105. an Angel In Hell Read online

Had she been mistaken? Had she misunderstood the words he had spoken and the look in his eyes?

  Compared with the women around the table, Ancella felt very young and very unsophisticated.

  ‘What do I know of life or – love?’ she asked herself.

  She was only a young girl from the country, ignorant of the social world, not even having ‘come out’ as a debutante, as she would have done had her mother been alive.

  Quite suddenly she wanted to run away, she wanted to go back to England to be alone and she knew that the reason was the pain she felt within her when she looked at the Prince.

  A pain that lay in her heart.

  Immediately dinner was finished, the Princess was in a hurry to get to Monte Carlo.

  She bustled the ladies into the salon and then was carried upstairs to her own bedroom, instructing Ancella as she did so to fetch her evening cloak as she had no intention of waiting for anyone.

  As had happened the night before, the other guests lingered behind and Ancella found herself alone with the Princess, driving at what seemed breakneck speed along the road towards Monte Carlo.

  “I am going to play Baccarat tonight,” the Princess announced.

  “I do hope you will win, ma’am,” Ancella replied.

  “My astrologer tells me that my stars are right. Admittedly he could not pinpoint the actual day that they are all in my favour, but it will certainly be one evening this week.”

  “I shall be interested to watch you,” Ancella said. “It looks a little difficult to understand.”

  “The only difficulty,” the Princess retorted, “is drawing the winning card.”

  That was irrefutable.

  Ancella lapsed into silence and looked out of the window, wondering whether the baby in the tavern was sleeping peacefully after having been given his honey.

  The Casino seemed as bright with lights and even more like a wedding cake than it had the night before.

  The Princess’s wheelchair was waiting for her and they passed quickly through The Kitchen where the gamblers were six deep around every table.

  In the Salle Touzet there was the same collection of magnificently bejewelled women and men of obvious distinction.

  Almost everyone seemed to know the Princess and their progress towards the tables was considerably slowed down as people came up to speak to her.

  Among them was a tall distinguished-looking man with a small moustache, who Ancella was certain was Russian even before he spoke.

  She was not mistaken.

  “Good evening, Your Imperial Highness,” the Princess said. “My son greatly enjoyed his dinner with you last night.”

  “I am hoping that you also will honour me one evening,” the Grand Duke Mikhail replied.

  “You have only to ask me,” the Princess answered, almost coquettishly.

  The Grand Duke’s eyes were on Ancella as she stood beside the Princess’s chair.

  After a moment he said,

  “A new face in the Casino and a very lovely one! It is something of an event! Will you not introduce me?”

  The Princess made a little exclamation as if she suddenly remembered Ancella’s presence and said,

  “May I present to Your Imperial Highness, Miss Ancella Winton, my English nurse-companion, who has only just arrived from England?”

  Ancella sank down in a deep curtsey.

  “I am sure Miss Winton looks after you well,” the Grand Duke said to the Princess.

  “She does indeed!” the Princess replied, “and now, if Your Imperial Highness will forgive me, I must find myself a place at the Baccarat table.”

  The Grand Duke stood back for the wheelchair to pass him, then, as Ancella would have followed, to her astonishment she felt his hand on her arm.

  “One minute, Miss Winton,” the Grand Duke said in a low voice. “I would like to talk to you. Will you join me in a glass of champagne?”

  For a moment Ancella was too surprised to answer him.

  Then she said quickly,

  “I am afraid that is impossible, Your Imperial Highness. The Princess likes me to be beside her.”

  “When people are gambling,” the Grand Duke answered, “they are blind and deaf to everything else that goes on. Meet me later in the bar in about an hour’s time.”

  “It will be impossible!” Ancella replied, but he merely smiled at her and said firmly,

  “I shall be waiting!”

  She turned away quickly and hurried after the Princess.

  The Grand Duke’s invitation made her feel nervous.

  Last night no one seemed to notice her and she had somehow not expected to be anything but an anonymous figure in the glittering crowd of women that thronged the Casino.

  But there had been no mistaking, even to someone as innocent as she was, the light that glittered in the Grand Duke’s eyes or the manner in which he had spoken.

  Ancella told herself that she must be clever and on her guard, as she had no intention of involving herself with the Grand Duke.

  It was not only Sir Felix and Dr. Groves who had spoken of the Russian Grand Dukes, their attractions and wild extravagances.

  It was one of the many criticisms levelled against Monte Carlo that it attracted the great spenders of every country and the Grand Dukes of Russia in particular were the most profligate and the most notorious.

  As she moved towards the Baccarat table where the Princess had already been found a place, Ancella could not help looking back.

  She saw that the Grand Duke was standing where she had left him, but he had been joined by a lady wearing a jewelled headdress covered with pearls and bristling with ospreys.

  Round her neck she wore three ropes of enormous pearls that reached almost to her knees.

  Although Ancella was ignorant of the identity of the Socialites moving round the Casino, there was no mistaking, even for someone who lived in the country, the flamboyant exotic figure of Gaby Deslys.

