Danger to the Duke Read online

  They reached another door and the boy thrust the bottle into Michael’s hands. He turned and started to walk back without saying another word.

  Michael opened the door and walked in, seeing at once that it was a study.

  It was a large room with furniture covered in red leather and another extremely fine mantelpiece with a Chippendale bookcase at the end. The walls were covered in pictures by Stubbs and other mainly sporting artists.

  Sprawling on the sofa with a bottle of champagne by the side of him was a stout man who looked over sixty.

  He had an ugly debauched face and there were heavy lines under his eyes and round his lips which gave him a cynical and somewhat cruel expression.

  As Michael advanced towards him he barked in a harsh voice,

  “Who the devil are you?”

  Michael clicked his heels together and bowed politely.

  “I am the new butler, sir, and my name is Morris.”

  “The new butler! I had no idea that fool Barrett could find one so quickly.”

  “I happened to hear that the position was vacant, sir,”

  Michael added, “and I am ready to serve you to the best of my ability.”

  “It had better be the best,” snarled Cyril Moore. “The fools and idiots in this house ought to be in an asylum, that’s the right place for them. I will tell you right away I expect service for what I pay you and no answering back. I will not stand for that.”

  “I understand, sir,” said Michael quietly, “and if you require some more champagne, this bottle has been well cooled.”

  “That will be a change and see that I have something decent to drink at dinner. The fools last night forgot the port!”

  “If you will be kind enough to tell me what you require, sir, I will see if it is available.”

  “Available!” shouted Cyril Moore. “Of course it is available. The cellar is choc-a-bloc with wine, and I intend to drink it all – all, you understand – before that young whippersnapper comes to take my place.”

  Michael was just about to ask him which wines he would require for dinner beside the champagne and port, when the door opened and a man burst in.

  He was young but almost as unpleasant-looking as Cyril Moore.

  “I have found her,” he said, “and what you suggested will be easy, as easy as picking a nut off a nut-tree.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” said Cyril, “and what about the Special Licence?”

  “I have sent Claude to London for that,” answered the man. “He should be back tomorrow and then the balloon will go up.”

  “I congratulate you, Jason.”

  Then as if Cyril was suddenly aware that Michael was listening, he bellowed,

  “What the hell are you waiting for? Why are you not getting on with what you should be doing.”

  “I was just waiting to ask you, sir,” replied Michael,

  “if you require both red and white wine at dinner and champagne for the pudding?”

  “Of course, of course,” blustered Cyril. “Why should I have anything but the best?”

  “That is what I hope to provide for you, sir”

  Michael bowed and taking the empty bottle of champagne from beside the sofa, he walked towards the door.

  “Who is that?” he heard the newcomer ask.

  “The new butler,” replied Cyril Moore. “Do not worry about him. Tell me more about the heiress. How are you going to make her unconscious?”

  Michael was extremely curious, but he dared not wait to hear any more, so he walked back towards the pantry.

  As he did so he considered that Cyril was one of the most unpleasant men he had ever come across. And his friend Jason was up to some extremely nasty mischief.

  An heiress, a Special Licence and a bride who was to be made unconscious!

  What was he to make of it all?

  As he reached the pantry, he was beginning to believe that what he had just heard was happening at Grangemoore Hall was not only as bad as he had expected, but far more sinister.

  He had been prepared for men who drank excessively and who were stealing money, which should be his.

  He had even thought that Cyril might be selling precious treasures from the house in order to line his own pockets, but if his guests were involved with women from outside, that was a very different matter.

  Clearly he had found not just a rowdy party in his house, but criminals plotting crimes which would be very difficult to deal with alone.

  ‘I shall have to bring in help,’ he thought.

  Then he realised he had no idea to whom he could turn. It was rather like the Great Game where a man was entirely on his own. If he found himself in a dangerous position, there was no one to sweep in and save him at the last minute. He either extricated himself or he died.

  Michael recalled some of his more frightening experiences when it had been a matter of a second of time or a quarter of an inch between living or dying.

  Yet somehow he had survived.

  ‘If I can do that in India, I can deal with this,’ he told himself.

  At the same time he felt increasingly apprehensive.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  To Michael’s surprise he was ordered to lay dinner for twelve.

  As he had seen so few people since he had arrived, he could not imagine all that number of guests could be staying in the house.

  However, just when dinner was nearly ready, he heard a number of footsteps coming down the stairs belonging to both men and women.

  They must have been lying down – if that was the right word – during the afternoon.

  He had already taken two bottles of champagne into the drawing room where they were to gather before dinner.

  It was a lovely room with three huge crystal chandeliers. The furniture was French, which he guessed had been bought by one of his ancestors at the time of the French Revolution.

  He walked towards the drawing room to announce dinner.

  For the first time he could see why there had been so much talk about what was happening at the Hall.

