The Disgraceful Duke Read online

  The Duke laughed.

  “My dear Bardsley, you are barking up the wrong tree! If I wanted to meet an actress for my own needs, I would have no difficulty in meeting her and I certainly would not need you to introduce me!”

  “Then how can I help you?” Beau Bardsley asked in a different tone.

  “It’s a long story, but I will be brief,” the Duke replied. “My sister married a Scotsman by name of McCraig. He is now dead, but my nephew Alister McCraig is very much alive and was married over a year ago to Kitty Varden. You remember Kitty?”

  “Good Lord, of course I do!” Beau Bardsley exclaimed. “But I had no idea that McCraig was your nephew!”

  “I don’t trouble myself with relatives as a rule,” the Duke continued. “In fact they bore me to distraction, but I knew Kitty when she was on the boards. Who did not?”

  He paused as if waiting for confirmation of this and automatically Beau Bardsley answered,

  “As Your Grace says – who did not?”

  “Surprisingly she has made my nephew very happy, but Kitty is still Kitty! Although she may no longer be acting, she still looks very much the same as she did when she sang those bawdy songs that nearly took the roof off!”

  “I remember them well,” Beau remarked dryly.

  “Then you can imagine that with her red hair and her voluptuous bosom, which seems to have grown even more ample in the last two years, she is hardly likely to impress her husband’s great-uncle – The McCraig of McCraig.”

  “I seem to have heard of him,” Beau Bardsley remarked.

  “Some people call him the uncrowned King of Scotland, which is certainly true where his own Clan are concerned, and he is, incidentally, an extremely rich man.”

  Shimona felt her father move restlessly as if he was longing to reach the end of the story.

  “I am sorry to bore you with this,” the Duke remarked, “but the position quite simply is that for years my sister has been trying to make The McCraig take an interest in Alister, as he can leave his own money where he wishes.”

  Shimona thought that by this time her father would be as interested as she was.

  “Go on,” she heard him say.

  “The McCraig, out of the blue, has notified his intention of coming to London. He wishes to see the Prime Minister on Scottish Affairs and he has informed my nephew, Alister, that he would like to meet his wife.”

  The Duke paused for a moment before he went on,

  “There is no doubt that, if he approves of the marriage he will, as my sister has been trying to persuade him to do, make Alister his heir.”

  There was silence before Beau Bardsley said,

  “Speaking frankly, Your Grace, it is hardly likely that he will approve of Kitty.”

  “That is very obvious, not only to you and me, but also to Alister.”

  Again there was a pause before the Duke continued,

  “That is why you are the only person who can help me, Bardsley.”

  “How can I do that?”

  “You can find me an actress who will play the part of my nephew’s wife for two days. That is all I require. Just two days for a woman to act the part of a lady sufficiently well to convince a dour old Scot that she is a suitable wife for his heir.”

  “Are you serious?” Beau Bardsley asked.

  “Completely!” the Duke answered. “I have thought hard about this and it is to my mind the only possible way that Alister can receive a large sum of money and inherit something like half a million when The McCraig dies!”

  “As much as that?”

  “It might be more!”

  “Do you really think he can be deceived by someone acting a part?”

  “Good God, why not?” the Duke exclaimed. “You fellows create an illusion and make people believe anything you want them to. Half the women present in the audience tonight were crying when you died.”

  “It is different behind the footlights,”| Beau Bardsley murmured.

  “An actor’s job is to present an illusion and make it seem real,” the Duke remarked. “Whatever you say or do the audience believes it to be the truth. I am asking for a woman to make a man of eighty believe that she is a decent respectable person. It should not be very hard.”

  “I find it almost impossible to think of anyone who could do that,” Beau Bardsley said.

  “I admit it might not be easy to find someone who looks and sounds right,” the Duke conceded after a moment. “But you are a gentleman, Bardsley, and that is why I came to you. I don’t want the dross showing through the gold too quickly.”

  Beau Bardsley was silent for some seconds before he said,

  For the moment I cannot think of a single soul who could play such a part. There is Judith Page, who rather specialises in Ladies of Quality, but she is too old. Then there is Sylvia Verity.”

  “Good God, not her!” the Duke ejaculated. “One drink and the polish comes off that refined accent!”

  “I know,” Beau Bardsley conceded.

  “There must be someone – perhaps someone new in the theatre,” the Duke persisted. “She does not have to do much, beyond keeping quiet, and I will teach her the few lines that are necessary.”

  Beau Bardsley must have looked at him for he said quickly,

  “Nothing like that, Bardsley, I promise! This is strictly business and, if the girl is pure, then she will leave my house as pure as she came – that I promise you!”

  “Your house?” Beau Bardsley questioned.

  “My nephew is at present staying with me at Ravenstone House in Berkeley Square. I have invited The McCraig to be my guest for the two days he is in London. I will take every care to see that your protégée is not alone with him at any time. Either Alister or myself will be there to bridge any uncomfortable moment and to answer any difficult questions.”

  Beau Bardsley did not speak and the Duke went on,

  “Perhaps I should have mentioned already that I consider a proper fee for this piece of exceptional acting would be five hundred guineas.”

