“Kitty is perfectly content being married to me,” Alister McCraig said truculently.
“You have only been married a year, my dear boy. Give it time.”
He saw his words offended his nephew and added quickly,
“You have been very sensible in not telling Kitty what we are doing. Never trust a woman with a secret if you can possibly help it. Besides, as I have already said, the fewer people know the better. It would be far too good a story not to repeat.”
“That is what I thought, Uncle.”
“Then keep your mouth shut and the most important thing will be to persuade our little actress that unless she also is silent she will not be paid.”
The Duke glanced at the clock over the mantelpiece and noted that the hands stood at one minute to twelve o’clock.
His nephew followed the direction of his eyes and said,
“I think, Uncle Yvell, it would be best if you saw this woman alone first. You are much cleverer than I am in getting people to do what you want and I might mess it up.”
Without waiting for his uncle to agree Alister McCraig moved across the library.
“I will be in the morning room when you want me,” he said as he reached the door and then he was gone.
There was a smile on the Duke’s lips as he bent forward to pick up The Morning Post.
He had never had much opinion of his nephew and he thought it was typical of him to shirk the interview at the last moment and shift the responsibility onto his shoulders.
At the same time he was determined if possible to see that Alister was set up for life and thus unlikely to be an encumbrance upon himself in his old age.
‘Damn all relations!’ he thought. ‘They are always an infernal nuisance!’
He glanced down at the paper, wondering as he did so if he had to be tied not only to his nephew but also to the McCraig of McCraig for the next forty-eight hours.
The idea appalled him as there was in fact a very amusing party being given that night at the house of Mrs. Mary Ann Clarke, who had once been his mistress, but was now under the protection of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army.
It would be the sort of party, the Duke reflected, that scandalised and shocked even the easy-going, pleasure-seeking Society that centred round Carlton House.
The difficulty would be, of course, to get away.
‘Perhaps the old gentleman will retire early,’ he told himself. ‘Then I can escape.’
He felt almost like a schoolboy planning how to play truant but with a very different end in view!
There was a cynical twist of amusement on the Duke’s lips as the door opened.
“Miss Wantage, Your Grace!”
The Duke rose to his feet.
There was a little pause before Shimona entered the room.
Then, as she came slowly towards him, holding herself proudly, she was aware of how frightened she was.
She had thought when she left home that it would be quite easy to arrive at Ravenstone House and tell the Duke that she had been sent by Beau Bardsley.
She had everything planned in her mind and it was only when Nanna had found her a Hackney carriage and she set off alone that she began to feel nervous.
Nanna had been far more difficult to convince than the doctor and, although once again Shimona had not revealed who had offered to pay the one thousand guineas, Nanna had been scandalised at the whole idea.
“What would your poor mother say? What would she think?” she kept repeating.
“Mama would wish us to save Papa’s life,” Shimona answered, “and there is no other way, Nanna.”
“There must be! Surely Doctor Lesley can find the money somehow?”
“How could he possibly find one thousand guineas?”
“It isn’t right, Miss Shimona! It isn’t right that you should leave the house and go off on your own. I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“It will only be for two nights, Nanna.”
“Nights?” Nanna snorted and made the word sound disreputable and ominous.
“I have promised Doctor Lesley,” Shimona went on, “that if anything seems wrong I will return home immediately. I shall not be very far away.”
“You will give me the address or you don’t leave this house,” Nanna said firmly.
“Yes, of course,” Shimona agreed.
Then she hesitated, for to say that she would be staying at Ravenstone House would certainly reveal the fact that she was meeting the Duke of Ravenstone.
She did not think Nanna had ever heard of him, but she had remembered, when she was behind the curtain in the dressing room, hearing her father speak of the Duke in the most disparaging manner to her mother.
“Ravenstone is after that pretty girl who is the ingénue in Act II,” Shimona heard him say once when he thought that she was not listening. “I have warned her, but the silly little fool is mesmerised by him like a rabbit by a snake!”
“She cannot know what His Grace is like,” her mother had said in her soft voice.
“She knows and she still does not care!” Beau Bardsley replied. “There is something about that man that hypnotises women and, until he has left them they are not aware of the sort of devil they have become entangled with.”
“Is he really as bad as that?” Mrs. Bardsley had asked.
“He is worse!” Beau Bardsley had replied. “He is a disgrace to his title, to his blood and to the stock he has sprung from! I have no use, Annabel, for a man who betrays his own class.”
When her father talked like that, Shimona did not realise that he might have been in the pulpit for which he had been intended.
But she had always imagined that the Duke would indeed look like a devil and once to amuse herself she had drawn a caricature of him with horns on his head and a tail showing beneath his coat.
She had not been able to draw his face since she had never seen him, but she had imagined him with slanting eyes and arched eyebrows, a long thin nose and pointed ears.
