The Marquis of Raventhorpe, who owned so many houses filled with treasures, should be standing and declaring himself in a low-ceilinged attic surrounded by broken chairs and china and old saucepans that were too dilapidated to be sold.
Then, as she looked into his eyes, she knew that any place where she was with the Marquis would seem like a Temple of Beauty.
Because she loved him so overwhelmingly, this place was sacred.
“I love – you,” she whispered and saw the expression in the Marquis’s eyes which told her without words how much he loved her.
“I want to kiss you,” he sighed, “and nothing else is really important, but we have a great deal to do and you have not answered my question.”
“You have not looked at my dress.”
He glanced down at her, at the velvet corset around her waist, the white blouse and the full red skirt.
“The gypsies!” he exclaimed. “You have been with the gypsies!”
“They brought me here and they are camping in the field where gypsies have always camped ever since I was a child.”
“And you were safe with them? They did not harm you?”
“No, of course not!” Ula smiled. “Anyway, I am their blood sister.”
“One day you must tell me all about it,” the Marquis answered, “but now the Vicar who has taken your father’s place will be waiting for us.”
He kissed her on the forehead before he said,
“Once you are my wife, my darling, no one shall hurt or insult you, and if any man tries to take you from me, I will kill him!”
For a moment Ula could only look at him and her eyes seemed to fill her whole face.
Then she said almost inarticulately,
“It – it cannot be – true – that you really – want to – m-marry me!”
“I intend to marry you!” the Marquis stipulated firmly. “There is no other way I can make sure that you never leave me and never make me so unhappy, so frightened and so frantic as I have been these last ten days.”
“Is it really ten days since I ran away,” Ula asked.
“It seems to me like ten centuries, but I knew after what Willy told me that you would eventually come here and that is why I have been waiting.”
He smiled and Ula thought the lines of his cynicism had disappeared and there was a boyish note in his voice as he said,
“Come on! Hurry! And while we have been talking here, a gown for you to wear is waiting for you downstairs.”
“A – gown?” Ula questioned.
By this time the Marquis was going down the narrow stairway to the first floor and drawing her after him by the hand.
As they reached the passage, he said,
“I could hardly expect to marry you in your nightgown, adorable though I am sure you look in it. So I have brought a trunkful of clothes with me and, when we have time, we will buy your trousseau.”
“I am dreaming – I know I am – dreaming!” Ula said.
The Marquis did not answer.
He only drew her into what had been her mother’s bedroom, where in the middle of it on a small square of carpet which had not been sold stood a leather trunk.
Somebody had opened it and on top lay a white gown which she knew, without picking it up, had been designed for a bride.
Beside it was a wreath of orange blossom resting on a veil.
“How can you have – thought of it?” Ula asked. “And also have been so – certain you would – find me here?”
The Marquis thought for a moment of the agony he had suffered when he had sent the divers to search the river.
But everything would keep until they had time to talk.
All he wanted now was that Ula should become his wife, so that it would be impossible for her to be spirited away from him by her uncle or anyone else.
He was, although he did not say so to Ula, still afraid that Prince Hasin who, like many Eastern potentates, would use any unscrupulous means to obtain his desires, would still be pursuing her.
He already knew that besides the Earl’s servants who were searching, there were some dark rather sinister men who were employed by the Prince.
He therefore asked,
“Can you manage to dress yourself?”
“Of course,” Ula smiled, “it is something I have always done.”
“Then hurry,” the Marquis said. “When I saw you coming to the house, I sent one of my grooms to tell the Vicar to be waiting for us in the Church and I don’t wish him to become impatient.”
Ula laughed.
Then, as the Marquis left her alone, she pulled off her gypsy clothing and put on the white gown that was even more beautiful than the gowns the Duchess had bought for her.
It was a wedding dress that any girl would gladly dream of possessing.
Fortunately in one of the cupboards of her mother’s room was a mirror attached to the back of the door.
Standing in front of it she was able to arrange her hair with the few hairpins she had left and to cover it with the veil and the orange blossom wreath.
Then, feeling excited, as if the whole world had turned topsy-turvy, but was amazing in a manner that defied expression, she opened the door and started down the stairs.
The Marquis was waiting for her in the hall and, as she looked at him, she knew that he was the most handsome and attractive man she had ever seen.
There was now vibrating from him everything she had wanted from him but which in the past she had missed.
She realised that they were the vibrations that came not only from his mind but from his heart.
Because he was in love everything that had belittled his grandeur and his Nobility had disappeared.
Now he was exactly as she wanted him to be.
He was a man who would do great things not only for her but for other people, because, as her father would have said, a Divine Power was flowing through him.
At the moment, although all she wanted to do was to tell him of her love, as his eyes met hers, there was no need for words.
They were already so close and belonged to each other so completely that even the Sacrament of Marriage could not make them any closer than they already were.
Holding her hand, the Marquis drew her through the front door and outside, where she saw his phaeton was waiting.
He picked her up in his arms and lifted her into it.
As the grooms climbed up behind, Ula saw that there were two outriders riding ahead of them to lead them the short distance to the Church.
She thought that they were there not only for protection on the roads just in case they should be held up by highwaymen.
They were also there so that neither the Earl nor the Prince, nor anyone else, could stop the Marquis from marrying her.
There were only a few old villagers to look at them in surprise as they drove up to the porch of the West door.
The Marquis put down the reins and, rounding the phaeton, took her in his arms to lift her down.
“I adore you!” he said in his deep voice. “And when we are married I will be able to tell you how much.”
She slipped her arm through his and, as they entered the Church where she had worshipped all her life, she could hear the organ playing softly.
