The Cruel Count (Bantam Series No. 28) (17 page)

“I swear before God, that I will devote my whole life to serving you and making you happy.”

It was a vow and as his lips met hers, she knew it was a dedication and there was something spiritual in his kiss which had not been there before.

She felt an ecstasy sweep her away with all the wonder and rapture that she had known the first time he had kissed her.

Yet now they both touched the divine and there was something sacred in the wonder and glory of their closeness with each other.

The Count lifted his lips from Vesta’s and she knew by the expression on his face how deeply moved he was—not only with passion but with something deeper and more tremendous, something which seemed to vibrate between them and light the whole room with a compelling radiance.

He rose from his knees and sat down beside her on the sofa. He undid the bow of blue ribbon and pulled her hair forward to bury his face in it and then kiss her again.

“I love you,” he said, “I love you so overwhelmingly there are no words in which to tell you of my love.”

“I love you ... too,” Vesta said. “I was thinking before you came back to me that perhaps it would be best if you went ... alone to see the Prince to ask him to ... release me from the marriage by proxy that took place in London.”

“The Revolution is over,” the Count said. “Why should you wish me to go alone?”

Vesta hesitated a moment and then, as she knew he was waiting for her reply, she turned her face against his shoulder and said very softly:

“We have to face the ... possibility that His Royal Highness may ... refuse to do as we ... ask.”

She felt his arms tighten about her.

“And if he does?”

She knew by his sudden tenseness that he was afraid of her answer. Then Vesta said very softly:

“I will still ... come with ... you if you ... want me.”

“Do you mean that?” he asked. “Do you really mean that, my beloved?”

“I mean it,” Vesta answered, “because I know that without you I should be, in your own words ... ‘a hollow empty shell’. I believe that God meant us for each other, and you are right, no Statesman can keep us apart.”

“You would really do this for me?” the Count asked wonderingly. “You will give up everything that has been of importance to you up to now, your social position, the respect in which you believe other people hold you?”

“Nothing matters ... except you,” Vesta said. “At the same time, if the Prince will not release me, then I must ... cease to ... exist.”

“I do not understand.”

“I mean,” Vesta said in a very small voice, “that Lady Vesta Cressington-Font will have ... died on the journey from Jeno to Djilas. You will write to father and tell him I am dead, for I could not bear to hurt him as he would be hurt if he knew I was ... living with you in what to him would be ... sin.”

She paused a moment and then continued bravely: “And the people of Katona must think I have died too. Perhaps at the hand of the Revolutionaries. The man who fired just now might have killed me.”

“He could have,” the Count said. “He was an Anarchist, my darling, and the soldiers have been hunting him all day.”

“Then it would be easy to say that in dying he ... shot me,” Vesta said. “That is, if the Prince will not ... allow me to become your ... wife.”

She hesitated a moment and then she asked:

“You do ... want me as your ... wife?”

“I want you as no man ever wanted a woman before,” the Count answered. “I have told you, Vesta, and I mean it, that without you I am no longer a man because you possess my brain, my body and my soul.” The deep passion in his voice made her tremble and then she cried:

“You must somehow persuade the Prince to ... release me. Plead with him, beg him, if necessary on your knees, to let us be ... happy ... together.”

“And if he will not,” the Count said, “if we have to hide away somewhere as social outcasts, what would happen if as the years go by you grew tired of me?”

“I shall never do that,” Vesta answered with a smile. “I love you, I love you so overwhelmingly that I know that my love will never change but only deepen and increase as the years go by.”

She paused and then she added nervously:

“But you ... might grow ... tired of ... me.”

“What then?” the Count asked.

“Then as far as I was concerned, my life would be over,” Vesta answered. “But it is better to love even for a short while than to exist without love ... without happiness and without ... you.”

His lips found hers and it was impossible to speak, but only to feel...

It was very much later that the Count smoothed back Vesta’s hair from her cheeks and kissed her eyes.

“I will tell you what I am going to do now, my darling,” he said, “I am going to leave you.”

“Leave ... me?”

The words were a cry.

“There are six soldiers here,” he said, “who have been burying the man who tried to assassinate us. I shall take two of them with me and ride to Djilas. The other four will stay here and guard you.”

“Why must you go tonight?” Vesta asked.

“For many reasons,” he answered, “the first being that I must make the arrangements that you have asked of me so that we can be married as soon as possible. I cannot wait for you, Vesta, I want you now—now this very moment.”

His lips found hers again. Then as he felt her stir and quiver beneath his mouth, as he saw the rise and fall of her breasts and felt her breath coming quickly from between her parted lips, he said very softly:

“I think, my sweet life, the Sleeping Beauty is at last awake.”

“You have ... awoken me,” Vesta replied, “and I know now that the fire of which you spoke does ... burn within me.”

“I know that too,” he answered, “and I will make it burn fiercer still until I see from the fire in your eyes that the blaze within you echoes the blaze within me.”

He would have kissed her again, but then it seemed to Vesta he checked himself at the last moment.

“It is because I am afraid of that fire,” he said very softly, “that I am going to Djilas tonight. I do not trust myself to stay here with you, my darling, and I think you know the reason.”

Vesta gave a little laugh of sheer happiness.

“How shocked everyone would be,” she said, “if they knew we were here alone and I was not yet married to you.”

“I think everything we have done since we first met,” the Count said with a smile, “has been unconventional and wholly unpredictable.”

