Then, as the Duke did not speak, she added quickly,
“You do love me – you do really love me – you are not just saying it – to make me happy?”
“I love you as I have never loved anyone in my whole life,” the Duke answered. “In fact I had no idea that I could feel as I feel about you, my lovely one.”
“You – you are – sure of that?”
“Absolutely sure,” he said, “and it is something I will prove to you as soon as you are safe and we are married.”
As he spoke, he turned her face up to his and kissed her. As he felt their vibrations join and they became one person, he knew that there was really no need for words.
He kissed Giovanna until her eyes were shining like the sun outside and he knew that she was feeling the same ecstasy that he was feeling himself.
“I love you – God, how I love you!” he exclaimed. “I wish we could go away together on a honeymoon, my darling, and forget everything but ourselves.”
But as he spoke he knew that the dark menacing hand of Kane Horn overshadowed them both.
He told himself that the sooner it was brought into the open and finished once and for all the better.
All he could do at the moment was to think of Giovanna and kiss her until everything except the wonder of their love was, for the moment, forgotten.
*
It was much later in the day after Giovanna had slept for a long time after an excellent luncheon before they could continue their conversation.
She had come back into the drawing room, where the Duke was waiting for her and was wearing a pretty gown of a soft blue material that must have belonged to his aunt.
Mrs. Sutherland had altered it to fit Giovanna and, while it was not a very elaborate gown, it was swept back into some semblance of a fashionable bustle.
Its very simplicity made Giovanna look sylphlike and, as he had first thought her to be, a nymph from the cascade.
The pale gold of her hair, the green of her eyes and the dazzling whiteness of her skin gave her the look of an Immortal while the slenderness of her body made her ethereal and insubstantial.
The Duke drew her down to the end of the carriage where there was a seat which during her absence he had had an arm of the chair removed from and thereby created what was in fact a small sofa.
“As I like you close to me,” he said, “I think than we shall be more comfortable here than in one armchair.”
Giovanna smiled.
“I was very comfortable as we were – but as long as I can still be – near to you – I don’t mind where we are.”
“As that is what I want too,” the Duke replied, “we are in complete agreement, my darling!”
He kissed her gently and touched the silkiness of her hair with his hand.
“How can you manage to look so beautiful after all you have been through?” he asked.
“That is what I wanted you to say. At the same time I think you must be blind,” Giovanna replied. “I am very ashamed of my looks and to please you and Mrs. Sutherland I have drunk all the milk that Ross brought me at the last place where we stopped.”
She wrinkled her small nose and added,
“I don’t think French milk is very nice!”
“We will think of something else to fatten you up,” the Duke promised.
“I think being happy with you is better for me than anything I could eat,” Giovanna whispered.
Because it was what he thought himself, he kissed her.
It was quite a long time before Giovanna returned, because she knew that it was something she must do, to where her story had been interrupted.
“It was in May that I had a letter from Scotland telling me that Papa – was dead.”
“Was it a terrible shock?”
“It was what I had expected because I had not heard from him for such a long time. I always wrote to him – but he never replied – and I had a feeling, perhaps because I am ‘fey’ that it would not be long before he – joined Mama – in Heaven.”
She spoke very simply, but the Duke knew that she regretted that her father had died without her being there to say goodbye to him and instead had left him at the mercy of a woman who hated her.
“And when did you let them know that you would go back?”
“I did not think of that at first – but then I had a letter from Colonel Macbeth and other members of the Clan to say that I must return, as I was now the Countess of Dalbeth and Hereditary Chieftain.”
She paused as if she was remembering how upsetting it had been.
“They did however suggest,” she went on, “that, if I was at school, I might wish to finish the term.”
“Was that what you wanted?”
“Yes, of course, I was so nervous of going back to Scotland. Grandmama and I discussed it together and thought it most important that I should pass my examinations, which all came at the end of the summer term.”
“Then what happened?”
“A letter suddenly arrived from America to say that my Godmother was dead and that she had left me a fortune!”
“It must have been a great surprise!”
“It was! But I realised at once that I could now help the Macbeths and the other Clansmen about whom I had worried all the time, knowing that when I was not there Stepmother would just send them away empty-handed.”
She sighed and went on,
“They would have had nobody to turn to except the elders, who never had any money or at any rate far less than we had.”
The Duke was touched by the way she had cared and Giovanna continued,
“They told me which Bank I could get in touch with in London or Edinburgh and Grandmama said that her Solicitors, who were in Naples, would see to everything for me.”
“Which I presume they did.”
“Unfortunately they thought it was their business to write to my stepmother and I think it must have been their fault too that the news of my inheritance appeared first in the Italian newspapers and, as I learned later, was copied by the English and I suspect the Scottish ones.”
The Duke was sure that was what had happened and why both the Dalbeths and the McCarons had got in touch with the Marquis of Lothian as Secretary of State for Scotland.
