Imperial Splendour

by Barbara Cartland

  His arms held her closer and his kiss became more demanding and more insistent and she felt as if the fire that had burnt within her rose until it reached her lips and both she and the Duke were lost in the burning wonder of it.

  How long the kiss lasted she had no idea. She only knew that, when the Duke raised his head, words like music came from her in a paean of wonder.

  “I love you – I – love – you!”

  “And I love you!” the Duke insisted. “I have loved you, my darling, ever since I first saw you. But I wanted to be well before I could tell you the depth and splendour of my love.”

  “Can this be – true?” she asked. “Do you really – love me? I cannot believe it.”

  “I love you! Now that you have made your choice, my darling, we are going straight away to be married.”

  “To be – married?” Zoia stammered.

  “It will make everything so much easier, my darling, when we set off for England and I should tell you that I have already had your father’s blessing.”

  “Papa – knows you intended to – do this?”

  “When I knew that you were leaving me, I was determined not to let you go.”

  “How – did you – know I was – leaving?”

  “You told me.”

  “I – told you?”

  He smiled as his lips sought hers again.

  For a moment neither of them could speak.

  Then he said,

  “It would be very difficult, my precious, for you ever to deceive me. I knew when I watched you at dinner what you were thinking and, when we sat together on the terrace, I was sure of what had been planned.”

  “How – could you have – known that?” Zoia asked.

  “Can you, of all people, ask that question?” he enquired.

  She gave a little laugh remembering how he had read her thoughts when she had first played to him.

  “I then realised,” the Duke went on, “that I had been somewhat remiss in not having taken action before. I found your father and told him what I wanted and he agreed that, as far as he was concerned, it was a perfect solution to everything that was worrying him.”

  “And Papa still – wishes to go to – France?” Zoia asked.

  “He thought that it was an opportunity not to be missed. Finding a neutral ship is not easy,” the Duke replied, “and I think too he is being tactful, knowing that we would want to be alone together.”

  There was just a touch of anxiety in his voice as he asked,

  “You do want to be alone with me, my darling?”

  He knew her answer before the words came to her lips and once again he was kissing her and, Zoia felt, drawing her very heart from her body and making it his.

  The carriage came to a standstill.

  “Everything has been arranged for us by one of His Excellency’s able aides-de-camp,” the Duke said, “I thought, my precious, that you would like to be married in the faith that your mother belonged to. And it seemed most appropriate when we are here in Russia.”

  “You – know it would – make me so happy,” Zoia murmured in a low voice.

  The door of the carriage was opened and she saw that they stood outside a small Church. It was built in the old Russian style and painted with bright colours and with gold cupolas rising one above another.

  The Duke took her hand and she was glad that she had a train to trail behind her as they walked into the Church.

  There was the scent of incense and there were hundreds of glittering lights before the sacred icons that hung on every wall and every pillar.

  A Priest was waiting for them with two servers holding Imperial Crowns, which would be raised over their heads as they were married.

  Zoia slipped her hand into the Duke’s.

  They were so closely attuned that she knew that for him the Service would be as sacred and binding as it was for her.

  She was sure that her mother was close to her and inexpressibly happy that her daughter, like herself, had found the man she really loved.

  ‘Thank you, thank you God,’ Zoia prayed in her heart. ‘You have given me the man I adore. Help me to make him happy and ‒ show me how to keep his love for ever and ever.’

  *

  Driving away from the Church, Zoia felt as if she was in a dream and it could not really be true that she had passed through such a mystical and spiritual experience and still be in the ordinary mundane world.

  The Duke’s arms were both round her and his lips seeking hers added to the illusion that nothing was real except for him and their love.

  He kissed her until she felt as if they were no longer human but Divine and even closer still to God than they had been during the beautiful Wedding Service.

  “My own perfect, lovely little wife,” he murmured.

  “Say that – again,” she pleaded. “I was so certain – so convinced – that you could never marry me – that I cannot believe I am really your – wife.”

  “I will make you very sure of it in a little while,” the Duke replied.

  “You will – never – regret having – married me?”

  “Only if you cease to love me.”

  “I shall love you completely every hour I live and with every breath I breathe,” Zoia said passionately.

  “My precious!”

  The Duke’s lips were on hers and she felt the passion draw a response from hers.

  He kissed her until she felt breathless and her heart was beating wildly in her breast.

  As the horses slowed down and the carriage came to a standstill, Zoia felt regretfully that they must come back to earth.

