The Love Trap Read online

  “I had no intention of doing that. Your Grace,” Mr. McMullen answered. “I only wondered if, when Miss Scott wakes and I told the housekeeper to let her sleep until she did so, you had any message for her.”

  The Duke glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece and answered,

  “I shall be back about eleven-thirty. Tell Miss Scott that I will see her in my study any time before luncheon if she would like to join me there.”

  “I’ll see she gets the message, Your Grace.”

  The Duke went from the breakfast room and found waiting for him, as he expected, outside the front door, one of the new horses he was training himself.

  During the following three hours a series of battles for supremacy between him and an animal which was determined to defy him made him forget everything but the problem of domination in which each was determined to be the winner.

  The Duke rode three horses during the morning each giving him more pleasure than the last.

  At the same time it was impossible not to be conscious of a menacing darkness in the back of his mind that could not be ignored.

  As he had told Mr. McMullen, he returned to the house a little after eleven-thirty and went to his study.

  Now he gave his attention to the papers waiting for him on his desk.

  Yet it was a relief when a quarter of an hour later the door opened and Janeta was shown in.

  He had thought that his impressions of her last night were very likely mistaken and were due to their dramatic encounter in the darkness of the carriage, but now he saw her in the daylight, he realised that she was indeed very different from anyone he had ever seen before.

  She still looked frightened and her blue eyes seemed dark and stormy. He thought that he saw her lips tremble a little as she dropped him a curtsey and moved quickly towards the desk where he was sitting.

  He rose as she approached him and saw that she was wearing the same gown that had seemed dark in the moonlight, but was actually a very soft shade of blue, echoing her eyes.

  It was a young girl’s dress and very simple. Yet he was aware as he had been last night that it was a woman who confronted him, even though, as he had noticed before, she was extremely thin and her chin bone was sharp against her long neck.

  Because he knew that she was nervous, the Duke smiled before he said in a deep voice,

  “Good morning, Janeta. I hope you slept well.”

  “When I awoke I could not – remember where I was,” she answered, “and then I realised I had not thanked – you for being – so kind to me.”

  The words seemed to come a little abruptly from her lips and the Duke moved from behind his desk and said,

  “Let’s sit down and talk. I feel sure that it will be easier to do so than it was last night.”

  Janeta followed him to where there was a large velvet sofa in front of a fireplace, which because it was summer was filled with a huge arrangement of flowers.

  She sat down on the edge of the sofa, clasping her hands together in her lap and raising her eyes to the Duke.

  There was an appealing expression in them that made him aware that she was asking silently the same question she had asked last night and for which he had no answer.

  He stood with his back to the mantelpiece looking at her, very smart in his riding breeches and highly polished riding boots.

  His cravat was tied meticulously and he wore a whipcord riding jacket with a yellow waistcoat, the buttons of which were engraved with his crest.

  It would be difficult for any woman not to realise what a handsome figure he made and at the same time an extremely elegant one.

  Janeta’s eyes, however, were on his face and, after a moment, as if he thought that there was no point in not getting to the crux of their difficulties, the Duke said,

  “I know that what you are asking me is ‘what shall I do?’ and that is what we have to decide.”

  “You would not like me – just to go – away?” Janeta asked. “It was clever of you to give me a false name last night so that once I have gone no one here will – connect me with Papa or my – stepmother.”

  The way she spoke the last word told the Duke all too clearly how terrified she was of Olive Brandon and he thought it ironical that he was almost in the same state that she was.

  “Surely,” he said after a moment, “you have some relation, perhaps on your mother’s side of the family, you could live with.”

  “I did think of that,” Janeta said, “but before I went to school, Stepmama prevented me – from writing or seeing any of my relations. She does not want them to think about me – especially now that I am home.”

  She looked away from the Duke as she spoke and said,

  “Perhaps you will think it strange that I came home knowing that I should be – unwelcome. But the nuns would not – keep me any longer.”

  “Why not?” the Duke asked.

  “I was the oldest girl in the school and, when I won almost all the prizes last term, I knew that they thought it unfair on the other pupils.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “So you are clever, Janeta?”

  “If I was,” Janeta answered in a different voice, which had a passionate note in it, “I would not have – burdened you with my troubles – but would have died as I – intended to do, in the – Serpentine.”

  He knew as she spoke that she was not being dramatic, just simply blaming herself for having run away because it was dark and because there were people there and a man had spoken to her.

  He found it incredible to think of any young girl in the same social position as Janeta having to suffer such unpleasant experiences and being treated as she had been by her stepmother.

  But, he was aware that young girls were very often married off almost as soon as they left the schoolroom and had little say as to whose wife they should be.

  For any Social mother, it was a feather in her cap for her daughter to make a good marriage and whether the daughter thought the man chosen for her was attractive or not was immaterial.

