“I would not go as far as to say that,” he replied, “but I will do my very best to beat you. If I don’t, I will feel humiliated.”
“You are quite safe,” Isa laughed. “No one in your stables is as good as Firebird although I admit the others are magnificent. I would rather ride Nightstar than any other horse you own.”
“I thought you might say that.”
Then a footman came running to inform them that Charles had arrived and they hurried back to The Castle.
He had already been taken upstairs.
As they entered the Rose room, it was to find that he had been undressed and laid back against the pillows by the two nurses who had accompanied him on the journey.
“Here you are, Charles,” Lord Lanwood said. “We are all ecstatic at bringing you home safely.”
“You and Isa were perfectly wonderful,” Charles replied. “I still think I must be dreaming because I never expected to escape from that filthy place.”
“Forget it!” Lord Lanwood urged him. “You have to recover quickly. We have been looking at the horses and your favourite is growing fat for want of exercise.”
“If anything could make me want to leap out of bed it’s thinking of Samson,” Charles admitted.
The nurses had withdrawn to the end of the room and Lord Lanwood was standing on one side of Charles and Isa on the other.
Charles threw out his hands and exclaimed,
“How can I thank you both? It’s so wonderful to be back, I cannot find any words to describe my feelings.”
There were tears in his eyes as he spoke.
Isa took his hand in hers and said,
“It’s all over now. You are back home and all the fabulous treasures that belong to The Castle are waiting for you.”
“I know that,” Charles answered. “I will be out of bed just as quickly as it is humanly possible to do so.”
He sighed before he added,
“I cannot believe I am actually awake, that this is really happening and I am not dreaming.”
“I have been feeling like that too,” Isa said. “But you are awake and the sooner you are on your feet and downstairs the better.”
“Now we are going to leave you,” Lord Lanwood said, “because I think that you should try to rest after the journey. I expect that the doctor will be here very soon and we will find out what he has to say about your condition.”
“I don’t think I need a doctor,” Charles replied. “All I want is to be here and have the sunshine flowing in through the windows and smell the scent of the flowers.”
Again he was near to tears and Isa glanced at Lord Lanwood.
“Come along, Isa. I expect Charles will be up in a day or so. In the meantime he has to rest. He knows it’s the quickest way to good health and fast riding.”
“And of course it is,” Isa agreed. “And if you don’t hurry up, I think Samson will come in and walk up the stairs to find you!”
Charles laughed.
As they moved towards the door, the nurses came to him.
Outside the room Isa suggested,
“I think we had better wait for the doctor. He ought to be here soon.”
“I have something I want to show you first,” Lord Lanwood replied.
Isa wondered what it could be, but she thought it would be a mistake to ask questions.
She therefore followed him as he walked along the corridor.
At the end of it he turned along a passage which she knew led to the Picture Gallery and she wondered if he intended to see that nothing had been stolen or altered since he had been away in France.
Again she felt she should not ask him questions.
She merely followed him as he opened the door and entered the long room.
The Picture Gallery had an exquisitely decorated ceiling and from the walls hung the valuable collection of paintings that had been put together by Lord Lanwood and his illustrious ancestors.
To her surprise he did not stand in the doorway looking, as most people did, at the long rows of paintings.
The bright sunshine was streaming in through the bow window at the far end of it.
The room itself was beautiful.
Lord Lanwood walked forward until he was in front of his three most precious paintings.
They were painted by Fragonard in the eighteenth century and they were very lovely.
Isa knew that they were Lord Lanwood’s favourites as well as hers and were seriously coveted by the dreadful Comte.
They stood gazing at them side by side and after a couple of minutes he said,
“These are mine. They are yours too because it was due to you that they were saved and not taken away by the men who had imprisoned Charles, who would undoubtedly have killed him and me if we had not intervened.”
“We should try and forget about it, my Lord,” Isa said. “We have been very very lucky. As you have said we must make them even safer than they are now in case someone else tries to steal them.”
“We will do that together,” Lord Lanwood said. “Because as I have said, they are not only mine now, but also yours.”
Isa looked up at him wondering exactly what he was trying to say.
As she saw the expression in his eyes, she drew in her breath.
“What I am trying to say in a rather roundabout way,” Lord Lanwood said, “is that to complete the story of our adventure and to make sure that the future is safe, I am asking you to marry me.”
Isa gave a gasp.
Then he said,
“What I feel for you is different from anything I have ever felt for anyone else. I know now that you are not only part of The Castle but a part of me and I cannot live without you.”
He put his arms round her as he spoke and drew her closer to him.
Gazing up at him Isa felt as though he was carrying her up into the sky.
Then, as his lips found hers, he kissed her.
At first gently and then, as if he defied the Gods or anyone else to take her from him, more passionately.
She knew at once that this was the Heaven she had always believed in.
