“I am – really married to – you?” Zelina asked him in a small voice.
“I promise you it is absolutely legal according to English Law and I think we both felt that we received the full Blessing of the Church.”
“The Service was very – beautiful and just the way that I would have – wished to be – married.”
“You do surprise me!” Lord Charnock answered. “I thought that every woman wanted bridesmaids, a huge congregation of friends and a vast Reception afterwards.”
Zelina laughed.
“That is something that I would have hated! The only person I – really wanted at my – Wedding was – you!”
“I should have said that first,” Lord Charnock smiled, “but we have not had much time for conversation, which is an error that we can make up for on the ship.”
As he spoke, he took her hand in his and, gently pulling off her travelling glove, raised it to his lips.
“Now that I have seen what Prince Alexis can be like,” he said quietly, “I realise how brave you have been.”
“I think the only – brave thing I did – was to run – away to you.”
Lord Charnock kissed her hand again.
Then, because words were unnecessary, she held on to him tightly until they reached the Harbour.
H.M.S. Dolphin, flying the Union Jack proudly, looked extremely impressive and, when they were piped aboard, the Captain was waiting to receive them.
“Welcome, my Lord,” he said to Lord Charnock, “and very sincere congratulations on behalf of myself and my crew.”
“Thank you, Captain” Lord Charnock replied.
He presented the Captain to Zelina, after which the Captain presented his Officers before he said,
“I have put my own cabins at your disposal, my Lord. And now, if you will excuse me, we now need to move out to sea with all possible speed, otherwise we shall be in danger of running aground on a sandbank.”
“That would be a tragedy that must not happen,” Lord Charnock remarked with a smile.
The Captain left them and another Officer escorted them below decks to where the two cabins that had been allotted to them seemed very palatial to Zelina.
The cabins were not so luxuriously decorated as on the Ischora, but the sitting cabin was comfortably furnished and boasted a long table where the Captain could entertain when he wished to do so.
In the sleeping cabin there was a large curtained four-poster bed, which made Zelina blush when she looked at it.
Her trunks were now neatly arranged so as not to be obstructive and a man was already unpacking one of them for her.
She looked in surprise at Lord Charnock, who explained,
“This is Hibbert, my valet, and I assure you that he will prove an extremely efficient lady’s maid until I can engage one for you, which will not be until we reach England.”
“I’ll do my best to look after you, my Lady,” Hibbert offered with a grin.
Zelina smiled back at him a little shyly, finding it strange to be addressed by her new title.
Then she and Lord Charnock went back into the Saloon and they were alone.
She looked at him a little uncertainly, feeling shy and yet excited. But there was still that dream-like quality about everything, which she had felt ever since she had reached the British Embassy.
“You are safe now,” Lord Charnock declared. “You are on a British ship and in a few minutes we shall be leaving Russia for what I hope will be a very long time.”
“I hope so – too,” Zelina agreed, “but – how can I – thank you?”
“I can think of a number of answers to that question,” Lord Charnock replied, “but first I suggest you take off your cloak and bonnet.”
Zelina raised her hands to do so, but he was beside her and undid the ribbons of her bonnet, lifting it from her head.
He threw it down on a chair and then unclasped the light cloak she wore over her gown and threw that after it.
He stood looking at her and she felt a sudden awareness of him in a way that was so thrilling that it was difficult to breathe.
“You are very beautiful, Zelina,” he sighed after a moment.
“Do you – really think so?” she asked. “When I saw the – beautiful Russian ladies, I was so afraid that you would – think it impossible to – find me even – pretty.”
He knew that she was thinking of the Countess Natasha and he smiled as he said,
“I thought you very lovely the first time I saw you. Then your face began to haunt me and it was difficult to look at any other woman without seeing you.”
“Is that really – true?” Zelina asked.
“I tried not to believe it,” Lord Charnock carried on, “just as I tried not to become too involved with you, my darling.”
“I-I tried not to – bother you.”
“Perhaps neither of us tried hard enough,” he said, “or perhaps Fate was stronger than all our efforts to escape from each other.”
“I did not – wish to escape – I was only afraid that you would – leave me.”
“That was what I meant to do. Then, when you put your hand into mine in the carriage, I knew that I loved you as I have never loved a woman before.”
He made an exasperated sound as he added,
“It is something I have been feeling ever since you asked me to help you, but I was so certain that I would never love anyone enough to marry her that I told myself you could mean nothing in my life and I must keep you out of it.”
“But you – really did – want to – marry me?”
“I promised myself that I would tell you how much,” Lord Charnock replied, “but it is difficult to put into words.”
He put his arms round her as he spoke and pulled her against him.
She lifted her face to him and he looked down at her for a long moment before his lips found hers.
As he kissed her, Zelina knew that this was what she had been wanting and longing for ever since they had been together on the Ischora.
