171. The Marquis Wins (The Eternal Collection) Read online

  “I can only say that I am delighted to find you here, Robert,” the Marquis replied, “because I need your help.”

  He introduced Daniela and was aware that Sir Robert looked at her with surprise and at the same time with undoubted admiration.

  Sir Robert invited them to sit down and then asked,

  “What can I do for you? I have followed your success in the racing world and I must congratulate you on winning the Gold Cup at Ascot last year. ”

  “I was fortunate,” the Marquis said, “but I have no time to talk to you about horses now. There is something very much more serious.”

  He paused for a moment.

  Then he carried on,

  “As I think, Sir Robert, that what I have to tell you will upset Miss Brooke, I wonder if it would be possible for her to talk to your wife for a few minutes? Or alternatively to be with some member of your staff whom you trust, for I do not wish her to be alone.”

  Now there was no doubt of the surprise in Sir Robert’s eyes as he replied,

  “Of course! My wife will be delighted and she is in the drawing room at the moment writing letters to our children in England.”

  “Well, I am sure that Miss Brooke will be safe with her,” the Marquis smiled.

  Sir Robert rose to his feet.

  As he did so, Daniela gave the Marquis a nervous glance that told him that she did not wish to leave him.

  “I will not be long,” he said quietly.

  She therefore followed Sir Robert across the room and he took her into the drawing room where Lady Fraser Turing suggested that they should have a cup of coffee together.

  She was a charming person who had been very pretty when she was young. And there was a kindness about her that reminded Daniela of her mother.

  Sir Robert returned to his study.

  “Now what is all this about, Crowle?” he asked. “As you can imagine, I am consumed with curiosity!”

  The Marquis told him the whole story.

  How Esmé Blanc had drugged Lord Seabrooke to marry him and had been instrumental in causing his death in a duel.

  He explained how, having discovered that she had been left very little money in Lord Seabrooke’s will, she had tried to marry Daniela off to her lover, who he suspected would then be a bigamist.

  He told him how the River Police had searched his yacht for Daniela at Cologne.

  As he finished speaking, Sir Robert literally gasped at him.

  “If I did not know that you are a truthful man,” he said, “I would think that I was listening to the plot of a sensational novel or a drama from a playhouse.”

  “I thought you would feel like that,” the Marquis said. “But you will understand, Robert, that we are being menaced by this woman and it is therefore important, as Daniela and I have fallen in love, that we should be married immediately!”

  “Immediately?” Sir Robert exclaimed.

  “That is the right word and I imagine in Rotterdam that there is a Protestant Church available and a Parson of our own faith?”

  “Yes, of course,” Sir Robert agreed. “You can be married at the Church that practically adjoins this building and where I and my staff worship. We have an English Parson who officiates at every official occasion.”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “That is exactly what I expected.”

  “All the formalities for the marriage,” Sir Robert went on, “can be arranged here in my office and I have only to send for the Parson to tell him what is required.”

  “Then I would be very obliged,” the Marquis responded, “if you would do that at once.”

  He smiled before continuing,

  “I may seem unduly anxious, but I have a feeling that the new Lady Seabrooke will realise that by this time we have left Germany and she will either try to make trouble in Rotterdam or else wait until we reach England.”

  “Can nothing be done about an appalling woman like that?” Sir Robert asked.

  “To prove her crime in the French Courts would be very difficult,” the Marquis said slowly. “I fear that her marriage to Lord Seabrooke would be held to be legal. Although he claimed that he had no memory of the Service taking place, he is no longer alive to say so.”

  Sir Robert made a sound of despair and the Marquis continued,

  “If Miss Brooke had actually been married to Comte André de Sauzan, I am sure that it would be possible to prove bigamy. But that would not involve Lady Seabrooke, who would, of course, deny all knowledge of it. ”

  “You are right,” Sir Robert said, “but women like that should be exterminated!”

  “I agree with you,” the Marquis said, “but the question is how? And I cannot have her upsetting my future wife any further than she has done already.”

  “It must have been a terrible ordeal for the poor girl,” Sir Robert said sympathetically. “By the way I have not yet congratulated you! I have never seen anyone more lovely. She is just like her mother.”

  He paused as if he was thinking before he went on,

  “I remember seeing Lady Seabrooke at Buckingham Palace and thinking that without exception she was the most beautiful woman in the Throne Room.”

  “That is what my wife will be in the future,” the Marquis said quietly.

  Sir Robert called his private secretary to give him a number of instructions and then took the Marquis into the drawing room to meet his wife.

  Lady Fraser Turing, when she heard that the Marquis was to be married, looked at him a little archly.

  “I have always understood, my Lord, that you were a sworn bachelor, but I can understand your change of heart when you meet anyone so lovely as Miss Brooke.”

  The Marquis saw Daniela blush at the compliment and he thought that the colour in her cheeks and her shyness was very appealing.

  For a moment they looked at each other and everything else was forgotten.

