Moon at the Full

by Susan Barrie

  She flattened herself against the tree-trunk, and the wild-rose pink of her thin silk dressing-gown lent her a delicacy and a charm that, with her wildly disordered spun-gold hair and infinitely blue eyes, made her seem a little unreal. Especially with the sunlight pouring over her and putting a wild-rose flush into her cheeks.

  The Comte’s eyes were grave and dark and intense.

  “Stephanie,” he demanded slowly, “why did you run from me?”

  Her abashed eyes told him why she had run from him, and he held out his arms and waited for her to overcome her shyness sufficiently to hurl herself into them before he reproved her gently, tenderly, with his lips against her hair.

  “My foolish, foolish little one!” he said, holding her so passionately close that she could feel the beat of his heart—no longer unshakably steady, although as strong and deep and reassuring as when he had taken her into his arms in the dark-ness of the night before. “Don’t you know that one must never run away from a loved one? And you do love me just a little, don’t you, Stephanie?” with his lips pleading against her lips. “Oh darling—my little English girl!—I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you, and therefore you’ve got to love me in return!”

  “But that can’t—can’t be true!” she gasped, looking up incredulously into his face.

  “Why can’t it?” he demanded, just as softly.

  He put his fingers beneath her chin and lifted it, and she could no longer deceive herself about the quality of the adoration in his eyes. It was hungry, and fierce, and lasting ... not, as she had imagined, a fleeting admiration. “How gullible can a young woman like you be?” with just a faint tinge of amusement in his voice. “I find you in my flat, lovely and adorable and obviously quite genuine ... otherwise Liane, who is a vain woman, as well as an exceedingly cautious one, would never have handed over her key to you. And in addition you have a frail look that touches my heart, and I know that something has to be done about you! So I tell you that tale about taking a wife, and I plan the cruise that was alreadypartly planned ... although not for the purpose of deciding which one of three women I could bear to live with for the rest of my lifetime. That you should think me capable of doing a thing like that—making up my mind cold-bloodedly about a woman I have to see every morning for the rest of my life, and hope that in time she will present me with a son!—well, that is something that astounds me still, because I thought all Englishwomen believed in affairs of the heart only!”

  “But you—you are French!” she managed to articulate, with lowered eyes. “And you did say that the French ... you made it all sound so very reasonable!”

  “To you—who are not French?”

  She lifted her eyes, and shook her head violently.

  “No ... never to me. Never, never to me!”

  “Which means that you are a firm believer in affairs of the heart only, is that it, my darling?” with only a part of a laugh in his voice. “After all, you think they are best ... even for me!”

  “Especially for you!” she whispered, felt her breath catch on an emotional choke over the words, and then realized that his mouth was blissfully near to hers, and there was no need to say anything more ... for the time being. And when at last he lifted his head, gazed at her with so much love in his eyes that she felt dizzy with delight, and felt him trembling as she herself was trembling after that deliriously perfect and satisfying kiss, she found the courage to wind her arms about his neck and hold him fast. And also to reproach him.

  “But you did pay a tremendous amount of attention to Mademoiselle Descarté. And everyone believed you were in love with her.”

  He smiled.

  “And I believe most people thought you were in love with Neil Heritage. But you’re not, are you?”

  She didn’t even bother to shake her head, but her eyes blazed reproach at him.

  “You know I’m not!”

  “I never really thought he was quite your kind,” he admitted, “and that was why I encouraged him to take you about and look after you, because someone had to look after you, and I was otherwise engaged.” He laughed softly, with a ring of pleasure. “And so you were jealous of Gabrielle, were you, petite?—Really jealous?”

  “There were times when I thought I’d die of jealousy,” she admitted, in a suffocated voice, her face pressed hard against him.

  He stroked her hair with an artist’s fingers. “Sometimes I suspected you were not entirely happy,” he told her, on a whimsical note, “but after your bad behavior in Tangier I thought you were due for a little punishment.” And then his voice became grave and insistent. “What was the truth about Tangier, my little one? I know it was something to do with Gabrielle, and that you were merely made use of, but why could you not be honest and tell me the truth?”

  “Because I thought you were in love with Gabrielle, and would not believe me if I told you the truth,” she answered simply.

  He sighed. Then he uttered a very French expletive.