  He laughed.

  “You look surprised, Bardsley.”

  “It is a lot of money, Your Grace.”

  “I am prepared to pay that and any more that is required to ensure that my nephew inherits his great-uncle’s money. As I have already told you, it is worth taking trouble for half a million!”

  “I suppose it might be possible to find someone suitable,” Beau Bardsley conceded. “You know as well as I do, Your Grace, there are thousands who would jump at the chance of earning that sort of money! But they might let you down – it is not worth the risk.”

  “I knew you would be the only person who would understand,” the Duke said. “That is why I have forced myself on you when you made it obvious that you did not wish to talk to me.”

  “I must apologise if I seemed impolite.”

  “Not at all! We all know you return to your house in Chelsea to be with your family who must not be contaminated by people like myself.”

  The Duke spoke with laughter in his voice and he went on,

  “Your obsession for privacy may cause resentment in some quarters, Bardsley, but as far as I am concerned, I admire you for it!”

  “I thank Your Grace.”

  Shimona heard the Duke rise to his feet.

  “If you fail me, Bardsley,” he said, “then I swear I will put you at the top of my long list of enemies!”

  “I only wish you would ask the assistance of somebody else,” Beau Bardsley said.

  “You know the answer to that,” the Duke replied. “There is no one else – no one else who would understand what the hell I am talking about! I want a Lady, Bardsley, and I don’t believe that there is any other actor in this theatre who would know one if they met one.”

  “You are very scathing, Your Grace.”

  “God knows, I don’t intend to be. I suppose I have had more fun in the theatres of London than any other man alive,” the Duke remarked. “Do you remember Perdita? And Rosa Lenin
? And that attractive little creature who screamed the place down when I tried to be rid of her? What was her name?”

  “Betty Wilson!”

  “Yes, of course! Betty Wilson! She even hired men to break the windows of Ravenstone House. I cannot see any of them acting the part, can you? No, Bardsley, you and I know exactly what is required and, as I said before, only you are capable of finding her.”

  “I think it will prove impossible!” Beau Bardsley said slowly.

  “Then I will tell you what I will do,” the Duke said. “I will give the lady – and she had better look like one – five hundred guineas, and there will be another five hundred guineas for you to squander on the rag, tag and bobtail who come to you with stories of their old mothers dying in cold garrets! One thousand guineas, Bardsley! That should make it worth your while.”

  There was no answer and then the Duke added,

  “Send your choice to me at Ravenstone House an hour before noon tomorrow. That should give my nephew and me time to instruct her in the fundamentals of the situation before the old boy arrives for luncheon.”

  The Duke opened the door.

  “One thousand guineas, my dear man! It’s worth thinking about!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Beau Bardsley sank back against the cushions of the hired carriage and closed his eyes.

  His cloak was wrapped over the black velvet suit that he had worn in the last act of the play, but he had removed the make-up from his face and, in the flickering lights from the linkmen’s lanterns, Shimona could see how pale he was.

  They drove for some way in silence, before she enquired tentatively,

  “Will you be – able to do what the Duke – asked?”

  “I should imagine it would be quite impossible to find the sort of woman he requires at such a short notice.”

  Her father’s voice did not sound too exhausted and after a moment Shimona said,

  “We need five hundred guineas, Papa.”

  “I know that, but playing a part off the stage is very different from playing one on it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because actors speak the lines they are given and most of the women in the profession are uneducated and of a doubtful character.”

  There was silence and then, as if he knew what his daughter was thinking, Beau Bardsley said quickly,

  “Not Sarah Siddons, she indeed was different. But it would be much easier to find an actor to look and behave like a gentleman than an actress to play a lady.”

  Again there was silence before Shimona said in a very small voice,

  “We need five hundred guineas, Papa, desperately! I – suppose I could not – play the part for – you?”

  Beau Bardsley was suddenly rigid and it seemed as if he was stunned into silence.

  Then he said,

  “Are you crazy? Do you think for one moment that I would allow you to do such a thing or to go to the house of that man?”

  “I have heard you – speak of the Duke, Papa.”

  “Then you know how disreputable he is and how much I despise him.”

  “But why, Papa? What has he done?”

  “He stands for everything that is lecherous and debauched. Do you know what they call him behind his back?”

  “No, Papa. How should I?”

  “He is known as ‘His Disgrace’ and it is an apt designation.”

  “But Papa, what does he do?”

  “I would not soil your ears with repeating the scandals he has been involved in or the menace he is to women, not only in his own world but also in the theatre and the night-haunts of London.”

  “You mean that he – pursues women?”

  “And they pursue him,” Beau Bardsley answered. “He has more charm in his little finger than most men have in their whole body and he uses it entirely to his own ends.”

  Her father spoke so violently that Shimona looked at him apprehensively in case it should bring on another fit of coughing.

  “I have seen too many of the hearts that Ravenstone has broken,” he went on, “the lives he has disrupted and ruined and the chaos he has caused in one way or another! If you want the truth, I loathe him!”

