72. The Impetuous Duchess Read online

  When she had left the bedchamber, admonishing Jabina to take good care of her husband and speed his recovery, Jabina made a grimace.

  “You see what she is like?” she said to the Duke.

  “I do indeed,” he replied. “It only confirms my impression that nothing could be more unfortunate than that we are obliged to accept her hospitality.”

  “If only the coach had turned over near a Posting inn, none of this would have happened,” Jabina said regretfully.

  “I see no reason why it should have turned over at all,” the Duke replied. “Higman is a very experienced driver, but, of course, on roads such as Scotland provides for travellers there is no knowing what might happen!”

  “Scottish roads are perfectly all right at most times of the year!” Jabina retorted. “But if Sassenachs are so foolish as to travel during the winter when there is snow and gales, they must put up with what they get!”

  “That is exactly what I am trying to do!” the Duke said patiently, “but I had not anticipated having anyone like you as an encumbrance round my neck!”

  “Well, I have decided to leave you as soon as we are across the border,” Jabina said proudly. “I can assure you that I have no desire to stay where I am not wanted!”

  The Duke laughed.

  When she was annoyed, Jabina looked like a small kitten that had been affronted and, lying in bed with no one else to talk to, he was finding it increasingly hard to be as angry with her as he wished to be.

  He found her exasperating, but equally he could not help being amused by many of the things she told him.

  He realised that her father’s description of her was very accurate. She was undoubtedly impetuous and impulsive, but at the same time she had a warm heart and an amusing wit, which sometimes made him chuckle in the depths of the night when she had left him for her own room.

  “Be careful what you say in front of the servants,” she admonished the Duke. “They have been talking to your coachmen and, of course, it was a surprise to your own staff that we are supposed to be married.”

  “Have the maids questioned you about it?” the Duke asked.

  “Not exactly,” Jabina replied, “but I guessed what had happened. I told them it was a dead secret that we had been married because you had not yet broken the news to your aged relatives, who must learn about it before anyone else.”

  “I can see that the plot thickens and thickens,” the Duke said gloomily. “Of course Higman and Clements must have been astonished to learn that you were passing yourself off as the Duchess of Warminster when they knew quite well that we had met only the day before.”

  He could see that a number of explanations would have to be made even to his own servants and on the day before the doctor had said he could do so he made plans to depart.

  Looking rather pale but, as Jabina told him, interesting, he went down to dinner the night before with a bandage round his head and managed adroitly to parry a number of embarrassing questions that Lady McCairn had not unexpectedly prepared for him.

  Fortunately Sir Ewan was only concerned with talking sport and, by retiring early to bed because of the journey that lay ahead of them the next day, the Duke managed to avoid too long an inquisition by his hostess.

  When they reached their own rooms, Jabina closed the door behind them and said in a conspiratorial whisper,

  “She was suspicious! I knew that whatever I said to the maids they were bound to tell her that the coachmen said we were not married. She asked me at least a dozen times in what Kirk the ceremony took place and whether my father was present. I have a feeling that she now thinks we have eloped!”

  “Let her think so,” the Duke said savagely. “I find the whole situation insupportable. We will leave tomorrow and, when we get away, we will somehow concoct some sort of story for the rest of the world.”

  He paused and added,

  “Anyway I cannot credit that anyone with any sense would believe what Lady McCairn says.”

  “People listen to what they want to hear,” Jabina said, “and everyone enjoys scandal. You know that as well as I do!”

  The Duke knew that this was only too true, but he was not prepared to enter into another discussion at this moment.

  “Go to bed, Jabina!” he said sharply. “You need your beauty sleep and I have given orders that we shall start off at nine o’clock precisely.”

  “You must not do too much the first day,” Jabina warned. “As a matter of fact I have talked to Higman and he says that, if we stay one night on the road, we should reach Berwick about noon the following day and he thinks that is a good time for you to embark on your yacht.”

  “Dammit all. Will you let me make my own plans?” the Duke asked.

  “I am still your nurse and ostensibly your wife until I leave you,” Jabina replied with dignity, “and, if you talk to either of those persons in such a rude manner, they would be extremely surprised.”

  She spoke with such an offended dignity that the Duke found himself apologising.

  “I am sorry, Jabina,” he said. “It is only that Lady McCairn gets under my skin. The whole situation worries me. I am not usually so short tempered.”

  “I forgive you!” Jabina replied generously. “Goodnight, Your Grace.”

  She swept him a very elegant curtsey and then, with her eyes laughing up at him, she added,

  “You are quite certain that you would not like me to come in later and smooth your pillow?”

  “Go to bed!” the Duke said firmly, pushing her through the communicating door and locking it behind her.

  He had been aware all during dinner what a precarious position they were both in.

  He could well imagine what Jabina’s father’s reaction would be to the news that his daughter was travelling through Scotland in the company of a Duke to whom she said she was married.

  He also knew that, if any of his friends got to hear of the position he found himself in, they would think it a tremendous jest.

  His quiet scholarly life had not passed unnoticed. Nor could he avoid having his leg pulled on innumerable occasions by his contemporaries.

