He put down his glass.
“It is, however, annoying,” he went on, “that Mrs. Smithson has had to leave so quickly. I had hoped that she would be able to stay while we talked about your future and now you have no chaperone!”
“Is it so – important for me to have – one?” Dominica asked him.
“It is conventionally correct, as you well know.”
He stood with his back to the fireplace and after a moment Dominica asked in a very small voice,
“Are you – sending me– away?”
He did not look at her, but stared towards the window as he replied,
“I have been thinking about that, Dominica, in fact I have thought of little else these past few days. It seems to me that there are two alternatives.”
“What are – they?”
“The first, of course, is that you might return to your family,” Lord Hawkston said. “And considering that you were so nearly married to my nephew, I think it only fair that I should settle a certain amount of money on you.”
“That is – unnecessary!” Dominica said quickly.
“On the contrary I think it very necessary. At the same time I have a feeling that you might see very little of it and that your father would spend it on those he thought more needy than you.”
This was so true that Dominica felt it did not need an answer.
“On the other hand,” Lord Hawkston went on, “I can take you with me to England.”
He looked at her as he spoke and saw the sudden gladness in her face that was like a light.
“Once we are there,” he went on. “I can quite easily find you a suitable husband.”
The light faded.
Dominica’s eyes met his and it seemed as if neither of them could look away.
It was impossible to move, impossible to breathe.
Then she said in a voice that he could hardly hear,
“Let me – stay with – you.”
“Do you know what you are asking? I am too old for you, Dominica.”
Just for a moment it seemed as if she did not understand. Then she moved towards him swiftly and instinctively, seeking him as she had done the night that she had been so frightened.
His arms went round her and it was like reaching Heaven to feel them holding her as she wanted to be held.
“I said I am too old,” he said in a strange voice that she had never heard from him before.
“I – love – you!”
She whispered the words and yet they were quite clear,
“Are you sure? Oh, my darling, are you sure?”
She lifted her face to his.
For a moment he looked down into her eyes and then he pulled her against him and his lips were on hers.
It seemed to Dominica as if the whole world was illuminated with a golden radiance that was blinding.
She felt that his lips possessed her and yet gave her everything that had ever been beautiful and moving, exquisite and lovely.
It was what she had sought in the music she had played or listened to on the breeze of the wind.
It was also what she had found in the brilliance of the flowers in Kandy and in the enchantment of the jungle.
“I love – you! I love you!”
She was not certain if she said it aloud or with the feelings he evoked in her, which seemed to pass from her lips to his.
She loved him so intensely that she felt already that she was a part of him, they belonged to each other, they were indivisible and no longer two people but one.
Finally Lord Hawkston raised his head.
“My precious, my darling,” he exclaimed unsteadily. “This is wrong! You should find someone of your own age.”
“There is only – you in the – whole world.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“I think I knew it from the very first – moment I met – you,” she whispered. “But I was not – aware that it was – love.”
He kissed her again and she felt herself thrill and come alive with sensations such as she had never known existed.
Looking down at her face radiant with happiness he asked masterfully,
“When did you first know you loved me? Tell me I want to hear.”
“I think I – loved you first when you were so – kind in giving each of the girls a new gown and bonnet and – when you told Madame Fernando that they were all to be different. I thought you were more understanding than – I could have expected any man to be.”
She gave a little sigh of sheer happiness and continued,
“And when you were so clever with Prudence – telling her she must eat her food so that she could go to her ball – you would give for her, I knew – ”
Dominica’s voice faltered for a moment and a blush arose in her cheeks.
“What did you know, my sweet?”
“I – knew that was how I would like the – father of my children to – behave with them,” she murmured and hid her face against his neck.
He held her so tightly that it was impossible to breathe.
“And when did you first admit to yourself that you loved me?”
“When we were at Kandy,” she answered. “It was so beautiful that I could think of nothing but – love. Then afterwards, when I saw the picture in your bedroom I knew why. It was because I – loved you. I loved you with all of me – but I thought you would – despise me.”
“I loved you from the very first moment,” Lord Hawkston said. “I realised what a hard life you were living and I wanted to take you out of it to protect you!”
He paused before he went on,
“I have never before in my whole life wanted to protect and take care of a woman, not for my own pleasure but for hers. I wanted to shelter you from harm, to stand between you and anything that could hurt or distress you.”
“That is why I – ran to you when I was – frightened,” Dominica told him. “I knew I would be safe – with you.”
“As you always will be,” Lord Hawkston said. “And when I saw you in your Wedding gown, I knew that you were the embodiment of everything a man could desire and long for in a bride. You were beautiful, exquisitely beautiful and yet at the same time I had already learnt how much character and personality you had.”
He kissed her forehead.
“Will you wear that gown tomorrow for me, my darling, when we go to Kandy to be married?”
She turned her face up to his and her eyes seemed full of stars.
Then he felt her stiffen and she dropped her head.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I had forgotten,” she said in a low voice, “that in England you are very – important. I have been thinking about you only as living here – a planter. Perhaps you will be – ashamed of me amongst your smart friends.”
Lord Hawkston put his hand under her chin and turned her face up to his again.
“I have no friends who you would not shine more brilliantly amongst than the sun itself.” he said. “You are mine, Dominica, mine, as you were always meant to be and perhaps you have been in the past Now that you have said that you love me, I will never let you go.”
“That is all I want,” Dominica cried, “to be – yours for all Eternity.”
“That is what you will be,” he said, “and because I think it will please you and because too I want it myself, I intend that we shall live here for six months of each year. It does not take long to travel to England. We will go back in the summer and do our duty for the family and the estate, but for the winter we will return here. Will that make you happy?”