The stars were singing to them and God Himself was blessing them.
Lord Lanwood raised his head.
“Tell me you love me,” he breathed. “Although I know it already, I want to hear you say it.”
“I love you, I love you,” Isa whispered, “but I never thought that you would love me.”
“I have loved you ever since you were so perfect, so wonderful and so helpful in saving Charles,” he replied. “Every time you came near me my heart started beating faster.”
“I felt the same,” Isa whispered. “I love you more than I can possibly say in words. But – are you really sure you want me?”
Lord Lanwood’s arms tightened round her,
“I want you as I have never wanted anything in my whole life. I love The Castle and I love everything that it possesses. But I love you even more than I can possibly express because you, Isa, are everything that is beautiful, everything I have ever wanted to find in my paintings, but which really lives in you.”
He smiled before he said softly,
“Together, my darling, you and I will make this a wonderful place for our children and for our children’s children.”
“Can we really – do that?” Isa asked him softly.
“We can and we will,” he replied, “but I cannot do it without you and I would like to believe that you cannot do it without me.”
Then he was kissing her again, wildly, passionately.
It was as if he was afraid that she might disappear and he would lose her.
When he raised his head, he said,
“We will ask your father to marry us as soon as possible. Then we will go away for a short honeymoon before we come back to make The Castle more wonderful than it is already.”
He kissed her again before he added,
“I am quite certain that Charles will be well enough to look after it while we are awa
y.”
Isa gave a little murmur and moved even closer to him than she was already.
“I love you, I adore you,” she sighed. “I would love you without The Castle, but I know that The Castle means so much to both of us and will for our children and, as you say, our children’s children.”
She hid her face in his shoulder and whispered,
“Is this really true? Do you really love me? I loved you, but I did not think it would happen that you would love me.”
“It has happened because you are a part of me, just as I am a part of you,” Lord Lanwood replied. “When we are married, we will be complete, one being instead of two.”
He kissed her again and again before he said,
“When we have seen the doctor, we will go and tell your father we want to be married immediately, tomorrow or the next day.”
Isa gave a little cry.
“But we cannot be married as quickly as that!”
“But why not, my darling. If you are thinking of a large wedding with masses of people wishing us luck and shaking us warmly by the hand, it is an affair I dread and have never desired. I want you to enjoy yourself, but I will share you with no one.”
He paused for a moment before he went on,
“We will be married very quietly. As I have said, we will stay the first night at The Castle, then we will go on my yacht to a country you want to visit. Although I know that, while we are away, we will be thinking of The Castle and how we must hurry back to protect it.”
“You are right, of course you are right,” Isa cried. “I love you. I adore you!”
*
They were married quietly as his Lordship required.
The wedding took place in the evening when the village had gone to sleep and they were the only people in the Church with the exception of the Verger.
He had been with the Church for thirty years and was a witness as was the old servant who had waited on the Vicar for over twenty years.
Isa wore one of the beautiful dresses made for her by Frederick Worth, although there was no one to see her except her husband.
She knew it would not matter to him if she had been dressed in rags.
But she wanted to look lovely on her wedding day so that they would both always remember it.
She knew by the expression in his eyes and by the touch of his hand what he was feeling for her.
When they knelt before the altar, Isa thanked God that she had found love as she had always imagined it would be, but felt that it would never be as marvellous as it actually was.
After the Vicar had married them and blessed them in a way that made Isa feel as if the whole of Heaven was blessing them too, they went back to The Castle,
On his Lordship’s instructions no one was waiting up for them and the servants had all retired to their own part of The Castle.
They went up the grand staircase to the great room where previous Lord Lanwoods had slept for generations.
It was now, on his Lordship’s instructions, a bower of white flowers.
When they were in bed together, Lord Lanwood took Isa into his arms and breathed,
“Now you are mine, my darling Isa, and nothing and no one can separate us. The Castle is our fortress from which we will repel any intruder who may ever try to come between us.”
“I love you, I adore you, Lionel,” Isa whispered.
Then he was kissing her.
Kissing her as if he wanted to draw her heart from her body and make it his even more than it was already.
As both of them felt as though they were flying up into the sky and reaching out for the stars, she knew that they had found the real love which comes from God, is part of God and would be theirs for Eternity.
Where to buy other titles in this series
The Barbara Cartland Pink collection is available for download at the following online bookshops :-
www.barnesandnoble.com - epub format for the Nook eReader
www.whsmith.co.uk - epub format for the Smiths/Kobo eReader
www.firstyfish.com - epub format
ebookstore.sony.com - epub format for Sony eReaders
www.amazon.co.uk - For UK Kindle users
www.amazon.com - For international Kindle users
itunes.apple.com - for Apple iOS users
www.barbaracartland.com - Printed paperbacks
A Prisioner in Paris Page 13
