Imperfect Pretence

by Imperfect Pretence (retail) (epub)

  ‘It is the duke’s,’ Constance had replied. ‘I remember his taking it out and offering it to my uncle.’ He had not actually taken any himself, she recalled.

  ‘It ought to be returned to him as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ Constance had said quickly.

  Her aunt had looked at her in some surprise. ‘Given your dislike, I would not have supposed that you would have wanted to go anywhere near him,’ she had said frankly.

  Constance had blushed. She had made her offer from impulse, scarcely knowing why. Searching frantically for a reason, she had found inspiration and said, ‘I ought to tell him that Mr Grayleigh will be sure to bring Melinda in good time for our outing. I should hate us to find him still in bed!’

  She had not quite reached the front door of Beacon Tower when she had heard the sound of voices and clashing steel proceeding from a walled garden on the left-hand side of the house. Curious to discover what this might mean, she had made her way to the narrow gateway and walked through.

  She had observed two men with swords in their hands, clad in breeches and shirts, and in their stockinged feet. They had both been so absorbed by their activity that they had not noticed her at first. She had no brothers or close male kin, and had never seen men fight in this way before, so she had been unable to tell at first whether they were fighting in earnest or practising. The one facing her had been Abdas Okoro.

  ‘Too much soft living,’ the African had taunted, his teeth flashing white. ‘You are out of condition.’

  ‘I’ll show you who’s out of condition,’ his opponent had answered, following up his words with some lightning swordplay. That was when Constance had recognized his voice as being that of the duke. She had always seen him in formal attire before. In his shirtsleeves with a mane of dark waving hair tumbling about his shoulders, a kerchief tied about his crown, he had been unrecognizable at first. It had become clear that this was a friendly bout, so she had watched with interest, waiting for a break in the fighting in order to make her presence known.

  Eventually, the duke had succeeded in driving Okoro a good few steps backwards, and had finally managed to flick his sword out of his hand. ‘Think twice before you say I’m out of condition,’ Max had said, picking it up with the point of his own, and flicking it so that his opponent could catch it. It was at this moment that Abdas had noticed Constance, and indicated her presence to the duke with a movement of his head.

  ‘Miss Church, you should have told us that you were here,’ Max had said, as he had turned and bowed, pulling off his kerchief. ‘You must forgive our undress.’

  ‘I didn’t want to spoil your sport,’ Constance had replied a little breathlessly, conscious that she had not told the whole tale. In truth she had found something very compelling in the spectacle of the duke exerting himself in such a way. As he had stood before her, still a little out of breath himself, his shirt open at the neck revealing a hint of chest hair, a shiver had overtaken her from her head to her toes.

  She had managed to complete her errand, passing on the snuff box and giving her message. She very much feared that she had sounded like a nitwit, so flustered had she been. The fleeting spark that she had detected in the duke’s eye had seemed to indicate that, to her great annoyance, he was well aware of her state of mind.

  The two young ladies set off for Beacon Tower at about eleven o’clock, accompanied by Lucy, the maid who assisted Constance and Miss Fellowes with their dressing when necessary. Miss Fellowes had been invited by the duke to join the party but given the nature of the day, she decided to send Lucy in her place for propriety’s sake. ‘It is not a good day for sketching,’ she told her niece, looking disapprovingly at the mist. ‘Another time, perhaps.’ Lucy, dressed in her best and with her eyes sparkling, had no complaint to make at this unaccustomed outing.

  As they walked, Gussy pranced about them, now sniffing at something of great interest amongst a clump of grass or by a gatepost, now trotting ahead, and always returning to Melinda’s side at her command.

  Constance had been a little concerned at Melinda’s walking this distance, but her friend assured her that there would be no difficulty. ‘My ankle is stronger every day,’ she explained. ‘Mother was exclaiming about how I had twisted it and begging me to be careful just as the duke was passing last night. Before I knew what was happening, Mr Okoro had swept me up in his arms.’

  ‘How vexatious for you,’ Constance murmured demurely, causing her friend to throw a sharp glance in her direction.

