The Peril and the Prince Read online

  With their sharp features, their thin lips and their suspicious eyes they might, in fact, have stepped out of a caricature.

  Without taking his arms from around Vida, the Prince said in Russian as if he was both astonished and angry,

  “What the devil do you think you are doing, coming in here?”

  As the man who was standing in front of the two others advanced towards the bed, he obviously recognised the Prince.

  “Your Highness!” he exclaimed.

  “Never mind that,” the Prince snapped. “Let me ask you again why you are bursting into a private bedroom in a private house in this astonishing way?”

  “We are looking for a man, Your Highness.”

  “I guessed as much,” the Prince replied, “but as you can see he is not here, kindly conduct your investigations somewhere else!”

  Almost as if the Prince had told her what to do, the moment he had begun speaking Vida had hidden her face against his shoulder, as if she was shy.

  All the Secret Agents could see was that she was in the Prince’s arms, they were in bed together and her red hair was falling over her shoulders.

  “I am sorry, Your Highness,” the man in the doorway said apologetically, “but we were informed that a man we are seeking was here with a lady who had been taken ill.”

  “Well, you are mistaken!” the Prince asserted.

  “I realise that now, and please forgive us, Your Highness.”

  “There is no other man in my party except for my own servants for whom I can vouch and Count Rákŏczi, an old friend whom I am conveying to his house in Hungary. He has his papers with him, if you wish to see them.”

  “There is no need, Your Highness,” the man replied. “We are not seeking a Hungarian.”

  “Very well,” the Prince said, “and perhaps now we can be left alone.”

  The man who had been speaking glanced at Vida with a faint smile on his thin lips.

  Only when he would have withdrawn, one of the men behind him bent to whisper something into his ear.

  Instantly he turned and said,

  “Excuse me, Your Highness.”

  The Prince was already looking down at Vida as if he had forgotten the whole episode and looked up again.

  “What is it now?” he asked irritably. “Really, I should have thought that you could have had a little more tact!”

  “I can only apologise once again, Your Highness, but I had forgotten something very important.”

  “What is it?” the Prince asked impatiently.

  “We received instructions from our superior last night that if, as was rumoured, you were somewhere in the vicinity, we were to give Your Highness a message from His Imperial Majesty the Czar.”

  “A message?” the Prince asked. “Then why was I not given it at once?”

  “We – we did not expect to find you here, Your Highness,” the man stammered, “and it had therefore slipped my memory.”

  “What is the message?”

  “His Imperial Majesty is in Kiev and he asks that Your Highness will proceed there immediately and bring with you the Countess Kărólski, who has been staying with you at your castle.”

  The Prince did not reply and the man went on.

  “I understand, Your Highness, that somebody has already gone to your castle in order to convey the message to you and to any other place where you are likely to be.”

  “Thank you,” the Prince said. “Inform your superior that I shall certainly obey His Imperial Majesty’s command and be with him as soon as is humanly possible.”

  “I thank Your Highness.”

  The man bowed low and the two men behind him also bowed.

  Then the door was shut, but the Prince did not move.

  Vida knew, because his whole body was alert, that he was listening intently and she did not speak but listened too.

  After what seemed a long time there was just the faint sound of footsteps moving away from the door.

  Still Sir Harvey did not come from the wardrobe.

  It was only after the Prince had climbed out of the bed and put on his robe that he exclaimed,

  “This is intolerable! Completely intolerable!”

  It was then that the wardrobe opened and Sir Harvey stepped out into the room saying as he did so,

  “It was fortunate, Your Highness, that you saw those men arriving.”

  “As they did not ask to see you,” the Prince said, “I think that they were satisfied, but one never knows.”

  “They were obviously not the same men who might have been watching us at Lvov.”

  “No, I realise that,” the Prince said. “Equally their report will go back to their superior as you heard and we must take no chances of your being interrogated before you leave the country.”

  “Oh, please,” Vida cried, “we must get him away, we cannot – lose him now!”

  The Prince looked at her and then he said,

  “There is only one way we can make certain that he is safe.”

  “What is that?” Vida asked.

  “That you come with me to Kiev. If I go alone, having received what is virtually an Imperial order, they will be sure that there is something suspicious, not only about your father but also about you.”

  “I see no reason – ” Sir Harvey began.

  Then he paused and added,

  “Yes, of course, you are right. Vida is supposed to be Russian and is therefore not interested in your Hungarian friend.”

  There was a silence as all three of them were thinking over what had been said and it was Vida who spoke first.

  “Then, of course, I must come to Kiev with you,” she said to the Prince, “if by doing so I can ensure that Papa escapes into Hungary.”

  The Prince walked across the room to stand at the window.

  Vida knew that he was thinking and, after a moment looking down below him, he said,

  “The three men are leaving in a troika drawn by two horses. It will, I hope, take them some time to reach their superior, whoever he may be. You, Sir Harvey, must be over the border before there is any chance of their thinking that they should have seen you before they left.”

