A Kiss for the King Page 18

“No!” she said firmly.

  “It will cause surprise and comment, ma’am, if you do not have Ladies-in-Waiting in attendance.”

  “I do not care!” Anastasia answered. “They can say what they like, but I am not setting up a Court without His Majesty’s permission and then only after he has joined me here.”

  She spoke so positively that Captain Aznar was silent.

  Anastasia knew that he was wise in what he had suggested. At the same time she was determined that, when the King came to her, she would not be cluttered by the formality of attendants.

  She wanted to be alone with him.

  She wanted, if such an idea was possible, to spend part of their honeymoon here.

  He had spoken of taking her to a villa near the sea and she remembered he had also said it was near the French border. She had wondered at the time if he had chosen that villa because it was near his friends.

  Would he want to stay with her at Huesca?

  Would he feel, as she did, that the beautiful Moorish rooms, the ancient courtyards and the tropical gardens were a perfect setting for love?

  She felt a little thrill run through her at the thought.

  Then she remembered that the King did not love her, and where she was enchanted, perhaps he would notice only that much of the Palace needed repairing and parts of it were definitely shabby.

  ‘Perhaps what is seen with the eyes is really what is felt in the heart,’ Anastasia thought and longed to ask the King if that were true.

  There were so many things she wanted to talk to him about, so many questions she wished to ask him, and she kept remembering their conversations on the first day after their wedding.

  In retrospect it seemed a golden day of sunshine and happiness.

  That was what she felt – for him it might mean something different.

  Now to Anastasia every hour that the King did not come to her seemed to be long, drawn out and empty.

  At times she wanted him with an intensity that frightened her.

  At night, as she lay in the big bed beneath the mother-of-pearl shell, she would hear the nightingales singing in the garden below and feel that the beauty of the starlit night was wasted because she was alone.

  She found herself thinking of how the King had lain beside her the first night they were married and promised he would not touch her.

  She knew that, if he was here now, she would want him to touch her, in fact she would ask him to do so.

  Merely to think of it made her quiver with that same feeling that had been hers when he kissed the palms of her hands.

  “I love him!” Anastasia cried aloud.

  She wondered how many other women had slept in this marble and alabaster chamber and whispered the same words into the scented night.

  “If the King does not come tomorrow, I shall go to him!”

  She said the same words over and over to herself all through the day.

  She talked to the crowds outside the gate.

  There were over a dozen people who called to have tea with her, people she liked and with whom she wanted to be friends.

  With proud, clear-cut features and dark, intelligent eyes which were part of their Spanish heritage, many of them bore names that went far back into the history of both countries.

  Anastasia could not help contrasting them with the people she had met in Sergei.

  If she had been prejudiced against the French before, she found it hard now to think of those who favoured the enemies of Maurona without hating them.

  It would be difficult in future, she thought, not to show her dislike, and she was determined that when finally she chose the Ladies of her Household, they would all come from this part of the country.

  After dinner the usual Officer arrived from Sergei with his Official Bulletin.

  “The City is now quiet. There have been no outbreaks of violence for over twenty-four hours. Parliament is in session and the Prime Minister, in consultation with His Majesty the King, has made a number of changes in the Cabinet.”

  Anastasia felt her heart leap with gladness.

  The King was not only leading his Army but he was also asserting his control over the country as a whole!

  She was sure, completely sure, that the changes meant that the French sympathisers would be dismissed from the seats of power and true Mauronians would be put in their places.

  She knew that Captain Aznar was thinking the same thing and, when the messenger had left, she turned to him with a smile.

  “Everything you have ever wanted, Captain, is coming true.”

  “Entirely due to you, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps the King would have been saved without – me,” Anastasia said humbly.

  “Who else would have found out about the plot to kidnap him?” Captain Aznar asked. “Who else would have sent for me so quickly that we had time to spirit His Majesty away safely?”

  “I like to think I – saved him,” Anastasia murmured.

  “I think you have done that in more ways than one,” Captain Aznar responded.

