The moon was but a shadow of itself, but it was the same moon which had shone on them in the Bois de Boulogne when the Marquis had kissed her beside the cascade and she had known an ecstasy and a wonder that had carried her up to the Heavens.
Now she felt as if everything she had believed in, everything that was part of her father and her love, had been smashed and now lay round her in ruins.
The night was very still and there was only the sound of the birds going to roost.
Then she heard the Marquis’s footsteps as he came from the courtyard onto the terrace.
He was a long way away and she contemplated wildly whether she would run down the steps that led to the second terrace or, farther still, to the garden below.
Then she told herself that she would merely look foolish. What was the point of running away when he was staying in The Castle? She could not elude him forever.
He came nearer, moving without haste, leisurely at his ease, while she stood desperately holding on to the cold stone, staring out over the blossom-filled valley.
He reached her side and she waited, her whole body stiff, for him to make some banal commonplace remark in the tone he had used ever since he had arrived.
But he seemed to be in no hurry to speak and she knew that his eyes were on her profile silhouetted against the darkening sky.
With an effort she forced herself to lift her chin a little proudly.
When finally he spoke, she thought that his voice was stern and a little grim.
“Well, Marie Teresa Yola Lefleur de Beauharnais,” he said, “what have you to say for yourself?”
It was hard to answer, but at last in a very small low voice she asked,
“Are – you – angry?”
“Very!”
“I-I am – sorry.”
He did not speak and she said in a whisper,
“H-have you – stopped – loving – me?”
“I am not concerned with my feelings at the moment,” the Marquis answered, “but with your behaviour. How could you do anything so outrageous?”
“I-I had to – know the – truth about – you.”
“Why?”
“B-because I thought – I could not – bear to – marry you.”
“What had you heard about me and from whom?”
“The girls at school used to – talk, and I overheard things from their parents. I thought – you were the – type of man who would not be – happy at The Castle – and with – me.”
“So you thought up that dangerous and reprehensible masquerade?”
“Y-yes.”
He did not speak then and, despite every resolution, Yola felt the tears begin to overflow from her eyes and run down her cheeks.
She did not move or wipe them away, hoping he would not see them. Then after a moment, because she could not bear the silence, she said in a broken little voice,
“I-I am sorry if it has – made you angry. Please – forgive me.”
Again there was silence and, as if she could bear it no longer, Yola turned towards him and hid her face against his shoulder.
“Forgive me – forgive me,” she sobbed. “I love you. Please – Leo – please – marry me.”
He did not put his arms round her and she felt frantically that he was unresponsive and that her happiness was slipping away from her and she would lose it completely.
“If you don’t – love me enough to – marry me,” she stammered, “let me be your – mistress, as you – asked me to be.”
Her voice broke on the last words and now she was sobbing tempestuously, feeling she must collapse completely from the agony of the fear that she had lost him and he no longer wanted her.
At last the Marquis put his arms round her and held her against him. His action only made her cry the more.
“Are you quite sure that you love me?” he asked.
“I love you – desperately, agonisingly,” Yola wept. “I am yours! If you don’t – want me anymore – if you do not love me – then all I want to do is – die!”
“My absurd, ridiculous darling.”
Now the Marquis’s voice was deep and tender. Yola stopped crying but her fingers clutched at the lapel of his coat.
He turned her face up to his and for a moment he looked at her, at the tears running down her cheeks, at her lips, soft and trembling.
Then his mouth came down on hers and, with a little sob that came from the very depths of her being, she felt her happiness envelop her again and the rapture he always aroused in her rose up from her breast to her lips.
She pressed herself nearer to him, wanting to melt into him, to be his completely. But, still holding her very closely, the Marquis raised his head to say,
“You still have a lot of explaining to do.”
The severity of his words was belied by the gentleness in his voice.
“You are – not still – angry?”
“I ought to be. I am still appalled that you should have done anything so dangerous.”
“I – thought I could – come home if – things got too – difficult.”
“It might have been impossible.”
She knew he was thinking of the moment when he had frightened her in the Café Anglais and she hid her face again because the memory of it made her shy.
