Princes and Princesses: Favourite Royal Romances Read online

  His life was in danger, the revolutionaries he had spoken about had not waited for him to return to his own country, but were prepared to kill him here in England!

  She stood on the pavement waiting, her eyes fixed on the traffic at the end of the road.

  Twi-Twi struggled in her arms.

  He was hot, still very indignant at having been kicked, and he did not like being held for any length of time.

  Angelina, however, merely tightened her hold on him.

  “You have to wait! We have to save him, Twi-Twi,” she asserted.

  Even as she spoke, she saw the horses coming towards her, and ran into the road.

  She held Twi-Twi under her left arm and waved frantically with her right.

  For one terrifying moment she thought that Alexis was unable to stop the horses and they would run her down. Then within only a few feet of her, he managed to draw them to a standstill.

  When she knew they would not drive on, she ran to the side of the carriage.

  As she did so, the Prince bent forward to see what was happening.

  She saw the expression of surprise on his face and, when she reached the side of the carriage, she found for one moment that it was impossible to speak, her voice had gone.

  “What is the – ?” the Prince began, but she interrupted him.

  “There – is a – man! A man – waiting to – shoot you – he is h-hidden with a rifle in the – bushes opposite the door of the – Ministry!”

  Just for a second there was an incredulous look on the Prince’s face as if he did not believe her.

  Then Captain Soutsos intervened,

  “I will see to it, sir.”

  The footman jumped down from behind to open the door of the carriage and Captain Soutsos got out, followed by the other aide-de-camp.

  Angelina held out the key of the square.

  “If you go in by – the gate on this side,” she said, “he will not see you.”

  “That is a good idea,” Captain Soutsos said. “Thank you, Miss Medwin.”

  The Prince put out his hand and said,

  “Come with me.”

  Angelina climbed into the carriage and sat beside him.

  Captain Soutsos looked up at Alexis.

  “Turn in at the first entrance on the right and wait there until we fetch you.”

  Alexis raised his whip to the brim of his hat to show that he understood and, as the two aides-de-camp walked off, the carriage moved down Grosvenor Crescent and turned right.

  There was a small garden in a crescent of tall houses and Alexis drew the carriage up in the shadow of a tree.

  Angelina sat back, Twi-Twi still in her arms, feeling that she was unable to say anything more and unable for the moment even to think.

  She had saved the Prince, that was all that mattered, but the agony she had suffered thinking that she might not be in time to save him had left her so weak that she felt almost as if she would faint.

  As if he understood what she was feeling, he took Twi-Twi from her and put him down on the opposite seat.

  Then he held her hand in both of his and said quietly,

  “Thank you, my darling. How could I have imagined, how could I have dreamt that such dramatic things could happen here in the safety of England?”

  Angelina felt herself quiver at the touch of his fingers and, as if he gave her life itself, she felt her weakness disappearing and her whole body invaded as if by a stream of light.

  “Supposing I had – not seen – him?” she asked in a low whisper.

  “But you did! And I shall not die. Today at any rate!”

  Her fingers tightened on his.

  “Don’t – speak like that,” she pleaded. “I-I cannot – bear it.”

  “I am not afraid to die,” the Prince replied. “In fact I was thinking when I was in the Abbey that it would be easier to die than to live without you.”

  His words made the tears come into her eyes.

  As she tried to blink them away, she told herself that she should not be crying as she had last night, but smiling because, despite all their resolutions to keep away from each other, they were together again.

  The Prince raised her hand to his lips and she felt his mouth not hard, passionate and violent as it had been last night, but soft, gentle and at the same time possessive.

  “I tried to tell myself that I was wise and sensible not to see you again,” he said in a very low voice that could not be overheard by the servants in front of them, “but now you are here and nothing else seems to matter.”

  “You told me not to – watch you going to the Coronation and coming back,” Angelina said, “but I – had to.”

  “It was very fortunate for me that you did.”

  “How could anyone want to – kill you?” she asked. “I saw last night how much your people – love you.”

  “Revolutionaries seldom have good reasons for what they do,” the Prince replied lightly. “They just want to overthrow the existing order.”

  He smiled at her as he added,

  “You see that there are dangers even in my mountainous Paradise.”

  “You must take – care of yourself.”

  He did not reply, but she felt that metaphorically he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Please,” she pleaded, “for my – sake.”

  “If you ask me like that, you know I have to do as you wish,” he answered, “but, as I have already said, I am not afraid of dying.”

  “You have to live,” Angelina answered. “I feel it is imperative for you to live – not only for your own sake but for Greece.”

  The Prince sighed.

  “I feel I am doing enough for my country in giving you up,” he said. “They surely cannot ask further sacrifice of me?”

  Angelina did not speak for a moment and then she said,

  “I was thinking last night, when I was crying in my misery – at losing you, that once in history Greece changed the thinking of the world – and that is what it must do again.”

  The Prince smiled.

  “I know what you are saying to me,” he said. “That was the time when men were only a little lower than Gods.”

  “And that is what they must be again.”

  “The Greeks have forgotten the vision they had then,” the Prince murmured.