All she had listened to, all she had imagined came back to her mind as she drove through Hyde Park Corner and along Piccadilly towards Berkeley Square.
As the carriage turned up Berkeley Street, she had an impulse to tell the cabman to stop and take her home to the safety of Nanna and her sleeping father.
For the first time she realised how little she knew about the world and how ignorant she was of social behaviour!
She had never been to dinner parties – she had never even helped to entertain people in her own home with the exception of Doctor Lesley, the Parson and some of the elderly ladies engaged in charitable work from the Church that she and her mother attended on Sundays.
Sunday to Beau was a day of rest and he never accompanied them.
But Shimona knew that she and her mother were an object of curiosity as they walked up the aisle to sit in an inconspicuous pew behind those which were marked with the names of the people who paid for them.
‘I am saving Papa! I am saving Papa!’
Shimona repeated the words over and over to herself to give herself confidence.
She felt as if her legs were suddenly very weak and she was conscious that her heart seemed to be fluttering inside her breast in an extraordinary manner as the carriage came to a standstill.
She looked out and saw a large and very impressive house on the North side of the square.
It was in fact far bigger than Shimona had anticipated and, when she entered the marble hall with its great carved staircase and alcoves in which stood Grecian statuary, she felt very small and insignificant.
The butler had led her to a pair of double mahogany doors.
“May I have your name, madam?”
Shimona had already decided to call herself ‘Wantage’.
It happened to be a name in a book that she was reading and she thought it sounded quiet and unimportant, which was what she wished to be.
She had dressed herself with great care.
She had few gowns to c
hoose from and the muslin one that had been made by Nanna was very plain, but the cloak that covered it was of a blue that matched her eyes and had been bought for her by her mother.
Her bonnet was high-crowned but not over-fashionable and the blue ribbons which ornamented it were simple but in perfect taste.
The butler opened the door.
“Miss Wantage, Your Grace!” he intoned in a manner that made Shimona feel as if he had blown a fanfare.
Then she remembered that for the first time she was to meet face to face the man she had thought of as a devil.
Almost instinctively, as if she was taking part in a play, she paused as the door shut behind her.
She looked across the room and she saw not the devil she had anticipated, but an extremely good-looking man, who was surprisingly young for his reputation.
He was by no means as handsome as her father, nor were his features in the least classical and yet he was outstandingly distinguished-looking and had a natural grace and elegance that Shimona knew derived from his breeding.
He also stood looking at her, taking in the little pointed face under the plain bonnet, the slim figure in a muslin gown and the wide dark blue eyes that looked at him questioningly.
He had expected that Beau Bardsley would send him someone attractive, but not a woman so exquisite or so beautiful.
In fact she was so inexpressibly lovely that, cynical and satiated though he was with all the delights that the female sex could offer him, the Duke was for the moment speechless.
Slowly, very slowly, Shimona advanced towards him.
Then, almost as if he remembered his manners, he moved towards her.
“You come, I think, from Mr. Beau Bardsley?”
With an effort and in a voice that did not sound like her own Shimona managed to reply,
“Y-yes – Your Grace.”
She curtseyed and felt as she did so that it was a relief to be able to take her eyes from his.
The Duke bowed.
“I am very grateful to you, Miss Wantage. Will you not be seated?”
“Thank – you.”
Shimona sat down on the edge of a chair beside the fire and looked at him with eyes in which to his surprise he could see an unmistakable expression of fear.
“You must not be frightened,” he said in the voice that she had last heard from behind the curtain in her father’s dressing room. “I know this may be an unusual part for you to play, but I am quite certain that you will do it most admirably!”
“Thank – you.”
“Have you been on the stage long?” the Duke asked, seating himself. “I cannot remember ever having seen you in a play?”
He thought even as he spoke that it was an idiotic question.
If he had once seen this beautiful creature behind the footlights, it would have been impossible for him not only to forget her but to fail to try to make her acquaintance.
Shimona glanced at him for a moment and then she said,
“Will you – tell me – Your Grace – exactly what is – required of me?”
The Duke smiled.
“What you are really saying, Miss Wantage, is that you have no wish to answer questions about yourself.”
“I did not – mean to be – impertinent – Your Grace.”
“You are not. I don’t think you could be,” he replied.
There was an expression in his eyes that made Shimona look away from him.
She wished that her heart was not pounding so wildly, almost as if it would burst from her breast and she was ashamed of the fact that her hands were still trembling.
“It is warm in here,” the Duke said unexpectedly. “I think you would be wise to remove your cloak and I am sure you would be more comfortable without your bonnet.”
“Y-yes – of course.”
Shimona rose to her feet like a child obedient to a command.
She unclasped her cloak at the neck and the Duke took it from her.
He came close to her to do so and she had a strange feeling. It was not of panic, but something very like it that she could not explain to herself.
As the Duke laid her cloak on a chair against a wall, she undid the ribbons of her bonnet and he took that also.
