The Passion and the Flower Read online

  “If that is – what you wish,” Lokita said. “You know I want to do what – pleases you.”

  “You please me,” the Prince said fiercely. “Everything about you pleases, delights and enthrals me. All I want to do for the rest of my life is to make you happy, to make you realise how much I need you and how completely we belong to each other.”

  Lokita gave a little murmur of happiness and hid her face against his neck.

  He kissed her hair before he said,

  “Hugo has offered us his house in the country where we can go tomorrow and spend our honeymoon alone together.”

  Lokita raised her head and her eyes were shining.

  “Perhaps we could ride?”

  “We will do anything you want to do,” the Prince answered, “as long as you let me love you and tell you how beautiful you are.”

  Lokita blushed.

  “You know I – want that,” she whispered and she put her hand up to touch his cheek.

  He took it in his and kissed the fingers and the palm as he had done before.

  “I love you! I adore you!” he said. “I shall have to teach you Russian, my darling, there are not enough words in English or in French to tell you of my love.”

  “I know a little Russian,” Lokita replied, “enough to talk with Serge, but I feel sure that there is a great deal more you can teach me.”

  “There are many things I want to teach you, so many, my precious little flower, that it will take an Eternity to come to the end of them. They all start with love and end with love.”

  He would have kissed her, but then he stopped himself.

  “I was telling you what we will do. I have a feeling that in case Miss Anderson gets worse you would not wish to go abroad for the moment.”

  “You are so kind and considerate,” Lokita whispered, “she is in fact very ill – and I am – afraid – ”

  It was impossible to say more for the Prince’s arms were very comforting.

  “I will look after you as she has looked after you,” he said, “and one day perhaps all the secrets that you cannot tell me will be revealed to us.”

  “The secret of who I am?” Lokita asked.

  “You are a very mysterious person,” he replied with a smile.

  “I think Andy is writing everything down. Ever since we came to London she has been writing whenever she felt well enough, sheets and sheets of paper which she will not show me. They are locked away in a box.”

  “Then don’t worry about them,” the Prince admonished. “I want only to think about you, to ask you if you are happy and if you love me.”

  “You know I love you,” Lokita sighed, “More than I can possibly put into words.”

  “Then tell me with your lips,” he said and his mouth came down on hers.

  *

  Lokita, followed by the Prince moved from the dining room into the drawing room, which was a room that she had not seen before.

  It was filled with flowers and the scent of them made her feel that they were a part of her love.

  A servant brought a decanter of brandy and set it down on a small table.

  “Is there anything else you require, Your Highness?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” the Prince replied.

  The man bowed and went from the room.

  Lokita turned from the vase of flowers that she had been admiring.

  “Come here!” the Prince said.

  As if she was waiting for the invitation, she ran towards him, moving so lightly over the carpet that it hardly seemed as if her feet touched the ground.

  He held her close against him, but he did not kiss her, he merely looked down into her eyes to say,

  “How can you be so beautiful, so perfect? I still cannot believe you are real rather than a figment of my imagination.”

  Lokita gave a little laugh.

  “I am real – and now I am – your wife. I never thought – I never dreamt when I first saw you that I would wear your ring on my finger.”

  “You were hiding from me in the shadows as you have tried to do ever since, but now, my precious little white orchid, you can never escape me again.”

  “Do you think I would ever – want to?” she asked.

  There was a little throb of passion in her voice that made him bend to kiss first her white shoulder and then run his lips over her skin to her neck.

  He felt a little quiver of excitement run through he and then irresistibly his lips found hers and he kissed her passionately and demandingly.

  Then still holding her mouth captive, he picked her up in his arms and sat down in a big comfortable armchair, cradling her against him as if she was a baby.

  “This is how I have wanted to hold you ever since I first saw you,” he said in his deep voice.

  She laid her cheek against his shoulder and it was a gesture of pure endearment.

  “The night we had supper with you after you had rescued us from the bandits, I wanted you to kiss me,” she whispered.

  “Do you suppose I did not wish it too?” the Prince asked. “I have never in my life exercised such self-control.”

  “Why did you not – do so?” Lokita enquired.

  “Because I was afraid of frightening you, my Drouska! I knew you were mine, I knew our hearts were beating in unison and that our souls reached out towards each other. Yet I knew too that you were very young and very innocent.”

  She turned her face against his shoulder again.

  “I want to be – sophisticated enough to know what you want to make you happy,” she whispered.

  “You do that already by just being you,” the Prince answered. “I wish I could explain to you in words, my darling, how different what we feel for each other is from what I have ever felt before. It is not a question of being sophisticated or unsophisticated, experienced or innocent. It is that you are the other half of me.”

  “Can that really be true,” Lokita asked. “You are so magnificent – so handsome and so – commanding.”

  “You are soft and sweet and very much a woman,” the Prince said and every word was a caress.