  The mist obstinately refused to lift as they walked. It even obscured their view of Beacon Tower itself as they entered the gateway. A figure emerged from the obscurity and began to approach them, and the ladies soon realized that it was Abdas Okoro. Gussy, taken by surprise at the advent of this stranger, snarled and launched himself towards the newcomer, intent only upon protecting his beloved mistress from this unknown and possibly dangerous individual. ‘Gussy!’ Melinda exclaimed in consternation, whilst Lucy uttered a tiny scream and hid behind her mistress. ‘Stay!’

  Constance had seen many reactions to Melinda’s monstrous hound, from people running away, to someone actually jumping over a hedge in order to avoid him. On one occasion, they had been approached by a drunken man. He had been merry and not really troublesome. Gussy, however, had taken great exception to his attitude, and had chased him into a nearby duck pond, and it had taken considerable coaxing to persuade him to come out. On another, they had been shopping in Aylsham on market day when a lad had cut the strings of Melinda’s reticule and attempted to run off with it. At her command, Gussy had given chase, brought the thief down, and stood over him, paws astride, fur bristling.

  By way of contrast, Abdas neither ran away nor attempted to defend himself. Instead, he crouched down and stretched out his hands, making an odd humming noise. Gussy came to a halt, looked at the man in front of him, tilted his head to one side, made an inquisitive sound, then lay down with his tongue lolling out. The African said a few words to him in an incomprehensible language, stroked his head, then straightened. ‘Ladies,’ he said, bowing.

  ‘How remarkable,’ said Melinda, rising from her curtsy, her eyes very round. ‘He will obey no one except myself, normally. What did you do?’

  ‘I showed him that I was no threat, and at the same time conveyed to him that his position is inferior to my own,’ he replied. ‘Will you come inside? It will not be worth visiting the lighthouse today, but the duke has other plans.’

  They allowed him to usher them into the house. He snapped his fingers, whereupon Gussy obediently took his place at Abdas’s heels, so that it would have been impossible for a stranger to detect to whom the dog actually belonged.

  Their host entered the hall as they came in, greeted them and exclaimed, as he saw Gussy, ‘Good God, man, what have you acquired there? A donkey?’

  ‘He is a wolfhound and he belongs to me, Your Grace,’ said Melinda, curtsying. ‘I have never seen him so responsive with another.’

  ‘Abdas has a way with animals,’ he replied. ‘Will you come into the drawing room? Our planned expedition cannot take place today for obvious reasons, so we must decide what to do instead.’

  There was nothing to be seen of the fine view from the drawing room window beyond about twelve feet. ‘It is usually possible to see the sea from here,’ said Max. ‘I fear that you will have to take my word for it, however.’

  ‘It is always a source of regret to me that my uncle’s house, though close to the sea in distance, has no view of it at all,’ Constance told him.

  Max nodded. ‘When I first entered this room, I ran over to the windows like a child. I could hardly contain my excitement.’

  The pleasures of outdoor walking would obviously be extremely limited that day, so the duke offered to show his visitors around the house, after which they would all be served with refreshments. ‘No doubt your dog will need a walk, so, after we have eaten, perhaps we might walk down to the church,’ he suggeste
d. ‘Who knows, the weather might even improve sufficiently to ensure that we catch sight of it before we bump into it!’

  All of these suggestions were readily accepted and, after a glass of wine, the duke proceeded to escort his visitors around his home.

  To begin with, they remained very much one party. As they reached the long gallery, they separated into two couples, Abdas taking a volume of maps from the shelf in order to point something out to Melinda, whilst Max and Constance looked at a painting that someone had done of the house and grounds a hundred years before. It was an imagined view from above, and appeared to depict an extensive estate.

  ‘You know, I can’t help thinking that the artist must have exercised his imagination to quite an extraordinary degree,’ Max remarked. ‘The property shown here must cover at least three hundred acres.’ Lucy, after a cursory look at the pictures on the wall, went to look out of the window.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Constance replied. ‘Maybe an ancestor of yours gambled away half his inheritance.’

  ‘No ancestor of mine, Miss Church,’ said Max indignantly, then wanted to curse himself for his indiscretion.

