The Audacious Adventuress

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1802-3

She must have been working for nearly two hours when suddenly there was a sound of footsteps running down the passage.

It had been so quiet in the schoolroom that the noise was quite startling and Druscilla raised her head.

The footsteps stopped outside the door and there came a knock, followed by another.

Druscilla sat still as if turned to stone.

Then she heard a voice hardly above a whisper.

“Druscilla, it’s me, Valdo. For God’s sake open the door.”

Her instinct told her to refuse and yet somehow, almost as though she was compelled against her will, Druscilla rose from the table and crossed the room.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Let me in, I beg of you. Please, Druscilla!”

Again she would have refused, but there was something in his voice and the urgency of it that compelled her.

She turned the key and he burst open the door almost knocking her down.

“Quick,” he urged her, “go back to the table. If anyone comes, I have been here for the past hour talking to you about the old days. Do you understand?”

“What has – happened?” she asked.

“Only you can help me,” he replied. “I beg of you, Druscilla. I am desperate or I would not ask it of you.”

She hesitated and then they both heard a sound in the distance.

“Quick, do as I ask,” he said. “You cannot fail me, Druscilla, you never have!”

It was these last words that decided her. With a swiftness that surprised even herself, she rushed back to the table and picked up her discarded embroidery.

As she did so, the Marquis pushed a chair in front of the table and threw himself down on it, his feet raised on another.

It was then she realised for the first time that he carried his coat over his arm and that he wore no cravat. His white lawn shirt was open at the neck and his hair, meticulously arranged earlier in the evening in the windswept style affected by the Prince Regent, was now ruffled and dishevelled.

There was no time to tell him so for he threw both his coat and his waistcoat down on the floor and started to fasten his cuffs. Even as he did so the door was thrown open and the Duke of Windleham stood there.

His Grace was in his travelling clothes, his polished riding boots slightly bespeckled with mud and, as Druscilla rose automatically to her feet, she saw with a sudden constriction of her heart that His Grace was in one of his rages.

There was no mistaking the fury in his dark eyes or the way his eyebrows met in a heavy frown across his nose.

The Marquis did not move from his comfortable position, but Druscilla knew that he was tense as he looked across the room at His Grace.

“Are you prepared to fight me, Lynche?” the Duke asked. “Or do I get my lackeys to throw you from the house?”

The Marquis rose very slowly to his feet.

“I am, of course, delighted to oblige you, Windleham,” he said slowly, “but for what reason I have yet to discover.”

“The reason is obvious, is it not?” the Duke asked and his voice was like a lash. “I saw you leaving my wife’s bedroom as I approached it.”

“My dear Windleham, what a nonsensical suggestion,” the Marquis replied. “I assure you that I have been here for the past hour talking to my cousin, Druscilla, and she will confirm that it is the truth.”

“I prefer, Lynche, to believe what I have seen with my own eyes,” the Duke replied. “You will fight me or I will call my footmen.”

He had hardly finished speaking when there was a scream and the Duchess swept into the room. She was wearing a diaphanous negligée of pale sapphire-blue chiffon and her golden hair fell to her shoulders. She looked exceedingly lovely even in her distress.

“George, what are you saying?” she demanded. “Are you crazed? I assure you that the Marquis has not been in my room although what he is doing here I cannot conceive.”

She looked around in quite genuine surprise.

“My dear,” the Duke answered, “this homely little scene is, I am convinced, contrived entirely for my benefit. I saw Lynche quite clearly and what I saw only bears out the information conveyed to me on other occasions as to his behaviour where you are concerned. I have, as a gentleman of honour, challenged him to a duel and, as a gentleman of honour, he has accepted.”

The Duchess stamped her foot.

“I will not have it!” she cried. “I will not have it, George! Would you ruin me? The Queen has set her face against duelling as you well know. If you kill his Lordship, you will have to go into exile and I should detest above all things to have to live in France or Italy. Besides how could I gave up my position at Court.”

“That surely is something that should have crossed your mind a little earlier,” the Duke sneered.

“And if the Marquis kills you,” the Duchess continued without having seemed to hear his interruption, “can you imagine what my life would be? As the Dowager, I should be forced to live in the Dower House while that odious spendthrift nephew of yours inherits.”

“It would be regrettable indeed,” the Duke agreed, “but I don’t think that Lynche will kill me, my dear.”

“And if you kill him, as I have just said,” the Duchess responded, “it will make things no better. I will not be fought over! Besides, as you have already been told, it was not true. You imagined what you saw. Is that not so, my Lord?”

The Duchess cast the Marquis a look of desperate appeal, looking so intensely pretty as she did so that it would have required a heart of stone to refuse her anything at that moment.

“I have already informed His Grace,” the Marquis said slowly, “that I have in fact been here for the last hour talking with my cousin Druscilla. It was a great surprise to discover earlier in the evening that she was a guest in your house.”

“A guest?” the Duke queried. “Miss Morley is, I believe, Governess to my daughter. And as a Governess, Miss Morley, do you usually receive gentlemen, even though they profess to be your cousins, in the early hours of the morning entertaining them while they are in a state of shall we say disarray and you are in your night attire?”

The Duke’s voice seemed to vibrate across the room.

The blood coursed into Druscilla’s face and then ebbed away again, leaving her very pale.

“No, Your Grace,” she replied in a low voice. “It is not my habit to receive gentlemen in such a manner, but my cousin, Valdo, is rather different. We were brought up together when we were children and we were in fact just talking over old times.”

