Love and the Cheetah Read online

  She saw her sister touch the Duke’s arm in an intimate manner that was almost a caress.

  ‘She has won!’ Ilesa told herself.

  Then she could not help wondering if the Duke had any idea that there were other men in her sister’s life.

  And, if he did know, did he mind?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next morning Ilesa awoke early and realised that she had not gone to sleep until very late.

  She knew that it was wrong of her and the memory of it embarrassed her, but she had lain awake wondering if the Duke would go into Doreen’s room.

  She had heard her sister telling him who slept in which rooms when they went upstairs to bed.

  “Papa has the large room at the end,” Doreen had said, “which always seems to be out of proportion to the rest of the house. But he and Mama had a kind of suite with a dressing room for him and a boudoir for Mama where she wrote her letters.”

  She smiled sweetly up at the Duke.

  “I used to think it very big as a child, but that was before I had been in an enormous house like yours.”

  She made the words sound caressing and then went on,

  “Now, when I come home, I don’t sleep in the room where I used to as a child, but in a guest room! As you and I are both guests, our rooms are side by side.”

  Ilesa had hardly listened to this conversation, but when she was in bed it came back into her mind.

  She had wondered why Doreen was giving the Duke what amounted to a plan of the house.

  Now the answer struck her like a thunderbolt and she was deeply shocked.

  It seemed to her horrifying that the Duke should come into her father’s house and behave improperly with her sister.

  ‘I must not think about it! I will not think about it,’ she told herself many times.

  But, of course, she could not banish the whole scenario from her mind and it was a long time before she finally fell asleep.

  When the morning eventually came, she became excited by the idea of going to stay at Heron Court and yet in a way she wished that the invitation had not been extended to her.

  ‘I shall be out of place there,’ she told herself. ‘I have nothing in common with the Duke and his smart friends like Doreen.’

  However it was too late now to draw back.

  Moreover she knew that her father would insist on her being one of the party.

  He had arranged the night before that they should all leave immediately after Morning Service was finished

  It suited the villagers for it to be early so that they could go home to cook their Sunday luncheon. That is to say if they could afford one.

  It was a fairly long drive to the Duke’s house and he wanted to arrive not too late in the afternoon.

  “It’s very fortunate,” he said, “that I came from London in this large travelling carriage.”

  When they climbed into the vehicle, which was open, the Duke sat on the driving seat with Doreen beside him. Ilesa and her father sat behind.

  And behind them was a groom perched rather perilously on the small seat on top of the luggage.

  Some of the small cases, including Doreen’s hatbox, were with Ilesa and her father.

  Because Ilesa had no idea what to take with her, she had left it to Nanny and her battered trunk looked slightly out of place beside Doreen’s very elegant luggage that was all in the same design.

  It was a lovely day and the Duke drove with an expertise that Ilesa could see that her father much appreciated.

  He was very careful down the twisting lanes that led out of the village and, when they reached the main road, the Duke let the horses have their heads.

  They stopped for luncheon at a delightful small inn where the Duke engaged a private room for his party and they were served a meal far superior to the food that they would have been offered in the public dining room.

  They set off again and now Ilesa found herself looking forward to seeing Heron Court for the first time.

  She remembered reading about the house in the racing newspapers and she had seen it illustrated in a magazine that was sometimes passed on to her when her grandfather was alive.

  She was sure that she had read that it had been built by the famous Robert Adam or at least re-built and restored by him.

  It was said to be one of the largest and most impressive of the Palladian mansions in the whole country.

  ‘At least I shall see it once,’ she thought to herself.

  She was certain from the way Doreen had behaved that she and her father would not be invited to Heron Court again, even when she became the Duchess of Mountheron.

  Doreen had been markedly possessive of the Duke and she seemed to resent it even when he talked about Stubbs’s pictures with the Vicar.

  She looked furious if the Duke even addressed a few words to Ilesa.

  Finally they drove in through some impressive wrought-iron gold-tipped gates and up a long avenue of magnificent lime trees.

  Now Ilesa could understand why Doreen was so determined to marry the Duke.

  Never had she imagined that a house could be so imposing or so enormous, while at the same time it was such a fitting background for the Duke himself.

  The sun was shining on the panes of a multitude of windows and she thought that they flashed a welcome to their owner as he arrived.

  Even as they approached, his standard was run up on the flagpole on the roof.

  And a red carpet was run down a long flight of steps that led up to the front door of Heron Court.

  The Duke brought his horses to a standstill and grooms came running to hold their heads.

  Then he helped Doreen down from the driving seat.

  She then swept up the steps without waiting for her father or Ilesa as if the place already belonged to her.

  The entrance hall was to Ilesa exactly as a Palladian hall should be.

  It was perfectly proportioned and in the alcoves there were endless statues of Greek Goddesses and above the huge exquisitely carved mantelpiece there hung a good number of ancient regimental flags.

  They were relics, Ilesa guessed, of battles won by the Duke’s illustrious ancestors, who were stubbornly protecting their country from its enemies.

