She climbed out of the phaeton assisted by one of the flunkeys who at their approach had come down the long flight of steps from the front door.
The steps, Solita saw, were covered with a red carpet and only when she had walked a little way up them did she realise that the gentleman who had driven her here was following her.
He reached her side and they walked through the front door together.
“Nice to see you back, Your Grace,” an elderly butler intoned.
As he spoke, Solita turned to look at the gentleman with accusing eyes.
She was about to say something when the Duke said,
“The lady I have with me, Dawson, would, I am sure, like to wash and tidy herself after the journey and we will have tea in the blue salon.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
The butler went to Solita’s side saying respectfully,
“Will you come this way, madam?”
He preceded her up the stairs and, as she followed him, she was too amazed to think clearly.
‘How could I have guessed,’ she asked herself, ‘that the Duke would be on the train like an ordinary passenger?’
She had always understood that Dukes in England had their own private trains or alternatively a special coach to themselves that was attached to the express.
She had not thought that everyone who stopped at the halt would be going to The Castle or that any man might easily be the Duke himself.
An elderly housekeeper escorted her to a very impressive bedroom.
After she had washed her hands and tidied her hair, she was escorted to the top of the stairs and saw the butler waiting for her in the hall below.
She had taken off her hat at the suggestion of the housekeeper.
But, because she thought after what she had said the Duke might easily send her away immediately, she carried it in her hand .
‘How could I have been so foolish as to have talked so indiscreetly?’ she asked herself.
At the same time she remembered that it was what she had intended to say to the Duke anyway.
If he had heard it already, then it did not matter one way or the other.
She wondered frantically however, that if he was angry, where she could stay the night.
She had the uncomfortable feeling that, as she was un-chaperoned, it might be difficult to get into any respectable hotel.
Yet she told herself, as she went down the stairs, she was not going to be intimidated by the Duke!
It was all his fault that she was here.
The old butler smiled at her as he said,
“His Grace is waiting for you in the blue salon, madam and I’m sure you could do with a cup of tea after your journey?”
“I would enjoy it very much,” Solita smiled at him.
She thought the old man would be surprised if she told him it would be the first tea she had drunk since she had come to England.
They walked a little way along a high and imposing corridor.
Then Dawson opened a door and without announcing Solita, as he did not know her name, she walked in.
The Duke was standing in front of the fireplace and Solita thought as she walked towards him that he looked rather intimidating.
There was, however, an undoubted look of defiance in her blue eyes as she stopped opposite him and curtsied.
“I suppose I should apologise,” she began, “but you have altered so much since I last saw you that it was – impossible for me to – recognise you.”
“Since you last saw me?” the Duke enquired, “and when was that?”
Almost despite herself, Solita smiled.
“It was ten years ago and, while I was much smaller, you were always laughing and I thought I could – trust you.”
The Duke stared at her.
“Ten years ago?” he repeated.
Suddenly his expression changed.
“You are not telling me,” he said almost incredulously, “that you are Charles Gresham’s daughter?”
“I am. I am Solita Gresham, whom you have forgotten about!”
“That is not quite true,” the Duke replied, “but why are you here and what has happened to my cousin Mildred.”
“Your cousin Mildred whom Your Grace has ignored completely ever since I went to live with her died a month ago.”
“I had no idea. I was not informed.”
“There was no one to inform you but me and it was when I found that I had no money that I came to England to ask you what you had done with what Papa left me.”
The Duke put his hand up to his forehead.
“This is all completely bewildering,” he said. “After I left you with my cousin, I thought I arranged for your father’s money to be sent to her regularly in order to pay for your schooling.”
“As far as I am aware, she never had a penny!” Solita retorted, “and she paid for everything herself.”
“It is hard to believe that what you are telling me is the truth.”
“I can assure Your Grace I should not have troubled you if I had not found on your cousin’s death that her money came from a Trust Fund. It ceased as soon as she was not there to receive it.”
“Are you telling me you are left penniless?”
“I sold some jewellery which your cousin had given me over the years to pay for my fare to England.”
“There has obviously been some hideous mistake,” the Duke said, “and my only excuse is that, after I left you in Naples, I was sent with a Battalion of my Regiment to the West Indies.”
He thought as he spoke of the last time he had seen Solita – she had flung her arms around his neck and kissed him goodbye.
An enchanting child aged eight, he had looked after her on the voyage home from India.
Looking back now he could understand why she had spoken so scathingly about him.
Charles Gresham had been a Captain in the Army when he was a young Subaltern.
Gresham had befriended him from the moment he had arrived in India and they had a great many tastes in common.
They had been moved up to the North West frontier and Gresham’s wife and daughter had not been allowed to accompany him.