She felt that both her father and her mother were very close to her and she could feel their presence as she and the Marquis were joined together by the beautiful words of the Marriage Service.
When he put the ring on her finger, she felt as if there were angel voices singing a paean of praise, while the Church was filled not with people but with love.
Then as they knelt and received the blessing, Ula told herself that no one could be luckier than she had been.
Not only in finding the man she loved but in knowing that he loved her as her father and mother had loved each other.
‘Thank You – oh, thank You – God!’ she said in her heart.
She vowed that her whole life would in future be an expression of gratitude for what she had rec
eived.
They walked down the aisle and the Marquis once again lifted her into his phaeton and drove off, but not returning, as she had expected they would, to her home.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Because she could not help it, she moved a little closer to him so that she could lay her hand on his knee.
He looked down at her with a smile.
She knew he was feeling as she was that they were dedicated in their gratitude because they were together and now no one could ever separate them.
“We are going to spend the night in a house I have been loaned by the Lord Lieutenant, who is a friend of mine,” the Marquis replied. “No one can possibly find us there and there will be no disruptions.”
He smiled as he went on,
“Then tomorrow we are going to my home in Oxfordshire, which will be yours, my precious, in future. After that we are setting out on our honeymoon, which will be a surprise.”
“It sounds – too perfect,” Ula murmured.
Then she gave a little cry.
“The gypsies! I must let them know what has happened to me.”
“I thought of that and, while you were dressing, I sent one of my grooms to tell them you were to be married and also to express your gratitude and mine for their kindness in a more practical manner.”
“I hope they will not be insulted that you gave them money,” Ula said quickly.
“I told my groom to be very tactful,” the Marquis replied, “and I also informed them that any gypsies would always be welcome on any estate I own.”
“You could not have given them a better present!” Ula exclaimed.
They drove on and came to the house where the Marquis had been staying while he waited for her.
It was very pretty, beautifully appointed and she learned later that the Lord Lieutenant had been preparing it for one of his relatives who had been abroad for some time.
Everything about it was fresh and bright and, Ula thought, very beautiful, as well as a perfect background for the occasion.
There were discreet servants to wait on them and, when they had finished luncheon, the Marquis took her upstairs.
They went into a delightfully decorated bedroom with a large bed draped with silk curtains, that were as blue as Ula’s eyes, falling from a carved gold corolla.
“What a lovely room!” she exclaimed.
“I thought, my darling,” the Marquis said, “you would want to change from your wedding gown and your trunk which was brought here while we were having luncheon has been unpacked.”
She smiled at him.
“You think of everything!”
“I think of you,” he answered. “How can I think of anything else when you are so perfect and exactly what I always wanted my wife to be.”
Just for a moment Ula thought of Sarah.
As if the Marquis read her thoughts, he said,
“Forget about her! We all make mistakes in our lives and from now on your job, my lovely one, is to see that I make as few as possible in the future.”
As he spoke, he lifted her wreath from her head, then her veil and taking out the pins that held her hair in place, let it fall over her shoulders.
“Now you look like the angel you are,” he sighed, “my angel, who will guide and inspire me for the rest of my life.”
“Can I – really do – that?” Ula asked.
“It is what you have done already,” the Marquis replied, “and because of you I am very different from the man I was before.”
“I love you – just as you are,” she whispered.
Because she could not help it, she moved closer to him.
Then, as he kissed her, she felt him undoing her wedding dress.
As it fell to the ground with the softness of a sigh, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the canopied bed.
She lay against the soft pillows, feeling as if she was floating on a cloud and that once again she was dreaming.
Then, as the Marquis joined her, she knew it was no dream, but a glorious reality, so that once again her whole being was lifted up in a prayer of gratitude.
But, as she felt the Marquis’s lips on hers, his hands touching her, his body hard against the softness of hers, she could think of nothing but him.
“I – love you – I adore – you!” she whispered.
“I worship you,” he replied, “and it is something I shall do, my beloved, all my life!”
As he spoke, he felt her quiver from the movements of his hand to a first awakening to sensuousness and thought it the most exciting feeling he had ever experienced.
“You are not frightened,” he asked.
“A – little!”
“I will be very gentle.”
“I am not – frightened – of you.”
“Then of what, my precious?”
“Perhaps you will find me – dull and – disappointing and you – will no longer – love me and I will be all – alone again!”
“My angel, that is impossible!”
“Why?”
“Because I do not love you for your beauty and for your exquisite body only, but I adore your kind heart and more than anything else what is called your soul, which will make me love and worship you for ever.”
“How can you say such wonderful – wonderful – things to me?”
The tears ran down Ula’s cheeks as she asked,
“Do you really think – I have the – Divine Light that Papa said was – so important?”
‘To me,” the Marquis answered, “you shine like a star in the darkness, a star I will follow all my life.”
“Oh, darling – darling – I love – you.”
He kissed the tears away from Ula’s cheeks.
Then, as he held her closer still, she felt as if there were shafts of light flowing from his body into hers and from his mind into her mind.
She knew it was the Power of Divine Love, which was not, as she had thought, soft and gentle as the moonlight, but burning, as the heat of the sun.
She could feel it sweeping through her and rising from her breasts into her lips to meet the fire within the Marquis.
She knew then that love was strong, overpowering and an irresistible force that would drive them into doing great deeds and seeking far horizons.
The ecstasy and glory of it was a rapture beyond words.
The Marquis made her his and they became one, not only with their bodies but with their minds and their hearts.
The Divine Power carried them into the Heaven that exists for all those who find the true love which comes only from God.
It is the beauty and perfection of Eternal Life.
* * *
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 Mysterio
us 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
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.
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