Bewitched (Bantam Series No. 16) (13 page)

Both Saviya and Hobley gave a cry of disapproval.

“You will not move from here until we are sure you are strong enough,” Saviya said. “Remember, he will not give in easily. He will try again to kill you.”

There was so much distress in her tone that the Marquis replied: “I will be sensible. I will not attempt anything fool-hardy—that I promise!”

“You do not know how frightened we have been about you,” Saviya murmured in a low voice, and the Marquis saw the sudden glisten of tears in her eyes.

“I will not do anything stupid,” he promised, “but once I am strong I intend to teach my cousin a lesson he will not forget, and I have also to clear your name, Saviya.”

“That is not important,” she said. “The fact that I am a murderer is just what people would expect from a Gypsy.”

“There’s no-one in the House as would believe that of you, Miss Saviya,” Hobley assured her.

She flashed him a smile.

“Thank you.”

“Mr. Jethro is not making changes in the household?” the Marquis asked and his voice was sharp.

“Not yet, M’Lord,” Hobley answered, “though he threatens to do so. But the Trustees have told him that they are not prepared as yet to presume Your Lordship’s death. I think it is Captain Collington who has persuaded them that there may be a chance of your survival.”

“Captain Collington would never believe that Miss Saviya was capable of killing me, and he knows of the other two attempts that Mr. Jethro has made on my life.”

“I believe he has informed the Trustees of what happened in Berkeley Square and about the cobra, M’Lord.”

As Hobley spoke, he drew his watch from his pocket.

“I’d best be getting back, M’Lord. I’ve to be careful in case Mr. Jethro is suspicious or gets someone to watch my movements.”

“Then do not let him suspect you,” the Marquis said.

“It’s why I usually take a circuitous route to get here, M’Lord,” Hobley replied, “but unfortunately it takes longer.”

“I am sure the exercise is good for you!” the Marquis said with a smile.

“I’d be willing to climb mountains, M’Lord, to see you back on your feet again. We miss you up at the House.”

“Thank you, Hobley. It will not be long now,” the Marquis smiled.

Every time he came, Hobley brought with him everything which could be carried in a basket. Food, bottles of the Marquis’s favourite wine, clean linen, lotions to heal the Marquis’s back, and of course the toilet requisites His Lordship always used.

The Marquis’s gold hair-brushes bearing his monogram under a diamond coronet looked strangely out of place in Saviya’s caravan. Yet he had not imagined how comfortable such a small place could be.

Because he was so tall, his bed took up the whole of one side of it but there were hooks, shelves and small cupboards on all the walls, and things were stored away ingeniously in a manner which never ceased to amaze him.

The walls were painted with skilful artistry and in gay colours depicting flowers, birds, and butterflies.

The work was, however, more Russian than English, and Saviya told him that the exterior of the caravan was decorated in the same manner.

There were two windows through which, unfortunately, little light could percolate, because the caravan was draped with greenery so that it would not be seen.

But sunlight came through the open door, and at night the Marquis could see shafts of silver moonlight, which somehow reminded him of Saviya’s dancing, penetrating through the thick branches of the trees.

Since he had regained consciousness, Saviya did not stay with him at night but disappeared.

He imagined she went back to her family or perhaps slept in the wood, but she was not very communicative on the subject and he did not press her.

After she had given him supper and they talked for a little while, she would merely say softly:

“It is time you went to sleep.”

He would kiss her hand then she would leave him alone with his thoughts. At first he was usually so tired that he fell into a deep slumber and did not awake until the following morning, when she brought him breakfast.

Hobley washed, shaved and attended to him two or three times a day. Sometimes, if Mr. Jethro was not at the house, he would remain in the vicinity without returning home, but on other occasions he would slip in for an hour in the morning, again at luncheon time, and back again in the evening.

It was for the Marquis an unusual, strange mode of existence and yet he knew he had never been happier.

He did not feel restless and was not in the least bored.

Sometimes he would lie for a long time without speaking, watching Saviya’s face as she sat in the doorway of the caravan.

He thought that her beauty was like some exquisite, exotic flower that every day unfolded more of its petals to reveal a hidden loveliness which grew more and more entrancing.

The Marquis had been in the caravan for over two weeks, when one afternoon after Hobley had returned to the house he said to Saviya:

“Soon I shall be strong enough to confront Jethro, and then you will be unable to stop me.”

“You are very much better,” Saviya said with a smile.

“Hobley is delighted with my collar-bone, the bandages come off tomorrow and I have very little pain in my back.”

“The wound is healing quickly because you were so well,” Saviya murmured, “an unhealthy man would have taken much longer.”

“Before I leave this idyllic existence,” the Marquis said, “we have to talk about each other, Saviya.”

She stiffened and the expression on her face changed.

