He put it behind her and, forcing her arms down to her sides, fastened it at her waist.
He worked so quickly and so effectively that Bettina was completely immobilised almost before she could realise what was happening.
Then Lord Eustace swept back the bedclothes, tied her ankles together with another strap and, pulling off a blanket, wrapped it round her while she struggled ineffectively to prevent him.
She realised that she was now no better than an inanimate object unable to move and unable to cry out and, when he had wrapped the blanket round her covering even her face, she felt him lift her in his arms.
She knew then that he really did intend to take her away with him.
She thought despairingly that once he had done so neither the Duke nor her father would be able to find her and she would belong to Lord Eustace as he intended.
‘Help!’ she wanted to cry out, but could make no sound through her lips.
She felt Lord Eustace carrying her through the French windows and then they were descending the stone steps that led from the balcony into the walled garden.
Desperately Bettina called out in her heart to the Duke, feeling that, because she loved him, he must hear her and must know that she was in danger and needed him.
‘Save – me! Save me! Help me! Oh, God, make him – help me,’ she wanted to call out.
Lord Eustace had now reached the garden and was walking over the snow towards the iron gate that led onto the lawns.
Because the grass was thick with snow his footsteps made no sound and, with her face covered with the blanket, Bettina felt that the whole thing was some terrible nightmare from which it would be impossible to awaken.
‘Help me – oh – help me,’ she cried to the Duke. ‘He is taking me – away and you will – never find – me again.”
Then, almost as if her words had been answered by Heaven itself, she heard a voice that she knew ask,
“What the devil is happening? Who are you?”
Then an exclamation that was like a pistol shot.
“Good God, you, Eustace! What are you doing here?”
“Taking away something that belongs to me,” Lord Eustace replied truculently.
Bettina was afraid that the Duke would not realise what Lord Eustace was carrying.
She wanted to scream out that she was here and he must save her, but, although she tried to move, it was impossible with Lord Eustace’s arms tight as a clamp around her.
“What have you there?” the Duke demanded.
Bettina thought that they must be in the shadow of the wall that would prevent the moonlight from revealing the bundle in his arms very clearly.
“That is my business!” Lord Eustace replied. “Let me pass, Varien!”
“Not until I see what you are stealing from my house,” the Duke answered.
“I have no intention of showing it to you.”
“I insist!”
The Duke must have made a move towards him for suddenly Bettina found herself dropped roughly onto the ground and she knew that only the cushion of snow prevented it from being very painful.
The movement dislodged the blanket that covered her face and now she could see Lord Eustace, having rid himself of her, rushing at the Duke and striking at him.
He took his half-brother by surprise and, the Duke’s head jerking backwards to avoid a blow, made his hat fall from his head. For a moment he staggered and then returned blow for blow.
They were fighting violently Bettina realised and she knew that all the pent-up hatred that Lord Eustace had for the Duke was expressed in the fury that he put into his punches.
However the Duke was both taller and stronger and, although Bettina did not know it until later, he was an experienced amateur pugilist.
One moment there was a scuffle, a struggle and the dull thud of blow upon blow, the next it was all over.
With a sharp uppercut on the point of his chin from the Duke, Lord Eustace seemed almost to fly backwards in the air before he sprawled unconscious in the snow.
The Duke hardly waited to see him fall and turned immediately to Bettina.
He saw the gag over her mouth, but he merely lifted her in his arms and, holding her closely against him, walked across the garden and up the stone steps and through the French window into her bedroom.
He carried her to the rug in front of the fire and set her down to stand as he supposed on her own feet. But when she swayed against him, he realised that she could not move.
He held her against his chest with one arm and undid the gag at the back of her head with the other.
She was trembling both in terror and from the cold and, turning her face against his shoulder, she burst into tears.
“It’s all right,” he tried to reassure her. “It’s all right. You are safe.”
The blanket had slipped to the ground and he saw the strap that held her arms and undid it. Then he lifted her up to carry her towards the bed.
Bettina held onto him and cried incoherently through her tears,
“N-no! I c-cannot – sleep here! He will come back. He will take me – away!”
The Duke did not argue. Carrying her wearing only her nightgown he opened the door and walked along the passage outside.
Most of the lights had been put out, but there was still enough left for him to see his way and he walked for some time with Bettina still crying against him.
Then he opened a door and she knew that they had entered a room that seemed to be on the other side of The Castle.
“You will be safe here,” the Duke said speaking for the first time. “You are in the room next to mine, Bettina, and I promise you that no one will ever abduct you again.”
He put her down on the bed and undid the strap around her ankles. Then he pulled the bedclothes over her to stand looking very large and protective beside her.
