Blindly, almost as if she were walking in her sleep, she stepped into it, and by the time Lord Colwall had seated himself in the driving-seat and picked up the reins, the groom had covered her with a fur rug.
“You will not be too cold?” Lord Colwall asked, as if they were setting out on an ordinary drive from the Castle. “I ought to have brought a closed carriage, but I knew that I could travel faster in the curricle.”
“I am ... all right,” Natalia answered.
They were the first words she had spoken to him and he heard the tremor in her voice. He said nothing more, merely busying himself with driving as swiftly as horses could travel back around the hills to the Castle.
There was, he thought, nothing they could say to each other with the groom within hearing. In fact Lord Colwall knew that what was of primary importance was to get Natalia home.
He had been deeply shocked by the pallor of her face and her emaciation. She had grown so thin that it seemed as if she might float away in the mist and be lost to him forever.
It was with a sense of relief that he saw his home high above the trees, and soon they were climbing the long drive.
He drew up outside the front door and pulled the horses to a standstill.
The Butler ran down the steps to assist Natalia to alight.
“Welcome home, M’Lady.”
“Thank ... you,” Natalia answered.
Her voice was very low, and now as she reached the hall she allowed her cloak to be taken from her, and almost automatically she walked towards the Salon.
A flunkey opened the door and she moved over the thick carpet towards the fire.
She had almost reached it when she heard the door close and turned to see Lord Colwall advancing towards her.
For a second he saw a sudden light in her eyes, and then as he drew nearer it faded and was replaced by an expression which he knew was one of fear.
She looked at him, made a little inarticulate sound and slipped down onto the floor at his feet.
He picked her up in his arms, and realising that she was unconscious he carried her from the Salon, across the Hall and up the stairs.
As he passed the Butler, he said sharply:
“Send for Nurse.”
But when he reached the landing outside Natalia’s bed-room, he found Nanny was there waiting for him and beside her was Ellen.
“You’ve found Her Ladyship! You’ve found her!” Ellen exclaimed ecstatically.
Lord Colwall did not answer. He carried Natalia into the room and set her down on the big four-poster, laying her very gently against the lace-edged pillows.
She looked so white, so frail in her black dress, dingy and dirty and so different from the elegant creation it had once been.
“Is she all right, Nanny?” he asked and there was a note of desperate anxiety in his voice.
“I think she’s fainted, Master Ranulf,” Nanny answered. “Leave Her Ladyship to us. We’ll get her into bed and, judging by the looks of her, she needs something to eat.”
“I will go and speak to the Chef,” Lord Colwall said, as if glad to be able to take some action.
“Nourishing broth,” Nanny said, and busied herself with Natalia.
“No ... please don’t touch her! ... She is so small ... she does not ... understand...”
Natalia’s words were a cry. Then someone said gently:
“Wake up, Natalia, you are dreaming. Wake up, it is only a nightmare.”
She opened her eyes and saw Lord Colwall’s face not far from hers. She felt a sudden surge of happiness at the sight of him ... before she remembered and her eyes darkened...
“For God’s sake, my darling, do not be afraid of me!”
The words seemed to burst from him. Then he said quickly, speaking as if he were ashamed of his lack of self-control:
“You are at home. You are safe, and nothing shall upset you, I promise you.”
The fear in Natalia’s eyes was replaced with surprise.
It seemed to him as if she held her breath.
“Nanny told me that when you awoke I was to give you some soup to drink. It is over here.”
It was night-time, Natalia realised, as he moved away from the bed. There was only the light from the flames leaping high in the fire-place and of several candles to cast a warm glow around the bed and leave the corners of the room in shadow.
‘It must be very late,’ Natalia thought to herself.
She saw that Lord Colwall was wearing a robe of dark blue brocade, and she felt that had it been earlier, Nanny or Ellen would have been with her.
She must have slept for hours, and now she remembered vaguely that she had been awakened several times to be given something to drink, a soup that seemed to warm her body and make her feel alive again.
She had thought sometimes that she would never be anything but cold and hungry until she died.
Lord Colwall was busy at the table and she could see that he was pouring from a jug which stood on a silver tray heated by a candle-burner.
He carried the cup carefully across the room to her.
She raised herself higher on the pillows and he sat down on the bed facing her.
“I want you to drink every drop,” he said as he handed her the cup, “and then I have something to tell you.”
