As she spoke she bent her head and kissed his hand.
Then, almost before he realised it had happened, she turned and sped away from him down the passage, disappearing into the darkness as if she were one of the ghosts of the Castle.
The Duke stood still for a second or two after he could see her no more.
Then slowly, as if he was deep in his thoughts, he walked towards his own bedroom.
Alvina, lying in the darkness, found it hard to sleep.
So much had happened during the day, and yet it was as if she had moved in a dream until the Duke had come home.
Then everything had flared into life and become a pulsating, exciting reality so that she felt as if she had suddenly come alive.
“He is back!” she told herself now. “Please, God, let him stay for a very long time.”
She had wanted to ask him what he had been doing in London but had felt too shy.
When he said he had been late in getting to bed last night, she supposed he had been enjoying himself with some very beautiful woman who had enthralled and amused him as she was unable to do because she was so ignorant.
She wondered what they had talked about together and if the Duke had paid her compliments. Perhaps when they said “good-night” he had taken her in his arms and kissed her.
Alvina had no idea what a kiss would be like, and yet she thought that if the Duke kissed anybody it would be a very wonderful experience.
‘Perhaps it would be like touching the sunlight,’ she told herself, ‘or feeling a star twinkling against one’s breast.’
She had kissed the Duke’s hand in gratitude because she had no words in which to tell him how grateful she was for everything he had done since his home-coming.
There was the happiness of the servants as they moved about the great house; the worry which had left the pensioners’ eyes; and the satisfaction she had found with the farmers she had visited, once they realised they could repair their buildings and start buying and breeding new stock.
“How can one man, almost as if he were God, change everything overnight?” Alvina asked.
She thought that the Duke exuded a special light which lit up everything and everybody it touched.
“He is wonderful ... wonderful!” she whispered.
Then, insidiously, as if it were a snake creeping into her thoughts and into the room, she heard Jason’s voice cursing him.
She felt herself shiver because of the hatred with which he had spoken and the evil in his eyes which had seemed to vibrate from him.
It had left a darkness on the atmosphere that made her feel she would be afraid to go into the Library again.
“He will hurt the Duke if he can,” she told herself, and she knew he wanted him to be dead so that he could be the sixth Duke.
The mere idea of it made her want to cry out in horror.
She was quite certain that there would be no improvements on the Estates if Jason was the Duke, and that in London he would merely dissipate away the money he inherited, or perhaps he would fill the Castle with his dubious friends.
“That must never happen!” she thought, and instinctively she began to pray.
“Take care of the Duke! Please, God, take care of him. Do not let Cousin Jason hurt him, as I know he wishes to.”
As she prayed, a sudden idea came into her mind that made her stiffen and lie very still.
When she had found Jason in the house, he was coming from the direction of the Master Suite, and she had wondered why the footmen in the Hall had not told her when she returned from riding that he had called.
It suddenly struck her that they had not done so because they had not known he was in the Castle.
Because he had been there so often when he was a child and later as a young man, he knew the Castle as well as Richard had.
He would be aware that there were dozens of ways leading into it, apart from through the front door.
Now, almost as if somebody were guiding her back into the past, she remembered how Richard and Cousin Ivar had often climbed up the old Tower in order to show off to each other their skill and nerve.
Because the Tower had been built in mediaeval times, with the stones rough and uncovered with plaster, every one unevenly put in place, it provided easy footholds for anybody experienced at climbing.
She could see, although she must have been very small at the time, her brother and another boy with him holding on to the protruding grey stones and racing each other to the top.
She could hear an echo coming back through the years as Richard cried out:
“I have won!”
Even as she heard his voice echoing back at her, he added:
“You have lost, Jason, and you owe me a bag of sweets!”
‘That is how Jason must have got in,’ she thought, ‘but why? That is the point.’
Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer and in a sudden terror sat up in bed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Moving BY INSTINCT because it was dark and there was no time to light a candle, Alvina tore from her bedroom and along the corridor towards the Master Suite on the other side of the Castle.
It was quite a long way, and yet she was driven by an urgency that made her run more quickly than she had ever run before in her life.
Only as she finally reached the outside door did she come to a halt and draw in her breath.
Then she turned the handle and went into the small and elegant Hall off which the Duke’s rooms opened.
There was one light flickering low in a sconce on the wall, which guided her to the bedroom door, which she opened without knocking.
As she entered she saw that the Duke had drawn back the curtains and the moonlight was diffusing the room with a magic iridescence which for the moment seemed almost blinding.
