Her lips were red and soft from his, and the pale gold of her hair was like a halo round her small pointed face.
The Marquis stood looking at her as if he had never seen her before. Then he said very quietly,
“Put on your bonnet. I see it is on the chair.”
Because she was so bemused by what was happening, Diona did not seem to understand, and the Marquis moved a few steps and picked up the bonnet.
He put it gently on her head and tied the ribbons under her chin.
Then as she still stared at him with an expression of love that she could not disguise, the Marquis took her by the hand and drew her out through the front door.
His Phaeton was covered with dust, although the horses looked comparatively fresh, and at their heads was a groom who habitually drove with him and whom Diona had seen before.
He grinned at her and touched his hat.
As he did so, the Marquis picked her up and lifted her into the Phaeton.
Then as he took up the reins the groom jumped up into the small seat behind and the Marquis drove off.
Only as they turned out of the gate and onto the dusty road, which led to the village, did Diona find her voice and say,
“Where – are you – taking me?”
“To the Church!” the Marquis replied.
She looked at him as if she could not have heard him right.
“The – Church?”
“We are being married! The Parson is already there waiting for us.”
Diona was stunned into silence.
Then as just ahead of her she saw the little grey stone Church where she had worshipped every Sunday and where her father and mother lay in the Churchyard, she managed to ask,
“B-but – how can you – marry me?”
“Very easily,” the Marquis replied with a faint hint of laughter in his voice, “and it is something I should have done much sooner! I am taking no more risks of losing you again!”
He drew up his horses outside the Church, jumped down from the Phaeton, and went round to lift her down to the ground. She said as he did so,
“Is it right for, you to – marry me?”
“It is something I am going to do,” the Marquis answered, “and I think, my darling, it is what we both want.”
He looked down at her as he spoke, and as she looked into his eyes she knew it was not what they said to each other that mattered.
It was that they were indivisibly linked together and were already one person.
The Marquis put her arm through his and drew her to the porch.
As she reached it she heard the soft strains of the organ, and as they entered the Church she saw the Vicar waiting for them on the chancel steps.
He had taken the place of the old man who used to teach her, and both her father and mother had liked him and thought of him as a friend.
Then the Marquis was drawing her up the aisle, and a few seconds later the service began.
Driving back the short distance to the Manor, Diona could hardly believe that she was married.
At the same time, she knew that when the Marquis had made his responses in his firm voice, and she had heard her own soft and a little frightened reply, her dreams had come true.
The music that had filled the Church had come not only from the organ but also from their hearts.
She had felt that God was blessing them and so were her father and mother, and they were telling her that this was what they had wanted for her.
“I am married!” Diona whispered to herself, and added, “And I love him more than I can ever say!”
It seemed to her that nobody could have had a more perfect wedding, surrounded by the love that she could feel vibrating not only from the Marquis but also from her father and mother.
And of course, although he had been very unobtrusive, from Sirius.
He had followed the Phaeton without her being aware of it, and only as she reached the chancel steps had Diona seen that Sirius was standing beside her almost as if he were taking the place of her father, who would have given her away.
He stood there all through the service, not moving or making any noise, and she knew that his love was very important and something she could not do without.
As they returned to the Manor and the Marquis once again lifted her down from the Phaeton, Sirius ran ahead of them into the house as if he was leading them in.
The Marquis and Diona walked across the hall, and as the door of the sitting room was open he drew her inside.
While they had been at the Church, Mrs. Briggs had opened all the windows and the room was filled with the fragrance of the flowers in the garden.
The Marquis shut the door, and now, as if there was no hurry, he very slowly undid the ribbons of Diona’s bonnet.
As she looked up at him, feeling that everything had happened so quickly and unexpectedly that she could not think, but only feel, he put his arms round her and drew her against him.
For a moment he did not kiss her, and she had the feeling that the solemnity of the service was still with him as it was with her.
Then very gently and tenderly he kissed her forehead, both her eyes, and lastly her lips.
