Fire in the Blood

“They could not leave her to starve, even though they had been horrified at the way in which your mother had run away with a Hungarian Tutor.”

Because Pandia felt embarrassed by what he was saying, she tried to move her face from his fingers, but he would not let her go, and continued,

“If your sister could pronounce you dead, she can also think up a story to explain how after all, you are alive.”

“How can she – do such a – thing?” Pandia asked in a frightened tone.

“If she cannot invent an explanation, I can. You could have been left for dead in the desert, captured by Bedouins from whom I was able to rescue you, or alternatively, like Romulus and Remus, you might have been nursed by a wolf!”

His eyes were twinkling and he was laughing as he spoke, but, because it sounded so embarrassing, Pandia blushed.

As if he understood, he set her free.

She hid her face against him and he said,

“But, as I will not have you upset, we will have our honeymoon first and go to Morocco. When we get back, you shall dazzle, if it pleases you, the Social world as your sister has done.”

“I-I don’t want – that,” Pandia answered him, “I just want to – be with you!”

“That is what I want too, my darling. So, when we do return to England, we will go to the house I have just been left, but did not expect, in my Godfather’s will.”

“He left you a house?”

“A house and estate in Devon,” Lord Silvester replied, “which I visited a long time ago. It is very beautiful and close to the sea. I think we will find it the perfect place to finish your father’s book as well as mine before we set out again on our adventures.”

“Is that what we are – going to do?”

“That is what I hope you will want to do.”

“Of course I want it!” Pandia cried. “I want it more than I can ever tell you – but I am afraid – terribly afraid – that it is something I-I – should not do.”

“You have no decisions to make,” he said. “You will marry me and I have no intention of hiding my wife away and letting nobody see her!”

His lips twisted a little cynically as he went on,

“We will save your sister’s face and doubtless her marriage by making our story very plausible and, my darling, I shall be very proud of being married to the most beautiful Goddess who ever came down from Mount Olympus!”

He drew her a little closer as he added,

“We will live the life of the Gods which is, as we both know, the perfection that all men seek, but few are fortunate enough to find.”

As if he wanted to make sure for himself that she was real and he was not dreaming, he kissed her possessively, passionately and in a way that was different from the way he had kissed her before.

Then when they were both breathless he said,

“God, how I love you! And I do not intend to wait any longer without making you my wife!”

He rose to his

blowing through it.
She was aware as she did so that

She could feel the flames flickering again within herself, moving up from her breast to her lips.

It was the fire that raced in her blood and which Selene had been right in saying was something their father had given them.

It was a fire, which was not only very human, but also Divine.