Love is for Ever (24 page)

He looked down at the hand that was still locked in his, and carried it up to his lips. They caressed it as if it was something infinitely precious, and then he lifted the one that was bandaged, and kissed that, too, very gently.

“Well, and what else? What other things have you to ask me,
Chiquita
? For I feel sure there is much more!”

“Your grandmother’s future plans for you!” At last it was out, and she almost held her breath as soon as the words had passed her lips. Her eyes hung upon his appealingly. “You know that she had formed plans for you?”

“I thought you understood that she had formed plans for you, too.” He looked back at her gravely. “Do you not remember that night, very soon after her death, when I told you that almost her last words were of you? She spoke about ‘little Jacqueline’, and I understood very clearly what she meant. She wanted me, my own Jacqueline, to marry you, and to take you and care for you and love you—to discover my own happiness in cherishing you all the rest of your life! And when I told you that she had mentioned you you seemed to understand—you told me that you were well aware she had a plan!”

“Y-yes, but—” She was utterly amazed, almost incredulous. “I thought you were referring to—to Carlotta Consuella... ”

“To—?” He looked completely amazed.

“To the girl in Spain you—the girl everyone thought you would marry one day,” she told him, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment, her voice low and miserable because even the thought of Carlotta Consuella still upset her enormously. “And everyone
did
think you would marry her!” she added, with emphasis. “Even Senor Montez, who warned me about her, and your grandmother herself—it was
she
who told me

about her in the beginning!”

Dominic gave voice to an expression which sounded very Spanish, and which obviously escaped him in spite of himself.

“But I have never had any serious intentions whatever where Carlotta is concerned! I have known her since she was a schoolgirl—since she was sent to boarding school in England, and I was studying over there. Her parents asked me to visit her sometimes, and take her out. I took her to all sorts of places—the Tower of London, the Zoo. I bought her big boxes of chocolates which she took back to school with her and distributed amongst her friends—she was delightful, but
gauche,
the complete schoolgirl! And now she is planning to marry someone her parents do not wish her to marry. I saw her quite recently.”

“Then it is true that you stayed with her parents in Madrid?”

“Yes. But how did you know that?”

“Martine told me.”

“Martine...?” He looked at her suddenly as if a light was beginning to shine somewhere in the midst of darkness, as if something inexplicable was ceasing to be inexplicable. “What else,” he asked her very quietly, “did Martine tell

you?”

Jacqueline swallowed, and looked down at her lap. But his hands were holding hers strongly, and somehow the courage came to her.

“She told me you were going to be married soon—that you were planning the wedding, and having your house near Toledo redecorated in time for the event. I think she—she honestly thought you were going to be married, because you stayed so often with the Consuellas, and they are giving a special party to which she is invited—and she thought it was some sort of an engagement party!”

“I see.”

She looked up at him imploringly, but his eyes were a little inscrutable, and his mouth, she decided, was grim.

“It is quite true that I am having my house redesigned, in parts, and certain other alterations carried out on it, and that I made all the arrangements for these things when I was in Spain last. It is also true that I have stayed a good deal with the Consuellas, and that they are giving a betrothal party, soon—but that is for their eldest daughter, and nothing I believe to do with Carlotta.
Certainly
nothing to do with me! However, you have undoubtedly believed all these things?”

“How—how could I believe otherwise?” Jacqueline asked, in a faint voice.

He looked directly at her.

“That night after my grandmother’s death, when we talked of her plan for me, I thought you understood! —I thought we both understood, and tacitly agreed that it was too soon after her death to discuss these things, that we would one day belong to one another!
I
knew that I loved you more than life, and that night when I kissed you in the lane outside
The Golden Cockerel
your lips told me that if you didn’t love me as much as I loved you, at least you were not indifferent to me! But Martine and Barr burst out upon us, and for the first time I realized how unwise I had been to bring Martine to Sansegovia, and that until she had left the island I could not very well ask you to be my wife. I think even then I realized that Martine might be dangerous for you—that she could be spiteful, if nothing worse—and very soon after that I got her the film part. It was my intention, as soon as I returned to Sansegovia without Martine, to tell you as quickly as I could of my hopes and plans for
us ...
But my grandmother’s sudden death caused all that to be postponed.”

