “There’s naught they can do for burns as bad as those!”

  “Something has to be done!” Shimona answered fiercely.

  Then she gave a sudden cry.

  “Nanna, do you remember when you scalded your foot what Mama used to heal it?”

  “Honey,” Nanna replied. “But that was a small burn, nothing like this!”

  “Mama always said that honey should be used on burns – and all wounds!” Shimona said. “And it will stop the pain.”

  “That’s true,” Nanna agreed, “the pain will be unbearable if His Grace recovers consciousness.”

  “If – ?” Shimona whispered beneath her breath.

  Then she said to Mrs. Saunders,

  “Have you any honey in the house?”

  “Indeed I have, miss. We keeps our own bees and my larder’s full to bursting with the good crop we had this summer.”

  “Then please fetch it up here.”

  “And bring us some of your old sheets,” Nanna added. “I’m sure anything we destroy His Grace will replace.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Mrs. Saunders answered. “You’re very welcome to all I have.”

  The two women left the bedroom and Shimona stood looking down at the Duke’s body.

  It seemed impossible that any man could be so badly burnt and be still alive and she knew that the pain he had endured as he carried her to safety protecting her with his own body must have been intolerable.

  ‘How could he have done that for – me?’ she asked herself and felt the tears gather in her eyes.

  She brushed them away and for the next hour she worked with Nanna to cover the whole of the Duke’s body with a thick layer of honey.

  They poured it over his raw skinless back and then they bandaged him with the sheets, which Mrs. Saunders tore into strips.

  They had also to bandage his arms and the backs of his legs where his silk stockings had been burnt away to leave nothing but skinless flesh.

  Only his face and his hands were unmarked as they discovered when they turned him over, and his thick satin evening-breeches had protected him from waist to knee.

  “He gave me – his coat,” Shimona said miserably after they had been working for some time.

  “I know, dearie, I saw what he did,” Nanna answered. “He’s a good man, whatever they may say about him.”

  When the Duke was bandaged so that he looked like a cocoon, Nanna sent Shimona from the room while she and Mrs. Saunders cut his breeches away and put him between the sheets.

  It was only then that Shimona felt the reaction of what she had passed through sweep her like a tidal wave.

  When Nanna came to find her, she was sitting on the floor of the landing outside the Duke’s room fast asleep.

  Shimona did not even stir when she was put to bed in a small room at the back of the house.

  She did not wake until Nanna came to call her in the morning looking her usual self in one of her own dresses, which had somehow miraculously been saved from the fire.

  The moment she was awake, Shimona sat up in bed to ask,

  “His Grace? How is he?”

  “He has not regained consciousness,” Nanna answered. “And, as Mr. McCraig tells us they are expectin’ the doctor sometime this morning’, I thought you would wish to get up and tell him that we can nurse him and need no interference.”

  If Shimona had not been so worried, she would have smiled.

  She knew that Nanna disliked all doctors with the exception of Doctor Lesley and had complete faith in the potions that her mother had prepared over the years.

  She realised too that, if Nanna had taken the Duke under her wing, she would not have to fight to stay and look after him as she intended to do.

  There was, however, one urgent question that mattered more than anything else.

  “He will – live, Nanna?” she asked desperately. “Will we be able to – save him?”

  “With God’s help, we will,” Nanna replied.

  *

  The following days seemed to pass almost in a dream.

  It was difficult for Shimona to think of anything or even to remember to eat and drink in her anxiety about the Duke.

  When finally he regained consciousness, Nanna gave him one of the herbal draughts she had prepared and he went to sleep again.

  “The longer he’s not aware of what’s happened, the better!” she said when Shimona questioned her. “I’m doin’ what your mother would have done and that’ll prove to be right.”

  Shimona was sure this was true, but it was difficult not to be desperately anxious and she found it hard to think of anything but the man she loved – the man who had saved her life.

  Ten days after the fire had taken place Alister asked to see her and she left the Duke’s bedside to go down to the small front room where he was waiting.

  He had called every day, having accepted the responsibility that the situation demanded, to find out how the Duke was and she learnt that he had been very busy taking charge of everything in his great-uncle’s absence.

  He was being, Shimona thought, surprisingly efficient – in fact he seemed a different person.

  She had heard from Nanna after the first night that everyone had been housed in the farm cottages and that quite a number of the valuable pictures and pieces of furniture in the house had been saved.

  Even her own gowns, which had been shut in a heavy wardrobe, had only been slightly scorched and were wearable.

  But most of the rooms in the main part of the house had been damaged and the wing from which she had been rescued had been completely gutted.

  The fire had started, Shimona learnt, because one of the menservants, who had drunk more than the rest, had overturned an oil lamp.

  None of the others had been in a fit state to put out the fire until it was out of control.

  “Mr. McCraig’s sacked the agent – and not before time,” Nanna told her.

  “Sacked Mr. Reynolds?” Shimona questioned.

  “It was his fault in lettin’ the household staff get out of hand.”

  Three days after the fire Shimona had learnt that Captain Graham had come from London to supervise everything.

  The Duke’s valet, Harris, who was housed in a nearby cottage, was always there if they needed him and Captain Graham made no changes where their lodging was concerned except to improve the menu.

  Luxuries appeared that were well beyond the cooking capabilities of Mrs. Saunders.

  The outrider whom the Duke had spoken of as being an excellent cook was now in charge of the small kitchen.

  The chef, like most of the other servants who had been at Melton Paddocks, had been dismissed.

  “A clean sweep was what was wanted,” Nanna said with satisfaction.

  Alister was waiting for Shimona when she went into the sitting room and she saw by the expression on his face that he had something grave to impart.

  “What is it?” she asked apprehensively.

  “I know you will be s
orry, Shimona,” he replied, “but my great-uncle died last night.”

  “Oh, no!” Shimona exclaimed in consternation.

  “As you know he had a slight heart attack after we got him away from the fire,” Alister explained. “He seemed to get better and talked of going North in a day or so. But last night he must have had another attack and, when his valet called him this morning, he was dead.”

  “I am sorry – so very sorry.”

  “So am I,” Alister said in all sincerity.

  He hesitated for a moment and then he said,

  “You will understand that I have to take his body North. He would not wish to be buried anywhere except among our own people.”

  “Of course,” Shimona murmured.

  “I will leave Captain Graham in charge,” Alister went on, “but there is something I want to ask of you.”

  “What is it?” Shimona asked.

  Alister seemed to feel for words and then he said abruptly,

  “When this is all over – will you marry me, Shimona?”

  Shimona stared at him in astonishment, thinking that she could not have heard him correctly.

  “M-marry you?” she replied. “But I thought – ”

  “So did I,” he answered. “I knew that Kitty had been married before, but she had told me that her husband had died in prison. It was not true.”

  Shimona found it difficult to say anything and he went on,

  “When he read what had happened in the newspapers and it was reported that I was heir to The McCraig, the man came to see me and asked for twenty thousand pounds to disappear and not to make any future claims upon his wife!”

  “What – did you – answer him?” Shimona managed to say.

  “I told him that I would settle twenty thousand pounds on Kitty, who could then resume their relationship if she wished to do so.”

  “So you are – free.”

  “I am free,” he said. “But I know that my great-uncle was right when he said you were exactly the right sort of wife for the Chieftain of the Clan McCraig.”

  He paused before he added a little self-consciously,

  “I have also fallen in love with you.”

  “I am very honoured that your great-uncle should have said such kind things about me,” Shimona said softly, “and that you should think the same. But I know you will understand when I say that I could not marry any man I did not – love.”