The Duke did not answer.
He merely rose from the chair he was sitting in on the other side of the impressive flat-topped desk facing the Marquis and walked across the room to stare out of the window.
Outside it was a sunless day and the buildings opposite were grey with London dirt.
He had a feeling that this was what his life would be like in the future, dark and sunless without the excitement and thrills that had been so much a part of his years in India.
‘I will not do it!’ he told himself.
And yet when he tried to say the words aloud they would not come to his lips.
He was far too used to dealing with people of every caste and creed not to know that this problem was one that, whether he liked it or not, vitally concerned him as the leader of his Clan.
Of course such a marriage would be of inestimable benefit to the McCarons.
It would mean that he could put in hand all his ideas and plans that he had hoped would provide employment for the younger men who either drifted about forlornly looking for temporary employment or else left Scotland in the hope of finding a fortune across the seas.
Sometimes they were successful, but more often they eventually came home to die poorer than when they left.
The Macbeths had the same problem and the Duke knew it would require a great deal of ingenuity and understanding of the people themselves before, however much money was expended, they could be persuaded to work at some new project.
It was, however, a practical proposition and, if he was truthful, exactly what he needed where his own Clan was concerned.
But it meant being married to a young woman whom he did not know and with whom he doubtless would have very little in common and settling down to what he was quite certain would be a life of boredom from a matrimonial point of view.
The Scottish girls he had known in the past had been far from attractive and they had had little or no knowledge of the world outside the moors and rivers of their own country.
They were certainly very different from the sophisticated, amusing, flirtatious women with whom he had spent his days and nights in Simla and occasionally a week in the foothills of the Himalayas.
They had been like exotic flowers in an arid desert and he had enjoyed the passionate fire they had aroused in him just as he enjoyed their wit, their laughter and the expertise of their wiles, which he recognised and appreciated.
How after that could he stand being faithful to one woman, who would doubtless be a pleasant hearty lass without a brain in her head and with no more idea of how to attract a man than to fly to the moon?
‘I cannot do it!’ the Duke said to himself again.
Then, as he turned from the window to walk to where the Marquis was waiting silently for him, he knew that incredible though it seemed there was no alternative.
*
The next two days in London he was so unceasingly talked to, pleaded with and pressured by one Scotsman after another that the Duke began to feel that if anybody said the word ‘marriage’ to him once more, he would strike them.
He had been sensible enough to appreciate that the elderly Scots, who had broken the habit of a lifetime to come to London to meet him were not only deeply sincere but also desperately afraid that they would not succeed in persuading him to act on their advice.
It was Sir Iain McCaron, who with infuriating slowness of speech, finally convinced the Duke by showing him the astronomical amount of debt that his uncle had incurred.
“How could he have spent so much?” he asked when he was told the total sum.
“Keith never paid his debts, my boy,” was the reply. “Most of his bills were stuck in a drawer unopened. I had the devil of a time, I can tell you, sorting them out and we have only been able to stave off dozens of Court summonses by promising the creditors that you will meet their demands.”
The Duke had laughed.
“My dear cousin Iain,” he said, “my own personal assets would just about pay for the stamps!”
Even as he spoke he knew that he must listen to what seemed to everybody except himself the perfect solution to the problem.
Finally he capitulated because it was impossible to think that there was any other way he could save the family name and at the same time benefit the Clan.
Almost as if he had set fire to a wick, the moment he agreed, everything seemed to get moving and the old greyheads hurried back to Scotland to prepare for his arrival and his Wedding.
The Duke had one night off in London when he tried to step back into the past and enjoy himself as he had been able to do before he became so important.
Then he had merely been an undistinguished Officer on leave in search of a bit of fun.
He found that one of his previous friends, if that was the right word for her, was still appearing at the Gaiety Theatre and after three years looking very beautiful and alluring.
After he had watched the show, which was as superlative as ever, they had supper together at Romano’s and she told him a little about her exploits since their last meeting.
He found himself amused, but equally a little shocked to learn about the men who had bedecked her with diamonds, the latest of whom had, it transpired, good-humouredly allowed her the night off so that she could spend it with him.
“I am very gratified,” the Duke said. “You are, Millie, even lovelier than you were when I went away.”
It was not quite true, but he knew that it was what she wanted to hear and she put her hand over his as she said,
“Thank you, dearest Talbot! It has been impossible for me ever to forget you and now that you are a Duke and not as hard up as when we last met, perhaps – ”
Quickly the Duke prevented her from saying any more by interrupting,
“I am leaving in the morning for Scotland, Millie, and I am not sure if I shall ever be able to come back.”
She gave a little cry of horror, but, when he left her flat as dawn was breaking, he was not certain if he even wanted to return.
‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘I am getting older.’
Whatever it was, some of the glamour or perhaps the right word was ‘ecstasy’ had gone out of what had been an experience lingering in his memory on the P. & O. liner all the way back to India after his last leave.
His arrival at The Castle was exactly what he had expected with the pipers, the elders and the Clansmen, who had walked for miles over the moors in order to be present, all wearing the kilt in the McCaron tartan.
The Duke was grateful that his own Scottish dress had been waiting for him in store at his Club, so that he was able to appear among his people dressed as they would expect him to be, like themselves.
There were speeches and toasts and a great many reminiscences of the old days when he had been a boy.
It was only when at last he was alone in the Chieftain’s bedroom where his uncle had died that the Duke had realised that he had come home and everything, whatever sacrifice he had to make, was worthwhile.
He had not missed the abject poverty of a great number of the Clansmen with their kilts threadbare, their shoes or boots bursting apart and the crofts he had seen so far all in urgent need of repair.
The same could be said of The Castle and Sir Iain was right when he had said that it needed a fortune spent on it unless it was to fall down.
The Duke could only hope that his future wife would be amenable to her money being spent on such purposes.
At least it looked impressive from the outside with its crenelated towers, its roofs, despite the holes in them, silhouetted against the moors, the long diamond-paned windows glinting in the sunlight and the arrow slits from which archers had once fought off their enemies.
As the Duke entered the Chieftain’s bedroom, where a huge four-poster bed had stood for three centuries, he was aware that the carpet was threadbare, the curtains were so faded that it was hard to remember what colour they had once been and their linings were torn and hanging in shreds.
There were several panes of glass cracked in the windows and, as he threw his jacket with its polished buttons down on a chair, one of its legs collapsed and he thought bitterly,
‘I may be making my future wife a Duchess, but she will be paying a very high price for it, a very high price indeed!’
The following day he was able to forget what lay ahead as he caught two salmon in the river where he had learned to fish as a very small boy and, wherever he went people ran from their crofts to greet him, telling him in Gaelic how glad they were that he was back.
He knew the real reason for their pleasure was that he stood for continuity and security.
The death of his uncle’s two sons had been a tremendous shock to the Clan and they must have been half-afraid that when the last Duke died there would be nobody to take his place.
It was quite understandable that they should have almost forgotten his very existence for, although he had spent many of his holidays at The Castle when he was a boy, his father and mother had actually lived in Edinburgh.
This was because his mother was not strong enough to stand the cold winters in the more Northern part of Scotland.
But now the old women told him of his escapades when he was young which he himself had forgotten and they recalled when he had caught his first salmon, shot his first grouse and killed his first stag.
Then all too quickly, it seemed to the Duke, he was told that the Dowager Countess of Dalbeth was expecting him as her guest.
It would have been easier to ride over the moors than to drive to Dalbeth House, which stood on the edge of the cliffs looking out over the North Sea.
The Dalbeth Castle, which had been abandoned a century earlier, was farther along the coast, where the side of the cliff had crumbled away until it was considered dangerous.
It was only a question of time, the Earl of Dalbeth had been told a hundred years ago, before the whole cliff collapsed and his Castle would fall into the sea.
He had therefore built a house and moved into it, but The Castle had obstinately refused to fall and still stood as a landmark for homecoming fishing boats.
Dalbeth House was very impressive, well built and surrounded by a walled garden.
The Duke, driving in a well-sprung carriage, which his uncle had, of course, not paid for, drawn by four horses, turned in through the iron gates at exactly four o’clock.
This was what was considered the right time to arrive and his invitation had specified that he should meet the Dowager Countess and her daughter the first evening and the next night there would be a large family gathering.
The Duke had the uncomfortable feeling that it was intended that his engagement to Lady Jane should be announced on the second night.
He had hoped he would be given time to get to know his future bride and perhaps, if he was fortunate, they would find some interests in common.
He had known ever since his arrival in Scotland that he was being swept along by a tidal wave of urgency and there was nothing he could do but acquiesce with as much dignity as possible.
Sitting back in the carriage, which he had insisted on having open, he thought that the countryside as they drove through it was even more beautiful than he remembered.
There was a long twisting road rising up over the moors, which then fell down to a valley filled with fir trees, through the centre of which ran another river in which he was sure if he had the time he would be able to catch a number of fine salmon.
Then there was more moorland and at last a delightful view of the sea stretching out to a blue horizon.
Here the cliffs rose high and he could see in front of him the sharp-pointed and dangerous rocks on which the fishing boat had foundered and his cousin had lost his life.
Then he had arrived and the Dowager Countess was greeting him.
She was not in the least what he had expected and that was the first of his surprises.
