The Duke of Invercaron found it impossible to sleep.
He turned over in bed and told himself that it was ridiculous and the sooner he fell into unconsciousness the better.
Then, almost as if a voice was telling him so, he knew that the reason for his sleeplessness was that there was something wrong.
It was, however, extremely irritating that he had no idea what it was or why it should affect him to the extent of being unable to sleep peacefully as he usually did after a long day.
It had, in fact, been a very long day and one that he had known from the moment he rose that morning would be if not positively disagreeable at least somewhat embarrassing.
But he had told himself firmly it was something that had to be done almost as if in obedience to a Regimental order concerning which there could be no argument.
When he had embarked on his way home from India two months ago, he had felt, as he left the steaming heat of Calcutta, as if he was setting off on a voyage that was so strange and so unexpected that he could not visualise what would happen at the end of it.
When he had opened the telegram informing him of his uncle’s death and that he had now inherited his title, Talbot McCaron, as he was then, thought at first that it was a joke.
It flashed through his mind that his brother Officers, who were always up to some prank or another, were pulling his leg.
Then, as he read slowly and carefully the letter that had been waiting for him when he returned from a campaign on the Northwest Frontier, which had been extremely hazardous, he knew it was the truth that he was now the Third Duke of Invercaron.
After that everything seemed to happen so quickly that he had hardly time to catch his breath.
He had, of course, been given leave of absence by his Colonel, although they had both known that it was only a question of time before he must resign his Commission and leave the Regiment to take up the duties that awaited him in Scotland as Chieftain of the Clan McCaron.
“We shall miss you,” the Colonel had said sincerely, “and, although it is best left unsaid, I know that the ‘Powers that Be’ are extremely grateful for the way in which you have been able to help them over matters we are unable to discuss at the moment.”
“I shall miss you too,” Talbot McCaron admitted reflectively.
“I know you will, my boy,” the Colonel had said sympathetically. “At the same time it is only right that you should now marry and settle down, for no wife would want her husband deliberately walking into danger as you have been doing these last few years.”
The two men smiled at each other knowing that what they were referring to was so secret that it would be a mistake to elaborate on it even to each other.
With the good wishes of his fellow Officers ringing in his ears, the new Duke had set off for Calcutta, where the Viceroy had summoned him.
What he minded more than anything else was saying goodbye to his Sepoys with whom he had fought side by side in dozens of skirmishes, when they had all known that it was only thanks to good luck and good judgement on the part of their Officer that they had come through more or less unscathed.
Every time Talbot McCaron lost one of his men he felt the pain of it as if he was losing a limb and, when he was finally steaming up the Red Sea, he told himself that no Scottish Clansman could have given him more loyalty and devotion than the Indians who had served under him.
He had been surprised when he reached London to find how many people wished to see him.
The last time he had been home on leave he had spent two weeks of it enjoying the theatres, the balls and the parties at which an extra man was always welcome.
He had, however, refused a great number of invitations because if he was looking for social life there was always plenty of it in the hill stations in India.
Instead he had spent more money than he could really afford in taking one or two beautiful Gaiety Girls out to supper and found them alluring and very amusing in a different way from the amusement that was always waiting for a handsome young bachelor in India.
But now that he was the Duke of Invercaron everything was very different.
To begin with, his first appointment was with the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Marquis of Lothian, who had talked to him very seriously about his plans.
“I am afraid,” he said, “you will find that your uncle, being so ill for the last years of his life, let everything become rather lax. When I was last in the neighbourhood, I visited him at The Castle and it was obvious that both your future home and the crofts on the estate needed a great deal of money spent on them.”
The Duke looked at him apprehensively.
“Money, my Lord?” he repeated. “I have already been warned that it is in singularly short supply.”
“I am aware of that,” the Marquis answered.
The Duke’s lips twitched and he asked somewhat cynically,
“Have you any suggestions, my Lord, as to how I can acquire a commodity so desirable in what I know of old is a very beautiful but unprofitable part of Scotland?”
The Marquis had laughed.
“You express it well and I can only agree that I know of no place more beautiful than the Strath in which the McCarons have lived for centuries, but only a miracle could make it yield a profit.”
“That is what I was thinking on my way here from India,” the Duke said. “Quite frankly I am considering shutting up The Castle in order to live more economically and trying to establish some industry that would provide at least a living wage for some of our younger men.”
