The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) (13 page)

Antonia gave a little cry.

“There is no chance of your moving for weeks! You must not think of it! The doctor has been very insistent that you must take things very quietly and build up your strength gradually.”

“I will not have you put in any danger,” the Duke said obstinately.

“How can there possibly be any danger when we are English?” Antonia asked. “I told you Mr. Labouchere says that English and Americans are pouring into Paris to have a view of the events from the front row of the stalls!”

“He said men were coming,” the Duke replied, “not women.”

“I shall be safe enough,” Antonia insisted, “and have you forgotten that I am not a very feminine woman? In fact you said yourself I am a tomboy.”

“That is the last thing you look at the moment.”

Antonia glanced down at her exquisitely made gown.

“If we are going to be here a long time I shall regret that I asked
Monsieur
Worth to deliver to me in England nearly all the garments I had ordered.”

“I have a feeling that was a very wise instruction,” the Duke said. “For the time being neither of us will be attending smart Balls or anything that appertains to victory celebrations.”

“At the same time I want to look nice for you.”

“For me or your admirer?” the Duke asked, and there was a sharp note in his voice.

There was a lit
tl
e pause and then he saw the colour rise in Antonia’s cheeks.

“For
...
you,” she said quietly.

She had the feeling in the days that followed that the Duke was watching her.

She could not understand why sometimes, when she thought he was asleep, she would find in fact that he was awake and that his eyes were on her.

She sat in the window of his room or just outside on the balcony in case he should need anything.

There were fortunately some books in the house and Labby brought her more. She became acquainted with the works of Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Dumas and many other romantic authors whom she had never had the chance of reading in England.

Sometimes she found that the excitement the written page held for her was interrupted by the feeling she was being watched, and then she would find the Duke’s eyes on her.

She wondered to herself if it was in approval or indifference.

She longed to ask him if he missed the Marchioness; but the frankness with which she had been able to talk to him when they had first been married seemed to have vanished since the duel and his long illness.

She knew the answer to that herself and she only prayed that he would never realise it.

When she had seen him fall to the ground and when she had thought as she reached his side he was dead, she had known that she loved him.

As she and Tour, assisted by the Duke’s seconds, had carried him to the carriage and he had been laid on the back seat, his head in her lap, she admitted that she loved him agonisingly.

She had done so, she thought later, from the first moment when she had gone to his house to ask him if he would marry her rather than Felicity.

How, she asked herself, could any woman have resisted that strange, attractive, mocking expression in his eyes and the faintly cynical twist to his lips.

Now she could understand all too vividly what the Marchioness, the Comtesse and what doubtless every woman he had met, felt for him.

No wonder, when a whole world of beautiful women could be his, that he did not wish to tie himself to one dull, unattractive girl with no knowledge of anything except horses.

“I love you! I love you!” she whispered to him in the long nights when she nursed him.

He had cried out deliriously, sometimes talking gibberish she could not understand, but at other times speaking of things that had taken place in his life.

Gradually, after questioning Tour, she could understand what had actually happened.

He had fallen from a tree when he was a small boy and very nearly dislocated his neck.

He had been unconscious for a long time and forced to lie on his back so that the injuries he had done to himself would not become permanent.

He had thought in his delirium it was happening to him again, and as Antonia had held him in her arms, he had cried out for his mother.

When she tried to prevent him from throwing himself about in case he should injure the wound in his chest, Antonia had felt as if she was his mother and he was her child.

“You are all right, darling,” she had murmured to him. “You are safe. You will not fall again, see, I am holding you close against me, and you cannot fall.”

She felt gradually that her voice got through to him and that he understood.

Then he would turn his head against her breast as if seeking the comfort which only she could give him. She knew, at these times, that she loved him with her whole being as she had never thought she could love anybody.

Another night the Duke had thought he had had a fall hunting. When Antonia questioned Tour, he remembered when he had broken his collarbone and it had been very painful for some time.

He had cried out then for someone, but Antonia suspected that although he mentioned no name, it was not his mother he sought but another woman who he imagined would comfort him.

