72. The Impetuous Duchess Read online

  Mrs. Dangerfield produced an elegant gossamer-thin silk chemise exquisitely embroidered and trimmed with lace.

  Then she opened the doors of a huge wardrobe that stood at one end of the room and revealed a multitudinous collection of gowns all in beautiful colours that seemed as alluring as a rainbow.

  “I’m afraid her Ladyship is slightly larger than you in the waist, ma’am,” Mrs. Dangerfield said, “but I can easily stitch you into the gown for the evening and, once I’ve your measurements, I can alter something for you to wear on the morrow.”

  “I do hope her Ladyship will not mind,” Jabina said anxiously.

  “Her Ladyship’ll be only too glad to be of help, ma’am and I know that both she and Sir Geoffrey will be longing to hear of yours and His Grace’s adventures.”

  Mrs. Dangerfield gave a little snort and added,

  “It’s the only good thing I’ve ever heard of them smugglers. A real menace they are in the neighbourhood, giving us all a bad name.”

  Jabina wanted to laugh at the indignation on Mrs. Dangerfield’s face.

  Then she realised that to live side by side with the smugglers with their nefarious goings-on might indeed be very unpleasant.

  “We could not have reached home without them,” she said gently.

  “Then we must be grateful to them, ma’am,” Mrs. Dangerfield answered. “Now what colour gown would you wish to wear for dinner?”

  It was very hard to choose from so many and they were all so lovely.

  Jabina was interested to see that, while the new fashion she had discovered in Paris had not reached Scotland, Lady Minster’s gowns were all high-waisted and very nearly, if not quite, as transparent as those that were the vogue amongst the French ladies.

  Finally she chose a white dress that reminded her of the beautiful evening gown she had had to leave behind in Paris.

  It was heartbreaking to think she would never wear the silver-threaded gauze again with its silver ribbons that she had danced with the Duke in.

  Lady Minster’s gown was, however, nearly as attractive.

  It was embroidered with tiny bunches of pearls and the ribbons which crossed over the bodice and held the waist so high were also covered in pearls.

  There were three rows of deep lace at the hem and what was almost an apology for sleeves was also made of lace.

  “It’s very becoming on you, ma’am,” Mrs. Dangerfield said with a note of sincerity in her voice.

  She made the waist at least two inches tighter and then she arranged Jabina’s hair almost as skilfully as the French coiffeur had done.

  “How clever of you to know the very latest vogue from Paris!” Jabina exclaimed.

  “We’re not behind the times in England,” Mrs. Dangerfield replied reprovingly, “in fact I’ve always believed, ma’am, that it’s the English Ladies of Quality who create the fashions and not the wife of that monster and murderer!”

  Jabina knew that Bonaparte had been depicted for years as an ogre who would not be above turning cannibal if it suited him!

  She repressed a desire to say that she had found France very sophisticated and civilised, knowing that Mrs. Dangerfield would not understand.

  ‘People believe what they want to believe,’ Jabina told herself and almost instantly her thoughts went back to the Duke.

  He wanted to believe in austerity! He wanted the quiet uneventful life he had chosen for himself.

  She was quite certain that what they had experienced these last days would not change him.

  The Vicomte had said that this was her opportunity to help him, but she had failed.

  She had known it, she thought, when he had introduced her on their arrival not as his wife as he might have done, but just as someone he was travelling with.

  She had been the Duchess of Warminster in Scotland and his sister, Lady Jabina Minster, on the yacht and in France, his wife again – Maria Boucher. But now she was only ‘a lady’ anonymous, nobody of any consequence.

  She felt with despair that Fate had treated her harshly.

  She had really had no opportunity to make him love her. She had not had the chance of changing him as the Vicomte had suggested she should do and which she might have succeeded in accomplishing had they stayed on in Paris.

  She thought of all the things she had wanted to do, to see and to learn.

  The Duke had enjoyed that day at Chantilly when he had shown her the Prince’s garden and the treasures kept in the Benedictine Abbey.

  She was sure that he would have liked explaining to her the pictures in the Louvre, the treasures in the Trivoli and the esoteric beauty of Notre Dame.

  But she knew that what she wanted above all things was to dance with him again.

  She remembered how well he had danced and how there had seemed to be a new light in his eyes as they waltzed under the lanterns to the noisy band in the dance garden.

  He had seemed much younger at that moment and then she had been stupid enough to spoil the evening by lying to him about the Frenchmen who, she said, had tried to kiss her.

  She had known that the Duke hated her to exaggerate, yet she had done so simply because she was piqued by his indifference to her appearance. And in doing so she had swept away the mood that made him seem so different and had incensed him.

  ‘I must be very careful tonight,’ Jabina told herself.

  When finally she was ready, she took a last look in the mirror and thought how very different she appeared from the untidy badly dressed girl who had thrust herself upon the Duke in Scotland.

