An Angel Runs Away Part 17

This was the most likely job to be found in the neighbourhood or else scrubbing floors.

But she did not worry about that now while there were other memories to be found.

Books from her father's study, mostly religious treatises, and what she felt was very precious, the Bible he had always used personally.

She was holding it in her hand and looking down at his name inscribed in his firm handwriting, when she heard somebody moving downstairs.

Instantly, like an animal that is being hunted, she was alert and tense, standing very still, listening.

There were footsteps moving too swiftly for it to be Graves.

Then she thought that the old man must have been mistaken.

The men who had come in search of her several days ago had been clever enough to reason that sooner or later she would turn up.

They had waited for just this moment and she felt a sense of panic sweep over her.

She looked around and saw that the only possible place for her to hide was behind some packing cases which were standing in the centre of the attic.

They were doubtless filled with more broken china and unusable utensils like those that were scattered on the floor.

Swiftly as a fox hiding from those who were hunting it, she ran to the crates and crouched down behind them.

She was hoping that anyone who stood just inside the door would not see her.

Even as she made herself as small as possible, she heard the footsteps coming up the stairs.

The door of the attic was open and as the man reached it, Ula's heart was beating frantically.

She felt it would jump from her breast and she was praying desperately for her father's protection.

"Save me a Papa a save me a you led me to the gypsies and I am here a don't let them a catch me now a please Papa a please!"

She was praying with every nerve in her body strained with the anxiety of her fear.

She was acutely conscious that the man who had followed her was standing just inside the doorway and she was sure that was looking for her.

Then softly a voice asked, "Are you there, Ula?"

For a moment she thought she must be dreaming and could not have heard correctly.

Then with a little cry she rose from where she was hiding and saw standing amongst the debris the elegant figure of the Marquis.

For a moment they just stared at each other.

Then he held out his arms and without thinking she ran towards him.

She flung herself against him, his arms went around her and his lips were on hers, holding her captive.

He kissed her wildly, pa.s.sionately, possessively, drawing her closer and closer.

It was as if it was the only way he could express what he was feeling, and there were no words in which he could do so.

To Ula it was as if the skies had opened and she had been swept from the very depths of despair and fear into a blinding light.

It was so glorious, so utterly and completely wonderful, that it could only be part of the Divine.

Then, as the Marquis kissed her and went on kissing her, she thought because it could not be true that she must have died.

Only when they were both breathless and Ula could feel his heart beating frantically against hers did the Marquis raise his head and say in a curiously unsteady voice, "I have found you! Where have you been? I have been frantic with worry!"

He thought as he looked down at Ula that he had never thought it possible for a woman to look so beautiful and at the same time so utterly and completely radiant.

He felt, too, that with her fair hair falling like a child's onto her shoulders, she looked even more like an angel than he remembered.

"You have a found me," Ula stuttered, "and I a thought I should a never see you a again!"

There was a lilt in the way she spoke and her voice held a rapture which made the Marquis without replying merely kiss her.

Now as he was aware of the softness, sweetness and innocence of her lips, he was more gentle, yet very demanding, almost as if he took possession of her.

When at last she could speak, Ula asked in a hesitating, lilting voice, "Why a are you here a and why a are you a looking at me?"

"Could you expect me to do anything else?" the Marquis asked. "It was clever of you, my darling, but you must have known that I would save you."

"I-I thought even if you wanted to a you would not be a in time and a I would rather have a died than marry Prince Hasin."

"And I would have killed him before I would let him become your husband!" the Marquis said.

The way he spoke made her look at him in astonishment.

Then she said, "I thought a perhaps when I had gone a you might have been a glad to be a rid of me."

The Marquis's arms tightened about her.

"How could you think anything so absurd?" he asked. "And how could you do anything so cruel as to leave everybody in tears, especially my grandmother and w.i.l.l.y."

Ula looked at him as if she could hardly believe what he was saying and he went on, "I was frantic, absolutely frantic when no one could find you!"

"But a you looked?"

"Of course I looked!" he replied. "I searched the whole countryside, the woods, the fields, the villages, all day, every day, until w.i.l.l.y told me, what I should have thought of myself, that you would have come home."

"w.i.l.l.y a told you?"

"It was something you said to him about pretending at night to be back in your home and how one day you would come back."

"So you found me."

The words were redolent with relief.

Then she gave a little cry of fear.

"Uncle Lionel! He has already a sent men here to look a for me and perhaps they will a come again. You must hide me a please a you don't a understand a he has the a law on his side."

