104. A Heart Finds Love Read online

Then Alnina said,

  “I think that is rather sad.”

  ”Now come on,” William interrupted. “All I want you to do is to look at each other and appear loving, even though you feel that this is a confounded bore.”

  Alnina laughed and turned to the Duke,

  “Mr. Armstrong is quite right. We should get down to business and I will look up at you affectionately.”

  She threw back her head as she spoke.

  As the Duke looked down at her, he thought that it would be very difficult to find another woman anywhere in the world who was quite so attractive.

  ‘What I have to do,’ he thought, ‘because I knew Charles and because she has been so kind to me is to find her a really nice husband. I just wonder if she would fancy William?’

  “Now,” said William, almost as if the Duke had spoken his thoughts aloud, “don’t move and for Heaven’s sake look affectionate.”

  The Duke bent his head a little nearer to Alnina.

  She stared up at him.

  Their eyes met and then she felt a little feeling run through her that she had never felt before.

  They both stood very still, almost as if mesmerised.

  William once again threw off the velvet cloth and declared,

  “Excellent! Really excellent! If it does not come out exactly as you looked, I will be furious and sue the man who sold me the camera!”

  “I am sure it will be perfect,” the Duke said. “Now if you have finished, I will go and change.”

  “And I will do the same,” Alnina added. “Then I am sure that Brooks has tea ready for us all in the study.”

  “I will look forward to that,” William said. “I think I deserve it after all the trouble I have had in taking these photographs.”

  “It has been far worse for us,” the Duke protested. “After all, we have had to dress up and obey commands. And that is something I have managed to avoid up to now, even though we have known each other for years.”

  “That is certainly true enough,” William replied. “You always think that you know best, so I have given up arguing with you.”

  The Duke laughed and countered,

  “I have not noticed much difference.”

  “Perhaps you will in the future. Now ostensibly you are a married man and I have proof of it!”

  “You are scaring me, William, and before you say any more I am going upstairs to change and be again, as I have always been and always intend to be, a very sensible bachelor without a heart.”

  He had left the room before William could answer.

  Alnina, who had been putting her bouquet in water so that the flowers would not die, turned round.

  “Why is your friend, the Duke, so determined not to marry?” she asked him. “And everyone will expect him to, although I quite understand that he has no wish to marry this Princess from another country.”

  William glanced at the door, almost as if he felt the Duke was still there listening to him.

  “He was very badly treated by someone he loved and whom he had asked to marry him,” he said. “But don’t tell him I have told you so.”

  “Oh, how sad! Did she jilt him?”

  “Yes, she did and only a few days before they were due to be married.”

  Alnina stared at him.

  “How terrible! How could she do such a thing?”

  “She did it because she wanted a title. She married instead a Viscount who will become an Earl. Little did she know, if she had waited long enough, she would have been a Duchess.”

  Alnina was silent for a moment and then she said,

  “I suppose many women would think it important. Yet when they marry it should be the man himself who counts and not that he has or has not a title to his name.”

  “If they are honest,” William replied, “most women dream that a Duke will drop down the chimney and ask them to be his wife. They are therefore disappointed when he is just Mr. Snooks or Captain Know-all!”

  Alnina laughed.

  “You are funny, but it’s true. Yet I don’t believe that all women are so avaricious.”

  As William was silent, she went on,

  “Personally I think that if I was married to someone very grand, it would be such a bore to entertain people who came not because they were real friends, but because they wanted to say they had dined with the Duke of ‘This’ or the Earl of ‘That’.”

  William was amused and responded,

  “You are different from most people. But I have never found a woman yet who was not anxious to have a title and go into dinner in front of her friends.”

  “Well, now you have met me,” Alnina said. “I can assure you that when I marry it will not be because the man in question is important, even if he is the King of Sheba. It will be because I love him and he loves me.”

  “That is exactly what you should feel, but I cannot believe that dressed up as you are now you will not expect a God from Olympus or perhaps an archangel from Heaven to be kneeling at your feet.”

  Alnina walked towards the door, saying,

  “Now you are putting ideas into my head. So I am going to change and just be a plain young woman who has no aspirations beyond paying her brother’s debts.”

  She had gone before William could think of a reply, but he was chuckling as he packed up his camera.

  He was reflecting that Miss Lester was far more amusing than most young women he had met and she was certainly different from any debutantes who giggled when he spoke to them and had nothing to say for themselves.

  The Duke came down first and found William in the study.

  “I hope,” he said, “those pictures are good. You have certainly taken a great deal of trouble over them.”

  “They will be fantastic. I can promise you that. I will have them developed and printed off by the day after tomorrow.”

  “Then we can start to make our plans as to when we can leave for Georgia,” the Duke said with satisfaction.

  “There is one thing that is worrying me, John.”

  “What is that, William?”

  “If you really buy this mountain on which you have set your heart, how are you going to give your orders to the men who will be working for you?”