  She felt that the Governor-General and the Duchesse would be waiting to congratulate them on being married, but she shrank from the thought of anyone at this moment breaking in on the intimacy and the closeness that she felt in the Duke’s arms.

  Then, as the door of the carriage was opened, she realised that they were not outside The Palace but a much smaller building also built of white stone.

  She was suddenly aware that it was one of the small Pavilions that she knew were built in the grounds of the Governor-General’s Palace and she had been told that they were usually occupied by distinguished guests who brought their own retinue of servants with them.

  The Duke once again knew what she was thinking and he told her,

  “We shall be alone, my darling. I want it as much if not more than you do.”

  He drew her inside the Pavilion and then closed the door behind them and she heard the carriage draw away.

  Now there were flowers that scented the air and there were shaded lights to reveal that the place was furnished with many treasures, but there appeared to be no one in the Pavilion but themselves.

  The Duke took her through a sitting room and then beyond to a room lit only by a few candles and there was a magnificent bed hung with turquoise blue silk from a gilt corolla of carved angels.

  The ceiling was painted with Gods, Goddesses and cupids and on one wall there was a huge window with its curtains drawn back so that Zoia could see the stars.

  With his arms around her the Duke took her across the room to the bed and she realised that below them there was the sea reflecting the light of the pale moon so that it shimmered silver on the surface of the water.

  “This – cannot really be – happening,” she whispered in a low voice.

  “It is happening, my darling one,” he replied, “and now at last you are mine! Not just for tonight but for all the years ahead and beyond them for Eternity.”

  He pulled her close to him and went on,

  “I seriously believe that I have been searching for you through centuries of time and now I have found you, I will never lose you again.”

  “How – could you – say anything so – wonderful to me?” she asked. “It is – what I too believe in my heart – but I thought I had to – go away.”

  “How could you imagine that anything could matter except for our love?” he asked. “How could you th
ink for even one moment that anything else was of any consequence in the whole wide world?”

  Zoia gave a little sigh and put her cheek against his shoulder.

  “I thought that you were part of the Imperial Splendour that I had seen in St. Petersburg,” she said, “that condemned my mother when she ran away from it.”

  “The only splendour that matters to us is the splendour of love, of our love, darling and I want you to tell me that you believe it is the truth.”

  “I have – always believed it,” Zoia said, “but I thought, because you were so – important, because in the eyes of the Russians, Papa was presumptuous to marry my Mama, you would never think me – good enough to be your – wife.”

  “You are not only my wife but a spiritual ideal I shall worship for the rest of my life,” the Duke vowed.

  “Suppose – I fail you – ?”

  “I would stake the life you have given me that it will never happen.”

  The note of sincerity in his voice made Zoia give a little cry and lift her face to his.

  She thought that he would kiss her. Instead he looked down for a long moment into her eyes and she knew that he was searching deep into her heart and finding what he had always sought.

  He drew her away from the window and very gently took the diamond wreath from her hair and undid the train from her shoulders.

  As it fell to the ground, she trembled and felt shy as she could feel his hands undoing her gown.

  Then his lips held her captive again.

  The flames that Zoia felt deep within her rose higher and higher as he kissed her eyes, her lips, the softness of her neck and her breasts.

  She knew that the Duke was right and that there was no splendour to equal their love.

  What they felt for each other was a part of the stars in the sky, which glittered more dazzlingly than any jewels and deeper than the sea that moved beneath them.

  The pomp and circumstance and the social distinctions that meant so much to those of Imperial rank were of no value or consequence.

  “I love – you – ”

  The words seemed to vibrate between them and the Duke answered,

  “I love your beauty, my glorious wife, and adore your mind, but I worship your spirit and your soul, which speaks to me in your music.

  “I – told you – of my love?”

  “I understood exactly what you were feeling, but tell me now that you love me and want me as I want you.”

  “I – want – you – I want you desperately and – wildly with all – of me.”

  “My precious, my adorable, mystical little wife!”

  Zoia could feel the Duke’s heart beating frantically against hers as he picked her up in his arms and laid her on the bed.

  A moment later he was beside her, his lips seeking hers and his hands touching her body.

  Then there was only him and the fires that burned within them burst into a conflagration.

  The splendour of love covered them like the moonlight on the sea and the ecstasy in their hearts carried them towards the stars, higher and higher until they became one and indivisible with God and the Divine.

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  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 .

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