  “Then you must make them remember,” Angelina said. “You and everybody who thinks like you – must bring the ideals and the splendour that was Greece back to a world that is badly in need of it.”

  The Prince looked down into her face and his eyes were very tender.

  “Only you, my precious, could think like that,” he said. “Only you could think as a Greek would that holiness lay in the beauty that they found everywhere they looked.”

  Once again he raised her hand to his lips and said,

  “We think alike, we are alike, and it is difficult for me to think of you except as a Greek with a Greek’s imagination of what the world needs.”

  Angelina gave him a little smile.

  “I have something to tell you – ”

  Then, as she spoke, she realised that Captain Soutsos was standing beside the carriage.

  “It’s all right now, sir,” he said to the Prince. “We caught the man.”

  “Who was he?”

  “A Turk!”

  “A Turk?” the Prince exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

  “He is not being very communicative at the moment,” Captain Soutsos said with a slight smile. “We were somewhat rough with him! But I glanced at the papers in his pocket and they were written in Turkish and there is no doubt from his appearance what his origins are.”

  “I cannot understand what he has to gain from killing me.”

  “Perhaps we shall learn more when he recovers consciousness,” Captain Soutsos said drily.

  He looked at Angelina.

  “We owe you a great debt of gratitude, Miss Medwin. The assailant, whatever his nationality, carried a very accurate and high-powered
rifle. His Royal Highness would not have had a chance of survival.”

  Angelina gave a little cry and the Prince said,

  “Get in, Aristotelis, I will not have Miss Medwin upset, but I am sure that His Excellency would wish to thank her.”

  “He is very anxious to do so,” Captain Soutsos replied.

  Angelina felt that she should protest and say that it was best for her to remain anonymous.

  But she knew that was impossible. Captain Soutsos had already told the Minister who had informed them of the danger to the Prince.

  Captain Soutsos sat down opposite them.

  “I should have told you that there was another man – with him,” Angelina said, remembering that she had not told the Prince about the man in the mackintosh. “He kicked Twi-Twi when he barked, which was how – I found out that there was a man hidden in the bushes with a gun.”

  “Another man!” Captain Soutsos ejaculated. “You will have to be very careful, sir.”

  The Prince did not answer and Alexis drew up the horses with a flourish at the front door of the Ministry.

  The Prince got out first and helped Angelina onto the red carpet. Without waiting to be lifted from the carriage Twi-Twi followed them and jumped down onto the ground.

  As she walked up the steps Angelina looked at him apprehensively, knowing that if he saw the ginger cat he would rush after it again like a streak of lightning.

  At the same time it was really Twi-Twi who had saved the Prince and he was entitled to his glorious hour as she was to hers.

  Waiting in the hall was the Minister. He was flanked on either side by officials in their magnificent diplomatic uniform and behind them a crowd of what appeared to be the entire staff of the Ministry.

  As the Prince appeared, there was an outburst of clapping and cheers as there had been the night before, but Angelina thought that they were more subdued and more refined than the extrovert exuberance of the Cephalonians in the restaurant.

  “Your Royal Highness,” the Minister said, “I can only thank God that your life has been spared and I ask Miss Medwin to accept on behalf of myself and everyone present our most sincere and heartfelt thanks that she was instrumental in saving you.”

  There was another outburst of applause and, as Angelina put out her hand, the Minister raised it to his lips.

  “May I present my colleagues to you, Miss Medwin,” he asked, “who wish to add their grateful thanks to mine.”

  Angelina smiled rather shyly.

  “First let me introduce the Prime Minister of Cephalonia,” the Minister said, “Mr. Alexandros Ypsilantis.”

  “You are the saviour of our most beloved ruler, Miss Medwin,” the Prime Minister said.

  “And now,” the Minister went on, “Mr. Kharilaos Costas, the Foreign Minist – ”

  Before he could complete the word, Twi-Twi, who had been keeping close beside Angelina as if slightly overawed by such a crowd of people, started to bark furiously at the man standing next to the Prime Minister.

  Angelina looked at him apologetically and, as she did so, saw that he was the man she had seen getting into the second carriage that had been driven away to the Abbey.

  Mr. Costas was frowning as he looked down at Twi-Twi and moved his legs in their black silk stockings somewhat uncomfortably.

  Suddenly it flashed through Angelina’s mind that she had seen him more than once.

  Incredibly she thought that she must be mistaken as she realised that the man in the garden who had hurried away after kicking Twi-Twi had, beneath his black mackintosh, been wearing silk stockings!

  She had, at that moment, been so angry at Twi-Twi being hurt that she had not consciously noticed anything except the swiftness with which the man had let himself out of the gate.

  Now she knew, as Twi-Twi did, who had been hidden in the bushes and in fact, directing the gunman waiting to assassinate the Prince.

  Twi-Twi was working himself up into a furious passion, barking ferociously and making little menacing runs at the man facing him as if he would bury his sharp white teeth in one of his legs.

  Just for a moment Angelina thought he was going to kick Twi-Twi again and, without considering the consequences, she cried out,

  “That is the man! That is the man I saw in the bushes talking to the assassin with the rifle!”

