The Marquis Who Hated Women (Bantam Series No. 62)
Page 15
His Excellency had been a witness to their wedding and had followed them in another carriage.
Although Shikara longed to be alone with the Marquis, she realised that the fact that they must be entertained was one of the penalties of his important position.
The British Embassy was very attractive with a large flowered-filled garden, and although there was only a small party to celebrate their wedding it seemed to Shikara that it was a very gay one.
She and the Marquis were toasted by the Ambassador and everyone else present, and it was only when they were driving away that the Marquis told her that they were going not to the yacht, as she had expected, but to a Villa.
“We will spend three or four days there, or longer, if you wish,” he said. “But I want, my love, to have you completely alone.”
When she saw the Villa, which, Shikara learnt, had been loaned to the British Ambassador by a Frenchmen who had returned to Paris, she realised that if she had had the choice she could not have wished for anything more perfect for her honeymoon.
The Villa had been built on the very edge of the desert and was a mixture of East and West, with the luxury of the latter and the exotic beauty of the former.
She exclaimed with delight over the exquisite rugs which decorated both the floors and the walls, and the statues and ornaments, many of which she was aware had come from the Tombs of the Kings.
Her bed-room was white and cool, and the wide deep bed, the soft rugs, and the ancient mirrors on the walls gave it an enchantment which told her it was the perfect setting for their love.
It was also fragrant with flowers sent there by the Marquis—lilies, orchids, and gardenias, which added a special magic to the dry wind blowing from the desert.
In the centre of the house was a cool courtyard where a fountain trickled over exotic plants, and the clematis and bougainvillaea grew over the walls in vivid profusion.
There were orange as well as pine trees in the garden, and small, secret places where they could sit down, surrounded only by the scented shrubs, while just over the wall there stretched the dry sands.
As Shikara looked at the desert now, a great desolate sea of loneliness in the moonlight, she thought she could understand how the sands stretching away to the utmost horizon could create fear and even despair in some people’s minds.
Then she realised that the Egyptians, who had always been preoccupied with the idea of death, as it had been said that the life of an Egyptian was always a journey towards it, had left in the Sphinx a symbol of hope.
It was a promise of life which many people might not understand.
She could see the outline of its strange shape and its damaged head.
It had been spoken of always as an enigma, but she felt, although she might be mistaken, that she knew what the Egyptians had intended when they built it.
To them their gods were personified by animals, and therefore they had made the Sphinx half-human and half-animal, meaning for those who understood that every person created was half-human, half-divine.
And what, Shikara asked herself, was the key to man’s Divinity but love?
It was love which lifted him from the commonplace towards a Heaven where he could realise the greatness of himself and the importance of life.
And as the idea came to her she knew that she would never again feel alone or insignificant.
She had her allotted place in the universe, and what could have shown it more clearly than the pattern of events which had brought her to where she was now—the Marquis’s wife?
Even as she thought of him, she heard the door behind her open and he came into the bed-room.
He saw her standing at the open window and crossed to her side.
For a moment as he reached her he saw in the moonlight her eyes and her whole face transfigured with an ecstatic happiness because he was there.
“What are you thinking about, my precious?” he asked.
Instinctively she moved closer to him and he could feel the soft warmth of her body through the diaphanous negligee which she wore.
“I was thinking of ... you and of our ... love.”
“Could either of us think of anything else today?”
“I was also thinking that I will never again feel insignificant or alone,” Shikara said. “I know now what I have been seeking, although I did not realise it. Why I was restless and. unhappy, and why I hated people simply because they were unable to give me what I required.”
“Tell me what that was,” the Marquis asked, although he knew the answer.
“It was love,” she answered, “the love I have for ... you and which I think ... you have for ... me.”
He laughed gently, then as his lips sought hers he said:
“If you doubt my love I shall have to prove it, and that is something I am only too eager to do!”
He kissed her, and she felt again the ecstasy he had aroused in her, the flame running through her body and the forked lightning she had known the first time he had touched her lips.
Now, because she was sure of his love, it was even more wonderful, more intense.
When the Marquis raised his head, she said a little incoherently:
“P-perhaps this has all ... happened before ... perhaps we have ... met and loved each other ... and that was why we felt ... incomplete until we ... were together again.”
“That is what I feel and what I believe,” the Marquis answered. “And that is why, my precious one, we can never lose each other. There will be no death where we are concerned, only a new beginning.”
Shikara looked out at the beauty of the moonlight on the desert and said:
“There is so much you have to ... teach me ... so much for me to learn ... but I love you, and everything is easy, because for us the whole world is filled with ... love!”
The Marquis put up his hand to sweep her hair back from her forehead and as it fell over her shoulders he thought she looked like a Priestess who had come to him from a Temple.
Then the warmth of her body, the vibrations he could feel reaching out towards him, and the softness of her lips thrust from his mind every thought but his love for her and the fire that was rising within them both.
“I love you!” he said. “You are mine, my darling. Mine from now until eternity, and I will never let you go!”
He was kissing her again with a passion that was demanding and masterful, his lips fierce and possessive, and yet she was unafraid.
She knew that something glorious leapt within her to respond to his desire, but she knew too that spiritually they were one person.
She felt his lips on her neck and then he pulled her negligee and nightgown from her shoulders to kiss her breasts.
Her breath came quickly through her parted lips and her eye-lids felt heavy. She did not understand but only knew she ached and yearned for him to hold her closer still.
“I ... love ... you ... I ... love ... you.”
It was hard to say the words and her voice was low and broken.
She put her arm round the Marquis’s neck and his kisses made her feel as if the fire in him joined with the fire in herself and it was no longer possible to think but only to feel its burning insistence.
This was love in all its majesty and glory, a love fierce and tempestuous, a love as overwhelming as the desert itself, and yet a love which cast out fear.
“I love you! I adore you! God knows I want you!”
It seemed to Shikara that although she did not reply, the same words were echoed within her so that her heart spoke for her.
Then, with his lips holding her completely captive, the Marquis drew her away from the window and the moonlight into the soft, scented darkness.
Barbara Cartland, the celebrated romantic author, historian, playwright, lecturer, political speaker and television personality, has now written over 150 books. Miss Cartland has had a number of historical books published and several biographical ones, including that of her brother, Major Ronald Cartland, who w
as the first Member of Parliament to be killed in the War. This book had a Foreword by Sir Winston Churchill.
In private life, Barbara Cartland, who is a Dame of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, has fought for better conditions and salaries for Midwives and Nurses. As President of the Royal College of Midwives (Hertfordshire Branch), she has been invested with the first Badge of Office ever given in Great Britain, which was subscribed to by the Midwives themselves. She has also championed the cause for old people and founded the first Romany Gypsy Camp in the world.
Barbara Cartland is deeply interested in Vitamin Therapy and is President of the British National Association for Health.