The Cruel Count (Bantam Series No. 28) Read online

  Vesta drew in her breath.

  She had one quick glance at the comparatively small room into which she had been shown, and then she saw the Count standing alone on the other side of it.

  She gave a spontaneous cry of joy which seemed to echo round the walls as she ran across the soft carpet and threw herself against him.

  As his arms went round her she felt the strength of them and knew it was like reaching Heaven to be close to him again.

  “My darling, my precious, I have been waiting for you for what seemed like an eternity!”

  “I did not know that ... horses could travel so ... slowly,” Vesta murmured unsteadily.

  Then his lips were on hers and she could only feel a rapture so intense, so wonderful, that she could think of nothing except that she was with him and they were reunited.

  He kissed her until it seemed to Vesta that the room spun round her and she had melted into him so that they were but one person.

  Then he raised his head and said, his voice deep with passion:

  “Come, my darling.”

  He took her hand in his and moving across the room opened a door opposite the one through which she had entered.

  “Is ... everything all ... right?” she managed to ask.

  It was hard to speak or even breathe because of her love.

  “Everything is all right, my precious,” he answered and she saw the fire in his eyes.

  He drew her through the doorway and she saw they were in a huge Reception Room with enormous crystal chandeliers.

  The room was clear of furniture and Vesta thought at first it was completely empty, until she saw at the far end of it two gold-belaced flunkeys standing on either side of a double-door.

  ‘That is where the Prince is,’ she thought to herself and her fingers tightened on the Count’s.

  She wanted to ask him questions, she wanted him to reassure her that they could be married. But she could not find her voice and as they reached the footman a little tremor of fear ran through her.

  The Count had said it was “all right”, but would she really be free ... free to be his wife?

  ‘Please God,’ she prayed quickly, ‘please God ... Please!’

  The footmen pulled open the doors, the Count drew her by the hand and Vesta moved forward.

  There was a noise like the roar of the sea, of great waves thundering on the shore, and for a moment she could only stand still, bewildered, unable to understand, to realise what had happened.

  Then she found standing in the sunshine she was not in a room as she had expected, but on a balcony.

  Below her there were thousands upon thousands of faces turned upwards, flags and handkerchiefs were being waved as roar after roar came from the lips of the crowd.

  It was impossible to move, impossible to do anything but stand and stare. Then Vesta heard the Count’s voice:

  ‘Smile, my sweet darling, smile, they are cheering you.”

  A sudden thought seemed to shoot through Vesta’s mind like an arrow. She turned her head.

  She had only looked at the Count’s face when she had greeted him, now for the first time she noticed he was wearing a uniform. His coat was white with gold epaulets and there was a blue ribbon across his chest.

  He smiled at her.

  “Already, my beloved,” he said, “they are calling you ‘the Princess of the little children’.”

  Stunned, Vesta turned once again to look below.

  The people were holding up their children so that she could see them. There were women with tiny babies and men with small boys or little girls perched on their shoulders.

  “This is a very small country,” the Prince said quietly. “So news travels fast and my people have given you their hearts—as I have given you mine.”

  His hand tightened on hers as he finished gently: “Besides before we left I told the Brigands who you were.”

  As he spoke, he raised her hand to his lips, and the crowd as if appreciating the gesture cheered louder and louder until the noise of it was almost deafening.

  Then with a final wave of his hand to the crowd, the Prince drew Vesta back through the curtained window and they walked hand in hand back down the big Reception Room.

  A footman opened the door into an Ante-room. As it closed behind them Vesta stood very still.

  The Prince released her hand and she said in a low, almost frightened tone:

  “Why ... did you not ... tell... me?”

  “Because I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  He walked away from her towards the fireplace. There was no fire and it was filled with flowers. He stood with his back to her, his hands on the mantelshelf.

  “I have a lot of explaining to do,” the Prince said slowly, “and there is very little time.”

  Vesta did not speak and he said:

  “In a few minutes we leave for the Cathedral. I shall go ahead and you will follow me. That is, if you will still marry me.”

  “But why did you not tell me who ... you were?” Vesta asked.

  She was suddenly afraid of the strange note in his voice, of the way he was standing with his back to her, and she still could not really believe that he was not the Count but the Prince whom she had made up her mind pot to marry.

  She felt as if her legs could no longer hold her, and she sat down on the very edge of the sofa a little way behind him.

  “I told you,” the Prince said in a harsh voice, “that I was a paper Prince, weak and despicable. It is true.”

  He paused as if waiting for her to reply, and then he went on with an obvious effort.

  “I have in fact not lied to you. Count Czako is one of my titles. Alexander is the name under which I rule, but Miklos is the name my mother always called me.”

  He straightened himself but he did not turn round.

  “It was my mother’s death,” he said, “which changed my whole life when I was only ten. It was then that my father decided to educate me, drill me, regiment me into the position that I would one day hold as the ruler of Katona.”

  His voice was sharp as he continued.

