The Power and the Prince Read online

  “Just as we will be,” the Prince said quietly.

  Alana turned her face away as if she could not bear to look at him.

  “There – is something – that I have not – told you,” she now admitted.

  “What is that?”

  “Under the edict of Czar Nicholas the marriage was annulled. The Ceremony was declared – null and – void and the Priest who – conducted it was put to – death.”

  She paused before she continued in a very different tone of voice,

  “When I was – born, I was therefore – illegitimate!”

  There was silence and Alana turned from her contemplation of the fire to walk across the room and stand at the window.

  She pulled back the curtains.

  Outside there was darkness.

  “Y-you now – understand,” she stammered in a whisper, “why I cannot – marry you – or anyone else – I have no name – no real – identity!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Thank You, God – thank You – thank You,’ Alana repeated over and over again to herself as, having been awakened by the singing of the gondoliers, she realised that the sun had risen and the canals were beginning to be busy.

  It seemed more and more impossible every day to realise how fortunate she was as her happiness grew until like the sunshine it seemed to fill the whole world.

  Yet it was true. She was married and the man sleeping beside her was her husband, who she belonged not only in name but with her whole being.

  Every moment they were together she found it difficult to believe that they could ever be closer.

  Yet as each day of their honeymoon passed, she knew that they were no longer two people but one and their bodies, their minds, their hearts and their souls had become indivisible one from the other.

  Now in the great carved and painted Venetian bed that stood in the beautiful bedroom of one of the oldest and most magnificent Palazzos in Venice, Alana tried to express the gratitude in her heart and realised it would take her all her life to do so.

  When she had told the Prince the secret of her birth, which she had felt was a wound inflicted deep into herself and which time would never heal, she had thought as she spoke the very word illegitimate that he would turn away from her in disgust.

  She had known, she thought, even when she was small that it was a stigma both in Holland and in France, but, as she grew older in England, she was aware with what contempt the English, if they were kindly, referred to ‘love children’ and to ‘bastards’ if they were not.

  It was not known in Brilling that her father and mother were not legally married and therefore it did not trouble them, but Alana sometimes felt as if she was branded on her forehead for all to see.

  When her mother had died, her father had put on her gravestone the words,

  “NATASHA, THE BELOVED AND ADORED WIFE OF IRVING WICKHAM.”

  “It’s not true,” Alana had said to him once. “Your marriage was annulled and therefore Mama was not your wife.”

  “To me she was not only my wife but everything I worshipped and everything that gave me happiness,” her father had replied firmly.

  Then, as if Alana had asked the question, he added,

  “She told me that she never regretted running away with me from all the luxury and standing that was hers in Russia and I believed her.”

  It was true, Alana thought.

  Her mother had been completely happy and wherever they lived, the place radiated with love.

  But Alana had told herself, almost as soon as she was old enough to think, that she would never know the same happiness for she could never be married.

  ‘What man would take as his wife a woman without a name?’ And she added bitterly, ‘Someone who is repudiated both by the Russians and by the English.’

  She supposed that because she was young and impressionable, the years when they were in hiding had made her extremely sensitive to what other people were thinking and saying.

  She knew that the English at any rate thought it strange that Mr. Wickham appeared to have no relations and that her mother, who was obviously a foreigner, never spoke of the land of her birth or admitted that she had any nationality other than that of her husband.

  It was only when eventually it percolated through to the quiet serenity of Brilling that the new Czar, Alexander II, was different from the old one that Irving Wickham became less worried that they might be found by the Secret Police.

  When they learnt of the emancipation of the Serfs and later the reforms that Alexander was bringing to his long-suffering country, Alana thought that a burden was lifted from her father’s shoulders.

  He no longer greeted every stranger with a searching look as if he was suspicious of his or her intentions.

  But even if the Secret Police no longer sought them out, the stigma of her birth was still there, she was a child born out of wedlock and a child who grew into womanhood feeling that there was no Society anywhere in which she could take her rightful place.

  When she had said in a trembling voice to the Prince, “I have no name – no real identity”, she had thought that the whole room was silent as if she had shocked the very atmosphere.

  Then, as she stood with her eyes closed, thinking that the Prince would turn and walk straight out of her life and she would never see him again, she heard him move, but towards her.

  He came and stood beside her at the window and said,

  “Before I tell you something that you should know, I want you to say quite simply that you believe our love is greater than anything else in the whole world.”

  The way he spoke seemed to vibrate through her and she could not answer and after a moment he went on,

  “To me it is greater than the Laws of men and greater than any social code that was ever invented, it is a love that is answerable only to God.”

  He paused before he added very softly,

  “That is what I believe. Tell me, my darling, that you believe it too.”

