Love and the Marquis Read online

  “Jolie was very beautiful in those days and her voice was acclaimed in every country in Europe. Later, in return for so much hospitality, my father decided to give a party of his own and he wrote to Jolie asking her if she would sing at it.”

  “So she had a sample of his handwriting.”

  “Exactly, or rather her brother had it.”

  “And at that time she was married to the Count.”

  “She had married him about three years earlier in Rome and had already run through his money. Their son was actually two years old when she met my father.”

  Imeldra gave a deep sigh.

  “Oh, darling, if only you had known all this before.”

  “I know it now,” the Marquis said. “I am free and that is all that matters.”

  He kissed her and Imeldra urged him,

  “Tell me the – rest of the – story. Then we – can forget it.”

  “When I confronted Jolie with the Inspector from the Sureté and told her that I knew she was married to the Count, she broke down and then admitted that she and her brother had concocted the plan of extorting money from me the moment she had heard that my father was dead.”

  “It was cruel,” Imeldra murmured.

  “She had done the same,” the Marquis went on, “with the head of a very distinguished and aristocratic French family and also a Belgian Baron, who had been paying her for years as I have been fool enough to do.”

  “It was a very ingenious plan,” Imeldra stated, “compelling you to protect your family name and your father’s memory.”

  “Of course,” the Marquis agreed. “I could not bear to think that my father, who had been the height of propriety and stood in my life for everything that was noble and upright, had deceived my mother by marrying her when he was already married to another woman.”

  “I can understand what you felt and I suppose that is why you left the fake picture in the Gallery.”

  “When I first saw you,” he said quietly, “and I was angry because you were saying such disparaging things about me, I thought that you were the loveliest, most perfect woman I had ever seen.”

  “Now we can remove the fake and forget it all.”

  “We will do that,” the Marquis agreed. “But I think I shall keep it to remind myself always to have more faith in those I love and to believe not what my brain tells me but my instinct and my heart.”

  He gave a deep sigh as if he released the tension within him as he carried on,

  “When I arrived back from France this morning, I came straight here to tell your father that however much he needs you, I need you too.”

  Before she could speak he pulled her close against him to say,

  “You gave me hope, my precious, even before you solved my problem and swept away my despair. You loved me and inspired me as I beg you to go on doing for the rest of our lives.”

  “You know that is ‒ what I want to do and, my darling, darling, how wonderful it is ‒ that you no longer have to feel bitter or resentful.”

  The Marquis held her closer to him and she whispered,

  “You are quite certain you – really want me?”

  “Do I really have to answer such a very absurd question?” he asked. “Although I should really be angry with you for trying to deceive me and for not telling me your secret as soon as we knew we loved each other, I suppose I shall have to forgive you.”

  “I did not – wish you to – think you were obliged to – marry me,” Imeldra said in a low voice.

  “I am obliged to do so as I cannot live without you,” the Marquis said positively. “And now let’s go and see your father and tell him that however much he might want you, I claim you as mine.”

  Imeldra laughed.

  “A week ago I should have been a little afraid that Papa would be hurt at my leaving him.”

  The way she spoke made the Marquis look at her questioningly and he asked,

  “But now?”

  “Now Papa is going to marry a very old friend, Lady Marsden, and they are so happy together they do not really want me.”

  “I want you,” the Marquis insisted, “I want you now and at once. We will be married tomorrow.”

  Imeldra laughed.

  Then she said,

  “Tomorrow, tonight, whenever you wish! All I want is to be with you, to love you and to know that I never need feel – lonely again.”

  The Marquis pulled her almost roughly against him and kissed her until once again the garden, the flowers and the sunshine whirled around them and it was impossible to think of anything but his lips and the wonder of him.

  Then he helped her to her feet.

  “We have so much to do together, but first let us go now and talk to your father and then arrange where we shall be married.”

  “Here, in the Chapel where I was Christened,” Imeldra said. “I am sure that Papa can be carried down the stairs in his chair so that he can give me away.”

  “That is exactly what he has to do,” the Marquis said, “give you away to me and once you are mine, my lovely one, I will never let you go. Of that you can be very sure.”

  “I am sure our love is eternal,” Imeldra whispered. “We have loved in the past and we will love in the future – but I love you in the present until you fill the whole world – the sky and there is – nothing but you.”