“It was not possible for me to be in his thoughts,” Antonia told herself, “but lucky I am that he should turn to me and need me as I have never been needed before.”

Gradually, as her love grew within her day after day, she understood that this was what she had always wanted, someone to love, someone to whom she was important and not just a nuisance and an irritation.

Someone also she could care for not only physically but with her whole heart.

‘Even if he does not love me,’ Antonia thought, ‘I can love him. But he must never know of it!’

Sometimes now when the Duke was asleep she would creep to his bedside to look at him. Then she would feel that her breasts ached because she could
not hold him any more in her arms and know that he would turn to her like an unhappy child.

She decided that when the Duke was well enough she would ask him to give her a baby. It would be a part of him which she could love and she was no longer afraid of the idea.

She thought of how foolish she had been not to let him make her his wife the first night they were married.

She wondered now why she had ever thought it important that they should get to know each other first. What really mattered was that she could have given him the heir he wanted and she would have had his child to love.

“When we get back to England,” she told herself, “he will go back to the Marchioness, but nothing and nobody can take this time away from me! He is mine
...
mine now and there is no other woman to distract him.”

She felt herself quiver with a sudden ecstasy as she whispered:

“I have held him in my arms and
...
kissed his cheek
...
his forehead and his
...
hair.”

She schooled herself in the day-time to be very circumspect, so that the Duke would not suspect for one moment how much it had thrilled her when he asked her to lift him lip against his pillows, to arrange them behind his head.

She even found herself, as the Duke got better, growing jealous of Tour because he asked so much more from him than he did from her.

She wanted to serve him, she wanted to be useful to him.

But when she had made him well, she remembered he would make love to the Marchioness!

She felt the pain of it strike at her like a dagger in her heart.

CHAPTER
SIX

“H
ow are you feeling?” Antonia asked.

“Well enough to go home,” the Duke replied.

He was sitting in an armchair in the window, and Antonia looking at him thought that he did in fact seem much better.

At the same time both she and Tour knew that he was still far from being himself.

Thanks to Labby, who had found a Chinese masseur, the Duke was in fact not as weak in the body as he might have been after such a long time in bed.

At the same time Antonia knew it would be a great mistake, at this stage in his convalescence, to over-tax his strength.

There were however many more difficulties arising from the situation in Paris than they had dared relate to the Duke, because they knew it would worry him.

They had not even told him that the Germans were approaching nearer and nearer day by day.

He had given her an answer and now, when the Duke said much the same thing she had the reply:

“We are British,” he said, “so there is no need to think that we cannot leave whenever we might wish to do so.”

Antonia hesitated.

“We are, as a Nation, very unpopular.”

“Why?” the Duke enquired.

“According to Mr. Labouchere, French opinion has been scandalised by the unfriendly attitude of the British Press.”

The Duke made an exasperated sound which she knew meant he thought little of the press one way or another.

“Once Paris was threatened,” she went on, “it was widely assumed that Britain would enter the lists to rescue the Fount of Civilisation.”

She paused before saying with a nervous note in her voice:

“Now, the feeling against us is so intense that
Les Nouvelles
even proposed that all the British in Paris should be shot at once!”

“Good heavens!” the Duke exclaimed.

“When the street names of Paris were changed after the fall of the Empire,” Antonia went on, “the French press demanded that the Rue de Londres should be renamed on the grounds that the name of Londres was detested even more than Berlin.”

“I cannot believe this is any more than gutter journalism,” the Duke said sharply. “I shall myself call at the British Embassy to-morrow!”

Antonia said nothing for a moment and then changing the subject she asked:

“I can see you have a headache. Will you let me massage your forehead? You know it helps you.”

She hoped as she spoke she did not sound too eager. To touch the Duke was such a delight that she found it difficult to hide her feelings in case he should guess how much she loved him.

“Perhaps it will help,” he said a little grudgingly.

She rose to stand behind his chair and placed her two hands very gently on his forehead, soothing away the tension in a way he remembered her doing when he had been ill.

“How did you learn to do this?” he asked.

