The two Germans realised it was an order.
They picked up Herr Richter by his shoulders while two Stewards carried his legs.
As they staggered out of the saloon and across the deck, another Steward picked up the revolver and wiped the mess off the floor with a napkin.
“Give that revolver to the Germans,” the Marquis ordered sharply, “and tell the Captain full speed ahead!”
“Very good, my Lord,” the Steward replied.
He hurried out of the saloon followed by the Marquis.
Simona could not believe what had just happened. How could it be possible that at the last moment the Marquis had nearly been arrested?
She was certain that he would have been prevented from leaving Germany unless he had handed over Watson and his plans for the gun.
‘I have saved him,’ she whispered, ‘I have saved him! He could not have stopped them taking Watson away.’
Then it flashed through her mind that perhaps even now the other two Germans would try to seize the Marquis on their own.
Even as that fear seemed to seep through her, the door of the saloon opened and it was the Marquis.
He stood just inside the saloon, looking at her.
For a moment she could not move.
He held out his arms.
Simona ran impulsively towards him, hurling herself against him.
“Have – they – gone? Are – you – safe? Can we – go – now?” The words seemed to tumble from her lips as though she had no control over them.
The Marquis’s arms tightened.
Without speaking his lips came down on hers.
He kissed her wildly, passionately, as if he too had been desperately afraid.
He kissed her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, and then her lips again.
All the time he was holding her closer and closer.
She felt her whole body melting into his, until she became part of him.
They did notice that Dorkins had peeped into the saloon, saw what was happening and had closed the door gently to stand outside like a sentinel, refusing to allow anyone to enter.
Finally the Marquis raised his head.
“You have saved me, my darling. How could you have been so brave, so courageous? I really thought I was lost.”
“I was so frightened! Terribly frightened – that he would take – you away,” Simona murmured.
The Marquis kissed her again.
“I have been wanting to kiss you for a very long time.
Now you must tell me what you feel.”
“I love you!” Simona whispered. “I love you so much, I could – not bear anyone – to hurt you!”
The Marquis kissed her until they were both breathless.
Then because her heart was beating so violently, Simona hid her head against his shoulder.
“This has all been too much for you, my precious,” the Marquis said. “But now I can no longer prevent myself from kissing you and telling you how wonderful I think you are.”
“I never thought that – you would – say such – things to me,” Simona sighed.
“I have wanted to say them since the first moment I met you,” the Marquis replied. “And when you told me what I needed to know to save Watson, I thought you could not be real, but an angel sent down from Heaven just to help me.”
“I was so – frightened,” Simona murmured, “that – you would be – captivated – by the Countess.” She had not meant to admit this to the Marquis, yet the fear had been uppermost in her mind for so long, that the words poured out without her being able to prevent them.
The Marquis laughed.
“Why do you think I had to pretend to have an attack of hay fever?” he asked.
“It was so clever of you and it was only later that I realised it was all a pretence.”
“So you really believed that I thought her more beautiful than you?” the Marquis demanded. “How could you be so foolish?”
Simona hid her face against his chest again as he said very gently to her,
“You never need be jealous of any other woman, now or in the future. How soon will you marry me, my precious darling?”
Simona was still.
“I – thought,” she breathed, “that you – intended never to – marry.”
“I intended never to marry until I met you,” the Marquis asserted. “Then I knew that you were mine and no one else should ever have you but me! I am convinced, my adorable one, that we will be very happy together.”
Simona looked up at him.
“I love you,” she cried, “with all my heart and soul. I will try my best to make you happy and prevent anyone from hurting you.”
“And that too is the vow I have taken,” the Marquis replied, “so I think the sooner we are married, the safer we shall be.”
Simona looked at him enquiringly as he said,
“Come and sit down on the sofa, I want to talk to you.”
She realised they were still standing just inside the door. Now they were right out to sea and moving at the fastest speed the yacht could sail.
“We are now safe!” she murmured.
“Completely safe, my darling, except that I think it would be a mistake for us to return to England just yet.”
Simona stared at him in surprise as he led her to the sofa and they sat down. He pulled her towards him and said,
“I have a plan. But if you dislike it, I must think of something else.”
“What is your plan?”
“First I think it would be a great mistake for us to arrive in England immediately with Watson. After what has just happened, the Kaiser’s spies – and there are a great number of them – will be looking out for us.”
Simona shivered.
“Can they hurt us?” she enquired.
“They might and they will certainly try to steal Watson away again.” Simona cried out.
“They must not!”
“No, of course not!” he agreed, “and that is why I want you to listen to my suggestion.”
She raised her hand to touch his cheek very gently.
