The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) (21 page)

‘Why should I be afraid?’ she asked herself, and yet she knew she was.

Then at last, when Cassandra had begun to fear that something had gone wrong and that the Duke had missed the train and was perhaps trying to get in touch with her in London, she heard the door open.

“His Grace, the Duke of Alchester,” Hudson announced and Cassandra felt herself tremble as the Duke walked across the room towards her.

He put something down on the table by the lamp, then he came nearer to the fire.

“I hear you have a cold,” he said courteously. “I am sorry if you stayed up to receive me when you should have been in bed.”

“It is ... not too ... bad,” Cassandra managed to say.

She had intended to sound hoarse, but there was really little need to disguise her voice because she was so nervous it sounded strange even to herself.

The Duke did not look at her. He stood for a moment holding out his hands to the flames. Then he said in what seemed to Cassandra a hard voice:

“I intended to speak to your father, but as he is not here perhaps we can speak frankly with each other?”

It was a question.

Cassandra managed to murmur:

“Y ... yes.”

“Then I think you know why I am here,” the Duke said, “and what was arranged between your father and mine before he died? Their plan was that we should be married.”

He paused, Cassandra said nothing and after a moment he went on:
“So, Miss Sherburn, let me put it very simply—I shall be deeply honoured if you will consent to be my wife!”

Cassandra was frozen into immobility. She could not believe that what she had heard was not a product of her imagination.

He could not have said it! He could not!

Then through her dark glasses she looked at his profile clear in the light of the fire, and saw the square, determined set of his chin and the hard line of his mouth.

He meant it! He had said it and he meant it! He had changed his mind after she had left him yesterday and decided that love was not worth the sacrifice of his heritage, of the house which had meant so much in the history of his family.

It was impossible for her to speak or to move.

She could only stare at the Duke as the tears began to run from her eyes down her cheeks, and her hand which still held the fan to shadow her face trembled.

She felt as if the whole ceiling had crashed on to her head; that everything she had ever believed in had fallen in pieces around her.

And now the numbness of her body was replaced with an agony that was like a thousand knives being driven into her heart.

The Duke turned towards her.

“Come,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

He put out his hand as he spoke and taking hers he drew her unresisting from the chair in which she had been sitting across the room towards the table.

She went with him because he compelled her and because she was quite incapable of speech.

They reached the table and Cassandra saw there was now a magazine lying beside the two Albums.

“I want you to look at this,” the Duke said. “Perhaps you would be able to see more clearly without those glasses.”

He took them off as he spoke and now with her heart palpitating Cassandra tried to understand what was happening; tried to look at what lay on the table in front of her.

It was a copy of
The Sporting and Dramatic
and on the open page there was a portrait sketch of herself!

Although it had been copied from the photograph which had been taken by the photographer in York which her father had disliked, it was quite unmistakable.

Underneath it was written: “A NOTABLE LADY RIDER TO HOUNDS AND BELLE OF THE YORKSHIRE BALLS-MISS CASSANDRA SHERBURN.”

She stood looking at it and the Duke said:

“I could hardly fail to recognise you, could I?”

His voice was harsh and now Cassandra managed to say through dry lips:

“I ... could not ... tell you ... yesterday...”

“Why not?” the Duke asked in an uncompromising tone, “or need I ask such a foolish question? You wished to extort from me the last vestige of humiliation—to force me down on my knees in front of you.”

“No ... No!” Cassandra whispered. “It was not ... like ... that.”

“Of course it was,” the Duke retorted. “Do not deceive me any further. Not content with my title—you wanted my heart also. It was very clever!”

“No! No!” Cassandra cried again. “I ...”

“You were determined to manipulate me,” he interrupted, “as I have been manipulated all my life. First by my father, then by Carwen and now by you. Well, you have been most successful, and I can only congratulate you on being an even better actress than you pretended to be!”

His voice cut like a whip and Cassandra cried frantically:

“You must listen to me ... you must! It was ... nothing like ... that ... look, I have ... these to show ... you.”

She threw open the Albums as she spoke.

