Joined by Love Page 13

  The way that Jean-Luc and his sister had accepted her into their lives and had shared their simple pleasures with her had given her a peace and security she had not known since her parents died.

  “Oh, a young Englishman bought it. A Marquis!” Jean-Luc was saying. “The picture will be shipped to his home when the Exhibition is over.”

  Lucilla’s heart jumped. “Show – me – Jean-Luc!” she stammered, holding her trembling hand out for the piece of paper.

  There it was, neatly printed,

  Purchased by the Marquis of Castlebury, Appleton Hall, Hampshire.

  ‘I thought he must have left for home, ages ago – ’ she breathed to herself. Jean-Luc was jumping around the Studio, rubbing his hands with delight as he planned how he would spend the large sum of money he had just earned.

  “You have helped me make my fortune, Lucilla!” he bubbled. “For this is just the beginning! Now everyone will want to buy a painting of mine. We must begin the next one right away!”

  Lucilla smiled at him. “Don’t be silly, Jean-Luc! You must celebrate. Go and buy some champagne, ready for when Mariette comes back. I am going out for a little while.”

  She could not wait a moment longer. She must go to the Marquis and tell him the truth of what had happened and how Harkness Jackson had tried to abduct her by force.

  Just in case Harkness might still be at the hotel, Lucilla put on one of Mariette’s dark blue dresses and then covered her hair with a scarf. Surely, not even he would notice her, dressed like a servant.

  *

  “Non!” the clerk at the reception desk of the Hotel de la Reine shook his head emphatically. “You may not enter, mademoiselle. I must ask you to leave immediately! Our guests must not be disturbed!”

  He simply would not listen to her. She had explained to him that she was Lady Lucilla Welton and that she had been a guest herself at the hotel not so long ago.

  But the clerk merely looked at her servant’s clothes with great suspicion and repeatedly asked her to leave.

  “Ah, there you are!” The Marquis’s voice rang out across the lobby.

  She turned to see him hurrying towards her, a warm smile on his face.

  But, as he saw her face, the smile faded and his eyes were full of confusion.

  “Dermot – ” she began, holding her hands out to him, but he did not meet her gaze.

  “I am sorry,” he said coldly. “I mistook you for the nurse I have been expecting all morning.”

  And he turned away from her to speak to the clerk.

  “Where is the woman?” he demanded. “She was due here several hours ago.”

  The clerk shrugged and apologised, offering to look into the matter.

  “Dermot, it’s me, Lucilla!” she called out, striving to keep her voice calm.

  “Yes, I can see that,” he replied. “I wonder that you have the effrontery to show your face here.”

  “Please – will you let me explain?”

  “There is no need. I wish you well, Lucilla, but I don’t want to know where you have been or who you are with. I would prefer never to see you again – ”

  He looked disapprovingly at Mariette’s old blue dress.

  He might as well have stuck a knife into Lucilla’s heart. She leant against the reception desk, struggling to understand why he had spoken so cruelly to her.

  She should not have come. She did not belong here in this world any more. But there was one thing that she must do, before she left.

  “Dermot – I should like to see Nanny – before I go,” she asked.

  The Marquis raised his dark brows. “Really? You do surprise me. Perhaps you are not aware of the dreadful suffering your behaviour has caused to one of the dearest people in my life.”

  “What do you mean?” Lucilla asked, a chill of fear running over her. “Has something happened to Nanny?”

  “She has been very unwell. And I have no doubt that it was your disappearance that brought on her illness.” “So that is why you are expecting a nurse!” Lucilla cried. “I must go to her! You may not want to see me – but you cannot keep me away from Nanny Groves!”

  The Marquis gave her a cold look. “Well – since the nurse has not arrived, I suppose you may go to her room for a little while,” he conceded. And Lucilla ran away from him and up the great staircase as if her feet had wings.

