A Duke in Danger

Chapter One ~ 1818-1

Chapter One ~ 1818The Duke of Harlington arrived at Harlington House in Berkeley Square and looked around him with satisfaction.

The house was obviously in excellent repair and he viewed with pride the portraits of his ancestors on the walls and up the stairs.

There were also the pictures collected by a previous Duke, which included a number of French Masters.

He had just come from France where he had learnt to recognise the genius of the French artists in a way that he had been unable to do before the War with Napoleon.

He was, however, intelligent enough to realise that since the end of the War he had increased his knowledge of a great number of subjects that he had not been interested previously in.

A tall extremely handsome man, his years as a soldier had left their mark on the way he walked and perhaps too in the expression in his eyes.

Women, and there had been a great number of them, had said to him that he always appeared to be looking for something below the surface and was generally to be disappointed.

He was not quite certain what they meant, but he had learnt to judge men and women by their fundamental personality rather than by their superficial qualities.

He had indeed owed his very important position in the Duke of Wellington’s Army to his understanding of human nature.

He was not only a leader but, as someone had once said of him, he had that extra quality of magnetism that is only found in the greatest rulers.

It was a compliment that had made the Duke laugh when he heard it. At the same time, because he was not in the least conceited, he hoped that it was true.

Now. as he walked from the hall into the downstairs sitting room and from there into the book-filled library, he thought that few men could have been as fortunate in life as he had been.

He had survived five gruelling years in Portugal and Spain, then in France and finally at Waterloo, without receiving a scratch, when so many of his friends and contemporaries were killed or maimed beside him.

Then, because of his outstanding ability not only as a soldier but as a diplomat, he had become essential to the Iron Duke during the Years of Occupation.

Looking back on them, they had undoubtedly been troubled times of frustration and political drama that concerned not only Britain but the whole of Europe.

Yet, although it seemed incredible, it was over and by the end of the year – it was now three years after the Battle of Waterloo – the Army of Occupation would have come home.

After all the dramatic discussions, the tension of rising tempers and decisions made and unmade, combined with the endless tug-of-war between the Allies, the Duke could hardly believe that he was at this moment a free man.

There was still the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, which was to take place in October, but the Army was to be out of France by the 30th of November.

As far as the Duke of Harlington was concerned, he had now his own personal problems to settle, for Wellington had reluctantly allowed him to leave the Army at the beginning of the summer so that he could put his own affairs in order.

It was a pleasant surprise to arrive in London to find that Harlington House at any rate seemed to be in fairly good shape.

He had sent one of his aides-de-camp, an extremely trustworthy man, ahead of him with instructions to see that the staff was notified of his arrival.

He intended to stay under his own roof while he called on the Prince Regent and, if the King was well enough, to call on His Majesty at Buckingham Palace as well.

It was strange to be back in England after so many years abroad, but stranger still to know that his position in life was now very different to what it had been when he was last here.

Then, as Ivar Harling, one of the youngest Colonels in the British Army, he had found a great deal to amuse him, most of which was unfortunately well beyond his purse.

Now, as the Duke of Harlington, he was not only a distinguished aristocrat with many hereditary duties that had to be taken up, but also an extremely wealthy man.

Letters that had been waiting for him at Paris from the late Duke’s Bankers enclosed not only a list of the possessions that were now his but also a statement of the money that was standing in his name.

The amount of it seemed incredible, but, as there was still so much to do for Wellington, the new Duke had set his own needs on one side and put his country first.

When he reached the library, he stood gazing at the leather-bound books that made the walls a patchwork of colour and appreciated the very fine picture of horses by Stubbs over the mantelpiece.

The butler, an elderly man, came into the room.

He was followed by a footman who was carrying a silver tray on which there was a wine cooler, engraved with the family crest, containing an open bottle of champagne.

When a glass was poured out for the Duke, he noticed automatically that the footman’s livery did not fit well and his stockings were wrinkled.

It was with some difficulty that he did not point it out to the man and tell him to smarten himself up.

Then, as the footman set down the tray on a table in the corner of the room, the butler hesitated and the Duke understood that he had something to say.

“What is it?” he enquired. “I think your name is ‘Bateson’.”

“Yes, Your Grace. That’s right.”

There was a pause and he began again a little hesitatingly,

“I hope Your Grace’ll find everything to your liking, but we’ve only had three days to prepare for your visit and the house has been shut up for the last six years.”

“I was thinking how well it looked,” the Duke replied pleasantly.

“We’ve worked hard, Your Grace, and, while I presumed to engage several women to clean every room that Your Grace was likely to use, there’s a great deal more to be done.”

