Love and the Cheetah Read online

  She was aware that it was only because she was in trouble that Doreen had deigned to come home.

  She had known for a long time that Doreen had no affection for her family and, unless she had needed Ilesa’s help for some reason, it would never have occurred to her to visit the Vicarage.

  “Now be very very careful what you say,” Doreen warned her when they came back to the problem of the Duke. “Convince him that I have been here for two nights and I have seen no one except for you and Papa. We have just sat here in the evening talking over old times.”

  “And you really think His Grace will believe that,” Ilesa asked, “if later Sir Mortimer tells him that he definitely saw you with Lord Randall at The Three Feathers!”

  “It was very early in the morning and, although Hugo had unfortunately pulled back the curtains,” Doreen said, “and Sir Mortimer was in a very agitated state. If he saw somebody who in a small way resembled me, he was obviously mistaken.”

  She paused for a moment before she went on,

  “A naked woman with fair hair falling over her shoulders might be anyone and if I insist that I was not there and you confirm to him that I was here, why should the Duke believe Sir Mortimer?”

  She sounded very confident, but Ilesa knew perceptively that she was in fact nervous and on edge.

  She could understand that it had been a terrible shock for Doreen when Sir Mortimer had burst into her bedroom at the hotel.

  Then when she learnt that it was only a false alarm, it had been infuriating to know that she was in the hands of a man she both disliked and distrusted.

  With Ilesa looking very unlike her usual self, the two sisters walked down the stairs.

  There was still no sign of the Vicar.

  Doreen, determined to make absolutely certain that there was no possibility of there being any mistakes, suggested to Ilesa,

  “You must tell Papa if he comes home after the Duke has arrived that I have come back to see you because I felt guilty at having been away for too long and I do not want the Duke or anyone else to know how long it has been.”

  “I am sure that Papa would not be so tactless as to reproach you in front of a stranger,” Ilesa replied.

  “Well, just tell him that I am thrilled to be back and that it would be a mistake for anyone in London to think that I was heartless or in any way ashamed of my family.”

  Ilesa did not answer and Doreen pouted in a disagreeable tone of voice,

  “It is extremely annoying to think that The Hall is not open. I could have taken the Duke there and I am sure that he would have been extremely impressed by the way it looked in Grandpapa’s day.”

  “It is very different now,” Ilesa admitted with a sigh. “There is dust everywhere, soot has fallen down the chimneys and the windows are so dirty that they make the rooms dark in the daytime.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” Doreen retorted. “I just think it is most tiresome that Uncle Robert should have rushed off to India as he did and left the place in such a terrible mess.”

  Ilesa knew that she was longing to show the Duke that her family had a large house and a big prosperous estate.

  She thought privately that the Duke would hardly be impressed anyway. From all she had read about him he owned a great number of valuable possessions all over the country.

  He was doubtless in consequence a very conceited man.

  She felt that he would spoil the happy atmosphere of her home and it would be a great mistake for him to come here.

  ‘He belongs to London,’ she then told herself, ‘with women like Doreen, who are very beautiful, but who do things that would have shocked Mama and, in point of fact, shock me as well!’

  The hours were passing and now she was aware that Doreen was tense and listening for every sound.

  To Ilesa it was a considerable relief that it seemed that the Duke was not going to appear at the Vicarage after all.

  But in that case Doreen would be frantic at the idea of Sir Mortimer contacting him and making trouble before she could see the Duke.

  Ilesa was telling herself that it was now definitely too late for the Duke to arrive when there came the sound of a loud rat-tat on the front door.

  If it had been her father, he would have walked straight in through the front door.

  Since it was not her father, it must therefore be the Duke.

  Doreen was clearly thinking the same and she rose from her chair to stand in front of the fireplace.

  While Ilesa was changing, Doreen had spent a great deal of time rearranging her hair and powdering her face.

  She indeed looked enchanting, there was no doubt about that.

  Her beauty seemed to outshine the small drawing room they were in and it was obvious that she belonged to another world.

  The door opened.

  “His Grace the Duke of Mountheron, my Lady!” old Briggs announced in a loud and penetrating voice.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Duke of Mountheron was having breakfast with his host and hostess the Marquis and Marchioness of Exford.

  He and his host had been out riding around the estate since seven o’clock and he had much enjoyed the fresh morning air and exercise. He had ridden one of the Marquis’s most spirited and well-bred stallions.

  They were discussing what they would do in the morning when a servant came into the room with a note on a silver salver.

  He offered it to the Duke, who took it with some surprise.

  He immediately recognised the handwriting and read the letter swiftly.

  Then he turned to the Marchioness,

  “This is a letter from Lady Barker. I had no idea that her home was in this vicinity and that her father is a Vicar.”

  “He is indeed,” the Marchioness replied “and a very charming and delightful man.”

  “She tells me,” the Duke went on, as if he found it hard to believe, “that her father has two excellent pictures by Stubbs that she thinks I would like to see.”

  “They are certainly some of his best work,” the Marquis confirmed, “and Mark Harle was fortunate that his father was able to leave them to him as they were not entailed like virtually everything else of his.”