  “I am not making excuses for myself, I am only trying to describe to you the background of everything that has happened until this moment.”

  He went on:

  “I was brought up without friends, without anyone close to me except those chosen by my father—who toadied to keep their position, were subservient to be certain of his favour.”

  He turned round to look at Vesta staring at him with wide eyes and went on:

  “I told you when we were in the cave that everyone is frightened of something, and I had not the courage to confess my fear. I will tell you now. I am afraid, desperately afraid of being alone.”

  “As a ... man?” Vesta questioned.

  “As a man,” he repeated. “As a Prince there are always hundreds of people at my side, and in their company I feel more lonely than it is possible to explain.”

  “I can understand ... that,” Vesta murmured.

  “That is why,” the Prince went on in a controlled voice with very little emotion in it, “when my father died I tried to find people who would like me for myself. The war was over when he died in 1816, and I went first to Rome and then to Paris, travelling incognito with as few attendants as possible. It was in Paris I met Ziileyha Bamir.”

  Vesta drew in her breath.

  “I am not going to pretend to you,” the Prince said, “that there have not been many women in my life. Most of them were produced for me by my father or his advisers, because they thought it was right for their Prince to have feminine companionship.”

  His voice was hard as he continued:

  “Once or twice, I thought I was in love, but always at the back of my mind I knew I was being manipulated! I knew too that the women who accepted me as a lover were more interested in my rank than they were in me.”

  He paused, and then with a bitterness which was very revealing he said:

  “When
I met Ziileyha I believed in all sincerity that she liked me for myself.”

  Vesta had hated the Turkish woman before, but now she felt a jealousy which hurt almost like a physical pain. Because she could not help it the question came to her lips:

  “Was ... she very ... beautiful?”

  The Prince did not look at her.

  “She was exotic, fascinating, calculatingly alluring,” he replied. “She was eight years older than I, sophisticated, a woman-of-the-world, quite unlike anybody else I had ever met.”

  “And ... you ... loved her?”

  Again Vesta could not help the question.

  “I was infatuated! ‘Besotted’ I think is the word the Aide-de-camp used when he spoke of her to you. It was true, she bewitched me, and I did not realise that once again I was being manipulated.”

  “How did you ... find out?” Vesta asked.

  “Oh, there were plenty of people to tell me what was happening!” the Prince replied and his voice was raw. “I brought Ziileyha back to Katona, and within a few months the Prime Minister was protesting on behalf of the Cabinet, there were cartoons, bitter references to her in the newspapers, and even threats against her life. But I would not listen.”

  “I can understand ... that,” Vesta murmured.

  “It was the first time I had ever acted on my own initiative,” the Prince went on. “I refused to be bullied or threatened into giving up someone I felt really cared for me.”

  Vesta could sympathise with what he had felt. She could see how when for the first time he had been allowed to decide something for himself, opposition would have only strengthened his determination not to give in.

  “Then at last,” the Prince went on, “the situation became too explosive for me to ignore and I had to consider the feelings of the people. So when the Prime Minister made a final plea to me to marry, I agreed.” There was a little pause and then he said:

  “I told him that the only English woman I could consider to take as my wife was you.”

  “Me!” Vesta ejaculated in surprise. “But how had you ever heard of me?”

  “I had seen you!” the Prince answered.

  “Seen me?” she echoed.

  “I came to England last year as a guest of the Prince Regent,” he answered. “His Royal Highness gave a big reception the night I was staying with him. As we were moving down to supper I saw you standing against one of the windows.”

  His voice softened as he said:

  “I thought you were the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life!”

  Vesta’s eyes were wide as he continued:

  “I turned to the Duchess of Devonshire whom I was taking into supper and asked: ‘Who is that lovely girl?’

  “ ‘That is Lady Vesta Cressington-Font,’ Her Grace replied. ‘I will present her to Your Royal Highness after supper.’

  “But after supper we could not find you.”

  “I remember that party,” Vesta exclaimed. “I left early because it was so hot.”

  “I returned to Paris early next morning,” the Prince went on. “But I never forgot how beautiful you were, and when the Prime Minister kept insisting it was in the tradition of our Royal House for me to take an English wife, I told him to go to England and ask for your hand.”

  “He did not tell me that you had seen me,” Vesta said.

  “I did not tell him either,” the Prince answered. “I somehow did not want to speak of it. Your beauty had remained in my mind like an—emotional experience.”

  “But when I did arrive you ... tried to send me... away.”

  “From the moment the Prime Minister left for England,” the Prince answered, “Ziileyha and her friends told me that I was a fool to consider an English wife. They said the British were cold, frigid, unbending. They said the women could not feel passion. They were extremely eloquent in affirming that you would never understand the people nor make any effort to be sympathetic or compassionate towards them.”

  “And you ... believed ... them?”

  “I told you I was weak,” the Prince replied. “I believed them.”

  “So that was why you ... tried to send me ... away?”

  “I had no idea that the Prime Minister would have arranged a marriage by proxy,” the Prince said.