  Her voice rang out in the high-ceilinged hall and the Prince turned his head to stare at her in sheer astonishment.

  Then before anybody could speak, the Foreign Minister drew a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at the Prince.

  “Yes, it was I!” he said, “and you had all better get out of my way unless you want your reigning Prince to die in front of your eyes!”

  His pistol was pointed at the Prince’s heart as he started to edge his way slowly through the men around him towards the door.

  It seemed as if everyone was paralysed into immobility until Twi-Twi made a wild dash and buried his teeth in a black silk-stockinged leg.

  The Foreign Minister gave an involuntary cry that turned into an oath and looked down at his small attacker, preparing to kick him out of his way again.

  In that split second the Prince moved.

  He flung himself at the Foreign Minister and forced his hand holding the revolver up into the air.

  There was the resounding explosion of a shot that was quickly followed by another one, and Angelina saw Kharilaos Costas stagger and collapse on the ground.

  Captain Soutsos had shot him while he was grappling with the Prince.

  There was a sudden movement as everyone surged forward and, as Angelina stood rooted to the ground, she felt the Prince’s arms go round her and he half-carried her out of the hall and into another room.

  He pushed the door shut behind them and held Angelina close against him.

  She was too shocked, too stunned by everything that had happened to do anything but hold onto him, her face turned up to his, her eyes searching as if to see if he was really alive, really safe after all.

  “It’s all right, my precious,” he said, “and now, thanks to you, I know who my real enemy was.”

  “You – said you did not – like him,” Angelina murmured incoherently.

  “And how right I was! He must have been intriguing with the Turks to take over the island and must have been instigating the demonstrations and riots that the Prime Minister and I could not account for.”

  “You are alive! You are – alive!” Angelina cried.

  “I am alive, my darling one,” the Prince replied, “but it is not right to involve you in such horrors.”

  His lips found hers and he kissed her passionately and almost frantically as if it was she rather than himself who had been in danger.

  He took off her hat and threw it on the ground and went on kissing her until the room swung round her and she was caught up in the magic enchantment that she had thought she would never know again.

  The door behind them opened a little way and someone, Angelina guessed it was Captain Soutsos, pushed Twi-Twi into the room.

  He was not barking at anyone, but intrigued and curious, as Pekingeses always are on finding themselves somewhere new, and he started to explore the room.

  Angelina gave a weak little laugh.

  “I did not – save you,” she said. “It was Twi-Twi! He recognised the Foreign Minister – because he had kicked him in the garden!”

  “That is the kind of thing the swine would do!” the Prince said, “but forget about him.”

  He drew Angelina as he spoke, towards the sofa that was beside the fireplace and filled with flowers.

  She saw, as she moved, that she was in a very large room and, because there was a big table in the middle of it, she guessed that it was used as the Council Chamber.

  At the end of the table was a magnificently carved chair bearing the Cephalonian Coat-of-Arms, which she felt was really a throne.

  It made her remember that the Prince was Royal and that because of it they were forced to say ‘go
odbye’ to one another.

  Yet it was difficult to think of anything at this moment except that the Prince was beside her and his face was near to hers.

  “I love you!” he breathed, as they sat down together. “My precious little Persephone, I love you and no one could be more courageous. But I am going to find you something to drink.”

  “I don’t want – anything,” Angelina protested.

  The Prince paid no attention and walked across the room to where there was a table set with glasses and several crystal decanters.

  “A glass of wine is what we both need,” he said firmly as he poured it out.

  Angelina felt that he was speaking for the sake of speaking and they were both thinking that in a short time she would have to leave him again.

  Because he looked so magnificent and so impressive in the uniform he had worn for the Coronation, she wanted to run to his side and ask him to hold her in his arms and kiss her again.

  ‘I must behave properly,’ she thought and forced herself to look away from him.

  Glancing up over the mantelpiece she saw a large portrait. As the Prince joined her, a glass in each of his hands, she remarked,

  “How strange that you should have a picture of Lord Byron here!”

  “Why strange?” he asked. “My cousin would not think a Cephalonian Ministry or a Greek Embassy complete unless it contained a portrait of the man to whom, more than anyone else, we owe our freedom.”

  “Do you mean Lord Byron?” Angelina questioned.

  “But of course!” the Prince replied. “I thought you were a student of our history.”

  “I try to be,” Angelina answered, “but personally I think of Lord Byron in a very – different way.”

  She took the glass from the Prince as she spoke and added,

  “I was just going to tell you because you said that I thought like a – Greek, that I am in fact Lord Byron’s – great granddaughter.”

  She spoke with a little smile on her lips feeling that, if the portrait was hung in the Ministry, the Prince would not be shocked as she had been afraid he might be.

  But when she looked up at him, he was staring at her with a very strange expression on his face.

  “What are you saying?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “I wanted to tell you when we first met,” Angelina said, “how it is that I have Greek blood in my veins, but I thought you would be shocked. Papa has always told me that I was not to mention it to anybody.”