The Keys of Love Page 6

  “Yes, Eddie, I did.”

  “Then you’ll play?”

  Henrietta, thinking of the shame of her true identity being publicly exposed, took a deep breath.

  “Yes, Eddie, I will.”

  Eddie raised her hand to his lips with a wry smile.

  She stared over his head at the sea, which seemed as calm and cold as a glacier.

  There was no way out of it.

  Miss Harrietta Reed, pianist, would be making one last appearance with the Eddie Bragg orchestra!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nanny listened in dismay to Henrietta’s idea that they accompany the orchestra to Merebury.

  “We should be on the train to London,” she wailed. “We could be home in Lushwood by tomorrow night.”

  “But I-I promised Eddie I would help him this one last time,” cried Henrietta desperately.

  She did not dare tell Nanny about Eddie’s threat of blackmail or her own uneasy desire to meet the Duke.

  “Suppose there was someone at this Merebury ball who recognised you,” persisted Nanny. “Have you thought of the hignomy?”

  Henrietta stared at her until she realised what the old lady meant by that last word.

  “There won’t be any ignominy, Nanny. Nobody, not even you, would recognise me by the time Eddie and his make-up artist have finished with me.”

  “I recognised you alright in that scandalous dress you wore. If you were found out you’d never find yourself a husband not the one you’d want, anyway.”

  ‘I think I know the one I want,’ came the rush of words through Henrietta’s mind.

  She had had so many suitors and wanted none of them. Now she was to meet the one man in the world she was strangely convinced she could love and and he was beyond her forever.

  He was more or less engaged to another and even if he had not been, he was most unlikely to be interested in her alter ego Harrietta Reed, piano player with a somewhat risqué New York orchestra.

  Behind her Nanny continued grumbling.

  “Your father left you in my tender care and I have already let you do more than I should!”

  “You said you were proud of my piano playing.”

  “I was,” Nanny acceded. “But how am I going to be Mrs. Poody with people of real quality about!”

  Henrietta gave her a quick hug.

  “But you are real quality, too, Nanny!”

  “Go on with you!” growled Nanny.

  It was to be the turning point in the discussion and a short time later Nanny agreed to go to Merebury Court.

  “But only one more performance, mind!”

  “Promise!” said Henrietta with the utmost sincerity.

  She had no wish to stay there for too long, as she had no desire to witness the courtship of Romany Foss and the Duke develop under her very eyes.

  *

  The following morning a mist rose out of the sea and settled like a shroud over The Boston Queen.

  When Henrietta took a stroll on deck after breakfast she could hardly see anything in front of her and the ship seemed almost becalmed.

  She sighed and gazed into the mist.

  Not far ahead lay England.

  England and the Duke, with whom she was already half in love.

  She felt as if she was sailing towards her destiny.

  She turned as she heard footsteps approach.

  “Who’s there?” someone called out nervously.

  A hand reached out of the mist, groping at the air as if for support. Romany Foss stumbled after it and she gave a little shriek of relief when she saw Henrietta.

  “Thank goodness! I heard someone coming and I thought supposing it’s that murderer from Steerage!”

  “It was unlikely to be him. He’s locked up and the man he stabbed didn’t die, so he’s not quite a murderer.”

  Romany looked about her with a shudder.

  “I shall be so very pleased to reach the sanctuary of Merebury Court,” she sighed. “I hear you are going to be there too with the orchestra.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Of course, you will excuse me for not mingling with you once we arrive. Lady Butterclere has told me that it would not be seemly.”

  Henrietta blinked and turned away.

  “You must follow the dictates of Lady Butterclere!”

  She did not add that she had no desire whatsoever to mingle with Romany at Merebury or anywhere else.

  One reason was her simple desire not to be found out. It was fortuitous that her own social circle was far away from the North of England and Merebury.

  She dreaded going to an event as Henrietta Radford and meeting with Lady Butterclere or Romany, who would recognise her as the Eddie Bragg pianist in an instant.

