A King In Love Page 14

  She was thinking as she spoke how violently jealous she would be of him.

  Then it flashed through her mind that if he behaved as she expected, she might try to kill, not only the woman who had supplanted her in his affections, but him too.

  The King was watching her eyes and to her surprise he gave a little laugh,

  “Oh, my darling, do you think I do not know what you are thinking? Because for one incredible moment I thought that the Grand Duke was your lover and not your father, I felt the same. I wanted to commit cold-blooded murder so that I could take you from him. You are mine, Zita, and I will kill any man who touches you.”

  The way he spoke was so violent that Zita stared.

  “We may quarrel,” the King went on, “but however much we may rage at each other, it will be no more than a passing thunderstorm. When we make it up, there will be sunshine and love will carry us again into the heart of the sun, burning with the fire of it.”

  There was a note of passion in his voice that seemed to vibrate through Zita.

  She felt as if the fire he spoke about flickered within her and there were little flames rising in her body as there had been when he had kissed her.

  “I love you,” the King insisted, “and, because I will allow nothing in the world to make me lose you again and suffer as I have these last few days, I am giving you a choice between two alternatives. And you have to choose now!”

  “What – are they?”

  “The first is that you give me your word of honour that you will marry me,” the King answered. “And because it is important, as you agreed, that I should try to set up a Federation amongst the other countries that I intend to visit, I shall take you with me and we will be married in exactly two weeks.”

  “That is – impossible!”

  “The alternative,” the King went on as if she had not spoken, “is that I will stay here now and make you mine. You will belong to me and, when I tell your father in the morning what has happened, I think he will agree that you must allow me to put a wedding ring on your finger.”

  “You are blackmailing me!” Zita cried angrily. “How dare you!”

  “I am doing so because I know I can make you very happy,” the King replied, “as I know you will make me. I know too that we both have things to do in the world that could be of inestimable benefit to other people, starting with my country and with yours.”

  “That sounds very glib,” Zita retorted, “but you know as well as I do that you are really giving me no chance of – refusing you.”

  “Of course I am giving you no chance,” the King answered, “simply because, my darling, while I have said that I love you, there is no need for you to tell me you love me, for I know it.”

  His voice was very beguiling as he went on,

  “I knew it when you quivered to my kiss on the palm of your hand and I was very very certain of it when I kissed you just now and we both felt as if we had reached the gates of Paradise.”

  Because this was so palpably true, Zita found it difficult to know what to say.

  Then, as the King waited, she felt she must make one last stand rather than surrender herself without striking a blow in her own defence.

  Her chin went up as she said,

  “You did not ask me to – marry you until you knew I was – Papa’s daughter!”

  The King smiled.

  “I wondered when you would remember that and so I have a question now to ask you. Why do you think I spent two hours climbing down the mountain from my castle to this inn, knowing I would find your father here tonight?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “For the last three days after you did not meet me, as I had begged you to do, my most trusted men were scouring your City to find you, but always returned to tell me that they had failed.”

  “That was because they were looking in the wrong places,” Zita remarked.

  “Your friends at The Inn of the Golden Cross kept your secret well,” the King went on, “and there was therefore only one thing I could do.”

  “What was that?”

  “Ask the help of the Grand Duke.”

  “Why should you think he would help you?”

  “Because,” the King replied, “I had decided, since I knew you belonged to me, I must marry you morganatically and, as you were a citizen of Aldross, the one person who could make our marriage acceptable to Valdastien would be the Ruler of your country.”

  “You intended to – marry me – morganatically?”

  “I knew it was the only way I could be happy for the rest of my life,” the King admitted simply.

  “I-I can – hardly believe it!”

  “I will make you believe it,” he replied, “but I do not pretend, my darling, that it will not make things very much easier for both of us that you can reign with me as Queen. There will certainly be no opposition from my Prime Minister and my subjects will love you.”

  “I was not thinking about them – when I said I would not – marry you.”

  The King read her thoughts and knew that La Belle and the other women whom Zita had in her mind stood between them.

  “I know exactly of whom you were thinking,” he said quickly, “but you have to forget them. They were just flowers by the wayside which faded very quickly and were not important because all the time, although I was not really aware of it, I was looking, searching and yearning for you.”

  He gave a sigh as he added,

  “How could I have been so stupid as not to realise that the Hungarian part of me could only be satisfied with a Hungarian and now that I have found you, I will be a complete person and so will you, my precious love.”

  He bent forward as he spoke and put his arms round Zita.

  Somewhere at the back of her mind she thought that she should resist him, but it was too late.

  His lips were on hers and, as he touched her, she felt her whole being surrender itself to him and, as her head fell back against the pillow, the King bent over her.

  Their vibrations linked one with the other and his lips drew her heart from her body and she was no longer herself, but part of him.

