The Goddess Of Love

by Barbara Cartland

  The light of Greece, which was a Divine radiance illuminated not only what they saw but what they felt.

  Because Lord Warburton was so intelligent and above all so well read, he made Corena feel as if she was a flower opening in the warmth of the sun.

  They talked, argued and capped each other’s quotations.

  Without either of them being aware of it, the yacht had moved into a far smoother sea and the ship was no longer rolling.

  “How can you know so much at your age?” Lord Warburton asked once. “I have a feeling that you have not only studied the Ancient Greeks, but acquired your knowledge in other lives.”

  “Of course!” Corena agreed. “And I have often wondered whether, if ever I visit Greece, I will recognise where I lived.”

  “Then I will certainly take you to Mount Olympus!”

  “Which – from all Papa says – is somewhat disappointing.”

  “It depends on what you expect!” Lord Warburton replied.

  “Perhaps it would be a – mistake to go there and find that the – Gods had all departed.”

  “That is what people think when they are looking only with their eyes.”

  For a while they sat in silence before Corena said,

  “I would love to go to Olympus – but perhaps it would be a – mistake to risk being disillusioned.”

  “That is what I am afraid of too,” Lord Warburton admitted.

  But she knew that he was not speaking of Olympus and his eyes were on her face.

  *

  Hewlett had drawn her bath and, when Corena had dried herself, she walked to the wardrobe in her cabin to view what she should wear.

  It was then insidiously once again she could hear Mr. Thespidos’s oily voice telling her to pack her prettiest dresses.

  She felt herself shudder and deliberately reached for the most simple of her evening gowns.

  Because it was white and had little ornamentation except for the softness of some chiffon draped round the neck and over the tops of her arms, she felt that she was defying him.

  She was not to know that because her gown was so simple it resembled more than her other dresses the draperies worn by the Greek Goddesses. It was as they had been carved by endless sculptors down the centuries.

  She had brought with her no jewellery with her because her father had always said that it was dangerous to travel abroad with jewels.

  There was nothing therefore to break the exquisite curved line of her neck or spoil the translucency and whiteness of her chest.

  She had no idea as she entered the Saloon where Lord Warburton was waiting for her that he drew in his breath.

  He thought that it would be impossible for anyone to look lovelier or more ethereal and, although he hated to admit it, not human.

  Corena was in fact thinking how magnificent he looked in his evening clothes.

  As he put a glass of champagne into her hand, he said,

  “I thought that we should both drink tonight to the glory of Greece and that somehow, in some way, we can contribute to it.”

  “That is a wonderful toast,” Corena exclaimed, “Perhaps something – special will be – revealed to us.”

  “‘Make the sky clear and grant us to see with our eyes. In the light be it’,” Lord Warburton quoted.

  She laughed and raised her glass.

  Then, as the Steward brought in dinner, Corena was aware that for the first time in her life she would be having dinner alone with a man other than her father.

  Somewhere at the back of her mind she remembered that she had always thought that it would be very exciting.

  As course succeeded course, each more delicious than the last, the candles on the table were lit as darkness fell.

  She felt sure that she had stepped into a dream and that no God could be more handsome, more alluring or more interesting than Lord Warburton.

  They talked on after the servants had removed the table from the centre of the Saloon.

  Then, because it was so much warmer than it had been and they were both aware that the wind had dropped, they walked out on deck.

  Now when Corena looked up, the stars had come out in the sky and there was a young crescent moon climbing up towards them.

  It was so enchanting that she threw back her head, unaware that it was the time-honoured gesture of a woman who surrenders herself to the Gods.

  Then she knew that Lord Warburton was very near her and she heard him say very softly,

  “How can this have happened? How can you have come to me so unexpectedly? And yet I feel that I have known you all through Eternity!”

  Corena turned her head to look at him and she asked in a soft hesitating little voice that did not sound like her own,

  “Why did you – say that? It is – what I feel – ”

  She stopped, thinking that what she had been about to say would seem forward and too revealing.

  “ – what you feel too!” Lord Warburton finished. “My dear, what is happening to us was meant to be and perhaps has been ordained since the very beginning of time.”

  “Y-you really – believe – that?”

  She whispered because it was impossible to speak any louder.

  “I believe it,” he said, “and it is only because I am afraid of frightening you that I don’t take you in my arms.”

  He did not touch her, but she felt as if they drew nearer to each other and that his lips were not far from hers.

  Then, as she knew, and it seemed incredible, that it would be right that he should kiss her and she should give him her heart, she remembered Mr. Thespidos!

  The thought of him brought Corena back to earth.

  With a little cry of horror she put up her hands as if to ward off Lord Warburton.

  Without a word and without explanation, she ran away from him.

  Moving as swiftly as if all the devils of hell were behind her, she ran towards the sanctuary of her own cabin.

