The Dare-Devil Duke

CHAPTER ONE-1

CHAPTER ONEThe Duke yawned.

“I should be leaving.”

A soft scented body moved beside him.

“Oh, no, darling,” a seductive voice protested. “You cannot leave me so soon. I cannot lose you!”

There appeared to be nothing in her voice that was unusual.

Yet suddenly the Duke was aware of danger.

It was by relying on his exceptional powers of intuition that he had survived to earn the reputation for being a Dare-Devil.

He had undertaken when he was in the Army, what seemed impossible assignments which no other Officer would risk.

When Darcy Horne had come into the title unexpectedly, he had to resign from his Regiment.

He left with a number of medals and honours which were the outward and visible sign of his dashing reputation.

It was his intuition – what he thought of at times as a ‘warning voice’ – which had kept him alive. It had preserved him to inherit the Dukedom, following the death in action of both of his cousins.

Now, for no reason he could put his finger on, he knew that he must leave.

He rose from the bed despite two clinging arms, and Lady Julie said again,

“Do not go, I beg you, darling, not to leave me. It is far too early!”

“I am tired, Julie,” the Duke answered, “and as I have a long day tomorrow, I need my ‘Beauty Sleep’!”

He had his back to her as he spoke, and yet he was convinced she looked at the clock.

“It is too early, darling,” she said again, “and you know how precious the hours I spend with you are to me.”

The Duke started to put on his clothes.

He dressed himself swiftly and with an expertise which always infuriated his valet.

When he had finished arranging his cravat, he moved back towards the bed.

As he did so, without its occupant being aware of it, he turned the key of the door in the lock and put it into his pocket.

It was a swift movement and done so neatly that Lady Julie had no idea it had happened.

Instead, looking incredibly lovely with her long hair falling over her shoulders, she held out her arms.

The Duke was well aware that if he kissed her, as she intended, she would pull him down on top of her.

Then it would be difficult to escape.

Instead he kissed her hands, one after the other, and said,

“Thank you, Julie. I have enjoyed this evening, and you are very beautiful.”

He crossed the room towards a curtain which concealed the wash-hand basin and Julie’s elaborate brushes and bottles.

These were the accessories with which she made herself one of the most striking and acclaimed Beauties in the Beau Monde.

“What are you doing, Darcy?” she cried as the Duke pulled back the curtain.

The bedroom in the tall, narrow house on the corner of Charles Street and the mews behind the houses on that side of Berkeley Square had two windows.

One looked out onto Charles Street, and the other, which was hidden by the curtain, onto the mews behind the houses.

The Duke was aware of this and did not answer. He thought even as he moved back the curtain that he heard the sound of wheels stopping outside the front of the house.

“What are you doing?” Lady Julie asked again plaintively as the Duke opened the window which overlooked the mews.

Again he made no reply.

With the agility of an acrobat, he swung himself down from the window-sill and dropped onto the roof of the floor below.

It was easy to scramble from there into the cobbled yard.

Even as he did so he heard someone rattling the door which would not open.

He walked swiftly down the mews.

When he got to the far end of it, he threw the key that was in his pocket into some bushes.

He then had only a few yards to go to reach his own house in Berkeley Square.

When he did so he told himself he had had a lucky escape.

He had known that Lady Julie’s husband Timothy Barlow was hard up.

But he had not thought he would stoop to such an age-old trick as coming back unexpectedly to find his wife in another man’s arms.

There were only two options open to the victim.

To fight a duel which might result in his having to live abroad for several years, or to pay up.

The Duke knew that there was no question about what Timothy Barlow would demand.

He would have to pay up rather than be involved in a scandal.

It would be unthinkable so soon after he had inherited his title and the vast estates that for centuries had belonged to the Dukes of Dreghorne.

“I have had a lucky escape!” he said again.

He knew it was thanks to his intuition which had saved him dozens of times before.

The night footman sprang to his feet when he heard the knock.

Having let his Master into the house, he shut the door and bolted it.

“Tell Jenkins in the morning,” the Duke said, “that I will leave immediately after breakfast for the country.”

“Very good, your Grace,” the night-footman murmured.

The Duke walked slowly up the stairs.

Only when he reached his bedroom did he ask himself why the sort of thing that had just happened so often happened to him.

He had found Lady Julie fascinating.

She was also in his opinion, one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

The daughter of a Marquess, she had eloped with Timothy Barlow a few days before her seventeenth birthday.

It had been a mistake, though they had in fact, stayed together.

Timothy was a gambler, and there were times when they both wondered where the next penny was coming from.

The Duke could understand that he was the obvious person to solve their problems.

What annoyed him was that he had thought Julie was genuinely infatuated with him.

When he was an unimportant and obviously impecunious soldier, a great number of women had laid their hearts at his feet.