  The Duke looked at him.

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

  “Well, neither of us speaks Russian and, although the Prince speaks French, as do all aristocratic Russians, the workers will speak only Russian and not particularly cultured Russian at that.”

  “I suppose I will have an overseer and someone in charge who will give them their orders,” the Duke replied. “And, of course, once it has been organised, you and I can go back to England or anywhere else we fancy and merely pick up the gold on our return.”

  “That all sounds very easy, but you know that in Georgia, as in Russia, you cannot trust anyone unless you are there yourself giving the orders.”

  He saw that the Duke was listening and went on,

  “You are going to find it hard to find an overseer who is honest and also speaks French and will not put your gold into his own pocket.”

  There was silence and then the Duke said,

  “You always produce the most irritating stumbling blocks when I least expect them. Of course you are right, but I suppose with my usual good luck I will find someone I can trust and hope for the best.”

  “If you ask me, that is not good enough,” William answered. “Before we go and buy this ridiculous mountain you have set your heart on, we must both learn Russian.”

  The Duke laughed.

  “I wonder how long it would take us. It’s the most ghastly language I have met on my travels. If you recall, when we were in Tiflis before, you complained that, unless we were conversing with the High and Mighty, you never understood a word that was said to you.”

  ”That is exactly what I am saying to you now.”

  They were walking along the passage and came to the study where Brooks was holding the door open.

&
nbsp; “Tea is ready, Your Grace,” he said to the Duke, “and I do hope you enjoys the cake my Missus has made especially for you.”

  “That is very kind of her. Please thank her. I am sure it will be delicious.”

  “I hope that you’ll say the same when your Grace’s eaten it,” Brooks replied.

  The two men went into the study where Alnina was sitting on the sofa.

  She was looking, the Duke thought, exceedingly attractive in a cotton dress, which might not have been the height of fashion, but it matched the blue of her eyes.

  “Come and have tea,” she said. “You deserve it. I heard Brooks telling you that his wife has made one of her special cakes and she will be hurt and upset if you don’t enjoy it.”

  “I am sure that it’s like everything else you have given us,” the Duke said, “unique and different in every way from anything we have had before.”

  Alnina laughed.

  “I am so glad that is my reputation, because like you I get very bored when things are humdrum and always exactly the same. That is why I like travelling.”

  “I have just been telling the Duke,” William said, “that it will be no use his impressing Prince Vladimir with our photographs if we cannot find an honest overseer for the mountain.”

  Even as he finished speaking, he realised that he had been indiscreet and the Duke had not told Alnina what he was trying to buy from the Prince.

  He put his fingers up to his lips and, looking at the Duke, sighed,

  “I am sorry, John.”

  “I thought that it was women who could not keep a secret,” the Duke said. “But I feel that we can trust Miss Lester, so we will let her into the plan.”

  “Oh, please do!” Alnina begged. “You told me that there was a special reason for your going to Georgia, but not what it was.”

  “The trouble with William has always been that he talks too much, but our secret, now that you know at least a quarter of it, shall be yours and I will tell you that, ever since I last visited Georgia and saw the fantastic Caucasus mountains, I wanted to own one.”

  Alnina stared at him.

  “To own a mountain! But how exciting! And how thrilling! Of course it would be something really precious to have, all of one’s own.”

  “That is exactly what I feel, but I never thought that I could possibly afford one until by the curious hand of Fate I became the Duke.”

  “Now you are really going to buy a mountain? It’s the most intriguing idea I have ever heard.”

  “Everyone else will think I am a fool, but this is the one thing I want, because, when William and I were there some years ago, we explored one that belongs to Prince Vladimir and we are quite certain that it contains gold.”

  “So then you will have a gold mountain all of your own. It’s not surprising that you are so excited.”

  “William has just presented a difficulty however.”

  “What is that?” Alnina asked.

  “Well, neither of us speak Russian and, as he has pointed out, we will need to hire a trustworthy overseer we can give orders to. We must hope that he speaks French.”

  Alnina looked from one to the other.

  “Are you really telling me that you are thinking of buying a mountain which will cost you a lot of money and neither of you speaks Russian?”

  “Because we both spoke French all the time with the people we were staying with and with the Prince when we met him, it never occurred to me that the ordinary people of Georgia speak a different language altogether.”

  “But of course they do,” Alnina said.

  “What I have suggested,” William broke in, “is that we both learn Russian before we go out and spend a great deal of money buying this mountain over which, however much gold it contains, we are bound to be crooked.”

  “I think that is very likely,” Alnina remarked, “but it will take you some time. It took me over a year to learn Russian and I had one of the best teachers ever.”

  The Duke stared at her.

  “You speak Russian?”

  “Fluently, I am glad to say,” Alnina replied. “But I did work very hard at it and, as I had completed all the other lessons in the school, I did nothing else.”