  *

  “Dermot, you are an utter fool!” Ethel said, a week later, her blonde brows meeting in a fierce frown. “Why didn’t you just send her away?”

  “I just couldn’t do it,” the Marquis replied. “The dear old lady was so terribly glad to see her. She almost became better by the moment, once Lucilla was there. I am not completely heartless, Ethel. I had to let her stay.”

  “So you let an artist’s model look after your old family Nanny?”

  “Yes, Ethel. That is exactly what I have done.” The Marquis was feeling distinctly unnerved by the events of the last few days. He had been so shocked to see Lucilla, clad in an old servant’s dress that had clearly seen better days and he could not bear to think of what sort of life she must have been living over the last few weeks.

  And yet to see her so kindly and gently tending to the fragile old lady moved him deeply, reminding him of the innocent, honest and affectionate girl he once thought her to be.

  He felt awkward now, when he remembered that she had tried to explain herself to him, but he had chosen in a fit of pique not to listen to her. And now, when he tried to talk to her, she ignored him, saving all her attention and all her love for Nanny.

  “Even Harkness Jackson, who was head-over-heels in love with Lucilla, would have nothing to do with her now,” Ethel gloated, her red lips drooping in a sneer.

  “Then he can never have truly cared for her!” the Marquis found himself almost shouting.

  Ethel backed away from him. “I just despair of you, Dermot, I really do! Thank Goodness Mortimer is taking some time off this week. I must start putting my trousseau together.”

  “Yes, why don’t you do that?” the Marquis said. “It is a more appropriate activity for you than forever spending your time clinging to the arm of someone you are no longer engaged to.”

  “You are a fine one to be lecturing me about my behaviour!” Ethel retorted, her cheeks turning pink under her pale make-up. “Have you forgotten about Letitia?”

  “No, I haven’t,” the Marquis retorted, really angry now. “And I don’t care who knows about her! That whole business was all my doing and I take full responsibility for it”

  He was not going to let Ethel threaten him with disclosing that silly deception any longer. He just wanted her to leave.

  Which she was doing, tripping over her narrow hem in her hurry to leave his hotel room.

  The Marquis heaved a great sigh of relief.

  Somehow he knew that she would not be back.

  The little scene that had just taken place had left him feeling ill at ease and he went into the bathroom to wash his hands and face.

  ‘I will go and speak to Lucilla,’ he decided, as he looked at his reflection in the mirror and saw how sad and tired his face looked. ‘I must hear what she has to say. I owe her that, at the very least.’

  *

  “Dermot, my dear!” Nanny sighed, smiling at the Marquis as he entered her bedroom.

  She was sitting in a striped armchair, looking out of her window at the roofs of Paris, gleaming in the sunlight.

  “Nanny! You look wonderful today!” he cried out, noticing with delight that her blue eyes were shining again.

  “Yes, Dermot. I think I am completely recovered. It is time I started thinking about packing my things, as I am ready to travel now and poor Violet will be wondering if she will ever see us again!”

  “That is good news, Nanny. I was so worried, even a few days ago, that you would not be well enough to make the journey.”

  “Oh, but my dear Lucilla has worked her special magic on me. It’s so remarkable just what a little tende
r loving care can achieve.”

  “Where is she?” the Marquis asked, trying to ignore the lump that was rising up in his throat at the thought of seeing Lucilla and speaking to her again.

  “She has gone, Dermot.”

  “Gone? Where?” He felt as if he had been hit by a thunderbolt.

  “She is with her friends, Dermot. The brother and sister who have been looking after her all this time.”

  “But – I need to see her! She cannot have run off again, just like that – ”

  Nanny gave him a stern look. “Perhaps she doesn’t wish to see you, Dermot. You have not been very kind to her.”

  He might be the owner of one of the finest stately homes in England and have paid the bill for the luxurious Parisian hotel where he and Nanny had been staying for several weeks now, but the Marquis of Castlebury felt as if he was six years old again, as he stood on the thick carpet in front of her chair.

