And yet a question still remained in his mind.
Had the elusive manner in which she had brushed aside or prevented any show of intimacy between them during the day been intentional?
Or was it merely because she was so innocent that she did not understand in any way what was expected of her?
There was also another problem, the Duke thought, if she was really alone, as she had said she would be when he returned to England, would he feel justified in leaving her at the mercy of the only so-called ‘friend’ she had, Philippe Dubucheron?
He was well aware what use Dubucheron would make of her and everything in him revolted at the idea of her being exploited as he was trying to exploit her now.
Sitting beside her in the Grand Vefour, the Duke wondered if any other woman could look so pure, so untouched and at the same time exude an enchanting fascination that he was beginning to find irresistible.
They talked about trivial things while they ate the delicious dishes that the Duke had ordered. Una found that she was quite hungry and ready to do justice to everything that was put in front of her.
Finally when the coffee came and the Duke sat back with a glass of brandy, he said,
“Now! We can talk about ourselves and that means principally about you!”
“I have – so little to tell,” Una said, “and you have so – much.”
She paused and then added,
“I felt somehow just now, although it may seem foolish, that you were thinking about something different – something more important than your dinner.”
“That sounds as if I were being discourteous.”
“No, of course not, you were being more interesting than anyone I have ever met,” Una said.
“Then what are you saying to me?”
“It is just something I saw before in what you called my magic mirror – something that happened or is going to happen and you were thinking deeply about it.”
The Duke was astounded.
“How could you know that?” he asked.
“I don’t – know,” Una said truthfully. “I just thought it and that meant I felt it.”
“You are a very astonishing person.”
He was silent for a moment and then he said,
“I think it only fair to tell you that you are quite right and what you anticipated has happened.”
“It has?” Una asked.
“I received a letter today,” the Duke said, “from the Prime Minister.”
“Of England?”
“Yes, the Marquess of Salisbury.”
Una waited, her eyes on his face and the Duke went on,
“He suggested that I should become the next Viceroy of Ireland!”
“Viceroy?” Una repeated in an awed tone.
“It is, of course, a great compliment that he should consider me,” the Duke went on, “especially as I am not as old as the usual run of Viceroys.”
“And you will be going to Ireland at once?”
“I have not yet accepted the appointment,” the Duke said, “but I imagine that, as the last Viceroy is retiring, the Queen will not wish to wait very long before appointing another.”
“I am sure that you are exactly the right person for such a position,” Una commented.
“Why do you say that?” the Duke asked.
“I have read about Ireland, their troubles and their difficulties,” Una explained, “and I think, if anyone could help them, it would be you.”
The Duke looked at her in surprise.
He had not expected her to know anything about the Irish problem.
Then he said,
“Of course, you realise that if I decide to go to Ireland, it means that we should have to say ‘goodbye’ to each other. I can hardly arrive in Dublin with a very beautiful young Curator.”
“No – of course – not.”
“And yet you still urge me to accept the position?” the Duke asked.
Una looked away from him and he thought that it was because she did not wish him to see the expression in her eyes.
“If you are – the right person for Ireland,” she said, “which I am – sure you are – then it is your duty to – accept the Prime Minister’s suggestion.”
“You are thinking of me?”
“But of course!”
“And what do you imagine you will do?”
“I will find – somewhere to – go,” Una replied, “but I don’t want to live alone in Paris.”
“Whether you want it or not,” the Duke said harshly, “it is something that must not happen. I will make arrangements for you, perhaps to come to England.”
As he spoke, he wondered what arrangements he could make and besides, if Una was alone in London, would things be any better?
‘She is too lovely,’ he thought, ‘and far too young to look after herself.’
As if Una sensed that he was worrying about her, she said quickly,
“Please – you must not think about me. You have only just met me – and you have already been so kind and so understanding.”
She drew in her breath and went on,
“When you leave Paris, I will ask Monsieur Dubucheron to find me a quiet pension or lodgings where I can stay until I can find – some work.”
When she mentioned Dubucheron, who was obviously the only person to whom she could turn, the Duke felt that, if he left her in such hands, he would be committing a crime.
He told himself that he had never felt like this about any woman before and had always been certain, once he had finished with them, that their future plans did not concern him in any way.
But Una was different.
She was so young, so helpless and so incredibly lovely.
The Duke had not missed the looks that Una had received from other men in the restaurant and he had noticed that one old man who was sitting opposite them had never taken his eyes from her face ever since they had arrived.
Without choosing his words, he said almost savagely,
“The best thing I can do is to forget Ireland and look after you. God knows, you need someone to take care of you!”
The tone of his voice made Una look at him in sheer astonishment.
