The Ghost Who Fell in Love

by Barbara Cartland

  “Where is Gerard?” she asked, feeling it strange that he had not come to see her.

  “He went back to London with his Lordship, leaving Rollo here,” Nattie answered. “And a good thing, if you asks me. That horse needs a rest.”

  Demelza thought how pleased Gerard would be to travel in the company of the Earl. But they had gone and, although she told herself it was foolish, she felt neglected.

  “Master Gerard spoke of coming back one day next week,” Nattie said. “So you’d best be getting yourself well and Abbot wants to see you. Real concerned he’s been in case it was Ben’s fault the accident happened.”

  “You told him Ben could not help it?”

  “That boy should have been more on the left,” Nattie said as if she could not help criticising. “At the same time the gentleman in the chaise was driving like a maniac! What I always says is – ”

  Nattie chattered on but Demelza had ceased to listen.

  She was thinking of the Earl and Gerard returning to London and that now the house would be very quiet.

  There would be no laughter coming from the dining room and her father’s bedroom would be empty. There would be no need to bar the secret panel by the fireplace.

  She thought of how she had saved the Earl from the lovely lady who had tried to drug him and how she had saved Crusader from the same awful fate.

  Those were the ghosts, she thought, who would haunt her and, most of all, when she went to the arbour covered in honeysuckle, she would think of the Earl waiting for her there.

  She remembered how she had felt something live, thrilling and exciting within her reaching out towards him so that, although they had never touched each other, they were very close.

  She felt the tears prick her eyes. Then she knew that she was past crying. It was all over and the future was dull and lifeless.

  *

  Demelza walked down the stairs rather carefully because, if she moved quickly, she still felt a little dizzy. If Nattie had had her way, she would have stayed in bed.

  “Why’re you in such a hurry to get up?” Nattie asked in her scolding voice. “There’s nothing to get up for.”

  That was the truth, Demelza agreed. At the same time it was somehow worse to stay in bed with nothing to do but think than to move about.

  She had therefore insisted, after she had eaten the luncheon that Nattie had brought her in bed, on getting up and dressing.

  She put on one of her white gowns and arranged her hair, seeing as she looked in the mirror that she was very pale and her eyes seemed almost unnaturally large and dark.

  “Now don’t you go doing too much,” Nattie was saying. “I’ll be busy in the kitchen, but I’ll bring you a cup of tea at about four o’clock. Then you’ll go back to bed.”

  She did not wait for Demelza to reply, but bustled away intent on scrubbing and cleaning now that the visitors had gone, even though there was no urgency for it.

  Demelza reached the hall and noted that the roses on the table at the bottom of the stairs were shedding their petals and the bowl needed replenishing.

  The flowers in the drawing room were also a little overblown, but their fragrance was still in the air and she walked to the window wondering if she was strong enough to reach the arbour.

  Then she knew she could not face it so soon and the intensity of the feeling it would evoke in her.

  She would have to steel herself to become strong. Then she could conjure up and remember the magic that had happened there and the pulsating wonder of the Earl’s voice when he told her that he loved her.

  Her memories were going to be agony to live with, Demelza thought, but what else could she do?

  She stood at the window looking out into the garden at the sun shining on the rhododendrons, the beauty of them in some way a solace for her aching heart.

  She heard the door of the drawing room open, but did not turn her head, waiting to hear Nattie scolding her because she was not sitting down and putting her feet up as she had been told to do.

  Then, as there was only silence which was very unlike Nattie, she turned and suddenly her heart seemed to leap in her breast and it was impossible to breathe.

  It was the Earl who stood there and he was looking as overpowering, as elegant and as handsome as he had been in her thoughts ever since she had regained consciousness.

  She looked at him wide-eyed, thinking it could not be true.

  Only as he reached her side did she feel as if a paralysis, which had held her speechless, dissolved and she could tremble.

  “You are better?”

  His voice was deep and she felt herself vibrate to the tone of it.

  “I-I am – well.”

  “I have been desperately worried about you.”

  “Why – why are you – here?”

  He smiled.

  “I have brought Gerard back with me and an art dealer.

  They are at the moment inspecting the pictures in the gallery where I first saw you.”

  “That was – kind of you.”

  The words seemed to come fitfully through her lips.

  It was so hard to speak when he was looking at her in the way he was doing now.

  “Come and sit down,” the Earl suggested. “I want to talk to you.”

  She looked at him enquiringly and, because something about him compelled her, she moved from the window to sit down on the sofa by the fireplace.

  “There is a lot we have to say to each other,” the Earl began, “but first – and most important of all – is how soon will you marry me, my darling?”

  Demelza looked at him in astonishment. Then, because he was waiting for an answer, she managed to stammer,

  “I-I – thought – I – understood – ”

  “That is one of the things. I have to explain,” the Earl said, “and in a way to ask your forgiveness.”

  “My – forgiveness?”

  He was sitting beside her, but he rose to stand with his back to the fireplace. Then he said in a grave voice she had not heard before,

  “I have in fact deceived you, although I did not mean it to be like that. My wife has been dead for over five years.”

