Zachary finished fastening his shirt-collar and stared at him. With a surge of satisfaction Charles saw that he had managed to shock him.
‘You mean nothing has been put in hand with regard to an annulment or a divorce?’ he asked, suddenly very still. ‘You and Gianetta aren’t on the verge of getting married?’
‘No.’ He wondered if Zac’s trek had been a success. Whether it had or not, it had obviously been far more exhausting than any of his previous expeditions. There were deep lines carved around his mouth, and his near-black eyes had a haggard look he had never seen before.
As Zac continued to stare at him uncomprehendingly he said impatiently, ‘For the Lord’s sake, Zac. When will you believe that Gianetta doesn’t love me, has no desire to marry me and never has had?’
He walked away from Zachary and over to the high windows looking down over Albermarle Street. ‘I know I told you she had fallen in love with me at first sight, but it was just wishful thinking. Serena had mistakenly thought it to be the truth and when she told me, I so wanted it to be true that I believed her.’
‘Why did you lie to me?’
His voice was so taut that Charles wondered again if the expedition had been a success or if Zac had been ill.
‘I lied to you because of the kiss I forced from Gianetta,’ he said unwillingly, staring down into the busy street.
All his anger had now deserted him. He felt ashamed of the boastful lie, ashamed of the incident that had given rise to it, and he hated the coolness and barely veiled hostility that now existed between himself and Zac.
‘I knew you thought badly of me for kissing her against her will when she was in such a vulnerable situation and when I should, instead, have been offering her my protection. I wanted you to think you had misjudged things and that I had been given encouragement.’
‘You stole the kiss from her? It wasn’t freely given?’
There was something so odd in Zachary’s voice that Charles turned round to face him.
‘Yes, I stole the kiss and no, it wasn’t freely given,’ he said, bewildered. ‘You knew that at the time. I’ve never known you be so angry …’
‘And Gianetta doesn’t want to marry you? She isn’t impatient for an annulment?’
‘No. She’s only living with my mother because she felt you didn’t truly want her living in your home and …’
Zachary grabbed hold of a bow-tie. ‘You mean she isn’t at Chelsea?’ he demanded, throwing the tie around his neck. ‘She’s never been at Chelsea?’
Charles’s bewilderment turned to stupefaction. ‘For the Lord’s sake Zac! Didn’t you know? Haven’t you been home?’
Zachary shook his head and snatched hold of his jacket. ‘No, I just assumed …’
There was a knock on the door and a young boy’s voice called out, ‘Your Hackney is waiting to take you to the Royal Geographical Society, Mr Cartwright.’
‘I’ll be down presently.’
Zachary struggled into his jacket. Everything he had assumed had been wrong. He had caused himself months of unnecessary loneliness and tortured misery. Worse, he had inflicted the same loneliness and tortured misery on Gianetta.
Cursing himself for being the biggest fool of all time, joy roaring through him as he thought of the future that awaited him, he snatched up his lecture notes.
‘Come on, Charles!’ he exhorted, striding for the door. ‘The sooner I get this bloody lecture over, the sooner I can be reunited with Gianetta!’
It was a mild evening and the lecture hall was full. Gianetta squeezed onto a row at the very back. On one side of her was an elderly, eminent-looking gentleman with a profusion of white side-whiskers. On the other side of her was a studious-looking young man wearing a pince-nez.
She clasped her hands tightly together on her lap. On the wall behind the empty speakers’platform was pinned a large map of China. She wondered if any of the august audience were as familiar with it as she was.
A whisper of anticipation rippled around the crowded room as a distinguished looking gentleman entered and took his place on the lecture platform. And then Zachary entered.
The sheer force of his personality brought a sense of excitement and danger into the room. He strode onto the lecture platform with almost insolent assurance, his shoulders seeming broader than ever beneath his closely-fitting evening jacket, his blue-black hair curling as indecently low in the nape of his neck as ever.
There was fierce welcoming applause, but Gianetta was unable to join in. Even at such a distance, his masculinity came at her in waves and she felt sick with longing for him.