"I know that," the Marquis said, "and that is why I intend to hide you so effectively that never again can he threaten you or make you afraid."

Instinctively, Ula moved a little closer to him as she asked, "It sounds a wonderful a but how can a you do that?"

"Easily," the Marquis replied very quietly. "We are going to be married!"

For a moment Ula felt that she could not have heard him aright.

Then she stared at him, thinking that she had never seen him look so happy or so young and he said, "Everything is arranged. I have just been waiting for you."

"I-I don't a understand."

"Tell me first," he said, "how you reached here without money and wearing, when you left Chessington Hall, only your nightgown?"

Ula smiled at him, then she moved from his arms so that she was not so close to him.

"Look at me."

The Marquis's eyes were on her face.

"I am looking," he said. "I had almost forgotten how lovely you are, so sweet, so perfect, so untouched! My precious, how can I tell you how much I love you and how different you are from any other woman I have ever known?"

"Are you a really saying a such things to a me?" Ula asked in a whisper.

"I have a great deal more to say," the Marquis answered, "but time is pa.s.sing and we cannot stand here for the rest of our lives."

It suddenly struck Ula how funny it was.

The Marquis of Raventhorpe, who owned so many houses filled with treasures, should be standing and declaring himself in a low-ceilinged attic surrounded by broken chairs and china and old saucepans that were too dilapidated to be sold.

Then, as she looked into his eyes, she knew that any place where she was with the Marquis would seem like a Temple of Beauty.

Because she loved him so overwhelmingly, this place was sacred.

"I love a you," she whispered and saw the expression in the Marquis's eyes which told her without words how much he loved her.

"I want to kiss you," he sighed, "and nothing else is really important, but we have a great deal to do and you have not answered my question."

"You have not looked at my dress."

He glanced down at her, at the velvet corset around her waist, the white blouse and the full red skirt.

"The gypsies!" he exclaimed. "You have been with the gypsies!"

"They brought me here and they are camping in the field where gypsies have always camped ever since I was a child."

"And you were safe with them? They did not harm you?"

"No, of course not!" Ula smiled. "Anyway, I am their blood sister."

"One day you must tell me all about it," the Marquis answered, "but now the Vicar who has taken your father's place will be waiting for us."

He kissed her on the forehead before he said, "Once you are my wife, my darling, no one shall hurt or insult you, and if any man tries to take you from me, I will kill him!"

For a moment Ula could only look at him and her eyes seemed to fill her whole face.

Then she said almost inarticulately, "It a it cannot be a true a that you really a want to a m-marry me!"

"I intend to marry you!" the Marquis stipulated firmly. "There is no other way I can make sure that you never leave me and never make me so unhappy, so frightened and so frantic as I have been these last ten days."

"Is it really ten days since I ran away," Ula asked.

"It seems to me like ten centuries, but I knew after what w.i.l.l.y told me that you would eventually come here and that is why I have been waiting."

He smiled and Ula thought the lines of his cynicism had disappeared and there was a boyish note in his voice as he said, "Come on! Hurry! And while we have been talking here, a gown for you to wear is waiting for you downstairs."

"A a gown?" Ula questioned.

By this time the Marquis was going down the narrow stairway to the first floor and drawing her after him by the hand.

As they reached the pa.s.sage, he said, "I could hardly expect to marry you in your nightgown, adorable though I am sure you look in it. So I have brought a trunkful of clothes with me and, when we have time, we will buy your trousseau."

"I am dreaming a I know I am a dreaming!" Ula said.

The Marquis did not answer.

He only drew her into what had been her mother's bedroom, where in the middle of it on a small square of carpet which had not been sold stood a leather trunk.

Somebody had opened it and on top lay a white gown which she knew, without picking it up, had been designed for a bride.

Beside it was a wreath of orange blossom resting on a veil.

"How can you have a thought of it?" Ula asked. "And also have been so a certain you would a find me here?"

The Marquis thought for a moment of the agony he had suffered when he had sent the divers to search the river.

But everything would keep until they had time to talk.

All he wanted now was that Ula should become his wife, so that it would be impossible for her to be spirited away from him by her uncle or anyone else.

He was, although he did not say so to Ula, still afraid that Prince Hasin who, like many Eastern potentates, would use any unscrupulous means to obtain his desires, would still be pursuing her.

He already knew that besides the Earl's servants who were searching, there were some dark rather sinister men who were employed by the Prince.