  Chapter Six

  Lord Warburton was in love.

  He fought against it, denied it and told himself that he was a fool until finally he capitulated.

  What he felt about Corena was different from anything he had ever felt in his life before.

  At first he was quite determined that he was just fascinated by her lovely face and, because he was still suspicious, he tried to catch her out in a dozen different ways.

  Her knowledge of the Greek historians was fantastic, he admitted honestly to himself.

  Then, as they steamed on, The Sea Serpent breaking the record as he had intended, he knew that he went to sleep at night thinking about Corena and woke up in the morning still thinking about her.

  He found her a delight and what he felt for her he had never felt for any other woman.

  The sophisticated beauties with whom he had had brief and usually fiery affaires de coeur had meant nothing to him, a physical satisfaction, but no more than that.

  Other women whom he had met abroad, and it was inevitable that in Paris he took a mistress amongst the demi-mondaines, made little impression on him.

  Now he could not remember their names or even what they looked like.

  Every day it seemed as if Corena’s Grecian beauty imprinted itself not only on his brain but also on his heart.

  He had thought that it would be easy to attract her into telling him what he wanted to know.

  Instead he found that he was up against a barrier he did not understand and yet was pulsatingly aware that it was there.

  Corena listened to him with her strange sun-flecked green eyes and at times he was almost sure that he saw in them the expression he was seeking.

  He was too experienced not to realise when a woman was attracted by him and he felt certain that Corena loved him and yet he could not be completely sure.

  After the first night when she had run away from him, he had been very careful not to frighten her again.

  He talked to her of love, which was easy when they spoke of the Greek Gods and Godde
sses.

  Yet somehow it never became personal enough for him to put his arms around her and kiss her as he longed to do.

  Although he did not realise it, for the first time in his life Lord Warburton was being forced to pursue a woman rather than have her fall into his arms even before he knew her name.

  It was also the first time that he considered her feelings more than his own.

  Because Corena was so ethereal and so very vulnerable, he was afraid of upsetting her and seeing an expression of dislike on her face rather than the one he longed for.

  He was aware that she was frightened, but of whom or what he could not determine.

  He was quite sure that it was not himself.

  When they were talking Greek together, her eyes would sparkle with the excitement of it.

  And there was nothing sinister or restrained about her laughter, which was like the song of the birds.

  ‘I love her!’ he told himself as they sailed past Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean.

  By the time they had reached Sicily he knew that he would give everything he possessed to hold Corena in his arms and know that she was his.

  Because he was so closely attuned to her, he was aware that, as they drew nearer and nearer to Greece, something was perturbing her that she was trying to keep hidden from him.

  He would see a stricken look in her eyes that gave him a physical pain because it was so poignant.

  Yet he was intelligent enough to realise that, if he tried to press her into confiding in him, he might easily frighten her away.

  He wanted her to trust him and he wanted her to realise that he would protect her against anything however terrible it might be.

  The days were sunny and an awning had been erected over the deck.

  They would sit in the shade of it in two wicker chairs with footrests attached and talk animatedly and excitedly about Greece.

  It was only at night in his cabin when he thought over what had been said that Lord Warburton was aware that Corena blinded him by her beauty.

  She also stimulated and inspired him with her mind.

  He knew that it was not only because she was so knowledgeable and well read, it was also because she was so genuinely wrapped up in what they were discussing.

  It meant as much to her as it would to another woman if he was making love to her.

  In fact that in a way was what he was doing.

  He was trying to attract her with his mind.

  He found himself in consequence thinking in a way that he was sure the Greeks themselves had thought in ancient times.

  Although he knew that his mind was linked with Corena’s, he wanted a great deal more, but was not certain how to obtain it.

  A thousand times he was on the brink of telling her of his love.

  He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her lips, which could only have been designed by their Creator for kisses.

  But there was something about Corena that prevented him from doing so.

  There was an aura about her both of purity and of spirituality, which he thought must have enveloped the young Priestess who became the Pythia of the Oracle in Delphi.

  In the darkness of his cabin Lord Warburton could see Corena taking her place on the trypod.

  She would have bathed in the waters of Castalia and drunk from the Holy Spring.

  She would have been assisted into the special robes of prophecy and led into the Temple of Apollo.

  She would have passed through the main halls of worship until she reached the Adyton.

  This was the most sacred part of all, the living place of the God where only the priests were allowed to enter.

  He could see it all happening in front of his eyes and he thought perhaps that he himself had been a Priest in Delphi.

  That was why when he saw Corena, he had known that thousands of years ago he had watched her.

  He had seen her fall into a trance and known that the God was present in her.

  The first time he had thought of this at night and seen it happening it was a memory that until now had been hidden at the back of his mind.

  He had talked to Corena about it the next day.

