Saved by the Duke

CHAPTER ONE 1818-1

CHAPTER ONE

1818The yacht moved up the Thames.

The Duke of Rockcliffe thought how very different everything was from when he had left England.

Seven years ago he had been just Alexander Rock, a young Lieutenant in the family Regiment of the Horse Guards and had left to join the Duke of Wellington’s Army in Portugal.

He had no idea then that there was any career for him in the future except in the Army.

His father was the younger son of the sixth Duke of Rockcliffe, but there were three prospective heirs between Alex – as he was always called – and the Dukedom.

He had been determined to make a success of his profession as a soldier and he had succeeded admirably.

In Wellington’s brilliant campaign when he had surprised the French by reaching the Pyrenees in 1813 and established a firm base in South-West France by the spring of 1814, Captain Alexander Rock had been awarded two gold medals for outstanding bravery.

After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Wellington had congratulated him saying,

“I could not have done it without you, Alex.”

No soldier could have asked for any more and Alex Rock had been truly thrilled by the great Commander’s appreciation of his conduct in what had been for him a terrifying encounter with the enemy.

A dozen times during that battle he thought that his end had come and he would never see England again.

What he really minded more than anything else was losing some of the men who had fought beside him ever since he had joined Wellington’s Army.

Now they lay dead on the battlefield amongst the French and Prussian casualties.

It was the Duke of Wellington who had insisted on Alex staying with him when the Army of Occupation was set up in Cambrai and it was to stay there for three years.

Alex had in fact thought that he should return home when his father died suddenly of a stroke.

But the Duke of Wellington would not let him go.

“I need you, Alex,” he said. “I need the keenness of your brain in the dealings we are going to have with the French which will doubtless be worse than anything we have encountered on a battlefield.”

They had both laughed and at the same time the Duke was right as the long and tedious negotiations were tiring and often exasperating.

There were, however, brief intervals of relaxation, as Paris quickly returned to her former Cosmopolitan self.

Inevitably the cafés and theatres re-opened and the women that Paris had already been famous for reappeared and the privations of being continuously campaigning were rapidly forgotten.

Alex found it delightful to be able to relax with an exceedingly attractive courtesan, who was so outstandingly proficient in her profession.

There were wild parties and enchanting nights that any young man, who was a man, would enjoy.

Then it was back to Cambrai and the difficulty of keeping an Army of one hundred and fifty thousand men from being bored by having nothing to do.

And it was Alex, on Wellington’s instructions, who organised sports for them.

There were endless games of football in the winter, cricket and athletics in the summer and then regular horse races were organised for every man who could ride.

The difficulty was to keep thinking of something new to maintain the morale of the troops, most of whom longed to be back home in England.

Alex worked extremely hard at it both mentally and physically and, when he went to bed at night, he fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

However the lengthy dealings with the French were gradually drawing to a close. The Duke of Wellington said confidentially to Alex that he intended to close down the Army of Occupation by the end of the summer.

“There are just a few matters that we must tie up first,” he said, having already agreed to more than thirty thousand men returning early to England.

And that left one hundred and twenty thousand to dispose of at a later date.

It was now early on in May and Alex was thinking of what new amusements and games he could suggest for the last two months.

Then came the news that had been delayed through poor communications that the sixth Duke of Rockcliffe had died.

Alex was taken entirely by surprise.

He had known and been exceedingly sorry when he learned of it that his cousin, Henry Rock, had been killed at the Battle of Vitoria in the Peninsular Campaign.

Henry was the only son of the eldest of the sixth Duke’s sons and his father was then still alive and so heir apparent to the Dukedom.

Henry’s death meant that Alex’s father would then become heir presumptive to his elder brother if and when the old Duke died.

As a busy Staff Officer in Wellington’s Army, he had, however, no time and no inclination to speculate on the likelihood of the Dukedom eventually becoming his.

After Waterloo there had been so much to organise, so much to argue about and so much to improvise on that Alex sometimes went weeks without thinking about home.

Then, like a bombshell, four days ago he had been informed that not only his grandfather, the sixth Duke, was dead, but also that only a week earlier his uncle, Henry’s father, had been killed in a riding accident.

Alex was now the seventh Duke of Rockcliffe.

He had gone to the Duke of Wellington to ask what he should do and the great man did not hesitate.

“You will have to go home, Alex,” he said. “God knows what I shall do without you, but I expect their need in England is greater than mine.”

“I can hardly credit that, sir,” Alex replied. “At the same time, the Solicitors seem to think that some problems which face them are urgent and I suppose that no one can give orders as to what should be done until I return.”

The Duke sighed.

“I shall have to manage somehow. After all it will be only for a few months.”

