A Paradise On Earth Read online

  A PARADISE ON EARTH

  “I cannot take you with me,” she asserted. “We mermaids swim alone and no man may follow us. It is forbidden.”

  She pulled away from him and dived swiftly, so that he saw a flash of shapely ankle before she vanished into the depths. Instantly he dived as well and felt a moment’s panic because he could not see her in the dark blue water.

  At last he sensed her gliding past him as though she was indeed the mermaid she had claimed to be. This time he was taking no chances. He put on a spurt and caught up with her, seizing her waist.

  Above them the water was pale from the light above. Up and up they climbed until they broke the surface and the sunshine streamed over them again. At first they laughed into each other’s eyes, but suddenly they stopped laughing and trod water, looking astonished at what had come over them.

  The shore was so distant as to be almost invisible. Overhead the blue sky was empty and the sea stretched far away into the distance. They might have been completely alone in the world with no one to see what they did next.

  Slowly John drew her towards him. Her arms enfolded his neck and the next moment he was kissing her, and she was kissing him.

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  Her publishers finally could not keep up with this phenomenal output, so at her death she left 160 unpublished manuscripts, something again that no other author has ever achieved.

  Now the exciting news is that these 160 original unpublished Barbara Cartland books are ready for publication and they will be published by Barbaracartland.com exclusively on the internet, as the web is the best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

  If you do not have access to a computer you can write for information about the Pink Collection to the following address :

  Barbara Cartland.com Ltd.

  240 High Road,

  Harrow Weald,

  Harrow HA3 7BB

  United Kingdom.

  Telephone & fax: +44 (0)20 8863 2520

  Titles in this series

  1. The Cross of Love

  2. Love in the Highlands

  3. Love Finds the Way

  4. The Castle of Love

  5. Love is Triumphant

  6. Stars in the Sky

  7. The Ship of Love

  8. A Dangerous Disguise

  9. Love Became Theirs

  10. Love drives in

  11. Sailing to Love

  12. The Star of Love

  13. Music is the Soul of Love

  14. Love in the East

  15. Theirs to Eternity

  16 A Paradise on Earth

  A PARADISE ON EARTH

  BARBARA CARTLAND

  Barbaracartland.com Ltd

  Copyright © January 2006 by Cartland Promotions

  First published on the internet in 2006 by

  Barbaracartland.com

  ISBN 978-1-906950-76-7

  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 M-Y Books

  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.

  "Love truly makes the world go round and the universe as well."

  Barbara Cartland

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  -

  1855

  It was cold in the Barrack Hospital, but at least there was a roof overhead and oil lamps to cast a soft glow. To the wounded men who had endured the freezing voyage over the Black Sea from Balaclava to reach the hospital at Scutari, any shelter was welcome.

  The man lying on the low bed barely felt the cold and the filth. Even his terrible pain seemed to reach him from a distance. He was dying, and he knew it.

  He thought of his father and brother, both far away in England. He had never been close to them, but he would have liked to speak to them one last time. Now he knew he would never see them again.

  He was vaguely aware of a woman kneeling beside his bed, drawing aside the tattered jacket of his uniform that proclaimed him an officer in the Light Brigade. Then the pain became overwhelming and he passed out.

  When he came round his condition had improved. Somebody had cleaned him and dressed his wound, although the pain was still severe.

  He gradually realised that someone was sitting by his bed, and after a moment he recognised him.

  “Robert,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “That’s better, Major,” said Sergeant Robert Dale.

  He was a burly individual in his thirties, with a broad face that now bore a smile of relief.

  “For a while I thought you were gone for good,” he said. “I have been thinking that for days now. But there you are, sir! I never thought you would survive charging the Russian guns.”

  “So many didn’t survive it,” Major Milton muttered, his eyes closing as the
painful memories converged on him.

  Six hundred men on horseback, charging down a narrow valley to reach an impossible target! Nearly half of them had been cut down.

  “And then when I found you on the boat,” Robert Dale continued. “I thought you were going to die at any moment. But I guess you are indestructible, sir.”

