Love in the Ruins Read online

  They ate the delicious dishes that had been prepared by the chef at the villa.

  “This is such a lovely country,” Mimosa breathed as she gazed at the view.

  “And therefore very appropriate to you,” the Duke remarked. “At the same time, surely, you must find it very lonely without somebody with you?”

  He thought perhaps that he was speaking out of turn, but Mimosa answered him dreamily,

  “I have – not been – alone for long.”

  He assumed that she was referring to the Comte.

  It suddenly annoyed him that anyone so beautiful and apparently unspoilt should be yearning for a man who was notorious for his many passionate affairs.

  Rising to his feet, the Duke suggested somewhat sharply,

  “I think we should go!”

  The way he spoke made Mimosa look at him in surprise and she wondered what had upset him.

  Then she told herself that she was being selfish.

  She was dilly-dallying when he was so anxious to reach Thuburbo Maius.

  They rode on and only stopped when the horses were growing tired.

  It was important that their tents should be erected and they should have something to eat before the sun sank and it grew dark.

  Mimosa chose a perfect place to encamp, sloping down to a small lake, where there was a level piece of ground to erect their tents on.

  She noticed that there was a large one and a small one and the men were putting them up a little way apart from each other.

  The Duke was also looking in the same direction and he asked unexpectedly,

  “You will not be nervous sleeping by yourself? Would you rather we shared the large tent together?”

  Mimosa appeared not to realise that there was anything significant in the question.

  She merely answered,

  “I think I should feel safer if my tent was nearer to yours.”

  It was not what the Duke had actually suggested.

  He smiled cynically as she told the men to move the smaller tent closer to the other one.

  He could not help wondering if she was playing ‘hard to get’ or if in fact she was not at all aware of him as a man.

  He thought mockingly that the second explanation was not very good for his ego.

  It was certainly unusual not to have a woman ready to fall into his arms almost before he asked her name.

  He had grown so used to being pursued by females in London and especially stalked by Lady Sybil.

  It was impossible for him not to wonder what was in Mimosa’s mind.

  She came back to his side to say,

  “As soon as the tents are erected, I think I will go to bed. We should leave early and, as we only have about ten miles left to go, it should not take us long to reach Thuburbo Maius.”

  “That sounds an excellent suggestion,” the Duke agreed, “and of course, you must take the larger tent.”

  Mimosa laughed.

  “Because I am the larger person?”

  “I am not saying that!”

  “The big tent is for you,” she insisted, “and the little one is for me. It is everything I need and, if I am frightened I can call out and you will hear me.”

  As she spoke, she was thinking of how Minerva had been abducted. Not from a tent miles away from human habitation, but from her own garden.

  The expression in her eyes made the Duke say quickly,

  “If you are feeling at all frightened, I have just told you that you can sleep in my tent and I will protect you.”

  “That you will be near me is very reassuring,” Mimosa answered. “Goodnight and thank you for a wonderful day.”

  She went into the small tent and the Duke went into his.

  However, thinking about her constantly, it took him a long time to go to sleep.

  *

  The next morning they set off as soon as their horses were saddled and the tents packed on the backs of the other horses.

  Mimosa was looking ahead of her.

  When she saw ahead silhouetted against the sky in the far distance, the tall pillars of Jupiter’s Temple, she felt excited.

  Equally her whole being cried out for her father.

  How could he have left her so suddenly?

  How could the most exciting excursion they had ever undertaken end so dismally?

  With difficulty she forced back the tears, afraid that the Duke would see them and ask her uncomfortable questions.

  Mimosa sensed that he kept glancing at her, but he said nothing.

  When finally they reached Thuburbo Maius, Mimosa led the way to what she knew was a good place to pitch their tents.

  It was some way below the hill where the City had been built. There were a number of shrubs as well as trees, which would give some protection against the blazing sun.

  They left their horses with the men and started to walk up the easy slope.

  That morning Mimosa had not put on her riding skirt and the thin muslin blouse that she had worn when they left Tunis.

  Instead she put on a gown of blue muslin that accentuated the blue of her eyes and the gold of her hair. It was a very pretty gown and certainly one that she would not usually have worn to go riding.

  But she knew that, if she waited until she arrived to change, it would delay the moment that the Duke was longing for.

  And that was to see Jupiter’s Temple in Thuburbo Maius.

  It was the one building on the site that had been completely excavated.

  Most of the area around it on which the City had been built was still waiting to be cleared.

  As they reached the top of the hill, the Temple was in sight just to their left.

  Mimosa stood still so that she could watch the expression on the Duke’s face.

  The Temple was certainly impressive. Four columns were still standing with their Corinthian capitals facing the monumental staircase.

  They had originally supported a frieze and the cornice of the triangular pediment at the end of the building. There were also the truncated remains of six other columns standing, whose capitals lay scattered on the floor.

