Count the Stars

by Barbara Cartland

  She was wearing a white lawn blouse which the Duke saw revealed the curves of her breasts and he also perceived that on it was fastened three brooches.

  There were three little diamond stars varying in size and he thought that they were somehow very appropriate for Valora.

  She must have followed the direction of his eyes and, as if he had asked the question, she said,

  “They were Mama’s and I had to hide them from my stepmother, otherwise she would have taken them away from me.”

  “That was clever of you,” the Duke smiled.

  But as he spoke he was aware from very long experience that the diamond stars, while very attractive, especially when a woman wore them in her hair, were not particularly valuable and he hoped that Valora’s grandfather would be rich enough to keep her in comfort.

  Another idea presented itself to his mind, but he thrust it away from him and said aloud,

  “As you have made yourself so comfortable and the sun is becoming overwhelmingly hot, will you allow me to remove my riding coat?”

  “Of course,” Valora replied, with a smile.

  “I have not thanked you yet for my cravats,” the Duke said. “I have never had them better washed or starched to exactly the right stiffness as prescribed by Beau Brummel.”

  “I am glad you are pleased,” Valora replied. “Do you aspire to be a dandy?”

  “Certainly not!” the Duke said positively.

  “I think you could be one,” Valora went on, “especially when you tie your cravat as well as you have done this morning.”

  “Dandies are affected, frivolous creatures,” the Duke said. “If you like to call me a beau or a Corinthian, that is a different matter.”

  “I feel sure that you are a Corinthian from the way you ride,” Valora answered. “But are they not all very important aristocrats?”

  The way she asked the question made the Duke aware that it had not occurred to her that he was in a position to associate with such lofty social figures.

  He told himself that once again he was facing the truth in a blunt fashion.

  It was obvious that Valora was not in the least suspicious that he might be other than an ordinary somewhat impoverished country gentleman.

  He was aware how Freddie would laugh if he knew he almost felt piqued that his real identity was not more obvious.

  ‘This again is good for my soul,’ he told himself wryly, as he helped himself to the food which was certainly better than anything they had eaten on the previous days.

  The wine when it was cooled seemed very enjoyable, but the Duke was not certain whether it was the wine itself or the sight of Valora seated by the side of the stream with the full skirt of her habit billowing out around her and looking like a flower.

  She was watching the water moving crystal clear over the stony bottom, the birds flying down to drink from it and the sunshine glittering golden to make the whole picture seem somehow enchanting.

  ‘That is what I am,’ the Duke told himself, ‘enchanted.’

  Then he thought cynically it was doubtless an enchantment that would vanish as soon as he returned to civilisation.

  Then, watching Valora’s face, he realised that she was worried about something.

  “What is troubling you?” he asked.

  “I was thinking of that poor woman at the inn.”

  “You helped her and you should not add her troubles to your own.”

  “She was so grateful for the money – there were tears in her eyes,” Valora said.

  She looked down at the stream as if she was shy, before she added,

  “But there – is – something I don’t understand.”

  “What is that?” the Duke asked.

  He was not particularly interested, as he was thinking how beautiful Valora’s little straight nose was silhouetted against the trees on the opposite bank.

  “I enquired,” Valora said in a very small voice, “why she did not ask the – father of her – child to – help her.”

  She stopped speaking, then after a palpable pause the Duke asked,

  “What did she reply?”

  “She – said,” Valora answered and the words were almost inaudible, “that she did not – know who he – was.”

  There was silence and then she added,

  “I do not understand how could she not – know, but that is what she – said, and so I would like you to – explain how a – woman begins to have a – baby.”

  She looked up at the Duke as she spoke and he saw her eyes wide, troubled and very innocent.

  For a moment he was astonished that she should be so ignorant. Then, as he wondered how he could possibly answer her, he knew he was in love!

  A strange feeling swept over him and, because it was something he had never felt before for any woman, he recognised it instantly for what it was.

  It was love that made him want to protect Valora, not only from the men who were following her, from a beast as cruel as Sir Mortimer, but also from a knowledge of the world that might hurt or shock her.

  Never before in his life had the Duke felt the urge to protect a woman and never before had he known that he not only desired one but also felt as if she was something sacred.

  It all swept over him like a flash of lightning or a shaft of sunlight and he was aware that Valora’s artless question had awakened a chivalry that had lain dormant within him for years.

  Because ladies in the Social world in which he moved had a freedom of speech and a looseness of morals introduced by the King, which was very different from the behaviour of his mother’s generation, the Duke had grown to expect nothing else.

  The women he knew were sometimes as outrageous in what they said as they were in their behaviour.

  It had never crossed his mind before that any one of them would be ignorant about the lovemaking between a man and a woman or that innocence was a desirable quality in itself.

  Yet now that he looked into Valora’s eyes and saw how puzzled and bewildered she was, he felt as if she was a Saint he must place in a shrine in his heart or perhaps a small angel who must not on any count be contaminated by the world.