  “I don’t feel indestructible,” John Milton murmured. “I keep expecting to fall asleep and not wake up. But never mind me. What about your wounds?”

  “Not too bad, sir,” Robert replied, indicating his bandaged right arm and also his wounded left leg.

  He was about to settle down to a discussion of wounds when he saw a woman approaching the bed. She was in her thirties with a thin face and a voice that was gentle but full of authority.

  “You must go, now,” she ordered. “The Major needs to sleep. You may return tomorrow.”

  Robert knew who she was. Everyone knew.

  “But will he still be alive tomorrow, Miss Nightingale, ma’am?” he asked urgently.

  “He will if I have anything to do with it,” she answered quietly.

  Something in her manner reassured the Sergeant. He walked away without another word.

  When he returned next day, it was to find Major John Milton still alive, but with a terrible grey look to his face. Robert began to talk to him in a voice of grim determination, as though, by doing so, he could keep him still in the land of the living. Sometimes the Major roused himself to speak.

  “I thought the army would be such an adventure,” he mumbled. “I was even glad that I was the younger son, so that I could go off and have ‘fun’. I was just a boy then. I thought being in a cavalry regiment meant parading around in a glittering uniform, riding a fine horse, flirting with all the pretty girls.”

  He fell silent and Robert was silent too, understanding what he could not say. The Crimean War had broken out between Russia and Britain. Eager young soldiers had been shipped out to the action. But, with terrible speed, dreams of adventure had ended in the mud.

  “How could they have sent us into that charge?” the Major asked, more like his old self. “Like sheep to the slaughter.”

  He closed his eyes as though trying to shut out the memory.

  “Don’t think of it, sir,” Robert urged.

  “You are right. Talk about yourself. I think you once told me that you come from a family of inn-keepers?”

  “That’s right, sir. My father owns a Public House in London. He wanted me to go into the trade, but I ran away to join the army. Recently though I have been thinking that being a landlord might suit me.”

  “Yes, the quiet life now starts to look very attractive,” the Major agreed. “If I come through this, I think I will do something peaceful, myself.”

  He gave a faint grin.

  “Maybe I’ll try my hand at being a landlord. It could be a good life, standing behind a bar being ‘mine host’.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me, sir. Lords such as yourself don’t become landlords.”

  “I am not a Lord.”

  “I thought you said your father was an Earl?”

  “And so I did. He is Earl Milton. And my brother George is Viscount Milton until our father dies, and then he will be the Earl. But I am just John Milton, or ‘the Honourable John Milton’ on letters.”

  “But you were brought up as a Lord?” Robert asked, sounding anxious.

  “Yes, I was.”

  “With a big country estate?” Robert added hopefully. His ideas about Lords were being threatened.

  “A huge country estate,” John reassured him. “Milton Park is a wonderful place, with a deer park and ancient oaks.”

  “I wonder you could ever bear to leave it, sir.”

  John did not feel able to tell him that he had fled his cold, dismissive father and his selfish arrogant brother. In their society he had felt excluded, and had been glad to leave them behind. In Robert Dale, a man he would once have been taught to despise as beneath him, he had found more true warmth and friendship than he had ever known in his family.

  “It was big,” he murmured. “Too big. There was no chance to get to know anyone properly. An inn would be – friendly. And people would smile when they saw you.”

  The Sergeant stared. Great Lords (for so he still thought of John Milton) were supposed to be above caring for such things. Then he realised that the Major must be feverish, which accounted for his rambling thoughts.

  “I expect you would like to sleep now, sir,” he suggested, rising. “I’ll come again tomorrow.”

  As he moved away he saw Miss Nightingale standing close enough to have heard his final words.

  “I am afraid you may not return here,” she said softly. “We have an outbreak of cholera, and the fewer people who move around the hospital the better. But I expect you’ll be leaving soon anyway.”

  She indicated his arm and leg, both wounded, but neither badly enough to incapacitate him.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, awed by the great lady.

