“Well, then,” the Duke said, “the only thing we can do is to make sure that we do not only not arrive at Brandon House when they expect us, but have already left the country.”
Janeta linked her thin fingers together before she said in a very small voice,
“If we – are married – I shall be your – wife.”
“You will be my wife,” the Duke said, “and I think you will find it a good deal preferable to being married to an old man who is cruel to his animals.”
He could not suppress a somewhat cynical note in his voice. He was thinking that most women he knew would be overjoyed at the thought of becoming a Duchess and would certainly not look as worried and perturbed as Janeta.
“But I suppose,” she said in a little above a whisper, “when – we are married – I do things that upset you – and make mistakes – and you hate me. What can – we do then?”
The Duke smiled and it made him look very attractive and beguiling.
“First of all, I will look after you, Janeta, so that you don’t make many mistakes and secondly, while we have to be married in this strange and desperate manner, I think we are both intelligent enough to try to make the very best of the situation we find ourselves in.”
He paused before he went on,
“I know it may not be easy, but I believe, since we share a number of interests, that we shall find we have a common ground on which to become good friends.”
He thought as he spoke that he must sound rather pompous. At the same time, because Janeta was so young and so frightened, he knew that to be married to any man would be for her an alarming jump in the dark.
Because she did not speak, he continued,
“There are so many things I would like to show you in Paris, besides buying you a trousseau, which you can hardly ask your stepmother to provide!”
Now there was a note of amusement in his voice as he felt he had made a joke, but Janeta did not smile and merely said,
“It is – humiliating for you to – have to marry me when I possess – nothing in the whole world but – the clothes I am wearing.”
“On the contrary, I think it will be rather interesting to see if we can turn you from a very pretty schoolgirl into a sophisticated and beautiful lady of fashion,” the Duke said.
He saw Janeta’s surprise at his words and went on,
“Actually, I have already started my appointed task. One of the reasons why I am so late returning from London, apart from having to obtain a Special Licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom fortunately I have known for some years, is that I have brought back with me a wedding gown, a dress in which you can travel, and several others that will at least keep you clothed until we can visit the haute couture designers in Paris, who are famous all over the world.”
As he spoke, and he was sure he was not mistaken, the colour came back into Janeta’s pale cheeks and there was just a faint air of excitement about her.
Then she said,
“Are you quite sure – if we are married as you say – Stepmama will not send my father – after us to bring me back – and perhaps charge you – for marrying me illegally – as I am a minor and did not have his approval.”
“It is, of course, possible for him to do that,” the Duke agreed, “but I am not being conceited, Janeta, when I say that your father was ready to welcome me as a son-in-law as would a great number of other parents in the Social world.”
His voice was cynical as he finished,
“So I am quite sure that he would not wish to make himself a laughing-stock by trying to annul a marriage that would be a social advantage to any girl.”
“That is true,” Janeta said, “and you don’t think that Stepmama will be able to – stop us before we get – away.”
She looked around with frightened eyes as she spoke, as if she was almost expecting her stepmother to come into the room.
Once again she reminded the Duke of the spotted deer in the park, ready to flee at the first sight of a stranger.
“I am quite certain,” he said soothingly, “that your stepmother will be expecting us to arrive, as I agreed, at noon tomorrow. What I am going to suggest now is that, while I have something to eat, you go upstairs, unpack the clothes I have bought for you and, if there are any alterations that are essential, ask my grandmother’s housemaids to do them before tomorrow morning.”
For the first time since his return Janeta gave him a little smile.
“How did you guess what would fit me?” she asked.
“I knew your height,” the Duke said, “because your head is about four inches higher than my shoulder, and I explained to a dressmaker who is very famous in the fashion world how thin you are. Although she did not believe me, I was convinced in my own mind that I was very accurate in my calculations.”
“I will be very embarrassed,” Janeta said, “if, after all the trouble you have taken, the dresses turn out to be too small and I am fatter than you think.”
The Duke laughed.
“You can only make sure of that by trying them on.” He eyed her. “And I suspect they will fit fine. Now, go to bed, Janeta, and I will collect you from here at a quarter to nine tomorrow morning. We are being married in the Chapel at The Castle by my own Chaplain and no one will know anything about it until we have crossed the Channel and are on the way to Paris.”
“You are not going to tell your grandmother?” Janeta enquired.
“It’s too late tonight because she has retired,” the Duke replied, “and it will be too early for me to see her tomorrow morning. But I will write her a letter and I know that Grandmama will be intrigued and amused because she enjoys anything that is unusual and will somehow stave off the curiosity of any other relatives when they read the announcement of our Wedding in the newspapers.”
Janeta had risen as he was speaking and, when he did so too, she looked up at him and asked,
“Promise me – swear that by doing this – you will really – help yourself – as well as me.”
“I assure you,” the Duke replied, “there is no other possible way that I can be free of your stepmother, just as I am quite sure there is no other way you can be free of Major Hodgson.”