Then as she looked towards the bed, the curtains hanging from the heavy canopy made it appear as if there were no-one in it.
The idea that the Duke was already dead made Alvina feel a pain pierce her heart as if it were a dagger.
Strangely, even in that moment of agony, she knew that she loved the Duke.
Then there was a movement from the bed and he exclaimed incredulously:
“Alvina! What is it? What do you want?”
He had gone to bed thinking of her and worrying as to whether he was doing the right thing as far as she was concerned.
Because he was tired, sleep had come to him unexpectedly quickly, and now as he awoke at the opening of the door with the alertness of a man who was used to danger, he was not certain whether he was dreaming it was Alvina or whether she was real.
The moonlight did not reach to where she was standing, and yet he could see somebody white, ethereal, and insubstantial.
The thought passed through his mind that it was a ghost or an apparition such as he had always heard existed in the Castle.
Then he knew it was Alvina and called out her name.
She moved towards the bed.
“It is ... Jason ... Cousin Ivar,” she said in a breathless tone so that he could barely hear what she said.
The Duke sat up.
“Jason?” he repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“I know how he intends to ... kill you!”
The Duke stared at Alvina as if he thought he could not be hearing aright what she was saying and must be imagining it.
Now that she was nearer to him, he could see her face quite clearly in the light from the window; her eyes were dark and very large, and he was aware that she was trembling.
“I ... I did not ... tell you,” she said, “as I ... should have done ... but I found him coming from here along the corridor, and he did not enter the Castle by the front door.”
“I do not understand.”
“You must remember,” Alvina went on, “how you and Richard used to climb up the Tower, and both Mama and Papa said that if you did so you were not to climb down again because that was too dangerous, but should come into the
house through the trap-door which leads to the staircase inside the tower itself.”
Now the Duke understood, and he said:
“Are you suggesting that Jason might enter the Castle in such a strange way to kill me while I am asleep?”
“I am positive that is what he intends to do!” Alvina answered. “Please, Cousin Ivar, believe me, I know that is what he has planned ... and I can feel the evil of him coming ... nearer and nearer!”
She wanted to tell the Duke how Jason, after he had cursed him, had drunk a toast saying: “The Duke is dead! Long live the Duke!” but she thought it would only delay things further.
Instead, she said frantically:
“Get up! Please, get up, and be ready for him! I was only ... desperately afraid that I was too late to ... warn you!”
The terror in her voice prevented the Duke from arguing, and he merely said:
“Wait for me outside. I will not be a minute.”
Obediently Alvina turned towards the door and went out into the small Hall.
Owing to the draught that she had made when she had opened the door—or perhaps the candle had not been replenished as it should have been—the candle was now extinguished and it was quite dark.
Alvina therefore left the door of the Duke’s bedroom ajar, and she could hear him moving about as he dressed himself.
Only as she thought of it was she aware that what she was wearing was very scanty.
She had felt like a Fairy Princess when she went down to dinner in the new gown which the Duke had given her.
So she had, when she went to bed, felt it impossible to put on one of the threadbare and darned nightgowns she had worn for the last few years when her father would not give her any money.
Almost as if it were an auspicious occasion, she had opened the drawer to take out the last nightgown she possessed of those which had belonged to her mother.
It was certainly lovely in contrast to her own, and her mother had worn it seldom because, as she had told Alvina, it was very precious, as her husband had bought it for her on their honeymoon.
Made of soft, almost transparent material, it had frills of shadow lace round the hem, the neck, and the sleeves.
Because her dinner with the Duke had been so enchanting, Alvina had thought that if she looked as attractive in bed as she had at the dining-table, the magic which had encompassed her ever since he had returned would still be with her.
Now, because her nightgown was so transparent, she felt that he might be shocked.
All she had to cover it was a light woollen shawl she had snatched up when she had sprung out of bed.
She had long ago grown out of the dressing-gown she had had when she was a girl, and her father would give her no money with which to buy another.
So the shawl had taken its place, and now a little nervously she made it as long at the back as she could and crossed it over her breasts.
She hoped that the Duke would not notice what she was wearing, but at the same time she felt it was wrong to think of herself when his life was in danger.
She told herself reassuringly that once he had gone up the twisting stone staircase inside the Tower and bolted the trap-door at the top of it, however evil Jason’s intentions might be, he would not be able to enter the Castle.
