“Oh, when is the Wedding to take place?” one of his relatives asked.
“We have not decided yet,” the Duke answered, “because so many of Devinia’s friends and relations live in the far North. They would be very hurt if they were not given time to consider how they could come South and you can imagine it requires a great deal of arranging.”
They laughed as the Duke spoke sarcastically.
The Duke knew that he was being clever in keeping them from being over-curious as to when the Wedding would take place.
‘I am so lucky,’ Devinia told herself when she was eventually alone. ‘How could I possibly have come from the misery I endured with Penelope to the laughter, fun and comfort of this marvellous place?’
When the third day, after they had received many visitors, had passed and those of them who had come early in the day left before tea the Duke said,
“Enough is enough! If we have any more I shall lock the gates and say ‘not at home’ to anyone who comes as far as the front door.”
“You cannot do that,” Devinia argued. “They come because they love you and admire you and I think it is very touching that they are so concerned with your happiness.”
“I suppose you are right,” the Duke agreed after thinking it over. “At the same time we have done our best to cure their curiosity, which is actually why they are here, and now they can talk about your beauty and how fortunate I am from Rotten Row to the Houses of Parliament!”
Devinia laughed.
“It is really very serious,” she said, “as they are all going to be just as inquisitive when our engagement comes to an end and we tell them that we have decided not to be married after all.”
The Duke then looked over his shoulder just in case someone was listening and then he said,
“Hush! Even the walls have ears and it is a great mistake for you to say now there is the slightest chance of us being anything but happily married. As the majority of our friends have already pointed out, one must have at least six or seven sons to make quite certain that the Dukedom does not end and be lost for ever.”
Devinia looked concerned for a moment.
“It is not a thing to be laughed at. Of course you must have an heir to the Dukedom before you die. But you have plenty of time to think about it and perhaps, when you least expect it, you will fall head over heels in love.”
“That is something I wish to avoid at the moment,” the Duke replied, “simply because your cousin, Penelope, has shown how easy it is to be defrauded and betrayed by someone one has a real affection for.”
He paused before he went on,
“Fortunately I have found out just how crooked she was, otherwise I cannot bear to think what my life with her might have been in the future.”
“Forget it!” Devinia exclaimed. “You are free and the whole world is spread out in front of you and if you are bored with London there are a great number of places in the world which you would enjoy and find fascinating as your ancestors must have felt when they brought home to The Castle so many treasures from many different lands.”
The Duke smiled.
“Of course you are right and what happens to them could happen to me. As I have a very comfortable yacht, I think it will be expected that we will use it.”
There was silence for a moment and then she said,
“I think it would be a mistake for you and I to go abroad without being properly chaperoned. You know as well as I do that would be a bore because we would have to think before we spoke.”
Again there was silence.
“She, like everyone else,” Devinia continued, “must know that we are playing a part and not, as they believe, really in love with each other.”
Before the Duke could speak she added,
“I am perfectly content at present with your horses, and I love being here. So please, please don’t be in a hurry for us to set off somewhere else, which as you well know might cause a great deal of gossip that will not particularly be to our advantage.”
“The trouble with you,” the Duke answered, “is that you are too sensible. At your age you should be leaping with joy at the idea of visiting China or Japan. But I have to admit that you are right and I am wrong and we must stay here until the excitement dies down.”
Devinia nodded.
“It will do and they will soon have someone else to talk about in a few weeks or perhaps a month. Then we can make plans.”
She gave a sigh before she said,
“But for the moment, let me live in this entrancing Fairy story that I am enjoying so very much.”
The Duke laughed.
“You make everything seem real,” he replied. “I am quite certain that not a single person of those we have just entertained is not completely convinced we are not madly in love with each other.”
“I am sure you are right,” Devinia agreed. “But we must be so careful not to let anyone guess the truth or be suspicious that we are acting a part however well.”
“I promise not to play the villain,” the Duke said. “You must warn me if the halo round my head becomes a little rusty.”
“You are too clever for that and now as everyone has gone I think we will be able to have dinner alone and you can tell me more about your travels in the Far East.”
“Are you quite certain that I am not boring you?” the Duke asked.
“How could I be bored with anyone so fascinating and so exciting?” Devinia questioned. “If you are tired of telling me your own stories, I would just love to hear about some of your ancestors especially those who brought into the family all the wonderful jewels your housekeeper was showing me tonight.”
The Duke smiled.
“I thought the rows of pearls you had round your neck were familiar.”
“And the diamonds round my wrist,” she added. “I have never felt so grand and you must be very proud to own such magnificent treasures as those which have been collected in this Castle.”
“Of course, I am proud of them,” the Duke replied. “That is why I would not offend them by having as a wife someone who did not understand or appreciate the way that this Castle has been built up generation after generation.”
