Gerald stared at him.
“And you think she will go quietly?”
“There is nothing else she can do,” the Duke replied.
“And where does that leave you?”
“It leaves me,” the Duke answered, “with you at the most important party that is taking place in London tonight.”
Gerald stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.
Then the Duke said:
“Come on, Gerald! You cannot be so stupid as not to realise that if I am seen dancing until dawn by everybody of any importance in the Beau Monde, it will be impossible for Isobel to tell the world that we spent the night in each other’s arms.”
Gerald gave a sudden shout that seemed to vibrate round the small bedroom.
“Ivar, you are a genius!” he said. “God knows, I have seen you get out of some very tight spots, but never quite as subtly or cleverly as this!”
As he spoke, he jumped up from the bed on which he had been sitting and went to the mantelpiece, on which there was a stack of white cards engraved with the names of famous hostesses.
He picked up a handful of them and flung them down on the bed in front of the Duke.
“Pick out the best while I dress,” he said.
The Duke lifted up the cards one by one, holding them so that the light from the candle fell on them.
There were six parties to which Major Gerald Chertson had been invited tonight, but by far the most important of them was the invitation sent by the Countess of Jersey.
The Countess had sprung into social fame when she captured the vacillating heart of the Prince of Wales and estranged him from Mrs. Fitzherbert, who was thought secretly to be his wife.
Marie Fitzherbert, much as she adored the Prince, had realised the truth of what Sheridan had said of him:
“He is too much of a Ladies’ Man to be the man of any lady.”
Although she was often exasperated by his selfishness, she had always been ready to forgive him for his casual affairs in the past, but she had never been more jealous or miserable than when she realised he was falling in love with the Countess of Jersey.
The mother of two sons and seven daughters, some of whom had already provided her with grandchildren, the Countess was nine years older than the Prince, but she was a woman of immense charm and undeniable beauty.
In fact, at the time she was spoken of as having an “irresistible seductiveness and fascination.”
The Prince’s affair with the Countess had lasted for some years, and she had made the very most of the association by providing for herself a place in Society from which it would be impossible to tumble her.
The Duke knew now, using his instinct for self-preservation, that to have the Countess on his side would undoubtedly be a weapon that Isobel would find hard to match.
By the time Gerald Chertson, who like the Duke had dressed himself extremely quickly and without the help of his valet, returned to the room, his friend was waiting with the Countess’s invitation-card in his hand.
“That is where we are going!” he said, holding it out.
“To hear is to obey!” Gerald replied mockingly, and they hurried down the stairs together.
“Have you come in your carriage?” Gerald asked, as they reached the front door.
“No, we will have to take a hackney-cab,” the Duke replied.
Fortunately, there was one just outside the house, crawling slowly down the street towards Piccadilly.
Gerald hailed it, and the two friends sat side by side as the cabby whipped up his tired horse.
“I am relying on you to introduce me,” the Duke said. “I do not think I have seen the Countess for eight or nine years.”
“She will welcome you with open arms,” Gerald replied, “not only because she has never grown too old to appreciate a handsome man, but also because you are a Duke and she will be delighted to introduce you like a shy debutante to the Beau Monde.”
“That is what I anticipated,” the Duke said quietly.
Gerald threw back his head and laughed.
“I do not believe this is happening!” he said. “It is so like you, Ivar! I have never known you without a crisis in your life, or some incredible surprise which nobody could have anticipated.”
He laughed again as he said:
“I thought we were going to have a quiet night. I only wish I could see Isobel’s face when your housemaid wakes her to say that her father’s carriage is waiting outside to take her home!”
“I would rather not think of it.”
“Mark my words, she will not give up,” Gerald continued. “She will merely dig in her spurs and be more determined than ever to wear the Harlington coronet.”
“Then she will be disappointed!” the Duke said grimly.
When they reached the Earl of Jersey’s house it was not yet two o’clock and the Ball-Room was still crowded.
The Countess, looking resplendent and still, despite her age, an attractive woman, held out her hands with delight as Gerald Chertson approached her.
“So you have arrived,” she exclaimed, “when I had despaired, you naughty boy, of seeing you!”
Gerald kissed her hand.
“You must forgive me for being late,” he said, “but I have been showing my friend Ivar Harling, who has only just arrived back in London, some of the amusements he has been missing while he has been in France.”
The Countess held out her hand to the Duke with what was obviously a sincere gesture of pleasure.
“I had no idea that you were in England,” she said, “or I would already have sent you a dozen invitations!”
“You are the first person, with the exception of His Royal Highness, whom I have visited,” the Duke said truthfully.
The Countess was delighted.
In the space of a few minutes she introduced him to a dozen people, giving them, as she did so, a potted biography of his achievements.
She made the Duke aware that while he had been abroad and out of sight, she had not been ignorant of his new importance in the Social World.
