“You are very brave,” Lord Eustace sneered. “Supposing I raise the alarm and tell everybody that I caught you substituting fakes for the Duke’s pictures?”
Tempera paused for a moment to think, but she had the answer.
“It will be quite easy for me to prove that I have never had enough money to get in touch with any forger and buy fake pictures,” she said quietly. “Any accusation against me would involve the minutest investigation, as you are well aware, and it could be proved, I am quite certain that I am not in the same need of money as you are.”
“You think you have all the answers,” Lord Eustace replied. “It is a pity that I have no time to listen to your life story. It should be enlightening.”
The way he spoke made Tempera look at him a little uncertainly. He reached out his hand and took the picture from her.
“You will not need this where you are going,” he said. He put it down on the nearest chair.
Then before Tempera realised what was happening, before she could try to struggle or run away, he had placed his hand roughly over her mouth, and at the same time put his other arm round her and lifted her off her feet.
“Dead men tell no tales,” he said and now there was a jeering note in his voice, “and a dead lady’s maid will not evoke even a ripple of interest!”
It was then that Tempera realised what he was about to do.
She began to struggle violently and frantically, striving at the same time to scream, but it was impossible.
He was very strong, and his hand covering her mouth forced back her head at an angle which rendered her helpless.
She struck at him with her bare hands but knew their impact against his chest and shoulders was ineffective and all the time relentlessly he was carrying her towards the open window.
“This should teach you not to interfere in other people’s concerns,” he said mockingly.
She felt the window ledge hard against her body as he pushed her head outside turning her face downwards.
She saw in one terrifying glance the sheer precipice beneath her, the drop which would land her far below onto the rocks.
This was utter destruction. This was death.
She stretched out her arms to clutch the sides of the window, holding frantically onto the frame, knowing as Lord Eustace took his hand from her mouth to loosen her grip that she was as ineffectual and helpless as a doll.
With what she thought was her last breath she screamed, but only a ghost-like sound came from between her lips. Then as he pulled away her clutching fingers, as she felt him tip her further out of the window, there was a sudden noise of voices.
Even as Tempera waited to fall and could almost feel the pain of it, hands were on her waist dragging her back. For a moment everything spun dizzily round her and she felt as if her heart stopped beating.
Then she was close in someone’s arms and she knew who unbelievably, incredibly, at the very last moment had saved her.
But she was too shaken and too frightened for the moment to be aware of anything except that she was not to die and the rocks were no longer there beneath her.
Someone spoke above her head, but she could not understand what was being said, she only knew that she had been saved and who had saved her.
She was trembling, her eyes were closed and her face was buried against the Duke’s shoulder as he lifted her in his arms.
She felt him carry her into the Sitting Room to set her down on the sofa, but she held onto him frantically.
She could not let him go, could not be sure that death was not waiting for her, and that even now she would not fall to be battered to death on the rocks at the bottom of the precipice.
“It is all right,” she heard him say. “It is all right. You are safe.”
It was then, as if in the utter relief of knowing she did not have to die, that the tears came and she began to cry. She felt his arms tighten and he said,
“You are safe, my darling, you are safe, no-one shall ever hurt you again!”
She thought she must be dreaming and it was part of her imagination, but she felt his lips against her forehead and raised her face with the tears running down her cheeks, to look up at him.
“How could you have done anything so dangerous as to try to put the pictures back?” the Duke said.
“Y – you – knew they had – gone?”
It was hard to recognise her own voice – it was so hoarse – and she was still trembling with fear.
“I knew it before I went out to dinner tonight,” the Duke answered. “The Count realised as soon as he looked at the Raphael that it was a fake.”
“I did not – know Lord Eustace had – taken that one until I – f – found them in his – room,” Tempera said.
“Why did you not come at once and tell me what you had discovered?” the Duke asked. “My precious, I would not have had you involved in anything like this.”
Tempera’s eyes in the moonlight, still misty with tears, looked up into his.
“Wh – what are you – saying to – me?” she asked.
The Duke smiled.
“Do I really need to tell you that I have loved you from the first moment I saw you? You are Leonardo da Vinci’s angel I have been trying to find all my life.”
Tempera drew in her breath.
“You – did think – there was a – resemblance?” she stammered.
“I saw it the first time I found you in the garden.”
He turned his head as he spoke, as if to look behind him, and Tempera realised that the connecting door between the Sitting Room and the room from which he had rescued her was closed.
As if he felt an explanation was necessary the Duke said,
“We can leave Lord Eustace to the Count. All I am concerned about is you, my precious one.”
Then before Tempera could reply, before she could really understand what was happening, the Duke bent his head and his lips took possession of hers.
For a moment she felt only surprise, then like the feeling she had for the ‘Madonna in the Church’, the beauty and wonder of it drew her soul from her body so that it became his.