  “It was my fault. I should have realized that she is a clever woman, and you are just you! How could you stand up to so much experience? and then to have to cope with someone like Strangeways as well! ... for you, my poor little one, it was too much! They are an unscrupulous pair, and now you must tell me all the truth.”

  He led her to a knoll on which they both sat down, and she told him all she could of Tim Strangeways and Gabrielle, and then he astounded her by admitting he had already suspected most of it.

  “But the emeralds?” she asked, and added fearfully: “You never really thought that I...?”

  He caught her and held her possessively close to him.

  “My foolish one, of course not! Apart from the fact that there is nothing acquisitive about your sweet blue eyes, and emeralds are not for you, the stones were secure in my safe when I made the announcement that they had been stolen. I had reason to believe Gabrielle and her ‘brother’, as she called him, were planning to relieve me of them, and I decided to submit her to a test. She instantly flew into such a panic because she was afraid Strangeways had rushed ahead of her plans and somehow discovered the combination of the safe that she rather rashly started to accuse you openly, and it was then that I knew what a fiend she is.”

  His expression hardened.

  “I had intended to make her a present of the emeralds at the termination, of the cruise. It is possible she had a certain amount of reason to suppose I was seriously contemplating making her my Comtesse—in order to arouse your jealousy I sailed rather close to the wind!—and it would have been a way of salving my conscience. But when she started to vilify you!...”

  His face hardened still more.

  “Then I was so furious that I could have killed her! Or choked her with the emeralds! Now they are at the bottom of the sea, and no one will have them!”

  Steve was conscious of a curious sensation like relief, but at the same time she was afraid he had sustained a bad loss. But he smiled when she started to sympathize with him over such an unfortunate loss, and disabused her mind of the suspicion that they were not insured.

  “They were fully covered, my sweet, and so was everything else on board the Odette.” He sighed suddenly, regretfully. “It’s a pity we no longer have the Odette, but one day—as you whispered to me when you thought I was feeling very sad because my beautiful white yacht was being consumed by flames—we will have another Odette, only I think we will call it the Stephanie this time! Will that please you, my heart’s delight?” once more putting his fingers under her chin and peering into her eyes.

  She felt as if the power of speech dried up inside her. The muscles of her slender throat contracted with emotion.

  “You mean ...?” she whispered.

  “Oh, my darling, darling little love,” he murmured reproachfully, “do you not yet understand that I want to marry you? Mean to marry you! When someone has rescued us from this island! And, according to Heritage, we are not quite off the shipping lanes, so it should not be very long bef
ore that happy event takes place.”

  He caught her into his arms, and kissed every inch of her face with ardent lips. Then he once more kissed her on the mouth.

  “Do you not think you could bear to marry me, Stephanie, my woman?” he whispered pleadingly. “I will love you all the rest of your life, and these will never be anyone but you in my life. That much I can and do promise you!”

  But before she could whisper back an ecstatic “Yes” a voice from the beach—or much farther along it than where they were seated—broke crudely in upon their blissful interlude, and from the excited tone of that voice it was plain they were not to be a shipwrecked party for long. Madelon and Raoul came racing towards them, and behind them followed Heritage, with the two seamen bringing up the rear.

  All five were pointing excitedly out to sea, where the white shape of a vessel showed up plainly against the flush of sunrise that still lingered in the sky. And from the side of that white vessel a small white launch was putting off to investigate the island, and the eager figures who were frenziedly waving coats and anything else they could lay their hands on to attract attention.

  Léon looked down at Steve with a slightly wry expression on his face.

  “I suppose this means we’re saved, little one,” he said, and there was faint regret in his tones. “Apart from the fact that I am anxious, naturally, about the rest of my guests, and I hope we shall have some news of them, I could have wished that ship out there to have stayed away for another couple of days and nights.” He took her into his arms, while the others continued their race to the edge of the beach. “Last night was so wonderful, in spite of the fact that it was a little drowned rat I held in my arms for most of the time!” and he smiled at the ready blush that rose up in her cheeks. “Oh, my darling,” he whispered, “did you not think last night was wonderful?”

  And she was still assuring him that she would willingly live on an island with him for the rest of her life when a good-looking young man in a peaked cap and the white tropical uniform of a ship’s second officer spoke apologetically at their elbows.

  “Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but we’re waiting to take you both off. The others are already in the launch, and the Captain’s waiting.”