  Another reason was Romany’s character.

  She affected a certain naivety and was in thrall to Lady Butterclere, but Henrietta could detect an ambition, a greed in her black button eyes that was disconcerting.

  Romany Foss, she sensed, was the sort of girl who always got what she wanted in the end.

  That she wanted the Duke of Merebury was beyond question.

  She was distracted from these unpleasant reveries by the sound of the fog-horn. Its loud bellow shattered the sense of dead calm that lay about the ship.

  Voices called out playfully through the mist.

  “Land ahoy! England ahead.”

  Henrietta’s heart gave a great leap.

  With no more thoughts of Romany, she turned and hurried down to the cabin, where Nanny had been packing since breakfast.

  *

  She and Nanny watched while three gangways were lowered down to the quayside and trunks were swung out to be caught by dockworkers on shore.

  A black covered wagon drew up at the foot of the gangway from Steerage and two Police Officers emerged. They strode up the gangway and disappeared from view.

  Henrietta leaned over the rail.

  A few minutes later the two Officers reappeared on the gangway leading a figure hunched in a dark cape.

  A murmur arose around Henrietta.

  “That’s the blaggard that tried to murder someone on board!”

  The felon clearly did not wish his face to be seen. His hat was pulled low and he kept his eyes on the ground.

  Henrietta gazed at him as he was bundled roughly into the wagon. She almost felt sorry for him.

  It would be a long time before he saw England!

  England!

  Her heart sang as she lifted her head and looked at the shoreline.

  To many it would seem so chill and cheerless that morning, but to her it was almost magical.

  Mist swirled about glistening roofs, pinnacles and spires. A coppery sun, like an old English farthing, peered through pearly grey clouds. To the South and to the North, dark mountains loomed.

  Directly ahead to the East lay Merebury Court.

  Lady Butterclere and Miss Foss were descending the gangway and Nanny tapped Henrietta on the elbow.

  “Better keep close to those two,” she warned, “as we’re travelling on with them.”

  A number of vehicles from Merebury Court stood waiting on the quayside.

  Lady Butterclere and Romany Foss rode in the first carriage with the family crest on its side.

  Henrietta, Nanny and Eddie were assigned a second carriage, smaller, but also sporting the Merebury crest.

  A selection of old barouches, gigs and broughams, many obviously dragged out of dusty retirement, conveyed the rest of the orchestra, including the indomitable Kitty.

  Eddie sat with his legs crossed, whistling under his breath. That he had practically blackmailed Henrietta into coming with him did not seem to weigh on his conscience.

  Henrietta wanted to censure him, but she could not. He was just so irrepressibly cheerful and so openly blatant in his passion for music that she had to forgive him.

  Besides, and this was something she hated to admit to herself, Eddie was the instrument that would allow her at least to se
t eyes on the Duke of Merebury, to see him and at least understand why he was haunting her.

  “You know, I still haven’t figured it all out,” said Eddie, uncrossing and re-crossing his legs.

  “What haven’t you figured out?” asked Henrietta.

  “That skinny Lizzie, Miss Foss, I’m so certain I’ve seen her somewhere before.”

  Henrietta waited, but Eddie shook his head.

  “Nope. I can’t place it. But it wasn’t New York. It must have been somewhere out West.”

  Henrietta settled back against the plush upholstery, her eyes turning to the window and the unfolding scene.

  Field after dank field, small cottages, a face raised here and there at the passing of this odd procession.

  Nanny was already asleep and now Henrietta’s own eyes began to close, lulled as she was by the steady clop of hooves and rattle of wheels on the road beneath.

  She slept and dreamed.

  The Duke of Merebury held out his hand and drew her to dance to the strain of the Eddie Bragg Orchestra.

  She was in his arms and yet at the same time she was at the piano looking on, dressed in garish colours, her lips as red as new spilled blood

  Henrietta started up with a cry.

