“Your Ladyship is indeed most gracious,” the Duke said, raising Lady Bingley’s gloved hand perfunctorily to his lips.
Verena wanted to protest and to refuse to go to the morning room with him.
But he merely stood aside at the top of the stairs and waited for her to precede him. There was something in the expression of his eyes or maybe in his air of calm authority that made her obey him.
She ran down the stairs as if she was in a hurry and then led the way to the morning room, which was at the back of the house with its French windows opening onto the small garden.
The sun picked up the lights in Verena’s hair, but her eyes were dark and stony as the Duke closed the door behind him.
“How could you?” she cried. “How could you behave in such ‒ an abominable, deceitful and underhand manner?”
“It was you who assumed that I could not by any possibility be the Nobleman you were waiting for,” the Duke replied with a twinkle in his eye. “It was extremely mortifying, I may assure you, to find that I have so little presence without the trappings of a smart coach, outriders and liveried servants.”
“You could have told me the truth when I asked for your name!” Verena retorted. “Why were you so dishonest?”
“I have a strong distaste for roast pigeon,” he replied promptly.
Just for a moment Verena’s irresistible dimples betrayed her.
Then, moving across the room, she stormed,
“You have behaved in an outrageous, contemptible and despicable way!”
“I think ‘odious’ is the word that you need,” the Duke replied. “And there are two other descriptions of me you have forgotten.”
“What are they?” Verena asked crossly.
“‘A bumptious blockhead and a conceited cockscomb’ How could you expect me after all those scathing definitions to reveal to you who I was? Besides, I did not lie to you, my name is Theron Royd.”
“You are disgraceful! I will never forgive you,” Verena declared.
“Never?” the Duke asked. “Then what indeed are we to do about the ‘Evil Genius’?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “This exonerates me from all responsibility where he is concerned. Your behaviour has confirmed my feelings.”
She drew in her breath and continued thunderously,
“When I think about the preparations that were being made for your arrival at Copple Hall, when I recall how you deliberately enticed me to reveal my opinion of you and ‒ when I recall how you beguiled me into asking your help and support – well, all I can say, Your Grace, is that I despise you now more than I despised you before we met!”
“That is unfortunate,” the Duke replied quietly, “because, Verena, I have made you my special responsibility.”
“What do you mean by that?” Verena asked. “And what is all this nonsense about our being related? You know that is a lie like all the other lies you have told me!”
“It is in point of fact the truth. My great-grandfather married a girl called ‘Arabella Winchcombe’.”
“I have never heard tell of it,” Verena responded suspiciously.
“Apparently it was quite a scandal. They ran away to Gretna Green just as your father and mother did. It was very romantic. You must get my uncle, Lord Adolphus Royd, to tell you the whole story one day.”
“But I am not intending to meet your uncle, your sister or any other members of your family,” Verena replied to him in a hard voice. “My Godmother has made very extensive plans to introduce me to the Social world that Grandpapa desired for me. I have no need of your assistance and certainly not of your patronage. You will oblige me, my Most Noble Duke, if you will just leave me alone.”
“That, Verena, is something which unfortunately I am unable to do,” the Duke said. “I have been to see Mr. Critchwick and he has appointed, as your grandfather’s will has suggested, a Guardian who will administer your fortune and protect you from undesirable suitors until you reach the age of twenty-one.”
“So you have now been to see Mr. Critchwick!” Verena exclaimed. “I intended to see him tomorrow. What right have you to interfere?”
“Mr. Critchwick was delighted to see me,” the Duke answered. “In fact so delighted, Verena, that he has appointed me your legal Guardian!”
For a moment Verena was speechless.
Her eyes, sparkling with anger, searched the Duke’s face as if she half-believed that he was deliberately teasing her.
Then, when she knew that he had told her the truth, she gave a cry of sheer rage and stamped her foot.
“How dare you? How dare you?”
“You may be incensed with me,” the Duke replied, “but I can assure you, Verena, I could make things much easier for your Social debut than anyone else can contrive. “All you have to do is to trust me and I promise you that, when you cease wishing to eat me, you will then find that I have acted for the best.”
“I will never forgive you!” Verena shouted fiercely.
She turned her back on him to stare blindly out of the window.
“As your Guardian,” the Duke said quietly, “I cannot allow you to cause speculation and gossip by talking with me here alone for too long. I have arranged to take your Godmother and yourself to a small party my sister, the Countess of Ereth, is giving this evening. We will dine first at Selchester House and I will call for you with my carriage at seven thirty.”
“I will not come!” Verena stormed. “Nothing will induce me to dine with you!”
The Duke gave a sigh as if dealing with an exasperating child.
“If that is your last word,” he said, “I will go upstairs and explain my plans to your Godmother. She, I feel sure, will not wish you to miss the opportunity of meeting not only my sister but enjoying the informal dance that her daughter, who is around about your age, is holding for her friends.”
He paused and added more gently,
“It is quite a small occasion, Verena, so there is no need for you to be afraid.”
“I am not afraid,” Verena retorted. “I am just totally disgusted by your behaviour.”