  He had told them at luncheon that his aunt, Lady Mavis, would be acting as his hostess for their stay at Heron Court.

  “She is my youngest aunt,” he had informed them, “and is unmarried, so I find it very convenient that she can stay with me whenever I have need of a chaperone!”

  There was a twist to his lips as he uttered the last word.

  Ilesa thought that, if he was having someone to stay with whom he was having an affaire de coeur, he would not want his aunt there.

  She tried not to think such things as they only upset her and were decidedly foreign to her nature.

  Lady Mavis was waiting for them in the very attractive salon where they were taken as soon as they had entered the house.

  She was a very pretty woman of about thirty-five and it seemed rather sad that she was unmarried.

  The Duke, however, had explained, when he told them that she would be at Heron Court, that years ago she had had a most unfortunate love affair.

  Her fiancé had died tragically in a most dreadful accident and she had never cared for anybody else.

  Lady Mavis was dressed very simply and far more appropriately than Doreen, who was wearing an elaborate gown in a bright colour that Ilesa thought was entirely out of place in the country.

  She was, of course, too tactful to say so and, when she saw Lady Mavis, she knew that she had been right.

  “I have brought some guests with me, Aunt Mavis,” the Duke said, kissing her lightly on the cheek. “I want to introduce you to Doreen’s sister, Ilesa, and her father, the Reverend Mark Harle. He is a son of the late Earl of Harlestone and owns two magnificent Stubbs pictures that rival mine!”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Lady Mavis replied as she kissed the Duke.

  S
he shook hands with Doreen, saying politely,

  “How nice to see you again,” before she turned to Ilesa.

  She took her hand and then exclaimed,

  “I did not know that Lady Barker had a sister and how lovely you are!”

  Ilesa blushed because the compliment was something that she had not expected.

  Then Lady Mavis shook hands with the Vicar and said,

  “It was good of you to come at such short notice. I am sure that my nephew wants to make you envious when you see his collection of Stubbs.”

  “I am afraid that indeed I shall be very envious,” the Vicar replied, “however hard I try to resist breaking that particular commandment.”

  They laughed at that remark.

  Lady Mavis then poured out the tea that was waiting for them on two large tables by the fireplace.

  She sat on the sofa in front of one of the tables and on it were arrayed a silver teapot, kettle, milk and cream jugs.

  They were all standing on a very fine tray, which Ilesa thought must have been made in the reign of King George III.

  She had learned so much about silver from her mother, who had taught her to recognise the different periods from the silver that her grandfather had accumulated at The Hall.

  The Vicar sat beside Lady Mavis and Doreen then deliberately began what appeared to be a very intimate conversation with the Duke.

  This left Ilesa to her own devices and so she looked around the room appreciating the pictures, which were all by famous artists.

  There were also some very fine carved gilt tables that she thought were most probably of the period of King Charles II.

  She almost started when the Duke turned and said to her unexpectedly,

  “I hope you are admiring this room, Miss Harle. It was my mother’s favourite and she took all the pieces she liked best from other parts of the house and arranged them all in here.”

  “I was thinking how beautiful it is,” Ilesa replied, “and I especially admire the Charles II tables.”

  The Duke raised his eyebrows.

  “You realised that they were Charles II?”

  “I thought they must be from the style of the carving and naturally the crown appears on two of them as was usual in his reign.”

  She thought that it was almost an insult that the Duke was surprised that she should be so knowledgeable.

  She could not therefore resist saying,

  “I think that the Van Dyck over the fireplace is one of the finest paintings I have ever seen of his work.”

  “Now you are making me determined to show you my Picture Gallery,” the Duke said. “When your father has finished his tea, I suggest that we should go first to look at my Stubbs collection before we start talking about them.”

  “You will not have to ask Papa twice to do that!” Ilesa smiled.

  The Duke suggested it to the Vicar who rose to his feet eagerly.

  “I thought that you had better come and see my Stubbs collection first and get it over,” the Duke suggested. “Otherwise we shall keep talking about something that you have not yet seen.”

  They walked from the salon and only when they were moving down the corridor did Ilesa realise that, as they were leaving the salon, Lady Mavis had asked Doreen to stay with her.

  She was certain that it was something that her sister would not wish to do, but she could not refuse.

  It was in point of fact a relief to be able to talk to the Duke without Doreen scowling at her from behind his back.

  The Duke took them into a room where his Stubbs collection was hung.

  There were certainly a great number of them and he stopped in front of one that was named Foxhounds in a Landscape, 1762.

  “It is believed that Stubbs painted this one at Berkeley Castle,” he stated.

  “I have heard that story,” the Vicar replied.

  Then they came to one picture entitled Provenance, which had been commissioned, the Duke related, by the Marquis of Rockingham.

  The Vicar was thrilled by the way it was painted with an engaging background of trees and a meandering river.

  “The little hut on the far bank,” he pointed out, “is repeated in Mares by an Oak Tree.”

