The Wings of Ecstacy Read online

  “But I am sure you will not be able to afford jewels from Massin’s,” Zena said and they both laughed.

  Now, after Zena had said goodbye to Kendric, she kissed her mother, then her father.

  “I wish you every happiness, my dearest,” the Archduke said.

  “I am already happier than I have ever been in my whole life, Papa!” Zena replied.

  He looked a little surprised, but her answer pleased him.

  He supposed there was no point in saying so, but he had always bitterly regretted that his oldest child had been obliged to marry a man she disliked and who had made her so unhappy.

  But there was no doubt as the train moved out of the station and Zena waved goodbye from the windows of the Saloon that her eyes were shining and there was a radiance about her that seemed somehow to have transmitted itself to her bridegroom.

  When the Royal Party was out of sight, Zena turned to look at the Duke.

  Their eyes met and she felt as if she was already in his arms.

  Then he said without touching her,

  “You have had a very long day, my darling. I suggest you go to bed, while I rid myself of this finery.”

  Zena gave a little laugh.

  “You look very magnificent.”

  The Duke was wearing the uniform of a Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Horseguards, his chest ablaze with decorations which Zena knew when they had time she must ask him to explain to her.

  She thought it was impossible for any man to look more majestic, more distinguished or more lovable.

  “I am not going to tell you what you look like until later,” the Duke was saying. “It is however, something I am longing to do, so I beg you to hurry.”

  She gave him a little smile and moved across the Saloon towards the bedroom coach which it adjoined.

  Zena knew the train well because her father always used it when he travelled not only in Wiedenstein, but to neighbouring Kingdoms and other parts of Europe.

  But she had never slept, of course, in the main bedroom which had been redecorated in time for her wedding.

  It was the Duke who thought up the plausible excuse that they must be married with such unprecedented speed because his mother was in ill-health. If she died he would be in mourning and unable to marry her for a year.

  Zena was to find when she reached England that while her mother-in-law was under her doctor’s supervision, she was not on the danger list. In fact it was anticipated that she had many years of useful life in front of her.

  Everyone in Wiedenstein was galvanised into immediate action by the Duke’s insistence.

  Zena watched the Duke’s horse win the Prix d’Or, then married him the next day and the whole country was wildly excited with the speed and thrill of it all.

  At first her father and even more her mother had disapproved of what they called ‘this very unseemly haste’.

  But that morning, as Zena drove beside him in the State Coach to the Cathedral, the Arch-Duke had said,

  “If you ask me, it has done the whole of Wiedenstein good to be shaken out of their usual lazy lethargy by your wedding.”

  Zena turned her head for a moment to look at her father.

  “ Do you mean that, Papa?”

  “I do,” the Arch-Duke replied, “and because they have had to hustle and bustle to put up the decorations and to accommodate the huge crowds that have come into the Capital, I think we as a country have entered a new era of increased productivity.”

  Zena drew in her breath.

  “It is all due to Jean,” she wanted to say or rather ‘John’ as she was now told to call him.

  Then she thought he could not take all the credit, only love could do that.

  Now, as she entered the State bedroom which had gold and white walls and blue silk curtains that matched her eyes, she felt like blushing.

  The bed seemed to fill the small compartment, and as the lady’s maid took off her tiara and removed the glittering silver and diamante gown she had worn for the Banquet, Zena’s eyes kept straying to the lace-trimmed pillows bearing the Royal Insignia.

  She was thinking she was glad they were to spend tonight in the train instead of in the Duc de Soisson’s château which had been lent to them for their honeymoon in France.

  At the château, although they would be alone, there would be servants to wait on them and inevitably when they arrived there would be a long line of officials and staff to be presented.

  But tonight there was only a lady’s maid for her and a valet for the Duke and when they had retired to the coach where the other servants slept, she would be alone with her husband.

  Zena knew too that the train was travelling for only a short distance before it stopped in a siding for the night.

  Then there would be no rumble of wheels to prevent her from hearing the words of love which she knew the Duke was longing to say to her, just as she had so much to say to him.

  Wearing a diaphanous nightgown of chiffon trimmed with lace that had come from Paris, and which her mother had said she considered extremely immodest, Zena got into bed.

  It was very soft and comfortable and the sheets felt cool after the heat of the day.

  The lady’s maid picked up her gown and looked around to see that everything was tidy before she curtsied.

  “Bon soir, Your Royal Highness!”

  “Bon soir, Louise,” Zena replied.

  Now she was alone and there was only one shaded light left by the side of the bed.

  She waited, her heart beating frantically in her breast, as the door opened and the Duke came in.

  She felt as if he was enveloped with light as he had been when she had seen him standing against the sunshine in the sitting room in the Rue St. Honoré.

  She knew now that it was the light of love that seemed to burn through them both.