“You have not yet told me why on the morning that you saved my life you were leaving.”

She hesitated and looked away from him.

“I told you how much I wanted you,” the Marquis said. “How could you leave me, Saviya, knowing it might have been impossible for me ever to find you again?”

“It would not have been right for me to stay with you,” she answered.

“Right for whom?” the Marquis asked almost angrily. “I thought you understood that I cannot live without you, Saviya. I knew it then, but now there is no doubt in my mind that we are in fact a part of each other. How can you deny anything that is so perfect; so utterly and completely wonderful?”

She looked away from him and he saw that she was trembling. “Come here, Saviya!” he said, “I want you.”

He thought she would refuse him but, almost like a child who obeys the voice of authority, she moved from her seat near the door to kneel at his bedside.

“Look at me, Saviya!”

She raised her face to his and the Marquis saw that her eyes were very wide and a little afraid.

T love you!” he said. “Do you not understand, my darling, how much I love you?”

“I love you too!” Saviya answered, “but because you are so important ... of such consequence in the ... Social World ... an association with a Gypsy will shock and perhaps disgust your friends.”

“If it does, then they are not my friends,” the Marquis said, “and besides does anything matter but ourselves? We do not want the gay life in London, Saviya. We can stay here at Ruckley or go abroad for part of the year. I have a yacht that will carry us along the coast of France to anywhere that you fancy. To me it will not matter where as long as we are together.”

She drew a deep breath and he knew that she was deeply moved. Then she said on a sudden note of despair:

“You do not understand!”

“What do I not understand?” he asked gently.

“That you cannot set aside the prejudices, the beliefs, the hatreds of centuries,” she answered. “We are, as you say, two people who love each other, but there is a great gulf between us and nothing you can say or do can bridge it.”

“That is ridiculous!” the Marquis said sharply. “There is one thing that can bridge it, Saviya, one thing which is stronger than any of the things you have mentioned.”

“What is that?” she asked wonderingly.

“Love!” he replied.

As the Marquis spoke he put out his arms and pulled her close against him.

He was sitting up against his pillows and she did not resist him. Her head fell back against his shoulder, and now she was half-sitting, half-lying on the bed.

“Could anything in the world be more important than this?” he asked and then his lips were on hers.

He kissed her fiercely and with a passion which he had been too weak to feel for the past two weeks, but he knew as his mouth took possession of hers that his desire was like a fiery flame burning through his whole body.

Yet at the same time he worshipped with what was almost a reverence the gentleness and sweetness of her.

“I love you!” he said. “Believe me when I tell you, Saviya, there is nothing else in my life except my love for you.”

He kissed her again until she trembled and quivered in his arms and then he asked:

“Shall we go away together now and forget that I have any other existence except that I belong to you? Let Jethro be Marquis of Ruckley and own the Estate and everything else. All I want is you and your love.”

Saviya put her arms around his neck and now as her lips responded to his he could feel her heart beating against his breast.

Then, when it seemed they had reached the very peak of ecstasy and human nature must break under the strain, very gently Saviya drew herself from his arms.

“I love you,” she whispered, “but you must still rest.”

The Marquis protested but she put her finger-tips against his lips. “Rest,” she said. “You are tired, and this is not a moment to make decisions.”

“Tell me one thing,” the Marquis said, “that you love me as I love you. Tell me, Saviya! I have to hear it as well as know it when I touch you.”

“I love you!” she whispered.

Yet there was somehow almost a note of despair in her voice.

CHAPTER SIX

“I’ll be going now, M’Lord if there’s nothing else Your Lordship requires?” Hobley said.

The Marquis looked up at his Valet from where he was sitting outside the caravan in the shade of the trees.

“Nothing, thank you, Hobley,” he said, “but do not forget to ascertain if Colonel Spencer, the Chief Constable, will be at home tomorrow.”

“I’ll do that, M’Lord.”

“Without arousing suspicion,” the Marquis admonished. “I do not want anyone to be aware that I am alive until I confront Mr. Jethro.”

“I’ve got it quite clear in my mind, M’Lord,” Hobley said with just a touch of rebuke in his voice that the Marquis had thought it necessary to repeat himself.

“Then good-bye, Hobley, and thank you.”

“Good-day, M’Lord.”

Picking up the empty basket in which he had brought food from the house, Hobley moved between the trees and almost immediately was lost to sight.

It was certainly, the Marquis thought, a perfect place for concealment.

The caravan, with its wooden sides painted in gay colours, was completely hidden by trailing-ivy, shrubs and long strands of convolvulus so that it blended in with the branches of the trees and was, as Saviya had told him, almost invisible.

The trees themselves were very thick in this part of the wood. The Marquis wondered if he had ever actually been there before, and decided if he had, he did not remember it.

