She wanted to thank him and burn frankincense in front of him as the Ancient Greeks had done to their Gods.
Instead of which she gave him a shy little smile as he rose perfunctorily before she sat down.
A Steward hurried to bring her an English breakfast and some fragrant coffee.
She was aware as she looked out to sea that the yacht was sailing into the Port of Marseilles.
Suddenly she felt as if a cold hand clutched at her breast.
It flashed through her mind that the Marquis had kissed her last night to say goodbye.
‘How can I – bear it if that is – what he intends?’ she asked herself.
Then she knew that if that happened she must be brave and not make a scene.
It was what she had suggested herself and it would in fact set him free.
No one would think anything unpleasant about him if her death was announced in a year’s time.
She could not eat anything because she was afraid.
Then the Marquis said,
“I think we shall be ashore in about twenty minutes.”
Valessa drew in her breath.
She waited for him to tell her more, but instead he went on,
“It’s a lovely day and I think when the sun grows stronger that it will be quite hot.”
He rose to walk to the porthole.
“The Captain says,” he continued conversationally, “that he has never known such good weather at this time of the year.”
“Perhaps – we are – lucky,” Valessa murmured.
“I am sure we are,” the Marquis replied.
The Ulysses glided gracefully into Port and in a few minutes she would be tied up beside the quay.
“It’s an excuse for wearing your prettiest bonnet,” the Marquis said lightly.
Without answering him Valessa went below where she expected to find Bowers packing her trunks.
Her cabin was, however, exactly as she had left it and with a leap of her heart she hoped that she was not after all expected to leave at this moment.
Perhaps the Marquis was taking her to see some house where she could stay.
At least until she found herself the job that she had talked about and she would have one more day with him.
‘Please God – don’t let me have to – leave him,’ she prayed. ‘Please God – let him keep me in the yacht for a – little while longer.’
She felt as if her whole being went up to Heaven in a passionate plea.
Even as she prayed, she thought that once again the Marquis was out of reach.
She was praying for the moon and she had been warned not to fall in love with the man in it.
‘I shall – never forget – him,’ she thought despairingly.
This morning she had put on one of the prettiest gowns amongst those she had been given.
It was white with a very full skirt and a blue sash and it was trimmed on the bodice and around the skirt with broderie anglaise.
The bonnet that matched it was decorated with cornflowers and there were even little satin slippers of the same colour.
When Valessa went up the companionway, the Marquis thought that he had not seen her look lovelier.
Then he had to look quickly away, otherwise he knew that he would have to kiss her.
To Valessa his gesture, and the fact that he did not compliment her, merely confirmed that he was out of reach.
They climbed into the open carriage that was waiting for them on the quay.
As they did so, she thought that no man could look more handsome.
Once again she was praying that she could stay with him today.
The carriage drove off and she looked back at the Port and the shimmering blue of the sea.
“That is Devil’s Island over there,” the Marquis was saying again conversationally, “where the criminals are imprisoned and from where they can never escape.”
Valessa shivered. It was something that she did not want to think about.
They drove on.
The horses turned in through some impressive gates with the Union Jack flying outside a distinguishing-looking house.
Valessa realised that it was the British Consulate.
As the carriage came to a standstill outside the front door, the Marquis said,
“There is no need for you to get out. I am collecting my letters, which I told my secretary to send here and also I hope, the English newspapers.”
A number of uniformed servants bowed him into the Consulate and Valessa sat waiting.
She thought that there was an eagerness in his voice when he spoke of the British newspapers.
She was sure that he wanted to go home.
‘Perhaps he will – leave me – tomorrow,’ she thought despairingly.
Then she was praying and praying that he would stay a little longer.
The Marquis was not long inside.
He had no wish to see the Consul and a secretary had handed him several packages.
One contained his letters and several larger ones he knew were newspapers.
He was wondering if there would be anything in them about himself.
He only hoped that neither Sarah nor Harold Grantham would have been so indiscreet as to have talked to journalists.
He felt sure that Sarah would not wish her part in the deception to be made public knowledge.
A flunkey took his parcels from him and followed him as he walked towards the door.
Outside another carriage had come up behind his and a lady alighted from it.
The Marquis was looking at Valessa and he started when a voice exclaimed,
“Stafford! I was not expecting to see you here!”
He turned to see the Duchesse de Savalon and, as he lifted her hand to his lips, she went on,
“How could you come to this part of France without telling me! But perhaps you have only just arrived.”
“I came into Port only an hour ago,” the Marquis explained.
“Are you telling me that you are not staying?” the Duchesse said. “Because if you are, I must give a special dinner party for you.”
The Marquis realised at once that this was a special privilege.
In France the Duchesse de Savalon was of great importance. Although she was nearing sixty, there were still traces of the great beauty she had been when she was young.
