“I can imagine nothing more – wonderful than to – look with you and listen to what they have to say,” Tempera replied.
“We will finish our tour of the masterpieces of Italy in Florence,” the Duke continued. “And when finally we start the journey home we will stop in Paris to see your portrait in the Louvre.”
Tempera gave a little cry of happiness, then she said “Papa showed it to me when I was ten years old, and told me that one day I would resemble the angel, but I thought no-one else would ever see the likeness.”
The Duke drew her closer to him and his lips were on the softness of her cheek before he said,
“I was nine, a year younger, when my father took me and half-a-dozen other boys, mostly cousins, to the Louvre. There was a painter he was trying to help, Antonia was his name, and he told us that if we each chose a picture we liked he would paint a reproduction of it for us to hang in our bedrooms.”
Tempera held her breath. She knew what was coming.
“My playmates had a variety of different tastes,” the Duke went on, “most of them liking battles, some preferring allegorical pictures. But I remember one of my cousins rather surprised my father because he asked for Boucher’s ‘The Birth of Diana.’”
He kissed Tempera’s cheek again as he said,
“You know already what I chose.”
“The picture that is on the wall in your Chateau.”
“When we reached Leonardo da Vinci’s painting,” the Duke said, “I pointed to it and told my father, ‘That is what I want!’”
“‘It is a big picture!’ Antonia grumbled. ‘It will take me a long time.”
“‘I do not want the whole picture,’ I replied. ‘Just the angel!’”
“My father was surprised. ‘Just the angel, Velde, but why?’” ‘No-one could be more beautiful!’ I answered, and my father said no more.”
“I have always wished that I could be even half as beautiful,” Tempera murmured.
“It will take me a lifetime to tell you, my darling,” the Duke answered, “not only how beautiful you are, but how grateful I am to the fates that I have found you.”
He drew in his breath before he said, “I could hardly credit you were real when you turned towards me in the garden with that half-smile on your lips and the light in your eyes that da Vinci had painted 500 years ago.”
“I loved you as – soon as I saw – you,” Tempera said in a low voice, “though I would not admit it to myself. But when we were together in the moonlight I felt as if there was no need for words between us, and although you did not – touch me I felt as if I were in your – arms.”
She blushed as she spoke and would have hidden her face against him, but the Duke put his fingers under her little pointed chin and lifted her face up to his.
“We have found each other,” he said, “that is all that matters. I know everything you think, my darling, everything you feel because they are my feelings and my thoughts too.”
“Did you know that I was in – danger?” Tempera asked.
She relived for a second that terrifying moment when she had looked down at the precipice beneath her and knew she would die on the rocks.
“I had gone to bed but I could not sleep,” the Duke answered. “That was nothing new – I had lain awake thinking of you ever since I found you in the garden. But that night it was almost as if you were calling to me, telling me you were worried.”
“I thought you – hated me for what you – thought I had – done,” Tempera said in a low voice.
She had not meant to speak of that agonising moment when the Duke had seen her on the stairs coming down from Lord Eustace’s bedroom, but now she felt there must be no secrets between them.
“Forgive me, my Dearest Dream,” the Duke pleaded. “It was only for one crazy instant that I was blinded by jealousy. Then when I came from Lady Holcombe’s room I looked for you, knowing that to doubt your purity and innocence was to defame my love.”
Tempera heard the pain in his voice and knew that it hurt him to speak of what he must have thought of as a betrayal of everything they both held sacred.
“You had gone,” the Duke said, “but I meant to find you the next day, however cleverly you hid yourself.”
“I was – determined that you would not – find me.”
“I would have found you. Nothing would have kept me from you,” he said firmly.
She thought he would kiss her but although his lips brushed hers he went on as if his story must have an ending.
“When the Count came to my room to tell me that Eustace had gone downstairs, I knew then that you had discovered just as we had that some of the pictures were fakes and that that alone was the explanation of your being in the Tower.”
“I thought it was safe to search while the servants were having dinner,” Tempera explained, “but I was only looking for the ‘Madonna in the Church’.”
“It was very perceptive of you to realise that that was a fake,” the Duke exclaimed. “Vincenzo says that one is the best copy of the three and he is certain that it would deceive most experts.”
“It did not deceive me,” Tempera said, “because the feeling I had and which – you had too – was not there.”
“It was amazingly clever of you, my precious,” the Duke said. “The Count noticed first the Raphael, then the Christus.”
“And you were sure it was Lord Eustace?”
“There was no-one else in need of money – except yourself.”
“And you did not suspect me?”
“Not for a moment,” he said. “No-one could look like my angel, my very own angel, and be anything but perfect.”
Tempera blushed and he went on,
“The Count and I decided that we must catch Eustace red-handed. It would have been useless just to confront him with the theft. He would only have denied it and we had no proof. But we assumed that even if he had already disposed of his first haul, he would be greedy enough to take others.”
“He had brought only three fakes with him,” Tempera said.
“We know that now,” the Duke answered, “but we were waiting, thinking he would go downstairs, and when he did so the Count, as arranged, came to my room and we followed him.”
“To – save me,” Tempera whispered.
“Even now I can hardly bear to think that if we had been a few seconds later I would have lost you,” the Duke said. He made a sound that was half a groan, then he was kissing her wildly, passionately, frantically as if even now he was not certain she was safe.
His lips were fierce and demanding but she was not afraid.
This was love as she had always known it would be, not only spiritual, but also fierce and tempestuous, burning with the heat of the sun as well as the silver serenity of the moon.
The fire within the Duke lit an answering flame within herself and she felt as if her whole body came alive to glow with a radiance and luminosity that was part of the Divine.
The Duke kissed her until she felt as if he carried her up towards the stars overhead and they were part of them. Then when he raised his lips from hers he said,
“Tomorrow night you will be mine and I can prove my love, my precious one. It is so complete, so overwhelming, that only when we are man and wife will I be able to express the depth, height and breadth of it.”
“I want to – belong to you. I want to be with – you.” Her voice was almost as passionate as his.
“You are so lovely, my darling heart,” the Duke said, “but we both know there is something between us that is more important than beauty, something indefinable, and yet very real.”
She saw him smile as he added,
“Your father told you to look and listen, which we will always do together – but he forgot to add one other word – a word which is the most important of all.”
“What is that?” Tempera asked.
“We will look, listen – and love!” the Duke answered. “All I ask of the future, my precious angel, i
s that we shall do those three things together.”
“It is what I want – too,” Tempera wished to say but his lips were on hers and it was impossible to speak.
She could only look at him with her eyes – listen to him with her heart and love him completely with her soul and her body.
She was his and he was hers for all eternity.
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 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.
LOOK, LISTEN AND LOVE
Barbara Cartland
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2012
Copyright Cartland Promotions 1977
eBook conversion by M-Y Books
Table of Contents
Cover
Author’s Note
Chapter One 1904
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND
Look Listen and Love Page 15