  ‘I love her,’ he told himself, ‘and she is everything I have been looking for in my life. I have been bored and disillusioned because I could not find her.’

  She was waiting for his reply and he longed to put his arms around her and tell her he would look after her and keep her safe not only from physical danger but also from everything that worried her in her mind.

  But he knew that it was too soon!

  Men had frightened and shocked her and, although she trusted him, the Duke was well aware that she talked to him impersonally.

  In fact her question might have been directed to a father or a brother, but certainly not to a man for whom she had any deep feeling.

  “I understand what is troubling you,” he said at length quietly, “but because I feel we must move on, can we talk about it another time?”

  The expression in Valora’s eyes altered and she looked down again at the stream.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, “but it is so lovely here I wish we could stay longer.”

  “Perhaps one day we will come back or find another enchanted place just like it.”

  “Enchanted!” Valora exclaimed. “That is the right word! That is just what I have been feeling it really is.”

  “And so have I,” the Duke agreed.

  Her eyes lit up as she went on,

  “Do you really think that or are you just saying it to please me?”

  “I think you must realise by now,” he answered, “that I try to tell the truth. I think it would be an insult to our friendship to do anything else.”

  He had deliberately accentuated the word ‘friendship’.

  Valora responded with a smile as she said,

  “But, of course, friends must always be honest and frank with each other and we are friends really and truly – are we not?”

  She had risen to
her feet as she spoke, as the Duke had risen to his and it was with difficulty he resisted an impulse to put his arms around her and tell her what he felt was not friendship but something very much deeper.

  Instead he said,

  “Really and truly, cross my heart!”

  Valora gave a chuckle of delight at his words and put her hat on her head.

  Then, as she picked up her jacket, she asked,

  “Shall we ride as we are? It’s very hot.”

  “I think there are few people about who would criticise us for looking unconventional,” the Duke replied.

  “No,” she answered, “and every mile we are going further and further away from anything that might be horrid and frightening.”

  “I am sure we have crossed the border into a new and uncharted land,” the Duke said lightly, and hoped it was the truth.

  Unpredictably he still, however, had an unexplained presentiment of danger and despite the heat they moved quickly with the horses responding to what was asked of them.

  *

  They had been riding for some hours when Mercury suddenly slowed down and Valora gave an exclamation. She was behind the Duke and he looked back.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I think Mercury has picked up a stone in his hoof.”

  Valora would have dismounted, but the Duke prevented her, saying,

  “Hold Samson’s bridle and let me see.”

  As he jumped to the ground, he hoped fervently that Mercury had not gone lame.

  Nothing could be more disastrous at this moment and although he thought it unlikely, as they had been moving over meadowland that was not infested with rabbit-holes, there was the possibility of a strained tendon.

  Feeling apprehensive, he picked up Mercury’s hind hoof and saw that Valora was right. There was a stone wedged beneath the shoe.

  The Duke walked back to his saddle.

  When he was riding, he carried in his saddle-pocket a special instrument for removing stones from horses’ hooves.

  So many of the country roads were in bad repair, especially after rainy weather or a winter storm which dispersed the dust, that it was easy for a horse to pick up a stone, which would make him lame until it was extracted.

  Knowing what he had to do, Valora slipped from the saddle and stood holding Mercury by the bridle, patting his neck and talking to him in case he was frightened.

  Not that what the Duke was about to do would hurt him, she knew, it was only that he might be nervous at being handled by a stranger. He could buck or rear or make things difficult just by being restless.

  “You are a silly boy to delay us,” she said, talking to him in a soft voice, which made Mercury nuzzle his nose against her.

  The Duke tried to extract the stone, but found it firmly wedged.

  He straightened his back, and Valora asked,

  “Have you done it?”

  “Not yet,” the Duke replied. “It is rather complicated, but I will try again.”

  This was another task he had not attempted for a long time and he wondered if he was being singularly inept or if the stone was more difficult than might have been expected.

  Then, as he probed the stone came away, but so did the shoe. He swore softly beneath his breath and, although Valora had not heard what he said, she sensed his annoyance.

  “What is the matter?”

  “We shall have to find a blacksmith.”

  “There is sure to be one not far away,” Valora replied confidently.

  “I hope so,” the Duke answered.

  Carrying the horseshoe in his hand, he came to Valora’s side and said,

  “We will take it easy and Mercury will come to no harm without a shoe on this soft ground, but it is essential that he should have one before we go very much further.”

  “Mercury is very apologetic for being a nuisance!”

  “I am sure he realises that it is through no fault of his own and perhaps the responsibility lies with the last blacksmith who shod him.”

  “I hope not,” Valora answered. “He is a dear old man who attended to all Papa’s horses and always talked as if he was a doctor and they were his patients.”

  “Then I hope we find one of his kind in the next village,” the Duke replied and they rode on.

