The Protection of Love Page 10

  But she had no idea who it might be.

  It could be the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, or anyone who was actively connected with Russia.

  Yet if the Prince was a murderer, however skilfully it was performed, she and Richard would have to give evidence against him.

  It was then that she knew just how much she loved the Prince.

  However wrong it might be, she would not denounce him.

  She would not tell Richard what she had heard when she was listening at the door.

  If she did, it was his duty to go immediately to the Prime Minister and repeat what she had heard.

  As she looked at the Prince, she felt her whole being move towards him like a tidal wave.

  If they had been alone, she would have thrown herself into his arms.

  She wanted to tell him that she would save him whatever the cost might be to herself.

  ‘I – love you, I love – you, she murmured in her heart, ‘and if I destroy you, I have no wish to go on living.’

  It was all so clear within herself.

  She had to protect the Prince even against Richard.

  Because she had never known love before, she had fought against the feelings he evoked in her against her own instincts, which told her that this was love, the love that she had read about, dreamed about and hoped one day that she would find.

  But not like this.

  She was faced with the agonising decision of whether to be loyal to her own country or to the man she had given her heart to.

  “What am I – to do? Oh, God – tell me – what I am – to do?”

  She felt as if she had said the words aloud as the Prince crossed the room.

  Once again he poured himself a glass of champagne.

  As he did so, Richard asked in what Meta knew was a deliberately casual manner,

  “Has your visitor gone?”

  “Yes, he has left,” the Prince replied in a voice that did not sound like his own.

  “It seems rather inhospitable that we did not offer him any refreshment,” Richard said.

  “He was in a hurry,” the Prince answered at once.

  He finished the champagne and put the glass down on a table.

  Then he walked across the room and opened the door.

  “You must excuse me,” he said, “I have a headache so I am going to bed. Goodnight.”

  He had closed the door before Meta could move or think of anything to say.

  She wanted to stop him and she wanted to talk to him. But now he had gone upstairs and his valet would be with him.

  Therefore it was impossible to follow him.

  She walked to the window and drew back the curtains to look at the stars outside.

  Was it possible, when they had really seemed so happy, that this should happen just like a bomb exploding in their midst?

  She knew without being told that everything that seemed to be so enjoyable had come to an abrupt end.

  The Prince intended to kill someone.

  That would mean, she was sure, that he would have to go to London.

  If he did succeed in murdering a man, as she suspected, on Russian orders, he would obviously go back to where he had come from.

  If, on the other hand, he was caught, he would be tried and hanged for murder.

  ‘I have – to save – him, I have – to,’ Meta told herself again.

  But she felt helpless and ineffectual.

  And anyway she had not the slightest idea how it could be done.

  She knew only that she loved the Prince overwhelmingly with her heart, her soul and her whole body.

  If he had to die, she only hoped that she could die too.

  Chapter Six

  Meta slept very little, tossing and turning from side to side.

  She was glad when at last it was time for her to climb out of bed and go riding.

  She wondered what the Prince would be like in the morning and if he was still looking as he had the previous night.

  When she was dressed, she opened the door into the corridor and saw that Nathlia was coming out of the room opposite.

  They went down the stairs together and found that Richard was waiting for them in the hall.

  “Where is Alexis?” Nathlia then asked him.

  “I have been told that he is already up,” Richard replied, “so I expect he has gone to the stables ahead of us.”

  They walked out of the front door towards the stables.

  It was a lovely day with the sun shining brightly. The ducks were swimming on the lake and the birds were flying overhead.

  When they reached the stables, there was no sign of the Prince.

  Before Richard could say anything to Forster, Nathlia piped up,

  “Is my brother here?”

  “’E went orf early, your ’Ighness,” Abbey replied, “About six o’clock I thinks it was.”

  Meta and Richard exchanged glances, but they did not say anything.

  As they rode out of the stables, Nathlia said,

  “I expect we shall catch up with Alexis. He is sure to go the way we always do.”

  They galloped across the flat land and then they jumped the fences at the end and set off towards the wood in the far distance.

  But there was still no sign of the Prince.

  They rode for longer than usual.

  Both Meta and Nathlia kept looking ahead of them, hoping to see him. But there was not a sign of anyone on horseback.

  Finally Richard said that they must return home, as he had an appointment at ten o’clock.

  “I expect we shall find that Alexis has eaten up all the breakfast and is wondering what has happened to us,” Nathlia said cheerily as they neared The Manor.

  But she was mistaken. There was no Prince and he had not been in for breakfast.

  Richard went to see the man he had told to call on him and the two girls went upstairs.

  Meta longed to ask Nathlia what she thought might be wrong, but she was almost sure that she had no idea what had upset her brother.

  They went to their own rooms and Meta changed into a light gown as she thought that it was going to be warm later in the day.

