A Battle for Love

by Barbara Cartland

  Suddenly Serla saw that there was a small hole in the panel and through it she could see into the study.

  It was so small that she was sure that it could not be seen from the other side and by pressing her eye against it she could see the two men walking towards the grog table.

  They were quickly out of sight as the mantelpiece intervened.

  It was then she realised that straight in front of her the Marquis was sitting in an armchair. She had, when she had first looked, only seen the room above his head and the men walking towards the corner.

  Nor was she aware that, because the Marquis had been working at his writing desk, the candles in the other part of the room had not been lit.

  So he was in a poor light and it was impossible to see clearly the chair where he was seated.

  That also meant that the secret panel itself was in semi-darkness.

  Then there was the chink of glasses.

  Very very cautiously Serla opened the door.

  She prayed that the men would be too concerned with what they were doing to notice her.

  Very gently she pressed one of the pistols into the Marquis’s hand as it lay on the arm of the chair.

  He took it and at once dropped his arm and it would be impossible for the men drinking to realise that he was now holding something in his hand.

  The man who had poured out the port now lifted up his glass.

  “I drink your health, my Lord,” he said, “and I’ll drink it again when I leaves here with the goods you’re going to give me.”

  The other man then spoke for the first time,

  “You’re missing a real treat. This here bubbly’s first rate and you’re a fool to prefer that red muck.”

  He spoke in a coarse common way and the man with the glass of port turned on him almost angrily,

  “My taste’s as good as yours – ” he began to say.

  He turned his head as he spoke.

  As he did so, the Marquis, with the expertise of a sportsman, shot him through the wrist.

  Even as he did so Serla pushed her way through the secret door and shot the other man in the right shoulder.

  The two reports rang out and seemed to echo round the room.

  The men who were shot screamed and fell onto the floor and they dropped both their glasses and their pistols.

  With the quickness that the Marquis had learned on the battlefield, he sprang out of his chair.

  He pushed Serla back through the secret panel and followed her and, when they were both inside, he shut the panel firmly.

  Now they could only hear the men groaning.

  The Marquis did not say a word, he just took Serla by the hand and pulled her along the secret passage.

  When they reached the Chapel, he took the pistol from her and put it back on the table she had taken it from.

  Then he pulled her along with him until they had reached the steps that led up to the boudoir.

  “You were very brave, so wonderful and you saved me,” he breathed at last.

  “What are you going to do?” Serla asked. “There are two other men – in the hall.”

  “I know,” the Marquis answered. “I will deal with them and there will be no problem, thanks to you.”

  “Please, please be – careful,” she said incoherently.

  She did not want him to leave her, but she knew that he would have to go.

  Without thinking she put out her arms as if to hold onto him.

  The Marquis pulled her against him and then his lips were on hers.

  He kissed her fiercely and possessively.

  Then, almost before she could grasp the wonder and thrill of it, he set her free and ordered her gently,

  “Go to your bedroom, Serla, and lock the door.”

  Then he was gone.

  She could only hear the sound of his footsteps as he ran along the passage towards the dining room.

  She knew at once that he had gone to rouse the other footmen who were sleeping on the ground floor.

  She remembered that they had all learned to shoot and now the Marquis was no longer alone, having his men to support him.

  For a moment it was impossible to move and Serla felt as if her head was whirling.

  The tension she had felt when she had opened the secret panel was still making it hard to breathe. Yet the Marquis was now safe.

  She had saved him, just as he had saved her last night.

  Slowly, because she knew that she must obey him, she climbed up the small steps which led to her boudoir.

  The panel at the top was ajar and she slipped into the room, feeling as if a thousand things had happened since she had left it.

  How was it possible that those four men had come fully armed to demand something from the Marquis that he had no wish to give them?

  As she thought about it, she guessed what they had wanted, but she might be wrong.

  She was virtually certain that Charlotte in her desire to hurt the Marquis had sent the men to steal the Darincourt jewels.

  The newspapers had all described how magnificent they were when the Dowager had worn them at her ball and there had been almost as much written about the jewels as the ball itself.

  That, Serla said to herself, was what they had come for and that was why the Marquis had kissed her because she had saved them for him.

  She could still feel the insistence of his lips on hers.

  It was the most wonderful feeling that she had ever known.

  At the same time she could not pretend that it was a kiss of love rather than one of gratitude.

