Danger to the Duke Page 5

  “Papa was miserably unhappy when Mama died,”

  continued Adela, “but he took me everywhere with him and we were very happy together.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Just nine months ago he said he was going to Paris, but as I had a special party being given for me by some friends who live in the neighbourhood he would not take me with him.”

  Adela sighed.

  “I wanted to go with him and forget the party, but Papa thought it would be rude and insisted on going alone.”

  The way she said the last word gave Michael a clue as to what might have happened.

  “When he returned Step-mama was with him and I think, although he never said so, that she had married him in a rather strange manner.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, Papa said to me, ‘I have not forgotten your mother, who I loved more than anyone I have ever known and I did not mean for this to happen. You have to forgive me as it was not really my doing’.”

  “What do you think he meant?”

  “I was quite certain,” replied Adela, “that Step-mama had tricked him into marrying her and when he died she was furious that he was not as rich as she had thought he was and had left what money he had to me.”

  She finished speaking and gave a little cry.

  “She can have every penny of it as long as I do not have to marry that dreadful man.”

  “Why do you think she is so anxious for you to marry him?" Michael enquired gently. “After all there are plenty of men in the world and you are very pretty, Adela.”

  “Papa used to say that to me, because I looked so like Mama. But of course since I have been in mourning I have seen very few people except the men my Step-mama invites into the house.”

  She paused for a moment.

  “They were not very important until this last man came along. Then he was always whispering with Stepmama and he looked at me in a way that was frightening.”

  Now Michael noticed that she was trembling again.

  Almost instinctively she looked back over her shoulder as if she thought they might have been followed.

  “So you have run away,” remarked Michael, as if he was working it out for himself, “and now we have to find somewhere for you to go and someone who will stand up to your stepmother and protect you from being forced into a marriage you do not want.”

  “But there is no one,” said Adela despairingly. “I have thought and thought and there is really no one at all who would save me as you have just done.”

  “Your father and mother must have had a great number of friends living near them in the country.”

  “They were abroad so much and because they loved each other, when they were at home, I think they just wanted to be alone with me.”

  “Why did your father go abroad so frequently?” asked Michael curiously.

  Adela hesitated and he wondered if she was going to tell him the truth.

  Finally she answered his question,

  “Papa always said he was a miner.”

  “A miner!” Michael repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

  Adela gave a little laugh.

  “He was mining not for coal, but for gold and precious minerals.”

  Michael was surprised, but he made no comment as she resumed her story,

  “He found minerals where no one else could do so and because he built up a reputation for being so successful everyone wanted to employ him.”

  “I have certainly never met anyone like him and are you saying you always travelled with him?”

  “Of course. Papa would not go anywhere without Mama and she would not go anywhere without me. So I have been to all sorts of strange places.”

  “Tell me about them,” suggested Michael.

  He was thinking as he spoke that this was something new and therefore extremely interesting.

  “Papa has found many different minerals ever since he was a young man,” Adela was saying. “He used to tell me how thrilled they were in the Ukraine when he found copper for them and he also discovered bauxite in Azerbaijan, which he said was a feather in his cap. He was not married then.”

  “And what else did he find?”

  Michael was thinking this was the last sort of story he had expected to hear from a very young girl he had picked up on a country road.

  “It was very exciting for Mama and me,” Adela told him, “when Papa found gold in the Caucasus and we were thrilled when another time he found emeralds in the Ural Mountains.”

  Now Michael was really astounded.

  He knew only too well that after the Russians had conquered the Caucasus, they had managed to become the leading producer of gold in the whole world.

  As far as he was concerned, when the Caucasus became part of the Russian Empire, it opened the door to what eventually meant the infiltration of India.

  The Russians could afford the vast expense of sending their armies for thousands of miles whilst the Cossacks rode on torturing and killing across the wild country between Russia and India and becoming a menace to what Disraeli had referred to as the ‘Jewel in the British Crown’.

  Michael knew a great many people had thought it was disastrous that Russia should have been able to obtain so much gold from the Caucasus.

  But it was something he did not wish to discuss with Adela.

  “You mentioned emeralds. Are you saying you were with your father when he found them?”

  “Of course I was,” she answered, “and it was very exciting because no one had any idea there were emeralds in the Ural Mountains.”

  “You have actually been to the Ural Mountains?”

  questioned Michael in astonishment.

  “It was a very cold and a very rough journey, but Mama and I were glad we were with him, because Papa was so successful.”

  Michael thought of the women he had met in India.

  None of them had ever boasted of having been to Russia or the Caucasus and certainly not to the Ural Mountains.

  “You must tell me more about your father’s discoveries,” he continued. “Was he paid for what he found?”

