The Cross of Love Read online

  THE CROSS OF LOVE

  Rena had promised herself that she would never tell him of her love, for his sake. And yet the words burst from her, called forth by the intensity of his own emotion. John loved her. He had said so. And nothing in heaven or on earth could have prevented her from confessing her own love in return.

  "I love you," he said, holding her away from him so that he could see her face. "I love you in every way that a man can love a woman. You are mine, and I am yours. That is how it has to be. It was meant. It's our destiny. I couldn't fight it if I wanted to. But I don't. I want to love you and rejoice in you all the days of my life. And if you don't feel the same I have nothing to live for."

  THE CROSS OF LOVE

  BARBARA CARTLAND

  Barbaracartland.com Ltd

  Copyright © 2004 by Cartland Promotions

  First published on the internet in 2004 by Barbaracartland.com

  ISBN 978-1906950-29-3

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval, without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  eBook conversion by David Stockman

  THE BARBARA CARTLAND PINK COLLECTION

  Barbara Cartland was the most prolific bestselling author in the history of the world. She was frequently in the Guinness Book of Records for writing more books in a year than any other living author. In fact her most amazing literary feat was when her publishers asked for more Barbara Cartland romances, she doubled her output from 10 books a year to over 20 books a year, when she was 77.

  She went on writing continuously at this rate for 20 years and wrote her last book at the age of 97, thus completing 400 books between the ages of 77 and 97.

  Her publishers finally could not keep up with this phenomenal output, so at her death she left 160 unpublished manuscripts, something again that no other author has ever achieved.

  Now the exciting news is that these 160 original unpublished Barbara Cartland books are ready for publication and they will be published by Barbaracartland.com exclusively on the internet, as the web is the best possible way to reach so many Barbara Cartland readers around the world.

  The 160 books will be published monthly and will be numbered in sequence.

  The series is called the Pink Collection as a tribute to Barbara Cartland whose favourite colour was pink and it became very much her trademark over the years.

  The Barbara Cartland Pink Collection is published only on the internet. Log on to www.barbaracartland.com to find out how you can purchase the books monthly as they are published, and take out a subscription that will ensure that all subsequent editions are delivered to you by mail order to your home.

  Titles in this series

  The Cross of Love

  Love in the Highlands

  THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND

  Barbara Cartland who sadly died in May 2000 at the age of nearly 99 was the world's most famous romantic novelist who wrote 723 books in her lifetime with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.

  As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays, books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery. She also found time to be a political speaker and television and radio personality.

  She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and this was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback and was translated into 6 different languages. She wrote continuously throughout her life, writing bestsellers for an astonishing 76 years. Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States, where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.

  Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels, so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world.

  Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her good looking and dashing heroes and above all her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone's life.

  "Never look for love, love will find you"

  - Barbara Cartland

  CHAPTER ONE

  -

  1864

  Crows wheeled and circled in the bleak winter sky, while the mourners huddled over the grave beneath. The chill in the air was not more bitter than the chill in their hearts.

  What will we do without him? How will we manage? The man they were laying in the earth had been their vicar and, in some ways, their father. In their tiny, remote village of Fardale, there was nobody else to care for them, and they remembered now that the Reverend Colwell had exhorted them, praised them, chastised, defended and loved them.

  Now he was gone, struck down by a chill he'd contracted visiting a sick parishioner on a snowy night.

  For a while he'd seemed to rally, then failed again, finally sinking into pneumonia, and fading gently away.

  They all felt his loss, but none more so than the pale, distraught girl who kept her eyes fixed on the open grave, and closed her eyes as the first clods of earth hit it. She was Rena Colwell, the dead man's daughter.

  Beside her, a much younger girl, wearing a shawl over her head, slipped her hand into Rena's, offering and giving comfort. She had the work roughened hands of a maid of all work.

  "Let's get going, miss," she urged.

  "Just a few more minutes, Ellie. I want to talk to the curate who read the service. Why don't you go on to the vicarage, put the kettle on and make a few sandwiches? He'll probably want to join us for tea before he leaves."

  But when she approached the haughty young man, who'd travelled over from a distant parish to read the service, he made no bones about his eagerness to depart. He preferred the city and was clearly appalled by this backwater village.

  "Have you heard anything about who may be coming to take Papa's place?" Rena asked.

  "Well, it's hardly the best situation, but there are always plenty of hacks who've lost hope of anything better."

