103. She Wanted Love (18 page)

“Duke?” the Marquis questioned.

Eleta laughed.

“I have only just remembered you don’t know my name!”

“I cannot really believe that you are related to that ghastly man who has just left – ”

“He only married my Mama after my father died.”

“And who was your father?”

“He was the Earl of Stanrenton,” Eleta replied.

The Marquis stared at her and then he laughed.

“I don’t believe it! My relations have been telling me for a long time I should marry ‘someone suitable’. Of course what they really meant was the daughter of a Peer, and that, without any prompting from them, is exactly what I have done. I remember your father’s name because my father knew him well.”

“I was very young when my father died, so I have never known much about his friends. My mother was a wonderful person, but very lonely after my father’s death. That is why she married that horrible Cyril Warner.”

“I thought he was extremely unpleasant, especially the way he talked about you.”

“He wanted the Duke of Hazelware, who is well over fifty, to marry me and then be Chairman of one of his businesses. He is a ship-builder.”

“Well, as far as I am concerned,” the Marquis said, “he can take his ships to ‘Nowhere Land’ and stay there. All I want, my darling, is that you and I should be married at once and the one person who will be most delighted is of course Pepe. She will have the mother she has never had.”

“I love Pepe,” Eleta sighed.

She moved closer to him before she whispered,

“Of course I know that you want a son and I hope I can give you a lot of sons as handsome and as marvellous as you.”

The Marquis could not find words to answer.

He just kissed her.

He kissed her until Eleta thought that they were no longer two people but one.

*

When Pepe returned a little later, they were sitting on the sofa holding hands.

She burst into the room saying,

“He has gone! He has gone! He tried to talk to Harris, but he saw me listening and went outside. Then, when he turned back, I glared at him from the top of the steps. So he got into his carriage and drove away!”

“I hope he went down the drive without stopping.”

“I watched until he drove out through the gates and now he has gone, Miss Lawson can stay with us!”

“She is staying with us for ever,” the Marquis said.

Pepe gave a leap of joy.

“For ever and ever. In fact the only way I can keep her is by marrying her immediately before Cyril Warner finds out that I was telling a lie!”

“Please can I come to the wedding?” Pepe asked.

“But, of course, and you will be the most important person there. And, as we are to be married this evening, I think you ought to rest this afternoon, otherwise you will fall asleep in the Chapel.”

“I will not do that because I will be too excited,” Pepe enthused. “Oh, it’s wonderful, wonderful – ”

Then she stopped.

“If you are my Daddy and you marry Miss Lawson, then she will be my Mummy. And I have always wanted a Mummy.”

“Of course I will be your Mummy, even though I will be a Step-Mummy,” Eleta said. “But we will all be very happy, I promise you.”

“Very very happy,” Pepe sighed, “and even though you love Daddy, you will still love me too.”

“You have a very special part of my heart and your father has another special part, so it is quite fair.”

“I will do the same with my heart, half for you and half for Daddy!”

“If you add it up,” the Marquis said, “it only makes one complete heart and that is what will make this house a very special home and a very special happy place.”

Pepe put her arms round his neck and kissed him.

“Thank you, thank you, Daddy, for saving Eleta, as I now can call her, and keeping her here with us for ever.”

“For ever and ever,” the Marquis sighed.

As the Marquis kissed Eleta again, the door opened and Harris spoke up,

“There’s someone to see Miss Lawson, who says she’s come all the way from London.”

To the Marquis’s surprise, Eleta exclaimed,

“From London? I know who she is. Bring her in, I want her Ladyship to meet her.”

“Very good, miss.”

As he left the room, the Marquis looked at Eleta questioningly.

“Who is this?”

“She is someone very important who I want here, especially after what you have just said.”

The Marquis did not understand.

But before he could say anything, Bates announced,

“Miss Betty Ludlow.”

As she came into the room, Eleta jumped up and ran towards her and threw her arms round her.

“Betty, dearest,” she cried. “I am so glad to see you. In fact I was just going to get in touch with you.”

“I came to warn you,” Betty said, “that the Master’s found out where you are, but, as I passed by his carriage comin’ through the village, I knew I were too late.”

“You are not too late for me, Betty, I want you to meet the Marquis.”

She turned towards him to say,

“Betty was my mother’s lady’s-maid and, since her death, she has looked after me. And she is the kindest and dearest person I know.”

She smiled before she added,

“It was her idea that I should go to the Agency and find somewhere to hide. That is how I came here in the first place.”

“I am very delighted to meet you,” the Marquis said holding out his hand to Betty, “and I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart, because she has altered our whole lives and made us happier than I could possibly tell you in words.”

“So your stepfather has gone away?” Betty asked. “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him leavin’ alone. I thought you would have had to be with him.”

“I would have been,” Eleta said, “but I am going to be married this evening to his Lordship.”

Betty clasped her hands together.

“So you have found someone to love! It’s what I prayed and prayed you would find and it makes me happier than I can possibly say.”

“And I am indeed the luckiest man in the world,” the Marquis said. “So I hope Betty, if my wife wants you, you will stay here with her.”

“Of course I will,” Betty answered.

“I have been thinking, Eleta said, “that if we do have a short honeymoon, Betty will look after Pepe for us. She knows marvellous stories, even better than the ones I have told Pepe.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Betty replied, “but I knows some stories this young lady would enjoy.”

“I love stories,” Pepe exclaimed.

She had obviously taken to Betty, Eleta thought, because she was looking up at her with wide eyes.

“Well, I am thankful you are here, Betty, and of course Pepe will show you where we are sleeping and I am certain you can have a room near us.”

She glanced at the Marquis as she spoke in case he objected, but he merely remarked,

“If Betty is kind enough to help you look after Pepe that will give me a little more time to be with you.”

“I knew you would understand.”

*

That night after Eleta and the Marquis had been married in the Chapel with Betty and Pepe as witnesses, the whole household drank their health in champagne.

Monsieur Téyson promised them a proper wedding cake the next day, but, at a moment’s notice, he produced one made of ice-cream with a candle on top of it and with a mass of
petits fours
round it to please Pepe.

It was certainly, Eleta thought, happier than any wedding celebration she had ever attended.

*

When Pepe had been put to bed, she lay in the big canopied bed waiting for the Marquis.

Her prayers had been answered.

She could hardly believe it possible that she could be so deliriously happy.

The Marquis came in and, taking off the dark robe he was wearing, climbed into the bed.

He took her in his arms.

“Is this really happening to us?” he asked. “I just cannot help thinking that I will wake up and find it is all a dream or part of my imagination.”

“I only know I love you,” Eleta answered, “and everything that has happened to us seems as if one of the stars has fallen down from the sky.”

“That is what I am feeling too,” he said. “You are so beautiful in every way and I knew the moment I saw you that I wanted you to be mine. But I thought it was one of those ambitions that would never come true.”

“And now it has,” Eleta whispered.

“And I have no words to express the way I am now feeling,” the Marquis sighed.

Then he was kissing her, kissing her so that once again he was taking her up into the sky.

He kissed her until they were quivering with the wonder of their ecstasy.

Then, as the Marquis made her his, they touched the Heaven which all people seek but few are fortunate enough to find.

It is the Heaven that God keeps especially for lovers.

The love they give each other that comes from God, belongs to God and is theirs for Eternity.

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