What also pleased her was the fact that the wedding dress would be sold to someone as important as the Duke and she was quite certain that sooner or later he would find a wife who would wear it, if only as fancy dress.
She was too tactful, however, to say this aloud and simply asked,
“How soon will you want the photograph? And do you really expect me to find someone to wear the gown?”
She was thinking as she spoke that there were very few girls in the village who would look attractive enough to be marrying a Duke.
There was only poor old Mrs. Brooks and herself in the house –
Then she gave a sudden exclamation.
“But, of course!” she cried. “As you are being kind enough to buy the gown from me, I can easily wear it just for the photograph.”
“That is what I was hoping you would say, Miss Lester. You will look very lovely in it and no one will be surprised at my choice of a bride.”
“Then, of course, I shall be only too willing to be photographed and I suppose you will be beside me.”
There was silence and then the Duke said,
“I had not thought of that, but naturally, if it was your wedding, you would hardly be standing alone.”
“No, of course not and I have the veil, although I have sold Mama’s tiara that she wore at her wedding, but I can easily make a wreath out of real flowers.
“That sounds just what I want,” the Duke replied. “I will bring a photographer down tomorrow, if that suits you and I suppose that I will have to change into my best clothes as the bridegroom.”
“If you are marrying abroad,” she suggested, “you would be wearing evening dress, as you know they always do in France.”
“Yes, of course they do. Well, evening dress it will be and, as it is to impress, I had better put on my father’s decorations. And if there are not enough of them, then my relative, the previous Duke, had a large number.”
“As he was not your father, it must have been a great surprise for you to come into the title, Your Grace.”
She was just following her own thoughts and, when she had spoken them aloud, she thought that perhaps it was rather impertinent.
But the Duke remarked,
“I had never dreamt at any time in my life that I might become the Duke of Burlingford. But then I am not complaining.”
“I should think not!” Alnina exclaimed.
“In fact,” the Duke continued, “I find life is very pleasantly different from what it has been before, when I had to count every penny before I spent it.”
“You could not then have afforded an expensive wedding dress like this, Your Grace?”
“At the moment I am thinking it is cheap at the price. Can I ask you to keep it for me until I return from my visit abroad? I will then display it in my house in the country, which in parts looks like a museum.”
“I have indeed heard of Burlingford Hall and how magnificent it is,” Alnina said.
“Then it is certainly something that you should see when I come back from the Caucasus,” the Duke said.
Alnina gave a little cry.
“Are you really going to the Caucasus?” she asked, “how fascinating! It is something I have always wanted to do myself and I think there are more stories about those strange Caucasian mountains than about anywhere else.”
“They mean a lot to me,” the Duke said, “and when I return, still a bachelor thanks to your wonderful wedding dress, I will tell you all about it.”
“It’s a promise you must keep. In the meantime I will find somewhere where we can be photographed, which will look as if a wedding is really taking place.”
“That is most kind of you and then I will be here tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock. As soon as I have changed into my wedding clothes we will be photographed. Shall I pay you now or tomorrow for the gown?”
Alnina drew in her breath.
It seemed marvellous that she could have made so much money with so little effort.
When the men, who had bought pieces of furniture came to the house, they had spent hours looking at them from every angle and they made sure that they were taking the best of the particular pieces they required.
One man, who had wanted to buy a writing table, had insisted on going into every room before he finally decided to buy the one he had seen first.
Alnina realised that the Duke was waiting for her to answer his question and she replied,
“I would be most grateful if I could have the one thousand pounds immediately as there are so many people waiting for their payment. When one gets paid, the others are not so pressing as they are when I have nothing to give any of them!”
“I understand. If I can sit down at your writing table, Miss Lester, I will give you a cheque.”
“You will be more comfortable downstairs,” Alnina suggested.
The Duke took a last look at the wedding dress.
“It is certainly the finest I have ever seen,” he said, “and actually I have been to China.”
“How lucky you are. I would love to go to the East and I will think of you amongst the wonderful mountains of the Caucasus. Are you going to climb them?”
“I hope so.”
As the Duke spoke, he thought that it would be a mistake to tell anyone why he was going back there and what he was really seeking.
He walked to the door and Alnina followed him.
“Do you really have to sell this house?” he asked as they walked down the stairs, “and if you do, where are you going to live?”
“I wish I knew the answer to that question, but unfortunately Charles’s debts have to be paid and there are still a great number outstanding.”
The Duke thought it very hard on her, but after all it was not his business and, as he walked into the study, he told himself that it would be a mistake to become involved.
He wrote out a cheque for one thousand pounds and he could see by the delight in Alnina’s bright eyes how much it meant to her.
In spite of his desire not to be involved he asked,
“Surely you have relatives who would help you pay off Charles’s debts?”