Because Richard and his cousins had insisted upon climbing the Tower, her mother had made the Estate carpenter fix an iron trap into the Tower with bolts on both sides of it.
“I insist on your promising me that when you climb up,” she had said firmly, “you will come down through the Tower and back through the house. I know climbing down is far more dangerous than climbing up.”
Looking back, Alvina could remember Richard grumbling because he had promised his mother that that was what he would do, and he was too honourable to break his word.
She knew that Jason would pull back the bolts on the trap-door at the top of the Tower, then climb down the twisting stone steps which soldiers had used when the Castle had been built in the Twelfth Century.
She heard the Duke close a drawer and had a sudden fear, as he was taking so long, that long before he could close the trap-door from the inside, Jason would have entered the Castle.
“Hurry!” she cried urgently. “Hurry!”
“I have only been a few minutes,” the Duke replied, and opened the door behind her.
He was silhouetted against the moonlight, and she saw that he was wearing a pair of long black pantaloons and a fine linen shirt with a silk scarf round his neck.
She knew, although she could not see his face clearly, that he smiled at her as he said:
“I think, Alvina, this is part of your very fertile imagination, but to make you happy I will close the trap-door at the top of the Tower and bolt it. Then you will be able to sleep peacefully again.”
“Thank you,” Alvina said, “but ... please, let us ... hurry!”
She felt he would not understand if she told him that she could feel the evil that Jason exuded coming nearer and nearer.
The Duke opened the other door and they stepped into the corridor.
There was enough light from just one or two candles that had been left burning for them to see their way to where beyond the Master Suite there was a door that led into the Tower, which was at the extreme end of the building.
As they reached it, Alvina thought that if they found the door was locked, then the Duke would laugh at her for being unnecessarily alarmed.
But it was open, and she was aware that he thought it strange.
Then they were both inside the Tower and standing on the stone steps which led both upwards and downwards, spiralling round a stone pole which had been built in the very centre of the Tower.
There was just enough light from the arrow-slits for them to pick their way without stumbling.
The Duke went first, moving swiftly and almost silently because he was wearing, Alvina realised, bedroom slippers.
It was only as she felt the cold stone under her feet that she realised she was bare-footed.
But nothing mattered except that they should shut Jason out, and as they climbed higher and higher, she did not feel either the cold or the roughness of the stones which bruised the softness of her skin.
They reached the top, and, finding the trap-door shut, the Duke turned his head to say:
“Your fears, Alvina, were unnecessary.”
As he spoke he reached up his hand and found that the inside bolts were pulled back and it was not locked as it should have been.
Then, as he pushed, the trap-door swung open and the moonlight flooded in.
“It was not bolted!” Alvina said almost beneath her breath.
Then, to her consternation, instead of bolting it on the inside as she wanted him to do, the Duke stepped out onto the roof, and turning put his hand out to pull her out too.
They now stood on the sloping leads.
These had been added very much later to prevent the water from accumulating on the top of the Tower and percolating down the sides of the new part of the house.
It was easy to stand without slipping because her feet were bare, and the Duke, having drawn her beside him, said:
“It is years since I have been up here, and I had forgotten how high it is, but of course in the daytime there is the finest view over the countryside one could possibly imagine.”
As he spoke he moved away from her towards the side of the Tower to look out over the valley which lay to the right of the Castle, and which, bathed in moonlight, was very beautiful.
Even as he did so, Alvina heard a sound on the other side of the Tower and saw a man’s head appear.
She made an inarticulate little sound of fear.
But before the Duke could turn round, Jason had swung himself over the parapet and was standing on the Tower, balancing himself, as the Duke had been forced to do, on the sloping leads.
“Quite a reception-party, I see!” he said sarcastically. “I suppose our interfering, tiresome lit
tle Cousin Alvina thought I might be visiting you tonight?”
“What are you doing here, Jason?” the Duke asked sharply. “You should be in Dover by now.”
“I will reach Dover tomorrow morning,” Jason replied, “where I shall be told that, most regrettably, my dear cousin the Duke of Harlington has met with an unfortunate accident during the night.”
As he spoke he drew from his waist a long, thin, evil-looking knife of the sort Alvina imagined a brigand or a pirate might use, but which she had not seen before except in pictures.
She gave a cry of horror and realised, even as she did so, that when Jason had said that the Duke would die painfully, this was what he was planning.
Too late, she thought wildly that she should have made the Duke bring some weapon with him.
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.”
A Duke in Danger Page 13