“That is something we can discuss on another occasion,” the Duke replied loftily. “As it is, unless you wish me to trouble your Godmother when she is so occupied, I will leave now and return, as I have already said, at seven thirty.”
The Duke stopped speaking and looked at the tense, incensed little figure facing him with clenched hands.
“Wear your prettiest gown, Verena,” he said. “First impressions are important and I really want my family to be proud of their new relative. Incidentally, I do congratulate you on the choice of the dress that you are wearing now.”
“I hate you!”
Verena thought even as she spoke that she sounded like a petulant child rather than an affronted adult.
The Duke moved towards her, took her by the shoulders and turned her round to face him.
Before she realised what he was about he had lifted her hand to his lips.
“Forgive me, Elf,” he said beguilingly with laughter in his eyes.
But before she could rage at him again he was gone from the room, leaving the door open. She heard him cross the hall and knew that he took his hat and gloves from an attendant footman.
The front door closed behind him and Verena, still seething with indignation, slowly went upstairs to re-join her Godmother.
She half-hoped, although knowing that such an idea was unlikely in the extreme, that Lady Bingley would be feeling too tired or have some valid excuse why they should not dine at Selchester House.
But just as soon as Verena had imparted the Duke’s invitation to her Godmother she was in such a great flutter of excitement and delight that Verena could not even begin to explain why she herself was not looking forward to the evening.
“Why did you not tell me, my dearest, that you knew the Duke of Selchester?” Lady Bingley asked her curiously.
“I have not known him for long,” Verena answered diffidently.
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“But how could you have met anyone of such import living in the country?”
“He ‒ was on his way to stay with the ‒ Upminsters,” Verena then replied, feeling that it was wisest to tell the truth.
“Oh, now I understand,” Lady Bingley exclaimed. “The Upminsters have a pretty daughter, have they not? I suppose they are angling for His Grace like every other ambitious parent. But from all I hear the Duke is extremely elusive!”
Verena did not answer and then Lady Bingley continued,
“But how is it that I have never before heard there was a connection between the Winchcombes and the Royds?”
“It all happened a long time ago,” Verena replied.
She longed to deny that there was any truth in the Duke’s assertion. At the same time she knew that he would not have announced in public that she was his relation unless he was sure of his facts.
“It is gratifying, most gratifying!” Lady Bingley said. “And Lady Studholde has overwhelmed us with invitations, to her ball, to dinner and to luncheon next week. My dear, I could have laughed in her face. I am quite certain that had the Duke not called when he did, we should, if we were lucky, have been palmed off with just a card to her ball and not a suggestion of a meal.”
“Are you sure that you are not too fatigued, Godmama, to dine out tonight?” Verena began tentatively.
“I am most certainly not too fatigued to visit Selchester House! Oh, Verena, if you only knew how I have longed all my life to see the inside of that magnificent mansion! But never, never once have I had the chance of entering Selchester House or indeed Ereth House, which you tell me we shall be visiting later. You are indeed the luckiest girl in the world!”
“Only because I have you for my Godmother,” Verena smiled.
Feeling that she could just not listen any longer to Lady Bingley’s effusiveness she ran upstairs to her bedroom.
Despite her decision to teach the Duke a lesson by making herself look a dowdy country miss, she could not on reflection resist wearing a new gown of pale green gauze over a foundation of shimmering green lamé.
It was only when she was finally dressed and the maid was giving a finishing touch to her hair that she realised that the Duke might think she had deliberately tried to remind him of the woods, the waterfalls and the pine forests.
Then she told herself defiantly that such talk had only been a part of his deceit that he really had no interest in such childish nonsense.
‘I hate him!’ she told herself,
But all the way in the carriage, as Lady Bingley chatted happily to their Ducal host, Verena repeated over and over again beneath her breath,
‘I hate him! I hate him!’
She had, however, been unable to forestall a sudden irrepressible start of admiration when he had first come into the drawing room where she and Lady Bingley were awaiting him.
Verena had never before seen him in evening dress and it would have been just impossible for any man to appear more handsome or more elegant.
His blue satin evening coat, with its long tails and rolled revers, was worn over a plain waistcoat with a frilled cravat so intricately tied that Verena, with a slight curl of her lips, felt that it must have taken hours of painstaking endeavour to achieve.
As it was an informal party, the Duke wore trousers instead of knee breeches, but they fitted so closely and gave him such a slim yet athletic grace that Verena was irresistibly reminded of the nickname that she had given him.
He might be a Leopard, she thought, but Napoleon had been right in disparaging the ‘Hideous Leopards’ as if they were all like the Duke.
‘I hate him!’ she said beneath her breath and refused to meet his eyes, dropping her eyelids and sitting in the carriage with her face turned towards the windows.
Her little straight nose and firm chin, although she did not realise it, were perfectly silhouetted against the darkness of the well-padded landau that the Duke was conveying them in.
“I have long desired to see the magnificence of Selchester House,” Lady Bingley gushed to the Duke as they entered the great Marble Hall with its many Greek statues, Roman mosaics, huge silver sconces and enormous crystal chandeliers.
