The Love Trap Read online

  The Duke was astounded before he said,

  “I don’t understand. You must explain what you are saying.”

  “That is what I am trying to do,” Janeta answered, “and perhaps, because I am not of your world, I see things – differently from the – way your friends would.”

  The Duke waited and she went on,

  “As I have said, you lead people and they admire you for your achievements, but I think you don’t realise, or nobody has told you about it, that you could lead in a very different way.”

  “I cannot understand,” the Duke insisted. “What are you suggesting?”

  “The Greeks, whose Gods we were just talking about,” Janeta replied, “led the world in thought and that is where I am sure you are needed at this present time.”

  The Duke, still bewildered and astonished, said,

  “I find what you are saying very extraordinary, Janeta. In what way do you believe I could lead the world in thought, as you put it?”

  She made a little gesture with her hands before she said,

  “That is what I am trying to put into words. Perhaps it is politics, perhaps something deeper and more fundamental, but I cannot help feeling because you are so outstanding, so much bigger than the average person, that is where you are needed.”

  The Duke sat back in his chair.

  “How can you possibly say things like that when you know so little of the world and have spent the last four years of your life in a Convent?” he asked.

  “It may seem almost impertinent,” Janeta said, “but since it was a French Convent, they constantly discussed politics and the world situation. Although they approached it from entirely a religious angle, I could understand what was lacking in France, in England and I expect in other countries, was the leadership which comes, not from Priests but from personalities.”

  She gave him a shy little smile and added,

  “From people like yourself who could alter the world because they are in a position to do so.”

  The Duke thought that never in his life had anyone spoken to him in quite this way and yet he did not pretend to misunderstand what Janeta was saying.

  He was only absolutely astonished that she should say it and he thought not in his wildest imagination would he have expected a conversation like this on his first night in Paris.

  *

  The next day was very different.

  Before Janeta was awake, he had sent for many of the top couturiers, knowing that when it came to the King of them all, Frederick Worth, they would have to go to him.

  In the meantime the Duke ordered so many things he thought Janeta required that she protested that it was too much.

  “No woman ever has too many clothes,” he replied.

  “Then I am an exception,” Janeta insisted. “Please, you have given me so many things already that I am overwhelmed. What is more, I shall never have time to wear them all!”

  The Duke laughed.

  “In a few months, perhaps sooner, you will be telling me that you have nothing to wear and will think I am mean if I don’t spend the same amount of money all over again.”

  Actually, he was finding it very amusing to notice the difference clothes made to Janeta.

  He soon realised, even without the help of the French couturiers, what colours suited her best and while he thought her lamentably thin, the French admired her body and thought it was exactly the right shape to show off the dernier cri.

  Although Janeta found the silks, satins, chiffons, velvets, lace, ribbons and flowers were all alluring, she was relieved, when having been given an enormous order, the couturiers left, volubly expressing their thanks.

  “Now let’s go out in the fresh air,” the Duke said. “I will take you to luncheon in the Bois de Boulogne.”

  They drove there in his chaise and he thought that Janeta in her elegant gown of leaf green was as attractive as the trees they sat under.

  Now the serious mood she had shown him the night before had vanished and she chattered away like a child, asking questions about the trees, the people, the restaurant and anything else that caught her fancy.

  Her natural laughter, the Duke thought, was infectious and he had never known a woman who was so unselfconscious about herself or her appearance.

  ‘She is very young,’ he found himself thinking.

  At the same time, if he was honest, he would have to admit that he had enjoyed every moment of their luncheon and had not, as he had half-expected, been in the least bored.

  It was only when they encountered two French friends that he was aware from the eloquent compliments they paid Janeta that they found her exceedingly lovely.

  When the Duke introduced her as his wife, they were astonished.

  “I had no idea you were married, Your Grace,” one of the men said. “In fact we were talking about you only a night or so ago and someone quoted you as being the most eligible bachelor in the whole of Great Britain.”

  “Now I am a married man,” the Duke smiled, “and actually my wife and I are here on our honeymoon.”

  After that they were overwhelmed with congratulations and good wishes and one of the Frenchmen, whose bold eyes made Janeta feel a little embarrassed, insisted that they repair to his sister’s house to tell her the good news.

  His sister was a Contesse and the way she greeted the Duke and the manner in which she looked into his eyes and her hands lingered in his told Janeta that she had been, at one time, if not still was, important in his life.

  The Contesse was exceedingly pretty, with the chic of a Parisienne and a way of expressing herself with her eyes, her hands and her lips that was different from anything Janeta had seen before.

  She watched her and told herself that that was what the Duke wanted from someone whom he found attractive, but she was not certain that it was something he would like in his wife.

  Because the Contesse was so sophisticated, Janeta suddenly felt very gauche and ignorant, a schoolgirl who knew nothing of the world in which the Duke shone so brilliantly.

  It struck her that if her stepmother had behaved the same way as the Contesse was behaving, that was what he found attractive, but was obviously lamentably lacking in herself.

