A Shaft of Sunlight Page 8

  “I am glad I am so hungry!” Giona smiled.

  But although a cold chicken stuffed with grapes and mushrooms was undoubtedly delicious she could only eat a very little of it, and the Duke was aware that after the privation she had endured it would take her some time to regain a normal appetite.

  The wine, which Hibbert had also provided from Sir Jarvis’s cellar, tasted as golden as it looked, and Giona said with a little sigh as the meal finished,

  “I have lain awake at night thinking of food like this, but thought I should never taste it again.”

  “I shall look forward to seeing you do better justice to it in future,” the Duke said dryly.

  Then as he had expected, Giona asked,

  “Where are you – taking me?”

  “To somebody who will look after you while I make the enquiries you wish me to make.”

  Giona looked a little apprehensive. “Oh! I – I shall not be with you?”

  “Not at the moment. I think you are intelligent enough to be aware that as you are underage, and your uncle is your Guardian, I could be accused of abducting a minor.”

  Giona gave a little cry of horror and she said,

  “I had forgotten – forgive me – but I had forgotten there was a law to that effect in England – I should not have come with you.”

  “Would you have been able to refuse my offer of help?” the Duke asked.

  “B – but the punishment for – abduction is – I believe – transportation.”

  “You have not answered my question.”

  “If I tell you I would have refused it would not be – true,” Giona said. “You are like Perseus saving me from the Sea Monster, or St. Michael and all his angels coming to my aid! But now I am free I realise I must – leave you.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” the Duke enquired.

  “If you give me a little money – a very little – I could somehow find my way to the village where Mama lived before she ran away with Papa. My grandfather will now be dead, but there are people who will remember him, and who might find me a way of earning my own living.”

  The Duke looking at her closely was aware that she was not speaking for effect, but was quite serious in her proposition.

  “I have different plans for you,” he said, “and because I think you feel you are under some obligation to me – ”

  “A very big one,” Giona interposed.

  “You will do what I want,” the Duke finished.

  “You know I will do anything – anything you ask of me,” she promised.

  The Duke knew it was in the nature of a vow.

  “Very well,” he said in a practical tone, “the first thing is to choose a name for you because naturally you cannot call yourself Stamford.”

  “N – no, of course not!”

  “I was going to ask you anyway,” the Duke went on, “the name of your mother before she married.”

  “It was Hamilton.”

  The Duke repeated it as if he fixed it in his mind. Then he said,

  “Because of your Christian name, and because you do not look entirely English, I somehow expected it to be Greek.”

  Giona smiled.

  “My grandmother was half-Greek. Her name was Andreas.”

  “Then that is how you shall be called for now,” the Duke said. “Giona Andreas. I hope it pleases you.”

  “I am very proud of my Greek blood.”

  “There is a straightness to your nose,” the Duke added, “which I have seen on the Caryatid maidens on the Acropolis, and particularly on statues of the Goddess Athene.”

  “Now you are making me so conceited that I feel I can hold my head high wherever I happen to be in the future.”

  “I think that is something you have done during the difficulties of the past,” the Duke said. “Now I have one more question before we are on our way. Have you any idea of the year in which your mother was married?”

  “She often said to me that I was born exactly twelve months after she ran away with my father,” Giona said, “so I am sure that she was married in August, 1799.”

  “That makes the marriage much easier to trace than it would have been otherwise.”

  “Then you – really will search for a – record of it?” , Giona’s voice was breathless and he said,

  “I think you are almost insulting me by asking that question.”

  “I know you said you would – but I can hardly believe, when you are so important and obviously have so many things to occupy your mind, that you would really concern yourself with my – problems.”

  “I thought I had convinced you I was concerned.”

  “You have now, and I want to say ‘thank you’ but my vocabulary is very limited – so I can only say it from my heart. And I hope you understand.”

  “I will certainly try to.”

  Because there was something in Giona’s voice that was very moving he deliberately replied casually and as she spoke he rose to his feet.

  He was used to women falling in love with him, and although he was quite certain Giona did not know the meaning of the word in the sense in which he knew it, the look he had thought of as one of admiration was still there.

  He was uncomfortably aware it would be an additional problem if she regarded him as anything more than a rescuer and a Sword of Justice.

  That was what he intended to be, the Duke thought, the avenger of her uncle who had treated her so abominably and who should be punished as he would be prepared to punish anybody he found torturing a child or an animal.

  He found it impossible to forget the weal’s he had seen on Giona’s back.

  He was also certain she was being truthful when she said that Sir Jarvis was prepared to weaken her hold on life by inadequate feeding and by what amounted, apart from her physical suffering, to mental persecution.

  The mere fact that he had styled her a ‘bastard’, and he had defamed her mother would prey on the mind of any young girl as sensitive as Giona who suddenly found herself orphaned and bereft of everything that was familiar.

  Then combined with Sir Jarvis’s brutality was the perfidy of his daughter, and the more he thought of them both and of their behaviour, the more the Duke was determined they should pay for their sins.