He drew her closer and closer until it was impossible to think, she could only feel.
The fear, the terror, the world itself disappeared and there was only the Duke, the closeness of him and a glory that came from the moonlight which enveloped them both.
It was so spiritual, so perfect that Tempera felt she must have died and was now in Heaven.
This was what she had longed for. This was love as she had always known it would be.
This was a happiness which was a light to the heart.
Chapter Seven
Tempera walked through the gardens of the Villa Caravargio in Rome, moving between the exquisite statuary posed against the cypress trees.
She was wearing a gown of deep blue chiffon which might have stepped from the pictures of a master painter and which toned in with the flowers which grew in profusion over the stone balustrade and round the plinths of the statues.
It was the moment when the sun was going down and a golden light hovered above Rome and at the same time seeming to rise from it.
As she reached the part of the garden from which there was one of the finest views in all the world, she would see below her the whole City laid out like a child’s toy. The Dome of St. Peter’s was silhouetted against the golden sky.
Gradually an upsurge of red light spread in the west and moved up to blend with the dark blue of the dying summer’s day.
She responded to the beauty of it, while at the same time her heart was vibrating to the knowledge that in a short while, perhaps in a few minutes, the Duke would have arrived from France and be with her.
She had felt she could not bear to meet him inside the Villa but must be alone when he came to her, surrounded by the loveliness that she knew would be a part of their lives.
It seemed impossible to believe that only a week ago she had escaped death by seconds and sh
e had been pulled back from destruction to know an almost unearthly happiness in the Duke’s arms.
She relived in her mind the precious memory of how he had kissed her and she felt that no-one could experience such ecstasy and not die at the wonder of it.
Then he had asked, his voice curiously unsteady,
“When will you marry me, my darling?”
It was at that moment for the first time since he had saved her that she came back to the reality of the situation.
“Y – you cannot – you must not – it is wrong – ” she began to stammer incoherently.
He understood what she was trying to say and smiled.
“I should be proud and very honoured to marry the daughter of my father’s friend, Sir Francis Rothley.”
“You – knew?”
He smiled and pulled her closer to him.
“When I saw you first in the garden and found incredibly that you were the Leonardo da Vinci angel I had been trying to find all my life, I fell in love with you, my sweet.”
He paused to say,
“No – that is not true. I have loved you since I was nine years old, but that is a story I will tell you later.”
Tempera made a little sound and he went on,
“But I knew that you were mine, that you belonged to me, that nothing should keep us apart. That, my precious, was what I felt in my heart, but my brain made me behave a little more sensibly.”
Tempera looked up at him wide-eyed, her head against his shoulder and he continued,
“Because of my possessions, many of them as you know irreplaceable, I have a very efficient method of security.” He smiled as he continued, “When I telegraphed London for information about Lady Rothley’s lady’s maid I was informed that she did not have one but that she was accompanied to the South of France by her stepdaughter – Miss Tempera Rothley.”
“So that was how you – knew who I was really – ”
“Yes, my darling, that was how I knew, but because you wished it I let you continue with your deception.”
“I did not tell – you about the – pictures,” Tempera murmured, “because I thought it would – harm Belle-mère for people to learn I was acting as her – lady’s maid.”
“That was understandable except that it exposed you to a danger I cannot bear to think about.”
She heard the throb in the Duke’s voice and because it moved her she hid her face against him whispering,
“I am – safe now.”
“As you always will be,” the Duke replied. “I will never let you out of my sight, and if any man tries again to hurt you I will kill him!”
As if Lord Eustace was recalled to her mind by the violence of his words, Tempera looked towards the closed door.
“He will never harm you again,” the Duke said.
“If there is an – enquiry people will know about – me and it might – damage Belle-mère.”
“It is so like you, my lovely one, to think of everyone but yourself,” the Duke said. “But I am sure the Count will find a solution. At the moment I can only think of your lips.”
His mouth held her captive and it was impossible to think of anything but him.
The Count when he joined them was, Tempera learnt, prepared to deal with everything very effectively.
He kissed her on the cheek and said,
“From the position in which I find you in Velde’s arms I imagine I have to congratulate him as he has to congratulate me.”
“I am so happy about Belle-mère.”
“And I am happy about you,” he answered. “It is everything your father would have wished for you.”
He spoke so sincerely that Tempera found there were tears in her eyes as she replied,
“I am very, very – lucky!”
“You have taken the words out of my mouth,” the Duke said. “I am the lucky one.”
“I think we are all very fortunate people,” the Count said, “but we have to be sensible – to create a scandal is unthinkable.”
“What have you done with Eustace?” the Duke asked.
“I have told him to leave your house within the hour,” the Count replied, “and that unless he journeys to South Africa to join his father you will take proceedings against him not only for theft but also for attempted murder!”