Dressed in a black gown that might have come straight from Paris, she had a sophistication that was something that the Duke had never expected to find in the Highlands.
She was also, he was sure, painted and powdered in a manner that he again found unusual in Scotland and he remembered how the Marquis had said that the Earl had not been happy for the last few years of his life.
The Countess was talking effusively and leading him as she did so into an elegant drawing room that had a high ceiling and large windows overlooking the sea.
Everything, in contrast to his own Castle, seemed new, luxurious, and certainly very expensive.
There was a profusion of flowers, silk cushions, crystal chandeliers and the silver tea service that was brought in as soon as he arrived was certainly in itself, he thought, worth a fortune.
He and his hostess were alone for tea and, while she begged him to sample the griddle cakes, the scones and a profusion of other dishes, she chatted away deliberately, he knew, setting him at his ease and making it very clear how much she welcomed him.
“I cannot tell you,” she said, “how depressing it has been all the time your uncle was so ill. There are neighbours round here, of course, but I have always thought it important, as our lands are so close, that we should be friends. Now all my dreams are coming true.”
She had given the Duke a flirtatious smile before she added,
“Of course dear Jane is very shy at meeting you, but I know that you will be kind to her and understand that, having been living for so long in Italy, she has forgotten many of our Highland customs and there is a great deal for her to learn.”
The Duke’s heart sank, knowing that this was exactly what he had feared, but, when he was presented to the new Countess just before dinner, he had been astounded.
He had come into the drawing room looking very resplendent in his evening clothes and wearing the Chieftain’s sporran that had belonged to his uncle.
The Dowager Countess glittering in diamonds was wearing a gown that would have made her seem almost overdressed at a Court ball. It was black, but there was certainly nothing funereal about it.
With her was Colonel Macbeth, whom the Duke had met in London and another elderly Macbeth relation whose title was ‘The Macbeth of Macbeth’.
There was champagne to drink, which the Duke might have expected, and, despite the fact that he was laughing at himself for being a fool, he was nervous and drank the first glass quickly.
It was being refilled when the door opened and the young Countess came in.
For a moment he thought that she was another guest.
Then, as she came gliding down the room towards her stepmother, he thought that, bemused by the champagne, he must be having a hallucination.
She was very attractive, in fact she was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen.
But she was not in the least what he had expected, nor did she appear Scottish in any way.
Her hair was fair and elaborately arranged in the very latest fashion and she wore a white gown that was as elegant and expensive as her stepmother’s.
When he looked at her more closely, the Duke, because he knew a great deal about women, was certain that her eyelashes were darkened artificially.
Her lips were certainly too red to be natural and her skin too white not to be powdered.
If this was what was happening in Scotland, he thought, things had changed very much since he was a boy.
The Dowager Countess put her arm affectionately round her stepdaughter’s shoulder.
“This is Jane!” she said simply to the Duke. “I cannot tell you how much this moment means to me, when you two young people get to know each other.”
There was a little throb in her voice, which the Duke thought should have been very moving.
He took the young Countess’s hand in his.
“I have heard a great deal about you,” he said.
He expected that she might be shy.
Instead she looked up at him provocatively from under her darkened eyelashes and her red lips curved as she said,
They went in to dinner in what was an impressive replica of a Baronial Dining Hall.
The Dowager, sitting at the head of the table, kept the conversation light and amusing and the Duke had a feeling that she was putting on a very skilful performance.
The dinner was outstanding and the old gentlemen certainly did full justice to it, their faces growing redder and redder as their glasses were filled and refilled and their jokes became a little heavier.
There was, the Duke thought afterwards, a great deal of laughter in which the Countess joined, seeming not in the least shy or in any way abashed at being so much younger than anybody else.
But now lying sleepless in bed, the Duke went over what had happened and found it almost incredible.
He had known, although he had avoided them as much as possible, a few young girls in India.
They were always to be found at Government House and in Simla, where they sat in little groups chatting amongst themselves and watching the young men surreptitiously.
They would blush when one spoke to them and often were too shy to say a word when they were dancing.
But there was nothing shy and nothing in the least gauche about Jane.
She talked, the Duke thought, quite naturally, indeed flirtatiously to him, and he was quite certain, when unaccountably they found themselves alone for one moment after dinner, that, as she leaned towards him, she raised her face inviting him to kiss her.
He had not done so because it seemed too soon and something fastidious in him revolted at being pushed into declaring himself before he was ready to do so.
He would propose to her in time, of course he would. He had made up his mind and it was what everybody expected.
But he would choose his own moment and not be pressured into it, not even by the future bride.
Then, as he turned over again, still thinking about what had occurred, still thinking of the expression in her eyes when she had said good night to him, he knew that something was wrong.
The Devilish Deception Page 2