  Luckily, Constance took his remarks another way. ‘No, of course, I had forgotten that you inherited indirectly from the last baron,’ she said. ‘I know what it must be! Your estate must have extended out into where the sea is now. There was another village out there until the fourteenth century.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Oh yes. You can still see the ruins occasionally at very low tides. And of course’ – and here her voice assumed sepulchral tones – ‘when the sea is rough, you can hear the tolling of the church bell.’

  ‘You terrify me!’ Max declared, raising his hands in a gesture of submission. ‘From now on, I shall sleep with a pillow over my head. You need not tell me, of course, that to hear it will be a certain omen of my own death.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Constance answered, enjoying this banter rather more than she might have been prepared to admit. ‘If you were to see Black Shuck, however, that would be a different matter.’

  ‘Black Shuck? And what might that be?’

  Lucy turned away from the window at this reference to a legend that she knew well. ‘Black Shuck is a huge black dog with one burning eye, Your Grace,’ she said. ‘Isn’t he, Miss Connie?’

  Constance nodded. ‘See him at night or hear him howling, and you may expect your immediate demise,’ she intoned in the same sinister voice that she had used before.

  ‘Good God,’ Max exclaimed, pointing at Gussy. The wolfhound was stretched out on the floor next to his mistress, looking like one dead. Lucy knelt down to stroke the dog, who received this attention with a rhythmic thump of his tail.

  Constance laughed. ‘And you let him in! You were foolhardy indeed, Your Grace.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ he agreed, laughing himself. ‘Do you know, I wish you would call me Max.’

  ‘Certainly not! It would be most improper,’ Constance replied, wishing she did not sound like someone’s maiden aunt. ‘Besides—’

  ‘Well, Miss Church? “Besides” what?’

  Constance paused, then went on reluctantly, ‘I had gained the distinct impression that you enjoyed your exalted rank.’

  ‘You are mistaken, ma’am,’ said Max. His tone was still pleasant although his gaze had lost its former warmth. ‘I play the duke because I must. Believe me, I find nothing agreeable in my position.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Constance echoed, wrinkling her brow.

  Max looked back at the picture for a few minutes before speaking. ‘The dukedom is a valuable one, both a blessing and a burden to the man bearing responsibility for it.’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘You speak as though it had nothing to do with you.’

  There was a tiny pause before he answered. ‘The title of duke has but lately been bestowed upon me,’ Max replied. ‘I have yet to discover all that it entails. And yet—’ His voice died away.

  ‘And yet?’ she prompted him.

  He looked straight at her. ‘And yet I would willingly forgo it all for the chance to have this little piece of paradise,’ he said. Suddenly, as their eyes met, it felt as if he was not really talking about Beacon Tower at all.

  The murmur of voices, followed by gentle laughter from Melinda, broke the spell. Constance glanced towards the other couple, glad of something that might divert the duke’s attention from her flushed cheeks. ‘Gussy has definitely taken to Mr Okoro,’ she said, indicating the still-recumbent Gussy.

  ‘He has an affinity with all animals,’ Max replied as they walked from the painting of the estate to the next, which portrayed a stout, rather bad-tempered-looking woman in Tudor dress. ‘We were attacked by an enormous dog in the back streets of Portugal on one occasion. He crouched down and, well, crooned to it in some kind of way. In no time at all, the brute was lying down next to us, its tongue hanging out.’

  Constance nodded, remembering what had happened in the drive a short time before. ‘You must have been very relieved,’ she remarked.

  ‘It was damn … dashed inconvenient,’ Max said frankly. ‘The brute refused to leave us, and stood whining on the quayside as we rowed back to the ship.’

  ‘He is a remarkable man.’