  “Then you are one of the lucky ones,” she said. “More people die of disease in this place than of their wounds.”

  “The Major –” he exclaimed in alarm.

  “Pray for him,” Florence Nightingale replied simply.

  The following day Sergeant Dale was shipped out of Scutari and invalided home without seeing John Milton again, or being able to obtain any news about him.

  CHAPTER ONE

  -

  1858

  Cecilia ran as hard as her legs would take her. If only she could only reach the house and run up the stairs before Sir Stewart caught her. She could hear him now, puffing and gasping as he chased her through the garden. He was getting close, but too much alcohol and rich food had left him out of condition. She might still escape.

  But as she reached the trees she stumbled and then he was upon her, grabbing her arms and pulling her against him.

  “Why do you run away from me?” he demanded, breathing beer fumes over her.

  “Because I cannot bear the sight of you,” she cried, frantically turning her head away.

  She felt sick with disgust, not only at the smell of the man, but at the sight of him too. His red, fleshy face was loathsome, but more loathsome still was his heavy, slack body, held against hers, pressing her back against a tree.

  “Get away from me,” she screamed. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Come now, you don’t fool me,” he wheezed. “I know very well that this display of reluctance is only to increase my ardour. But there’s no need, you know. My desire for you is already at fever pitch, and nothing will stop our marriage.”

  “I will stop our marriage,” she raged. “I will never marry you. Why can’t you understand that?”

  He laughed nastily. “Perhaps because it doesn’t suit me to understand it. I am your guardian and I wish to marry you. I have applied to myself, and I have granted myself permission. So there is nothing left to do but to set the date.”

  “Except that I will not marry you,” she cried.

  “You have no choice. You will do as your guardian decrees.”

  “I’ll die first.”

  “Stop talking nonsense. Our marriage is all settled. I am looking forward to it. Now, how about a little kiss, as a token of your love for me?”

  To her horror he pressed his face against hers, so that there was no escape from his heavy, tobacco-stained moustache. She turned her head frantically this way and that, just managing to escape his mouth.

  At last, using all her strength, she succeeded in pushing him away. He stumbled back and fell over a log that lay on the ground just behind him.

  His eyes kindled with rage.

  “Why you –”

  Cecilia heard no more. Picking up her skirts, she fled through the trees into the house and up the stairs to her own room. There she leaned against the door and burst into loud sobs.

  She could hardly believe that she had been brought to this. Only six months earlier
she had been living a happy life, the darling of her father, Charles Reynolds, a very wealthy merchant. She had loved him dearly and since her mother’s death, five years earlier, they had been everything to each other.

  Dearest Papa had been perfect in every way but one, and that was his yearning for a title. He had longed to see his daughter raised to the ranks of the aristocracy, and when Sir Stewart Paxton had arrived in their orbit, he had been overwhelmed.

  It was not easy for a merchant’s daughter to achieve a brilliant match. In London Mr. Reynolds had been horribly snubbed. Even his wealth could not buy him admission to the really fashionable places, where the great Lords and Ladies met and played.

  At his home on the south coast things were easier. Brighton had been fashionable ever since the Prince Regent had held court there in his extravagant pavilion. Those days were long gone. The spendthrift Prince had become a spendthrift King and had died twenty-eight years ago.

  But the well-off and the lower ranks of the aristocracy had continued to travel to Brighton in the summer, to bathe in the sea and enjoy the many amusements set out for their pleasure.

  Here Mr. Reynolds might hope to achieve some minor social success for his daughter. When he met Sir Stewart he thought that here, at last, was the title he wanted for Cecilia.

  Cecilia had seen it differently. To her, Sir Stewart was a vulgarian with no fine feelings and a profound greed for money. He flattered her father, inveigled him into card games and almost always won. Cecilia was certain that he was cheating.

  He was not at all the sort of man she wanted. Like any young girl she dreamed of a Knight in shining armour, a handsome young man who would court her romantically, sweep her off her feet into a glittering fantasy, and adore her for ever.