  Of the twenty-two steps of the great staircase leading up to the base where the Temple had stood, thirteen were in fairly good condition and part of the forum had been cleared.

  It was therefore easy to see how impressive it had looked when it had towered over the whole City.

  “It is fantastic!” the Duke exclaimed and knew how delighted Mimosa was at his appreciation.

  She led him to the steps of the Temple, which had been the religious and political centre of the ancient City.

  It was here that official religious ceremonies took place and, as in most Roman Cities, the planners arranged for the Capitol to dominate the forum.

  The forum stretched out for some distance and Mimosa told the Duke what her father had told her, that beyond it was the marketplace.

  It was a small square with a well in the centre and beyond it were many houses, still covered by the debris of centuries.

  One could only imagine, therefore, what they had looked like when they were filled with busy people, tradesmen, shopkeepers, farmers, Government officials and everyone else who lived and worked in the City.

  Not far from the Temple, and surprisingly recognisable, were the remains of two large buildings that had housed, Mimosa told the Duke, the baths. One was a winter bath, the other a summer bath.

  The Duke was delighted with them and spent some time in both buildings.

  “I only hope that I can come back,” he enthused, “when these places have all been properly excavated. I feel sure that there is a great deal more to be discovered than we can even begin to imagine!”

  “That is what – my uncle has said in his book,” Mimosa answered.

  Then she went on,

  “There are also some chambers beneath the Temple, but I have not seen them.”

  “We will have plenty of time to see them later,” the Duke suggested. “I think that now we shou
ld go back and have something to eat.”

  “Now you mention it, I am rather hungry,” Mimosa nodded.

  Their attendants had spread a picnic for them beneath the trees and the chef had made sure that they would not go hungry.

  “I suppose tonight,” the Duke remarked, “we shall have to trust ourselves to the cooking of our attendants, but I have an idea that it will not be very palatable.”

  “I am sure we shall have enough food,” Mimosa answered. “The chef assured me that he was used to providing for people who made long journeys to look at the ruins and therefore knew exactly what was required.”

  The Duke smiled at her.

  “I know that I am very lucky,” he said, “to have you not only as my guide but also as my hostess. You think of everything, which I can imagine no one else doing.”

  He thought of how helpless Lady Sybil would have been in such a situation.

  On none of his expeditions had he ever taken a woman with him, because he knew that they would be more of an encumbrance than a help.

  Miss Tison was certainly different.

  He assumed that it must be her American upbringing that made her so practical.

  After luncheon they hurried back to the ruins of the City, where the Duke wandered about trying to imagine how it had looked when it was first built.

  Mimosa sat down on what was left of the wall of a house and watched him.

  She knew his imagination was working, just as her father’s had.

  He had stepped back over the centuries and was living in A. D. 168 when the twenty-foot columns of the Temple were first raised. She tried to imagine the Romans moving about the City when it was revived after a period of decline in the fourth century by Constantine II, son of Constantine the Great.

  Mimosa remembered her father telling her how it later fell victim to the Vandals and was abandoned in later Byzantine times.

  ‘It has experienced misery, joy and despair,’ she told herself, ‘which I suppose is true of most human beings.’

  She knew for the moment that she was happy because she was with the Duke and did not have to worry about the future.

  What she had felt until his appearance was a dark cloud looming nearer and nearer.

  ‘When he leaves,’ she thought, ‘I shall make up my mind what to do – and perhaps go to England – alone.’

  However sensible she tried to be, she knew that the idea was very intimidating.

  It was with difficulty that she prevented herself from jumping up and running to his side.

  She wanted to feel again the sense of security that she had known last night.

  She had been alone in her small tent listening to him moving about as he prepared for sleep.

  The air was very still and she had wondered if he would be shocked if she went into his tent and talked to him in the darkness.

  She thought if they could not see each other she might find it easier to tell him the truth about herself and ask his advice.

  Then she knew that it was a shocking idea to think of going into what was in effect a man’s bedroom when he was trying to sleep.

  He would not understand it was only because she wanted to talk to him in the dark.

  She knew too that she would find it very difficult in the light, for she would be upset by the condemnation she would see in his eyes.

  He would be shocked that she had professed to be her cousin and had deceived the servants at the Villa.

  There was also the problem, and she had not forgotten it, of Monsieur Charlot.

  He had said that he would return within a week.

  By that time she would be back at the villa and perhaps the Duke would have gone.

  ‘Shall I tell him or would it be a mistake?’ Mimosa wondered again.

  Now her eyes were on the Duke as he bent to pick up something from the ground.

  He beckoned to her and, because it was anyway what she wanted to do, she hurried towards him.

  “What is it?” she asked him.

  “I have a souvenir for you,” he explained.

  He put a small coin into her hand.

  She realised that it was a coin that had been in circulation many hundreds of years ago when the City was prosperous.