She could see him silhouetted against the firelight, but, because the tears blinded her eyes, she could not see the expression on his face.
She put out both her hands towards him.
“Don’t – leave me,” she begged. “Please – don’t go – away.”
“I am going to talk to you, Bettina, and you must tell me what happened. But if I leave the door open will you allow me first to go next door and tidy myself?”
He turned as he spoke and she saw that his collar was torn, his tie undone and there was a gash on his cheek that was bleeding.
“You are hurt!” she cried. “Lord Eustace has – hurt you!”
The Duke put up his fingers to the wound.
“I think it was his signet ring that cut me. It’s not serious.”
He smiled at her and then he went through a different door and Bettina realised that it led to his own bedroom.
He left it wide open and now she could hear him speak to someone and guessed that his valet had been waiting up for him.
‘I am – next to him. He is – close to me and Lord Eustace cannot – hurt me again,’ Bettina told herself.
At the same time her heart was still thumping frantically in her chest and it was difficult to believe that the nightmare was really over.
Her feet were cold and so were her hands, but the room was warm.
In the firelight she could see that it was a very large beautiful room with a huge canopied bed that she was lying on and three high windows hung with blue satin damask.
But she really wanted to look at nothing except the open door that the Duke would return through to her.
How could he have saved her? How could he have known what was happening when she cried out so desperately for him?
It seemed a very long time, but it was only a few minutes before the Duke came back into the room and closed the door behind him.
He stooped to put some more logs on the fire and then, as the flames shot up filling the room with a golden light, she saw that he was wearing a velvet smoking jacket such as he had sometimes worn on the yacht and there was a white silk scarf round his neck.
He had washed the blood from his cheek and he looked so handsome and so reassuring that, as he came towards the bed, Bettina instinctively held out her hands to him.
He sat down on the side of the bed facing her.
“How could I know? How could I have possibly guessed,” he said, “that you would be involved in such a deplorable situation?”
Bettina’s fingers hung onto his as if they were a lifeline.
“I – called you,” she stuttered. “I – called to – you in my – heart and suddenly you were – there!”
“I must have known instinctively that something was happening to you,” the Duke said “When I arrived back from London, I felt worried about you although I could not imagine why.”
He smiled as he added,
“I had been thinking about you as I came down in the train and when I reached The Castle I somehow felt that you wanted me.”
“I did – want you,” Bettina whispered. “I wanted you – desperately!”
“I could hardly come to your bedroom, so I thought I would walk round and look up at your window. I cannot explain even to myself why I decided to do so.”
“It must have been my – Guardian Angel who – guided you to – me,” Bettina murmured.
“Just as I told myself that I was being rather foolish,” the Duke went on, “I saw there were new footprints in the snow and wondered whose they could be.”
“I could not scream – but I – prayed for – you to come to me.”
“I think I knew that,” the Duke answered, “and, when I saw Eustace, I was sure that something was very wrong.”
“Did you – know that he was – carrying me?” Bettina asked.
“Not at first,” the Duke replied. “It did not seem like a body in his arms and it flashed through my mind that he was taking one of the tapestries, which are exceedingly valuable and which he has often contended should be sold and the money given to the poor, his poor, of course!”
The Duke paused for a moment and then he went on,
“It was only when he dropped you on the ground and went for me that I realised what was happening.”
Because it swept over Bettina once again how terrifying it had been, she bent forward so that she could hide her face against the Duke’s shoulder as she had done before.
“I thought – he would – take me away and I would never – see you again,” she muttered almost inaudibly.
His arms went round her to hold her close against him.
“And would that have worried you?” he asked. “I have often wondered if you would have preferred Eustace to me. He is much nearer your age.”
“I – hate him,” Bettina cried. “He is – repulsive – horrible – but now I know too that he is – wicked!”
“It was not exactly wicked to want you,” the Duke said.
“Suppose he – tries again?”
The Duke put his arms on her shoulder and very gently pushed her back against the pillows. Looking down into her eyes wide and frightened in the firelight he said,
“We can make you sure, if you like, that it is impossible for him to do so.”
“H-how can we – do that?”
“By getting married as soon as possible.”
Bettina gave a little gasp and he went on,
“Once you are my wife, Bettina, it will be impossible for anyone to kidnap or insult you.”
“I should feel – much safer.”
“Is that all you would feel?” the Duke enquired.
She looked at him, not understanding what he was asking, and after a moment he said,
“I want you to tell me why you called for me when you were frightened by Eustace. After all your father was nearer.”
There was a silence after he had spoken.
Then, as Bettina dropped her eyes shyly, the Duke put his fingers under her chin to turn her face up to his.
“Look at me, Bettina. I want to know the answer to my question.”
