“Where are we going next?”
“The Dean should be waiting for us at the Cathedral, for I have already arranged matters with the Governor,” the Duke replied, “and because I think it is a mistake for the people at home to be told what has happened in the newspapers rather than by ourselves, I am being married simply as ‘Alveric Quary’.”
Vina looked surprised and he continued,
“It is, of course, my name, but without all the trappings and I think if we are clever what journalists there are on the island will not suspect for a moment that anything special has happened.”
Vina smiled at him.
“It is much – more exciting than a – Wedding in St. George’s Church, Hanover Square!”
The Duke thought that there were few women who would think that when they married him.
He told himself once again that Vina was unique and so different from anyone else he had ever known.
The Cathedral, when they reached it, was empty except for Hodgson and the Dean, who was praying at the altar and somebody playing the organ very softly.
As Vina and the Duke entered, Hodgson presented her with a bouquet of white flowers.
They proceeded up the aisle and the Dean rose from his knees and stood waiting for them.
He was an elderly man, who conducted the Service with a sincerity that made Vina feel that he blessed them with every word he spoke.
When the Duke put the ring he had bought on her finger, she thought that it was a fitting symbol that they would be together forever and nothing would ever part them.
Then, as they knelt for the Blessing, she thought that her father had protected her and brought her the love that he had found with her mother.
She knew that she would be grateful for the rest of her life at having found someone who understood her and who she was aware with every instinct in her body was fine and noble.
As they drove back to the Liner, she asked the Duke,
“What are you going to say to – the Purser? Is he to know that we are – married?”
“I will tell him after we have left Gibraltar and I will swear him to secrecy. There is no need for anybody else to know what has happened until we reach Calcutta.”
“And – then?” Vina asked.
“I am afraid, my precious, we will have to stay with the Viceroy for a few nights until we set out to explore the country that I know so little about and you know so much,”
“It is so – exciting, and I am only – worried that I shall not be a good enough – guide,” Vina said.
“I think that you will guide and inspire me in a great many ways. Seeing India is only one of them,” the Duke replied.
They went back to the Liner. Then, at last, the Duke was able to put his arms around Vina and kiss her.
“You are my wife,” he declared, “and I thought I would never find anyone who would be so completely the ideal I have always imagined.”
“Oh, darling, I am so afraid of – failing you,” Vina said, “but I love you with all my heart and, as we were married, I felt that Papa was with us, understanding and making sure that I would be able to make you happy.”
“I never knew what happiness was until now,” the Duke said tenderly.
They lunched in their cabin, knowing that the Liner was leaving in the afternoon.
The storm in the Bay of Biscay had caused some delay and the Captain was eager to make up for lost time, the next stop being Alexandria.
They were actually out at sea and were sitting talking on the sofa, when a Steward came in with a cable.
“I’m sorry, my Lord,” he said to the Duke, “but it’s been slightly delayed owin’ to us ’avin’ to leave in such a ’urry.”
The Duke accepted the cable with indifference, thinking that it would be from John Simpson and wondering if in his reply he should say that he had found Vina.
He had, in fact, not perturbed himself unduly about what might have occurred at Quarington after he had left.
If Edgar was upset, he thought that it would do him good and he was sure that Simpson would have soothed the General and Lady Wallace in his usual tactful manner.
Now Quarington was far far away and in their happiness he had no wish to be concerned with anything but his wife.
He therefore put the cable on the table beside him until Vina said a little nervously,
“Perhaps, darling, you should open your cable, just in case it is anything urgent.”
“There is nothing more urgent than that I should kiss you,” the Duke replied instantly.
As he spoke, he moved his lips over the softness of her cheek.
He felt her give a little quiver, and he laughed gently.
“What do I make you feel, my precious?” he asked.
Vina hid her head shyly against his neck as she said,
“Whenever you – touch me – I feel as if the moonlight is shining within me – and then it becomes – little tongues of fire.”
“That is just how I want you to feel.”
He would have kissed her again, but Vina moved from his arms.
“I must go to change for dinner,” she said. “I know we are dining in here – but I want to look very beautiful for you. After all – it is our – Wedding night!”
“A Wedding night we will always remember,” the Duke murmured gently.
He thought the smile that she gave him as she moved across the cabin was so lovely that he wanted to spring to his feet and pull her back into his arms.
Then, as she disappeared, he rang the bell for Hodgson.
He ordered delicacies for dinner that would not be on the menu and also tried to think of other ways of how he could please Vina on the first evening of their married life.
‘I love her! God, how I love her,’ he said to himself.