The Duke looked down at the newspaper cuttings stuck neatly in the pages, but the expression on his face did not change.

“There is ... something ... else,” Cassandra said.

She ran across the room to her writing-desk. With hands which trembled so much that she could hardly control them she found the key of the secret drawer, opened it and drew out her Diary.

Then she went back to the Duke.

He had not moved from the table. He still stood there with the two open Albums and Cassandra’s picture in front of him.

There was nothing in the Diary after the last entry written on March 29th, which she had made before she left for London.

She held it out to the Duke.

“Read this ... read ... it,” she begged.

The Duke did not look at her and she thought for one moment he would refuse to take the Diary from her.

Then he took the little book and held it towards the light, so that he could see better.

In Cassandra’s neat and elegant hand-writing he saw written:

“Papa has just told me that after all this time he has received a letter from the Duke of Alchester. I had been certain, since his father’s death, that the young Duke had changed his mind about the arrangements that were made so long ago for our marriage. Now because I understand he is desperately hard-up, he is prepared to go through with it.

“But I know this is something I cannot and will not do! It has been Papa’s dream that I should marry the son of his old friend and that also I should be a Duchess.

“If we had become engaged two years ago when I was only seventeen-and-a-half, I should have accepted Papa’s judgment in this as I have done in so many other things.

“But now I am older and I know that it would be a travesty of everything in which I believe and which I hold sacred for me to marry a man I love but who, I am convinced, loves someone else.

“I had also thought because I have loved him so deeply ever since I was twelve years old and saw him at the Eton and Harrow cricket match, that he would come to love me and that we could find happiness together.

“But I know now that was merely a child’s dream.

“My love for him has prevented me from marrying anyone else or caring for any of the men who have proposed to me.

“But I would rather be an old-maid and remain unmarried for the whole of my life than suffer the humiliation and degradation of being married to the Duke who wants only my money.

“I am certain it would be easier to marry, if I must, someone for whom I have no affection, rather than to know that Varro kissed me and touched me because it was his duty. That I could not face.

‘In fact I would rather die than be tortured by my longing for something very different.

“I wanted to tell Papa this but then I thought he would merely brush my arguments aside unless I can prove irrefutably that the Duke is in love with someone else.

“I am sure he is, and that she is an actress from the Gaiety Theatre. But because he would not be likely to admit it to Papa, I have to find out the truth for myself.

“I have therefore decided that I shall go to London and try to meet the Duke through Mrs. Langtry. I shall pretend to be a part of the world which he enjoys and which obviously means so much to him.

“People have always said I look theatrical. If I can act the part of an actress sufficiently well to convince him, I feel sure I can find out the truth.

“There are other heiresses in the world who would be only too willing to give him their money in exchange for his coronet, but all these years it has not mattered to me whether he was a Duke or a pauper.

“I have loved him because the first time I saw him I lost my heart!

“It sounds so stupid put down on paper, but that is what happened.

“Now I must find out the truth and I will then tell Papa that I cannot marry the Duke. He will not force me in those circumstances.

“But I know that however long I live, even if I never see him again, I shall never love anyone as I love Varro.”

The Duke reached the bottom of the page. Then as he stared at what he had read with an almost incredulous look in his eyes, a very low, broken voice said behind him:

“You are ... not on your ... knees, Varro ... I am! Please ... please ... will you ... marry me? I love you so ... desperately.”

The Duke turned round slowly, Cassandra was kneeling on the floor behind him. Her hands were clasped together, she had thrown back her head to look up at him and the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

She looked into his eyes, and seeing no softening in the hardness of his expression, she gave a pitiful little sob as she whispered:

“If you ... will not ... marry ... me, will you ... make ... me your ... mistress?”

For a moment the Duke was still. Then he bent down and putting his arms round Cassandra pulled her roughly against him.

“How dare you say such a thing?” he asked and his voice was still angry.

But as if he could not help himself, his mouth sought hers.

For a moment his lips were hard and rough. Then as he felt her body soft and yielding against his and as he knew that a flame had been ignited in them both, his kiss became more tender and at the same time more demanding.

