A Duke in Danger (18 page)

But she had never envisaged for one moment that he would come out onto the roof, but rather that he would bolt the trap-door to make it impossible for Jason to enter the Castle.

The Duke, however, was looking at his cousin with contempt.

“Do you really imagine that you can murder me and not be hanged for your crime?”

“It is unfortunate that you were foolish enough to come up to the Tower when you could have died far more comfortably in your bed,” Jason sneered, “and to bring that tiresome chit Alvina with you was an even greater mistake.”

“Certainly from your point of view,” the Duke said. “Criminals always dislike a witness to their crime.”

He was talking normally, but at the same time he was trying to work out how he could reach Jason and knock him out without being badly wounded by the long blade of the knife which was now pointing towards him.

The Duke never under-estimated an enemy, and he knew he had been stupid and foolhardy to have come up on the Tower empty-handed while Jason was sure to be well armed.

The Duke knew it was the sort of knife that could pierce deeply into a man’s body, and if it entered his heart there would be no chance of anybody being able to save his life.

“Alvina will of course have an unfortunate fall from the top of the Tower,” Jason replied in answer to the Duke’s last remark, “while you will have impaled yourself, quite by accident, of course, on the knife, which will have only your finger-prints on it.”

“Very carefully planned!” the Duke exclaimed. “At the same time, Jason, things seldom work out exactly as one wishes them to do, and I warn you that I shall fight ferociously both to live and to ensure that you do not take my place as the next Duke.”

Jason’s laugh sounded eerie and not human.

Now he moved a little farther up the sloping roof so as to be higher than the Duke, and he was pointing the knife at him almost as if it were a sword.

Alvina knew that in such a position it was almost impossible for the Duke to approach him without being wounded or perhaps killed in the attempt.

It was easy to see that Jason, without his fancy coat and wearing only a shirt, was far stronger and more athletic than he appeared when dolled up as a Dandy.

Alvina could see the muscles in his arms and knew, as she had told the Duke, that like a cornered rat he would fight dangerously, unsportingly, unfairly, because from his point of view there was so much at stake.

he had become so frightened while the two men were talking that she felt as if her legs would no longer support her.

Now she sank down on the leads, half-kneeling, half
-
sitting, feeling her heart beat tumultuously in her breast from sheer terror.

As she watched the two men eying each other, Jason waiting to strike to kill, she felt desperately that only God could save the Duke.

“Save him! Save him!” she prayed frantically. “Oh, God, let him live!”

She felt as if every instinct, every nerve in her body, was tense with the agonising plea of her prayer.

Then, because she felt almost as if she would faint at the horror of what was happening, she put out her hand to steady herself, and felt something hard lying on the leads beside her.

She thought it was a stone.

Then as her fingers closed over it, she realised it was a hand that must have become detached from one of the statues which decorated the roof of the centre block to which the Tower was attached.

Without thinking, she held on to it tightly, and as she did so, an idea came to her.

It was almost as if Richard were beside her, saying as he had in the old days:

“Come on, ’Vina, try to bowl like a man rather than throw like a woman!”

So she had learnt to do what he told her, and when there was nobody better to play with him, she had bowled to him so that he could practise his batting for the Cricket XI at Eton.

The two men were still watching each other closely, and because she loved him Alvina knew that the Duke was thinking his only chance was to spring at Jason and topple him over before he had a chance to drive the knife into his body.

It was a slender chance, a very slender one, because Jason was on a higher level than he was, and his hatred had given him in some ways a superior strength.

The Duke made one last plea

“Put down that deadly weapon, Jason,” he said, “and let us talk this over sensibly. I will even arrange that you shall have more money than I have already promised when you reach France.”

“I do not want your money,” Jason snarled, “I want your title, and that is what I intend to have! Then I shall be head of the family—I, Jason Harling, whom you have all despised—and you will be dead, damn you!”

As he spoke he made a stabbing gesture with the knife, and Alvina had a sudden fear that he might throw it at the Duke.

Raising her arm, she threw the stone hand with all her strength in exactly the way Richard had taught her, aiming at Jason’s head.

It flew through the air, catching him on the side of his cheek below the eye with a violence that threw him off balance.

He staggered, but he was standing precariously on the sloping roof, and his feet slipped.

He tried to save himself, dropping the knife as he flung out his hands towards the higher level of the castellated parapet, but he missed and staggered again.

Then, so swiftly that it was hard to believe it was happening, he tripped over the lower part of the wall, and there was just one last glimpse of his feet silhouetted against the sky before he disappeared completely.

As he did so, Alvina gave a muffled cry and, rising, flung herself against the Duke to hide her face on his shoulder.

She was trembling so violently that he put his arms round her, for the shock and terror of what had happened had made her unable to stand alone.

Then, as he heard her gasping for breath as if she had been near drowning, he said very quietly:

“It is all right, my darling, you saved my life, and he will not trouble either of us any more!”

As Alvina felt she could not have heard him aright, she raised her face to look up at him in bewilderment.

Then as he looked down at her in the moonlight, he pulled her closer still and his lips came down on hers.

Only as he kissed her did Alvina know that this was what she had been longing for, wanting, and dreaming about, but she had never thought it would happen.