They had had a gruelling time with the tribesmen. They were hard fighting men who were continually incited to rebel against the English by the Russians who had infiltrated into Afghanistan.
During one night attack, which had come unexpectedly, the enemy had outnumbered the British.
Charles Gresham had saved the Duke’s life. In doing so he had received a wound to his thigh.
They had left for Peshawar together.
It was while Charles Gresham was convalescent that he became involved with a very beautiful woman who appeared to be infatuated with him.
The Duke, who was at that time only Hugo Leigh, never suspected she had another reason for pursuing Gresham as he was a very attractive man.
When Gresham had recovered from his wound, he went back to his Unit.
The Duke was ordered to stay on in Peshawar for another week.
Afterwards, despite an official enquiry, it was difficult to ascertain exactly what had happened.
All that was known was that a company of British soldiers had been ambushed with Gresham among them. All of them had lost their lives.
It was only when the attractive woman who had seemed infatuated with Gresham disappeared that it was whispered that she was a Russian spy.
It was then that the Duke had become suspicious.
There was nothing he could prove and, when he went to Lucknow, Mrs. Gresham was waiting for him.
He learnt that she had heard the rumours that were being circulated amongst the British troops and because she was broken-hearted at losing her husband, there was little the Duke could say to comfort her. He had to admit that the woman who had been in her husband’s company was under suspicion.
Although Mrs. Gresham was very brave about it, he knew that she was certain, as he was, the Russian was a spy and she had wormed ou
t of Charles Gresham the orders he had been given, which had sent him to his death.
It was when the Duke was in Lucknow that he received a telegram from England informing him that his mother was ill.
Having obtained compassionate leave, he left on the first available ship from Bombay and found that Mrs. Gresham and her small daughter were also on their way to England.
He had been a close friend of Charles Gresham, who had saved his life earlier.
The Duke was therefore anxious to do everything in his power to make the voyage as comfortable as possible for his widow.
He was aware that Mrs. Gresham would face a lonely future without her husband.
They talked over what she should do and where she could live and he learnt that she was not only poor but had very few relatives.
They discussed it as they passed through the Red Sea and when they went ashore at Port Sudan and then the ship moved slowly up the newly-opened Suez Canal.
By the time they reached Alexandria the Duke was aware that Mrs. Gresham had caught a pernicious fever, perhaps at the native bazaar they had visited.
The ship’s doctor could do little for her. He only insisted that Solita be moved into another cabin and kept away from her mother until the infection was over.
She therefore spent her time with Hugo Leigh and several other Officers who were on board.
They spoilt her, bought her chocolates and played games with her.
She was an exceedingly attractive child, looking like a small angel with her golden hair and bright blue eyes.
She ran swiftly about the deck with a grace that made her seem as if she was flying.
One evening the Duke remembered she had danced gracefully in the Saloon to the music that one of the Officers was playing on the piano.
When Solita began to dance, it was an unconscious expression of the joy the music brought to her.
She did not seem to be aware that she had an audience. In fact it was only when she stopped dancing and everybody applauded that she realised that they had been watching her.
He had thought that she was unusually talented for a young child and he could understand now why she thought she could be a ballet-dancer.
Mrs. Gresham had died three days after they had left Alexandria.
Solita had cried on Hugo Leigh’s shoulder, but there was little he could do to comfort her.
“What – will happen – to me – now?” she asked piteously.
Then with a little cry of horror she added,
“I will – not be – sent to an – orphanage?”
Hugo Leigh had known she was afraid having seen the orphanages in India, where the children, whilst adequately fed, were very strictly disciplined.
For a moment his arms had tightened around the frail little body as he said,
“I promise you that will not happen.”
“Then – where shall – I go?”
The Duke could see her face now, the tears running down her cheeks.
And yet, in some way it made her even prettier than she had been when she was smiling.
“I will think of something,” he said.
“You – promise? You – promise?” she asked.
“I promise,” he answered and wondered how he could keep it.
It was only when they reached Naples that he remembered that a cousin of his father’s – Mildred Leigh – lived in Sorrento.
She was nearly sixty and, because she suffered from rheumatism, the doctors had advised her to live in a warmer climate.
She was a kind woman who had never married, and was therefore often lonely, especially as she lived in a foreign country.
On an impulse the Duke took Solita to see her.
His cousin had immediately understood the problem and offered to have Solita with her.
“It would give me a great deal of happiness, dear boy,” she told the Duke. “I will send her to one of the best schools in Naples and I have a feeling she will grow up to be a beauty.”
It had all seemed very satisfactory and it was only when he was leaving that Solita clung to him feverishly.
He had known it was because he was the one contact she had left of the life that belonged to her father and mother.