  Perhaps too, she thought, it was a kiss of relief that the jewels were now safe, safe for the wife he would one day take for himself.

  Equally he had kissed her.

  ‘He has kissed me! He has kissed me!’ Serla said in her heart. ‘When I leave, I shall have that to remember.’

  She thought that the thrill that had run through her had been like a streak of forked lightening. Or was it the moonlight that had made it possible for her to find her way down the secret passage?

  In her bedroom she thought that if she was sensible she would do what the Marquis had told her and go to bed.

  It could be hours before he came to tell her that it was all over.

  Then suddenly she was afraid.

  He should have collected the footmen by now.

  They should be approaching, perhaps furtively, the two men sitting in the hall.

  If she heard shots, what should she do?

  She realised that the Marquis did not wish her to be involved in what was happening.

  Yet he was in danger and she felt that she must be near to him. Perhaps she would be able to help him again.

  He had taken the pistol from her and she wished now that she had held onto it.

  If she saw someone threatening him, she could have shot them from the top of the stairs as she had shot the man in the study.

  She went to the door of her bedroom and listened, but she could not hear anything.

  Were the two men in the hall still sitting there?

  Surely they, if no one else, would have heard the reports from the pistol shots in the study.

  It was all terrifying.

  Because she did not know what was happening, she could only imagine the worst.

  ‘Save him. Oh, please God save him,’ she prayed. ‘He must not be injured, please, please keep him safe.’

  Because she could not keep still, she walked to the window. Everything in the garden was quiet and peaceful.

  The moon turned everything to silver and the stars were twinkling above the trees.

  ‘I must know if he is safe,’ Serla decided.

  As she did so she heard the door open behind her.

  She turned round and saw the Marquis silhouetted against the light in the passage.

  She gave a cry of sheer relief and ran towards him and threw herself against him saying incoherently,

  “You are – safe, they did not hurt you, you are –
all right?”

  The Marquis pulled her against him.

  Then he was kissing her, not fiercely as he had done before, but possessively, as if she was something that he had wanted for a long time and had found it at last.

  Serla felt as if the doors of Paradise had opened and she could hear the angels singing.

  The Marquis’s kisses and the strength of his arms made thrill after thrill run through her.

  She felt as if she had reached Heaven and they were both part of it.

  It was a long while before the Marquis raised his head and she could stammer,

  “You are – all right? They have not – hurt you? I was so – frightened.”

  “I am perfectly all right,” he answered. “How could you have been so clever, my darling, to save me when I thought that I would have to give them what they wanted?”

  “What did they – want?” Serla asked.

  “The family jewels,” he replied. “It was Charlotte’s determination to hurt me and she would have succeeded if you had not come to my rescue.”

  He did not wait for Serla to answer him and instead he kissed her again, holding her so close that she felt as if her body melted into his.

  They were no longer two people but one.

  Only when he raised his head again did Serla say as if she could not help it,

  “I love you, I love you.”

  “And I love you,” the Marquis said. “I have fought against it for days or what seems like years and I cannot go on fighting. The battle of love is over. I love you, my darling, and I know that I cannot live without you.”

  Serla made a sound which was half a sob.

  “I don’t believe – I am hearing this,” she sighed.

  “Then I will say it again. I love you and the sooner we are married the safer we will be.”

  Serla gave a cry of horror.

  “You mean Charlotte will try again?”

  “Actually,” the Marquis answered, “I think that will be impossible for her.”

  “But why?” Serla asked.

  The Marquis picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He put her down so that she was lying against the pillows and then he said,

  “We can hardly go on standing in the door when I have so much to say and so many kisses to give you.”

  “Oh, Clive, is it really true that you love me?” Serla asked.

  “It will take a whole lifetime for me to tell you how much,” he replied. “But first I want to tell you what has happened.”

  Serla put out her hand to hold onto him as she was afraid of what she might hear, but he said quietly,

  “It is all over. When you were clever enough, my darling, to give me the pistol and I shot one man and you shot the other one, as I anticipated the two men who were waiting in the hall came rushing into the room.”

  “If you had stayed – they might have shot you,” Serla said in a frightened voice.

  “Of course they would, which was why I hurried you away. What I did not expect was that when they saw their fellow criminals writhing on the floor they ran away and left them.”

  “Left them?”