  Thinking it over the Duke could understand that in Olive’s desire to be rid of an unwanted stepdaughter, she would tolerate no competition in her own home and would be prepared to marry Janeta to the first man who approached her.

  The fact that he did not move in the same Social world as she did was, of course, an advantage.

  As the Duke was silent while he was thinking this out, Janeta, watching him, said after a moment,

  “How can you allow me to – trouble you in this – way? I know what a – nuisance I am being, so may I please – make a suggestion?”

  The Duke sat down in an armchair opposite her and, crossing his legs, said,

  “Of course. We said that we would talk this out and that is what we must do. What is your suggestion?”

  “I have been thinking,” Janeta said, “that if you will not allow me to – kill myself – though that would make things – easier for everyone, then perhaps I could go – somewhere where I am quite unknown and find – some work to do.”

  “Work?” the Duke questioned. “What sort of work?”

  She made a little helpless gesture with her hands before she said,

  “As I have been well educated, I am sure I could teach children or, since the nuns insisted that we should sew beautifully, I think I could make – quite a number of things that people would buy from me.”

  She spoke courageously, yet the Duke was still aware of the fear behind every word she said.

  Also, he had not missed the fact that her fingers were lacing and unlacing each other as she spoke and were trembling as they had last night when he had laid his hand on hers.

  He settled himself a little more comfortably in the chair before he said,

  “Now, listen, Janeta, you know as well as I do that you are too young and far too inexperienced to live alone. If you were to put any of these ideas into operation, then you would have to live with someone who would look after you and protect you, if from nothing else,
from starving to death.”

  Janeta looked down and he saw her eyelashes were dark against the white of her skin.

  Then she said,

  “It must seem to you very – presumptuous, but, as I have – nothing with me, only what I stand up in and – no money, I am afraid that I shall have to ask you to – lend me a little, but of course – once I am earning I would – pay it back.”

  He thought that was how he had expected she would feel and remembered how many women had asked him without scruple to give them jewellery and furs and even in one or two instances to buy them houses.

  But none of them had ever suggested for one moment that the money he had spent on their behalf should be repaid.

  “I am not worrying,” he said aloud, “about what the cost might be, Janeta, that is immaterial, but what would really be the best thing for you to do.”

  She did not answer and once again he knew she was thinking that from the windows of her bedroom she had seen his lake, which lay in front of The Castle.

  It was a very large and very beautiful one and was fed by a broad stream that ran into it at one end, flowing out as a cascade at the other and ending in a whirlpool that was known to be dangerous.

  Because what he was thinking upset him, he rose from the chair and said,

  “The way we are talking is ridiculous. There are only two things we can do if we are to be sensible. The first would be for me to take you back to your father and explain to him, and I would be very eloquent on the subject, that this sort of situation must not occur again and that you have no intention of marrying the man that your stepmother has chosen for you.”

  He spoke sharply, but almost before he could finish the last sentence, Janeta sprang to her feet with a shrill cry.

  “How can you say – such a thing?” she asked. “How can you – take me back? For if you do, whatever Papa promises, Stepmama will have – her way as she – always does!”

  She stood facing him defiantly as she spoke and then her hands went up to her eyes and the Duke could see she was crying.

  “I am sorry, Janeta,” he said. “I should not have put the idea to you so bluntly.”

  “I cannot go back. You – don’t – understand. She will never – forgive me because I have told – you what has happened.”

  The Duke thought this was true and it was something that he had overlooked.

  Janeta’s eyes were still covered with her hands, and he said,

  “Forget what I just said. It was very foolish of me. Please stop crying, I cannot bear tears.”

  Janeta groped for a handkerchief she could not find and the Duke took one from the breast pocket of his riding jacket and held it out to her.

  She wiped her eyes unselfconsciously as a child might have done, then blew her tiny nose and sat down again in the chair that she had just vacated with the handkerchief in her lap.

  Then, as she looked up at him, her eyelashes wet and the tear stains still on her cheeks, the Duke thought that no one could look more pathetic and more in need of care and protection.

  “The other suggestion,” he said after a moment, “I had in mind was that I should find you someone with whom you could live and who, if that is what you wished, would never have any idea of your true identity. Yet how can you really face a lifetime of living under a shadow of being ‘Miss Nobody from Nowhere’?”

  He paused before he went on,

  “I can foresee endless complications, endless questions that cannot be answered and the situation would be intolerable for an older woman, let alone someone of your age.”

  “Anything – would be better than having – to go back,” Janeta said hesitatingly. “But I am frightened that – Stepmama might try to – find me, just to make sure – I was not doing anything she might – not approve of. Once she has made up her mind – she always gets her own way.”

  It struck the Duke that that was exactly what he was afraid of concerning himself. Without really being aware of what he was doing, he walked to the window and looked out over the flowerbeds and shrubs brilliant with colour against the green lawns that sloped down to the lake.