Then, as he returned to the sofa, he saw the cable where he had flung it down on a side table.
Casually he opened it.
He looked first at the end and, as he had expected, it came from John Simpson.
Then he read,
“Deeply regret to inform you that Lord Edgar was thrown while riding Hercules late yesterday evening. His Lordship broke his neck, but the stallion is unharmed.
Arranging for the funeral to take place on Saturday.
Will explain your absence due to being abroad.
John Simpson.”
The Duke stared blankly at the message.
He was sure that Edgar had deliberately ridden Hercules to defy him.
He had given orders that no one should ride the stallion but himself because the animal was so dangerous.
Edgar was not a good rider and took absurd risks when he had drunk too much.
Walking across the room, he shut the cable away into a drawer of the writing table.
He had no wish to tell Vina, tonight of all nights, of what he had just learned.
At the same time, whilst it made everything easier for the future, it would be a great mistake for their marriage to be announced for some months.
As he thought about it, he realised with a faint smile that it was exactly what Vina would prefer.
Instead of being greeted in Calcutta as the Duke and Duchess of Quarington, as he had intended, they would remain anonymous.
They would explore India and be like two ordinary inconsequential people who would be left undisturbed.
The Duke felt that Fate, perhaps God, had given him a Wedding present more appropriate than any other.
It would have been hypocritical to say that he regretted the death of his brother.
Edgar had never been anything but trouble and a spendthrift ever since he had grown up.
He had been an unhappy disreputable creature whom no one would mourn except perhaps the Cyprians who had made him spend so much money on them.
He felt too that Quarington would be a happier place without him, while the gossips, who continually gloated over his outrageous behaviour, would find somebody else to talk and gossip about.
Th
e Duke said a prayer of thankfulness that it was all over.
Now there would be no more scandal and no more strain on the family resources.
‘I have been incredibly lucky,’ he told himself. ‘I can never be sufficiently grateful.’
*
After a candlelit dinner together in the cabin, filled with flowers that Hodgson had bought at Gibraltar on the Duke’s instructions, Vina looked at her husband with a happiness that seemed to vibrate from her like starlight.
“Are you happy, my darling?” he asked her.
“So happy that I am afraid I shall – wake up and find it had – all been a – dream.”
“You will not do that,” he answered, “and now I think that as we have had a long day with a lot of excitement, we should go to bed.”
He loved the colour that rose in her cheeks and the way she suddenly looked shy.
By the grace of good fortune, the passenger in the cabin next door to those occupied by the Duke had left the Liner at Gibraltar.
This meant that he had a dressing room while Vina had the one next door.
She had changed for dinner, as he had asked her to do, in her own cabin.
When she went into the Duke’s, she understood why he had wanted her not to see it beforehand.
While there had been very beautiful flowers around them when they dined, his cabin was decorated with white lilies and white roses.
She gazed at them with delight.
Then she realised that the bed was covered in one of the exquisitely embroidered Chinese shawls that had been on sale in the shops as they passed down Main Street in Gibraltar.
She had admired them then, but had not liked to say so in case the Duke felt that she was asking for one as a present. Now one was spread over her bed and she thought it transformed the cabin into something very lovely.
“How could you make it so beautiful?” she asked.
The Duke, who had followed her, put his arm around her and replied,
“I tried to think of a bower of enchantment for the most beautiful woman I have ever seen!”
She gave a little laugh.
Then she said in a low voice,
“And the most – wonderful man – alive.”
*
Very much later, when the Liner was sailing in smooth water so that there was hardly any movement, Vina stirred in her husband’s arms.
“I want to say I love – you,” she whispered, “but you have – heard it before.”
“I can never hear it too often,” the Duke answered, “and I love you, my precious, and will love you until the stars fall from the sky and the seas run dry!”
“That is what I want you to say – but I am so – afraid I might – disappoint you.”
“How could you possibly do that?”
“I know how ignorant I am about love,” Vina said, “but I had no idea that it was so exciting and – so wonderful! At the same time – because you are a man of the world – you might have found me – boring.”
The Duke laughed and it was a very tender sound.
“That is one thing you will never be, my precious, not only as regards love but also in everything you do and everything you say. You have always been original, unusual and different and that is how I will always want you to be.”
“Could anything be more different or exciting than our being married as we were – and having – a honeymoon where no one can – interrupt us?”
“No one shall do so,” the Duke said, “and I agree with you that we are starting off on an adventure not only on our honeymoon but also in our future life together.”
He felt her move a little closer to him and he said,
“I have not forgotten that you found England dull.”
