‘Save me! Save me!’ she cried silently, knowing that if she screamed her voice would be lost against the thick horse cloth.
She remembered the stream on the flat land beyond where the Marquis held his steeplechases.
Although the river in the winter was often swollen, at this time of the year there would be not enough water in it to cover her body, so it would be easy for anybody crossing the stream to see her floating there.
But by that time she would be dead and to be found would be a poor consolation.
Once again she prayed desperately that the Marquis would come to her aid.
‘I love you! I love you!’ she cried in her heart. ‘You will never know now of my love – or that I have thought and dreamt of you for – years!’
Then she told herself that even if he did know it would mean nothing to him.
At the same time she wished that instead of erecting a barrier between herself and her husband, she had at least let him kiss her once, which would be something to think of as she was dying.
She felt the horse beneath her being pulled in and she cried out again with every nerve in her body,
‘Save me! Save me!’
It was as if she could see the Marquis’s handsome face in the darkness in front of her eyes, and she felt too that Chang was with him and she could see him too.
Surely he had been right in saying that thought was more important than anything else and that, properly directed, there was nothing that thought could not do.
‘Save me! Save me!’ she cried again and knew as Bert pulled in the reins of his horse it was now too late.
He dismounted and dragged her from the saddle.
“’Ere’s the river!” he said. “It don’t look more than a trickle to me, so what are you goin’ to do with ’er?”
“Shoot ’er,” Abe called out, “but not with that cloth over ’er ’ead. It’d be too thick.”
“You mean I’m to take it orf?” Bert asked.
Abe did not deign to answer and Elmina thought that he was loading his pistol.
Standing where Bert had put her when he had taken her from the saddle, she was aware that he was tugging at the rope that bound her.
“’Ere, Jacques!” he shouted. “I can’t undo this damn rope. You tied it, you untie it!”
“Oui, Oui!” the Frenchman agreed. “I do!”
Elmina was aware that he walked towards her.
He must have led his horse along with him, for she could hear it breathing.
She felt the rope that encased her being unwound and either Jacques or Bert pulled off the heavy horse cloth that covered her head.
For a moment it was a relief to breathe the air and feel it cool on her face.
She had forgotten that it would be dark, but there was moonlight and the stars and she could see clearly.
It took her a few minutes to focus her eyes, then she realised that she was standing by the edge of the stream and the three men were staring at her.
She recognised Abe from the quick glance she had had of him in the stall and also Bert.
Jacques was exactly what she would have expected a Frenchman to be like, small and dark and, she was quite certain, a jockey by profession.
They were all roughly dressed and they had unmistakably the look of men who spent their lives constantly with horses.
Abe was, as she had suspected, loading his pistol.
He had one arm through Shalom’s rein and the Arab mare seemed unperturbed by what was happening and was standing quietly.
Bert’s horse, on which she had ridden, Elmina recognised as Wellington, one of the Marquis’s favourite hunters.
As if he sensed that something was amiss, he was restless, moving his feet first one way, then another, until Bert, holding his bridle, gave it a sharp tug that made him throw up his head.
Jacques’s horse was on the other hand very obstreperous and it was all he could do to keep it under control. But Elmina only gave him a quick glance before her eyes went back to Abe and the pistol he held in his hand.
She was aware of how strange she must look in her black tunic with her hair, loosened by the horse cloth, falling over her shoulders.
Then, as she thought of appealing to the men, she realised that they were criminal types to whom life meant very little. She knew it would be only a waste of time and she would not lower herself.
She therefore held her head high.
Unexpectedly the Frenchman said,
“Quelle jolie femme! We take with us!”
From the way he spoke it was quite obvious what he was thinking and Abe said sharply,
“We ain’t got time for that sort of thing! You can ’ave all the women in France with the money you’ll get for this lot!”
As if the word ‘money’ was far more convincing than any other argument, the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
But the way he was looking at Elmina made her feel slightly sick.
Then Abe cocked the pistol and asked,
“You ready, lady? It’ll be quick and sharp and you won’t feel a thing. That’s what they tells me!”
He smiled as he raised the pistol ready to bring it down and take aim.
As he did so, Elmina, almost as if Chang was beside her telling her what to do, took action.
She moved forward so swiftly and unexpectedly that Abe had no idea what was coming.
Her foot shot out like a bar of iron striking him on exactly the right place on his body to knock him backwards.
He fell and as he did so he instinctively pulled the trigger.
The bullet went harmlessly up into the air, but the noise of the explosion terrified the animals.
All three wrenched themselves free and with a clatter of hoofs careered down the field.
Bert, who was nearest to Elmina, hit out at her, knocking her to the ground, but even as she fell she heard in the distance the sound of hoofs which were not made by the three that had run away.
