The Devilish Deception by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782137986
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks ltd
Published: 2016-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

chapter five

The Duke awoke with a strong sense of danger.

It was something that had happened to him several times in India.

Having gone to bed peacefully and without apprehension of anything untoward, he had woken, almost as if someone had touched him, with a feeling that something dangerous was imminent together with a sense of urgency to act.

On each occasion that this had happened his instinct had been correct and on the last occasion he had saved himself and those he commanded from an unexpected assault that would have annihilated them all.

Now he sat up in bed, realising from the moonlight on either side of the curtains that it was late and he had been asleep for some time.

He climbed out of bed, went to the nearest window and looked out.

He saw as he expected the Strath lying beneath him, the light from the sky turning the river to silver and the moors silhouetted darkly against the stars.

The moon was now on the wane and was therefore not as bright as it had been the night he had found Giovanna beside the cascade.

Yet it was light enough for him to look below and see the garden and terrace of The Castle and to realise at a quick glance that there was nothing to perturb him there.

He told himself, as he had done before, that he was imagining the danger he sensed and then he knew that his instinct was stronger than the calculations of his mind and, whether he could see it or not, there was danger.

His thoughts instantly went to Giovanna.

He looked along the side of The Castle, craning forward through the open window to see the protruding walls of the Tower where she slept.

Then he stiffened and knew that once again his instinct had been right.

There was a definite movement at the foot of the Tower, where it was encircled by a balustraded terrace from which a long flight of steps went down into the garden.

It was difficult to see clearly, but he was sure that what he was seeing was two men, perhaps three, dark against the grey stones of The Castle.

He did not waste any more time looking.

Turning back into his bedroom, he picked up his robe from where Ross had left it on a chair and, pulling open the door, began to run speedily down the passage that led to Giovanna’s room.

When he reached it, he opened the door quietly and saw with a sense of relief that she was asleep on the canopied bed.

He could see her clearly, because, since she had come to The Castle, Mrs. Sutherland had wisely insisted that there should always be a fire burning in her room.

She knew, as the Duke did, that being so emaciated through lack of food Giovanna would feel the cold more acutely than any normal person.

It was actually too early in the year for fires, except occasionally in the evenings when it was windy or raining.

The Duke had therefore found Giovanna’s bedroom, when he visited her, almost unpleasantly warm.

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