It seemed to Cassandra that the room whirled round her and she was dizzy with the wonder of it.

Then the Duke was kissing the tears from her cheeks, her wet eyes and again her mouth with a passion that made her quiver and tremble. Yet her whole being responded to the fire that consumed him.

When finally he raised his head to look down at her she turned her face and hid it against his shoulder.

“I am ... sorry,” she whispered.

“How could you have done anything so crazy, so reprehensible, so incredibly naughty?” he asked.

She did not answer and he went on:

“God knows in what sort of trouble you might have found yourself, if I had not been there to protect you.”

“But you were ... there!” she murmured. “And I ... had to find ... out the ... truth.”

“There would have been better ways of doing it than acting a part though having no conception whatever of the type of woman you were pretending to be.”

“You ... were ... deceived!”

“I was completely bewildered,” the Duke replied. “I fell in love with you when you were shocked by the Can-Can that first evening at Carwen’s house, but I could not understand what was happening. How anyone who looked as you looked with your painted face could be so innocent and so obviously ignorant of the world was beyond my comprehension!”

“I ... thought I was rather ... clever!” Cassandra murmured.

“As a performance it was lamentable! And let me tell you another thing: if I ever catch you reddening your lips again, I will beat you! Do you understand?”

He held her very closely against him, and Cassandra said in a small hesitating voice:

“Does that... mean that... you are ... going to ... marry me?”

He looked down into her eyes and there was a smile on his lips.

“I suppose I shall have to!” he said. “After all, the fact that you slept in my suite is extremely compromising.”

“I locked ... the door.”

The Duke laughed.

“Because I told you to! Oh, my darling, when I think of how badly you have behaved and what wild, crazy chances you have taken, I am appalled! It terrifies me even now to think of what might have happened to you!”

“I knew I was ... safe with ... you.”

“You will always be safe with me in the future,” the Duke said firmly, “for the simple reason that I shall never let you out of my sight! How could I, when you are so ridiculously lovely? But I am going to punish you because you have deceived me and because you have behaved so badly.”

“How?” Cassandra asked rather apprehensively.

“We are going to be married almost immediately,” he said, “but you are not going to have the pleasure of flaunting yourself in London as the lovely young Duchess of Alchester. We are going on a very long honeymoon trip first to Australia and then to South Africa.”

“How wonderful!” Cassandra cried, her face radiant with happiness.

“When we return,” the Duke went on, “I anticipate it will be time to put our house in order for the future generations.”

For a moment Cassandra did not understand his meaning, then she blushed.

“You mean...” she began and hesitated.

“I mean exactly what you think I mean,” the Duke answered, “and how, when you blush like that, you ever expected anyone to think of you as a hard-boiled, tough little actress, I do not know!” He kissed her again.

“I love you!” he said after a moment. “I love you so much that I can think of nothing but you.”

“That is what I have felt about ... you for years “

“Have you really been in love with me for so long?” he asked wonderingly.

“Ever since I first saw you,” Cassandra answered. “I felt we were meant for each other. Did you not feel the same?”

“I thought it from the first moment I set eyes on you at Carwen’s party,” the Duke confessed. “I was depressed, worried and very apprehensive about the future. Then I saw you standing in front of me and everything was changed from that moment.”

“And nothing else ... matters?” Cassandra asked.

He saw the meaning in her eyes and knew what she asked.
“Nothing, my precious,” he said. “Titles, money, rank are unimportant compared with a love like ours! A love which will last all through our lives.”

“I love ... you!” Cassandra whispered. “I love you ... agonisingly.”

Then the Duke’s lips were on hers fiercely, passionately demanding they asked her complete and absolute surrender.

She knew he would always be her Master and gloried in his strength.

She felt that he swept her away into a sunlit, perfect world where there was only themselves.

He raised his head.

“You ... you really ... love me?” she whispered.

“I worship you—my wonderful darling.”

“For ... ever?”

“For eternity and beyond.”

Cassandra gave a sigh of sheer happiness, then the Duke’s lips blotted out thought.