  As they drove back from the Contesse’s house, the Duke said,

  “You are very quiet. What are you thinking?”

  Janeta did not answer, and he said after a moment,

  “Tell me. I think it’s a mistake to have secrets from each other.”

  He was speaking half-jokingly, but Janeta answered,

  “Perhaps it can be a mistake to be too frank. A man might prefer a woman to be mysterious so that it would make him curious.”

  The Duke realised why she was saying such things and he took her hand in his. Now her fingers were not fluttering as before when she had been so frightened.

  But he felt a little tremor go through her and wondered if it was because he was touching her.

  Then he said,

  “I think, Janeta, that you thought the Contesse’s manner was very French and it was something that you should emulate yourself. That would be a great mistake.”

  “Why,” Janeta asked.

  “Because one of the things that is most delightful about you is that you are natural. You do not pretend. You are not, as you have just put it, mysterious.”

  “But, perhaps,” Janeta said, “you will find that very dull.”

  “Does it matter to you what I feel about you?” the Duke asked.

  “Of course it does,” she replied. “If we have to be together because we are married and you much prefer women to behave as the Contesse did just now, then I will try, but I don’t think that I would be very successful.”

  “I think it would be a disaster,” the Duke replied. “What I find most interesting about you, Janeta, is that you talk to me naturally and unaffectedly and tell me, I hope, everything that is in your mind and heart. That is what I find interesting, because it is not an artificial act put on to at
tract and enslave any man who happens to be present.”

  Janeta gave a little sigh.

  “That makes things much easier,” she said, “and thank you for telling me.”

  “I would like to add,” the Duke said, “that the is very French and I have always been determined that my wife, when I had one, should be very English.”

  Janeta gave a little laugh before she said,

  “I feel I have a – chance at any rate – being as you wish – your wife to be.”

  She took her hand from the Duke’s as she spoke and then the next minute was laughing at some children running about in the gardens of the Champs Élysées with balloons that were coming loose and floating up into the trees.

  The Duke took Janeta to various restaurants that he thought would amuse her and invariably in the largest and most popular ones he met friends, who were astonished to learn of his marriage.

  Finally, after they had been several days in Paris, an announcement appeared in the French newspapers copied from the English.

  The Duke showed to Janeta what had been printed and she was silent for a long moment before she said,

  “I suppose Papa and Stepmama will know by – now where – we are.”

  “I imagine so,” the Duke replied. “That is why I think we should now go further South and I thought if it pleased you, we would pick up the yacht again at Marseilles and come home by sea.”

  Janeta was delighted. She enjoyed Paris, but at the same time she was acutely conscious, whatever the Duke might say, of the difference between her and his French women friends whom they met whenever they went out.

  Once they were back on the yacht she felt very much more at ease.

  Although the idea that she was jealous never crossed her mind, she admitted liking to be alone with him and made every effort to talk about things that interested him and on which he could instruct her.

  It was, however, very rough coming back through the Bay of Biscay and, despite the fact that she was a good sailor, the continual movement gave Janeta a headache and she was glad to go to bed, if only to save herself from sliding from one side of the cabin to the other.

  It was quite late at night when the Duke came down from the bridge and, seeing her light still on, came into her cabin.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, quite,” Janeta said. “Unless you think we are going to the bottom.”

  “Do not dare insult my ship!” the Duke replied. “She is behaving magnificently and the Captain and crew are delighted with her.”

  “I feel safer in bed,” Janeta admitted and then smiled.

  As she spoke, she looked so attractive in the light from a lantern that the Duke found the words ‘I think I shall join you’ trembling on his lips.

  Then he realised that the way she was looking at him was that of an admiring younger sister.

  There was not a glint of coquetry in her eyes, and she smiled at his windswept hair and had obviously noticed that his tie was somewhat awry.

  It was again with the affection and perhaps admiration of a schoolgirl for her big brother.

  The Duke noticed that, with the excellent food they had been eating in France and her freedom from fear, Janeta’s face had filled out a little and her skin seemed to glow with the translucence of good health and her eyes sparkled in the same way.

  With her strange silver-threaded hair falling over her shoulders, she looked, he thought, like a Siren luring Ulysses to his doom and the Duke had for the first time a desire to kiss her and to find out what her reaction to it would be.

  He almost reached out his hand towards her, but he was afraid of seeing her large eyes contorted with fear and of damaging what he knew was already a warm companionship that excluded any embarrassment.

  “Are you looking forward to going home?” he asked abruptly.

  “It will be exciting to be back at The Castle,” Janeta replied, “but I think more than anything else I am longing to ride your horses.”

  “I shall enjoy riding with you,” the Duke said, “and I have a great deal to show you.”

  There was a still silence and then he added,

  “When we get home, we will have a lot of things to talk about because, as I am sure you are aware, Janeta, our lives will be very different from what we have enjoyed this past week in Paris.”

