An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (107 page)

At the humility in Stella’s last words Mistral put out her hand impulsively and laid it on the older girl’s arm.

‘No, you were right to come. I am more grateful than I can possibly say. It means everything to me to know that he loves me. You were right in thinking that I love him.’

Stella smiled happily.

‘Thank you! You have set my mind at rest. Now I will return to the Hotel and to my husband.’

‘You have been married recently?’ Mistral asked.

‘Yes,’ Stella replied. ‘It was entirely due to you,
Mademoiselle
, and I can never thank you enough.’

The hands of the two women met in a warm handshake of friendship, and then Stella had gone leaving Mistral alone again.

Now there was no indecision about her, she knew what she must do and that it must be done quickly. She rang for Yvette and changed into the evening gown of white lace. Then she ran down the corridor into the drawing room where the Grand Duke would be waiting before dinner.

He looked up as she entered. Then, as he saw her face, he rose to his feet.

‘Father, something has happened! Please listen to me! I want to tell you all about it,’ Mistral said breathlessly.

Looking down at her, the Grand Duke knew that from this moment there would no longer be any secrets between them.

It was nearly two hours later that Sir Robert, sitting in an arm chair by the window of the sitting room in the
Hôtel Hermitage
, heard a knock on the door.

The windows were open and he was looking out on to the dusky night. A new moon was rising over the sea, the evening stars were coming out one after another. He did not turn his head at the interruption, thinking it was a servant coming to replenish the fire or to bring him a drink.

He went on looking out into the darkness. He heard someone enter and the door close. Then there was silence. Still he did not move until some sixth sense told him that he was being watched, that someone was standing looking at him. Impatiently he turned his head and the words he was about to say died on his lips, for it was Mistral who stood there.

For a moment he thought that she must be a figment of his own imagination. The light from the chandelier illuminated her very clearly and never, he thought, had he seen her look more lovely. Her dress was white and somehow it made her seem younger and more appealing, and yet it may have been the expression on her face, her eyes very wide and dark against the pale gold of her shining hair.

As he stared, unable for a moment to move or speak, Mistral with a swift movement slipped down on her knees beside him, her little hands clasped together on the arms of his chair.

‘I have come to say something to you,’ she said and her voice was very low and sweet. ‘You asked me to swear to you on my knees, by all that I held holy, that I did not know that my aunt was
Madame
Bleuet. I did know that she had been called
Madame
Bleuet, but – until she died I did not know who she was or how – notorious she had become under that name. I had no idea of anything – she did or of – the – wickedness with which she was connected. This I swear to you now – before God and by – all His Holy Saints.’

As Mistral’s voice faltered into silence, Robert, as if he awoke at last from a dream, bent forward and clasped her in his arms.

‘Mistral!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have wanted you so much. I have asked for you, prayed for you, but they told me you had gone away. Do you think I don’t know you were innocent? That I could trust you? Oh, my darling, I must have been mad and crazy to have thought for one moment that you were anything but what you appeared. You are pure and holy – the most perfect woman in all the world. Forgive me, only forgive me, and say that you still love me.’

His words tumbled over one another, his lips were very near to hers, his arms were drawing her closer and closer into his embrace.

Mistral’s head fell back against his shoulder.

‘Forgive me,’ Robert whispered, and now at last she could answer him in three words.

‘I – Oh – I – love you!’

He heard her voice break on the words, and then his lips were against hers. She felt in that moment all the rapture and wonder that had been theirs that moment in the Chapel when they had pledged their troth before the altar, and she knew that this time no evil could ever separate them and take them one from the other. They were one, man and woman joined together in the sight of God, one for all eternity.

‘Oh, my darling, my precious one.’

Robert was murmuring his endearments against her cheek and she looked up to see that there were tears in his eyes. As she drew a deep breath, as she stirred for a moment within the encircling confines of his arms, he said,

‘No no, I cannot let you go. You are mine. I am afraid that you may vanish, and I want you, Mistral. I should never have rested until I found you, but I had no idea where to begin! But you have come back to me and I love you too much ever to let you go again.’

