21 The Mysterious Maid-Servant (The Eternal Collection) Read online

  The Earl insisted, although Giselda said it was an extravagance, on her having a white wedding gown, and Madame Vivienne had made her look the embodiment of beauty that is the ideal of all brides.

  Her veil was one of the finest lace, which might have been made by fairy fingers and it fell over the gown of white gauze trimmed with the same lace.

  Her wreath was not of orange blossoms but of white roses just in bud and she carried a bouquet of the same flowers.

  Henry Somercote gave her away, but the Earl had said to her,

  “I know the Duke would be only too pleased to take your father’s place if we asked him.”

  “I would rather have someone in your Regiment,” Giselda answered, “and I think Captain Somercote was really fond of Papa.”

  “That is true,” the Earl agreed. “Henry did more than anyone else to try to find your father.”

  “Then I would like him to give me away,” Giselda said and added softly “ – to you.”

  When she came up the aisle on Henry’s arm, the Earl thought it would be impossible for anyone to look lovelier or more pure.

  He knew he had found in Giselda what he had always missed in the other women he had known.

  Granted they had been sophisticated and Society beauties, but in his heart he had thought that the ideals which his mother had implanted in him as a child could only materialise in a woman whose character and personality were pure and untouched by sin.

  Everything Giselda had ever done, he realised, was selfless and, if she had tried to sacrifice herself, it was for others, while he who had always been courageous admired and respected her courage.

  It was difficult to tell her what he felt when he knew she had saved his life by an action that might have destroyed her own.

  She had acted out of love and he knew that it came from a heart filled with love, which she gave not only to him but also to everyone who suffered.

  He realised exactly what she had felt for poor Emily Clutterbuck.

  He understood how instinctively she disliked deceiving Julius and tried to find the best in him.

  In fact Giselda was everything he believed a woman should be and he knew, as he took his marriage vows, that he was fortunate as few men were privileged to be.

  To Giselda her marriage was something from Heaven itself.

  Loving the Earl and supposing that she could never mean anything in his life had been a pain and a happiness, an agony and an ecstasy that even now she could hardly believe had become the rapture of requited love.

  The night before her wedding she had prayed for a long time beside her bed.

  She thanked God that her father’s name had been cleared and thanked Him that in His inscrutable and mysterious way He had brought the Earl into her life.

  She was grateful in a manner that could never be expressed in words that he loved her as she had longed for him to do.

  How could she ever have imagined, she asked herself, when she was sent upstairs to clean the grate in a guest’s bedroom, that the guest would be in her father’s Regiment, a man who she began to love almost from the moment she met him?

  She had known on the night the Earl engaged her that, if she did what she felt to be right, she should leave German Cottage immediately and disappear.

  But she had learnt the hard way that jobs were difficult to find and she was afraid that if she gave up what seemed a lucrative position she might never find another one.

  In which case, she argued with her conscience, Mama would starve to death and Rupert would never walk again.

  Instinctively, because she was sensitive, Giselda had known there was a compelling, exciting and irresistible magnetism between herself and the Earl that she could not express in words, but nevertheless was irrefutably there.

  She had known it as her footsteps quickened in the morning when she went to his room and when she returned from any errands he had sent her on.

  She had known from the pain in her breast when she must say goodnight and knew that many hours must pass before she could see him again.

  Her love was a secret she held in her breast, and yet the wonder of it permeated her whole being so that she felt as if she became a new personality!

  She had become someone who could touch the stars, even while in contrast she knew when her love was no longer there she would go down into the darkest bowels of the earth.

  ‘We have so many things to do together,’ she told herself now, ‘and I will take care of him and make him happy with a happiness he has never really known because he has been so alone.’

  The Earl was thinking very much the same as he waited with two candles alight beside the big four-poster and the fire flickering fitfully in the grate.

  There was the fragrance of roses and carnations on the air, but the shadows were dark.

  He began to be half-afraid that Giselda would not come to him and yet he knew that she would not expect him to come to her bedroom.

  The suite in German Cottage consisted of the best room, which he had always used, but which ordinarily would have been the perquisite of a woman.