  “According to the footman, they ran through the hall without stopping, jumped into the post chaise that they had come in and drove away.”

  “I can hardly believe it,” Serla sighed.

  “It is true. When I roused the footman and we went into the hall with more weapons to defend ourselves with, it was to find the two men had gone and the other two we had left in the study were groaning on over their wounds.”

  “So what did you do?” Serla asked.

  “They have been locked up and tomorrow they will be handed over to the Police, who will take them before the Magistrates. They will be charged with attempted burglary and the carrying of firearms, both of which are punishable by many years imprisonment.”

  “Well, that is two of them – out of the way,” Serla said. “What about the others?”

  “I doubt if they will come back,” the Marquis said, “but you must understand, darling, that the two wounded men have given us a weapon which will silence Charlotte and make her behave properly in the future.”

  Serla looked at him in surprise.

  “How can that be?” she asked.

  “I shall inform her that they have revealed to me who sent them to steal the Darincourt jewellery. I shall tell her that, if she threatens you or me again in any way, I will denounce her to the Court and she will doubtless be sent to prison as well as the two men carrying out her orders.”

  Serla looked relieved.

  “I don’t think she will try again – to hurt you after that.”

  “I shall also say that the gypsies told me that it was she who had paid them to abduct you. With two such possible charges against her there is nothing that Charlotte can do but behave herself.”

  “She should be grateful that you are so merciful,”

  “I do not wish your name to be dragged through the mud,” the Marquis said, “and my family would be shocked if anything defamatory was said of the new Marchioness of Darincourt.”

  He bent forward as he spoke and Serla put her arms round his neck.

  “Are you really and truly – asking me to marry – you?” she quavered.

  The Marquis smiled.

  “I am not asking you, I am telling you that we are going to be married as quickly as is possible so that I can look after you and protect you. Not only by day but also by night.”

  “It’s too good – to be true,” she murmured.

  “I will make it all come true. And you know that Grandmama will be delighted.”

  “She has been praying that this would happen and now she will know that her prayers have been answered.”

  She looked at the Marquis and then, hiding her face against his neck, she added a little shyly,

  “And so will – mine.”

  “I was determined not to let you fall in love with me,” the Marquis pointed out.

  “But how could I help it,” she said. “When you are so handsome – so marvellous and so brave?”

  “That is how I want you to think about me. At the same time, my darling, I think we will be very happy. I have no wish to spend any more time in London, but here in Darincourt with our horses and, of course, our children.”

  Serla gave a little laugh.

  “It is what they all wanted and what you refused.”

  “That was because I had not met you,” the Marquis answered. “Actually as soon as I saw you I knew that you were different from anyone I had ever known. Now you have crept into my heart and possessed it and I shall never look at another woman because you are everything that is perfect.”

  Serla gave a little cry and then she admitted,

  “I was just thinking that when you decided you no longer wanted to pretend that I was your fiancée, I would perhaps be able to stay with you as your Cyprian.”

  He stared at her and she hid her face against him.

  “Grandmama has told me what they really are, but I thought as you had no wish to be married I would be very happy if I could just be with you as I love you so much.”

  For a second he drew in his breath and closed his eyes as he could hardly believe what he had just heard.

  Yet he knew that he had found what he wanted.

  A woman who loved him, not for his title but for himself.

  A woman who was prepared, so long as she could be with him, to sacrifice everything she believed was right rather than lose his love.

  He put his arms round her and held her very close.

  “I just love you and adore you. I also worship you because you are good and because you pray for what you want. I swear to you, my darling, when we are married I will never let anything spoil you and you will never do anything that is wrong or what in your innermost heart you know is wicked.”

  Serla did not really understand.

  At the same time, because the Marquis’s voice was deep and sincere, she felt very moved.


  “I love you,” she said. “I love you so much you fill my whole world and there is no one else but you.”

  “That is what it will always be,” he smiled.

  Then he was kissing her again.

  Kissing her until Serla felt that he was carrying her up into the sky.

  They were part of the moonlight and the stars.

  There was no more danger or fear or misery, just love.

  A love that she had prayed for and which God had given them.

  A love that came from Heaven and filled Clive’s heart and hers and made them both part of the Divine.

  Where to buy other titles in this series

  The Barbara Cartland Pink collection is available for download at the following online bookshops :-

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  www.barbaracartland.com- Printed paperbacks