  Would he appreciate the fact that she was more sophisticated, more poised and, she hoped, more attractive?

  She waited for the answer in her imagination, but it was not very encouraging.

  Very slowly she descended the oak-carved staircase, crossed the hall with its Elizabethan-panelled walls and open medieval fireplace.

  A footman opened the door and she passed through it into a beautiful salon with long windows opening into a garden.

  The walls were hung with pictures and chandeliers glittering with tapers illuminated the gilt framed furniture upholstered in pale turquoise blue.

  But Jabina had eyes only for the Duke, who was standing at the far end of the room against the mantelshelf.

  He turned as she entered and once again she saw him as he had appeared in Paris.

  His clothes might be borrowed from his cousin, but they certainly made him appear as elegant and fashionable as he had looked for one brief evening after he had cast aside his austere black.

  His cravat was dazzlingly white against his face tanned from the sun and the sea winds and the points of his collar were high above his chin.

  The blue satin evening coat he was wearing seemed to accentuate the colour of his eyes and the pale champagne-coloured pantaloons fitted him to perfection.

  “Oh, I did hope to see you looking like that again!” Jabina exclaimed irrepressibly.

  The Duke smiled and taking her hand raised it to his lips.

  “May I also congratulate you on your change of wardrobe?” he answered.

  “Your cousin and his wife have been very generous in their absence,” Jabina said.

  “As they would have been had they been here,” the Duke answered. “You are rested?”

  “I slept for nearly nine hours!” Jabina confessed.

  “I too slept well,” the Duke said, “and now I am so hungry I could eat anything and anywhere! But I am grateful that we neither have to cook nor serve it ourselves!”

  Jabina laughed, but before she could reply Bateman announced that dinner was served.

  The meal was delicious and the Duke sampled every dish that was offered to him.

  Jabina, however, found that, after having eaten, a certain amount of anxiety that she was feeling and the fact that this was an exquisite pleasure in being alone with the Duke, took away her appetite.

  It was difficult to talk intimately with the servants and the butler in the room.

&nb
sp; So the Duke discussed with her the menace of the smugglers who carried gold to Napoleon and told her tales of the gangs that were so ferocious that the villagers and even the Revenue Officers themselves were afraid of them.

  He also outlined the measures the Government would have to take to suppress the trade that damaged the country’s economy.

  Jabina listened intently.

  At the same time she knew that always at the back of her mind there were only personal problems.

  While she longed to listen to the Duke and give him her wholehearted concentration, she could not help wondering all the time whether this was the last dinner they would eat alone together and what he would decide to do the following day.

  The dessert was cleared from the table and Bateman poured out a glass of port for the Duke.

  “You don’t wish me to leave you?” Jabina asked anxiously. “I know it’s correct.”

  “I have a better solution to the problem,” the Duke said with a smile. “I will bring my port into the salon where we can sit and talk.”

  “I’ll carry it there for Your Grace,” Bateman offered solicitously.

  He placed the decanter and glass on a salver and followed them down the passage to the salon.

  The curtains had been drawn while they were at dinner with the exception of one window that opened onto the terrace outside.

  There was the fragrance of roses from the garden and Jabina could see that the stars were coming out in the darkness of the sky.

  She remembered how last night they had lit their way along the river to where they had found the smugglers’ boat.

  Bateman handed the Duke his glass of port, set the decanter on a side-table and then left the salon, closing the door behind him.

  The Duke standing with his back to the fireplace looked at Jabina, but she found it impossible to meet his eyes.

  “I think that now we should talk about ourselves,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “Yes – we – must!”

  Then, as if she could not bear what he had to say, she walked to the open window to gaze out into the darkening garden.

  She had the feeling that this was the end!

  This was the moment she had been dreading not only today and yesterday but every moment since she had left Scotland.

  In fact ever since the Duke had saved her from the drunken Scot and taken her under his protection.

  She felt as if a stone lay heavy in her breast as she waited, knowing that what he had to say to her now would seem like a death knell, a sentence that would destroy her happiness and against which she would have no appeal.

  She had an almost insane impulse to run away, not to hear him speak, but to go out into the darkness of the garden and vanish.

  Then she knew that she had to listen and that this was the end of everything she had hoped for and longed for, of everything that she had prayed in her heart might change him so that he would care for her a little.

  “I am waiting to talk to you, Jabina,” the Duke said. “It’s difficult to have a conversation with the back of someone’s head!”

  As if his words stung her into action, Jabina turned round.

  For one moment she looked at him standing so elegantly, so fashionable and so handsome on the hearthrug.

  Then without thinking she ran towards him impetuously.

  “Please – please – ” she cried, “don’t – send me away! Let me stay with you – I will not be a nuisance – no one will know who I am – I can be a – housemaid or something – only let me stay.”

