A Duke in Danger Read online

  “Why did you ’ave to come here making trouble as soon as His Grace returned? Scum like you only do harm in the world!”

  “I wanted my money,” Emmanuel Pinchbeck replied defiantly. “You’ve no right to insult me. I’ve kept my word to Her Ladyship and have sold nothing, even though I could have got a good price for some of them.”

  “Get out!” Bateson said angrily. “If you’d any decency you’d have waited a little longer. But no, you pawn-brokers are all the same, grab, grab, grab!”

  “That’s not fair ...” Emmanuel Pinchbeck began to argue.

  But there was no-one to listen. Bateson had gone back into the house and slammed the door behind him.

  As Emmanuel Pinchbeck walked away he could hear the bolts being drawn across the door and the key turned in the lock.

  Then, as if to console himself, his hand went to his chest and he patted it.

  There was a twisted smile on his thin lips as he felt the notes the Duke had given him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As the Duke drove out of London and into the countryside he grew angrier and angrier. With all the money his predecessor had when he died, a great deal must surely have been at the disposal of his daughter.

  Why then should his Cousin Alvina have dealt with the pawn-brokers?

  He could not imagine why she should need money, unless of course there was some man she was supporting of whom her father had disapproved.

  The Duke thought cynically that he had a very poor opinion of most women’s morals or sense of honour. He had always, in the back of his mind, despised married women who were unfaithful to their husbands.

  There was also something fastidious, or perhaps almost puritanical, in his make-up which made him dislike the idea that he was by no means the first of Lady Isobel’s lovers.

  He was quite certain, although she had never said so, that she had been unfaithful to her husband while he was alive, and she had certainly made the most of being free after his death.

  It was all part and parcel of the pace set by the Heir to the Throne when he was Prince of Wales and his example had been accepted by the majority of those in Society.

  When he thought it over, the Duke knew that, although it seemed impossible, he would want his own wife to be very different.

  He had never really thought about marriage before. As a soldier, he had been quite certain he could not afford it.

  But now he was in the position of being obliged not only to marry but to find a wife who would both please him and prove suitable as the Duchess of Harlington.

  He was well aware that, although it did not always happen, the head of a great family was looked up to and respected in the same way as was the Chieftain of a Scottish Clan.

  Before the Duke of Cumberland had defeated the Highlanders and the rule of law in Scotland was revised and restored, the Chieftains had the power of life and death over their Clansmen.

  The Dukes of England certainly did not have that, but on their own Estates they were, in most cases, looked upon almost as if they were Kings, and their word was law.

  ‘It is like commanding an Army,’ the Duke thought to himself, and remembered how Wellington was admired, honoured, and loved by the men under his command.

  He had also known in his Army-life officers who had such powers of leadership that those they commanded were ready not only to serve them but to die, if necessary, in obeying their orders.

  He did not boast to himself of having that particular quality, although actually he did possess it, but he had been praised often enough for the fact that his troops were smarter, were finer fighters, and certainly were better disciplined than those in other Regiments.

  Discipline had been the key-word in the Army of Occupation, when it had been difficult to keep soldiers who were not fighting from looting or bullying the beaten enemy and invariably causing trouble where women were concerned.

  But now that task was over, and the Duke asked himself whether he would ever be able to discipline a woman or force her to obey him as he had managed to do so successfully with men.

  He was quite certain that with Isobel it would be impossible, and he knew that she used the passion she aroused in a man as a weapon to get everything she desired, without exerting herself unduly.

  His lips tightened as he decided that she would certainly not be able to do that with him.

  Yet, he wondered, if it actually came to the test, whether he would not be as compliant as her other lovers had been.

  His thoughts then returned to the extraordinary behaviour of his cousin Alvina.

  First, he tried to remember what she looked like, but he could not recall seeing her since she was a little girl of nine or ten years of age.

  He had spent a great deal of his time at the Castle when he was very young because he and his cousin Richard were the same age.

  He had very few memories of Alvina before meeting her at Richard’s twenty-first-birthday party.

  He remembered thinking then that there was a large age-gap between brother and sister.

  But it had been explained to him that the Duchess had unfortunately lost two other children prematurely in the intervening time.

  It had therefore been a triumph for the Doctors when the Duchess’s daughter had survived. Alvina must by this time, the Duke calculated, be nineteen or twenty.

  He wondered what she would look like. The Duke had been a handsome man, and he knew that the Duchess had been acclaimed as being outstandingly beautiful.

  He actually found it hard to remember Alvina’s face, because on that occasion he had been so amazed by the magnificence of the Castle and the extravagance of the festivities which celebrated Richard’s coming-of-age.

  Never, even in his later travels, had he seen better or more spectacular fireworks, and he could remember the fantastic decorations in the Banquetting-Hall, which had been filled with distinguished guests.