The Marquis looked at him in astonishment.
“Shut up The Castle?” he exclaimed. “I never thought I would hear a McCaron suggest that!”
“It would at least be a practical move,” the Duke said defensively.
The Marquis sat back in his chair and looked at the Duke as if he was some unheard of phenomenon whom he had encountered by sheer chance.
Then he said almost angrily,
“It is impossible, utterly impossible, for you to do such a thing! Your Castle has been the rallying point for the McCarons for centuries! I know that those of them who have travelled to all parts of the world and live almost in exile in other countries would, if it was no longer there, feel as if they had been deprived of something very precious.”
“I know that,” the Duke agreed, “but, while with three lives between me and the Dukedom I never imagined I would ever become the Chieftain, I frequently thought over the problem of what it entailed and when my father was alive we often discussed it.”
There was silence for a moment as both the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Duke were thinking of how his uncle’s eldest son had been killed fighting in Egypt and his second son had been drowned in a storm at sea, which had smashed his fishing boat on a rocky coast and there had been no survivors.
Then the Marquis said in a different tone of voice,
“There is something I am going to suggest to you, although I expect that somebody has already done so the moment you set foot in England.”
“Actually when I arrived home late last night,” the Duke replied, “I found a great many messages and letters waiting for me, but I thought it polite to call on you first.”
The Marquis smiled.
“I am gratified. At the same time I find it rather uncomfortable to say what should more suitably be said to you by one of the older members of your Clan.”
The Duke looked apprehensive.
“Now you are making me realise,” he said after a moment, “why Sir Iain McCaron of that Ilk has left no fewer than half a dozen messages saying that he wishes to see me immediately on my arrival!”
He spoke somewhat ruefully and the Marquis gave a short laugh.
“Sir Iain will doubtless be long-winded about it,” he said, “but I can tell you quite simply – it is that you should marry!”
The Duke stiffened and stared at the Marquis as if he could not have heard him aright.
“Marry?” he ejaculated. “That, my Lord, is indeed something I did not expect you to say! If I cannot afford The Castle, I certainly cannot afford to take a wife!”
“That surely depends on the wife,” the Marquis replied. “The lady who is being considered as most suitable to be your Duchess is – ”
Before he could go any further, the Duke interrupted sharply, saying,
“Considered to be my wife? Who has considered this? And why should anyone interfere with what I have always thought was something very private and personal?”
He drew in his breath before he continued.
“I certainly need nobody, and I mean nobody, to choose my wife for me or to interfere in any way in a matter that I consider concerns me and me alone!”
The Duke had not raised his voice, but he spoke with a touch of steel that those who had been under his command would have recognised as indicating that he was extremely angry.
The Marquis, however, seemed quite unabashed.
He merely said in a conciliatory voice,
“I can understand your feelings, my dear fellow, but you must be aware as a Scottish Chieftain that your people, to whom you are not only a leader but father, shepherd and protector, are more important than personal prejudices or, in this case, your somewhat sensitive feelings.”
Now there was a definite scowl on the Duke’s handsome face before he retorted,
“I would like to know, my Lord, exactly what you are suggesting before we become any further involved.”
“That is what I wish too,” the Marquis said, “and I can only ask you to hear what I have to say without being too prejudiced.”
His considerate tone made the Duke feel that he had been somewhat hasty.
Equally he told himself that, if the Secretary of State thought that he was going to manipulate him into marriage, he was very much mistaken.
There had, of course, over the years been a number of women who had tried by every means in their power to entice him up the aisle.
He had carefully avoided the young girls who came out to India in order to get married and he spent his time either with married women whose husbands were toiling away in the heat of the plains, or else with widows who were usually too sensible to want to marry a penniless Captain or, as he became later, a Major, however attractive he might be.
Even so, once they were involved, their caution and their principles flew out of the window and with their arms around his neck they would beg him to marry them.
“We will manage,” they would say. “I know we will manage! I have a little money of my own and we will be so happy, darling, that nothing else will be of any significance.”
He had, however, been wise enough to avoid the adoring eyes that filled so quickly with tears and the quivering lips, which sought his even before he was ready for them.
He had known that however attractive and alluring they might be, the Regiment, the men who served with him and his secret exploits known only to the very highest of his superiors were more exciting, more intriguing than any woman could be – that was to say, considered on a permanent basis.
