For All Eternity Read online

  ‘I have to be sensible,’ she told herself. ‘I have to remember that he does not love me.’

  “Shall we discuss your suggestion first?” the Marquis was saying in a voice she thought sounded firm and business-like.

  Ajanta nodded, for it was impossible for her to speak.

  “Your idea was,” the Marquis went on, “that we should pretend to have been married abroad and thus obtain the incriminating papers from Lord Burnham with which he has threatened me. Then we should announce that there had been an unfortunate accident and you were dead.”

  The Marquis waited for Ajanta to speak and, when she did not do so, he continued,

  “As you pointed out, this would involve taking your father and Lyle into our confidence and I think you would find that Charis would ask a great many awkward questions too.”

  Ajanta clasped her fingers together. Her voice seemed to come unsteadily from a long distance as she said,

  “We could – explain to – Charis that we were not – suited to each other and there would be – nothing she could – do but – accept the situation.”

  “I suppose not,” the Marquis said doubtfully. “Equally it would be very hard for her to understand why you should refuse to marry me when all your family, I think, have found new interests here at Stowe.”

  “Of course they – have,” Ajanta replied, “and you have been so very – very – kind to them.”

  She thought her voice trembled almost as if she was near to tears and went on quickly,

  “It has been – wonderful for all of us to stay in such a – magnificent house – to ride your horses – and to see a world that before only existed in our imagination – but it has to come to an – end and there is – nothing any of us can do – about it.”

  “That is not true,” the Marquis replied sharply. “You can marry me, as I have suggested you should do and then it would be yours and theirs for ever.”

  “You – know that is – impossible!” Ajanta murmured. “Why?”

  “Because I cannot make you – happy. You – love somebody else – and it would be wrong – completely and absolutely wrong for me to – ruin your life if there is an – alternative.”

  “You are thinking of me?”

  “Of course I am! I have seen – Lady Burnham and I know – what she – means to you. The only thing I can do to – save you is to – disappear.”

  “At whatever the cost to your family and yourself?”

  He was making it very difficult, Ajanta thought, but still she dared not look at him. Holding herself very stiffly and forcing the words from between her lips, she answered,

  “You came into our lives just by – chance. If there had been no accident and Charis had not been there, we would never have – met you. It has been more – wonderful than I can possibly – explain to have known you – but now you have to think of yourself – and your future – happiness.”

  “And you really believe that you can put back the clock?” the Marquis asked. “In giving up everything here, you will have no regrets?”

  “Of course I will have – regrets – and it will be – difficult,” Ajanta agreed. “Very difficult. At the same time – I must do what is right for – you.”

  There was another long pause.

  “You are still thinking of me!” the Marquis repeated.

  “Of course I am thinking of you!” Ajanta said forcefully. “You are so clever – you are so – intelligent. You can find your way out of this mess – then perhaps later on you will fall in – love with – somebody you can marry and be – really happy, as your mother wants – you to be.”

  “My mother wants me to marry you,” the Marquis said quietly.

  “Her Ladyship does not – understand. Naturally she thinks we are in love – and she is happy – so very happy – that you should be married and have – children to make Stowe a house of – love.”

  Although she tried to speak calmly and sensibly, she could not help her voice breaking on the last word.

  Because she was so afraid that she would betray her real feelings, she turned and walked away from the Marquis as he had once done, to stand at the window looking out onto the twilight.

  The last crimson and golden glow of the sun was vanishing behind the trees and the stars were coming out in the sky overhead.

  The lake in the Park looked enchanted and she thought with an agony of despair that to leave Stowe would be like leaving the Garden of Eden and being driven into the wilderness.

  Then the Marquis spoke again and she gave a little start since she had not realised he had followed her and was standing just behind her.

  “What I cannot understand, Ajanta,” he said, “is why you are thinking so much of me. After all, we have known each other a very short time and, as you have just pointed out, we only met by chance. Why should you be so concerned?”

  “I-I want you to be – happy.”

  “Why?”

  There was one obvious answer to that which Ajanta could not give and, because there was a note in the Marquis’s voice that she had not heard before, she felt herself tremble and could only press her lips together in case she betrayed herself.

  “I want you to answer that question,” the Marquis insisted quietly.

  With an effort Ajanta forced herself to say,

  “Please – we cannot go on – talking about this. Just tell me what I am to do – then I will carry out your instructions.”