For a moment the closeness of him, the comfort of his arms, and the fact that he was alive were all a part of his lips.

Then as his kiss became more insistent, more possessive, she felt her fear vanish, and instead there was a wonder like a shaft of golden sunshine moving up from her breast into her throat.

It was so wonderful, so perfect, so much a part of her dreams and the moonlight, that she felt it was she who must have died and reached a Heaven in which there was no fear but only the Duke and the wonder of him.

When he kissed her, the Duke knew to his astonishment that he had found, when he had least expected it, what he had been searching for all his life.

As he felt the softness of Alvina’s lips beneath his, he knew that she was not only part of the Castle and the ideals he had had of it when he was young, but the love he had thought was unobtainable because it only existed in fairy-stories and his dreams.

The feelings she was arousing in him were fine and spiritual, and different in every way from what he had felt for any other woman.

They were also part of the honour and chivalry that had always lain at the back of his mind, being the ideal for which all men should strive.

He knew as he held Alvina closer and still closer to him that this was what he had wanted to find in the woman he made his wife but had thought it impossible.

Only when he was aware that she was quivering in his arms, but very differently from when she had turned to him in fear and horror, did he raise his head to say:

“My precious—I love you!”

“You
...
love me?” she whispered. “And I
...
love you. I knew tonight when I thought you might
...
die that if you did ... I must die too.”

Because what she felt had been so intense, so terrifying, for a moment the fear was back in her eyes and in her voice.

Then, as if it was unimportant, she asked:

“Did you
...
really say that you
...
loved me?”

“I love you,” the Duke confirmed, “and, my darling, what could be more appropriate than you should have saved my life, so that now I can dedicate it to you, and to everything you wish me to do for all time.”

Alvina gave a little cry, and lifting her face to his she said:

“You are so
...
wonderful! I knew God could not let you die
...
and when I prayed ... He told me what to do!”

As if her words made the Duke remember what they had passed through and that they were still standing on top of the Tower, with Jason dead on the ground below, he said:

“Let us get away from here. It will be easier to talk inside.”

Alvina did not move. Instead she said:

“I shall
...
always remember that it was here
...
with your head against the stars
...
that you
...
first kissed me.”

Because the way she spoke sounded as if she was enchanted, the Duke kissed her again, his lips holding her captive, his arms making it hard for her to breathe.

Yet she felt as if they were both enveloped by something sacred, something very spiritual and part of God.

Then, as if he forced himself to be sensible, the Duke said:

“Go down the stairs, my darling. I wish to be rid of that unpleasant weapon before I join you.”

As she drew away from him, Alvina realised that when she had run to him after Jason’s fall, she had left her shawl behind.

Now she put her hands up to her breasts, blushed, and said:

“
I am sorry ... I forgot I was only
...
wearing a nightgown.”

The Duke smiled.

“
You look very lovely, my darling, if a little unconventional.”

Then, as if she excited him, he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her again.

His kiss was different from what it had been before, more demanding, more passionate, but at the same time he kept control of his desire, fearing to frighten her.

As he felt her surrender herself to his insistence, he knew that while the softness and warmth of her excited him, so that his body throbbed for her, it was still something very different from anything he had felt before.

Perhaps reverence was the right word, or simply love, the real love he never expected to find.

He raised his head to look down at Alvina’s radiant face and shining eyes.

“I love you,” he said as if it was a vow.

“I love you until there is nothing
...
else ... in the whole world but you,” she whispered.

Then as the Duke let her go, she blushed again and
bent to pick up her shawl, before she moved carefully towards the trap-door.

As she did so, the Duke climbed over the sloping roof to where on the other side of it Jason had dropped the long, sharp knife with which he had intended to kill him.

He picked it up, and then, feeling as if it was an omen of the future, he flung the knife, gleaming evilly in the moonlight, over the side of the Tower.

He knew it would fall into a clump of thick shrubs, where it would doubtless be a very long time before it
was discovered.

As he did so, he felt that he threw from himself and Alvina everything that was wicked and dangerous, and that now he could protect and keep her, and all those who depended on him, safe for as long as he should live.

Then as he turned towards the trap-door, he took one quick glance over the side of the Tower.

Vaguely in the shadow of the Tower he could see, spread-eagled on the ground far below, the prostrate form of Jason Harling.

The Duke knew there was no chance that after falling from such a great height he could still be alive, and in the morning when he was found he would think up an explanation.

He could say that Jason had wished to climb the Tower for the last time before he left England, and nobody need ever know there was any other reason for such an exploit.

Turning away, the Duke followed Alvina, who was moving down the twisting staircase towards the door which led to the end of the corridor.

He pulled the trap-door to behind him, but he did not bolt it.

He felt as he left it open that it was symbolic of the fact that there was no longer anything to fear, and that not only his life but the contents of the Castle and the people who lived there were also safe.

They were under the protection of the Power that had saved him from what he was well aware might have been an ignominious death.

He reached the door into the corridor and Alvina was waiting. He thought as she looked up at him than an inner light illuminated her face.

He put his arms round her as together they walked towards the Master Suite and in through the door they had left open.

The bedroom was still bathed in moonlight, and the Duke took Alvina to the open window.