If the Duke of Wellington had taken it all calmly, Alex felt very different.

A new world had opened to him unexpectedly.

He felt for a moment as if he was entering a long tunnel into a darkness, where he had to find a light.

He had gone out to fight for England when he was little more than a boy and he was returning a mature man as, although he might be a brilliant soldier, he really did not know what was expected of him in any other field.

He began to have some idea of his newly acquired stature when, on reaching Calais, he found the late Duke’s yacht waiting for him in Port.

He had been told that it would be there and yet he had not expected anything so large or so luxurious.

It was very different from the extreme discomforts of the overcrowded troop ship he had travelled in to the Peninsular. There he had been lucky to find a mattress to himself, let alone a cabin.

Now a whole gilded ship was at his disposal, which he thought at first glance offered almost every luxury that any man could possibly imagine.

He was greeted with a great deal of bowing and scraping by the Captain and senior members of the crew.

There was a chef from Rock House in London to cook his food and, as if Heaven was also attending to his needs, the sea was calm.

There were a number of letters and documents from his Solicitors concerning the great estate he now owned in Buckinghamshire, the stables and racehorses at Newmarket and the Hunting Lodge in Leicestershire.

There was finally his castle in Scotland where the Dukes of Rockcliffe owned an extensive sporting estate including an excellent salmon river.

The new Duke tried to read everything carefully, but he thought it impossible for him to make a decision of any sort until he saw everything with his own eyes.

Of course he had been to Rock Hall, which was the largest and most impressive of many ancestral homes in Buckinghamshire. It had been built some three hundred years ago and added to by every succeeding generation.

He remembered when he was small being thrilled by the tall towers that made it very distinctive. He had climbed to the top of them to have a magnificent view of the estate and the countryside surrounding it.

He recalled his cousin’s twenty-first birthday party when he was just seventeen and he had been especially impressed by the huge Banqueting Hall where they had dined and the even larger ballroom where they had danced.

Now it was all his.

He had to rule over it as every succeeding Duke had ruled before him.

One of his ancestors had said,

“Rock is a State within a State.”

‘I hope,’ Alex said to himself, ‘that I shall know instinctively what to do.’

But he was not really confident.

There were only a few more letters to be read, but the next one he wanted to set on one side, thinking it could wait until tomorrow.

However, with an effort he then forced himself to concentrate on a very different matter.

The Senior Partner of the Solicitors had written,

“I am sure Your Grace will not have forgotten that the late General Sir Edward Sheldon appointed you the Guardian of his daughter, Nelita. She is now eighteen and staying with a relative by the name of Lady Marshbanks. I think, however, Your Grace will agree this is not exactly the right place for Miss Nelita now she is eighteen and is entering the Social world. This is a decision that must rest with Your Grace as to where she can go, as soon as you have the time to consider it.”

Alex read the letter through twice and felt that there was more to it than actually met the eye.

Why was Lady Marshbanks considered unsuitable and what did Nelita Sheldon want herself?

He remembered what the General had said to him six years ago when they were fighting their way with the greatest difficulty through dense and mountainous country.

They had been marching all day and then they had settled down for a night’s rest in a small wood.

It was considered dangerous to light fires and they had therefore had nothing hot to eat or drink and Alex was fed up with sandwiches where the bread was not fresh and the contents dubious.

But it was that or nothing and he tried to think of other things while he was eating.

It was then that the General had said to him,

“By the way, Alex, I have been making my will and have sent it back to London.”

“That seems to be a gloomy thing to be occupying your mind, sir, at this moment,” he had replied lightly.

“I have been worrying myself about my daughter,” the General then explained. “She is an only child and if anything happens to me I am wondering just who will look after her.”

Alex was rather surprised at the General’s tone of voice, but before he could speak, Sir Edward continued,

“I expect you will know or perhaps you don’t, that Nelita will be a very considerable heiress when I die. And she will undoubtedly be pursued by the type of man who would not be sitting here with you and me at this moment.”

Alex had laughed because he knew what he meant.

“You are talking of fortune-hunters, sir,” he replied. “Any heiress is bound to find them buzzing round her like wasps round a honeypot!”

“That is what I am afraid of,” the General said. “My wife had a great fortune when I married her and it has increased considerably during the years because it was well invested.”

He sighed before he added,

“If I am not there, you can be certain those cads will pursue Nelita like a pack of hounds and very few girls have the sense to know whether a man is lying or telling the truth.”

“I am sure any daughter of yours, sir, is intelligent.”

Alex had a great admiration for the General, who had been a soldier all his life and was especially noted for his kindness to the new recruits. In fact any man under him was better looked after than under any other Commander.