  The Duke raised his eyebrows and the Marquis explained,

  “I should have thought that you would have known that the beautiful Lady Barker’s grandfather was the Earl of Harlestone and her father a younger son.”

  “I had no idea,” the Duke admitted.

  He paused reflectively before he added,

  “I have met the present Earl. Has he not gone to India?”

  “He has been appointed Governor of the North-West Frontier Province,” the Marquis said. “While it was undoubtedly a great honour for him, it has been a major tragedy for the neighbourhood.”

  “Why is that?” the Duke enquired.

  “Because,” the Marquis replied, “Robert Harle shut up the family house and dismissed practically all the people who worked for him. All this has worried his brother, the Vicar, a great deal.”

  He gave a short laugh before he continued,

  “He was able to talk me into taking on two of his grooms that I do not need and an extra gamekeeper!”

  The Marchioness smiled.

  “No one can resist the Vicar when he is pleading! I now have two young housemaids I really don’t require either.”

  She paused for a moment to add,

  “Mark Harle’s second daughter, Ilesa, is the most delightful girl and she has been trying to take her mother’s place in the village. She looks after women who are ill and the young who cannot find employment now that The Hall is closed.”

  “As bad as that?” the Duke queried.

  “Worse,” the Marchioness answered. “For as you well know in a small village the owner of the Big House is almost the only employer.”

  The Duke nodded and the Marchioness continued,

  “The distress caused by Robert Harle going to India is breaking his brother’s heart and als
o, I think, that of Mark’s daughter.”

  The Duke looked down again at the note he held in his hand.

  “Lady Barker has invited me to call and see her father’s pictures on my way home.”

  “Then it is certainly something you should do,” the Marquis agreed, “except, of course, that you will want to add them to your own collection.”

  “I have a feeling,” the Marchioness joined in, “that the Vicar enjoys his pictures as much as His Grace enjoys his and would not part with them for a King’s ransom!”

  “Then I will be very tactful and will not ask him to sell them to me,” the Duke smiled.

  He was now feeling more curious about the Stubbs’s pictures that belonged to the Vicar.

  For some time he had been buying every one that came up for sale and he had, he knew, one of the best collections of Stubbs’s pictures in England.

  *

  Later in the afternoon the Duke drove in his travelling carriage drawn by four horses towards Littlestone village.

  He was somewhat surprised that Doreen Barker had always talked about her husband and his possessions but never about her family.

  He thought to himself a little cynically that perhaps she was not particularly proud of being a Vicar’s daughter even if he was the younger son of an Earl.

  She was certainly very beautiful and her radiant beauty had indeed taken all of London by storm.

  The Duke, however, was well aware that she had pursued him since they had met rather than he might have pursued her.

  He had most certainly allowed himself to submit to the obvious invitation in her very expressive eyes.

  He would not have been the connoisseur that he was of women if he had not appreciated the perfection of her figure and her classical features.

  It would certainly be something new to see her in the country.

  He was wondering what her father, being a Vicar, thought of her somewhat outrageous behaviour in London.

  The Duke was well aware that he was not Doreen’s first lover. Nor, he thought with a sardonic twist of his lips, that would he be her last.

  At the same time she was undeniably the most beautiful woman in Mayfair and certainly the whole of London.

  As the Duke walked into the drawing room after Brigg’s announcement, Ilesa held her breath.

  She was anxious to see this man whom her sister intended to marry and she was very feeling very sure that she would not like him.

  She strongly disapproved of the way that he and her sister were behaving.

  Moreover, if, as she suspected, it was the Duke’s habit to have affaires de coeur with every beautiful woman he met, she despised him.

  ‘It is very wrong and Doreen should be made aware of it.’ she told herself severely.

  Then, as she looked at the Duke, she was surprised.

  He was not in the least what she had expected.

  He was tall, broad-shouldered and extremely handsome and there was something quite different about him from the picture that she had formed in her mind.

  As he walked into the room, she seemed to feel his strong vibrations from the moment he appeared.

  Then, as the dogs jumped up excitedly and ran towards him, he bent down to pat first one spaniel and then the other.

  It was an action that seemed to make him more human and even kindly.

  And most certainly more understanding than the rather intimidating Nobleman of her imagination whom Doreen was determined to marry because of his title.

  Her sister moved forward.

  “Drogo!” she exclaimed in a soft cooing voice that Ilesa had not heard before. “How wonderful to see you. I was praying that you would have the time to come and see me before you went on to Heron Court.”

  “How could I ever refuse such a delightful invitation as to see your father’s pictures?” the Duke replied.

  Doreen was now standing very near to him and looking up at him.

  Both her hands were in his and he raised one to his lips.

  “Need I say that you are looking very beautiful this afternoon?” he observed.

  “That is just what I want to hear,” Doreen replied again in her soft voice.

  The Duke looked towards Ilesa and in a different tone of voice Doreen turned to say,

  “Let me introduce my sister, Ilesa.”