  Then the Marquis said,

  “Your husband has been kind enough to arrange for our marriage to take place immediately, but I have one more favour to ask. Would it be possible for you to lend us a Wedding ring or alternatively perhaps we could send to the nearest jeweller?”

  Sir Robert laughed.

  “It is unlike you, Crowle, not to be prepared for any emergency! But I expect that my wife can oblige.”

  “Actually I can,” Lady Fraser Turing said. “I have my mother’s Wedding ring and I am sure that it will fit Miss Brooke.”

  “Are you certain that you don’t mind – parting with it?” Daniela asked in a low voice. “You may think it strange that I do not have my own mother’s, but Mama was so happy in her marriage to my father that she left a letter saying that if she died she wanted to be buried – wearing her Wedding ring.”

  She smiled before she went on,

  “She also wanted to wear a necklace that was the first present my father ever gave her.”

  “I can understand that,” Lady Fraser Turing said softly, “and it is something that I shall want myself if I die before my husband.”

  Sir Robert held up his hands and exclaimed,

  “We must not have all this talk of death! We are celebrating his Lordship’s Wedding! I am going to open a bottle of champagne so that we can all have a drink and wish the bride and bridegroom every possible happiness and a very long life together.”

  “Of course we must,” his wife agreed, “and I think, while the champagne is coming, I will take Miss Brooke upstairs. I expect she would like to tidy herself before we go to the Church.”

  Upstairs in a very pretty bedroom with windows overlooking an attractive garden at the back of the house, Lady Fraser Turing said,

  “I have always been a great admirer, as my husband is, of your future husband. He is a very clever man and Lord Stanley, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has a great respect for him. ”

  “He is very – very – clever,” Daniela replied, “and I am rather afraid that he may find me – boring.”

  Lady Fraser Turing smi
led.

  “I think that is very unlikely. I have spent so much of my time in Diplomatic circles that I have learnt to recognise a man’s true feelings, which are often very different from what he says.”

  She smiled again before she went on,

  “When the Marquis came into the room, I saw the way he looked at you. I promise you that it would be impossible for any mere actor, however clever, to look as he did, which is very very much in love!”

  “And I love him – with all my heart,” Daniela said, “and will try to – make him a – good wife.”

  Lady Fraser Turing bent and kissed her.

  “You are exactly the wife he should have. He is an extremely lucky man.”

  When Daniela went downstairs and accepted the glass of champagne that Sir Robert gave her, she hoped that the Marquis thought that she was looking pretty enough to be his bride.

  Because she could not help herself, she went to his side and slipped her hand into his.

  She knew as his fingers tightened on hers that he was telling her how much he loved her and how once they were married there would be no more problems and no need for her to be afraid.

  She had only been in the drawing room for a few minutes when the door opened and Sir Robert’s private secretary said,

  “I have been asked to tell you, sir, that the Chaplain is waiting in the Church.”

  Daniela expected that the Consul and his wife would accompany them.

  But, as she and the Marquis followed the secretary who led them to a side door of the Consulate, she found that they were alone.

  A footman, however, when they emerged from the drawing room had handed the Marquis a bouquet of white roses and lilies-of-the-valley.

  He gave it to Daniela.

  She knew that it must have been brought from a shop in the town while they were in the Consulate.

  It was only a short walk through the garden to the Church that was just outside.

  As she was walking beside the Marquis and holding his hand, Daniela felt as if the sun was more brilliant than she had ever known it before.

  She could hear the birds singing in the trees and saw the bees and the butterflies hovering about the flowers.

  The fragrance from them seemed more intense because she was so happy.

  The Church was old and had an atmosphere that made her feel that the spirits of many generations of people who had worshipped there were still around them.

  She remembered her father once saying,

  “Holland is the great Protestant fortress of Western Europe”.

  The sun shone through the beautiful ancient stained glass windows.

  Holding onto the Marquis’s arm, she moved with him slowly up the aisle.

  The organ was playing very softly and the Clergyman, an elderly man, read the words of the Marriage Service with an unmistakable sincerity.

  To Daniela it was a moment of rapture that was an integral part of her love for the Marquis.

  She was certain, as she had told him, that her father and mother were there, happy because she had found a man who loved her for herself and whom she loved with every breath she drew.

  Then the ring was on her finger and they knelt for the Blessing.

  She was sure that the music came not from the organ but from Heaven.

  ‘I belong to him – I am his wife and – I am safe for ever!’ Daniela told herself.

  She was saying over and over again in her heart,

  ‘Thank You, God, thank You!’

  She walked down the aisle again on the Marquis’s arm.

  He took her to the West door and not to the side door that they had entered the Church through.

  She realised that he had anticipated her wishes without her having to voice them.

  She felt that it would somehow spoil the wonder of the Service and the rapture she had felt during it if they had to go back to the Consulate and be polite.

  It was so like the Marquis, she thought, to know exactly what she would want to make their happiness even more marvellous than it was already.

  As they stopped at the top of the steps in the sunshine, she gave him a radiant smile.

