Love and Lucia Read online

  “As I said just now, why should we wait? We love each other, and you are mine, mine, my precious, for ever!” Before she could reply, before she could ask him as she wanted to do what he was saying, he was kissing her again.

  Now the fire on his lips seemed to burn its way into her whole body, and she felt as if there were flames leaping in her breast which grew in intensity with every kiss the Marquis gave her.

  Then, so suddenly that she almost fell, he took his arms from her to say,

  “I cannot wait any longer! Go down to your cabin, my sweet, and I will join you in a few minutes.”

  Then as if his words shattered her dream and the light that dazzled her was dimmed, and she saw more clearly, she said,

  “What – are you – saying? What are you – asking me to – do?”

  “I am telling you that I love you,” the Marquis replied, “and the most thrilling thing I have ever done in my life will be to teach you about love.”

  He put his arms round her again as he said,

  “I will be very gentle, and not frighten you, but I want you and I will make you want me.”

  His voice was deep and hoarse with passion, but it seemed to Lucia as if the fire flickering within her suddenly died down, almost as if blown out by a cold wind.

  She put both her hands on the Marquis’s chest, forcing him a little way away from her. Then she said in a voice that did not seem like her own,

  “What – are you – asking me to – do?”

  “I am asking you to love me, my darling, as I love you!” “I do – love you – I love you with all my heart – but there is still – something I do not – understand.”

  The Marquis was smiling as he said,

  “There is more to loving than kisses, and that is why I want you close to me, and to explain how wonderful love can be when two people feel as we do.”

  Again Lucia felt as if a cold wind swept through her, and her body was stiff and unyielding as she said in a voice he could hardly hear,

  “Are you – asking me to be your – mistress?”

  As she spoke, she could see Francesca’s eyes flashing in her beautiful face, and hear the raw passion in her voice as she raised the stiletto to strike at the Marquis.

  At her question the Marquis stiffened too. Then he said,

  “My precious, I do not want you to think of it like that.”

  “But – that is – what you are – asking.”

  “Words are not important, names do not matter. What we are talking about is us – you and me, Lucia.”

  “What you are – suggesting is – wrong.”

  “Who is to decide that?” the Marquis asked. “My darling, be practical. What alternative-is there for you, except to try to earn your living, which I am sure you are quite incapable of doing alone and unprotected.”

  Lucia did not speak and after a moment the Marquis went on,

  “I promise that I, will look after you. We shall be very happy together, and while we are in London I will come to the house which I am giving you with your old nanny. But there will be many times when we can be together in Sea Horse, or visit France and anywhere else in the world.”

  He spoke beguilingly as if he was tempting her, but while his arms were still around her Lucia felt as if there were a great gulf between them.

  Then almost as if she was seeing a picture in front of her eyes she remembered the expression on the Marquis’s face as he had looked at Francesca and heard again the cold icy anger in his voice as he had told her to leave.

  It was then she knew that she could not explain, could not argue, but she could not stay with him.

  With a little cry like that of a small animal that had been hurt she said,

  “No! No – no!”

  Before the Marquis could stop her, she had run away from him, leaving the deck and disappearing below to her cabin.

  He took a step as if he would follow her.

  Then he turned to hold on to the rail and look out at the lights on the land and the stars overhead without seeing them.

  *

  In her cabin Lucia locked the door and flung herself down on her bed, hiding her face in her pillow.

  She was trembling so convulsively that for the moment she felt almost as if her teeth were chattering.

  Then, as she tried to think, she felt that her brain had ceased to function and it was hard to breathe.

  She lay feeling as if she had dropped down into a dark dungeon and she could not find the way out.

  It was quite a long time before she could think clearly, and then she asked herself over and over again,

  “How could he – expect me to – do such a – thing? How could he – imagine I was that – sort of woman?”

  She remembered the men who had followed her in Venice. They had thought she was ‘that sort of woman’, and that they should think in such a way was degrading and humiliating.

  But for the Marquis, of all people, to expect her to take the place of Francesca whom he had just discarded, and suggest that he should give her a house in payment for their love was to make her feel as if she was drowning in a pool of filth and slime.

  “How could he? How could he dare even to think that I would agree to such a suggestion?” she asked herself.

  The same question repeated and repeated itself for a long time.

  Then gradually as she became calmer and ceased to tremble, she found herself striving to think logically.

  But that was impossible because the moment she thought of the Marquis as a man all she could remember was the wonder and glory of his kisses and the sensations he had aroused in her when he kissed her neck.

  “I love him! I love him!” she said into the darkness.

  Now because of her love the tears choked her and began to run down her cheeks.

  Fearing she might sob out loud and the Marquis would hear her, she turned her face into the pillow and cried until she was almost suffocating.

  In fact, it was an hour before she rose from the bed, and taking off her evening-dress, put on her nightgown and slid between the sheets.

