They Found their Way to Heaven Read online

  “Yes, you must.”

  Everybody turned, astonished to see who had spoken.

  It was Violet and she was looking fiercely determined.

  “She does not want to marry you,” she told Andrew. “She told me, when she came here, that she had run away from you because you were asking her to marry her when you really loved someone else. That is why she was hiding here from you.”

  Seeing her plans going awry, Lady Gorleston hurried to say,

  “That is not for you, who are only a silly little girl, to decide.”

  She turned to the Duke.

  “If you ask me, your sister’s governess, as she calls herself, ought to be very grateful to accept this man, who must love her wildly, passionately, since he has come all this way to find her.”

  There was something unpleasant in the way she spoke.

  Then the Duke stepped forward, a stern look on his face and confronted Captain Broadmoor.

  “I am afraid your journey has been entirely wasted, sir. This lady cannot marry you, because she is going to marry me!”

  Uproar!

  The Gorleston family looked horrified and Andrew even more so. Violet looked ecstatic and triumphant, while the Duke’s expression was tender and delighted.

  From the guests came a buzz of pleasure and excitement.

  But on Elvina’s face there was only consternation.

  Her heart was in turmoil. She loved David and wanted to marry him, but not like this.

  She had longed for him to love her enough to care nothing for her pedigree. And now it could never happen.

  “Your Grace,” she murmured, “wait, please.”

  “Never call me Your Grace again,” he said, smiling. “You are my future wife.”

  “I have not said so.”

  He smiled again, thinking that he understood her.

  “I know, I never asked you properly, did I?” he asked tenderly. “Then I shall ask you now.”

  “No,” she whispered hurriedly. “No, you must not. Not in front of all these people.”

  “But I want the world to know that you are to be my wife.”

  “But perhaps I will not be your wife,” she forced herself to say.

  “What? What are you saying? Of course we are to be married. Now there is nothing standing in our way.”

  “You do not understand, do you?” she sighed sadly.

  “No, I do not understand. I thought you loved me as much as I love you.”

  “Do you love me?” she asked wistfully. “I wonder.”

  “What are you saying?” he murmured, horrified as it began to dawn on him that she was serious.

  “We cannot discuss this now,” she said hurriedly. “Please, let us just continue with the party.”

  “But what am I to tell everyone?”

  “Say nothing. Let them think what they will, as long as no formal announcement is made. I must deal with Captain Broadmoor.”

  Without giving him a chance to reply she approached Andrew, who was looking as though he wished the earth would swallow him up.

  “Come with me,” she ordered firmly.

  Grasping his hand, she almost dragged him away and out onto the terrace. There she confronted him. He was looking hopeful again.

  “It isn’t really over between us, is it?” he pleaded. “You could not bring yourself to marry a great title, because you still love me.”

  “I do not love you, Andrew. I don’t think I ever really did. I was lonely. Whatever happened with Margaret?”

  “We – decided that we would not suit.”

  “You mean you decided that she didn’t have enough money. Was two thousand pounds not enough?”

  “It saved me from the worst, but – ”

  “Oh, give me patience! What did I ever see in you? It is unforgivable of you to come here. How did you know where I was.”

  “Lady Gorleston came to see me.”

  “How did she find out?”

  “I think she bribed someone in the Duke’s stables to keep an eye on Simpson. He sent some letters and this fellow managed to see the address. Then she came to your estate and asked questions until she found me.”

  “Is Margaret still there?”

  “Yes – that is – I think so,” he replied lamely.

  “You don’t know? Are you not concerned about her feelings?”

  He gave a helpless shrug.

  “What can I do?”

  ‘How could I have imagined myself in love with this paltry creature?’ Elvina thought.

  “I think you should leave at once, Andrew,” she said. “Goodbye.”

  “But don’t you think – ?”

  “Goodbye. You had better go down the terrace steps and round to the front. I will explain your absence to Lady Gorleston.”

  With another miserable shrug he drifted to the steps. Once more he glanced back but, seeing only her implacable face, finally accepted defeat and departed.

  At that moment there came a cry from the terrace just above her.

  “Where are you?”

  “Here,” she answered, climbing the steps hastily.

  “Thank Heavens!” the Duke called hoarsely. “When I didn’t see you I thought you had gone with him.”

  “Why should I do that? I ran away to escape him in the first place. That is why I came here. I am so sorry I deceived you about my identity but – ”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted her hurriedly. “Violet has told me something of what you confided in her. Mrs. Winters never existed, did she?”

  “No. I have never been married. I simply needed another identity in case Andrew came looking for me.”

  “And Lady Gorleston set herself to find out who you were, because she could sense that I was falling in love with you. Oh, my darling!”

  On the last words his control broke and he seized her into his arms, raining passionate kisses over her face.

  Joy streamed through every part of her and for a blissful moment she yielded. She loved him and she could almost believe that nothing else mattered.

  But something stern and almost puritanical in her told her that it was not so easy. It was not enough that he wanted to marry her. It mattered why. She could not settle for a flawed love, though her heart broke for him.