  She was tying the sash round her waist when the door opened and Richard came in.

  She knew before he started speaking that he had come to tell her something important.

  “What is ‒ it?” she asked.

  “I want to talk to you, Meta,” Richard began, “because I am worried.”

  “About the Prince?”

  “Yes, of course. You saw what had happened last night and how, after the man who had come to see him had left, he was in a very different mood from how he had been at dinner.”

  “He must have been brought bad news of some sort,” Meta suggested.

  “That is what is worrying me,” Richard said.

  She was sitting on a stool in front of her dressing table and then to her surprise, Richard pulled up a chair so that he could sit near to her.

  He lowered his voice and she knew that what he was about to say was secret.

  “I am worried,” he stressed, “very worried.”

  Meta looked at him wide-eyed.

  She was now acutely aware that she should tell Richard all that she had overheard in the anteroom the night before.

  But she could not bring herself to do so.

  “The Russians are very strange people,” Richard said, “and therefore whatever happens, I have to protect you.”

  “Me?” Meta questioned “Why me?”

  Her brother looked away from her and she knew that he was considering what he should say or not say.

  “Tell me the truth,” she urged him, “I know you are keeping something from me.”

  “As I say,” Richard said slowly, “I am very worried about you just in case you become involved in a situation that should concern me and no one else.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” Meta said.

  Again there was a
pause while Richard was feeling for words,

  Then he said,

  “I had a friend once who was a Frenchman. He was concerned with finding out what the Russians were doing in a certain part of the Balkans. He thought that they had no idea that he was anything but an ordinary visitor to that part of the country “

  “And – what happened?” Meta enquired.

  “They were cleverer than he gave them credit for. They kidnapped his wife.”

  “His wife!” Meta exclaimed. “What had she to do with it?”

  “Nothing,” Richard replied, “nothing at all. They took her away and threatened torture.”

  Meta gave a cry of horror.

  “How terrible. What did your friend do?”

  “He did what I suppose was the only thing possible under the circumstances. He told the Russians what they wanted to know. They released his wife immediately and then he left for home.”

  Richard was silent for a moment and Meta knew instinctively that there was more to the story and so she waited.

  “He learned when he reached Paris,” Richard carried on, “that the two Frenchmen whose names the Russians had demanded from him had been murdered. It was then that he took his own life.”

  “Oh, Richard, how ghastly!” Meta cried. “You cannot think – that they might – do that – to me?”

  “I am prepared to believe anything of the Third Section,” Richard replied. “Therefore I am going to give you something, which I never expected to do, but it will protect you in any emergency.”

  Meta felt a little bewildered, but she did not speak.

  Richard drew two objects from his pocket.

  He held up the first one and she saw that it was a very small blue bottle and the top of it was tightly screwed down.

  “This is a drug,” he said. “If you put it in any drink, wine, coffee or tea, it will render the drinker unconscious for three or four minutes after he has drunk it.”

  Meta gave a little shiver.

  She somehow could not imagine herself having to drug a man or, if she did, being able to do it secretly.

  Richard put the bottle down on the dressing table and then he held up something else.

  It was round and about the size of a gold sovereign.

  “This is rather more serious,” he said, “but I want you to have it just in case there is an emergency that you cannot handle.”

  “What is ‒ it?” Meta asked.

  It looked to her just like an ordinary coin.

  As Richard put it flat on his hand, she could see that there was a tiny knob in the centre of it.

  “This,” he went on, “is a device that has been recently invented by the Russians, which they guard very carefully, as they don’t want anyone else to have use of it.”

  “But you have it,” Meta queried.

  “I was given it by a good friend who had retired from the work that he was doing, who had inadvertently found it when he was searching a certain suspect’s house.”

  “What does it do?” Meta asked him.

  She thought as she spoke that it looked too small to be very effective.

  “If you press this little knob,” Richard said, pointing to it, “you will release a poison for which only the Russians have the formula into a man’s veins.”

  Meta stared at the small knob and hoped that she would never have to press it.

  “All the victim feels,” Richard went on, “is just a tiny prick like the bite of a small insect, but, and this is the important part, although the poison is released immediately, it takes two or three minutes to work.”

  “Two or three ‒ minutes,” Meta muttered.

  “Which gives enough time for the murderer to move well away and so appear to have no connection with the victim,” Richard continued.

  “And what happens to him?” Meta enquired.

  “He falls dead!” Richard replied. “I have seen it work on one occasion and it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The man just died without protest and without apparently any pain. In fact, when it happened, I thought he had fallen asleep.”

  “But he was dead,” Meta echoed as if she could not believe it.

  “The poison had killed him stone dead,” Richard replied, “and in that particular case it was a merciful release.”

  “And you – want me to have – these two things.”