  She saw an expression in the Duke’s eyes that she did not understand.

  Then, as she felt that he was about to refuse her request, she turned quickly away so that he would not see the tears that flooded her eyes and walked back towards the window.

  She stood fighting against the tempest that threatened to break her control and leave her sobbing hysterically at his feet.

  Then she heard his voice just behind her and she had not realised that he had moved.

  “My ridiculous, impetuous, adorable little wife,” he said in a voice she had never heard before. “Do you really think you would make a good housemaid?”

  He turned her round to face him.

  But, as she tried to see him through the tears that stung her eyes, he swept her crushingly into his arms, holding her so tightly that she could not breathe and then his lips were on hers.

  For a moment Jabina was too surprised to feel anything.

  Then something wild and exciting leapt within her and seemed to consume her so that she felt her whole body melt into his.

  Her lips clung to his and she knew an ecstasy and rapture such as she did not imagine one could experience and not die of the wonder of it.

  He raised his mouth from hers and, because she was so bemused, she stammered incoherently,

  “I-I did not – know y-you could kiss like – t-that.”

  “But I can!” the Duke answered and he was kissing her again, demandingly, possessively, passionately.

  The world seemed to circle round Jabina and the ground was no longer solid beneath her feet.

  ‘The Vicomte was right,’ she thought. ‘The fire was only dampened down and now it has burst into flame.’

  Then the Duke’s kisses were a wonder that swept away all thought of herself and she was a part of him and he of her and they were one.

  *

  Downstairs the grandfather clock in the hall struck two. In the big comfortable bed a soft voice asked,

  “When did you first know that you loved me?”

  The Duke drew her a little closer.

  “I fell in love,” he answered, “with a very small cold foot and a tear that splashed on my hand as I was warming it.”

  “My foot!” Jabina exclaimed. “I had hoped that you would say it was my beautiful face!”

  The Duke gave a little laugh.

  “Your face is fascinating, entrancing and altogether irresistible, my darling, but not really beautiful.”

  “O-O-Oh!” Jabina exclaimed. “Say that again! I never thought that you could say such marvellous things to me!”

  “I love you,” the Duke said. “Oh my precious, my darling little love, I adore you.”

  Jabina thrilled to the deep note in his voice, it was like waves of quicksilver rippling through her body.

  “I love you – too,” she whispered.

  “Am I too old?”

  “No. You are exactly the right age!”

  “Am I dull and boring?”

  “You are the most exciting, adventurous and fascinating man in the whole world.”

  She gave a deep sigh of happiness.

  “When I think that you – killed a man for me I can hardly believe it!”

  “I only hope I don’t have to kill a number of others,” the Duke replied. “I shall be an exceedingly jealous husband, my naughty one!”

  “But I am going to be a very good and perfect wife, exactly as you want me to be,” Jabina protested.

  The Duke laughed.

  “I very much doubt it! At the same time I shall make you behave because we have so many things to do together.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “There is work for me to do in the House of Lords,” the Duke answered, “and I believe too that I can be of service to the War Office. And we must keep our promise.”

  “What promise?” Jabina enquired.

  “To help the Royalists. I think we owe them that.”

  “But, of course,” Jabina said. “Can we really help them?”

  “We can try,” the Duke replied, “and we will both of us work in every way we can to rid the world of Napoleon Bonaparte.”

  “It is all so exciting, so perfect,” Jabina murmured. “I was so desperately afraid that you would send me away.”

  “I was afraid you might wish to leave me,” the Duke said.

  “How could you imagine that? I wanted to be with you every second after I knew I was in love with you. I love
you so madly it has been agony to think that you did not care for me.”

  “We will never be unsure of each other again,” the Duke said firmly.

  He felt her body quiver against him and turned towards her.

  “Tell me again that you love me,” he commanded masterfully.

  “I love you – wildly – completely – with all of me.”

  He kissed her forehead, her eyes and the top of her little nose.

  “Have you – ever – loved anyone – more than me?” she asked.

  “I know now that I have never loved anyone before! You have crept into my heart my darling and I can never ever be free of you.”

  His hand was touching her and the breath came quickly between her parted lips.

  “You – excite me – ” she whispered.

  “I want to excite you.”

  “It is – wonderful! And I know now how – marvellous it is when two people are in – bed together and they – love each other.”

  “I told you it was nice,” the Duke said.

  “Nice!” Jabina exclaimed scornfully. “It is glorious! Miraculous! Divine! It’s like flying to the moon and holding all the stars in one’s arms.”

  She paused to ask a little humbly,

  “Am I – exaggerating?”

  “No, my precious, that describes it exactly,” the Duke answered.

  Then his lips possessed her and there was only a fire rising within them both and the wonder of the stars.

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