  “I shall keep it for luck,” Mimosa smiled.

  “That is what it will bring you,” the Duke replied, “in fact everything you wish for yourself.”

  Mimosa gave a little sigh.

  “The difficulty is,” she replied, “I am not quite certain what I do wish.”

  “Then you are different from most women!” he commented wryly.

  She looked at him enquiringly and he explained,

  “Most women want a husband to protect them and children who are a part of themselves.”

  “Yes, that is what I want,” Mimosa said a little dreamily, “although, of course, it depends on who the husband would be.”

  “Naturally,” the Duke agreed a little dryly.

  He thought now was the moment that he had been expecting for some time, when she would look at him with that invitational look in her eyes that he knew so well.

  Instead of which she glanced up at the Temple and said,

  “While I am here, I shall say a prayer to Jupiter and hope that he will give me what I want.”

  “And, of course, I shall add my prayers to yours,” he added.

  “Are you going to ask him to find you a wife?” Mimosa enquired.

  The Duke shook his head.

  “I am very happy as a bachelor.”

  “You must be very careful,” Mimosa said, “and, when you do marry, find somebody you love so much that you know it would not be worth living without her.”

  She was thinking of her father and mother and how blissfully happy they had been.

  There was a little break in her voice and a hint of tears in her eyes.

  The Duke assumed that she was thinking of Comte André and how badly he had behaved towards her.

  It annoyed him so much that he walked away without another word.

  Mimosa sat down on the nearest pile of rubble and thought of her father and mother.

  She had not yet gone to visit her father’s grave. She had promised herself that she would go there in the late afternoon, just as the sun was sinking.

  It was only a little way from where they were camped and she wanted to be there alone.

  She was deep in her thoughts when the Duke came back to her side.

  “I think you must be hungry,” he said, “and we should go back to camp and have something to eat before it gets dark.”

  “I am sure that is a sensible idea,” Mimosa said.

  She had been so intent on her thoughts that she had not realised that the sun had lost its strength and now it was sinking low over the horizon.

  The sky was still clear, but she knew that darkness, when it came, came swiftly in this part of the world.

  It would be a mistake, she knew, not to leave while the way was clear amongst the ruins.

  There was also the occasional ditch one could fall into, if one was not careful.

  She walked slowly towards the forum and then stood for a moment gazing up at the majesty of the Temple.

  As she did so, the Duke joined her, saying,

  “I am sure if you pray here for what you want that your prayer will be heard.”

  Even as he spoke, from one side of the Capitol some rough-looking men suddenly appeared.

  It was so unexpected, since there had been no one about all day, that Mimosa stared at them in astonishment.

  Then she gave a sudden scream.

  She was seized by one of the men and, before she could realise what was happening, he had picked her up in his arms.

  As he did so, she was aware that three other men had closed in on the Duke.

  He was fighting frantically, but was being gradually overpowered.

  She tried to free herself, but she was helpless in her captor’s strong arms.

  He carried her down
the side of the Capitol.

  Her screams seemed lost against the vastness of the wall that they were passing with pillars towering above them.

  Now she saw that one man was running ahead.

  He opened what appeared to be a door in the back of the base of the Capitol.

  The man who carried her flung her inside and she fell to the ground.

  Even as she did so, she was joined by the Duke.

  He was thrown down in the same way by the three men who carried him.

  The heavy door was slammed shut behind them and there was the sound of a bar being secured across it.

  As they did so, Mimosa heard one man say in Arabic,

  “Now go and fetch the Master.”

  Then there was the sound of their footsteps walking away, followed by silence.

  The Duke managed to stagger to his feet and he bent down and pulled Mimosa to hers.

  She gave a little gasp.

  “I-I think they have – kidnapped us!” she murmured.

  She was thinking as she spoke that this was what must have happened to poor Minerva.

  Perhaps they too would just disappear as she had.

  The Duke put his arms around her and said in a deliberately quiet voice,

  “I would suppose that they are holding us to ransom.”

  Mimosa drew in her breath and then she managed to say,

  “I heard one of them say as they shut the door, ‘Go and fetch the Master’.”

  “Then the whole thing is a well thought out plot,” the Duke said. “I should imagine that these scoundrels intend to demand a large ransom because they think whatever they ask you will be able to pay.”

  “Th-they may – kill us!” Mimosa answered in a frightened voice.

  “I think that is unlikely, for then they would get no money,” the Duke said. “This is my fault! I should never have brought you here. I have heard before how these criminals work, following someone whom they think is rich until the opportunity comes to kidnap them and demand a huge ransom to set them free.”

  His voice was harsh as he asked,

  “How can I have been such a fool as to come here without bringing a revolver?”

  Mimosa, who was standing close to him with her head resting on his shoulder, gave a scream.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Snakes!” she exclaimed. “There are – snakes in here – and they may – bite us!”