  Then he helped her into their carriage.

  She knew that they were going straight back to the yacht.

  They drove away and the horses began to gather pace down the broad street that ran past the front of the Consulate building.

  The Marquis, gazing into Daniela’s eyes, had no idea that coming towards them was an open carriage drawn by one horse and containing Esmé Seabrooke.

  When she saw a carriage coming apparently from the Consulate, which she had been told at the livery stable had been hired by the Marquis, she shouted at her own coachman to stop.

  As he obeyed her orders, Esmé Seabrooke opened her carriage door and sprang out.

  She ran across the road waving her arms.

  By this time the Marquis’s carriage was almost past her.

  His coachmen, who were talking together, were unaware of her approach.

  Furiously she screamed at the occupants inside the carriage, gesticulating at them as she did so.

  But the Marquis had put his arms around Daniela and was kissing her with long, slow passionate kisses.

  They were lost to the world outside.

  Esmé Seabrooke turned away, but the wheel of the carriage touched her ankle and threw her down onto the road.

  She fell in front of a van being driven in haste by a young man who had little control over his horses.

  Esmé was directly in their path and one of the horses rearing in fright struck her in the face.

  Before the driver had any idea of what was happening, the wheels of the van had passed over her.

  She was taken to hospital, but died before she arrived there.

  It was more than seven days before the information reached the British Consulate that a woman by the name of Lady Seabrooke was lying in the mortuary.

  The news was then transmitted to the Marquis and the Marchioness of Crowle in England.

  *

  When they arrived back at The Sea Horse, luncheon was waiting for them.

  Having no idea that there was now no hurry for them to leave Rotterdam, the Marquis gave the order to the Captain to cast off immediately and proceed on their voyage to England.

  Now Daniela could go out on deck in the sunshine and it did not matter if she was seen.

  But all she wanted to do was to gaze at the Marquis.

  The chef had surpassed himself in his efforts to make their Wedding breakfast memorable.

  Yet they had little idea what they were eating.

  To Daniela it was simply the ambrosia of the Gods.

  When the meal was finished and the Marquis suggested that they should go below, she agreed eagerly.

  She thought that he intended to kiss her, but, when they reached her cabin, he said,

  “I think, my darling, as you were up so early and so was I, we should rest and, as it is very hot on deck, it will be cooler in your cabin.”

  Daniela looked at him enquiringly not quite certain what he meant.

  He pulled her against him and said,

  “I want you close to me, my precious, and now that you are my wife, I will teach you about love. It will be the most exciting thing that I have ever done in my whole life.”

  He kissed her gently.

  She went into her cabin and undressed quickly. She put on her prettiest nightgown before she climbed slowly into bed.

  Then she was half-afraid that she had mistaken the Marquis’s intentions. He might think it very strange of her going to bed in the middle of the day.

  He came into her cabin.

  Now she saw that he too had undressed and was wearing a long silk robe and she knew that her fears were unfounded.

  He sat down on the bed close to her and taking her hand he said,

  “How is it possible that anyone can look so beautiful?”

  As he felt her fingers quiver in his, he asked he
r,

  “You are not frightened of me, my precious little wife?”

  “N-not of – you,” she answered, “but – suppose after all you have said – I disappoint you?”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “That is impossible!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are exactly what I have been looking for all my life, but did not realise it.”

  He smiled at her lovingly before continuing,

  “I had made up my mind not to marry simply because I thought that any woman would bore me after a short while. And yet, deep in my heart, I believed that one day I would find you.”

  “That is – a wonderful thing for – you to say to me,” Daniela whispered, “but – will you promise me something?”

  “I will promise you anything you ask me,” the Marquis replied.

  “Will you – promise that if I do – anything wrong – you will tell me? If I make – mistakes you will not be – angry?”

  “I promise,” the Marquis said.

  “And please – please – my wonderful clever husband – teach me to be – exactly as you want me to be.”

  The Marquis thought that no one could speak so movingly, but, although his lips were aching for hers, he did not kiss her.

  Instead he took off his robe and climbed into bed beside her.

  He pulled her against him.

  Then, as he touched her, he was aware that she was swept by her love into a magical world that was part of Fairyland and part too of Heaven.

  He kissed her possessively, demandingly, and at the same time tenderly.

  It was a kiss that expressed his love.

  He knew that he had found a perfection that was Divine and Daniela had found the same.

  She was so beautiful that she had become a part of his soul, while for her he was part of the beauty that she found everywhere and in life itself.

  He drew her closer and closer still and his kisses became more intense and more passionate.

  He also felt the Blessing that they had received in the Church.

  He thought that the God who had brought them together had enveloped them with a Heavenly Light.

  It was so brilliant that it could only have come from Him, yet it also came from themselves.

  It was the ecstasy of love, the rapture and wonder that all men seek.

  “I love you,” Daniela was saying. “I – love you – and I can hear the music in the air – which is singing in my – heart as well.”