A butler was standing at the door and behind him were three footmen in a very smart livery.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” the butler addressed Ivan. “I was hoping that you would soon be coming back to us.”
“Well I am here, Watkins,” Ivan replied, “and I have a very special visitor with me, so I wish to see Mrs. Schofield as quickly as possible.”
He paused before he added laughingly,
“But, having had a very scanty breakfast, we would first like coffee and something to eat in my sitting room.”
“Very good, Your Grace,” the butler affirmed.
Arliva said nothing.
“Ivan put his arm round her and drew her down a passage with some very fine paintings and some extremely beautiful antique furniture.
He opened the door of a room and Arliva saw that it was obviously a gentleman’s sitting room.
At the same time there was a profusion of flowers that scented the air.
Ivan closed the door.
Before she could speak, he put his arms round her and was kissing her passionately.
It was impossible to think of anything else but his kisses and how much she loved him.
Then he raised his head and declared,
“Now you know that you are safe and never need worry about anything again.”
“I will never worry again if I am with you,” Arliva murmured, “but the butler referred to you as ‘Your Grace,’ so who are you?”
Ivan laughed.
“I thought that we would both have to answer that question sooner or later. But as it is ladies first, I think that you should tell me who you really are.”
There was a little pause before Arliva whispered,
“My real name is Arliva Ashdown, not Alma.”
Ivan stared at her.
“You mean you are the young woman all London is talking about, who I was told a thousand times I ought to meet.”
“I ran away because people never noticed me, only my money,” Arliva replied. “So I disguised myself as a Governess and was with some adorable children for several weeks before the Countess of Sturton kidnapped me and took me away so as to force me to marry her son.”
Ivan’s arms tightened round her.
“How could any woman do anything so cruel and so despicable to you?” he questioned. “I had no idea when I told you that I loved you for yourself that anyone could be so utterly and completely adorable and exactly what I have been seeking all my life.”
“I would be quite happy to stay with you in that darling little house and cook your meals if that was what you wanted,” Arliva pointed out.
“What I want is you and only you,” Ivan replied. “But you will have a very different life to live here and, of course, in the other houses I own.”
He smiled as he added,
“But when we become bored we will go away alone just as we have been this past week and only be interested in each other.”
“I have never been so happy as I have been with you,” Arliva sighed. “It is wonderful! Wonderful!! My Archangel. But you have still not told me who you are.”
“I am the Duke of Hungerford. And now I think about it I remember once meeting your father and hearing people say how clever he was in accumulating such a huge fortune when he had started his life as a diplomat.”
“He was indeed very clever,” Arliva said. “But the money he left me when he died made me feel that no one would ever love me for myself. In fact I heard two people who were obviously very much in love with each other saying goodbye because he felt that the only way he could save his estate was to marry me.”
“No one is going to marry you except me,” Ivan asserted. “I don’t need your money as I have plenty of my own and so I expect we will find people we can help who will benefit by it.”
“Oh, darling, darling Ivan, that is just what I want you to say,” Arliva cried. “I hate my beastly money and we will give it away to poor people. I just want to be with you.”
“That is exactly what you are going to be,” Ivan promised. “Now we have found each other, nothing else matters.”
They moved apart as they heard the door open and Watkins came in carrying a tray followed by two footmen each with trays.
As they sat down to eat and drink the coffee, Ivan said,
“We have got to find you something to wear, my darling. I am sure that my housekeeper has a great number of things tucked away that you can borrow until we send for your clothes wherever they may be.”
“They are in London at my father’s house,” Arliva replied. “I think that we will have to tell my aunt Molly who is chaperoning me and who by this time will be very worried about me, where we are and what we are going to do.”
“We will tell the world as soon as we are married,” Ivan replied. “But I just want to be alone with you until the crowds arrive to congratulate us, shake us by the hand and, of course, be envious that I have married the most beautiful girl in the world.”
“I expect, actually, they will only be thinking of my money,” Arliva countered.
“You are not to become so cynical. I have just as much to offer as you. Therefore we can forget everything except that you have eluded the fortune-hunters.”
“They will be disappointed,” she muttered.
