His eyes held hers like a magnet.
She could feel the strange spell that she had experienced when they first met creep over her, so that it was impossible for her to move, almost impossible to breathe.
She knew he was waiting and after a moment she whispered,
“Yes – yes!”
“And you love me?”
“Yes.”
“You are sure about that? You are utterly and completely convinced in your heart and in your soul that you belong to me and I belong to you?”
There was a light in Ancella’s eyes that had not been there before.
Now she understood what he was saying!
She did love him! She did trust him and she knew irrefutably that they belonged to each other.
All the misery, all the doubt that had been hers during the night, had gone. And, just as she had done in the garden of the Casino, she moved towards him seeking the comfort, the protection and the safety of his arms.
He held her very close and, while she waited and longed for him to kiss her, he said,
“You are quite sure, my beautiful darling? The conviction is really there?”
“I am sure – absolutely – sure!” Ancella said. “How could I have thought anything else – and yet I was – afraid I had – lost you.”
“You could never lose me!” the Prince said. “As I told you when we were at Eza, we have been together since the beginning of time and we will be together through Eternity.”
She felt herself quiver because of the depth and sincerity in his voice.
Then he said,
“I want you to forget what happened yesterday. It was something you should never have experienced. I deeply regret that you have been hurt and distressed as I know you have. Will you forgive me for any part I may have had in it?”
“There is – nothing to – forgive!” Ancella murmured and meant it.
“The Marchioness was in debt,” the Prince said. “She came to my room to ask for my help and, because I had found her attractive until I saw you, I gave her one thousand pounds.”
He paused before he continued,
“I have seen the very stupid letter she wrote to the firm that was about to sue her, telling them that the rest of the money she owed would be sent to them when she married, which she intended to do very shortly.”
His voice had a note of anger in it as he went on,
“As she enclosed the cheque I had signed, it was obvious that they would draw the conclusion from her letter that I was the man she was to marry – as my mother did.”
Ancella hid her face against his shoulder.
“I am – ashamed! But I – did not – understand.”
“How could you be expected to, my innocent darling?” he asked. “You are so young, so unversed in the intrigues, subterfuge and falsehoods of the social world. That is why I have a plan to suggest to you.”
There was something in his tone that made Ancella raise her head to look up at him wide-eyed,
“What is – it?” she asked.
“Nothing frightening,” he said reassuringly. “It is just that, because I feel that angels are out of place, not only in Monte Carlo but also in St. Petersburg, Paris and London, I want to take you away.”
He felt Ancella draw in a quick breath of excitement.
“Not just for a short while, my precious love,” he said, “but for years, perhaps for the rest of our lives.”
Ancella did not speak and he went on,
“I own a considerable amount of land in America. In Florida, as it happens, and because I want to do something worthwhile in my life and not just waste time in the pleasure spots of Europe, I want to develop that land and build a house there for myself and for my wife.”
His arms tightened as he went on,
“When I saw you in the tavern holding that baby in your arms, I thought that Florida would be a fine place to bring up our children. There are new ideas, new inventions, a new way of life to be found across the Atlantic. Shall we leave the Old World behind, my lovely douchka and seek new horizons together?”
There was a radiance in Ancella’s face that he had not seen before and it made her even more beautiful.
“You know it would be like – Heaven to be – anywhere with you!” she said. “Here I am – frightened – because you are so – important and I am so ignorant of your sort of life. I might fail you.”
“You would never do that,” the Prince assured her.
“But in America I could work with you – look after you – help you – and love you,” Ancella whispered.
“That is what I want. That is what I have longed for all the years when I have been trying to find you.”
He looked down into her eyes.
“My convictions told me that somewhere in the world there was the woman who was the other part of me. How could I have known, how could I have guessed, that she was – an angel and that I would find her in Hell?”
Ancella gave a little laugh, then the Prince’s lips were on hers and she felt, as she had the night before, that he was sweeping her up into the sky.
Once again the sunshine, the sky, the flowers, the sea, everything that was beautiful and wonderful was a part of them.
Ancella felt the Prince’s kiss grow more demanding and more passionate and she felt as if he awoke a flame within her which seeped its way through her so that not only was her love his but her body, her heart and her soul.
As he held her closer, she knew that love was not only gentleness and beauty – it was also a tempest, a fire, a whirlwind, so majestic, so overwhelming, that there was no longer in it a place for anything small or petty.
They were as Gods, no longer just a man and woman but blessed and encompassed by all that was Divine.
“I love you! I adore you and I worship you!” she heard the Prince say. “You are mine, Ancella, mine as you have always been! This, my beloved sweetheart, is where we start living fully, you and I, because now we are complete.”
There was a note of triumph in his voice, a kind of exaltation, which made her feel as if it was a clarion call that she could not resist.
