“And if I wait, so that we get to know each other better, have I a chance?”
“I am – afraid – not!”
“You love someone else?”
There was silence and then Alister said in a low voice,
“It is – Uncle Yvell, is it not?”
“Y-yes.”
“Oh, my dear, he will break your heart,” he pleaded, “and I could not bear to think of that happening to you!”
“There is – nothing I can – do about it,” Shimona murmured.
Alister came to her side to take her hand in his and raise it to his lips.
“You have taught me so much,” he said. “If I make something of my life in the future, if I become in any way worthy to follow in my great-uncle’s footsteps, then it will be entirely due to you.”
“Thank – you,” Shimona said.
Then he kissed her hand and left her.
When he had gone, she went upstairs to the Duke’s bedroom and sat down by his bedside.
He was asleep, but he was looking better.
The pallor that had been there at first had gone from his face and he looked extremely handsome. She could only think, as she had thought again and again, how much she loved him.
She told herself that he must love her a little.
What man would have suffered as he had for her sake unless he had been activated by love?
And yet she was not certain.
It was somehow ironic that Alister should have asked her to marry him, when all she prayed for in her heart, even though she told herself it was impossible, was to hear those words from the Duke.
Nanna had come into the room without Shimona being aware of it.
Now she started as she felt her come up behind her.
“Don’t look so worried, dearie,” Nanna said in a low voice. “I’ve looked at the back of one of His Grace’s arms this mornin’ when we were makin’ the bed. There’s a new skin formin’. Skin as clear and as flawless as that of a newborn babe.”
“Oh, Nanna, is that true?”
“Would I tell you a lie?” Nanna enquired. “The honey has worked as your mother always said it would.”
“I can hardly – believe it!”
“Oh, ‘thou of little faith’!” Nanna said almost scornfully.
But Shimona wanted to go down on her knees and send a prayer of thankfulness and gratitude up to the sky.
*
The Duke grew better day by day and now it seemed to Shimona that she never had a moment to herself.
She read to him, she wrote letters and memoranda at his dictation. Although she had the feeling that Captain Graham would have done it better than she did, the Duke wished to have her by him.
She even thought that, when she was reading the newspapers or a book to him, he was watching her face rather than attending to what she was saying.
Once or twice, when she asked him a question about what she had read, he certainly found it hard to give the right answer.
He did not talk very much and they had no intimate conversation, certainly nothing that could not have been said with a dozen people in the room.
But Shimona went to sleep with his name on her lips and awoke thinking of him.
When she was not with him, she felt part of herself was missing.
“I love him. I love him – there is nothing else in the world but him,” she would whisper over and over again.
The Duke slept in the afternoon and then both he and Nanna insisted that Shimona went out for a walk.
Her steps nearly always took her to the stables where Saunders or one of the other grooms would be waiting with a basket of apples cut into small pieces so that she could feed the horses.
Their heads would be over the lower door of their stalls and they would reach out greedily for the pieces of apple she gave them in the palm of her hand.
Saunders would talk to her about the horses.
But it was Harris who told her the things she wanted to hear about the Duke.
She soon learnt that the valet had what was almost an adoration for his Master whom he had looked after, he told Shimona proudly, ever since he was a young man.
“Them as says things about His Grace don’t know him as I do, ma’am, and that’s the truth!” he said.
He saw that Shimona was interested and he went on,
“His Grace has often warned me against speakin’ of his private affairs, but I don’t mind tellin’ you, ma’am, that he’s done more good in his time than a great many other gentlemen in his position and there’s as many people livin’ secretly on his bounty as there are on his official payroll.”
This was the sort of praise that Shimona wanted to hear and she only hoped that Harris said such nice things about the Duke to Nanna.
In fact since the Duke had saved her from the fire, Nanna had completely reversed her opinion of him.
“He saved your life, Miss Shimona,” she said more than once. “If it hadn’t been for His Grace, you’d have been burnt to a cinder. That roof collapsed a few seconds after you reached the ground!”
There were tears behind the words and then, as if she thought she was being too sentimental, Nanna would add almost angrily,
“Why you couldn’t have done as you were told, Miss Shimona, and gone straight downstairs I don’t know. I saw you on the landin’ and thought you were just behind me, but all that shovin’ and pushin’ by those hysterical women stopped me from gettin’ to you.”
“I had to save the baby, Nanna, you know that.”
Captain Graham told her what had happened to it.
“The mother’s more grateful than she can ever say. She wanted to come and thank you personally, but I thought you’d enough to put up with already.”
“What has happened to her?” Shimona asked.
“I took her back to her parents. They’re decent respectable folk and they’ve taken her in. She’s a pretty girl and doubtless she’ll find someone who’ll marry her.”
