“I thought you might be electioneering, Letty,” the Duke said.
“George is doing that and very disagreeable it makes him!”
The Duke had anticipated that the Honourable George Sherwood would, in fact, not be at home as he was fighting a by-election for the Parliamentary seat in the constituency where he lived.
“Let me look at you,” Letty Sherwood said, holding the Duke’s hands in hers.
Her red lips curved invitingly, as she commented,
“You have not changed, except perhaps you are more magnificent, more handsome and even more exciting than I remember.”
“You flatter me!” the Duke smiled.
He released her hands and walked towards the grog tray that stood in the corner of the room.
“May I help myself?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “Shall I ring for champagne?”
“Brandy will suit me,” the Duke answered, picking up the decanter. “I am thirsty because I travelled here so fast.”
“You wanted to see me?”
“That is why I have come.”
“Nolan, I can hardly believe it! If you only knew how much I have missed you, how boring everything has been since you left me for the nonsensical reason that you liked George too much to continue deceiving him.”
She said the words lightly so that there was no reproach in them, but her eyes, as she watched him walk, a glass in his hand, towards the fireplace, were very revealing.
It was true, the Duke had used the excuse that he did not wish to deceive George Sherwood, as a way of ending what had been a delightful interlude with his delectable wife.
He had not been Letty Sherwood’s first lover nor was he likely to be her last.
But he had faced the fact that because she was becoming so passionately in love with him, he was walking on dangerous ground and an acute sense of self-preservation had made him extricate himself from the liaison before it went too far.
Today he had deliberately called on Letty Sherwood because he believed she would prove an effective antidote to the disturbance within his mind.
She was certainly extremely attractive, he thought now and he had found her vivaciousness and her irrepressible joie de vivre hard to find in the other women who had followed her in his affections.
Letty Sherwood was insatiable in her desire for what she called ‘love’ and it was, in fact, the only thing she really enjoyed.
The Duke had often wondered, apart from the fact that she found him a very satisfying lover, how much she actually cared for him as a man.
There was no doubt that to have captured the Duke of Kingswood, if only for a brief period, had been a feather in her cap Socially.
When they danced together or he sought her out at some reception or assembly, she seemed to sparkle almost as brilliantly as the diamonds round her neck, because she knew every other woman in the room was envying her.
Now he told himself with a sense of satisfaction that Letty certainly cared for him enough to be undisguisedly pleased to see him again, even though when he had left her, she had been genuinely distressed.
“You are here! You are actually here!” Letty was saying as if she could hardly believe it. “Why have you come?”
“To see you,” the Duke answered.
“After not having come near me for almost a year?” she queried. “Really, Nolan, I am not entirely half-witted. There must be another reason.”
“Perhaps I wish to reassure myself that you are as attractive as I remembered,” the Duke answered her slowly.
She smiled at him, but he saw that she did not believe him and after a moment she enquired tentatively,
“Can it be Delyth Maulden who has brought you here?”
The Duke raised his eyebrows.
“What has Delyth Maulden to do with it?”
“That is what I want to know. The whole of London is talking about the duel in which Richard killed Joceline Gadsby.”
“I am aware of that, Letty. There has been no one from the Regent to the crossing sweeper in St. James’s Street who has not questioned me about it.”
Letty laughed.
“I am quite certain that annoyed you. You have always hated questions, especially when you cannot answer them.”
“Who says I cannot answer them?” the Duke enquired.
“Not really truthfully and don’t bother to contradict me. I know there is something mysterious behind this whole episode and, if there was not, why should Delyth Maulden hate you so ferociously?”
“Does she hate me? If she does, I am not aware of it,” the Duke remarked.
“That is untrue for one thing,” Letty Sherwood retorted. “But be careful. Delyth will do you an injury if it is at all possible.”
The Duke took another sip of his brandy and Letty Sherwood continued in a different tone of voice,
“I am serious! Delyth – and I have known her since we were children together – is a dangerous woman!”
“What are you suggesting she will do?” the Duke asked with a twist of his lips. “Shoot me? In which case she will hang for it.”
“She might do something more subtle, like putting a snake in your bed or poisoning your food!”
The Duke laughed.
“Those sort of things happen only in fiction. I think you will find that Delyth, like most women, just talks too much.”
“Is it true that she is going to marry Richard?”
The Duke shook his head.
“I can assure you and this is the truth, Letty, that Delyth Maulden will not marry Richard, or, if she does, it will be over my dead body!”
“That is exactly what I am afraid of.”
The Duke put down his glass.
“Stop trying to frighten me,” he said. “Let’s talk about ourselves. Why are you not at your husband’s side soliciting votes? I hear he has a rather formidable opponent.”
“Oh, George will win and, quite frankly, I am sick of talking to yokels and kissing dirty babies.”
