Lovers in Lisbon Read online

  “You – dreamt of – me?”

  The words were only a whisper.

  “As I think perhaps you dreamt of me.”

  There was no need for her to affirm what he could read in her eyes.

  “Why – are you – here?”

  She felt that she knew what the answer was, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  “I am playing truant,” he then admitted unexpectedly.

  “Truant?”

  “I told my guests, who are leaving this morning, that I unfortunately could not see them off because I was commanded by King Carlos to come to his Palace as he wants to see me.”

  “And that is where you are going?”

  “No, it was untrue. I had a far more important appointment, which was to see you.”

  He spoke with a note of urgency in his deep voice.

  Felicita felt shy and looked away from him down at the lilies.

  “That is how you should be painted and that is how I will have you painted,” he said as if he spoke to himself.

  Then, as if he remembered why he had come, he said,

  “We are going to do something that I think you will find rather exciting. So come back to the house, fetch your hat and bring a coat or a shawl with you.”

  “Where are we ‒ going?”

  “I am taking you in my yacht. We are going to cruise along the coast so that you can see my country differently from the way that you have seen it so far.”

  Then he added,

  “Even though you are a foreigner, I want you to admire its beauty as I do.”

  Felicita had always loved Portugal and found everything about it was beautiful and most definitely a part of God.

  With difficulty she prevented herself from telling him that she was Portuguese.

  Then she remembered all too clearly that she was supposed to be French.

  The French were very patriotic, which was what the Marques expected her to be.

  Quickly and half-afraid that he might read her thoughts, she said,

  “I would love to – come with you on your yacht – but my aunt is – not yet awake.”

  “That is what I anticipated and my invitation is for you alone.”

  Felicita’s eyes widened and she looked at him in surprise.

  “Alone? But – perhaps Aunt Inès – would not approve.”

  “Just for once I am now asking you to be daring, adventurous and, if you like, a little rebellious.”

  He saw that Felicita was hesitating and he then added,

  “I want to talk to you without our being interrupted and without the feeling that we are being watched all the time.”

  As he spoke, Felicita remembered the angry glances that she had received last night from the Comtesse.

  And she was glad that she was leaving today with the other guests.

  Then, as she still hesitated, the Marques pleaded,

  “Please, come with me. I promise you if your aunt is angry with you, I will take all the blame, but we must hurry.”

  It was impossible to resist him and then Felicita asked almost as a child might have done,

  “What – shall I – do?”

  “Come back now to the house and I will write a letter to the Duchesse saying that I am spiriting you away alone because I did not wish to disturb her.”

  He paused as if he was thinking out his intended plan of campaign and continued,

  “I will finish up by saying that I am so greatly looking forward to entertaining you both at dinner tonight when my guests will have departed.”

  He sensed that Felicita was excited by the idea of going back to The Palace again.

  It would be far more thrilling to be alone with the Marques than it had been last night when many other people had been present for dinner.

  “Hurry, hurry!” he urged her again.

  With a little laugh Felicita ran up the steps to the verandah.

  Then passing quickly through the drawing room, she hurried to her bedroom.

  There was no one to be seen.

  The Duchesse had not been called and there was no chance of her waking for at least two more hours.

  Felicita told herself that in the circumstances it was not unreasonable that she should go with the Marques. At the same time she was fully aware that her mother would have expected her to be properly chaperoned.

  ‘Perhaps – the Duchesse will be – angry with me,’ she thought apprehensively.

  She took a large-brimmed hat down from the shelf in the wardrobe.

  Then she had a strange feeling, which she could not explain, that the Duchesse would be pleased with her.

  She had known yesterday when they visited The Palace that the Duchesse had wanted the Marques to admire her.

  What was more she had deliberately drawn his attention to her.

  Felicita had felt embarrassed when the Duchesse had said,

  “I do want my niece to see the beauty of your Palace because she is not only beautiful outside but also inside, if you know what I mean.”

  She had laughed as she spoke, but the Marques had replied quite seriously,

  “I not only know what you mean, madame, but am prepared to believe that she is exactly as you say she is.”

  The way they were talking about her, as if she was not present, made Felicita feel rather shy and she had not looked at them.

  “I am sure you can understand,” the Duchesse had continued, “that it is a great joy for me to have my niece with me and also to know that she is my heiress and all the treasures that my husband gave me will be in good hands.”

  Felicita had heard the Duchesse later in the evening tell one of the gentlemen in the party at The Palace that she was her heiress and he had replied,

  “Then she is a very lucky young woman!”

  There was a note in his voice that sounded decidedly envious.

  She wished then, as she wished now, that the Duchesse had not tried to make her sound so important.

  Yet some inner instinct told her that this was part of her disguise and, although she could not understand why, it was an essential part.