He had since then made up his mind never to marry unless by some miracle he could afford it and that meant never.
In India the average Officer found it hard enough to pay his Mess bills let alone embark on providing for a wife and children.
He knew that in his new position in Scotland he would have to take on the responsibilities of his Clan and what he suspected would be a large number of outstanding debts, but it had never crossed his mind on the voyage home that he would also be saddled with the extravagance of a young woman, who would be inhuman if she did not occasionally want a new gown.
As the Duke waited now for the Marquis to speak, he thought, if this was the sort of nonsense that was waiting for him at home, then the sooner he shut The Castle, left one of his relatives in charge of the estate and went back to India, the better.
But, even as he thought of it, he knew that it was only a pipe dream and something that he would be unable to do because of his sense of duty.
At the same time, while he guessed what was coming, he steeled himself to say quite firmly and irrevocably that it was something he would not do.
“I expect,” the Marquis of Lothian said slowly, “you remember that the Clan Macbeth borders on your land and their house is actually not more than ten miles from The Castle.”
“Yes, I remember the Macbeths, although I have not seen the Earl for at least fifteen years,” the Duke replied. “I remember also that as a boy we always despised our neighbouring Clans and especially the Macbeths because, when we fought with them in the old days, we had always been victorious.”
The Marquis laughed.
“You would have hated them if they had beaten you! But you always had the advantage of having finer fighting men and more skill when it came to a raid into enemy territory.”
“I see that you have done your homework, my Lord,” the Duke said a little sarcastically.
“Because one of my relatives married a McCaron, I have had your history drummed into me for years,” the Marquis replied. “That is why it concerns me personally that you should be in the plight you are now in and I feel that I should do something about it.”
The Duke did not answer.
He merely reiterated to himself that, if it was a question of marriage, the answer was ‘no.’
“The Earl of Dalbeth died six months ago,” the Marquis went on.
“I had no idea of that,” the Duke exclaimed. “I must have missed the announcement in the newspapers.”
“He was an unhappy man after his first wife passed away. He married again and, because his daughter, Jane, did not get on with her stepmother, he sent her to school in Italy and in the holidays she lived with her grandmother.”
The Duke was listening, but with a somewhat cynical expression on his face and his lips were set in a tight line.
“As I expect you remember,” the Marquis continued, “that the Earl unfortunately had no other children. So on his death Lady Jane became the Countess of Dalbeth and Hereditary Chieftain of the Clan.”
“I am sure that she will perform her duties very capably,” the Duke remarked.
The Marquis ignored the interruption and went on.
“What nobody expected was that a month or so after her father’s death and her return from Italy, it was learnt that she had been left an enormous fortune by her Godmother, a member of the Dalbeth family, who had married an extremely rich American but had never had any children.”
The Marquis paused before he said,
“I think he made his money in oil and, when he died, left it all to his wife. Anyway, Lady Jane is now a millionairess several times over and the elders both of the Dalbeths and of your own Clan consider that nothing could be more appropriate than that you and she should be married.”
For a moment the Duke was stricken into silence. He was too quick-brained not to realise what this would mean not only to the McCarons but also to the Macbeths.
If the new Countess was very young and doubtless a rather stupid young woman, for her to be a multi-millionairess without the help and guidance of a man with the authority of a husband would be disastrous.
With such a fortune there would undoubtedly be a large number of applicants for the post, but, knowing the elders of his own Clan and their Macbeth counterparts, he could imagine them shaking their grey heads at the perils and pitfalls that would be waiting for their young Chieftain.
While it was obvious he himself would gain enormously from such a marriage, she would in turn have the security of a Scottish husband who was at least trustworthy and in whose veins ran the same sort of blood as in her own.
The Marquis, watching the Duke’s face, knew what he was thinking and said,
“Iain McCaron has been to see me and so has Duncan Macbeth with two other relatives of the young Countess. They were almost frantic in their anxiety about what should be done.”
“I should have thought that they were very pleased,” the Duke said cynically.
“They were pleased from one point of view,” the Marquis agreed. “At the same time they were terrified because Jane is so young and has been, I understand, educated in a Convent that she might be swept away from them by the first young man who takes her fancy.”
“He might prove to be an excellent husband and, even if he was not Scottish, might be prepared to settle in our native land,” the Duke remarked.
