Fabian kissed her possessively, passionately, demandingly, until the garden whirled around them and they were no longer human, but one with the Gods.
When at last he raised his head, Loretta whispered,
“I love you – I love you – oh – Fabian – I love you and when I thought I had – lost you – I wanted to die!”
“You will not die, my precious little Goddess,” he said, “but live with me happily and forever.”
Then he said in a different tone,
“You still have not answered my question.”
“Which – one?”
“I asked you if you would come away with me.”
She looked at him a little puzzled and he went on,
“Because I cannot bear to be manipulated, because it would somehow be humiliating for us both to let our fathers think they have arranged everything, whether we want it or not, I suggest we elope!”
“Elope?”
Loretta could hardly say the word.
Fabian laughed and it was a very happy sound.
“It was what I asked you to do before and, because I knew that you loved me as I loved you, I thought it was unlikely you would refuse, despite that mysterious husband who had apparently not only taught you nothing about love, but had never kissed you.”
Loretta gave a little murmur and hid her face against his shoulder.
“Did that – make you – suspicious?”
“I was suspicious before that,” Fabian replied, “first because no one who was really a married woman could be so obviously innocent and certainly not exude an aura of purity. I know this from your vibrations, which I felt so strongly because they were something I had never encountered before.”
“You don’t think because I am – me – I will bore you?”
“I am quite certain that teaching you about love will be the most exciting and thrilling thing I have ever done in my life!”
He kissed her forehead before he went on,
“But I am sure that, if we have to go through the farce of pretending we are meeting for the first time when I arrive here after the races, of announcing our engagement and then a large, enduring, fashionable wedding with all my relatives saying what a terrible husband I shall be, it will spoil our happiness.”
“Of course it will,” Loretta agreed. “Oh, Fabian, I will do – anything you want – me to do.”
He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
“Do you really mean that?”
He did not kiss her as she expected, but added,
“You are quite sure that you will not mind not having a number of plain bridesmaids trailing enviously behind you and a huge, indigestible wedding cake and hearing me make an inane and embarrassing speech?”
The way he spoke was so funny that Loretta laughed.
Then she said,
“I could not bear any of it! Take me away, please take – me – away.”
“Very well,” he agreed, “we will elope and there will be nothing those scheming fathers of ours can do about it!”
“They will – try to stop us.”
Loretta gave a little shiver as she spoke, knowing how it would undoubtedly send her father into one of his furious rages.
“Leave everything to me,” Fabian commanded. “According to the rules, I either have to spirit you away tonight, which would be very uncomfortable or if we leave very early tomorrow morning, which will be far more pleasant, we can be at my château in Normandy early in the evening.”
He paused before he went on,
“We will be married there, by my Chaplain, with no one to interfere.”
“It sounds too – perfect to be true.”
“You are sure, you are absolutely sure that is what you want?”
“All I want,” Loretta replied, “is for you to love me – and even if I have – as everybody will predict when they learn of our marriage – only a very short time with you – that will be better than a – lifetime of misery and – boredom with – anyone else!”
She knew as she spoke that she was being deliberately provocative, but Fabian’s eyes were twinkling as he replied,
“On our eightieth wedding anniversary you shall admit to me how wrong you were! All I can say is that you will find it very hard, my darling, to get rid of me, for I can no more lose you than lose half of my body and still be a living and breathing man.”
There was a seriousness now in his last words that made Loretta move a little closer to him and put her arms around his neck.
“Take me away – please take me – away,” she begged. “I am so – afraid that this is all a wonderful dream and I shall – wake up.”
“And am I really your dream lover?”
“You know you are. You are – everything that I ever wanted, but so much – more that it is difficult to put into words how – wonderful I think you are.
Fabian laughed and then he said,
“I would like you to try, but now, my precious, I want you to go back to the house and pack everything you want to bring with you and be ready when I collect you tomorrow morning at seven o’clock, if that is not too early.”
“That is the time I usually go riding.”
“We will ride when we are in Normandy.”
“I have heard your horses are magnificent.”
“You shall ride the very best of them and I can only hope that they will not disappoint you.”
“Nothing can disappoint me now,” Loretta sighed. “Oh, Fabian, is it really – true that I am able to be your wife?”
“It is very much easier than if you had that mysterious husband lurking in the background!”
He was leading her across the lawn as he spoke and, when they reached the opening in the yew hedge, he said,
“I am going to kiss you goodbye here.”
“You don’t – want to stay – here in the – house?”
“I think that would be a mistake and, although it would perhaps be wise for you to inform your father whom you are marrying – ”
He paused and smiled before he added,
“I shall leave mine in doubt. Although I am fond of him, he has obstinately refused to admit that I am grown up and capable of running my life my own way.”
