“I suppose the choice is,” the Duke said, “whether your mother, who is not with us, will be angry or whether I, who am, will be. It will be entirely up to you whom you placate.”
She turned towards him impulsively, her face lifted to his and said,
“Please – I could not bear you to be – cross with me, after having been so – kind and it would be – thrilling – really thrilling to have a new gown.”
The Duke had a sudden feeling of triumph.
He was the victor in what had been an unusual and quite strenuous contest.
Then, as he glanced down into Una’s upraised eyes and saw the expression in them, he thought that perhaps after all it was a hollow victory.
Chapter Six
The Duke drove into the courtyard with a flourish and Una climbed out, feeling that the servants were staring at her tear-stained eyes and noticing that she had lost her hat.
The Duke took her arm and drew her into the salon and, as the door closed behind them, he said,
“I am going to give you a glass of champagne. I feel that you need it after what you have been through.”
“I-I am – sorry,” Una said, faltering.
“It is not your fault,” he replied. “Someone should have warned you that it would be crazy to go about Paris alone.”
He moved towards the grog tray as he spoke and heard Una say just below her breath,
“I am – alone.”
He poured some champagne into two glasses and carried them back to her where she stood on the hearthrug.
As he did so, he thought that she looked very lovely despite the woebegone expression on her little face and the tearstains on her cheeks.
He knew that any other woman of his acquaintance would at this moment have been in the mirror repairing her looks.
Una took the glass from him and asked as she did so,
“Are you – angry with – me?”
“No, of course not,” the Duke answered, “but you might remember in the future that it would be wise to tell me what you intend to do before you do it,”
“But you – may not be – there.”
“That is something I want to talk to you about,” the Duke answered, “but not at this moment. We have the whole evening in front of us.”
She looked up at him and her eyes lightened.
“You will still take me – out to – dinner?”
“I should be very disappointed if I had to dine alone,” he replied.
Her eyes met his and something that she did not quite understand made her heart start beating excitedly and she found it hard to look away from him.
The Duke was silent for a moment as if he was considering something and then he said,
“I have a painting to show you that I think you would like to see again. Wait here!”
He left the salon and went into the antechamber, which he found was empty, but Julius Thoreau’s canvasses were still propped up on the sofa.
As he picked up the one he wanted, the Clerk of the Chambers said from the door,
“The gentleman left, Your Grace. He said that he would call again whenever it was convenient.”
The Duke nodded his acknowledgement of the message and went back into the salon.
Una looked up at him enquiringly and, as he held the canvass so that she could see it, she gave a cry.
“You have it! You have Papa’s portrait of me! That is what I hoped I should find when I went to his studio.”
“If you had asked me, I could have told you that it was here waiting for you,” the Duke replied, but he was smiling and his words were not a rebuke.
Una, holding the painting in both hands, took it to the window.
“I was nine when Papa painted this,” she said, “but he would never finish it.”
“Why not?” the Duke enquired.
“He climbed that it was too conventional, too ordinary, and also I was a bad – model. I would not stand still!”
She glanced at the Duke as she spoke and he laughed as if they shared a private joke.
But he knew that she would not wish him to refer to what had just happened with the artist who had wished to undress her.
“That was your home?” he asked, pointing to the house in the background.
“It was much prettier than that,” Una answered. “Papa has not painted the wisteria that climbed up one wall or the roses that scented every room.”
Her voice was soft as she reminisced and the Duke asked,
“You were happy there?”
“Very happy. Mama made everything such fun, even though I suppose we were very poor.”
There was a little pause.
Then Una said almost beneath her breath,
“But not as – poor as I am now.”
The Duke put his hand on her shoulder.
“Una – ” he began.
At that moment the door opened and a voice announced,
“My Lord Stanton, Your Grace!”
The Duke turned round in surprise and so did Una.
A middle-aged red-faced man with a dark moustache was coming into the room.
“Hello, Blaze!” he exclaimed. “I am surprised to see you. I had no idea that you were in Paris.”
Reluctantly the Duke walked towards the newcomer to shake his hand.
“I arrived only yesterday,” he explained, speaking in what those who knew him would have called his ‘cold voice’.
“Well, it is a blessing you are here,” Lord Stanton said, “because you can put me up for the night. I have just missed the sleeper train to Nice by five minutes!”
The Duke did not reply and he went on,
“I am off to stay with Gertie, but there was a breakdown just before the train from Calais got into Paris. So I am stranded, which is extremely annoying.”
“I am sure it is,” the Duke agreed.
“I thought that your house might be open and I could stay here. Anyway, when I arrived, I was told that you were in residence. That was a bit of luck, I thought!”
Lord Stanton laughed heartily, as if he had made a joke.
Then his eyes were on Una.
She was looking very lovely with the sunshine behind her, haloing her hair in gold.
