Book Read Free

The Marquis Who Hated Women (Bantam Series No. 62)

Page 14

by Barbara Cartland


  He put his arm round her as he spoke and they moved slowly down the passage-way, the Marquis staring ahead. But Shikara’s heart was beating tumultuously with joy.

  He had kissed her! He had called her “darling”! She was close beside him and if they had to die at this moment she felt it would be of little importance.

  “I love you! I love you!” she wanted to cry aloud.

  But she knew he was anxious.

  When they reached the shaft leading upwards he went ahead and she saw that he had his pistol in one hand and the other hand was holding the lantern.

  She followed behind him, and when there was enough light from the stars and the moon to show the way, the Marquis blew out his candle.

  Shikara moved beside him into the entrance as he stood looking out through the broken pillars onto the desert outside.

  There were the great boulders and rocks, and in the light from the moon they had a strange beauty which they did not show in the day-time.

  Silhouetted against the sky was the Step Pyramid, but as far as they could see there was nothing moving, no human being in sight

  The Marquis slipped his pistol into his pocket, and taking Shikara by the arm hurried her as quickly as he could over the sand towards the palm trees where they had left their carriage.

  The rough stones hurt her feet and sand trickled into her slippers, but she was not aware of any discomfort, only of a wild, ecstatic happiness.

  It rose within her like a new-born phoenix after the depression and uncertainty she had felt when they drove here from Cairo.

  They reached the carriage.

  Their coachman, who was asleep at the foot of one of the palm trees, jumped up at their appearance, took from his horses the nosebags which had kept them quiet, and climbed onto the box.

  The Marquis helped Shikara into the carriage, put the lantern down on the seat opposite them, and as the horses started off pulled her into his arms.

  He felt her quiver against him and looked down at her eyes. He could see the expression of happiness on her face.

  “You are safe, my precious one!” he exclaimed. “Tell me how you saved us. How could you make that incredible, unearthly sound?”

  Shikara gave a little laugh of sheer happiness.

  “Do you not know what it was?” she enquired.

  “I have no idea,” the Marquis answered, “and I cannot imagine how anyone as small as yourself could sound like a full orchestra from the depths of the earth, or perhaps from the heights of Heaven.”

  “It is the prayer of the Buddhist Monks,” Shikara answered. “They sing, or rather intone, Aurn Mani Padme Aum.”

  “But of course!” the Marquis exclaimed. ‘I know that it means ‘Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus’.”

  “And because every Monk intones it over and over again,” Shikara explained, “it makes their voices deep and clear, and they never have any throat trouble, however old they live to be.”

  “How did you learn to do it yourself?” the Marquis asked.

  “Papa taught me when I was very small,” Shikara replied. “It amused me because it seemed to tickle the roof of my mouth and rise into my nose. He made me repeat it again and again until I could do it perfectly!” Her voice deepened as she went on:

  “I had almost forgotten it until suddenly when I heard those men saying they were going to ... search for ... us and if they ... found us we would be ... killed ... I knew what I must ... do.”

  The Marquis drew her close against him and kissed her forehead.

  “You saved us both, my clever darling!”

  She looked up at him and he said very gently:

  “I love you! I have loved you for what seems to me a very long time. When I kissed you last night I was so afraid that you meant it when you said you hated men and in consequence would hate me.”

  “I love you!” Shikara answered. “But I knew you ... hated women, and I thought, although your kiss was the most ... wonderful thing that ever ... happened to ... me, it would mean ... nothing to you.”

  “It meant more to me than I can ever tell you,” the Marquis said. “More than any kiss has ever meant. I knew then how much I loved you and that I had never been in love before.”

  He gave a laugh.

  “I have fought against what I felt for you for a long time, Shikara, in fact all the time we were sailing through the Mediterranean.”

  “I wish I had known,” Shikara murmured. “I knew that I ... loved you when we were in ... Lisbon.”

  The Marquis put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.

  “Were you jealous, my precious?”

  “Terribly ... horribly ... jealous!” Shikara confessed. “It was something I had never felt before and it was very ... painful.”

  “There was no reason for jealousy,” the Marquis assured her, “just as there will be no reason for you to be jealous of any woman in the future, because you, my most adorable little man-hater, are quite different from any woman I have ever known.”

  “Perhaps I shall just ... become like all the ... others now that ... I love you,” Shikara whispered.

  “You could never be like anyone else,” the Marquis replied, “for the simple reason that I love you. I love you more than I can ever tell you! It will take me a lifetime to tell you how much!”

  “Please tell me,” Shikara begged.

  Her lips were very close to his and he looked down at her for a moment before he deliberately kissed first her forehead, then her eyes, her cheeks, her small chin.

  Finally, when she was longing for his lips so that she was trembling against him, his mouth found hers.

  He kissed her wildly, passionately, fiercely, and she knew it was not only because he was excited but because it was a relief from the agonies he must have gone through when he knew that their lives were in anger.

  “I love you! I love you!” she said over and over again.

