160 Love Finds the Duke at Last Read online

  “Are you trying to say that you have no wish to marry me?” she questioned.

  “I have no wish to marry anyone,” he answered. “To be truthful I have been pressured by my family over and over again to take a wife. But I do not intend to marry until I am older and so the question of an heir must wait.”

  “And you came here to tell me all this?” she asked angrily.

  “I had a distinct impression that you were expecting something different, and as I did not want you to make the mistake of telling people what was untrue and the sooner I came to see you the better.”

  Penelope walked over to the window.

  He thought that she was forcing herself not to rage at him as she really wanted to do.

  Instead, after quite a long silence, she said,

  “Can you really be so indifferent to what I feel for you?”

  “You expressed that very clearly in the letter to my cousin’s daughter. Therefore, while I hope, Penelope, we will always be friends, I wish to make it quite clear that there is no question of my marrying you or, for that matter, anyone else.”

  It was then that Penelope lost her temper.

  She turned round to face the Duke and shrieked,

  “You are a swine and a cad and I loathe you! How dare you come to me and say such things? How dare you infer that I expected to marry you? I assure you of the number of men who have asked me to become their wife, you are certainly not – at the top of the list!”

  Her words appeared to tumble over themselves and the Duke bowed.

  “You have made it very clear to me where I stand,” he replied. “I can only say, Penelope, that I am delighted to have met you and to have danced with you, but, as that is all, I am completely content.”

  He then walked towards the door.

  “I hope,” he said as he reached it, “that you will tell Charlotte that you were mistaken and your affection was not for me but for someone else.”

  Before she could reply, he left the room closing the door firmly behind him.

  Although he heard a loud scream, he did not know if Penelope was cursing him in language which would have shocked her mother and father.

  The Duke walked briskly to the front door.

  As he climbed into his carriage and a footman was about to close the door, a girl then came running out of the house and to his very considerable surprise jumped into the carriage beside him.

  “Take me away! Take me – away!” she begged the Duke. “Please, please take me away!”

  She flung herself, as she spoke, onto the seat beside the Duke.

  He saw that tears were running down her face.

  The footman closed the door behind her.

  Without realising that there was anyone else in the carriage, the driver of the very fast pair of horses started to move quickly away down the drive.

  The Duke was about to say ‘stop’ when he realised that he recognised the girl’s tear-stained face and her fair hair.

  She had been at the party the night he had kissed Penelope and he remembered now that she was a relation of some sort.

  He therefore did not stop the carriage as he had intended to do, but asked as she sat up on the seat,

  “What has happened? What has upset you?”

  “He was all I had to love – and he loved me,” she stammered in a broken voice, “and now he is – dead.”

  The tears were rushing down her face and she put both her hands up to her eyes.

  The Duke saw from the movement of her shoulders that she was sobbing bitterly.

  Because she was small and somehow seemed to be utterly pathetic, the Duke then moved from the back of the carriage onto the seat beside her.

  “Now tell me what this is all about,” he said gently.

  Sobbing she next turned to hide her head against his shoulder and he now realised that her whole body was shaking in her sorrow.

  “Now you must not cry like this,” he urged her. “You must tell me what has happened to upset you.”

  “He was all I had,” the girl sobbed, “and – she has had him killed. Now I am completely and utterly – alone.”

  The words seemed to come jerkily between her lips.

  Because the carriage was moving and the Duke was sitting next to her, she was still hiding her face against his shoulder.

  He was aware of the sweet scent that came from her hair and which reminded him of wild flowers.

  As they turned down the drive, he wondered what he should do with this unhappy girl. But he thought that it would somehow be cruel to take her back to where she belonged.

  Pulling a large white handkerchief from his pocket, he gave it to her and suggested,

  “Now wipe your eyes and, if you can stop crying, you must tell me what I can do to help you.”

  “No one can – help me, no one!” she moaned. “I only wish I was – dead too.”

  The words came stuttering from between her lips.

  The Duke was wondering again if he should stop the carriage or allow it to keep going.

  Now they were out of the drive and on the road and the horses were quickening their pace.

  “We are leaving your home,” he said. “As you have no possessions with you, I don’t know where you are going or if I am able to take you there.”

  “She killed him! She killed – him!” the girl sobbed, “I don’t know how to live – without him.”

  Now the Duke wondered if he should draw up the carriage, turn it round and take her back to the house.

  Then he thought that it might be a mistake to stop so near to Penelope’s home or to have anyone aware of what was happening.

  She was still weeping hysterically on his shoulder.

  He thought that never in his life had he experienced anything quite so unusual and at the same time so difficult to cope with.

  As they came in sight of Hampton Court Palace, the Duke then had an idea.

  He had been there so often with his mother and father that the people in charge of The Palace knew him.

  He had often gone into the garden alone while his father was contributing something.