“They are all very old and the majority of them are quite poor, Your Grace. I remember Papa was thought of as the rich man of the family, but even he could not employ as many people as he wished to on the land and we were obliged to cut down the servants in the house.”
“I suppose that would happen in a great number of families,” the Duke said.
He thought as he spoke it was an idiotic remark.
No families of his acquaintance had had their sons killed in a duel.
“I expect I will manage,” Alnina said bravely, “and thank you, thank you for helping me with this cheque. I can assure you it will be very gratefully received by those who have waited so long to be paid.”
As he walked towards the front door, he thought again that it was very sad for such a young and pretty girl to have to cope with anything so overwhelming.
He picked up his hat from the hall and now, as he walked down the steps, he was thinking again that it would be silly of him to become involved even though this pretty girl had supplied him with exactly what he required for his own problem.
As they reached the chaise, the Duke said,
“Thank you once again for saying that I may come tomorrow and be photographed with you. I forgot to tell you that I don’t want anyone to see the pictures or to learn that they have even been taken.”
“I understand and I promise no one will know you have come here again except the old servants who have been with us ever since I was born. They would never do anything I ask them not to do.”
“It’s all too good to be true,” the Duke sighed, “and I will be here tomorrow at exactly three o’clock, as we have arranged – and thank you again.”
“That is what I should be saying to you.”
He stepped into the chaise and picked up the reins.
As the groom hurried to jump up behind him, t
he Duke raised his hat and Alnina waved to him.
She watched the chaise until it disappeared amongst the oak trees at the end of the drive.
Then she walked back into the house to find Brooks in the hall.
“I have sold Mama’s wedding dress,” she told him with obvious relief.
“That be good news, Miss Alnina. “I never thought that’d go. In fact, I says to the Missus, I says, that’ll still be on our hands when everything else be gone.”
“The Duke is coming again tomorrow as he wants to photograph it, but he has no wish for anyone to know he has bought it. Of course I told him that we never talk to any outsider of what happens here.”
“One of the reasons, Miss Alnina, there be no one to talk to,” Brooks remarked. “I were only saying to the Missus a day or two ago that since you’ve been home there’s been no one hardly to say a word to.”
Alnina knew this to be true.
“You would think having known your father for so long,” Brooks went on, “they’d have been coming to tell you how sorry they be about Master Charles.”
Alnina knew that the people around them were on the whole embarrassed by the circumstances of Charles’s death and they had kept away from what could have been an uncomfortable conversation.
“I am perfectly happy,” she said, “to have you and Mrs. Brooks to talk to. But I expect His Grace will want a cup of tea when he calls tomorrow. So do ask your wife to make one of her delicious cakes.”
“That’ll please her. She’s been feeling that she be wasted here with only you, Miss Alnina, to cook for.”
Alnina, who had heard this before, said quickly,
“Well, tomorrow she will have a Duke and I am sure that there will be visitors as soon as they think I am more settled.”
She knew that what she was really saying was that, when their friends heard she was selling the furniture and pictures in the house, they might call, hoping to pick up a bargain.
She walked into the study and looked again at the Duke’s cheque.
She had decided already to divide it amongst two large creditors who were being rather more impatient than the rest. If they were pleased, which they surely should be, they would not harass her as much as they had been doing.
She had made it very plain to them the last time they had called that she could not give them what she did not have.
Then she remembered that she had to find the veil which was somewhere amongst her mother’s things, also to make the wreath for her head and a bouquet for her to hold.
She only hoped there were enough white flowers in the garden and the sooner she picked them the less rush there would be tomorrow morning.
A wreath, as she well knew, could be difficult to make look really attractive and it would take time, however skilfully she made it.
Anyway, she was exceedingly grateful to the Duke for providing her with one thousand pounds.
For some reason she could not really explain, she was determined that the photograph should impress and convince the Prince for whom all this trouble was being taken.
*
If Alnina was elated, so was the Duke.
He drove back triumphantly to his large house in Berkeley Square.
As he expected, William was waiting for him and exclaimed as he entered the drawing room,
“You are late, John! You told me that you would be back before this.”
“I am late, but I have been very successful.”
“I just don’t believe it. The wedding dress sounded impossible and, in fact, I was certain it was a hoax.”
“It was nothing of the sort,” the Duke retorted. “It is the most fantastic piece of Chinese embroidery I have ever seen and you will think so too.”
“So have you brought it back with you, John?”
“No. We will be going there tomorrow and you are going to take several photographs of me with my bride.”
“Are you joking?” William asked him.
“No! I am telling you the truth,” the Duke replied. “The girl who is selling the gown is the sister of Charles Lester. Do you remember him at Eton? A very good- looking chap. He got into the cricket eleven when he was still very young.”
