He turned her face up to his as he spoke and kissed her at first gently and then, as he felt her body quiver against him, more passionately.
“Could anything be more exciting?” he asked. “I thought, my darling, you were beautiful when I first saw you, but you are infinitely more lovely now. I think it is because you are now a woman and no longer a young girl.”
What he said made Nerissa blush and he added,
“It may make you shy, but I think, my precious darling, when I teach you about love, I make you feel like a woman.”
“You teach me so many things,” Nerissa replied, “and I want to learn more and more especially how to make you – love me.”
“Do you doubt that is what I do already?”
“Certainly not,” Nerissa said, “but, darling, I have to make up for so many things in your life and most of all for Lyn!”
She spoke with a tremble in her voice because she was always afraid that the Duke was yearning for Lyn and feeling that, however exciting the things they did together, it was not the same as being in the home he loved and he belonged to.
“I am sure that everything at Lyn is all right,” the Duke said in a different tone. “I told your brother to keep my horses well exercised, which I am sure he is only too willing to do and not to leave Lyn until your father has gleaned all the information necessary for his book.”
Nerissa gave a little cry.
“Did you really say that? How could you be so kind and so thoughtful?”
“I also told my Steward,” the Duke went on, “that, when they did decide to leave, he was to send two servants with them to look after them at Queen’s Rest.”
Nerissa gave a little choke as she hid her face against his neck and sighed,
“You are making me feel ashamed that I have not worried more about Papa. You may think I am making excuses, but I find it so difficult to think of – anything or – anyone but – you.”
“That is exactly why quite selfishly I thought of your father and Harry for you. If you are to worry about anybody, you are to worry about me and that is an order!”
“I – worry about your – happiness.”
“Quite right,” the Duke approved. “I want you to concentrate on me and I shall be very jealous if you think of anybody else.”
“It would be very – difficult for me to – do so,” Nerissa admitted.
Then in a very small voice cuddling close against him, she added,
“It may seem – strange – but I have never asked you about the duel – and why it took place.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” the Duke said. “But, as I am sure that you are curious as to what is happening at Lyn, as I admit I am, we are now on our way to Calais where I have arranged for my secretary to meet me. He will have crossed the English Channel early this morning bringing me the very latest news.”
Nerissa was still for a moment.
Then suddenly she was frightened.
“You – don’t think there will be – people waiting to – arrest you and take you back to – England?”
“They cannot arrest me when I am on foreign soil,” the Duke replied, “No order from a British Magistrate has any power across the Channel. So don’t worry, my precious. Leave me to do the worrying. But I felt that like me you would be curious and wish to know what is happening in our absence.”
Nerissa did not like to confess that, because she had been so ecstatically happy with the Duke, she had hardly given a thought to the chaos that they had left behind at Lyn.
It must have been a shock to the whole household to find in the morning that the Duke had disappeared.
Now that she was thinking about it she was afraid that, although Delphine had refused to accompany him, she might be extremely angry that she had taken her place.
She, however, did not wish to worry the Duke with this thought and she managed to say very little until when just before noon the yacht moved smoothly into the Harbour of Calais.
The Duke went ashore alone as Nerissa had expected he would do.
She felt sure that he would want to safeguard her from any shocks that might be awaiting them and would prefer to tell her about it when he returned to the yacht.
But she could not help feeling agitated and, going up on deck, she stared at the quay, although she knew that she could not yet expect to see any sign of the Duke.
With a great effort she forced herself to go and sit on the other side of the yacht and gaze out to sea.
It was nearly luncheontime before the Duke returned and, when he came aboard, Nerissa ran to him with a little cry.
She knew before he spoke that he was feeling happy and that all was well.
“It is – good news?”
“Very good.”
They sat down on the wooden seat and, taking her hand in his, the Duke told her,
“My darling, by a miracle Anthony Locke has recovered from his injuries and is alive!”
Nerissa gave a little gasp.
“Alive?” she managed to whisper.
“Alive,” the Duke repeated. “This means that, when we are ready to do so, which will be after we have finished our honeymoon, we can go home.”
Nerissa stared at him incredulously.
Then suddenly the tears were running down her cheeks and she hid her face against him.
“You are not crying, my precious?” the Duke asked.
“They are tears – of – h-happiness. I have been – praying – praying desperately – that things might not – be as bad as they seemed and you would not be – exiled for l-long.”
“Your prayers have been answered and I cannot allow you to cry. I want you laughing and happy as I intend you to be for the rest of our lives together.”
He kissed her until she was smiling again.
When she went below to get ready for luncheon, he walked to the bow of the yacht to look at the Channel that lay between France and England.
He thought that in three weeks, perhaps a month, he would take Nerissa home.
She would never know, he thought, how carefully he and Anthony Locke had plotted the whole episode between them.
They had each sworn to the other that no one except the friends who had played their supporting parts in the duel should ever know the truth.
Lord Locke had told the Duke when he challenged him that he was genuinely in love with Delphine and she was in love with him, but the real difficulty was that he had nothing to offer her, not even a house.
The Duke then said it had been in his mind for some time that Anthony Locke, who was an extremely experienced horseman, might, if it pleased him, take over the management of his racehorses.
“There is an excellent house at Newmarket to go with the job,” he told him, “and, if I make your salary high enough to include a house in London, I believe that Delphine will have everything she desires.”
Lord Locke had been certain that, although Delphine had been spoilt by the adulation she received, he could in such circumstances make her happy and so he had agreed to everything that the Duke suggested.
This included a duel with blank cartridges and a way for the Duke to go into exile while Lord Locke pretended to be at death’s door.