  Demelza’s eyes were on his, but she could not speak.

  She only felt as if the mists of misery that had held her were dissolving and the clouds were parting so that a long golden ray of sunshine was seeping through them.

  “I am not going to tell you what I suffered,” the Earl continued, “when shortly after my marriage, which had been arranged by my parents some years before it happened, my wife went mad. Suffice to say that, when finally I was obliged to send her to an asylum, I swore that never again would I allow myself to be humiliated in similar circumstances.”

  He drew in his breath as if he remembered the horrors which he had never before spoken about to anyone, but which had left scars that he believed would never heal.

  “But I found,” the Earl went on, “when I entered the Social world alone, ostensibly as a bachelor, that not only could I forget, but that my peculiar position could be turned to advantage.”

  He did not need to elaborate, because Demelza understood that while women found him irresistibly attractive, there was no question of having a permanent position in his life or expecting a legal alliance.

  “There is no need for me to tell you,” the Earl said, “that, having discovered there was some compensation in being a married man without ties, I kept my wife’s death, when it happened, a secret even from my closest friends.”

  He looked at Demelza as he spoke. Then he said quietly,

  “I vowed that I would never marry again and even when I met you, my darling, I had no wish to tie myself.” “I can – understand that,” Demelza said in a low voice. “But, when you sent me away, I knew that I could not live without you.”

  There was silence for a moment before the Earl said,

  “I was determined, whatever the obstacles you put in my way, to see you, to be with you. But when. I saw you
thrown out of the gig in front of me, I knew that if you died I had no wish to go on living.”

  He spoke so quietly that, for a moment, the full impact of what he was saying was not clear to Demelza.

  Then, as she understood, she moved for the first time since he had been speaking and clasped her hands together tightly.

  “That is why I have come back,” the Earl said, “to explain what I should have explained before and ask you to be my wife.”

  Their eyes met, but he did not move towards her. Instead they looked at each other for a long time.

  Then, even as he had done, Demelza rose to her feet to walk not towards him, but to the window.

  She stood for a moment looking out and then she said,

  “I love – you! I love you so much that I could not – bear you ever to have any – regrets.”

  The Earl’s eyes were on her face, but he did not speak and after a moment she said hesitatingly, as if she was feeling for words,

  “Now that you are free, now it would not be – wrong from – God’s point of view and there would be – no one to disapprove – except Gerard and Nattie. I will do anything you ask of me – but you need not make me – your wife – ”

  Her voice died away and now, for the first time since she had risen, she turned to look at him.

  She saw an expression on his face, which for a moment she did not understand, then he walked towards her and took her very gently in his arms.

  Her head fell back against his shoulder and he looked down at her with a tenderness that seemed for the moment to change him so completely that he might have been a stranger.

  His voice was very deep and moved as he said,

  “Do you really think that is what I want, my precious, my darling, my adorable little ghost? I want you as my wife. I want you because you already belong to me, because we are part of each other and never again will I lose you.”

  He held her a little closer before he added,

  “I intend to tie you to me by every chain and vow that exists, but I believe actually we are bound to each other already and no marriage lines could make us any closer.”

  She raised her head and he saw by the sudden radiance in her eyes that this was what she wanted to hear.

  For a long moment they looked at each other, then the Earl’s lips sought hers.

  It seemed to Demelza as if everything she had longed for was there in his kiss. At the touch of his lips, the pain she had suffered vanished and instead there was a wonder and a glory which came from Heaven itself.

  This was what she knew love would be like – the love of God which was so perfect, so divine that it was not of this world.

  And yet the closeness of the Earl, the demand which she knew lay behind the gentleness of his kiss made her feel as if her whole being was invaded by a splendour that was blinding in its intensity and so insistently marvellous that it was almost a physical pain.

  She felt the pressure of his lips increase, his arms tighten and now he was kissing her more passionately, more masterfully, more possessively.

  ‘I love – you!” she wanted to cry.

  But there were no words in which to express the fact that they had found each other and now, as they had been since the beginning, they were not two people but one.

  Chapter Seven

  The sun which had been shining warmly all day was suddenly eclipsed by clouds that brought a scud of rain.

  It was not a cold rain but warm and almost like a drink for the thirsty earth which had been baked dry all through the summer.

  The Earl, driving his team of horses, did not slacken their pace and they moved swiftly along the narrow country roads that twisted towards the sea.

  There was a hill rising slowly from a verdant valley and, when they reached its summit, the Earl could look down and see the vivid blue of the Atlantic and below him, nestling amongst the trees, the chimneys and roofs of a long low-built house.

  It was then for the first time that he pressed his horses with urgency and there was an expression on his face which gave him a look of almost youthful eagerness.

  There was still some way to go before finally he reached the house and saw it in front of him, its gardens still vivid with the colours of autumn.

  Originally built as a Priory, Trevarnon House which had been in the Earl’s family for over five hundred years was not only beautiful, but had a mellow warmth about it which made everyone who approached it seem welcome.