At first it was a kiss without passion, a kiss of dedication, and it made her feel like crying.
Then as she pressed herself close against him, his lips became more insistent but beguiling, as if he wooed her with kisses, and she felt her whole being quiver with the wonder of them.
The Marquis raised his head.
“You are mine, Diona, mine, and I will never lose you again.”
“I love you – I love you.”
The words had been pulsating in her all day and had intensified when she had seen him again. There was nothing she could do now but try to express her love.
“I love you!” she said. “But – I feel you should not have married me.”
“But I have married you,” the Marquis said, “because I love you more than I can ever love anybody else in my life, and because, as you well know, my precious, there is something inescapable between us.”
He kissed her again before he added,
“We can neither of us ever be complete without the other.”
“How can you say such wonderful things to me?” Diona asked. “It is what I feel but I never thought you would – feel it too.”
The Marquis smiled as he replied,
“I felt it literally from the first moment I saw you, but I fought against it, telling myself I had no wish to marry anybody.”
“But – Lady Sybille said – ”
“Forget her!” he interrupted. “She is of no importance in our lives. I suppose I was foolish to have taken you to London, but I did so for your sake.”
“For my – sake?”
“Because you are so young, and because you have seen so little of the world, my darling, I thought I ought to give you what I called a ‘sporting chance’ to meet other men, just in case you found one you loved more than me.”
Diona gave a little cry.
“How could you think such a thing? Of course I could never – love anybody more than you! It would be impossible!”
“I made a mistake, and I was certainly punished for it,” the Marquis said. “I have never been through such agony as last night when I realised you had been kidnapped, and again today when I learnt that you had left the house because of some nonsense Lady Sybille had said to you.”
“You did not – promise to – marry her?”
“I have never asked any woman to marry me except you!”
Diona laughed.
“You never asked me! That is why I thought, when she told me you had promised to marry her, that you were still thinking of hiding me away in some little house where we could be together – but I would not be your wife.”
The Marquis pulled her roughly against him.
“You are to forget all that! I was still most foolishly trying to preserve my freedom and my independence. I might have known it was a
losing battle.”
He thought she did not understand and went on,
“I love you, and my whole heart went out to you, and yet I suppose like most men I was afraid of being tied to one woman who might bore me.”
Diona stiffened.
“Suppose I do bore you?”
“I know that is impossible,” he said. “I have certainly not had any time since I have known you to be bored! It has been a case of one drama after another! I think I am now entitled to a rest, or rather a honeymoon.”
“Is that what we are going to have?”
“Tomorrow we are driving to Dover to board my yacht.”
Diona’s eyes widened.
“Where are we going?”
“Anywhere you wish,” he replied. “The world is very large, and there are many places I want to show you, and make love to you, before we come back to take up our responsibilities together.”
“It sounds so wonderful, so very, very – wonderful!” Diona said breathlessly. “You are quite certain you will not be bored’?”
“Is that what you expect to be?”
“I am – afraid.”
“Have you forgotten,” he asked, “that we think the same, we feel the same, and we are joined by our waves of thought?”
“You heard – me last – night.”
“And again today,” the Marquis replied, “and I think, whether you were aware of it or not, you were calling to me and drawing me to you all the time you were travelling from London to here.”
Diona put her head against his shoulder.
“I thought you were to be married to Lady Sybille,” she whispered. “It was a misery I can never express – I wanted to – die.”
“You will never leave me again.”
His lips found hers, and he kissed her until the room disappeared and there was only the scent of roses and the music which came from their hearts.
“I love you, I love you!” Diona was saying.
But she was not certain whether she spoke aloud or if it merely vibrated through her body from her mind.
Much later, when the only light came from the stars outside the un-curtained window and the moon that was just creeping up the sky, Diona moved in the Marquis’s arms.
“Are you awake?” she whispered.
“I am too happy to sleep,” he replied.
“Are you really happy? Not bored, or cynical – or blasé?”
He laughed.