“While I was finishing my time at the Convent, I did not think very much about it after that,” Giovanna said, “until I received a letter from Colonel Macbeth telling me I must return to Scotland and at the same time I also had a letter from Stepmama.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that if my grandmother could arrange for me to be escorted as far as Dover, she would meet me there.”
“Were you upset at the thought of seeing her again?”
“It seemed to be something that could not be avoided,” Giovanna replied. “I was only afraid that now that Papa was dead she would be my Guardian and I would have to obey her. But I knew that, having so much money, I would be able to do what I wanted as regards helping people and I thought in that, at any rate, I would be supported by my relations.”
“So you left for Scotland.”
“Grandmama talked to the Mother Superior and she sent one of the nuns with me, a sweet Sister who had travelled on behalf of the Convent to conferences or special meetings in Rome and places like that.”
“And when you reached Dover – what then?”
“Stepmama and her elderly maid, Annie, a woman I remembered but had never liked, were waiting for me at the Lord Warden Hotel. I said goodbye to the nun and set off with them for Scotland.”
The Duke waited, knowing that this was the moment in her story where Giovanna began to be afraid.
“At first,” she said shyly, “my stepmother merely talked about my money and asked me what arrangements had been made about it. I saw no reason not to tell the truth and showed her all the letters and documents that Grandmama’s Solicitors had handed to me before I left Naples.”
She gave a sigh before she added,
“I
t was only later that I realised how foolish I had been. She now knew the names of the Bank Managers to be contacted in London or Edinburgh, who had promised to do anything I wished and transfer money to any Bank in Scotland that would be convenient.”
“And when did your stepmother ask you to do that?”
“We stayed the night in London, where a representative from the Bank came to the hotel and I signed a lot of documents, which stepmother read very carefully before I did so.”
As if the Duke was accusing her of being stupid, Giovanna said,
“She had been quite pleasant to me on the journey from Dover and I thought, now that I was older and Papa was dead, she did not seem to hate me as much as she had three years earlier. In fact I believed that she wanted to be friendly.”
“I am sure that she acted her part very well!” the Duke said sarcastically.
He did not, however, want to prevent Giovanna from telling him every detail and she continued,
“It was not until we had reached Inverness that my stepmother came into the carriage where I had slept quite peacefully and said,
“‘We will have rather a rough drive before we reach home and, as the roads have been badly damaged by the winter rains, I have brought you something to soothe your stomach. Personally I find the roughness of the roads worse than the waves of the sea!’
“‘You make it sound terrible!’ I laughed trying to remember what the roads had been like when I had left home.
“‘We have had two very bad winters,’ my stepmother said, ‘and one is thrown about the carriage from side to side until one feels quite sick and dizzy!’
“‘I shall be all right.’ I laughed.
“‘Well, drink this anyway,’ my stepmother said, offering me a small glass filled with a white liquid.
“‘I would rather not,’ I answered, ‘I am sure it tastes nasty!’
“‘It merely tastes of peppermint,’ she replied. ‘I have made it up especially for you. I have just had some myself and given the same amount to Annie’.”
Giovanna moved a little closer to the Duke.
“I-I know it was – foolish of me, but she was so insistent and I did not – want to upset her. I-I never thought she would do the same sort of thing to me that she had done to – Papa.”
“What happened?”
“I-I drank what she had given me – and a few minutes later I must have – fallen back unconscious for I can – remember nothing of what happened after that.”
“You were drugged!” the Duke exclaimed.
“I must have been,” Giovanna agreed, “and it lasted all the way back. The next thing I knew – I was lying on a bed – in a room that when I lived at home had – never been used.”
“You were alone?”
“I-I was alone when I – came back to consciousness and I felt – desperately – terribly ill. I managed to get off the bed – and I found a tap and only as I attempted to fill a glass with some water did I – realise where – I was.”
“Where were you?”
“In a room that had been specially built onto the house by my grandfather for his mother.”
The Duke waited and Giovanna explained.
“She was very old and apparently had a horror of noise – in fact even the slightest sound could keep her awake at night – and so my grandfather built a special room on one of the top floors, which was isolated from the rest of the house.”
She made a little gesture with her hand as she explained,
“In order to reach it one had to walk along two empty corridors. It fortunately had a bathroom attached and there was running water – only cold of course – but which I know now saved my life.”
“You mean because you could drink even if they did not feed you?”
Giovanna nodded.
“If I had been – thirsty as well as hungry – I am sure that I should have died quite quickly – and being starved would have been – more agonising even than it was.”
“When did you know what was happening to you?” the Duke asked.
“Stepmother came and told me. Then I knew how much she had always hated me when I was at home and that not only had her hatred grown stronger but she loathed and detested me because I was rich.
“‘If you think you can control your money,’ she said, ‘you are very much mistaken and, if you think you are going to marry a Duke as they have planned for you to do, you are also in for a surprise!’
