“For Heaven’s sake! Why should you wish to destroy such an outstanding creature?” the Duke asked.
“’E be a killer, Your Grace,” the gypsy replied simply. “I were told when I was given ’im that ’e’s killed three men and injured several others. But like Your Grace, I didn’t believe it.”
“Surely he only needs better training,” the Duke said.
“No, Your Grace, nothin’ can be done with an animal that ’as the temperament of the Devil ’imself, as this one ’as! Me son rode ’im and very nearly lost ’is life in doin’ so. Another of our lads ’as got a broken leg and ’twere fortunate it was not ’is neck!”
“I can hardly believe it!” the Duke exclaimed.
“I tells Your Grace that it’s the Devil in ’im that makes ’im behave as ’e does.”
“How does he behave?”
“When someone rides ’im, Your Grace, ’e behaves perfect, then suddenly for no reason ’e goes mad. No ’uman bein’ can keep mounted on ’im when ’e ’as a kind of frenzy. It’s not only frightenin’ to behold, but, as I’ve just said, no more men shall die ’cos of ’im.”
“I can understand that,” the Duke said.
At the back of his mind he was thinking that he had heard there were stallions that were peculiar in just this way and that no amount of training could do anything to them, especially when they had grown to maturity.
Then, as he turned away, having no wish to see the death of anything so magnificent, an idea came to him.
It was almost as if the Power he had spoken to Janeta about was guiding and helping him.
Slowly, because he was thinking it out, he said,
“I will buy that horse from you, Buckland.”
The gypsy shook his head.
“No, Your Grace, I wouldn’t wish after all your kindness to know I were instrumental in causin’ your death or leavin’ you crippled.”
“Thank you for thinking of me,” the Duke said quietly, “but I will not ride the horse myself, that I promise you. I am going to send the horse up to London to someone who will be interested in it.”
“Well, that’s different, Your Grace,” the gypsy answered.
“There is only one thing I would ask of you,” the Duke said, “that one of your lads should lead it to the place in London where I wish it taken. I will, of course, pay him for doing so.”
The gypsy thought it over.
“Luke’s come to no ’arm,” he said, “if ’e took the horse on a leadin’ rein which ’e could let go of if ’e ’ad one of ’is turns.”
“Exactly,” the Duke agreed. “I will go back to the house and get a letter, which I wish you to deliver with the stallion and also fifty pounds, which I will pay you for him.”
He saw the gypsy’s eyes light up, knowing that it was a lot of money for a horse he had been about to destroy.
The Duke hastily mounted his own animal and rode back to The Castle.
When he reached the front door, a groom was waiting for him and he told him not to take his horse to the stables.
Then, running up the steps, the Duke went to his study, where he sat down at his desk and knew once again, as if he was asking for guidance, what he should write to Olive.
He had remembered while he was talking to the gypsy that the next day she was to appear in a pageant in Hyde Park, which was being given in honour of the Queen’s birthday.
He took up his pen and the words flowed almost as if they were being dictated.
“My Dear Olive,
My wife and I were deeply touched when we arrived home last night to find your very special present waiting for us. It was too late then to enjoy it, but sometime today I am sure that we shall be able to drink to our future happiness as you wished and to you at the same time.
I feel one present deserves another and I am therefore sending you a horse which, when you have seen him, I know that you will wish to ride him tomorrow when you appear in the celebrations for Her Majesty’s Birthday and I can confidently say that no one could look more beautiful on a stallion that might have been especially bred for you.
Once again my grateful thanks for your kind thought.
I remain, as ever,
Hugo.”
He did not trouble to read the letter through, feeling as if every word of it had been spoken into his mind.
Then he put it into an envelope and addressed it to Lady Brandon and inserted that in yet a larger envelope which he addressed,
“Miss Smith,
c/o Lady Brandon,
Brandon House,
Park Lane.”
It was the way Olive had instructed him to write to her secretly when they were having their affaire de coeur and even at the time he had thought cynically that quite a number of men must have had the same instructions.
Opening the safe that he had in his study, he extracted fifty pounds in notes and ten gold sovereigns, which he put into his pocket.
Then he rode back to the gypsy encampment, gave Buckland first the money, then the letter with instructions that his son was to deliver the stallion to the groom in the mews behind Brandon House in Park Lane.
He also told him to make sure when the boy did so, that the letter was taken immediately into the house.
Luke was overcome with the Duke’s generosity in giving him ten sovereigns for his trouble and the gypsy Chief thanked him again and again for buying the horse.
“We’ll be movin’ off, Your Grace,” he added, “as soon as Luke returns and we be wishin’ Your Grace and your new wife, ’appiness, a long life and a large number of sons to follow you!”
“Thank you, Buckland,” the Duke said. “That is what I am praying I will have.”
He rode home and found, as he expected, that Janeta was awake and missing him.
They had breakfast together in the sitting room where they had dined and the Duke thought in the morning sunshine that his wife looked even lovelier than she had the night before.
