Rescued by Love

by Barbara Cartland

  As she entered, she saw, sitting on the sofa by the fireplace that were two men, her brother and the Viscount.

  They both rose as she came into the room.

  As the door closed behind her, she wondered why Ivor had sent for her in such a peremptory manner.

  She walked towards him and Ivor put out his hands and took hers.

  “My dearest,” he began. “I have some good news for you. I am very happy to tell you that his Lordship, the Viscount Pendleton, has asked for your hand in marriage. And it is with the greatest pleasure I have told him on your behalf that you will be his wife!”

  For a moment Weena just stared at her brother in sheer astonishment.

  Then, as she saw the expression on the Viscount’s rather ugly face and the glint in his eyes, she felt the whole horror of the prospect sweep over her.

  With a cry that seemed to almost echo round the room, she pulled her hand away from her brother’s and ran towards the door.

  As she pulled it open, she heard Ivor calling after her,

  “Weena, don’t be so ridiculous! Come back here!”

  She ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  As she reached the stairs, she started to run down them frantically.

  She had no idea where she was going.

  She only knew that it was impossible and she could not marry the Viscount. But she was afraid, desperately afraid, that her brother would force her.

  As she was halfway down the staircase, a servant was just opening the front door and a man came in.

  He was wearing evening clothes and he took off his top hat to hand it to one of the footmen in attendance.

  When she could see him more clearly in the light from the candles, Weena realised who he was.

  As she reached the last three stairs, she ran down them.

  Realising exactly who the newcomer was, she flung herself against him.

  “David! David!” she cried. “Save me! Save me!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  For a moment David stiffened as if he could hardly believe what was happening.

  Then he put his arms round her and took her out through the front door which was not quite closed.

  There was a smart carriage outside and a footman, who had obviously just opened the door for the occupant, was now climbing back on to his seat beside the coachman.

  “Stop!” David shouted.

  As the coachman pulled at the horses who were just beginning to move, the footman jumped down and opened the door of the carriage.

  Weena was still clinging to David.

  He picked her up in his arms and put her into the carriage.

  Then he climbed in beside her.

  As the footman waited for orders, David called out,

  “Carter, first drive slowly through Hyde Park and then go back home.”

  The footman closed the door and climbed up to his seat and the horses set off.

  It was then that Weena, who had been hiding her face on David’s shoulder, cried,

  “How could you be here just when I wanted you? I thought I would never see you again, David. Oh, David!”

  “I have been cursing myself endlessly for leaving you on the ship without finding out where you would be staying in London,” David replied.

  “I missed you, I missed you so so much,” Weena whispered.

  “As I missed you,” David answered.

  He had one arm round her and now he very gently raised her face from his shoulder.

  “You are so lovely and so beautiful,” he murmured. “How could I have been such a fool as to let you go?”

  He did not wait for an answer as his lips found hers.

  As he kissed her, Weena knew in her heart that this was what she had been waiting for and longing for.

  She loved him not only with her body but with her soul.

  David kissed her for what seemed a long time.

  Then, holding her closely in his arms, he said,

  “Forgive me! Forgive me for being so stupid and leaving you as I did. I have suffered every moment of the day and night since I let you go.”

  “And I thought only of you,” Weena sighed.

  “Now tell me what has upset you, my darling,” he asked. “From what do I have to save you this time?”

  “From marrying a man who Ivor has chosen for me because he is rich and important. He is horrible and I hate him.”

  “If you are going to marry anyone,” David told her positively, “it will be me. I know now that I cannot live without you, Weena, and I need you as I have never needed anyone in my whole life before.”

  Weena was very still.

  Then she stammered in a voice that did not sound like her own,

  “Are you really – asking me to – marry you?”

  “I am, and I mean to marry you,” David answered. “I ran away because I thought that the idea would shock and upset my family. It was only when I realised I might never see you again that I knew I had been a complete and utter fool and I could not live without you.”

  “Oh, David, I thought too that I would never see you again. I have prayed and prayed every night that I might find you and now you have come at exactly the right time to save me from that horrible, horrible man.”

  “You feel like that yet your brother still wants you to marry him?” David asked.

  “Ivor said that we both had to marry someone with money because the family treasures we have brought from Russia will not last for ever. But he has found someone he loves and who I am sure loves him.”

  “Then, of course, they will be happy when they are married,” David asserted, “just as we will be even happier when we are married, my darling, because you love me and I love you.”

  As if he could not help himself, he kissed her again, at first gently and then more passionately.

  He felt her respond and she moved even closer to him than she was already.

  “I cannot believe this is happening,” she sighed. “I have thought of you so much and wondered how you could leave me without even saying goodbye.”