The Duke looked at the clock.

“At nearly two o’clock in the morning, Miss Morley?”

There was so much insinuation in his tone that Druscilla drew in her breath sharply.

“It is true,” the Duchess cried. “You may be quite certain, George, that his Lordship had something very important to impart to his cousin. Now are you satisfied?”

“I may be a greenhorn,” the Duke said, “in many matters, but not in this, my dear. My offer still stands, Lynche.”

“No, you cannot, you cannot mean it,” the Duchess declared, turning to him and holding on to the lapels of his coat to make him look down at her. “It is true, I tell you, it is true. My Lord Marquis has told me what a partiality he had for his cousin. We have talked about it and he said how much he was looking forward to seeing her. I knew all about it, I tell you, it is true. How can you be so disbelieving?”

She turned from her husband towards the Marquis.

“Oh, my Lord,” she pleaded, “make him believe you. You know how disastrous a duel would be and what it would mean to me. I pray of you to persuade His Grace that you were not with me tonight, as apparently he still believes.”

There were tears in the Duchess’s blue eyes and her mouth was trembling.

The Marquis took one look at her and faced the Duke.

“I am sorry if Your Grace does not credit what I have told you and perhaps you would be a little more understanding if I informed you that I was in point of fact asking my cousin Druscilla to do me the great honour of becoming my wife.”

For a moment there was utter silence in the room as though everyone had been arrested to the point of stupefaction by the Marquis’s words.

Then with a little twist of his lips the Duke said,

“So the much vaunted bachelor Marquis has been caught at last. May I ask what the lady in question, Miss Morley, has to say to this offer.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to look at Druscilla and for a moment she saw them clearly as though they were inanimate pictures in front of her, the Duchess’s eyes pleading with her to substantiate the lie, the Marquis’s almost compelling her and the Duke’s suspicious, unconvinced and accusing.

They were waiting for her, all waiting for her to speak.

At last through dry lips she replied,

“Such a sincere protestation has my attention – and on thinking it over – I have naturally much pleasure in accepting the invitation of my cousin to be – his wife.”

The Duchess gave a little cry.

“Then that settles it,” she said. “Now, George, are you satisfied.”

“Naturally, my dear,” the Duke replied and then, as his audience almost visibly relaxed, he went on, “But as a father and as a Guardian of the morals and manners in this house, I cannot condone Miss Morley’s behaviour in being so scantily attired even when receiving anything so momentous as an offer of marriage. It therefore behoves me to see that this Wedding takes place with all possible speed. My Chaplain shall be aroused and you, my Lord, and Miss Morley, shall be joined in Holy Matrimony within the hour.”

“Married!” the Marquis expostulated.

“What do you mean, George?” the Duchess demanded almost shrilly

“I mean, my dear,” the Duke answered, “that your friend, the Noble Marquis, must substantiate his story if I am to accept it and what could be more convincing than that they should be wed immediately with you and me to witness such a delightful little Ceremony?”

“It’s impossible!” the Marquis exclaimed hotly.

“Then my original offer stands,” the Duke retorted. “I will leave it to you to exercise the choice of weapons.”

“No, no,” the Duchess cried out again, “the whole thing is ridiculous and nonsensical. Think what everyone will say!”

“There is no reason why anyone should know,” the Duke replied, “unless you chatter, my dear. And that I cannot believe you would do.”

“Such a marriage would not be legal,” the Marquis came in quickly, “one has to have a Special Licence.”

“Now this may come as a surprise,” the Duke said, drawing a paper from the inner pocket of his travelling coat. “The reason I posted to Oxford and was unfortunately not present to receive my guests, was that I had learnt that my nephew was on the point of making a disastrous marriage with the daughter of a tradesman. He had even gone so far as to procure a Special Licence. I took it from him to make sure that he did not use it as soon as my back was turned. And I have it here in my hand.”

The Duke glanced down at it.

“The names, of course, will have to be changed, but, as His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury is a distant relative of mine, I have no doubt that when I explain the circumstances he will not object to my action in this matter.”

“Damn you, you hold every ace, do you not?” the Marquis raged.

The Duke’s eyes then met his across the room.

“It is wise of you to acknowledge it,” the Duke replied.

He turned towards Druscilla.

“Miss Morley, you will oblige me by getting decently robed and I imagine that, if I allow you an hour to do this and complete your packing, it will be enough time.”

“My packing?” Druscilla queried in a bewildered tone.

“But of course,” the Duke replied suavely, “you will wish to leave The Castle with your husband. He also should have no difficulty in being ready at the same time. The Chapel, as I expect you know, is in the West wing. We will wait for you there. And now, my dear,” he said taking the Duchess’s arm, “you and I will repair to our rooms.”

“It’s mad, George, absolutely mad!” the Duchess almost shouted at him.

“I am sorry you should think so,” the Duke replied. “I think actually it is a very sane and civilised way of solving what might have proved to be, from your point of view, a bitter tragedy.”

His words checked anything further that the Duchess might have said. Instead she allowed herself to be led meekly from the schoolroom with just one backward glance of pleading at the Marquis.

He watched her out of sight and then glanced at Druscilla, who was staring at him white-faced and trembling.

“God! What a monstrous tangle!” he flashed. “Why the Devil didn’t you refuse me, you stupid chit?”