69 Love Leaves at Midnight Read online

  It would have been impossible to speak above the noise of the crowd, but, as the coach moved off, the King took Xenia’s hand in his and raised it to his lips.

  She felt herself tremble at the gesture and then, because she knew that it was expected of them, she waved with her other hand at the crowd while still holding tightly onto the King.

  Now the flowers, which the children had brought, not only strewed the roadway but many of them were thrown into the carriage.

  Soon Xenia and the King were knee-deep in fragrant blossom. Some of the petals were caught in Xenia’s veil and by the King’s golden epaulettes.

  As they drove along there were no dark sinister men with folded arms, no dissenting banners, no boos or hostile shouts.

  It was applause all the way and the wildly enthusiastic crowd round the Palace was only with difficulty held back by the troops.

  As the carriage drew up at the steps, the King asked,

  “Are you tired, my darling? It was a long ordeal, but you came through it magnificently!”

  Xenia turned to look at him. Her heart was in her eyes, but there were no words to express what she felt.

  As if he understood, the King said,

  “We still have the wedding banquet ahead of us before we can be alone. Tomorrow I am taking you away on our honeymoon.”

  Xenia drew in her breath.

  She wondered what tomorrow would bring.

  But there was no time to think of anything, for their guests were waiting for them and the first person to kiss Xenia with tears in her eyes was the Dowager Duchess.

  She, with the King’s other relatives and most of the guests at the State Banquet, had returned to the Palace by a quicker route.

  The Long Hall of Mirrors had been converted into a Banqueting Hall because it was the largest room in the Palace.

  A table ran the whole length of it and the gold ornaments and white flowers that decorated it were reflected and re-reflected on the mirrored walls.

  Xenia had only a few moments for the Mistress of the Robes to remove the heavy crown from her head and replaced it with the diamond tiara that she had worn on her way to the Cathedral.

  It was lighter and, she thought secretly, far more becoming.

  With her veil falling on either side of her face, she looked ethereal and very like the Fairy Princess she had imagined herself to be.

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror and thought that unlike Cinderella the hour of midnight had not struck and she was married – yes, actually married to Prince Charming!

  ‘I love him! I adore him!’ Xenia whispered to herself. ‘Please God, let me stay with him a little while longer.’

  Today for the first time at a formal meal in the Palace she was seated beside him at the top of the table.

  As speech followed speech, she thought that those who made them were speaking to him not only with a new sincerity but also with a note of respect in their voices that had not been there before.

  ‘Mr. Donington was right,’ Xenia told herself. ‘He will make a brilliant King and he will keep the balance of power in Europe without any difficulty.’

  The King’s speech was brief and, after thanking everyone there for supporting him, he said,

  “There is no need for me to tell you that so much that has happened in the last few days is due to the inspiration and strength I have received from my wife.

  “If in the future I can serve you as I wish to do, if together we can make Luthenia a country of great importance not only to us but also in the world, it will be because the Queen believed that miracles are possible and this, in the history of our country, is a miracle. ”

  He said a little more before he sat down, but Xenia could still hear the note in his voice when he had called her his ‘wife’.

  She had hoped that after the dinner was over their guests would leave, but there was still the reception.

  This was for those who were not important enough to be invited to the banquet, but were of enough consequence that they must be entertained at the Palace on such a prestigious day.

  The two great salons, which connected to each other, were overflowing with the number of people waiting for them there and there was also a buffet provided outside in the garden.

  It was not yet dark, but fairy lights bordered the paths and flowerbeds and lanterns hung from the branches of the trees.

  The fountain was lit so that the water flying high into the air held every colour of the rainbow.

  It was all very lovely, but again Xenia could think of nothing but the man moving beside her as they circulated amongst the guests.

  Her long train had been removed and her gossamer-fine gown had a short train at the back.

  She knew without conceit that she not only looked very lovely and ethereal but the diamanté covering her dress made her shine even amongst the other lights in the garden.

  There were so many people to talk to, so many compliments to accept, that it was almost in surprise that Xenia heard the Count come to the King’s side and say,

  “It is ten-thirty, Your Majesty.”

  “Then we can say goodnight,” the King said with a note of eagerness in his voice that Xenia did not miss.

  He offered her his arm and the Gentlemen-in-Waiting of the Court went ahead of them.

  Now in a small procession, the Count bringing up the rear, they walked back towards the hall with their guests curtseying and bowing on either side of them.

  Back in the salon they said not only goodnight but also goodbye to the relatives and Royal guests.

  They were to leave the following day, but officially even though they were in the Palace the King and Queen would then be on their honeymoon.

  “Goodbye, my dearest Johanna,” the Dowager Grand Duchess said, “God bless you and István, as I know He has already done.”

  Xenia and the King were now in the hall.

