An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (58 page)

The Duchess’s voice softened.

“He was dark and very handsome,” she said softly. “I have always liked dark men – they seem so strong – so virile.”

“Did he love you?” Iona asked.

“Yes, he loved me,” the Duchess answered. “He, the penniless son of a country parson, who had come to my father’s house to tutor my younger brother, loved me as I loved him.”

The Duchess sat up in the chair, pulled her handkerchief between her fingers, staring at it as if she had never seen it before.

“I know not why I am thinking of this now,” she said in a voice which tried pathetically to be light. “I suppose packing up brings back old memories. One finds letters and other things one has treasured and hoarded.”

“Oh, please – tell me what happened,” Iona said, interested now despite herself.

“I will tell you,” the Duchess said. “For this story should be a warning to you, a warning never to fall in love. I loved David with all my heart and soul. That was his name, David Dunn, son of an obscure parson. For five years I loved him, refusing all offers for my hand, taking care that no suitors of any import approached my father before I had made it very clear to them that I would under no circumstances become their bride.

“Then my father discovered about David. We had grown careless with the years. First we had been content with looking into each other’s eyes, with the touch of each other’s hands, a hasty kiss snatched once in a while behind an open door or in the twilit garden. Then we wanted more. It was torture not to be alone. We wanted to talk, to discuss things, and it was heaven to be in each other’s arms.

“It was a servant who betrayed us, a maid whom I had dismissed for impertinence. She went to my father. It was not difficult for him to discover the truth. David was sent packing without a reference, without even the salary that was due to him. I was sent to Yorkshire to stay with my uncle, and while I was on the visit, broken hearted, miserable, yet striving to hide my hurt from the curious eyes of my cousins who had an inkling that I was in disgrace, we had an invitation to visit Edinburgh.

“A friend of the family invited us all to stay – my aunt and her two daughters, myself and one of her sons. There was to be a ball in Edinburgh. My aunt accepted the invitation, principally, I think, because she thought that the distraction would relieve my obvious unhappiness.

“It was at the ball that I met the Duke of Arkrae. He was an old man, but of fine appearance and great import. I was flattered that he paid so much attention to me. Not for a moment did I guess that his interest in me was anything more than the desire of an aged men for the company of a young and pretty girl. When my uncle told me that he had asked for my hand in marriage, I nearly swooned in astonishment. My uncle was delighted. He pressed me to accept the Duke, and because I was afraid to go home, afraid of my father’s anger and more afraid than anything of the loneliness and emptiness of the house without David, I did not refuse.

“We were married in Yorkshire. It was a quiet ceremony and my father came north for it. That is how I became the Duchess of Arkrae, the third Duchess to a Duke of over seventy.”

The Duchess gave the handkerchief between her fingers a sharp tug. The delicate lace tore and the sound of it seemed to give her a sense of satisfaction, for her lips twisted in a tortured smile.

“Yes, I became a Duchess.” she went on. “My cousins were full of envy, my friends wrote me pages of congratulations, but only I knew what marriage to an old man could mean. Difficult and set in his ways, a man with a strange taciturn nature, a man without any tenderness or understanding for the feelings of a young and sensitive girl. I know you are thinking that I ought to have been grateful at making such a good marriage after behaving clandestinely with my brother’s tutor, but I wasn’t at all grateful. Had the Duke been tender or compassionate, things might have been different, but he was not, and having enjoyed me as he might have enjoyed a good day’s hunting or a well served meal, he forgot my very existence. I was lonely. Scotland seemed big and empty and the castle a severe prison from which I could never escape. I wanted youth and laughter, companionship and – and love.”

The Duchess got to her feet and, brushing past Iona who was sitting on a low stool by her side, moved across to the window. As she stood there looking out on the loch, the clear morning light revealed every wrinkle and flaw of her unprotected skin. It showed up the twitch of her eye, the discoloured, swollen eyelids and the sagging skin over her jaw. It was the wreck of what had once been a pretty face, a spectre of a long forgotten youth.

