The Homecoming Page 3

  She accepted a cup of tea from the footman. Peter bowed to the company, then his master, and made his escape.

  The duke sat down and studied Lizzie. She must have been aware of his steady gaze but she calmly drank tea, her long gloves unbuttoned and rolled back over her wrists.

  The duke cut right across Lady Beverley’s droning monologue. “Did you enjoy your game, Miss Lizzie?” he asked.

  “Yes, I thank you, Your Grace,” said Lizzie meekly.

  “The last ball we had here,” said Lady Beverley, ploughing on, “was a magnificent affair. The footmen had gold swords. I always wondered what happened to those gold swords.”

  “They probably went to pay off Papa’s debts like most other things,” said Lizzie.

  “My dear child,” said Lady Beverley with an icy glare which did not go with the fondness of the words. “Always funning.”

  “My secretary kept you amused, Miss Lizzie?” pursued the duke.

  “Yes, I thank you, Your Grace.” Green eyes met silver ones. “He is most assiduous in attending to his duties, I believe. Does he walk your dogs as well?”

  “I did not send you away like a dog,” said the duke sharply.

  “I do beg your pardon,” said Lizzie sweetly. “You were being most kind in thinking I would prefer young company.”

  “Yes, my dear,” gushed her mother. “His Grace is kindness itself. But I always think a young lady needs an older man to guide her.”

  “How strange, Mama. I would not have thought that at all. Papa was only a year older than you when you married.”

  “Ah, but I was old beyond my years. Now you, my dear, are a trifle wayward and flighty, but some gentleman older in years would be able to school you.”

  “You forget, Mama, I have the benefit of a superior governess.”

  Lady Beverley gave her tinkling laugh. “Such an innocent!” She smiled at the duke, who gave her a stony look. “No, no, a husband is something different.”

  Lizzie was experiencing an odd feeling of excitement. Mannerling had lost its hold on her. She did not care a whit what this rude duke thought of her. She had forgotten all her good intentions of remaining silent.

  “You do not need to worry about a husband for me, Mama, for I am much too plain to fetch one, old or young. As you said yourself, it is a pity I am the runt of the litter.”

  The duke covered his mouth with his hand to hide a smile.

  “I said no such thing.” Lady Beverley raised a thin white hand to her brow. “I declare I am feeling a trifle faint. Perhaps some fresh air…?”

  Miss Trumble rose to her feet. “Yes, we must return immediately. I will make you one of my possets, Lady Beverley.” She took Lady Beverley’s arm and guided her to the door.

  Lizzie curtsied low to the duke. Once more their eyes met and held. Lizzie’s green eyes held a mocking, challenging look.

  Peter was waiting at the foot of the stairs. “If you are ever allowed some free time, do call on us,” said Lizzie.

  The duke caught the remark as he followed them down the staircase. He was displeased. Lizzie Beverley was a forward, unruly girl.

  After Barry had helped Lady Beverley into the carriage, then Lizzie, the duke took Miss Trumble aside.

  “Even you, Aunt, must admit your pert miss should have watched her tongue.”

  “You did, however, send your secretary to take her away for a walk, just like a pet dog,” said Miss Trumble. “You are annoyed because she dared to enjoy his company. Your trouble, Gervase, is that no one has ever given you a set-down. But what is a little miss like Lizzie to you? You will invite your ladies here to look them over and no doubt you will select one who is as little capable of love and laughter as you are yourself.”

  The duke turned on his heel and walked back into the house.

  “Your Grace,” said Peter.

  “Yes, Mr. Bond?”

  “The chandelier has begun to move although there is no wind, and I feel a strange air of menace, of threat that seems to come from the very walls.”

  The duke stared up at the chandelier as it turned first one way and then the other.

  “Vibration from somewhere,” he said curtly. “And exercise has made you fanciful. I feel nothing.”

  He marched up the stairs with his dutiful secretary at his heels.

  If a ghost confronted my master, thought Peter, he would probably just order it off the premises!

  Chapter Two

  Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example,

  what on earth is the use of them?

  —OSCAR WILDE

  A WEEK AFTER the tea party found Lady Beverley still confined to her room with one of her imaginary illnesses. “It is too bad of you, Lizzie,” complained Miss Trumble. “Your mother always becomes like this when her ambitions are thwarted.”

  “They would need to be thwarted in any case,” said Lizzie. “Better sooner than later.”

  “But as I have pointed out, your were impertinent. The duke will invite you to a ball or fête when his guests are in residence and you must behave prettily.”

  “He does irritate me,” said Lizzie ruefully.

  “Well, we will say no more about it for the moment. Only do try to learn to guard your tongue!”

  The duke summoned his secretary and asked if the invitations to his house party had been sent out.

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Good. That will be all. No, stay. Did you find a young man suitable for Miss Lizzie Beverley?”

  “Yes, Your Grace, a certain Mr. Gerald Parkes. Aged twenty and of good family. If you do but remember, we met the young man and his family at Dover last year. Mr. Parkes was returning from the Grand Tour. He was all that was amiable and you played backgammon with his father, Colonel Parkes, and thought very highly of him. I took the liberty therefore of inviting Mr. Gerald and his parents.”