  Then, because she was excited and she knew that she would find it impossible to refuse to do what the Marques asked, she ran down the stairs.

  She had with her, as he had suggested, a shawl of exquisitely blended colours to wear in case it was cold out at sea.

  He was sitting at the secrétaire in the drawing room as she entered.

  He rose to his feet, holding an envelope in one hand while he slipped a folded piece of paper into it with the other.

  “You were very quick,” he remarked, “and that is another thing I like about you.”

  “Are you – sure that we are not doing – anything wrong?” Felicita asked him.

  “As far as I am concerned, it is everything that is right and everything I want to do,” he answered, “and I promise, if you have committed any fault, then I will defend you and take the blame.”

  “Shall I also – write a letter to – my aunt?”

  Felicita asked the question hesitatingly.

  As he was looking at her, it was difficult to think for herself. She wanted only to please him and do what he wanted.

  “Just a few words,” he conceded.

  She sat down at the desk that he had just vacated and wrote,

  “Please forgive me if I have done anything that you might not approve of, but the Marques is very persuasive and I don’t know how to refuse him.”

  She wrote the letter in French and signed her name and then she put what she had written quickly into an envelope.

  He smiled at her and walked towards the door to open it for her.

  She went down the hall and saw Pedro and the Marques handed him the two notes.

  “Give these to the Duchesse as soon as she wakes,” he said in a voice of authority.

  Pedro, who already knew who he was, bowed very respectfully.

  Felicita stepped into the open carriage that was waiting outside and they
drove away.

  “I-I am worried,” she said in a very small voice, “in case – when Aunt Inès finds that I have gone, she thinks it – rude and so is – angry with me.”

  “I believe that she will think neither of those things,” the Marques said, “and now, for the moment, let us both forget her and think only of ourselves.”

  “I am thinking ‒ of your yacht,” Felicita replied. “Is it very large?”

  “You shall see for yourself,” the Marques said, “but I will tell you that I am as proud of it as I am of the pictures in my Palace.”

  “Then it must be magnificent,” Felicita exclaimed.

  He laughed.

  It was certainly a very fine vessel.

  When they boarded the yacht in the Harbour of Estoril, Felicita thought how different it was from the boats that she had made fishing expeditions in with her father.

  The Marques’s yacht was very large and had been built in the latest and most up to date style.

  Felicita learnt later that it had come only recently from the shipbuilders.

  When he showed her round it, she felt that he was like a boy with a new toy and in fact much less awesome and authoritative than he had been yesterday,

  She laughed and teased him as if he was the same age as she was herself.

  As he had promised, the Marques took her down the coast of Portugal and yet somehow it was impossible to notice the cliffs, the superb beaches, the palm trees and olive groves.

  Instead she could only see the Marques’s grey eyes gazing at her and hear his voice.

  She would think how clever she was when she could make him laugh and afterwards she found that it was difficult to remember what they had talked about.

  She had been completely absorbed in what they were saying as they both sat on the deck in comfortable cushioned chairs under a dark blue awning.

  An attentive Steward brought them cooling drinks in long glasses.

  Felicita could hardly believe how the hours had flashed by when it was already time for luncheon.

  The food was so delicious that she realised the Marques must have a very experienced chef on board. The excellent food and the golden wine seemed to intensify her enjoyment of the excursion.

  Because she had never spent a day alone with a man before, it was to her yet another experience that did not seem real.

  Once again it was part of the dream that she had been living in ever since the Duchesse had rescued her at The Grand Hotel.

  After luncheon, when the sun had increased its heat, the Marques insisted that she should lie down on one of the soft couches in the Saloon.

  “I must explain to you,” he said, “that at this time of day, the Portuguese enjoy a siesta if it is at all possible. I have therefore told my Captain to anchor in a quiet bay so that not only we, but also the crew, can rest before we go back.”

  It all sounded very luxurious.

  When Felicita stretched herself out on the couch with satin cushions behind her head, the Marques pulled a light rug over her legs.

  Next he crossed the Saloon to the couch on the other side, but he then sat on it facing the opposite way so that he could look at her where she was lying.

  She realised too that she could look at him, but hoped that he would not be aware of it.

  What she really wanted was to go on talking to him as at the back of her mind there was the fear that perhaps she would never have such an opportunity again.

  She felt as if every word he uttered was something that she should always treasure.

  It was almost a perfect pearl just like those she had worn round her neck last night.

  It had been such an exciting morning for her.

  Although she did not realise it at the time, she was still weak from the privation that she had suffered from lack of proper food.

  She fell asleep very rapidly and very soon she was dreaming of the Marques, dreaming that she was beside him and acutely conscious of him.

  It was then that his arms enveloped her and she felt his lips on hers.

  It was such an exciting dream that she felt a thrill run through her.

  It was as if the sunshine outside had become imprisoned within her breast.

