Love in the Highlands (17 page)

Under the anxious eyes of everyone, Lord Ringwood opened the envelope.

It contained Her Majesty's urgent plea that Lord Ringwood would reconsider his decision to leave the court, as she could not do without him.

Her Majesty further added her congratulations on the betrothal of Lady Lavina Ringwood to Lord Elswick, and her hopes of happiness for their future.

She thought Lord Ringwood might be interested to known that Prince Stanislaus had left the country and would not be returning.

"We have won, my dear," he said to Lavina, tears of joy in his eyes.

"Oh Papa!"

She hugged her father, full of relief, for him as much as herself.

"Will you return to court?" she asked.

"I think so, my dear."

"I must go and tell him," she said, and sped upstairs.

She found the Marquis lying quietly, but looking much better than yesterday. There was colour in his cheeks.

"We have won," she said, and told him about the letter.

"Yes," he said, "but I am still wondering exactly what I have won – or whether I have won anything. You will have to tell me."

"Don't you know?" she asked, sitting by his bed. "Didn't the music tell you?"

"It gave me hope. But you were so very angry with me? Has your anger truly died?"

"I was foolish to say those things when we were at the inn. I was distraught. It was just such a shock to hear Stanislaus tell me why you wanted revenge on him. Of course, I always realized that there was something that I didn't know.

"When Papa and I came to see you, you refused us at first, then changed your mind, and later I remembered that it was when Stanislaus was mentioned. And you always told me that you had your own reasons."

"Yes, I wanted revenge on him for what he'd done to me," the Marquis said. "But not only for my own sake. I was revenging her as well."

"Her? You mean – "

"Anjelica, the girl I once loved. I can see the truth about her now. She was a greedy little predator, who wanted me because I was heir to wealth and a great title.

"For her sake, I became an outcast from my family, but that wasn't what she wanted. It would have meant waiting, perhaps years, for me to inherit, and she wanted the good things of life immediately.

"Stanislaus tempted her away with gold and finery. He couldn't marry her, but she didn't care for that, as long as there was luxury. But it lasted only a few months before he threw her out."

"Yes, he told me," Lavina said. "He almost boasted of it."

"She sank into poverty and lived such a wretched life that she finally lost her wits. That was how she was when I found her again."

"You found her?" Lavina asked, startled.

"Yes, quite by chance. She was very frail by then, and didn't know me. I was able to take her away and put her in the care of kindly people, who looked after her until she died."

"You did that for her?" Lavina asked in wonder. "After what she had done to you?"

"It wasn't entirely her fault. She wasn't really very intelligent, and she fell easy prey to his pretty lies. So I felt I had her to avenge as well as myself."

"And society called you a curmudgeon, who hated women," she said in wonder.

He gave her a crooked smile.

"Society was right, except that it wasn't only women I hated, but the whole world, that could exact such a brutal price. I condemned all women as faithless and stupid, and all men as boorish and cruel. I shut myself up with my misery and bitterness, allowing no good healthy light to fall on it.

"In all those years I can recall only one thing that brought me joy. And that was the night I walked into a house in London and saw a young girl dancing like a ray of sunlight."

He smiled tenderly.

"I can see her now, a spinning top, her dark hair flying out as she whirled. She was like the embodiment of life itself, young, beautiful, unafraid."

"I thought you despised me," she said.

"I turned away from you because you threatened the iron prison in which I had enclosed myself. I told myself you were only a child – which was true, but not my real reason. The real reason was that I rejected the gifts of life and joy that you carried with you. I was afraid of them.

"But I never forgot you. In the years since, your spinning figure has haunted my dreams and danced across my vision, never allowing me to forget that I had chosen a terrible path; that there was another path, if only I dared take it.

"And then, one day, you returned, grown up, glorious, majestic, asking my help.

"But by that time I was in no state to appreciate you. If you hadn't come into my life when you did, it would soon have been all up with me.

"And yet you seemed to resent me, and be angry with me.

"I fought you. You'll never know how hard I fought you. I didn't want the warmth and life you brought with you. I'd lived so long away from them that they were too much for me.

"And yet, while I fought you with one hand I tightened my grip on you with the other. I put bolts and bars on our engagement, anything to keep you with me – and all the time I told myself that it was revenge on Stanislaus that motivated me. Nothing else. But the truth was I was daily falling more and more in love with you.

"I didn't want to admit it to myself, but in my heart I knew. And then, when I thought I was going to die, I knew I had to speak to you, to tell you that I loved you, and wanted your love."

His eyes held hers. She felt they were saying

something to her she did not understand, something more than his lips spoke.

Then he said very quietly,

"I love you. I have loved you for a long time. I am only afraid that I might lose you."

The words seemed to come slowly from his lips.

But his hand tightened and somehow she found herself bending nearer to him until his lips touched hers.

She loved him as she had never loved anyone before.

"I love you! I love you!" he said.

Then once again his lips were holding hers captive.

She thought it was the most wonderful and the most glorious thing she had ever known.

"I love you! I love you!" she wanted to say, but it was impossible to speak when the Marquis's lips were against hers.

Both his arms went round her to hold her closer still.

It seemed a long time later that Lavina found herself lying on the bed beside him. Her head was on his shoulder.

"Tell me that you love me," he begged.

"I love you!" Lavina whispered. "It is so wonderful that I can't find words to express it."

"All I want," the Marquis said, "are your lips. Kiss me again and I will know I am not dreaming and that this is real."

She kissed him again, gently and tenderly, so as not to disturb his wound.

"How soon can we be married?" he asked.

"Do you really want to marry me?" Lavina asked.

"I am going to make certain that you belong to me, and I never lose you," he said. "You are mine and you must swear to me, on everything you hold sacred, you will never leave me."

"I promise I will never do that," Lavina replied. "I

think I first loved you when I heard you playing the piano, and the music seemed to whisper of the love which I had never known, and never felt until I met you."

"I always knew that you were different from any woman I had met before," he mused, "but I was desperately afraid of frightening you, and making you and your father have no further use for me once we reached Scotland."

"Even when I thought I was annoyed with you, you were in my heart. You were so different from any other man I had ever met."

"And every man you will meet in the future," he said softly. "You are my darling, and I will never let you look at another man."

"I'll never want to do that. I want to be with you, to be close to you and for you to love me, just as the music told me about love. That is how I feel at the moment."

"I have a great deal more than music to tell you about," the Marquis said. "You are everything I ever wanted and ever longed for in a woman. I swear to you, my darling, I will do everything to make you happy!"

"And I will make you happy," she promised him, "so that you will forget the years of sadness. There are so many wonderful things we can do together."

"I love you, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet," he said. "I shall love you until the time comes for my life to end."

"On that day," Lavina said, "my life too will be over. I want nothing in the world but you."

She was unable to say any more because the Marquis's lips were on hers. She felt as he kissed her as if they were both flying up into the sky to be blessed by God.

She knew, in her mind and in her heart, that she had found love. And that she would be true to that love forever more.