“I should have thought there was quite a reasonable alternative to that at any rate,” the Duke said.
For a moment two dark eyes stared at him questioningly.
Then swiftly Letty rose from the chair in which she had been sitting and moved towards him.
“Nolan! Do you really mean that?”
Her arms were round his neck pulling his head down to hers. Then her lips found the Duke’s and she pressed herself against him.
There was something greedy and almost over-eager in Letty’s kisses which he remembered well. There was also the seductive exotic perfume she always used and the manner in which sensuously her body moved against his.
He had forgotten nothing, the Duke thought, as his arms enveloped her.
Then he realised that something had changed, something was missing, that had always been there before.
It was, quite frankly, that for the first time since he had known her, Letty aroused in him no response of any sort!
She was close to him, he was kissing her, or rather she was kissing him, but the desire she had always ignited in him in the past and the flames of passion which had been an inseparable part of their relationship, had gone.
For a moment the Duke could hardly believe it.
He had left Letty Sherwood when his mind had warned him to do so, but his body had still been easily aroused by her fascinating and seductive ways, with which she had attracted him in the first place.
Now, incredibly, he might, he thought, have been kissing a stone.
Letty, however, was unaware of his feelings.
“This is like old times,” she murmured against his lips, “and I want you! I want you as I always have done – and always will!”
She pressed herself even closer, kissed him again, then still with her arms around his neck, asked softly,
“How long can you stay? I take a rest after luncheon and George will not be back until teatime.”
It was an invitation which the Duk
e knew he dare not accept.
He had come to see Letty Sherwood because he believed that she was necessary to him at this very moment and that the fiery desire that she had always been able to ignite in him would solve his immediate problem.
Now, incredibly, she had nothing to offer him and he knew he had somehow to extricate himself from an embarrassing situation.
“I am afraid, Letty, that while I would like to have luncheon with you, I shall have to leave immediately afterwards. I have an appointment that I cannot break.”
“Oh – Nolan!”
Letty’s tone was eloquent with reproach.
“I am sorry.”
She kissed him passionately before she sighed,
“Never mind. It is wonderful to see you and I shall be returning to London next week and we can meet there. It is really easier than here, as you know.”
The Duke did know and he stifled an impulse to say that he would be detained in the country all next week and would therefore not be in London.
Letty drew away from him but her mouth still seemed to be inviting his.
“I will just go and tell them you will be here for luncheon,” she told him, “and tp make sure that George’s best claret is brought up from the cellar. Then we will have a glass of champagne together to celebrate your return.”
She reached the door while she was still speaking and when he was alone, the Duke turned round to look at himself in the mirror that stood over the mantelpiece.
As he tidied his cravat that had been slightly crumpled by Letty’s arms, he told himself he was behaving like a cad.
But he really had had no idea when he had set out to visit an old flame, that the fire that had still glowed among the ashes after their love affair ended, was finally and completely extinguished.
‘Why?’ he asked himself. ‘Why?’
And he was afraid of the answer to his question.
Always he had remained friends with the women he had loved.
He did, in fact, occasionally return to them, simply because some of the pleasure they had given him still remained alive.
Yet where Letty was concerned, what he had felt for her was dead, completely and absolutely dead and in a manner he had not expected.
She came back into the room and he turned almost guiltily from the contemplation of his own face.
With an experienced eye, he watched her moving towards him over the carpet and appreciated the manner in which her fashionable gown moulded her figure and the way she carried her small head proudly upon her long neck.
He had always told her she looked like a figure on a Greek vase and, as a connoisseur of beauty, he had found that he enjoyed looking at her as well as touching her.
Now the former was still true, but he had no wish to touch her again.
Before she reached him, moving with the eagerness of a woman who knows that a lover’s arms are waiting for her, he walked towards the window.
“Your garden looks better than I have ever seen it,” he remarked. “Is that due to you or to George?”
“George!” Letty replied briefly. “I am not interested in gardening, Nolan.”
“But I am!” the Duke said firmly. “Come and show me your lilacs, Letty. I want to order some more for Kingswood.”
He put his hand in hers and drew her through the French windows onto the terrace outside.
“No, Nolan!” she protested, but the Duke was determined.
He told himself as they walked side-by-side over the smooth green lawn, that he would still get his own way where Benedicta was concerned, but it was obvious Letty would be of no help.
Because what he had planned had been a failure and the Duke did not like failure, he drove back to Kingswood after luncheon in a rather worse frame of mind than when he had started out.
It had taken all his ingenuity to persuade Letty that he could not cancel the mythical appointment that was waiting for him at home and stay with her.
Ostensibly she rested in her boudoir which opened out of her bedroom and there had been occasions in the past, when her ‘rest’ had provided them with an hour at least, when they would not be disturbed.
