He wondered if it would be too much for the horse he had already ridden to go out again and then he remembered that he had ordered Mr. Geary to send up several bags of the very best oats, the sort he had never been able to afford before.
He was not surprised when he reached the stables to find that both horses had been fed.
He knew that Banks had a soft spot for all animals and he had known how much the oats were needed.
‘I will get Mr. Geary to find me a stable boy,’ the Duke told himself.
He lifted down a bridle and carried it into the first stall.
He was still finding it hard to believe that what Safina had proposed was possible and that Mr. Metcalfe, who, he realised, was an extremely intelligent and respected Solicitor, had agreed to go ahead with the plan.
‘If Isobel thought that she was making me even unhappier than I was already,’ the Duke thought, ‘she is going to be sorely disappointed.’
He saddled the horses.
Then he found himself thinking again, as he had last night, of Safina’s beauty and how different she was from any other woman he had known before!
She appeared this morning to have forgotten the terror that had made her try to drown herself last night.
He could not imagine any of the women he had made love to getting up so early.
They would not have made the study look so different from what it had when he was alone and they would certainly have been incapable of explaining the situation so clearly and sensibly to Mr. Metcalfe.
‘She is extraordinary,’ he told himself. ‘So unexpectedly clever and yet in some ways so child-like.’
He thought that it was very touching that she had put the leaves from the Magic Tree between her breasts.
Yet her faith in them had been justified.
‘She has certainly brought me luck,’ he told himself.
He rode one horse and led the other round to the front of the building.
He had just reached the steps leading up to the front door when Safina came running down them.
She looked very lovely in a smart riding habit that had been made for her in Florence and she had one of her small fashionable riding hats on her head. It had a gauze veil around the crown which hung down behind her.
The Duke dismounted so he could lift her into the saddle.
He put his hands around her waist and, as he did so, he remembered how small it had seemed last night when he had dried it and how beautiful her body was.
Then he was aware that she was looking at him and reading his thoughts and the colour rose almost automatically in her cheeks.
As he paused before lifting her up, they were close to each other.
Her lips were near to his.
The Duke suddenly wanted to kiss her.
He felt the blood throbbing in his temples at the thought of how soft her lips would be.
Then he told himself that it was much too soon and he might easily frighten her again.
Quickly he swung her up onto the saddle and, as she took up her reins, he adjusted her skirt over the stirrups.
As he walked to his own horse, he knew, although it seemed impossible, that he had not once thought of Yvonne de Mauzon since he had been married to Safina.
She was moving away down the drive.
As he followed her, he thought again that it seemed impossible.
Yet nothing could be more fascinating than what was happening to him at this moment.
‘I have to make her trust me,’ he told himself.
That was more important than anything else.
Chapter Seven
“It has been an exciting day,” the Duke remarked enthusiastically as they went up the stairs.
“It has been wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” Safina answered. “And I can still hardly believe that the workmen would find the original panelling in the hall under all that paper and paint.”
It was just one of the discoveries that had been made in the last two days.
They had received a letter from Mr. Metcalfe saying that he had obtained a loan of twenty thousand pounds for them.
Safina had jumped about with joy.
The Duke knew that he had only to ride into the village and tell Mr. Geary to send a number of other workmen up to the house next morning.
He thought that every carpenter, painter and gilder in the whole County would now be working at Wyn.
There was so much to do, planning the rooms, supervising those who had just started and choosing the right paint for the others.
In fact he and Safina hardly had time to speak to each other during the day.
It was only when the workmen had gone home and they dined in whatever room had not been emptied of furniture that they could talk.
Dinner that evening had been in what had once been a small breakfast room.
“I have finished the first two leaf bunches today,” Safina said, “which I intend to dip in gold. The first one is for you and the second is for Mr. Metcalfe.”
The Duke smiled.
“I really don’t need one when I have you.”
“Of course you need one,” Safina replied, “and it is entirely due to the wonderful Magic Tree that all these exciting things have happened.”
The Duke knew that this was what she believed with all her heart.
He was convinced personally that it was she who had brought him luck and he was wondering how he could tell her how much she meant to him.
Because she was so unselfconscious and was thinking only of the house and what they were doing to it, she had no idea what the Duke was feeling about her.
Every day, every hour, every minute, he found himself being more and more attracted by her.
‘I am falling in love,’ he told himself, ‘and it is entirely different from anything I have ever felt before for anyone else.’
Yet he was still afraid to tell her so.
He might shatter what he knew for her was an idealistic friendship that she had never had with any other man.
‘Suppose she is frightened and hates me again?’ he asked himself aloud in the darkness of the night.