“Of course, I remember Charles. He was my fag at one time and very tiresome he was. I do admit that I was always rather suspicious that he sneaked my money as well as my chocolates!”
“I would not be surprised. Apparently he was killed in a duel in Paris and you know those duels always take place because someone has been making a fool of himself in some way or another.”
“Is that how Charles died?” William asked.
“Yes, and leaving huge debts. His sister, who is a very pretty girl, is having to raise money to pay off his creditors, which includes selling their house and everything in it.”
“Good heavens!” William exclaimed. “So Charles must have been behaving worse than usual. I remember he was a reckless gambler as he grew older and I used to see him at White’s playing at the tables. Now I think about it, I remember someone telling me that he had lost a large amount of money racing.”
“So this wretched girl has to sell everything that they possess,” the Duke said. “But she has kindly offered to be photographed with me purporting to be my wife.”
He laughed before he added,
“That will certainly prevent the Prince from trying to marry me off to his daughter!”
“All I can say is that you are very clever and very lucky, John. I ask you, who else would find a wedding dress and a substitute bride in twenty-four hours?”
“It does seem so extraordinary, but everything has fallen into my hands like a ripe peach. She is a Lady and a very pretty one and she looks exactly the sort of bride a Duke should have, as those foreign fellows would expect.”
“Very well,” William agreed. “It should protect you against the Prince.”
“Well, you just have to admit, William, that I have saved myself and now, as we can well afford it, let’s have some champagne as I am thirsty after driving all that way.”
“I am just thinking,” William said, “that my camera is not a particularly good one, although it does produce a photograph of sorts.”
The Duke stared at him.
“In which case why did you not say so before?” he asked. “Of course I will want a good photograph, but it would be a mistake, as you well know, for me to call in a professional photographer who would undoubtedly talk.”
“Of course it would. The Duke of Burlingford is an important fellow and a social catch is always news!”
“All right, all right, William! You have made your point, but for Heaven’s sake do go and buy yourself a first class camera and then I will give it to you as a birthday present.”
“You have given me one recently,” William said. “If you remember, I was twenty-two at the time.”
“Well, it can be your Christmas present,” the Duke said, “and you might as well have the best while you are about it.”
“I most certainly will. I would like a new camera and, who knows, I might, while you are negotiating for that tedious mountain you insist on buying, take photographs of the Caucasian people who we know so very little about.”
“Only because they live in the back of beyond and that, my dear William, is why we have been lucky enough to find gold in a remote mountain, which no one else has discovered before.”
“Well, the mountain was still there when I passed it last year, but Heaven knows whether or not the gold is still there. After all, it’s nearly four years since we found it.”
“I am quite certain that the Prince then had no idea there was gold on his land and, if he did find it later, you would have heard about it.”
“You may be right or you may be wrong,” William pointed out. “But I am perfectly willing to come with you. I always enjoy Georgia, it has a charm that very few other countries can boast.”
“That is what I have always felt,” the Duke said. “But I want to make quite certai
n I don’t have to marry one of their women.”
“You will have to marry someone sooner or later,” William remarked.
“Why? I have learnt my lesson where women are concerned and I want to make it quite clear, once and for all, that I will never marry.”
He gave a laugh before he went on,
“I was foolish enough to think that I was in love when I was comparatively young, but now I have enough common sense just to play the field.”
“Well, you then bet me a thousand pounds to a threepenny bit and that one thousand pounds is what I am determined to win,” William said. “It will not only be Prince Vladimir Petrov trying to get you up the aisle with his daughter, but I will be pushing from behind!”
The Duke picked up a cushion and threw it at him.
“You are making a nuisance of yourself, William. I have heard quite enough of all this from my relatives and you know as well as I do that I have no intention of making a fool of myself for a second time. Once is quite enough.”
William did not answer.
Then unexpectedly the Duke laughed again.
“I am just thinking how much it must be annoying my ex-fiancée that she has lost a Duke.”
“You said that before,” William replied, “and, as I hear she now has two sons, I think for the moment at any rate that she is nearer to the winning post than you.”
“Two sons!” the Duke exclaimed before he could prevent himself.
Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“She is welcome to them and so is her husband. Personally I prefer my freedom and it is my freedom I wish to keep, not only now but as long as I live.”
William chuckled and then he said,
“We have had this conversation before and I would suggest that it’s banned in the future. Let’s consider what camera I will buy tomorrow morning and which brand is most likely to take the best photographs.”
“I have never taken that much interest in them,” the Duke said. “It’s extraordinary to me that the Queen is so obsessed by photographs that her sitting room is filled with pictures of her children and, of course, the much lamented Prince Albert.”
“Are you suggesting that we should ask the Queen where to buy the best camera so you can display yourself and your supposed bride?”
104. A Heart Finds Love Page 4