The Last Earl

by Lara Blunte

  "We have had enough suffering, my love," he said tenderly. "It's enough now..."

  Tears flooded the eyes that were raised to his. He kissed her again, and it felt good, so good. The wound hurt as he embraced her, but he wouldn't have let go of her even if his stitches had come undone after all. He touched her hair, and slowly kissed her face and her eyes. He kissed her tears too, then kissed her lips with salt on his.

  They were tired and battered, but he could not allow her to doubt what he felt; no, he would never again allow it.

  

  He looked at her face, drinking in every detail, as an unexpected breeze moved the leaves above their heads and let the sunlight through.

  "My Kate," he said softly. "I didn’t want to love you, and now I don’t think I will ever stop ─so you must do the honorable thing and marry me."

  "You said you would never marry anyone..."

  "I said I couldn't, but now I can," he said. "I want a long life with you and Anne where you won't ever weep any more, unless it's for joy, and I won't be stabbed or shot at again ─ because by now I feel like the bloody Earl of Pincushion."

  "But you don't have to marry me," she said. "I threw myself at you..."

  "And I have never liked anything that was thrown at me as much!"

  She shook her head. "Oh, Adrian, I have been so ashamed I could hardly look at you! I saw that you were ready to die on that street, because you suffered even more because of me, when you had endured so much already.”

  "I wanted to live, because of you!” He caressed her cheek. "And if the thought of marrying me horrifies you, remember that I have a great advantage over all other men."

  She smiled. "That you are a rich Catholic boy?"

  "No, that you like how I dance!" he said triumphantly. Catherine laughed, and there was true joy in her eyes again. He added, "I promise to always dance with you, and we will be happy, as we were last summer."

  "At Halford?"

  "No, not at Halford. Somewhere new, where there is no sadness."

  She smiled, "So you will have yet another house?"

  "A small one.”

  Her face became serious. “Adrian, Edmund told me that the doctor had said that I might never have another child. Who knows if it’s true, but you might never have an heir…”

  “We have a child,” he said.

  “But, she is a girl and…”

  He was shaking his head at her, “Do you really think I care about that, after all we went through? Do you know how happy I am to have a fat little daughter with eyes just like yours, and how much I want the devil to take all those titles, all those castles and everything else except for you and her? I think you know it!” He smoothed her hair, smiling, “If our Anne turns out to be half the person her mother is, she will be better than any boy! And yet, much as I don’t like my names and what they mean, I want her to have them. Be my wife?”

  Her beautiful eyes were shining and she put a hand on his chest. "I will be your wife."

  Adrian kissed her hand and then kissed her lips as if he could never stop. He felt her breasts against him, her hair in his hands. This is how things should always be, he thought. After a long while he asked, "Why are you marrying me?"

  Catherine opened her eyes, which now had something of a steely a glint that he recognized. "When you were so beastly to me in London, I swore you'd be the first to say you loved me. And that even then I wouldn't say it."

  He lifted his eyebrows. "In my defense, I was trying to protect you from..."

  "I don't care!"

  There was the girl he had met, petulant and willful. Adrian loved her willfulness, which had kept her alive so that she could return to him. He even loved her petulance. He laughed, "That's my Kate! Who knew I would come to cherish even your horrible faults? I gather, then, that you'll never say you love me?"

  She shrugged. "Perhaps."

  "All right. But, my love, if you decide to, try to say it before you're an old hag or I might not even look up from the newspaper."

  Catherine could immediately conjure up the scene: Adrian with a head of white hair and glasses, she wrinkled and crabby, both sitting in a drawing room after a lifetime of tedious but happy days. She loved the tableau her mind offered her so much that her laughter rang out loud and clear through the garden.

  Sitting in the kitchen with his glass of tea Omar heard it and smiled. All was right with the world.

  V. Eleven. Pera

  On their wedding day Adrian, who only followed the traditions he liked, insisted that he was not to see her until both were inside the church. He also assured her that there would be bells because he liked them, in moderation.

  Through the window Catherine did see him pacing the garden with Anne in his arms. She wanted to send him a rebuke, but she didn't. She felt such a sweet ache watching father and daughter that she couldn't stop him. If knives and bullets hadn't killed him, she thought, how would holding his little girl do any harm?

  When she went into her dressing room, there was a parcel on the chair. She opened it and found a white dress. There was a note attached to it. She took it and read,

  My darling,

  Leila has been dinning in my ears that foreign ladies get married in white. We should make the girl happy.

  Also, I confess that since becoming a father, I've turned sentimental. I would be honored if you wore white, not because of a virtue the world cares for, but because you are the brightest light in my life, and you have the bravest heart.

  A.

  There might have been a tear or two at this, if she hadn't been so tired of tears. Something else was written on the other side of the paper.