  “I understand,” Sir Harvey replied.

  “The quickest way, of course, would be to ride. Do you think that would be too much for you?”

  Sir Harvey’s eyes twinkled.

  “No worse, I imagine, than a hard day’s hunting.”

  The Prince laughed.

  “Very well. I will send you on one of my best and fastest horses accompanied by two of my men who are, I assure you, crack shots in an emergency. If you travel as the crow flies, you will be in Hungary far quicker than by following the road which from here twists and turns and is especially hard going when you reach the mountains.”

  “I will go to get ready,” Sir Harvey said, “and I trust you with Vida who, as you know, is very precious to me.”

  “As soon as we have paid our respects to the Czar,” the Prince said, “we will return to The Castle. From there I will take her to Sarospatak.”

  Sir Harvey nodded.

  “I will wait until I hear that you are over the border with the Rákŏczis. They are very hospitable and will, I know, welcome me as their guest.”

  “Then that is settled,” the Prince said, “and for God’s sake hurry! Vida and I will make our way leisurely towards the nearest railway station.”

  He went from the room as he spoke without saying any more and Vida was left alone to lie back against the pillows, feeling that it was impossible to realise what had happened or what the future held.

  She was, however, so frightened for her father that she felt that nothing else was really important.

  At the same time she could not help feeling a thrill that she would not be leaving the Prince today as she had expected, but would still be with him for a few more days, perhaps even longer.

  ‘I must remember what Papa said to me,’ she told herself, but she knew that it was going to be difficult. />
  She had only just begun to dress and was sitting in front of the dressing table with her hair still falling over her shoulders when Sir Harvey came back into her room.

  He was wearing the ordinary clothes of a gentleman going riding and she jumped to her feet, ran to him and put her arms around his neck.

  “Promise me, Papa,” she urged him, “that you will ride as quickly as possible, for only when you cross safely into Hungary will the Czar’s men be unable to harm you.”

  “That is what I intend to do,” Sir Harvey said. “It would be a terrible waste of your’s and the Prince’s efforts if I failed you both now.”

  “I am sure Mama is looking after you,” Vida said in a soft voice, “and you know that I shall be praying for your safety.”

  “I am only ashamed of having involved you in this mess,” her father replied. “But His Highness is right, it would not only look suspicious if you travel with me instead of with him, but it would certainly slow me down and I can go faster on my own.”

  “I will join you as quickly as I can,” Vida promised, “and then, Papa, we will never come back again to this horrible and menacing country.”

  She drew in her breath before she asked,

  “How is it possible that the Secret Police can burst into private rooms without permission?”

  “That is the least of what they do,” her father frowned, “but we will talk about it another time. I must go now, my dearest.”

  “You have everything you want?”

  “Everything except you,” he answered. “Take very great care of yourself and do exactly what His Highness tells you. He is clever enough to be the Czar’s ‘pet’, so you will come to no harm there.”

  “No, of course not,” Vida agreed a little doubtfully.

  Sir Harvey kissed her, then as he left her room she heard him speaking to someone outside the door and knew that the Prince was seeing him off.

  She went to the window and a few minutes later she saw her father riding away from the main doorway on what she was sure was the same magnificent stallion that the Prince had been riding yesterday.

  She knew that her father was a very experienced horseman who would enjoy being mounted on such a fine animal.

  The two men accompanying him were also riding horses that she was sure would outpace anything on four legs in the whole neighbourhood.

  “Unless the Secret Police have wings, they will not catch up with Papa,” she said to Margit, who had joined her at the window.

  “Don’t tempt fate, it’s unlucky!” Margit replied.

  Vida watched him depart anxiously.

  Then when the three figures had vanished into the misty distance, she went back to the dressing table.

  “I now have to meet the Czar,” she said aloud.

  But, even as she spoke, she knew that her heart was saying something very different.

  In fact, it was telling her that she would be with the Prince and that was what she wanted wildly and insistently, although she was afraid to admit it.

  Chapter Six

  When Vida had eaten her breakfast, which was brought to her room, and was dressed ready for travelling, she went downstairs.

  The Prince, who had breakfasted with his hosts, was waiting for her and she did not miss the way that their pretty hostess was hanging on his words and repeating several times how much she was looking forward to coming to stay at The Castle.

  The Prince kissed her hand in a graceful manner that Vida thought could not be equalled by a man of any other nationality except perhaps a Frenchman.

  Then, having again warmly thanked his hosts for their hospitality, he helped Vida into the carriage.

  She had expected that Margit would sit opposite them, as she had done on the previous day, but to her surprise another carriage was produced in which Margit, Henri and the Prince’s valet travelled.

  With them was carried what seemed to be an enormous amount of luggage belonging to the Prince.

  Vida realised that he would need special clothes to wear when they met the Czar and she only hoped that she would not let him down in the gowns she had brought with her to Russia.