It was now three weeks since he had been thrown from his horse and stabbed by Jethro’s men.

His wound had healed, his collar-bone had knit and he was in fact, as he had protested for some days now, in perfect health.

At the same time his brave words a week earlier that he wished to rise from his bed and confront his cousin had proved too optimistic.

He had no idea how weak he was until when, for the first time, he was on his feet again and could step from the caravan into the wood.

“I am ashamed of being such a weakling,” he said to Saviya.

“You ran a very high fever and you also lost a lot of blood.”

“I still expected to feel more like a man than a child,” the Marquis averred.

“You must be strong to face what lies ahead,” Saviya said in a low voice, and the Marquis knew she was still afraid.

“I expect you to give me courage,” he said, “and not go on molly-coddling me as you and Hobley have been doing these past weeks.”

Nevertheless, after his first sortie into the open air, the Marquis found he was glad to creep back into bed to fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

Yet every day he had grown stronger and could do more.

Saviya took him for walks through the woods, and he learnt much that he had never known before about the birds and the animals they saw and also the flowers.

She told him strange legends that were connected with Gypsy lore.

About the squirrels—the
romen morga,
or Gypsy Cats, who are a lucky mascot and particularly effective in the realms of love.

“But the weasel brings ill-luck,” Saviya said. “If by chance a Gypsy should kill a weasel the whole tribe will be unfortunate for a long time.”

“Superstition about the weasel is very ancient,” the Marquis remarked. “It existed in Ancient Greece.”

Saviya described how the Gypsies in the Balkans captured young bear-cubs and trained them so that they could dance to amuse the peasants in the villages.

She related that there were groups of Gypsies who were hunters, and who, apart from their skill, had a deep knowledge of the magic rites associated with hunting.

“The Balkan Gypsies,” she went on, “will never allow a woman in any circumstances to go near the hunters before they depart in search of game.”

One thing Saviya told the Marquis fascinated him: it was the Gypsies who invented lures for line-fishing.

“They were the first to make artificial baits,’ she said, “such as little wooden fish decorated with tufts of coloured feathers, in the middle of which hooks are hidden.”

“I
had no idea of that!” the Marquis exclaimed.

“And my father told me it was the Gypsies in Britain,” Saviya went on, “who invented the artificial fly for trout fishing.”

She looked at him from under her eye-lashes and said with a smile:

“You will doubtless think it un-sporting, but they know how to make magical bait!”

“How do they do that?” the Marquis enquired.

“They are generally made with the gums of resinous plants whose attraction for fish was known centuries ago in Persia,” she replied. “But there is another way of coating stones with sweet-smelling oils.”

Most of all the Marquis wanted to learn about the Gypsies’ proficiency with horses.

“We never say, ‘
I
hope you will live happily,’ ” Saviya told him, “but, ‘May your horses live long!’ ”

“All Nomads have revered the horse,” the Marquis remarked. “The Great Khan of the Mongols had a postal service of three hundred horses.”

“Gypsies are strictly forbidden to eat horseflesh,” Saviya went on, “as they believe it will send them mad. The Gypsy tribe of Zyghes saddle the horse of a dead man for three days after he is buried and lead it to the Grave.”

“What happens then?” the Marquis enquired.

“The man who leads the horse calls the owner three times by name and asks him to dine.”

“I believe the Gypsies excel in being able to pass off an old horse at a Fair by making him appear young and spritely,” the Marquis remarked with a twinkle in his eyes.

Saviya laughed.

“That is true, and among some tribes there is a great deal of magic connected with the trading in horses.”

“And love?” the Marquis questioned. “Is magic necessary to love?”

“Many Gypsies think so,” Saviya answered, “but to me love ... is magic.”

“And to me, my darling,” the Marquis told her.

It seemed to the Marquis as they walked together or sat outside the caravan that Saviya’s knowledge was inexhaustible, and every moment they were together he found her more and more fascinating.

The food she cooked for him, even though Hobley brought most of it from the House, was different from anything he had tasted before. Berries, mushrooms, herbs, nettles, and wild vegetables were all part of the soups and stews she made over a fire in the pot that was supported from a tripod of sticks.

“Why does what you cook taste far more delicious than the food prepared by my extremely expensive and renowned Chef?” the Marquis enquired.

“I think one reason is that the herbs which I add to the meat or the chickens that Hobley brings, are fresh,” Saviya replied. “Everything you have eaten today I picked this morning.”

“It certainly tastes different,” the Marquis said appreciatively.

“The Gypsies use few spices and very little salt,” Saviya told him. “In fact the only condiment we like is wild garlic.”

Sometimes the Marquis felt he was almost like a child asking for “another story.” He found an inexpressible delight not only to listen to what Saviya told him, but also to watch her as she talked.

‘It is not only her beauty,’ he thought.