Then she said,
“But, of course, you must not – think of – anything like that. How can I matter or be of any – importance besides being – Viceroy of Ireland?”
Then, as if she felt she had taken him too seriously, she added,
“If I am being a – nuisance, then I will – leave tomorrow. Mama used to say that there is nothing more tiresome than a visitor who will not leave when he or she has outstayed their welcome.”
“Do you think that applies to you?” the Duke asked.
Again she found it difficult to look at him and she made a nervous little gesture with her hands before she replied,
“You said that Mama would not approve of my staying with you without a chaperone and I thought tonight that your cousin – Lord Stanton – thought so too.”
“Nothing we do or do not do need concern Cousin Bertie,” the Duke said angrily. “I told Beaumont that I would not be disturbed by any visitors, but he forced his way in. He always has been a pushing creature who I have nothing in common with.”
“But he is your cousin.”
“Exactly!” the Duke replied. “And that is why once he was in the house I could hardly turn him out and tell him to find somewhere else to stay. But he will leave tomorrow and then we can forget about him.”
Una felt a gladness that she could not describe sweep over her.
The Duke wanted to be alone with her, as she wanted to be alone with him. It was so wonderful and there were no words in which she could express it.
Then, because she thought that it was selfish of her, she said,
“At the same time Lord Stanton is your – relative and relatives have – special privileges.”
“The trouble with my relatives is that I have too many of them,” the Duke pointed out.
&
nbsp; “You are lucky,” Una replied. “I have – none.”
“How can anybody have none?”
It flashed through his mind that once again she was playing the poor little orphan girl with nowhere to go and rather overdoing the role.
“But it is true in effect,” Una said. “Papa lost all touch with his family when he left England and Mama’s relations were so angry because she ran way with him – that they never spoke to her again.”
“So you really are alone,” the Duke remarked, “except that I am here.”
“You know how – thankful I am for that,” Una said. “If you had not – saved me this afternoon, I – ”
“Forget this afternoon,” the Duke said quickly. “Let us just remember that we are here together. We are in Paris, the City of gaiety and laughter.”
‘And a City of a great number of other things,’ he thought to himself, but that was not something he wished to discuss with Una.
“Do you know what I – would like to do now?” Una asked.
“What?”
“I would like to see Paris at night.”
She saw the expression on the Duke’s face and added,
“No, not the – places of – entertainment like the Moulin Rouge. I did not – mean that.”
“Then what did you mean?” the Duke asked.
“Perhaps it would bore you,” Una said humbly, “but I thought if we could drive along the banks of the Seine and see the Place de la Concorde when it is lit up and the Champs-Élysées, it would be a very – exciting thing to do.”
Her eyes searched his face to see his reaction and when he smiled she said,
“You are quite sure that it would not bore you?”
“I can imagine nothing I would rather do,” the Duke replied, “and fortunately we can order the hood of the carriage in which we came here to be opened.”
Una clasped her hands together.
“I wonder,” the Duke said reflectively, “if in a few years the idea of seeing Paris by night will seem so entertaining.”
“You mean that when I am older, I shall – want to do – other things?”
“That is what I was saying.”
“Does one ever become too old to enjoy the beauty of things that are natural rather than artificial?”
“For some people it is inevitable.”
“Then I hope I am not like that,” Una said. “I thought when I left Florence that it would be very thrilling to see Paris, but last night when we were at the Moulin Rouge, I realised that it was not like – anything I had expected and in fact I thought it was – ugly and rather – intimidating.”
“The Moulin Rouge was certainly not, for you, the right introduction to Paris. There are other places that are quite different and, of course, at your age you should be going to balls and parties.”
“I would much rather be – talking to you.”
“Which, if you were a Society debutante, you would not be allowed to do,” the Duke said with a smile.
“Why not?”
“Because well-brought-up young ladies are kept away from men until they are married.”
“And if they are not allowed to be with men, how do they get married?” Una enquired practically.
“Marriages in England, as in France, as you must know, are arranged.”
“The girls used to talk about it at the Convent,” Una said, “and I always thought that it was horrible and unnatural! How could one marry a man one did not love – someone one hardly – knew?”
She gave a little shudder.
“I would be frightened,” she said, “unless I loved someone as Mama loved Papa.”
The Duke thought that marriage was not a subject that he wished to discuss with Una.
Without replying to her last remark, he called for his bill and paid it with what Una thought uneasily was an enormous amount of money.
Then she told herself that to refer to it would be ill-bred and she resisted an impulse to tell him that she felt embarrassed at having cost him so much.
After all, if he was not dining with her, he would have been dining with somebody else.
At the same time she felt a little uncomfortable.
She was beginning to think that, despite the fact that the Duke had said he wanted no visitors in his house, Monsieur Dubucheron had deliberately forced her upon him.
