A Heart In The Highlands

8-3

The Duke watched her face in the firelight, the delicate outline of her tiny nose, the soft droop of the sensitive lips, the pain in the big eyes.

“So you lost your lover!” he said, and his voice was surprisingly harsh.

Iona was startled from her reverie. She looked up at him, her expression transparently innocent until the meaning of his question percolated into her consciousness and a blush transfused her cheeks.

“No! No – not – not a lover,” she stammered. “I have never – been loved – like that.”

“I apologise for the suggestion,” the Duke said gravely, “but I find it hard to believe that anyone as lovely as you – ”

“Please, stop – ” Iona interrupted him, her voice a little breathless. “I beg Your Grace not to say such things to me. I realise they are but the meaningless phrases of fashionable conversation, but I – I am not fashionable. I am only a simple girl who prefers – sincerity.”

There was no doubting the sincerity with which she spoke or the honesty of her expression. The Duke seemed to consider her words while his eyes never left her face.

Iona was suddenly aware of his extraordinary good looks. His clear-cut features were classic, his perfectly proportioned body had a grace which made one forget his unusual height and the tremendous width of his shoulders. He might be a Duke, she thought, but he was also a man and it was easy to imagine that where he led, men would be proud to follow him.

“Why are you called Iona?” the Duke asked unexpectedly.

“Because I was born on the island of that name,” Iona replied unthinkingly and then was aware of the enormity of her indiscretion. Hastily she tried to cover her mistake and faltered. “At – at least – that was what I was told – by my nurse – it may of course have been untrue – a fairy tale to keep me – amused.”

“Iona is a beautiful little island which has a magic of its own,” the Duke said.

Iona wondered if he deliberately ignored her confusion Or was unaware of it. At any rate he obviously did not intend to question her further and after a few seconds she felt the frightened fluttering of her pulses subside and her breath come more easily.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour. Iona remembered Hector languishing in the deep and chid herself for having forgotten him even for a minute.

“Your Grace will recall that I came here to ask – your help,” she hesitated.

“I had not forgotten,” the Duke replied. “Unfortunately it is not easy for me to interfere with what my brother clearly believes to be his duty.”

He glanced at the clock.

“Will you wait here?” he asked.

He went from the room and Iona was left alone. For a long time after the door was closed behind him she stared at it, puzzled by his sudden disappearance, wondering where he had gone and why.

Yet while they had talked she had been conscious that her fear of him had vanished. She realised he had been unexpectedly sympathetic and intent on what she had been saying. It was only now that she wondered at her own daring in approaching him, in speaking with him so frankly and without subterfuge.

Yet had she learned anything of consequence? She must answer the question in the negative.

The Duke was a puzzling person. He had been cold and unbending since the first moment of their meeting, yet some instinct told Iona irrefutably that this was a poise.

Underneath that proud, arrogant mask there was a man who had unswerving loyalties, strong enthusiasms and an infinite capacity for love and hatred.

How she knew this and on what foundation her convictions were based Iona did not ask herself. She only knew, and thought now that she had known it always, that the Duke was to be trusted. She was as sure of this as she was sure that her feelings for Lord Niall were correct. She hated him and he was evil, vile and a traitor to his own country.

The Duchess was by no means as formidable. She was English, and it was natural that her sympathies should be with the English. She might be intriguing against the Duke, she might be spying for the English, but Iona knew that in this as in other things she would be ineffective and incompetent. She was merely a neurotic, lovesick woman of middle age for whom life held only one interest – her stepson.

Iona was still sitting by the fire when the Duke returned. As he came into the room, she saw with a sudden leap of her heart that he held a key in his hand. It was a big iron key and he set it down on his writing table.

Then he turned and walked towards the fire. He put his hand on the mantelpiece and stood staring down at the flames.

“I have made inquiries about the prisoner,” he said at length. “And I have given instructions that despite my brother’s orders to the contrary food and wine shall be taken to him immediately. His gaoler has gone to fetch food from the kitchen, and as the Keep is thus left unguarded I have taken charge of the key so that there can be no question of the prisoner being able to escape.”

Iona sat very still, but her heart was beating almost suffocatingly. What did this portend? She felt there was some hidden meaning behind the Duke’s kindness, but so far it was not clear. She sat forward in her chair, every muscle tense, every nerve strained. The Duke did not look at her and after a moment he continued,

“I think that your friend will not find the Keep too uncomfortable, When I saw him to be of gentle birth, I saw no reason for him to be subjected to the durance of the dungeons.”

“It was exceeding kind of Your Grace,” Iona said breathlessly.

The Duke raised his head.

“Kind?” he questioned. “To constrain a free man?”

Iona did not know how to answer him.

The Duke sighed.

“You shrink from the thought of cruelty, of unnecessary suffering, of a man betraying his own blood,” he said. “In all these things we are agreed. All I ask for my people is peace.”

There was a depth in his voice that Iona had never heard before, then, as he looked down into her wide eyes, he added,

“Yes, peace.”

He walked across to the writing table, took up the key and stared at it intently.

“It is strange,” he said with a complete change of tone, “but I never realised until now that the locks on both the Keeps of this castle are identical. They were added, of course, at a later date than the doors. Originally only bolts were used or a wooden bar supported by staves.

“The guardroom of the West Keep, in which your friend is imprisoned, has been left very much as it was when the castle was first built. In the other I keep certain trophies of the chase – such as the head of a stag I shot when I was quite young, but which was not considered good enough to be hung in the Great Hall. There is also the skin of a wolf I killed on the hillside when I was twelve years old, and the skin of a wild cat that attacked my dog once when I was riding in the woods.

“Yes, there are some quite interesting things in the East Keep, and one day perhaps you will be interested in seeing them. It is strange that I never realised before that the keys are interchangeable.”

The Duke opened a drawer.

“Here is my own key – you can see the cut is the same.” He put the second key back in the drawer of his desk and laid the other down on the table. Then after a second or two he took it up again.

“I think I hear the guard with the prisoner’s food,” he said.

He went out into the passage, leaving the door only slightly ajar. A moment later Iona heard him speaking to someone. Swiftly she moved from her chair across to the writing table and took the second key from the drawer. She placed it in the bosom of her dress and felt the iron strike cold against her skin. She had re-seated herself in the chair and remained motionless for some seconds before the Duke returned.

“I have seen to it that the prisoner has both meat and wine,” he said. “My brother will doubtless declare that I am soft-hearted, but it is distasteful to me that a gentleman who has befriended you should suffer unnecessarily from hunger and thirst.”

Iona rose to her feet.

“Your Grace is indeed gracious,” she said in a low voice. “Have I your permission to retire?”

She dared not look up at him, she was too conscious of the heavy key pressing against her breasts. She swept to the floor in a low curtsey and the Duke crossed the room to open the door for her.

“Good night,” he said with an impersonal courtesy. “I hope you sleep well.”

“I thank Your Grace.”

Iona met his eyes for one fleeting second and then she was gone, moving swiftly down the passage on feet winged with hope.