“‘What are you talking about?’ I asked. ‘This is the first I have heard that I am to be married.’
“‘Apparently those old fools the Macbeths and the McCarons have decided you shall marry the Duke of Invercaron,’ she said, ‘and reign like a Queen in Scotland with all your money to spend! But I am going to stop it and you are going to reign nowhere as far as I am concerned except in Hell!’
“‘I don’t know – what you are – talking about,’ I cried.
“‘Then listen to me,’ my stepmother replied. ‘What is going to happen to you is that you are going to die!’
“‘I think you must be mad!’ I said. ‘Do you not suppose there will be questions asked as to where I am and what has happened to me? And as Chieftain my Clan will want to see me’.”
Giovanna shuddered as she added,
“Then – she smiled, and for the first time I was really – frightened.
“‘Your Clansmen will see you,’ she said in a mocking voice. ‘They will see their pretty Chieftain and they will applaud as she marries the Duke of Invercaron and throws her money about like confetti, but it will not be you – not poor mad Giovanna whom I brought to live here out of sheer kindness because she had nowhere else to go. No, Giovanna, you are going to die! A girl who is mad and deranged, suffering from fits of screaming and frenzy, which is dangerous! No one will mourn her when she is dead. She will just be pushed into the ground and forgotten!”’
As Giovanna finished speaking the tears choked her voice and she turned her face against the Duke’s shoulder and he held her closer against him.
“I can understand, my precious darling, how terrifying it must have been,” he said gently.
“I thought I must be imagining it, but it was – true. She had it all planned and the only person who – came near me was that horrible old Annie who had – always hated me. She used to say through the door,
‘“I’ve brought you a delicious dinner and the cook’s taken ever so much trouble o’er it. There’s salmon fresh frae the river and venison so tender as it’ll melt in your mouth, but it’s mad you are, ye poor wee thing, that you just send it awa untouched!’”
Giovanna gave a little gulp remembering what a nightmare it had been before she said,
“I-I could – hear Annie waiting – until the food was cold – before she carried the tray away again, saying – I was – too mad and too ill to eat.”
“I can hardly believe it!” the Duke exclaimed. “It seems incredible that such people really exist.”
“It was – terrifying!” Giovanna agreed. “And Stepmother used to come every other day to see how weak I was getting and to – taunt me with what a success – her daughter would be as the new Countess.”
“Her daughter?” the Duke asked sharply. “Was it really her daughter?”
“I knew from what Papa said that she had been married before and she had one child – but I never knew whether it was a boy or a girl – until she said that her daughter had taken – my place and that nobody suspected for a – moment that she was not – me!”
Now the tears were running down Giovanna’s face and the Duke kissed them away before he kissed her lips.
Then, as he kissed her and went on kissing her, he knew that only by the mercy of God had she survived the cruel fate that a demon in the shape of a woman had devised for her.
Chapter Seven
The Duke opened the door and Giovanna, who was sitting beside her grandmother and holding her hand, jumped to her feet.
There was an expression in her
eyes that the Duke answered by crossing the room and putting his arms round her before he said quietly,
“Everything is arranged, but I don’t want you to be frightened.”
She moved a little nearer to him and he knew that all she wanted was to hold onto him and feel that he was close to her.
He turned to Lady Sinclair, saying,
“I have no wish for you to be upset, but I know you will understand that, while we are coping once and for all with these terrible people, one of the Special Police will have to sit here in the room with you.”
Lady Sinclair did not answer and the Duke added,
“He is a very charming young man who speaks English and I don’t think that he will embarrass you in any way.”
“You are not to worry about me,” Lady Sinclair answered in a soft voice. “Just look after my granddaughter.”
“That is what I have sworn to do,” the Duke replied.
Lady Sinclair put out her hand and, when he bent to kiss it in the foreign fashion, Giovanna knew how much her grandmother liked him and how delighted she was that they were to be married.
Then the Duke drew Giovanna from the room and as he did so held the door open for the handsome young Italian Policeman who was to take their place.
Outside he took her into the largest reception room in the villa which, to her surprise, was empty.
“Now, listen, my darling,” the Duke said. “I am going to ask a great deal of you, but I want you to know that you are completely safe and protected and that no one can hurt you.”
Giovanna looked at him in perplexity as he drew her to a sofa where they sat down together.
Outside the Mediterranean was dazzlingly blue, the garden was a riot of bougainvillea and the sky was cloudless.
It seemed incredible that they were menaced by such evil that might well have made everything dark around it.
When the Duke had approached the white villa a few minutes before and thought how beautiful it was, he had known that both Giovanna’s life, and perhaps his, hung by a thread.
He looked at her now and said in a quiet voice that he hoped would reassure her,
“I am going to ask you, my precious darling, to be very brave.”
The Devilish Deception Page 12