The gentleman who was chairing the evening was now introducing him. She caught the words ‘privileged’, ‘distinguished’ ‘Kansu’and ‘Blue Moonflower’, but the blood was pounding in her ears to such an extent that she could not string the words together. She was aware of nothing save that it was the last time she would ever see him; the last time she would hear his voice.
As he stepped forward to begin his lecture and as the applause eventually subsided, his eyes scanned the hall. She looked downwards swiftly, terrified that he would see her and that she would have to endure the added torment of his open indifference.
Only when he began to speak did she again raise her eyes. Any rag of hope that he had missed her as she had missed him, vanished once and for all. His eyes blazed with happiness so deep, his sun-bronzed face was transfigured by it. Obviously he had found the blue Moonflower; obviously, where she was concerned, he had not one regretful thought.
‘In discovering the blue Moonflower and bringing the seed back to Great Britain, I have taken upon myself the customary privilege of naming it,’ he said to his attentively listening audience.
It was then that his brandy-coloured eyes swivelled to hers; then that she knew he had seen her even before he had begun to speak.
‘It is to be called Ipomota Alba Gianettii, after Gianetta, my wife.’
She couldn’t breathe. The blood was roaring in her ears. Her heart was slamming so painfully that she thought it was going to explode.
His eyes burned hers. ‘My wife accompanied me on the first part of my expedition to Kansu but, due to deeply regrettable circumstances, was not able to continue with me into Kansu itself.’
Suddenly he was no longer speaking to the room at large, instead he was speaking only to her. ‘Will you join me on the platform, Gianetta?’ he asked, his voice throbbing with emotion. ‘I need you by my side, now and for always.’
It was as if they were the only two people in the room; as if no-one else existed. With eyes shining with joy she rose to her feet. There was a burst of applause as she began to squeeze along the row towards the aisle. Dimly she was aware of Charles looking towards her, smiling broadly, and of Serena and Henry in the row in front of him.
On the platform Zachary was waiting for her and as she walked toward him the audience, sensing that far more was going on than met the eye, applauded louder than ever.
His hands reached out for hers.
‘Will you forgive me?’ he asked huskily as their fingers entwined and she stepped up onto the platform beside him.
‘Yes,’ she said lovingly as he drew her close, wondering how he could ever have doubted it.
Relief, so palpable that she could feel it, jarred through him.
‘I love you,’ he said fiercely, ‘I shall always love you,’ and then still holding her by the hand, he turned once more to his audience.
‘Though my wife was unable to travel to Kansu, she will be travelling with me on all my other expeditions. In June we are to leave for Tibet in search of species of roses and rhododendrons still unknown in Europe.’
A chair was placed on the platform for her and, as his lecture had to continue, Zachary had no option but to lead her towards it. He didn’t release hold of her hand until she was seated and then he did so only with the deepest reluctance.
She smiled radiantly up at him, reassuring him that everything was all right; that fr
om now on, between the two of them, everything always would be.
He flashed her an answering, heart-stopping grin. ‘We both have other reunions waiting for us in Tibet,’ he said, uncaring of his waiting audience. ‘The bearers are making their way there now.’
‘The same bearers that travelled with you to Kansu?’ she asked incredulously, hardly daring to believe what might be coming next.
‘Yes,’ he said, loving her with all his heart, knowing that he would love her till the day he died. ‘And Bucephalus and Ben are with them.’
There was no time to say any more. His audience were growing impatient and the sooner he continued with his lecture the sooner it would be over, and the sooner he and Gianetta would be together in privacy.
As he turned away from her and towards the waiting sea of faces, Gianetta wondered how she could possibly contain joy so perfect and complete. She was reunited with the only man she would ever love; she would soon be reunited with Ben; and she was again to travel into the heart of remotest Asia. Each and every one of her dreams had come true.
Suddenly her eyebrows rose slightly. Not every dream had quite come true. She still hadn’t seen a blue Moonflower. A deep and dazzling smile curved her lips. One day, she would. And when she did, her husband would be at her side.
Copyright
First published in 1993 by Severn House
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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Copyright © Margaret Pemberton, 1993
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