  She was a French actress, who had suddenly sprung to fame.

  Even the English magazines published sketches and photographs of her and it seemed that no one could write about Paris without describing Gaby, her pearls and her feathered hats.

  Ancella remembered what she had said to Sir Felix and could not help smiling.

  ‘I am certainly a little English sparrow compared with such a bird of paradise,’ she thought.

  Then resolutely, as she stood behind the Princess’s chair, she tried to understand the game that was being played with cards, which were drawn from what was called a ‘shoe’.

  The Princess had been playing for only about a quarter of an hour before the Marchioness and Prince Vladimer appeared and sat down at the other side of the table.

  Ancella saw the Prince put a great deal of money down in front of the Marchioness while he contented himself with a much more modest pile.

  For a moment neither of them appeared to notice the Princess.

  The Marchioness lifted her lovely face towards the Prince, looked at him with her blue eyes in a manner that proclaimed her intentions all too obviously.

  ‘How can he resist anyone so beautiful?’ Ancella wondered.

  She thought how dull and uninteresting she must look beside the Marchioness, whose gown of silver lamé was very décolletée.

  She wore a necklace of turquoises and diamonds and long earrings of the same stones fell from her perfectly shaped ears.

  In her hair there was a white aigrette held with a diamond brooch and two bracelets were clasped over her long white kid gloves, which reached above her elbows.

  She looked really impressive and dignified besides being so beautiful and it struck Ancella that she was in fact exactly the right sort of wife for the Prince.

  She would grace the jewels which the Princess wore and which would one day be his and she would look her best in the huge glittering ballroom of the Winter Palace and even lovelier when, wrapped in furs, she travelled over the snow-covered land in a sleigh.

  Ancella
was so deep in her thoughts about the Marchioness and the Prince, even while they hurt with the unaccountable pain that she had felt at dinner, that she did not realise that the Comte André had joined the Princess until she heard her say,

  “Thank Heaven you are here, André! It makes me sick to sit at the table and watch that woman opposite trying to eat up my son with her eyes.”

  There was a venom in the Princess’s voice that was unmistakable and Comte André replied,

  “Forget her. I want to talk to you.”

  A flunkey drew the Princess’s chair from the table and, as he pushed her away, Ancella, who was following, saw out of the corner of her eye the Prince lift his head to watch his mother leave.

  Then resolutely she looked in another direction, determined not to let him think that she was interested in what he was doing.

  The Princess and the Comte went to the same salon where they had sat the night before and almost instantly were deep in conversation.

  Ancella moved towards the seat against the wall where she had sat for so many long hours the night before and as she did so thought that in the distance she could see the Grand Duke Mikhail.

  She was half-afraid that he would come to find her, thinking that she was ready to meet him as he had suggested.

  Quickly, hoping she was invisible, she slipped out through the open window as she had done the previous night into the garden where she had been joined by Mr. Harnsworth.

  Tonight it was completely empty and there was only the beauty of the stars and a new moon in the sky.

  ‘Everyone will be bowing to it and turning their money,’ Ancella thought with a smile, knowing that was a superstition which was certain not to be forgotten by the gamblers.

  She moved slowly towards the edge of the terrace, which dropped down hundreds of feet towards the sea.

  There was the same sweet fragrance of lilies that she had noticed the night before and there was also music and she recognised a slow Viennese waltz.

  She looked down at the harbour and saw not only the yachts at anchor but also a large ship moving slowly out towards the open sea, its lights reflected in the water.

  “One day you and I will be in a ship travelling towards new horizons,” a deep voice said beside her.

  Ancella started.

  She had not heard the Prince approach and yet now he was there it seemed to complete the perfection of the night.

  “Would you come with me?” he asked.

  “Where – to?” she enquired.

  “Would it matter, if we were together?”

  She could find no answer to this. She only knew that her heart had started to beat violently and she felt the strange sensation he always had on her rising irresistibly until it reached her throat and it was hard to speak.

  “You are even lovelier than I remember when I left you this afternoon,” he said. “Did you think about me?”

  “It would have been – impossible not to – do so,” Ancella answered.

  The words came from her lips in a whisper and she knew that he was smiling as he said softly,

  “That is what I hoped you would say.”

  “How did you – know I was – here?”

  “I guessed that this is where you would come.”

  As if without speaking she had asked the question, he went on,

  “The Marchioness is winning. She will not miss me and I had to find you.”

  Ancella did not speak and after a moment he said,

  “Do you know what an agony it is not to be beside you, not to be able to talk to you? Ever since I have known you, Ancella, you have made me suffer a thousand different emotions that I have never felt before.”

  He paused and then he said very softly,

  “I love you!”

  Just for a moment it seemed to Ancella that the brilliance of the stars blinded her eyes. And then she replied,

  “You know – you should – not say – such – things to me – and you know I must not – listen!”

  “I cannot help it!” the Prince said simply. “Look at me!”

  It was a command and obediently, without thought, Ancella turned her head.

  His face was very clear in the light of the moon and, when she saw the expression in his eyes, it was impossible to move.