  Adela hesitated for a moment.

  “I think when he first started prospecting he just visited places that interested him,” she replied, “and whenever he felt the mineral he was looking for was present in the ground, he persuaded local people to dig where he told them.”

  “And when he was successful?”

  “Then everyone made a great fuss of him and gave him very valuable presents for what he had achieved.”

  And later,” prompted Michael, “did the Russians ask him to search for gold in the Caucasus?”

  “Yes, they did, and I remember Papa receiving a letter and saying he would find it rather amusing to go to Russia, especially as he was to meet the Czar.”

  “Did you go with him?”

  “Mama and I journeyed to St. Petersburg. It was all very impressive, but at the same time rather frightening.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “There is something cruel about the Russians that I have not felt in other countries. I had a feeling all the time that they were watching us, not only because of what they expected Papa to do for them, but because in some strange way they were suspicious of everyone.”

  Michael knew exactly what she was saying and he thought she described it very well.

  He was still astounded that one so young and so lovely should be involved in exploration for minerals, which was essentially a job for only a few carefully selected men.

  He realised her father must have been especially gifted and he must have had a certain amount of money to be able to travel to places such a great distance from England and astute as well in persuading the local people to do as he advised.

  What Adela was telling him was most interesting and at the same time he thought it considerably increased the problem of what he should do with her.

  As if Adela was now thinking back to the years when
she had travelled with her father, she was silent for a long time.

  Then unexpectedly she asked,

  “Where are you going and where can I stay tonight?”

  “That is just what I was wondering myself. I still have a long way to go before I reach my destination, but now I have to think about you.”

  “I do not want to be a bother or an encumbrance,” said Adela in a low voice. “But even more I do not want there to be any chance of Step-mama finding me.”

  “Do you think she will send servants to look for you?”

  “Of course she will. You said you saw someone running down the road after me when they realised I had run away.”

  Now the fear was back in her voice and Michael knew it would be impossible for him to leave her by the roadside.

  He had to take her somewhere where she would be safe.

  “So you think that the men I saw and perhaps others will be searching the neighbourhood for you?”

  “When Step-mama makes up her mind, she always gets her own way. She is completely determined that I shall marry this man I will call Hector and he will be out looking for me too.”

  “I suppose he is rich enough to have servants and horses to do so?”

  “Yes, and he will do anything rather than allow me to escape.”

  She placed her hand on his arm and Michael saw she was trembling.

  “Please,” implored Adela, “take me as far as you can and perhaps if I sleep in a wood all night, they will not look for me there.”

  “Even if you were safe from them it would be extremely uncomfortable and moreover there might be highwaymen.”

  Adela gave a cry of horror.

  “I had not thought of that! Oh, please, please find me somewhere safe.”

  She spoke frantically.

  “You know I would not do anything so unkind,”

  Michael tried to soothe her, “as to leave you unless there was someone to take care of you.”

  “Do you mean it? Do you really mean it?”

  “I am just wondering what we shall do and I think, Adela, if we stay at an inn you must be my sister.”

  As he spoke he knew what would be said if he was to arrive in a smart chaise with a very beautiful young woman.

  Wherever they stopped there would be chattering tongues and speculation as to what they meant to each other.

  Adela was obviously thinking carefully.

  “I would be very grateful if I could pretend to be your sister. That would explain how I was with you without a chaperone.”

  “I was just thinking about that problem,” said Michael a little dryly.

  “Oh, Martin, I can only say thank you, thank you! I will do anything you tell me to do.”

  It struck Michael that was the kind of remark she should not make to a man she did not know and then he realised it only showed how innocent she was of the ways of the world.

  She had indeed been to Russia, which was surprising in itself, but she had travelled with her parents and had no idea of the pitfalls and dangers that might be waiting for her if she was alone.

  “You are my sister,” he said, “and our name is Morris.”

  “Do you think we shall have to stop somewhere for the night?”

  “I certainly cannot go much further without giving the horses a rest and I expect very shortly you will be feeling hungry.”

  “That is true,” agreed Adela, “because I did not eat any luncheon after Step-mama told me that the man, Hector, was coming to see me at three o’clock.”

  “You must have only just got away in time.”

  “Indeed if I had known that was going to happen, I would have packed what I required the night before. As it was, I just snatched up the first things I saw and pushed them into a bag which belongs to one of the servants.”

  “At least you have brought some clothes with you,”

  smiled Michael, “otherwise you might have had to wear mine.”

  Adela gave a little chuckle.

  “Do you think I would be able to hide from Hector and the other men if I wore your clothes and looked like you?”

  “I think it is very unlikely they would mistake you for a boy!”

  “All the same, it might be an idea,” persisted Adela.

