60 The Duchess Disappeared

by Barbara Cartland

  “That is all I want you to consider.”

  “Shall I promise you it is what I will consider?” the Duke asked. “But recriminations will get us nowhere.”

  That was true, Fiona knew.

  At the same time she knew that there was so much more she wanted to say.

  Then she told herself that he was being sensible and she was being emotional.

  She rose from the chair where she had been sitting.

  “I apologise to Your Grace,” she said in a low voice, “if I have been too rude. If you think it was an impertinence, I can only ask you to forgive me – because I loved your brother so deeply and I miss him – as I miss my sister – every moment of the day.”

  In spite of her resolution, Fiona heard her voice break a little on the words and in case the Duke should see that there were tears in her eyes, she curtseyed with her eyes downcast and her eyelashes dark against her cheeks.

  “Goodnight – Your Grace.”

  Her voice was so low that it was barely above a whisper.

  “Goodnight, Miss Windham.”

  Fiona walked away and it seemed a long way to the door.

  She thought imaginatively that she could almost feel his eyes boring into her back.

  Chapter Four

  Mary-Rose lay down after luncheon and Fiona wandered downstairs and out the front door.

  She passed through the courtyard and onto the grass that surrounded The Castle inside the great high walls.

  It was a lovely day with bright sunshine and a touch of wind. Fiona felt her hair being whipped against her cheeks and was somehow glad of its roughness.

  Ever since arriving in Scotland she had had the feeling of being incarcerated almost like a prisoner, but the wind made her feel that outside there was the freshness of the air and the wildness of the countryside and freedom.

  Mary-Rose had been tired after the journey and at first Fiona had allowed her to play only within the confines of The Castle itself, then yesterday and this morning they had taken a short walk.

  Fiona had been thrilled to see the Scottish landscape undulating away towards the fir-clad hills in the distance.

  Today there was no mist on them and they stood like sentinels against the sky. She fancied that she could see several silver cascades such as her brother-in-law had always told her were an intrinsic part of the Scottish scenery.

  She and Mary-Rose walked for a little while beside a small stream, trying to see if there were any fish beneath its clear surface, but Fiona had learnt that the main river where the salmon were caught was nearly a mile away.

  “We will go there as soon as you feel your legs are strong enough to carry you,” she promised Mary-Rose.

  “I want to catch a big fish like Dadda did when he was my age.”

  “We shall have to talk to your uncle about that,” Fiona replied. “I am sure you could have a small rod and learn how to fish.”

  She knew that the child was excited at the idea and she told herself that she would speak to the Duke about it that evening at dinner.

  It was in fact the only time she saw him.

  In the daytime he went riding, as he had done this morning, with the Earl.

  Fiona, watching them trot away towards the middle gate, had thought how well the Duke rode and how distinguished he looked on a horse, wearing not the kilt but the more convenient tartan trews as his ancestors had for hundreds of years.

  The horse the Duke was riding was very spirited, but he handled it with an unmistakable expertise.

  Then Fiona remembered the inferior, cheap animals, which were all that his brother Ian had been able to ride and she thought once again how much she hated the Duke for his selfishness and indifference towards someone who had loved him ever since they had been children together.

  And she thought, as she had thought a thousand times since she had come to The Castle, how unfair it was that the oldest son should always take everything.

  Then a voice behind her made her start.

  “I somehow expected you to be out enjoying the sunshine, Miss Windham.”

  She turned to find that the Earl had approached without her hearing him and she looked at him in surprise.

  “I thought you were riding with His Grace,” she replied.

  “I was,” the Earl answered, “but my horse went lame, so Aiden went on without me.”

  “Where were you going?” Fiona enquired curiously.

  “To one of the outlying parts of the Rannock estate,” the Earl replied. “Aiden wanted to see how his tartan weavers were progressing.”

  “Tartan weavers?” Fiona questioned.

  “I expected you to know that the Duke has solved quite a lot of local unemployment,” the Earl explained, “by setting up small industries in a number of hamlets, so that the Clan can become almost self-supporting and provide themselves with everything they need from their own land.”

  “I did not know that,” Fiona replied. “But it is certainly a good idea!”

  “An excellent one and something I intend to copy in my own part of the country,” the Earl smiled.

  As they walked slowly across the soft green grass, Fiona said a little tentatively,

  “I am glad to hear that he has other interests outside The Castle. I was beginning to feel that the Duke lived a very isolated existence and in consequence I am rather worried about Mary-Rose.”

  There was silence and she added,

  “I am not meaning to be critical, but I have been here a week and there have been no visitors except for yourself and, of course, Lady Morag. I always thought Ducal houses were a hive of entertainment and hospitality.”

  Again there was silence and, as she looked at the Earl, he said slowly,

  “I thought, of course, that on your way here from the South Mr. McKeith would have explained the situation to you.”

  “What situation?”

  She thought that the Earl looked at her in surprise before he asked,

  “You have no idea?”