She looked up at him and thought that he was like a Crusader starting out to fight for all that was fine and spiritual and yet at the same time his need for her was very human.
“I love – you!” she whispered. “And I – believe in you!”
“That is what I want to hear, my little darling,” he answered. “We must always have faith in each other and faith in our destiny.”
Ancella felt desperately ashamed that she had ever doubted him.
“Forgive – me,” she whispered and knew that he understood.
“There is nothing to forgive,” he answered. “It was you, my lovely one, who inspired me. You, who aroused those aspirations in my mind that could not be crystallised until I met you. Now everything is different. Now, my sweet, we know that, because we are together, we can reach the top of the world and storm Heaven itself, if necessary!”
As he spoke, Ancella felt as if he lifted her up into the sky again.
Then his lips were on hers, compelling, demanding, conquering.
She was his completely and absolutely and, with a conviction that was unmistakable, she knew that whatever the difficulties ahead, their love was Eternal.
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
The Barbara Cartland Eternal Collection is the unique opportunity to collect as ebooks all five hundred of the timeless beautiful romantic novels written by the world’s most celebrated and enduring romantic author.
Named the Eternal Collection because Barbara’s inspiring stories of pure love, just the same as love itself, the books will be published on the internet at the rate of four titles per month until all five hundred are available.
The Eternal Collection, classic pure romance available worldwide for all time .
Elizabethan Lover
The Little Pretender
A Ghost in Monte Carlo
A Duel of Hearts
&n
bsp; The Saint and the Sinner
The Penniless Peer
The Proud Princess
The Dare-Devil Duke
Diona and a Dalmatian
A Shaft of Sunlight
Lies for Love
Love and Lucia
Love and the Loathsome Leopard
Beauty or Brains
The Temptation of Torilla
The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl
Fragrant Flower
Look Listen and Love
The Duke and the Preacher’s Daughter
A Kiss for the King
The Mysterious Maid-servant
Lucky Logan Finds Love
The Wings of Ecstacy
Mission to Monte Carlo
Revenge of the Heart
The Unbreakable Spell
Never Laugh at Love
Bride to a Brigand
Lucifer and the Angel
Journey to a Star
Solita and the Spies
The Chieftain Without a Heart
No Escape from Love
Dollars for the duke
Pure and Untouched
Secrets
Fire in the Blood
Love, Lies and Marriage
The Ghost who Fell in Love
Hungry for Love
The Wild Cry of Love
The Blue-eyed Witch
The Punishment of a Vixen
The Secret of the Glen
Bride to the King
For All Eternity
King in Love
A Marriage made in Heaven
Who can deny Love?
Riding to the Moon
Wish for Love
Dancing on a Rainbow
Gypsy Magic
Love in the Clouds
Count the Stars
White Lilac
Too Precious to Lose
The Devil Defeated
An Angel Runs Away
The Duchess Disappeared
The Pretty Horse-breakers
The Prisoner of Love
Ola and the Sea Wolf
The Castle made for Love
A Heart is Stolen
The Love Pirate
As Eagles Fly
The Magic of Love
Love Leaves at Midnight
A Witch’s Spell
Love Comes West
The Impetuous Duchess
A Tangled Web
Love lifts the Curse
Saved By A Saint
Love is Dangerous
The Poor Governess
The Peril and the Prince
A Very Unusual Wife
Say Yes Samantha
Punished with love
A Royal Rebuke
The Husband Hunters
Signpost To Love
Love Forbidden
Gift Of the Gods
The Outrageous Lady
The Slaves Of Love
The Disgraceful Duke
The Unwanted Wedding
Lord Ravenscar’s Revenge
From Hate to Love
A Very Naughty Angel
The Innocent Imposter
A Rebel Princess
A Wish Comes True
Haunted
Passions In The Sand
Little White Doves of Love
A Portrait of Love
The Enchanted Waltz
Alone and Afraid
The Call of the Highlands
The Glittering Lights
An Angel in Hell
Only a Dream
A Nightingale Sang
Pride and the Poor Princess
THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND
Barbara Cartland, who sadly died in May 2000 at the grand age of ninety eight, remains one of the world’s most famous romantic novelists. With worldwide sales of over one billion, her outstanding 723 books have been translated into thirty six different languages, to be enjoyed by readers of romance globally.
Writing her first book ‘Jigsaw’ at the age of 21, Barbara became an immediate bestseller. Building upon this initial success, she wrote continuously throughout her life, producing bestsellers for an astonishing 76 years. In addition to Barbara Cartland’s legion of fans in the UK and across Europe, her books have always been immensely popular in the USA. In 1976 she achieved the unprecedented feat of having books at numbers 1 & 2 in the prestigious B. Dalton Bookseller bestsellers list.