  She felt as if in some way they had both come back to life from a grave—the grave of the desert in which so many millions of people had died and were buried and which held so many secrets that would never be discovered.

  But it was impossible for Shikara to think of anything except the feelings that the Marquis evoked in her and the happiness that seemed like a brilliant light with which they were both encompassed.

  “I love ... you! I love ... you!” she cried.

  The Marquis ceased kissing her only when they entered the streets of Cairo and there were houses and people on either side of them.

  Shikara, however, held tightly on to his hand.

  When they reached the yacht he stepped out first to lift her from the carriage and held her for a moment close against him.

  Then they went aboard and into the Saloon.

  The stewards hurried forward to attend to them and as Hignet appeared the Marquis handed him the pistol from his pocket.

  “You had no trouble, M’Lord?”

  “We are safe, thanks to Miss Bartlett,” the Marquis answered. “But we have been through a very unpleasant experience, Hignet, and we both require a drink.”

  “The champagne’s on ice, M’Lord.”

  “Then open it!” the Marquis commanded.

  A steward poured out the champagne and only when they were alone in the Saloon did the Marquis raise his glass.

  “To the bravest woman I have ever met!” he said gently.

  Shikara looked at him and her eyes were shining like stars.

  ‘I am not really brave,” she answered. “You know how frightened I am of the sea, and I was very ... frightened indeed when I heard those men say they had killed Papa and would kill ... anyone else who ... interfered with them!”

  “And yet you saved us!” the Marquis smiled.

  “I think perhaps these things are ... ordained,” Shikara said, her voice very low. “Perhaps all those years ago, when I was a little girl, Papa was inspired ... or perhaps directed by something greater than ourselves, to teach me to do what I did tonight
so that it would ... save both our lives.”

  “I am sure you are right,” the Marquis agreed.

  “Do you really believe that,” she asked, “or are you just saying it to please me?”

  “I am telling you the truth,” he answered. “I think no-one could have come to Egypt and gone through what we have without realising there are powers beyond ourselves, and there is a Force, whatever you may call it, which can save or destroy us.”

  “It saved ... us.”

  The Marquis put down his glass and moved towards her. He pulled her once again into his arms as he said:

  “I love you! I have to keep telling you so because it is a new experience for me to say these words and to feel as I am feeling now.”

  “What are you feeling?” Shikara asked.

  “Very, very much in love.”

  Shikara gave a little sigh of sheer happiness. Then before she could tell the Marquis how much she loved him he was kissing her again and it was impossible for her to speak the words which were singing in her heart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Shikara stood at the window looking out onto the desert.

  She had never thought that anything could look so beautiful as the three great Pyramids in the moonlight and a little way to the left of them the mighty Sphinx.

  She had dreamt, she thought, that one day she would be able to look at the desert with the Marquis, but she had never imagined they would be staying here on the very edge of it and that it would be so magical.

  There was just the Heaven above and the endless desert below.

  They had been married in the Church next to the British Embassy and it was entirely due to the British Ambassador that they had been lent this enchanting Villa which stood on the very sand of the desert itself.

  It had been late when the Marquis had left Shikara the night before and she had gone to bed pulsating with the sensations his kisses aroused in her.

  She was so unbelievably happy that she was half-afraid to sleep in case like a dream it vanished from her grasp and she awoke to find it was all untrue.

  “You must rest, my darling,” the Marquis had said tenderly, “you have been through a great deal today and I know you are tired.”

  “Not when I am with ... you,” Shikara answered.

  “We have all our lives in front of us,” he said. “I will spare you just for tonight, but after that we shall be together both by day and by night, so that I shall never lose you.”

  “You could ... never do ... that,” she answered.

  “I cannot be sure,” he replied half-jokingly, half-seriously. “Perhaps you will leave me on the end of a rope, or disappear in the yacht of some unknown man, and I will never find you again.”

  She laughed, but she realised that beneath his words he was in fact intent on keeping her with him and it thrilled her to know that he cared enough and that she was essential to him.

  As if he sensed her thought, he said quietly:

  “Once you are my wife, I will insist that you will behave in a very much more circumspect manner than you have done until now. I am appalled at the risks you have run!”

  “I would have been ... frightened if ... you had not been with ... me.”

  She gave a little cry and said, holding on to him: “Suppose ... just suppose that if I had really escaped from you at the end of the Mews and that beggar had not stopped me ... I might never have seen you again!”

  “In which case,” the Marquis said, “you would have gone on hating men and avoiding them until I found you again.”

  “You would not have looked for me!” Shikara replied accusingly.

  “Perhaps not consciously,” he answered. “But I think that ultimately we could never have escaped each other. It was fate, my precious one, that we should come together. Fate that we should fall in love!”

  ‘It is not surprising that I should ... love you,” Shikara said a little humbly, “but that you should love me...”

  He turned her face up to his and he said:

  “You are beautiful, you are brave, you are kind and understanding. What man could ask for more of one small person?”