  The men were certainly not gentlemen. They were what his father would have called bounders.

  The women were painted, common and dressed in the most fantastic and suggestive gowns.

  When he looked at them, Michael could only hope that there was no chance of Adela coming into contact with such creatures.

  He had been told by the cook,

  “There’s no point, Mr. Morris, in announcin’ dinner until they’s had at least half-an-hour’s hard drinkin’ aforehand.”

  When he did enter the drawing room the noise and laughter made it impossible for him to make himself heard.

  Then as Cyril looked towards him, he proclaimed in a stentorian tone,

  “Dinner is served, sir.”

  For a moment it seemed as if none of the party was interested. However, as Cyril moved towards the door, the others began to follow.

  The dining room was a very large and impressive Banqueting Hall and Michael had arranged the table as it would have been at Viceregal Lodge on an important occasion.

  The candelabra were of gold and so were the goblets and dishes he had found in the safe and he had instructed the footmen, who had never heard of such an idea, to decorate the table with flowers.

  As none had come in from the garden, he had taken them from one of the rooms which he did not think was in use.

  When the women saw the table they shrieked with delight.

  “That’s ever so pretty!” one of them cried. “All it wants now is for me to dance among the gold.”

  “And a nice mess you’d make of it,” remarked the man beside her.

  “I’ll show you if you want me to,” she squawked.

  Fortunately at that moment a plate was placed in front of her and it stopped her from performing what she had suggested.

  By the time dinner was only half finished it would have been impossible for any of the diners to dance on the table or anywhere else.


  Michael had been warned that they were heavy drinkers and had therefore brought up a great number of bottles of wine from the cellar. Even so he began to wonder if he would run out before the meal was over.

  The more they drank the louder they talked and the more they laughed.

  Michael found that the footmen had no idea what to do if he did not instruct them in every detail. As the noise from the diners was so tremendous, it was easy to do so without lowering his voice.

  Later he was refilling Cyril’s glass with a heavy red wine, when the man sitting next to him, spoke in a lower tone.

  “Have you heard,” he asked, “if young Moore has arrived from India yet?”

  “Not a word, but as you well know we are ready for him when he comes.”

  Michael was deliberately slow in filling the glass in front of him.

  The man beside Cyril put his head a little nearer.

  “I think,” he said, “the cascade is the best bet.”

  “I agree with you.”

  Michel went back to the sideboard to fetch another bottle of wine.

  As he did so he told himself he was now warned of what was waiting for him when he came to take his rightful place at Grangemoore Hall.

  He had been wondering about his welcome ever since he had arrived.

  How would Cyril explain his presence in the house or to the people who had moved in with him? Now Michael realised that he was determined to remain as Master of Grangemoore.

  If Michael himself no longer existed, Cyril would doubtless be the heir apparent.

  He could not be certain, but he decided that when he had the chance he would look in the library, where it should be easy to find the family tree.

  It had not occurred to him before, but of course, Cyril’s reason for moving in before the last Duke died must have been to establish himself as the heir apparent in his absence.

  In a way it was a shock to find out what was being planned, but having lived so long in India, Michael found it easier to accept the situation than an ordinary Englishman might have done.

  The difficulty was to think how he could save himself from suffering what would undoubtedly be described as ‘an unfortunate accident’ near the cascade.

  There were four courses for dinner, each of them, Michael thought, seemed more appetising than the last.

  At least Cyril was too wise to sack the cooks as he had obviously sacked everyone else or given them cause to leave, as so many of the original staff had clearly gone.

  Michael had learned all this before dinner.

  At six thirty he and Adela had eaten supper in the housekeeper’s room with Mrs. Smithson.

  Michael knew only too well how the servants were catered for in large houses in England. According to the unwritten laws the housekeeper entertained the butler, the head housemaid, the valet and the lady’s maid if there was one and the chief coachman if he lived in.

  Visiting lady’s maids, valets and coachmen were also guests in the housekeeper’s room and the rest of the staff took their meals in the servants hall.

  When Michael found that their supper party consisted of only four, he looked surprised. But before he could ask any questions Mrs. Smithson explained,

  “You may think it strange, Mr. Morris, that we are so few, but the senior staff left of their own accord and I myself sent my young housemaids away.”

  “Why did you do that?” asked Michael. He had not then seen the men in the house.

  Mrs. Smithson looked at Adela and gave a warning glance.

  “I thought it safer,” she said accentuating the last word, “to have women from the village to come in and clean the place in the morning, and Mrs. Robinson and I manage for the rest of the day.”

  “If you saw the mess their rooms was in,” added Mrs.

  Robinson, “you’d have a fit, you would really.”

  Now Michael had seen the young women with whom Cyril’s friends were associating and he could appreciate Mrs.Smithson’s good sense.

  He was also immediately anxious that Adela should not be seen by any of what he was supposed to call ‘gentlemen’ downstairs.