She looked at him enquiringly before obediently she raised the cup to her lips.
Her fair hair hung loosely over her shoulders and he saw that she was wearing one of the diaphanous nightgowns that had been part of her trousseau.
In the few short hours that she had been back at the Castle, sleeping with an exhaustion that was almost frightening, some of the tension and sharpness seemed to have gone from her small face.
She looked very young and very pathetic, Lord Colwall had thought, when Nanny had brought him into the room to see her asleep.
“She is all right, Nanny?” he had asked when the Nurse had come from the bed-room to find him waiting on the landing outside.
“Come and see for yourself, Master Ranulf.”
Nanny had known without being told that Lord Colwall was apprehensive as he had followed her into the bed-room to stand looking down at Natalia, her eyelashes dark against her pale cheeks, her hair haloing her thin face.
“I don’t think Her Ladyship’s had a mite to eat since she left here,” Nanny whispered. “She said it was impossible for her to swallow anything when the children were so hungry.”
She saw Lord Colwall’s jaw tighten as she went on: “Heaven knows what sort of place she’s been in, Master Ranulf, but there are bruises on her back which she says she received when trying to stop a child from being beaten.”
Lord Colwall clenched his fingers together and his knuckles were white.
“It’s my belief,” Nanny said softly, “that Her Ladyship’ll have no peace until something is done about those children.”
She saw the expression on his face, then without a word he was gone from the room and she heard him running downstairs.
Now Natalia had finished her soup and handed the cup back to Lord Colwall.
“As you have been so good,” Lord Colwall said, “I will tell you something which I know will please you.”
She looked up at him expectantly.
“I sent two carriages this afternoon to collect all the children from the Workhouse and take them to our own Orphanage,” he said. “I have promised Mrs. Moppam she shall have still further help, and I have sent practically all the food there was in the Castle to feed them in the meantime.”
The light in Natalia’s eyes seemed to transfigure her face.
“You did ... that?” she breathed hardly above a whisper. Thank you ... Thank you.”
She put out her hands as she spoke with a gesture eloquent of gratitude. Then as he took them in his, she saw how rough and red they were and would have taken them away, but he raised them to his lips.
She felt herself quiver at the touch of his mouth on her skin. “You must rest,” he sai
d in a deep voice, “but first I have something more to tell you.”
“What is ... it?” Natalia asked.
“I have promised the men on this Estate ten shillings a week wages, with two shillings extra for every child and the same for any elderly dependent.”
He felt Natalia’s fingers tighten on his as he went on:
“They have agreed to work the threshing-machine, but they will receive two shillings each per day threshing money. Next year we will take one thousand acres more into cultivation, which will mean more work and more money for every man.”
“Thank you ... Oh, thank ... you!”
There were tears on Natalia’s cheeks but when her eyes met Lord Colwall’s it was as if neither of them could look away.
With an obvious effort Lord Colwall said: “You must go to sleep. I will leave the door open between our rooms so that if you cry out I shall hear you, but now there is no reason for any more nightmares.”
He would have risen from the bed as he spoke, but Natalia held on to one of his hands.
“I do not ... wish to be ... alone,” she said almost inaudibly.
“Then I will stay with you,” Lord Colwall replied in his deep voice, “but oh, my dearest heart, get well quickly! There is so much more I want to tell you, so much more that we can do together, and you will never be alone again, if I can help it!”
“Do you ... mean that?”
“You know I mean it,” he answered. “Do you not realise by now, Natalia, that I love you? It has been an agony beyond words these past ten days when I thought I would never find you again.”
“I thought you ... would not ... want me to ... stay.”
“How could you think such a thing?” he asked. “You know I want you. I have always wanted you, but I did not realise how much until that devil took you away as a hostage and I did not know where to find you. I knew when I brought you home in my arms that you meant everything to me.”
“The night before ...” Natalia faltered, “in the ... Library, you ... sounded as if you ... hated me...”
“I was crazy!” Lord Colwall declared. “It was because I felt so frustrated at your refusal to be my wife. I was at the same time fighting against admitting to myself that I loved you.”
He felt Natalia’s fingers trembling in his and he said:
“I loved you really from the first moment I saw you, but I vowed to myself that I would never again suffer as I had suffered in the past. So I fought against the enchantment of you every inch of the way!”
He gave a little laugh.
