104. the Glittering Lights

by Barbara Cartland

  It was a riding dress rather than a skirt and jacket and was what all the fashionable lady riders had taken to wearing in the warmer months of the year.

  The plain black of the material, with just a touch of white at the throat and wrists, was severe and yet extremely becoming to Cassandra.

  As she dressed herself hastily, she had no time to notice the translucent whiteness of her skin or how her red hair, braided neatly around her head to wear under the black topper, glowed in the morning sunshine.

  Instead she tucked a handkerchief into the pocket of her skirt and only as she turned to run back to the Duke the way she had come did she wonder what she should do about her clothes and jewellery.

  As if he anticipated that this was the question she would ask, or perhaps their minds were so attuned to each other that he knew what she was thinking, he answered the question as soon as she reappeared in the sitting room.

  “You have been very quick,” he said approvingly. “Don’t worry about your other things. I have left a note with my valet to have them all packed and taken to London with mine.”

  “Then can we go?” Cassandra asked.

  “At once,” he replied with a smile.

  Despite the fact that she supposed everyone must still be sleeping so early in the morning, Cassandra tiptoed along the corridor behind the Duke.

  He ignored the wide staircase that led down into the hall and instead led the way down several corridors until they came to another narrower staircase.

  Descending it, the Duke continued through less formal parts of the house until finally they emerged into the open through a door off the kitchen, finding that it was only a few minutes away from the stables.

  The Duke ordered the horses he required with an authority that Cassandra thought would have infuriated Lord Carwen if he had known what was happening.

  Two magnificent horses, one a black stallion, the other a roan, were saddled and brought by the grooms into the yard.

  The Duke said nothing, but Cassandra, seeing the expression on his face, exclaimed,

  “They were yours!”

  “Yes,” he answered briefly, “they were mine.”

  The grooms were listening and Cassandra could say no more.

  She wondered why the Duke had sold his animals to Lord Carwen rather than put them up at Tattersalls.

  She could not help feeling that, if her father had seen either of these horses and known to whom they belonged, he would have been willing to pay a very large price for them.

  But what was important at the moment was that they should be clean away from the house and its owner.

  Once they were out of the Park, the Duke led the way over the fields into the open countryside. Since their horses were fresh, they both realised that the first thing to do was to give them their heads.

  They must have galloped for nearly two miles before the horses automatically slowed their pace and Cassandra looked at the Duke with laughter in her eyes.

  “That has swept away the morning mists!”

  “And your fears?”

  “For the moment.”

  He looked at her shining eyes and flushed cheeks, as he said,

  “You ride better than any woman I have ever seen. I was half-afraid that Juno would be too strong for you to hold, but I see that I need have had no anxiety on that score.”

  “Where are we going?” Cassandra asked.

  “To my home,” the Duke answered. “I want you to see it.”

  “I would love that!”

  As she spoke with a little lilt in her voice, she remembered the long article about Alchester Park that she had cut out from an illustrated magazine and stuck into her album.

  Now at last she would see the house she had read so much about and which was the birthplace and the background of the man she loved.

  When they had ridden for another hour, the Duke suggested,

  “Do you see that inn ahead of us? I think we would both enjoy breakfast. I know I am hungry!”

  “So am I,” Cassandra agreed.

  The inn with a thatched roof stood on the edge of a village green.

  The landlord was not unnaturally surprised to receive such obviously important guests so early in the morning, but ushered Cassandra and the Duke into a small private parlour where a maid-servant quickly kindled the fire.

  There was a mirror on one wall of the room and, going towards it, Cassandra took off her hat and tidied away the small tendrils of red-gold curls that had escaped from the tidy plaits.

  Then she sat down at the round table opposite the Duke and the landlord came hurrying in with eggs and bacon, home-cured ham and a huge pork pie, besides newly-baked bread, honey in the comb and a huge pat of golden butter.

  “I’m afraid we’ve only simple fare to offer you, sir,” he said to the Duke.

  “It looks very palatable,” the Duke replied agreeably.

  He refused ale or cider and instead drank the fragrant coffee that had been brewed for Cassandra.

  “Food always tastes good when one has taken exercise,” Cassandra said. “I have not eaten such a big breakfast since I was last out hunting.”

  She realised as she spoke that it was hardly in character for an actress to hunt. But the words were spoken and she could not unsay them.

  To cover the slip she had made she went on hastily,

  “I think perhaps I am hungry mostly because I am so relieved to get away from that horrible house and those even more horrible people. I thought when we arrived last night that it would be interesting to study them and see what they were like. I know now that I never want to see any of them again.”

  “Why were they such a surprise?” the Duke asked.

  “I suppose I did not realise – before that women who are born – ladies, like Mrs. Langtry and Lady McDonald, would go everywhere with a man who was – not their – husband.”

  The Duke did not say anything, but his eyes were on her face.