  “Doreen never told me,” the Duke said, holding out his hand, “that she had a sister.”

  Ilesa smiled.

  “I have, of course, heard about your horses, Your Grace. Are they really as fine as the newspapers say that they are?”

  The Duke’s eyes twinkled.

  “Better!” he asserted.

  “Then you are very very lucky or perhaps very clever,” Ilesa remarked.

  “I think that is a somewhat roundabout compliment, which I really appreciate,” the Duke laughed.

  The spaniels had sat down when they had started talking and now they raised their heads as if to sniff the air

  They told Ilesa at once that her father had returned.

  “I think that is Papa,” she said quickly to Doreen.

  With a warning glance Ilesa ran across the room and let herself out into the hall.

  She was not mistaken. The Vicar was just coming in through the front door.

  As soon as he saw his daughter, he asked,

  “Who is here? That is an exceedingly fine team of horses outside in the drive!”

  “They belong to the Duke of Mountheron, Papa,” Ilesa replied, “but before you meet him, I want to speak to you alone for a moment.”

  The Vicar seemed a little taken aback, but he put his hat down on one of the chairs and walked towards his study.

  Ilesa followed him and, when they were both inside the room, she closed the door.

  “Now, what is all this about?” the Vicar asked her, “and why should Mountheron of all people want to see me?”

  “He has come to see Doreen,” Ilesa explained.

  “Doreen?” the Vicar exclaimed. “Do you mean she is here?”

  “She arrived unexpectedly just before luncheon,” Ilesa replied, “and, Papa, it is very very important that, when you go into the drawing room’ you do not seem surprised to see her, because she is supposed to have been here since the day before yesterday.”

  “I don’t know what all this is about,” the Vicar murmured apprehensively.

  “I know it’s complicated, Papa,” Ilesa responded, “but please, it is absolutely vital that you should pretend that she has stayed here at the Vicarage for the last two nights.”

  “I just don’t understand what is going on,” her father said sharply, “but I am not telling lies for Doreen or for anyone else.”

  “It is not exactly ‒ a question of lies,” Ilesa answered him slowly.

  Then she had an idea.

  “You see, Papa, Doreen is in love with the Duke and she thinks and hopes that he is about to propose to her. But she does not want him to think under any circumstances that she is running after him.”

  To her relief the Vicar smiled.

  “That is sensible of him at any rate,” he remarked. “A man always likes to do his own hunting.”

  “I was sure that you would understand, Papa, and please treat Doreen as if you had seen her here at dinner for the last two nights. Then we can leave her to capture the Duke in her own inimitable way.”

  The Vicar laughed.

  “She will be very clever if she can do so and I am quite certain that Mountheron has been pursued by ambitious women ever since he left school and Doreen will find it hard to lead him to the Altar.”

  “She longs to be a Duchess,” Ilesa admitted.

  “I suppose that is the ambition of a great many women except for someone like your mother and, I hope, you.”

  Ilesa smiled at him.

  “The only thing I want, Papa, is, when I do marry, to be as happy as you and Mama were together.”

  “And that is what I most certainly desire for you, my dearest girl,” t
he Vicar replied.

  Ilesa saw the pain in his eyes, which was always there when he spoke of his beloved wife.

  Then he said,

  “Now you have told me how I am to behave, let’s go and meet the Duke!”

  He walked from the study and Ilesa followed him.

  When they went into the drawing room, Ilesa was aware that her sister was tense and anxious of what her father might say.

  The Vicar, however, was entirely at his ease.

  “This is a splendid surprise,” he declared as he walked towards the Duke holding out his hand. “I could not imagine when I arrived home who of all my parishioners would have the finest team of horses I have ever seen!”

  The Duke laughed.

  “I am glad you admire them, Vicar. They are a new acquisition of mine and have been so well broken in that it is a delight to drive them.”

  The Vicar walked towards the fireplace and stood with his back to it.

  “I must congratulate you,” he addressed the Duke, “on your big success in the Grand National. It’s a pity you were pipped at the post, but your horse certainly did its best to come in second.”

  “That is what I thought,” the Duke agreed, “and talking of horses, Vicar, I suspect your daughter has told you why I was so anxious to visit you.”

  The Vicar looked at him enquiringly and Ilesa knew that he thought the Duke was about to say that he wished to marry Doreen.

  Instead the Duke went on,

  “I have been told that you possess two splendid paintings by Stubbs. As you may know, I have a collection of Stubbs that I am exceedingly proud of.”

  “I have heard that,” the Vicar said, “and I understand that you bought a particularly fine painting of his at Christie’s last month.”

  “That is true,” the Duke agreed, “but I am very keen to see yours.”

  The Vicar made a gesture with his hand.

  “Then, of course, I am only too willing to show Your Grace my Stubbs’s, interesting as they are, but too few to be called ‘a collection’.”

  He walked across the room to lead the way to the door and Doreen flashed a glance at her sister.

  Ilesa realised at once that she was now feeling extremely relieved. Her father had ignored her, making it quite obvious that he took her presence for granted.