“Why did you not tell me you were going riding?” she asked a little reproachfully. “I would have come with you.”
“I wanted you to rest,” he replied, “and I have every intention that we will ride together later in the day.”
His eyes were on her face as he asked very softly,
“Did I make you happy last night?”
She looked at him, and he saw the answer in her eyes before she replied,
“So happy – that I feel I must have – been dreaming. Why did no one tell me that – love was so wonderful and so – perfect that I still feel I am – flying in the sky?”
“With me, I hope,” the Duke said. “If I knew that you were flying alone, I should be very worried in case I lost you.”
“Oh, Hugo,” Janeta said impulsively, “I love you so much. I did not know that any man could be so tender and at the same time so – strong and – exciting.”
“I wanted to excite you, my beautiful wife,” the Duke said, “and I am only afraid of frightening you so that, as nervous as the spotted deer in the Park, you run away from me.”
“I will never – never do – that!” Janeta said with a note of passion in her voice. “I don’t want to leave you ever, for a moment of the day or – night!”
The Duke knew as she spoke that she was thinking of the Sword of Damocles that in the shape of Olive hung over their heads.
He wanted to reassure her that some instinct within him told him that all would be well, but at the same time he knew that if his plan was successful, she must never learn that he had instigated it.
Because it was so much easier not to have to put his feelings into words, he pulled her up from the breakfast table and took her to the window looking out over the park.
“Today,” he said quietly, “we are going to explore the places I told you about last night. Because I will not share you, my lovely one, with anybody, if anyone calls who wishes to see us, Jackson will be instructed to send them away.”
“That is what I wanted you to say.
”
She moved nearer to him and, as his arms went around her, he thought that the softness of her body, which he could feel through the negligée she was wearing, was so alluring that he could feel the blood throbbing in his temples and a fire flickering inside him.
Then he told himself because she was so young and this was all new to her, he must be very controlled and, as he had been last night, very gentle.
He kissed her and tried hard not to make it a very passionate kiss before he said,
“Go and dress, my lovely one, and I will order our horses to be round in half an hour.”
“Then I must hurry!” she said with a little cry of delight.
As she ran from the sitting room to her bedroom, the Duke turned again to look out over the Park.
He hardly saw the sun flickering through thick leaves of the old oak trees and glittering dazzlingly on the lake.
Instead, he was praying as he had not prayed since he was a small boy, fervently, with almost a childlike belief that his prayer would be answered.
*
They had what was to Janeta an entrancing day that had a Fairytale-like quality about it.
The Duke showed her the magic pool in the woods that was supposed to be haunted by nymphs. Then there was a tree, at the top of which the estate carpenter had built him a look-out so that he could see for many miles over the land he owned.
They visited not only the woods, but rode beside the silver stream that fed the lake and saw the small fish darting in the clear water over the pebbled bottom and to Janeta’s delight they disturbed a kingfisher.
It was not only lovely, but she had the Duke beside her and she could see the love in his eyes.
Instinctively, when their hands went out to touch each other, their vibrations were joined and it was almost as if once again he was making her his.
They had luncheon on the outskirts of the Duke’s estate at a small black and white inn, where the innkeeper welcomed them with delight.
They ate home-cured ham, cheese with bread that came fresh from the oven and drank home-brewed cider.
It was when they were riding back home that Janeta said with a sigh,
“How can I bear that – today should come to an – end.”
The Duke knew what she was really saying was that perhaps there would be no tomorrow, but he replied lightly,
“There will be many more days like it, my darling, and even better ones.”
“If only I could be – sure of that,” Janeta whispered and he sensed that once again she was afraid.
Because he did not want her to think of anything but their happiness, when he took her back to the Castle, he insisted that she should rest before dinner.
When she protested, saying, “I don’t want you to leave me!” his eyes twinkled as he replied,
“Who said anything about my leaving you?”
Janeta drew in her breath.
“Oh, darling, wonderful Hugo, why did I not think of that? Then of course we must rest.”
She hurried up to her bedroom and when the Duke joined her, the sun-blinds were drawn a little because the evening sun was dazzling and beneath the curtains of the cupid-canopied bed, Janeta looked very small and insubstantial.
Yet she was so utterly desirable that the Duke knew that never again in his life would he see any other woman’s face but hers.
*
They had dinner once again in the sitting room because, as the Duke said, they were still on their honeymoon. Only when they took up their Social duties would they have to conform to behaving in a traditional manner.
“I love having you to myself,” Janeta enthused. “It is so much easier to talk when there are no servants in the room, except when they bring in the courses, and we have only the flowers to listen to us and their fragrance to make us feel romantic.”
“I can feel romantic with you without flowers,” the Duke pointed out.
“I feel the same,” Janeta said. “Oh, Hugo, Hugo, how lucky we are and I treasure every moment, every second we are together!”
She spoke with a passionate intensity, but the Duke knew without her saying anything that she eyed the food suspiciously when they were served with a fresh salmon and drew in her breath when Jackson offered him claret.