  “Very well,” the Marquis said, “if that is what you want. I have, as it happens, made my plans.”

  “I thought you – would do – that.”

  Because she could not bear to go on looking at the beauty of the twilight outside, she turned round to look at the Marquis.

  “Tell me what your – plan is,” she said in what she hoped was a calm business-like manner.

  The Marquis walked to his desk and Ajanta, feeling a little surprised, followed him step by step.

  “I have two things for you,” he said. “First an engagement ring, which I should have given to you before and which I am sure our visitors of the last few days have expected to see on your finger.”

  As he spoke, he opened a velvet case and Ajanta saw inside it that there was a diamond ring that made her gasp.

  A perfect stone surrounded by smaller diamonds seemed to her so large and so lovely that it was almost as if the Marquis had taken one of the stars from the sky and was holding it out for her inspection.

  Then she remembered that she could only wear it for a very short time and, when she disappeared, it must be returned.

  “I will put it on your finger in a moment,” the Marquis said, still in the quiet voice he had spoken in before, “but first I want you to try the wedding ring I have chosen for you, just in case it is not the right size.”

  “Y-yes – of course,” Ajanta agreed.

  It made her feel strange to hear him speak of giving her a wedding ring. She thought he might have waited until they had reached Paris or wherever they were going for their pretend marriage.

  At the same time it was like his efficiency and his perfect organisation to have everything planned and in order.

  The Marquis opened the other case and she saw inside that there was a gold ring.

  He drew it out and held it between his first finger and thumb.

  Because she was feeling shy and embarrassed, Ajanta asked,

  “Have you – decided where we are to be – married and how long afterwards we should wait before I – disappear?” “That depends on you,” the Marquis replied.

  “On me?” Ajanta enquired.

  As she spoke, she thought how every hour, every minute, every second she could be with him would be so precious that she would treasure them for ever.

  “Yes, on you,” the Marquis repeated positively.

  She looked at him with a puzzled expression in her eyes, but he was still looking at the wedding ring.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “the answer to your question
is written inside this ring, so I suggest you read it and see if you agree to do what I want.”

  Ajanta looked at him still puzzled and now his eyes met hers.

  She thought perhaps it was a trick of the light, but his expression made her heart leap, then for no reason she could understand she was trembling.

  “Before it is too dark for you to see,” the Marquis said, “I suggest you read what I have had engraved inside this ring.”

  As he spoke, he held it out towards her and, as instinctively she put out her hand, he placed it in her palm.

  For a moment it was impossible to move, then with what was a superhuman effort, she picked up the ring with her other hand and looked inside it.

  In the dying light it was possible to see that there were some words deeply engraved on the gold.

  Slowly, almost as if her brain could not obey her, she read them out.

  “FOR ALL ETERNITY”

  For a second she felt that her eyes must be deceiving her and she could not be seeing right.

  Then, as she gave a little gasp, the Marquis’s arms went round her.

  “That is my plan, Ajanta,” he said. “The plan in which you have promised to obey me.”

  Because he was holding her Ajanta’s heart felt as if it turned a dozen somersaults and was beating so frantically that it was impossible to think.

  Somewhere, far away, she heard her voice stammer, “Wh-what are – you – saying? I don’t – understand!”

  “I am saying that I love you,” the Marquis replied, “as I know you love me.”

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

  “That is true, is it not?” he asked. “You could not be so unselfish, so unbelievably self-sacrificing unless you loved me?”

  He did not wait for her to answer, but his lips came down on hers, then he drew her close against him and his mouth held her captive.

  To Ajanta it was as if she was swept from the darkness into a celestial light that filled the whole world and the sky above.

  Then, as the Marquis’s lips became more insistent, more demanding, everything vanished except the closeness of him.

  An unbelievable rapture flooded through her so that she felt she must have died and was no longer human, but part of the divine.

  It was so perfect, so wonderful that Ajanta could only know that this was love, the love she had always sought, the love she believed in and which she had despaired of ever finding.

  Only when the Marquis raised his head for a moment, did she manage to stammer,

  “I – love – you – I love – you – but I never – thought that you – would love – me.”

  “I think I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you,” the Marquis said. “I told myself that you were too beautiful to be real and far too clever to be the sort of wife I expected to marry.”

  “And – now?” Ajanta whispered.

  “Now I know I cannot live without you and that I have no wish for a ‘pretend’ engagement, my darling, but a real marriage and one that will last for all eternity.”