Devinia gave a cry of delight.
“That is why you have so much to tell me,” she said, “and thank goodness there is no one else to listen to us this afternoon.”
She greatly enjoyed the excellent dinner which she and the Duke had alone.
They talked comfortably in the Duke’s study until it was almost midnight.
Then Devinia, who had listened attentively to every word he had been telling her, went up to her bedroom.
Her eyes were shining like stars as she had been so intrigued by hearing from the Duke his journeys to parts of the world that she had only read about.
“Thank you!” she sighed as she said ‘goodnight’ to him. “I know I shall fall asleep feeling I am in Hong Kong or some other amazing part of the world. It will be quite a shock to find tomorrow morning that I am back in dear old England!”
“Which you love as much as I do,” the Duke said, “despite the fact that you are so thrilled by hearing about foreign lands.”
“That was chapter one,” she replied as she reached the door. “I look forward to having chapter two and chapter three tomorrow night, and so on as long as we are alone.”
She did not give the Duke chance to say anymore, but she heard him laugh as she ran down the passage.
‘At least,’ she thought to herself, ‘he is not bored even though other men might well find one girl like myself rather dull when he could have a party like he had last night and the night before.’
As she reached her bedroom, she was hoping, until it became almost a prayer, that the Duke would continue to enjoy telling her about his travels.
There had not been a moment, which she rather dreaded, when he might believe that being alone with her was boring and then he would have an urge to go back to London where there were, to her knowl
edge, at least half a dozen beautiful women holding out their arms to him.
‘He is just so handsome, besides being so kind and understanding,’ she told herself again and again.
She put Prince into his basket at the end of her bed.
She guessed, however, and she was quite right, that he would soon jump onto her bed to be beside her and so continue to sleep there all through the night.
‘He is so sweet,’ she told herself, ‘and I love him so much already. But not as much as I loved Jo-Jo.’
She gave a sigh as she could not think of the dog she had loved for so long without tears coming to her eyes.
Then she told herself that she was being selfish.
As the Duke had been so kind as to give her another dog, she must love him as much as she had loved Jo-Jo and not dwell on the past.
After she had said her prayers, she slipped into bed.
As Prince moved nearer to her, she patted him and told him that he was a good and lovely dog.
Then, because it was after midnight, she closed her eyes and was soon fast asleep.
The Duke also went to bed.
He thought that he had enjoyed the evening a great deal and tomorrow morning he would be riding the new horse which had only arrived that afternoon.
He had slipped away from his visitors to view it.
But he knew that he could not appreciate it as much as he ought to do until he had ridden it.
It had been bought at Tattersalls and he had known its owner before he died.
He had heard a great deal about this particular horse from his other friends who had admired it tremendously. It had been rather expensive, but the Duke was sure that it was money well spent.
And he would confirm it tomorrow morning by the satisfaction he would feel when he knew it would equal, if not surpass, the best of his other horses.
*
He had been asleep for two hours when he woke to hear someone pulling back the curtains in his room.
At the same time calling out,
“Wake up, Your Grace! Wake up!”
He opened his eyes and saw, to his astonishment that the moonlight was still coming through his windows.
His valet, Andrews, was shouting out his name and pulling back the curtains.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” the Duke asked.
“It’s what’s happenin’ below, Your Grace! I thinks someone’s kidnapped Miss Mountford!”
“What are you talking about?” the Duke demanded.
He jumped from the bed and ran to the window and he was aware as he did so that there was a dog howling as if in pain below.
“They’ve gone, Your Grace,” Andrews went on, “and they’ve taken Miss Mountford with them.”
“What can you be talking about?” the Duke asked again. “And why is that dog howling?”
“I wasn’t asleep,” Andrews said, “because I had a bit of toothache. Then I suddenly hears a dog whinin’ and then barkin’ as if he were hurt. I thought at first it were none of my business. Then rememberin’ just what Miss Mountford feels about dogs, I thought it be sure to wake her and she would do somethin’ about it – ”
He paused for breath and the Duke said impatiently,
“Go on!”
“I went to the window, Your Grace, which as you know is above yours. I sees in the moonlight a man holdin’ a dog in his arms and punchin’ it until it screamed.”
“Who was he?” the Duke asked sharply.
“I don’t know, Your Grace, but he be a foreigner. Even though it were only in the moonlight, I could see he was not a white man.”
The Duke stared at him.
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure, Your Grace. Just then I thinks Miss Mountford must have heard the dog because she came out in her dressin’ gown and went towards it.”
The Duke was listening and he could now see the dog which he did not recognise as being one of his.
It seemed, although it was difficult to see clearly in the moonlight, that it was a rather rough common sort of dog which might be seen in any poor street.
“What happened when Miss Mountford appeared?” he asked as the valet had stopped speaking.