  Nanny was right. He had not been kind to Lucilla. He had not agreed to listen to her side of the story or even been polite to her. He had not been a friend to her. She had had to turn to strangers in this foreign City for that.

  “What shall I do, Nanny?” he asked, just as the six-year-old boy would have done.

  “So what do you want to do, Dermot?” the old lady asked him.

  The Marquis started, for that was not something he had ever heard Nanny ask him before.

  “I want to go to her!” he said, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “I – love her, Nanny! I have missed her so much! But – I don’t think she cares for me at all – ”

  Nanny Groves lowered her eyelids and peered at him through her lashes. “Go to her, Dermot,” she whispered.

  *

  Lucilla was on her hands and knees, cleaning out the little stove in the Studio. Mariette had found work with a dressmaker a few streets away and it was Lucilla’s responsibility now to look after the Studio’s domestic arrangements.

  It was a warm day and the back door was open onto the garden.

  A few sweet notes of birdsong blew in on the soft breeze and Lucilla looked up to see her friend the robin perched in the apple tree.

  She laughed with delight as another robin flew to join it, carrying a worm in its beak.

  “So you do have a partner after all!” she sighed. “And probably some babies too, if I am not mistaken.”

  The front door creaked and Lucilla looked round, expecting to see Jean-Luc, who had gone out to buy some paints.

  “Lucilla!” The Marquis stood still in the doorway, as if he was afraid to step inside.

  She stood up, wiping the coal dust off her hands. She did not speak, but could only look at him and she felt a strange happiness that he had come to find her in this simple kindly place where she was making a new life.

  “Come in,” she said, when she had found her voice. “I cannot offer you any coffee just now – because, as you can see, the stove is not lit.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter at all,” the Marquis muttered, catching his foot awkwardly on the doorstep as he came inside.

  Lucilla offered the couch for him to sit on, but he shook his head.

  “No, no, Lucilla – I must speak to you! I have been – I wanted to – ” It hurt her to see his confusion and she could feel his distress almost as if it was her own. The Marquis took a deep breath to try and clear his head, as he had already forgotten everything he felt that he should say.

  “I have missed you so much, Lucilla!” was all he could manage.

  Lucilla’s eyes were suddenly stinging with tears.

  “I am so sorry,” the Marquis was saying now. “I – Lucilla – I can’t help it, I love you!”

  Lucilla found that she was crying and laughing at the same time. “Don’t be sorry for loving me, Dermot. I don’t mind at all, I really don’t!”

  “But I – ” And then he gave up his attempt to explain himself and threw his arms around her, burying his face in her hair.

  It was Heaven to be so close to him again, to feel so completely alive as she nestled against the warmth of his body.

  “So much has happened,” she whispered, looking up at him. “I must explain everything – especially about that American, Harkness Jackson – ”

  “There is nothing you need to explain,” the Marquis said, still hiding his face in her hair. “You are nothing but good, through and through. What could you ever do that is wrong?”

  And he held her even tighter.

  “You will get coal dust all over you,” she pointed out, but he did not reply and just pressed his lips to hers in a long and passionate kiss that made her whole being take flight with joy.

  Lucilla suddenly touched the stars and understood the secrets of the Universe.

  And then the Marquis drew back and gazed deeply into her eyes. “You are happy here, Lucilla, aren’t you?” She nodded. “I want to ask you to marry me, but – I don’t want to take you away from a place you love.”

  Lucilla closed her eyes, drinking in the words she had just heard.

  Then she answered him. “Jean-Luc and Mariette have been good friends to me. But, Dermot, I will only be truly happy if I am with you. Wherever you are, that is where I must be.”

  The Marquis looked as if he had not understood her.

  “So – will you marry me, then?” he breathed.

  “Yes!” Lucilla cried and would have kissed him again, except that they both found themselves laughing.

