The King's Doll Page 15

  The Duke was racing down the stairs two at a time and was feeling extraordinarily alert and alive and determined, when Fallow opened the front door to a guest. The Duke halted, staring. It was Sir Hilary Conray.

  He was alone.

  A few minutes later they were all gathered in the drawing room for a council of war.

  “If she has gone to seek my help, I probably just missed her,” said Sir Hilary, when he had been apprised of the morning's alarums and excursions. He seemed to find it difficult to keep his eyes off Dani, who was, although worried, looking little older than her daughter in a pale yellow bergère.

  “Then let us get back there at once, before the little wretch gets some other harebrained notion into her head and is off out of sight!” urged the Duke.

  “I think Tiri's mama should come with me,” said Sir Hilary firmly. “I may need her to persuade Tiri to a sensible course of action. I may also need to chaperone her."

  “I shall come also,” insisted the Duke. “She is my fiancée"

  “Indeed?” said Sir Hilary pleasantly. “That is good news! My congratulations to you, milord!” He regarded the Duke with a much kindlier eye.

  Lady Letitia felt the oddest desire to laugh. It was a feeling that she was experiencing quite frequently of late, and she rightly attributed it to the presence of her guests. We shall never have a dull minute from now on! she thought and resolved to be as much a part of the ducal menage as she could.

  “Perhaps I should come also?” she suggested, with a straight face. The discomfort on the faces of both men almost sent her into peals of laughter, but she restrained herself, and waited for their excuses.

  “We should have someone here to welcome the little—to welcome Tiri if she comes back and we miss her again,” the Duke pointed out.

  “Perhaps you should stay here in case of that contingency,” suggested Sir Hilary. His dogged expression announced clearly that he intended getting Dani alone as soon as humanly possible.

  In the event, however, both men went off together, it appearing that neither of them would forgo the chance of being with their own beloved person for even a moment. When they had left, the Duchess chuckled softly. They were like two gamecocks, or two stallions—or, she smiled, two young males! It was a difficult time for them, for neither one had spoken the words that would make his chosen female irrevocably his. How she would love to have accompanied them, to observe the courting ritual! Perhaps Dani might have some details to confide later? She was a cheery soul. Conray was fortunate, in spite of King Louis and the gabblemongers!

  Rather impatiently she strolled up and down the drawing room and waited the return of the lost lamb. As she did so she noticed its somber discomfort for the first time.

  “I think I shall redecorate Mall House,” she announced. "That will show Amelia!"

  Fallow, waiting eagerly in the front hallway for the next development in this drama which had all the staff agog, heard her voice with a flutter of alarm.

  “Talking to herself now, is she?” he thought.

  He was not left alone long enough to feel pity. The knocker beat, and he opened the door upon the dejected little figure of Mademoiselle de Granville.

  His joyous relief was enough to startle the returning prodigal. “His Grace was so worried!” Fallow so far forgot decorum as to exclaim. “He and Sir Hilary are out with your mama, looking for you now,” he advised her.

  Her eyes were huge as they looked up into his face. “Oh, Fallow! Are they very angry with me?"

  “More likely terrified lest you come to harm,” he told her. “Come in to Her Grace at once, Miss Tiri! She has been worried too!"

  It was an apprehensive little figure that presented itself to the Duchess's scrutiny a minute later. The delighted welcome on the older woman's face quite restored Tiri's confidence. Her Grace opened her arms to the girl. Tiri went to them quite simply.

  “You have put my son into a rare passion, my dear,” the Duchess advised her.

  Tiri's eyes grew even rounder at this intelligence.

  Her Grace chuckled. “It will do him good! He is a little too confident of his own worth, my child. It will be salutary for him to worry a little."

  “Worry?” faltered Tiri.

  She really must not steal Daral's thunder, the Duchess cautioned herself. He would never forgive her. So she edited the morning's excitements carefully.

  “My son came to talk to us,” she began. “When we had agreed upon a course of action, we came to find you. You were gone, but we found the—note. Your mama deduced that you might have gone to seek help from Sir Hilary, and then he arrived to confer with us!"

  “Oh!” breathed Tiri. “Then I have caused trouble by my rash action! For you see he was not at home! I had the journey for nothing!” She looked beyond the Duchess's shoulder. “Is he—are they here?"

  “No,” said the Duchess, hardly able to keep her face straight as she visualized the comings and goings of the distracted males. “They have gone back to Sir Hilary's lodgings to find you!" It was too much. She could not help the chuckle that escaped her lips. “I suppose,” she ventured, eyes alight with mirth, “you would not care to go back there to try to meet them?"

  Tiri frowned upon such unseemly levity. “I shall stay here, where I should have stayed in the first place, and let the Duke deal with this problem. And my maman," she added hastily.

  The Duchess agreed it might be wiser.