  With her red-gold hair falling over her shoulders, her blue eyes very wide and shining in her small face, the Duke thought it was impossible for anybody to look lovelier and at the same time so pure and untouched.

  He could see very clearly the outline of her breasts beneath the chiffon of her nightgown, but he knew that his feelings were at the moment more spiritual than physical, even though he desired her wildly as a woman.

  She had aroused in him feelings of reverence and inspiration that had never happened with any woman he had known before.

  It was not something that could be put into words.

  It was something they both knew vibrated from each to the other.

  It lifted their souls towards the sky and would, the Duke knew, make them better and finer people because they had found each other.

  Zena was waiting for him to speak and after a moment he murmured,

  “Have you any idea how beautiful you are?”

  “That was what I – wanted you to say,” she answered. “I want you to tell me how – glad you – are that I am – your wife.”

  “Let me try to put it into words, my darling,” the Duke said. “I feel as if I have moved Heaven and earth to make you mine and yet really I have done nothing. Fate did it for us.”

  “The fate that – took me to – Paris to find – you.”

  She put out her hands to clasp his as she said,

  “Do you realise that if we had not met in such a strange way which I know – shocked you, I would perhaps be – hating you at this moment because you are English – and it might have taken me a very long time to realise that you were very – very different from all that I – expected.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “I am quite certain that the moment I saw the Princess Marie-Therese I should have fallen in love with her,” he said, “as I fell in love with a lovely red-lipped Zena Bellefleur.”

  “If we are honest,” Zena said, “what you felt for the girl in the next box was not the – love we have for – each other now.”

  “Perhaps not,” the Duke conceded. “At the same time the moment I looked at you and heard your voice, something very strange h
appened to my heart.”

  “Is – that – true?”

  “It is the truth,” he said firmly. “But you have not yet asked me why I was in Paris and not under my own name.”

  “I have never had the chance,” Zena answered.

  The Duke laughed.

  “When I see how wrapped around you were at home with chaperones, ladies-in-waiting and protocol,” he said, “I find it understandable that you wanted to run away.”

  “I never expected that an Englishman would – understand that,” Zena teased. “But then how many Englishmen would – pretend to be French?”

  “What I have not had time to tell you,” the Duke said, “is that my father’s mother, my grandmother, was French. As you can guess she was a de Graumont.”

  He smiled before he went on,

  “Whenever I wished to leave England, I have always stayed with one of my many de Graumont relations in France, as I used to do when I was a boy or I have called myself ‘ le Comte de Graumont’!”

  “So you could have fun!” Zena finished.

  “It made it possible to avoid having to spend hours of boredom at the Tuilleries Palace with the Emperor and Empress. An English Duke suffers nearly as much as a Royal Princess!”

  “So, like me, you were escaping when you went to the Artists’ Ball.”

  “Exactly! And do you know from whom on that occasion I was running away?”

  “Who?”

  “Somebody called the Princess Marie-Therese of Wiedenstein!”

  Zena looked at him wide-eyed and he explained,

  “When I was told it was the wish of the Queen Victoria that I should marry a somewhat obscure European Princess, I was horrified!”

  “You had no – wish to marry?”

  “Of course not!” the Duke replied. “I was perfectly happy as a bachelor, and although I would not pretend that I have not enjoyed many love affairs, I had never met a woman I wanted to be my wife.”

  “Why could you not have – rejected the proposal of – marrying me?” Zena asked.

  “You will find when we reach England that it is very difficult to refuse anything the Queen desires,” the Duke replied with a twist of his lips. “But I was indeed longing to defy Her Majesty and in order to think out how I would do so, I escaped to Paris.”

  “And what did you intend to do in Paris?” Zena asked.

  The Duke’s eyes sparkled as he replied.

  “I will confess that I was looking for amusement.”

  “The sort of – amusement you would find with – a demi-mondaine?”

  “Exactly!”

  Zena gave little cry.

  “Suppose I had met you too late and you had already found someone else to amuse you like the women who dined with the Prince Napoleon, then you might never have come to Wiedenstein!”

  “I had decided after I had met you that one way I could avoid being forced to marry Princess Marie-Therese,” the Duke replied, “was to accept your father’s invitation, but ask if I could bring my wife to watch the Prix d’Or.”

  Zena laughed and said,

  “I am so – glad, so very very glad that you fell – in love with me!”

  “How could I help it,” the Duke asked, “when not only are you the loveliest woman I have ever seen in my life, but there is something more than that? Perhaps it is that we have been together in other lives or quite simply that we are each the other half of the other.”

  His voice deepened as he said the last word and now he bent forward to put his arms around Zena to kiss her.

  Her lips were waiting for his and, as he felt the softness and warmth of her body beneath his hands, he drew her closer and still closer.

  To Zena it was as if the Gates of Heaven opened and she stepped inside.

  Thrill after thrill rippled through her until they were so intense, so vivid, that she was almost in pain.