  “I want you to have them as a protection. I don’t want you to worry about them. But until I tell you that there is no further need for them, you will carry them with you wherever you go.”

  Meta wanted to protest, but she knew that it would only make Richard annoyed with her and she was quite certain that she would not need these horrible dangerous drugs.

  But if it stopped him from worrying about her, then she must do it for his sake.

  Richard put the small coin-like weapon into its tiny cardboard box.

  As he put on the lid, he said,

  “Be very careful how you handle it. If you prick yourself, you know what will happen.”

  “I will be very careful,” Meta promised. “I can assure you that I have no wish to use it on anyone.”

  “And I am praying that the necessity will not arise,” Richard said. “At the same time I have to look after you and I am concerned, extremely concerned, about the Prince.”

  Indeed Meta felt the same.

  As Richard rose to his feet, she told herself that she had no wish to worry him more than he was worried already.

  “What about Nathlia?” she asked as he turned towards the door.

  “I am sure that the Prince will be able to protect her,” Richard told his sister quickly.

  “If he can,” Meta said. “But I cannot help feeling that you should be protecting her rather than me.”

  It was an idea which had not occurred to Richard.

  He did not answer until he reached the door and then he turned back to say,

  “Put those things I have given you away and don’t think about them anymore.”

  Then he was gone and Meta thought that it was the sort of thing which was easier to say than do.

  She picked up the little bottle and the small cardboard box and put them in her handbag.

  The maid who looked after her was not likely to open it because there was money in it.

  Then she went downstairs and was told that Mrs. Bell wanted to speak to her.

  She went into the kitchen and found that Mrs. Bell was worried as to which nights they were going out to dinner and when they were staying at home.

  “The butcher calls today, Miss Meta,” Mrs. Bell said, “and I want to have somethin’ in the larder in case you suddenly tells me you have three or four guests or maybe more comin’ in unexpected like.”

  Meta told her exactly what they were planning to do.

  But she could not help wondering if it would all have to be changed.

  Why had the Prince suddenly disappeared?

  Had he some painful decision to make which made him feel that he must ride alone and not, as he had always done, with them?

  By the time she had answered all Mrs. Bell’s questions as best she could, some time had passed.

  When she went back to the front of the house, it was to find that Richard and Nathlia had gone into the garden.

  They had walked across the lawn and then, because the sun was growing hotter, they had moved into the shade of the trees at the beginning of the shrubbery.

  There was a garden seat that one could see one of Lady Lindley’s favourite views from and from it one looked over a field that sloped down to the stream that fed the lake.

  It then rose slowly on the other side through small copses of trees up to a hill.

  On top of it was a statue of Richard’s great-grandfather.

  It was very lovely with the sunshine shimmering on the trees and the stream and the wild flowers were patches of white, gold and pink in the uncultivated fields.

  “This is so lovely!” Nathlia exclaimed. “Why have you not broug
ht me here before?”

  “There have been so many other things for us to do,” Richard said. “And I want you to see everything before you go away.”

  Nathlia stiffened.

  “Before we go away! What do you mean? Who is thinking of going away?”

  “I hope that I am mistaken,” Richard said, “but I cannot help feeling that last night your brother had received bad news and perhaps it means that you will be returning to Russia.”

  Nathlia gave a cry of horror.

  “No! No! We cannot go back there. I don’t want to leave here.”

  “And Meta and I don’t want to lose you either,” Richard said. “But perhaps your brother will have different ideas.”

  Nathlia was very still and then she said in a voice which sounded almost strangled,

  “I – cannot go. I – will not leave – here whatever Alexis – may say.”

  Richard knew from the sound in her voice that she was suffering.

  Without really meaning to, he moved a little closer to her before he said,

  “I have no wish to upset you, but I was worried last night as to what news your brother had been brought by the man who called here.”

  “I am – worried too,” Nathlia said. “When I went to – his room to speak to him – he had locked his door.”

  Richard looked surprised.

  “Locked his door,” he repeated. “Is that something he usually does?”

  “No, he has not done it since we came here, only in Russia because – ”

  She stopped speaking because she thought that what she was going to say was indiscreet.

  Then, looking in front of her, she stammered,

  “I have been – so happy since – we came here.”

  “And we have been very happy to have you,” Richard smiled.

  “I want – to stay – with you,” Nathlia went on.

  There was a poignant silence and then Richard said,

  “If your brother has to leave, although I cannot imagine why he should, I think he will want you to go with him.”

  “I will – not go! I will not,” Nathlia exclaimed.

  She jumped to her feet as she spoke and it seemed as if she was suddenly going to run away down towards the stream.

  Richard also rose.

  “I am sure,” he began to say, “that you are frightening yourself unnecessarily.”

  Before he could finish the sentence, Nathlia turned round and flung herself against him.