“Ives found that it helped your horses when they had a sprained fetlock,” Antonia replied.

The Duke gave a short laugh.

“I might have guessed it was connected with horses!”

“I do not think I should have been allowed to practise on a man,” Antonia said with a little smile.

“I am grateful that I can be the first in that field at any rate,” the Duke remarked.

There was a slightly cynical and mocking note in his voice, and she wondered why.

Recently he had seemed almost to resent her attentions—or perhaps that was not the right word. It was as if he challenged her in some way which she could not understand.

“We must get away,” he said suddenly. ‘We must get back to England and a normal life. I am sure that is what you want as much as I do.”

With difficulty Antonia prevented herself from crying out that it was the last thing she wanted.

“Or perhaps,” the Duke went on, as if he was following the train of his own thoughts, “you would rather be here receiving the attentions of your journalist admirer.”

“Mr. Labouchere has been very kind,” Antonia said, “and when you are ready to leave I know he will help us.”

“I very much doubt if I shall need his help,” the Duke said loftily. “As I have already told you, I will go to the British Embassy to-morrow and arrange with Lord Lyon, our Ambassador, our safe conveyance to Le Havre where the yacht will be waiting.”

“You must be quite strong enough before we undertake the journey,” Antonia insisted.

“I intend to walk in the garden after I have rested this afternoon,” the Duke said, “and my masseur assures me that my muscles are in perfect trim. It is just a question of not reopening the wound on my shoulder.”

He did not add, Antonia noticed, that each time he got up out of bed he felt rather dizzy.

He resented any form of weakness, fighting against it with a determination which in part was the reason why he had recovered so quickly.

At the same time she knew that once they returned to England she would lose him, and she wished that whatever might happen in Paris they could stay on at least for a little while.

The Duke was resting after luncheon at which he had eaten quite a decent meal, having no idea how difficult it had been to procure, when the manservant announced that
Monsieur
Labouchere was in the Salon.

Antonia went in to him and he lifted her hand to his lips, holding it longer than necessary
and looking at her in a manner which made her feel shy.

“You look a little tired,” he said in concern. “Are you still nursing your importunate invalid at night?”

“No, of course not,” Antonia replied. “I sleep peacefully and my husband has a bell that he rings if he requires anything. He has not woken me for several nights now.”

“Yet subconsciously you listen for it,” Labby said perceptively.

Antonia smiled.

“You are not to worry about me. My husband wishes to go home.”

“He told me so yesterday,” Labby replied. “It is not going to be easy.”

“He says that he will see the British Ambassador tomorrow.”

“That will be impossible,” Labby answered. “He left this morning with the last of the British Corps Diplomatique.”

“I do not believe it!” Antonia exclaimed.

“I am afraid it is the truth,” Labby replied. “I was told that had happened, and because I was thinking about you I called at the Embassy on my way here.”

Antonia drew in her breath as he went on:

“There is no official left now in the British Embassy, save a concierge whose duty, I gather, is to shrug his shoulders to all enquiries and say parrot-wise ‘I cannot give you any information’.”

“I have never heard of anything so extraordinary!” Antonia exclaimed. “I thought the British Ambassador would stay as long as there were any English in Paris.”

“There are some 4,000 still in the City,” Labby told her.

“If the Ambassador has gone, then I feel we should go too,” Antonia said in a frightened voice. “Are there any trains running?”

“I think it unlikely you will be able to get on one even if there were.”

Labby paused and Antonia knew that he was keeping something from her.

“Tell me the truth,” she begged.

“I have only just learnt that a train which left the Gare du Nord on September 15th was seized by Prussian outriders at Senlis, which you know is only 27 miles north of Paris.” Antonia gasped but did not speak, and Labby went on: “I think it was that which must have persuaded Lord Lyon and the British Consul to leave this morning.”

“Why did the French Government not insist on all the British leaving earlier?” Antonia asked despairingly.

“The Government and the Council of National Defence has said that large groups of foreigners leaving the City would be
...
demoralising to the Army and the citizens.”

“But we are nothing but useless mouths,” Antonia persisted.