“I have stood here so often,” the Duchess said in a strange voice. “Once I remember wondering if the waters of the loch were very cold and whether one died quickly when one was drowned, or if such a death was slow and agonising. I shall never stand here again. In a short while, when I look out of the window, I shall see green fields, wide spreading trees and the hedges and meadowlands always green in the mellow English climate. I shall forget the cruel sharpness of the wind, the long snow locked winters here when it seems as if the spring will never come. I shall forget how I hated this castle – but shall I forget the rest?”

She turned towards Iona and in a voice of terror asked,

“Shall I forget Niall and all he has meant to me? Shall I forget his face, his hands, the way he comes into a room, the way his hair grows from his forehead?” Once again the tears sprang into her eyes. “Can I forget? Can I forget all that?”

Blindly she groped her way back to the chair she had vacated by the fireside. Iona helped her into it. There was nothing she could say and there was nothing she could do.

She was thankful to hear the door open and see the Duchess’s maid return. Two footmen entered a moment later carrying a huge silver tray. They set it down on a table by the Duchess’s side and she busied herself unlocking the little caddy containing the tea and spooning it into the big crested pot. The maid knelt down at the trunk and resumed her packing. The moment for confidences was passed. Iona accepted a cup of tea from the Duchess and asked if she might retire.

“If Your Grace will excuse me, I would like to go out into the sunshine.”

The Duchess nodded absently. Since her maid’s return she had not spoken one word, and Iona knew that she was thinking of the past, remembering other things of Lord Niall or perhaps of David, her first love. There was nothing she could do to help, no soothing potion she could offer to allay her sufferings or bring her forgetfulness.

As she came from the Duchess’s suite into the main passage on the first floor, Iona felt as if she escaped from an over-heated greenhouse. The emotions and miseries of the past hour had left her with a feeling of vague unhappiness mingled with a sense of apprehension. While she had listened to the Duchess, while she had heard her bemoaning the loss of Lord Niall’s love, a question had sprung into her mind. Why had this happened now and at this moment?

Lord Niall was in love with Lady Wrexham, that was obvious, but why had he been brave enough to admit it to his stepmother? Why, when but a few days earlier he had been ready to lie about his visit to Inverness, had he been so frank now that the Duchess felt it impossible to remain at the castle? Something was happening, Iona thought, and she wondered what it might be.

Reaching the door of the Crimson Salon, she stood still. Two people were in the room, standing at the far end before a window that opened on to the balcony. They had their backs to the door and Iona could see them while they were unaware of her presence.

Lady Wrexham, gorgeously attired in the gown Iona had seen her maid taking down the passage, had a scarf of ermine draped round her shoulders. Her hair was unpowdered but elaborately arranged, and her hand, glittering with rings, was laid familiarly on Lord Niall’s arm.

“There are a vast number of things I should want to alter,” she said to him.

“The whole place shall be arranged exactly as you wish, my sweet,” Lord Niall replied.

Iona had the feeling that this was the end of their conversation and that they were about to turn from the window. Swiftly she moved away from the door and without really thinking where she was going moved down the passage towards the library. The door was open and a footman was replenishing the fire.

He glanced up as Iona entered and she recognised him as a flunkey who was often on duty at the top of the main stairs and to whom she usually said good morning and good night. She smiled at him now and he smiled back.

“’Tis a grand morning’, miss,” he said.

“I was thinking of going out,” Iona replied, “but I would like to speak with His Grace. Have you any idea where he is?”

“His Grace isna in the castle, miss,” the footman replied.

“He has gone riding, I suppose?” Iona questioned.

“Aye, ridin’ it is, miss,” the footman replied, “an’ His Grace started richt early frae wha’ I heard.”

Iona suddenly felt perturbed.

“Was there some reason for that?” she inquired. “Has His Grace gone on a journey?”

“I dinna ken for sure,” the footman replied, “but I heard ane o’ the grooms say that His Grace asked for his horse verra early this mom. He took naebody wi’ him, but gaed off on his ain. ’Tis strange noo I came tae think on it. I hae niver known His Grace dae tha’ afore an’ I hae been here for nigh on four year.”

“It does seem strange,” Iona said.