Once more he was kissing her, and this time his kisses were more human, more possessive, more demanding, and she felt a flame of desire rise within herself in response to his. Then the world stood still and they were lost in a heaven in which time ceased to count.

Robert took his mouth from hers and looked down at her.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, his voice low and hoarse with emotion. Tomorrow I am going back to England and I shall take you with me. I am going to take you to Cheveron, to my home. We will be married there, or here before we leave if you prefer it.’

‘I am afraid on this question you will have to ask my permission,’ a voice said from the doorway.

Robert looked up. And as Mistral blushingly extricated herself from his arms, he rose slowly to his feet.

‘Your Imperial Highness!’ he exclaimed in astonishment.

The Grand Duke came further into the room.

‘I am sorry to interrupt you,’ he said, ‘but before you make too many plans, I must beg you to accord me the formality of asking for my daughter’s hand in marriage.’

‘Your daughter?’

There was no disguising Robert’s surprise, and Mistral gave a little laugh of sheer happiness.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘The Grand Duke is my father. It is so wonderful to have a family of my own at last.’

‘Yet if my eyes do not deceive me and my ears have heard aright,’ the Grand Duke said, ‘you are all eagerness to leave me.’

Mistral looked up at him with a worried expression.

‘Please understand, Father,’ she pleaded.

The Grand Duke smiled reassuringly.

‘I think I do,’ he said. ‘Robert, your father was an old friend of mine. You and I have met on several occasions. My daughter tells me that she has fallen in love with you and you with her. I gather there has been some misunderstanding between you, but from what I saw on entering the room I imagine that is now rectified.’

‘It is forgotten, Sir,’ Robert said.

‘I am glad of that,’ the Grand Duke replied. ‘There are many things that are best left in the past and ignored completely in our plans for the future.’

‘May I, Sir, then beg your permission to marry Mistral?’ Sir Robert asked.

‘You have that,’ the Grand Duke replied, ‘on one condition. ‘Yes, a condition,’ he repeated, as he saw both Mistral and Robert look at him a little apprehensively.

‘Which is?’ Robert asked.

‘That you do not take my daughter away from me too quickly,’ the Grand Duke replied. ‘No, do not look too disappointed, I am being wise for both of you. You have the whole of your lives ahead of you. You will live together and, please God, be happy one with another, but I wish you to start out in the right way, without scandal, without shadows attached to you from the past. You, Robert, came out here for a very different reason. That reason has ceased to exist, but people have long memories and longer tongues. I want you to go back to England tomorrow, to return to Cheveron and take up life where you left it. You doubtless have many things requiring your attention on your Estate, you have your peace to make with your mother. In three months’ time Mistral and I will come to England.’

‘In three months!’

The dismay in Mistral’s voice was very evident.

‘Yes, my dear,’ the Grand Duke said firmly. ‘In three months. It seems a long time now, but remember, you have another fifty years ahead of you to spend in Robert’s company. You can spare me three months, and June in England is very pleasant, I remember. I would like to introduce you to London, for I have many friends there, and when you have made your curtsy to the Queen at Windsor, we will perhaps journey to Cheveron and stay with the son of my old friend – Sir Robert Stanford.’

‘Oh, Father!’

Mistral clasped her hands together, her eyes very bright.

‘If you were to get engaged when you meet at Cheveron,’ the Grand Duke went on, ‘it would be quite a natural and charming thing to happen. Do you understand?’

He looked directly into Robert’s eyes.

‘I understand, Sir,’ Robert said, ‘and thank you for being so much wiser than I am.’

‘I do not say I am wiser,’ the Grand Duke replied, ‘but perhaps I am more experienced in the ways of the world.’

He held out his hand.

‘Good bye, my boy. We shall meet at Cheveron in June.’

The two men clasped hands and the Grand Duke took his watch from his pocket.

‘I will wait for you in the carriage, Mistral,’ he said. ‘The horses will get restless if you are not down in five minutes.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ she said in a low voice.