“That is certainly true,” Vesta agreed. “Who would have imagined that having set out from England with so much pomp and circumstance, I should end up here in a bachelor Hunting Lodge, very inadequately dressed with a man I love with all my heart and soul but on whom I had never set eyes until three days ago.”

The Count laughed too.

“No-one would believe it, which is perhaps a blessing.”

“But it is true,” Vesta said almost anxiously as if she wanted him to confirm it.

“It is true, my precious, wonderful darling,” he said, “and now there is no turning back. You love me as I love you, and we shall be together for the rest of our lives.”

The thought made Vesta slip her arms round his neck to pull his head down towards her.

“You will be safe?” she asked anxiously. “Promise me you will be safe! Supposing anyone ... killed you on the way to Djilas?”

“I shall be safe,” he answered, “the soldiers tell me that the Revolutionaries have all been rounded up. Many had already been exiled and deported before I came to you at Jeno. But those left were the dangerous Anarchists, men who kill for killing’s sake and not for any particular motive.”

“How did they get here in the first place?” Vesta asked.

“They were deliberately brought into the country from outside,” the Count answered and his voice was hard.

Vesta was sure that it was Madame Ziileyha who was responsible for their presence, and she found herself hating the unknown Turkish woman because she might have been responsible inadvertently for the death of the Count.

“Are you quite ... sure there are no more of ... them?” she asked apprehensively.

“The soldiers assured me that this man was the last. He was the most wily, the most elusive, and had already been deported from other countries for his Anarchist activities.”

“And now he is dead,” Vesta said with a little sigh.

“And I am alive,” the Count said gently, “thanks entirely to you, my brave wonderful sweetheart.”

His arms tightened about her and he said:

“I still cannot believe that you would try to save me and risk your own life in doing so.”

“It was then I knew how much I loved you,” Vesta said. “I had been worried all day trying to think what I should decide to do, wishing there was someone who could advise me and help me.”

“I knew it was a conflict within you,” the Count said, “but it was something, my beloved, you had to decide for yourself. I wanted to force you, you know that. I wanted to carry you away and make you love me, but it would not have been fair. You had to make the choice yourself.”

“No, it was made for me,” Vesta contradicted. “It was so difficult to know what was right and what was wrong. Then when the Anarchist threatened you, I knew that you were my life.”

“And now you are mine for all eternity,” the Count said.

His lips were against her forehead kissing her soft skin, her little arched eyebrows and then her small straight nose.

“I want to stay here all night,” he said, “I want to go on kissing you and making love to you. Very soon, Heart of my Heart, I shall kiss you from the tip of your golden head to the soles of your adorable little feet.”

He kissed her small ears before he continued.

“But because I have no wish to shock you, my adorable one, I must go away. It will not be for long, I promise you that.”

“I want to be your ... wife.”

“And I want to be your husband.”

He kissed her again on the mouth and then as her lips clung to his, he slowly and reluctantly drew his arms from her and stood up.

“Promise me you will not leave the house until I come back for you or send a message to say that you can come to me,” he said. “You can go on the terrace or walk in the garden because the soldiers will be guarding you, but do not go into the woods. I would not have a moment’s peace if I thought you were in any danger.”

Vesta rose from the sofa to stand beside him.

“And what shall I be feeling?” she asked, “fearing that at every inch of the way to Djilas there may be a man waiting to shoot at you, or more Brigands waiting to capture you?”

“I promise you that I will be safe,” the Count answered. “I shall ride very swiftly with my escort.”

Vesta hid her face against his shoulder.

“You will explain to the Prince that I meant to keep my promise I made in London, that even when you met me at Jeno I intended to come to him ... to help him if he wanted my help?”

“I will explain exactly what has happened,” the Count promised. “I can only tell the truth, Vesta, and say that I love you more than I believed it possible for any man to love any woman, and that I believe that God intended us for each other since the beginning of time.”

“I am sure of that too,” she said softly. “But, my darling, I am afraid ... afraid of losing you. We are too happy ... perhaps the gods will be ... jealous.”

The Count laughed very softly and he lifted her face up to his.

“The gods will not be jealous of their own,” he said. “You are the goddess of fire, my darling and the goddess of my heart. Because you are so perfect we shall find perfect happiness with each other.”

“I hope ... that is ... true,” Vesta said with a little sob.

She was afraid for him to leave her. Afraid with the new feeling that she must protect and take care of him.

He stood looking down at her in the firelight.

At her hair hanging over her shoulders, at the wide sleeves of the robe falling back from her white arms as she stretched them towards his neck, at her face soft and tender with love, her eyes very large and a little frightened.

“How can I leave you?” he asked hoarsely, “even for a moment? But once this is over we shall be together for always.”

He paused a moment and then he added:

“Together day and night, my sweetheart.”

“Day and ... night,” she whispered.

Then he kissed her, passionately, violently, with a fierceness which told her of the pain he was suffering in leaving her, until he wrenched himself away and without looking back he walked from the room.

The door shut behind him and Vesta stood with her hands clasped forcing herself not to run after him, not to call out and tell him he must not go. But she knew the Prince must be told of what had happened.

‘He will realise that there are other English girls, who will be only too pleased to come here as the reigning Princess,’ she thought.

If things had gone according to plan and there had been no Revolution, she would at this moment have been in Djilas either married or waiting to be married.