“But ye dinna hae tae fash aboot His Grace,” the footman went on. “He’s a fine mon an’ he can tak care o’ himsel’, can His Grace.”

There was no doubting the flunkey’s admiration for the Duke, but Iona was not reassured. Slowly she left the library. There was something wrong. Something was happening to everyone, to the Duchess, to the Duke, to Lady Wrexham and to Lord Niall. What it was she did not know, but it overshadowed her, dark and menacing. Suddenly she knew that she was afraid, yes, terribly, inexplicably afraid.

13

“The whole place shall be arranged exactly as you wish, my sweet,” Lord Niall replied, and he raised Lady Wrexham’s fingers to his lips. They were cold against the hungry warmth of his mouth, but he did not notice it, and after a moment Beatrice turned from the window and took her hand from him.

“I shall re-do this room,” she said almost petulantly. “I have always hated that shade of – ”

She stopped suddenly, her eyes looking critically round the great Crimson Salon, had fallen on a picture hanging between two of the windows. It was of the Duke and had been painted when he was eighteen. In the portrait, which had been executed skilfully, there was youth and a very young eagerness in the handsome face. His eyes seemed to behold something delectable, for there was a faint smile on his clear-cut lips.

Beatrice stared at the picture and there was a strange expression on her face. She walked towards the fireplace.

“Have you seen the Duke this morning?” she asked Lord Niall over her shoulder.

“No, why should I?” he asked. “Doubtless Ewan is busy with matters which concern the estate. Oh, darling, how long must I wait – ?”

“No, no, Niall,” Beatrice interrupted. “Let me think.”

She threw herself down in a chair by the fire, her fingers to her eyes. She was not really thinking. It was her feelings that concerned her, emotions which had welled up within her at the sight of the Duke’s portrait.

All the morning she had indulged her fancy by planning how she would alter and re-decorate the castle, were it to become hers. It was a very feminine amusement and if Lord Niall had been fool enough to take her seriously and believe that she might in fact spend the rest of her days with him in this benighted spot, she was not to blame for his stupidity.

But while she talked and while she permitted his caresses, something within herself cried out in agony. She tried not to think of last night and yet the memory of it was inescapable. From the moment when she had left the Duke’s bedchamber she had known this pain within herself, an agony that nothing could assuage.

She had believed for a little while that Lord Niall’s adoration would help her to forget the humiliation she had suffered, but that too was unforgettable. Sleepless until the first pale fingers of the dawn crept through the curtains, she had lain awake vowing vengeance, plotting her revenge, and now she knew that even that would bring her no relief, no escape from the miserable ache within her heart.

How often she had laughed at other women who were lovelorn, how often she had called them fools wasting their time yearning after a man who did not want them! Now she knew that love was a conqueror and one could only surrender to it. To fight against it was to be completely and utterly defeated.

Before such a love as she experienced now she was weaponless, helpless and utterly without defence, and because she was so unused to finding herself in such circumstances, Beatrice squirmed and fought against her very self – warring within her own person.

For a moment she almost loathed her own body that it could betray her so completely, then, as she thought of the Duke’s face as she had last seen it, of his eyes cold and indifferent to her beauty, she knew a devouring jealousy which seemed to bum away her heart within her. If she could not have him, then no other woman would.

Swiftly her mind worked, planning the future for herself and for him. She would destroy him, destroy him utterly, and then return to England to the Marquis of Severn. At St. James’s in the world she knew, and over which she reigned an uncrowned queen she would forget. Yes, it would be easy to forget Skaig Castle and the misery it had brought her. If the Duke were dead, she was sure that she would be relieved of this agony within her, if he lived, then never would she know one moment’s peace.

Beatrice took her fingers from her eyes. Lord Niall was looking down at her, his dark eyes on her face, sinister and unsmiling, the lines between nose and mouth heavily etched in the morning sunlight. There was something in his expression that made her shudder. She was not sure why, but for a moment he seemed utterly repugnant, overshadowing her forebodingly. Then the illusion passed, for he went down on one knee beside her to kiss her hand and she remembered that he was but a slave and a man besotted by her beauty.