A Duke in Danger (13 page)

He jumped to his feet, and the Duke said:

“I have to go out again, Henry, and I expect I shall be late, but as soon as I have left I want you to run to the Duke of Melchester’s stables at the back of Melchester House in Park Lane. Do you know where I mean?”

“I think so, Your Grace.”

“Wake the coachman and tell him to come round here immediately to collect Lady Isobel Dalton and take her home.”

“I’ll do that, Your Grace.”

“When the carriage arrives,” the Duke went on, “fetch the head housemaid—I have forgotten her name—and ask her to help Lady Isobel downstairs and into the carriage.”

He thought the footman looked puzzled, and added: “Explain to her that Lady Isobel is feeling ill and is therefore lying down until the carriage arrives. Do you understand?”

“I understands, Your Grace.”

“Then do exactly as I have told you,” the Duke said, “and try not to make any mistakes.”

“I’ll do my best, Your Grace.”

“Good man!”

The Duke turned towards the door and Henry hastily unlocked it for him. Only as he stepped outside did the footman say, as if he had just thought of it:

“Your Grace don’t want a carriage?”

“No, I am not going far,” the Duke replied.

He walked away quickly, finding his way to Gerald Chertson’s lodgings in Half-Moon Street, where the sleepy porter opened the door for him.

The Duke climbed a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor, where Gerald rented two small rooms for himself and one for his servant.

It took the Duke a little time to get any answer as he knocked on the flat door.

When finally it was opened by Gerald in his nightshirt his friend
s
tared at him in astonishment.

“Ivar! What are you doing here at this hour?”

The Duke walked past him into the bedroom, where Gerald had lit one candle before responding to the insistent noise which had awakened him.

Briefly, in as few words as possible, the Duke explained what had happened.

“So that was why Isobel left early!” Gerald exclaimed. “We might have guessed she was up to some mischief!”

The Duke did not reply, and he said:

“You realise what this means, Ivar? She will tell her father tomorrow where she has been all night, and the Duke of Melchester will insist that you marry her.”

“That is where you are mistaken,” the Duke replied quietly. “I have sent my footman to Melchester House for her carriage to take her home, and have told him to
wake my head housemaid and explain that Isobel has been taken ill and she is to help her into it.”

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.