  “It never occurred to me that ... it was not your Wish.”

  “It would have been a shock to the Revolutionaries when they learnt it. They were determined to prevent the marriage, which is why they started the riots in Djilas.”

  “Why should they have done that?”

  “They thought that if the Revolution succeeded I would be forced to flee the country. That would have given the Turkish Government, with whom Ziileyha was closely in league, an excuse to march into Katona ostensibly to restore peace. I would then have been given the choice of abdicating or returning as a puppet under their jurisdiction.”

  “And did Madame Ziileyha want that?” Vesta asked wonderingly.

  “She was afraid that, if I married, her power over me might cease,” he answered. “It was almost too late when at the eleventh hour I realised what I had done and that the whole State was in jeopardy.”

  “When you did realise it, what did you do?”

  “I rallied the Army. I had Ziileyha and all her associates escorted under armed guard to the border and exiled for life.”

  The Prince’s voice was hard.

  “She will ... never ... return?”

  “Never! And I hope in time to eradicate the harm she has done. It was only when the Revolution was practically over that I learnt she had sent a band of assassins to Jeno with instructions to kill the Prime Minister who had always been her enemy, and to be rid of you.”

  “Would they have ... shot me?”

  “They might have put you back on the ship had it still been in harbour; but if they found you, as I did, alone, you would undoubtedly have died.”

  “So you saved me!”

  “I dispatched all the soldiers I could spare to overtake the murdering band on the Djilas road,” the Prince said. “But I had miscalculated the day of your arrival. I suddenly realised that as the welcoming party had been cancelled, there was every possibility of you, the Prime Minister and your attendants being stranded at Jeno without any protection. So I rode at breakneck speed over the mountain track on the other side of the valley to the one we took and as you know found you alone.”

  “You ... still did not wish ... me to ... stay.”

  “You were beautiful, even more beautiful than I had remembered. But the poison had gone deep: I told myself that if I had to marry it would be best to choose a Katonian or perhaps a Greek.”

  “And so you tried to force me to ... return.”

  “I felt certain that you would agree to do so at the first sign of any difficulty,” the Prince said. “How could I have imagined for one moment that you would be so incredibly brave?”

  “When did you change your mind about me?”

  “I knew that you had more character than any woman I had ever met when you had ridden along the cliff path of the barren rocks, and courageously pretended the sea had made you feel sick.”

  His voice was gentle as he went on:

  “I saw you being so diplomatic and charming to the dirty Inn-Keeper’s wife. I ate the meal which you prepared for me after cleaning the pan in which you had to cook. Then I came downstairs and found you asleep in front of the fire.”

  Vesta remembering her dream knew that that was the moment when she had fallen in love with him.

  “I sat looking at you,” the Prince said very quietly, “and I realised you were not only beautiful, but everything any man could ask of any woman, everything a man would have dreamt of and longed for.”

  The note in his voice made her tremble and she would have put out her hands to him had he not continued:

  “Then after you were prepared to die at my hand with a courage I did not know existed, you slept in my arms. I knew then how deeply I wanted you and how m
uch I already loved you.”

  He glanced at her face. Then he turned round abruptly to stand once again with his back to her.

  “I realised at the same time,” he said, “how little I deserved you. When we talked the next day at the cascade, I told you that I was a paper Prince, a man who was weak and despicable.”

  His voice was harsh as he continued:

  “I am also a coward, Vesta, because I dared not tell you the truth. I wanted your love so desperately, so frantically, that I could not risk losing you before I was even sure if you had begun to care for me.”

  There was silence before he said:

  “I expect you to despise me, I expect you to feel contempt for a man who could make such a mess of everything. But would you—could you—stay with me? I swear that now I cannot face life without you!”

  There was an agony in the Prince’s voice which Vesta had never heard before.

  She was very still, then rose to her feet clasping her hands together and moved towards him until she stood at his side.

  She drew in her breath! She had to find the right words! This was the moment, she knew, when she must not only comfort and sustain him, she must also inspire him.

  “I do not know whom you are talking about,” she said gently. “Miklos—the man I love—is brave, so brave that he was prepared not only to die without showing a flicker of fear, but prepared to ... kill me. He is also in the words of the Hungarian song ‘gallant and passionate’ and to me he has always been gentle, tender and noble in everything he has ... done.”

  She slipped her hand into the Prince’s as she spoke and his fingers tightened on hers until they were bloodless.

  “I believe,” Vesta went on, “that because he is so wonderful, there is nothing he could not do ... in fact if he wished it he could conquer the whole world.”

  The Prince turned towards her.

  “Are you sure of what you are saying?” he asked and his voice was unsteady. “Do you really mean that? Really in your heart?”

  “I love you,” Vesta said softly, “and I think what your people want more than anything else is happiness. Could we not show them how to be ... happy?”

  “Oh God!”

  The words seemed to burst from the Prince, and now he drew Vesta into his arms and held her crushed close against him.