  Janeta gave a little sigh.

  “I suppose that there will be many demands upon you, and, of course, if you go to London, they will expect you to appear at Buckingham Palace and at Marlborough House.”

  “You have obviously been thinking it out,” the Duke said. “We will also have to face the music of being married and you will have to take your place as my wife.”

  “You promised that you will not let me make any – mistakes,” Janeta said quickly.

  “I will certainly keep that promise,” the Duke said. “And you must remember that from the point of view of the world, we married because we were very much in love with each other and that was the reason for such haste.”

  “I am not quite – certain,” Janeta said slowly, “how one – pretends to be – in love so that people – notice it.”

  The Duke thought that the real answer to that was to be in love and for him to make love to his wife.

  But he found it a very difficult idea to put into words.

  Instead, after a rather pregnant silence, he said,

  “We shall just have to see what happens. I am sure, once we are at The Castle or in London, we shall do what is right by instinct.”

  Janeta looked worried.

  “It may be easy for you,” she said, “but it is very much more difficult for me, since I really don’t know what your friends will expect or how I should behave when they are there.”

  “We have three more days before we reach home,” the Duke said. “Let’s forget this knotty problem for the moment and when the sea is calmer we will talk about it.”

  “That is a very good idea,” Janeta agreed. “And I am sure that you ought to go to bed. The wind, if nothing else, is very tiring.”

  “That is true,” the Duke said absent-mindedly.

  Once again he was thinking how attractive Janeta looked and that her lips as she smiled at him were very young and, as he knew, untouched and unspoilt.

  ‘If I kissed her,’ he thought, ‘it would be like kissing a flower or touching the petals of a rose.’

  There was a little flicker inside him at the thought.

  Then Janeta snuggled down amongst the pillows.

  “I am going to sleep,” she said, “and I hope in the morning the storm will have abated a little. If nothing else, the noise of the wind and the incessant creaking are very tiring.”

  “You are quite right,” the Duke agreed, “and we can only hope for calmer seas ahead.”

  He rose as he spoke and moved unsteadily across the cabin to the door.

  It was quite an effort to negotiate his way through it and, as he shut it behind him, Janeta closed her eyes and started to say her prayers.

  Chapter six

  As they drove down the road to Wynchester Castle, the Duke thought with a feeling of intense satisfaction that he was home.

  He had not forgotten those awful moments when he had thought that, thanks to Olive, he would have to give up The Castle, the five thousand acres he owned round it and live abroad with a woman whom he knew now he would have hated more and more every moment of their married life.

  ‘I have been lucky! Luckier than I can ever say,’ he told himself, ‘and I am very very grateful.’

  The Castle in the sunshine looked exceedingly beautiful with the windows gleaming a welcome and his standard flying on the roof against the blue sky.

  Because it all moved him so intensely, he said to Janeta,

  “This is your home for the future and I hope you will grow to love it as much as I do.”

  “It is so lovely,” Janeta said in a small voice, “but very – large.”

  He knew that she
was feeling apprehensive of finding herself alone in such a huge building and he replied lightly,

  “I shall be with you and I expect also an inordinate number of my relatives, who always expect The Castle to provide them with free board and lodging at any moment they require it!”

  Janeta gave a little laugh, which had been the object of his last remark and, when he drove up to the front door, he felt that she was not as tense or as nervous as he had feared.

  Because he had been eager to arrive home driving his own horses, they had taken a train from Folkestone, where they had left the yacht to the nearest main line Station. Here the Duke’s phaeton was waiting with two outriders to escort them on their journey home.

  He thought that Janeta appreciated the style in which they were travelling, although she did not say anything. He did not want to ask her for compliments, but for her to express them naturally.

  Now, as they walked into the Great Hall of The Castle and she saw the flags hanging on either side of the medieval fireplace and the ornate carved staircase with the portraits of the Duke’s ancestors hanging above it, she made a little sound of awe and admiration that he appreciated.

  They were late in arriving and, after the Duke had insisted that Janeta have a small glass of champagne to wipe away the fatigue of the journey, he escorted her upstairs to the exquisite bedroom that was always occupied by the Duchesses of Wynchester.

  He knew, without her saying anything, how much she admired the painted ceiling, the brocade panels each of which contained an appropriate picture and the antique furniture, which was French.

  The carved gilt mirrors were as unique as the canopied bed, which was also carved with cupids and doves.

  “As I know you must be tired after such a long journey,” the Duke said, “I suggest you put on something comfortable like a negligée. We are not dining downstairs, but in your private sitting room next door.”

  He then left her with Mrs. Robertson, the housekeeper, who had already unpacked some of Janeta’s trunks, which had gone ahead of them from the Station in a brake pulled by six horses.

  “We’re very excited to welcome you home, Your Grace,” Mrs. Robertson enthused. “Tomorrow you’ll find there’s a mountain of presents awaitin’ downstairs in the ballroom.”