He walked into the hall and from there into the library where he had left Baptista.
As he opened the door, he heard her scream and saw that she was struggling in the arms of the Vicomte.
“What the devil is going on?” he asked furiously.
Chapter Seven
The Earl had left Baptista in the library.
She felt a little anxious when he said goodbye to her because she suspected that his engagement this morning concerned her.
Being intuitive where he was concerned, she knew that when he said he had an appointment he must keep and she could not accompany him, there was something significant about it.
If it was to do with her mother, she told herself that she should be glad and thrilled at the idea. But instead she could only think that once she had found her mother she would never see the Earl again.
All last night after they had danced together, she had been conscious, as she lay awake, of his arm around her waist and her hand in his.
Ever since she had known him she thought he had a strange effect on her in that the moment he came into a room she was vividly conscious of him in a way she could not explain even to herself.
When he was not there she kept thinking of him, longing for him, and wanting to see him again.
The books in the library were arranged more for effect than for their contents and the bindings with their gold lettering presented vivid patches of colour that made each wall more attractive than the last.
There was also a modern section, which Baptista had already discovered and which drew her like a magnet because the authors had always been forbidden.
She moved across the room to these particular shelves and, as she did so, she knew that she wanted to read about love and at that moment she knew why.
It was almost as if the revelation came to her on a beam of light and she told herself that she had been very stupid and extremely obtuse not to realise before that she loved the Earl.
She loved him to the point where, because he was not with her at this moment, her whole body ached for him.
Then despairingly she realised that she could never mean anything in his life and it was only a question of days, perhaps hours, before he would hand her over to her mother and she would lose him.
‘How could I have been so foolish, so blind, not to have realised before that I love him?’ she murmured to herself.
She might have known it when, because he smiled at her, she thought that the sun had come out, while when he frowned the world appeared to have gone dark.
She might have been aware because her heart leaped when she saw him come into the room and she felt that she had wings on her feet to carry her to his side.
She should certainly have known it after he had kissed her hand and, as they lay together side by side in the darkness, she felt as if his lips had seared an indelible impression of fire on her skin.
“I love him!” she said aloud.
But she knew that to him she was nothing but a rather tiresome child who had become a clinging encumbrance of which he could not rid himself.
Last night, when under the stars he had danced with her, she felt now that he had behaved as if he was in actual fact her uncle, condescending to amuse his young niece.
That was what it had meant to him, but to her it had been a joy and delight that she could not translate into words.
She knew now that it was love that had given everything a glamour and an indescribable beauty which had made her feel that because they were together that they had stepped into a dream from which she prayed she would never wake.
When he had taken her back and, as they said goodnight, she had kissed his hand, she had done so impulsively because her heart leapt towards him in gratitude and with a strange emotion, which she now realised was love.
She was standing in front of the bookcase, but she did not see the books.
Instead she saw the Earl’s grey eyes looking into hers, the twist of his lips, the cynical note in his voice and his whole elegant yet raffish appearance.
There was no one so handsome, so exciting, so – she blushed at the word – masculine.
But what had she to offer him?
A girl who knew nothing of the world and must in many ways seem stupid and definitely very foolish? A girl who had thrust herself upon him against his will and now, having outstayed her welcome, would not go?
Baptista put her hands up to her eyes and thought that it was impossible to feel more helpless or indeed more humiliated than she did at the moment.
‘If he cannot find Mama – I must – leave him,’ she told herself.
Her whole body and mind cried out in agony at the thought of being alone, of knowing that he was somewhere in the world, but she could not see him and of being afraid, but he would not be there to rescue her.
‘What am I to do? Oh, God – what – am I to – do?’
The question came from the very depths of her heart and she thought despairingly that there was no easy answer and if there was she was unlikely to find it.
‘He wants me to go! He wants to enjoy himself in Paris and I am preventing him from doing so.’
That caused another pain in her heart. Then she remembered that she was penniless, that she owed to the Earl the very clothes she wore and doubted if she would ever be able to repay him for all he had done for her.
She heard the door open and turned round eagerly.
Surely the Earl could not have returned so quickly? Yet it must, she thought, be over an hour since he had left.
It was the Vicomte who came into the library.
“I was not expecting to find you here all alone!” he exclaimed.
“My uncle has an appointment,” Baptista replied.
She saw as she spoke that the Vicomte remembered where his friend had gone and knew it was somewhere that she could not accompany him.
“Yes, of course,” he said quickly, “and I should have tried to entertain you in his absence.”
“It is not too late now,” Baptista said with a little smile, “and I would like you to tell me which of these modern novels you think I would enjoy most.”
“They are all far too sophisticated for you,” the Vicomte replied.