By the time he had talked to a number of people and had even danced twice round the room with his hostess, the Duke was delighted by the suggestion that they should repair to the Supper-Room.
There, at a table presided over by the Countess, he found the conversation witty and slanderous and as stimulating as the excellent champagne.
It was long after dawn when he and Gerald left, and by that time the Duke had managed to take the Countess on one side.
“I believe that only you can help me,” he said simply.
“In what way?” the Countess questioned.
He was aware of the look of curiosity in her eyes.
He told her briefly of his predecessor’s illness, and how he had not only expected his daughter to take care of him but had also prevented her from seeing her relations or friends and had convinced her that they were penniless.
The Duke did not go into details about what had happened on the Estate but was concerned only to evoke the Countess’s sympathy for Alvina.
He told her how she had been unable to spend a penny on herself or enjoy any of the social activities that should have been hers when she had left the School Room.
“What am I to do about her?” the Duke asked when the story was finished.
“I can see it is a problem,” the Countess replied, “but certainly not an insoluble one. I imagine, as head of the family, you will now provide for her?”
“Of course!” the Duke confirmed. “But she needs a Chaperone to introduce her to Society, and somebody who could take her to the best dressmakers.”
The Countess smiled.
“There should be no difficulty about that,” she said. “What woman could resist the idea of ordering a whole wardrobe of new clothes, even if they are for somebody else?”
“Then you will help me find the right person?”
“Send her to stay with me first,” the Countess said, “and when I
have dressed her, as you suggest, and made the first introductions, I will find somebody eminently suitable to carry on the good work.”
“I cannot thank you enough,” the Duke exclaimed. “At the same time, I do not like to impose on your good nature.”
“I shall expect my reward.”
“What is that?” he asked.
“That you will come to parties and let me find you a wife who will grace the end of your table and the Harlington diamonds.”
The Duke laughed.
“Could any woman, even including Your Ladyship, refrain from match-making?”
His voice was more serious as he went on:
“I will do anything you ask, except allow you to hurry me up the aisle before I have had a holiday, and a long one! Wellington has been a hard task-master these last years, and I am afraid a wife might be an even more exacting one.”
“I will find you somebody soft, sweet, gentle, and very amenable,” the Countess promised.
“I doubt if such a paragon exists,” the Duke replied, “but in the meantime let me enjoy myself as a bachelor. I feel I deserve it.”
The Countess glanced at the decorations on his breast.
“I suppose you do,” she admitted. “At the same time, my dear boy, you are far too attractive and far too handsome not to have every woman in London endeavouring to get you into her clutches!”
The Duke remembered that that was exactly what Isobel was trying to do, and he said:
“It sounds very enjoyable after being a target for French marksmen for more years than I care to remember.”
“Now you are far more likely to die of kisses,” the Countess promised. “And here is somebody I particularly want you to meet.”
As she spoke she beckoned to a very attractive Beauty who had just come into the Supper-Room.
She came obediently towards her hostess, who introduced the Duke and insisted that they should have the last dance together.
By the end of it the Duke knew he had made a new conquest, and he had promised to call on his new acquaintance the following afternoon.
“I shall be waiting for Your Grace,” she said very softly as they said good-night.
The Duke and Gerald left together, and as by now the sun was golden in the East and the last stars were receding in the sky, they decided to walk home.
“I feel I need some fresh air,” the Duke said.
“I thought you were behaving admirably,” Gerald said approvingly. “Our hostess was wildly enthusiastic about you, and she also told me she has promised to take your cousin under her wing. That was a clever move on your part.”
“I thought that myself,” the Duke agreed. “Alvina will certainly get off on the right foot.”
“The Countess, if I know anything of her methods, will have her married and off your hands in a few months.”
The Duke did not respond, and Gerald looked at him enquiringly, then realised he was frowning.
“There is no need for such haste,” he said.
As he spoke, he wondered why the idea of marriage for Alvina as well as for himself made him feel angry.
He had set the wheels in motion, but now that they were actually turning, he thought perhaps he had been too impetuous.
It might have been better if he had left things as they were, at least for a little while longer.
The Duke awoke and realised it was later than he had intended.
At the same time, his valet, having learnt that he had come to bed after dawn had broken, had left him to sleep.
When he had reached his bedroom it was to find that everything had been tidied, and it was difficult to believe that when he had come home earlier Isobel had been lying against his pillows wearing nothing but an emerald necklace.
As he undressed and got back into bed, he could not help thinking with a smile how shocked many of his ancestors would have been at her behaviour and, if it came to that, at his.
Somehow he had saved himself, although now, when he thought of it, he realised it had been a very “close shave.”
It had been clever of Isobel to think out a situation in which it would have been impossible for him to do anything but offer her marriage.
The Duke of Melchester was a highly respected member of the aristocracy and a gentleman of the “Old School.”