The Marquis read her thoughts.
“Exactly!” he said. “It was fortunate, my naughty one, that you were with me and not somebody else.”
He felt Yola shiver and he went on,
“How could I have guessed, how could I have imagined, that anyone in your position would try to trick and deceive me by pretending to belong to a world about which you have no knowledge whatsoever?”
“I – deceived you – at first?”
“I was bewildered from the moment we met,” the Marquis answered. “I knew that you were afraid and that in itself was surprising. You were also inexperienced, unsophisticated and, I finally discovered, very innocent.”
He raised her face once again to his and looked down into her eyes.
“You are so lovely,” he said. “So incredibly, unbelievably beautiful and, when I realised who you were, I knew that nothing could stop me from marrying Marie Teresa de Beauharnais!”
“You knew who I – was before – you arrived here!” Yola said accusingly. “Then – how could you have – acted so – cruelly?”
The Marquis smiled.
“I thought you deserved to be punished for taking such risks and not telling me the truth.”
“I thought – you had – ceased to love me, and I thought the whole – world had fallen to pieces,” Yola whispered.
“I wanted you to feel like that,” the Marquis said. “At the same time, my precious, your punishment is not finished.”
“Why not – if you will – marry me?”
“I intend to do that,” the Marquis answered, “but you realise it will be a long time before you can return to Paris. If no one else, the Prince Napoleon would recognise you.”
“That does not worry me,” Yola replied, “but will – you mind – very much?”
The Marquis smiled.
“I suppose I shall have to make the best of living in the most perfect castle in the world and being married to a naughty adorable wife who does the most unpredictable things.”
“You – will be – happy here?”
“That, of course, remains to be seen,” the Marquis answered.
As if he could not help himself, he kissed her forehead and then her eyes and was seeking her mouth when Yola asked,
“Was it Aimée who told you who I was? If so – it was most disloyal of her.”
“No, it was not Aimée,” the Marquis replied, “and I am sure she would never have betrayed you. It was in fact the Duc.”
“The Duc? But he did not know who I was.”
“He had no idea,” the Marquis agreed, “but after I had left you this morning, intending to catch the train at noon, I was suddenly afraid that the Prince Napoleon m
ight make a nuisance of himself!”
“He did intend to – do so,” Yola said in a low voice. “But go on!”
“I therefore drove to the Duc’s house in the Champs Élysées. I caught him just as he was going riding and I asked him if he would keep an eye on you and make sure that while I was away you did not go anywhere where you might encounter the Prince.”
‘You are going away?’ the Duc questioned. ‘I shall be back tomorrow,’ I answered, ‘but I have to visit Beauharnais Castle’.
‘The most beautiful castle in the Loire valley,’ the Duc said with a smile, ‘and I miss Beauharnais. He was one of the nicest men I have ever known.’
‘There I agree with you,’ I replied. ‘I miss him too.’
‘He had a hell of a life with that tiresome wife,’ the Duc said, ‘but Gabrielle Renazé made him happy – very happy. I suppose you know she is Aimée’s aunt?’
‘Aimée’s aunt?’ I questioned. And in that moment I knew who you were!”
Yola made a little murmur, but she did not interrupt.
“There had always been something about you that puzzled me,” the Marquis went on. “There was something familiar in the way you carried yourself, something in your smile. And then I knew what it was, you were like your father, who I had loved!”
“So that is how you found out!” Yola exclaimed.
“That is how I found out.”
“And it – made you very – angry?”
“Very angry indeed to think that you should take such risks with yourself. Just supposing – ?”
He stopped.
“What is the point of worrying about it?” he asked. “It is over. But I promise you, my precious, you will never again get the chance of doing anything so disgraceful. I shall keep you a prisoner here in The castle and you will be chained to my side.”
“That is – what I want,” Yola replied. “I want to be with – you – always!”
She looked up at him and he saw the pleading expression in her eyes as she asked,
“This has not – spoilt our love? You still – love me?”
“More than anything else in the world.”
“More than The – Castle?”
The Marquis smiled.
“I was prepared to give up The Castle for you, my precious one, but I cannot pretend I am not glad that it is still here for the two of us.”