  The Marquis looked down at her with a tenderness that seemed to transform his face. The lines of cynicism had gone and he looked young and happy.

  He had too, Imeldra felt, a radiance that seemed to vibrate around him and she felt that he was seeing her in the same way and that their love was a living force that came from them both and was a power that they could never lose.

  “I adore and worship you,” the Marquis said in his deep voice. “You are what I have sought all through the years and thought I would never find it. Now I know that I have been blessed as few men are and I am eternally and humbly grateful.”

  Imeldra’s eyes were on his and, as if she could not help it, she lifted up her arms and put them around his neck and drew his head down to hers.

  “We have found the path through the maze together,” she said, “and how there are no mysteries, no threats, no evil – only love.”

  The Marquis’s lips would have touched hers, but she added,

  “Teach me to love you as you want to be loved and we will make Marizon a place of happiness not only for ourselves and our – children but for – everybody who knows us.”

  She knew her words touched the Marquis by the way his arms tightened.

  Then, as he kissed her, there was not only the fire that had been there before but also something ecstatic and spiritual as if what they felt for each other was not only human but Divine.

  Imeldra knew that this was the real love that her father and mother had known and that she had been afraid that she would never find it.

  The Marquis was a part of her as she was a part of him and, as she had said, there was no more fear or despair but only a love that would grow and that would radiate out from both of them to help other people.

  “I love you! I love you!” she whispered because there were no other words in which to express her feelings.

  “And I love you! You are mine, Imeldra, for ever and for ever,” the Marquis replied.

  Then there was only the sunshine, the scent of the magnolias and the vibrations of love, which seemed like music and filled the whole garden with an incredible ecstasy.

  *

  The Marquis and Marchioness of Marizon walked arm-in-arm through the trees towards the sea.

  It was a deep blue shading to emerald and, as there was no wind, there was only a slight swell, which broke very softly below the cliffs onto the golden sands.

  The sunshine seemed dazzling and the horizon shimmered in a haze.

  Imeldra put her head against her husband’s shoulder and sighed,

  “It is so beautiful. How could you possess anything so lovely and neglect it for so long?”
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br />   “I think I was waiting to come here with you,” the Marquis replied. “My mother was left this house when her father died, but then I thought it would not interest me to be here alone feeling, as you know, bitter and resentful because I believed my father had deceived her.”

  “But all the time it was here – a perfect honeymoon place – for us both.”

  “Do you find it perfect?” the Marquis asked.

  She smiled up at him and he thought he had never seen a woman look so radiant or so happy.

  “Ever since we have been here,” she answered, “I have felt enchanted. Every night I go to bed thinking it would be impossible to love you more than I do already only to wake every morning and know that I not only love you more but am so wildly ecstatically happy that I think we must be in Heaven and not on Earth.”

  “That is how I feel too,” the Marquis replied. “Oh, my precious, there is so much for us to do together, so many things I want to show you and you to show me. But first we are both learning about love and that is more enthralling than anything else in the whole world.”

  “It is all that and so much – more.”

  Because she loved the Marquis so overwhelmingly, Imeldra lifted her face to his and he kissed her until she felt the fire on his lips arouse an answering flame within her.

  There was no need for words.

  The Marquis turned her away from the sea and they walked back through the shadows of the trees towards the beautiful low-built white-stone house that was in a sheltered garden and which, as Imeldra had said, seemed enchanted.

  It was filled with many objets d’art that the Marquis’s mother had treasured and, most of all, portraits of him from the time he was a baby until he was a young man.

  After the grandeur of Marizon it was cosy and intimate and, as Imeldra had said, was a perfect place for a honeymoon because they seemed isolated here in a tiny world of their own in which nothing unpleasant or disturbing could encroach.

  The whole place seemed to radiate with happiness and she knew that she had never been a complete person until she had met the Marquis.

  He not only aroused her body but her brain and sharpened her instinct and her perception as she did his.

  Every day they discovered new and exciting points of interest about each other and every day and night, as Imeldra had said, they fell deeper and deeper in love.

  Now, as they reached the house not talking but communicating without words, Imeldra turned her head for a second to glance at the Marquis questioningly and, as she met his eyes, she knew what he wanted.

  Slowly, still close, they went up the pretty curved staircase that led to the first floor into a room with two bay windows through which could be seen a vision of trees and the blue of the sea.