“You have brought enough clothes with you for two nights?” he asked.
“Yes – Your Grace.”
He came back to the fireside and resumed his seat.
Shimona sat opposite him.
The light from the flames shone on her fair hair and yet it still held the mysterious shadows that Richard Cosway had painted so skilfully in the miniature of her mother.
Her eyes, the Duke thought, were the blue of a stormy sea and not the pale colour one would have expected with such a white skin. Her nose reminded him of the statuary he had seen when he had last been in Greece.
He realised that she was waiting for him to speak and, after a moment, he said,
“Beau Bardsley doubtless will have told you that my nephew could inherit a very large sum of money if his great-uncle, the McCraig of McCraig, likes his wife, to whom he has been married for a year.”
Shimona was listening intently and he went on,
“He has in fact told his mother, who is a widow, and his great-uncle, very little about the woman he has married, which makes it easy for you to play the part.”
“Do they know her name?” Shimona asked.
“They have been told her real name, which is Katherine Webber,” the Duke replied, “but not the one she used professionally. You will, of course, be called Katherine while you are here.”
Shimona acquiesced with a little inclination of her head.
“What is your Christian name, Miss Wantage?” the Duke asked.
“Shimona!”
As she spoke, she thought it might have been wiser to call herself Mary or Jane.
“I have never before known anyone called Shimona,” he remarked.
“I must – remember to answer to – Katherine.”
“Of course, and my nephew will tell you anything it is necessary for you to know about his wife.”
As he mentioned Alister McCraig, the Duke noticed that Shimona glanced towards the door as if she expected someone overpowering or even menacing to enter the room.
“You will not feel nervous with Alister,” he said soothingly. “He is an easy-going, charming young man. In fact the only person of whom you need fear at all will be The McCraig himself!”
“Why is he called The McCraig of McCraig?” Shimona asked.
“It is a title that some Clans give their Chieftains and of which they are very proud. It gives them the standing of an Earl or perhaps a Marquess in this country and I am certain The McCraig would not change it for any other title, however distinguished.”
“I have read about the Clan McCraig in the history of Scotland,” Shimona said.
“You are interested in history?”
“I love it!” she answered.
“Why?” the Duke enquired.
Shimona thought for a moment. She was used to answering her father’s questions seriously, so she replied,
“I suppose because it shows us the evolution of civilisation. I particularly enjoy the history of Greece.”
“You look like a Greek Goddess yourself,” the Duke remarked. “But I expect many men have told you that.”
To his astonishment his words brought the colour flaming into Shimona’s cheeks and her eyes dropped before his.
It was in fact the first compliment she had ever been paid by a man other than her father or the doctor.
“We were – speaking of the – task that lies ahead of – me, Your Grace,” she managed to say after a moment or two.
“Yes, of course,” the Duke agreed.
Then, as if he could not help himself, he asked,
“Surely you are very young to be on the stage? There must be something better you could do!”
Shimona looked at him with a worried expression in her eyes and he knew that she
was not going to give him a truthful answer.
CHAPTER THREE
The dinner was coming to an end and Shimona had been entranced with everything about it.
She had never imagined a dining room could look so attractive or that a table could be literally groaning under gold ornaments and candelabra.
It was also tastefully decorated with flowers and, as she sampled dish after dish served on gold plates by powdered flunkeys, she felt as if she was acting a part on the stage.
‘And that is exactly what I am doing!’ she told herself.
At the same time she had had no idea, she thought, that the props and the scenery would be so magnificent!
The McCraig of McCraig had not in fact been as frightening as she had anticipated.
She knew that he was eighty years of age, but he certainly did not look it, for he held himself stiffly upright and there was an inescapable dignity about him which Shimona thought must win respect wherever he went.
He was, with his high-bridged nose, his white hair swept back from his square forehead, his shrewd eyes under bushy eyebrows, exactly how she thought a Chieftain should look.
As the evening progressed, she could not help wondering how Alister McCraig could have married a somewhat disreputable actress when he had so much history behind him and such distinguished forebears.
Both the Duke and Alister realised that The McCraig was agreeably impressed by Shimona from the moment he saw her.
It would have been hard for him not to do so. As she curtseyed to him, her grace had reminded the Duke of the swans on his lake at Ravenstone.
But, while she bore herself proudly, there was no mistaking the touch of fear in her eyes and the worried look in her lovely face, which, the Duke thought perceptively, pleased the old Scot.
After all, he told himself, The McCraig was expecting not only an ill-bred actress, which Kitty undoubtedly was, but also someone who might be pert and aggressive simply because she would think that he was condescending to her.
But Shimona actually played no part except that of being herself, striking just the right note of respect without being obsequious.
Luncheon was announced soon after The McCraig had arrived and he talked of his journey South to the Duke while at the same time, they all knew, watching Shimona from under his thick eyebrows.
The Disgraceful Duke Page 5