  “Come and enjoy yourself in London, Drue,” Freddie, one of his close friends he had been at Oxford with, begged him not once but a dozen times. “You will turn into a turnip head if you stay in the country much longer!”

  Freddie also painted a vivid picture of the gaieties awaiting the Duke.

  “The Prince Regent will welcome you with open arms,” he declared. “His Royal Highness likes his Dukes around him! And the pretty ‘Cyprians’ adore them!”

  He laughed at the Duke’s books and added,

  “There are some new ‘Venuses’ from the continent who will soon sweep away the dust accumulating over your eyes from too much reading!”

  But the Duke refused all appeals to join the gay set which, as Jabina had rightly said, circled round Carlton House and the Prince Regent, and showed no interest in ‘Fashionable Impures’.

  He had his own reasons for his dislike of the Social world, but while he was not prepared to divulge them, they hardened his determination to do as he wished, which was to live quietly in the country.

  What Jabina had said jeeringly the day before about a musty sweetheart had, however, a ring of truth in it.

  He had formed a liaison some years previously with the young widow of a librarian with whom he had become acquainted in the course of his studies.

  Marguerite Blachett was a quiet, attractive, well-educated woman, some two years older than the Duke, with a soft, gentle, unassuming manner that had pleased him from the first moment he set eyes on her.

  On her husband’s death, the Duke had called to offer his condolences and found that she was nearly as knowledgeable on the subjects he was interested in as her husband had been.

  They had entered into a correspondence and then, as she lived only seven miles from the Duke’s ancestral home, he had found it increasingly convenient to call on her.

  It had bee
n a quiet, almost passionless affair and the urgency of a physical contact had been more on her side than on his. He liked her and he found it a relief to be able to talk to someone about the literature he enjoyed.

  Lying in bed the Duke could not help thinking how very different in every way Marguerite was from Jabina.

  His mistress, if that was not an exaggerated term for someone with whom he found an easy companionship, seldom spoke without thinking.

  He had never known her to be impulsive. He had never in fact known her to do anything that was unexpected or in any way reprehensible.

  She would he knew, disapprove of Jabina and find her quick impulsive nature so foreign to her own that the two women would certainly have nothing in common.

  And as to Jabina’s opinion of Marguerite, the Duke knew only too well what that would be!

  He hoped that Marguerite would not hear of his adventures in Scotland, for she would undoubtedly be hurt by the idea that he might have married without his telling her first.

  He wondered how he would ever be able to explain to her, let alone his other friends, that marriage was indeed very far from his thoughts and he had no intention of tying himself to any woman at any time.

  It was strange that a young man could have made up his mind so firmly and irrevocably that he would never marry.

  Again the Duke had his reasons for this, although he had never confided them to anyone.

  He was, he told himself, perfectly content and did not feel lonely in his enormous mansion and he did not crave to see a wife sitting at the opposite end of his table.

  He was quite unperturbed by the fact that he would not have a son to inherit his title and estates.

  He intended to remain a bachelor. He had chosen his way of life and he told himself, it suited him very well. Everything about him was well ordered.

  In short, unless the roof collapsed over his head, which was very unlikely as he had it inspected at regular intervals, the chance of his being surprised by anything at Warminster House was, in racing terms, about one hundred to one against!

  And yet, the Duke asked himself, how could he possibly anticipate that on quite an ordinary journey to Scotland this incredible situation should have arisen?

  What he had to do was to find a way out of this dilemma and as quickly as possible. That, he told himself, was not as difficult as it seemed.

  He would take Jabina, as she had requested, to the border. After that he would leave her quite firmly to fend for herself.

  He remembered thinking before the accident that it would be on his conscience to let a young innocent girl journey to London alone and cross the Channel to France.

  Perhaps he should find her a chaperone?

  Then his thoughts shied away at the idea. Once again he would be embroiling himself.

  If he engaged a chaperone, an elderly and respectable woman who would escort Jabina in a proper manner, then there would be explanations to be made and he would also have to explain to Jabina why such a person was necessary.

  He felt as though everything encroached on his own privacy and self-sufficiency that was the way of life he had chosen for himself.

  “It’s not my business!” he said again.

  Yet he wondered why the thought of Jabina setting off alone to France with her mother’s jewellery pinned inside her gown should seem so poignant.

  ‘Young women today are quite capable of looking after themselves,’ he thought.

  Then he found himself remembering the innocence of Jabina’s eyes and the dimple that appeared at the corner of her mouth when she smiled.

  The Duke turned over restlessly in his bed.

  ‘Stop thinking about the girl!’ he admonished himself. ‘She has already got you into enough trouble as it is! Do exactly as she has asked of you. Set her on the right road for London and go home by sea.’

  It was good advice and he told himself that he would follow it, however tiresome Jabina might be or however uncomfortably his conscience pricked him.

  “I should have turned back and left her at The Grouse and Thistle,” the Duke muttered.

  Why on earth had he allowed himself to be beguiled into carrying her further?

  As he asked the question, the Duke found the answer in the fact that he knew few young women.

