Almost as if it was an effort, she walked towards him and he said,
“That is how you always ought to look. I know now what was wrong.”
“Wrong?” Canèda questioned, even though she knew exactly what he meant.
“The fancy dress,” he said. “Effective and undoubtedly eye-catching, but, let me add, quite unnecessary.”
Because it was what she had thought herself, Canèda felt for a moment as if she had no answer ready and inexplicably, for it was something she never was, she felt shy.
The Duc took a glass of champagne that was waiting on a side table and put it into her hand.
“As this is our first dinner together,” he said, “I feel that I should drink a toast, but it is difficult to find the right words.”
“Surely that is unusual – for a Frenchman?” Canèda managed to reply.
“I think tonight I am feeling English,” the Duc said, “and I am trying to express myself sincerely rather than eloquently.”
“I am glad you think the English are sincere.”
“I would like to believe that they are both sincere and truthful,” the Duc replied.
He looked deeply into her eyes as he spoke, but she looked away from him.
She had the feeling that he was probing and looking down into her very soul, trying to penetrate her facade to find out what she was keeping secret from him.
“It is easy for me to give you a toast,” she said to distract his attention.
She raised her glass.
“To the Man in the Moon and may he never cease to shine his light on those who need it!”
“Is that what you think I am doing?” the Duc asked cynically.
“If you are not, then perhaps it will alert you to your duty,” Canèda replied.
She sipped a little of the champagne and then set it down on a small table.
“Do you think Ariel has been stabled all right?” she asked conversationally.
“Are you doubting the hospitality of my stables?” the Duc enquired.
“From the outside when I passed them they looked superb,” Canèda replied.
“Tomorrow I will show you the inside,” the Duc said. “I have lately added many modern improvements that I hope will impress you.”
“I cannot think that they will be better than the stabling we have in England.”
“Is your circus wealthy enough to own stables?”
Canèda realised she had forgotten that she was supposed to be permanently with a circus and had in fact been thinking of the stables at Langstone Park.
“I have seen quite a number of stables that have nothing to do with the circus,” she replied.
“Their owners perhaps had something to do with you?” the Duc remarked.
He was speaking in French and it sounded less direct than it would have done in English.
Nevertheless, Canèda was annoyed.
“If you mean to be unpleasant, monsieur,” she said, “then let me inform you, you have succeeded!”
The Duc took her hand in his.
“Forgive me,” he said. “It was just that I find you extremely tantalising. Who are you? Why are you here? These are the questions I am going to ask you until I receive the right answers.”
“And when you have the answers, what difference will it make?” Canèda enquired.
“That is what is intriguing me.”
“I very much doubt it, but at least it will give you something to think about.”
“You have given me that already,” he replied, “and shall I add to what I have already said that, although you bewilder me, I find you entrancing!”
He raised her hand to his lips as he spoke and once again, as he kissed it, she felt a strange sensation within her.
It was almost a relief when dinner was announced and they moved once again to the dining room where they had had luncheon.
Now the curtains were drawn and the huge gold candelabrum on the table furnished the only light in the room.
It seemed to Canèda as she sat beside the Duc that the whole setting accentuated the impression that she was living in a Fairy story.
He certainly did not seem real as he sat back in the huge carved armchair with his Coat of Arms embroidered on the red velvet.
Servants in elaborate livery brought gold dishes of food that was more delicious than anything that Canèda had ever eaten before.
The wine and the conversation as dinner progressed made her feel that she was acting on a stage in a play that was so skilfully written that it was difficult to know what would be the end of the Act.
Once again she and the Duc were duelling in words and everything they said seemed to have a double entendre that made it impossible for them to speak in anything but French.
Only when dinner was finished and the servants had left the room did Canèda exclaim,
“That was the most delicious dinner I have ever had!”
“I hoped you would say that it was one of the most interesting.”
“That goes without saying. I enjoyed our conversation more than I can possibly tell you.”
“And so have I,” the Duc said. “How can you be so intelligent?”
“I suppose it is because I have been well educated.”
“I don’t think that is the real reason.”
“Then what is?”
“Because you think. Very few women think about anything except themselves.”
“Is that your experience?”
“It is most men’s and what I am saying, Canèda, is that you are unique.”
He had called her by her Christian name ever since they had started dinner and Canèda thought that it would seem rather foolish and pretentious to insist that he address her as ‘mademoiselle’.
She gave him a slightly mocking smile as she answered,
“I am gratified that you should think so. I enjoy being different”
“That I can well believe, because you are different, very different in a way that is difficult to describe.”
“You might say the same about yourself. Of course you are different from other men and you know it! I think, if you are honest, it is a contrived difference as well as one you were born with.”