  “Do you – mean that – do you really – mean it?”

  “I knew when I had the ring engraved that you were everything that existed in a very sacred place in my heart, but which I thought would always remain empty.”

  Ajanta gave a little sob and turned her face against his shoulder.

  “I-I thought when I saw Lady – Burnham that I could never – mean anything to you.”

  “Forget her!” the Marquis said. “She is a very sweet and lovely person, but, even if she was free, I would not have asked her to be my wife.”

  Ajanta raised her head.

  “Is that – true?” she asked wonderingly.

  The Marquis’s arms tightened around her.

  “Because we must always be honest with each other, my darling,” he said, “I admit there have been a great many women in my life. But I was determined to be free and remain unmarried, simply because none of them was the woman I wanted to bring to Stowe, to live here with me and be the mother of my children.”

  He kissed Ajanta’s forehead before he went on,

  “When I saw you here in the house, I knew you were exactly the person I had been looking for. You fitted in a way I cannot explain, except that I know you are the only woman I have ever met who could take my mother’s place and also own a part of me which I have never given to anybody else.”

  Ajanta gave a little cry of happiness.

  “That is what I want you to say. It is what Papa and Mama felt for each other and it is what I have always longed and prayed for but, like you, thought – I would never find.”

  As she spoke, she thought that now she could tell the Marquis who her mother was, but it could wait.

  “You have not met many men, my precious one, living where you did,” the Marquis said.

  “That is true and yet fate brought us together in the most unexpected way.”

  “Perhaps after all we neither of us had enough faith in our own destiny,” the Marquis said. “But now, my lovely one, we have found what we both know is the most precious thing on earth, and we will never lose it.”

  “Never! Never!” Ajanta cried.

  The Marquis kissed her again.

  She felt as if she gave him not only her lips and her heart, but also her body and her soul.

  She was part of him and never again would she be alone and frightened, unhappy or afraid.

  She pressed herself close and still closer and felt a strange fire in the Marquis’s kisses.

  It lit a fire within her breasts that burnt its way up her throat until it touched her lips and his.

  “I worship you and I want you!” the Marquis said hoarsely. “I cannot wait to make you mine. We will be married here in the Chapel the day after tomorrow.”

  “Will not – everyone think it rather – strange?” Ajanta asked.

  Her whole being was singing with happiness and the wonder and glory of having the Marquis love her. “Does it matter what they think?” he asked.

  “No,”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “The only thing – that matters – is that you love me! – You are sure I am – not dreaming?”

  “We both are,” he answered, and kissed her again. When they raised their heads the room was almost dark and he drew her to the window.

  The stars were reflected in the lake and, as the moon rose up the sky, the shadows were deep, mysterious and exciting.

  “Stowe is – enchanted,” Ajanta whispered.

  “It always will be for us,” the Marquis replied as he kissed her hair.

  She raised her face to his as she said,

  “There is – something I want to – say to you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your house is enchanted, everything you do seems part of a Fairy story, but if – like Mama and Papa – we had to run away together – to live in poverty and obscurity, I would go with you willingly – without for one moment – thinking it was any sacrifice.”

  The way she spoke was so very moving that the Marquis’s arms tightened.

  Then, when she thought he would kiss her, he put his cheek against hers and said,

  “That is why I know you love me and, because you are prepared to give up so much for me, there is nothing that I do not want to give you, even taking the stars and the moon from the sky, so that you can hold them in your arms.”

  “I have – nothing to give you – but my – love.”

  “A love that fills the whole world,” the Marquis answered. “A love, my darling, which will not only be ours now, but will grow, I believe, greater and more wonderful, every year we are together.”

  Then, as the tears came into Ajanta’s eyes from sheer happiness, the Marquis was kissing her again.

  Kissing her until she felt that he really had taken the stars and the moon from the sky for her to hold against her breasts.

  She knew that the love they had for each other was gre
ater than either of them could ever express and was the love which came from God and belonged to God and would be theirs for all eternity.

  * * *

  OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

  The Barbara Cartland Eternal Collection is the unique opportunity to collect as ebooks all five hundred of the timeless beautiful romantic novels written by the world’s most celebrated and enduring romantic author.

  Named the Eternal Collection because Barbara’s inspiring stories of pure love, just the same as love itself, the books will be published on the internet at the rate of four titles per month until all five hundred are available.

  The Eternal Collection, classic pure romance available worldwide for all time .

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