Lovers in Paradise by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788673341
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks ltd
Published: 2020-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

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It might have been an hour or a century that passed before the barking of a dog in the village disturbed them and brought them back to reality.

“I – must go!”

The words were almost a paean of wonder and ecstasy, Roxana’s voice was not her own, but the music of the spheres and the movement of the blossom above their heads.

“My darling, my sweet! How could I know that there was anyone like you in the whole world?”

The Count's fingers touched her cheek as he spoke and then the softness of her neck, as he had touched the carving of the girl in prayer.

He had known her skin would be like the petals of a flower and yet he knew that there was a strength in her body and in her spirit that had nothing soft or limp about it.

He smoothed back the hair from her forehead and then, looking into her eyes, suggested,

“Go now, my precious. I shall see you tomorrow, but I am not certain at what time.”

“You know – I will be waiting,” Roxana answered gently.

Then, as if she understood that neither of them could bear such an anti-climax of saying ‘goodbye’ in the courtyard in front of the boy minding the Count’s horse, she slipped from his arms and through the gateway and he was alone.

He waited for some minutes, conscious that his heart was still beating strangely in his breast, and that he was feeling different in every way from what he had ever felt before when he loved a woman.

This was love, he told himself, that he had never dreamt existed, a love that could not be compared for one moment with the desire or infatuation that had held him for a short time at many a woman’s side before inevitably he grew bored and had no further use for her.

He told himself that he was like a pilgrim moving relentlessly on a path that he sensed would carry him to real love, but which twisted and turned so that he had trodden many false paths before he found the right one.

He looked back and regretted that he had wasted so much time and that many women had been hurt in his fruitless search for perfection which had always eluded him.

He thought of Luise van Heydberg and was ashamed. How could he have been so foolish and so obtuse as to have become involved with such a woman?

Just for a moment because of his feeling for Roxana he was afraid.

Afraid that he might be punished for the sins that he had committed in the past. Afraid he might lose her for that would be a punishment he deserved.

Then he told himself that he was being absurd.

The fight between good and evil that he had seen in the Ketjak was still lingering in his mind.

Quickly and deliberately he walked through the gateway to find as he had expected that the bamboo screens were closed and there was no sign of Roxana. Only the boy and the horse were waiting for him.

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