  The Duke gave an exclamation as he said,

  “I wondered if you would notice that! I will show you that picture when we reach the other side of the room.”

  Then, as they moved on, it was Ilesa who was the more excited.

  The picture they were looking at was one that she had seen reproduced in a magazine and she had never thought that she would be lucky enough ever to see the original.

  It was of a cheetah and its two Indian handlers accompanying it.

  “Look, Papa! Look!” she cried excitedly. “The picture we talked about and you said you would love to own.”

  “I had no idea it belonged to Your Grace,” the Vicar commented.

  “It is a new acquisition,” the Duke explained. “I have only owned it now for the last six months.”

  “But it is so – beautiful!” Ilesa breathed, “and I have always – longed to see a cheetah!”

  She saw the Duke’s lips move as if he was about to say something pertinent to her and then he seemed to change his mind and said to her instead,

  “It is, in my opinion, one of Stubbs’s very best paintings. His model was the cheetah presented to King George III by Sir George Piggott, who, if you remember, was Governor-General of Madras.”

  He was speaking to the Vicar who then said,

  “I have always heard that that particular cheetah was the very first ever seen in England.”

  “I am certain that is true,” the Duke agreed. “George III gave him into the care of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland at Windsor Forest and who kept an extensive menagerie.”

  The Vicar gave a short laugh.

  “I have read, of course, of how the Duke of Cumberland staged an experiment in Windsor Great Park as he wished to see how cheetahs attacked their prey.”

  “This cheetah,” the Duke said, pointing to the animal with his finger, “attacked a stag who drove him off and the cheetah then escaped into the woods.”

  “I read that story,” the Vicar nodded. “It killed a fallow deer before it was recaptured.”

  “I have heard too,” Ilesa interposed, “that a cheetah is very fast and looks very beautiful when it is running.”

  “It is,” the Duke answered, “and cheetahs are the fastest animals in the world over a short distance. They have, I believe, been known to reach a speed of sixty miles an hour!”

  As if he thought that they had talked enough about cheetahs, he moved to other pictures in his collection.

  But Ilesa kept looking back at what she knew had been called The Spotted Sphinx.

  There was something about the animal that she found particularly attractive and then she wondered what it would be like to own one as a pet.

  They spent a long time in the Stubbs room and then they went up the stairs to dress for dinner.

  The maids had unpacked Ilesa’s trunk and, when they asked her what she intended to wear, she found that Nanny had packed only two evening gowns for her.

  One was the pale mauve one that had belonged to her mother and which she had worn last night.

  The other one that she had certainly not expected to see was her mother’s Wedding gown.

  It was the most beautiful of all her mother’s clothes that she had owned, but it would never have occurred to Ilesa to wear it.

  It had been made when crinolines were all in fashion, but did not have the whalebone underneath it and it just had a very full skirt sweeping down from a tiny waist.

  The whole gown was made of shadow lace or what Ilesa was told when she was a child was ‘fairy lace’. It was so fine and delicate that it seemed no more substantial than a spider’s web.

  However she was sure that she would look overdressed in it.

  Yet, when she put it on, she saw that nothing could be more in keeping with the hous
e. It fitted her perfectly because her figure was similar to her mother’s and the soft folds of the bertha that revealed her shoulders were very flattering.

  She looked very young and very lovely and as if she had just stepped out of one of the pictures that hung on the walls.

  She felt, however, a little shy as she walked slowly downstairs.

  It was a relief to find that there were other guests for dinner.

  There were two middle-aged couples who were the Duke’s neighbours and also a tall, handsome young man who was introduced to her as Lord Randall.

  She realised right away that this was the man who Doreen had been involved with at The Three Feathers.

  He seemed very pleasant and, as Ilesa shook hands with him, she knew at once that he was not the wicked villain that she had made him out to be in her mind.

  She saw him looking at Doreen, who followed her a few seconds later into the salon.

  Ilesa was immediately convinced that Lord Randall really loved her sister.

  Yet, because she had no intention of marrying him, there was an unmistakable agony in his expression.

  From the way Doreen spoke to Lord Randall, Ilesa knew that she had expected him to be there and she guessed that Doreen had engineered it to prevent Sir Mortimer Jackson from making mischief.

  She could not help thinking that it was cruel of her especially when Doreen went straight to the Duke’s side as soon as he came into the room.

  It seemed that she was doing it to make it clear to everyone that there was an intimacy between them.

  When Ilesa next found herself sitting next to Lord Randall at dinner, she talked to him about the beautiful English countryside.

  She learned that he had a house in Hampshire that he was exceedingly proud of.

  “It has been in my family for four generations,” he told her, “but, of course, it does not compare in any way with Heron Court.”

  There was a distinct note of despair in his voice.

  As he spoke, he glanced across the table at Doreen whose beautiful face was turned up to the Duke’s.

  Ilesa felt very sorry for him.

  “How long have you known my sister?” she then asked Lord Randall.