Her figure, with its tiny waist, silhouetted against the window, was an enticement of which she was completely unaware.
It was obvious that Lord Stanton was waiting and the Duke said,
“Una, let me introduce my cousin, Lord Stanton – Miss Una Thoreau!”
Lord Stanton moved towards her with the obvious eagerness of a middle-aged man who sees a very pretty girl.
“I am delighted to meet you,” he said. “But I might have expected it! Blaze always has the prettiest women round him!”
Una looked a little shy at the compliment and the Duke said,
“Miss Thoreau and I were just admiring her portrait painted by her father.”
“Let me see it,” Lord Stanton suggested.
Peering over Una’s shoulder, he exclaimed,
“Is that you? Well, you have grown quite a lot since that was done and very much prettier too!”
Again he laughed and Una looked a little uncomfortably at the Duke.
“I expect you would like to go and change,” he said. “We will leave here at about eight o’clock.”
“That will be – lovely.”
She put the picture down on a chair, gave Lord Stanton a polite little smile and walked towards the door.
He watched her go and then, when they were alone, he said to the Duke,
“By Jove, Blaze, you can certainly choose them! Prettiest little filly I have seen in a long time. And English! I should have thought when you came to Paris that you would prefer the French breed.”
The Duke stiffened.
“It is nothing like that, Bertie,” he said. “Miss Thoreau is staying here as my guest and I am an admirer of her father’s paintings.”
“And of his daughter, eh?” Lord Stanton said, nudging hi
m with his arm. “Well, I don’t blame you! She is certainly a very different type from Rose.”
“I have already told you,” the Duke replied in a colder voice, “that what you are insinuating is, may I say in an extremely vulgar manner, not true. Miss Thoreau is very young and, as you well know, I am not interested in young girls.”
As he finished speaking, he rang the bell.
“I will arrange for a room to be ready for you. Do you wish to dine here?”
“Good God, no! I am not dining,” Lord Stanton replied. “I shall look in at The Travellers Club and find a friend or two who will take me on the town.”
“I hope you enjoy yourself,” the Duke said frigidly, as a servant came into the room for his instructions.
Having arranged for his cousin’s comfort, the Duke went to find Mr. Beaumont in his office.
His Comptroller rose from his desk.
“I did not know that Your Grace was back.”
“I am not only back,” the Duke replied, “but Bertie Stanton has arrived here and is demanding that he stay the night!”
“Lord Stanton!” Mr. Beaumont exclaimed.
“I thought I gave you explicit instructions that I was not to be disturbed by visitors,” the Duke said angrily.
He saw the look of consternation on his Comptroller’s face and added,
“I don’t suppose it was your fault or that of the servants. I know what Bertie is like, he would push his way into Buckingham Palace if it suited him!”
“I can only apologise,” Mr. Beaumont said.
“It’s a damned nuisance,” the Duke commented. “But he is leaving for Nice in the morning and you might see that he is on the early train.”
“I certainly will!” Mr. Beaumont said in a penitent tone.
Then, as the Duke would have left him, he said,
“There is a letter here that has just arrived from the British Embassy. It came in the Diplomatic bag.”
He held it out to the Duke, who looked at it, he thought, somewhat apprehensively and then opened the heavily crested envelope.
He read slowly what was contained in the letter while Mr. Beaumont waited.
After quite a considerable pause, the Duke said,
“Do you know what is in this letter?”
“How could I?” Mr. Beaumont enquired.
“It is from the Prime Minister. He informs me, in confidence, that the Queen has asked him to go to Windsor in three days’ time to discuss the appointment of a new Viceroy in Ireland. He is anxious to put forward my name.”
“I can only congratulate Your Grace most wholeheartedly!” Mr. Beaumont said.
“I have not said that I am going to accept,” the Duke protested.
“It is a job that you could do most admirably. If you remember, I told you that you were standing at the crossroads.”
The Duke looked at the letter again and reread one paragraph that he had not mentioned to Mr. Beaumont,
It said,
“Her Majesty is likely to raise the point that it is usual and advisable that the Viceroy should be married, but that, I imagine, is a problem that could be quite easily solved in the near future.”
The Duke knew that the Prime Minister was referring to the fact that everyone in London Society had been for some time expecting him to announce his engagement to Rose Caversham.
That he had no intention of marrying her would be, of course, an excellent excuse for refusing the appointment.
At the same time he could not help thinking that the Prime Minister would wish him to accept it.
He knew that his recent speeches in the House of Lords, his very generous support of the Party and the fact that the Prime Minister had often consulted him on various matters accounted for it.
He suddenly thought that if he did refuse, he would feel that in a way he had betrayed a friendship that he valued and respected.
He realised that Mr. Beaumont was waiting for him to speak.
“I shall think it over,” he said, putting the letter in his pocket. “It is too serious a decision to make quickly.”
