The Cruel Count (Bantam Series No. 28) Read online

  “So a crown does mean more to a woman than love! You love me, but rather than admit it you will go on to Djilas because there you will take your place as a Princess and that is more important to you than anything else. I hope you find the plaudits of the crowd an adequate compensation for my kisses.”

  His voice was so bitter that Vesta felt as if he had struck her, and she winced from the pain of it. Then she said, her words fumbling over one another:

  “How could you ... think such a ... thing of ... me? How could you believe that it is for that ... reason I am marrying ... the Prince?”

  “What do you expect me to think?” the Count asked without turning.

  “Please,” Vesta pleaded, “please ... let me ... explain to ... you.”

  “What is there to explain?” he asked roughly. “You have made your decision. As you told me when we first met—your place is with your husband.”

  Vesta rose and moved towards him, her face very pale. When she reached his side she said:

  “May I tell you ... why I ... accepted ... Prince Alexander’s ... offer of ... marriage?”

  “I am sure you have a very adequate explanation,” the Count answered, and now he was sneering.

  “Please ... listen to ... me,” Vesta pleaded.

  “If it pleases you,” he said sullenly.

  “Can we sit in the ... shade of the trees?” Vesta asked. “The sun is very ... hot.”

  “Of course,” he said in tones of conventional courtesy, “I should have thought of it before.”

  She looked up at him beseechingly.

  His face was set in hard lines and once again he looked like an eagle, ruthless, detached and somehow inhuman.

  She gave a little sigh that was almost a sob and walked away from the sunshine into the shadow of the silver birch trees.

  There was moss at their roots and Vesta sat down, smoothing her full green skirt into some semblance of tidiness.

  The Count did not sit but leant against the trunk of an adjacent tree.

  She felt that he had deliberately withdrawn himself from her and that he despised her. She dared not look at his face because she was afraid of the contempt she would see in his eyes.

  “I told you,” she began in a low voice, “that I do not know about ... love, and that is true. I have never been in love. But I have always felt that one day I should find a man that I could ... love and then ... we would be ... married.”

  She had spoken hesitatingly and now her voice seemed to falter away into silence. She felt that a great gulf yawned between herself and the Count.

  He was making no effort to understand. She was alone and separated from him as she had not been since they first met.

  “Please ... please,” she begged, “try to understand what I am ... trying to tell you. It is so ... difficult, but I want you to ... know.”

  “I am listening,” he said.

  “Will you not sit down?” she asked. “You are so tall and I feel ... you are ... far away.”

  “Why do you feel that?”

  “I do not know. I just ... feel that you have ... left me.”

  “Does that make you feel insecure and lonely?”

  “You ... know it ... does.”

  His eyes searched her face. Then he sat down almost opposite her, his back against another tree trunk.

  He was still withdrawn and yet she found it not so difficult as it had been to continue speaking.

  “I have always wanted to love ... someone,” Vesta went on, “because I was not loved as a child as I ... might have been.”

  “What do you mean by that?” the Count asked.

  “Papa always wanted a son,” Vesta answered. “The Salfonts are a very old family. There were Earls of Salfont in the 13th Century, and when our ancestor was given a Dukedom after fighting with Marlborough, it was only another chapter in the long history of how well the Salfonts served the crown and England.”

  There was a touch of pride in her voice before she went on:

  “We were all brought up to believe we had a great responsibility towards our country and its people.”

  “I have heard of your family,” the Count said.

  “Then you will understand,” Vesta continued, “how important it was for Papa to have a son. But he and Mama had five daughters before Gerald was born. Mama has often said to me:

  “ ‘I prayed, Vesta, I prayed every night that I could give your father the son he wanted so desperately. When each baby was born, the first question I always asked was—

  ‘What is it?’ And the midwife would reply: ‘I am sorry, Your Grace, another daughter.’ ”

  There was a little throb in Vesta’s voice.

  She loved her mother and it never ceased to hurt her that she herself had brought her parents so much disappointment.

  “After Gerald was born,” she went on, “the doctor said that Mama should not have any more children. But she and Papa were so anxious to have a second son, just as a safeguard in case anything ... happened to the first.”

  Vesta paused for a moment. She glanced at the Count and realised he did not look so contemptuous and her voice was a little stronger as she continued:

  “But instead of another boy, I arrived! After that the doctors said very firmly that it would kill Mama to have any more children.”

  “So you were unwanted,” the Count said.

  “Papa and Mama were always very kind to me,” Vesta said, “but I soon knew how deeply disappointed they were and how happy it would have made them if I had been a boy.”

  She looked away towards the sunshine and the falling cascade.

  “That knowledge coloured my whole childhood,” she said. “Perhaps that is why I sought escape in daydreams for which I often used to be punished. I suppose I was afraid to face reality.”

  “As you are now,” the Count interposed quietly.

  “And when Gerald was killed at Waterloo,” Vesta went on, “I felt ashamed of being ... me.”

  “So he died at Waterloo?” the Count said.