  After a moment Cassandra said almost as if she was talking to herself,

  “My father told me that gentlemen liked to take pretty actresses out to supper and give them presents. I thought it was just because she was – beautiful that Mrs. Langtry had so many – diamonds, but – perhaps that is not the only – reason.”

  “Why did you think Lord Carwen was offering you the diamond bracelet?” the Duke asked quietly.

  Cassandra tried to meet his eyes and failed.

  Looking down at the table she said,

  “I heard you asking him – last night if he had – suggested to – me that I become his – mistress.”

  Her voice trembled before she went on,

  “I did not – understand that was – what he meant.”

  “What does your father do?” the Duke enquired.

  Once again it seemed to Cassandra that he was changing the subject for some reason of his own.

  She wondered wildly what her reply should be.

  It was obvious that the Duke did not suppose her father was a gentleman of leisure as were the majority of his acquaintances.

  “Father has some – land,” she answered at length. It was not a very adequate way of describing the twenty thousand acres that Sir James Sherburn owned.

  “So he farms?” the Duke said.

  Cassandra nodded. That at least was true.

  “Then you did not go on the stage because you needed the money. Was it because you found the country dull and you wanted excitement?”

  Cassandra did not answer.

  She had suddenly felt ashamed of the part she had acted to deceive the Duke. She wanted to tell him the truth and yet she could not bring herself to do so.

  He had said yesterday that he was in love with her, but he had not said it again.

  Last night when she had been so frightened, he had treated her as he was treating her now, as if he was her brother rather than a man in love.

  She rose from the table and walked across the room to the mirror, picking up her hat as she did so
from the chair on which she had left it.

  “I think we should be going,” she said. “You said we had a long ride. I suppose we are returning to London tonight?”

  “Were you expecting to do anything else?” the Duke asked.

  “No, of course not,” Cassandra said quickly.

  The Duke paid for their breakfast and they mounted their horses in the yard and set off again.

  There was no more beautiful time of year, Cassandra thought, than spring. The buds on the trees were vividly green and were echoed in the colour of the young grass in the meadows.

  They rode through woods where there were violets shyly showing their purple and white heads from under the dark-green leaves and primroses on the mossy banks were sunshine yellow.

  There were anemones so fragile they seemed like fairy flowers against the trunks of the dark pine or the white of the silver birch.

  They rode beside streams winding their way beneath weeping willows. Sometimes there were purple hills in the distance and at others flat lush valleys where fat cows grazed contentedly.

  Just as Cassandra was beginning to think that it was time for another meal, they rode between two high iron gates with heraldic stone lions rampant on either side of them. Ahead lay a long drive lined with ancient oak trees.

  It was obvious that the drive was untended, half-covered with moss, and no one had swept away the broken branches that had fallen in the winter gales or cut the grass beneath the trees.

  The trees ended and ahead of them she saw Alchester Park!

  It had appeared large and awe-inspiring in its pictures, but in reality it had a warmth that could not be translated into pen and ink.

  The brown red bricks it had been built with in the reign of Queen Elizabeth had mellowed with age and glowed rosy in the sun.

  There were towers and chimney pots silhouetted against the sky, glittering diamond-paned windows and a wide flight of ancient stone steps led up to the great oak door with its huge ornamental hinges and studded with iron nails.

  “It is lovely!” Cassandra exclaimed. “Far lovelier than I expected.”

  The lawns surrounding the house were not as smooth as they should have been and were badly in need of cutting, but Cassandra realised that if they were tended they would look like velvet.

  The almond trees were in bloom as were the yellow jasmine flowers climbing over the red brick walls of what she suspected might be a herb garden.

  The Duke had drawn his horse to a standstill, but he made no effort to dismount.

  He sat for a moment gazing at the house and then he said,

  “I think we had best take our horses to the stables. It is doubtful if anyone will have heard us arrive. Most of the few servants I have left are deaf anyway.”

  He turned the stallion’s head as he spoke and trotted ahead of Cassandra until they came to the stables situated on the West side of the house.

  Here there were long rows of stalls, which Cassandra could see were empty.

  When the Duke shouted, an old groom emerged from one of them. His eyes lit up when he saw the Duke and he touched his forelock respectfully.

  “’Mornin’, Your Grace. I did not know you was a-comin’ home today.”

  “Neither did I,” the Duke replied, “and I am not staying. See to these horses, Ned. We shall be needing them later this afternoon.”

  “Why, ’tis Juno and Pegasus!” the old man exclaimed delightedly, “’tis fine to see ’em again, Your Grace.”

  “I am afraid they will not be staying with us,” the Duke said and his voice was hard.

  He helped Cassandra down from the saddle and for a moment she was in his arms, but she knew that he was thinking not of her but of his horses.

  Because she could not bear to see the pain in his eyes, she walked ahead of him towards the house.

  They went in through a side door that was open and the Duke took her down a passage that led into the main hall.

  The panelling was the beautiful silver-grey of oak that has matured over the years. The sun coming through the heraldic Coats-of-Arms on the glass windows cast strange shadows on the floor.