“You – will not – forget me?” she pleaded. “You will – come and see me again – soon?”
“As soon as I can,” he promised her, “but you must remember I am a soldier, like your father.”
“But – you will – think of – me?”
“I promise I will do that.”
He had kissed her goodbye.
He could remember now seeing a small pathetic little figure with tears in her eyes standing on the steps of his cousin’s villa.
He had written to Solita over several months and he had sent her postcards.
Then he had been posted to the West Indies.
After two years there he was sent back to India on a special mission.
It was in Calcutta he learnt that incredibly something he had never expected had occurred.
He had become the fourth Duke of Calverleigh.
His father had been the younger son of the third Duke and, as was traditional kept on very short commons, while his elder brother had everything.
It had not worried Hugo Leigh, who was perfectly content with his life as a soldier.
What happened had therefore come as a complete bombshell.
His grandfather the Duke and his uncle, the Marquis of Calver had both been drowned when crossing the Irish Sea in a storm.
They had been on their way to Ireland to stay with the Viceroy.
They wished to buy horses to improve the Duke’s racing stables.
Hugo Leigh had hurried home from India and found there was a great deal for him to do, not only in The Castle, but in his position in the country and in Court circles.
Queen Victoria had welcomed him at Windsor and the change in his life was fantastic.
From being an unimportant Captain he found himself a wealthy man and the owner of one of the finest houses in England.
The Duke admitted that he had forgotten Solita.
He had written when he first reached England to his Solicitors telling them to investigate what was left of Charles Gresham’s estate and They were to make sure that the money was properly invested for the child of the marriage.
After that, he now confessed, he had done nothing, imagining if anything was wrong his cousin Mildred would notify him.
As he looked at Solita’s accusing eyes, he told himself he had been very remiss and he could only say,
“I am sorry, Solita, and I hope you will forgive me.”
“You promised you would not forget me,” she sighed.
He thought for a moment it was the child of eight who had kissed him goodbye speaking.
“I know,” he said, “and I am very contrite, but I did have a lot to think about.”
“I expected at least that you would write to me every Christmas,” Solita said, “and Aunt Mildred was hurt because you never sent her a card after the first year I was with her.”
The Duke sat down beside her on the sofa.
“Supposing you pour me a cup of tea,” he suggested, “then we will talk about the future. However many regrets we have, we cannot undo the past.”
“That is true,” Solita agreed, “but I have been – hating you for so long that it is going to be difficult to feel – anything else.”
The Duke laughed.
“That sounds very intimidating! At the same time, you are now in England, Solita, and starting a new life altogether.”
She poured out his tea and a cup for herself and then she said,
“Surely Papa left – some money, otherwise I will have to be a – ballet-dancer.”
“You will be nothing of the sort!” the Duke said, “I am your Guardian and it is something I will definitely not allow!”
“Did you say you are my Guardian?” Solita asked.
“Of course I am,” he replie
d, “your mother put you in my charge and I took you to my cousin. If I have neglected my responsibilities during the last years, I must make up for them now.”
Solita frowned.
“I did not – mean to be an – encumbrance,” she said, “I just thought – you could give me the – money that was Papa’s and I would – find myself something to do.”
“What you are going to do,” the Duke said firmly, “is to shine in the Social world in which you are not interested!”
“I want to go to India.”
“That may be possible later,” the Duke replied, “but why, particularly?”
He thought she was not going to reply and then she replied,
“I want to – avenge Papa!”
“You want to do – what?” the Duke enquired.
“Avenge Papa! It was the Russians who killed him and one day I intend to avenge his death!”
The Duke stared at her.
“How on earth do you think you can do that?” he enquired.
Solita looked at him in a strange way as if she was looking, he thought, into his heart.
“You loved Papa,” she said in a low voice, “and you know that Russian woman behaved – treacherously and caused his – death and that of his men.”
Her lips tightened for a moment before she went on in a hard voice,
“Only when I have killed her – or a Russian like her – will I feel that Papa did – not die in vain!”
Chapter Two
The Duke stared at her in astonishment and then he asked,
“Are you serious?”
“I am very serious,” Solita replied, “and I think you, of all people, should have tried to avenge Papa’s death, especially when he saved your life.”
“Killing a man in battle is one thing, but killing at other times is murder!” the Duke said firmly.
“I know that, but ever since I heard from Mama exactly what happened, and also as it happens from you, I was determined that Papa’s death should not go unavenged.”
The Duke sat back in his chair and crossed his legs.
“Now let us reason that out,” he said, “you must realise such an idea coming from a young girl such as yourself is not only foolish but extremely dangerous.”
Solita looked at him with what he thought was a contemptuous expression on her face, but she did not speak and after a little while he went on,
Solita and the Spies Page 2