“You talk as if I was a child and could only be amused by Fairy stories!” Baptista said indignantly. “But I am grown-up and I wish to read the type of books that other girls of my age read years ago.”
“You talk as if your reading has been restricted,” the Vicomte said curiously. “Surely his Lordship is not such an ogre when it comes to the education of his nieces? Even if they are as pretty as you are!”
With a little start Baptista realised that she had been speaking as herself, forgetting that she was supposed to be the Earl’s niece.
“It is not Uncle Irvin who has restricted me,” she said quickly, “but my Governesses.”
“And, of course, your father and mother,” the Vicomte added.
Baptista nodded her head.
Because she felt a little embarrassed by the conversation, she looked more closely at the books on the shelf.
“Shall I read Madame Bovary?” she asked. “I am sure that I have read reviews of it in the newspapers.”
“It is considered very improper,” the Vicomte replied, “even though it is a masterpiece!”
“Improper or not I must certainly read it.”
“I think you are too young.”
He came nearer to Baptista as he spoke to look down at her with a strange expression in his eyes.
“You are so very young, untouched and doubtless very innocent,” he said, almost as if he spoke to himself.
She looked up at him in surprise and he asked,
“Have you ever been kissed?”
“N-no,” Baptista answered, “but I have – thought about – it.”
“What have you thought?”
Baptista felt again the Earl’s lips on her hand and the strange feeling they had evoked in her.
She wondered what she would feel if the Earl kissed her lips and she knew that because she loved him it would be the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to her.
When she had kissed his hand last night, she had felt a kind of vibration that was echoed within her heart.
At the time she had not understood what it meant.
Now she thought that it was because there was some magnetism that he exuded of which she had always been aware in her mind, but had not thought it physical as it was when her lips were touching his skin.
“Tell me what you think you would feel if you were kissed,” the Vicomte asked.
His voice broke in on her thoughts and she said, thinking of the Earl,
“I am sure it would be wonderful – very very – wonderful – more wonderful than – anything that has ever happened to me – before. At the same time I would be – afraid.”
“Afraid?” the Vicomte asked in a puzzled voice.
“That the man I was kissing would be – disappointed because I was so – inexperienced.”
“I think that is very unlikely. Most men would be thrilled to kiss anyone as beautiful as you for the first time.”
The Vicomte’s voice seemed to deepen.
Then he moved nearer still and put his arms around Baptista.
“Let me show you how wonderful a kiss can be,” he said softly, “and I promise that you will not be disappointed.”
Because Baptista, deep in her thoughts of the Earl, had hardly been conscious of the Vicomte as a man she was taken by surprise.
Before she realised what was happening, he pulled her to him and putting his hand under her chin, tipped her face up to his.
It was then she realised that he was about to kiss her and started to struggle.
“No – no!” she cried.
Then, as she found that she was captive in his arms and he was very strong, she gave a little scream.
It was then a furious voice from the door exclaimed,
“What the devil is going on?”
As the Vicomte turned his head, his arm, which had encircled Baptista, relaxed and she fought herself free of him.
She ran across the room to the Earl and, as she flung herself against him, holding onto the lapels of his coat with both hands, he knew that she was trembling.
He looked over her head and his eyes met those of the Vicomte.
For a moment neither man moved or spoke.
Then the Vicomte walked across the room, opened another door at the far end of it and went out, slamming it behind him.
The Earl looked down at Baptista. Her face was hidden against his shoulder.
Very slowly his arm went around her.
“I am – sorry,” she said in a muffled voice. “It was – my fault.”
“Your fault?” the Earl questioned.
His voice was angry, echoing the fury that he felt surging inside him.
“He asked me if I – had ever been – kissed,” Baptista said in a hesitating little voice, “and I told him I – thought it – would be very wonderful – but I was thinking of you – not him.”
She knew the Earl stiffened, but he did not speak and after a moment she lifted her face to look up at him saying,
“P-please – before I have to – leave you – before you take me to Mama – will you – kiss me just once – so that I will have – something to remember?”
There was a pleading expression not only in her voice but in her blue eyes which the Earl had heard and seen before.
He looked down at her, thinking it would be impossible for any woman to look lovelier or so pure and untouched.
Then, as if he could not help himself, his arms tightened and slowly, as if it was a moment he would savour and remember, his lips came down on hers.
He kissed her very gently, as a man might have kissed a child. He knew that Baptista’s lips were as he had thought they would be, soft, sweet, very young and inexperienced with a wonder that was spiritual more than physical, and could only have been expressed in music.
Then he knew that his kiss had aroused in Baptista a rapture that made her instinctively move closer to him.