  “Stop at The Palace!” he then abruptly ordered the coachman.

  A few minutes later they turned in at the gate and the Duke said to the girl who was still crying against his shoulder.

  “We will go and walk in the garden of The Palace and you can tell me what your trouble is and I can try to solve it. But I think it would be a mistake for people to see you crying as you are now.”

  “I am – sorry,” the girl murmured and wiped her eyes again with his handkerchief.

  As they drove up to the door of The Palace and one of the attendants came hurrying out, the Duke said,

  “Good evening. I have a lady with me who wishes to see the garden and I hope you will not mind if I leave my carriage outside for a short time.”

  “Of course not, Your Grace,” the man answered who recognised the Duke. “The garden is looking fine at the moment.”

  “I feel sure it is,” the Duke replied.

  He turned and helped the girl, who was holding his handkerchief up to her eyes, out of the carriage.

  They walked on into the garden of Hampton Court Palace, which was renowned for its beauty and array of exotic plants from all over the world

  The sun was shining benignly on the River Thames.

  He thought as they reached a seat near the river that they were unlikely to be disturbed.

  In fact there was no one else to be seen anywhere in the garden at this moment.

  As he helped the girl to sit down and sat beside her, he began gently,

  “Now please tell me what all this is about and what has upset you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I was – upset,” she said in a voice he could hardly hear, “because they had – my dog killed.”

  As she spoke the last word she put the handkerchief that the Duke had given her up to her eyes.

  He realised that she was now making every eff
ort to keep herself from sobbing hysterically.

  “There is no hurry,” he said gently. “We have lots of time. Just tell me first of all why you were staying with Penelope’s parents and why your dog was with you.”

  “He was the only thing I had left, the only thing – I had to love,” was the answer that came in jerky tones from behind her hands.

  The Duke waited for her to go on and he did not continue the conversation.

  After what seemed a long pause, the girl said,

  “I am so sorry, terribly sorry – to behave like this. I know men hate to see women crying. But I loved him so much and he was only playing – he was not hurting the swans.”

  The Duke was finding this difficult to follow.

  And after a moment he said,

  “You have not told me why you were staying with the Dentons.”

  With a great effort the girl took the handkerchief from her eyes and replied,

  “They were the only relations I could think of who I knew were somewhere near my home.”

  “So, they are your relations?” the Duke repeated.

  It was actually a question and after a moment the girl said,

  “My mother was a cousin of Penelope’s mother and she had often said it would be nice for Penelope and me to be friends. So when Mama died and I had nowhere else to go, I took Jo-Jo and arrived at Cousin Claud’s house.”

  “Was he surprised to see you?” the Duke asked.

  “He was very kind and felt that it would be nice for Penelope to have a friend with her and, of course, as there was nowhere else for me to go, I must stay with them,” the girl told him.

  The Duke who had always thought of Penelope’s father as a decent sort of man could only murmur,

  “That at least was kind.”

  “Yes, it was, but Penelope did not want me. She was angry when her friends, especially – if they were men, talked to me and she was always trying to put me in the background.”

  The Duke thought that this was not surprising, but he enquired,

  “Yet they gave you a home when you did not have one.”

  “It was a home for me and I thought for Jo-Jo too, but I soon learnt Penelope did not like animals especially dogs and kept saying he had to live in a kennel – outside the house.”

  She gave a little sob and with an effort continued,

  “He had always slept on my bed – always.”

  Now the tears were back again.

  The Duke was silent for a long moment before he quizzed her,

  “You must tell me what happened today.”

  “Two friends of Penelope’s had dropped in to ask her to a party and she was telling them then that she was to be engaged to you,” the girl replied. “At that moment, as they were standing by the window overlooking the garden, a man shouted out that – Jo-Jo was chasing the swans.”

  “I suppose that the swans belonged to Penelope’s father?” the Duke enquired.

  “Yes, and he was very proud of them. But Jo-Jo was just having fun and making them and the little cygnets, which had been born a month ago, plunge into the water,” the girl said. “But he would not hurt them. He has never hurt anything – ever since I have had him.”

  She paused for breath.

  The Duke was about to ask her a question when she went on,

  “It was then that Penelope shouted, ‘kill him! Stop him! Shoot – him! He must not hurt the swans’.”

  It was impossible for the girl to continue because she was crying again.

  After some minutes had passed the Duke said,

  “So they shot your dog?”

  “And threw him into – the river,” the girl sobbed. “I love him and he had been with me ever since he was born and – now I will never see him again.”

  Because the torrent of tears were shaking her, the Duke put his arms round her.

  “You have to be brave,” he said. “It is a terrible thing to have happened, but if he did not suffer he would not want you to be unhappy.”

  “I am trying– not to cry,” she said, “because Papa always said men hated women who cried, but I cannot help it because – I will never see him again.”

