The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl Read online

  He held her closer still and she felt as if a sudden shaft of sunshine swept through her, burning its way from her lips to her breasts.

  Then he raised his head and she almost cried aloud because she was losing the ecstasy he had given her.

  “You have bewitched me,” the Duke said, and his voice was unsteady.

  She made a little murmur and hid her face against his shoulder.

  “How could you come to me looking like Diana, whose portrait I have loved since I first saw it, and never believed that any woman could look the same?”

  He felt Larentia quiver against him and he kissed her hair before he said,

  “You are so lovely! So exquisitely lovely, and I know that I must look after you, and whatever you have done in the past, your future is with me.”

  He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.

  What do you feel about me?” he asked. “Tell me, although I think I already know the answer.”

  As if he compelled her to say it, Larentia murmured,

  “I – love you – and I – cannot help it! I have loved you ever since I first saw you in ‘silver-shining armour starry clear’!”

  The Duke smiled.

  “You really thought I looked like that?”

  “That was – how you – did look!”

  “And to me you were Diana as I worshipped her in the picture by Boucher every time I went to Paris. How could you have hair like hers?”

  He put up his hand to touch it as he spoke. Then as if he was afraid of finding that she was not after all human, he was kissing her again.

  He kissed her wildly, insistently, passionately, until she felt as if the fire in him awoke a flickering fire within herself and little flames mounted within her breast towards her lips –

  A long time passed before the Duke drew Larentia to a sofa and they sat down side by side.

  “I find it hard to think of anything but you, my darling one,” he said, “but it is something we have to do and I believe it would be best if I took you back to London tomorrow.”

  For a moment she found it hard to understand what he was saying, then as the meaning of his words percolated through her mind she gave a little cry.

  “You know I have to go to London as – quickly as – possible.”

  “I will take you,” he said, “and when we reach there we will find a place where we can be together.”

  He saw the question in her eyes and said with a smile,

  “You said you loved me, and I love you! Nothing else for the moment is of consequence, but I shall not allow you to go back on the stage, and – ”

  He stopped, then almost as if he had forgotten it until this moment he said,

  “Now will you tell me the truth, and if you were really married to my uncle? It is something I cannot believe for the simple reason that I would swear if I could on the Sword of Excalibur that you have never been kissed by anyone but me.”

  Larentia drew in her breath.

  She was trying to come back to earth from the clouds of glory where the Duke had carried her.

  Suddenly afraid she tried to remember that she was not herself, not Larentia, and not with a man who had been sent to her by God.

  She was Katie King, the Gaiety Girl who had married secretly another Duke who was now dead.

  “Tell me,” the Duke insisted.

  She knew he was tempting her, asking her to break her word to Harry Carrington, and most of all to the task she had set herself of earning the money to save two people’s lives.

  With a superhuman effort that was agonising, she moved from the shelter of the Duke’s arms.

  “You said you would – take me to London,” she said. “Please – I cannot answer questions until – then.”

  She rose as she spoke and walked towards the fire and the Duke, still sitting on the sofa, watched her.

  “You are admitting you have a secret, Larentia,” he said. “Do you want me to make a bargain with you? I will give you the money you want if I can take you to London, and you will then tell me everything I want to know.”

  “I am not certain what it is you do want to know,” Larentia said evasively, “but I promise that I will answer your questions once I am in London and I have – the £8oo to pay my – debt.”

  She thought as she spoke that she defamed the very love that he had given her and which had made her, for one moment touch the wings of ecstasy.

  Never had she known she was capable of feeling such sensations, of having her very soul lifted out of her body. But while her heart told her one thing, her mind told her that she must do what she had come to do, and that she could not cheat on either her father or Katie King whose lives had been saved by the money loaned them by Isaac Levy.

  Whatever her own dreams, whatever her love for the Duke, which seemed to fill the whole universe, she must behave in an honourable manner and not betray those who trusted her.

  And yet she felt because she had loved him and because he was just sitting looking at her, that she might have lost him and she turned round.

  “Please understand,” she begged, “I love you – I love you more than I can ever put into words – but – I cannot tell you what you want to know – now.”

  “It is of no consequence,” the Duke replied. “The only thing that matters is that you have said you love me, and unless you are the best actress the world has ever known, I believe you.”

  “It is – true,” Larentia answered.

  He rose then, and walked towards her to hold her closely against him.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Make me believe it. Say it so that I can understand it! “

  “I love you – I love you! I did not know that love was – like this.”

  “Like what?”

  ‘That it is – holy and given to us by – God!”

  The Duke looked down into her eyes, then once again his lips were on hers and just for one moment Larentia was frightened that the magic had gone.

  But again it was there, pulsating through her, vibrating in the air around them, joining them closely until they were one and nothing could divide them.