Even as he spoke, he knew that he was only prevaricating and that the Marquis was quite right in saying it was unthinkable that a young girl who was so rich should not be looked after and guided when it came to marriage.
As the law stood, a woman’s fortune became her husband’s immediately she had his ring on her finger, and millions of good Texan money could, in the hands of the wrong man, vanish like fairy gold as quickly as it had come.
“That is the proposition,” the Marquis was saying, “that will be put to you both by your own people and by the Macbeths. I can promise you that they have gone very carefully into the excellent reports of your career in the Army and the fact that last year you received a medal for gallantry.”
The Duke did not answer.
He merely rose from the chair he was sitting in on the other side of the impressive flat-topped desk facing the Marquis and walked across the room to stare out of the window.
Outside it was a sunless day and the buildings opposite were grey with London dirt.
He had a feeling that this was what his life would be like in the future, dark and sunless without the excitement and thrills that had been so much a part of his years in India.
‘I will not do it!’ he told himself.
And yet when he tried to say the words aloud they would not come to his lips.
He was far too used to dealing with people of every caste and creed not to know that this problem was one that, whether he liked it or not, vitally concerned him as the leader of his Clan.
Of course such a marriage would be of inestimable benefit to the McCarons.
It would mean that he could put in hand all his ideas and plans that he had hoped would provide employment for the younger men who either drifted about forlornly looking for temporary employment or else left Scotland in the hope of finding a fortune across the seas.
Sometimes they were successful, but more often they eventually came home to die poorer than when they left.
The Macbeths had the same problem and the Duke knew it would require a great deal of ingenuity and understanding of the people themselves before, however much money was expended, they could be persuaded to work at some new project.
It was, however, a practical proposition and, if he was truthful, exactly what he needed where his own Clan was concerned.
But it meant being married to a young woman whom he did not know and with whom he doubtless would have very little in common and settling down to what he was quite certain would be a life of boredom from a matrimonial point of view.
The Scottish girls he had known in the past had been far from attractive and they had had little or no knowledge of the world outside the moors and rivers of their own country.
They were certainly very different from the sophisticated, amusing, flirtatious women with whom he had spent his days and nights in Simla and occasionally a week in the foothills of the Himalayas.
They had been like exotic flowers in an arid desert and he had enjoyed the passionate fire they had aroused in him just as he enjoyed their wit, their laughter and the expertise of their wiles, which he recognised and appreciated.
How after that could he stand being faithful to one woman, who would doubtless be a pleasant hearty lass without a brain in her head and with no more idea of how to attract a man than to fly to the moon?
‘I cannot do it!’ the Duke said to himself again.
Then, as he turned from the window to walk to where the Marquis was waiting silently for him, he knew that incredible though it seemed there was no alternative.
*
The next two days in London he was so unceasingly talked to, pleaded with and pressured by one Scotsman after another that the Duke began to feel that if anybody said the word ‘marriage’ to him once more, he would strike them.
He had been sensible enough to appreciate that the elderly Scots, who had broken the habit of a lifetime to come to London to meet him were not only deeply sincere but also desperately afraid that they would not succeed in persuading him to act on their advice.
It was Sir Iain McCaron, who with infuriating slowness of speech, finally convinced the Duke by showing him the astronomical amount of debt that his uncle had incurred.
“How could he have spent so much?” he asked when he was told the total sum.
“Keith never paid his debts, my boy,” was the reply. “Most of his bills were stuck in a drawer unopened. I had the devil of a time, I can tell you, sorting them out and we have only been able to stave off dozens of Court summonses by promising the creditors that you will meet their demands.”
The Duke had laughed.
“My dear cousin Iain,” he said, “my own personal assets would just about pay for the stamps!”
Even as he spoke he knew that he must listen to what seemed to everybody except himself the perfect solution to the problem.
Finally he capitulated because it was impossible to think that there was any other way he could save the family name and at the same time benefit the Clan.
Almost as if he had set fire to a wick, the moment he agreed, everything seemed to get moving and the old greyheads hurried back to Scotland to prepare for his arrival and his Wedding.
The Duke had one night off in London when he tried to step back into the past and enjoy himself as he had been able to do before he became so important.
Then he had merely been an undistinguished Officer on leave in search of a bit of fun.
He found that one of his previous friends, if that was the right word for her, was still appearing at the Gaiety Theatre and after three years looking very beautiful and alluring.
