Magic From the Heart

by Barbara Cartland

  “There’s a – big ogre and he’s – coming to – eat me up!”

  The Earl had laughed.

  “No, my dearest,” he said, “no one will eat you up. It’s only the clouds banging into each other like noisy boys.”

  “I’m – frightened,” Safina had sobbed.

  “I will protect you,” her father said, “but because you are my daughter, you have to be brave as your ancestors have been brave all down the ages.”

  He had told her so many stories about the endless battles that the Wicks had fought in and won.

  She had seen the medals they had earned and the flags they had captured. These were tattered, but still hung over the mantelpiece in the hall.

  “They did not run away from the noise of the cannon balls,” her father had said, “so how can you run away from the bangs that the thunder makes?”

  After that Safina had always tried to be brave.

  But if her father was not there to put his arms around her, she would pull the sheets and blankets over her head and hide at the bottom of her bed.

  ‘I must be brave,’ she told herself now.

  “Follow me,” the Duke said curtly.

  He began to walk ahead down the passage, but slowly, as if he was afraid of overtaking Isobel.

  There was no sign of her when they reached the hall.

  The Duke passed through it and went down another corridor until he opened a door.

  As soon as she entered the room, Safina guessed that it was his study. It was in some ways very like the one that her father always used at Wick Park.

  When, however, she looked a little closer, she was aware it was, in fact, very different.

  Everything at her home, which had been decorated and arranged by her mother, was, she believed, perfection.

  If a curtain faded, it was immediately replaced and the cushions and covers on the chairs were changed every few years.

  Here was a very different story.

  The leather sofa and armchairs were of the same design as those used by her father, but the leather was faded and torn.

  The carpet and rugs on which the furniture stood were threadbare and there were stains on the ceiling and on the walls too.

  The Duke walked to the fireplace and stood with his back to it.

  “Sit down.”

  It was an order rather than a request and Safina sat quickly on the nearest chair.

  It was an upright one and, having sat down, she looked at the Duke.

  Now she was surprised to see that he was, in point of fact, very good-looking and his square shoulders and narrow hips told her that he was athletic.

  As she was looking at him for the first time, so was he looking at her.

  He was thinking that she was not the least what he had expected.

  He had been somehow sure that the unfledged girl Isobel was thrusting on him would be exactly like the debutantes he had seen in London, pretty in an insipid way, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and either giggling or too shy to say anything.

  Instead he found himself looking at a young woman who did not resemble anyone he had ever seen before.

  It struck him that she was not exactly pretty, but she had a face that seemed to him vaguely familiar, although he could not think why.

  She had almost classical features.

  Her hair, instead of being fair, was the indefinable shade that reminded him of a pastel by Michelangelo.

  She had very large eyes fringed with dark lashes. They appeared to be grey, but because she was frightened, there was an almost purple tinge in their depths.

  She did not move or speak, but just sat with her back very straight, gazing at him.

  There was a silence in which neither of them moved until at last the Duke said,

  “It’s difficult to know what either of us should say in these very unusual circumstances. There is no recognised form of words in which to introduce oneself to someone one has not met before, but has just married.”

  He was trying to invest what he felt was an infuriating situation with some semblance of dignity.

  “I – am – so sorry,” Safina stuttered in a very small voice.

  “There is no reason for you to be sorry,” the Duke replied, “except for yourself. I should imagine that you are as horrified as I am by what has just occurred.”

  “How could – you have let it – happen?” Safina asked him.

  “Let it?” the Duke exclaimed.

  Then, as if he felt that he had spoken too angrily, he added gently,

  “I was blackmailed and forced into a position where I had to agree to what your stepmother was demanding.”

  “Then what – can we – do about it?”

  Now her voice was hardly audible and the Duke thought that she was controlling herself and her fear in what was an admirable manner.

  He walked across the room and back again to the fireplace before he said,

  “Quite frankly there is nothing we can do but accept the situation and try, if it is humanly possible, to make the best of it.”

  “Do you – mean I have to remain – married to – you?”

  “We are married,” the Duke said, “and there is no escape.”

  Safina drew in her breath.

  “Stepmama told me that – you needed – my money. Perhaps she did not – tell you that – I have very little until Papa dies.”

  “She told me,” the Duke replied, “that you have thirty thousand pounds.”

  He felt as he spoke that it was rather uncomfortable to talk about money so soon after they were married.

  But, as she had brought the subject up, perhaps it was best to know exactly where they stood.

  “Mama left me – thirty thousand pounds – in her will, but I have only – the income from it – until I am twenty-five.”

  The Duke stared at her.

  He realised that Isobel had tricked him yet again by saying that the thirty thousand pounds could pay his more pressing debts.

  He might have expected that she would lie to get her own way and in consequence he was still in the same desperate position that he had been in for the past two years.