  The Duke kissed her until she was compliant in his arms, then he kissed her closed eyes, the softness of her cheeks, then her lips again.

  “I cannot wait for you,” he said, and his voice was deep with desire. “As soon as we arrive in London I will buy a house where we can be together and you shall have everything you want, my precious. Every comfort that it is possible for me to give you.”

  It was difficult for Larentia to understand what he was saying.

  But she heard him talk of a house and thought she must tell him that she had to look after her father when he left the Nursing Home, and that she would not spend a great deal of time with the Duke, however much she wished to do so.

  She wanted to explain, but told herself it was impossible at the moment while he thought it was her uncle who was ill, and not her father.

  How could she tell him she was not Katie King, but Larentia Braintree, and it was not a question of her giving up the stage on which she had never appeared?

  It was all too much to think about, too much to consider when his voice was sending little thrills through her, and she was vividly conscious of how closely he was holding her and that her lips were aching for his.

  She wanted as she had never wanted anything in her life for him to possess her mouth, but the Duke slowly and reluctantly set her free.

  “You must go to bed now, my darling,” he said. “If we are to catch the early train to London it means we must leave here very early, at eight o’clock and I must make the arrangements.”

  “Y – yes – of course.”

  ‘Because I do not wish you to be worried,” he went on, “I promise that when we start our journey I will give you the cheque you have asked for and later when we reach London we can discuss all the other problems.”

  Larentia did not trust her voice to reply.

  The Duke rose an
d drew her to her feet.

  “Go to bed and dream of me,” he said. “Do not worry. Leave everything in my hands, I promise that I will look after you and I swear that whatever the difficulties I will not give you up or lose you.”

  “You really – want me?”

  “I will answer that question a thousand times over in the future,” the Duke replied.

  His voice was suddenly serious as he added,

  “It is not going to be easy, my darling, but just as you have kept your marriage a secret for so long, I think we can manage to keep our love a secret from those who would be horrified and shocked if it was known we were together.”

  His voice deepened and strengthened as if he convinced himself as he said,

  “No one will know, and although you may miss the stage a little at first, I swear to you our happiness will make up for everything.”

  Larentia was still not aware of what he was suggesting. It was so difficult to think of anything but how handsome he was and she still felt as if she was floating on air and he was not the Duke of Tregaron but one of Arthur’s Knights, or even King Arthur himself.

  Nothing was real except her love for him, nothing was understandable except that she had found what she had always been seeking, and she was no longer alone or frightened.

  She was one with him and his power drew her and held her.

  The Duke put his arm around her shoulders and they moved slowly across the salon side by side.

  As they reached the door he kissed first her forehead, then her hair.

  “Do not worry about anything,” he said. “Leave everything in my hands. You belong to me! You are mine, and I will find a solution for everything.”

  He looked down into her eyes and added,

  “Just remember that I love you and you love me!”

  She thought he would kiss her again but instead, with what she knew was a considerable effort he opened the door.

  Obedient to what he required of her, she walked through it and only as she moved away towards the Great Hall did she realise that he was not following her but had remained alone in the salon.

  Chapter Six

  Seated opposite the Duke in the train Larentia was travelling in a very different manner from the way in which she had arrived.

  They had left the Castle at eight o’clock in a comfortable carriage drawn by four horses, and when they reached the railway station the Station Master was waiting for them, resplendent in gold braid and a top hat, to escort them to a reserved carriage.

  There was also one for the servants who accompanied them to see to the luggage and to place a large picnic basket on another seat in their compartment together with a number of newspapers and magazines.

  There was a rug to cover Larentia’s legs and a servant stood outside the carriage until the last minute before the train left in case the Duke wished to give an order.

  Only when they were on their way did he smile at Larentia in a manner that made her heart turn over and say,

  “I feel as if we are starting off on an adventure into the unknown, just you and me, and the idea excites me.”

  Larentia wanted to say it excited her too, but she could not add that she had lain awake most of the night, first in a rapture of love and happiness but then beset by anxiety and the unassailable conviction that when they reached London she must never see the Duke again.

  Only when she was alone in the darkness did she go over what he had said to her and understand after a lot of thought exactly what he had meant when he said,

  “I will buy a house where we can be together.”

  Larentia, despite her extensive reading, was very ignorant about love, but she was aware that women had lovers and some of the things she had heard when her father’s contemporaries forgot that she was listening, had made her realise why actresses were considered fast and improper.

  Men to whom they had not been introduced took them out to supper, gave them jewellery and quite certainly made love to them.

  What this actually entailed Larentia did not understand, but she knew that it was wrong and a sin unless they were married to the man concerned, and if they were not, they became ‘fallen women’, whom the Prime Minister tried to reform.