  Anastasia knew exactly what he meant, but she could not help wondering if the King would be as grateful as his servants. After all, as a result of the French plot he would be forced to be rid of the Comtesse.

  The previous day the King’s Bulletin had ended with the words,

  “All French residents, including the Ambassador of His Imperial Majesty, Napoleon III, have been asked to leave Maurona. They may subsequently apply for permission to re-enter the country, should they wish to do so!”

  This measure had taken Anastasia and Captain Aznar by surprise, and when the Officer who had conveyed it from Sergei had read it out to them, they had at first hardly taken in its full significance.

  It had been so poignant and personal where Anastasia was concerned that she had not been able to discuss it even after the messenger had left.

  Instead she had merely bade Captain Aznar goodnight and retired to her bedroom.

  She had been overwhelmingly glad that the King had taken so firm a step. At the same time she could not help wondering what he personally felt about it.

  Could he really bear never to see the Comtesse again? Or was he already planning that sooner or later he would visit Paris, where they could meet, perhaps secretly?

  She could hardly credit that he would stoop to such subterfuge, but at the same time she knew now that, when in love, nothing really mattered except the person who held the strings of one’s heart.

  She knew that in her own case, even if the King was the most dangerous enemy England had ever had, she would love him no less overwhelmingly.

  She would still try to see him and she would still long to be close to him.

  Would not the King, she asked herself, feel the same about the fascinating Comtesse le Granmont?

  Now Captain Aznar broke in on her thoughts.

  “If there is nothing else I can do for you, ma’am, I will bid you goodnight. Perhaps tomorrow we shall hear from His Majesty.”

  “Do you think he will soon be – free to come – here?” Anastasia asked in a small voice.

  “It is obvious, ma’am, that His Majesty has been very busy in Sergei, reconstructing the whole constitution. Perhaps he will ask you to go to him?”

  “I understand from Olivia that there has been some damage done to the Palace,” Anastasia answered.

  “I have heard that too, but it may be merely superficial and the Palace quite habitable.”

  “I thought perhaps His Majesty might have mentioned it in his Bulletin.”

  “I should imagine it can be speedily repaired,” Captain Aznar remarked.

  Without thinking Anastasia exclaimed.

  “Oh, I hope not!”

  He looked at her in surprise and she explained,

  “I want to stay here!”

  She saw the delight in his expression and added,

  “That is something that would please you, would it not?”

  “You know it would, ma’am, and I
think the whole country would appreciate it too. But I doubt if you could persuade His Majesty to agree.”

  “I shall try,” Anastasia said firmly, “I promise you, I shall try. I love this Palace.”

  “If you will allow me to say so, ma’am, it is a worthy setting for your beauty.”

  She heard the deep note in Captain Aznar’s voice that she recognised, but she did not answer him and after a moment he bowed formally and went from the room leaving her alone.

  ‘He is so true and loyal!’ Anastasia thought to herself.

  She knew that he loved her, but it was a selfless, dedicated love and he would never speak of it. It was immeasurably comforting to know that he was there, and to realise how much he had helped her to an understanding of Maurona and its people.

  She walked from the sitting room into the Court of the Dolphins.

  There was the soft tinkle of falling water in the basin of the fountain and she looked up to where the stars were very bright in the darkness of the sky.

  The fragrance of the flowers was overwhelming and because the beauty of it all made her feel restless, Anastasia walked back into the sitting room and crossed it to one of the windows overlooking the valley.

  She pulled back the curtains and opened wide the casements to look out.

  The moonlight gave the valley a strange, mystical appearance, so that it seemed ethereal and part of a spirit world.

  Down below her, proceeding along the road that was like a ribbon of silver in the moonlight, she suddenly saw horses.

  They were travelling at a great pace and after a little while she could distinguish that there were six men riding two abreast at what appeared to be a phenomenal speed.

  She was sure they were soldiers and suddenly she felt afraid.

  Why were they in such a hurry? What had happened? What news were they bringing?

  She watched them until they rounded the hill on which the Palace was built and were out of sight.