It was then, she thought, that she had fallen in love with him. It had been impossible to think of anything but him and he had been in her thoughts from first thing in the morning to last thing at night.
Lord Charnock’s lips were gentle and tender and, as he felt her mouth quiver beneath his, he knew that it was the first time she had been kissed and how innocent and inexperienced she was.
Then the rapture and excitement rising in Zelina aroused the same feeling in him, so that he knew this kiss was very different from anything he had ever given to or received from a woman before.
To Zelina it was a kiss that held a wonder and a glory that was part of Heaven itself and at the same time it had the thrill and excitement that she had felt as she had watched the gypsy dancers and heard them sing.
It all seemed to mingle into an inexpressible rapture and was so amazing that she could not think clearly, but could only feel as if her whole body vibrated to a music that was part of the Divine and yet somehow at the same time was very human.
Only when she felt as if she was floating in the sky and her feet were no longer on the ground did Lord Charnock raise his head and she said a little incoherently,
“I – love you! I – love – you! Please – love me a little – too.”
“Do you think this is a little?” Lord Charnock asked.
Then he was kissing her again, demandingly, fiercely, insistently, as if he wooed her with his lips and she must surrender herself to him completely.
*
Later, as the ship began gathering speed, Lord Charnock drew Zelina to a sofa and they sat down, his arms round her and her head on his shoulder.
“How can you make me feel like this?” he asked in his deep voice. “I was sure that all I had to do, my darling one, was to teach you about love, but now I realise that I too have so much to learn.”
“I – want to make you – happy.”
“I am happy,” he answered, “so happy that I am no longer myself
but somebody so strange that I almost feel that I need to be introduced to him!”
Zelina laughed.
“How exciting it will be to get to – know you – but I love and adore what I – already know.”
“My precious one,” Lord Charnock said, “when you say things like that, I realise how incredibly lucky I am to have found you.”
“No, I am the lucky one. I used to imagine what the man I would marry would be like, but I could never have imagined anyone as wonderful or as marvellous as you.”
She moved a little nearer to him as she sighed,
“I did not – want to come to Russia. I – hated the – idea of it. But how could I know that in – doing so I would find – you?”
“I thought the same,” Lord Charnock agreed. “I had no wish to leave London on this mission to St. Petersburg.”
As he was speaking, he remembered that one of his reasons for wishing to refuse Lord Palmerston’s request was a very attractive woman who he had become interested in.
Now she seemed only a pale ghost and it was hard to remember even what she looked like.
As if Zelina knew what he was thinking, she said,
“When you know me – better, you may find me – disappointing after all the lovely ladies you have – loved in the past.”
“I have never loved anyone as I love you,” Lord Charnock asserted, “and I know that I shall never be disappointed, my precious one.”
“How can you be – certain?”
“Because I have never before been in love with anyone so young and so innocent and who was prepared for me to teach her.”
His arms tightened round Zelina as he asked,
“You are willing for me to do teach you?”
“You know I – want you to – teach me,” Zelina replied, “and I cannot imagine anything more – utterly glorious or perfect than that you – should teach me about – love.”
She hid her face against his shoulder as she added,
“I am afraid I am – very – very ignorant about love – except that I know what I – feel for you is the true love that only comes from God.”
“Our lessons, my adorable darling, will be not only thrilling but something that will last us for the rest of our lives. We have so much to discover about each other, so much to do in the future and I know that, just as you need me, I need you.”
“You are – sure of – that?”
“Very sure. You have already helped me,” Lord Charnock replied. “Do you realise, my clever little wife, that the information you gave me by listening to Count Nesselrode and Baron Brunnow was what I came to Russia to discover? But for you I should have had to admit that I had failed.”
Zelina drew in her breath with pleasure.
“Is that – really true? Have I – really been of help?”
“A very great help indeed! And, if I had not loved you and married you, I would still have been obliged to take you away from Russia just in case by sheer deduction the Prince discovered how you had been able to hide from him.”
“But you did marry me!”
“Yes, my darling, and I swear I will never allow you to regret it as I will never regret it.”
“As though I would!” Zelina cried. “I am going to thank God every day of my life, as I thanked Him today in the Embassy Chapel, that you should ‒ want me and love me.”
“I love you with my heart and my soul, if I have one, and my body,” Lord Charnock averred.
He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
Then he was kissing her again, kissing her more passionately and more insistently than he had done before and Zelina could feel his heart beating against her breast and knew that she excited him.
*
Very much later, when H.M.S. Dolphin was moving over the open sea and the Captain was looking for a sheltered place by the shore to anchor for the night, Zelina stirred against Lord Charnock’s shoulder.