“Are you accusing me of play-acting?”
Canèda shrugged her shoulders.
“If you like the expression. I think we all act in one way or another.”
“Some more than others, as you are acting now,” the Duc insisted.
“I don’t understand why you keep saying that.”
“Because it is obvious. You are playing your part very skilfully, but you do not deceive me.”
“Why should I wish to do so?”
“That is for you to say,” he said, “and it is what I want to know.”
He was again being perceptive, Canèda thought, and that was dangerous.
“Let’s go back to the sitting room,” she suggested. “I would like to see what you have written so far about schooling horses. I know it is something that will interest me.”
The Duc did not reply, but he rose as she did and they walked slowly back to the sitting room.
Now the curtains had been drawn, the flames from the fire leapt high over the logs and it looked cosy and romantic.
A servant closed the door behind them and Canèda walked towards the fire and held out her hands in front of it.
“It still gets a little cold at night,” she remarked. “I like your big log fires. I was always certain that it would be cold on the moon.”
She turned her head to smile at him and found that he was standing closer to her than she had anticipated and there was an expression on his face that made her heart leap.
She straightened herself and he said in a low voice that she could barely hear,
“You are very lovely – unbelievably so!”
“I am – glad you – think so,” she tried to say lightly, but somehow the words seemed almost to stick in her throat.
“I have always believe
d that there was someone like you somewhere in the world,” the Duc said, “and I must have dreamt of you, because I knew today that I had seen you somewhere before.”
Canèda felt herself give a little quiver of fear.
She had often wondered if the old Duc had a portrait of her mother, for if he had, that was where the present Duc would have seen her face.
She did not reply and he went on,
“What am I to do about you? How long can you stay with me and, when you leave me, what will I feel?”
Because he spoke with a seriousness that she had not expected and because what he said was somehow out of character, Canèda moved a few steps away from him saying,
“I told you I was a shooting star who had just called in while I was passing. Why should we worry about tomorrow?”
“Why indeed, when we have tonight?” the Duc replied.
He accentuated the last word and suddenly Canèda was frightened.
He had not moved, but she put up her hands as if he encroached upon her.
“Please,” she said, “let’s – talk about our – horses.”
“I want to talk about you.”
“No – please – no!”
“Why not?”
He moved a little closer to her and now when she would have retreated, there was a chair behind her and she could not get away.
“If you are going to be tiresome,” she said before he could speak, “I shall be sorry I stayed.”
“I don’t think that is true,” the Duc said. “When you were talking at dinner, I knew that you were enjoying yourself, as I was. And now we are alone and no one shall interrupt us.”
“You – frighten me,” Canèda said in a small voice.
“Why should I do that?”
“I-I don’t know – but you – do. Please – please – ”
There was silence for a moment.
Then the Duc said,
“Look at me! Look at me, Canèda! I want to see your eyes.”
For some reason that she could not explain to herself, Canèda knew that she should not look at him.
Again she made a little gesture with her hands.
Then he said softly but insistently,
“Look at me!”
It was a command and like Ariel she could not refuse it.
Because he compelled her to do so, she raised her eyes and looked into his.
For a moment they were both very still.
Then it seemed to Canèda as if everything vanished, the room, the candles, the Château, the view outside.
There were only two grey eyes and they filled the whole Universe.
Canèda moved or the Duc did. She knew only that his eyes were holding hers, his arms went round her and then his lips held her captive.
Even as he did so, she knew at the back of her mind that this was what she had been wanting and at the same time was what she had been afraid of – yet it made every moment while she had been with him exciting and thrilling.
She had never been kissed before, but it was exactly as she had thought it would be and she felt as he drew her closer and still closer to him that they became one and indivisible.
Then she became part of the moon itself and there were stars all round them and there was no world, no problems, no people, only the sky and an ecstasy that enveloped them like a light which came from within themselves and yet was part of the Divine.
It flashed through Canèda’s mind that this was love – love as she had always thought it would be when she found it, but it had always eluded her until now.
It was the love that was so demanding and yet so utterly and completely perfect that she could not fight it and there was no escape.
The Duc kissed her until she could no longer think but only feel the wonder of it.
Then, as he raised his head, Canèda gave a little murmur and hid her face against his neck.
“Now do you understand what I have been trying to say?” he asked very softly.
He was speaking in French and she thought that there was a tremor in his voice but she could not be certain.
It was impossible to answer him – she knew only that she felt pulsating through her body an incredible rapture that seemed to end in her throat.
It was in the beat of her heart and in every breath she drew.
The Duc put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up to his.