  “Oh, Lucilla, Lucilla!” he sighed, as he hugged her tightly to him. “You are the best, the loveliest girl in the whole world. I am not spending a moment away from your side ever again.”

  And then they kissed and time stood still for them both, as the robin sang in the tree and the sun shone down on them from the high windows of the Studio.

  *

  “Will you be glad to see Paris again?” Lucilla asked Mariette, who was folding the silken flounces of her white wedding dress in tissue paper.

  “Yes, madame, I shall,” the French girl replied with a smile. “Although, I do love it, here in England.”

  “It is the first time you have called me madame!” Lucilla exclaimed. “It sounds odd!”

  “Oh, you will soon get used to it. You have only been married for one half day!”

  The Wedding Reception was drawing to a close and Lucilla was getting ready to leave for her honeymoon.

  Mariette was travelling with the new Marchioness of Castlebury and her husband, as she was now Lucilla’s personal lady’s maid.

  Lucilla gazed out of the window at the beautiful gardens of Appleton Hall, where the first June roses were just coming into bloom.

  “Mariette, there is Jean-Luc!” she cried.

  She recognised his tousled brown head as he bent down to pat a small white dog that was fussing around his feet. Mariette came to the window too. “Oui, madame. I think he is with your husband’s sister.”

  Sure enough, Violet’s dark head was approaching, and Lucilla saw Jean-Luc link his arms with her as they walked slowly through the rose garden.

  Lucilla and Mariette exchanged glances. “I am so glad Jean-Luc is here,” Lucilla said, “his paintings of all the great country houses of England will be a huge success, I am sure.”

  Jean-Luc had been given a large commission by the Government to travel around England and paint portraits of all the famous Stately Homes.

  “I think Lady Violet is glad, too,” Mariette added. “Will you take your Mama’s coat, in case it’s cold on the boat?” She held up the cream velvet coat that Lucilla had worn on the day she first came to the Studio.

  “I would love to, Mariette. But look – the hem is coming down.”

  The maid bent to look at the hem and then stared up at Lucilla. “Madame, I think you should see this!” she called.

  There was something hanging from the soft velvet. A golden chain with dark red stones hanging from it.

  “Oh, Mariette!” Lucilla could scarcely breathe with the excitement that welled up in her ch
est. “It is Mama’s ruby necklace!”

  The two of them then fell onto their knees, swiftly unravelling the rest of the hem and gasping with surprise as, one after another, rings, bracelets and necklaces, all of them studded with diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, fell from the folds of the thick velvet.

  *

  “My darling, I am so happy for you!” the Marquis sighed, as they stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, on the deck of the Cross Channel ferry. “It is only right that you should have your Mama’s jewellery. And how wise of her to hide it like that in the hem of her coat.”

  Lucilla snuggled against him. “Dermot – they are only jewels. You are the most precious thing in the world to me and all the diamonds ever mined mean very little set against our amazing love.”

  “We could sell them,” the Marquis said, his words muffled in Lucilla’s hair. “And then we could buy back Wellsprings Place!”

  Lucilla thought for a moment. “I love that house, but – it is only a house. I was very happy there, but that was the past. My future is with you, Dermot, and with – our children.”

  She thought of Nanny, who had told her earlier that day of how much she longed to hold their babies.

  “I am far too old to bring them up for you, my dear, but I cannot wait to see them!” she had said, her blue eyes damp with emotion.

  The Marquis smiled. “Let’s keep the jewels, then, for our family!” he said. “I think your Mama would approve, don’t you!”

  And he wondered what Ethel would have thought, if she had known that such riches had come to Lucilla. But, she would never know. And she might never understand either the true bliss of love and happiness that enfolded Lucilla and Dermot as the ferry steamed over the waves.

  “May we never be apart again, not even for one single moment until the very end of time!” the Marquis whispered. “My darling husband, we are joined by love from now until Eternity and even beyond,” sighed Lucilla, as she soared into the sky because he was kissing her passionately again.

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