Daughters of Belgravia; vol 3 of 3. Fraser Alexander

with all my heart! to tell you that I will strain every nerve to make you care for me as I care for you! But there is one thing you must confess to me. Loving you as I do I shall be a very lenient judge, my child. Do you love me enough to be true to me always?”

      She knows she does not love him as she had loved Carl. That had been a mad phantom, possessing her heart and her brain. But she knows if she marries this man she will make him a good and true wife.

      She is sure that, in deed and word, and even thought, she will be loyal and faithful to him always.

      The fitful pink colour comes and goes on her cheek, the big grey eyes droop as they have a habit of doing, but a smile – a little ghost of a smile, hovers round her pretty red lips.

      “I love you, and I shall be true to you always!” she says, and Lord Delaval, cynical as he is – sceptical of all things, feels that her words are genuine, and he starts and his face grows radiant.

      “Zai!” he cries breathlessly.

      And bending, he puts his hand under the rounded chin and lifts up the little drooping face towards him. Zai’s eyes are still downcast, but he manages to read their language pretty well, and he sees the lips part in something between a quiver and a laugh.

      “Is it so – say?” he whispers passionately, throwing his arms round her and gathering her close until her face rests against his. “Zai, for God’s sake, is it so? Don’t —don’t take away my new-born hope, but tell me that you really love me and only me!”

      “I love only you.”

      And when she says this Zai feels that her prayers are answered, and the old love for Carlton Conway is conquered.

      “Look at me, my darling child!”

      She looks up, and in the soft grey eyes he reads honesty and truth, and on the impulse of the moment he stoops, and his lips cling feverishly, almost fiercely, to hers.

      Zai starts away from him then, and for a second she seems scared, white, trembling.

      His wild, fierce kiss has sent the blood back from her cheek to her heart, that throbs with a pain that makes her faint and sick. Then the pretty pink colour creeps slowly back, and of the passionate caress that has lingered on her mouth there is born a new feeling for her betrothed husband.

      “Zai, you hated me once, I believe,” he says reproachfully. “I wonder why?”

      “Never mind, since I love you now,” she replies.

      “You hated me when you cared for Conway, Zai!”

      He looks at her keenly as he deals what she thinks a random shot, but which is really a premeditated speech, for ever since Gabrielle’s words, Lord Delaval has been jealous for the very first time in his life.

      Never before has he felt the pangs of the green-eyed monster. It may be because he has never before perhaps felt a true and pure love.

      Zai laughs, but the laugh is a little forced.

      “You see, Delaval, if you did not care about me you would not be jealous! The past belongs to me, you know, but the future is yours – won’t that content you?” she asks softly. “Shall I promise that it is only you that I shall love for the rest of my life?”