  The carriage lurched to a halt and Nanny had been thrown against her shoulder.

  From the road came sounds of shouts and whistles.

  Eddie sprang to his feet and threw open the door.

  “I’ll see what’s going on,” he said and jumped out.

  “Dearie me,” moaned Nanny. “An accident?”

  Eddie returned in a few minutes.

  “Something of a drama,” he reported. “A criminal has escaped the clutches of the law!”

  “W-which criminal?” asked Henrietta faintly.

  Eddie glanced at her.

  “That fellow from the ship, who tried to stab a card player in a poker game. He was in the back of the Police wagon with just one guard.

  “Seems he had a weapon a penknife or something secreted in his boot. He managed to overcome the guard and get away. Threw himself off the moving vehicle, but escaped unhurt.”

  “Will we be held up long?” asked Henrietta.

  “Not if Lady Butterclere has anything to do with it,” chuckled Eddie. “She’s even insisting the Police move their wagon to the side of the road so that she can proceed. I better go and let the troop know what’s happening.”

  Henrietta and Nanny sat in silence, listening to the rain drum on the roof.

  It seemed like an age before they started moving again.

  “Hey, wait for me!” cried Eddie, wrenching open the door and scrambling up as the coach jolted into action.

  As the procession wound its way deeper into the drenched countryside, no one on the wayside stopped to look carefully at the last vehicle of all.

  There, wedged between the back of the coach and an unwieldy trunk, was the dripping figure of a man.

  Hat low on his forehead, cape wrapped around his face, he hid from his pursuers and the world, the steel hilt of a knife gleaming at the top of his boot.

  *

  It was mid-afternoon before the first of the coaches rumbled through the gates of Merebury Court.

  Henrietta leaned from the carriage window in awe.

  Two miles of stately elms led up to the house and when she glimpsed it, she drew in her breath.

  The grandiose façade of stone boasted hundreds of windows and the house rose to three storeys and a grand stairway swept up on two sides to the imposing entrance.

  The door was opened at their approach and a butler appeared, flanked by the housekeeper and a footman.

  The footman descended and opened the door of the first carriage and Lady Butterclere stepped out.

  “The Duke is not here to greet us?” she demanded of the butler.

  “He has been detained with the Prince of Wales at Buxton,” he replied. “He has left instructions that you are to consider yourself at home.”

  “Well, I do, although,” she replied, “I am somewhat disappointed that the Duke could not forsake the Prince to welcome his long-lost relation back home.”

  The butler did not blink.

  “One cannot forsake a Prince, my Lady.”

  “Let’s hope he makes it home for tomorrow’s ball,” she sniffed.

  Lady Butterclere pursed her lips and, turning to the stairs, beckoned Miss Foss to follow her.

  Miss Romany Foss, her neck stretched out like a stork, ascended the stairs, her beady little eyes flying hither and thither with an avaricious gleam.

  Henrietta had overheard the exchange between the butler and Lady Butterclere, and felt her heart sink as she realised she must wait another day to set eyes on the Duke.

  “You will see that our musical guests are settled in their quarters,” called Lady Butterclere in an after-thought. “Are they to be housed over the stables?”

  The butler blinked as he looked up at her.

  “They are in the North wing, my Lady”

  “In the house, you mean?”

  Lady Butterclere froze.

  “Orders of His Grace, my Lady.”

  She turned round and sailed into the hall with Miss Foss slithering in her wake.

  Eddie handed first Nanny out of the coach and then Henrietta. Next he sauntered up the steps, cape slung over his shoulder.

  “Gee, it’s a Palace,” Henrietta heard Kitty declare as she climbed out of her rickety barouche.

  Henrietta was suddenly very pleased that Eddie and Kitty and the orchestra were here.

  They provided a welcome antidote to the snobbery of Lady Butterclere and her protégée.

  Servants had appeared and were already unloading the luggage from the various carriages.