It seemed ironic that now he was a Duke Julie had been more interested in his money than in him.

It was not really that he minded so much parting with thousands of pounds.

It was the humiliation of being caught in a compromising situation against which he had no defence.

At any rate, he thought, it had taught him a lesson – not to be so conceited in the future.

Also, for the moment, to waste no more of his valuable time in London.

There was, he knew, a great deal for him to do in the country.

The late Duke had been a very old man when he died and had neglected the estate by not modernising it in any way.

It was not only that the equipment on the farms was out of date.

Most of the horses in the stables were on their last legs.

Quite a number of the servants at the Castle should have been pensioned off years earlier.

The war had of course contributed to that because the young men were away fighting Napoleon, and many of them had not returned.

The Duke knew that he had to bring the Dreghome Estate up to date.

He had also to restore and preserve the treasures in the Castle which had been handed down from generation to generation.

“The sooner I get to work, the better!” the Duke told himself as he got into bed.

Without another thought for the woman he had just left in an ignominious position behind a locked door, he fell asleep.

*

In the morning, the Duke rang for his valet before the man called him.

“I ’ears as we’re goin’ to the country, yer Grace,”

Bates said when he answered the bell.

“I want to leave before nine o’clock,” the Duke said.

“I thought that’s wot yer Grace’d want,” Bates answered, “an’ Mr. Ashton’s sent a groom ahead an hour ago to warn ’em.”

The Duke did not reply.

He was used to the excellent way in which his Secretary ran the house.

He knew that Mr. Bennett his counterpart at the Castle would therefore have everything ready when he arrived.

He dressed quickly.

Then he went down to breakfast in the dining room which overlooked the Berkeley Square garden.

Beside his plate were a number of letters that his Secretary had left unopened.

The Duke glanced at them and knew they were mostly billets-doux from women who were attracted by him.

“And not only,” he told himself cynically, “Because they want me to bed them!”

He thought now that last night had taught him a lesson which he would not forget in a hurry.

When next a woman enticed him with an invitation in her eyes, he would question what she really wanted before he succumbed to her beauty.

At the same time he was laughing at himself for coldly analysing anything that was so enjoyable.

He had thanked his lucky stars a million times already for the amazing position which he now occupied.

He had expected to grow old as a serving Officer.

He had reached the rank of Major by the time he left the Army.

But without another war taking place he knew it might be many years before he reached any higher rank.

The war had provided him with many uncomfortable, frightening and certainly dangerous moments.

At the same time it had been a challenge.

He had enjoyed the risks he had taken, simply because he had always been triumphant.

He knew that his Commanding Officers had, even as they praised him, regarded him as a Dare-Devil who would doubtless, sooner or later, come to an untimely end.

It had amused him to see the astonishment on their faces when he and the men he had led returned alive.

What was more, often unscathed from some extraordinarily risky action against the enemy.

He knew that on many occasions the betting had been ten to one against his survival.

And yet he had survived.

Now there was peace and the enemies he was facing were dilapidation, neglect and, worst of all, apathy.

The Duke finished his breakfast before he touched the letters in front of him.

He opened three and tore them up.

They were from women who were hunting him, he told himself, as if he were a fox.

The others were Social invitations, and needed formal answers which could be dealt with by his secretary.

Letters beseeching him to come to a dinner, a Ball, or a Reception because the hostess wanted to flaunt him in the face of her rivals, he put on one side.

He rang the silver bell that was on the table in front of him.

The butler answered his summons almost immediately.

“Ask Mr. Ashton to join me in the study,” the Duke said.

“Very good, your Grace,” Jenkins answered, “and when will your Grace be returning from the country?”

“I have no idea,” the Duke replied, “but possibly sooner than you expect.”

“I assure your Grace that whenever it is, we’ll be ready for your Grace’s arrival,” Jenkins said promptly.

The Duke gave a short laugh.

“I will believe that when I see it!”

Picking up the letters he had set to one side, he went from the room.

He was aware as he did so that Jenkins was looking at him with an expression of admiration in his eyes.

He could not help knowing that all his servants admired him.

This was because Bates had regaled them with stories of his adventures during the war.

As Bates had taken part in many of them, the Duke was sure he had exaggerated much of what had happened.

At the same time it was pleasingly flattering.

He knew only too well that the housemaids regarded him as a hero.

The male staff would follow him in the same way that his soldiers had done wherever he led them.

As he was giving instructions to Ashton to cancel his engagements for the next few days, the Duke signed a large number of letters and several cheques.

“Will your Grace be inviting any guests to the country?” Mr. Ashton asked.

The Duke shook his head.

“Not for the moment, but if I want any of my friends to join me, I will send a groom to you with their names.”