“My ancestors were great collectors of antiquity,” he answered. “My collection, if it is worthy of the name, is housed in the stables.”
He glanced at Verena and knew that she could not prevent the little flicker of interest that leapt into her eyes.
“As a matter of fact,” the Duke continued, “I have today heard of an exceptional pair of bays to be sold by Lord Manson, a friend of mine, which I think would interest you, Verena.”
Just for a moment there was silence.
Verena longed to tell the Duke that she was not at all interested and to inform him that should she buy any horses for her stables she would choose them herself without his help.
But then there came before her eyes a mental picture of Salamanca tossing his head, the muscles rippling beneath his shining coat and his long black tail switching away the flies.
“I am prepared to look at them,” she capitulated.
Her voice was cold and distant, but she knew as she spoke that the Duke thought that he had won a part of the battle at any rate!
‘He is intolerable!’ she thought. ‘I hate him!’
If was, however, hard to remain frigidly silent when the Duke, after a delectable dinner at which he talked most interestingly, showed her and Lady Bingley some of the treasures of Selchester House.
He then conveyed them in his carriage to a mansion in Berkeley Square that belonged to his brother-in-law.
The Countess of Ereth was six years older than the Duke, but was still at the height of her beauty, which had astounded the Social world when she had first emerged from the schoolroom.
Princes, Dukes and Ambassadors, had all solicited her hand, but the Earl of Ereth had fallen in love with her at first sight and with but a few stormy episodes they had been extremely happy in the nineteen years they had been married.
Their eldest daughter was now eighteen and nearly as lovely as her mother had been. Lady Ereth, a doting parent, naturally desired that her child should have the pick of all the most eligible bachelors that the Beau Ton could provide and had therefore arranged to entertain extensively all through the London Season.
Although she did not yet know about it, the Duke was determined that Verena should take part in many of the festivities already planned.
He had sent a footman to warn his sister that he would be attending her party that evening and he was bringing two friends with him.
He had not given her any names, the Countess, knowing her brother, had expected to see Captain Harry Sheraton and perhaps another of the Duke’s special cronies.
When the Duke reached the top of the wide staircase at Ereth House, leading the way so that he could introduce Lady Bingley and Verena, his sister held out her hand and kissed his cheek affectionately.
“I did not expect you back so soon, Theron,” she exclaimed. “You cannot have had time to visit all three of the blonde beauties I chose for you! Was the Upminster chit so attractive that you had no reason to go further?”
“My plans were all changed,” the Duke answered quickly, realising ruefully that Verena must have heard his sister’s words, which she had made no effort to muffle.
“Instead, Evelyn, I have tonight brought you a surprise guest. May I introduce Lady Bingley, who is so obliging as to offer her hospitality to a relative of ours who has only just arrived here in London – Miss Verena Winchcombe.”
The Countess of Ereth looked at her brother with a slight puzzled expression.
“A relative?” she queried.
“Yes, indeed,” the Duke replied. “Have you forgotten that our great-grandfather married a Miss Arabella Winchcombe?”
The Countess had never heard of Miss Arabella Winchcombe, but she was too well-bred to show her ignorance.
“Oh, Great-Grandpapa!” she exclaimed knowin
gly and then greeted Lady Bingley.
She held out her hand to Verena, noting how pretty the girl was, but recalling at the same time that she was not really the Duke’s type.
Then why, the Countess of Ereth asked herself, had he troubled to admit a relationship that she guessed only existed in some dusty archive pored over by Lord Adolphus.
She introduced Lady Bingley to an elderly Admiral and then took Verena to another salon where her daughter, Emmaline, was entertaining her young friends with a small orchestra of but a dozen instrumentalists to play for them.
Left alone in a strange room with a number of people she had never set eyes on before, Verena felt a moment of shyness.
But it was an emotion that was quite impossible to feel for too long when Emmaline was present.
In a short time she had introduced Verena to all her friends, admired her gown, asked a host of impertinent questions to which she apparently did not require answers and set the whole party dancing to some absurd country romp that Verena had never expected to see in Society.
They Stripped the Willow and took their partners for Sir Roger de Coverley and ended up ridiculously playing Oranges and Lemons and Musical Chairs.
It was rather childish and a great deal of fun and it was only when the band was not playing and Verena heard a clock on the chimneypiece strike midnight that she realised she had been a guest at Ereth House for over two hours.
Resolutely she walked into the other salon where the older members of the party were talking and drinking champagne.
The Duke was standing by the fireplace. Verena took one look at him and, walking to his side, said,
“Your Grace must be well aware that you should not be up so late. If I had known the time I should have insisted that we went home an hour ago.”
“Are you just making a suggestion or are you commanding me?” the Duke enquired.
“I would not wish for all the trouble that Doctor Graves and I have taken to be wasted,” Verena answered.
Then, as the Duke hesitated, she said crossly,
“Don’t be so nonsensical! You know as well as I do you are not yet well enough to stay up very late. Indeed you should not have travelled to London yesterday. I expected you to take far longer on the journey.”
The Odious Duke Page 15