  The Comte de Courvalles looked at him vaguely. “Oh, yes?” he said. Then he introduced Steve. “Allow me to present you to my future Comtesse!” he said proudly.

  The young British officer bowed. “Delighted, I’m sure,” he murmured. Then, wrenching away his admiring gaze from Steve, he added: “The rest of your party are safe aboard, sir. We picked up two full boatloads, and were looking for you when you sighted us just now. Or rather,” he said, since the Comte had certainly not been looking for anyone, “someone sighted us, and started to wave. I think it was a Mr. Heritage.”

  “It would be,” the Comte murmured, and sighed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TWO nights later, with a brilliant moon overhead, and wearing borrowed plumes, Steve stood at the rail of the big passenger liner and looked out across the untroubled sea with the man she was to marry at her elbow.

  She still could not believe that the Comte de Courvalles was to become her husband very soon now, and it was only when his arms were around her and his lips were on hers that she knew it was the truth.

  Practically everyone on board had congratulated. them, and the Captain had placed them both at his table in the first-class dining-saloon. She was a heroine in the eyes of the passengers—even more so than Madelon, who was to marry Raoul, and Gabrielle, who was to marry no one (unless she decided one day to marry Tim Strangeways, with whom Steve was certain she was really in love)—because the Comte was a man of infinite wealth and charm, and although his yacht was burned out he had no real reason to grieve since he could soon acquire another one.

  But he was not thinking of acquiring another yacht just yet. He was intent on planning a wedding, and as a prelude to it he was taking his fiancée back to Monte Carlo, where he intended to hand her over to the care and chaperonage of his godmother, the Duchess of Montreuil.

  “And she shall take you to Paris, and there you can select your wedding outfit,” he said to an already completely bewildered Steve, who protested that she didn’t need a wedding outfit.

  “At least, I need new clothes ... I haven’t anything of my own at the moment,” with a little laugh. “But I’d much rather buy my own things, and in Paris, I’m afraid, they’ll be much too expensive for me.”

  The Comte laughed softly.

  “What a funny little thing you are! So independent,” stroking her hair lovingly, “and so sweet and desirable that I don’t know how I am going to wait to marry you! It would be much simpler for me if I just snatched you up and got someone to marry us without any fuss at all, but I think it is only fair that you should have the type of wedding my godmother would approve. After all,” with glowing eyes, “you are the woman I have waited for all my life, and I can school myself to patience for a little longer.”

  But the ardent flame in his dark eyes made her lower her own as he uttered the words, and she reverted quickly to the subject of her new outfit.

  “I shall insist on paying for it myself, and afterwards—when we are married—you can buy me whatever you wish. In that way I shall feel that I’m not quite the beggar maid, and you King Cophetua!”

  He smiled, but his smile was intensely tender. “Everything I have and am is yours, my sweet! There is no need for you to wait until, we are legally man and wife to claim what already belongs to you, my beloved one.”

  She looked up at the moon, that tonight was at the full, and she remembered that when they left Monte Carlo there was only a slim slice of moon in the sky. Now her happiness, like the moon overhead, was a perfect and complete thing.

  But there was still room for one tiny finger of doubt. She had to give voice to it, because it kept lifting its head and worrying her from time.

  “Léon!” she said suddenly.

  Instantly he turned to her. His face became grave, because hers was temporarily grave.

  “Léon,” letting her fingers play nervously up and down the length of his arm, in its well-fitting dinner-jacket sleeve. “You’ll think I’m being ridiculous, but ... I’ve always wanted to ask you about Liane. Liane Daly. After all,” looking at him almost appealingly, “She did have the key of your flat.”

  He threw away the stub of his cigarette, and far down in the darkness in the wake of the ship the glowing end of it was extinguished as the inky dark sea washed over it. Then he placed both hands on her shoulders, and looked deep into her eyes.

  “I have been waiting for you to ask me that question,” he said quietly. “And all you have to know is that Liane was just a friend ... just a friend. She was never anything else. Is that all right?”

  She gave vent to an exquisite breath of relief.

  “Absolutely all right,” she answered.

  He took her in his arms. He held her very close.

  “Oh, Stephanie,” he whispered, “I love you so terribly, terribly much!”

  She clutched at him.

  “And I love you ... so terribly, terribly much, Léon!”