  PS: I finally know where the damned leopard was going with that rose.

  Catherine lifted the dress, and there was a perfect red rose beneath it.

  

  Leila was so excited that Catherine didn't know whether to kiss her or tie her up.

  The girl had been asked to return with them to England, and she had cried with happiness. Adrian had remarked that there might be a fight to the death between Leila and Henriette, and Catherine had told him they would love each other like sisters, or she would get very unpleasant. She could in no way imagine leaving the orphan girl behind, when she was so devoted to them, and could hardly let go of Anne.

  When Leila finished fastening the dress, she ran around Catherine and clasped her hands, "Oh, you look so beautiful, so beautiful. Like a dream!"

  Catherine turned to look in the mirror. It was a simple dress, modest at the neckline and snug at the waist. She wasn't about to wear a crinoline, but the skirt was full enough and elegant. There was some embroidery on it, and a few discreet beads that shone a little in the light. It was a perfect dress, she thought: it fit well, though she had never tried it on.

  She sat down so that Leila could do her hair: there was not much that she could do with it, as it still barely reached her chin.

  "European women wear white veils when they get married," Leila was saying regretfully. "I saw a lady only yesterday coming out of the church in the Grand Avenue. You would look so beautiful in a white veil."

  "I won't wear a veil, Leila. But please find a way to pin this to my hair, behind." Catherine held up the rose.

  "What does it mean?" asked Leila as she parted Catherine's hair in the middle and pinned the rose above the nape of her neck, so that she looked as if she might be wearing a chignon.

  Catherine smiled. "It means that I am marrying the man I've chosen."

  Leila was very happy at this. Catherine eyed the box that the girl was showing her, which contained the jewelry that she had brought with her from England. Leila tried to tempt her with earrings or a necklace, but Catherine declined. She didn't want any other adornment than the rose.

  Then, as Leila went off to dress Anne, Catherine heard music.

  She got up and went to the door of the dressing room, putting her ear to it. Adrian was at the piano. She could hear the notes to something beautiful: it
must be by Mr. Schubert, she thought smiling.

  Catherine kept her cheek against the door as he played, and closed her eyes. The music lulled her and told her that the darkness would lift, and that happiness was about to begin. Before the piece was finished, it stopped. Adrian must be in pain, sitting at the piano on the hard bench. She lingered by the door, dreaming.

  She didn't know it, but as he passed her dressing room silently he also stopped, put his ear to the wood and listened. They were only separated by the space of a door.

  

  The church was small and old, standing at the end of a tranquil square. As Adrian had promised, the bells were ringing as she approached, and they seemed to urge her to enter as quickly as possible.

  She stepped down from the open chariot, helped by Leila, who fussed around her gown. The few people in the square, local or foreign, smiled and waved to her. A little girl ran up and hugged her around the waist, smiling. Leila allowed it.

  "It brings good luck!" she said.

  Catherine waved back at her well wishers and moved through the charming little garden that led to the steps of the modest stone church with its round dome. She thought for a moment of what the wedding between the Earl of Halford and the heiress of the Viscount Ware would have been, had they been in England.

  She thought of the cathedral and of the hundreds of people who would have been inside whispering, gossiping, remarking on everything. She thought of the amount of flowers there would have been, the choir, the archbishop who would lead the service because of who they were; she thought that her dress would have been made in Paris, that her veil would have been very long, and that she would have been laden with priceless jewels.

  She thought of the reception afterwards, of all the food, guests and servants.

  Then she thought how changed she was, that she cared for none of those things. When she reached the door of the church, she smiled: it was so simple inside, almost bare. There were mosaics shimmering on the wall, an altar covered in a pristine linen cloth and a great gold crucifix. She made the sign of the cross as she stepped in.

  There was no music, there were no flowers. But as she looked around she saw Omar and Abed, who had risked their lives so many times to help them, and she saw Anne in Omar's arms. She felt a hand take hers and looked down at Leila. The girl smiled with such joy that Catherine couldn't help feeling moved.

  Lady Ware had once told her that there was more kindness in the world than she knew. She understood now that there was evil, evil without mercy and often without reason; but that day she only had a fleeting thought for the man who had made them suffer for so long. There were love and friendship among the people in that church, love waiting for them at home, and love most often triumphed, and made up for all troubles.

  She had arrived at the altar and she finally looked at Adrian and her heart beat faster, as it almost always did when she saw him. As she started to climb the three steps towards him Leila let go of her hand, and he reached out and took it. They stood face to face, and the priest began the service. Catherine inclined her head slightly to the side and Adrian saw the rose, and smiled. She knew he understood that it meant that she loved him, more than she had ever done, more than she ever thought she could, even when she was almost dying of passion for him.