This time it was Jacqueline who said “I see,” and looked at him with large, wondering eyes.

“And on the night of the
fiesta
I found you in Neville Barr’s arms! Are you at all amazed, now, that I treated you as I did? I was so violently upset that night that I think I was capable of almost anything—I certainly wanted to hurt you badly. And I think,” looking at her with compassion and compunction transfiguring his face, “that I did!”

“Oh, Dominic,” she whispered, her voice quivering, “we seem to have hurt one another! But Neville wasn’t really making love to me. He—he only asked me to marry him!”

“And you refused?”

“You know I did. Neville knew—he does know— that I

love you!”

“My darling!” Once again he was down on his knees beside her, and as she felt his arms reach out to draw her close she clung to him as she had clung to him before. She felt his lips pressing themselves against the warm hollow at the base of her throat, and her whole body started to tremble. “Say that again,” he implored, softly. “Jacqueline, I want to hear you say it again!”

“I love you,” she repeated, shutting her eyes and lowering her face until her cheek rested against the crispness of his hair. “I love you with everything there is of me, and I’ll never stop loving you!” her voice trembling uncontrollably.

Dominic stood up. He lifted her bodily out of her chair and held her against him, so that all she had to do was lie there in his arms and be completely supported.

“Do you remember I told you once, Jacqueline, that love is for ever?” he whispered, as he looked deep into her eyes. “Your sort of love—my sort of love—will go on and on! There won’t be any quenching it—no danger of it coming to an end, as in the case of your father and mother. You believe me, don’t you, beloved?”

Once again she closed her eyes, emotion making her look very pale.

“Of course I believe you, Dominic, darling.” He sat down with her in his chair, holding her so that she could rest quietly against him, his fingers moving gently in her hair.

“Tia
Lola wouldn’t approve of this,” he murmured, after a long minute of silence, against her ear. “Being very Spanish she didn’t really approve of my coming to your bedroom at all, but she knew I couldn’t wait to see you. And conventions don’t really matter when you’ll be my wife so soon.”

“Will I?” she asked, looking up at him with unbelieving eyes.

“I propose to wait for you a few days—just long enough to get over the shock of the storm. And, by the way,” he broke off to enquire, “what were you doing out by yourself, and so far from home, when the storm broke, and you must have known it was only a matter of time before it did break?”

Jacqueline hid her face against him, but she confessed truthfully:

“I was so unhappy, I don’t think I really cared what

happened to me ... I just felt I—nothing mattered!...”

When she ventured to look up at him at last his face looked white, and it was convulsed with a kind of anguish.

“I might have lost you,” he said in an indistinct voice, “and it would have been due to Martine, wouldn’t it? She tried to make you believe things that were not true—because she knew I loved you!

“Did she,” softly.

“Of course she did! Why, otherwise, do you think she wanted to hurt you?”

And then, after long seconds of silence during which they simply gazed into one another’s eyes: “But Martine is scarcely likely to cross our paths again, my dear one,” he told her. “I think she’s going back to America soon, and you and I are going to Toledo. I want you to see all that I’m doing to my house—which will be your house, too! And I’ll show you Madrid, and all the other places I want you to see! ”

He kissed her lips hungrily.

“Didn’t I tell you once that you would see Spain?”

“But not with you!”

“Of course I meant that you would see it with me! I had never any intention that you should see it with anyone else!”

“Oh, Dominic,” her eyes shining up at him like stars, “you really loved me even then?”

“From the beginning,” he assured her. “And,” he added, with quiet solemnity, “for all time!”

THE END

H A R L E Q

Ro