  “Frankly, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Then perhaps I had better tell you,” he suggested, “although it is slightly embarrassing for me.”

  “Tell me what?” Fiona asked.

  “Why my friend Aiden has no visitors and why, as you say, The Castle seems very isolated.”

  “I thought there must be neighbours somewhere in the vicinity,” Fiona murmured.

  “There are,” the Earl agreed. “In this part of the country there are a great number of houses and castles occupied by influential lowland families, like the Hamiltons, the Bruces, and the Ogilvys, all of them only too willing to be hospitable to me.”

  He smiled a little wryly as he added,

  “In fact, often I have more invitations than I can possibly accept.”

  This did not surprise Fiona, who found the Earl charming and at times very amusing.

  “Then why – ?” she began.

  “Aiden is in a different category.”

  “Because he is so aloof and in a way repressive?”

  The Earl shook his head.

  “No, it is nothing like that. Aiden was one of the most charming and delightful boys imaginable. His brother was very like him, although, of course, Ian being younger than he was, I did not see so much of him.”

  “Then why did he change?” Fiona enquired.

  “His marriage did that to him. Ian must have told you how desperately unhappy he was. Janet MacDonald was in fact a fiend in human form.”

  “MacDonald?” Fiona exclaimed. “Then she was related to Lady Morag.”

  “Her younger sister. Did you not know that?”

  “The Duke introduced her as his cousin. Why did he not say that she is his sister-in-law?”

  “He never refers to his wife if he can help it and in fact Lady Morag was married to his cousin.”

  “Please tell me everything I should know,” Fiona pleaded, “so that I will not make any silly mistakes.”

  “I am beginn
ing to wish I had not got myself into this,” the Earl said a little ruefully.

  “Please tell me,” Fiona begged. “Having said so much, you cannot leave me in ignorance.”

  “No, I see that and anyway I think it is right that you should know.”

  The Earl seemed almost to fortify himself before he began,

  “Aiden married Janet MacDonald, a marriage arranged by the old Duke and the Chief of the MacDonalds, but if ever two people were incompatible, it was they!”

  “I have always thought that arranged marriages were barbarous,” Fiona murmured.

  “I agree with you, but Aiden’s marriage was connected with Rannock lands in the North and the old Duke considered that nothing else was of any importance.”

  “So they were unhappy?”

  “Aiden was utterly and completely miserable and with reason, for I don’t think Janet was at all normal in many ways. At any rate she made his life a hell until she disappeared.”

  “How did she do that?”

  “That is what no one has been able to discover,” the Earl replied.

  “Mr. McKeith told me there had been an intensive search and they had followed up every possible clue.”

  “That is true, but what he omitted to tell you was that Aiden is suspected of being responsible.”

  Fiona stood still and stared at him wide-eyed.

  “Are you saying that people suspect the Duke of – having murdered the Duchess?”

  “No one has been brave enough to put it so bluntly, at least not to him. But to be truthful, suspicion has grown over the years until I think I am right in saying that the majority of those who live in these parts think that Aiden murdered Janet in a fit of rage and then somehow disposed of her body.”

  The Earl did not speak for a moment and Fiona commented,

  “I have hated the Duke for the way he treated his brother, but I find it hard to believe that he is a murderer.”

  “I am glad to hear you say that, Miss Windham, and I am completely and absolutely convinced in my own mind that it would be alien to every instinct in Aiden’s body to kill anyone in cold blood, especially a woman.”

  “You believe in him,” Fiona said quietly. “Is that why you are here?”

  “Aiden is my oldest friend,” the Earl answered, “and because I know what a lonely life he leads and because I think, although we have never discussed it, that he is aware of what people think about him, I come here to be with him whenever I can spare the time.”

  “That is kind of you.”

  “Not really. He is a man I like and admire and I am extremely happy in his company.”

  The Earl spoke almost aggressively, as if he defied her to think otherwise.

  Fiona drew in her breath.

  “I cannot believe that what the Duke is suspected of could possibly be true. Surely somebody can find out what happened to the Duchess?”

  The Earl spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “One day she was there – the next day she had vanished! Nobody saw her leave. Nobody has found any trace of her here or in the surrounding countryside. The whole scenario is a complete mystery.”

  “A very horrible one, especially if the Duke is innocent.”

  “He is innocent,” the Earl said positively. “I would stake my life on it, but God knows how I can ever prove it.”

  “Now I understand,” Fiona said quietly, almost as if she was talking to herself, “why he seems so aloof, why he appears at times to deliberately stand aside from life and regard it cynically.”

  She was putting her thoughts into words and the Earl exclaimed,

  “That is intelligent and perceptive of you. Of course Aiden stands apart from life when he knows what people are thinking and cannot challenge them because they will never dare to put their thoughts into words.”

  He sighed before he continued,

  “At first he was hopeful that they would find the Duchess, but now I believe he has given up hope and has resigned himself to a life of loneliness, isolated from his neighbours, and surrounded by an atmosphere of suspicion which he feels infects even the most loyal of his followers.”