  “You were polite to him, Papa.”

  “How could I be anything else?” Beau Bardsley asked. “A Nobleman in his position could do me irreparable harm if I chose to make an enemy of him.”

  “How could he do that?” Shimona asked.

  “There is no point in discussing it. I shall have to try to do as he wishes. I only hope to God I can think of some young woman who would be suitable.”

  There was silence until Beau Bardsley said almost savagely,

  “You would think that he could find someone himself. He knows enough women, but, of course, they are not the sort who would deceive anyone.”

  Shimona said no more, but as they journeyed on she began to pray that her father would find the woman the Duke wanted and earn the five hundred guineas.

  With that much money he could go abroad as the doctor wished.

  In the sunshine of Italy she was sure that his cough would go and he would put on weight and be again as strong as she remembered him when she was a child.

  Always then he had seemed full of exciting and irrepressible vitality that made the tempo rise the moment he entered a room.

  “Papa is back, Mama!”

  She could hear her voice screaming with excitement as she ran helter-skelter down the stairs to open the front door before her father could raise his hand to the knocker.

  “Papa! Papa!!

  Her arms would go round his neck and he would lift her off her feet, swinging her around until she was giddy or tickling her until she laughed hysterically.

  Then he had been very unlike the pale-faced man who now crept back to Chelsea every night, often too tired to eat the delicious suppers that Nanna cooked for him.

  ‘He must rest! He must get away!’ Shimona told herself.

  Once again she was praying to her mother for help, feeling that wherever she was in the Heaven she had so fervently believed in, she would somehow contrive to be near the man she had loved with all her heart and soul.

  “You must help us, Mama,” Shimona said beneath her breath. “Papa will die if he goes on like this!”

  Now the carriage had reached Sloane Square and was proceeding down King’s Road.

  ‘As soon as Papa has had something to eat,’ Shimona told herself, ‘he must go to bed. If he means to find the actress that the Duke requires, he will have to be up early to go in search of her.’

  The horses came to a standstill and Shimona put her hand on her father’s arm.

  “We are home, Papa!”

  “Home?”

  It seemed for a moment as if Beau Bardsley was dazed and uncertain of what he was saying. Then with an effort he followed Shimona from the carriage, bending his head to do so.

  It might have been that or the wind whistling round the corner that started him coughing.

  He stood on the pavement doubled up with the paroxysm that shook him once again.

  Nanna, who had been waiting for them, opened the door and, while he was still coughing, they helped Beau Bardsley up the steps and into the small hall.

  The rasping sound he was making seemed to echo round the walls.

  “Let’s get the Master upstairs,” Nanna said to Shimona. “We’ll try to persuade him to go straight to bed, but if he comes down again he’ll wish to change.”

  Shimona put her arm round her father’s waist, but the cabman who had followed them into the house intervened.

  “’Ere, I’ll ’elp ’is Nibs,” he said. “And proud to do it! Me and the Missus have waited many an hour to see ’im on the stage.”

  Beau Bardsley was not coughing so violently now, but he was swaying with exhaustion and it seemed as if he might have fallen to the floor had not Nanna been holding him.

  The cabman moved to his other side and he and Nanna almost literally carried him up the stairs to the fr
ont room.

  It was Shimona’s mother who had insisted that the best room in the house, which should have been her drawing room, should be a bedroom.

  “Papa is home so little,” she had said to Shimona, “and we never entertain. It will be much better to make the bedroom into a place where he can not only rest but study.”

  The front room therefore, with its three long windows opening onto the tree-lined square outside, was furnished with all the treasures that Shimona’s mother had collected over the years.

  There was also a sofa and some chairs, so that it was like a sitting room and usually Beau would lie in bed while her mother sat beside the fire and sewed.

  Shimona, when she was a child, would sit cross-legged beside him reading him extracts from her Fairy stories.

  Although she had not realised it, this had been a lesson in elocution, because her father would check her if she did not pronounce every word accurately with the intonation and timing for which he himself was famous.

  Now, when they reached the landing, Shimona ran ahead to take the cover from the bed so that the cabman and Nanna could lift Beau Bardsley onto the top of the blankets and lay him back gently against the pillows.

  “Thank you,” Shimona said to the man as he turned toward the door. “How much do we owe you?”

  “I’ll take nothin’ from the Guvnor,” the Cabby answered. “It’s payment enough, as you might say, for the pleasure ’e’s given me.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Shimona exclaimed.

  It always touched her when people spoke in such a way about her father.

  “Now you look after ’im,” the cabman admonished as he started down the stairs. “I don’ like the look of ’im and that’s a fact! You’d best get the doctor right away or the Lane’ll lose the greatest actor it’s ever ’ad.”

  “I will do that and thank you,” Shimona said as she shut the front door behind him.

  She ran up the stairs to find Nanna outside the bedroom looking apprehensively at the handkerchief that she held in her hand.

  “What – is it?” Shimona asked in a whisper.

  “We have to call the doctor,” Nanna said. “He’s coughing blood and it’s not right – it’s not right at all!”