  “I want to be ... all those things for you,” Shikara said passionately.

  He held her close, kissed her forehead, and said: “Because I love you and because now I will take care of you for the rest of your life, I am sending you to bed.”

  She moved a little closer to him and whispered hardly above her breath:

  “I do not ... want to ... leave you.”

  “And I do not want to leave you, my precious darling, but it is only for tonight.”

  “Do you ... really mean we are to be ... married tomorrow?”

  “I made this afternoon all the arrangements for our wedding!”

  Shikara stared at him in astonishment.

  “This afternoon when you went ashore? I wondered where you were going. But how could you have known ... how could you have been ... sure ... that I would ... marry you?”

  “Have you forgotten that I kissed you?” the Marquis asked. “I knew when your lips touched mine that we were meant for each other and that nothing and nobody could divide us.”

  He gave a sigh.

  “At the same time, I was afraid! Even though I felt sure of your love, I was not certain that you would acknowledge it with your mind, and that you were not still hating me as you told me you hated all men.”

  “But you arranged to marry me?”

  “When we had seen Monsieur Mariette I realised that your father was dead,” the Marquis replied, “and because I knew how independent you were and, may I say, regrettably unfeminine, I was afraid you might do something outrageous like run away from me.”

  Shikara gave an exclamation, remembering how desperately afraid she had been of having to leave him and how her whole being had yearned for him.

  “I would ... never have left you ... willingly.”

  “How could I be sure of that?” the Marquis asked. “And I knew I had to look after you. Your absurd idea of earning your own living was quite impractical. You are too lovely, my darling, to be left alone in the world.”

  “So you arranged our marriage?”

  “When I told the British Ambassador what had happened to your father, he agreed that we should be married immediately, and that he would see to all the documents and papers necessary.”

  The Marquis s arms tightened round her as he said:

  “Leave everything to me. From now on you are my responsibility and I will not have you worrying about anything—except perhaps me!”

  “I want to look after you ... I want to do things for you that no-one else can do,” Shikara said.

  “I shall keep you fully employed,” the Marquis answered, “and your salary, my precious, will be paid in love and kisses.”

  She laughed at that. Then with a firmness that she accepted, he refused to discuss anything more but took her to the door of her cabin.

  “Tomorrow night we will be together,” he said, his voice suddenly very deep. “Sleep well, my lovely darling. I want you to look more beautiful on your wedding-day than you have ever looked before.”

  It would have been difficult not to feel both happy and beautiful, Shikara thought.

  The Marquis’s consideration for her in every detail made her realise how very different everything was going to be when she was his wife.

  She was thankful that she had a very pretty white gown which she had bought in Lisbon and had not worn previously. It was in fact a dinner-gown, but not quite so elaborate or ostentatious as if it had been a Ball-gown.

  The deep bertha was trimmed with little white flowers appliqued onto lace and the same flowers decorated the flounces of the full skirts.

  It made Shikara look very young and very innocent.

  She was nearly dressed and was arranging her hair in the mirror when Hignet brought to her cabin a box which contained a very delicate lace veil, and with it a wreath fashioned from orange-blossoms and other white flowers
.

  It was, Shikara thought, exactly what she needed to make herself look like a real bride.

  When a little shyly she had gone from her cabin to find the Marquis, he was waiting for her in the Saloon with a bouquet of the same flowers that were woven into her wreath, combined with lilies and white orchids.

  She raised her face to thank him and he looked at her for some seconds before he said:

  “You are not only beautiful, you are everything I ever longed for and thought never to find in my wife.”

  “I want to please you ... I want to do ... everything you ... want of me,” Shikara said, “but ... suppose when you know me better you are ... disappointed?”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “I am prepared to bet a very considerable sum of money that we shall neither of us be disappointed with each other, but that our love will grow and intensify as the years go by.”

  He put his arms round her and added:

  “You are very unpredictable, my adventurous one, and I shall always be afraid that you will find life with me so dull that you will be looking for adventures elsewhere.”

  Thinking of the fear she had felt last night, Shikara gave a little shudder.

  “You know at heart I am a ... coward,” she replied. “I do not want to be afraid ... but to feel ... safe with you ... as I feel now.”

  “I will look after you and love you for the rest of our lives,” the Marquis said, “and I have a feeling that even when we die we will not be apart.”

  She had never known him to speak so seriously. Yet when they were being married in the little English Church and they made their vows, Shikara knew that he was as deeply moved as she was.

  Just as the Marriage Service was sacred to her, so it was to him.

  She held very tightly on to his hand as they walked down the aisle together and when they were in the carriage driving away from the Church she laid her cheek against his arm and said very softly:

  “I love you! I did not know it was possible to love you more than I did already, but I do!”

  “I will tell you how much I love you in return,” the Marquis replied in his deep voice, “but now, my darling, we have to go to the British Embassy for luncheon. I could not refuse the Ambassador when he invited us.”

 

‹ Prev