  It seemed absurd, but going over his acquaintances, he found it hard to remember when he had ever talked alone with a girl or entertained one at Warminster.

  His house parties and there were not many of them, usually consisted of men of his own age who were unmarried.

  When occasionally his relatives came to stay and he was forced to invite friends to meet them, they were nearly always couples older than himself.

  “You are in a groove, Drue. It’s time you got out of it,” he could hear Freddie cry. “Come to London and meet the ‘Incomparables’ who grace the Social balls and the ‘Fashionable Impures’ who adorn the nightclubs.”

  “I prefer being here,” the Duke averred.

  “It’s unnatural! You will become a pompous bore before you are thirty!” Freddy had answered.

  The Duke had merely laughed at him, but now, remembering that Jabina had called him old and stuffy, pompous and dull, he wondered if in fact both she and Freddy were speaking the truth.

  ‘I am what I want to be,’ he said to himself obstinately, but found that he said it with less conviction than he had done in the past.

  Again he turned over restlessly in bed.

  He wanted to sleep and was well aware that he would need all his strength tomorrow if he was to be jolted about on the rough roads.

  He had the idea that next door Jabina would be sleeping peacefully.

  He was convinced that in her sleep she would look very young and very innocent.

  Then he told himself savagely that it was not of the least interest to him what she looked like!

  *

  The Duke, Sir Ewan and Lady McCairn had finished breakfast before Jabina appeared.

  She rushed into the room like a small whirlwind, curtseyed to her hostess and was full of apologies.

  “I meant to get up very early, and then I overslept,” she explained. “I went to sleep again after I was called. Can you imagine anything more infuriating?”

  “You should have asked your husband to awaken you,” Lady McCairn said. “I assure you that it would be very difficult for me to sleep once Sir Ewan decided to get up!”

  She spoke in a somewhat arch manner that told the Duke all too clearly that she was trying to ascertain if he and Jabina had slept in the same bed the night before.

  Jabina was quite unconscious of her hostess’s curiosity.

  “I find it hard to get up in the morning,” she confessed, “but I never want to go to bed!”

  “From what I hear, His Grace does not keep late hours at Warminster,” Lady McCairn said. “In fact, unlike the wild and most reprehensible behaviour of Social London, I am told that Your Grace has chosen a more disciplined existence.”

  “That is true!” the Duke said briefly. “And now if you will excuse me, ma’am, I will see that everything is in readiness for our departure.”

  He went from the dining room and Lady McCairn turned to Jabina.

  “You could not have made a wiser choice, my dear. You will enjoy a quiet, exemplary life at Warminster and the Duke will, I am sure, be a most commendable and reliable husband.”

  “Perhaps he is not as dull as he appears,” Jabina said without thinking and saw the astonishment on Lady McCairn’s face.

  “I am sure, dear child, you do not mean what you say?”

  There was a glint in Lady McCairn’s eye as she spoke that made Jabina sure that this morsel of gossip would be repeated to everyone she came into contact with.

  ‘She will think I married him only for his title!’ Jabina told herself, but she could not un-say what she had just said.

  She finished her breakfast quickly, well aware that she should have kept a tighter bridle on her tongue.

/>   She left the dining room and, at the top of the stairs that led to the front door, found the Duke waiting for her.

  As in most Scottish houses, the main rooms were on the first floor and the wide stone staircase enabled them to walk down three abreast while Sir Ewan followed behind.

  “I have not had a chance, ma’am,” the Duke said pleasantly, “to tell you how charming I find your house. I can see some interesting examples of family portraits on your walls.”

  “We are very proud of our family collection,” Lady McCairn replied. “This is the Chieftain who fought the Danes.”

  She pointed with a bony finger at a badly executed painting sorely in need of cleaning.

  “A magnificent man!” the Duke commented.

  “And here is the first Baronet, created, of course, after our James VI became also James I of England. And this is his wife, a pretty creature who produced no less than fourteen children, ten of whom survived!”

  “Very commendable,” the Duke murmured.

  They proceeded down some more stairs and then Lady McCairn prattled on,

  “This is our most romantic ancestor and her husband.”

  “Why romantic?” Jabina asked, interested by the adjective.

  “In the Rebellion of ’45, the McCairn Chieftain in the portrait had come to terms with the English who had granted him and his Clan immunity.”

  “And the lady?” Jabina asked with interest.

  “Jean Ross was a neighbour who was found by the English to be spying on their troops. She was brought here to The Castle and condemned to death!”

  “What happened?” Jabina asked her eyes alight.

  “She was just being taken away from the Great Hall in which the trial had taken place when Sir Angus McCairn, the Chieftain, who had become instantaneously infatuated with her beauty, spoke out.”

  “What did he say?” Jabina enquired excitedly.

  “He said, ‘you cannot kill this woman – she is my wife!’”

  “And did that save her?” Jabina asked.

  “But, of course,” Lady McCairn answered. “The English had granted Sir Angus and his Clan immunity.”

  “But did they not find out that there had been no marriage?”

  Lady McCairn laughed.