The Pretty Horse-Breakers Page 22
“Are you asking me to – marry you because – you feel you have to – because I have found my – grandparents?”
“No, that is not true,” he replied sharply and his hands tightened so harshly on hers that the blood was almost squeezed from her fingers. “I am asking you because I love you, Candida, because I respect you, honour you, want you and because I cannot go on without you. Everything that has happened is my fault, not yours – mine because I was blind and criminally stupid. But you must try to forgive me – you must try to understand.”
He felt despairingly that he had not reached through to her.
“I have done,” he went on, “a great many bad and wrong things these last years, Candida. I am not pretending that you would not be shocked by my behaviour and perhaps disgusted. I have no excuse save that someone tricked me once and I have never forgotten it. I have been suspicious of women ever since. I thought that they were all the same, all out for what they could get, loving only where their love would be repaid by money or position. That was why, when I found you, my darling, I could not believe you were so different or indeed so pure.”
“It was a woman who – hurt you?” Candida stated. “I was sure of – that.”
“You thought so?” he echoed.
“Yes,” Candida answered. “I was convinced that some – woman had – wounded you and I was – right.”
“You have always been right,” he answered. “Candida, I say this without meaning to sound dramatic, but if you refuse me now there will be nothing left for me but a life of degradation, a life so useless, so wasteful that I can only hope it will not last long.”
She was still looking up into his eyes and he felt as if she searched his face, seeking for something, so that he cried out in agony,
“Candida, if you will marry me, I swear I will not fail you. I love you – I love you with all my heart. They say I have no heart, but I promise you it has hurt me most excruciatingly every moment of these last three weeks while I have been searching for you.”
“You really – missed me?” Candida asked.
“Missed you?”
He almost smiled at the absurdity of the question and then she said,
“There is something – different about you – I don’t know what it is – once before you looked like this – the day – we found – our enchanted wood.”
“Candida, let’s go back to that day,” he pleaded. “Let’s forget everything that has happened in between. Everything I said and everything I did that terrible night was only because I was crazed with jealousy. I could not bear that any other man should touch you. I thought you belonged to me. I believed you did and, if I had had even a modicum of sense, I would have carried you away after those moments of happiness in the wood. We should have gone somewhere where we could have been alone, just you and I.”
“If only – we – had,” Candida sighed.
“Can we not go back and start again?” Lord Manville asked humbly. “Oh, Candida, say you will marry me!”
“Are you – quite sure that you – want me?” Candida asked. “I am so – ignorant. I know so – little of the life you – lead, what you – like and what – amuses you.”
“Oh, my little love,” he answered, “I don’t know that either. Can you not understand that we are starting again, both of us? I only know that everything I have done in the past seems incredibly dull and not worth remembering. We will both begin again at Manville Park. We will build a new life there, just you and I, with our horses and one day perhaps our children. Will that be enough for you?”
He suddenly realised that through her tears her eyes were shining like stars.
“That is what I have always – wanted,” she whispered, “a – home of my – own – and – y – ”
She stopped and her eyes fell before his.
Then, as though he could control himself no longer, Lord Manville took her in his arms, holding her closer and still closer to him until, lifting her chin, he found her lips.
“If you only knew how I have dreamed of this,” he murmured and kissed her.
To Candida it brought all the glory, the ecstasy, the beauty, the wonder that she had found with him in the little wood.
But now instinctively, although she could not explain it to herself, she knew that there was a dedication in his kiss that had not been there before.
His lips were at first gentle, then demanding and then passionate and they awoke a flame within herself.
But there was also something that seemed to her indivisibly linked with her prayers, her belief in God and the glory of the sun.
Impulsively she put her arms round his neck and drew him closer.
He would never know, she thought, how lonely and lost she had felt without him. It had seemed as if a part of herself had been left behind when she ran away from Manville Park.
Now with his mouth on hers they were man and woman, yet so close that they were one person and she knew they would be together for all time.
“Oh, Candida,” Lord Manville mumbled, looking down at her, “I have found you – found you after I thought I had lost you. You will never leave me, never escape me again, for I know now that you are the only thing that matters to me in life – and I cannot live without you.”
“I – love – y-you too,” she murmured, stammering from sheer happiness and there was a flush on her cheeks and a radiance in her eyes which transfigured her.
“I love – y-you, I love you – and nothing else m-matters – does it?”
“Nothing, my darling,” he answered. “We are together – you and I – and what else is of consequence in the whole world?”
* * *
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.
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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
Mission to Monte Carlo
Revenge of the Heart
The Unbreakable Spell
Never Laugh at Love
Bride to a Brigand
Lucifer and the Angel
Journey to a Star
Solita and the Spies
The Chieftain Without a Heart
No Escape from Love
Dollars for the duke
Pure and Untouched
Secrets
Fire in the Blood
Love, Lies and Marriage
The Ghost who Fell in Love
Hungry for Love
The Wild Cry of Love
The Blue-eyed Witch
The Punishment of a Vixen
The Secret of the Glen
Bride to the King
For All Eternity
King in Love
A Marriage made in Heaven
Who can deny Love?
Ridin
g to the Moon
Wish for Love
Dancing on a Rainbow
Gypsy Magic
Love in the Clouds
Count the Stars
White Lilac
Too Precious to Lose
The Devil Defeated
An Angel Runs Away
The Duchess Disappeared
The Pretty Horse-breakers
The Prisoner of Love
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 Pretty Horse-breakers
Barbara Cartland
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2013
Copyright Cartland Promotions 1971
eBook conversion by M-Y Books