  “I was a fool,” David replied. “I listened to my family telling me over and over again how I must marry someone and produce an heir. I had mothers of debutantes practically throwing them into my arms. So I thought – ”

  He paused.

  “You will have to forgive me, my darling, for what I thought, but I must tell you the truth.”

  “What – is it?” Weena asked him hesitantly.

  “I thought you were not grand enough to please my family. Therefore, because I wanted you so desperately, I ran away.”

  “I still don’t understand you,” Weena replied, “how your family, who have never met me, could disapprove of anyone you wanted to marry.”

  David gave a little laugh.

  “I suppose rather like your brother wants money, they want someone of Social significance.

  Weena was silent for a moment.

  Then she asked,

  “Why should they want that?”

  “That is why, my darling, I was travelling under a false name.”

  Weena gave a little cry.

  “I did not think of that. When you left, I thought that you were no longer interested in me. I felt certain that, even if you had stayed as you were on such a cheap ship, Ivor would have said that you were not rich enough.”

  “But you were a guest at a very grand Social party tonight,” David said, “wearing such a lovely gown that I would not have expected you to own when we were on the ship together.”

  “It’s a long story,” Weena murmured. “I will tell you everything soon. Now I can only feel as if you have just dropped down from Heaven when I was crying out for you.”

  “This will not happen again,” he promised. “You are going to marry me whatever your brother or my family may say.”

  “I cannot imagine anything more wonderful – than being married to you,” Weena whispered. “When I missed you so terribly, I found that every man I met was s
o dull and uninteresting because he was not you.”

  David smiled.

  “I might easily say the same thing. I kept thinking that I would see you again when I reached London, then I remembered that I had no address for you. I asked at the Russian Embassy if they had ever heard of a Miss Alweena Dawson, but they assured me that they had no one of that name on their books.”

  Weena laughed.

  “Of course you could not know that we assumed that name simply because Ivor did not wish to spend a lot of money travelling and he was certain that the treasures we brought with us from our home would only last perhaps a year.”

  “So you really are refugees?” David asked.

  “Yes, we are, but now everyone is making a fuss of us in London and we are asked to numerous parties. And Ivor has suddenly decided that I will marry this horrible man because he is a Viscount and rich.”

  “Where were you going just now?” David asked.

  “I suppose I shall have to go back to the house we have rented,” Weena replied. “So you will have to take me there please.”

  “I will take you there as soon as you promise me that you will not run away again and hide so that I lose you.”

  “I will never do that,” Weena assured him. “But we may have a struggle on our hands with Ivor because he is determined that I will marry this Viscount.”

  David smiled.

  “I reckon that I can persuade your brother that I am a better husband for you than a mere Viscount!”

  “If the worst comes to the worst we will have to run away,” Weena said, as if she was thinking it all out. “If we get married secretly, then no one could ever take me away from you.”

  “I have no intention of making a secret of the fact that you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. And, as I love you and you love me, no one and nothing will prevent us from being married.”

  Weena gave a little sigh of contentment and put her head down on his shoulder.

  “It was so like you to save me when I was very frightened and it’s the third time you have done so,” she exclaimed.

  “Three times lucky. I think I had better take you back to where you are staying and then we will face your brother and, if necessary, the Viscount tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” Weena whispered.

  “And I want to stay all night kissing you,” David murmured. “But I am thinking of you, my precious, and I cannot have you all tired and exhausted tomorrow when I meet with your brother and fight a battle for you which I am determined to win.”

  Because she could not help herself, Weena laughed.

  “You are making it sound exactly like a story in a book,” she said. “Of course you will win the battle and we will live happily ever afterwards.”

  “That is what I am quite certain we will do,” David replied. “But now I am going to take you home. It’s late and I was only dropping in on the party where I found you simply to apologise for not being able to be there earlier as I promised to be.”

  Weena wanted to say that she wished she could stay with him for the rest of the night.

  But she knew there might be a fuss if her brother thought that she had been out so long with David, whose friendship Ivor had most definitely not encouraged.

  In fact, when David had disappeared at Lisbon, he had said,

  “That man you are always talking to has now gone ashore and a good job too if you ask me. It’s no use you getting yourself interested in a poor man when you know as well as I do that we have to seek out millionaires.”

  He had spoken somewhat disagreeably and she had not answered him, as she knew that it was no use having a row over David when he was no longer on board.

  Now she thought if David was going to the party she had just left, then he was clearly of more consequence than they had thought him to be.

  Perhaps her brother would be a little more pleasant to him than he had been on board ship.

  Equally she knew despairingly that, whatever she said or whatever she did, he would still want her to marry the dreadful Viscount Pendleton.

  Moving a little nearer to David, she said,

  “Listen David! Can we get married very quickly without anyone knowing about it? So then, whatever Ivor might say, it would be too late to alter anything.”