  He knew he had a long way to go before he would have the satisfaction of bringing his plans to success and getting Sir Jarvis where he wanted him – on his knees.

  The Duke had learnt when boxing never to underestimate his opponent and during the war to expect the unexpected.

  As they drove on he was going over and over in his mind every detail of what had now become a campaign, determined to make sure he had not been careless or left anything to chance.

  It was almost as if he was drawing up a battle plan and looking for weak spots where the enemy might breakthrough.

  As the afternoon progressed the countryside changed a little and as Giona looked about her with interest, the Duke knew they were nearing Buckinghamshire where the Alverstode estate was situated.

  He now knew every highway and lane, and as if the horses were aware they were not far from home and their own comfortable stable they seemed to quicken their pace without their driver’s encouragement.

  Twenty minutes later the Duke said in a tone of satisfaction,

  “Welcome, Giona! We are now driving on land which has been in my family’s hands for four hundred years.

  “How exciting!” Giona exclaimed, “but I thought you were not taking me to your house?”

  “I am taking you to stay with my grandmother,” the Duke answered. “She is a very redoubtable old lady who was once a great beauty, but now, because she is old and suffers from rheumatism, is often very bored. I have the idea you will give her a new interest.”

  “Are you going to – tell her the whole – truth about me?”

  “I shall tell her because she will enjoy it,” the Duke replied, “but nobody else must know except my Ward, Lucien. You quite understand, Giona, that nob
ody, and I mean nobody, must be taken into your confidence?”

  “I promise I will speak of it to nobody!” Giona said. “But if I am with your grandmother I shall – see you sometimes?”

  “I am not yet ready to disappear,” the Duke replied briefly.

  Once again they drove in silence.

  As they drove in through a pair of finely wrought ornamental gates Giona saw in front of them not a large but a very beautiful house built in the reign of Queen Anne and the Duke was aware that she clasped her hands together as if she was nervous.

  He thought as he glanced at her that he had never known a woman whose eyes were so revealing and showed her innermost feelings as clearly as if he was looking into a clear stream.

  There was no time to say anything as he drew his horses up outside the porticoed front door, and Ben jumped down to run to the horses’ heads.

  As he did so, two grooms came running from the stables beside the house touching their forelocks respectfully when they saw who was in the chariot.

  The servants were slower in opening the front door, and it was the Duke who helped Giona onto the ground and was aware as her fingers touched his that she was cold and trembling.

  “There is nothing to make you afraid,” he said quietly as they walked up the steps to the front door.

  A butler with white hair came hurrying into the hall.

  “Your Grace!” he exclaimed. “This is a surprise, and Her Grace’ll be delighted. She was complaining only yesterday that Your Grace was neglecting her.”

  “I am here now, Simpson, as you see,” the Duke replied. “Where is Her Grace?”

  “In her Boudoir, Your Grace, seeing as she’s been in some pain these last two days, Her Grace hasn’t come downstairs.”

  “Then I will go up to her,” the Duke said, “and I want you, Simpson, to take Miss Andreas to Mrs. Meadows so that she can tidy herself after her long drive.”

  “I’ll do that, Your Grace.”

  Simpson smiled at Giona as he said,

  “If you’ll come with me, miss, but we’d best walk up the stairs after His Grace, seeing as I can’t go as fast as I used to.”

  The Duke went ahead, aware as he walked along the landing at the top of the stairs that Giona was talking pleasantly to the old butler who could only climb up slowly.

  The Duke knocked on the door of his grandmother’s Boudoir then opened it.

  She was seated as he expected in an armchair by the window with her legs raised on a footstool and covered with an ermine rug.

  On her lap was a small King Charles spaniel, which first growled when the Duke opened the door, then barked with excitement and bounded towards him.

  The Duke bent to pat the spaniel before he walked towards his grandmother.

  He noted that despite the lines of pain on her face she was looking very beautiful, and her white hair was as well arranged as if she was attending an Assembly.

  She was also wearing several rows of pearls, rings on her fingers, and a bracelet, which glittered in the sunshine as she held out her hands towards him.

  “Valerian, is it really you? How delightful to see you!”

  “It is really me, Grandmama,” the Duke replied, “and forgive me for being so remiss in neglecting you, but the Regent is very demanding.”

  “He always was even when he was a young man,” the Dowager agreed, “but you did not let me know you were coming.”

  “I did not know myself until two days ago, Grandmama, and now I need your help.”

  The Duchess released his hand and said,

  “If it is another of those tiresome orphans you wish me to employ, the answer is ‘no’! The last one you persuaded me to have in the house upset Simpson with his impertinence and the one before broke half a-dozen of my best Sevres tea-cups.”

  The Duke had heard all this before and he was just about to reply when his grandmother went on,

  “You have two, or is it three, orphanages you support, and that is where orphans should be. Not with me!”

  The Duke was well aware that it was no use explaining that after a certain age the orphans had to leave the orphanage to make room for other children and go out to work.

  But as he drew up a chair beside his grandmother, he said,

  “I have with me, Grandmama, a very different orphan from those you have helped before.”

