Magic From the Heart Read online

  “You are certainly optimistic,” the Duke answered.

  She thought that he was mocking her and rose to her feet.

  “I think I will go to bed.”

  “Of course,” the Duke agreed.

  He drank what was left in his glass and put the guard in front of the fire and then he blew out the candles that had been lit on each side of the mantelpiece.

  The curtains had not been drawn and it was dusk outside. The first evening star was struggling to glitter in the sky over the top of the trees.

  Safina realised that he was going to come upstairs with her and so she waited until he joined her at the door she held open.

  It was dark in the passage outside. There were two candlesticks on the table in the hall and one of the candles had been lit.

  The Duke lit the other one and they walked up the stairs side by side.

  They moved along a wide passage and Safina noticed for the first time that there were several fine inlaid chests underneath portraits of the Duke’s ancestors.

  They had obviously been painted by the Master of each period, but the pictures needed cleaning and the chests dusting.

  At the same time there was something charming and elegant about them that pleased her.

  The Duke stopped outside her door.

  Then, as she was about to say goodnight, he said,

  “I hope you have everything you want. I shall not be long and there is a communicating door between our rooms, which you may not have noticed.”

  He did not wait for her reply, but walked on a little further down the passage to open the door of his own bedroom.

  Safina stared after him in astonishment.

  She felt that she must have misunderstood him and yet he had said definitely that he would ‘not be long’.

  She went into her own room, put down the candle and stared at a door that she had not noticed before. It was near the window and it obviously opened into the next room.

  ‘Could – he possibly – mean – ?’

  Then, as she faced the truth, she put her hands up to her face as if to protect herself.

  When the Duke had said that he thought they should behave in a normal way, she had not imagined that he meant this.

  How could he possibly behave as a normal husband to her when he was in love with someone else?

  Safina was innocent in as much as she had no idea actually how a man and a woman made love.

  She knew if they slept together it resulted in a child and that anything they did would be very intimate.

  Equally if they loved each other as her mother had loved her father, it would be very wonderful.

  That was very different from allowing a man she had never seen until that morning to come into her room.

  He would sleep in her bed and, of course, touch and perhaps kiss her.

  She felt her whole body revolt at the idea.

  Now she was terrified as she had been in the Chapel when the Duke had seemed overpowering.

  She had felt his hatred for her vibrating from him.

  ‘He still hates me,’ she told herself, ‘but at the same time, because he is trying to behave in a dignified and normal manner, he will make me his wife!’

  She knew at that moment that in such circumstances she could not bear to have a child by him.

  If indeed they had one, perhaps it would be as grotesque and ugly as she had thought he might be.

  ‘It would be a sin – a sin against – God for him to give me a baby when he loves someone else,’ she told herself firmly.

  She knew vaguely, because the girls at school talked, that men amused themselves, even when they were married, with women like actresses. Also, sometimes, although she was not quite sure about this, with women of their own class.

  While the other girls whispered about such things, Safina was not interested.

  To her, love was something beautiful, the rapture she had seen in her mother’s eyes, the ecstasy she read about in the poetry, plays and prose that she had found in the school library.

  They all emphasised the spiritual side of love.

  She thought that it was the same as what she had felt in the Chapel when the voices of the choir were like a paean of joy from the angels in Heaven.

  She felt the same when she received the Blessed Sacrament and her heart was lifted up to God.

  How could she feel that with a man who hated her and wished that there was another woman in her place?

  She looked at the communicating door and knew that in a few minutes the Duke would join her.

  It was then that she felt sheer panic sweep over her.

  She knew that she must escape!

  She ran across the room and opened the door into the passage very quietly.

  It was dark except for a small glimmer of light that came from the long windows in the hall over which the curtains had not been drawn.

  It enabled her to find her way silently downstairs until she reached the front door.

  To her relief it was not bolted and the key was in the lock.

  It made no sound as she turned it back and the door opened. Instantly she felt the cold of the night air on her face.

  It was then that she began to run across the courtyard over the lawns and down towards the lake.

  She was breathless when she reached it.

  The stars were gradually coming out one by one and she could see them reflected in the still water. It was very quiet and even the ducks had gone to sleep.

  She looked at the lake stretching away from the high bank where she stood and she thought that it was a long way to the other side.

  It was then that she told herself that this was her only way of escape!

  Perhaps it was wrong, perhaps it was wicked and she was sure that the Reverend Mother would say it was a sin.

  But what was the alternative?

  To go back to fight against the Duke’s hatred?

  Seven years had to pass before she could really be of any use to him and every day he would loathe her more because she had been foisted on him.