  They had been to hell and back together, and nothing but death would ever tear them asunder.

  When it was Adrian's turn to say his vows Leila came forward, bearing the gold ring he had given her in London. He took it and looked at Catherine with a glimmer of his usual irony. She had so wanted to know what it meant, long ago, and he was about to tell her.

  "I, Adrian, take thee, Catherine, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life, for as long as we both shall live."

  She looked at her hand in his as he put the ring on her finger. She had been at weddings before, never paying much attention to the service, but that day she heard every word, and she found them beautiful.

  For this strange man who was now her husband never said anything that he didn't mean, and never made a promise that he didn't keep.

  EPILOGUE

  In his life, Adrian had suffered from the greed and envy that wealth inspired, and had understood that titles, castles and palaces were useless things. He would be the last of his lineage, as he had wished.

  Anne would one day inherit inordinate wealth and lavish properties, and she would pass the titles of Earl of Halford, Viscount Montrose, Baron Layne and Viscount Ware to her son, and he to his ─ but the family name would no longer be Stowe.

  As Adrian promised, they went to live in a house of about twenty rooms in the south of Italy, where it was warm. Lady Ware went with them, unable to bear being parted from her Kitty again, or from her little granddaughter. She only had to be careful not to look behind doors, and not to walk into any rooms without making a great deal of noise first, or she might catch her daughter and son-in-law kissing; and she never quite managed to stop blushing when they ran up to their bedroom all of a sudden.

  The household was an eccentric one, where French, Italian and Arabic were spoken as much as English, where Henriette and Leila had a great deal of sway – one about household affairs, the other about how to bring up little Anne – and where Catherine would have become quite unpleasant if everyone did not get along, as she had had enough trouble for a lifetime.

  However, her husband’s second promise was that they would be happy, and they were: Catherine and Anne brought love and laughter back into Adrian’s life, and he taught them to be free, and to do things in a different way.

  His third promise was to dance with his wife, and he always did. He only regretted this promise ten years into their marriage, when The Blue Danube started to be played everywhere and Catherine insisted on dancing it often, sometimes twice in a row.

  She, on the other hand, did not keep her promise to herself, and told him that she loved him many, many times; many more times than she had thought the words without saying them.

  There had been a last thing for the nineteenth Earl of Halford to do in his castle, before he had the furniture and the enormous chandeliers covered once more, and the great doors and windows locked: he found the portrait of his Aunt Bianca and put it back where it belonged. The beautiful girl forever smiled serenely amidst her family, as if she had never been anywhere else, as if her banishment had not unleashed a tragedy and years of cruelty and sorrow.

  Once this was done, Catherine and Adrian walked up the stairs to the roof of the castle, to look at the vast green land they were leaving behind. He carried Anne in his arm and she was a wild little thing in her cotton dress, her cheek pressed against her father’s shoulder. As they watched the sun set beyond the sparkling river, he smiled at his Countess, and pulled her closer to kiss her.

  THE END

  *Attention: bonus below *

  Other books by Lara Blunte:

  True Born: the story of a bastard son of the Halford House in 1760. John leaves for war, swearing he will return and marry Georgiana. But her marriage to another man suddenly becomes a matter of life and death for her sisters, and she must forsake the man she loves. A man whose virtue is not forgiveness.

  The Abyss: A passionate regency romance set in 1808. When Napoleon invades Lisbon, the prince regent of Portugal and his court are forced to flee to their biggest colony, Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, Clara will meet the man she loves again, to find that there is an abyss between them. One of my favorites!

  To Be King: Winner of the Wattys 2015. King Tibold has a problem: his son and heir, the clever Prince Tameas, doesn't want to be king after him, and neither does he want to marry Lady Isobel, daughter of the warlike duke of the north, with whom an unbreakable alliance is needed. And Lady Isobel is already in love with the valiant Sir Harry.

  A Man in Africa: A contemporary romance. Roberta’s marriage ends on the day of her wedding. She leaves a faith
less man only to meet a handsome doctor with a cause in Uganda. Both are wary of love, but they find it hard to stay away from each other.

  BONUS

  Get This Hell of Mine for FREE by signing up at my website www.larablunte.com.

  It is the third story set around the title of the Earls of Halford, featuring Catherine and Adrian’s great-grandson.

  Set in the 1940s, it tells the story of James Hayburn and his passion for Lady Ashley Aguirre. Fascinating Mexico creates a lush backdrop to their forbidden love.

  With 4.9 stars in Amazon and Goodreads, this is my favorite book, and readers seem to agree.

  And pretty please, could you leave a review for The Last Earl? Reviews help other readers find and trust a book, giving it a longer life.

  As you turn the page, the file will make it really easy for you: a few words will do!