“I doubt if I ever will be any of those things again. And what about you, my darling? I have not hurt you or frightened you?”
Diona drew in her breath.
“I had no idea that – love was so wonderful!”
She kissed his shoulder before she said,
“Being with you is like being in Heaven! At the same time it has made me so very – very happy that we should be here together – in the house that I know is – filled with love and in the same bed in which Papa and Mama slept and were the two happiest people in the whole world.”
“With the exception of us,” the Marquis corrected. “I am convinced, my beautiful one, that no man has ever been so fortunate as I am, and I shall fight as I have never fought as a soldier to protect you, to guard you, and to keep you safe from harm either physically or mentally.”
Diona gave a little murmur of happiness and moved even closer to him than she was already.
“I love you – I love you!” she said. “There are no words to express what I feel, except – those three.”
“They are all I want to hear,” the Marquis said. “But you can love me, my darling, without words. Every time I touch your body I feel it respond to me, and every time I look into your eyes I know they are telling me things which are so ecstatic that they are inexpressible except to me.”
“You say all the things I want to say,” Diona said. “How can you be so – wonderful?”
“That is what I want to be,” the Marquis replied, “and I think, my precious, just as I know how much happiness your father and mother gave to everybody, that we must try to create the same love wherever we go.”
Diona gave a sigh that came from the very depths of her being.
“How could I ever have doubted that Papa and Mama were looking after me?” she asked. “They told me to come and find you at the Big House, and although at first I was frightened of you – I think I must have known almost from the very beginning that you were the man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.”
She paused to ask,
“You are quite sure it will not hurt you socially to have married me and not somebody far more – suitable?”
The Marquis knew she was thinking of Lady Sybille, and he answered,
“You are not the only one, my adorable wife, who runs away. The reason why I was at Irchester Park when you came there was because I too had run away from London and a certain woman who was trying to inveigle me into a trap.”
For a moment his voice was hard.
Then he said in a different tone,
“But of course, like you, I believe it was fate that put me in exactly the right place at the right moment, when you came to ask for my help.”
“Of course it was fate!” Diona agreed. “Or, actually, it was Sirius, for if he had not knocked over Uncle Hereward’s glass of brandy, and if he had not awakened you in time to prevent me from being married to Simon, I would not be here now.”
The Marquis’s arm instinctively tightened round her as she finished,
“It is all such a glorious exciting story, and I feel I have read it in a book rather than lived it myself”
“Perhaps you should put it in a book,” the Marquis said, “and we must certainly one day tell it to our children.”
He could not see the blush that rose in Diona’s cheeks, but he sensed it was there.
Then as she hid her face close against him he heard her whisper,
“Do you think perhaps you have – given me a baby?”
The Marquis smiled before he answered,
“It is something we can make sure of, if that is what you want!”
“I have never known – until now, how one – starts a baby,” Diona said softly, “but it is so very, very wonderful that I want not one baby – but several, so please, will you go on making love to me?”
“I can answer that question very easily,” the Marquis replied. “I shall love you, and make love to you, my beautiful one, until the stars fall from the skies and the moon no longer shines.”
As he spoke his lips were moving over the softness of her skin, and his hand was touching her body.
Once again little shafts of lightning were moving through her, and at the same time she felt as if the sunshine she had always associated with happiness was burning in her breasts and on her lips.
It seemed to intensify until as she felt the fire in the Marquis’s kiss she surrendered herself to the ecstasy and joy he aroused in her.
It was something so perfect, so Divine, that she knew God blessed them.
Then as the flames within them leapt higher and higher and the Marquis made her body his, she knew they were also one in their minds, and their souls, for all Eternity.
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-Dev
il Duke
Diona and a Dalmatian
A Shaft of Sunlight
Lies for Love
Love and Lucia
Love and the Loathsome Leopard
Beauty or Brains
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.
DIONA AND A
DALMATIAN
Barbara Cartland
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2012
Copyright Cartland Promotions 1983
eBook conversion by M-Y Books
Diona and a Dalmatian Page 15