  “I thought it would kill Papa,” Vesta said. “For a long time we dared not speak of Gerald in his presence. Then gradually he became more like his original self, but there was a sadness about him that had never been there before.”

  “Surely there is an heir to the Dukedom?” the Count asked.

  “Of course,” Vesta answered, “Papa’s brother’s son. We have never liked him, and sometimes I think Papa even hates Rupert, which is understandable.”

  She paused, as if she was thinking what she should say next and then she said hesitantly:

  “You may think I am a ... long time coming to the ... point in this ... story, but I wanted you to ... understand why I came to Katona.”

  “Go on,” the Count said.

  “When Papa told me that your Prince had asked for my hand in marriage, I was completely astonished. I could not believe that he would expect me to do anything so unexpected, so terrifying, as to accept such an offer.

  “ ‘But I do not know the Prince!’ I cried.

  “Then Papa explained to me that Royal marriages are arranged, that it was not really the Prince who had asked for me but his Government.”

  “Did that make much difference?” the Count asked.

  “It did to ... me,” Vesta answered. “I told Papa that I could not contemplate for a moment marrying at the request of a Government, or for that matter marrying a man I had never seen and about whom I knew nothing.”

  As she spoke she could see herself in the library at Salfont House looking out onto the trees in Berkeley Square and trying to visualise a strange country called Katona which apparently wished her to rule over it.

  “Katona has always been very friendly with Great Britain,” her father had said, “and it is important that they should remain so.”

  He was standing with his back to the fireplace as he spoke and Vesta felt herself shiver, not from the cold of the room but because there was an inflexible note in her father’s voice whic
h she recognised.

  He has always been rather a martinet where his daughters were concerned. At the same time he had never forced any of them into marriage with a man for whom she had no liking.

  When the Marquis of Severn had proposed to Harriet and she had said that she could not contemplate becoming his wife, the Duke had not tried to press her.

  Although he was disappointed he had allowed her instead to marry a mere baronet to whom she had irretrievably given her heart.

  “I am sorry, Papa,” Vesta said. “While I am deeply ... honoured by the suggestion that I should marry Prince Alexander, the answer is of course ... no.”

  “Why ‘of course’?” the Duke enquired.

  “Because I have no wish to marry without love,” Vesta replied. “You and Mama have always been happy together, and my sisters are happy too. Caroline said to me only last week that she and Robert were more in love with each other now than when they first married.”

  “This is different,” the Duke said slowly.

  “Why is it different, Papa?” Vesta enquired.

  “Because in marrying Prince Alexander you would be doing a service to your country,” he answered.

  He had walked across the room as he spoke to stand staring up at a picture which hung on the wall.

  It was a picture of his son Gerald, painted when he first joined the Grenadier Guards. It was a good likeness.

  The Prince Regent’s favourite portrait painter,, Lawrence, had caught the sparkle in his eye, the smile on his lips, the youthful enthusiasm which had caused him to be loved wherever he went.

  “I am willing to do ... many things for England,” Vesta said nervously, as if she already knew what was coming, “but not to spend the rest of my life away from you all in a strange country with a man whom I do not know and who does not know me.”

  There had been silence in the library and then her father had said quietly:

  “Gerald gave his life for England, Vesta. All I am asking you to do is to serve your country as you would have been willing to do had you been a boy. You cannot fight for England as Gerald did, but in this way you can serve her as the Salfonts have done all down the centuries.”

  The Duke’s voice had been full of pain.

  Once again Vesta realised how the loss of his son was still as agonising as it had been when the news had first arrived that Gerald had been killed in battle.

  She had wanted to go on protesting, she had known that every nerve in her body was rebelling against such a sacrifice, against a decision which was contrary to her deepest instincts.

  Then as she opened her lips to speak, to tell her father that it was impossible, that she would do anything else, anything except marry the ruler of Katona, she had seen the tears in his eyes.

  There is always for children something horrifying in seeing their parents cry and realising they are not the exalted adults they had thought them to be, but human beings who can suffer.

  The Duke had not wept when he had learnt that Gerald had been killed. He had remained stony-faced when a memorial to his son was dedicated in the parish church beside the vault which held a number of their ancestors.

  He had not cried when the Duke of Wellington himself had told him of Gerald’s bravery in the battle and how he had rallied his men again and again against the French, until finally he died from a bullet in the heart.

  Yet now there were tears in the Duke’s eyes.

  “Papa was ... crying,” Vesta told the Count in a whisper.

  “I knew then,” she went on, “there was nothing I could do but accept the offer of marriage from Katona.”

  She wiped away a tear, before she asked:

  “How could I tell Papa I was a ... coward. As you know I am frightened of so ... many things, but I was more frightened at that moment of ... hurting him.”

  Her voice died away and now she looked towards the Count with an appeal in her eyes as if she begged him to understand.

  “It is one thing to die in battle in the heat of the engagement,” the Count said slowly. “There is an exhilaration in fighting which I think carries a man into the arms of death without fear. But this is different.”

  He looked at Vesta as he said quietly:

  “Can you really contemplate living day after day, month after month, year after year with a man you may not like, with a man who may repel you?”