  ‘If I die,’ Safina thought, ‘I shall be with Mama – and she will understand – that I did the – only thing that it was – possible to do!’

  She thought of her stepmother and how glad she would be that she was permanently out of her way.

  ‘She hates me, the Duke hates me, and there is – no one I can – turn to for – help!’

  She looked again at the water.

  It was dark and cold and she had been so happy until she arrived in England.

  ‘I must – do it – I must!’

  Once again the panic was rising in her as she thought of the Duke going into her bedroom.

  He would find that she was not there and would come in search of her.

  He had seemed so different this afternoon, but now the fear that had stabbed her like a sharp knife when she was being married was making it hard to think.

  She wanted to scream.

  ‘Will – I scream – when I – drown?’ she asked herself.

  Then she remembered that someone had told her that drowning was a very pleasant way of dying. Except that everything that has happened in your past flashes before your eyes.

  ‘I will see Mama and Papa and Wick Park,’ she thought, ‘the horses – the gardens and – Mama telling me stories about the – flowers and the – birds.’

  It was a happy thought.

  It seemed to rise above the turmoil in her breast, the horror and fear of her thoughts, and the pain in her heart.

  She glanced back over her shoulder.

  It was difficult to see in the dim light.

  But she was aware that there was someone large and sinister moving down through the grass, the way that she had come herself.

  It was then that she gave a scream that shattered the silence before she flung herself violently into the lake!

  Chapter Five

  The Duke undressed in his room.

  He was thinking it was sensible th
at he and Safina had agreed that the only way their marriage could work was for them to behave as normally as possible.

  He realised that he had been somewhat disagreeable during the day, but surely it was understandable.

  At least the wife that Isobel had forced upon him was intelligent.

  As they had gone round the house, he soon learnt that Safina was conversant with the great artists who had painted his ancestors’ portraits and she also had a knowledge of furniture, which surprised him.

  He was most impressed with her composure and the way that she had apparently accepted what to him was an appalling situation.

  When he was ready for bed, he blew out the candles in his room and walked towards the communicating door.

  It was a double door because the walls of the house were so thick.

  He opened the one on his side and then groped in the darkness for the handle of Safina’s door.

  He walked in.

  By the light of the candle that was burning by the bed he saw that she was not there.

  He thought it strange and wondered where she could have gone.

  The door was open into the passage and then, as he looked round, he realised she had not undressed.

  She might have put everything she took off away in the wardrobe or the drawers, but it was unlikely.

  It never entered his head that she had run away.

  He thought she must have gone downstairs to fetch something, but he could not remember anything that they had left behind.

  He walked down the corridor to the top of the staircase.

  As he reached it, he felt a cold draught and saw that the front door was open.

  Then it did flash through his mind that she might indeed have run away.

  Only as he went down the stairs did it strike him that perhaps she had been afraid of him.

  He was so used to women falling into his arms before he hardly knew their names and, because he was so good-looking and came from such a noble family, he had been pursued relentlessly by women ever since he had left Eton.

  He reached the front door.

  When he went through it, he could see a figure by the lake in the moonlight.

  He could not believe at this hour of night, when it was distinctly chilly, that Safina was admiring the view.

  Earlier in the day she had been thrilled by the beauty and charm of the lake with the ducks and their baby ducklings swimming on it.

  Then, as he gazed at her, his instinct suddenly told him what she intended to do.

  He thought at first that it must be a figment of his imagination.

  How could she now be hysterical when she had been so calm and controlled and he had admired her serenity?

  Nevertheless he hurried down the steps and started to walk very quickly over the thick grass.

  Then he saw Safina turn her head.

  She must have seen him coming, for a moment later she screamed and flung herself into the lake.

  The Duke started to run and as he did so he pulled off his thick velvet dressing gown.

  He remembered that Safina had said she could not swim.

  When he reached the side of the lake, he did not stop to look for her in the water.

  He plunged in wearing only his nightshirt.

  She came to the surface just a little ahead of him and he caught hold of her.

  As he did so, he realised that she was unconscious.

  The Duke was a strong swimmer and without any difficulty he towed Safina to the side of the lake.

  He lifted her over the irises and kingcups onto the ground and then he climbed up to join her.

  Her dress was clinging to her body and her hair, which had become loose in her fall into the lake, was hanging limp against her wet cheeks.

  Her eyes were closed.

  The Duke knew she had hit the water so flatly that it had been a hard blow on her forehead.

  She would doubtless be severely bruised.

  He looked at her for only a few seconds.

  Then he pulled off his wet nightshirt and flung it onto the ground.

  He picked up his dressing gown from where he had thrown it down and put it on her.

  Then he carried Safina back over the thick grass to the courtyard.