She was one of those remarkable Frenchwomen, who swayed the political management of the country.
She had a salon in Paris to which anyone who was of any standing fought for an invitation.
She had been a great friend of the Marquis’s father, whom he had always suspected to have a very tender spot for her in his heart.
She had often stayed at Wyndonbury and the Marquis knew that she was a close friend of Queen Adelaide.
“Now, when will you come to me?” the Duchesse was asking.
As she spoke, her eyes were not on him but on Valessa.
Valessa had been waiting impatiently in the carriage for the Marquis to return and she was now sitting as near as she could to the door and gazing at him eagerly.
Her face was framed by her pretty bonnet and she was looking exquisitely lovely in the morning sunshine.
The Marquis was just wondering how he could refuse the Duchesse without appearing rude when she exclaimed,
“Surely – but I cannot be mistaken! This is Charles Chester’s daughter!”
Valessa heard her and impulsively got out of the carriage.
A footman had already opened the door for the Marquis.
“Did you know Papa, madame?” she asked eagerly.
“Then you are Charles Chester’s daughter!” the Duchesse cried. “You are exactly like your mother! In fact you still look as you did when you stayed with me in Paris all those years ago!”
“I remember! Of course I remember now!” Valessa replied. “You have a huge dolls’ house in the nursery!”
The Duchesse laughed.
“It is still there and my gra
ndchildren adore it, just as you did!”
The Marquis was speechless and looking astonished.
The Duchesse, seeing his expression, laughed.
“You are thinking it clever of me to recognise Valessa after all these years, but she is exactly like her mother, who was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen!”
Before the Marquis could say anything the Duchesse went on,
“But tell me, child, why you are here. And is your father with you?”
“Papa is – dead,” Valessa said, a little sob in her voice.
“Oh, I am sorry!” the Duchesse exclaimed, “then – ?”
She looked at the Marquis for explanation and at last he found his voice.
“Valessa is my wife.”
“Your wife?” the Duchesse repeated. “But that is wonderful! I often wondered, Valessa, what had happened to you and that you should marry Stafford seems to me quite perfect!”
She put her hand on the Marquis’s arm.
“You will both dine with me tomorrow night,” she said, “and I will not let you refuse. My son will be thrilled to see you and so will Marguerite, who always loved Elizabeth.”
She gave a little laugh before she added,
“And of course, we all loved Charles, who was sometimes a very naughty boy, but how could we ever be angry with him?”
She turned to Valessa.
“Goodbye, my dear, I shall see you tomorrow night at seven-thirty and don’t be late! In the meantime I will find a Wedding present for you.”
She moved away and then stopped.
“Oh, by the way, I have just remembered, the death of Valessa’s grandfather was in the newspapers last week. As you have been at sea, perhaps you have not heard about it. He was a very old man, so it was not unexpected.”
She walked on without waiting for a reply.
Valessa climbed back into the carriage and the Marquis sat beside her.
He was stunned for a moment by what he had heard.
Then in a voice that sounded strange, even to himself, he asked,
“How is it possible that your parents knew the Duchesse de Savalon?”
“To be truthful,” Valessa replied, “I did not recognise her until she spoke to me, but I have never forgotten the dolls’ house!”
“But you were in Paris?” the Marquis persisted.
“It was years ago and I was only about seven at the time,” Valessa replied, “but Papa used sometimes to speak about her.”
The Marquis was bewildered.
As they drove on, he was thinking of how particular the Duchesse had always been about whom she knew.
He had known women weep because they had not been invited to one of her parties.
When she came to England, she stayed at Buckingham Palace and not in the French Embassy as might have been expected.
He remembered what Sarah had said about Valessa.
He did not however ask any further questions until they were back in the yacht.
They went up the gangway and into the Saloon. There the Steward put the newspapers and letters down on a table and the Marquis said,
“What was the Duchesse saying about your grandfather being dead? Who was he?”
“I-I have never – met him,” Valessa replied.
“Never met him!” The Marquis exclaimed.
“Papa ran away from home because he did not wish to be a soldier and Mama went with him because they were already in love.”
The Marquis was opening the newspapers.
As he had expected, his secretary had sent him both The Times and TheMorning Post for every day since he had left England and they would have taken at least a week to reach Marseilles.
He thought therefore the last newspaper that had been despatched might be the one that the Duchesse had been talking about.
He opened The Times on the Obituaries page, but Valessa said in a small voice,
“Papa – changed his name when he – ran away – there is no use therefore in you looking under ‘Chester’.”
“Then what was your grandfather’s name?” the Marquis enquired.
“He was – General Sir Montgomery Chesterton-Huntley!”
The Marquis stared at her in sheer astonishment.