“I-I knew that – you would – save me.”
“If I was there,” the Duke added. “But how did you know I would hear your silent cry, the cry that came from your heart?”
It was difficult to take her eyes from his.
Then, almost as if he compelled her to tell him the truth, Bettina whispered,
“I knew – you would – hear me because – I love – you!”
Even as she spoke, she realised that the Duke might not wish to hear of her love for him and quickly she added,
“I-I will not be a – nuisance like those – other women. I will not worry you or make scenes – but I cannot help – loving you.”
“Any more than I can help loving you!” the Duke answered and his lips came down on hers.
For a moment Bettina felt only an astonishment that seemed to take the breath away from her body.
Then she knew that this was what she had been longing for and this was what she had been wanting ever since she had known the Duke.
She felt something warm and wonderful seep through her cold body sweeping away the fear, the uncertainty and even the jealousy that she had felt of the other women who had loved him.
Then it became more wonderful and more glorious than anything she had ever known. It was as if all the stars they had looked at and the desert itself was part of the wonder of his kiss and the closeness of him.
It was part of the beauty of The Castle and there was music and flowers in his kiss and a rapture that seemed to run through her like a shaft of moonlight so that she trembled.
When finally the Duke raised his head, Bettina’s face was radiant in the firelight and her eyes were shining like stars.
“I love – you! I love – you!” she cried. “I did not know – love could be so – wonderful and so perfect.”
“Neither did I,” the Duke said.
She looked at him for a moment.
Then she asked,
“Are you – saying that you – love me – a little?”
“I love you as I have never loved anyone before in my life,” the Duke replied. “In fact I have never known love until this moment.”
“Is-is that – true?”
“So true that I can hardly believe it myself. Actually I loved you the first time I saw you, but I would not admit it.”
“The – first time?” Bettina asked.
She remembered how he had come into the drawing room on the train early in the morning and she had been alone.
“When I saw you standing by the writing table with the orchids at your neck,” the Duke said, “it seemed as if you were enveloped by light.”
“Do you mean the – light that we – said was a sign of something very – special?”
“The light in this case was a sign of love,” the Duke sighed, “the love I have never known, my darling.”
“I cannot – believe it. You are so – wonderful – so magnificent and I cannot – help loving you – but why should you love – me?”
The Duke smiled.
“Perhaps it is because you are so different from any other woman I have ever known.”
He reached out his hand as he spoke to touch her hair, which was falling over her shoulders.
“I have not known many good women and you, my darling, are very good, very pure and very innocent.”
“I want to be good for – you. I have prayed that I should be, but I never thought that you would really – love me and Papa said that he thought you had never really – loved anybody.”
“Your father is right,” the Duke said. “I thought love was an illusion, something maudlin that women called ‘romance’. But when I saw you, my darling one, I realised that it was life itself, the life that I had never known but had always missed.”
“Can I – really make you – feel like – that?” Bettina asked.
“I have felt like that, as you say, ever since I have known you. And, when we stood together gazing at the stars, it was very difficult not to take you in my arms and kiss you and to
tell you how much you already meant to me.”
“W-why – did you not – do so?”
“It was not the right place and I was involved with people you should never have been associating with.”
Bettina knew that he was speaking of Lady Daisy and Lady Tatham.
“That is what Lord Eustace said.”
The Duke sighed again.
“Eustace was right and you will never know how jealous I have been of him.”
“Jealous?” Bettina queried.
“I knew your father wished you to marry him. He had already told me so and I thought at first it would be a very suitable match. It might have changed Eustace from the monster he has made of himself into a human being, but then – ”
The Duke paused.
“Tell me,” Bettina whispered.
“I wanted you for myself.”
He sighed once again.
“I told myself I was much too old for you and that you would never be able to cope with my kind of life.”
“That is – what I am – afraid of,” Bettina confessed.
“I did not realise at first that what I called ‘my kind of life’ was over and finished!” the Duke said. “I have grown increasingly bored with it over the years, at the repetition of parties and, my darling, a succession of different women.”
He saw the sudden pain in Bettina’s eyes and bent forward to kiss her again.
His lips were at first gentle and then, as he felt the softness of hers yield to his, he became more insistent and more demanding.
When he eventually raised his head, he sighed,
“There are so many different things for you and me to do, things I have never done before that will be very exciting like starting off on a new adventure together.”
“I think I am – dreaming all – this. It is what I have longed for you to say – but what I was – sure I would never – hear.”
‘There is so much for us to discover about each other and we will start by going round the world, finding new places and making new friends.”
There was no need for Bettina to answer him.
He saw the radiance in her eyes before she said with a little catch in her breath,
“S-suppose I – bore you?”
The Sign of Love Page 14