  It was all rather complicated and confused in her mind, except that when she thought it over, she realised that if she agreed to what the Duke had suggested she would become a ‘fallen woman’.

  At first she could hardly believe that was what he had meant. Then as she went over and over the words he had spoken she remembered all too vividly what he had said,

  “I think we can manage to keep our love a secret from those who would be horrified and shocked if it were known that we were together.”

  Horrified, because they believed her to be the widow of his uncle, and shocked because their love was wrong and wicked when they could not be married.

  It was impossible for Larentia at first to acknowledge that the love she had for the Duke, the love that had carried her into a miraculous Heaven, could be anything but pure and good.

  Then she remembered that the love the Knight Lancelot had for Queen Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur had been a guilty one and she had lived only to expiate her wickedness and live down the sin in her heart.

  “How could what I feel for the Duke be wrong?” Larentia asked.

  Then almost as if God Himself gave her the answer, she knew that this love came from the depths of her heart and soul and was not wrong.

  What would be wrong was to agree to what the Duke suggested, to allow him to make her his, as he wished to do, so that they became one with their bodies as well as being, as they were now, one with their minds.

  ‘I shall have to disappear,’ Larentia decided at length. Then she cried out at the agony of knowing that she must tear herself apart from the man to whom she belonged, whose heart beat as her heart, and who had taken her very soul from between her lips and made it his.

  “I love him! I love him!” she cried despairingly into her pillow.

  But she knew that she could not lure him into sin, and to do so would spoil the silver-shining armour in which she had first seen him and which she knew was the vibration of his noble spirit.

  “Pure love must not be defiled.”

  She did not know where she had read the words, but now they seemed to be spoken aloud.

  Then at the thought of losing the Duke she wept until she fell asleep.

  In her dreams she saw his handsome face as he looked at her with an expression she had never seen in a man’s eyes before, and she told herself she could never leave him.

  She thought if she could explain to him later that she was not Katie King, not a married woman and not an actress, then everything would be different.

  Then she knew things would not be better, but worse. How could the Duke be expected to forgive her not only for frightening him and his family with the information that his uncle the Duke was married, but also for obtaining from him, under false pretences, the sum of £8oo that she needed so desperately for her father’s operation and Katie’s?

  They had both breakfasted in their own rooms and when she had come down the stairs dressed in her dark travelling-cloak with a small bonnet on her shining hair, the Duke had taken her handbag from her and put into it an envelope which he held in his hand.

  She knew what it contained, but when she would have thanked him, he merely drew her across the hall and helped her down the steps and into the carriage.

  Once again she tried to say thank you, but he put his hand over hers and said,

  “I want you to forget everything today except that we are together.”

  Because his touch made her quiver she could only look at him and feel that it was unnecessary to express her love in words because he knew what she was feeling, just as she was aware that he felt the same.

  Now as he looked at her sitting opposite him on the train the Duke thought it impossible to believe that any woman could look so lovely in such mundane surroundin
gs, looking to him exactly as she was portrayed in the picture of Diana.

  He adored her small straight nose, her winged eyebrows, her soft oval face, and, of course, her shining red gold hair.

  He longed with a passionate desire to see it falling over her shoulders in a cloud of glory.

  He knew it must be very long because Larentia had arranged it in thick plaits, looped up at the back of her head and secured on the top by large pins.

  He told himself that soon he would undo the plaits and bury his face in the, soft silkiness of her golden hair, then draw it over her face like a veil and kiss her lips through it.

  Almost as if she could read his thoughts he saw the colour rise in her cheeks.

  He asked how it was possible that she could look so shy and untouched, and yet have been married to a man who was as debauched and vicious as his uncle had been.

  He tried to thrust the thought from him because it tortured him to think of Larentia giving even her hand to another man, let alone herself.

  Yet he had said to her whatever she had done in the past, must be forgotten, because the present and the future were his, so he would forget – yes, of course he would forget – that he was not, as he would have wished to be, the first man in her life.

  His love, he swore to himself, was great enough to prevent the truth from spoiling their happiness!

  Because he thought it would be difficult to explain to his aunt why he had left in such haste, the Duke had written the Marchioness a letter.

  He told her he had found it expedient to leave for London to investigate Miss King’s claim and he would beg her not to mention to anyone what had occurred while she had been at the Castle.

  He added –

  “As soon as I know more than I do at the moment, I will get in touch with you at your home. Until then, Aunt Muriel, I trust you, as I know you trust me.”

  He left the note to be taken up to the Marchioness with her breakfast, knowing that although she would be surprised at his departure, she would not have expected to see him so early in the morning.

  He felt in fact a feeling of freedom as they set off, and now as the train sped on its way he told himself he was happier than he had ever been in his whole life.