A Duke in Danger Read Free Page A

rest of his life.
    He had learnt in the Army that women were for pleasure and should not encroach too closely on the man’s world of living, fighting, and dying for his country.
    Lady Isobel was very different from the attractive young Portuguese women who offered themselves to the tired men who needed some respite after the hard fighting in the Peninsular War.
    She was different, too, from the attractive, cheerful little French cocottes who could make a man laugh, however tired he might be, and even find it a joke that they had picked his pocket just before he left.
    But women were women, and while a man must sometimes relax from the hard realities of war, marriage was a very different thing!
    As he had travelled back over Northern France and had an uncomfortable crossing on a tempestuous Channel, the Duke, when he was not thinking of his new possessions, found himself thinking of Isobel.
    She was beautiful and confessed her love for him very convincingly.
    Yet, there was something stronger than that thought, which he could not understand, and which held him back from asking the question that she was longing to hear.
    “I must be with you, Ivar,” she had said a thousand times. “I cannot live without you, and I know you would be lost and lonely without me.”
    It had been easier to cover her lips with his and kiss her than to argue.
    The Duke had known when he left Isobel that she was closing up, before coming to London, the house in which she had been living in Paris.
    It was part of a deliberate plan, because she was determined with a steel-like will which lay somewhere in that soft, seductive body, that she would become the Duchess of Harlington.
    Thinking of her made the Duke feel restless.
    He walked to the fireplace and dragged violently at the elegant needlework bell-pull.
    He imagined the wire running down the corridor until the iron bell was jerked backwards and forwards in the passage outside the pantry-door, where it was impossible for Bateson and the footmen not to hear it.
    He did not have to wait long before the door opened and Bateson, rather breathless, appeared.
    “I have changed my mind,” the Duke said. “I have decided I will visit the Castle today. It should not take me more than two hours to drive there.”
    He saw a look of consternation on Bateson’s face.
    “Has Your Grace informed Lady Alvina of Your Grace’s intention?”
    “I meant to stay here,” the Duke said, “at least until the end of the week, but I will see the Castle and return either tomorrow or the day after.”
    “I think it’d be wise for Your Grace to warn Her Ladyship of your arrival.”
    The Duke smiled.
    “I expect I shall be comfortable enough, and after such a good luncheon I will not be very hungry for dinner. Congratulate the Cook, Bateson, after you have ordered the Phaeton and the new team of horses which I understand are already in the stables.”
    As he had no intention of arriving in England without excellent horses, he had asked Gerald, when he left Paris a week earlier, to go to Berkeley Square and see what horses were waiting for him.
    “If they are not up to scratch,” he had said, “buy me a team worth driving.”
    As he and Gerald shared a taste in horses, as in other things, he knew he would not be disappointed, and when twenty minutes later he was told that the Phaeton was at the door, he saw that his friend had done him proud.
    The four chestnuts were perfectly matched. They were also exceedingly well bred, and he knew he would be able to cover the distance from Berkeley Square to Harlington Castle very quickly.
    Unfortunately, at the moment he was not aware of what the record was, and as the groom who was to accompany him had also been engaged by Gerald, it was no use asking him.
    Instead, as his trunk was strapped to the back of the Phaeton, he said to Bateson:
    “I have told my valet to take the rest of the day and part of tomorrow off so that he can visit his relatives who live in London. I