Then she knew that the Marquis had heard her prayers and was on his way to save her.
He came towards them like a whirlwind just as Abe was pulling himself up from the ground and swearing with a foulness that polluted the air around them.
As he pulled himself to his feet, the pistol still in his hand, the Marquis literally threw himself from his horse.
He pulled Abe to the ground and a second later Chang had landed on Bert, knocking him unconscious with a sharp blow at the neck, which if Elmina had seen it she would have known was part of Kung Fu.
Lying on the ground, she had eyes only for the Marquis.
He knocked Abe unconscious and came towards her to lift her to her feet.
She did not see Chang go after the Frenchman and knock him out in the same way as he had Bert.
All she could see was the Marquis’s eyes as he looked at her.
“Are you all right?”
As he spoke, he lifted her to her feet and suddenly, in reaction at finding herself saved, she burst into tears.
She flung herself against him and hiding her face against his shoulder sobbed,
“They – were going to – kill me!”
The Marquis held her very tightly, gently smoothing her hair.
“It is all right,” he said quietly. “It is all right.”
“I-I thought I – should never – see you – again!”
“I am here.”
He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
In the light of the moon her hair was silver and he could see the tears in her eyes and running down her cheeks.
Her black tunic had been torn as she had struggled in the stable to try to prevent herself from being tied up.
And yet, as he looked down at her, he thought that she had never looked lovelier.
Then, as if he could not help himself, he pulled her closer still and his lips came down on hers.
For a moment Elmina thought that it could not really be happening.
Then, as she felt
a shaft of lightning sweep through her body, she was free and the Marquis said,
“Let’s get out of this mess! I will take you home.”
As he spoke, he was aware that coming down the field were a number of horsemen led by Hogson.
He did not take his arms from around Elmina, he merely waited for Hogson to ride up beside him.
The Head Groom dismounted, looked at the three men unconscious on the ground at the Marquis’s feet and said with a grin,
“I sees your Lordship ’as coped very adequately with them thieves!”
“I will leave them for you to bring back, Hogson,” the Marquis replied, “and we will take them before the Magistrates later in the day.”
“If I ’ave my way, they’ll all be ’anged, my Lord!” Hogson hissed savagely.
The Marquis glanced down at the horse cloth at his feet that had covered Elmina.
“Put that horse cloth on the front of my saddle,” he said.
“Very good, my Lord.”
Hogson picked up the horse cloth, folded it and put it over the front of the saddle. The Marquis lifted Elmina onto it.
Now she was sitting sideways, but even so she felt slightly embarrassed at the way she must look.
The Marquis, however, mounted quickly and without saying anymore started to ride back the way they had come.
With a deep sigh of relief, Elmina put her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.
It was hard to believe that she was really safe and had only avoided being killed at the very last moment.
If the Marquis and Chang had not arrived when they had, Abe would certainly have shot her with a second bullet, not only because she was a dangerous encumbrance but also because he was furious at her having knocked him down.
Her swiftness in applying her knowledge of Karate had saved her life for just long enough to allow the Marquis and Chang to arrive in the nick of time.
‘I am – safe,’ she told herself beneath her breath.
As if she knew what she was thinking, the Marquis’s arm tightened around her.
He did not speak and in a way she was glad.
After the agony she had just passed through she felt almost too limp to move her lips.
All that mattered was that she was close to the Marquis, that she could feel his heart beating and knew that he was there.
He was taking his horse slowly back up the incline that led to the gallops. Then when they reached the top of it and he could see her clearly before they went under the trees in the Park, he said,
“You are sure that you are all right, my darling? How could you have done anything so mad as to go to the stables alone at night?”
“How could I have known – how could I have even guessed that those thieves were – trying to steal Shalom away?”
“It is something that will never happen again!”
His lips were very close to hers and she thought that he might kiss her again. She longed for him to do so, beseeching him with her eyes.
“We will talk about it when we get home,” he said quietly.
They rode on and now she was no longer limp but vitally aware of him. At the same time she could not help thinking that perhaps he had kissed her on the spur of the moment and would not do so again.
It took the Marquis only a few minutes to ride through the Park and up to the front door.
There were two stable boys waiting for them and, as they ran to Samson’s head, the Marquis said,
“Hogson may need your help. Both of you can join him and take with you a roll of rope. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my Lord!” they both said eagerly.
The lilting note in their young voices made it obvious that they were longing to be where the action was taking place.
The night-footman held the door open, but otherwise the house was quiet, for the other servants had not been alerted.
The Marquis lifted Elmina down from his saddle and, without putting her down, carried her in his arms up the steps.
He entered the hall and continued up the stairs, still with her close against his heart.