Loretta gave a little cry of protest.
“We cannot start our – married life by being unkind to anyone! I am so – happy that I want the whole world to be happy too.”
“You are right, my darling! That is what we will try to give to everyone we know, although I am very sure that no one could be as happy as I am at this moment!”
“You do – love me?” Loretta asked. “My running away, as I did, has not – spoilt it for you?”
“It only tortured me into confessing to myself what I already knew, that I cannot live without you. You are mine, mine completely and my whole happiness depends on you.”
“And my – love will be – enough?”
“Do you doubt that?”
“I love – you with – all of – me,” she whispered.
He kissed her gently before he said,
“You shall tell me about that tomorrow night when you are completely mine.”
Then he was gone, walking away through the yew hedge and, because she knew that he did not want her to follow him, she went back to the fountain.
She stood looking at the rainbows in the rise and fall of the water and felt that they were thrilling through her body until her happiness was too overwhelming to be expressed in words.
*
Afterwards Loretta could never remember how she spent the evening and the night before Fabian collected her.
She felt as if she was dancing on a rainbow underneath the stars and it was impossible to think of anything mundane and matter-of-fact.
Somehow her trunks were packed, with Sarah grumbling because she had only just unpacked them, and Loretta sent a message to Cousin Emily to tell her that she was going away again the next morning.
She did n
ot go to see her because Emily’s lady’s maid said that she still had a very severe cold.
She had suggested when Loretta arrived home that it would be a mistake to risk catching it or the sore throat and bad cough that Emily was still suffering from.
There were still two days before her father would return and Loretta left a letter for him on his desk telling him briefly that she had met Fabian de Sauerdun by chance.
She told him that they had fallen in love with each other and, because they both resented the idea of being pressured into a marriage, they had decided that it was better to elope.
It was a very brief letter, but she ended it by writing,
“ Please don’t be angry, Papa. I know you love me and were doing what you thought was best for me, but now I am doing what I want and what I know is best for me. I am very very happy.
Your affectionate and loving daughter, Loretta.”
She was downstairs and waiting in the hall when Fabian arrived at seven o’clock.
He was driving a very smart phaeton drawn by four horses, which she was to learn later he had borrowed from the friend he had stayed the night with.
Following him was a brake drawn by six horses, in which travelled his valet with the luggage.
Fabian alighted from the phaeton and, as Loretta moved towards him, he looked into her eyes, raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Without saying anything, he helped her into the phaeton and they drove off with only the groom sitting behind them on a small seat.
Loretta knew that the servants were curious as to why she was leaving so early and who was collecting her. It was only when they were halfway down the drive that she said half-teasingly,
“I wondered if perhaps during the night you had changed your – mind!”
“I wondered the same thing,” Fabian replied. “Then I knew, my courageous darling, that this was an adventure and something that you would enjoy in the same way that I will.”
Loretta smiled at him and he said,
“We are going to make it even more difficult for those who will want to reproach us for doing them out of a smart social wedding! We are to be married tonight in Normandy, but in two days time, before our sins can catch up with us in the shape of our relatives, I am going to take you to North Africa.”
Loretta gave a cry of delight.
“Do you really mean that? I thought that was – reserved for – Lady Brompton.”
Fabian laughed.
“It is reserved for someone very beautiful who will be my wife! I have a great deal to show you and there is a great deal for me to explore, not only in the desert, but also of you.”
“I hope you will not be – disappointed with what you – find,” Loretta said demurely.
“I think that is unlikely.”
Then he took one hand from the reins and laid it on hers as he said,
“My darling, only you could be brave enough to come away with me like this and, if you are regretting the absence of your trousseau, I promise you I will choose for you the most expensive and elaborate gowns any bride ever possessed!”
Loretta looked up at him enquiringly and he added with a twist on his lips,
“I am a Frenchman and, while no Englishman would bore himself by going to a dressmaker, I have every intention of deciding what you will or will not wear and I will make you look even more beautiful than you are at the moment!”
“That will be fun,” Loretta cried. “Oh, Fabian, I am so happy!”
“And I am happy too. I swear you will never regret marrying a man with the reputation of being a ‘modern Casanova’.”
“You know they call you that?”
“Of course I know,” he replied, “but I prefer to think of myself as a Don Juan, tilting at rainbows.”
They drove on for a little while before he remarked,
“You know most men are really rather pathetic and very far from being as lucky as I am.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I told you when I met you that it had been a long pilgrimage to find you and I had met many disappointments. That is what every lover finds as he journeys through life, but is continually let down! Yet he goes on hoping that the next flower he picks from the roadside will be the perfection he is seeking until it withers and he is forced to throw it away.”
Loretta made an exclamation of horror.
“Suppose that – happens to – us?”