Thinking of Safina made him toss restlessly in his bed and he found it impossible to sleep.
She was in the next room and he had only to open the two communicating doors to be with her.
He could feel his desire for her burning inside him.
Then he remembered how she had looked when he had lifted her unconscious from the waters of the lake and he had thought for a moment that she had actually drowned.
When he carried her back to the house, he had wondered what he would do if she never came back to life.
He had imagined all too vividly the scandal it would cause.
Someone was bound to find out that she had drowned herself after they had been forcibly married by Isobel.
Yet now, incredibly, he knew that it was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him.
Not because Safina had brought him money, that was incidental, but because she had taken a place in his house and in his heart that had always been empty.
He had been intrigued, attracted, fascinated and even infatuated by quite a number of women.
But what he felt about Safina was so very different.
He could hardly explain it to himself.
First of all he felt an urge to look after her, to protect her from her evil stepmother and from anyone else who might frighten or upset her.
Then, because she was so beautiful, he desired her, of course he did.
Yet it was very different from the fiery burning desire that would shoot violently into flames and then die down just as quickly.
‘This is real love,’ he had told himself last night.
He had been standing at his bedroom window, gazing up at the stars in the sky overhead.
Now, as they reached Safina’s bedroom door, the Duke said,
“I think you will sleep well tonight.”
“I expect so,” Safina re
plied. “At the same time I hate wasting the hours when we might be working.”
The Duke laughed.
“If you drive the workmen any harder,” he said, “they will undoubtedly go on strike!”
“Then we will have to do it all ourselves,” Safina retorted.
“God forbid!” the Duke exclaimed in horror, holding up his hands.
Safina laughed and went into her bedroom.
“Goodnight,” she said and closed the door.
The Duke stood for a moment without moving. He was wondering, if he had put his arms around her and kissed her goodnight, what she would have said.
Then with a sigh he walked the short distance to his own door and went in.
For a long time he stood as he had the previous evening, looking up at the stars.
Then, as they reminded him of Safina’s eyes, he forced himself to undress and climb into bed.
‘Tomorrow,’ he thought, ‘perhaps there will be an opportunity for me to tell her how much she means to me.’
Then he told himself that it was no use thinking about Safina or he would have another sleepless night.
He was about to blow out the candles beside his bed when he realised that he had not read a newspaper for the last two days.
It was impossible to put anything down in the rooms on the ground floor, which were all being renovated and Banks had therefore laid The Times on a chair by his bed.
The Duke reached out and, opening it, started to look at the headlines.
Because he and Safina talked and thought only of the house, the events of the world outside seemed remote and unimportant.
He turned over the pages and forced himself to read the editorial.
He was halfway through it when there was a sound of a door opening.
The Duke looked up and saw to his astonishment Safina come into the room.
She was wearing only her thin nightgown and her hair was falling over her shoulders.
He was so surprised at her appearance that for a moment he could only stare at her.
He thought that she could not be real, but a vision that he was seeing in his mind.
Then she said in a voice that he could hardly hear,
“I am – frightened.”
“Frightened?” the Duke exclaimed. “What has happened?”
He sat up, throwing the paper down on the floor beside him.
“It – is – Stepmama,” Safina answered.
Then she gave a little cry.
“She is – cursing us and it – is – horrible!”
Now there was the frantic note the Duke had heard in her voice before.
She suddenly ran across the room and flung herself against him.
His arms went around her and she hid her face against his shoulder.
Almost incoherently she stammered,
“There was a – b-bat in my – room when I – awoke and I thought that – S-Stepmama was there too. I could – hear her – c-cursing me. She will – t-try to take me a-away. Stop her. Oh, please – stop – her.”
The Duke’s arms tightened.
“No one will take you away,” he said. “You are mine, Safina, and your stepmother cannot hurt you any more.”
“She – is wicked – she is – evil and she is – putting a – spell on me.”
Safina raised her head.
The Duke saw in the candlelight the terror in her eyes and the tears running down her cheeks.
“Save – me – save – me,” she whispered frantically.
For a moment he just looked at her, thinking he had never seen anyone look lovelier.
Then he drew her close to him and his lips were on hers.
He felt her stiffen with surprise before her body seemed to melt into his.
He pulled her closer still and laid her down on the pillow.
Then, as he kissed her and went on kissing her, he felt an incredible ecstasy rising within himself.
Nothing mattered, except that they were part of each other and that Safina was his. He kissed her until he knew that she was no longer frightened.
He raised his head and looked down at her.
In the candlelight he could see that her face was radiant with an almost unhuman beauty that transformed her.
For a moment he just gazed at her.