  David’s arms tightened around her.

  “Darling, are you still thinking that I am as poor as I appeared to be on board that ship?”

  “Well, I suppose you must be staying with people who lent you this smart carriage,” Weena said, “but that would not make you rich enough in Ivor’s eyes.”

  “You can leave your brother to me,” David assured her. “But I just want to ask you one question, my darling, which I want you to answer truthfully.”

  “What is – that?” Weena enquired.

  “Would you still marry me if I really was poor and unimportant regardless of what your brother says?”

  “I would marry you if you were just a crossing-sweeper!” Weena answered. “If we are poor, I promise I will look after you and I can cook rather well actually.”

  David laughed.

  “I am sure that you do everything wonderfully and no one could look as beautiful as you. I have never seen you before arrayed in so much finery.”

  “It’s a long and complicated story and I will tell you all about it tomorrow,” Weena said.

  She was suddenly afraid that if David was as poor as he had appeared to be that Ivor would be furious at her marrying him.

  Perhaps, whatever David might say, they might still have to run away.

  As if he knew exactly what she was thinking, David sighed,

  “I think, my precious one, the only thing that really matters is that we love each other. Nothing else is of the least consequence.”

  “I love you, I adore you,” Weena told him. “If I have to scrub floors and cook in a tiny cottage, as long as I am with you I will be really, really happy, I promise you.”

  She could not say anymore because David was now kissing her again and she felt as if she was melting into him and was a part of him.

  All the angels were singing in Heaven and she was touching the stars David then asked her where she was staying.

  When she gave him the address, for a moment he looked surprised.

  Then he said,

  “I suppose you are staying with friends and Park Lane is the right place for you. But then you would look lovely wherever you are. Either in the smallest cottage, as you have already said, or in a Palace.”

  “I would be quite happy, David, as long as I was with you.”

  He kissed her again as if no words could tell her how much he loved her.

  He was still kissing her when they stopped outside the house in Park Lane.

  “Now go straight to bed,” David suggested. “I will call and see you after breakfast tomorrow. So do not start to fight with your brother until I arrive. I promise you if there is to be a fight, which I think unlikely, I will get my own way – and you.”

  He kissed her on the last word.

  As the door of the carriage was opened, he stepped out first to help her to the ground.

  He took her to the door and the night-footman, who had heard the carriage arrive, opened it before Weena had to knock.

  “Goodnight, David,” she whispered.

  “Goodnight, darling” he said and, taking her hand, kissed it.

  As he then turned away towards the carriage, the night-footman closed the door and she ran up the stairs.

  As she expected Ivor was still not back.

  She went into her own room.

  Even before she took off her dress, she knelt down at the side of the bed and thanked God for sending David to her rescue yet again.

  She prayed for quite a long time before she finally undressed and climbed into bed.

  It was only when she had turned out the light and shut her eyes did she hear her brother coming upstairs.

  He stopped for a moment outs
ide her door as if to make sure that she was asleep.

  Then he went on to his own room and she heard the door close.

  Because she was so happy at finding David nothing else mattered.

  When she fell asleep, her lips were smiling.

  Now the future was golden and nothing else was of any interest because she and David were together.

  *

  The following morning she was late downstairs for breakfast.

  She walked into the dining room feeling just a little nervous as to what Ivor would say to her.

  “Good morning, Weena,” he began as she entered the room. “I nearly came in to tell you last night my good news, but I thought it a mistake for you to be more tired than you were already. So I kept it until this morning.”

  “Good – news?” Weena questioned him anxiously.

  “Mavis has promised to marry me and we are to have a large and impressive wedding in three weeks time.”

  Weena gave a little cry.

  “Oh, Ivor, I am so glad. She is so pretty and I am sure that you will be very happy.”

  “I am in love with her,” he said, “and she is in love with me. For the moment that seems even more important than her father’s immense fortune.”

  Weena clapped her hands.

  “That is exactly how you should feel.”

  She was just about to add that was how she felt too, but thought it was not the right time.

  She therefore went on,

  “I think she is very lovely and I am sure that she would marry you if you did not have a title and were of no standing Socially.”

  “I doubt if her father would let me marry her under those circumstances,” Ivor said. “But, as it is, everything is perfect. The old man is giving us a house in London and already Mavis runs his house in the country. As her father is so often away in America and on the Continent, I will have to be in complete charge of all his affairs including running his racehorses.”

  Weena gave a cry of delight and clapped her hands together.

  “That is perfect and exactly what you wanted. As you well know, as you have run our huge estate for Papa for the last five years, you will not have any difficulty in managing another.”

  “That is what I felt myself. Of course racehorses are what I have always longed to own and needless to say my future father-in-law has the best.”