The Makeshift Marriage by Sandra Heath Page B

magnificence when applied to my sire. That is why Augustine will not understand when I tell her what must be done to her beloved King’s Cliff. She will not understand that and she will not understand me. She wants things to remain as they are, and I cannot do that, not even for her. If my cousin had inherited, then King’s Cliff would have continued —”
    “But he has not.”
    “No. He wanted to, though —and it was because he coveted the house, and he coveted Augustine. If he had owned the house, then he would have seen a chance of winning her.”
    “So many ifs, Sir Nicholas? He hasn’t won her; you have.”
    “Yes, that is true —or is it? Has she accepted me because she loves me, or because through me she will gain King’s Cliff?”
    “Oh, surely you misjudge her —”
    “I pray so, for I love her very much indeed. I am painfully uncertain, however, of how much she loves me.”
    Laura could only look at him. How could any woman in her right mind not love him?
    He gave a short, embarrassed laugh then. “Dear God, I have confessed my innermost soul to you, and yet until yesterday I had not even granted you a kind word. I could not have told Augustine herself what I have just told you. Why am I so unguarded with you, Miss Milbanke?”
    “Perhaps it is simply that I am not involved; I am not the object of your love.” Would that I were ….
    “Whatever it is, you certainly seem to have a profound effect upon me.”
    She smiled a little. “Maybe it’s just Venice.”
    The gondola glided on to a stretch of silver water. The city shimmered ail around, the atmosphere pale and tenuous, a gamut of greens and blues which turned the palaces and churches into a strange, mirage - like fantasy. The air was still and yet it moved. Everything seemed so unreal, as if it would flee if touched.
    “Miss Milbanke,” he said at last, “can you even begin to imagine the shock which will greet the news that the King’s Cliff hunt is to be sold? Can you imagine the noise in Somerset when I set about draining my portion of Sedgemoor, called King’s Cliff Moor, thus depriving a vast army of poachers of their livelihood and another vast army of wealthy gentlemen of their shooting and fishing? I shall turn out tenants who will not comply with my new ways of things and I will rid myself of land which is useful only for hunting and cannot be turned into rich pasture or crop land. I am about to become notorious. That is, if I survive tomorrow —”
    “Don’t say that!” she cried. “Please don’t!”
    He took her hand again, his fingers light but firm around hers. “It must be faced.”
    “No!”
    He smiled. “Very well, we will forget it.” The gondola rocked gently on the small tide and he pointed across to the distant Rialto Bridge. “Did you know, Miss Milbanke, that it is said that no fewer than thirty thousand trees were required to give solidity to the foundations of that bridge? And hundreds of thousands for the construction of the church of Santa Maria delta Salute?”
    She blinked a little at the change of subject. “No, Sir Nicholas, I did not.”
    He grinned then. “It never ceases to amaze me what snippets of useless, but interesting information I seem capable of remembering.”
    * * *
    The noon day sun was high in the flawless sky when Laura and Nicholas entered the cathedral of San Marco. There was surely no other building on earth as wonderful as this, she thought. Everything about it bespoke Byzantium, of times gone by —except that here in Venice Byzantium lived on in all its glory. The sun’s rays brought out the color of the marble and porphyry and the radiance of the gold mosaics. The cathedral was encrusted from floor to ceiling with precious metals and jewels, and she was aware of a sultry opulence she had never before seen in a church. English cathedrals had their own magnificence, but it bore no resemblance whatsoever to this building, which seemed so like a medieval reliquary, so rich and