  As she was clearly so upset, the Duke could think of nothing he could do but hold her a little closer.

  Then thinking over what she had just said he asked almost sharply,

  “Are you really saying that Penelope was telling the visitors that she was engaged to me?”

  There was a pause before the girl answered,

  “She said that you were going to be engaged, but that they were not to talk about it until it was announced in the newspapers.”

  The Duke drew in his breath.

  He was sensible enough to recognise that if people were talking about his engagement and if she had written to Charlotte and also told some visitors, she was then quite capable of telling a great number of other people.

  Under those circumstances her father would indeed be justified in claiming that the Duke had now ruined her reputation and he would be forced to marry her.

  For a moment he felt as if he was being seized by giant hands into a position that he could not escape from.

  As the girl in his arms wiped her eyes and made another effort at being brave, he said almost as if the words were put into his mouth by unseen hands,

  “As you are asking for my help, I am asking for yours and please will you be kind enough to help me?”

  What he said obviously surprised the girl.

  Moving her head from his shoulder she said,

  “How could I possibly help you, Your Grace, when you are being so kind as to help me?”

  “What you have just told me,” the Duke said, “has made me feel that I am being driven into a position from which it will be impossible to detach myself unless I act very quickly and you help me.”

  “How can I?” she asked hesitatingly. “I do want to help you because you have been so kind to me. I am sorry to have cried and – ruined your handkerchief, but I did not know what to do. I have lost Jo-Jo for ever and I cannot go back to that horrible and beastly house where – they killed him.”

  “I can understand your feelings,” the Duke replied, “and I want you to understand mine. Because what you have just told me now has made me realise that I am in an almost intolerable position where I will just have to marry Penelope, whatever my real feelings are.”

  “Why should you have to do that?” the girl asked in astonishment.

  She was in fact so surprised at what he said that she moved out of his arms and turned her head to look at him.

  The Duke was silent for a moment and then he said,

  “Living with Penelope you must be aware that she is determined, as she has been such a success, to marry someone with a major title.”

  He saw the girl’s eyes widen before he went on,

  “It does not matter to her what the owner is like. What she wants is to crown herself with an important title which will be a magnificent climax to her success as the most beautiful debutante of the Season.”

  “Yes, but, of course, that is what she wants,” the girl agreed. “She said so often to me, ‘I will beat them all. I will end the Season with a Wedding which everyone will want to attend and no bride could be lovelier than me’.”

  “Especially,” the Duke then commented, “if she is marrying a Duke.”

  “Naturally that is what she wants,” the girl replied. “That is why she intends to marry you, Your Grace.”

  “But I have no wish,” the Duke retorted, “to marry her. Or anyone else for that matter. That is exactly why I am begging you, almost on my knees, to help me.”

  The girl looked bewildered.

  Now that she had stopped crying, the Duke could see that she was very attractive in her own way.

  In fact she was not only, in his opinion, as beautiful as her cousin Penelope, but she also had something in her eyes and her expression which was different.

  ‘It is,’ he thought, ‘that of int
elligence.’

  Something that was seldom obvious in the paraded and much talked of debutantes, but which strangely enough he could see quite clearly in this young girl’s expression.

  “You asked me how you could help me,” the Duke said, “and I don’t want to frighten you, but it is the only way I know of how you can do so.”

  “Of course, I will help you,” the girl replied. “You have been so kind to me in taking me away from – that horrible house where they killed Jo-Jo. I will do anything you ask me to do, but I am afraid that you are going to ask me to find somewhere where I can stay until I can get in touch with – Mama’s other relatives.”

  The words came slowly from her lips and after a pause she added,

  “I know that most of them are far away in the North – of England.”

  “What I am suggesting,” the Duke said quietly, “is that you allow me to find you somewhere to stay and more important still allow me to announce that we are engaged to be married.”

  The girl stared at him as if she had not heard him correctly.

  Then he explained quickly,

  “Our engagement will only be a pretence one and it will only last until Penelope gives up pursuing me. Then I promise to find you somewhere to live where you will be very happy and with people who will love you and take care of you.”

  “That is what I want,” the girl answered. “But how can you possibly do that for someone you have just met? So how is it possible for us to pretend to be engaged to be married?”

  “That is really quite easy,” the Duke replied. “We will merely announce our engagement in the newspapers. But we have to do it very quickly before Penelope’s father tells me I have ruined her reputation and as a gentleman I must make an honest woman of her.”

  He spoke sarcastically and only when he saw the question on the girl’s face did he add,

  “I promise you, you will not be frightened. We will just behave as an ordinary couple who enjoy each other’s company until Penelope is looking elsewhere for a titled husband and both you and I will have escaped from her and her family.”

  The girl stared at him incredulously and then said,

  “You make it sound very possible but will everyone really believe that we are engaged when we have only just met?”