“Then thank you,” Janeta said, “for being so kind, and I will try – if you will help me – to be a – good wife and not upset you or get in – your way.”
“We will talk about that tomorrow,” the Duke said. “Now, do as I say, Janeta, and try on the clothes, then go to bed. Try to sleep, for I want you as my wife to look so beautiful that those who don’t know the real reason for our precipitate marriage will imagine that it is because I find you irresistible and am afraid I may lose you if I don’t make sure you belong to me.”
He knew as he spoke that she would respond by doing everything she could to look attractive for him.
As she left the room, Jackson announced that his dinner was ready and he walked towards the dining room.
The Duke thought with a faint smile on his lips that all women were the same. They could not resist a challenge when it concerned their looks.
He was, however, not thinking so much of Janeta as of himself when he returned to The Castle to send for his Chaplain who lived in his own apartments at one end of the great building.
When he had given him his instructions as to what he required, he settled down at his desk to write to Lord Brandon.
When he sent for Mr. McMullen, it was to inform him that the letter was to be carried by a groom and delivered at Brandon House at exactly twelve o’clock and not one moment before.
The Duke had also written a letter to his grandmother, which he intended to deliver himself when he collected Janeta.
Then he told Mr. McMullen that the Chapel was to be decorated very early tomorrow morning with every white flower that was obtainable in the gardens and hot houses.
His secretary stared at him and, as it was impossible not to be aware of what he was asking him silently, the Duke said a little dryly,
“You are quite right, McMullen, I am being married and I want you to be very tactful and diplomatic in dealing with all the numerous people who will besiege you with questions as to why the marriage has taken place.”
“May I offer Your Grace my warmest congratulations,” Mr. McMullen said, “and I imagine the lady in question is Miss Janeta Scott.”
“You are quite right,” the Duke replied.
“In which case,” Mr. McMullen said smiling, “I am confident that Your Grace will be very happy. I have barely spoken with Miss Scott myself, but Mrs. Robertson, the housekeeper, and the maids have all enthused over her beauty and find her one of the most pleasant young ladies who have been to The Castle.”
The Duke was surprised.
He knew that his secretary was telling him the truth, for not only did Mr. McMullen never lie to him, but he never flattered him either and was often very blunt with his comments.
It had not struck him that while she seemed so thin, pale and frightened, other people would think Janeta beautiful, but he supposed that she did have an unusual beauty, even if it was not in what he thought was his taste.
Aloud he replied,
“Thank you, McMullen, and now I want you to send the announcement of my wedding to the newspapers and to tell everyone who enquires that it took place so speedily because my bride’s parents thought that she was too young to be married and I had no wish to wait and perhaps lose her in the process.”
“In other words it is an elopement, Your Grace.”
“Exactly,” the Duke agreed, “and make it sound as romantic as you can! It is what people might expect of me and will certainly offset anything unpleasant or derogatory that might be said about our behaviour.”
“I understand exactly, Your Grace,” Mr. McMullen said, “and once again, my congratulations.”
When he left him, the Duke went to bed, but he lay awake thinking that this marriage would be very different from any he had ever envisaged.
He had always known that in his position he should marry someone whose blood was as good as his own, but he had also assumed that his bride’s mother would be part of the Social world which would expect a huge congregation of friends in the Church and an enormous Reception afterwards.
There would also be a display of wedding gifts that would, because he was a Duke, make one room resemble Aladdin’s cave.
Instead of which there would be no spectators except his secretary at his wedding and he would not be obliged to shake hands with over five hundred people and make a speech which because of the innuendos in previous speeches he would undoubtedly find embarrassing.
He told himself that under the circumstances that aspect of his marriage was a relief and he could only hope that what followed would not be as difficult as might be expected.
‘Because Janeta is very young,’ he thought, ‘I shall be able to teach her what to do and once she has become used to being a Duchess and has made friends of her own age, we can more or less live our own lives except when we appear in public.’
It sounded quite satisfactory and yet the Duke deliberately fenced away some questions that came to his mind.
He also had an uneasy feeling that Janeta would not be content, as any ordinary girl would be, merely with the Social position he had given her as his wife.
He had the idea she would want more of life and perhaps more than he could give her.
Then he told himself that he was being imaginative and the sooner he went to sleep the better.
*
As she dressed the following morning, Janeta could not help feeling excited.
To begin with she had never imagined that she would ever possess anything so beautiful as the wedding gown that the Duke had bought her from London.
She was not really surprised that it fitted her almost perfectly.
She had already learnt that he was so clever and so exceedingly well organised in everything he did that it was inevitable that he should be able to guess her measurements down to the very last inch.
He had also given her a gown that she was sure had been part of the Fairytales she had told herself at the Convent.
Because her family ignored her and only occasionally did she hear from her father and never from any other relatives, she would tell herself stories in which the people who appeared in them time after time became very real.