  “I love you!” he said again and now the words were fierce. “I love you and I can think of nothing but you, until I wonder how long it will be before I snatch you up in my arms and carry you away where we can be alone.”

  “Please – please – ” Ancella murmured.

  She knew even as she said the words that they had no meaning.

  She could only stare up at him and then slowly and as smoothly as the ship that was gliding out of the harbour he drew her into his arms.

  It was inevitable and she could not resist him.

  He held her closer and still closer against him.

  He looked down at her face upturned to his and then his mouth was on hers.

  For a moment Ancella was conscious only that his lips were hard, when somehow she had expected them to be soft. Then, like a flash of lightning, the fire that she felt in him swept through her.

  She felt it invade her tinglingly, thrillingly, sweeping through her relentlessly and with it came the sudden weakness that held an emotion so exquisite and so wonderful that Ancella could no longer think, but only feel.

  It was love – a love, fierce, passionate, demanding, a love that belonged to Eternity and was in itself part of the Divine.

  It seemed that the stars, the sea, the fragrance of the flowers and the music were all part of the Prince and of her.

  Everything had vanished except themselves and a beauty that made them no longer human but as Gods.

  The Prince’s arms tightened and instinctively she drew closer to him.

  They were no longer two people but one, joined by a love so ecstatic that it was part of creation.

  “Douchka, my little darling!” the Prince murmured against her lips.

  Then he was kissing her again, wildly, passionately, possessively, until the very stars seemed to fall from the sky and lie at their feet.

  Quite suddenly he released her.

  Then without a word, as silently as he had come, he moved away and, almost before Ancella realised what had happened, he disappeared through a window back into the Casino.

  She felt as if her legs would not support her and she would fall to the ground.

  Then she put both her hands up to her breast as if to stop the tumultuous throbbing of her heart.

  She had never realised that it was possible to feel as she felt at this moment, carried up into the sky, enveloped with glory, awakened to wonders that belonged to the world of the spirit.

  She felt herself quiver and tremble.

  Gradually she came back to reality, to the fragrance of the flowers, to the sound of the music and the reflection of the stars on the sea.

  ‘I must go back,’ she thought.

  But it was impossible to move, impossible, for the moment, to return to the commonplace and the mundane when she had reached the Gates of Paradise.

  ‘I love him!’ she whispered to herself. ‘I love him!’

  With a superhuman effort Ancella forced herself to turn round and walk towards the Casino.

  She had a sudden shrinking, a physical intensity which was painful, at the idea of going back, of losing the enchantment that had swept her up to the skies.

  But she thought perhaps the Princess would want her and she had no idea how long she had been in the garden.

  Everything seemed to be out of focus, the only thing that was real was the throbbing of her lips on which she could still feel his.

  She stepped in through the window and for a moment the lights were so bright that it was hard to see.

  Then to her consternation she realised that the Princess was sitting alone in her wheelchair and the Comte was no longer with her.

  Ancella walked quickly towards her.

  “
Where have you been?” the Princess asked angrily. “You are supposed to be here in attendance upon me. How dare you disappear in such a manner!”

  “I am very sorry, ma’am,” Ancella replied. “I thought that the Comte would be with you for a long time and I went into the garden.”

  “A long time!” the Princess snorted. “What chance have I of having him for a long time with that woman giving him orders and forcing him to obey her?”

  “He – he has left the Casino?” Ancella asked vaguely.

  “He has gone back to his wife!” the Princess snapped. “He has to leave now – tonight, to reach her in Paris in the morning. She wants him. She commands him! Because he is weak, and all men are weak, he obeys!”

  “I am sorry,” Ancella said.

  The Princess’s voice was not only angry, there was also no concealing the fact that she was suffering.

  Suddenly she seemed to sink back in her wheelchair, as if she was exhausted.

  “Take me home!” she ordered. “I can stand no more!”

  Ancella signalled to an attendant who hurried to the Princess’s side.

  “Back to the tables, Your Highness?” he asked.

  “We are leaving,” Ancella said before the Princess could speak. “Please take us to the door and order Her Highness’s carriage.”

  She wondered, as they moved quickly through the Salle Touzet into The Kitchen, whether she should inform the Prince that they were leaving, but she shrank from speaking to him and she thought too that the Princess looked quite ill.

  The patches of rouge on her cheeks were standing out vividly and now she appeared even older than she normally did, a shrivelled old woman with a deeply lined face, which for the moment had no semblance of beauty in it.

  It took only a few minutes for the carriage to be brought to the door of the Casino.

  A footman and Ancella helped the Princess in. She lay back against the cushioned seat and a sable rug was put over her knees.

  The horses set off, going more slowly down the hill that led to the harbour than they would do once they were on the main road.

  As they journeyed, the Princess began to mutter to herself,

  “André, Serge, Vladimer. It’s always the same! They take them from me and I cannot hold them. Whatever I say, whatever I feel, they leave me.”

  Ancella longed to comfort her, but she did not know what to say.