  The Duke was back within ten minutes. “She is not there!” he began, as he burst into the drawing room. Then he saw Tiri sitting very primly on a small sofa near his mother.

  "You!" he said, with every evidence of exasperation, annoyance, and disgust.

  “Yes,” said Tiri meekly.

  The Duke glanced sharply at his mother.

  She rose at once. “If you will forgive me, my children, I must really leave you for half an hour. I am going to make a call upon the Prince.” She waited to see how that outrageous lie would be received.

  “Yes, of course, dear Mama! Do not hurry! We shall manage until you return!” said the Duke, his eyes upon Tiri's small, apprehensive face.

  The Duchess managed to get out of the room before her laughter began. To the startled Fallow, she said simply, “Do not let anyone disturb them, even the Countess. My son is making Mademoiselle de Granville a proposal of marriage!"

  “Yes, Your Grace,” said Fallow complacently.

  Within the gloomy room, the Duke stared down at the slender girl. He seemed dissatisfied. “How old are you?” he asked finally.

  “I shall be eighteen in a few weeks,” replied Tiri.

  His frown lightened. “So old? Good! I was afraid, from the way you look this morning, that you were about fifteen!"

  This nasty observation put Tiri out of charity with the nobleman.

  “And how old are you?" she rapped back, testily.

  His Grace grinned. “Old enough, Tiri,” he told her.

  “For what?” the girl was ill-advised enough to ask.

  “To make love to you—if that's what you want to know,” said the outrageous creature.

  Tiri had her mouth open to put him in his place, and then she closed it slowly. Before the fascinated eyes of the Duke, those rosy lips softened into a seductive pout. The big blue eyes sparkled most attractively, and the husky little voice murmured, “Did you think you might wish to—make love to me, Daral?” she asked.

  “Oh, God!” said the beleaguered, attacked, and vanquished nobleman, giving up the unequal battle and surrendering completely. “Will you marry me, you little witch?"

  “But of course, Daral,” said Tiri. “If we can manage it without ruining your reputation. If we cannot, I shall probably live with you very privately, if you know what I mean?” She gave him her sweetest smile.

  “Never,” thundered the Duke awfully, “let me hear such words from your mouth"—momentarily distracted, he looked hard at its soft contours—"your mouth again! How can I secure the succession if all our child
ren are born on the wrong side of the blanket?” Tiri frowned. This idiom was not familiar to her.

  “What?” she demanded. “I do not know this wrong blanket."

  “Don't bother,” advised His Grace. “It isn't going to happen. You are coming down to Lansdale, with your mother, and my mother, and most probably Sir Hilary—and God knows how many more interfering relatives! We are going to be married there as soon as I can arrange it. I do not wish to hear another word from you—except Yes, Daral!"

  “That's two words,” Tiri was going to say; but thought better of if after a covert glance at his domineering expression. She compromised upon, “Yes, Daral!” in such a sweet, loving, joyous voice that the Duke suddenly beamed and took her into his arms.

  Fallow was waiting when an anxious Dani and her equally worried escort arrived back at Mall House half an hour later.

  “Has anything been learned?” Sir Hilary demanded.

  Noting his determined and aggressive air, Fallow made quick work of it. “She is in the drawing room, milord, being proposed to by His Grace."

  A slow smile spread over Sir Hilary's face. “In that case, my good man—my very good man!—you may forbear to announce us.” Sir Hilary swung Dani around and led her back to his smart curricle. When he had helped her in, he dismissed his groom.

  As they were bowling rapidly down the street, Dani ventured a question. “Why?—” was all she was able to say, before her companion, with a very predatory smile indeed, put his arm around her and drew her close to him. “Because Lansdale isn't the only man who is going to have his chance to propose to one of you maddening de Granville women!"

  “Oh!” said Dani and relaxed just a little against his hard side.

  Her escort noted the gesture with a small smile of satisfaction. He inhaled deeply, and the seductive perfume that had haunted him since that first meeting in Calais drifted to his nostrils. “You are a lovely woman,” he said, and his voice was harsh in Dani's ears. “If I ever see another Prince casting lecherous eyes at you, I shall lead the Revolution myself.” He pulled her even closer, to the detriment of his driving. “Do you understand me, Madame la Comtesse? You are to be my wife, and I am taking you to my father's castle in Scotland, where you will live with me all our lives, and love me—"

  The woman turned a little in his arm, until her lovely face was offered like a flower to his inspection.

  “I will love you all my life,” she said softly, as though it were a prayer or a vow. “You are the only man I have ever wished to marry."

  “That is lucky for you!” said Sir Hilary firmly, but his heart was thundering in his breast. “My darling! My dearest little love! We shall have such a—such a jolly time!"

  If there was anything lacking in that statement, Dani did not see it. Her lean, dark adventurer had found her, and he wanted her to be his wife.

  There was no greater joy.

  * * *

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