  She stiffened at the implied slur on her father, but he blundered on, oblivious. "So I should think somebody will turn up any day now. It's a pity there's nobody living in that huge house I passed on my way here. A great man always lends tone to a place, besides bringing employment." "The last Earl of Lansdale died ten years ago," Rena said. "Nobody seems to know who the next one is, or if there's anyone at all. The family may have died out. The Grange has stood empty since then." "Then it's a bad business. Well, I must be going. I've got dinner waiting for me at my hotel." Rena trudged home alone through the twilight, her heart heavy. In the kitchen she found Ellie, the only servant the vicar had been able to afford, ready with tea. The two young women sat together companionably in the kitchen, drinking tea in the fading light. "He was never the same after your Mama died," Ellie said.

  "That's true," Rena sighed. "It's strange to think that a year ago today she was still alive. And then she collapsed and died, and something went out of him. He was always very sweet and gentle to me, but I can't help feeling he's happier now."

  "What are you going to do, miss?"

  Rena gave a wry smile. "I don't know. That curate made sure to remind me that I shall have to move out of here soon. I'm glad, of co
urse. The village needs a parson. But I don't know where I'll go."

  "You could be a teacher, miss. You know ever so much."

  "Well, I read a lot, but I'm afraid I don't know enough to be a teacher or a governess. I could care for children, but nobody around here is rich enough to hire me. In fact the only thing I'm any good at is keeping house."

  Ellie gave a little scream.

  "You can't be a housekeeper miss. What would your Mama have said?"

  "Mama wouldn't have approved," Rena agreed. "Her family were 'gentry' who thought themselves above a marriage with the clergy. They were very shocked when she fell in love with Papa.

  "But I must earn my living somehow, and I'd be glad to hear of any honest employment before I have to leave here."

  She gave Ellie a rueful smile. "I'm afraid I can't afford to keep you on - "

  "That's all right miss. Mum'll be glad to have me home now our Gladys has married. Besides, it's time I reminded Bert I was alive."

  "Bert?"

  "The butcher's boy, miss. He'll do very nicely for me."

  Ellie departed next morning in search of whatever success she might have ensnaring Bert. Rena was left alone in a draughty, echoing house, knowing that soon she would be homeless.

  Reared on the virtues of thrift and industry she immediately set about searching for a situation. Although she'd told Ellie she wasn't qualified to be a teacher she tried to obtain a teaching post. She would try anything that was honest. But it was January, and no school was hiring teachers.

  She placed her name on the books of a couple of agencies. One summoned her to an interview in a town so distant that she had no hope of getting there. Another offered an interview twenty miles away. She walked the distance, got caught in a rainstorm and arrived sodden and covered with mud.

  On the way home she was given a lift by a local carter, who dropped her a mile from the vicarage. She trudged home, collapsed with a chill and managed to struggle to bed.

  She might have died but for the baker's wife who came to see how she was managing these days, found her in bed with a raging fever, and summoned the doctor.

  For the next fortnight a group of women took it in turns to care for her and feed her. In her feverish ramblings she relived moments from the past years.

  It had been a gentle, loving life. She could remember, as a little girl, riding on her father's back as he crawled round the drawing room on all fours, and she cried "More, more!"

  Sometimes Mama had had to rescue him from the little tyrant.

  "Your father's tired, my darling."

  And Papa had always said, "No, no, my dear. I like to see her happy."

  And it had been a happy life, but without excitement. She had once ventured to say so. And dear Papa had been shocked.

  "A virtuous woman, my darling child, seeks her fulfilment in the quietness of home, and not - "

  How many lectures had started this way! A virtuous woman did not answer back. A virtuous woman endured the misfortunes of life in silence. A virtuous woman turned the other cheek.

  "But Papa, there's this horrible girl at school who bullies me, and sometimes I want so hard to smack her."

  "A very natural reaction, my dear. But you must not yield to anger. Answer her with calm strength."

  She'd tried calm strength and the bullying had turned to mockery. But one day she had answered back, and discovered she possessed a tongue sharp enough to silence bullies. She had not told Papa, but she had suffered agonies of guilt at deceiving him.

  "I'm sorry, Papa," she whispered now.

  And the baker's wife mopped her brow and murmured, "Poor soul. She's delirious."

  For years it had been like that, secretly growing into a firmer and more determined character than was suitable in a clergyman's daughter, and having to hide it from her parents, who would have been appalled.

  When she was fourteen a troop of players came and set up their stage on the village green. She had been entranced. Her parents had taken her to a performance, and she had been so thrilled that she had blurted out, "Oh I would love to be an actress one day!"

  They had been devastated. That a child of theirs could even contemplate such an immoral career had reduced them to shocked despair.

  Mama had wept. Papa had talked about a virtuous woman.