“If I suffered in the past, I have forgotten now what it felt like. For these past days I have suffered all the agonies of hell wondering where you were, desperately afraid of what might have happened to you.”
“I thought ... you would soon ... forget me.”
“How could I do that?” Lord Colwall asked simply. “You have captured my whole heart. It no longer belongs to me, but to you.”
“Is this ... true?”
“It is true, my beloved, completely and absolutely true. I love you now and you must teach me to love you in the way you want to be loved.”
He bent his head as he spoke and kissed her hands again.
“They are so red and ... ugly,” Natalia murmured.
“They are beautiful, my dearest, because they are yours, just as everything about you is all the loveliness I ever want of life.”
He drew in a deep breath.
“I have realised these past days that I have been prizing all the wrong things. I know now that my possessions, even the Castle itself, are of no importance beside the fact that you love me! One day I hope to be able to make you understand what you mean to me.”
He looked at Natalia as he spoke and saw the tears come into her eyes again.
“This has been too much for you,” he said quickly. “You must go to sleep now, my darling, and we will talk about everything in the morning. I will not leave you alone. I will sleep on the sofa, so if you want me, I shall be here.”
There was a moment’s silence and then Natalia said hesitatingly: “You might be ... cold, and that ... would worry me. Could you not ... get into bed? ... It is very ... big.”
For a moment Lord Colwall was absolutely still, until he said in a voice which strove to be normal:
“As you say—it is very big.”
He rose and walked to the fire to put on more coal and logs. Then he blew out the candles behind the curtains beside Natalia and walked around to the other side of the bed.
There was only one candle burning there, and extinguishing it before taking off his robe, he slipped between the sheets.
As Natalia had said, the bed was very large and there was a wide space between them.
She lay against the pillows watching the flames leaping high over the new logs. She did not turn her face towards Lord Colwall, but she knew he was lying on his back, straight and still.
After a moment she said in a very small voice:
“There is ... something I ... want to ask ... you.”
“What is it?” he enquired.
She did not reply and as if he knew she was shy and embarrassed, he turned towards her, resting on his elbow to raise himself so that he could look down at her face.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Do I ... now that I have been ... touched,” she whispered, “disgust ... you?”
For a moment it seemed as if Lord Colwall struggled to find words with which to answer. Then he moved closer to her and putting out his hand he very, very gently pulled her nightgown off her shoulders.
She made no movement as he bent his head and kissed first one of her small rose-tipped breasts, then the other. He replaced the nightgown and said in a voice that was unsteady:
“When you will let me, I will kiss you all over your perfect body. That is the real answer to your question.”
He drew in his breath.
“You must go to sleep, my precious, you have been through so much. I must not tire you.”
He spoke as if he admonished himself rather than her.
“Will you ... kiss me ... goodnight?”
Lord Colwall hesitated and then slowly, holding himself in an iron control, bent forward.
His lips sought her cheek, but she moved so that it was her mouth he kissed. At first there was only the faint touch of their lips, until suddenly it seemed to Natalia as if the whole room was filled with a brilliant light.
She felt a sudden thrill run through her which was like a sword piercing every nerve in her body.
Then Lord Colwall’s arms were round her and he was kissing her frantically, passionately, demandingly.
She had known this was what it would be like to be kissed with love. She knew an ecstasy, a rapture that was beyond anything she had ever imagined or had dreamt was possible.
She put her arms round his neck and as she did so he raised his head.
“I love you! God, how I love you!” he cried. “Be kind to me, Natalia, I did not know love was like this. But I would not frighten you, my darling. I must give you time.”
She made a little sound that was half a laugh of unbridled happiness.
Then she drew his head closer until his lips once again were on hers.
She knew there was no need for time, or words, or explanations.
This was love!
This was what she always knew they should feel for each other.
This was the wonder and glory of being not two people but one, of being close and indivisible, part of a joy and rapture not of this world, but of the Divine force which pouring through them, made them as gods.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Cartland, the internationally celebrated author and television personality, has written over 200 books including volumes on health, beauty, marriage, and cooking as well as the romances for which she is famed. In private life, she has fought for better conditions and salaries for midwives and nurses, championed the cause of senior citizens, foun
ded the first Romany Gypsy Camp in the world, and is president of the British National Association of Health. She lives at Camfield Place in Hertfordshire, England.
Sword to the Heart (Bantam Series No. 13) Page 18