Tempera gave a little cry of protest, and the Count said,
“Do not be alarmed. I meant to frighten him and I have succeeded. He will do as I have suggested because he has no alternative.”
“You are sure he will obey you?” the Duke asked.
“I am certain of it,” the Count replied, and his voice was grim. “I have told Eustace that he is not to set foot in Europe for five years. I am certain these are not the first fake pictures he has substituted for originals. I will put in hand an immediate investigation.”
“You see, my darling,” the Duke said to Tempera, “I told you we could leave everything in Vincenzo’s capable hands.”
It was indeed the Count who had planned everything. Lady Rothley and her lady’s maid had left the Chateau a day earlier than was first intended and were on the train for Italy by midday.
The Count accompanied them. Only when the train had steamed out of the station did Tempera move from the Second Class compartment into which the Duke’s servants had put her with the hand luggage to join her stepmother and the Count in their reserved carriage.
It was a journey that seemed to be brilliant with happiness – the Count and Lady Rothley were both radiant, and Tempera read over and over again the note which the Duke had given her before she left.
In it he expressed his love so eloquently that she almost felt as if he were beside her.
“Velde will join us in Italy as soon as he can leave his house party without showing undue haste,” the Count explained. “His excuse will be that he wishes to be at our wedding, and indeed we are very anxious that he should be there and you, my dear Tempera, will be waiting for him.”
The joy in Tempera’s eyes told him what she thought of this arrangement.
She arrived in Rome looking rather drab because she had only the clothes she had brought from London. Within twenty-four hours the chrysalis, as she told herself, was transformed into a butterfly.
The Count ordered the best dressmakers in Rome to come to the Villa and provided her with such an exquisite trousseau that she felt the Duke might find it impossible to recognise her.
When she protested at the Count’s almost overwhelming generosity he laughed and said,
“It is part of my wedding present to you, and may I say that I can never be grateful enough for your father’s friendship and for your kindness and sweetness to my future wife.”
If Tempera was ecstatically happy at the thought of her own future she was equally sure that her Stepmother had found the one man who could make her happy.
The Count treated Lady Rothley not as a child, as her father had done, but as something so precious that he must protect her from everything that was harsh and ugly, disagreeable or disturbing.
“All you have to do, mia bella,” Tempera heard him say once, “is to look beautiful, so that you fill my eyes to the exclusion of all else.”
“I am so happy, so terribly happy!” Lady Rothley said every night when she kissed Tempera goodnight. “How could we ever guess, you and I, when we set off for the South of France that we were really embarking on a journey to Paradise?”
That, Tempera thought, was what it would be when she married the Duke, and now as she waited for him she could feel her heart beating faster because every second she drew nearer to the moment when they would be together.
The golden glow over the city of Rome had darkened as had the blue sky. High above the cypress trees the first evening star began to shimmer as if it forced its way through a translucent veil.
This, Tempera thought, was the perfect moment when the streets, strangely luminous in the dusk, were coloured pink as if they had soaked up the sun and would store it until
morning.
The fading light glowed from walls of saffron, rose-red and peach, and the pavements shone almost as though the lava remembered prehistoric fires.
St. Peter’s’ dome was now purple across the Tiber and first one church bell and then another cast a silver note into the air.
The bells of Rome were ringing the Angelus – the Ave Maria – and another day of Italian life had passed.
But for Tempera life was beginning.
She heard a step behind her and although her whole body became tense she did not turn but waited shyly for him as she felt she had waited from the moment she was born.
He came to her side, and she heard his deep voice ask,
“Are you real? Or are you the angel I have always been seeking and who now I have found in the country to which she belongs?”
Tempera smiled and turned her face.
Then because he was better-looking, larger and more overpowering even than she remembered, she found it hard to move.
She looked up into his eyes and thought they held a touch of fire from the last glow of the sinking sun.
“I love you!” the Duke said. “I could not believe that days could pass so slowly until I saw you again.”
He put out his arms as he spoke and drew her close to him, then his lips were on hers.
He was part of the golden glow over the City, part of the dusk, the statues and the cypress trees – they were encompassed by the spiritual wonder they had felt when they looked at the picture they both loved.
“I love you ! I love you!”
Tempera was not certain if she said the words or they were spoken in her heart, but she knew the Duke could hear them.
He raised his head and with his arms enfolding her drew her closer to the stone balustrade so that they could look down together at the silver ribbon of the Tiber moving slowly past the Churches, Castles, domes and towers.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “we will attend your stepmother’s wedding, and afterwards, my darling heart, I have arranged ours.”
“Tomorrow?” Tempera asked.
“I cannot wait any longer,” the Duke answered, “and we are going to spend our honeymoon, you and I, looking at some of the famous pictures of Italy which will speak to us as your father said they would.”
Look Listen and Love Page 14