  As they drove off, he turned a little sideways against the soft cushions of his carriage and said,

  “Well, Vida, I said we would save your father, and that, I think, is what we have achieved.”

  “You mean you have saved him,” Vida corrected. “If you had not been aware that those men had arrived this morning, it might have been disastrous.”

  “But it did give me an opportunity,” the Prince said softly, “to hold you in my arms.”

  When she remembered how he had kissed her, she felt herself blush.

  Then she knew that she was being foolish to think of what had been an emergency action as something intimate and personal.

  As if the Prince was reading her thoughts, he said,

  “You are very lovely and I think that I like you best when you are young, innocent and untouched.”

  He emphasised the words and Vida blushed again.

  She did not know what to say and after a moment the Prince went on.

  “I realise now that you came to The Castle deliberately to captivate me and it was indeed a clever idea. At the same time I think it would have been more intelligent from the point of view of intrigue, if you had come as yourself.”

  “How could I do that,” Vida asked indignantly, “when I had no idea if it would be safe for me to come as Papa’s daughter? It might have made things more dangerous for him than they were already.”

  “Of course you could not know,” the Prince said, “and so you bewildered and intrigued me and, as you intended, captivated me.”

  Vida felt her heart leap at what he was saying.

  Then she remembered the warning her father had given her and told herself that he was only flirting with her as he would flirt with any pretty woman in the circumstances.

  Because she was frightened of the way he made her feel, she tried to change the subject.

  “Tell me about the country we are now passing through,” she suggested. “I know it is the Ukraine, which I have always understood is considerably different from the rest of Russia.”

  “That is true,” the Prince agreed. “All through our history the Ukrainians have had very distinguishing features and, of course, their own language.”

  Realising that she was genuinely interested, he told her how it was in Kiev, where they were to meet the Czar, that Christianity had made its first foothold in Russia and the Prince of Kiev had had his people collectively baptised in the Dnieper River in A.D. 908.

  Because history had always interested Vida she listened to him as attentively as a child hearing a Fairy story and, as they travelled on, the Prince pointed out to her the wooded steppes planted with oak and beech trees.

  Later they came to the treeless zone with its fertile black soil.

  Because the Prince was like a genie, able to conjure up everything he wanted with a wave of his hand, Vida was not surprised when they arrived at a railway station to find waiting for them the Prince’s own train, which was to carry them on to Kiev.

  They had stopped for luncheon at an attractive hostelry in a small town and a private room had been ordered for the Prince by one of the outriders who had gone ahead of them.

  Then they ate his own food and drank his own wine, which was, Vida was sure, very different from what an ordinary passing traveller would have been offered.

  It was so exciting to be alone with the Prince, to be able to talk to him and see his dark penetrating eyes gazing into hers that, after a very short while, she told herself that warning or no warning, she might as well enjoy herself while she had the opportunity.

  She tried to remember not to be so foolish as to think that the Prince meant anything serious by the compliments he paid her or by the beguiling manner he spoke to her in, which despite every resolution made her heart turn over in her breast.

  ‘He is the Pied Piper,’ as Papa said, she
thought, ‘and why should I be the only one to ignore his music?’

  So she let herself listen and it was very hard, even though she knew that it was wrong, not to long for him to hold her close to him and kiss her again.

  She had only to think of those moments when his kisses had swept her up to the stars, to feel again the fire he had kindled in her and the sensations that were different from anything she had ever imagined flying from her heart to her lips.

  ‘I am making a fool of myself,’ she thought as luncheon ended.

  As the Prince sat down beside her again in the carriage, he put out his hand to tuck in the rug that had been placed over her knees a little more firmly and she felt herself thrill.

  Now the carriage was open and she knew that it was because the Prince felt that the whole world, as far as he was concerned, could see them.

  He was merely doing his duty in obeying the Czar.

  She thought too, although it was best not to say so, that he felt that by now her father would be nearing the border.

  Unless something very untoward happened, in two or three hours he would reach Hungary and be on his way to the Rákŏczi Castle.

  As if the Prince knew what she was thinking, even when she had not spoken, which was one of the disconcerting things about him, he said,

  “Don’t worry. I know with my sixth sense that your father will reach safety.”

  “That is the sense I also try to use,” Vida said, “but sometimes I cannot help fearing it may mislead me.”

  “It certainly did not guide you correctly where I was concerned,” the Prince said quietly.

  She felt that he was accusing her and after a moment she answered,

  “I really did want to trust you and I swear that I was almost convinced I could do so until I saw Vladimir Demidovsky going into your bedroom.”

  “He should not have made you suspicious by the way he spoke to you in Budapest,” the Prince said. “In fact I shall rebuke him for doing so.”

  “Perhaps if I had been an ordinary traveller with nothing to conceal,” Vida said, “I should have simply thought that he was trying to take advantage of a woman travelling alone. As it was, for Papa’s sake, I was frightened of everybody.”

  “You are being generous,” the Prince answered, “but I expect perfection in anything that concerns me.”