In the big four-poster bed that Hibbert had made up with Lord Charnock’s own sheets that he always travelled with, she felt that they were in a small enchanted celestial ship of their own.
A ship within a ship, in which, as she had once wanted to do, they could sail away to a magical horizon never to return.
“Do you – still love me?” she whispered and felt Lord Charnock hold her closer against him.
“That is something I should be asking you, my darling. You are quite certain I have not frightened you?”
“You could never frighten me,” Zelina replied. “When I am close to you, I am safe and I know that – nothing can ever – hurt me.”
He kissed her forehead and she whispered,
“It was so wonderful when you – loved me – it was like watching the gypsies dance and hearing their music and yet what was happening with us was all part of the stars.”
“My precious, that is just what I want you to feel.”
“Was it – wonderful for you – too?”
He heard the anxiety in her voice and sensed that it was something that she had been wanting to ask him.
“Like you,” he said in his deep voice, “I had no idea that love could be so perfect and so beautiful. That is what you have brought me, Zelina – beauty! A beauty I swear to you I have never known before in my whole life.”
She gave a little cry and reached up her arms to pull his head down to hers.
“You – swear to me that is – true?”
“I swear it. And it is something I shall want to go on proving to you over and over again, my beautiful little wife.”
“I – adore you – I – worship you,” Zelina sighed softly.
Then, as if he had no words to reply to her with, Lord Charnock was kissing her and once again there was the wild ecstatic music of the gypsy violins.
The stars fell down from the sky to make them one and there was no more fear – only Love.
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
The Barbara Cartland Eternal Collection is the unique opportunity to collect as ebooks all five hundred of the timeless beautiful romantic novels written by the world’s most celebrated and enduring romantic author.
Named the Eternal Collection because Barbara’s inspiring stories of pure love, just the same as love itself, the books will be published on the internet at the rate of four titles per month until all five hundred are available.
The Eternal Collection, classic pure romance available worldwide for all time .
Elizabethan Lover
The Little Pretender
A Ghost in Monte Carlo
A Duel of Hearts
The Saint and the Sinner
The Penniless Peer
The Proud Princess
The Dare-Devil Duke
Diona and a Dalmatian
A Shaft of Sunlight
Lies for Love
Love and Lucia
Love and the Loathsome Leopard
Beauty or Brains
The Temptation of Torilla
The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl
Fragrant Flower
Look Listen and Love
The Duke and the Preacher’s Daughter
A Kiss for the King
The Mysterious Maid-servant
Lucky Logan Finds Love
The Wings of Ecstacy
Mission to Monte Carlo
Revenge of the Heart
The Unbreakable Spell
Never Laugh at Love
Bride to a Brigand
Lucifer and the Angel
Journey to a Star
Solita and the Spies
The Chieftain Without a Heart
No Escape from Love
Dollars for the duke
Pure and Untouched
Secrets
Fire in the Blood
Love, Lies and Marriage
The Ghost who Fell in Love
Hungry for Love
The Wild Cry of Love
The Blue-eyed Witch
The Punishment of a Vixe
n
The Secret of the Glen
Bride to the King
For All Eternity
King in Love
A Marriage made in Heaven
Who can deny Love?
Riding to the Moon
Wish for Love
Dancing on a Rainbow
Gypsy Magic
Love in the Clouds
Count the Stars
White Lilac
Too Precious to Lose
The Devil Defeated
An Angel Runs Away
The Duchess Disappeared
The Pretty Horse-breakers
The Prisoner of Love
Ola and the Sea Wolf
The Castle made for Love
A Heart is Stolen
The Love Pirate
As Eagles Fly
The Magic of Love
Love Leaves at Midnight
A Witch’s Spell
Love Comes West
The Impetuous Duchess
A Tangled Web
Love lifts the Curse
Saved By A Saint
Love is Dangerous
The Poor Governess
The Peril and the Prince
A Very Unusual Wife
Say Yes Samantha
Punished with love
A Royal Rebuke
The Husband Hunters
Signpost To Love
Love Forbidden
Gift Of the Gods
The Outrageous Lady
The Slaves Of Love
The Disgraceful Duke
The Unwanted Wedding
Lord Ravenscar’s Revenge
From Hate to Love
A Very Naughty Angel
The Innocent Imposter
A Rebel Princess
A Wish Comes True
Haunted
Passions In The Sand
Little White Doves of Love
A Portrait of Love
The Enchanted Waltz
Alone and Afraid
The Call of the Highlands
The Glittering Lights
An Angel in Hell
Only a Dream
A Nightingale Sang
Pride and the Poor Princess
Stars in my Heart
The Fire of Love
A Dream from the Night
Sweet Enchantress
The Kiss of the Devil
Fascination in France
Love Runs In
Lost Enchantment
Love is Innocent
The Love Trap
An Innocent in Russia Page 14