“What we have to find you at the moment,” Ivan went on, “is a gown that you can be married in and I am sending for my private Chaplain, who fortunately lives in the village, to marry us this evening.”
He smiled at her as he continued,
“No one will know anything about it until we have had at least two or three weeks honeymoon alone.”
Arliva clasped her hands together.
“That is exactly what I would really like,” she cried excitedly.
“Are you sure that you don’t want a big wedding with everyone shaking you by the hand and being envious that we have found each other?” Ivan asked jokingly.
“You know that I only want to be alone with you,” Arliva replied. “I would hate a grand wedding. It will be lovely to be married secretly and to be together for as long as possible before the world outside finds out just what has happened.”
“Then that is what we will do, my darling. Because I want you to look even more beautiful than you do at this moment, I am going to send for my housekeeper. I am sure she has the glorious wedding gown worn by my mother, my grandmother and indeed my great-grandmother stored away somewhere in this house. So tonight we will be resplendent to impress each other and no one else!”
“I love you, I adore you,” Arliva said. “No one but you could understand just how agonising it has been when people have been running after me and asking me to marry them simply because they wanted my money and not me.”
“I do know exactly what you mean,” Ivan agreed. “Every debutante is told that if she is a sensible girl she will marry a Duke. They have all tried to get me, but not one has cared about me, only my title.”
“I only love you because you are you, Ivan,” Arliva murmured. “I promise you if I find you being told over and over again how grand and important you are, I will suggest that we go back to that adorable little lodge and stay there entirely alone together.”
“The trouble with you,” Ivan retorted, “is that you are perfect and I find it impossible to find anything wrong with you.”
“Please don’t look too hard,” Arliva begged, “but there is one thing that I want to do and I know you will understand.”
“What is that?” Ivan asked.
“I want to give a big thank offering to God who answered my prayers and who I know sent you to me to be my Archangel when I was so completely and so absolutely desperate.”
“I just knew when I saw you that you are the most beautiful girl I had ever seen,” Ivan answered. “At the same time there was something about you which told me at once that you are very special.”
“That is what I felt when I looked into your eyes. Oh, darling, Ivan, it’s so sublime that
we are together and we will never lose this perfect Heavenly love that God has sent us and which, when we are married, will make us one person.”
As if he could find no words to answer her with, Ivan kissed her.
After that it was impossible to think of anything of importance to say.
*
They were married late that evening.
Arliva was wearing the loveliest wedding gown she had ever seen. It was embroidered all over with diamanté and trimmed with exquisite lace.
Round her neck she had a diamond necklace which Ivan had given her just before they went downstairs.
“You look so lovely,” he said, “that no diamonds or pearls could make you any more beautiful than you are already.”
She did not answer and he went on,
“But I want you to shine at your wedding because it is a moment neither of us will ever forget.”
“And how could I ever forget you, even if we were separated for a thousand years?” Arliva asked.
There was a note in her voice that made Ivan draw in his breath.
Then he kissed her very gently and they then went downstairs hand in hand.
She found that the Chapel, which was at the far end of the great house, had been filled with flowers that were all white.
The Duke’s private Chaplain, who was an oldish man, was waiting for them.
As he began the Marriage Service, Arliva knew that every word he spoke came from his soul.
They were being blessed by him as well as by God who had brought them together.
After the ceremony was over and Arliva was now wearing Ivan’s mother’s wedding ring on her finger, they went to the housekeeper’s room where everyone employed was waiting to congratulate them.
They were nearly all of them old servants who had been with Ivan’s parents and they had served happily in the house for many years.
There was sincerity in the way they gave their good wishes which Arliva did not think would be the same if it had been a Society wedding.
Then everyone would have been calculating how much money she had, while the young women would have been jealous because she had married a Duke.
‘I have married the one man in the world who was meant to be mine,’ Arliva thought to herself.
She knew that Ivan was thinking the same.
They left the housekeeper’s room after Watkins had said on behalf of the staff,
“God Bless you both and may you always be as happy in the future as you are today.”
They went upstairs together and Ivan explained,
“I told the housekeeper that we wanted to be alone. I feel that I can undo your dress for you far better than any maid can.”