  As if she understood what he was feeling, Safina said,

  “I am – sorry. Perhaps – the best thing – I can do is what I – suggested to – Stepmama.”

  “What was that?” the Duke asked.

  “That – I should go back to – Florence and – become a nun.”

  “And what did your stepmother reply to that?” the Duke enquired.

  “She said that when he – heard about it, Papa would not – allow it to happen, so I – had to marry – you.”

  “And did you tell her that you had no wish to marry a perfect stranger?”

  As Safina did not answer at once, he added,

  “Perhaps you felt that it would be rather pleasant to become a Duchess?”

  There was a note of cynicism in his voice and Safina replied,

  “Of course I had – no wish whatever to – marry you! I think it is – wicked to be – married when – we are both hating each other!”

  She drew in her breath before she continued,

  “I wanted – desperately to say that I – would not do it, but Stepmama – threatened what she would do if I did not, and – it was – too horrifying.”

  ”How did she threaten you?” the Duke enquired.

  He thought for a moment that Safina was not going to answer.

  Then she replied,

  “She said if I – refused in the – Chapel – she would make the servants – hold me until I responded and if I did not – agree to – come here she would – take me to a lunatic asylum and have me – certified as – insane.”

  The Duke gave an exclamation that seemed to ring out in the room.

  “Curse her! How can she behave in such a diabolical manner? Or we be helpless to do anything about it?”

  “I was afraid,” Safina said, “that if she – put me in an – asylum no one would – know where I �
�� was and I might have to stay there – all my life!”

  The Duke put his hand to his forehead.

  “We have both been trapped,” he said, “and all I can say is that I hope one day your stepmother gets her just deserts.”

  There was silence as he stood at the window looking out on the overgrown garden.

  He was fighting for his self-control as Safina was fighting for hers.

  He thought that only a woman as unprincipled as Isobel could threaten a girl with being certified as a lunatic.

  He supposed that, as Safina’s Guardian, this was something that she could do quite easily. It would be such a horrifying experience that it could actually make a young well-bred girl insane.

  ‘She is totally evil,’ the Duke told himself.

  He was ashamed to think that he had ever succumbed to her sensual and fiery desires, which in retrospect he thought were, in fact, abnormal.

  “Would it not be – best for me to go back to – Florence?” Safina asked.

  The Duke was startled by the concern in her voice and walked back towards the fireplace.

  “No, of course not!” he said. “To begin with I cannot believe that you want to renounce the world. You may find the situation that you are now in uncomfortable and unpleasant, but perhaps we can eventually be able to do something about it.”

  “You mean you – want to – restore your house and make it – beautiful as it – must have been originally?”

  “Of course I want that,” the Duke said almost roughly, “but I have as much chance of doing so as jumping over the moon or finding a crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

  “I am afraid that what – money I have – will not go very – far,” Safina said, “and if I ask for – any of the rest of the money which was – Mama’s, my stepmother has – already said that – she will prevent Papa from – giving it to me.”

  “That is one thing you can be quite certain about,” the Duke remarked. “Your stepmother is a young woman and she intends before your father dies to grasp as much money as possible into her possession.”

  “Yes, I know – that,” Safina said, “and I don’t – even have any – of Mama’s jewels which she – always told me were mine.”

  “Then it is no use crying over spilt milk,” the Duke suggested. “I warn you that you will be uncomfortable and it would not surprise me if sometimes you were hungry. All I can offer you is a roof over your head, even if it leaks!”

  To his surprise Safina laughed.

  “I am – sorry! I ought – not to laugh at you,” she said, “but it sounds – so ridiculous that – you are a Duke and own this enormous house and thousands acres of land, but have – no money.”

  “Just debts,” the Duke replied, “and, if I am not careful, I will find myself in a debtors’ prison.”

  “How can it possibly be as bad as that?” Safina enquired.

  “If you can find anything in this house to sell, I will sell it. As you may imagine, everything is entailed onto the son I don’t possess and anything that is obviously saleable has already gone!”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I have not the faintest idea,” the Duke replied. “It’s bad enough trying to keep myself and two old servants who have nowhere else to go but the workhouse. Now I also have a wife like an albatross around my neck!”

  After he had spoken he said quickly,

  “I apologise, I was not intending to be rude. I am only stating crude facts.”

  “I am not offended,” Safina said. “At least we have the income from my capital until I am twenty-five.”

  “We?” the Duke demanded. “Are you really allying yourself with me in this appalling situation?”

  Safina looked at him a little uncertainly.

  “Is there – anything else you can – suggest that I – can do?” she asked tentatively.

  “If you want to be comfortable,” the Duke said, “you could doubtless find yourself a home with one of your relations.”