After he had watched the show, which was as superlative as ever, they had supper together at Romano’s and she told him a little about her exploits since their last meeting.
He found himself amused, but equally a little shocked to learn about the men who had bedecked her with diamonds, the latest of whom had, it transpired, good-humouredly allowed her the night off so that she could spend it with him.
“I am very gratified,” the Duke said. “You are, Millie, even lovelier than you were when I went away.”
It was not quite true, but he knew that it was what she wanted to hear and she put her hand over his as she said,
“Thank you, dearest Talbot! It has been impossible for me ever to forget you and now that you are a Duke and not as hard up as when we last met, perhaps – ”
Quickly the Duke prevented her from saying any more by interrupting,
“I am leaving in the morning for Scotland, Millie, and I am not sure if I shall ever be able to come back.”
She gave a little cry of horror, but, when he left her flat as dawn was breaking, he was not certain if he even wanted to return.
‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘I am getting older.’
Whatever it was, some of the glamour or perhaps the right word was ‘ecstasy’ had gone out of what had been an experience lingering in his memory on the P. & O. liner all the way back to India after his last leave.
His arrival at The Castle was exactly what he had expected with the pipers, the elders and the Clansmen, who had walked for miles over the moors in order to be present, all wearing the kilt in the McCaron tartan.
The Duke was grateful that his own Scottish dress had been waiting for him in store at his Club, so that he was able to appear among his people dressed as they would expect him to be, like themselves.
There were speeches and toasts and a great many reminiscences of the old days when he had been a boy.
It was only when at last he was alone in the Chieftain’s bedroom where his uncle had died that the Duke had realised that he had come home and everything, whatever sacrifice he had to make, was worthwhile.
He had not missed the abject poverty of a great number of the Clansmen with their kilts threadbare, their shoes or boots bursting apart and the crofts he had seen so far all in urgent need of repair.
The same could be said of The Castle and Sir Iain was right when he had said that it needed a fortune spent on it unless it was to fall down.
The Duke could only hope that his future wife would be amenable to her money being spent on such purposes.
At least it looked impressive from the outside with its crenelated towers, its roofs, despite the holes in them, silhouetted against the moors, the long diamond-paned windows glinting in the sunlight and the arrow slits from which archers had once fought off their enemies.
As the Duke entered the Chieftain’s bedroom, where a huge four-poster bed had stood for three centuries, he was aware that the carpet was threadbare, the curtains were so faded that it was hard to remember what colour they had once been and their linings were torn and hanging in shreds.
There were several panes of glass cracked in the windows and, as he threw his jacket with its polished buttons down on a chair, one of its legs collapsed and he thought bitterly,
‘I may be making my future wife a Duchess, but she will be paying a very high price for it, a very high price indeed!’
The following day he was able to forget what lay ahead as he caught two salmon in the river where he had learned to fish as a very small boy and, wherever he went people ran from their crofts to greet him, telling him in Gaelic how glad they were that he was back.
He knew the real reason for their pleasure was that he stood for continuity and security.
The death of his uncle’s two sons had been a tremendous shock to the Clan and they must have been half-afraid that when the last Duke died there would be nobody to take his place.
It was quite understandable that they should have almost forgotten his very existence for, although he had spent many of his holidays at The Castle when he was a boy, his father and mother had actually lived in Edinburgh.
This was because his mother was not strong enough to stand the cold winters in the more Northern part of Scotland.
But now the old women told him of his escapades when he was young which he himself had forgotten and they recalled when he had caught his first salmon, shot his first grouse and killed his first stag.
Then all too quickly, it seemed to the Duke, he was told that the Dowager Countess of Dalbeth was expecting him as her guest.
It would have been easier to ride over the moors than to drive to Dalbeth House, which stood on the edge of the cliffs looking out over the North Sea.
The Dalbeth Castle, which had been abandoned a century earlier, was farther along the coast, where the side of the cliff had crumbled away until it was considered dangerous.
It was only a question of time, the Earl of Dalbeth had been told a hundred years ago, before the whole cliff collapsed and his Castle would fall into the sea.
He had therefore built a house and moved into it, but The Castle had obstinately refused to fall and still stood as a landmark for homecoming fishing boats.
Dalbeth House was very impressive, well built and surrounded by a walled garden.
