*
When she awoke in the morning, she felt that she had dreamed everything and none of it could be true.
She made no effort to rise early as she usually did to go riding.
For the moment she was not interested even in the horses.
It merely passed through her mind that, if she sent a message to Christopher by Ben, he would be waiting for her in the afternoon where they always met.
Then, for the first time since she had come home, she felt the tears gathering in her eyes and she knew that, like every other woman who had loved Fabian, she too was crying for him.
She had held him for one brief, marvellous moment and he had told her of his love.
Now she had thrown it away or rather in becoming herself she had lost him and, in doing so, she had lost everything in life that was worth having, everything she wanted now or for the future.
Finally, when it was quite late in the morning, she rose and went downstairs.
“Your Ladyship’s not riding?” Sarah asked as she helped her dress.
“No, not today,” Loretta replied.
Instead, she sent to the stables for the cart she often drove herself around the estate in.
Taking Ben with her, she drove into the village to see Marie.
Simply because Marie had been with her in France and therefore formed a kind of link with Fabian, she was the only person she wanted to see and talk to at the moment.
Marie was delighted to see her.
“Bonjour , my Lady ,” she said. “I glad you come. I sad, very sad, to be back in England. I miss ma belle France.”
“I miss it too,” Loretta told her and knew that she was referring to one man.
Marie made her coffee, then she said in a tone she sometimes used when she felt emotional,
“You not worry, ma petite. You marry the Marquis! You both very happy!”
“Oh, Marie!” Loretta cried. “Perhaps now, when he realises I have deceived him, he will refuse to marry me.”
Marie laughed.
“That not true! Monsieur le Marquis in love – servant tell me he love you as he never love any other lady!”
“Why should he say that?” Loretta asked. “And how would he know anyway?”
Marie laughed again.
“The French understand l’amour. The coachman of Monsieur le Marquis tell me he never knows his Master feel for any lady what he feel for you.”
“But how could he know?” Loretta wanted to ask logically.
Yet somehow, despite herself, she was cheered up by what Marie had said and drove back home feeling a little happier than she had before she went to the village.
She had luncheon alone, then walked into the garden, moving restlessly across the green lawn towards the yew hedges that enclosed the Rose Garden.
In the centre of it was a small fountain, very unlike the large one in the Bois de Boulogne and yet, as its water was thrown a few feet up into the air and the sunshine made iridescent rainbows of it, they seemed to be moving within her as they had when Fabian had kissed her.
‘I shall never feel like that over any man again,’ she told herself.
Then it was an unbearable agony to know that he was so far away not only in miles but in the way they had vibrated to each other.
They had seemed, she thought, to be one person, while now he might have deliberately turned away from her, not only physically but also mentally and spiritually – above all in his heart.
“Oh, Fabian! Fabian!” she cried.
She heard her voice ring out in the quietness of the garden and felt as if the water from the fountain carried it like a prayer up into the sky.
Then, as she turned away, half-blinded by the tears in her eyes, she saw him coming through the roses towards her.
Chapter Seven
Loretta felt her heart beating wildly. At the same time an irrepressible joy swept through her body, making her feel as if she came alive because he was there.
He moved slowly towards her and only when he stopped a few feet from her did he say in a strange voice,
“Am I to understand that Lady Brompton is in fact Lady Loretta Court?”
“You – did not – know?”
“I had not the slightest idea!”
Loretta looked at him in bewilderment.
“Then – how is it that – you are – here? How did you – find me?”
She was aware as she spoke that the expression on Fabian’s face was grim and he was staring at her as if he could not believe that she was real.
After a moment he answered,
“When you ran away in that extraordinary and cruel manner without saying goodbye to me, I thought I should go mad!”
“Did Ingrid tell you – who I was?”
“No. She lied, most convincingly.”
“Then how?”
“Hugh Galston was more obliging. He told me that he thought a girl called Lady Loretta Court could help me.”
“So you came – here.”
“To ask her if she knew where I could find Lady Brompton.”
There was a frightening pause before he asked,
“How could you deceive me and then run away?”
“You are – angry with – me?”
“Very angry! I thought you trusted me and I also believed that you loved me.”
“I do love you,” Loretta replied in a very low voice. “I love you – but I felt I could not – tell you who I – was.”
“Why not?”
“Because I had – come to Paris to – find out about you.”
“Find out about me?” he interrupted. “Why? For what reason?”
Loretta stared at him.
Then as he was obviously waiting for an answer she replied,
“I-I thought – it was impossible for me to – marry a man I did – not love.”
There was a silence in which Fabian was very still.
Then he said,
“What has your marriage to do with it? I may be dense, but I find what you are saying quite incomprehensible.”