“I am listening as I will always listen to anything you say to me.”
For a moment the Marquis made a movement as if to kiss her, but he restrained himself saying,
“What I want, if you want it too, is to be married immediately by my Captain!”
Simona gasped and looked at him open-eyed, but she did not interrupt.
“We will then cable your parents to inform them of our marriage,” the Marquis continued, “and go on our honeymoon.”
“Honeymoon!” Simona muttered beneath her breath.
“I want to take you to Venice,” he said, “to Greece and then to look at the Sphinx and tell you that its secret is simply love and more love.”
Simona gave a little laugh that was almost a cry.
“I do not – believe it! This is not – happening to me. It is – everything I have always wanted and – dreamt about and you are making it – come true.”
“We will both make it come true, if you agree.”
“Of course I agree,” Simona sighed. “It is the most wonderful and marvellous idea I have ever heard.”
“When we return to England everything will have calmed down, and doubtless the Kaiser will have found something else to interest him, rather than worrying about a gun that does not yet exist.”
He stopped for a moment to kiss Simona’s forehead.
“I know in your clever little brain that you will appreciate that Watson can work on the gun here on the Sea-Horse where no one can get at him. Perhaps when we do reappear in England we can present the plans to the Prince of Wales as a gift.”
“This is the most fantastic and glorious moment in my entire life!” Simona cried.
The Marquis looked at her very tenderly.
“May I, with your permission, inform our Captain that we wish to be married at once? I have waited a very long time for you, my precious.”
Simona laughed.
; “I think, actually, it is only a few days.”
“It seems to me like several centuries,” the Marquis replied. “But now we are running away from trouble and running to a happiness and love which is different from anything I have ever known in my life.”
Simona draped her arms around his neck.
“I love you! I love you! Now I am quite certain that this just is a dream and I shall wake up at any moment. I am just praying that it is all really true!”
“Your prayers will be answered, but you will have to allow me to go and tell the Captain what he has to do.” He rose to his feet and pulled her up too.
“I can imagine nothing more wonderful,” he said, “than kissing you now as I want to, except that when we are married I can teach you, my precious, about love. Clever though you are, I think love is a subject in which you are somewhat ignorant.”
“Teach me! Teach me!” Simona begged.” And quickly, in case this really is a dream!”
The Marquis laughed and kissed her again and just when she would have clung to him for ever, he gently sat her down on the sofa and walked from the saloon.
Simona watched him go before running down to her cabin.
She had put on quite a pretty dress for breakfast. Now she wanted one that was even prettier.
She chose one from those which Dorkins had hung up in the cupboard.
She was just wondering how she could do up the back of her dress when there was a knock on the door.
When she said, “come in!” Dorkins appeared.
“I am glad you have come, Dorkins,” she said. “Please do up my gown for me.”
“I wondered, miss, if I could help, and as I hears yer’re being married I thinks perhaps yer’ll need me.”
“Of course I need your help, and what shall I wear on my hair?” Dorkins thought for a moment before looking in the cupboard.
One of the evening dresses Simona had taken with her to Berlin was decorated with tiny silk roses, which were sprinkled with diamante as if it was dew.
She saw Dorkins staring at them and knew what he was thinking.
“I’ll sew them back, miss, for yer afterwards,” Dorkins said. “Have yer a pair of scissors?”
Simona found a pair in her dressing case.
Dorkins cut a number of roses off the evening dress and pinned them onto a thin ribbon.
She arranged them on her head as a wreath and thought that no bride could have worn anything prettier.
“Thank you, Dorkins,” Simona smiled. “That was very original of you.”
“His Lordship says when you be ready would you come up to the saloon.”
“I am ready now,” Simona answered. “I think that this is a very unusual way to be married.”
“It saves yer a lot of hand shaking and a lot of people looking at yer with envious eyes, especially them women as wanted to marry his Lordship and he wouldn’t marry any of them.”
“I am sure they will be as angry as the Countess,” Simona agreed, “but I really am the luckiest woman in the whole wide world.”
She spoke with such fervour in her voice that Dorkins was moved.
“Yer be just the right lady for his Lordship,” he said, “and there’s never been anyone in the past I could say that to.”
“Thank you for saying it to me!” Simona answered “and I promise you I will look after him and make him very happy.”
“That’s what I wants for him and yer be the right one, miss, and I says it with my whole heart.”
Simona smiled at him.
Then as if she could not wait any longer, she hurried up the companionway and into the saloon.
The Marquis was standing at the far end and the Captain was beside him.
Simona wanted to throw herself into the Marquis’s arms and yet she forced herself to walk quietly towards him.
She felt his fingers close over hers and she knew he understood.
