A Battle of Brains (18 page)

“I know that Alan admires you enormously and we want you to come continually to our house just as we shall continually come to yours.”

Her stepfather put his arms round her and held her close against him.

“That is just what I wanted you to say.  Because I really cannot afford to lose you as I lost your mother.”

“You will never lose me, Step-papa,” she promised.  “I shall always need you in my life even though I have Alan.”

He kissed her.

“Your future husband has just told me something very touching.  It is a secret, but I want you to know.

“When he told the Queen he was going to marry you, she was not only delighted but very impressed that I had been chosen by the Prime Minister and Lord Granville to travel to America and acquire the automatic air brake for Great Britain.”

“I am so glad she is pleased.”

“Her Majesty is not only pleased,” he went on, “but your future husband spoke to her about my collection of pictures and she has asked if she may come here to view them!”

Yolanda gave a little cry.

“Oh, Step-papa, that is a great honour and it will be wonderful to have the Queen here.  Think how thrilled the staff will be.”

“And everyone in the neighbourhood,” he added.

“What Alan has also said and this is the secret you must not mention to anyone.  He thinks that if I promise the Queen, when she is here, to give ten of my best pictures to the National Gallery and I have by that time brought off the deal for the automatic air brake for our railways, she will honour me with a Knighthood.”

Yolanda gave a gasp.

“Oh, Step-papa that would be marvellous!”

She knew without him saying any more how much it would mean to her stepfather.

It would be the crowning glory that he had worked so hard for all his life.

It would also ensure that he would never again be involved in any more of the underhand deals that he called ‘
business
'.

She was certain that from this moment on he would strive in every way to follow the unwritten laws by which her father had lived and died.

There was no need for further words.

There were tears in her eyes and she thought that there was a suspicious brightness in her stepfather's as she kissed him.

“It is such fabulous news, Step-papa.  I know how proud and delighted Mama would be.”

“That is exactly what I was thinking and she would be delighted at your marriage.  So let's go and get on with it!”

Yolanda gave a little laugh.

“That is just what I want to do,” she sighed, as she took her stepfather's hand in hers.

*

Much later that same day Lord Milborne kissed his wife's forehead as she lay silently in his arms.

“Do you still love me, my precious?” he asked.

“I love you so much,” Yolanda answered, “that you fill my whole world and I am not only a part of you, but you are a part of me.  You are in the sky, in the trees and in the water falling down from the fountain. Everywhere I look and everything I think is
you
, Alan.”

“That is just what I want you to tell me, Yolanda, because my precious, beautiful perfect little wife, I feel that we have not only been looking for each other in this life but in the many lives we have lived before. Now at last we are together and no one can ever separate us.”

“That is what Mama believed and I am convinced that she is now with Papa and they are both happy because we are together.”

“As we shall always be, my darling Yolanda, and I am wondering how I have been lucky enough to find you.”

“I think we were drawn together by a Power greater than ourselves.  When I first met you when I was expecting to see your father, I felt in some strange way that you were different to any other man I had ever met.”

“And you were not only the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life, but there was something about you that made me feel as I have not felt before with anyone else.”

Yolanda moved a little closer to him.

“Tell me,” she asked him, “what it was?”

“It is very difficult to put into words.  Because you are so lovely, my heart acknowledged it and I felt a thrill run through my body which was different to anything I had ever experienced.”

His lips were once again on her forehead.

“Then my brain told me quite clearly that this was what I had been looking for as you are so unlike in every way anyone else I have ever known.”

Yolanda gave a laugh.

“I thought we would get back to our brains.”

“They are so important, Yolanda, because it is what makes us into what we are going to be in the future.”

Yolanda put up her hands and touched his cheek.

“I love you, I adore you, Alan, and my love for you will make my brain do exactly what you tell it to do just as long as you go on loving me.

“This is what my Papa would call a new adventure.  To me it is just the most wonderful, exciting and thrilling adventure there could possibly be.”

“I can answer you in only one way, Yolanda!”

Then he was kissing her and drawing her closer and closer to him.

As he made her his, Yolanda felt that he carried her up into the sky and all the stars were dancing at the glory of their love.

For both of them there was now a Heaven of Love that was their own and no one could ever take it from them.

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