  She felt his hands touching her and she quivered against him as if she was a musical instrument that responded to a player’s sensitive fingers.

  “I love you!” she breathed.

  “How much do you love me?”

  “All the world, the sea, the sky and more than Heaven itself,” she answered.

  “That is what I want you to say. I will teach you about love, my darling, I will make you love me until there is no world but me, no Heaven except in my arms.”

  There was passion in his voice and a fire in his eyes.

  Then he was kissing her until the breath came quickly from between her lips and there were little flames flickering through her whole body.

  Suddenly she drew herself from his arms.

  “I want to dance for you,” she whispered, “as I used to dance for Papa, but this is more – wonderful and more – important because it is for – you.”

  The Prince drew in his breath.

  “Dance, my precious.”

  She moved away from him into the centre of the room.

  The light from the candles in the crystal sconces found shining lights in her fair hair and her eyes were soft with love.

  She stood still for a moment almost as if she was listening for the notes of music that would tell her what to do.

  Then she began to move slowly in the steps of a dance that the Prince had never seen before, but he knew came from her heart and expressed the love that he had aroused in her.

  It was a dance of joy and of happiness that came not from the world but from the Divine.

  Her arms went out to grasp the love that surrounded her and then, almost as if it was inadequate without a Blessing from above, she reached up to the skies.

  Then, just as she had done on the stage, she showed the Prince that she was not alone in her dancing but there was someone else with her, someone she loved, someone who had love
d her.

  She portrayed it so vividly and so compellingly that the Prince found himself believing that Lokita was not moving alone, but there were others beside and around her.

  It was then, because their minds were so attuned to each other, that he knew she was thinking of his mother.

  She conjured up the very spirit of her so that the Prince was vividly conscious of his mother’s presence and it was almost as if he could hear her speaking to him.

  The feeling was so strong and so unmistakable that suddenly he rose from his chair and his voice rang out,

  “Stop!”

  As if he had brought her out of a trance, Lokita was suddenly still, her hands still outstretched towards what was invisible, her lips apart, her eyes gazing into the unseen.

  “I said stop,” the Prince repeated in a strange voice, “because I cannot deceive you. I have to tell you the truth.”

  “The truth,” Lokita repeated and it seemed as if her voice came from a very long distance.

  “Yes – the truth,” he said. “I love you and adore you. I worship you! I am at your feet, but, my precious little flower we are not married!”

  She was very still, but she did not answer and after a moment he said,

  “I cannot marry you legally without permission from the Czar, but I have dedicated my love to you. Every breath I draw belongs to you and I swear before God and on the memory of my mother that I will never fail you. That I will love and protect you until we both die.”

  There was a silence that was so intense that it seemed as if not only they could not speak but that neither of them could breathe.

  Then, almost as if he felt that she was moving away from him, although she had not in fact taken one step, the Prince cried out and there was a note of agony in his voice.

  “If you love me enough, if you love me as I love you, it will not matter, it will make no difference. Love is greater than any laws that are made by man. Surely you must believe that?”

  Lokita did not move, but her hands dropped to her side.

  She looked suddenly very small and very lost.

  The Prince would have taken a step towards her, but he checked himself and said,

  “I have told you this because I love you, because I could not bear for there to be any secrets between us. Tell me that nothing matters except our love – tell me!”

  The last words rang out commandingly.

  Then in a whisper that he could hardly hear Lokita said,

  “I must – think – I must think – ”

  She put her hands up to her forehead and then turned and moved very slowly away from him across the room towards the door.

  Chapter Six

  Lokita walked slowly along the Boulevard de la Madeleine with Marie beside her.

  She did not speak and Marie also was silent.

  It seemed a century since they had left London to rush back to Paris and be in hiding once again as Lokita had been all her life.

  Even now, after several days of trying to readjust herself to what was in reality her old life, she could not think of the Prince without tears coming into her eyes and her lips trembling.

  ‘Why did I not do what he wanted me to do?’

  She had asked herself over and over again in the darkness of the night.

  And the question hovered over her in the daytime so that it was hard to concentrate on anything except her own unhappiness.

  When she had rushed blindly from Lord Marston’s house asking the footman in the hall to call her a Hackney carriage, she had been a child seeking the help from the woman who had looked after her ever since she was a baby.

  Only when the carriage actually reached the boarding house in Islington did she remember that she must not upset or disturb Andy and thought frantically of what explanation she could make for returning home.

  She had entered the house and seeing no one about she ran upstairs to Andy’s room.

  As she touched the handle of the door, she drew in a deep breath and with an effort forced herself to enter quietly and calmly.

  Andy was not asleep and she turned her head casually, obviously expecting to see Marie.

  Then, when she saw Lokita, she exclaimed,

  “Why are you here? Why have you come back?”

  Choosing with care every word she should say Lokita moved towards the bed and knelt beside it.