  It gave the place a mystic appearance and the whole house seemed to Cassandra to have an atmosphere that was sweet, calm and happy.

  She looked at the exquisitely carved oak staircase curving up to the floor above.

  The heraldic newels on the staircase had once been painted in brilliant colours. Now they were scratched and faded, but they still had an inescapable charm that nothing new could have equalled.

  “I expect you would like to wash,” the Duke said. “You will find a bedroom at the top of the staircase. I will go and order something for luncheon.”

  Cassandra walked up the staircase. It was so beautiful that she felt she should be wearing a gown of satin with an Elizabethan ruff high against her red hair and long strings of huge pearls.

  The bedroom too was lovely.

  Beneath a painted ceiling a carved four-poster bed was hung with embroidered curtains. The walls were papered in a Chinese design and the pelmets above the curtains had strange golden birds rioting amongst exotic flowers.

  It was, however, impossible not to notice that the carpet was threadbare and the curtains were torn and faded at the sides until there was no colour left.

  There seemed also to be a sparsity of furniture that Cassandra guessed had once stood against the walls.

  She took off her hat and washed her face and hands in the china basin, which stood on an elegant washstand carved in peach-wood.

  As she did so, she suddenly realised that in her hurry to be away from the house she had put no colour on her lips nor had she used any powder.

  ‘I doubt if he will notice,’ she told herself.

  At the same time when she looked in the mirror she realised that she now looked younger than when she had been using cosmetics.

  She was still looking at herself when she heard a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” she said, thinking that it might be a housemaid.

  But it was the Duke.

  “I thought you might like to take off your riding boots,” he said, “so I have brought you a jack.”

  Cassandra saw that he held in his hand a wooden jack, which every horseman used to facilitate the removal of high boots.

  “Oh, thank you!” Cassandra exclaimed.

  The Duke set the jack down on the floor and then, as Cassandra walked towards it, she exclaimed,

  “But I have no slippers with me!”

  “I did not think of that!” the Duke said, “but I am sure I can find you a pair.”

  He disappeared. Cassandra pulled off her long boots and knew that she would be more comfortable without them.

  Equally she thought that she would feel embarrassed at walking about without any slippers on her feet.

  She had been waiting for several minutes when the Duke returned.

  He walked in through the open door holding in his hands a pair of heelless black slippers with a little rosette on the front of them, very similar to a pair that Cassandra owned herself.

  “I am sure these will fit you,” he said confidently.

  Then, as she looked at them, Cassandra suddenly wondered who they had belonged to.

  He was a bachelor and the behaviour of the women in the house party last night came flooding into her mind.

  She felt suddenly that she could not – she would not wear the shoes of some other woman, perhaps an actress whom the Duke had brought to his home.

  “I don’t want them!” she said turning her head away.

  The Duke looked at her averted face in surprise.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “I don’t – wish to wear – them.”

  He dropped the shoes into the seat of a chair as he advanced towards Cassandra. He took her by the shoulders and turned her round to face him.

  “Why do you speak like that?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”

  Then suddenly he gave a little
laugh.

  “You are jealous! Oh, my foolish ridiculous darling, you are jealous! But I promise you there is no need for you to be.”

  He pulled her close against him until as he tipped back her head, his mouth was on hers.

  Just for a moment Cassandra was still with surprise.

  Then, as her lips were soft beneath the hardness of his, she felt something strange and wonderful flicker into life and rise into her throat so that it was almost impossible to breathe.

  It was an ecstasy, a wonder like nothing she had ever imagined. She felt as if the sun flooded into the room and enveloped them in a blinding light.

  She could think of nothing except that the Duke was kissing her and that was what she had always known it would be like.

  It was a moment so ecstatic, so glorious, so utterly and completely wonderful that, when at last he raised his head and looked down into her face, she was unable to move.

  “I love you!” he said in his deep voice. “Oh, my sweet, my darling, how much I love you!”

  She felt that she vibrated at the sound of his voice and then with a little inarticulate murmur, she turned her face and hid it against his shoulder.

  “I feel as if I have loved you through all eternity,” he said, “as if you have always been there in my life. Look at me, Sandra.”

  She was unable to obey and very gently he put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.

  “Why are you shy?”

  “I always – thought that if you – kissed me it would be –wonderful,” she whispered, “but not so – unbelievably – glorious!”

  He looked at her searchingly and yet the expression in his eyes was very gentle.

  “I would believe, if it were not incredible, that this is the first time you have been kissed!”

  “The – only – time!” Cassandra whispered.

  “But why?” he asked.

  As if the question was superfluous, his lips found hers again.

  He kissed her demandingly, insistently, and with a passion that made her feel as if he drew her very heart from her body and made it his.

  Then, as she felt herself quiver with the thrills that ran through her like quicksilver, the Duke released her.

  He took his arms from around her so quickly that she had to hold on to him to steady herself.