  “That will be all.”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  Peter bowed his way to the door.

  “A moment.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “You may take tomorrow off. I will not have need of you.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  “And if you wish to ride to Hedgefield, say, you may ask the groom to find you a mount.”

  “You are very kind, Your Grace.”

  “Now you may go.”

  Peter closed the double doors of the drawing-room and did a little jig on the landing. He was beginning to detest Mannerling, to find the atmosphere of the great house depressing.

  It was indeed a beautiful house, from its painted ceilings to its Persian-carpeted floors. The rooms were gracious and elegantly proportioned. He suddenly thought of Lizzie’s invitation and his heart lifted. He would call and pray that Lady Beverley might not find his visit presumptuous.

  For some reason, the duke found the memory of Lizzie rankling. She had crossed swords with him and he felt he had somehow lost that first engagement. He had come into his dukedom at an early age. His parents were both dead. Although they had not spent much time with him, they had seen that he had the best of tutors, by which they meant an elderly Scotsman who had toadied to the duke quite dreadfully and the duke had taken that toadying as being exactly what was due to his consequence.

  He had attended several Seasons in London in his early twenties, but had not found any female to engage his interest. He had turned his mind to his estates and then in his late twenties to the interests of foreign travel.

  He had several people he considered as friends, people that the more ordinary ranks might consider acquaintances, for the duke could not bring himself to confide in anyone. Nor did he feel the need for affection. He had kept several clever and amusing mistresses and when he had tired of them had seen to it that his lawyers had seen each on her way with a generous settlement. When servants became too old to work, they were housed and pensioned.

  It was only lately that he had begun to feel a black void in his life. He had justifie
d the purchase of Mannerling to himself by considering it suitable property for an heir, and yet the truth was he had simply felt that this temporary move from his ancestral home might allay his growing ennui.

  He felt Lizzie Beverley, she who was supposed to be consumed with ambition to regain Mannerling, had gaily dismissed him as old and boring.

  On the following day, as he was walking back to the house after surveying some improvements to the gardens, he saw his secretary ride off down the long drive between the row of lime trees, and knew he was probably going to call at Brookfield House.

  He shrugged and turned indoors. It would serve his aunt right if her precious charge became enamoured of a mere secretary.

  He decided to get out the carriage and drive over to see old Lady Evans, whom he had once met in London several years before.

  His valet laid out his morning coat and breeches and cravat and clean cambric shirt. Once he was dressed, he dismissed his valet and stood in front of the mirror in his room, drawing on his York tan driving gloves.

  And suddenly an old man stared back at him from the mirror. It was himself, but horribly aged and stooped. He gasped and covered his face and looked again. But this time only his own well-groomed reflection looked back at him.

  Some disorder of the spleen, he thought. The buttered crab last night perhaps had been too rich.

  But as he walked down the grand staircase and as two footmen leaped to open the front door for him, he found he was still badly shaken.

  His phaeton and horses had been brought round to the front door. He climbed in and picked up the reins. He badly wanted to tell someone what he had seen in the mirror, but winced at the idea of being thought mad.

  There were strange stories about Mannerling being haunted, but he had jeered at all of them.

  He drove slowly down the drive, feeling a certain lightness of heart as he reached the lodge-gates. Instead of going to Lady Evans’s home, he became convinced that it was his duty to call on his aunt and try once more to persuade her to give up her lowly position in the Beverley household.

  Peter found Lizzie in the garden, cutting roses which she laid in a basket on her arm.

  “Oh, Peter!” she cried when she saw him. “You are come. How is it you escaped?”

  “His Grace gave me the day off.”

  “Do step indoors and I will call Miss Trumble. Mama is lying down.”

  “I trust Lady Beverley is not indisposed?”

  Lizzie did not want to say that all her mother’s ailments were imaginary so she said, “Mama has the headache but Miss Trumble has given her something for it. Miss Trumble always manages to make Mama feel better.” She laid the basket of roses on a table in the hall.

  Miss Trumble came down the stairs. “Mr. Bond,” she said, “you are welcome.”

  Peter felt at ease. Not knowing that Miss Trumble was, in fact, the duke’s aunt, he felt on a social level with her.

  “But you must have some refreshment,” said Miss Trumble. “It is such a fine day, it is a pity to waste it indoors. Lizzie, take Mr. Bond to the table in the garden and I will tell the maids to bring tea, and see if Josiah has some of his little scones.”

  Lizzie’s hair was still worn up. She had protested to Miss Trumble that there was no need, surely, to wear her hair up and be gowned in her prettiest dresses when no one came to call, but Miss Trumble said, “I sent a note to Lady Evans. She might call at any time. A lady must always look as if she is expecting callers.”

  Lizzie led the way to the table in the garden under the cedar tree. Peter sat down with a little sigh of pleasure.

  “How fine it is here.”

  Lizzie smiled. “You cannot think it finer than Mannerling.”

  “But I do! I thought you were being fanciful, Lizzie, when you told me about the chandelier, but when you left last week, and I entered the house with my master, the chandelier was turning and there was a brooding air of menace. I pointed it out to the duke but he dismissed it. He felt nothing.”