“That was because I had not found you,” Vina said simply. “I know now that whether we are living on the top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea, anywhere would be exciting if you were there.”
The Duke kissed her forehead as he said,
“I hope you will always go on thinking that because you are so lovely that I shall always be afraid of losing you.”
He was teasing her, but Vina retorted,
“How could I think or imagine that any man could be as wonderful as you – I am the one who is frightened.”
“Of what?”
“Other women! Of course they will want you – and I shall be – terrified that you will prefer – them to me!”
“That is impossible,” the Duke insisted.
“Why?”
“Because, as you know, if you think about it, we are now not two people but one. You belong to me, Vina, not only because you are my wife, but because our intuitions are the same and our hearts and our souls complement each other.”
Vina gave a little cry of happiness before she replied,
“That is just what I want you to think. That is what I believe, but I was so afraid you would not understand.”
“Of course I understand. I understand too as the Indians would, that we have been travelling towards each other for centuries, perhaps longer, and, since now at last we have found each other, we can never be parted or separated again.”
He knew as he finished speaking that Vina looked up at him waiting for his lips.
Then, very slowly, as if he wanted to savour the moment and was thinking over what he had just said, he kissed not her lips but the softness of her neck.
Then, as he felt her quiver, he kissed the hollow between her breasts.
Her breath came quickly and he knew her heart was beating as frantically as his.
His hand was touching her, his lips were wooing her and the starlight moved within them both and became little tongues of fire.
As the Duke made Vina his, they were swept up into the sky, where they touched the stars, held the moon in their arms and the Love of God was theirs for all Eternity.
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Elizabethan Lover
The Little Pretender
A Ghost in Monte Carlo
A Duel of Hearts
The Saint and the Sinner
The Penniless Peer
The Proud Princess
The Dare-Devil Duke
Diona and a Dalmatian
A Shaft of Sunlight
Lies for Love
Love and Lucia
Love and the Loathsome Leopard
Beauty or Brains
The Temptation of Torilla
The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl
Fragrant Flower
Look Listen and Love
The Duke and the Preacher’s Daughter
A Kiss for the King
The Mysterious Maid-servant
Lucky Logan Finds Love
The Wings of Ecstacy
Mission to Monte Carlo
Revenge of the Heart
The Unbreakable Spell
Never Laugh at Love
Bride to a Brigand
Lucifer and the Angel
Journey to a Star
Solita and the Spies
The Chieftain Without a Heart
No Escape from Love
Dollars for the duke
Pure and Untouched
Secrets
Fire in the Blood
Love, Lies and Marriage
The Ghost who Fell in Love
Hungry for Love
The Wild Cry of Love
The Blue-eyed Witch
The Punishment of a Vixen
The Sec
ret of the Glen
Bride to the King
For All Eternity
King in Love
A Marriage made in Heaven
Who can deny Love?
Riding to the Moon
Wish for Love
Dancing on a Rainbow
Gypsy Magic
Love in the Clouds
Count the Stars
White Lilac
Too Precious to Lose
The Devil Defeated
An Angel Runs Away
The Duchess Disappeared
The Pretty Horse-breakers
The Prisoner of Love
Ola and the Sea Wolf
The Castle made for Love
A Heart is Stolen
The Love Pirate
As Eagles Fly
The Magic of Love
Love Leaves at Midnight
A Witch’s Spell
Love Comes West
The Impetuous Duchess
A Tangled Web
Love lifts the Curse
Saved By A Saint
Love is Dangerous
The Poor Governess
The Peril and the Prince
A Very Unusual Wife
Say Yes Samantha
Punished with love
A Royal Rebuke
The Husband Hunters
Signpost To Love
Love Forbidden
Gift Of the Gods
The Outrageous Lady
The Slaves Of Love
The Disgraceful Duke
The Unwanted Wedding
Lord Ravenscar’s Revenge
From Hate to Love
A Very Naughty Angel
The Innocent Imposter
A Rebel Princess
A Wish Comes True
Haunted
Passions In The Sand
Little White Doves of Love
A Portrait of Love
The Enchanted Waltz
Alone and Afraid
The Call of the Highlands
The Glittering Lights
An Angel in Hell
Only a Dream
A Nightingale Sang
Pride and the Poor Princess
Stars in my Heart
The Fire of Love
A Dream from the Night
Sweet Enchantress
The Kiss of the Devil
Fascination in France
Love Runs In
Lost Enchantment
Love is Innocent
The Love Trap
No Darkness for Love
Kiss from a Stranger
The Flame Is Love