The Judgement Of Love Part 19

Vulcan and Lionel without checking their pace reached William and drew in their horses sharply.

"What the devil are you doing here?" William asked furiously.

The words seemed almost to hiss from between his lips.

"That is what we have come to ask you," Lionel replied.

Vulcan, without speaking had flung himself from his horse. Instinctively as if he had asked him to do so Lionel bent forward to take the bridle.

"Get down, William 1" Vulcan commanded. "I am going to teach you a lesson which has been long overdue I"

"Do you really imagine you can do that?" William asked.

There was no doubt of the sneer in his tone and in the twist of his lips.

"Get down!" Vulcan said again ominously.

William swung himself to the ground.

The horse he had been riding was a quiet one and merely put his head down and started to crop the gra.s.s beside the lake.

"If you wish to fight me, Vulcan," he said, "I am quite prepared for you to do so, provided you agree that when I am the winner, which I shall undoubtedly be, you go home, mind your own business and leave Astara to me."

"I will make no bargains with you," Vulcan replied.

He moved towards him.

"Wait a moment," William said. "If we must fight we fight in a sportsman-like and civilised manner. I wish to take off my coat."

As he spoke he pulled off his elegant, tight-fitting whip-cord riding-jacket, and put it down on the ground.

Then swiftly so that it might have been considered a foul he struck out at Vulcan.

Lionel seeing William's action drew in his breath, but Vulcan side-stepped the blow and hit back.

He punched him and now it was William who drew back with his fists on guard.

"Keep to the rules," he said sharply.

"I learnt in a different school from you," Vulcan replied.He went at William again and the acclaimed pugilist, the boxing Viscount who had boasted that he had sparred with Jackson and Mendoza and had defeated them both, went down with a thud.

It might not have been in the Queensberry Rules, Lionel decided, but Vulcan had used very effectively a type of action that he had never seen before.

Whatever the method William was out for the count and Vulcan picked him up as if he was a sack of coals and tossed him into the water.

As he did so he saw about two or three yards away Astara reach the side of the lake.

She stood up, her soaked gown revealing every curve of her young body and making her appear like a nymph or one of the Sirens who had enticed Ulysses.

She would have walked the last few steps towards the bank, but Vulcan was there before her.

He walked into the lake, pulled her close against him and bent his head to kiss her cold lips.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Somebody came into the parlour and without turning his head Vulcan, who was standing by the window, asked "How is the young lady?"

"See for yourself 1" a voice replied.

He swung round and saw Astara smiling at him from the other end of the room.

She was wearing a gingham gown belonging to one of the chambermaids, there was a towel round her shoulders and her golden hair fell over it in heavy waves. "You are all right?"

Vulcan's voice was surprisingly hoa.r.s.e.

"I thought I would ... finish drying my ... hair in front of the ... fire," she answered.

Her eyes were on his but she spoke as if the words she were saying did not really come from her brain.

She was thinking of the rapture he brought her when she stepped from the lake into his arms and he had kissed her so that she forgot everything but the wonder of being close to him again.

Then he had put her down on the bank of the lake, pulled off his coat, put it round her shoulders and lifting her had set her on the saddle of his horse.

He mounted behind her and only when he was holding her close against him did he turn his head to say to Lionel: "Follow us to the Inn. You had better leave that swine a horse to carry him."

"I am afraid he might drown," Lionel said looking to where William seemed to be floating on the water. "It is what he deserves, Vulcan replied and rode off.

He saw however as he spoke that William had obviously recovered consciousness and was thres.h.i.+ng the water with his hands.

Vulcan had not spoken as he rode at some speed back towards the Inn, and because she was so thankful he had saved her and so thrilled to be in his arms, Astara merely put her head against his shoulder and shut her eyes.

Then a few minutes later she murmured: "I am ... making you ... wet."

"It does not matter," Vulcan answered.

They reached the yard of the Inn and as an ostler ran to the head of the horse Vulcan leapt to the ground, then lifted Astara very carefully from the saddle.

"Show me which is this lady's room!"

As if he recognised the tone of authority the Landlord ran ahead up the oak staircase and opened the door of the bed-room.

"Send two Chambermaids here!" Vulcan ordered. "Yes, M'Lord, immediately, M'Lord!" the Inn-keeper replied obsequiously.

Almost before he had finished speaking his wife and a Chambermaid hurried into the bed-room.

They helped Astara out of her wet clothes and dried her hair, but all the time she was impatient to hurry downstairs and find Vulcan.

Now she thought there was an expression in his eyes that she had never seen before and she was not certain what it could mean.