  She thought this would mean that she was to be alone with the King immediately, but she found the Mistress of the Robes and five other Ladies of the Bedchamber must by tradition escort her to her bedroom.

  The King kissed her hand and she walked up the staircase alone not wishing to be separated from him, but knowing she must do what was expected of her.

  When they reached the Bedchamber, the Mistress of the Robes curtseyed and made a speech asking for the blessing of God on her marriage combined with the hope that there would be heirs to the throne to follow in His Majesty’s footsteps.

  It was a little embarrassing and, when the speech was over, each Lady in turn not only curtseyed but also kissed her hand and vowed to be of service.

  Then at last they were gone and Xenia let Margit undress her.

  It was then almost for the first time she decided that she must tell the King the truth.

  It was one thing to act the part of Johanna, to accept a wedding ring and the Crown on her behalf, but quite another to allow the King to make love to her believing that she was another woman.

  Xenia was very innocent, she had no idea exactly what happened when a man and a woman became one, as she was told they did in the Marriage Service.

  But she knew that it might produce a child and she asked herself in a sudden panic what would happen if when Johanna arrived and she returned to England she found that she was having a baby.

  The thought had never struck her before simply because she had never anticipated for a moment that she would get as far as marrying the King.

  She had been so sure that Johanna would be aware of what was happening in Luthenia and would arrive long before there was any possibility of her becoming the wife of the man she now loved.

  ‘I must tell him the truth before he touches me,’ she told herself and trembled because she thought that he might be angry.

  In fact she was quite sure he would be very angry. What man would not be, having been deceived and to all intents and purposes made to feel a fool?

  ‘But I have helped him, I have made him popular. Perhaps if I had
not been there, he would not have had the courage to fight the Prime Minister.’

  Xenia’s excuses seemed very plausible when she rehearsed them in her mind, but at the same time there was still the personal element, which was something very different.

  The King had kissed her and it had been the most wonderful, perfect, glorious thing that could ever have happened to her.

  Perhaps he had felt the same way when he kissed Elga, she told herself and for him, whatever he might have said, there had been nothing unique or sensational about it, as it had been for her.

  But a kiss was one thing, to make love was quite another.

  ‘I must tell him! I must!’ Xenia admonished herself.

  She found with hardly being aware of it that she was wearing a nightgown and Margit was waiting for her to get into bed.

  The huge draped bed with its ornate canopy and soft lace-edged pillows with embroidered coverlet had a significance that made Xenia, as she climbed into it, feel pulsatingly shy.

  Margit pulled the sheets into place, laid Xenia’s negligee over a chair and turned out the lights.

  All that was left was a candelabra with three candles at the bedside and they were veiled from Xenia by the folds of the curtains.

  ‘Perhaps it will be easier to tell him if I am in the shadows,’ she thought.

  She pressed back against the pillows trying to fortify herself against what lay ahead, vividly aware that her heart was fluttering in her breast and her fingers cold.

  She heard the communicating door which joined the King’s and Queen’s suites together open for the first time since she had been in the Palace and found that it was hard to breathe as the King came into the room.

  He was wearing a long blue robe that nearly touched the ground and made him seem even taller and more impressive than when he was wearing his ordinary clothes.

  As he drew nearer to the bed, Xenia saw that the lines of cynicism had gone from his face.

  Instead his eyes held a strange excitement in them so that it was hard to recognise the man who had met her only a week ago looking so bored and indifferent.

  He came to the bedside and looked at her sitting upright, her red hair falling over her shoulders to her waist, the thin lace-inserted lawn of her nightgown doing little to conceal the soft curves of her breasts.

  He stood looking at her as though unable to speak and she twisted her fingers together.

  “Do you know how beautiful you are?” he began. “I have longed to see your hair like this.”

  Xenia knew that this was the moment when she must tell him the truth, but somehow her breath seemed to be constricted in her throat.

  It would be easier, she thought frantically, if the King did not look at her so that she could not see the love in his eyes and what she thought too was a touch of fire.

  “István – ” she whispered at last.

  The sound was so faint that she felt he could not have heard it.

  But he had, for he sat down on the side of the bed facing her and she knew that it was because he wanted to go on looking at her, at her red hair shining in the candlelight and at her lips trembling because she was afraid.

  “I love you!” he said before she could speak. “God, how much I love you! I never believed it possible to feel like this about any woman least of all you!”

  He put out his arms to draw her to him and as he did so he said,

  “I am in love – wildly, crazily in love, my beautiful wife!”

  At the touch of his hands, Xenia found her voice.

  “I-I have – something to – t-tell you.”

  She felt him stiffen and, because of her love for him, she knew with a perception that was irrefutable that he was afraid of what he was about to hear.

  Because she loved him so overwhelmingly, she was aware that he was expecting her to say something about the lover he had referred to when greeting her on the train.

  “What do you want to say?” he asked.