“There are to be two witnesses, my darling,” the Marquis told her quietly. “One of course, is Dorkins and I thought you would understand if the other one is Watson.”
“But of course. They will both want to witness your wedding,” Simona replied.
“Our Wedding!” the Marquis corrected her.
As he spoke Dorkins and Watson, who was now dressed as a man again, entered the saloon.
They stayed at the back by the door while the Marquis and Simona stood in front of the Captain.
He opened his Prayer Book and read the words of the Marriage Ceremony slowly and solemnly.
When the Marquis and Simona had made their vows and the Marquis had placed his signet ring on her finger, the Captain said,
“As Captain of the yacht, the Sea-Horse, and with the power given to me by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, I join you as man and wife together, and may God bless your union.”
For a moment there was silence.
Then the Marquis said,
“Thank you very much, Captain. I hope now you will drink our health.”
As he spoke the Stewards came in with champagne and Watson and Dorkins drank the toast, which was proposed by the Captain.
Having shaken hands with the bride and the bridegroom, the three men left the saloon.
Just for a moment the Marquis stood looking at Simona.
“We – are now – married,” she murmured in a small voice.
“You are my wife, my darling, and I am thinking that no man could have one more lovely, more brilliant or more perfect in every possible way.”
“I hope you will always think so,” Simona replied, “and no woman could have a more handsome or wonderful husband than you.”
The last words were breathed against his lips as he was kissing her.
A little later he said,
“A great deal has happened this morning, and it is still very early. The Captain has received my orders to begin our voyage towards the Mediterranean.”
“For our – honeymoon!” Simona exclaimed.
“Exactly! And may I remind you, my precious, that we lost last night with all this excitement. So we are now going to rest. I have told the Stewards we will let them know when we next want a meal, which may be very late in the afternoon.”
Simona looked at him enquiringly.
He took her arm and led her from the saloon, down the companionway and along the passage.
To her surprise he did not go as she had expected into the room where she had changed.
Instead he walked to the room at the far end, which she guessed was the Master Cabin and which she had not expected to be so large or so attractive.
There was a large bed in the middle of the room and four portholes, all curtained with an attractive chintz.
“This will be your room, my precious,” the Marquis announced.
“But I must not take it away from you,” Simona protested.
He smiled.
“I shall be sharing it with you. The bed is really made for two people.”
Simona blushed, as he added,
“As I have already said, we have missed a night and now we are going to make up for it!”
As he spoke he left her, closing the door behind him.
Simona saw that the bed was turned down and one of her pretty lace-trimmed nightgowns was lying on the eiderdown.
She undressed quickly, taking off her wreath of roses and laying it carefully on the dressing table.
All Simona could think about was the Marquis and that her love for him was growing every second.
‘I love him! I love him!’ she thought. ‘How can it be possible that I can be married to anyone so wonderful?’
The door opened and the Marquis entered.
He was wearing the same long dark robe as when she had visited his room in Berlin.
He sat down on the bed and looked at Simona.
“When I came to wake you so that we could go and save Watson,” he said, “I thought I had never seen anyone look so lovely, so exquisite, so utterly desirable.”
He drew
in his breath, as if he was remembering what he had felt at that moment, and continued,
“I knew then that you were mine and I would never lose you.”
“You did – not tell – me,” Simona managed to say.
“It was too soon! You might not have believed me and I was finding it hard to understand what I was feeling myself.”
She looked at him enquiringly as he explained,
“What I felt for you, my precious, was different from anything I had ever felt for any other woman. As you know, there have been quite a number in my life, but I never intended to marry any of them. All I wanted from a woman was excitement and amusement.”
“What do – you want – from me?” Simona asked nervously.
“I want you completely,” the Marquis answered. “Not only your heart and your soul, but your thoughts your mind, your love and, God willing, our children.”
Simona murmured and hid her face against his shoulder.
“I want to give you lots of sons,” she sighed, “and they will be handsome like you, ride like you and will be as intelligent as you.”
The Marquis laughed.
“At least we can try,” he suggested.
He bent to kiss her.
Then when she was longing to encircle her arms around his neck, he took off his robe and climbed into bed beside her.
He knew, because she was so young and so innocent that he would need to be very gentle.
Equally he knew that he had never felt so happy or so ecstatic as at this very moment.
This was different.
This was what he had prayed for and thought he would never find.
As he kissed Simona and continued to kiss her, he knew that together they would touch the peaks of ecstasy.
The love that they felt for each other was the love which came only from God.
It was the love that surmounts danger, evil and cruelty.
The love that is perfect, comes from Heaven, and once found will continue into eternity.
Love Wins In Berlin Page 13