“Do you really think for a moment that it might?”
“You are quite – sure it will – not?”
“Absolutely and completely sure,” Fabian replied. “I knew when you came into the salon on that first night that my vibrations leapt towards you and you were encircled by a blinding light! You are what I had been waiting for and searching for.”
“Did you really feel – that? I felt your vibrations, but I had been – warned that every woman you met fell in love with you and I was – fighting against your – attractiveness.”
“I was certainly severely handicapped,” Fabian said, “but despite all the problems and difficulties we have won, my darling, and tonight I will tell you how fortunate I am as I give you your first lesson in love.”
“I shall be – longing for – that,” Loretta whispered.
*
It was a long journey.
First by train to Portsmouth, where to Loretta’s surprise Fabian’s yacht was waiting for them in the harbour.
It was a new steam yacht that he had only recently acquired and, although the sea was calm, he insisted that she go into the Master cabin and rest while they crossed the Channel.
It was a large and very attractive cabin and, as he took her into it, Fabian said,
“I am not going to show you now around my yacht, of which I am very proud, because we shall be using it again in two or three days time when we leave our home – yours and mine, my precious – for North Africa.”
“We are going by yacht? How exciting!”
“I hope you are a good sailor.”
“I hope so too!” Loretta said. “It would be very unromantic to be seasick on my honeymoon.”
Fabian laughed and kissed her and, because she wanted to obey him, she lay down on the large comfortable bed and, which surprised her later, fell asleep.
She knew it was because she had lain awake for a long time the night before, feeling Fabian’s kisses still on her lips and the thrill of what he had said to her moving through her breasts.
Then she woke with a start as Fabian sat down on the bed and kissed her very gently.
“I was – dreaming of – you,” she murmured drowsily.
“We have arrived, darling,” he answered. “As we have nearly an hour’s driving before we reach home, I want you now to get up.”
“Of course,” Loretta agreed, “and it will be very exciting to see your château .”
“Our château. Our home,” Fabian said quietly. “We will share it as we will share everything else.”
*
When Loretta saw the château in front of them as they drove towards it in an open phaeton drawn by the finest and best bred horses she had ever seen, she thought once again that she was dreaming.
Surrounded by trees it certainly looked like a dream castle with its turrets and towers, the windows reflecting the light of the late afternoon sun and its gardens laid out in the traditional French fashion.
There was not one fountain but five of them, all playing and, with the water falling into ornate stone basins, they were even more magnificent than the one Fabian had taken her to see in the Bois de Boulogne.
The moment they arrived at the château , Loretta wanted to look around and explore everything but Fabian insisted she go upstairs.
“We are getting married immediately,” he said. “I can wait no longer for you to become my wife.”
Loretta’s eyes widened.
“I thought you would – arrange for it to be – later.”
She saw by the expression in h
is eyes how much he desired her, but he said quietly,
“My Chaplain will be waiting for us as soon as you are ready. This château was my mother’s when she was a girl and you will find a veil, which was worn by her when she married. I will also send you her tiara to wear with it. I want you, my precious one, to look like the bride who has always been in my dreams.”
She flashed him a smile of sheer happiness, then she went up the stairs, where she saw a housekeeper in rustling black, waiting for her at the top of the stairs.
She was a grey haired woman and, as she took Loretta along the corridor, she said,
“This is a very happy day for all of us, mademoiselle. We have prayed and prayed that Monsieur le Marquis would marry and now that I see you I know you are exactly what Madame , his mother, whom we all loved, would have chosen for him.”
“Thank you.” Loretta smiled.
The room she was shown into and which she knew had been Fabian’s mother’s, she found very beautiful.
The painted ceiling depicted Venus surrounded by cupids rising from the sea and the huge four-poster bed had a canopy carved with gold cupids carrying garlands of flowers.
Loretta had instructed Sarah to put in with her gowns one that had been sent down from London for her to wear when she made her curtsey at Buckingham Palace.
It was white with a bustle of chiffon frills and the chiffon encircling the décolletage was sprinkled with diamante.
It made her think it looked like the drops of water falling into the fountains.
She covered her fair hair and her face with the fine Brussels lace veil, which reached down to the floor.
When the maids who were attending her set the beautiful tiara shaped like a wreath of flowers on her head, she knew that she not only looked like a bride, but also a little like the Goddess from Olympus Fabian thought her to be.
She was told that he was waiting for her downstairs.
A bouquet had been handed into the bedroom consisting of white roses and lilies-of-the-valley – white, which Loretta knew was symbolic of the purity that Fabian found in her.
She blushed a little as she thought of it.
Then, as she went down the stairs and saw him waiting for her in the hall, she knew that no man in the whole world could look so handsome or so irresistibly attractive.
Dancing on a Rainbow Page 13