  The smaller bedroom on the other side of the sitting room where Mrs. Kingdom had now moved Giselda’s things had really been planned as a gentleman’s dressing room.

  ‘She will come to me,’ the Earl told himself.

  Then as he waited, his heart beating in anticipation, the door opened and Giselda came in.

  As she moved very slowly towards him, he saw that she was looking just as he had wished her to look with her fair hair falling over her shoulders to just below her waist.

  She was wearing a white negligee and her cheeks were very pale, but her eyes were large and soft with love.

  She came slowly nearer and nearer to the bed.

  Then she said in a voice that told the Earl she was nervous,

  “You are quite – comfortable? You are not in – pain, because you – stood for so – long today?”

  “Batley has looked after me as you told him to do,” the Earl replied. “He put me to bed like a baby when I am now quite capable of looking after myself.”

  “I will – look after you in – future.”

  “As I will look after you.”

  She stood by the bed and after a moment he said,

  “It is embarrassing for you, my darling, having to come to me when I should come to you, but there seemed no alternative.”

  “I wanted to come, but now I do not know – quite what to – do.”

  “What do you want to do?” the Earl asked.

  Her eyes met his in the light of the candles and she stammered in a voice he could hardly hear,

  “I – want to be – close to you.”

  “You cannot want it more than I do, my precious.”

  She drew a little breath as if that was what she wished to hear and then he saw the radiance in her face as she bent forward and blew out the candles.

  Her negligee slipped to the ground and for a moment the Earl saw her body silhouetted through her diaphanous nightgown against the glow of the flames.

  Then two strong arms drew her into the bed.

  The Earl held her very tight. He could feel that she was trembling and her heart was beating as frantically as his.

  “ I love you! Oh, my darling, precious little wife, I love you! Now we are together, as I have always wanted us to be.”

  “Together – ” Giselda whispered, “but I am afraid you will be – disappointed because you hate – thin women.”

  The Earl laughed and turned her face up to his.

  “If you were as fat as an elephant or as thin as a pin, I should still love you. But as it is no one could be so soft, adorable and unbelievably beautiful.”

  His lips were on hers, then she felt him slipping her nightgown from her shoulders and he kissed her neck and then her breasts until she moved even closer to him.

  “I love you! God, how I love you!” he sighed. “How could I have known that the mysterious maid-servant I first met in this
room would one day lie close against me like this? You make me feel the proudest and most fortunate man in the whole world.”

  “You said I was to – remain in your – employment until you – no longer had – need of me,” Giselda murmured.

  “That will not be until the stars fall from the Heavens and the world no longer exists,” the Earl replied. “I shall always need you, Giselda, in this world and the world beyond. You are mine! You are part of me and we can never be free of each other.”

  “I – would not – wish it any other way,” she whispered. “I want – only you and nothing else in the world is of the least – importance.”

  There was a little throb of passion in her voice, which moved the Earl tremulously.

  Then his lips were on hers and he was kissing her until there was no need for words and everything in the world vanished except for them.

  They became one person.

  There were no more mysteries, no more secrets, only love – a love stretching out towards an indefinable horizon.

  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

  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.

  Although she is often referred to as the ‘Queen of Romance’, Barbara Cartland also wrote several historical biographies, six autobiographies and numerous theatrical plays as well as books on life, love, health and cookery. Becoming one of Britain’s most popular media personalities and dressed in her trademark pink, Barbara spoke on radio and television about social and political issues, as well as making many public appearances.

  In 1991 she became a Dame of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to literature and her work for humanitarian and charitable causes.

  Known for her glamour, style, and vitality Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime. Best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels and loved by millions of readers worldwide, her books remain treasured for their heroic heroes, plucky heroines and traditional values. But above all, it was Barbara Cartland’s overriding belief in the positive power of love to help, heal and improve the quality of life for everyone that made her truly unique.

  THE MYSTERIOUS

  MAID-SERVANT

  Barbara Cartland

  Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd

  This edition © 2012

  Copyright Cartland Promotions 1977

  eBook conversion by M-Y Books

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  THE MYSTERIOUS MAID-SERVANT

  Author’s Note

  CHAPTER ONE 1816

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

  THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND

  Copyright

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