The Impetuous Duchess

CHAPTER ONE 1803-2

“I had a feeling you might – refuse to take me unless you thought that I was old and in need of – help.”

“You are quite correct in your supposition,” the Duke said. “But now that it is no longer possible for you to continue with your pretence, perhaps you would tell me why you are travelling alone?”

In answer she pushed back her hood to reveal vividly red hair that curled in a rather unfashionable manner over her head.

Her eyes were a very dark grey-green almost the colour of the sea and, even in the dimness of the coach, the Duke could see that her skin was white, clear and translucent.

She smiled at him and said gaily,

“I am glad I no longer need to use that trembling voice. But it did deceive you, did it not?”

“It did indeed,” the Duke replied. “But then why should I suspect that what I had been told was untrue?”

“I was so afraid that you would refuse to help me,” his companion said. “But now we are at least three miles on our way and there is nothing you can do about me.”

Her tone was so complacent that the Duke could not help saying,

“I could, of course, set you down on the roadside!”

“Leaving me to freeze to death in this weather?” the girl asked. “That would be extremely ungentlemanly!”

The Duke looked at her, taking in the small pointed face and the clear-cut features.

She was not beautiful, he decided, but she was extremely pretty and there was a fascination in the way she smiled and in the sparkle of her eyes that he had not encountered in other young women.

More than anything else she was obviously a Lady of Quality and, with a sense of some dismay, he asked,

“I think it would be best if you were frank with me. I enquired as to why you were travelling alone. Let me repeat the question.”

She gave him a glance from under her eyelashes and replied,

“It’s a secret, but I have urgent and important despatches that must be carried to London immediately! An ordinary messenger or Courier would be intercepted on the road, but it is unlikely that anyone would suspect me!”

“Very dramatic!” the Duke remarked dryly. “And now perhaps you will tell me the truth!”

“You don’t believe me?”

“No!”

There was a silence and then the girl said,

“I don’t wish to tell you the truth and there is no reason why you should demand it!”

“I think there is every reason,” the Duke replied. “After all, you are enjoying the hospitality of my coach and quite frankly I do not wish to be involved in any scandal.”

“There is no likelihood of that!” the girl said quickly – almost too quickly.

“Are you sure?” the Duke asked. “Perhaps it would be best if I turn the coach round. Your own carriage can doubtless be repaired and you can wait at The Grouse and Thistle until it is completed.”

The girl thought for a moment and then in a very different tone she asked,

“If I tell you the truth, will you promise to help me?”

“I can make no such promise,” the Duke answered, “but, shall I say, I shall give you a sympathetic hearing.”

“That is not enough!”

“I am not prepared to offer more!”

Again there was a silence and at last in a small voice the girl said,

“I have – run away!”

“I guessed that,” the Duke observed.

“Is it very obvious?”

“Ladies – even Scottish ladies – do not travel unaccompanied and do not beg lifts from strangers!”

The girl did not answer and the Duke went on,

“Well, are you running away from school?”

“No, of course not!” came the response. “I am eighteen and grown up! As a matter of fact, I have never been to school!”

“Then you are running away from home?”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

As she hesitated, the Duke said,

“I must insist upon knowing the truth and it will be easier if you tell me of your own free will without my compelling you to do so. Suppose for a start I learn your name?”

“Jacobina.”

The Duke raised his eyebrows.

“Then I gather from that you are a Jacobite?”

“Of course I am!” the girl agreed. “And so are all my Clan. My grandfather died in the Rebellion of ’45.”

“And now the Young Pretender, Charles Stuart, is dead too.” the Duke remarked. “You can hardly fight for a King who no longer exists.”

“His brother, James, is still alive!” she answered quickly, “and, if you think we would acknowledge those German upstarts in London as our rightful Monarchs, you are very much mistaken!”

The Duke smiled to himself.

He was well aware of how loyal many of the Scots were to their Stuart Kings and he could not help admiring their courage. The English had never been able to destroy their persistent and obstinate adoration of the man who they thought of as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’.

“Well, Jacobina,” he said, “go on with your story.”

“I am called ‘Jabina’,” she said. “‘Jacobina’ is too much of a mouthful, but that is what I was Christened and I am proud of it!”

“I can quite believe that! But do you think those who Christened you would be proud of you at this particular moment? I should imagine that they will be searching for you.”

“They will not be able to find me,” Jabina said firmly.

“Start from the beginning!” the Duke suggested with a note of command in his voice which those who served him would have instantly recognised.

“I don’t wish to talk about it,” Jabina protested.

“I am afraid I must insist on knowing why you are running away,” the Duke said. “Otherwise, and make no mistake about this, Jabina, I shall take you back to The Grouse and Thistle.”

She looked at him speculatively, her eyes wide in her small face.

“I believe that you would do something just as beastly as that!” she said at length. “You are a Sassenach. I have always known one can never trust a Sassenach!”

“But you have trusted me!” the Duke answered. “You are in my coach and therefore for the moment I am responsible for you. From what are you running away?”

“From – being – married!” Jabina stammered in a low voice.

“You are engaged?”

“Papa had intended to announce the engagement next week.”

“Did you tell your father that you don’t wish to be married?”

“I told him – but he would not listen.”

“Why not?”

“He likes the man he has chosen for me.”

“And you do not?”

“I hate him!” Jabina said fiercely. “He is old, dull, staid and disagreeable!”

“What do you think your father will do when he finds that you have disappeared?” the Duke asked.