She thought that it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her and put her head against his shoulder, thinking that whatever the future held for her she would have this to remember.
She was close to him and for one magical entrancing moment he had kissed her.
They reached her bedroom and the door was ajar as she had left it.
He carried her inside and, as he put her down gently, he said,
“Get into bed.”
Instinctively because she did not wish him to leave her, Elmina put out her hands and he added,
“I will come back in a moment to talk to you.”
She smiled at him in the candlelight and he closed the door into the passage, then went through the communicating door into his own bedroom.
Because he had said he would come back, Elmina hurriedly pulled off her torn tunic and black pantaloons and, as she felt she must be dirty from the horse cloth, she washed herself in cold water.
She then put on the nightgown she had been wearing, which was still where she had left it on the floor.
Slipping into bed she no longer felt limp or afraid, but excited because the Marquis had said he was coming back.
She waited, thinking how strong and wonderful he was and how, if he had not heard her call for help and come with Chang to save her, she might at this very moment be floating in the stream.
The communicating door opened and he came in.
He was wearing the long red robe he had worn on their wedding night and she thought that he would come and sit on the bed to talk to her.
Instead he pulled back the curtains from both the windows and she could see stars in the sky and the moonlight that would soon begin to fade.
She thought it could not be much later than three o’clock in the morning and yet a century seemed to have passed since she had come upstairs to bed.
The Marquis came towards her and now he blew out the candles. Before Elmina could say anything, he climbed into bed beside her.
For a moment she was too astonished to move or even be able to think, as his arms went round her and he pulled her against him.
It was then she felt herself quiver because she could feel the hardness of his body against hers.
“Now, my precious,” the Marquis said and his voice was very deep, “we can talk about what has happened, if that is what you want. Actually all I want to do is to kiss you!”
“Please – kiss me!” Elmina whispered.
She tipped back her head as she spoke and her lips were ready and waiting for his.
As if there was no hurry, his mouth was very gentle against the softness of hers.
Yet once again a shaft of lightning seemed to shoot through her, half rapture and half pain.
Then Elmina felt his lips become more possessive, more demanding.
She knew that this was what she would have never known if she had died and she felt as if her whole being leapt with a strange ecstasy towards him.
As he kissed her and went on kissing her, she surrendered herself completely and absolutely to his magnificence.
Every second his lips became more demanding, more insistent.
Now Elmina could feel not only the lightning shooting through her body but a warmth rising within her that became a flame, burning its way through her breasts and up into her lips so that it met the flame on his.
She knew suddenly that a fire raged within the Marquis as well and this was what she had longed for, but had thought would never happen.
He paused for a moment to look down at her, and she whispered,
“I – love you – how can I help but – love you?”
“As I cannot help loving you.”
She felt herself stiffen against him.
Then he said,
“That was what you wanted, was it not, my precious, that I should love you as I have never loved anyone before? And that is e
xactly what has happened!”
“Is it – true – really true?”
“I think you would know if I was not speaking the truth,” the Marquis replied. “I swear to you by everything I believe in that what I feel for you is different from anything I have ever felt for any woman.”
Elmina gave a cry of happiness.
Then she asked,
“Are you sure? Are you – really sure?”
“It is what you have told me I should feel and actually it is what I have been feeling for a long time.”
“Why – did you not – tell me?”
“I wanted to be absolutely sure of myself and also that you would not want to fight against me as you did before.”
Elmina gave a little laugh.
“It was Karate that saved my life tonight and the thoughts that we know are part of that – strange science.”
“It was Chang who heard you and brought me to you.”
“Is that what – happened?”
“Chang came to my bedroom and told me that you were in danger and, when we reached the stable yard, we found that the Arab mare gone and Hogson’s small son had seen you being carried away.”
“They took me with them because I had seen their faces,” Elmina said. “Then, because I was slowing the speed they wanted to travel at they – decided to – kill me.”
As if the Marquis could not bear to hear any more, his lips came down on hers.
Now he was kissing her frantically which she knew came from his fear of what might have happened.
He kissed her until her heart beat so violently that she felt as if she could no longer keep it within her breast.
He held her closer and closer and she knew that there was no further need for words between them.
Because they were so close it was as if their bodies, their hearts and their minds were all linked indivisibly with each other’s and they were no longer two people but one.
This was love as she had always longed for it – love as she had always believed it could be in all its perfection.
Then, as the Marquis carried her up to the stars that seemed to encircle his head, she knew that she had found the love that she had always known was different and which she had searched for in her dreams.
*
A long time later the stars had faded, the moon had vanished and the pale fingers of the dawn sun were sweeping away the dark of the night.
A Very Unusual Wife Page 13