Loretta looked up at him and thought that she must be imagining this conversation because it was so strange, so different from what she had expected if she ever saw Fabian again.
Then, looking away from him because she felt desperately shy, she said,
“I-I came to Paris because – Papa told me I had to marry you and he had – arranged it with your father.”
“Is that the truth?”
Fabian spoke loudly and then he reached out and took hold of Loretta by the shoulders and turned her around to face him.
“Is what you are saying true?” he asked furiously. “That your father and mine plotted our marriage?”
Because he was touching her, Loretta felt a thrill run through her body, even though she was afraid of his anger.
“They – they arranged it at a race meeting,” she said. “Surely your father – must have – told you!”
“He told me nothing! He has been ordering me, pleading with me, begging me for years to marry again, but I had no intention whatever of obeying him!”
The way he spoke made Loretta feel that she had indeed lost him completely and the world seemed to have gone dark.
Then, as if he forced himself to be more controlled, he demanded harshly,
“I think you had better explain to me from the beginning what all this means. I am in fact utterly bewildered.”
He released her as he spoke and Loretta, trembling, indicated a wooden seat under some trees at the other side of the garden.
It was impossible to speak because she felt as if her voice had died in her throat.
Instead, she walked towards the seat, knowing that Fabian was following her.
She saw unhappily that he sat down as far away front her as possible.
Then he turned a little towards her to say in the same hard tone of voice he had used before,
“I suggest you start from the beginning and tell me what all this is about.”
“H-how could I have thought – how could I have imagined – that you did not know?”
Fabian did not reply and after a moment she said in a low unhappy tone, which was very unlike the way she usually spoke,
“Papa returned from the races last week to – tell me that his horse had – beaten the Duc de Sauerdun’s.”
She thought Fabian might make some comment, but he did not speak and, when she glanced at him again, his lips were set tightly in a hard line.
“Papa was exuberant, not only because he had won the race,” she went on, “but because the Duc had – suggested that I should – marry his – son.”
“And you agreed?”
“I-I tried to tell Papa that it was absolutely impossible for me to marry a man I had never seen – and whom I did not love.”
“And what was his reply?”
“He flew into one of his rages and said that, if he had to drag me to the altar, I would marry the Marquis de Sauerdun – because it was a good match – and one of which – he approved.”
Again she looked at Fabian, and saw that now he was staring across the garden.
She went on miserably, knowing that he was very angry,
“I knew it was no use arguing or pleading with Papa – and I suddenly had the idea that the only way I could – convince him that I could not – marry you was – to go to Paris and find out what you were like – without your knowing who – I was.”
“So you knew that there was something to find out?”
“I thought there must be – because everything was to be – done in such a hurry. You were to stay with us during Royal Ascot week – and then our engagement was to be – announced at the ball Papa would give – here when the race meeting was over.”
She knew without even looking at him that this made Fabian angrier than ever.
She could feel his vibrations and she told herself that she was talking away her happiness and killing everything that mattered to her life.
“I remembered,” she continued after a moment, “that my cousin Ingrid, of whom we were never – allowed even to speak, was living in Paris and I found out her address from a maid living in the village who had once worked for us and who is French.”
“And you came to France alone?”
“Marie came with me and it was far easier than I expected. When I told Ingrid why I had – come she – understood.”
“What did she understand?”
Loretta paused until Fabian repeated,
“What did she understand?”
“That you were – not the right sort of husband for me – and that you would make me – very unhappy.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She told me that she thought she – knew why the Duc , your father – was in such a – hurry to get you – married.”
“And what was the reason?”
Reluctantly, as if the words were dragged from her, Loretta answered,
“Ingrid said you were – infatuated – with a widow – whom it would be possible – because she was well bred – for you to marry – if you wished to do so.”
“I can follow my father’s thoughts on the subject,” Fabian said sarcastically.
Loretta gave a deep sigh and realised as she looked down at her hands that they were shaking.
“So you and Ingrid,” Fabian went on, “decided to deceive me by dressing you up as Lady Brompton!”
“It was because I insisted on – meeting you without your knowing who I was and Ingrid said that you would certainly avoid having anything to do with a jeune fille. In fact – she doubted if you had ever – spoken to one.
For the first time there was just a slight twist of a smile at the corners of Fabian’s mouth.
“And you thought your disguise was effective,” he said, “and that I was deceived into believing that you were a sophisticated married woman.”
“You asked me to luncheon and to dine with you.”
“Then what happened?”
There was silence and Fabian repeated insistently,
“What happened, Lora?”