  “Wait, wait,” she told him breathlessly.

  “No, my darling, I am not going to wait. I want to go back into that room and tell everyone that you are to be my wife. There are no obstacles standing between us now.”

  “There never were,” she parried quietly.

  “But I didn’t know that – ”

  “You knew that we were well suited, that we had similar tastes and I was free to marry. You knew that we loved each other. What more did you need to know?”

  “My dear, please, we have talked about this before. I had to consider my duty to my house – ”

  “Of course and I would not expect you to marry a woman who was not a lady. But I am a lady and you knew that, even if you didn’t know that I was the social equal of Lady Alexandra.

  “I longed for you to set aside pride and position and love me for myself alone. Why, oh, why could you not have done so?”

  “Does it matter?” he asked passionately.

  “Yes,” she replied. “It does matter. But we cannot talk about it now. We must return to the party.”

  There was a step behind them and Violet appeared.

  “There you are, you two,” she called eagerly. “Do come back. The Gorlestons are furious. We conquered them! Isn’t it fun? Now we can tell everyone.”

  “Yes, we must go inside,” the Duke said in a strained voice. “But we will make no announcements tonight.”

  “Oh, David, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud! Who cares whether you announce it in The Times first?”

  But something in his pale face made her fall silent.

  Quietly the Duke drew his sister’s arm through his.

  “Come,” he said. “We must see to our guests.”

&
nbsp; All eyes were on them when they returned to the library and the curiosity intensified when they saw that Andrew was no longer with them.

  But the Duke played his part to perfection. His smiles concealed the blow he had just received, and nothing could have exceeded his amiability as he ushered his guests into the dining room.

  Nor could anything have exceeded the firmness with which he refused to notice the entire Gorleston family glaring at him. Even the normally supine Lady Alexandra was roused to a glance of hostility, as though she sensed that her chance had gone, but did not quite know why.

  Her mother knew why, as her eyes directed at Elvina made clear. But Elvina followed the Duke’s example and refused to notice her.

  Somehow they all struggled through the evening until it was time for the guests to leave. Lady Gorleston departed with a toss of her head.

  “Well done,” the Duke said quietly to Violet. “You managed your first grown-up party beautifully. You are a credit to Mrs. – to Lady Elvina.”

  “Fancy her having a title all the time.”

  “Yes, fancy,” the Duke agreed in a wan voice.

  “We should have guessed,” Violet continued. “I mean it was obvious really.”

  “It was obvious that she was a woman of means. You had only to see her horses.”

  “No, I mean more than that. It doesn’t matter whether she has a title or not. It is a certain something about her.”

  “Yes,” he agreed in a tense voice. “By the way, where is she?”

  “She went upstairs. She said she was tired.”

  “You had better look in and see if she’s all right.

  Goodnight, my dear.”

  They kissed each other and Violet hurried upstairs.

  She knocked on Elvina’s room and entered without waiting for an answer.

  “Mrs. Winters – oh, no! I must call you Lady Elvina now, mustn’t I? Why, what are you doing?”

  Appalled, she stared at the open suitcase on Elvina’s bed, which was gradually filling with clothes.

  “I am getting ready to leave,” Elvina said. “I cannot stay here any longer.”

  “But why? I thought that you and David – you know.”

  “That was an illusion – it can never be and you must not even think about it.”

  Violet would have argued, but something in Elvina’s demeanour that she had not seen before, made her stop.

  The next moment she had darted out of the room. Running downstairs, she burst into the library where her brother was sitting by the fire.

  “She’s going,” she screamed. “She is packing her things because she says she cannot stay here any longer. David you must stop her.”

  “She won’t listen to me,” he said sombrely. “I have offended her too dreadfully.”

  “Oh, stuff! How could you offend her?”

  “That’s what I am still trying to understand myself.

  But she is so angry with me.”

  “But it’s just a lover’s tiff, whatever she says.”

  “Why, what has she said?”

  “I asked her about you and she and she said it was an illusion and that it could never be.”

  He had half risen, but now he sank back in his chair and the light disappeared from his face.

  “Go to bed, Violet.”

  “But David, aren’t you even going to try?”

  “Go to bed, my dear.”

  She left him, but turned at the door for a last look. He sat with his head sunk, staring into the fire and at last she crept away.

  The Duke stayed as he was for an hour. Then he rose and walked out onto the stone terrace, looking at the grounds shining in the light of the moon.

  A figure, huddled in a cloak, was walking across the lawn. At the bottom of the steps she stopped and looked up at him.

  He came slowly down to her.

  “Violet says you are leaving.”

  “Yes, Simpson and I will go first thing tomorrow.”

  “Is there nothing I can say to make you stay with me all my life?”

  Sadly she shook her head.

  “I do not want to go but I cannot help myself. What I feel is too strong for me to go against it. I suppose that makes me like you, really.”

  “Don’t,” he said, closing his eyes and wincing.