Although she is often referred to as the ‘Queen of Romance’, Barbara Cartland also wrote several historical biographies, six autobiographies and numerous theatrical plays as well as books on life, love, health and cookery. Becoming one of Britain’s most popular media personalities and dressed in her trademark pink, Barbara spoke on radio and television about social and political issues, as well as making many public appearances.
In 1991 she became a Dame of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to literature and her work for humanitarian and charitable causes.
Known for her glamour, style, and vitality Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime. Best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels and loved by millions of readers worldwide, her books remain treasured for their heroic heroes, plucky heroines and traditional values. But above all, it was Barbara Cartland’s overriding belief in the positive power of love to help, heal and improve the quality of life for everyone that made her truly unique.
An Angel in Hell
Barbara Cartland
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2014
Copyright Cartland Promotions 1976
eBook conversion by M-Y Books
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Russian or rather the Slavic nation has defied adequate description all down the centuries, although many writers have tried. The magnetism, the luminous spiritual force, is linked with dramatic exaltation and excess. Love to a Russian comes from Drouska – the soul, usually the suffering soul.
The Russian peasants sang songs of their suffering not of the body, as might be expected, but of their souls. Love and pain are intermingled until it is impossible to separate them.
Russians are a blend of despair and optimism, grandiose schemes and sheer futility, superb idealism and wild excess. They can become maddened and intoxicated by misery or exalted by love into an ecstasy when they are one with God.
The greatest change in Czar Alexander II’s reign, after the liberation of the Serfs, was the ‘reduced circumstances’ of the Secret Police.
Under his predecessor, the tyrannical Czar Nicholas I – “the most alarming Sovereign in Europe” – Universities were put under Police supervision, foreign travel was prohibited, public meetings were banned and soldiers were sent to Siberia for nothing more serious than a button out of place on parade.
CHAPTER ONE ~ 1878
Lady Odele Ashford settled comfortably in a private carriage attached to the mainline train and thought with satisfaction that she would soon be reaching the Halt near Charl Castle.
Exceedingly lovely in her sables and a travelling gown that was very elegant, as she stared out the window she looked exactly like her photographs, which appeared in many shop windows and proclaimed her one of the great beauties of the period.
She was looking particularly attractive at the moment because she was thinking of what lay ahead of her and that she would see Prince Ivan again and undoubtedly, for a few hours at any rate, alone.
His letter had been explicit when he had asked her to come to Charl Castle early before the rest of his house party arrived.
When she thought of his handsome face, his dark passionate eyes and his slim athletic body, Lady Odele fancied that her heart beat more quickly and she was conscious of some new sensations in her mind and body.
She told herself that it was a long time since she had had a lover so attractive, so eloquent in his lovemaking and above all so rich.
Even among the very wealthy members of Society who clustered around the Prince of Wales at Marlborough House, the fort
une of Prince Ivan was greater, Lady Odele had heard her husband say, than that of all the rest of them put together.
The fact that he had singled her out of all the numerous beautiful women who pursued him relentlessly made it seem all the more flattering.
Prince Ivan in inviting her to stay this particular week at Charl Castle had chosen his moment well.
He would not have been unaware that Edward Ashford, whose only real love was horses, would be racing at Doncaster and, although there was every likelihood of his joining his wife when the Races were over, she would be on her own for at least two days perhaps three.
What was there about Prince Ivan, Lady Odele asked herself, that made him so irresistible and much more intriguing than all the good-looking Englishmen whom she met night after night at Marlborough House and in all the great houses up and down the country where parties were continually being held for the Prince of Wales?
She supposed that it was partly his Russian ancestry, even though he was half-English, but Lady Odele considered it was much more than that.
The Prince was so intelligent that, she was told, even the most distinguished Statesmen bowed to his superior knowledge when it came to Politics.
He was also listened to with respect on many other subjects when the men sat round the dining room table enjoying their port after the ladies had left the room.
That he was an outstanding rider and that his judgement of horseflesh kept him winning all the Classic Races, to the envy of her infuriated husband and other members of the Jockey Club, went without saying.
Besides all that, there was, she decided, something mysterious about him, something that women found intriguing and to which they searched for the key, only to be disappointed.
But whatever it might be, Lady Odele told herself that she was looking forward with an almost girlish excitement to arriving at Charl.
The train was slowing down and now she could see the Halt, where there was a notice reading,
“CHARL CASTLE ONLY”
Waiting, as she expected, were the Prince’s servants in their distinctive livery and the Prince’s private secretary in a bowler hat.
There was a red carpet laid along the platform and Lady Odele knew that outside would be waiting an extremely comfortable carriage drawn by four magnificent horses, which would carry her to The Castle at a speed that would leave most people breathless.
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