  ‘What’s more, I suspect that his blood might be bluer even than’ – Max paused, then added smoothly – ‘than mine. Shall we rejoin them?’ Constance went with him to look at the book of maps that Abdas and Melinda still had open in front of them. She found herself wondering under what circumstances an English aristocrat might find himself exploring the back streets of Portugal.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Although the mist lifted slightly, the day was still quite hazy, so after Max had completed his guided tour, they enjoyed some delicious food, prepared by Mrs Hays. She had accepted employment at Beacon Tower, begun immediately, and had treated with contempt any suggestion that she might need time to settle in. They then took a walk down to the church, whilst Lucy, who had happily eaten some bread and cheese with Mrs Hays, ran back to The Brambles.

  Keeping their earlier pairings, Max walked with Constance whilst Abdas gave Melinda his arm. Gussy darted here and there, investigating what seemed worthy of his notice, and always returning to his mistress. Like Constance, Melinda, too, had explained the legend of Black Shuck to her companion. ‘It’s to be hoped that no one mistakes your dog for the hellhound,’ Abdas observed, only half in jest.

  ‘I am very careful with him,’ Melinda replied frankly. ‘Although it is a foolish legend, some do lend credence to it, so he is never allowed outside the perimeter of the farm on his own, for instance, and particularly not at night.’

  ‘The reputation of the phantom would be enhanced, if someone actually died of fright after seeing him,’ Abdas pointed out.

  ‘What a thing to have on one’s conscience, though.’ She paused. ‘Are there dogs in … in your country?’ she asked him tentatively.

  ‘How can you ask me when you have one yourself?’ he replied.

  ‘I meant Africa – the country where you came from.’

  ‘Africa is not one country; it is many states; but it is no longer my home.’ She said nothing, looking at him with a puzzled expression. ‘What makes a home, Miss Grayleigh?’ he asked her.

  She looked around. ‘The countryside,’ she said. ‘Knowing a place so well that you could find your way around with your eyes shut. But that’s not really it. It’s Mama and Papa and my brother Stephen; and Gussy of course; and my friends; our servants; Connie—’ Her voice faded.

  He looked back down at her, his expression bleak. ‘The people,’ he said. ‘What do you think happened to my people when the slave traders came? There was some resistance; those who resisted, like my father, or who were too old to be of any value, were slaughtered there and then.’ Melinda gasped, her hands going to her mouth. He went on, as if she had made no reaction. ‘My mother also perished. Those of us who were young and strong were herded together and put in chai
ns. The last thing we saw as we left was our village being burned to the ground. There are no places for me to explore with my eyes shut, Miss Grayleigh.’

  ‘Mr Okoro, forgive me; I should not have been so crass as to remind you,’ said Melinda.

  ‘We were walked to the ship across many miles,’ he continued. He was looking ahead, recalling the horrors of the past and not seeing what lay before him. It was as if now that he had begun to tell his story, some inner compulsion bound him to continue. ‘Some perished on the journey. Others were lashed to make them keep walking. Once on the ship, the nightmare was only just beginning. Have you seen what a slave ship is like, Miss Grayleigh?’

  She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I saw a print of the diagram made by Mr Brookes for Mr Clarkson,’ she said. ‘I cannot believe that there are those who would treat human beings in such a way.’

  ‘Believe it,’ he said grimly. ‘We were loaded like so much meat for sale, kept under a grille so we could not venture forth into the light of day. Many others perished in the foul conditions.’ He paused. ‘My wife was one.’

  ‘Your wife!’

  ‘She was expecting a child, so she was vulnerable.’ Melinda caught hold of his hand, and he squeezed hers in return. She glanced briefly at Max and Constance, who had moved ahead whilst Gussy had been indulging in a prolonged sniff at something of great interest. They were not looking back.

  ‘So how did you escape?’ Melinda asked. ‘I remember you telling us how Mr Persault saved you from the water; but if there was a grille across the hold, how did you get out when the boat sank?’

  Abdas shrugged. ‘There is good and bad in everyone,’ he said. ‘The call came to abandon ship. All the men ran to scramble into the rowing boat. I watched their running feet and knew despair. Then I saw one man pause and hesitate. He came back to unlock the grille, risking his own place in the boat.’

  ‘Oh, God bless him for that,’ Melinda cried. ‘I do pray that he was spared.’

  ‘I must admit to hoping that if any were saved, he was among them,’ Abdas agreed.