  Fiona was silent.

  What the Earl had just told her made her see the Duke in a very different perspective from how she had seen him before.

  “What about his relatives?” she questioned aloud.

  “Most of them live on Rannock lands in the North,” the Earl replied. “They have extremely plausible excuses as to why they should not accept Aiden’s invitations to stay here.”

  His voice was sceptical as he added,

  “They are all Doubting Thomases, with the exception, of course, of Lady Morag.”

  Fiona had known, from the way the Earl spoke and the way he had looked at Lady Morag when she came to dinner, that he disliked her.

  Now she asked a little hesitatingly, because she did not wish to appear too curious,

  “Why does – Lady Morag stay on? She must find it – lonely as well.”

  “Not while the Duke is here,” the Earl replied. “You cannot be so obtuse as not to realise where her interest lies.”

  Lady Morag made it very obvious, Fiona thought, that she was pursuing the Duke, and when she came to dinner she monopolised him in a manner that was in fact extremely impolite towards everyone else present.

  Fiona was also woman enough to be aware of the hunger in her eyes when she looked at the Duke and she thought that the manner in which Lady Morag was, if not rude, then condescending and crushing towards her might be accounted for by the fact that she was jealous.

  Now she remarked aloud,

  “At least she has been loyal.”

  “To suit her own ends,” the Earl said drily.

  Fiona thought that he was perhaps being a little unfair. At the same time she had no reason to stand up for Lady Morag.

  When the stable boy, Angus, had been much better the morning after she had treated his swollen arm and was back at work within three days, Lady Morag had made a great fuss about it being witchcraft.

  “The Clan will not like it!” she had said to the Duke in Fiona’s hearing. “The Scots have always had a horror of witches, as you well know.”

  “You can hardly describe Miss Windham as a witch!” the Duke objected.

  “You can be a witch without looking like one,” Lady Morag retorted, “and magic herbs are always the tools of the trade.”

  “People who are intelligent,” Fiona had said, feeling that she must defend herself, “know that nature provides the antidote to every ill, like the nettle and the dock leaf. The country folk in England know a great deal about the healing powers of herbs.”

  Lady Morag shivered in an exaggerated fashion.

  “It all seems very creepy to me,” she said, “and personally I prefer to rely on a physician.”

  That should have been the end of the matter, but Fiona suspected that Lady Morag was talking of her using witchcraft not only to the Duke but to the servants at The Castle.

  She remembered reading that the Scottish witch-hunts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had resulted in four thousand poor old women being convicted as witches and burned at the stake.

  As there had been only half that number of victims in England, despite the size of the population, she was well aware that the Scots could be fanatical on the subject.

  Yet she told herself that for Mary-Rose’s sake she must be tactful and not attack Lady Morag for trying to make trouble.

  Equally she told herself that such foolish and ill-advised talk could be dangerous and should not be encouraged.

  Now she found herself wondering what sort of life it must be for the Duke to have so few friends, so few people round him who believed in his integrity.

  Because he was so proud and so autocratic, the situation was perhaps more bitter and more hurting than it might have been to somebody of a different character.

  ‘If he knows in his heart that he is innocent,’ Fiona thought to herse
lf, ‘it must be desperately frustrating to know that he is whispered about behind his back, ostracised without anyone saying so, while there is nothing he can do about it.’

  It struck her that perhaps this was the reason why he had not been in touch with his brother after the old Duke’s death.

  Then she thought he must have known that whatever had happened, whether he had or had not actually committed a crime, Ian would have stood by him and supported him in every possible way.

  ‘Why did he not give him the chance?’ Fiona wondered, but she could find no answer.

  “Now let’s talk about you,” the Earl said unexpectedly.

  “Me?” Fiona questioned. “But why?”

  “I can think of no subject more fascinating!”

  The look in the Earl’s eyes was more eloquent than his words.

  “I must go – back,” Fiona said quickly. “It is time for me to awaken Mary-Rose and give her a music lesson.”

  “I am sure the child is peacefully asleep,” the Earl said, “and therefore does not need you, while I do.”

  “You have forgotten, my Lord, that I am here in the capacity of a Governess.”

  “May I say in all sincerity that you certainly don’t look like one,” the Earl replied. “Indeed, you are so beautiful that I am beginning to think you are in fact the witch that Lady Morag believes you to be!”

  “You are not to say that!” Fiona scolded him sharply.

  “How can I help it when you bewitch me?”

  “I think, my Lord, that you are trying to flirt with me and that is something which must not happen here. As you are well aware, the Duke would welcome any excuse to send me away from Mary-Rose and that is something I have no intention of allowing him to do.”

  “Actually I am not flirting,” the Earl said.

  Now there was a deep note in his voice and an expression in his eyes that frightened Fiona.

  “Please – please,” she insisted, “don’t say any more. I am in a very difficult position and, as I have no wish to leave Mary-Rose alone amongst all these dour Scots, I have to tread warily.”