Bride by Arrangement (14 page)

“Oh, Pierre! ... Oh, darling!”

He stroked her soft hair, tried to cool the hot cheeks with his long, cool fingers. And outside the window the stars paled as the dawn light invaded the sky, and a cheerful cock crowed.

“Darling, darling Pierre!” Chloe whispered.

Pierre regarded her broodingly.

“You’re my wife, Chloe, and this is the first time since our marriage that I’ve had you in my arms and known that you’re happy to be where you are
!”
His voice caught “That other time, Chloe, I wanted you desperately, but I was angry with you too. I wanted to hurt you. Will you believe me if I swear to you that I’ll never hurt you again? Never!”

“Oh, darling, yes,” she sighed. “Oh, my beloved husband, yes!”

They gazed deep into one another’s eyes, in the faint, pearly, spreading light of the dawn, and then he drew her passionately close.

“A few minutes ago I was so unhappy that the whole world was dark, and nothing mattered,” he confessed. “Now, because you were my sweet, brave Chloe, everything matters! Everything!”

And for the first time he gave her the kiss that should have been hers on her wedding day, the long, never-ending—or so it seemed at the time—swooning kiss that meant that their two bodies were dissolved into one, and henceforward there would be no separate life for either of them. Only a life of oneness and devotion, self-sacrifice, perhaps, even a little unhappiness, but the life they both needed and craved, and which was now at last
within their reach.

Later, when the sky was that much brighter, and another cock was crowing even more loudly than the first one that had lifted up its voice, he rested his cheek against her hair, and, still holding her strained against him in the deep armchair, asked her a question, softly.

“And you won’t mind giving up Trelas? You won’t mind living here with me?”

“You can do what you like with Trelas,” she agreed, her eyes slumbrous and starry at the same time as they gazed into his; “but I’d like us to keep one tiny bit of it—so that we can go and stay there sometimes, and think of your aunt! For it was she who made all this happiness possible! Oh, Pierre, but for your aunt we would never have known this kind of happiness at all
...
Would we?”

But Pierre looked at her broodingly, and shook his head. “I think so,” he answered. “One day, sooner or later, I would have visited my aunt, and seen you ... and time would have brought us together. Not her money! Her money nearly ruined things for us, because it brought into being that terrible doubt about each other’s motives—the doubt I warned you about in the beginning. But now there are no longer any doubts, and if that’s what you want then we will keep a corner of Trelas for ourselves
...
And our children!”

Chloe turned as pink as the sunrise.

“You said that they should play on the terrace. Do you remember?”

“Where I kissed you that night when the wind was so high! And I wanted you so
badly!...
And now, Chloe, do you realise that at last we’re alone together, and we are married
...
?
We are married, Chloe
!”
She tried to hide her face against him, but he forced it out into the open, and her abashed eyes dropped. “Oh, my darling,” he whispered, and his voice trembled a little as well as his arms. “There’s nothing for you to be shy about, and this is what we’ve both wanted so badly, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Chloe?”

“
Yes,” she answered, after only a moment of silence. Then she lifted her eyes and wound her arms about his neck. There was a sort of dreamy bliss in her voice as she repeated, “Oh,
yes,
Pierre!”

Then there was no need to say anything at all, for his lips were once more on hers.