  He was waiting, and she felt as though he commanded her to answer him until at last in a voice that he could barely hear she murmured,

  “I – I love – you! I love you – desperately – but – ”

  Before she could say the last words, the Prince’s arms were round her.

  “That is all I want to hear,” he cried, “and that is all that matters.”

  He pulled her closer against him and then he tipped back her head and his lips were on hers.

  He kissed her as he had before in the Music Room, compellingly, fiercely and demandingly.

  She felt now as if masterfully he took her into his keeping, telling her without words that she could never escape him again.

  He kissed her until they were no longer on earth but high in the sky and the glory of the light that enveloped them was Divine and yet came from within themselves.

  It was so perfect and so sacred that Alana felt that she must have died and was in Heaven.

  Then, as she felt as if they were surrounded with the music from a celestial choir, the very rapture of its spirituality broke under the strain and, as the Prince’s lips became more passionate, Alana felt the flame of desire rise within her to meet the fire in him.

  It was so wonderful and so beautiful that she could not think but only feel that this was love in all its glorious majesty, omnipotent, unconquerable and irresistible.

  When at last the Prince raised his head, she could only hide her face against his neck and know that she vibrated to him as if she was a musical instrument in a Master hand.

  Yet she knew that the melody he aroused in her was something so personal and so intimate that only he could understand what she was feeling.

  “I love you, my darling,” he said in a voice that was curiously unsteady. “I love and adore you and we will be married immediately because I cannot live without you.”

  “H-how can you – marry me?” Alana managed to gasp. “You know it is not – right when you are – of such great importa
nce.”

  “The only thing I consider of importance is you, but, because it will make you happy, I am going to tell you, my precious one, that your fears, which I know have hurt and distressed you all these years, are quite unfounded.”

  Alana raised her head.

  “Unfounded?”

  He held her a little closer to him as he answered her,

  “I cannot bear to think that you have been worried and distressed quite unnecessarily because of that monster Czar Nicholas, but the evil that men do does not always live after them.”

  “What are you – saying?” Alana asked him. “Explain to me – I don’t – understand.”

  “You are not illegitimate, my darling,” the Prince said, “but I promise you that even if you were, your identity would be very real to me.”

  “But then – Papa and Mama’s marriage was – annulled,” Alana protested.

  “It was one of the monstrous insane acts of a tyrant,” the Prince said, “but twelve or perhaps thirteen years ago my father received a letter from Czar Alexander asking him to return to Russia. He was promised that, if he would do so, the lands he had owned would be restored to him and he would be welcomed at Court as his forebears had been for many generations.”

  The Prince spoke slowly, his eyes on Alana’s face.

  “In the same letter,” he went on, “the Czar said that all punishments, penalties and privations directed against the Katinouskis during the last reign had been revoked and where possible the victims would be reinstated and compensated for their sufferings.”

  The Prince saw a sudden light come into Alana’s eyes as she understood what he was saying.

  To make it very clear, he added softly,

  “That means, my precious love, that your father and mother’s marriage was legal and that you were born in wedlock.”

  Alana gave a little cry of sheer happiness.

  Her face was radiant as if transformed by a light within her.

  “Is – that true – really – true?”

  “I promise you it is,” the Prince answered.

  “If only Papa could have known that he need no longer be in hiding, that there was no longer the fear of Mama being taken back to Russia for punishment or killed if she refused to go!”

  “The past cannot be undone,” the Prince advised quietly, “but the future is ours, heart of my heart.”

  His lips were on Alana’s again and she felt that there was a new rapture and a new wonder now in the feelings that he evoked in her because she need no longer fight against her love for him.

  After that everything had happened with a swiftness that left her breathless.

  The Prince had fetched her the next day from the Vicarage and they had travelled first to London where they were married very quietly with no witnesses except for the Prince’s Comptroller.

  Then they had set out immediately to travel across Europe to Venice.

  Alana half-suspected that one of the reasons for such haste was that the Prince had no wish to be involved in explanations to Lady Odele or to anybody else.

  That was, however, a very small part of what she knew was a raging desire to have her alone and tell her of his love as he insisted that she must tell him of hers.

  Because, as he had said himself, he always got exactly what he wanted, there were no obstacles in his way nor would he allow her to raise any.

  Clothes appeared for her as if by magic, even before she had begun to think that she might seem like the beggar maid whom King Cophetua had taken as his bride.

  It was not only a question of being rich. She knew it was because the Prince’s life was so amazingly well organised and also because he was determined to make her happy.

  When they arrived in London, she found that he had already sent a Courier ahead of them to have not only a Wedding gown and many other clothes waiting for her at his house but also jewellery such as she felt must have come from some Aladdin’s cave.

  After their marriage, there was the Prince’s Private train to take them to Dover, the Prince’s yacht to carry them across the English Channel and again another Private train to cross France and Italy in in such comfort and luxury that she was sure she was in a Fairytale.