“You think of everything,” Arliva sighed, putting her arms round his neck. “Oh, Ivan, is it really true that we are married and that I never need to be frightened again that someone will carry me away just because I am rich?”
“You are mine, completely and absolutely mine,” Ivan replied.
Then he was kissing her wildly, passionately and compellingly.
*
It was almost two weeks later that Ivan suggested that they should think about announcing their marriage in the newspapers.
“Must we really?” Arliva asked. “It’s so marvellous being alone with you. Riding your magnificent horses in the morning, swimming in the lake, and oh, darling Ivan, I adore you making love to me.”
“Which I will continue to do for the rest of my life,” Ivan promised. “I think, my beloved, that people are beginning to gossip locally and that means that the news will soon reach London.”
He paused before he added,
“On the whole it will be more dignified for us to announce our wedding than to have some newspaper or nosey parker spying us out and telling the world in their language what we should say to them in a more dignified fashion.”
“Of course you are right,” Arliva agreed. “You are always right and how could I ever disagree with anything you want to do, my glorious Archangel.”
Ivan laughed.
“I expect that you will sooner or later. But at the moment you are the most perfect wife who I believed only existed in my dreams.”
“I want to be the most perfect wife for you,” Arliva whispered. “And, darling Ivan, because we have had to fight to be together, I think the fact that you climbed up the outside of Sturton Castle to save me from a fate worse than death will always be something very precious to me.”
“Of course it will. In fact I will always remember how you looked at me in the Chapel and said, ‘save me, save me,’ and I knew I had to do it.”
“We have been very very lucky,” Arliva told him. “I am sure it was my prayers that brought you to me and made everything work out so perfectly.”
“Of course it was,” Ivan answered. “And we must bring up our children to pray just as you have prayed and to fight as we have fought for what is really worth having.”
“The first people I will tell that we are married are the children and Lord Wilson,” Arliva said. “I know they will be thrilled and I am not worried about them because, once the place is normal and the locals are mixing with the children and asking them to their houses, they will never be lonely or forgotten again.”
She had told Ivan exactly what she had done and he thought it was very clever of her.
“You are right to tell them. They must be the first to know that we are married and we will expect them to come and stay with us when we give a party.”
Arliva kissed his cheek.
“You are always so kind and understanding, Ivan. I was afraid that you might think other people’s children a bore.”
“If they are anything to do with you, then, just as I will think about our own children, they are perfect and I particularly want to encounter them,” Ivan replied.
Arliva put her head on his shoulder.
“I think, darling, that we will soon be having a baby of our own.”
“Do you think that is true?” he asked.
She gave a little nod.
“Oh, my beloved,” he said. “I can think of nothing more wonderful than having your children as my children and making them as happy as we are.”
“We will certainly do that,” Arliva whispered. “As we have both travelled so much and realise it has made us interesting to each other so that neither of us can possibly be bored. So we will make our children travel too and they will learn things as I learnt them because as you know it makes all the difference when they are grown up.”
“If the girl is as beautiful as you and the boy is as clever as we both are,” Ivan said, “I am sure that we will have a very busy and at times a very difficult life in front of us.”
“But a very exciting one, Archangel Ivan, and one that is full of love.”
He bent forward and kissed her.
“I adore and worship you, my Arliva,” he sighed. “I thank God every day that you are mine.”
*
That night when he came from his room to hers, Arliva was in bed.
She held out her arms.
“Every time you come here to me,” she said, “it is so exciting and wonderful that I feel nothing else matters but that we are together.”
“Two people who are one. I am quite certain, my precious, that we have been together in other lives before this. If we do come back to this particular world, we will find each other again.”
“That is what everyone wants,” Arliva answered, “and what real love means.”
“I have learnt that from you and it is true.”
He kissed her as he finished speaking.
Then there was no need for words.
As he held her close in his arms, she felt as if he carried her up into the sky.
She knew that the God she had prayed to and who had brought them together was leading them in through the Gates of Heaven to a happiness that was beyond words.
It was Love.
The Love that is real and comes from God
and is part of God and it was theirs to Eternity.
Where to buy other titles in this series
The Barbara Cartland Pink collection is available for download at the following online bookshops :-
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108. An Archangel Called Ivan Page 13