  Then, as she wanted to go on dreaming, she suddenly realised that she was awake.

  The Marques really was beside her and his lips were very firmly on hers.

  For a short moment it did not seem to be true.

  Then, as his kiss became more insistent and even more possessive, she felt her whole body quiver with sensations that she had never known or even imagined.

  His kisses were so ecstatic and so rapturous that she was sure she must have died and this was Heaven.

  Then the Marques raised his head and, in a voice that she had not heard him use before, he sighed,

  “My sweet, my darling, how could I imagine that there really was somebody like you in the world and that I should find you?”

  Felicita looked at him and drowsy with sleep, she murmured,

  “Y-you – kissed me!”

  “I could not help kissing you,” he replied. “It is something I have wanted to do ever since I first saw you and now I know that your lips are as perfect as the rest of you.”

  He did not wait for her to answer him, but kissed her again. He kissed her until she felt as if she was no longer herself but a part of him.

  It was as if she was drowning in a sea of such incredible emotions that it was impossible to think, but only to feel.

  Again he raised his head and she whispered,

  “I – love you!”

  She did not mean to say the words, they came from her lips because there was no other way to express what she was feeling.

  “And I love you!” the Marques said. “Tell me, when did you first know what you felt about me?”

  “I-I suppose – really it was – when I first saw you. Was it only – yesterday? I feel as if it was years ago!”

  “That is because we have been looking for each other since the beginning of time,” the Marques said, “or rather, I was looking for you, although I was quite certain that you did not exist.”

  “That was – why I felt that you were – searching for – something that you had not yet – found.”

  “But I have found you now,” the Marques answered. “I have found you and I am only so desperately afraid that you will fly back to the sky from where you have come and I shall lose you.”

  Felicita made a little murmur that was half a laugh and half a sob before she said,

  “I don’t – think any – of this is. – true!”

  “It is true! It has to be true!” the Marques said insistently.

  As he spoke, they heard the engines start up beneath them.

  As if the sound of them brought them back to reality, the Marques rose from the side of the couch where he had been sitting.

  Bending forward, he kissed Felicita gently and walked across the Saloon.

  For a moment she could not bear to think that he had left her and she wanted to put out her hands and beg him not to go away.

  Then the door of the Saloon opened and a Steward appeared.

  “The Captain’s compliments, Dom Alvaro,” he said to the Marques, “but he is intending to proceed slowly back to Estoril unless there are any other orders for him.”

  “No, tell the Captain to go ahead,” the Marques replied.

  The Steward left the Saloon.

  Felicita pushed away the silk rug and rose to her feet. The Marques stood watching her, then, as the yacht rolled slightly, she staggered and in a second his arms were around her.

  “You must be careful of yourself, my precious one.”

  He held her very close against him.

  He would have kissed her again, but, because she was shy, she hid her face against his shoulder.

  She could feel his heart beating against her breast and she knew that her own heart was beating with a wild excitement.

  It made it hard to think of anythin
g except that she was close against him.

  “I have found you!” he exclaimed as if he was convincing himself. “It is true, but people will find it hard to believe that it could happen so quickly.”

  She looked up at him questioningly and he explained,

  “I have never before believed in love at first sight. I thought that the writers and poets were talking nonsense! But I fell in love with you as you walked into my Palace.”

  Felicita would have said something, but he was kissing her again, kissing her until she could think of nothing in the world but him.

  Vaguely at the back of her mind, she was aware that she was not who he thought she was, but was playing a part invented by the Duchesse.

  She was, in point of fact, acting a lie.

  Yet it was all so muddled.

  As his kisses thrilled her and just swept through her body like forked lightning, it was impossible to remember that he would have to know the truth probably sooner rather later.

  As the speed of the yacht increased, they sat down on one of the couches side by side and the Marques sighed,

  “All I want to do is to look at you. There is no need for words or for the questions that I suspect are trembling on your lips.”

  He kissed her forehead before he went on,

  “Let’s just be really happy because we are together and later the problems that I can see forming in your very expressive eyes can all be resolved.”

  “You are – not to – read my thoughts,” Felicita tried to insist, looking away from him.

  She knew as she spoke that she was afraid of what he might discover.

  She wanted to tell him the truth about herself.

  It suddenly struck her that perhaps when she did so he would be horrified.

  He thought her so perfect, so how could she possibly deceive him?

  *

  The mists were clearing and, as they did so, Felicita was desperately afraid.

  She took her hand from his to tidy her hair and then she said,

  “Perhaps my aunt will think it very – reprehensible of you to have – kissed me – when we were alone as – we should not have been.”

  As if the Marques understood what she was doing, he laughed.

  “You are trying to put back the clock, but we have defied the conventions and gone far too far to start worrying about whether it is right or wrong for me to kiss you.”