  “I think he is probably a very insensitive man.”

  “I cannot discuss or criticize my employer, Lizzie.”

  “No, of course you cannot. Here is Miss Trumble. Miss Trumble, you will think me very forward, but I have asked Peter here to call me Lizzie when we are not in company.”

  “Be sure you do not let anyone hear you,” said Miss Trumble reluctantly.

  The two maids came out carrying tea, scones and cakes. Miss Trumble had dismissed them and was just pouring tea when one of the maids came running back, the streamers of her cap flying.

  “Miss Trumble, my lady wishes to see you.”

  Miss Trumble gave a little sigh, but rose obediently to her feet. “I shall leave Lizzie to entertain you, Mr. Bond.”

  “So tell me, Peter,” said Lizzie, “about the duke’s plans to marry. He did tell us that those were his plans, so you will not be out of order in talking about them.”

  “There is something I can tell you in confidence which shows that my master has considered your future.”

  “What can it be?”

  “I have invited several people to come on a visit. His Grace asked me to find a suitable young gentleman for you, Lizzie.”

  “And have you?”

  “Yes, a very pleasant young man. A Mr. Gerald Parkes.”

  Her eyes flashed. “That is very high-handed of him to find someone for me. He should have asked me.”

  “I think he only meant to be kind.”

  “And I think Miss Trumble asked him to find me someone.”

  Peter looked surprised. “Estimable governess as she obviously is, a governess cannot ask a duke to do such a thing.”

  “No, I suppose not, Peter,” said Lizzie quickly. “Tell me about yourself. Are you happy in your employ?”

  “I should be.”

  “So what is amiss?”

  “I would like to tell you, Lizzie, for we are friends, but in my home village, there is a certain lady…”

  He blushed and looked down.

  “What is her name?” asked Lizzie gently.

  “Sarah. Miss Sarah Walters.”

  “And is she very fair?”

  “Miss Walters has great vivacity and charm. She is Squire Walters’s daughter. The family hope for better for her than a mere secretary, even the secretary to a duke. I could not declare myself.”

  “How sad.”

  “Yes, it is sad. I cannot even write to her.”

  Lizzie nodded wisely. It was a world in which one’s parents opened and read one’s letters first.

  “Perhaps,” she said tentatively, “you might broach the subject to the duke. Who knows? He owns so much property, he might allow you to have a house of your own and sufficient to wed your Sarah.”

  Peter gave a mirthless laugh. “Servants do not marry, as you know very well.”

  “I wish there was something I could do for you, Peter.”

  He put a hand over hers where it lay on the table and gave it a little squeeze.

  The duke, entering the garden, saw what he believed was his secretary holding the hand of Lizzie Beverley in a fond and amorous clasp.

  He went straight to the house. The door stood open. “Miss Trumble!” he called.

  Miss Trumble came down the stairs.

  “How good of you to call.”

  “Come into the parlour,” he said grimly.

  Now what? thought Miss Trumble, as he held open the door for her and then shut it firmly behind them.

  She sat down, but the duke began to pace up and down. “Do stand still and tell me what the matter is,” said Miss Trumble.

  He ceased his pacing and looked down at her.

  “When I arrived, my secretary was sitting in the garden holding hands with Lizzie.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, very sure, Aunt. There is something badly wrong when a young miss allows such familiarity and on such short acquaintance.”

  “It is all very simple, Gervase. Lizzie, despite her
unruly tongue, is not a flirt. We shall go together to the garden and simply ask them what they are about.”

  This was the most sensible course and the duke followed her reluctantly out, feeling all the same like a middle-aged gossip.

  Peter rose to his feet when he saw his master. Lizzie rose and curtsied. Both young faces were polite blanks and yet the duke sensed he had interrupted something important and that they wished him at the devil.

  “We shall all sit down,” said Miss Trumble. “Lizzie, His Grace was startled, on entering the garden, to see you holding hands with his secretary.”

  Peter blushed miserably. “It was not what you think. There was something troubling me. I told Miss Lizzie and she was so concerned and so understanding that I was moved to cover her hand with my own. Pray accept my apologies.”

  “If such be the case,” said Miss Trumble, “you need not apologize.”

  “No, indeed,” said Lizzie. “But I think you should tell the duke what it was about. He may be able to help you.”

  Peter hung his head.

  “Is it something so very dreadful that you fear you might lose your employ?” asked Miss Trumble.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Tell me about it,” commanded the duke, noticing however the silky sheen of Lizzie Beverley’s red hair in the sunlight.

  “I am in love,” said Peter wretchedly.

  The duke raised his thin eyebrows but said nothing. He simply waited patiently.

  “Her name is Sarah Walters,” went on Peter in a low voice. “She is the daughter of Squire Walters in the village of Syderham, where I grew up. I could not declare my love as I am not in a position to do so. That is all.”

  “Does the lady return your affection?” demanded the duke.

  “I believe she is not indifferent to me.”

  “How old is this village charmer?”

  “She will now be eighteen years.”

  “And when did you last see Miss Walters?”

  “Two years ago.”