He would certainly have demanded that his daughter’s honour be protected, and there would have been no way of refusing to obey what the whole Social World would have thought of as a dictate of honour.
“I am free!” the Duke said to himself as he closed his eyes.
Then, almost as if there were a little devil sitting on his shoulder, a voice asked:
“But for how long?”
As Gerald had warned the Duke, the interview at eleven o’clock the next morning with his cousin Jason was extremely unpleasant.
Jason arrived looking, in the Duke’s eyes, overdressed.
If there was one thing he and the Duke of Wellington disliked, it was the “Dandies” who affected ridiculously high cravats, over-square shoulders, over-tight waists, and pantaloons which had to be dampened before they could pull them up over their hips.
The points of Jason’s collar were high over his chin, and his cravat made it appear as if it was difficult for him to breathe. The shoulders of his coat were too square, and the sleeves bulged high above them, making them appear in the Duke’s eyes almost grotesque.
He carried a lace-edged handkerchief which was saturated with perfume and which he held delicately to his nose.
At the same time, the Duke was aware that his eyes were hard, shrewd, and avaricious.
Jason was five years older than his cousin, and the Duke thought he was increasingly anxious to ensure that his future should be a comfortable one and that he should be very much better off financially than he had been in the past.
He wondered, as he had wondered before, why Jason had not found a rich wife.
But he was sure no decent woman would marry him, and Jason was too snobby and too proud of his Harling blood to consider marriage with some wealthy tradesman’s daughter, who might have been prepared to accept him.
He had therefore relied on borrowing from his friends, and gambling, but he often ran up debts which, as at the moment, he had no possible chance of paying without the help of the family.
The Duke knew when they met in the Library that Jason was wondering how much he could extract from him by blackmailing him with the fear of scandal and adverse publicity.
Somewhat coldly he offered Jason a drink, which he accepted.
Then the cousins sat down, eying each other like two bull-dogs, the Duke thought, each waiting for the other to attack.
The Duke took the initiative.
“I am quite aware, Jason, of why you wished to see me,” he said. “I have already been told that you are in debt, and I think it would be best if you were frank and told me exactly what is the sum involved.”
His cousin named a figure which made the Duke want to gasp, but with his usual self-control his face remained impassive.
“Is that everything?” he asked.
“Everything I can think of,” Jason replied surlily.
There was a short silence. Then, as if he found it intolerable, Jason went on:
“It is all very well for you, Ivar, to walk into a fortune without having to lift a finger for it, but surely you will admit it is the most astounding good luck, and as head of the family you should help those who were not born under the same lucky star.”
His last sentence was spoken in a sneering tone that was unmistakable, and the Duke said quietly:
“I admit I have been very fortunate. I am therefore, Jason, prepared to do two things.”
“What are they?”
“The first is to pay your present outstanding bills,” the Duke replied, “the second, to grant you in the future an allowance of a thousand pounds a year.”
Jason Harling’s eyes lit up on hearing that the Duke would settle his bi
lls for him, but even so he said quickly: “Two thousand!”
“One thousand!” the Duke replied coldly. “And there is of course a condition attached.”
“What is it?”
Now there was no mistaking that Jason’s expression was hostile.
“You go abroad and do not come back to England for at least five years.”
Jason stared at him incredulously.
“Do you mean that?”
“I mean it!” the Duke said firmly. “If you do not agree, the whole deal is off.”
Jason jumped to his feet.
“I do not believe it!”
“Then you can settle your debts yourself, and I shall not lift a finger to help you!”
“I have never heard of anything so diabolical!” Jason shouted furiously.
“I think, actually, that I am being extremely generous,” the Duke said. “The debts you have run up are so enormous that it would not surprise me in the slightest if you end up in the Fleet. But, as there are a great number of other calls on the family purse, it is essential that this sort of situation should not arise again.”
“In other words, you want to spend it all on yourself!” Jason said spitefully.
“That is quite untrue, and I have no intention of arguing,” the Duke replied. “But when you visited the Castle the other day you must have been aware that an enormous amount of money needs to be spent on the Estate: the Schools must be opened, and the Orphanages repaired or rebuilt.”
He paused to say more slowly:
“More important than anything else, the tenant-farmers need funds to bring their farms back to the standard that existed ten years ago.”
As he spoke, the Duke realised that all this meant nothing to Jason and he was thinking only of himself.
“I have no wish to live abroad,” he said like a sulky child.
“I am sure you will find yourself very much at home in Paris or any other town in France,” the Duke replied, “and quite frankly, Jason, I want you out of the country and out of people’s sight when our cousin Alvina makes her debut.”
“I am not in the least concerned with Cousin Alvina,” Jason answered, “but with my own life, and I wish to live in England.”
“Then I hope you will find ways of doing so,” the Duke said, rising to his feet.
A Duke in Danger Page 10