  She did not know whether the Marquis had gone to bed or even if he had come to her door, perhaps to apologise or to plead with her.

  She only knew her tears had been so tempestuous that while she cried she had been unconscious of anything else. She felt utterly exhausted. At the same time, her mind seemed to have cleared and she could think, as she had been unable to do before.

  Now, lying in bed, she went over exactly what had happened and for the first time was aware that in a foolish, child-like way she had always imagined that if she loved a man and he loved her they would be married.

  She was well aware it would be impossible for the Marquis to marry anybody like her.

  Her mother had told her of the importance and the responsibilities of the aristocratic Englishmen.

  “They are almost like Kings of their own estates, darling,” she had said with a smile. “Their people look to them for guidance and protection, and to all intents and purposes their word is law!”

  She had then explained to Lucia that noble families married into other noble families and a mésalliance was always frowned on.

  “It is only in fairy-stories and novelettes,” she had said, “that the ‘goose-girl’ can marry the Prince, and I am sure you realise it is something which does not happen in the real world.”

  “But sometimes, Mama, the Princess marries the swineherd,” Lucia had remarked.

  Her mother had laughed, then went on to say,

  “All that really matters, my darling, is that two people when they marry should love each other. Nothing else, and I mean nothing else, is of any importance.”

  Lucia knew now that was not the answer to her problem. She had never for one moment imagined that the Marquis would ask her to marry him, and she knew from what he had said that he had never thought of marrying her.

  Of course, if she was practical, the only position she could occupy in his life was tha
t of his mistress, and if she was sensible, it was a position she should accept because she had no alternative.

  Then she thought that to do so would destroy the ideals and the appreciation of beauty in which she had been brought up ever since she was a baby.

  It was beauty which had counted in the small cottage in which they had lived in Little Morden.

  It was beauty her mother had given to her father and her, and it was beauty her father sought to portray in his pictures.

  The beauty of life and of love, and the two were synonymous.

  ‘It would be wicked of me to destroy that,’ Lucia argued with herself, ‘not only because the Church would call it a sin, but because it would be a sin against my soul and everything in which I believe.’

  It was then she found herself questioning whether or not her mother had been right when she said love was more important than anything else.

  She remembered the rapture the Marquis had aroused in her and the wonder of his lips, until once again the tears began to run down her cheeks.

  “I love – him! I love – him!” she sobbed.

  Then she knew that whatever he asked her to do and however humiliating she might find it, she still loved him to the exclusion of everything else.

  *

  The Marquis stood for a long time on the deck.

  He did not realise that the ship was moving towards the shore until he was aware that the lights had grown nearer and he knew that the Captain was making for a quiet harbour in which they could spend the night.

  He always found it better for the crew and for his own comfort, if it was possible, to drop anchor from about midnight to dawn, then set off fresh in the morning.

  As Captain Bateson knew the coast well, the Marquis had left the choice of stopping-places to him.

  But as the yacht drew nearer and there were few lights, he was sure they were about to enter a quiet bay in which there would be no curious people to stare at them, and they would be able to pass the night completely undisturbed.

  Then his thoughts were once again on Lucia and he was wondering what he could do about her.

  He had to some extent anticipated that she might be shocked at his suggestion that he should become her Protector.

  Yet, he asked himself, what else could he do but offer to look after her, to save her from being alone and, he was certain, menaced by other men?

  As Lucia had known, the Marquis had a very clear idea of his own consequence and was extremely proud of his heritage.

  He had told Alastair that he had no intention of marrying, but at the same time he was aware that sooner or later he must have an heir, and that meant he would have to acquire a wife.

  However, there was no hurry, and he had no intention of marrying until it was absolutely imperative for him to do so.

  He knew, as he had known ever since he was a small boy, that his wife must be his equal in her position in Society, for any woman who bore his name had a traditional part to play not only in the County where his family had lived for five generations, but also at Court.

  As well as it being obligatory for his wife to be the Patron of many Charities, Orphanages, Schools and Hospitals, as his mother had been, the Marchioness of Wynchcombe was traditionally Lady-of-the-Bedchamber to the Queen, when there was one.

  The Marquis, while dreading the moment when he would be married, was well aware that to make a mésalliance, as the King had done in choosing the wrong consort, could be disastrous not only from his point of view, but also from his family’s.

  He had therefore never for one moment envisaged that he would find the woman who was suitable to be his wife anywhere but in the drawing rooms of Mayfair or the Ball-Room at Buckingham Palace.

  Now, insidiously, almost as if the Devil himself was putting the idea into his mind, he found himself thinking that if he had to be married, and God knew he had no wish to be, then he would be happy only with Lucia.

  “I not only want her physically,” he told himself, “but she stimulates my mind and makes me think in a manner that I have not done since I was at Oxford.”

  He remembered that in those days he had had a chivalrous idea of women, and that he and his friends would sit talking into the night of the ideals which had made the Knights of Malta take the vow of chastity.