  Across the water, glimmering gold in the sunshine, he could see the great oak trees that had stood there for hundreds of years with the spotted deer lying in the shade beneath them.

  This, he thought, was what Olive intended to take away from him. This was what she would force him to give up unless he could extricate himself from the trap that she had caught him in.

  He felt as if his whole being was crying out ‘save me! Save me!’ and it was a cry for help that must somehow find an answer and quickly.

  Thinking of himself, he had almost forgotten that Janeta was behind him until a quiet trembling little voice said,

  “I am – sorry, so – very very sorry to – worry you like this.”

  The Duke turned around.

  He saw the small frightened face with thin pale cheeks and the long fingers that trembled as they held his handkerchief.

  He stood looking at her and then, almost as if a blinding light encircled her, he knew that she was his salvation.

  She was the answer to his cry for help.

  Slowly he walked back to where he had stood before in front of the mantelpiece.

  His face was very grave, but for the first time that day there was an expression of hope in his eyes that had not been there before.

  “Now, listen, Janeta,” he said. “I have an idea.”

  Chapter three

  As Janeta raised her eyes to his, the Duke felt for words.

  Then slowly he said,

  “As it happens, I am rather in the same position as you are. You are being forced into marriage with someone you dislike and I am being pressured into marrying a woman who I know would not make me a good wife.”

  Janeta stared at him and then she said,

  “But surely – it is easy for – you to say – no.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “It is not as easy as it sounds. In fact and I have no intention of going into detail, it will be extremely difficult for me to extricate myself from a most unfortunate situation unless you help me.”

  Janeta was so surprised that her eyes seemed to grow larger than ever in her pale face before she asked,

  “Is it – possible that I could – help you?”

  “You could be very helpful if you agree to what I suggest,” the Duke replied, “and I know it will help you too.”

  “You know I would do – anything,” Janeta murmured.

  Now her voice died away as if she felt it would be foolish for her to say anything, but she should just listen to the Duke.

  He drew in his breath before he said,

  “What I am going to suggest, Janeta, is that we announce that we intend to be married. In other words we become engaged.”

  He knew by the expression on Janeta’s face that she could not believe she had heard him aright and he went on quickly,

  “It will, of course, only be a pretend engagement, one that will last only as long as we both wish it to, in fact until we are both out of danger. Then we can say that we find, after all, that we are not as compatible as we had thought and we will both be free.”

  There was a silence before Janeta said,

  “I understand what you are saying, or I think I do, but I know that Stepmama will be furiously – angry at the idea that you might – wish to – marry me.”

  The Duke knew from the way she spoke that she had a shrewd idea of what his relations were with her stepmother.

  It would be impossible, since she was living in the house for her not to realise that when her father was away, he and Olive were together almost every day and on a number of occasions dined alone.

  He did not wish to think of it further, but he had the uncomfortable idea at the back of his mind that, since servants always talk, Janeta would have found it hard not to listen.

  To carry off an awkward moment, he said loftily,

  “Whatever your stepmother may
think, I am sure that your father will welcome me as a son-in-law. We often meet on Racecourses and we both belong to the same Club.”

  He did not add, although he knew it to be true, that any parent in the whole of England would welcome him with his title, his money and possessions as a son-in-law and thought it extremely unlikely that Lord Brandon would be an exception.

  “I am – sure that – what you are saying is – true,” Janeta said in a hesitating little voice, “but Stepmama will be very – very angry.”

  “She may be angry,” the Duke said, “but I think we can try to be clever so that you have nothing, or very little, to do with her. I am going to take you out driving this afternoon, which I think you will enjoy, and then to call on my grandmother at the Dower House.”

  Janeta looked at him with troubled eyes and he went on,

  “She is very old and, although she seldom goes out, she enjoys meeting new people and I know she will be pleased not only to meet you but to invite you to stay with her.”

  Janeta started and she said involuntarily,

  “Oh – please – must I leave you?”

  “Only until our engagement is announced and I can find one of my younger relatives to chaperone you here in The Castle.”

  Janeta looked away from him.

  “I can see once again – I am being a – terrible nuisance – to you,” she said unhappily.

  “On the contrary you are my lifeline in a rough sea when I very badly need one.”

  “Is that really – true?”

  “I promise you it is and now we have settled our immediate future, let’s enjoy ourselves and for the moment forget our troubles.”

  He hoped that Janeta would smile at him eagerly as any other woman would have done, but instead she said,

  “I think your plan is a very clever one – at the same time I am – afraid it will not – succeed.”

  “For you or for me?” the Duke asked.

  She did not answer and he said in a different tone of voice,

  “Now, come along, no more gloom. We have a little time before luncheon and you must tell me which you would rather see, my pictures or my horses.”