  “I cannot for the moment think of one – who would want me,” Safina answered, “and surely it would cause a great deal of – gossip if we lived apart – immediately after we were married?”

  “That is true,” the Duke said, “but I was just thinking how unpleasant it would be for you here.”

  “And for – you,” Safina added in a small voice.

  “I agree to that, although it sounds extremely rude,” he said. “May I now say before we get any further that you are not the least what I expected.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “To be honest,” the Duke replied, “I thought that you would be either hysterical or coy.”

  Safina laughed.

  “I did feel hysterical when Stepmama told me what she had planned and again when I – came into – the Chapel.”

  She hesitated before she went on,

  “I thought that you might be – very old and perhaps – deformed or – evil.”

  “I hope, at any rate, I am none of those things.”

  “No, you – certainly are not,” Safina assured him.

  Without really thinking what she was doing and concentrating on their conversation, she pulled off her hat and put it down on the floor beside her chair.

  The Duke saw that her hair was parted at the centre and swept back into a bun at the back of her head.

  There were two curls falling down on either side of her heart-shaped face and her forehead was a perfect oval.

  As he looked at her straight nose and again at her large very eloquent eyes, he gave an exclamation,

  “Now I know what you look like!”

  “What is that?”

  “The pictures of some of the very young Italian Madonnas in the Uffizi Gallery.”

  Safina stared at him.

  “Do – you mean – that? I have – looked at – them a thousand times and – longed to be like them.”

  “Your wish has been granted,” he said, “and uncannily so.”

  He smiled and it seemed to transform his face.

  “Perhaps, after all, you are not my wife, but an angel from Heaven, who will disappear back to where you came from.”

  “I wish – that was true,” Safina said, “and then – perhaps you could – be happy.”

  She stopped herself from saying more.

  The Duke made a gesture with his hand and walked back again to the window.

  “That is something which is impossible,” he said, “until I can clear up the mess I am in.”

  “I will help you! I am sure I can – help you in – some way,” Safina said, “even though I don’t have as much – money as you – expected me to have.”

  “I did not consider that when I refused to marry you,” he said harshly. “I told your stepmother that I was not prepared to sell my title.”

  So he had not wanted her money.

  Now Safina was sure that the reason why he had been forced to marry her had something to do with the papers that her stepmother had given him in the Chapel.

  She wanted to ask him what they were and then she feared that he might resent her seeming to pry into his affairs.

  Perhaps sooner or later he would tell her why he had been unable to defy the Countess.

  The Duke turned from the window.

  “I think it must be nearly luncheontime,” he said, “and I suggest that I take you upstairs and show you your bedroom.”

  He paused before adding,

  “I am afraid that there will be no one to wait on you.”

  Safina realised for the first time that, when she and her stepmother had left the inn where they had spent the night, the maids had been left behind.

  She had presumed that they had gone to London in the other carriage.

  She had not given it a thought until now and supposed that her trunks must have been transferred to the carriage she had come here in.

  “After luncheon,” the Duke said, “I will take you on an inspection of the house and you wil
l see how by neglect a building can gradually become nothing but a pile of stones.”

  He spoke bitterly and Safina answered,

  “I am sure that it’s not as bad as that and I have just thought of something that we ought to do.”

  “What is that?” the Duke asked.

  It was obvious from his tone that he thought it unlikely that any idea she had would be of any use.

  Suddenly she felt shy about what she had been about to say,

  “I would like to see – over the house,” she said, “and of course – your gardens and – your estate. How large is it?”

  The Duke realised that that was not what she had been going to say, but he was not really interested.

  He was only thinking that, while Safina was not as bad as he had expected, Isobel had won.

  She had defeated him as she had been determined to do.

  Now she would gloat over the torture of his being tied to a wife he was not in love with, a torture that she had envisaged from the very start.

  She had been well aware that Safina would not have enough money to be of any real help for another seven years!

  Chapter Four

  After a very sparse and, Safina thought, almost uneatable luncheon, the Duke suggested,

  “Now I will take you around the house and you will see what I have to endure day after day!”

  There was a bitterness in his voice that Safina realised was always there when he talked about his possessions.

  He took her first into the rooms on the ground floor which, it was obvious, had once been as magnificent as those at Wick Park.

  Now everything was faded or threadbare. Water had seeped through the ceilings, ruining those that were painted. Every room they visited needed repairing from the ceiling to the floor.

  The only things that were untouched were the eighteenth century marble mantelpieces.

  However, where the rooms had had fires, the ashes were still in the grates.

  In the ballroom, because the chimney had not been swept, there was a horrifying mess because the soot had fallen down onto the polished floor.

  Safina had to admit the inspection was particularly gloomy.

  The Duke spoke very little.

  And when he did, the bitterness in his voice and the pain in his eyes made her desperately sorry for him.