The mere fact of leaving her trunk at the house when they went to the Moulin Rouge was more than a broad hint that she had nowhere to go.
‘It is too late now,’ she told herself, ‘but I should have insisted on Monsieur Dubucheron telling me what he had planned for me before we went to the Duke’s house for dinner.’
She knew that she had been swept along as if on a wave from the moment Monsieur Dubucheron had returned to the studio to tell her that he had sold her father’s painting.
It struck her as she stepped into the carriage, which was waiting outside, that once the Duke had returned to England to take up his appointment as Viceroy of Ireland, she would be alone and it would be very – very – frightening.
The hood had been opened and the footman put a fur rug over their knees.
When the man had climbed up onto the box, the Duke took Una’s hand in his.
She had not expected him to do so and he felt her fingers stiffen as if in surprise and then tremble in his.
It gave him the feeling that he held a small songbird or a butterfly in his grasp and he wondered why a young woman he had never known before had such an effect on him.
He had certainly never treated any woman he desired so gently or exercised such control over his feelings and no woman whom he had been with alone, as he was with Una, had ever been so elusive.
Una used no feminine wiles upon him and made no obvious effort to attract him physically.
Equally the Duke was experienced enough to realise that the way she looked at him was not only trusting but showed an unconcealed admiration.
He found himself wondering what else she felt and he puzzled as to what her real feelings could be.
With any other woman he would have known that, if she was not in love with him in the fullest sense of the word, she was certainly physically attracted. He would have seen the flicker of fire in her eyes even before there was any glow in his.
It suddenly struck him that the most intriguing and fascinating thing he could imagine would be to awaken Una to love.
The little tremor of her fingers was, he knew, not that of fear but of excitement.
He was sure that, if he held her body close against his, the same little tremors would run through it as she awoke to the first stirrings of desire.
He found that his heart was beating fast and there was a sudden throbbing in his temples that made him want to pull Una into his arms and kiss her.
It was, he acknowledged, what he had wished to do ever since he had first met her.
He had in fact restrained himself simply because he was afraid of frightening her.
Now he thought that he would deny his own manhood if he did not speak to her of the feelings within him.
They had reached the Place de la Concorde, where the golden globes on the beautifully ornamented lamps revealed the fountains throwing their iridescent water like a thousand rainbows up towards the stars.
Una’s fingers tightened on his.
“It is so lovely!”
“And so are you!” the Duke replied. “Tell me, Una, what do you feel, not about Paris but about me?”
She looked round at him and he released her hand and put his arm round her shoulders to draw her close.
He knew that he had surprised her and after a moment she said in a tremulous little voice,
“I – thought today you were like a – Knight in armour – coming to – save me.”
“That is what I want to be,” the Duke said, “but I think the damsels in distress who were rescued by the Knights who saved them from the dragon or some other loathsome monster would have welcomed any man, whatever he l
ooked like.”
“You – know how – grateful I am.”
“Gratitude is something you can give anybody. Look in your magic mirror and tell me what you feel about me.”
“You know I think that you are the most – magnificent man I have ever seen,” Una said, “and you are very – clever and very kind – and – ”
She paused.
“And?” the Duke prompted.
“And just the right person to be the – Viceroy of Ireland!”
“I told you that I thought I should stay and look after you,” the Duke said.
“You were only joking when you said that,” Una answered. “I shall be – all right.”
“How could I be sure of that?” the Duke enquired.
“I could – write to you. It would make it – easier than to – lose you.”
“You are quite content to lose me?”
“Not content,” Una said. “It will be – horrible when you have – gone, but I shall have all the – things we have done together and – everything you have said to me – to remember.”
“I can think of better things than what has happened so far,” the Duke said.
He wanted to kiss Una, but he felt that it was not something that he could do in an open carriage with the backs of the coachman and the footman towering above them.
Instead he tightened his arm about her as he said,
“Come as close to me as you can. I want you against me.”
Una turned her head to lay it against his shoulder.
“You make me feel so – safe,” she murmured. “I suppose really – I am frightened of being alone – I keep telling myself I have to – cope. I have to look after myself – it is just that I don’t know – where to begin.”
It flashed through the Duke’s mind that he would take her to England with him and set her up in a house with every comfort where she would be safe until he could spend his holidays with her.
Perhaps later, his thoughts went on, he would be able to take her to Ireland. He would find some excuse for having her near him.
Then he told himself that even if she agreed to live with him under such conditions, it would be certain, sooner or later, to cause a scandal.
The Press ferreted out everything and that would not only injure Una but damage his own reputation and that of the British Crown, which had appointed him to the post.
Alone In Paris Page 15