  Now his tone was different and his hands rested on the sheet in front of him, no longer touching her bare arms.

  Xenia drew in her breath.

  How could she tell him, she asked herself? How could she sweep the happiness from his eyes?

  How could she spoil this moment of ecstasy?

  She loved him so utterly, so completely and absolutely with her mind, her body and her soul that she knew that she would kill herself to save him one moment’s pain or distress.

  This was his wedding night and because he had trusted her, because he had let her guide and inspire him the whole situation in Luthenia had been changed.

  Quite suddenly she knew that she could not do it, not tonight at any rate and perhaps tomorrow would never come.

  Perhaps they would go to sleep and never wake up – perhaps anything might happen – or nothing –

  What she could not do was to sweep away the happiness on the face of the man she loved or to tell him that he had been deceived.

  “I am waiting,” the King prompted.

  She thought the cynical lines were already back on his face and there was no longer a glitter in his eyes.

  She made a little movement towards him, not consciously willing it, but because she wanted the closeness of him so desperately.

  “I-I wanted to t-tell you,” she whispered, “that I love you – but – I don’t know – what to – do.”

  The words seemed to come from her lips without her choosing them or knowing what she was saying.

  “What do you mean – you don’t know what to do?” the King asked.

  “I, it is just that – I – ”

  She could not find the words to express what she was trying to say and, because she was shy, she could no longer meet his eyes and tried to hide her face against his shoulder.

  His arms went round her and then he said,

  “I must be very stupid, but I don’t understand what you are trying to tell me.”

  She could not answer and after a second he put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.

  “Look at me, Xenia,” he urged. “What do you mean – you don’t know what to do?”

  “I – love you – all I know is – that I love you!”

  He looked at her for a long moment and then he said,

  “I suppose I should have suspected – and you must have thought me very dense – but I believed those lies you told me about an English lover. And yet when I kissed you, I would have sworn before God Himself that nobody had ever kissed you before.”

  “Nobody – ever – has!” Xenia whispered.

  Something seemed to break in the King and in a voice that had a wild note of triumph in it he exclaimed,

  “I was right! Oh, my darling, I was right! You are mine as I have wanted you to be!”

  Then, as if he would sweep away the last doubts, he demanded,

  “Tell me – tell me by all that you hold sacred – as if you were in the presence of God Himself, that you have never belonged to another man, and that no man has ever touched you.”

  “Th-that is – true,” Xenia whispered again.

  Almost before the words left her lips, the King was kissing her, his mouth holding her captive as he pushed her back against the pillows.

  She felt the wild exhilaration he was feeling sweep over her so that she ceased to think, but only feel the wonder of his lips and the thrill that ran pulsating through her body at the touch of his hands.

  She felt as if flames were being lit inside her, the flames she had seen in the King’s eyes and which she knew were echoed in her own.

  “I love you! I adore you!”

  The words seemed to whirl round them, then the King was close beside her and she could feel his heart beating against hers.

  She knew that this was what she had longed for, this was what she knew was love in all its perfection, the love she had thought never to find, but which was not only his arms, but him.

  She felt his lips on her eyes, her cheeks, her neck and then
he was kissing her breasts.

  The whole world seemed to be filled with fire and the songs of angels and they too, as one person, were part of the Divine –

  *

  Somewhere very far away Xenia heard the sound of marching feet and knew that it was the sentries guarding the Palace.

  She turned her head against the King’s shoulder and felt him kiss her forehead.

  There was still a golden light percolating through the curtain beside them, but it was much fainter than it had been before and Xenia thought the candles must be guttering low.

  “I love – you!” she murmured.

  They were the same words she had said a thousand times, yet she wanted to go on saying them.

  “I worship you!” the King replied, “and I had no idea it was possible to be so happy and still be on this earth.”

  “You really are – happy?” Xenia asked. “I did not do anything – wrong?”

  The King gave a little laugh.

  “Wrong, my precious one? No one could be more perfect, more right in every way.”

  She gave a little sigh of sheer happiness as he went on,

  “We are right for each other. You are mine and I am yours and nothing else in the world is of any consequence.”

  “That is – what I feel,” Xenia sighed.

  “Oh, my wonderful darling, I have so much to teach you about love and so much love to prove that I very much doubt if it can all be done in one lifetime.”

  Far away, on the very edge of her consciousness Xenia remembered that they would not be together for a lifetime or perhaps very much longer.

  Then she forced the thought from her.

  This was her hour, this was her night and his, and nothing should spoil it.

  As she pressed herself impulsively a little closer to him, he said,

  “That is how I want you to be, against my heart and in my heart, and mine until the world comes to an end. Then I believe, my adorable one, we will be together in a Paradise of our own.”

  “I am in Paradise – now,” Xenia answered. “When you were loving me, I wished I could – die because I did not believe it – possible to feel any – happier.”