War Zone

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

So this was love! This was love, soaring, as the Duchess said, like an eagle until one's very humanity was lost in the dazzling blue of a translucent joy a joy which made one tremble with shyness, yet leapt as a burning flame to consume that very timidity. Rêve drew a deep breath. She was happier than she

had ever been before in the whole of her life. She was in love! And yet there was still a shadow, a cloud hovering darkly in the background. There had been no time to talk last night.

There had indeed been not a moment for words as their whole beings responded one to the other, and she had known that all she wished to hear was Ar mand's heart beating in unison with hers, all she wished to feel was the insistence of his lips on hers and the tender pressure of his hands.

How could she even remember there was anything else in the wonder of knowing her own response, in the breathless happiness of seeing the flame of passion in his eyes and of knowing that he desired her?

How could they speak except in the broken mur murings of love, as soft and musical as the evening breeze in the pine trees? "Je t'adore!"

"So lovely-so perfect!"

"Again!"

There had been no

"Oh God-again!"

need, no time for conversation; but now in the clear morning light Rêve realised how much they had to tell each other. It was now that she regretted that she knew so little

about Armand or he about her. They knew all that was essential, that they loved each other, that they be longed one to the other as they must have belonged in a former life.

It was not a question of love at first sight, but rather a reunion between two people who must indeed have been together in some previous existence and had now found each other again in this.

From the first moment she had set eyes on him, Rêve thought Armand seemed familiar. She did not know whether it was his handsome face, his dark eyes, the firm squareness of his jaw, or the way his mouth curved at the corners when he was amused.

All she knew was that it seemed impossible now that there had been a time when she had not known him, when she had not loved him; and she knew with out being told it that he felt the same about her.

They had found each other, and their bodies had recognised what their memories and brains had forgot ten. "Your hair!"

Armand had touched it gently as if it were some delicate substance that might be injured by the strength of his fingers. She had known what he asked of her, and with hands which trembled with the ecstasy within her breast she had taken the pins from the dark, shin ing coils.

Her face burned again as her hair fell softly over her naked shoulders as it had done the night before. She had known of what he was thinking as he stepped back to look at her.

Then reverently, in what seemed to her almost an act of adoration, he had dropped on one knee and taking only one slender curl in his hand, he had pressed his lips to it.

For a moment she was half afraid, as if he had withdrawn from her into some sacred place where she I could not follow him; then he was on his feet again and she was once more in his arms.

She felt the fiercely possessive strength of him com pel her subservience; she knew the fury of the fire she had awakened within him and was aware that only an iron self-control kept him from carrying her by force into the dark shadows of the Temple.

"My little love!" His voice broke on the words; then his lips sought hers hungrily, the need for her making his caress almost cruel in its very existence. Rêve felt the sun warm on her lips and felt again

that kiss of exquisite pain and ecstasy. At the very thought she felt her whole body tingle and as the flickering flame of desire rose within her she was aware of the sweet heaviness of her eyelids and the burning warmth of her mouth. Soon, soon, she told herself, she would see him!

At the thought her heart leapt, as she had so often seen the stags leap, wild and untrammelled, as they strove to attack the hinds.

She would see him again; and then, as if a cloud swept over the brilliance of the sun; she remembered that today might bring her half-brother to the Château. She had waited for him so long. She had anticipated his arrival hour by hour, and yet now for the first time she dreaded his coming and wished she had prevented her aunt from writing to him.

Armand, Marquis d'Augeron, was the son of Rêve's mother by her first husband. She had been desperately unhappy in a marriage which had been contracted be fore she left school with a man old enough to be her father, and on her husband's death she had returned to her own home.

But her husband's relations had prevented her from taking her child with her and the boy, who had suc ceeded to the title, had been brought up on the Polish estates of his grandparents. After his mother had mar ried the Count de Valmont, all communications between them ceased.

Rêve had never met her half-brother. he was fifteen years older than she was, and that the mention of him had made her mother very sad. She learned this from Antoinette, for her mother had died when Rêve was only two years old of some obscure

agonising disease for which the doctors could find

neither cure nor relief.

It was the Duchess who had insisted that Rêve's half brother should be informed that she had returned to the Château and be asked to visit her.

She had mooted this suggestion several times before Rêve agreed to do as she wished, and only when the question of her marriage arose did she allow the Duch ess to write the letter which invited Armand d'Augeron to Valmont.

"It is not fitting," the Duchess said, "that I should negotiate your marriage when you have a nearer rela tive. If your brother did not exist, then perforce I should do my best for you, child, but when it comes to marriage, more than anything else it is of the utmost importance that one should be conventional as well as shrewd. I am getting old;

"I find finance and figures makes me feel giddy and I cannot grasp them. This offer for your hand is made by a very rich man and the settlement which he must make on you should be a large one, but I am afraid to undertake such delicate negotiations. Let us ask your half-brother to come here for a visit.

"He holds a position of importance and his lands and properties will not have been affected by the Revolution. He will obviously make the arrangements far better than I can. Be guided by me in this if in nothing else."