The Duke, driving in a well-sprung carriage, which his uncle had, of course, not paid for, drawn by four horses, turned in through the iron gates at exactly four o’clock.
This was what was considered the right time to arrive and his invitation had specified that he should meet the Dowager Countess and her daughter the first evening and the next night there would be a large family gathering.
The Duke had the uncomfortable feeling that it was intended that his engagement to Lady Jane should be announced on the second night.
He had hoped he would be given time to get to know his future bride and perhaps, if he was fortunate, they would find some interests in common.
He had known ever since his arrival in Scotland that he was being swept along by a tidal wave of urgency and there was nothing he could do but acquiesce with as much dignity as possible.
Sitting back in the carriage, which he had insisted on having open, he thought that the countryside as they drove through it was even more beautiful than he remembered.
There was a long twisting road rising up over the moors, which then fell down to a valley filled with fir trees, through the centre of which ran another river in which he was sure if he had the time he would be able to catch a number of fine salmon.
Then there was more moorland and at last a delightful view of the sea stretching out to a blue horizon.
Here the cliffs rose high and he could see in front of him the sharp-pointed and dangerous rocks on which the fishing boat had foundered and his cousin had lost his life.
Then he had arrived and the Dowager Countess was greeting him.
She was not in the least what he had expected and that was the first of his surprises.
Dressed in a black gown that might have come straight from Paris, she had a sophistication that was something that the Duke had never expected to find in the Highlands.
She was also, he was sure, painted and powdered in a manner that he again found unusual in Scotland and he remembered how the Marquis had said that the Earl had not been happy for the last few years of his life.
The Countess was talking effusively and leading him as she did so into an elegant drawing room that had a high ceiling and large windows overlooking the sea.
Everything, in contrast to his own Castle, seemed new, luxurious, and certainly very expensive.
There was a profusion of flowers, silk cushions, crystal chandeliers and the silver tea service that was brought in as soon as he arrived was certainly in itself, he thought, worth a fortune.
He and his hostess were alone for tea and, while she begged him to sample the griddle cakes, the scones and a profusion of other dishes, she chatted away deliberately, he knew, setting him at his ease and making it very clear how much she welcomed him.
“I cannot tell you,” she said, “how depressing it has been all the time your uncle was so ill. There are neighbours round here, of course, but I have always thought it important, as our lands are so close, that we should be friends. Now all my dreams are coming true.”
She had given the Duke a flirtatious smile before she added,
“Of course dear Jane is very shy at meeting you, but I know that you will be kind to her and understand that, having been living for so long in Italy, she has forgotten many of our Highland customs and there is a great deal for her to learn.”
The Duke’s heart sank, knowing that this was exactly what he had feared, but, when he was presented to the new Countess just before dinner, he had been astounded.
He had come into the drawing room looking very resplendent in his evening clothes and wearing the Chieftain’s sporran that had belonged to his uncle.
The Dowager Countess glittering in diamonds was wearing a gown that would have made her seem almost overdressed at a Court ball. It was black, but there was certainly nothing funereal about it.
With her was Colonel Macbeth, whom the Duke had met in London and another elderly Macbeth relation whose title was ‘The Macbeth of Macbeth’.
There was champagne to drink, which the Duke might have expected, and, despite the fact that he was laughing at himself for being a fool, he was nervous and drank the first glass quickly.
It was being refilled when the door opened and the young Countess came in.
For a moment he thought that she was another guest.
Then, as she came gliding down the room towards her stepmother, he thought that, bemused by the champagne, he must be having a hallucination.
She was very attractive, in fact she was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen.
But she was not in the least what he had expected, nor did she appear Scottish in any way.
Her hair was fair and elaborately arranged in the very latest fashion and she wore a white gown that was as elegant and expensive as her stepmother’s.
When he looked at her more closely, the Duke, because he knew a great deal about women, was certain that her eyelashes were darkened artificially.
Her lips were certainly too red to be natural and her skin too white not to be powdered.
If this was what was happening in Scotland, he thought, things had changed very much since he was a boy.
The Dowager Countess put her arm affectionately round her stepdaughter’s shoulder.
“This is Jane!” she said simply to the Duke. “I cannot tell you how much this moment means to me, when you two young people get to know each other.”
There was a little throb in her voice, which the Duke thought should have been very moving.
He took the young Countess’s hand in his.
