“That is what Papa felt,” Indira replied, “and he knew it was that same force of which you have just spoken which helped him to be the success he was. He said once that, when he was in difficulties or when he was in doubt, he had only to link up with it and it never failed him.”
“That is what we did when I showed you my T’ang horse,” the Marquis said quietly. “It spoke to you and my poems did the same.”
Indira smiled.
“I only hope I am a – ‘fit bride for – our lord’!”
“You are perfect,” the Marquis declared. “And you can be sure, my beautiful little love, that in this life at any rate we will never lose each other again.”
He kissed her passionately and then rose to his feet.
“I have an elderly cousin,” he said, “a widow, who is not particularly well off, and I know she would be only too delighted to come here for the night. She makes no secret of the fact that she waits hopefully in her small house in Chelsea until I have need of her.”
He smiled as he added,
“I am now sending for her and will arrange for our wedding to take place in the Grosvenor Chapel, which is only round the comer, first thing in the morning.”
Indira drew in her breath.
She loved the way he spoke in his usual authoritative manner. It gave her confidence and a feeling of security that she had thought she had lost forever when her father died.
She knew that the two men she loved both had this self-confidence, because it came not from themselves but from the inner Power they believed in.
The Marquis walked towards the door, but, when he looked back, he saw Indira gazing at him with such an expression of love in her eyes that he merely stood still and held out his arms.
She ran to him as if she was a homing pigeon and he held her close against him to look down into her face, thinking that he had never seen anyone look so radiantly happy.
“Is it true?” she asked. “Or am I – dreaming – that you – love me and your T’ang horse will – fly us to the moon?”
“I think we are on our way there already,” the Marquis said, “and after we are married and you are mine completely, my darling, we will live in a very special Heaven that every man longs for but few find.”
He kissed her as he finished speaking, and Indira thought it would be impossible to know an ecstasy and rapture that was greater than what she felt already.
Then, as if he forced himself to leave her, the Marquis said,
“Go and change, my beautiful bride to be, and when I have made all the arrangements for our future happiness, we will have tea together in the room where my mother always sat when she and my father were alone.”
“I would love – that.”
She paused before she added very softly,
“I know without you telling me that your father and mother must have loved each other – very much to have – produced anybody as – wonderful as you and perhaps – one day – that is what we – shall be able to – say about – our children.”
The way she spoke brought the fire into the Marquis’s eyes.
At the same time it made him feel as if she was something sacred and he should kneel in front of her.
As he kissed her, he knew that this was just the beginning of their happiness and that Indira was right when she said that, because their children would be born of love, they too would have the power of linking up with the Spiritual Force as they were able to do.
“I love you!” he said with his lips and in his heart and he knew that the love pulsating through both of them and which made them already one person was also Divine.
This was what he had always sought without really knowing it and to Indira it was even more simple.
The T’ang horse had carried them to the moon in a dream which had become reality and from which neither of them would ever wake.
* * *
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
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
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.
Riding to the Moon
Barbara Cartland
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2013
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