  He kissed her and once again the earth was left behind and they were part of the stars shining overhead.

  He kissed her until she was pulsating and burning with the wonder of it and she felt flames of fire rising in her breasts and knew that the King was burning too.

  He raised his head and she could only stare at him and murmur incoherently in a voice that did not seem like her own, “I – love – you – I – love – you!”

  “Say that again!” the King commanded. “Say it until you make me believe it!”

  “I – love – you!”

  “When will you marry me?”

  She made a little murmur that was half a sob as she said,

  “Tomorrow – tonight – even if you only love me for a short time – it will be worth it!”

  “I shall love you forever! And you know, my lovely one, there are no words in which either of us can express the height, the depth and the wonder of our love.”

  Because she knew that was true, Zita put her arms round his neck.

  “I love you until – it is impossible to – think of anything else, except that I am desperately – afraid of boring you and then you will leave me. If you do – I shall want – to die!”

  “I shall never leave you and you will never leave me. I know, my darling, that anyway we will have to live at least a thousand years to convince each other of our love, which we have known in many other lives. We have been incredibly fortunate to find each other again in this.”

  Zita pressed herself a little closer to him.

  “If that is true,” she said, “then we will never lose each other and you are right – we will be together for eternity because we are not – two people – but one.”

  The King did not answer.

  He only kissed her until the stars fell from the sky and covered them.

  *

  The
cheers of the crowd were deafening as the Royal carriage with the bride and bridegroom came from the Palace into the main street of the Capital, which was packed with huge crowds.

  Everywhere she looked there were flowers.

  Flags flew on the top of every building and from every window people were waving their hats and their handkerchiefs.

  Zita, holding on tightly to the King with one hand, waved with the other and blossoms were thrown into the open carriage as they moved slowly behind the Troop of Cavalry, which was escorting them to the border.

  Only when they were out of the main part of the City and into the open country where the crowd was less dense did the King ask,

  “You are not tired, my darling?”

  “How could I be tired,” Zita replied, “when I kept thinking how grateful I was to have found you and that I was not having to marry somebody like that extremely boring Margrave of Baden-Baden?”

  The King laughed.

  “I think he is very well suited to your sister.”

  “That is what she thinks too.”

  “And I am very well suited to you,” the King said, “except that I don’t believe your mother approves of me.”

  “Actually, Mama thinks we are very well suited as she never approved of me either!” Zita replied and they both laughed.

  A shower of rose petals prevented them from speaking until they had passed a crowd of schoolchildren.

  Then the King said,

  “I wanted to tell you how beautiful you looked in your wedding gown and you are just as beautiful now in your smart bonnet with its green feathers.”

  “Mama said that green is unlucky, but it is very lucky for me,” Zita said. “As are the emeralds you have given me.”

  She looked down as she spoke at the huge emerald she wore together with her wedding ring.

  “It’s the colour of your eyes,” the King said gently, “and because your eyes glint with a strange fire when I excite you, that is what I will see tonight.”

  The way he spoke made Zita blush before she asked,

  “You have not – told me where we are staying for our – honeymoon, but I think I can guess.”

  “Then you have cheated and read my thoughts. For where else could we go except to my Castle in the Clouds?”

  “That is where I was sure you would take me,” Zita said, “although I was – afraid you might be – ashamed to do so.”

  “I am not in the least ashamed,” the King replied. “I want to take you there because – and this is the truth, Zita – I have never been there with another woman. I always loved it because it was my mother’s favourite Palace, which she decorated in a way that is typically Hungarian.”

  “Then I shall love it as you do,” Zita promised softly.

  The King took her hand and raised it to his lips, which evoked an even louder cheer from the crowd who saw it and who thought it was a very touching gesture they would always remember.

  At The Inn of the Golden Cross they were to change carriages from the one that belonged to her father to one that belonged to the King.

  But Zita was surprised to see that instead of an open victoria there was waiting for them a very smart phaeton, drawn by four horses and built so lightly and with such large wheels that she knew it would be very swift.

  There was no chance of her expressing her surprise until they had said goodbye to the courtiers who had accompanied them from the Palace and Zita had a special word for Gretel.

  “It is all due to you, Gretel, that I am so happy,” she said quietly so that nobody else could hear, “and I have brought you a special present which I hope you will wear and remember us both.”

  “I could never forget you anyway, Your Majesty,” Gretel replied.

  Zita knew as she walked away that Gretel would be thrilled with the very pretty brooch she had given to her and which had the King’s and her initials set in diamonds on an enamel background.

  Then the King himself was driving her away in the phaeton, escorted only by four outriders who kept very much in the background.

  “How could you think of anything so exciting?” Zita asked when the inn was out of sight and she no longer had to wave to those who were left behind.