  Yet it was a wonder of wonders and everything she had longed for and prayed she might find.

  Then the Duke released her and, as she gave a little cry at losing him, she realised he had pulled off his robe and lifted the sheet and was climbing into bed beside her.

  The train had come to a standstill without their realising it.

  Everything was very quiet and as the Duke put his arms around Zena again and drew her body close against him she said breathlessly,

  “I feel – this is like the – little hut where I thought we could live if we ran away together and where I would – look after you and – love you.”

  “It does not matter where we are,” the Duke answered. “I want your love, my darling, and I will look after you now and for the rest of our lives.”

  He pulled her closer as he added,

  “Never again, my precious, beautiful little wife, will you do anything outrageous, because I shall not only be afraid of losing you, but I will be a very jealous husband.”

  “As I shall be – a jealous wife,” Zena said. “Suppose after we have been married for a while you – go to Paris to find – one of those – beautiful women whom you will – bedeck with jewels because she – amuses you?”

  “If I go to Paris,” the Duke said, “you will come with me. Then, my darling, I shall not go through the agonies of having to leave you at the door of your apartment.”

  “Was it agony?”

  “I wanted you and you excited me, but there was something very pure about you, my darling, despite your red lips, that made me feel it was like an armour protecting you.”

  “Oh, Jean, you say such wonderful things to me,” Zena cried, “and I am glad that I made you – feel that way.”

  “You still do and so my precious, now you are my wife I will be very gentle and will try not to hurt or shock you.”

  “How – could you do that when I – love you and I – belong to you,” Zena asked.

  She paused for a moment before she said in a whisper hiding her face against his neck,

  “I know I am very ignorant and you will have to tell me what a – man and a – woman do when they – make love – but whatever it is – because it is you – it will be – glorious and – wonderful, like when you kiss me – and I feel as if it is part of the sunshine and God.”

  She felt the Duke draw in his breath.

  Then very gently he kissed her eyes, her straight little nose and the softness of her cheeks.

  Her lips were ready for his, but instead the Duke kissed her neck and, when he felt Zena quiver with the sensations he aroused in her, he pulled her nightgown off her shoulder and kissed it.

  His lips moved over her skin lower and lower until he found her breast.

  His mouth made Zena feel so wildly excited that her whole body moved against his as if to music.

  He raised his head to look down at her.

  “Am I arrogant or insensitive?” he asked and his voice was very deep and passionate.

  “N-no – no,” Zena answered.

  “Am I cold?”

  She gave a cry that was half a laugh and put her arms round his neck.

  “You are – warm – marvellous – wonderful – and very – very loving.”

  Then the Duke took her lips captive, kissed her possessively, demandingly and passionately.

  Yet at the same time there was an underlying tenderness she could not explain, but knew was even more wonderful than his kisses had been before.

  She could feel his hands touching her body, arousing in her unknown thrills that swept through her like shafts of sunlight, growing more and more intense until they turned from the gold of the sun to the crimson of fire.

  Then, as she felt the fire on the Duke’s lips, a flame rose within her and she wanted him to hold her closer and still closer.

  She did not understand what she wanted, but she knew that without it she would feel incomplete and not entirely his.

  “Love me – I want you to – love me,” she cried. “Please – please – teach me about love.”

  Her words made the fire in the Duke and within
herself burn more fiercely and its flames leapt higher and higher.

  It carried them both on the wings of ecstasy towards the heart of the sun and they were one.

  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 .

  Elizabethan Lover

  The Little Pretender

  A Ghost in Monte Carlo

  A Duel of Hearts

  The Saint and the Sinner

  The Penniless Peer

  The Proud Princess

  The Dare-Devil Duke

  Diona and a Dalmatian

  A Shaft of Sunlight

  Lies for Love

  Love and Lucia

  Love and the Loathsome Leopard

  Beauty or Brains

  The Temptation of Torilla

  The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl

  Fragrant Flower

  Look Listen and Love

  The Duke and the Preacher’s Daughter

  A Kiss for the King

  The Mysterious Maid-servant

  Lucky Logan Finds Love

  The Wings of Ecstacy

  THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND

  Barbara Cartland, who sadly died in May 2000 at the grand age of ninety eight, remains one of the world’s most famous romantic novelists. With worldwide sales of over one billion, her outstanding 723 books have been translated into thirty six different languages, to be enjoyed by readers of romance globally.

  Writing her first book ‘Jigsaw’ at the age of 21, Barbara became an immediate bestseller. Building upon this initial success, she wrote continuously throughout her life, producing bestsellers for an astonishing 76 years. In addition to Barbara Cartland’s legion of fans in the UK and across Europe, her books have always been immensely popular in the USA. In 1976 she achieved the unprecedented feat of having books at numbers 1 & 2 in the prestigious B. Dalton Bookseller bestsellers list.