The Grand Duke went from the room and the door closed behind him.

For a moment Mistral and Robert stood looking at each other, then he held out his arms and she flew into them with a little cry of happiness.

‘Your father is right, my darling,’ he said. ‘We must wait. But you won’t forget me? Promise that you will think of me every moment of the day and of the night until we meet again?’

‘I promise,’ Mistral answered.

‘I shall go to get my home ready for you. I shall dream of you there, as I have dreamt before of seeing the two most perfect things in my life joined together – you and Cheveron.’

He held her closer to him, his lips against her hair.

He knew then that this was what he had searched for all his life, that his search was at an end, his goal in sight. With a sense of urgency at the passing of time he sought her lips.

‘I love you,’ he whispered against her mouth and knew there was no need for words as she surrendered herself to the passion behind his kiss.

A DUEL OF HEARTS

1

“What is the hour?” Caroline asked, not taking her eyes from the road ahead of them.

Sir Montagu pulled his gold watch from his waistcoat pocket, but it was difficult for him to see the hands. They were moving fast and, although the moon was rising, trees cast dark shadows over the narrow roadway so that it was a few seconds before he was able to reply,

“It wants but three minutes to nine-thirty. We have done well!”

“I hope you are not over optimistic, sir,” Caroline answered, ‘for methinks this by-lane of yours, although unfrequented, has taken us longer than if we had kept to the highway.”

“I swear it is shorter,” Sir Montagu replied. “I have travelled it often enough and, I suspect Lady Rohan will be bemused at having the other road to herself.”

Caroline laughed.

“If we do reach your sister’s house before they arrive, I shall ache to see their faces when they perceive us a-waiting them. Do you really think, Sir Montagu, they are watching the road behind them and wondering why we are not in sight?”

“I imagine that is precisely what they are doing,” Sir Montagu smiled, “unless they think we are ahead of them.”

“Which - pray Heaven - we are!” Caroline cried fervently. “How much further have we to go?”

She whipped up the horses as she spoke and the light phaeton sprang forward at an even greater speed.

“Not more than four miles, I should think,” Sir Montagu replied, “We join the main, highway about a mile from here.”

“ ... In front of Lady Rohan’s greys,” Caroline added, her voice gay and excited.

She saw that they, were approaching a turn in the road and reined in the horses slightly. Although they had been going for over an hour and a half, the chestnuts were by no means tired and Caroline, with a little thrill of pleasure, realised that Sir Montagu had not boasted when he averred they were the finest bred pair of high-steppers in London.

The phaeton swung round the corner and the moonlight revealed two or three cottages clustered round a village green. Facing the stocks and duck-pond was a small gabled inn, its signpost swinging creakily in the wind, its windows bright with light. But Caroline noticed only that the road widened and was straight for the next quarter of a mile. She lifted her whip but as she did so the small groom at the back of the phaeton raised his voice.

“Cuse, m’lady, but I suspicions there’s somethink powerful wrong with th’ off wheel.”

“Something wrong?” Caroline asked in consternation. “I feel nothing.”

“Tis rattling like a bone-box, m’lady, and I reckons us ought to ’ave a look at ’un.”

“Lord! If it isn’t enough to try the patience of a saint,” Caroline exclaimed, reining in-the horses and pulling up opposite the small inn “Hurry, boy, hurry,” she added impatiently. “I swear you are but imagining disaster.”

The groom scrambled down. Sir Montagu, after leaning over the side, of the phaeton, also descended. He spoke to the groom in a low voice and they both peered at the wheel.

“Surely there is nothing amiss?” Caroline asked after a moment, her voice anxious.

“I am afraid the boy is right,” Sir Montagu replied. “There is a pestilential crack in the axle. I believe it would be definitely dangerous for us to continue.”

“This is beyond everything,” Caroline cried.

“Well, maybe it isn’t as bad as might be feared.” Sir Montagu said soothingly. “Suppose, Caroline, you wait in the inn while I enquire if there is anyone in the yard who can repair the axle.”