  “I am in a hurry,” the King said simply, “and the State carriage and the Cavalry would have taken double the time that we shall take in reaching the Castle in the Clouds.”

  “I have never seen such an unusual phaeton before.”

  “It comes from Paris,” the King explained and his eyes were twinkling.

  “As long as that is the only thing you import from Paris into Valdastien,” Zita remarked, “I will not complain!”

  “I am quite certain that you will want to go to Paris and buy new gowns there,” the King answered. “But there is no hurry and for the moment I find you exquisite and very very desirable in those that come from your own country.”

  “I think you are really disparaging the dressmakers of Aldross!” Zita retorted. “I promise you that each gown I bought and there was no time for many, is labelled as being a ‘French model’.”

  She gave a little laugh as she added,

  “In fact, as Mama disapproved of most of them, they are, as you can imagine, very chic!”

  “I will give you my opinion of them later,” the King said. “But I am sure that nothing could be more alluring than the nightgown you were wearing when I proposed to you in your bedroom at the inn!”

  “Proposed!” Zita exclaimed indignantly. “You merely informed me that I had to marry you! In fact, I am just a captive in chains, bound behind the victor’s chariot!”

  “I think if the truth be known,” the King replied, “I am the captive! I lost my freedom, which was very precious to me, the first moment I set eyes on you.”

  “Are you already regretting it?”

  “I will answer that question a little later,” he answered and whipped up his horses to make them go faster.

  The Castle in the Clouds was more impressive and more beautiful than Zita had anticipated.

  Built high up on the snow-peaked mountains, it was a dream Palace and she knew as the King lifted her up into his arms and carried her over the threshold into the huge hall that he was the King of her dreams just as she was the Queen of his.

  There was a gypsy orchestra playing in the salon, where there was wine for them to drink a toast with the heads of the staff.

  Then they were free to go up the stairs hand in hand.

  The King showed Zita first the Staterooms with windows overlooking the most amazing view she had ever seen in her life.

  Then he took her farther along the wide corridor, which was decorated with paintings and furniture that she knew were outstanding, to their suite of rooms.

  As he showed Zita into the first one, which was the ‘Queen’s Room’, she knew it was the loveliest bedroom she had ever seen.

  She thought that only somebody Hungarian could have designed anything so beautiful.

  The sight of it instantly raised her heart in a way that she found difficult to explain, except that she was aware that the King felt the same.

  “This was my mother’s room,” he said softly.

  “I feel she knows we are here together,” Zita answered, “and is very – very glad that you are – happy.”

  To her surprise the King did not kiss her, but walked back to close the door and lock it.

  Then he came back to Zita and undid the ribbons of her bonnet to throw it down on the sofa.

  “All the servants here are of Hungarian origin,” he said, “and I gave orders that they were not to intrude or worry us unless we ring for them.”

  The way he spoke made Zita looked at him enquiringly and then he was undoing the buttons of the light coat she had worn for travelling and threw that down on the sofa as he had her bonnet.

  Then he put his arms round her and sighed,

  “You have been my wife for nearly six hours and I have not had a chance to kiss you.”

  A
s Zita lifted her lips to his, he added,

  “I think, my precious, after such a morning ceremony, a Wedding Breakfast, and quite a long drive, you should rest.”

  The way he spoke made the colour rise in Zita’s cheeks and he laughed gently and said,

  “That is a conventional word which for the moment means something very different.”

  Then slowly, as if he was deliberately not hurrying, the King drew his finger along the side of her cheek until it touched the point of her chin.

  It gave Zita a strange feeling and she thought his touch was like a little flame that seemed to run through her and made it hard for her to breathe.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said. “I find it hard to believe that at last you are really mine and that you will not fly out of the window and disappear or that I shall not wake up and find I am merely dreaming.”

  “We are in a dream world, my darling husband, and we must never – step out of – it.”

  “I think it would be impossible to do so and to make sure we can go on dreaming, I want to tell you how much I love you and how much you mean to me.”

  As he spoke, his lips sought hers, but it was only a very tender kiss and a very quick one.

  Then gently, so that she could hardly believe it was happening, the King unbuttoned her gown and it slipped from her shoulders to the floor.

  A moment later he lifted her onto the bed and, as she lay there sinking into the softness of it, her eyes dazzled by the evening sun that enveloped the valley and a sky that seemed as translucent as the snowy peaks of the mountains, she was not alone.

  The King was close to her and she could feel the hardness of his body against the softness of hers as he pulled her closer and still closer.

  She made a little murmur of sheer happiness and then he was kissing her hair, her eyes, her small straight nose and lastly her lips.

  “I love you – oh, wonderful, marvellous – Maximilian – I love you!”

  She was not certain if she said the words aloud or if they were singing in her mind.