“Oh, I do hope so! Perhaps – it would be – possible – ” Shimona began a little hesitatingly wondering how much money she could afford to offer.
“There is no need for you to worry about that,” Captain Graham said. “I knew what His Grace would want and I have provided her with what you might call a handsome pension.”
He smiled and added,
“The other servants, who have been dismissed, have also been given a considerable sum of money to tide them over until they can find other employment. I have no doubt that they will behave better in the future than they have here.”
Shimona on her walk looked at the house with its burnt-out windows and wondered if the Duke would rebuild it.
She still did not like to bother him with fundamental questions until he was better in health.
It was now well into November and she thought that, if he was leading an ordinary life, the Duke might be staying at Melton Paddocks for the hunting.
She wondered if the reports of the parties he had given had been exaggerated or if in fact they had been the orgies that Nanna had heard described.
‘What happens at an orgy?’ she wondered to herself.
What did people do when they behaved in a reprehensible manner that made other people like her father not only denounce them but also speak of what occurred with almost bated breath?
She felt very young and ignorant as she turned away from the house, feeling despairingly that it was ridiculous to think that the Duke might be genuinely interested in her.
What had he in common with a girl who had seen nothing of life, who might have been shut up in a Convent for all she knew of the world and the sort of entertainments that amused him?
She walked back towards the groom’s house and, as the pale winter sunshine sank behind a distant wood, she forgot for a moment her sense of unhappiness because of the beauty of the leafless branches and boughs of the trees, silhouetted against the pink and gold of the sky.
There was a touch of frost in the air
and Shimona thought that it would freeze during the night.
Then her footsteps quickened because it was time for her to go back and she would see the Duke again.
‘If for nothing else,’ she told herself, ‘I shall always bless the fire because I have had this time with him – time when we have been together and even when he was unconscious I was able to be near him and to look at him.’
She opened the door and the warmth of the small house came towards her like a wave of welcome.
She pushed back her fur-trimmed cloak from her face, unclasped it at the neck and laid it down on a chair.
She was just about to go upstairs when she realised that the door of the front room was open.
She could see the bright light of the fire and she realised that someone was sitting beside it.
For a moment she could not believe it possible, then, as she went to the doorway, she saw that sitting in one of the big leather armchairs that had been salvaged from the fire was the Duke.
He was dressed and his high intricately tied cravat was very white against his face, which was much thinner since he had been ill.
He looked amazingly handsome and very like his old self.
“You are – up!” Shimona gasped.
“It was to be a surprise,” he answered. “Forgive me for not rising.”
“No, no, of course, you must take things easily.”
Now she ran across the room towards him, her eyes wide and shining in her small face, her lips parted with excitement.
“You are – not in – pain? You feel all – right?” she asked almost incoherently, the questions tumbling over each other.
“I am almost as good as new!”
Shimona laughed from sheer happiness.
Then she sank down on the woolly hearthrug at his feet.
“I am so glad, so very, very glad! I was – afraid when you were carried in here that you – would not – live.”
“I realise it is entirely due to you that my skin has healed and without a scar on it,” the Duke said. “Your nurse told me it was you who thought of using honey.”
“You saved my life,” Shimona said softly.
Her eyes looked up into his, but he turned his head to stare at the fire.
“Now I am better, Shimona,” he said in what she thought was a somewhat hard voice, “we have to make plans for your future.”
Shimona was suddenly still.
“M-must we – talk about it – now?”
“We must,” the Duke answered gravely. “Now that I am no longer an invalid you cannot stay with me unchaperoned.”
Shimona looked at him in consternation.
She had forgotten, even if she had thought of it, that a chaperone where they were concerned was necessary.
“There are,” the Duke went on after a moment, “two alternatives for you to consider.”
Shimona looked at him in perplexity and he went on,
“The first is that you should go to your grandparents and this, before we came North, I promised your nurse I would help you to do.”
“I – thought Nanna must have said something like that to you,” Shimona answered. “But I have already told her that I have no intention of getting in touch with relatives when for years they ignored my mother’s very existence.”
“A little while ago there was no alternative,” the Duke said, “and I agree entirely with your nurse that it was the sensible and practical thing to do.”
Shimona did not speak and he did not look at her as he went on,
“Since we have been here I understand that you have had the opportunity of accepting a different position.”
For a moment Shimona did not understand and then the blood rose in her cheeks as she said,
“Do – do you mean what – Alister suggested?”
“Alister wrote me a letter before he left and I read it when I was well enough to do so. He is very anxious that you should be his wife.”
Shimona drew in her breath.
“I am – honoured that he should – wish it – but I cannot marry him.”
“Why not?”