Every detail had been planned so that no one would ever suspect that what happened had been contrived, including Lionel Hampton’s faking a realistic scar on Lord Locke’s chest.
The Duke’s secretary was now able to inform that his Lordship was in far better health than might have been expected in the circumstances and that he and Lady Bramwell were planning to be married in two weeks’ time.
The Duke had sent them his warmest congratulations.
He knew when he told Nerissa that her sister was to be happily married, that the very last cloud would now be removed from her sunlit sky.
‘I have been clever’ he told himself complacently. ‘At the same time I genuinely believe that it was Nerissa’s finding of the unhappy Duchess’s wreath that lifted the curse that has
always menaced the Dukes of Lynchester.’
It was a fascinating story, he thought, that could never be written because the charade of the duel and his and Lord Locke’s enacting of it must always remain untold.
Equally he was deeply grateful that everything had gone so smoothly and he knew that Nerissa with her sweetness, her purity and her sensitivity would bring a new era of happiness to Lyn.
He hoped never again would he undergo the suspense of a desperate gambler, staking all he possessed on the turn of a card when he asked Delphine to marry him.
By the mercy of Heaven, she had refused and the game was his!
It was not until later that night after they had kissed each other under the stars and then gone below because they both wanted to be closer still, that the Duke, holding Nerissa in his arms, declared,
“I have something to tell you, my darling one, that I think will please you.”
“What is it?” she asked. “I have felt all day ‒ that you have been hiding something from me.”
“You are not to read my thoughts,” he said. “You are far too perceptive about me. I am beginning to believe you are a witch!”
“If I am perceptive,” Nerissa replied, “it is only because I love you and my love makes me listen to every intonation of your voice and makes me see every expression in your eyes.”
“I would feel nervous if I did not feel the same about you.”
He kissed her forehead before he asked,
“Are you listening to what I have to tell you?”
“Of course I am,” Nerissa replied. “Is it something happy?”
“I know you will think so. Your sister, Delphine, is to marry Anthony Locke!”
Nerissa gave a little cry that seemed to ring out in the cabin.
“That is what I wanted. I knew that she loved him as he loves her – but she longed even more to be a Duchess.”
“I am sure that now she has found that love means far more than a strawberry-leafed coronet.
“I am glad – so very very glad,” Nerissa said, “and now I shall not be afraid of meeting her when we go home.”
“I will not have you afraid of anybody or anything,” the Duke sighed. “All those fears and worries are over and all you have to do, my beloved, is to extend the love that you have given to me to everybody at Lyn and all those who come to us there. And then all of us must learn to never forget love as it is the most important Power in the whole Universe.”
“We will make Lyn a house of love,” Nerissa murmured, “but we can only do that if we go on loving each other – as we do now.”
“And which I have every intention of doing.”
The Duke raised himself on his elbow to look down at her in the light from the candle lantern he had burning beside the bed.
“I was thinking today,” he said seriously, “that I was the most fortunate man in the whole world to have found you. Just suppose your sister had not wished to show me her ancient Elizabethan home and her distinguished father? I might never have met you!”
Nerissa gave a little cry of horror.
“Oh, my darling, I might have easily gone all through my life without knowing you even existed, except that Harry would have talked about you and told me, as he said he ought not to do, that you were a ‘devil with the women’!”
The Duke laughed.
“That may have been true in the past, but now, as far as women are concerned, I am a Saint and no one could tempt me however much they tried.”
“You are – quite sure of that?” Nerissa asked.
“Quite sure! I can be tempted by only one woman as I find her just so enthralling and so exciting, so completely and utterly satisfying, that as far as I am concerned there is no other woman in the whole wide world.”
Nerissa gave a little cry of delight.
“Oh, darling, that is what I wanted you to say. I could not bear to be made jealous of all those lovely ladies who fawned on you and made me feel very insignificant and just a little forget-me-not.”
The Duke’s lips were very close to hers and his hands were touching her body as he asked,
“Do you really think I could forget you? Do you really think that anyone else could make me feel as I do now?”
“How – do you feel?” Nerissa asked.
“Very much in love, very excited and irresistibly tempted by the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
He did not wait for her to say anything, but his lips came down on hers.
As the fire leapt within him and he felt the flames flicker within Nerissa, he knew that they were complete in one person.
This was a spiritual ecstasy that was different from anything he had ever known before.
It carried them into the sky where there was only Love and yet more Love.
The Love that lasts for Eternity and beyond.
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
The Barbara Cartland Eternal Collection is the unique opportunity to collect as ebooks all five hundred of the timeless beautiful romantic novels written by the world’s most celebrated and enduring romantic author.
Named the Eternal Collection because Barbara’s inspiring stories of pure love, just the same as love itself, the books will be published on the internet at the rate of four titles per month until all five hundred are available.
The Eternal Collection, classic pure romance available worldwide for all time .
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 Secret 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 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
A Touch of Love
The Dangerous Dandy
In Love In Lucca
The Karma Of Love
Magic For The Heart
Paradise Found
Only Love
A Duel with Destiny
The Heart of the Clan
The Ruthless Rake
Revenge is Sweet
Fire on the Snow
A Revolution of Love
Love at the Helm
Listen to Love
Love Casts out Fear
The Devilish Deception
Riding in the Sky
The Wonderful Dream
This Time it’s Love
The River of Love
A Gentleman in Love
The Island of Love
Miracle for a Madonna
The Storms of Love
The Prince and the Pekingese
The Golden Cage
Theresa and a Tiger
The Goddess of Love
Alone in Paris
The Earl Rings a Belle