  ‘This cannot be true! I am dreaming!’ Alana said to herself not once but a hundred times a day.

  Yet when the Prince’s arms were round her and his lips were on hers, she knew that it was very real that she was his wife.

  She found that Venice was as magical as she had expected.

  They had arrived late in the evening and had dined in a room that was redolent with history.

  But it was hard to think of anything except the Prince’s eyes looking into hers and the note in his voice, which made her feel that she responded to an ethereal melody that came from the stars overhead.

  After he had made love to her gently, but arousing her spiritually and physically to new sensations that she had not known existed, she had gone to sleep in his arms.

  Yet, even as she slept, she held onto him for fear that in the morning she would wake and find that he had vanished.

  But he was there beside her and there was the song of the gondoliers and the golden sunshine percolating through the curtains, which she knew hid one of the most beautiful views in the world.

  ‘I am in Venice – I am married and Ivan – loves me!’ Alana’s heart was singing. ‘Thank You, God – oh, thank You!’

  As if the very intensity of her prayer communicated itself to the Prince, he opened his eyes and in the dim light saw her face near to his.

  Then there was sudden warmth in his expression as he smiled.

  He reached out and his arms drew her closer to him. Her body was very soft and yielding against his and he asked,

  “Why are you awake, my beautiful darling?”

  “I do not wish to – waste time in sleeping when I am – here with you.”

  The way she spoke told the Prince a great deal more than the words she actually said and after a moment of sheer happiness he asked,

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I am saying a – prayer of – gratitude.”

  “I thought that was what you were doing and it is something that I must do too, because I have found the woman I have been seeking all my life but thought did not actually exist.”

  “And now you – know I – do?”

  “I am not only grateful,” the Prince replied, “but very excited.”

  His lips moved against her skin and his hand was touching her.

  “Oh, Ivan,” Alana cried, “how could I ever have known or guessed, when I was so glad to find work at the Vicarage after Papa died, that I would ever be married to you and be living in such beautiful places as this?”

  “Which is the most important?” the Prince asked teasingly.

  “You – only you!”

  He would have kissed her lips, but she whispered,

  “I was thinking last night just before I went to sleep that if through any unforeseen change in your fortune – you had to go into exile like Papa and Mama and hide from the Secret Police, I would go with you not only willingly but – gladly.”

  “Gladly?” the Prince questioned.

  “I could then make you understand that I love you – only for – yourself and not for – anything you possess or any position you may hold.”

  She gave a little sigh as if it was difficult to find words before she went on,

  “It is – wonderful, very – very wonderful to be the wife of someone who is treated almost like a King – who can have anything he wishes – and who owns so many marvellous things. But it is all completely unimportant beside you – the real – you.”

  The Prince did not speak and she looked at him with a worried expression in her eyes before she said,

  “You do understand – you do believe that what I am telling you is the – truth?”

  “My precious, my beautiful darling,” the Prince replied. “Of course I believe what you are saying to me, but
it is quite unnecessary. My instinct tells me far better than words that you love me as I want to be loved and I know that I shall spend every day of my life trying to make you understand what I feel for you.”

  “I have – an instinct – too.”

  “I know that,” the Prince replied tenderly, “but it does not always work when you are thinking of yourself.”

  He sensed that she was waiting for him to explain and he went on,

  “When I came into the nursery and saw you bathing the baby, I was aware that you were shy and a little embarrassed at my finding you performing such a menial task, but, my beautiful sweetheart, if you had only known what it meant for me to see you and know that all my fortune could not buy what you typified at that moment.”

  “I thought once,” Alana said in a low voice, “that all your – fine houses, since you were alone and had no – children, were none of them a – home.”

  “That is what I realised,” the Prince said, “when I saw you looking so utterly adorable and very feminine with that small boy on your lap.”

  He hesitated a moment before he added,

  “My mother was a cold woman or so she seemed to me. Perhaps that is a love I have missed in my life and I know too that I have missed having brothers and sisters, who would have loved me because I belonged to them.”

  “Oh, darling, I understand,” Alana cried, “but wherever we are, I can make a home for you and I will give you children to – make up for the loneliness that you must have felt being an only child – as I was.”

  “That is what I want, Light of my Life,” the Prince sighed, “and I know that we will never allow our children to feel unloved or that they have to fight against their instinct as I have done.”

  “You are not – fighting against it – now?”

  He knew that the question was important and he replied,

  “Not since you prevented me from doing so. Now I can love you unreservedly and use every instinct in my body and my soul to give you all the happiness you deserve.”

  “You are so – so – wonderful! How could I have ever imagined that there was a man like you in the world or that I would be lucky enough to find him?”