“I don’t know how to tell you, Your Grace, and I’m sure you’ll find it hard to believe.”
“Believe what?”
“Well, two men who must have been hidin’ by the door, steps forward and throws several blankets over Miss Mountford’s head, takes her up in their arms and carries her away.”
The Duke stared at him.
“What are you saying, Andrews?” he asked. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Of course I’m tellin’ you the truth, Your Grace! I know it’s hard to believe, but that’s what they did. I could see them for a moment strugglin’ to get the blankets over her head.”
He coughed before he went on,
“Then as soon as she was covered they disappears with her round the side of The Castle to where, I suppose they had a carriage waitin’.”
The Duke put his hand up to his forehead.
“I cannot believe this has happened!” he exclaimed. “What about the man holding the dog?”
“He puts the dog down still whinin’ from what he had done to him and runs after the other men. That was all I saw of them, then I comes up here to tell you what’s happened.”
“I will now see for myself,” the Duke replied.
He put on his dressing gown, slipped his feet into his slippers and ran across the room.
He pulled open the door, ran along the passage then down the stairs to the front door.
The door was open and he supposed that was the way that Devinia had left the house.
There was no one to be seen outside.
If it had not been for the dog lying on the ground and moaning in pain, the Duke would have thought that his valet had been imagining it or suffering from a nightmare.
A glance at the courtyard told him that, if there had been a carriage waiting, it was no longer there.
As Andrews joined him, he quizzed him,
“Are you quite certain that the men who carried off Miss Mountford were foreigners?”
“They were all dark-skinned from what I could see of them. From their clothes I would have thought them to be natives.”
The Duke drew in his breath.
Then, as though he was being helped, he found his brain telling him what he wanted to know.
Someone, and it was not hard to think of who that person was, had wanted to get rid of Devinia.
There was only one person who would know better than anyone else that, if she heard a dog suffering in pain or anguish, she would run to its assistance.
That she had been kidnapped and carried away by some foreigner might have been just the imagination of his valet, but the dog was still groaning and moaning from the way it had been treated.
As he could now see clearly that it was not a dog belonging to him or, as far as he knew, to anyone on the estate.
Because he had been trained to use his brain and to make a decision quickly as a soldier would have done, the Duke ordered sharply,
“Tell them in the stables I want my phaeton and the chestnut team to be ready as quickly as possible!”
Before Andrews could answer, he added,
“Then come back here and help me dress and tell the butler I have instructions to give him before I leave.”
He was gone before Andrews could reply.
The Duke had learned to dress quickly when he had been at College and he was just putting on his waistcoat when the valet returned.
“They’re bringin’ the phaeton round as soon as it’s ready, Your Grace,” he said a little breathlessly, “and do you want me to come with you?”
“No, but have you woken Travers?”
“Yes, Your Grace, and so he’ll be downstairs when you are ready.”
“I am ready now,” the Duke said. “Bring me my shoes and tell my secretary that I will let him
know where I will be after I reach London.”
He did not wait for an answer, he put on his shoes and ran towards the door.
He left Andrews wondering what he ought to have said before the Duke reached the top of the stairs.
Travers in his dressing gown was in the hall.
“You sent for me, Your Grace,” he said looking surprised at his appearance.
“I am leaving for London now,” the Duke told him. “Send a man to Dover at daylight to tell the Captain in charge of my yacht that I expect to come aboard tomorrow early in the afternoon and we want to move out of Port at once.”
Travers stared at him as he walked to the door.
“See to that dog,” he ordered, “and, if he is badly injured, send for the vet.”
Before he could reply the Duke turned.
Instead of going out through the front door as they thought he would, he went down the passage to the door to the safe.
No one spoke but Travers smiled.
Both he and Andrews thought that the Duke was picking up a revolver to take with him.
In point of fact when he reached the safes the Duke passed the one which was filled with weapons as well as the one which contained his ancestral silver.
He went to the one which contained all the jewels from which he had recently taken the engagement ring for Devinia.
When he opened the safe door, he saw as she had the first time she had been there, the flashing light coming from the opals.
He hesitated for a moment and then he pulled out the large opal necklace and placed it in his pocket.
He closed the door and just a few minutes later was hurrying towards the stables.
As he expected when he got there the four perfectly matched horses were already in front of his phaeton.
The groom, Hopkins, who was on duty at night was just fastening the last of their harnesses.
“We’re nearly finished, Your Grace,” he said as he saw the Duke coming swiftly towards him.
“I want you to come with me,” the Duke told him.
Hopkins stared at him.
“I haven’t got my smart livery with me.”
“That does not matter,” the Duke answered. “Get in as you are and Travers will tell everyone we have left.”
As he spoke, he slipped into the driver’s seat and picked up the reins.
160 Love Finds the Duke at Last Page 9