“There is no need for any questions between us,” he said. “You are mine as I knew you were from the very first moment I saw you and thought you had stepped out of my dreams.”
His lips were very near to hers as he said again,
“You are mine, Canèda, and I want you! I want you now.”
As he finished speaking, his lips were on hers and he was kissing her again.
Now there was a fire on his lips that was like nothing that Canèda had ever imagined, and yet, although it was so fierce and so demanding, she felt herself unaccountably responding to it.
He kissed her until she was breathless and until she felt as if the room spun dizzily round her and it would be impossible for her to stand unsupported on her feet.
Then he was kissing her neck, giving her sensations that she had no idea existed, until, as her lips parted and her breath came in little gasps, he found her mouth again.
The fire was more intense and she could feel his heart beating against hers.
Then he said and his voice was hoarse and passionate,
“I want you! God, how I want you! Go and get into bed, my darling. There is no reason for us to wait any longer.”
He put his arms round her and drew her across the room.
He opened the door and then, because there was a servant in the passage extinguishing the lights in the sconces, he took his arm from her.
“I shall not be long,” he said very softly and she could barely hear the words.
Then he went back to the sitting room, closing the door behind him.
Canèda walked almost as if she was hypnotised down the passage towards her bedroom.
Only as she reached it, did she come back to reality and realise what was happening to her.
It was what vaguely she had sensed might happen, but it had in fact been very different from what she had expected.
And yet, because she had told herself that she must be sensible and must on no account take risks with a man she did not know, she had been prepared.
And what he intended by saying that he wanted her was written in front of her eyes in letters of fire.
Because men had always treated her like a piece of Dresden china, no one had made such demands before or expressed themselves in such a manner.
She thought that the Duc would be the same and she would handle him as she had handled the others who had laid their hearts at her feet and pleaded with her to pick them up.
But the Duc had just taken possession of her and she knew that there was only one answer and that was to go and go quickly, because she was frightened not only of him but of herself.
She went to the wardrobe and pulled out the thick cloak that the maid had wrapped the things she had asked for in so that Ben could carry them on his horse without getting them dirty.
Canèda had in fact been surprised to see it, expecting instead a shawl or a linen cover.
However, the evening cloak was just what she wanted and there was no time to change into her riding habit.
She threw it over her shoulders and very very cautiously opened the bedroom door again.
There was no sign of the servant who had been extinguishing the lights and, although she was half-afraid to see the Duc come from the sitting room, she guessed that by this time he would have gone to his own bedroom.
Swiftly she sped down the stairs in her soft satin slippers, making barely a sound until she reached the hall. A nightwatchman was nodding in a chair by the big door.
“Open the door, please,” Canèda said in a voice little above a whisper in case it should carry.
He
looked surprised, but he obeyed her and, as the door began to open, she slipped through it and ran across the courtyard and out through the outer door, which she had guessed always remained open and that led to the bridge that spanned the moat.
It took her only a few seconds to reach the other side.
Then she saw, as she had expected, that in the shadow of a tree Ben was waiting with two horses.
He was sitting comfortably on the ground and she knew that he did not expect her so soon and was prepared to wait, as she had told him to do, all night.
Then, as she reached him, he sprang to his feet.
“You be ridin’ as you are, my Lady?” he asked.
Canèda did not reply, she merely put her hands on Ariel’s saddle and Ben helped her up.
She rode Ariel down the steep incline towards the town.
It was dark, but there were lights in the windows of some of the houses to guide them and it took only a short while to reach the bridge.
They rode across it with Canèda pressing Ariel on as if the Devil himself was at her heels.
She knew that she was running away, not from the Duc but from her own heart, which inexplicably she had left behind on the moon.
Chapter 5
Canèda came up on deck to sit in a sheltered spot out of the wind.
The sea was not rough, but there was a heavy swell and Madame de Goucourt had retired to her cabin, saying that she had no intention of breaking her leg.
Canèda was relieved because it meant that she could be alone and would not have to evade the questions that she knew Madame, bursting with curiosity, was longing to ask her.
When she had reached the inn after riding away from the Château, she had gone to her bedroom after giving instructions to Ben.
It was impossible for her to sleep and, when she dressed before her maid came to call her, she knew that Madame de Goucourt would have been informed that they were leaving and that by the time they had breakfasted, the carriage and the outriders would be waiting to take them to Bordeaux.
Madame de Goucourt had been astonished at the speed.
“What has happened, Canèda?” she asked when she came to the private room. “Why are we in such a hurry to leave for St. Nazaire?”
“I never intended to stay here for long,” Canèda replied evasively.
Madame de Goucourt was an intelligent woman.
Love in the Moon Page 9