“That is what a number of British have already said to me,” Labby replied, “but I can assure you the French Government will not listen and in my opinion they are making a mess of everything.”

He spoke almost savagely and then said:

“I will get you away somehow, I promise you that. At the same time, if I followed my own wishes, I would keep you here.”

Antonia glanced at him enquiringly and saw the look in his eyes and quickly looked away.

“I love you, Antonia,” he said very quietly. “You know that by this time.”

“You must not ... say such
...
things.”

“What harm can it do?” he asked. “I know what your feelings are where I am concerned.”

He gave a sigh which seemed to come from the very depths of his being as he said:

“I realise that I am much too old for you. Had I been ten years younger I would have done my damnedest to seduce
you. As it is, I will leave you as I found you, perfect and unspoilt—perhaps in a long list of conquests, the only woman I have ever really loved.”

There was something in Labby’s voice which made Antonia feel curiously near to tears.

There was nothing she could say. She was only perturbed that she should have brought unhappiness to someone who had been so kind.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Labby went on: “Perhaps one day when you are older you will understand how difficult it has been these past weeks, when we have been so much alone together, for me to behave with an unaccustomed constraint and control.”

“It has meant so
...
much to me to have your
...
friendship,” Antonia faltered.

“It is not friendship, Antonia,” Labby contradicted, “it is love! A love so different from anything I have known or felt in the past that sometimes I think I must be dreaming and you do not really exist, except in my imagination.”

“You should not talk to me like
...
this, as you
...
well know,” Antonia said.

But she wondered even as she spoke why she should prevent him from doing so.

The Duke would not care if another man made love to her. After all he was in love with the Marchioness. When they returned to England she would have nobody in her life, neither the man she loved, nor the man who loved her.

She had half turned away and Labby, as he was speaking, put his hands on her shoulders to turn her round to face him.

“What is it about you that is so different to other women?” he asked. “You are not outstandingly beautiful, and yet I cannot be free of the fascination of your face.”

She saw the pain in his eyes as he went on:

“I hear your voice in my ears, your figure makes any other woman look coarse and ungainly, and I find it almost impossible to think of anyone else but you.”

There was a depth of passion in his tone which made Antonia feel shy and a little afraid.

Then he released her and walked across the Salon to stand at the window looking into the garden.

“When you leave,” he said, “all I shall have are my dreams. I have the uncomfortable feeling that they will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Antonia made a little helpless gesture.

“What can I
...
say?” she asked. “You know I do not wish to
...
hurt you.”

“It is banal to say ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’,” Labby replied in the tone of a man mocking at himself. “In my case it happens to be true. You have done a wonderful thing for me, my sweet Duchess.”

“What is that?” Antonia asked.

“You have restored my faith in women. I have watched the manner in which they defamed and prostituted in every possible way the Second Empire. I saw their greed, their hypocrisy, their perfidy! You have shown me that women can be pure and faithful, true and uncorrupted.”

He gave her one of his cynical smiles as he said:

“I have always thought that each woman a man loves, leaves a tombstone in his life. On yours will be written—‘She gave me faith’.”

“Thank you, Labby,” Antonia said very softly.

Then without waiting for him to say good-bye she went from the Salon and left him alone

“I do not believe you!” the Duke ejaculated angrily.

“It is true,” Henry Labouchere replied. “The Uhlans from two Prussian armies joined hands yesterday, September 20th, near Versailles which surrendered without a shot.”
\

There was silence for a moment. Then the Duke said: “That means that Paris is now severed from the rest of France. I can hardly believe it!”

“What do the people feel?” Antonia asked.

“At the moment the mood is ‘Let them come, Let the cannon thunder! It has been too long!’ ” Labby replied, “but retribution has been enacted violently upon the wretched deserters.”

“If they desert, they deserve all they get!” the Duke said in a hard voice.

“I cannot help being sorry for them,” Labby answered. “According to reports they were not only badly led, but many of them were without arms. The young Zouaves panicked the first time they were shelled by a well-trained Prussian field-gun battery.”