  But, as the Marquis closed the door behind them, Imeldra had eyes only for him and he said,

  “I think it is time, my darling adorable wife, for you to rest and, as I have every intention of resting with you, let us make ourselves more comfortable.”

  He pulled off his elegant cutaway coat as he spoke and threw it down casually on a chair.

  Then he put his arms around her and with his lips on hers he began to undo the buttons at the back of her gown.

  When he was planning their honeymoon, he had told her that, while he intended to take with them several of his servants from Marizon, he would not let her have a lady’s maid.

  “I intend to look after you myself, my very lovely one,” he had said, “and a maid fussing round you will only be a nuisance.”

  “It will give you a great deal to do,” Imeldra teased him.

  “You will find I am very experienced.”

  “Now you are making me jealous,” she protested.

  “There is no need for you to be,” he answered. “If I have ever known any other women in the past, it is impossible now to remember even their names, their faces or if they ever meant anything to me.”

  “And shall I be – sufficient for you in the – future?”

  “If you doubt that,” he replied, “then I must prove it to you, not in words but in a very much easier way.”

  Now, as his fingers released her gown and it slipped to the floor, he lifted her in his arms and Imeldra felt the wild excitement he always evoked in her rising up from her breast into her throat.

  She so wanted his kisses, the touch of his hand and for him to love her.

  He laid her on the bed and pulled the sheet over her and then a few seconds later when he joined her, she knew that the music she had heard when he had first kissed her and which was singing in the air around them also came from themselves.

  The Marquis’s arms held her, his face was very near to hers, but he did not kiss her, he only looked at her and asked,

  “What is it about you that is so different from anybody else? So lovely that you are part of the sea, the sky and the flowers and yet you are more beautiful than all of them?”

  “That is what I want you to think,” Imeldra whispered. “My world contains everything here and all the beauty we have known and taken into ourselves. I think you said once that love is beauty and that, my wonderful husband, is why ‒ I want to be beautiful for you.”

  “You are so beautiful,” the Marquis answered. “So incredibly and unbelievably beautiful that you fill my whole life with a glory that I know comes only from God.”

  “How can you say such marvellous things to me?” Imeldra asked. “This is the love I so want to give you and one day we will both – give it to our children.”

  The Marquis pulled her closer to him.

  “I want more than I can say in words for you to give me a son, my beautiful wife. At the same time I shall be very jealous if you love our children more than you love me.”

  Imeldra laughed.

  “Do you think that would be possible? We will love them and never leave them lonely or lost. And you will always be first, very much – first in my mind – my heart and, of course – my soul.”

  “Can I possess them all?”

  “Everything that is me and I have nothing else of any – consequence to – give you.”

  “There is nothing else I want.”

  Then he was kissing her insistently and demandingly, but at the same time tenderly as if he was afraid to hurt her.

  Because it was different, Imeldra felt her whole being respond to the rapture of it and she knew that once again her love had increased and was far greater than it had been before either yesterday, this morning or a few moments ago.

  It was like the ceaseless roll of the waves moving eternally and their love, as the Marquis had insisted, was not only human but Divine.

  Because she could feel not only love, but a rising excitement from the fire on his lips, the touch of his hands and the closeness of his body, Imeldra moved even closer to him.

  “Love me – love me! Oh, my dearest darling – I want your – love!”

  “As I want you,” the Marquis said and his voice was deep and passionate. “You are my heart, my soul and my life, my lovely one, but you are also a woman. My woman! Mine!”

  “Love me – love me – ” Imeldra begged.

  Then the music around them seemed to sweep away the sound of their voices, the waves came from the sea and the fragrance of the flowers surrounded them.

  As the Marquis carried Imeldra on the wings of ecstasy towards the sun, there was only Love – and Love – and Love.

  OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

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  A Duel of Hearts

  The Saint and the Sinner

  The Penniless Peer

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  Fragrant Flower

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  Mission to Monte Carlo

  Revenge of the Heart

  The Unbreakable Spell

  Never Laugh at Love

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  Lucifer and the Angel

  Journey to a Star

  Solita and the Spies

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  Wish for Love

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  Love in the Clouds

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  The Devil Defeated

  An Angel Runs Away

  The Duchess Disappeared

  The Pretty Horse-breakers

  The Prisoner of Love

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  The Castle made for Love

  A Heart is Stolen

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  Love Leaves at Midnight