  The ladies had glittered like Christmas-trees with diamonds on their heads, their necks, and their wrists, and the gentlemen, all wearing their decorations, were not eclipsed.

  Because the Duke of Harlington was of such importance, there were several guests of Royal rank present, besides nearly all the Ambassadors to the Court of St. James.

  He remembered thinking that their gold-braided uniforms, jewelled decorations, and be-ribboned chests out-glittered even the splendour of a full Regimental dress like his own.

  Richard had made an excellent speech that night but now lay buried on the battlefield of Waterloo, while he, a distant cousin, was to take his place at the Castle as the fifth Duke of Harlington.

  Then as he drove on, having left the suburbs of London far behind, and now moving through the open country, the Duke’s thoughts returned to Lady Alvina.

  Once again he squared his chin and tightened his lips.

  “How could she have dared to pawn anything so priceless as the Germain bowl?” he asked himself.

  When the pawn-broker had mentioned that among the other things in his possession there were several miniatures, the Duke had stiffened.

  The Harlington collection of miniatures was the most famous in the country.

  Some of them dated back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and almost every Harling who had owned the Castle had added a miniature of himself and his wife.

  The Duke recalled that they decorated the walls of the Blue Drawing-Room, and it had given him intense satisfaction, when he was in Paris, Vienna, and Rome, to realise that none of these three cities had miniatures that could rival the Harlington collection.

  He had never expected to possess any one of them or even to have the pleasure of seeing them frequently. But just as the Harlings always believed that the Castle belonged to them as a family, so they thought of its contents.

  On his way back from France, the Duke had known that the one thing he wanted to do more than anything else was to see the Castle, live in it, and make it the focal point of his new life.

  “Harlington Castle,” he r
epeated to himself, and knew that the name meant more than could possibly be expressed in words.

  The way in which his father had talked of the Castle was one of his first boyhood memories, and it had always seemed to him to be inhabited by Knights.

  When he had first read the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, he had pictured them living in a Castle that was exactly like the one to which he belonged by name and birth.

  Later, it coloured every fairy-tale he read and every history-book he opened.

  When he was taught about the Crusades, he imagined very vividly the Knights setting out to attack the Saracens from Harlington Castle.

  Queen Elizabeth had stayed there on her travels round England, and she therefore had a special place in his mind because she had feasted and slept as the guest of one of his ancestors.

  So it went on through his history-lessons, until, when in real life he was fighting against the domination of Napoleon, he was fighting for England, but especially for Harlington Castle.

  Yet, in the moment of his personal victory, when it was now his, he had discovered that there was a traitor in the family, a woman who had dared to take from the Castle some of its most precious treasures to pawn them for money.

  ‘I can only be thankful,’ the Duke thought, ‘that by some sense of decency, or was it perhaps fear, she has not sold what has been passed down from one Duke to the next.’

  He remembered asking his father once, when he was a small boy and they had stayed at the Castle, whether the Duke felt like a King.

  “I am sure he does,” his father had said with a smile, “but at the same time, just as in the case of the King, the Palace is his only for his lifetime. The Duke must protect it and improve it for the next Duke who will come after him.”

  Ivar had found it a little hard to understand, and his father had explained further.

  “Each Duke in turn is a Guardian or Trustee of treasures which do not belong to him personally, but to the family as a whole. It is his duty not only to leave the Castle as he finds it but also to look after the family and see that they are cared for and do not want.”

  “He must have a lot to do,” Ivar had replied.

  “It is a very big task indeed,” his father had answered solemnly, “and one in which we can thank God no Duke so far has failed.”

  From what he could remember of the fourth Duke, he had been an admirable head of the family.

  Therefore, it seemed almost unbelievable that his only daughter should have stooped to stealing, for it was little else, the treasures to which generation after generation of Harlings had contributed, and had. pawned them to a man like Pinchbeck.

  “It is a miracle,” the Duke said to himself, “that he did not sell them, although that might perhaps have been difficult.”

  He wondered what the Trustees had been doing who were supposed to look after such things.

  He realised that because he had been abroad so long, he knew nothing about them or indeed who was in charge of the Estates.

  He thought, not for the first time, that he should have come home for his cousin’s Funeral and taken charge there and then. But the fourth Duke had died in January 1817, and at that time he had been in Vienna.

  He had been there on an important mission on Wellington’s behalf, and therefore he had not heard of his cousin’s death until he returned to Paris, where he received the letter from Coutt’s Bank.

  In it they informed him that as he was now the fifth Duke of Harlington, they enclosed a list of all the properties he had inherited and the monies which had been transferred to his name.

  However, it had been impossible at that particular moment to go to England.

  He had actually suggested rather tentatively to the Duke of Wellington that he should do so, only to be told that he could not possibly be spared.

  There was in fact a tremendous row going on over the reduction of troops in the Army of Occupation.

  In December of the previous year, Wellington had declared that a substantial reduction in numbers was impossible.