Then he was kissing her again, kissing her with possessively, demandingly and passionately.
They told her without words how much he wanted her.
It was not only the softness and sweetness of her lips that excited him, but her body close against his.
His kisses were lifting her up into the sky and towards the stars.
Neither of them were on earth, but outside the gates of Heaven.
In a voice that was very unsteady and unlike his own the Duke said,
“I love you, my precious, I love you and I want you completely and absolutely as my wife.”
“I love – you,” Safina murmured, “but I – did not – know it was – love.”
“But you do love me,” the Duke insisted.
“There is – nothing else but – you in the – whole world,” Safina replied. “You are – the sky – the moon and – the stars. I never knew – before that I – could touch them.”
There was a dream-like intensity in her voice.
Then he was kissing her again, kissing her until she said,
“You will – not let – anyone take – me away from you.”
He knew that she was thinking of her stepmother and he said fiercely,
“I will kill anybody who tries to take you from me. You are mine, Safina, mine and, my darling, I want you, I want you now at this very moment.”
He sensed that she did not completely understand, but she said in the child-like voice that he had grown to love so much,
“I – am yours – all yours and – please hold me very – tight so that I am – no longer afraid.”
It was then that something broke within the Duke and he was kissing her wildly, passionately and demandingly, almost as if he was fighting away the demons that would take her from him.
He kissed her eyes, her lips, her neck, her breasts.
Safina was not frightened.
Something wild and wonderful leapt within her.
She felt the fire burning on his lips and she was aware that there were tiny flames flickering within her breasts.
It was wonderful, wonderful and absolutely perfect.
Something that she had known vaguely was there, if only she could find it, now at last was hers.
Then, as the Duke made her his, they passed through the gates of Heaven and became part of the Divine.
*
A long time later Safina stirred against the Duke’s shoulder.
“Are you awake, my darling?” he asked.
“I think I am – dreaming and it is so – wonderful, so perfect – I am afraid of waking up.”
His arms tightened around as he sighed,
“That is how I feel too. Do you still love me?”
“I love – you until there is – only love and you!”
“That is what I feel,” the Duke said. “How is it possible that we have found each other? Whatever happens, we are together for Eternity.”
“Are you – sure of that?” Safina whispered.
“Absolutely sure,” he replied, “and that I am incredibly lucky to possess anything so beautiful and so perfect in every possible way.”
His hand was running over her body as he spoke.
As he felt her quiver, he added,
“If you only knew how much you have tortured me because I was so afraid that you would never love me as I love you.”
“How could I know that you – felt like – that,” Safina asked, “or that – love could be – so miraculous?”
“That is what you are,” the Duke said, “and the magic you have brought me, my darling, comes from your heart.”
Safina put up her arms to pull down his head to hers.
&nb
sp; “Our magic will – protect – us,” she whispered.
“Of course it will and I promise you,” the Duke replied, “that love is stronger than evil.”
Safina gave a little sigh of relief.
Then, because the Duke did not want her to think of anything else but him, he was kissing her again, kissing her and holding her closer and closer until once more they were moving up towards the stars.
*
It was difficult the next morning for the Duke to concentrate on the many problems awaiting him downstairs.
They were not able to finish their breakfast before Banks came into the room.
The overseer wanted a word with them and the foreman of a group of workmen was waiting for instructions.
Looking at Safina across the table, the Duke thought that she had never looked more beautiful.
Her whole face seemed to glow with a new radiance and, when their eyes met, it was impossible for them to think about anything but the wonder of their love.
‘I love you, I love you!’
The Duke heard the words repeating themselves in his mind.
He thought that he must have said them a thousand times during the night.
He was so happy that he knew that if the whole house collapsed, it would not matter as long as Safina was safe.
She must have read his thoughts, because she said,
“It is going to be more beautiful when we have finished than it has ever been, because now we are building, painting and restoring it with our love.”
“That is just what I was going to say,” the Duke exclaimed.
“I knew that was what you were thinking.”
“Then is there any point in my telling you that I adore you?”
“I want you to say it,” she answered, “I want you to say it to me a million times.”
He put out his hand towards her and she saw a sudden sparkle of fire in his eyes.
“Darling, darling, the men are waiting to see you,” she murmured.
“Let them wait,” the Duke replied as Safina rose from the table.
“We have to do our duty first,” she insisted.
“Now you are bullying me,” the Duke complained.
They worked all the morning.
And, when they had finished a light but delicious luncheon, the Duke said,
“I have something to show you now, at once.” Safina looked at him and asked,
“Is there anything – wrong?”
Magic From the Heart Page 10