Naturally when she grew older and the other girls talked of what would happen when they were married, she found a Prince Charming in her dreams who she was sure now was exactly like the Duke.
Because it was in fact almost as if she had invented him herself, she knew that he was the sort of man she admired.
He was accomplished as a rider and at every masculine sport and was also kind, considerate and to be relied on if things went wrong or her life was in danger.
Sometimes in her stories she would be captured by brigands or threatened by wild animals, or even, although she knew it was childish, goblins and gnomes.
But the Prince always rescued her in the nick of time and she told herself as she dressed that that was exactly what the Duke was doing now.
He was rescuing her from an ogre in the shape of her stepmother and, when he carried her away on a magic carpet, it would be impossible for anyone ever to capture her again.
“You looks real lovely, miss, you do really,” the housemaid who was helping her dress exclaimed.
Looking in the mirror, Janeta knew that she had literally stepped into her own Fairytale.
After the plain schoolgirl clothes she had worn at the Convent and which were all she had to put on when she had returned home, it was extraordinary how different she looked.
Her gown was of white gauze, sprinkled with diamanté like tiny dewdrops and ornamented with frills caught with small bunches of orange blossom that echoed the wreath that was provided for her to wear over a long veil.
Janeta was not to know that the gown had been made and just finished by a Court dressmaker in Bond Street for a foreign Princess who had ordered it while she was in London, and which was to have been sent to Portugal the following day.
The Duke, however, by begging, cajoling and bribing the dressmaker, with whom he had spent a lot of money in the past, had persuaded her to relinquish the gown and make another model of it at breakneck speed in time for the Princess.
He had also chosen a very pretty travelling dress of deep blue satin that was the colour of Janeta’s eyes and a cape over it edged with ermine, just in case it was cold crossing the Channel.
A small bonnet trimmed with blue ostrich feathers to match the gown completed the ensemble.
Although it was exorbitantly expensive, the Duke was thinking only that wearing these clothes, Janeta would look to those who saw her exactly as they would expect any bride of his to look.
He allowed the dressmaker to add several more gowns that were ready and, remembering that Janeta had nothing whatever with her, bought a collection of lingerie that was as he well knew the style of diaphanous elegance affected by the many women who had enticed him in the past when he opened their bedroom door.
To Janeta, after the austerity of her years at school, such garments were almost too lovely to be worn.
When she put on for the first time in her life a silk chemise trimmed with real lace and real silk stockings, she wondered how the Duke could be so knowledgeable about clothes that excited a woman.
“Now, sit down, miss, while I fixes your veil,” the maid was saying.
Looking at the mirror, Janeta stared at her reflection, thinking that she was seeing someone she did not know and who undoubtedly was an illusion of her mind.
When she was told that the Duke was waiting, she went slowly down the stairs with no one to see her except old Jackson, two footmen and the maids who had helped dress her.
As she did so, she felt as if she was leaving behind the world of loneliness and terror, stepping into a Fairy story with a man who was different from any man she had ever seen before exce
pt in her dreams.
The Duke was looking exceedingly smart and, as he smiled at her, Janeta felt a strange sensation in her breasts that she had never known before.
He took her hand and helped her down the steps to where his closed carriage was waiting and, before he shut them in, old Jackson said,
“God bless Your Grace and you, miss, and I knows you’ll find happiness together for the rest of your lives.”
“Thank you, Jackson,” the Duke smiled.
The old man had spoken so sincerely that Janeta felt the tears come to her eyes and it was impossible for her to say anything.
‘No one will understand,’ she thought as they drove away, ‘that we are not an ordinary bridal couple very much in love with each other, but that is what the Duke wants people to think and I must behave as he wishes me to.’
The Duke bent forward to take from the small seat opposite them a bouquet of white flowers.
“These come from my own hot houses,” he said. “I had always hoped my bride would carry them on my wedding day.”
“They are very beautiful,” Janeta managed to say, looking down at the star-shaped orchids.
“I brought the plants back with me when I returned from India,” the Duke said. “One day I must tell you about them, because I am sure that you will find many species in the conservatory are unusual and, I think, very beautiful.”
“I – am sure – I shall,” Janeta agreed.
She was perceptive enough to know that he was talking ordinarily, as if to reassure her that nothing untoward was happening.
When they reached The Castle, she felt a moment of panic sweep over her in case she did the wrong thing.
‘Suppose I fail him and he is angry with me,’ she thought. ‘Suppose after all Papa does follow us and denounces our marriage as being illegal.’
Then, as the servants ran down the steps over the red carpet to open the door, the Duke said,
“Welcome, Janeta, to your future home and, although our marriage is a very strange one, I hope that we will somehow strive to find happiness together.”
His voice was quiet, but his words were clear and she had the feeling that he had thought out his little speech as being the right thing to say to her in the circumstances.
The Love Trap Page 7