“You know it – will!” Dominica answered, “And you know too that I will be happy anywhere – anywhere in the world – as long as I can be with you.”
There was a note in her voice that brought the fire into Lord Hawkston’s eyes.
Then his lips were on hers and he was kissing her until she could no longer think, but only feel that her heart and soul were both his.
*
The stars were ver
y brilliant in the sky as Dominica and Lord Hawkston came from the Palm Room onto the verandah.
Dominica was wearing the white gown that she had been married in earlier in the day.
She had changed for the train journey, but, when she had come home, she had put on her Wedding gown again because she knew that Lord Hawkston liked to look at her in it.
It had been a very simple and quiet Wedding with only James Taylor as their Best Man, but to Dominica it had been a Service of dedication and she had known that Lord Hawkston felt the same.
She had heard James Taylor say when the Service was over,
“I am happy for you, Chilton, you always needed a wife.”
“To keep me in order?” Lord Hawkston answered with a smile.
“To complete the story of your success!” James Taylor had replied. “When you have finished honeymooning, come and see me. I have not only new methods of tea dyeing to show you but I have also a young man who is just the sort of Manager you need. He has been out here for two years and you can trust him.”
“Thank you, James,” Lord Hawkston smiled.
It had been very moving for Dominica to arrive back at the house and know that it was to be her home with the man she loved.
As she saw it standing over the valley like a precious jewel encircled by the gardens and the silver lake, her fingers had tightened on her husband’s hand.
“We will be happy!” she declared.
“I know now that I built it for you,” he answered, “and there was always something missing when I was in the Palm Room.”
Dominica blushed and he kissed her hand.
“You need never be afraid of being alone in the darkness again, my lovely one.”
They had so much to say to each other and so much to talk about that they had lingered long over the superlative dinner that the cook had provided for them.
Now as they stepped onto the verandah it was too late to see the sunset.
Dominica looked up.
There was a half-crescent moon moving up the sky and, as Lord Hawkston followed her eyes, he said quietly,
“Do you know what the crescent moon is called by our people?”
“No – tell me.”
She knew that even the sound of his voice made little tremors of excitement run through her and the fact that his arm was around her made her quiver and long for the touch of his lips.
“It is called a ‘lovers’ moon’,” Lord Hawkston said, “and that, my precious wonderful wife, is what it means to us.”
“A lovers’ moon – over the Garden of Eden!” Dominica said softly. “What lovers could ask for more?”
“What indeed?” he agreed, “and no man could ask for more than to have you as his wife!”
She raised her face to his and in the light from the sky he could see her expression of happiness very clearly.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, “so exquisitely perfect. I want to tell you something.”
“What is it?” Dominica asked.
“When I first came to Ceylon,” he said, “and I was only twenty-one, I thought, as I suppose all young men do, that sooner or later I would find someone I would love and we would get married. But what happened was very different.”
Dominica looked at him a little apprehensively as he went on,
“I fell in love not with a woman, my darling, but with a country. I loved Ceylon! It seemed to me everything that a man could wish to find in the woman he would love. It was soft and warm, sweet and friendly, and besides giving a man so much materially it also had a spiritual message for those who would listen to it.”
“I can understand that,” Dominica whispered.
Lord Hawkston kissed her hair and it smelt of the fragrance of the jasmine buds she had entwined amongst the orange blossom wreath that Madame Fernando had made for her.
It was the fragrance of Ceylon, he thought, a fragrance that was irresistible and wholly feminine.
“Sometimes,” he went on, “when I stood on this verandah, I used to think that I would be alone for the rest of my life. No one, I thought, could ever mean to me what this country had come to mean. No woman could ever be so beautiful or so utterly and completely desirable.”
His arms tightened around her.
“Then I found you! And I knew that you were all that I wanted, all that I had dreamt of and all that I had thought of as the utter and complete perfection that any woman could attain.”
“Suppose I – fail you?” Dominica asked in a breathless little voice.
“You could never do that!” he answered. “We shall doubtless have our difficulties, setbacks, perhaps even storms, like the rains that fall on the valley, but fundamentally we are one, we belong to each other, Dominica, and nothing can change or alter that.”
“Another Adam and Eve!”
She felt his lips against the softness of her skin.
“You are my Eve,” he said. “I love you with all the love that exists in the whole world and I will spend my life making you sure of it.”
He drew her closer as he spoke and now their lips met and Dominica put her arms round his neck to draw him closer still.
“I love – you! I love – you!”
She felt his hands on her hair drawing the pins from it so that it fell in a silken wave over her shoulders.
He kissed it, then sweeping it aside he kissed her neck, her shoulders, and as he unfastened her gown and it slipped lower, her rose-tipped breasts.
“You are like a lotus flower,” he said passionately. “I worship you.”
Then he drew her gently, his lips holding her captive, back into the Palm Room and the curtains closed behind them.
Outside the lovers’ moon rose slowly up the starlit sky throwing its mystical silver light over the sleeping valley.
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
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Elizabethan Lover
The Little Pretender
A Ghost in Monte Carlo
A Duel of Hearts
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 Et
ernity
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
Stars in my Heart
The Fire of Love
A Dream from the Night
Sweet Enchantress
The Kiss of the Devil
Fascination in France
Love Runs In
Lost Enchantment
Love is Innocent
The Love Trap
No Darkness for Love
Kiss from a Stranger
The Flame Is Love
A Touch of Love
The Dangerous Dandy
195. Moon Over Eden Page 16