When he had driven away, the Duke had known somewhat guiltily, that he left behind a woman in whom he had aroused hopes that quite certainly would not materialise.
‘What is the matter with me?’ he asked himself savagely and again found it impossible to face the answer.
*
He drove home at a faster rate than he had travelled at in the morning and there were even a few times during the journey when his groom looked at him in surprise, thinking that his master was taking unusual risks.
As they came down the long drive, Kingswood looked incredibly beautiful enveloped by the afternoon sun.
But the Duke’s eyes were still dark as he walked in through the front door.
“Jackson is waiting to see Your Grace, when you can spare the time,” the butler said respectfully.
The Duke made no reply but merely climbed the red carpeted grand staircase and moved along the corridor to Richard’s room.
He rather suspected that Benedicta would be there and as he entered the room, he heard her cry, “check mate!” and add with an undeniable lilt of excitement in her voice,
“I have won! For the very first time I have won! Admit it was clever of me!”
“Very clever!” Richard agreed ruefully. “I must have been half-asleep not to notice where you had placed your Bishop.”
Benedicta clapped her hands.
“I wanted to beat you and now I have succeeded!”
As she spoke, she realised the Duke was standing in the doorway and rose to her feet.
Richard was not in bed, but sitting in an armchair in the window where the sunshine might bring a touch of colour to his pale face.
It was only the second day he had been allowed to get up and he was still very weak.
But the Duke knew it was only a question of time before he would be back on his feet and be able to lead a more normal life.
“Hello, Cousin Nolan!” Richard exclaimed. “You never came to see me this morning. I was told you had gone driving.”
“I had a call to make,” the Duke said briefly.
There was something in his voice that made both Benedicta and Richard look at him a little apprehensively. Benedicta thought she had never seen him look so stern, or perhaps the right word was ‘imperious’.
She had always wondered what he would be like on a battlefield and now she thought that this was exactly how he would look, concentrated, determined and with an air of a man opposing gigantic odds and yet confident of being the victor.
She did not know why such an idea flashed through her mind, but it did and quite suddenly she felt a little weak.
As if it was hard to stand, she sat down again in her chair that was opposite to Richard’s in the window.
The Duke came and stood between them and it seemed, Benedicta thought, almost as if he towered menacingly over them and her eyes were afraid as she looked up at him.
Richard, however, was unaware that the Duke’s attitude was in the least unusual.
“I slept well, Cousin Nolan,” he said conversationally, “and I know how much better I am. I will soon be riding again.”
“The horses are waiting for you,” the Duke replied, “but I also think you are well enough to discuss your future.”
“But of course!” Richard agreed. “I was going to talk to you about going to India as soon as I am well enough to travel.”
“I offered you an alternative, if you remember.”
“Of getting married?” Richard queried. “Well, I have no desire to do that, thank you, Cousin Nolan. I want to see a bit of the world before I settle down, although it was kind of you to offer me the Dower House.”
He spoke in a slightly embarrassed way because Benedicta was sitting opposite him.
He did not suppose for a moment that the Duke had really been serious in suggesting he should marry h
er. He thought it had just been a ruse to take his mind off Delyth Maulden.
“I have been thinking things over,” the Duke said slowly, “and because you, Richard and Benedicta, are both so young, I have decided that I know what is best for you and therefore I will make the decisions concerning your futures.”
Benedicta stiffened while Richard asked petulantly,
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” the Duke asserted, looking at him, “that you certainly are not capable, as you have already shown, of behaving in a sensible manner or for some years, at any rate, directing your own life.”
Richard gave a gasp and the Duke went on,
“I have therefore decided, as your Guardian, that we will have no further mistakes like the one that nearly cost you your life.”
Richard was obviously stunned into silence and the Duke turned to Benedicta.
“Last night, Benedicta,” he said in an equally stern voice, “I made you a proposition. You refused it and I have now decided that you as well are too young and foolish to know your own mind.”
Like Richard, Benedicta could only gasp and the Duke continued,
“I therefore intend to announce in The Gazette next week that you are betrothed and your marriage will take place as soon as Richard is strong enough. I do not intend to listen to any arguments on the subject. This is what will happen, but in case you wish to defy me, I must point out two relevant factors.”
The Duke looked at Richard again, as he said, slowly and distinctly,
“You are dependent upon me for every penny you possess. I would not wish to threaten you, but may I say that you will find it very uncomfortable living without the very generous allowance you receive at the moment.”
His face turned in the other direction.
“You too, are dependent on me, Benedicta, for your father’s accommodation and medical attention.”
There was no need to say more.
He saw the colour leave her face and the stricken expression in her eyes.
For a moment there was silence.
Then the Duke turned and walked from the room.
Neither Richard nor Benedicta spoke, but only sat as if they had been struck by lightning and had no idea what to do about it.
The Duke & the Preachers Daughter Page 10