  “I will not have him!” the Duchess said firmly. “So before you start trying to coax me, Valerian, the answer is ‘no’!”

  “I am sorry about that,” the Duke said, “because this orphan, who is a ‘she’ by the way and not a ‘he,’ will intrigue you, and I need your help not only in looking after her, but in punishing and bringing to justice a man whose crimes will astound and horrify you.

  “I very much doubt it,” the Duchess replied.

  There was silence. Then as if her curiosity was too much for her she asked,

  “Who is this man?”

  “Sir Jarvis Stamford!”

  The Duchess stared at her grandson incredulously. Then she said,

  “Not the father of that girl whom Lucien has been pursuing and whom everybody expects him to marry?”

  The Duke laughed.

  “Grandmama, you are incorrigible! There is not a rumour, a piece of gossip or a scandal that you, living here in the country, are not aware of long before it reaches me!”

  “There is not much else to amuse me now that I can hardly leave my bedroom!” the Duchess snapped.

  “I am not complaining,” the Duke said. “It only makes my story easier. Yes, Sir Jarvis Stamford is the father of the girl who did interest Lucien.”

  He deliberately accentuated the past tense and the Duchess sat up in her chair.

  “You mean he has finished with her? Or has she refused him? From all I hear she would be ready to capture somebody more important than Lucien if she could find him.”

  “What I am going to tell you, Grandmama,” the Duke said, “is the whole story from the beginning, and when you have heard it you will understand why nobody must have any idea of the truth, except yourself.”

  The Duke spoke in a voice that made his grandmother aware that what he had to impart was in fact very serious.

  Then before he could speak the door opened and a footman came in carrying a silver tray on which there was a wine-cooler containing a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

  He set the tray down on a small table and when he would have poured out the wine the Duke rose to say,

  “I will do that, Henry.”

  “I thanks Your Grace.”

  The footman would have withdrawn, but the Duke saw also on the tray a plate of sandwiches.

  “Ask Simpson,” he said, “to see that Miss Andreas, who is with Mrs. Meadows, has tea and plenty to eat. I am sure Mrs. Goodwin is already cooking some hot scones for tea.”

  “I’ll tell Mr. Simpson, Your Grace.”

  The door shut and the Duchess said,

  “Now, tell me about Sir Jarvis and of course Lucien. I am not accepting this orphan of yours or providing her with hot scones until I know what this is all about.”

  The Duke handed his grandmother a glass of champagne.

  “I know the doctor has forbidden you any alcohol, Grandmama,” he said, “but as you listen to my story you will need some sustenance.”

  “What you are really saying is that you hope the wine will make me mellow enough to accede to your wishes! I assure you I shall not let it cloud my common sense!”

  The Duke smiled slightly, helped himself to a sandwich and took a sip of champagne before he began.

  Then he related exactly what had happened since he had condescended to visit Stamford Towers.

  The Duchess did not interrupt. She merely became so interested that she forgot to drink her champagne.

  She listened with her eyes on her grandson’s face as he told her about the beatings Giona had received, and the moment by the stables when he and Lucien had watched from behind the rhododendron bushes a
s Claribel kissed her lover goodnight.

  Only when he had finished did the Duchess exclaim,

  “I have always known you to be truthful, at least to me, Valerian, and you could not have invented a plot more incredible than anything fabricated by Sir Walter Scott.”

  “It sounds fantastic,” the Duke agreed, “but I can assure you it is the truth, and very real to Giona.”

  “What sort of girl is she?”

  “Beautiful, intelligent and with Greek blood in her veins.”

  The Duchess raised her eyebrows as she said,

  “From what you have just told me I guess that villain Sir Jarvis told her she was born out of wedlock so as to make sure she did not flaunt the fact that she was his niece.”

  “That is my explanation,” the Duke agreed, “and it is all part of his plan to hide a guilty secret.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That is what I intend to find out,” the Duke replied. “He obviously paid his brother to stay abroad, the residue of which he very conveniently claimed when he died. He was also afraid that Giona might in some way, reveal whatever it is that he had been hiding for so long.”

  He paused before he continued slowly,

  “This must be the reason why he has allowed her to meet nobody, and why he wishes to dispose of her without actually having to commit murder.”

  “I never believed such things happened outside a book!” the Duchess exclaimed.

  “Well they do!” the Duke replied. “But you will now understand, Grandmama, why I want to leave Giona with you. I want you to turn her into the attractive young woman she should be, so that when the moment comes it will be impossible for Sir Jarvis, short of shooting her dead, to deny her existence.”

  “And when will that moment be?”

  “When I am ready!” the Duke replied, and there was something ominous in his voice.

  *

  In an attractive bedroom Giona having washed and tidied herself to the best of her ability, waited apprehensively.

  An elaborate tea had been brought to her by two footmen, and while she appreciated the hot scones, the paper-thin sandwiches and the fairy cakes that were so light it seemed they might fly away, she found after a few mouthfuls that she was not hungry.