  “I am sorry. I didn’t mean that cruelly. It’s just that in a way I understand. What you were reared to believe in stays with you all your life.”

  “What were you reared to believe in?” he asked, almost as though he was afraid of the answer.

  “Love,” she replied simply. “I saw my parents’ love for each other and it seemed to fill the world. As I grew up I had only one dream – to find a love like theirs.

  “I knew that when the time came for me to marry, it would be because the man and I loved each other as my parents did, so totally that nothing else mattered.

  “I thought I had found that kind of love in Captain Broadmoor, until I discovered that he was pursuing me for my money, while secretly loving another woman.”

  She sighed as she continued,

  “Maybe I am being unrealistic because how many couples are like my parents? I only know that I cannot settle for less.”

  “And I would not offer you less,” he pleaded. “You are the only woman who will ever live in my heart.”

  “Yes, now that you know the truth about me. If only you had not learned it like this.”

  “It’s done now and cannot be helped. I love you – worship you. I think of you, dream of you night and day. We are made for each other. Haven’t you felt that?”

  “Yes,” she cried in agony. “I have felt it many times, but I was deluding myself. If you could love me and marry Lady Alexandra – ”

  “I could never have married her,” he interrupted fiercely.

  “But why not?” she hurled at him, made angry by her misery. “She is an Earl’s daughter and your social equal – almost. Not quite, of course, but I suppose even a Duke has to look a little beneath him for a wife.”

  “Stop it,” he said intensely, seizing her by the shoulders and giving her a shake. “Don’t talk like that, I forbid you.”

  “As Your Grace commands,” she responded with bitter irony.

  “I said stop it! How dare you talk that way when you know that I love you, that we love each other?”

  “Do we?” she flung at him. “I wonder.”

  He stared at her, his hands still gripping her shoulders tightly.

  Then with a growl of “let’s put an end to this nonsense!” he pulled her against him.

  He kissed her fervently with a driving passion that almost overwhelmed her. In a moment he had blotted out the world, leaving only the two of them in the fire of their mutual desire.

  Elvina kissed him back. She could not help herself. But even while she yielded to her feelings, an independent voice in her head vowed that she would not be overwhelmed against her better judgement.

  “You love me,” he murmured against her mouth. “Say it.”

  “I love you,” she gasped.

  “Nothing else matters. We will be married as soon as possible.”

  “No!”

  “I say yes and I will not be refused. Do you think I am going to let you go?”

  Elvina freed herself and spoke in a fury.

  “You have no choice. How dare you try to order me about! I am neither slave nor servant, but a free woman and I say no. I wouldn’t let Andrew lord it over me and I will not allow you!”

  There was a moment’s freezing silence, during which he stared into her face. Now he too was angry, his eyes hard and glittering.

  Then he released her and stepped back.

  “Very well! Have it as you wish. I do not understand you and I will not pretend to. If you are set on destroying us both there is no more to be said.”

  “You are right,” she said quietly. “There is no more to be said.”

  “I will order the carriage ready to take you to the station tomorr
ow.”

  He inclined his head to her sharply.

  “Goodnight to you, madam.”

  She stood where she was as he walked away from her across the lawn. She felt drained and exhausted and there was a terrible ache in her heart.

  *

  She was in the stables at dawn next morning to speak to Simpson and give him money and instructions for taking Mars and Jupiter home. Violet was waiting for her in the breakfast room, but there was no sign of the Duke, which was a relief or so she told herself.

  “I cannot believe that you are really going,” Violet spluttered tearfully. “Please don’t. It will be so terrible without you.”

  “I have no choice, my dear,” Elvina replied sadly. “I cannot marry your brother. It could never have worked out.”

  Violet was about to burst out in protestations, but something about Elvina’s pale face silenced her.

  Elvina drank her coffee, wondering when the Duke would appear to say goodbye to her. But after a while she faced the fact that he was not coming.

  He was going to let her leave without a word.

  When that realisation came to her, she raised her chin. If that was how things were, so be it.

  The time had come. She kissed Violet goodbye and walked out to the waiting carriage, a small closed vehicle. The coachman was ready on the box. A footman opened the door and handed her in.

  Then, just as the door closed, the far door opened and someone jumped in quickly as the carriage began to move.

  “Good morning,” said the Duke.

  Her heart overflowed with relief. Now he would take her into his arms and perhaps, somehow, they would find a second chance.

  But all he said was,

  “I thought I would escort you at least part of the way to the station.”

  “And make sure that I really departed?” she asked lightly.

  “Perhaps. I spent a sleepless night thinking over what you said and now I know that you are right. How could we make it a happy marriage when neither of us will soften and try to understand the other?

  “You told me that you had grown up believing in love above all else. You said you could not swerve from that belief because you had been raised to it and it was a part of you.

  “And yet you judged me because I clung to the beliefs in which I was reared. Perhaps it was wrong of me to place the dignity of my house and the pride of lineage so high, but that was what I was taught to do.