But it was impossible not to realise that because she was in love she was more beautiful than she had ever been.

Also the strength of her character and her personality shone like a spiritual light and made him feel at times that there was an aura about her that was not of this world.

In the evening when the Marquis had eaten the supper she had prepared for him and Hobley, having got him ready for bed, had gone home, Saviya would sit beside him and they would look through the open door of the caravan into the mystery of the wood outside.

There would be the rustle of the leaves in the evening breeze; the hoot of an owl; the soft scuffle of some animal through the undergrowth. Otherwise there was an indescribable peace.

“You make me very happy,” the Marquis said one evening in his deep voice.

“Do I really?” Saviya asked.

“I have never before known real happiness,” the Marquis answered.

He raised her hands to his lips and knew as his mouth touched her skin she quivered with the sudden ecstasy.

“I thought what I wanted in life was to be amused,” he went on, “to listen to witty, bright conversation; to be made to laugh; to attend the parties given by my friends. But now I want only to be alone with you.”

“Perhaps if we were together for too long, you would be ... bored,” she suggested, a little catch in her breath.

“You know that is not true!” the Marquis replied. “Always before, when I have been with a woman and have not actually been feeling passionate about her, I have been restless.”

He kissed Saviya’s hands again before he said:

“I think too I have been afraid of being alone.”

“And now?”

“I feel,” the Marquis replied, “as if a whole new world was opening before me; a world of discovery, not only of people, places and things, but of myself and you.”

Saviya turned sideways to lay her head against his shoulder. “You are my world,” she whispered.

Then the Marquis had put his arms around her and held her close.

He knew now, sitting outside the caravan, that Saviya was worried. He had grown to know only too well without words what she was feeling and especially when she was perturbed.

She was afraid for the morrow, and what might happen when he confronted Jethro and threw him out of the House.

The Marquis on the other hand was filled with a sense of excitement. He knew that something fierce and primitive within him wished to do battle with his cousin and punish him for the attempts he had made on his life.

“Why are you worrying, my darling?” he asked Saviya.

She moved from the stool on which she had been sitting to come and kneel beside his chair.

“I cannot help it,” she answered.

“Are you being clairvoyant, or merely human in that you are apprehensive?”

She smiled a little forlornly.

“You know that because I love you so deeply I can no longer see the future where you are concerned, but I can feel that you are in ... danger. Otherwise my love blinds me and I am no longer a witch, but a ... woman!”

The Marquis laughed.

“Do not sound so tragic about it,” he begged, “that is what I want you to be—a woman! My woman! Now and for all time!”

He rose from the chair as he spoke and drew Saviya to her feet to put his arms around her. Tipping back her head, he looked down into her dark, troubled eyes.

“Trust me,” he said, “I know what is best for both of us.”

Then he kissed her, and they could not think of anything but the rapture which consumed them both and transported them into a world where there was no treachery, no fear, but only love.

Nevertheless, that night before the Marquis went to bed he held Saviya close to him and knew that she was trembling in his arms, but not because she was afraid.

“This is our last night here together,” he said slowly. “But after tomorrow we shall never be apart from each other. As soon as I have rid my House of my disreputable cousin and set my affairs in order, we are going away in my yacht.”

Saviya gave a little murmur and hid her face against his shoulder. “We are going away for the rest of the summer,” the Marquis said, “and by the time we come back, all the talk, excitement and gossip about us will be over, and some far more amusing scandal will have taken its place!”

He stroked Saviya’s head with a gentle hand, feeling her hair like silk beneath his fingers.

“Whatever people say, they will say it behind our backs,” he went on, “and why should that worry us? We will cross the Channel and move slowly along the coast of France. I am going to take you to Spain, Saviya.”

His arms tightened around her for a moment and he said: “Anywhere we go together will be like Paradise, but I want to show you the golden beaches and the magnificent Palaces.”

Saviya made no answer but the Marquis knew she was listening. “I have friends in Spain,” he said, “who will welcome you because you are beautiful.”

“They will think it strange that you are consorting with a Gypsy,” Saviya said in a low voice. “The Spanish Gitanos are very poor. They are treated with contempt and have been persecuted by every succeeding Monarch.”

“You have been to Spain?” the Marquis asked.

Saviya shook her head.

“Then it will be somewhere new that we can explore together.” The Marquis felt that Saviya was still uncertain, and he said gently:

“We are starting a new life together, Saviya. The prejudices of the old must not encroach on or overshadow our future.”

She slipped her arms round his neck and drew his head down to hers.

“I love you!” she whispered. “I love you so desperately! You know that all I want is your happiness?”

“Which is to be with you,” the Marquis replied. “There are so many things for us to do. I want to take you to Greece, to the Islands of the Mediterranean. But what does it matter where we go? You hold my whole happiness in your little hands.”