  Because they themselves wished to reform the world, they had discussed whether they should do likewise.

  It was half serious, half play-acting, and yet the Marquis thought now that that was a time in his life when he had really believed himself to be a crusader for everything that was highest and best in the enlightenment of mankind.

  Then when he left Oxford to join the Army there had been women, and more women, to make him forget anything but the exotic and sensual pleasures of the body.

  When he went to war he had found it hard to think of anything but the necessity of keeping alive.

  After that he had returned to England to be a leader in the wild and raffish Beau Monde.

  As one of the closest friends of the Regent, he was expected to enjoy the company of women and all the other pleasures of the flesh.

  “Dammit all, that is what I still want!” the Marquis said sharply to himself.

  Then all he could see was the light in Beaumont’s pictures and the spiritual beauty of Lucia’s face.

  He was aware how much Francesca must have startled and shocked her, following on top of the emotions she had felt when her father was buried.

  Yet no one, he knew, could have behaved more bravely or in a more dignified manner, and no one could have been quicker and more intelligent in saving his life.

  “I love her!” he admitted to himself in the darkness, just as Lucia was saying the same thing in the cabin next door.

  “I love her! I love her!” the Marquis repeated beneath his breath.

  Then he asked himself almost despairingly how, even if he wished to, he could marry the daughter of an artist.

  It was no use pretending even for a moment that artists, however famous, however acclaimed, were accepted in the Social World as the equals of those who commissioned and paid for their pictures.

  Artists were tradesmen, superior tradesmen it was true, but still tradesmen, who accepted money in return for their wares.

  The Marquis remembered that his father would never have thought of inviting any of the artists who came to his house to sit down with him to a meal.

  They came to advise him on his pictures, or to bring him new ones to add to his famous collection, but if they ate they did so in a room by themselves, and certainly not with their Patron.

  As the Marquis tossed and turned in his bed, he found himself wanting Lucia with an intensity that made him want to break down the door and force himself upon her.

  ‘If I make her mine,’ he thought, ‘then there will be no more arguments in the future and she must rely on me because she has no alternative.’

  Then he knew that even if physically he could overcome her resistance, he could not violate her spirit.

  No other woman had made him feel so protective that he had known from the first moment he saw her that he would have to save her from everything that filled her eyes with fear.

  He had fought against this feeling, he had told himself it was just an illusion, and yet when her father died and Lucia turned to him for comfort he had known there was no escape, and she was his.

  ‘What can I do? What the Devil can I do?’ the Marquis asked.

  It was only when the first faint glow on the horizon heralded the dawn that he knew the answer.

  *

  Lucia also had been unable to sleep.

  After a little while she gave up praying that she might do so, and sat up against the pillows.

  It was very quiet except for the soft lap of the waves against the sides of the yacht, and as she had not drawn the curtains over the port-holes she could see the stars in the sky outside.

  She remembered how the Marquis had quoted John Donne to her and said he wished to ‘
catch a falling star’.

  ‘That is what I want to help him to do,’ she told herself miserably.

  Once again she was remembering how she had told him how much there was for him to do in the House of Lords and in the country.

  ‘He is so intelligent and has so much presence,’ she thought, ‘that he could make people listen to him, and although he tries not to admit it, the reforms we spoke of are very necessary. I know I could help him to understand what needs to be done.’

  Suddenly, as if her mother was talking to her as they had talked so often in the past, she found herself planning what she would say to the Marquis and the arguments she would present to him almost in the form of a plea which he would not be able to refuse.

  Then, as the stars began to fade and the first glow of the dawn appeared on the horizon she knew that it was love that counted more than anything else.

  Because she loved the Marquis, and because the good he could do in the world was more important even than her principles and her conscience, she must do what he asked.

  “Perhaps I shall be – punished for it, Mama,” she said in a low voice as if her mother was listening, “and perhaps eventually he will – turn me away, as he did the Venetian woman, with – hatred in his heart and his eyes like steel, but at least by that time I will have made him – aware of how important he is and what he is capable of doing.”

  She waited as if her mother would reply and when she did not do so she said,

  “You loved Papa so overwhelmingly, and it was entirely due to the happiness you gave him that he painted so brilliantly.”

  She paused as she thought of her father’s pictures and how year by year his skill had increased in transferring the light of life which he felt within himself on to the canvas in front of him.

  But it was her mother who had encouraged and inspired her father and made him aware that even if no one understood or appreciated his pictures it was still his duty to paint them for the future.

  “One day somebody will understand,” she had said, “and, darling, that is the gift you are giving to the world.”

  “I am sure, Mama,” Lucia went on, “that just as you made Papa realise he must never give up and that the light in his pictures came from God, so I can give the Marquis the same light to lead those who need his leadership to understand what compassion, understanding and justice demand.”