“Naturally, Your Grace,” Mr. Beaumont agreed. “Equally I think that as the position you will hold in Ireland will be a difficult one, it is in fact a challenge which you would greatly enjoy.”
‘Another challenge!’ the Duke thought to himself as he went up the stairs towards his bedroom. ‘There seems to be no end to them!’
*
Seated in the restaurant where the Duke had taken Una for dinner, she thought that the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her was that she was dining alone with the Duke.
When she had been changing for dinner, she had at first felt apprehensive about her gown, hoping that he would take her somewhere very quiet so that she would not be conspicuous.
Secondly, she had been afraid that they would not dine alone and that there would be a party, as there had been last night.
She felt that the Duke might be obliged to ask his cousin, the red-faced Lord Stanton, to dine with them and she felt that that would spoil everything.
It had been so wonderful to talk to the Duke alone at luncheon and to drive with him in the Bois de Boulogne.
She knew that when he had appeared in the studio just when she had needed him most, he had been like a Knight in armour coming to save her from a very fierce and very frightening dragon.
‘He is so wonderful!’ she said to herself.
She wanted to talk to him and she wanted to be with him with no one else to intrude on their conversation.
‘Oh, please, God, let Lord Stanton dine somewhere else,’ she found herself praying.
Then she was instantly ashamed that she should pray for anything so trivial and so selfish.
When she went downstairs to the salon, she found the Duke alone and magnificent in his evening clothes.
She did not realise that her whole face lit up with delight because her fears were unfounded and, as she moved towards the Duke, she saw that he was smiling.
At the same time there was that expression in his eyes that had made her heart beat so quickly when they had been looking at the painting together.
When Una had been dressing, the maid had offered to arrange her hair and she had accepted gratefully.
While she had been sitting in front of the dressing table, there had been a knock at the door and the maid had come back with a spray of small white orchids in her hand.
“A corsage, m’mselle,” she said with a smile.
Una gave a little cry of delight.
“It is exactly what I want!”
She took it from the maid, asking,
“Shall I wear it in the front of my gown or at the shoulder?”
“Why not in your hair, m’mselle?”
“What a good idea!” Una exclaimed. “It will make me look chic and I hope a little more sophisticated.”
In actual fact the orchids in her hair merely made her look like the Goddess of Spring.
The Duke thought that all the tiaras in the Wolstanton collection could not have been more becoming.
When she reached his side Una said,
“Thank you for the lovely orchids. Will you please look at them and not at my gown, which you don’t like?”
“I shall find it difficult to look at anything but your face,” the Duke answered.
Una was surprised and, when her eyes met his, she blushed.
“The carriage is waiting,” he said, “and I am going to take you to somewhere quiet not, may I say, because I am ashamed of your appearance, but because I want to talk to you.”
“That is the nicest thing you could say to me!” Una cried.
When they arrived at the Grand Vefour she thought that it was just the sort of place she would rather be in with the Duke and not somewhere big and noisy with a band that might prevent her from hearing all he was saying to her.
The Grand Vefour was, the Duke told Una, exactly the same as it had been when it was first opened at the time of the Frenc
h Revolution.
There were painted panels on the walls and huge mirrors and the comfortable red plush sofas had served generations of distinguished patrons who appreciated good food.
Una looked round her with delight as the Duke took a long time in choosing their meal.
Then at last he turned to her with a smile and said,
“Now we have nothing to do but enjoy ourselves.”
“That is what I am doing already,” Una replied. “It is very exciting to be here with you – alone.”
“I had no intention of having a party,” the Duke answered. “If you want to go somewhere amusing afterwards, we have a great number of places to choose from.”
“I just want to be with you.”
She spoke with a deep note of sincerity in her voice.
It made the Duke wonder to himself if she meant it in the way that he would wish her to or if it was just an automatic expression of the childish pleasure she was showing in the whole evening.
When he was dressing for dinner, he had known that the suspicions he had felt about her had almost been extinguished.
She was Julius Thoreau’s daughter. There was no doubt about that.
And he was beginning to believe, although there was just a lingering doubt in his mind, that she had really met Dubucheron for the first time yesterday when she had arrived from Florence.
If that was so, then her purity and innocence owed nothing to acting.
‘I will talk to her tonight,’ the Duke said to himself, ‘and then I shall know whether it is necessary for me to go on being suspicious.’
If that was so, a whole number of problems presented themselves.
He had meant, of course, when he had carried Una off from the Moulin Rouge, to make love to her and enjoy his time in Paris with a beautiful woman as he had done on so many other occasions.
Everything had actually been made very easy for him because her trunk was at his house and he had ordered it to be taken upstairs to the Chambre des Roses, where she would sleep in the room which communicated with his own.
It was only because they were both tired that night that he had not opened the door, as he had intended.
But tonight there was no such restriction and he was quite certain that by the end of the evening Una would express her willingness for him to be her lover.
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