  The next month, however, he notified the permanent Conference of four Ambassadors that his opinion had altered and a reduction of thirty thousand men would begin on the first of April.

  This meant that an enormous amount of planning would be left in what Wellington described as “the very capable hands of General Harling.”

  On top of this, Wellington was negotiating the first loan to the French Government by Baring Brothers and Hopes, and he was relying on Ivar Harling’s support and persuasiveness, especially in getting the other Allies to accept the idea of a loan handled by British Bankers.

  In fact, there was so much controversy and so many delicate negotiations going on that the Duke had realised it was utterly impossible for him to leave Paris, however important it was, from his own point of view, that he should deal with his problems at home.

  He had comforted himself with the idea that everything would go on running as smoothly as it had when the fourth Duke was alive.

  If there were problems, they could wait and he could deal with them later.

  He therefore merely notified Coutt’s Bank that he would return as soon as possible, and almost forgot that his own situation had radically changed as he coped with the hysterical French, the feverish hopes of Madame de Stael for a free France, and Wellington’s unceasing demands upon him.

  There had been no more correspondence from the Bank, and he had therefore imagined that everything was well, and that Lady Alvina, who was living in the Castle as she was the fourth Duke’s unmarried daughter, would see to everything until he arrived home.

  He now thought that perhaps he should have written to her and that he had been somewhat rude not to have done so, but he had received no communication from her or from anyone else.

  Therefore, he had confidently believed that no news was good news and that that was what he would find when he arrived at the Castle.

  Gerald Chertson certainly had done him a good turn in buying for him such an excellent team of horses which would get him there quickly.

  Gerald had left him a note at Berkeley Square, saying that unfortunately he had to go home to see his father, who was ill.

  He would, however, be back in London at the end of the week, and would get in touch with him immediately.

  The Duke had been disappointed, since he had expected Gerald to be waiting for him when he arrived.

  But Sir Archibald Chertson was old and very demanding, and he accepted that there was nothing else Gerald could do.

  “As soon as I get back, Gerald and I will enjoy ourselves,” he promised himself.

  He then remembered Isobel.

  As he thought of her he could almost smell the exotic and seductive perfume she always used and feel her clinging arms round his neck, her lips on his.

  However, Jason or no Jason, he told himself, he was not getting married until he wished to do so.

  What was more, he had every intention of enjoying himself as a Duke, the head of the family and a very rich man, before he settled down.

  “I will see Jason when I return to London,” he decided. “I will give him a quite generous allowance on the condition that he behaves himself. I expect anyway I shall have to pay off his debts.”

  He was quite certain they would be out of all proportion, which would anger him considerably.

  At the same time, it would be impossible for him to start off as the fifth Duke with a family scandal.

  It was about four o’clock when he turned his horses through the impressive, gold-tipped wrought-iron gates which were flanked on each side with a heraldic lion, which was the crest of the Harlings.

  The gates were open and he gave a quick glance as he passed through the Lodges on either side. He noticed that one of them was empty.

  This surprised him, for he remembered the Lodge-Keepers, who wore special uniforms with crested silver buttons. They had always kept the gates closed but on hearing a carriage approach w
ould hurry to open them.

  If the passer-by happened to be the Duke himself, they would sweep their caps from their grey-haired heads with what seemed a courtly gesture, and in the background their wives and daughters would curtsey respectfully.

  The Duke had thought it was very much part of the pageantry of the Castle, and he missed it now.

  However, there was no point in stopping to enquire what had happened, and he drove down the long avenue of huge oak trees, which seemed even larger and sturdier than when he had last seen them.

  Halfway down the drive there was the first sight of the Castle.

  It was very impressive and so beautiful that instinctively, without thinking about it, the Duke checked his horses.

  Standing on high ground above a lake, the Castle overlooked the gardens, the Park, and beyond that the rolling country, much of which was thickly wooded.

  Originally it had been built for one of the feudal Barons who had been brought under submission at the time of Magna Carta.

  But all that remained of the original Castle was a Tower which had been heightened and strengthened with castellated ramparts a century or so later.

  Adjoining the Tower was now an enormous edifice, the centre of which was Elizabethan, while other parts were Restoration, Queen Anne, and early Georgian.

  It might be a hotch-potch of architecture, but each century had contributed to the impressiveness of the whole Castle, which from a distance gave the impression of being not so much a great fortification as a fairy-tale Palace.

  The afternoon sun was shining on the hundreds of windows, and silhouetted against the sky were statues on the roof which the Duke remembered vividly.

  Between each one was an exquisite stone vase. He had as a small boy climbed up to see them close to, and they had then seemed enormous.

  But now in the distance they too had a fairy-tale quality that once again made him think of Knights in armour, nymphs rising from the lake in the haze that hung over it in the early morning, and dragons living in the dark fir woods and breathing fire at those who disturbed them.