Because he knew it would be impossible for Olive to poison wine that was in his own cellar, the Duke insisted on drinking only an excellent vintage which he had brought back from France the previous year.
At the same time he was well aware that Janeta was trying to disguise her fear from him, but that almost every mouthful he ate made her feel nervous.
‘We cannot go on like this!’ he told himself.
They had another night to go through before he would know if the present that he had sent to Olive had been effective or had misfired like the one she had sent him.
Mr. McMullen had informed him, when Janeta was not there, that the doctor had diagnosed the footman’s collapse as a severe heart attack.
“He said it was strange, Your Grace,” Mr. McMullen had relayed, “because he knew James’s family so well and there was no one among his parents or brothers and sisters who had disturbances of any sort with their hearts.”
The Duke had little to say on the matter. He merely told Mr. McMullen to send a large wreath to James’s funeral and to make sure that the family received his condolences and the promise that as soon as they had another son old enough to take James’s place, he would be welcomed at The Castle.
There was nothing else he could do and he had no intention of talking about it to Janeta.
The only way to keep her happy and unafraid was to carry her away on the rapture of love into the Fairyland they had discovered last night.
As it was something he wanted ardently himself, it was not difficult, when dinner was over, to kiss her until it was impossible for either of them to think of anything else except love.
It was a long night but a very happy one and only when the Duke awoke early, as he had done the morning before, was there an expression of anxiety in his grey eyes.
As he looked at his sleeping wife, he knew that, like the Knight she believed him to be, he had confronted the dragon, only it would be some hours yet before he knew whether his onslaught had been successful.
Once again he went early to the stables and, riding the same way as he had the day before, came to the wood where the gypsies had encamped.
Now there was no sign of them, except the ashes of their fire in the clearing and the wheel marks of their caravans.
Just for a moment in the quietness the Duke wondered if he had dreamt the whole episode and if the magnificent white stallion had just been a figment of his imagination.
Then, as if he must know the truth, he galloped back to The Castle.
Mr. McMullen had made arrangements that, when the Duke was in residence, a groom should fetch the newspapers from the nearby Station, so that if the train was on time, they usually arrived about nine o’clock.
When he returned to The Castle, the Duke did not go upstairs but into his study, knowing that his secretary would bring in the newspapers as soon as they arrived.
It was only a few minutes after nine when Mr. McMullen came into the room.
He carried three newspapers in his hand and, before he put them down in front of the Duke, he said,
“I am afraid, Your Grace, I bring bad news.”
“Bad news?” the Duke asked sharply, thinking for one terrifying moment that something might have happened to Janeta.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Mr. McMullen replied. “There has been an accident to Lady Brandon. It is on the front page of both The Times and The Morning Post.”
The Duke did not speak, but took them from his secretary and saw that in both newspapers there were headlines regarding the celebrations for the Queen’s birthday in Hyde Park.
Then a little lower down, he read,
“There was unfortunately one tragedy during the afternoon. Lady Brandon, a famous Society beauty
, led twelve of the finest horsewomen in England onto the ground dressed as previous Queens of England. Lady Brandon herself was arrayed as Queen Elizabeth, then Her Majesty addressed her troops as they prepared to confront the Spanish Armada.
A noted horsewoman. Lady Brandon was riding a magnificent white stallion which outshone every other horse ridden by the ladies accompanying her.
They paraded amidst great applause from the crowd into the centre of the arena, but then tragedy struck.
Something must have upset or frightened the white stallion, because he galloped wildly away, scattering spectators as he did so, and made a crazy effort to jump the six-foot spiked iron fence which cordoned off that part of the ground.
He failed to clear it, impaling himself for a few seconds on the spike at the top until, as he fell, he flung Lady Brandon to the ground, breaking her neck.
Her Ladyship died instantly and the horse, having broken a leg, was eventually destroyed.
It is with the deepest regret that we report this tragic end to a famous hostess and the wife of a distinguished Statesman.
Lord Brandon – ”
The Duke did not need to read any more, which he knew would be a description of the posts Lord Brandon had held and the honours he had received in his long life.
He put down the paper, aware that Mr. McMullen had watched him read it.
“I can only offer my condolences, Your Grace,” he said quietly.
“Thank you, McMullen,” the Duke said. “Take away the newspapers and destroy them.”
“Destroy them?” Mr. McMullen asked, obviously startled by the order.
“I do not wish Her Grace to see them at the moment,” the Duke said. “It will upset her and I want to choose my moment when I tell her what has happened to her stepmother.”
“Of course, I understand,” Mr. McMullen replied. “The papers shall be burnt before anyone else in the house sees them.”
“Thank you,” the Duke said. “I know I can rely on you not to speak of this to anyone.”
He gave a deep sigh, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders and then he ran up the stairs two at a time towards Janeta’s room.
He opened the door quietly and found that she was not awake but was sleeping peacefully.
The Love Trap Page 12