“He will come tearing after me with a thousand of the Clan brandishing their claymores!”

“A thousand?” the Duke queried. “Surely that is somewhat an exaggeration?”

“I may exaggerate,” Jabina retorted, “but I am certain that Papa will pursue me and he will be very angry!”

“I am not surprised!” the Duke remarked. “But as far as I am concerned, I have no intention of being involved in your matrimonial troubles. We should reach the next Posting inn before nightfall and after that you must fend for yourself!”

“I never asked you to take me any further!” Jabina said. “It’s near the border and once in England I can take a stagecoach to London.”

“What do you intend to do in London?” the Duke enquired.

“I am not going to stay there,” Jabina answered almost scornfully. “I am on my way to France. Now that the war with Bonaparte is over I can stay with my aunt, Mama’s sister. She married a Frenchman and lives near Nice.”

“Have you informed your aunt of this decision?”

“No. But she will be glad to see me. I know she will. She loved Mama, but she and Papa never got on together.”

“Your mother is dead?”

“She died six years ago. I know that she would never have allowed Papa to force me into marriage with a man I detest!”

“I understand most girls have no choice when it comes to marriage,” the Duke said slowly. “I am sure, Jabina, that your father knows what is best for you.”

“That is just the pompous sort of thing you would say,” Jabina said scathingly. “You are exactly like Lord Dornach!”

“Lord Dornach?” the Duke enquired. “Is that the man you are to marry?”

“Do you know him?” Jabina asked.

“No,” the Duke answered, “but it sounds a very good marriage and that is what most young women require.”

“It is not what I require,” Jabina said crossly.

“Lord Dornach is well off?”

“He is very rich, I believe,” Jabina answered, “but if he was hung from head to foot in diamonds, it would not make me like him any the more. I told you he is old and dull. I would not be surprised if he incarcerated me in one of the dungeons beneath his castle and beat me to death!”

“The trouble with you,” the Duke remarked, “is that you have too fertile an imagination.”

“That is exactly what Papa says.”

“What more does your father say?”

“He says I am impetuous, impulsive, unstable and in need of a strong guiding hand!” Jabina recited.

Her voice held a note of contempt.

“A very accurate description, I should imagine,” the Duke remarked dryly.

Jabina tossed her head.

“How would you like to be married off to someone who was chosen in order to train you to become different from what you are at present? Besides, when Lord Dornach proposed to me, he never even said he loved me!”

“I imagine,” the Duke said in an amused voice, “that you hardly encouraged him to express himself ardently!”

“I certainly did not!” Jabina flashed. “I said to him, ‘I would rather wed a codfish than you, my Lord!’”

The Duke laughed – he could not help it.

“I am afraid, Jabina,” he said after a moment, “that your idea of travelling to Nice by yourself is quite impossible. It is sad for you to have to marry a man you dislike, but perhaps, having given your father a fright by running away, you will find him more reasonable on your return.”

“I am not going back!” Jabina cried. “I have already told you. I am not going back! Nothing could make me!”

“Then that is your business,” the Duke replied. “At the next Posting inn our ways will part.”

“You are just like Pontius Pilate,” Jabina said scornfully. “You are washing your hands of a problem simply because you don’t know what to do about it.”

For a moment the Duke looked startled.

He was not in the habit of hearing anyone speak to him in such a manner.

“It is not my problem,” he said almost in self-defence.

“Injustice, cruelty and brutality is everyone’s problem,” Jabina contradicted. “If you were a chivalrous sort of young man like the hero in a novel you would be prepared to fight for me, to help me escape from the forces of evil. You might even carry me away on your charger to the safety of your castle!”

“It sounds very much like a Frances Burney or Mrs. Radcliffe!” the Duke remarked. “But unfortunately my castle, as you call it, is a very long distance away and, having once taken you there, I should find it difficult to explain your presence.”

He smiled and added,

“The Knights, who rescued distressed maidens in the past, never seemed to have any problem as to what to do with them!”

“That is true,” Jabina agreed. “At the same time I am surprised that you should realise it!”

The Duke did not reply. He simply raised his eyebrows and after a moment she said impulsively,

“I am sorry if that sounded rude, but you are reading a very musty old book. I was watching you when you were not speaking to me and certainly it did not look very exciting.”

“It is a treatise on Medieval manuscripts.”

“There!” Jabina exclaimed. “You see what I mean! It certainly would not lead me to think that you would know about Knights Errant or maidens in distress.”

“Perhaps my education has been neglected on that particular point,” the Duke said. “All the same, Jabina, I have to think of how I can persuade you to return to your father.”

“You need not waste your words or your breath. I will not turn back. I am going to my aunt.”

“Have you money for the journey?” the Duke asked.

She smiled at him and he noticed that she had a dimple on the left side of her mouth.

“I am not as nit-witted as you think,” she replied. “I have fifteen pounds in my purse, which I took out of the housekeeping money when the housekeeper was not looking and I have brought all my mother’s jewellery with me. I have it pinned inside my gown so I cannot show it to you. But I know it’s very valuable and when I get to London I will sell it and then I shall have more than enough money to journey to Nice.”

“But you cannot travel all the way alone,” the Duke expostulated.

“Why not?” Jabina asked.

“You are too young for one thing.”

She waited, a little smile on her lips.

“Go on – ” she prompted.

While he hesitated searching for the right words, she added,

“ – and too pretty for another. You might as well say it. I know I am pretty. Everyone has told me so for years.”