  The rain had ceased as unexpectedly as it had begun and now the sun was brilliant again and shone on the many-paned windows, turning them to glittering gold as if they were lit from the inside.

  The Earl drew his team, sweating a little with the speed at which they had travelled, to a standstill in front of the porticoed front door.

  As grooms came running from the stables, he threw down the reins and walked into the hall.

  There was only an ancient butler and a young footman in attendance who took his hat and gloves. Then as he would have moved past them Dawson appeared and said,

  “Her Ladyship asked me to see that you changed your coat, my Lord, for what you’re wearing’ll be damp.”

  “There was very little rain,” the Earl replied.

  But Dawson stood waiting and impatiently he pulled off his tight-fitting grey whip-cord riding coat and unbuttoned the waistcoat beneath it.

  Dawson took them from him and helped him into a slightly more comfortable coat that he usually wore at home. Then the Earl saw that the valet also held in his hand a fresh muslin cravat.

  “Really, Dawson,” he exclaimed, “this is quite unnecessary!”

  “Her Ladyship’s afraid you might get a stiff neck, my Lord.”

  “Have you ever known me to have such a thing?” the Earl asked.

  “There’s always a first time, my Lord.”

  The Earl pulled his cravat from his neck and, as he took the crisp muslin which Dawson held out to him, he said,

  “I have a suspicion, Dawson, that I am being simultaneously mollycoddled and bullied!”

  The valet grinned.

  “Yes, my Lord, but we wouldn’t wish her Ladyship to worry.”

  The Earl smiled.

  “No, Dawson, we would not wish her to worry.”

  He tied his fresh cravat with skilful fingers, then walked away from the hall down the long corridor off which opened the gracious rooms filled with family treasures which, until they came to Cornwall, he had not seen for many years.

  He knew that Demelza would be in the orangery which had been converted by his grandfather in his old age into a sitting room that was half-conservatory and half a lookout over the gardens.

  It always seemed to be filled with sunshine and now, as he opened the door, the fragrance of the flowers hit him almost like a wave from the sea.

  There were not only the ancient orange trees that had been brought from Spain two centuries ago, there were also orchids, exotic lilies, flowering cactus and small dwarf azaleas which had once flowered in the foothills of the Himalayas.

  At the far end of the room, reclining on a chaise-longue by a window, was Demelza.

  She had not heard the Earl’s approach and he saw in profile her face tilted upwards, her eyes raised to the skies as if she was praying as she had been when he first saw her in the Priests’ Room.

  Two brown and white spaniels who were beside her couch heard him first and, as they sprang towards him, Demelza rose too and it seemed as if her eyes held the sunshine in their violet depths.

  “Valient! You are back!”

  It was a cry of sheer joy. She ran across the room and the Earl put his arms around her to hold her against him.

  “You are – all right? You are – safe?” she questioned but the words did not seem to matter.

  It was the expression on her face that held his attention and the knowledge that, because they were touching each other, nothing else was of any consequence.

  “You have missed me?”

  His voice
was deep.

  “It has been a very – very – long day.”

  “That is what I found.”

  “I was afraid the – rain would slow you down. Did you get – wet?”

  “There was only a little rain,” he answered, “and as you see, I have changed.”

  “That is what I – wanted you to – do.”

  “You are making me soft,” he complained.

  She laughed gently.

  “Nothing could do that, but even for someone as – strong as – you there is no point in taking risks.”

  As she spoke, she slipped her hands under his coat, saying,

  “Your shirt is not damp?”

  His arms tightened as he felt her hands on his back, feeling the strong athletic muscles beneath the soft linen and there was a touch of fire in his eyes.

  He bent his head and found her lips and they were locked in a kiss that swept away every thought except that they were together.

  The kiss lasted a long time and, when finally the Earl released Demelza, her face was radiant and her lips soft and parted from the insistence of his.

  “Darling, I have – so much to tell you,” she said in a voice that trembled a little, “but first you must have something to eat and drink. You have been on the road for a long time.”

  She took him by the hand and pulled him to where at the side of the orangery there was a table on which there were several covered silver dishes, heated underneath by lighted candles.

  There was also a wine cooler filled with ice in which reposed an open bottle of champagne.

  “Cornish pasties made just as you like them,” Demelza said, “and crabs caught this morning in the bay.”

  “I am hungry,” the Earl admitted, “but I don’t wish to spoil my dinner.”

  “There is still two hours before we dine,” she replied, “I made it late in case you were delayed.”

  The Earl took a Cornish pasty from the silver dish and poured himself out a glass of champagne.

  Then, with his eyes on his wife, he sat down in a comfortable chair while she resumed her position on the wide chaise-longue which was covered with satin cushions.

  “Now tell me what you have done?” she asked eagerly.

  “I bought two exceptional mares in Penzance,” the Earl replied, “which I am sure will improve our stock and should be just the right age for Crusader when we put him to stud, after he has won the Derby.”