  “It is one I do not favour,” replied Michael. “If you wish to be disguised you must not only be dressed for the part, but you have to think it, feel it and actually believe you are the person you are pretending to be.”

  He spoke without thinking and Adela turned round to look at him.

  “So you have had to disguise yourself from an enemy.”

  Michael thought she was far more perceptive than he expected any young woman to be, but equally he felt it would be a mistake for him to talk too much about himself.

  “I remember being told that,” he answered her, “by a master at my school when we produced plays. However, it would have been far more amusing if we had not had to speak in Latin or some other language rather than our own.”

  Adela laughed.

  “I can imagine how much the schoolboys complained.

  Because I have travelled so much with Papa, I have learned quite a lot of languages and people always seem surprised when I can talk to them without any difficulty.”

  Michael reflected how many different Indian dialects he had learned when he was involved in the Great Game. It had been very important that he should make himself understood as well as understanding what he heard.

  *

  They drove on and a few miles later found themselves entering a small village.

  Michael had seen it on the map and it was on the direct route to Grangemoore Hall.

  There was a black and white inn standing on a green in the centre of the village with the traditional duck-pond in front surrounded by a few cottages and the place seemed quiet.

  Michael thought it was very unlikely that Adela would be recognised at such a large distance from her home.

  As far as her stepmother was concerned, she was running away on foot with no conveyance to carry her.

  Michael turned the horses towards the inn.

  As he did so Adela asked quickly,

  “Are we staying here?”

  “It looks peaceful enough,” replied Michael, “and we can only hope that inside it is as clean as it looks on the outside.”

  “It looks charming,” said Adela.

  She was bending forward to look intently at the inn as they drew nearer to it.

  It was called the Fox and Goose and when Michael drew the chaise into the yard at the back, he reckoned that he had made a wise choice.

  The stalls which a stable boy showed him were ready for the horses with plenty of clean straw and with a bucket of fresh water in each one and food in the manger.

  Michael let the boy take the horses from between the shafts of the chaise and walked into the inn with Adela.

  An elderly man greeted them politely and Michael asked him,

  “Would it be possible for my sister and me to stay here for the night? We have a long way to travel tomorrow and our horses need a good rest.”

  “We’ll do our best, sir, for the ’orses and you and the young lady,” the innkeeper replied.

  He went to a door and shouted for his wife.

  A fat little woman with grey hair came hurrying at his call and when she heard what was required she took Adela upstairs.

  There were only three guest rooms and fortunately they were all unoccupied.

  Adela insisted that Michael must have the largest room with a four-poster bed and she herself chose the room next to it which was much smaller.

  “I shall be very comfortable in here,” she told the innkeeper’s wife.

  “I expect you and your brother be hungry, miss. I must go downstairs and see if I can get you a good dinner.”

  “That is just what we are hoping for,” smiled Adela.

  The woman left her and she started to undo the clothes she had piled into the small bag and as she had
been so frantic to get away she had just snatched up two white muslin gowns which were very simple.

  She knew when she had travelled with her father that they did not crease and were very light to carry.

  She had added a nightgown and a light wrap to put over it, a few underclothes and her mother’s jewellery wrapped in a shawl.

  And that was all except what she was wearing.

  There was nothing more she needed for tonight and she decided she would put on one of the muslin gowns which boasted a blue sash at the waist.

  It was not particularly fashionable, but as a long distance traveller, she knew that it was more important to be comfortable and not to be bothered by clothes which required a great deal of attention.

  When she heard Michael come up to the room next door, she gave a little sigh of relief as she was so afraid, in spite of what he had said, that he might decide when she was no longer with him that it was not his business to look after her and just drive away.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, God, for sending him to me,’

  Adela prayed as she undressed.

  Dinner was in a small dining room which held only three tables and it was a relief that there was no one else dining.

  Later in the evening a number of village men came to sit outside and drink a glass of ale. Adela could hear their voices, but she was looking at and listening to Michael and was not concerned with anything else.

  When Michael had knocked at the door of her room to ask her if she was ready to go downstairs for dinner, she had called out for him to come in.

  He had opened the door and she stood up from the dressing table.

  It was the first time he had really been able to look at her and he was startled by her beauty and that she was so very young – hardly more than a child. In fact it was difficult to believe that she was of marriageable age and that she was running away from a prospective suitor.

  “How old are you?” he asked cautiously.

  They were now sitting at the table waiting for the innkeeper’s wife to bring the soup from the kitchen.

  “I thought it was considered rude to ask a lady her age!”

  “You are not a lady, you are my sister!” answered Michael and they both laughed.

  “I am eighteen and three months, if you really want to know,” Adela told him.