“I am – not in – love with – him.”
“Is that really so important? You would have a great position in Scotland and Alister speaks about you with a warmth of feeling I did not know he was capable of.”
“He was – very happy with the woman he thought he had married – or so he said – until he found that she already had a – husband.”
“He thought he was happy,” the Duke corrected, “but The McCraig and you made him see there were greater possibilities in himself than he had ever dreamt of.”
He paused before he went on,
“I believe when he gets older and is living amongst his own people that Alister will develop both character and personality.”
“I think that too,” Shimona agreed, “and I hope one day he will find a woman who will love him for himself and whom he will love with all his – heart.”
There was an unmistakable little throb in her voice and after a moment the Duke said,
“So you have decided to go to your grandparents.”
“There is a – third alternative,” Shimona said in a very low voice.
He looked at her enquiringly and, although she was shy, she forced herself to meet his eyes as she said,
“You – offered me one – once.”
“I offered you money and you refused it.”
“If I – accept it now – would I be able to – see you – sometimes?”
She knew that he went rigid and then he said,
“That would be impossible and so I must withdraw my offer.”
“Why – must you?”
She raised herself onto her knees and came nearer to his chair so that she was touching him.
Although he did not move, she felt, because her body was against his legs and her shoulders touched one of his arms, a quiver ran through both of them.
She looked up into his face and this time their eyes met.
They were held spellbound by a magic that was inescapable, a magic that seemed to hold them as close and as entwined one with the other as if their lips actually met.
“Let me – stay with – you,” Shimona whispered.
For a second she thought that his arms would go round her.
He did not move, but the lines on his face seemed to deepen and his eyes, which she hoped would somehow reflect the fire that she had seen in them before, only darkened.
Then in a voice that she had never heard him use, a voice that seemed to be strangled in his throat the Duke said,
“I love you, God knows, I love you, but I cannot ask you to marry me!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was silence for a moment.
Then Shimona dropped her eyes and said,
“Of course – I understand that you could not – marry the daughter of an – actor – but – ”
“Good God, that is not the reason!” the Duke interrupted violently. “Did you really imagine that was why – ?”
He checked himself to say in a quieter voice,
“There is no man, whoever he might be, whatever his position in life, who would not be fortunate beyond words to be your husband.”
Shimona looked at him and he saw the bewilderment in her face.
“I will explain everything to you,” he said, “but go and sit in a chair. I cannot say what I have to say when you are so close to me.”
Confused but obedient, Shimona rose from her knees and moved across the hearth to sit opposite him, her eyes on his face, her fingers linked together in her lap.
The Duke looked away from her into the fire and then he began,
“I am going to tell you about myself, not to make excuses for my behaviour or for what I am, but simply because I want you to understand what I am trying to say to you.”
Shimona waited and after a long pause he continued,
“I don’t suppose you heard of my father, but he was known as ‘T
he Praying Duke’. He was sanctimonious, narrow-minded and fanatical on the subject of sin.”
Again there was a pause before the Duke carried on,
“It is difficult for me to explain to you what it was like living with him after my mother died. I think, looking back into the past, he must have been unhinged and a little mad.”
His voice was cynical as he went on,
“If anything was likely to put a child off religion, it was living with my father. We had long family prayers in the morning with the whole household there and the same thing at night and everything that was amusing, interesting or could in any way be construed as being a pleasure was forbidden.”
“Why was he like that?” Shimona enquired.
“Heaven knows!” the Duke replied. “I only know that, after my mother died, when I was seven, I lived in the nearest thing to a hell on earth.”
Shimona made a little sound of commiseration and he went on,
“He was determined to bring me up in his own image and I was therefore not allowed the company of children of my own age, nor even to be looked after by a nurse or Governess. I was in the hands of Tutors.”
“It was much too young!” Shimona murmured.
“Of course it was!” the Duke answered. “And they were always elderly erudite men who had not the slightest idea how to look after a child, let alone to interest his mind.”
“It was cruel!”
“I realised how cruel when I was not allowed to go to school.”
“You stayed at home?”
“With my Tutors always in attendance giving me lessons from the time I rose in the morning until last thing at night. I was allowed to ride, but not to play games.”
“It must have been intolerable – and very lonely.”
“I think the loneliness was the worst part,” the Duke agreed. “I had no one to talk to, no companion of any sort.”
“How long did this go on?”
“Until I was eighteen.”
“Oh, no! It cannot be true!”
“It was true!” the Duke said grimly. “So you can imagine that, when my father died, it was like coming out of prison.”
He gave a short laugh.
“And like a prisoner who has been incarcerated for a lifetime, I found the world a strange place and had not the least understanding of it.”
The Disgraceful Duke Page 14