She wanted to go close to him, to hold onto him and beg him once again not to leave her.

Yet because she felt shy she looked towards the fire and said: "Perhaps I had ... better sit on the ... floor."

Without waiting for an answer she sat down on the hearth-rug with her back to the smouldering log and Vulcan took some smaller ones from the basket and put them on the fire.

Then he sat down on a chair beside her.

"Are you really all right?" he asked.

He spoke as if he was astonished by her appearance and that she was not swooning or half-unconscious from the ordeal she had been through.

"Of course I am," Astara replied. "I felt quite warm when I was swimming, although the water was cold."

"I had no idea you could swim like that," Vulcan said. "Why did you go into the lake?"

"It was my only way of escape, " Astara answered. "William intended me to marry him immediately, and as he was waiting at the bottom of the stalls I had to dive from the bed-room window-sill.

"Good G.o.d!"

It was obvious that Vulcan was surprised.

"I have swum in worse places," Astara said with a smile. "At least there were no crocodiles."

"Crocodiles?" he repeated in a wondering tone. Then he exclaimed: "Beverley! You are not telling me that you are Charles Beverley's daughter?"

"Of course I am!" Astara answered. "Did you not know?"

"I had no idea, " he replied. "All I heard about you was that Uncle Roderick was giving very large and expensive parties for a young girl in Paris. "

He stopped speaking to stare at her almost as if he could not believe his eyes.

"Charles Beverley's daughter! I never suspected I never dreamt! Then you are the child who went with him to Siam and across the Libyan desert."

Astara laughed.

"I do not remember much about that, " she said, "except that I used to sleep with great comfort on the back of a camel and the movement rocked me to sleep.

She saw the expression on Vulcan's face and she said: "I loved travelling with Papa and these last years since he died I have missed not only being with him, but all the thrilling, exciting, adventurous things we did together." She gave a little sigh before she went on: 'That is why I wanted to read your book. I knew it would remind me of the articles Papa used to write for the a.s.sociation in' London, and one of the founders of the Societe de Geographes in Paris told me when I was there that he loved listening to Papa's lectures."

"I heard two of them in which he mentioned you," Vulcan said.

"I remember those," Astara smiled. "I spent hours copying them out so that they were legible."

"How can you have been on all those dangerous and exhausting journeys and yet look as if a puff of wind would blow you away?"

"I am very much tougher than you think." "And extremely resourceful!"

She looked up at him and for a moment there was silence.

Then he said: "I was thinking before you came into the room that I should have to give up the trip I had planned to the Caucasus. I had promised to bring back a report which the Societe de Geographes wants particularly."

Astara was very still.

"And ... now?" she asked.

She could hardly breathe the words.

"I will fulfil my obligation," Vulcan replied, "and take you with me."

Astara gave a little cry, then before he could move she was on her knees reaching her arms up towards him. "Do you ... mean that? Do you really ..: mean it?" He looked down at her with a tenderness that she had never seen in his face before.

"I could hardly leave you behind to be kidnapped and forced into marriage with somebody like my cousin."

"He was ... jealous of the way I ... looked at you."

"So he cheated, as he has done all his life," Vulcan said harshly. "But it is something he will never do again where you are concerned. You belong to me, Astara, and I was mad to think I could live without ".

you.

You ... thought I would be an... enc.u.mbrance and a ... restriction, " Astara murmured.

"I thought apart from the feelings we had for each other we had nothing in common, " Vulcan answered.

He put his hands on each side of her face as he went on: "You will have to forgive me, my darling, but how was I to guess that in spite of your beauty, which makes you like a G.o.ddess, and the luxury with which you are surrounded, you were Charles Beverley's daughter and used to a very different sort of life?"

"I thought once that ... it would not matter ... if we were in a ... tent in the desert ... or a cave in the mountains ... as long as ... we were ... together. "

"I know that now, and I was a fool, " Vulcan said.

He took her in his arms and lifted her onto his knees. Then he was kissing her pa.s.sionately and demandingly so that she thrilled with the ecstasy his lips always evoked in her.

Now it was more wonderful, more perfect, because she knew she need no longer be afraid of losing him.

When finally he raised his head he looked down at her to say: "My own precious little Aphrodite, how could I really have contemplated losing you?"

"You will ... never do that," Astara answered, "and I will be ... with you and look after you as Mama looked after Papa."

Vulcan smiled.

"I thought I was going to look after you! " Astara laughed.

"Mama said men always think that, but really Papa would have forgotten his way, his compa.s.s, his maps, and even food, if we had not been there."