  He saw Vesta clasp her hands together, and he went on:

  “Only the English could think of making a demand so inhuman, so cruel on someone as sensitive as you. Just as they send their precious sons away to boarding schools where they are beaten or starved, so your father was prepared to send you to a strange country of which you knew nothing, to marry a man you had never even seen.”

  “Lord Castlereagh said ... the Prince ... was intelligent and a ... good sportsman,” Vesta faltered.

  “And what else did you learn about him?” the Count asked.

  Vesta was silent and he said:

  “I have the feeling you have heard something more. Tell me.”

  Still she did not speak and he said again:

  “Tell me what you heard!”

  It was a command and Vesta replied hesitantly:

  “I ... I did not mean to ... listen. It was when we were at sea ... the Prime Minister, the Captain and the Aide-de-camp were ... talking in the Saloon ... I was hanging up my cloak ... in the corridor. It had got wet on deck.”

  “And what did you hear?” the Count asked.

  “They were ... talking about ... the Prince and ... me.”

  “What did they say?”

  Vesta’s voice was very low as she answered:

  “The Aide-de-camp said I was too ... unsophisticated to be able to ... cope with what ... lay ahead.”

  “Did the Prime Minister agree?”

  Vesta did not answer and the Count said:

  “I want to know.”

  “They said,” Vesta said slowly, “that the Prince had a ... fondness for ... someone ... else.”

  “And it upset you?” the Count asked.

  “I had not ... imagined there would be ... anyone like ... that,” Vesta said. “Perhaps that is ... why they ... thought I was ... unsophisticated.”

  “You thought that when you came to Katona,” the Count said in his deep voice, “the Prince would be waiting, that you would fall in love with each other and live happily ever after! Is that the truth?”

  “I ... hoped we ... m-might be ... f-friends,” Vesta stammered.

  “Friends?” the Count questioned. “Why should you expect friendship in marriage?”

  “I thought I ... might help His Royal Highness ... with the people,” Vesta said, “that is why I studied Katona on the voyage ... why I tried to ... learn from the Aide-de-camp and the Prime Minister about the country and its ... people.”

  “And did you ask them about the Prince himself?”

  “No ... no!”

  “Why not?”

  “I felt ... shy at appearing ... inquisitive.”

  “And yet that was surely the most important thing for you to know!” the Count said. “Instead of which you made an image in your mind of what you wanted the Prince to be. A paper Prince, not a human being, but a man who was a part of your dreams.”

  Vesta drew in a deep breath before she asked almost pathetically:

  “What ... else could ... I do?”

  “What you can do now is face reality,” the Count retorted. “You are in love, little Vesta, the Sleeping Beauty has been awakened by a kiss. My kiss, from my lips.”

  “But ... it is ... wrong.”

  “It may seem wrong to you,” the Count answered. “But what you are intending to do is far more wrong! Do you really imagine you can keep up this farce, this sacrifice forced upon you by your father for the rest of your life? Do you believe that you can act a part so skilfully that it would not be a mockery of what a wife should be?”

  She looked at him wide-eyed and he said:

  “Wake up
, my beloved, you know now you have a fire of your name-sake flickering within you. Feebly at the moment—but it is there and soon it will become an all-consuming blaze from which you cannot escape.”

  His voice was deep with passion as he said:

  “I will teach you about love, Vesta, I will teach you to love me as I love you. I will awaken you to the wonder and glory of it. I will make you live! All I ask in return is that you should tell me of your love for me.”

  “How can I?” Vesta asked. “I have ... tried to make you ... understand why I must ... go to the ... Prince, why ... already I ... belong to him.”

  “You belong to me!” the Count contradicted. “Do you imagine for one moment when you kiss the Prince you will respond to his lips as you have responded to mine?”

  He saw an involuntary little shiver run through her. “You have never been kissed before, and when I kissed you just now you said that you did not know a kiss would be like that. I told you then and I tell you again a kiss is not like that save when two people love each other.”

  His voice softened as he went on:

  “A kiss can be all the wonder of the divine, the perfection of a man and woman united because they were meant by God to be one; Or it can be something lewd and beastly.”

  Again Vesta shivered and now she turned her face away from him so that he could only see her in profile.

  Her straight little nose and her sensitive lips were silhouetted against the sunshine and the silver cascade.

  “And marriage entails not only a kiss,” the Count said relentlessly. “You are very young and very innocent, my Dearest Heart. Have you any idea what happens when a man and a woman are joined together and become, as the Church puts it in the marriage service ‘one flesh’?”

  “I-I am ... not ... c-certain.”

  “But you can imagine it is something very intimate, something very close, very private. And once again it can be all the wonder and ecstasy of the divine, or something so obscenely degrading that it could frighten you, little Goddess, as you have never been frightened before.”

  “Other women have ... married without ... love,” Vesta said hesitantly.

  “A great number of women have done so and are doing so at this moment all over the world,” the Count agreed. “Marriages are arranged in England as they are in France and very often in this country. But . it usually occurs when the girl is so young that she has not fallen in love with anyone else.”