“I have heard a great deal about you,” he said.
He expected that she might be shy.
Instead she looked up at him provocatively from under her darkened eyelashes and her red lips curved as she said,
“And I have been longing, yes, absolutely longing to meet Your Grace!”
They went in to dinner in what was an impressive replica of a Baronial Dining Hall.
The Dowager, sitting at the head of the table, kept the conversation light and amusing and the Duke had a feeling that she was putting on a very skilful performance.
The dinner was outstanding and the old gentlemen certainly did full justice to it, their faces growing redder and redder as their glasses were filled and refilled and their jokes became a little heavier.
There was, the Duke thought afterwards, a great deal of laughter in which the Countess joined, seeming not in the least shy or in any way abashed at being so much younger than anybody else.
But now lying sleepless in bed, the Duke went over what had happened and found it almost incredible.
He had known, although he had avoided them as much as possible, a few young girls in India.
They were always to be found at Government House and in Simla, where they sat in little groups chatting amongst themselves and watching the young men surreptitiously.
They would blush when one spoke to them and often were too shy to say a word when they were dancing.
But there was nothing shy and nothing in the least gauche about Jane.
She talked, the Duke thought, quite naturally, indeed flirtatiously to him, and he was quite certain, when unaccountably they found themselves alone for one moment after dinner, that, as she leaned towards him, she raised her face inviting him to kiss her.
He had not done so because it seemed too soon and something fastidious in him revolted at being pushed into declaring himself before he was ready to do so.
He would propose to her in time, of course he would. He had made up his mind and it was what everybody expected.
But he would choose his own moment and not be pressured into it, not even by the future bride.
Then, as he turned over again, still thinking about what had occurred, still thinking of the expression in her eyes when she had said good night to him, he knew that something was wrong.
He did not know what it was.
He could not put it into words, but just as when in India he had known instinctively, even before it happened, that he was in danger, so he knew now with a sixth sense that could not be denied that there was something very wrong, something he was being warned about.
Without really thinking what he was doing, he climbed out of bed.
He walked across the room and pulled back one of the curtains.
Outside the moon was rising in the sky and shining on the sea. The stars were bright and he thought for the moment that it was very beautiful.
Then he knew that this beauty did not at the moment really appeal to him.
He wanted to think and he wanted to understand the feelings he had within himself which he had to listen to.
He walked to the wardrobe, pulled it open and put on a shirt and his kilt.
He was used to dressing himself in a hurry and he was ready in what his valet would have called ‘record time’.
He tied a silk handkerchief around his neck and tucked it into his shirt.
Then, putting on a tweed jacket, he walked towards the door.
He opened it quietly and found the passage outside was not quite in darkness, for one candle had been left alight in a silver sconce.
There was just enough light to see the stairs and the hall below.
To his relief there was no night-footman on duty as there would have been in London, and again very quietly he unlocked the solid oak door and drew back a well-oiled bolt.
It was a relief to feel the cool air from the sea outside on his face and there was no wind.
Quickly, just in case he was seen by somebody who would think it strange that he should be so restless, he walked away from the house.
He moved first through a walled garden, then out at the other end of it and found himself in a shrubbery, which gave way to a woodland of fir trees.
They grew almost to the edge of the cliff and there was a path through them that was discernible in the moonlight. This the Duke followed, so deep in his thoughts that he was hardly aware of where he was going.
Then suddenly he heard the sound of falling water and remembered how at dinner before the conversation became more sophisticated that the Dowager had said,
“Tomorrow I want to show you our salmon river. I regret to say that it is not as good as yours, but we catch quite a lot of good fish in it.”
“I shall look forward to trying it,” the Duke said, smiling.
“You must also see our cascade,” she continued. “I expect you remember it as a boy and because we had a great deal of rain last month it is at the moment in spate.”
The Duke had not thought of the cascade at Dalbeth for years, but now he remembered it flowed from a high piece of ground in which there was both a spring and a meeting of the winter rains, resulting in the cascade, which fell down the side of the cliff directly into the sea.
He remembered it was a beauty spot that tourists always wanted to view when they came to this part of Scotland and he looked forward to seeing it again.
Now he heard the sound of it like the fall of torrential rain and he came through the trees and caught a glimpse of the water, silver in the moonlight just above him.
Then he saw that standing silhouetted against it was a woman.