  She had listened intently and then she had said almost as though she spoke to herself,

  “Music was played – incense was burned – and Pythia carried a branch of the Holy laurel leaves that were sacred to Apollo in her hand.”

  She spoke almost beneath her breath and then Lord Warburton asked,

  “How do you know that? I don’t remember reading it in any book!”

  “I must have – read it somewhere,” Corena said vaguely, “and they also placed in her hands one of the sacred ribbons that bound her to the omphalos.”

  Her voice deepened as she went on,

  “They believed it to be the centre of the Universe and the source of all creative power.”

  Lord Warburton just stared at her.

  He realised that her eyes were not seeing him or the Saloon where they were talking.

  She was looking back into the past and remembering how the Priests were waiting for her to give them the message of Apollo.

  It was all so unbelievably strange.

  Yet at other times she would laugh with the spontaneous happy laughter of a child at the stories he regaled her with concerning the behaviour of the Gods.

  They played tricks, for instance, on the simple men and women who worshipped them.

  Lord Warburton loved her laughter and he tried to remember stories that were amusing and tales that he had not thought of for years.

  Yet he knew as they steamed on and on that what he really wanted to talk to her about was love.

  He felt it growing day by day within him, yet dared not express it in case she fled from him, as Daphne had from Apollo.

  ‘What can I do?’ he asked himself every night when they went to their separate cabins. ‘How can I make her confide in me and tell me what is troubling her?’

  He was absolutely convinced that it was not only her fear for her father’s health that at times made her seem withdrawn so that he could not reach her.

  He supposed that he would find out the truth by the time they reached Crisa.

  At the same time he was desperately afraid that once they were there she would leave him to go to her father’s side and he might never see her again.

  The idea made him clench his fists.

  He was aware for the first time in his life that love was not the sweet, warm, sentimental thing he had in the past always believed it to be.

  It could also be agonising and make him feel as if a dagger was being thrust into his heart.

  He tried to use what he had been told often enough was his charm to make Corena speak.

  He could not understand why, just when he thought that he was going to be successful, he would see an expression of pain in her eyes.

  Then she would turn her head away as if she dared not look at him.

  At times, when their eyes met accidentally, they would both be spellbound.

  Everything they had been about to say would fly out of their minds and they were conscious only of each other.

  Again with an effort Corena would look away from him and begin to talk of something quite different and the moment would pass.

  This would leave him bitterly conscious that he had failed, although why, and what she was hiding, he could not determine.

  All he knew was that he loved her and time was passing not slowly, as he had thought it would, but far too quickly.

  He was afraid that when they reached Greece he would lose her and for the rest of his life he would be alone.

  The last night, when The Sea Serpent, after steaming across the Ionian Sea had entered the Corinthian Gulf, Lord Warburton ordered his chef to prepare a special dinner.

  Afterwards they sat talking for a long time after the servants had withdrawn.

  The only light came from the candles on the table as the first glimmer of the stars in the sky overhead
began to appear.

  “Tomorrow you will see you father, Corena – ” Lord Warburton began.

  He noticed, because he was very observant of everything about her, that her eyes seemed to light up for an instant only to be replaced by a sudden darkness that he could not comprehend.

  “Do you think that he will be at the Port to meet you?” he went on.

  Corena made a helpless little gesture with her hand as she answered hesitatingly,

  “I-I don’t – know, there may be – somebody to tell me – where he is.”

  “It is unlikely if he is very ill that he will still be in Delphi,” Lord Warburton persisted. “Where did your informant tell you he was staying when he came to your house?”

  “H-he just told me – Papa was very ill and – needed me.”

  The words seemed to be dragged from Corena’s lips.

  Although Lord Warburton knew that it was distressing her to speak of it, he felt that he had to know more.

  “Wherever your father is,” he said, “I will take you to him as comfortably and as quickly as possible.”

  “Thank – you.”

  “What I cannot understand,” he continued, “is who will be tending him or, if he is better, how he will be aware that you have arrived in Crisa.”

  The question was unanswerable and therefore Corena said quickly,

  “Please – don’t let us – talk of it tonight. It is so – upsetting and we will have the – answer to all these – questions tomorrow.”

  There was a little pause, before she said in a tone in which he could hear an unmistakable tremor of fear,

  “What time – do we – arrive?”

  “I have already instructed the Captain,” he replied, “that tonight we will sleep in some quiet harbour inside the Corinthian Gulf.”

  He paused and went on,

  “We will therefore reach Crisa in the morning, say about ten o’clock, when I hope you will receive good news of your father.”

  “What will – you – do?”

  Lord Warburton’s eyes were on her face as he replied,

  “That depends, of course, on how much you need me and if there is anything I can do to help you.”

  The way he spoke made her draw in her breath.

  Then once again they were gazing into each other’s eyes and it was impossible to look away.