“I suppose since the late Duke was so ill in the last years of his life,” the Duke said reflectively, “and did not come to London, you were down to a skeleton staff.”

“Just my wife and myself, Your Grace.”

The Duke raised his eyebrows.

“That certainly seems very few in so large a house. Yet,” he added graciously, “it certainly looks as I expected.”

“It’s what I hoped Your Grace’d say,” Bateson replied, “and if I have your permission to enlarge the staff further, I feel certain that we can soon get things back to what they were in the old days.”

“Of course!”

The Duke twitched his lips at the butler’s words.

Already references to ‘the old days’ had become a joke in the Army, in diplomatic and political circles and, he was quite certain, in domestic ones too.

Every country, and he had visited a great number since peace had been declared, had talked of nothing but the old days and how good things were when compared to what they were now.

He was quite sure that it was something that would be repeated to him again and again in England.

Then, as if Bateson realised that he had no wish to go on talking, he said,

“Luncheon’ll be ready very shortly, Your Grace. I hopes it’ll be to your liking.”

The Duke thought that the man was almost pathetically anxious to please and he wondered when Bateson closed the door behind him how old he was.

He remembered that when he was a small boy and his father had brought him to this house Bateson had been here then and he had thought him very impressive with six stalwart footmen behind him as he greeted them in the hall.

‘It was a long time ago,’ the Duke said to himself.

By now Bateson must be well over sixty, but he could understand that, having been in Ducal service all his life, the man had had no wish either to make a change or to retire earlier than he need.

The Duke was well aware that there was widespread unemployment in England and it would obviously be difficult for an elderly man to find a job.

Besides which, with men released from the Army of Occupation coming home every month, the situation would become more and more difficult.

He remembered the fuss that there had been when the Duke of Wellington had proposed a reduction in the Army of thirty thousand men.

Then he told himself that with the wealth he now owned there was no need for him to make any reductions in staff, in fact, he would increase it in every house he owned.

When he went into the dining room to eat an excellent luncheon served by Bateson with the help of two footmen, he decided that his first task now he was back in England should be to visit his new home, Harlington Castle in Buckinghamshire.

Even now after he had thought about it for two years, he could hardly believe that it was his and that he was incredibly and unexpectedly the fifth Duke of Harlington!

While he was exceedingly proud to belong to a family that had played its part in the history of England since the time of the Crusades, he had never in his wildest dreams thought that he might succeed to the Dukedom.

He had always been sensible enough to realise that he was a very unimportant member of the Harlings. His father had been only a cousin of the previous Duke and there had been three lives between him and any chance of inheritance.

But just as the War had brought devastation and misery to so many households over the whole of Europe, the previous Duke’s only son, Richard, had been killed at the Battle of Waterloo.

Ivar Harling had seen him just before the battle and he had been in tremendous spirits.

“If we don’t defeat the Froggies once and for all this time,” he had boasted cheerfully, “then I will bet you a dinner at Whites to a case of champagne that the War will last another five years.”

Ivar Harling has laughed.

“Done, Richard!” he said. “I have the feeling I shall be the loser, but it will be in a good cause!”

“It certainly will,” Richard replied with a grin and then he had added, “Seriously, what is our chance?”

“Excellent, if the Prussian Guards arrive on time.”

Both men had been silent for a moment knowing that actually the situation was very much more critical than it appeared on the surface.

“Good luck!”

Ivar Harling turning his horse galloped to where Wellington was watching the battle and saw that the Duke had ordered his Cavalry to counter-attack.

Then, as he rode to the side of the great man, the Duke turned to his aide-de-camp, Colonel James Stanhope, and asked the time.

“Twenty minutes past four.”

“The battle is mine! And if the Prussians arrive soon,” Wellington said, “there will be an end of the War.”

Even as he spoke, Ivar Harling heard the first Prussian guns on the fringe of a distant wood.

*

When luncheon was over, the Duke suddenly felt as if the house was very quiet.

He was so used to having people moving incessantly around him, seeing scurrying Statesmen with worried faces trekking in and out of Wellington’s headquarters in Paris, hearing sharp commands being given at all times of the day and night and dealing with endless complaints, requests and reports.

There were also parties, Receptions, assemblies and balls, besides the long drawn-out meetings where everyone seemed to talk and talk but achieve nothing.

There had, however, been interludes that were tender, exciting, interesting and very alluring.

The Duke thought cynically that now he was who he was, these would multiply and he could come under very different pressures from those he had endured during the years of War.

He was, of course, well aware that, as the young General Harling with many medals for gallantry, women had found him attractive.

Those who had congregated in Paris either for Diplomatic reasons or just in search of amusement had, where he was concerned, seldom been disappointed.