  “Hello, what’s this?” a servant in britches called.

  He was holding a damp and battered hat.

  “It was behind this trunk,” he added. “Was one of you lot riding on the back of the coach?”

  All the members of the orchestra shook their heads. Kitty took the hat and examined it.

  “I’ve not seen it before,” she commented.

  “Maybe you had a stowaway,” grunted the servant, returning to his task of hauling the trunks down.

  Kitty’s eye met Henrietta’s they were thinking the same thing suppose it was the prisoner who had escaped some miles back on their journey?

  “Well, if you did have a stowaway, he’s dropped off like a leech, probably got to the next town by now.”

  Reassured, Henrietta continued on her way.

  The first sight that met her eyes as she stepped into the hall was a series of portraits lining the walls.

  The nine Dukes of Merebury.

  ‘There he is,’ she thought with a flutter as her eyes settled on the last portrait to the right.

  The wonder of it was that he so closely resembled her fantasy the jet-black hair, the dark brooding gaze and the finely chiselled features.

  He seemed to be looking directly at Henrietta. She almost blushed under that serious searching stare.

  She and Nanny were shown into adjoining rooms. They were to share their bathroom, but even so Henrietta considered their quarters luxurious in the extreme.

  Her four-poster was so high that steps were needed and thick gold drapes hung from the canopy.

  There was a bright fire blazing in the grate.

  She thought she would be tired after the long coach ride, but when she lay down for a nap, her eyes would not close.

  She lay staring up at the underside of the canopy.

  She imagined the Duke approaching her and, since she had seen ardour, feigned or otherwise, on the faces of her various suitors, she was now able to envisage ardour on the face of this most favoured suitor.

  Her fingers traced her own lips as she imagined the kiss that the Duke might bestow upon them

  “What are you thinking,” she cried aloud in horror, springing up from the bed.

  Running across to the dressing
table, she now faced herself in the mirror.

  ‘You do not know the Duke and he does not know you,’ she told herself sternly. ‘He is just a fantasy.’

  A fantasy that had grown steadily in proportion to the diminishing distance between America and England.

  How her imagination had managed to form such a near likeness to the real man, she could not fathom.

  Perhaps she had seen a photograph of him in the past, in one of the English newspapers sent out regularly to her father so that he could keep up with the news.

  Yes, she thought in sudden triumph, that must be it!

  She had seen his photograph at some Society event or other and his vivid image had lodged in her brain.

  Such intimacy with his image, however, gave her no rights at all concerning the actual Duke.

  She was in too much turmoil to sleep and glanced over at the window. Although it could only be around four o’clock, it was still winter and the light was fading already.

  She wondered if she might wander out and take a stroll in the gardens.

  She went to her door, opened it and peeped out. All was quiet. The travellers would be weary and ensconced in their rooms until supper.

  She was sure that no one would see her and was not sure that it mattered if they did.

  Since the trunks were not yet unpacked there was no coat or cloak for Henrietta, so she then tiptoed into Nanny’s room and looked around.

  Mrs. Poody had been given sumptuous quarters as well and no doubt she was thrilled.

  Nanny’s shawl lay on the bed where she was at this very moment snoring valiantly away.

  Henrietta bent low, gently picked up her shawl and slipped quietly out of the room.

  She did not want to go out by the front door and so she turned left in the corridor instead of right. Her instincts were correct and she found herself at the top of a flight of narrow steps that led, she guessed, to the back of the house.

  At the bottom of the steps there was a stone-flagged corridor. Loud voices and the rattle of utensils alerted her to the fact that the kitchen was nearby. She hurried past a silver room and hesitated before a large nail-studded door.

  Glancing behind her, she pushed the door open and emerged into a cobbled courtyard with an archway.

  She was just starting towards the archway when she was arrested by the clatter of hooves behind her.

  A horse and rider swept into the courtyard. Barely had the horse halted than the rider leaped from the saddle.