No Time For Love (Bantam Series No. 40) by Barbara Cartland Page A
Authors: Barbara Cartland
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was beautiful and perfect to those who worshipped her so that never again could they be content with the second-rate.”
He smiled at the school-boy.
“When she went to the Assembly of the Immortals the gods were silent with admiration, and Homer wrote that each wished in his heart to take her as a wife and lead her to his abode.”
Everything his grandfather had told him came back to Wynstan now, and he thought as he climbed up the stone steps that when he grew old this was where he would live out his life and where he would die.
In the meantime, although he dedicated so much of his life to the pursuit of love, he had not yet found any woman that his grandfather would have described as Aphrodite.
Those he had loved and who had loved him had never been able to touch something secret in his heart that had been engendered all those years ago when his grandfather had spoken to him of love.
He had been continually infatuated, excited and delighted by women, but always there had come a moment when he knew that he no longer needed them and they no longer meant anything to him.
They were like the butterflies still hovering over the flowers but which by the morning would no longer exist, and their place would be taken by others as colourful and as dispensable as they were themselves.
The sky was growing more brilliant every moment, the sunset so vivid, so dazzling, that it was hard to look at it.
Then as he reached the last steps which led to the Temple itself, Wynstan realised that he had been right in thinking that this was where he would find Larina Milton.
There was a woman standing against the marble balustrade looking out over the sea. It was difficult to see her distinctly because the sunset was so blinding that she was little more than a silhouette against it.
She was wearing white, and her hair was very pale gold, and yet the light from the sky made it shimmer as if with tiny tongues of flame.
She must have heard his footsteps for even as he stepped onto the mosaic floor of the Temple she turned and for one incredible moment he thought that she was Aphrodite!
Larina had been disappointed when she arrived at the Villa Arcadia to find that Elvin was not already there waiting for her, but she had been entranced by the drive from Naples and the incredible beauty of the Villa.
The Courier who had accompanied her on the journey was an elderly man who told her he had once been a schoolmaster. He had explained very clearly the history of every place they passed.
He was however more interested in Venice than in other parts of Italy and it was hard for Larina to keep him on the subjects she wished to learn about when he was longing to describe to her the glories of San Marco and the tragedy of the Venetian decline.
Nevertheless he told her many myths and legends of Southern Italy and when he said good-bye she felt sorry to lose him.
“Are you going back straight away?” she asked in surprise.
“They expect me in London, Miss Milton.”
“Then thank you very much for looking after me.”
“It has been a great pleasure,” he answered, “and I say that in all sincerity! It is not often I take on a journey anyone who has your enquiring mind and your love of antiquities!”
“I can see already that the Villa is breathtakingly beautiful!” Larina said.
He had told her how it had been restored in what was believed to be its original design.
“Mr. er ... er ... Farren went to endless trouble to have the experts’ opinion on every room, every floor and every ceiling.”
There was a perceptible pause before the Courier pronounced Mr. Farren’s name which Larina had noticed on other occasions, and she wondered why everyone seemed to find it difficult to say the word ‘Farren’.
“Perhaps it is because it begins with an ‘F’,” she told herself. “Some people might have as much difficulty with their ‘Fs’ as with their ‘Ths’.”
But it seemed strange that both Mr. Donaldson and the Courier
He smiled at the school-boy.
“When she went to the Assembly of the Immortals the gods were silent with admiration, and Homer wrote that each wished in his heart to take her as a wife and lead her to his abode.”
Everything his grandfather had told him came back to Wynstan now, and he thought as he climbed up the stone steps that when he grew old this was where he would live out his life and where he would die.
In the meantime, although he dedicated so much of his life to the pursuit of love, he had not yet found any woman that his grandfather would have described as Aphrodite.
Those he had loved and who had loved him had never been able to touch something secret in his heart that had been engendered all those years ago when his grandfather had spoken to him of love.
He had been continually infatuated, excited and delighted by women, but always there had come a moment when he knew that he no longer needed them and they no longer meant anything to him.
They were like the butterflies still hovering over the flowers but which by the morning would no longer exist, and their place would be taken by others as colourful and as dispensable as they were themselves.
The sky was growing more brilliant every moment, the sunset so vivid, so dazzling, that it was hard to look at it.
Then as he reached the last steps which led to the Temple itself, Wynstan realised that he had been right in thinking that this was where he would find Larina Milton.
There was a woman standing against the marble balustrade looking out over the sea. It was difficult to see her distinctly because the sunset was so blinding that she was little more than a silhouette against it.
She was wearing white, and her hair was very pale gold, and yet the light from the sky made it shimmer as if with tiny tongues of flame.
She must have heard his footsteps for even as he stepped onto the mosaic floor of the Temple she turned and for one incredible moment he thought that she was Aphrodite!
Larina had been disappointed when she arrived at the Villa Arcadia to find that Elvin was not already there waiting for her, but she had been entranced by the drive from Naples and the incredible beauty of the Villa.
The Courier who had accompanied her on the journey was an elderly man who told her he had once been a schoolmaster. He had explained very clearly the history of every place they passed.
He was however more interested in Venice than in other parts of Italy and it was hard for Larina to keep him on the subjects she wished to learn about when he was longing to describe to her the glories of San Marco and the tragedy of the Venetian decline.
Nevertheless he told her many myths and legends of Southern Italy and when he said good-bye she felt sorry to lose him.
“Are you going back straight away?” she asked in surprise.
“They expect me in London, Miss Milton.”
“Then thank you very much for looking after me.”
“It has been a great pleasure,” he answered, “and I say that in all sincerity! It is not often I take on a journey anyone who has your enquiring mind and your love of antiquities!”
“I can see already that the Villa is breathtakingly beautiful!” Larina said.
He had told her how it had been restored in what was believed to be its original design.
“Mr. er ... er ... Farren went to endless trouble to have the experts’ opinion on every room, every floor and every ceiling.”
There was a perceptible pause before the Courier pronounced Mr. Farren’s name which Larina had noticed on other occasions, and she wondered why everyone seemed to find it difficult to say the word ‘Farren’.
“Perhaps it is because it begins with an ‘F’,” she told herself. “Some people might have as much difficulty with their ‘Fs’ as with their ‘Ths’.”
But it seemed strange that both Mr. Donaldson and the Courier
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