He could feel the ecstasy she was experiencing vibrate from her lips to his and awaken in him sensations he had never known before.
It was so perfect that for a moment he was dazzled by it, as if they were both enveloped by a light that was Divine.
Then, as he held her closer still and his kiss became more insistent, more demanding, he felt as if he possessed her and she was a part of him and they were indivisible.
To Baptista it was as if she had stepped into a celestial world that she had always sensed was there, but was very different from the Heaven her father preached about.
This was the rapture of the spheres, a glory and a beauty, which she knew was sacred and Divine and yet at the same time she felt her whole body thrill with ecstatic sensations that she did not even know existed.
It was so wonderful, so perfect that she knew she not only loved the Earl with every nerve and sinew of her body, but when she had to leave him some part of her would die because without him there would only be darkness and desolation.
Then his lips became more demanding and more passionate.
She knew that love was not soft, sweet and gentle, as she had always thought it would be, but fierce, impetuous, demanding.
She felt as if a little flame awoke within her that suddenly became a burning fire and she thought, although she was not sure, that the same fire burned within him.
It was so wonderful, so rapturous, that she felt as if she had suddenly come alive and had never known what it was to live before.
The Earl raised his head.
For a moment she could only stare at him in a bewildered manner. Then she said in a voice that did not sound like her own,
“I love you! I – love you! I did not – know that love could be so – wonderful – so absolutely glorious!”
“Neither did I,” the Earl answered.
Then he was kissing her again – kissing her fiercely, passionately, and yet she was not afraid.
It was as if the fire within her had reached her lips and met the fire on his and, as they burned, it carried them both up into the blazing heat of the sun.
Only when, because she was human, she broke under the very strain of her own emotions, did Baptista with a little murmur, hide her face against the Earl’s shoulder.
“My precious!” he said. “I did not mean this to happen.”
“I – know,” Baptista murmured, “but I cannot – h-help loving you. You are so marvellous – so kind – so magnificent!”
The Earl gave a little laugh.
“You make me conceited, but that is how I want you to think of me, my darling. But we must now try to think of how we can get ourselves out of a rather difficult situation.”
Baptista raised her eyes to his.
“You are lovely!” the Earl said, and his voice was hoarse. “So lovely I am only surprised that I have been able to keep my hands off you until now, especially when we lay in bed together, side by side.”
“I was – afraid you merely – thought I was being – tiresome and you would – rather have been alone,” Baptista stammered.
“That is what I told myself I should think,” the Earl said, “but actually I was very conscious of you all night and I wanted to kiss you then, Baptista. But it was something I knew I should not do and you trusted me.”
“How could I have been so – foolish not to have asked you to – kiss me as I did just – now?” Baptista asked.
“You will never have to ask me again,” the Earl replied.
Then he was kissing her eyes, her cheeks, the dimples at the side of her mouth and lastly her lips.
He kissed her until the library seemed to whirl around them both and they felt as if they were disembodied and their feet were no longer on the ground.
Then the Earl drew her firmly across the room to the sofa and made her sit down on it an
d sitting next to her he took her hand in his.
“Listen to me, my precious one,” he said, “let us try to be sensible for a moment. We have to leave and the only thing to decide is where we should go.”
He saw the light come into Baptista’s eyes and he added,
“We can spend our honeymoon anywhere in the world except Paris.”
“H-honey – moon?”
It was difficult for her to say the word and it was only a murmur. At the same time her heart was singing.
To the Earl she looked as if there were stars in her eyes and stardust in the air around her.
“You are going to marry me!” he said firmly. “I am not even going to ask you, my precious one, because I will not allow you to say ‘no’.”
“As if I – would want to,” Baptista breathed. “At the same time – are you sure – absolutely sure that you – want me as your – wife?”
“I think I have wanted you from the very moment I saw you,” the Earl replied, “but I was so foolish I did not realise you were the woman I have been seeking all my life and thought I should never find.”
“Is that true – really true?”
“I will prove it as soon as we are married. But first, my dearest heart, we have to escape from here without their being suspicious.”
“Where shall we – go?”
“Venice is the place for lovers and it can be very beautiful at this time of the year.”
“Then please – take me there and quickly – so that I can be – close to you.”
The Earl smiled.
“We will be close, my adorable little love, long before we reach Venice.”
He turned her hand over in his and pressed his lips on her palm.
He felt her quiver as he did so and he knew the feelings that ran through him were something that he too had never felt before.
He put her hand down in her lap and said,
“I must not touch you for it makes me unable to think.”
Baptista gave a little murmur of happiness, but did not speak and the Earl went on,
“I shall tell Pierre that I have discovered where your mother is and I am taking you to her.”
Signpost To Love Page 13