  But because they loved her they soon persuaded themselves that she was too young to understand her own words. They had comforted and forgiven her.

  But Rena had never again confided her longing for a more colourful life, even for outright adventure.

  She recovered. Her nurses said goodbye and left her. She came downstairs to find the place empty and her larder filled with nourishing food. She sought them out and tried to thank them, but they all professed ignorance.

  Nor would the doctor allow her to mention his bill, which he declared had been paid. For the first time Rena was realising how much the village loved her as well as her father.

  It was heart warming, but at the end of two months she still had no job. As far as possible she ate vegetables grown in her own garden, and eggs from the chicken she kept.

  Daily she expected a letter to say that a new parson had been appointed, but from the bishop there was only silence. Both the village and herself had been left in limbo.

  "What am I going to do?" she asked herself again and again.

  Now was surely the time to embark on that adventure for which she had always yearned. But how could she arrange for that to happen? An adventure was something that came to you, and if one thing was for certain it was that no adventure was going to find her in this tiny backwater that the world had forgotten.

  The village which was in an obscure part of the country was seldom visited by anyone outside. This was because the great house in the centre of it, which had been there for ten or more generations, had stood empty and neglected for ten years, since the death of the Earl, Lord Lansdale.

  Rena vaguely remembered him, an old man who took no interest in the people who lived in the cottages which belonged to him. He employed very few servants in the house and regrettably few outside, so the villagers knew that they could not look to him for employment.

  He had no money. The house, known as The Grange, that he had inherited on the death of the previous Earl, had merely given him a place to lay his head. It did not provide the money to keep it going.

  "Nor can he sell the house or any of the lands," Papa had confided to her, "because they are entailed. They must be passed intact to the next heir."

  "But suppose there is no next heir, Papa?"

  "Then it's a bad business, and everything falls to rack and ruin."

  Sometimes he had visited The Grange, taking Rena with him. The old Earl had liked the child, and once shown her the tower which perched incongruously high up over the centre of the building.

  That visit had thrilled her, but the Earl had grown giddy and had to be rescued, and she was never allowed up there again. Nor was she invited to visit the house again, which made her sad, because it was a beautiful place, and she loved it despite its dilapidation.

  Her last ever visit had been made ten years earlier, when she was twelve. The old Earl had died in the night, and his funeral was held in The Grange's private chapel. Like all the other villagers, she had attended. And, like them, she had hoped that soon a new Earl would arrive, put the place in order and bring prosperity back to the neighbourhood.

  But it didn't happen. The Grange, the estate, the fields, all fell into a further state of decay. And the people's despair grew deeper.

  The only excitement just now was the rumour that somebody had come, or was coming, to open up The Grange. Bearing in mind what Papa had said about entails, Rena wondered if this meant a new Earl.

  For a day or two the village buzzed. But then nothing happened, and the buzzing died down.

  One day Rena went to her father's study, where he had written his sermons and where she could still feel his presence. As though he were still there, she found her
self saying, "What can I do, Papa? Where can I go, and who can I ask for help?"

  She sighed and waited, as if she would hear her father speak and tell her what to do. Then almost as if the words had been said aloud, she found herself thinking of the cross which had been found in the wood, behind The Grange.

  She had been about twelve when it had been discovered by some men working amongst the trees. Her father had been asked to inspect it, and had found something that might at one time had been a large, rather roughly made cross but which was now left with only its centre trunk.

  He thought the top had somehow got broken. As it was near the stream it had perhaps been washed away. The large piece of wood was thick with mud, but when they washed it clean, they found engraved on it were some words that nobody could make out.

  Her father had cleaned the wood until the words could be seen more clearly. He'd given orders for the cross to be driven back into the ground, high above the stream so that the water would not touch it again.

  But they were unable to find the missing cross piece, which had made it look a little strange as it stood surrounded by the trees.

  "How can you be certain it is a cross?" she remembered her mother asking, as they walked through the wood.

  "You'll be as certain as I am when you see it now," the Reverend Colwell had told her. "It's been cleaned and we can read what is engraved on it."

  It was spring and the trees were coming into blossom. Rena, holding her father's hand, had been thrilled to walk through the woods which belonged to The Grange, and had thought what a wonderful place to play hide-and-seek.

  At last they saw the tall, impressive piece of wood, that her father was so convinced was a cross. When she drew nearer, she saw the writing on it, and her father had translated: "YE WHO ASK FOR HELP WILL FIND IT WHEN YE PRAY TO ME."

  "That's what convinced me," her father said when he read it aloud, "that it was originally a cross. I think perhaps it was placed here hundreds of years ago, when the house was being built or perhaps even before that."