  There was silence for a moment and then William said,

  “Then of course you will have to teach us.”

  Alnina smiled.

  “For one year? Or if you enjoy your life in London, which undoubtedly you do, it might be two or three years.”

  Again there was silence before the Duke suggested,

  “The only possible answer to this problem is that you come out with us to Georgia. Then you can give the overseer his orders and we hope that he passes them on.”

  ”Are you serious?” Alnina enquired.

  “Of course I am serious. I have been dreaming of this for years. Now that it is actually within my reach to own a mountain that seems to me much more exciting than anything else I have seen on my travels, I just cannot give up and admit I am defeated.”

  “No, of course not, but I am sure that you could find someone more suitable than I am.”

  The Duke spread out his hands.

  “Quite frankly we know no one. And to go to the Russian Embassy would be crazy.”

  “Why should it be?” William enquired.

  “Don’t be silly. You know as well as I do, if the Russians thought that there was gold in the mountain you are talking about, the gold would be theirs before we even left home.”

  “Mr. Armstrong is absolutely right there,” Alnina agreed. “The Russians, I was told by my teacher, who was a Russian, have been actively searching for gold and every other available mineral in the Caucasus.”

  She smiled at them both before she continued,

  “But those who prospected in the North have often been disappointed. And they have now almost given up believing that treasure is there waiting for them.”

  They looked at each other and then William said,

  “Miss Lester is quite right. I think, if she will come with us to Tiflis, it will make those we meet think we are merely on an adventurous holiday.”

  “That is sheer common sense,” the Duke said, “so please, Miss Lester, or rather Alnina – remember I knew your brother and please call me John – will you come with us as my guest and help me buy the one possession I really want to own?”

  “It is the most exciting invitation I have ever had,” Alnina enthused, “but how can I leave everything here with Charles’s creditors trying every way they can to extract money from me that I do not have?”

  “You can leave all that in the hands of my Solicitor and one of my Managers,” the Duke said. “Most of them have little to do at The Castle as they have already made it almost perfect. My Solicitor will keep the dogs at bay until you return.”

  “I cannot believe you are really serious about this,” Alnina sighed.

  “I am completely serious and William will tell you how much I have longed for this particular mountain, but have never been rich enough until now to buy an inch of it, let alone the whole mountain itself.”

  Alnina looked from one to the other.

  “I don’t know what to say. You have taken all my breath away and I cannot think clearly.”

  “Just leave it all to me. I will arrange that nothing difficult happens while you are away and, if the creditors get really out of hand, my people shall pay them and we can then discuss later how much you owe me instead of them.”

  “I feel breathless,” Alnina murmured. “Of course it will be thrilling for me to go to Georgia and to see the Caucasus. It is something I thought would never actually happen and I would only be able to read about it, as I have done already, in books.”

  “Very well. William and I will go back to London and I will send down one of my Managers and a Solicitor tomorrow for you to give them your instructions as to what is to be sold in the house and what is not.”

  The Duke smiled at her.

  “Personally,” he went on, �
�I think it would be best if nothing was sold until we return.”

  “I doubt if the creditors will agree to that,” Alnina answered in a small voice.

  “Very well, they will just have to be paid off,” the Duke asserted.

  He then looked up at the empty space over the mantelpiece and continued,

  “I only wish that this had happened sooner and you would have been able to keep a great number of pictures that you have already sold.”

  “I hated doing it,” Alnina admitted, “and it would have broken Papa’s heart.”

  “Well, what is done cannot be undone,” the Duke said. “But we can make amends for you in the future and, as our teacher, you will be entitled to a large salary.”

  Alnina stared at him incredulously.

  “Are you really serious?” she asked.

  “Of course I am. It matters to me enormously. I am not so concerned with money, but only with possessing the mountain I have always wanted and, if you like, loved as if it was the wife everyone is begging me to marry!”

  William laughed.

  “You would find it cold, hard and cumbersome when you were making love to it!”

  “Now you are just being unpleasant, William. The mountain is what I dream about and I have wanted it ever since we first saw it. Now I have a chance of making it mine I am not going to miss it. That is my final word, so it is no use arguing with me about it.”

  “I would not dare,” William said. “I just know how pig-headed you can be when you make up your mind and Alnina will have to get used to that, just as I have.”

  Alnina was looking from one to the other as if she could not believe that what they were saying was true.

  Then the Duke announced,

  “With any luck we will leave next week. Now tell me if there is anything else you want done while we are away.”

  “I hate to say it, but Brooks and his wife have been wonderful to me and have looked after me ever since I was a baby. They have hardly been able to afford enough food when we have not sold anything and they have not been paid any wages for months.”

  “You can leave that to me,” the Duke said.

  “I hate to bother you with it,” Alnina replied, “but they are the only people who have helped me since I have been alone.”

  “As I have already said,” the Duke insisted, “I will see that the Brookses are cared for and have help in the house while you are away with me.”