  “I came to ask your – advice – Andy dearest,” she said in a soft voice.

  “My advice?” Miss Anderson enquired.

  “I don’t know what to do or what would be right.”

  There was something so childlike and pathetic in the way she spoke that instinctively Miss Anderson put out her hand and laid it on hers.

  “You are worried and frightened,” she said as if she spoke to herself. “That is not what I intended.”

  ‘There is – no one I can ask but – you.”

  “Ask about what?” Miss Anderson questioned even though she already knew the answer.

  Lokita looked down at the white sheet.

  “Lord Marston told me that you wished me to marry him,” she said slowly, “but I cannot do – that, Andy.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I do not love him and he does not love me.”

  Miss Anderson did not speak and Lokita went on,

  “I know how much Papa loved Mama. When he spoke of her, his love vibrated from him – and you have always told me how much Mama loved him.”

  Lokita held Andy’s hand in both of hers.

  “How can I marry Lord Marston or any man unless I – loved him like that?”

  “You have to be safe, my dearest,” Miss Anderson replied, but her voice was uncertain.

  “You would not wish me to be – unhappy or – afraid.”

  “Lord Marston is a gentleman. He would look after you.”

  “He does not love me as – the Prince – does.”

  The words were hardly above a whisper, but Miss Anderson heard them.

  “The Prince cannot offer you marriage,” she said sharply.

  “I can understand that, but would it be wicked if I stayed with him as I – want to do?”

  “Neither your father nor your mother would ever forgive me,” Miss Anderson replied and now there was an inescapable pain in her voice.

  Lokita raised her eyes and they were dark with suffering.

  “Then what shall I do?” she asked. “You have always been so wise, you have always taken care of me. Tell me, Andy, for I cannot – decide for myself.”

  For a moment Miss Anderson was still and then she said,

  “Call Marie and Serge.”

  “But why?” Lokita asked startled.

  “Because I tell you to. I need them here this moment – immediately! We are returning to Paris!”

  “To – Paris?” Lokita could hardly breathe the words.

  But from that moment anything she said, her protests, her questions and her arguments were all swept to one side.

  Miss Anderson took the drops that Sir George Lester had given her and somehow Lokita and Marie dressed her.

  Little sips of brandy also helped and Marie, being French, believed that it was more efficacious than anything any doctor could prescribe. It certainly sustained Miss Anderson during the long journey.

  They left Victoria on a train that departed at seven o’clock and, when they reached Paris, Miss Anderson was in pain and seemed more dead than alive. Yet her willpower sustained her and kept her going.

  “Shall I tell the cocher to take us to our house?” Lokita asked as they installed Miss Anderson in a fiacre and Serge helped to pile the luggage on top of it.

  “No!” was the reply. “We will go to Madame Albertini.”

  Lokita was surprised, but she was not prepared to argue with Miss Anderson seeing how pale she looked.

  Somehow she found the strength to explain to Madame why they had returned to Paris and to ask if she would take care of Lokita because there was no one else to do so. Madame was ast
onished to see them.

  “How could you have gone away in that extraordinary manner?” she asked Lokita, her voice rising. “When you did not arrive at the theatre on Monday, they all came rushing to me to ask what had happened.”

  She threw her hands up in the air in a typical French gesture.

  “What could I do seeing I knew nothing?”

  “I am sorry, madame,” Miss Anderson said in a tired voice. “Lokita will explain why we went.”

  There was a pause before Lokita said in a low voice,

  “It was because – Prince Ivan Volkonski was giving a – party for me and Andy did not – wish me to go.”

  “La! La!” she exclaimed. “I can understand that. The Prince has a reputation and every night he had taken the Royal Box to watch you dance.”

  She gave a little laugh that was half a sigh.

  “So that is why you ran away. I might have guessed it. C’est toujours l’amour.”

  “It is always love!” Lokita repeated the words to herself then and every minute of every day that followed.

  Love, love, love!

  The words seemed to haunt her, just as when she lay crying at night she could feel the strength of the Prince's arms round her and the touch of his lips, which evoked sensations that she had never known existed, not even in her dreams.

  Her whole body ached for him. She felt as if her heart had been torn from her breast leaving a gaping wound.

  At the same time she understood why he had told her the truth and it was indivisibly linked with the reason why she had run away.

  When she had danced for him, she felt that her father was beside her, so close that he was as real as the Prince himself.

  And with him had been someone else who she knew was her mother, even though it was difficult to visualise her face.

  Then, as she went on dancing, there had been a third person, someone she knew did not belong to her but to the Prince.

  And the love that came from this woman was as vivid and as real as the love of her father.

  The Prince knew and he understood, Lokita told herself and, because their minds thought as one, neither of them could lie or fall short of the ideals of their parents.

  It was love, true and perfect that had drawn them together and it was love, pure and sacred which had driven them apart.