“I-I fell in love with you,” Loretta replied in a voice he could hardly hear, “like all the other – silly women to whom you have ever – paid any – attention!”
“You fell in love?” he asked quietly. “And yet you ran away without explaining, without telling me the truth.”
“I-I knew that Ingrid and the Marquis wanted to be alone and also – because you were so very – different from what I expected – I could not bear to tell you – knowing that you would be – angry with me.
“I was different from what you expected? In what way?”
Loretta made a helpless little gesture with her hand.
“You know exactly what I – mean. You talked to me as no one has ever – talked to me before and – I could not help – loving you.”
She gave a little sob on the last words and felt the tears come into her eyes.
Then, almost as if she must justify herself, she said again,
“How could I have – imagined for one moment that you did not – know what your father was – planning?”
“I can see how cleverly he had thought it all out,” Fabian said slowly. “He had asked me to come with him to Ascot this year as a special favour and, because I always enjoy being in England, I agreed.”
He paused for a moment as if he was working it out.
“He would then have insisted that I come to stay here at your father’s house and before I could have any say in the matter our engagement would have been announced.”
“That is – exactly what they – planned,” Loretta said, “and why I knew I had to circumvent it, since I could not – marry you.”
“Why were you so certain?”
Loretta drew in her breath and then she told the truth.
“I had always dreamed that – one day I would – find a man whom I would love – and who would love me – ”
“And when you met me?”
“You were the man I had dreamt of! I knew it as soon as I felt your – vibrations and I was quite certain – after we had talked together.”
There was a long silence, while Loretta felt as if Fabian was miles away from her, disappearing over a distant horizon, and she would never see him again.
Because she knew that to plead with him to go on loving her would be to behave like every other woman he had loved, she told herself she must have some pride and, if he never thought of her again, at least he would know that she had courage.
With an almost superhuman effort, she rose from the seat and said,
“Now you know the truth I understand exactly what – you are feeling – and I think it would be – wise if you left – immediately as there is no – point in our going on – talking about it.”
Fabian did not move, but merely looked at her to ask,
“Is that what you want?”
Loretta closed her eyes.
She knew that she was crucifying herself, but she would not, as she longed to do, throw herself at his feet and beg him to stay.
“I am – thinking of you,” she said. “If it is known that you have been here – which at the moment is unlikely – unless you told the servants who you were – it will eventually reach my father’s ears when he returns – and things might be – even more difficult than they are – already.”
“So you intend to tell him that we are not to be married?”
“I will be able to do so if you do – not come to stay as arranged for Ascot.”
Fabian rose slowly to his feet.
“So you think I should return to Paris and forget all about my pursuit of Lady Brompton?”
“That should be – easy, as she does not – exist.”
“And you? Will you forget what you felt when I kissed you?” he asked. “What we both felt by the fountain in the Bois de Boulogne?”
He would have gone on, but Loretta could not bear it. She put up her hands as if she was pu
shing away from him as she said,
“Stop! You are only making – things more – difficult. Please – please go away – at once!”
As she spoke, she realised that he was standing very close behind her and once again he put his hands on her shoulders to turn her around.
Now it was not a rough gesture, but a gentle one.
“And if I go,” he asked, “are you prepared to come with me?”
She looked up at him, her eyes very wide, not understanding. At the same time she knew instinctively that he was no longer angry.
Fabian smiled and it transformed his face.
“You are so lovely,” he sighed, “so ridiculously, incredibly beautiful! How could I lose you?”
For a moment Loretta felt that she could not have heard him aright.
Yet the rapture that coursed through her whole body was like forked lightning and her eyes seemed to have caught the iridescence of the rainbows in the fountain as she said, because she was apprehensive that she was mistaken,
“What are you saying? What are you – asking me to do?”
“I have a wonderful idea, my darling, but I am afraid you may not agree to it.”
“Agree to – what?”
It was difficult to understand what he was saying when her heart was singing so loudly and all she was conscious of was the expression in his eyes which she dared not believe was one of love.
“Do you really think I could lose you now?” he asked. “If nothing else, it would be very interesting to get to know a jeune fille!”
“Then you are – not angry with – me?”
“Not anymore!”
“You still – love me – a little?”
In answer, his arms went around her and he drew her closer to him.
Then, while her lips were trembling and ready for his, he looked down at her for a long moment before he said,
“I love you! I adore you! I worship you! Is that enough?”
“Oh – Fabian – !”
The tears that had been at the back of her eyes all the time she was explaining to him what had happened overflowed and ran down her cheeks.
Then, as his lips were on hers, holding her captive, she felt as if the Heavens had opened and a Divine Light encircled them both.
Dancing on a Rainbow Page 12