Jane Lark - The Scandalous Love of a Duke

He tilted his lips in a mock smile. He thought of his stepfather, and his brothers and sisters, who kept increasing in number. It was Christmas in four days. He imagined all his family together. Occasionally he wrote home to tell them he was still alive.

He took another drag on his cigar, clearing his thoughts.

He didn’t wish to think of them, nor England. He thought of the tomb he’d found.

~

A brush in his hand, John lay on his stomach, cautiously sweeping sand away from the painted wall-plaster of the tomb they’d discovered four days before. The colours were so bright they could have been painted days ago not hundreds of years before.

“My Lord!” John looked back. Mustafa, his manservant, who usually stayed in camp, was at the entrance, looking in past the couple of feet of sand still filling the opening

“My Lord! This letter came from England.”

Mustafa waved the thin paper as though it were something wonderful.

John glanced at Yassah. “Carry on without me.” Then crawled backwards out of the tomb.

The midday sun blazed down.

John stood.

He took the letter and saw it had passed through Alexandria a month ago. He recognised the writing as his stepfather’s. In England it was winter. Today was Christmas Day. His family would be on his stepfather’s small estate. Sometimes he had spent it with them there. Sometimes he had been forced to spend it at his grandfather’s. Either way, Christmas did not bring forward many fond memories. Perhaps a couple before his brothers and sisters had become so numerous, but after…

John wiped a hand on his trousers then broke the seal.

His grandfather would be horrified if he saw the calluses on John’s hands.

Glancing up, John thanked Mustafa and then began walking towards the canopy his men used at prayer times.

He stopped in its shade and opened the letter. A second, separate folded sheet fell out. He held that aside and read.

The letter was dated months ago, in August.

His father’s words were carefully couched, but the meaning was clear, the Duke of Pembroke, John’s grandfather, was dying.

He could be dead.

Lord!

John’s fingers covered his mouth. His lips were dry, but inside he felt like ice, even in the heat. His hand swept back his hair.

He had to go back. He’d been bred to take over his grandfather’s estates. The choice was no longer his.

Then it struck him, he should feel grief. He did not. He cared nothing for the old tyrant. But he did feel strangely suspended, as though time had stopped. As though it would never start again.

John looked at the other letter and saw Mary’s effervescent writing. She was his eldest sister, the first child of his mother’s second marriage. She was just sixteen, approaching her first season.

She’d clearly rushed to write, scribbling a note to include in her father’s letter. She told John she needed her big brother home to lead her in her first waltz. She vowed she wouldn’t dance a single one unless he came.

Their grandfather’s death would postpone her debut, she obviously did not know he was ill, and so perhaps the Duke had not been at death’s door.

Whatever, John had to go back.

“Mustafa!” John turned.

London, April, four months later

John’s ship docked in London just as twilight darkened into night. A light drizzle was falling as he descended from the gangplank.

England.

It was over seven years since he’d stood on English soil. It felt odd stepping onto the dock; like travelling back in time.

He remembered the callow youth who’d left here. He wasn’t that child anymore.

One of the crew had called a hackney carriage. It waited before him, its oil lamp glowing into the now full darkness. He gave the address to the driver then climbed in. A few moments after he’d clicked the door shut, the carriage jarred into movement, rocking over the cobbles.

He’d not sent word ahead. There’d seemed little point when he’d arrive just as fast.

He lifted the curtain and looked at the passing streets.

They’d left the narrow backstreets of the slums near the docks and now they were progressing into the more affluent areas of London.

He’d had months to get used to the idea of coming home. He had accepted it. But it did not mean he was looking forward to it. He would be weighed down by duty here.

John’s heart drummed steadily in his chest. Was his grandfather alive or dead?

The carriage turned a sharp corner and John caught hold of the leather strap.

The streets were quiet, virtually dead. Early evening in Mayfair was not a social hour. People would be dining now, before they went out. All John could hear was the sound of the carriage horses and iron-rimmed wheels on cobble.

He didn’t even know if his family were here, but he was heading for his grandfather’s townhouse. It seemed the best place to start.

A few minutes later, the hired carriage drew to a halt and John looked from the window at his grandfather’s palatial town residence. It was set back from the road and guarded by iron railings, taking up one entire side of the square.

John had found it oppressive as a child. As a youth he’d been more impressed. As a man it simply seemed ostentatious.

John climbed out onto the pavement.

He’d left his luggage at the docks to be sent on.

The light drizzle had not eased.

He paid the driver.

The man tipped his hat.

John looked up at the house as the hackney pulled away. The knocker was in place, someone was home.

He took a deep breath and then jogged up the pale stone steps. When he reached the top he lifted the lion-head brass knocker and struck it down thrice, then stepped back a little and waited.

It was several moments before it opened.

Finch, the man who’d been his grandfather’s butler for as long as John could remember, stood in the hall. John watched recognition, and then shock, dawn on the butler’s face. He’d never seen Finch’s upper lip show any expression before.

“Good Lord – I mean come in, my Lord. You were not expected?”

“No, I travelled at the same speed as any message; I saw no point in sending word. My luggage will follow. Tell me, who is currently at home?” He already knew his grandfather yet survived, otherwise Finch would have said Your Grace.

“Their Graces, the Duke and Duchess, my Lord, and the Duke and Duchess of Arundel.” His grandparents then, and his uncle and aunt. John’s heart pounded. Finch then nodded to a footman, obviously sending him somewhere to announce John’s arrival. But even as he did so there was a shout from above.

“John.”

He looked up as his name echoed off the black and white marble beneath his feet and the decorative plaster all about him, and saw his Uncle Richard, the Duke of Arundel, descending the wide curving stone steps briskly. This man had been like a father to John before John’s mother had come back. But he had aged. His hair was peppered with grey and his face more lined.

“Thank God. We had no idea if you had even received Edward’s letter.” John saw relief in his uncle’s eyes as he neared and then he smiled. “It is good to have you home, John.”

John met Richard at the bottom of the stairs, and took his hand to shake it, but Richard also gripped John’s shoulder. An uncomfortable feeling tingled through John’s nerves. He was unused to being touched. No one had touched him in four years.

“You have changed, John. Grown up, I suppose.”

“Uncle—” John began, only to have his speech halted by a wave of his uncle’s hand.

“No uncle, just Richard now we are both men.”

John smiled, “Richard, it is good to see a familiar face. The journey was long and I’ve no idea of how things stand.” How is the Duke? He didn’t say the last, he didn’t know how to.