  She was very light and he could feel her wet clothes soaking through his dressing gown.

  As they went up the stairs, he was aware that they were leaving a trail of water on every step.

  When the Duke reached Safina’s bedroom, he hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should lay her on the bed.

  Instead he put her down on the floor.

  He could see by the light of the candle that she was completely oblivious of everything, and he went quickly to his own room.

  He rubbed himself down with a towel and put on the first pair of trousers he could find.

  He took a shirt from a drawer and, instead of wearing it, he carried it over his arm.

  He thought that, if Safina came back to consciousness and saw him naked, she might be shocked.

  It was something that had never occurred to him before in any of his dealings with women.

  But he was realising now that Safina was different and very young.

  When he returned to her bedroom, she was lying exactly where he had left her.

  Now her wet clothes had made a dark patch on the carpet and it was spreading out on each side of her.

  He put his shirt down on the bed and then, picking up a candle, he went to the linen cupboard, which was at the far end of the corridor.

  Because he had very few visitors, there were piles of sheets, pillowcases and towels. They were all clean, although most of them needed mending.

  The Duke picked up a number of towels and went back to Safina.

  He lit several more candles from the one he carried.

  Then, kneeling on the floor, he began to undress her.

  He thought with a slight twist of his lips that it was the first time he had ever undressed a woman who was completely unconscious.

  As he took off her clothes, he thought that her not yet mature body was very beautiful.

  Her tip-tilted breasts, her tiny waist and her slender hips were faultless.

  She might indeed have been one of the Madonnas she resembled except that her skin was so white.

  ‘She is very young,’ he thought again.

  He knew that she would be deeply shocked if she realised what he was doing.

  He dried her long hair as well as he could while below the waist her chemise covered her.

  Then he put three towels on the pillow in the bed and drew back the sheets and blankets.

  When she was completely naked, he dried her quickly, trying not to think how lovely she was.

  She had run away from him because he had frightened her and he was now worried that she would regain consciousness before he could get her into bed.

  When, however, he lifted her from the floor, her head, with her long hair, which he knew now was as fine as silk, fell back limply against his chest.

  He carried her to the bed and laid her down with her head on the towels and pulled the sheets and blankets up to her chin.

  She looked very small and decidedly lost in the big four-poster.

  He thought that she was pathetic and needed to be protected, not only against the wickedness of Isobel but against himself as well.

  ‘How could I have been such a fool,’ he asked himself, ‘as not to have understood that she would be afraid and doubtless innocent of what marriage means?’

  He was angry that he had not been more perceptive.

  He had prided himself on it in the past and, when he was in the Army before he inherited his Dukedom, he had used that perception where the men he commanded were concerned and he had been the most popular Officer in the Household Brigade.

  He turned away from the bed to pick up another fresh towel and wiped his chest and arms. Then he put on his shirt, which was lying at the end of the bed.

  Carrying the wet
towels he had used in drying Safina and a candle, he left the room.

  He went downstairs to the kitchen.

  He knew both the Bankses would be in bed at this hour and he had no intention of disturbing them.

  He told himself that no one must ever know what had happened.

  He put the wet towels down on the table and decided that he would tell Banks in the morning that he had been swimming.

  Banks would not be surprised, as it was something he often did.

  There was still a fire burning in the stove, which was old and needed replacing.

  The Duke added more fuel and filled a kettle and then he opened the cupboards in the kitchen one by one.

  He finally found what he was seeking, which was a stone hot-water bottle. There were several of them and they had been used in his father’s time as warming pans to heat the beds at night.

  He put the bottle on top of the stove to warm it and looked in the other cupboards.

  He was hoping he would find some chocolate or anything similar to make a hot drink.

  One of his relations had come to stay with him a short while ago and he had the idea that she had brought her own chocolate, to which she was very partial, with her.

  He was not mistaken.

  He found the pot and he reckoned that there was just enough chocolate left for Safina.

  It all took time and finally he went back upstairs, carrying the hot-water bottle, a cup of chocolate and his candle.

  He was half-afraid that Safina would have regained consciousness and perhaps had run away again.

  It was with a sense of relief that he entered her bedroom to find her still in the bed.

  He put the chocolate and the candle down on the table beside her and, lifting the blankets where her feet were, he put the hot-water bottle near them.

  As he did so, he touched one foot and found, as he had expected, that it was very cold.

  He was tucking the blanket under the mattress again when Safina stirred.

  She opened her eyes and as she did so she gave a little cry.

  It was hardly audible, but the Duke bent over her to say gently,

  “It’s all right, you are quite safe.”

  She stared at him and then she said in a slightly clearer tone,

  “What – what – has – happened?”