  Valora was not in the least perturbed that they could not travel as fast as they had in the morning.

  All the time they had been galloping with an urgency that surprised her, she had been thinking time was slipping away and that once they reached York she might never see him again.

  She had been certain when she awoke from a fretful sleep that he was longing to be free from the responsibility of taking her to her grandfather and to be able to focus on his own concerns.

  As he had not volunteered any information as to why he was going to York, she felt somehow it would be bad manners to ask him anything that was too personal.

  Now when she thought about it, she realised that he had never talked about his family, his home or even his friends.

  ‘I expect he is naturally reserved,’ she thought to herself, ‘or else he has no wish to confide in me.’

  All the same she wanted to know if he had brothers and sisters, if his mother and father were alive and where they lived.

  All she really knew was that, like herself, he had no wish to be married and that no one could have been kinder or more considerate than he had been when she had been utterly in despair.

  ‘He is very wonderful,’ she told herself now as they rode side by side, the Duke holding in Samson to keep pace with Mercury.

  In his shirtsleeves without a coat he looked, she thought, stronger and more masculine than he had ever done before.

  Under her eyelashes she glanced at his classical profile, as he stared ahead looking for a village where he hoped to find a blacksmith.

  Then she noticed the broadness of his shoulders and thought that she could almost see a rippling of his muscles under the thin lawn of his shirt. His waist was small and he rode a horse as if he was a part of it.

  Valora was aware that astride such a magnificent black stallion as Samson, man and beast made a picture that might have stepped straight out of mythology.

  ‘He is God-like,’ she mused.

  Then she remembered that the Gods themselves had come down to earth because they wished to behave like men and enjoy the pleasures with which mankind was blessed, especially that of love.

  Valora looked ahead again, away from the Duke.

  She was conscious of a very strange feeling within her, a feeling that she could not explain to herself. It was different from anything she had known before. It was something like a yearning and yet more intense.

  At the same time she was conscious of her heart beating in her breast and an odd constriction in her throat.

  ‘Perhaps it was the wine I drank at luncheon that makes me feel like this,’ Valora told herself, but she knew that was not really the explanation.

  “There is a village!” the Duke exclaimed.

  Valora saw above the trees a spire of a Church and, a few seconds later, several chimneypots.

  “Wish or rather pray hard,” the Duke said, “that there will be a blacksmith here with a forge and that he is at home.”

  Valora had lived in the country and knew that blacksmiths were often away visiting farms or a Nobleman’s stables and sometimes village horses would have to wait days or even weeks before he could attend to them.

  Because the Duke had told her to do so, she did send up a little prayer in her heart that the blacksmith was there. At the same time she knew that a delay would not perturb her.

  To reach the village they left the meadowland and found themselves on a road that might have been a main one, which obviously passed through the centre of the village itself.

  First there were a number of quite attractive cottages with diamond-paned windows and twisted Elizabethan chimneys, then there was a shop, bow-fronted, outside which there stood several women wi
th baskets on their arms.

  Beyond, on the opposite side of the road there was a Churchyard with a lychgate and quite a number of people passing through it.

  The Duke was just about to draw in Samson and ask if there was a blacksmith’s shop, when Valora gave a cry and pointed ahead of them.

  Almost exactly opposite the Church she could see a horse being held in a large open doorway and beyond it the flaring light of a forge.

  “We are in luck,” the Duke said quietly and they rode on until they reached the smithy.

  The blacksmith was a huge man, past middle age but still with the muscles of a prizefighter. He was just finishing shoeing a horse and a man was holding another one by the bridle.

  The blacksmith glanced up at the Duke as he appeared in the entrance, realised that he was a gentleman and said,

  “I’ll not keep you long, sir. This customer be ready!”

  He took the horse’s hoof off his knee as he spoke and put it down on the ground.

  As he rose to a great height, the owner said, “thank ’e, Jim!’ and slapped a shilling down on the side of the forge.

  The Duke went out into the road to where Valora was standing holding both Samson and Mercury.

  “Your prayers are very efficacious,” he said. “We have not only found a blacksmith, but he is free to fix Mercury’s shoe. It should not take long.”

  Valora smiled at him, as he took Mercury from her and led him into the forge.

  Mercury was a little nervous, but the Duke handled him expertly and, as he had often been shoed before, after a moment or so he was still.

  Outside Valora was aware that a Service was taking place in the Church and she thought it must be a wedding. She could hear the music of an organ and boys’ voices singing a hymn that was one commonly sung at weddings.

  She was wondering what the bride was like, if she was very happy and if she really wanted to marry the man to whom she was being wed, when suddenly she heard the sound of hooves.

  Looking back the way she and the Duke had come, she saw a horse travelling at a tremendous speed down the road towards her.

  She was watching the man riding it with no great interest, when, as he drew near, she was aware that there was something familiar about him.

  She started, thinking that she must be mistaken.