“H-he was very – angry with Papa for not – obeying him,” Valessa said nervously.
“He commanded the Life Guards!” the Marquis said.
“And his eldest son, who I suppose is your uncle, is now in command. I served under him!”
“He never spoke to Papa,” Valessa said defiantly.
“But you are still part of the family,” the Marquis remarked thoughtfully, almost to himself.
He threw the newspapers down on the table and said,
“I think, Valessa, you should have told me about your family.”
Valessa was taking off her bonnet.
“You did not – ask me,” she said a little nervously, “and – I was afraid that you might be – angry.”
“Why should I be angry?”
“Because you – told me not to talk about Lady Barton – but I wanted you to know that I was not – what she said I was.”
“I thought it would upset you to even think about it,” the Marquis said self-effacingly. “But now tell me exactly who you are.”
He saw that Valessa was nervous.
At the same time he sensed that she wanted him to know that she was a lady and not the disreputable creature whom Sarah had described.
“Papa – as you now know,” she said in a small voice, “was the – second son of my grandfather – he was cut off without a shilling – which was why we were so poor – and I have always – h-hated them for being so unkind.”
“I can understand that,” the Marquis said, “and who was your mother?”
“Her father was Lord Ardleigh,” Valessa replied, “but he too never spoke to – Mama after she – ran away.”
She looked up and saw that the Marquis was staring at her in sheer astonishment.
“Lord Ardleigh?” he repeated. “Are you sure?”
“Yes – of course I am sure! Mama was the Honourable Elizabeth Leigh – but she never used her title. They were just plain ‘Mr. and Mrs. Chester’!”
“Lord Ardleigh – your grandfather is a first cousin of my mother’s!” the Marquis exclaimed.
He thought as he spoke that this was the miracle he had been praying for.
A miracle that would make his family accept Valessa gladly as his wife.
He could hardly believe what he was hearing.
He had never for a moment thought that Valessa was as well born as he was himself.
“I think both my grandfathers were – very cruel,” Valessa was saying. “If I ever had children, I would never throw – them out of my life – however badly they behaved.”
“Your father and mother ran away together because they loved each other,” the Marquis remarked in a low voice.
“They loved each other so much that nothing else mattered,” Valessa answered, “not even that Mama was engaged to be married to somebody very important and the marriage was due to take place two weeks later.”
“They were happy?” the Marquis asked.
“Mama said that being with – Papa was like – being in – Heaven!”
There was a little lilt in Valessa’s voice that the Marquis did not miss.
“Is that what you want to feel yourself?” he said quietly.
Valessa looked away from him.
The Marquis realised that she was shy and thought her so utterly adorable that it was with difficulty that he did not sweep her into his arms.
The Stewards were preparing the table, so he said,
“You must tell me all about it later.”
At luncheon Valessa told him how her father had wanted to travel all over the world.
And how at first, after she was born, they had taken her everywhere with them.
The Marquis could understand why she had wanted to learn so muc
h about the countries where she had been and she had been at the time too young to remember much about them.
“I think I must have been about six or seven years old when they took me to Paris,” Valessa was saying, “and we stayed with the Duchesse.”
She paused as if she was thinking and went on,
“Then I remember when we went to Rome. I thought the Colosseum was very big and I was frightened in case the lions and tigers were still there waiting to tear me to pieces!”
The Marquis laughed.
She went on to tell him of how after her mother had died her father spent all the capital that her allowance had come from.
“He was utterly and completely – miserable without Mama,” she said. “It was impossible for him to think clearly – but only to suffer.”
She thought that was what she would feel if she lost the Marquis.
He was listening to her, but his eyes kept going to the clock on the mantelpiece and she thought that he must have an appointment to keep and wanted to be rid of her.
“If you are going ashore,” she said, “perhaps I should go to – lie down.”
It was something that she had done on Bowers’s instructions every day that they had been at sea.
She hoped that the Marquis would say that she could go with him.
Instead he replied,
“That is a good idea.”
He rose to his feet.
“Go and lie down,” he said. “Then I will come and tell you my plans.”
“I would – like that,” Valessa said eagerly.
She hurried to her cabin where the portholes faced out to sea and the sun was shining through them.
She took off her pretty gown and hung it up in the cupboard. Then, as she usually did, she put on her nightgown and climbed into bed.
Most afternoons she had slept a little.
This made her feel brighter and more quick-witted when she had dinner with the Marquis.
She heard him go into his cabin and then a few minutes later there was a knock on her door and he came in.
To her astonishment she saw that he was wearing a long robe like the one her father used to wear.
It touched the floor and fastened with braided buttons high up to the neck.
He closed the door and came towards her.
She thought that there was a strange expression in his eyes that she had not seen before.
“I thought – you were – going ashore,” she said.
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