He turned her round as he spoke so that they could both look at it towering above them. The first gleam of moonlight was turning the towers to silver and glinting on the windows.
Gleaming in the dusk, against the starlit sky, it looked like a precious stone,
“Papa told you it was a – castle made – for – love,” Yola whispered.
“And that is what we will make it,” the Marquis said, “not only for ourselves, my sweetheart, but for those whom we must look after and help, as your father helped me.”
Yola felt tears come into her eyes at the gratitude and affection in his voice.
Then he drew her a little closer to him as he said,
“It must also, my darling, be a home of love for our children.”
“I thought the – same thing. We must have – lots of children – they must never be lonely as I was.”
“You will never be lonely again,” the Marquis asserted positively. “I will love, protect and look after you all my life!”
“That is all I want,” Yola answered. “Oh, Leo, it really is a Fairy story come true! I have found you and you are everything Papa wanted you to be.”
“And I have found my Sleeping Beauty,” the Marquis answered. “It is going to take a whole lifetime to awaken her to the love that is not only part of a Fairy story but part of the glory of the Garden of France.”
Yola thought of Saint Joan and knew that once again she and the Marquis were attuned to each other’s mind. They thought the same and were already the other half of each other.
“I love you with all my heart,” she said passionately, “and you must teach me all the things you want me to feel and to do. I want to love you as your wife and excite you as your mistress, but you must – show me how to do so.”
The Marquis held her closer and there was a glint of fire in his eyes, but there was also an inexpressible tenderness.
“You already excite me, my adorable one,” he said, “but my love for you is far greater than my desire for your exquisite body. I want so much more.”
His lips were very close to Yola’s as he added,
“I want your heart and your mind and your soul. I want to be sure that you are mine – mine completely and absolutely, with every breath you breathe and every thought you think.”
“That is – what I – will give you,” Yola whispered, “and together our love will fill the – whole world – yours and – mine.”
“That is the love we have already,” the Marquis said, “and what could be a more perfect place for us to keep it?”
He looked up for one moment at The Castle.
Then his mouth was on Yola’s, holding her captive, drawing her closer and still closer to him.
She could feel his heart beating and knew that she excited him as she had wished to do.
At the same time there was something sacred in the way he kissed her, a new reverence as she surrendered herself to the passionate insistent demand of his lips.
Then she felt the wild transcendent glory in them both, growing with the blossoms and the flowers, with the silver of the rivers and the starlight in the sky.
With The Castle it enveloped and encircled them, giving them protection and also inspiration and strength and a voice told Yola clearly that this was real love – the love that came from God.
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-Devil Duke
Diona and a Dalmatian
A Shaft of Sunlight
Lies for Love
Love and Lucia
Love and the Loathsome Leopard
Beauty or Brains
The Temptation of Torilla
The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl
Fragrant Flower
Look Listen and Love
The Duke and the Preacher’s Daughter
A Kiss for the King
The Mysterious Maid-servant
Lucky Logan Finds Love
The Wings of Ecstacy
Mission to Monte Carlo
Revenge of the Heart
The Unbreakable Spell
Never Laugh at Love
Bride to a Brigand
Lucifer and the Angel
Journey to a Star
Solita and the Spies
The Chieftain Without a Heart
No Escape from Love
Dollars for the duke
Pure and Untouched
Secrets
Fire in the Blood
Love, Lies and Marriage
The Ghost who Fell in Love
Hungry for Love
The Wild Cry of Love
The Blue-eyed Witch
The Punishment of a Vixen
The Secret of the Glen
Bride to the King
For All Eternity
King in Love
A Marriage made in Heaven
Who can d
eny Love?
Riding to the Moon
Wish for Love
Dancing on a Rainbow
Gypsy Magic
Love in the Clouds
Count the Stars
White Lilac
Too Precious to Lose
The Devil Defeated
An Angel Runs Away
The Duchess Disappeared
The Pretty Horse-breakers
The Prisoner of Love
Ola and the Sea Wolf
The Castle made for Love
A Heart is Stolen
The Love Pirate
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.
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