  The ladies – which was a flattering term for the four women – had not left the men to their port. In fact they drank more of it than the men did.

  By the time they left the dining room everyone including Cyril was walking unsteadily.

  There was only one guest who was fairly sober and he had left the party after the third course.

  “You know where I’m off to, Cyril,” he had said, as he rose to his feet.

  “Be careful.”

  “Am I ever anything else?” he retorted.

  He walked towards the door and Michael opened it for him.

  “Are you going out, sir?” he enquired.

  “There’s no need for you to come with me to the door,”

  the man told him. “There’s a carriage waiting for me outside.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  He closed the dining room door behind him.

  He wondered where the man was going and then remembered that he was Jason, who had come into the study to talk about a Special Licence.

  He had also said something about an heiress and Michael supposed that he intended to marry her, whoever she might be.

  Now it seemed strange he was leaving in the middle of dinner and that he should have a carriage waiting for him outside.

  However, Michael had so much to do that he was forced to concentrate on his duties as butler.

  Only when the party left the dining room for the drawing room did he follow them into the hall. He did so in case any of them should fall down on the way, but they all managed to reach the drawing room safely.

  Michael had been told by the young so-called footmen that the diners would expect a plentiful supply of brandy and liqueurs to be waiting for them and the bottles and glasses were arranged on the grog-tray in a corner of the room.

  ‘If they drink much after what they have imbibed already,’ Michael mused to himself as he closed the drawing room door, ‘they will be sleeping on the floor!’

  Anyway it was not his business.

  He was just going back to help clear the table when he heard the sound of wheels outside and because the footmen were all in the dining room, he walked to the front door and opened it.

  There was a closed carriage outside and he saw Jason, the man who had left dinner early, climbing out of it.

  As he did so he saw Michael at the door and shouted,

  “Here, come and help me!”

  Michael ran down the steps.

  “We shall have to carry her,” called Jason.

  Michael looked into the carriage and saw there was a woman lying on the back seat.

  He thought at first, because he had just come from the dining room, that she must be drunk and then as Jason began to pull her out by the shoulders he realised she was unconscious.

  She was, he thought, about twenty-six or maybe a little older. She was not pretty, but had a pleasant and well-bred face. She was wearing an evening gown and there was a fur cape over her shoulders.

  “Now help me,” urged Jason, “and we will carry her up the steps between us.”

  “I think I can manage her alone, sir,” replied Michael.

  He put his arms round the woman.

  She was of slender build and was not too heavy.

  “Now be careful,” warned Jason.

  Michael did not need the warning. He had carried people before and as they had usually been men who had been injured in some way or wounded in battle, they had been far heavier that this woman.

  He reached the front door and then as he stepped into the hall, he looked round enquiringly at Jason behind him.

  “Shall I take her upstairs, sir?”

  “No, put her in here.”

  He opened the door of a room Michael had not yet seen.

  It was obviously a morning room and was well furnished like the rest of the house with a large comfortable sofa in fro
nt of the mantelpiece.

  “Put her on the sofa,” ordered Jason, “she’ll be all right there. She won’t come round for some time.”

  What he said made Michael look at the girl more closely.

  She was indeed unconscious as he had first thought, and he suspected it was from some kind of drug.

  He did not say anything, but having placed her head on a silk cushion he pulled the hem of her gown over her feet.

  “Now what you have to do, Morris,” said Jason, “is to fetch the Vicar. I know he lives at the end of the drive. Tell him he is needed here immediately.”

  He paused for a moment before adding,

  “Don’t volunteer any information unless he presses you. But if he insists, tell him he is wanted to perform a marriage in the Chapel and that the bridegroom has a Special Licence.”

  As he spoke he pulled the licence out of his coat pocket and put it down on a side table.

  “There you are,” he said in a triumphant tone, “and the sooner the Vicar gets here the better.”

  Michael drew in his breath.

  “I have been given to understand, sir, that the Vicar is away tonight.”

  “Away!” exclaimed Jason. “What the hell do you mean he’s away? Where is he?”

  “I was told, sir, that he is attending to one of his parishioners who is dying.”

  Jason swore beneath his breath.

  “Will he be back tomorrow morning?”

  “I expect so,” answered Michael.

  “In which case fetch him as early as you can. Tell him it is very urgent.”

  “I will do so, sir.”

  There was silence and then Michael said,

  “Would you not like me to take the lady upstairs?”

  “No! No!” Fetch a rug or a blanket to cover her and leave her here.”

  Jason stood looking down at her and then said almost as if he was speaking to himself,

  “She will sleep for another hour or so and then I will give her another dose.”

  Michael said nothing.

  He guessed that the rugs which were used in the carriages were kept in a settle in the hall and he was not mistaken. He brought one which looked thick and warm and spread it over the unconscious woman.