Shadow of the Moon by M. M. Kaye Read Free Book Online Page A

warm, shining happiness and an assurance of immortality.
    â€˜
Jesu dominus or a pro nobis
.’ The words of the blessing echoed softly under the domed roof of the small chapel, and then Sabrina was signing her name on a paper that she could not read in the pale candlelight. There was dust upon the paper, the drifting all-pervading dust of the Indian plains, and the quill-pen scratched harshly in the stillness. Marcos also wrote his name, and the two young officers and the
cura
, and Juanita.
    â€˜Now you are really my sister,’ said Juanita.
    â€˜The Condesa Sabrina de los Aguilares: my wife,
mía esposa
,’ said Marcos, and kissed her, laughing.
    They drank wine in the great drawing-room where the portraits of dead and gone Condes and Condesas, brought from Spain, looked down upon that light-hearted bride and the few guests who had attended her wedding. The two young officers toasted the bride and groom, and Wali Dad, who had brought Juanita from the city but had not attended the ceremony in the chapel, made a speech in flowery court Persian which only his wife and the
cura
understood, but which everyone applauded.
    Sabrina and Marcos walked through the patio and stood on the wide terrace in the warm moonlight among the shadows of the lemon trees, watching the wedding guests ride away. The moon that had been rising above the mango–topes when Sabrina had ridden to the Casa de los Pavos Reales was already low in the western sky, and despite a first hint of the faraway dawn the air was cool, and sweet with the scent of orange blossom. And once again that strange sense of being one with all time and all living swept over Sabrina. One day this great house would crumble into ruin and be no more than the little heaps of timeworn stones that marked where some forgotten city had stood, like those among which her horse would sometimes stumble when she rode out over the plains or along the river bank. But she, Sabrina, would go on into time, as through Johnny and Louisa she went back into time …
    â€˜I shall live for ever and ever,’ thought Sabrina, exalted. ‘But however long I live I shall never again be as happy as I am now.’
    * * *
    Wali Dad’s father, who had been Conde Ramon’s friend, died that spring, and Sir Ebenezer and Lady Emily left for the cool air of Simla where Emily’s health improved and Sir Ebenezer attended those endless conferences that were to result in the disaster of the first Afghan War.
    In England, at Ware, the primroses that had barely come into bud at the time of Sabrina’s wedding gave place to crocuses and daffodils and tulips. Hawthorn whitened the hedges, and the chestnut trees in the park were bright with spires of blossom that vied with the bunting and streamers that decorated the approaches to the castle in honour of Huntly’s wedding. Huntly’s bride Julia looked classically beautiful upon her wedding-day, and Huntly appeared adequately happy. Charlotte, for her part, felt smugly satisfied: Huntly was safely married to the bride of her choice, while Sabrina, that constant thorn in Charlotte’s flesh, had contracted a
mésalliance
with a young Spaniard and been disinherited by her grandfather. There was only one thorn left in Charlotte’s bed of roses; the fact that her three daughters were still unmarried. And judging from their looks, thought their grandfather, likely to remain so.
    The Earl had aged considerably of late. Emily’s letter, informing him that Sabrina had taken matters into her own hands and contracted a runaway match without his approval and against his express wishes and commands, had dealt him a cruel blow. He had been an autocrat all his days, and with the exception of his son John and his grand-daughter Sabrina, no one had ever seriously taken issue with him - with the result that it never occurred to him that anyone would ever do so.
    Emily’s letter had come overland via Egypt and had reached