  Now she knew they would be climbing the road up to the gates.

  She wanted to ring for Captain Aznar, but found herself unable to move.

  She felt as if the fear within her had sapped her will and left her unable to make a decision.

  Supposing someone at the last moment had killed the King, even as a man had tried to kill her?

  Supposing he was wounded – dying, and that was why the horsemen were galloping to bring her the news? Perhaps to convey her back to Sergei?

  She stood waiting, immobile. She could only wait and listen with an anxiety that made it hard to breathe.

  There was nothing but silence. Then, when she felt she must scream, because no one had come to her, the door opened.

  For a moment, because of the very intensity of her feelings, Anastasia felt she could not see who stood there.

  Then, as he came further into the room, she saw it was the King!

  She gave a cry, which came from the very depths of her heart and yet somehow it was strangled in her throat so that it was a very small sound.

  She could only stand staring at him, her eyes very large in her pale face.

  The King was in uniform and his boots were dusty.

  As Anastasia looked at him, she thought she had never seen him look so happy, so handsome or so vital.

  There was a remarkable change in his appearance, which vaguely in her mind she recognised as a new aura of authority and self-assurance.

  At last he spoke and his voice was very deep and low.

  “Anastasia!

  “You have come! I have been waiting! I have been so – afraid! You are not – hurt?”

  “I promised you that I would take care of myself.”

  “From what I have – heard, you did – nothing of the sort!” Anastasia answered. “They have not – harmed you?”

  “I am unharmed.”

  He came a little nearer to her and it seemed to Anastasia as if they were saying one thing with their lips but what vibrated on the air between them was something very different.

  The King almost reached her and then he stopped.

  He was looking at her in her wide crinoline silhouetted against the open window, at her bare neck and arms, at her hair shining in the lights, her wide eyes and her lips, trembling a little because of the surging excitement she felt at his sudden appearance.

  “You are very beautiful, Anastasia!” he sighed at length. “More beautiful even than I remembered.”

  “You have – thought about – me?”

  “All the time.”

  “I think you must have – known,” she said in a voice that was hardly above a whisper, “that I was thinking of you – praying for you and – sending my prayers across the mountains to – protect you.”

  “I felt you near me while we were fighting,” the King answered.

  “I was sure you would win,” Anastasia said, “but at the same time I was afraid, desperately afraid – especially just now when I saw you in the valley. I thought perhaps – because you were riding so fast, that messengers were coming to tell me you had been wounded – or killed.”

  “And now you know I am neither?”

  “I am glad – more glad than I can tell you! It has been so – lonely and – empty here without you.”

  “You felt lonely without me?”

  “Very – lonely!”

  She looked into his eyes.

  She saw a fire smouldering there and thought he would take her in his arms.

  But almost abruptly he turned away.

  “I want to talk to you, Anastasia,” he said, and she thought his voice was unexpectedly harsh.

  “What is – it?” she asked. “What has happened?”

  A sudden desperate fear sprang into her mind that he was anxious to be rid of her and she felt a pain in her heart as if a dagger had pierced it.

  The thought made her tremble and because he walked away from her across the room to the archway leading into the Court of the Dolphins she moved after him.

  “What has happened? What is wrong?” she asked. “Is it something I have – done?”

  “No, Anastasia. Everything you have done has been right and perfect! I have been told how you talk with the peasants at the gates, how you nearly lost your life in doing so. How could you have taken such a risk when you belong to me?”

  “Captain Aznar saved me,” Anastasia answered. “I thought perhaps you would decorate him for what he did.”

  “I owe more to Aznar than can be expressed by any decoration, but for the moment I am concerned only with you. Already the whole country is talking about you, Anastasia.”

  “You are not angry that I should have done anything so – unconventional?”

  “I am proud – very proud!” the King answered.

  “Then what have you to tell me? I am – afraid.”

  “What frightens you?”

  Anastasia did not reply and after a moment he asked,

  “Tell me – I want to know.”

  “I am – frightened that you do not – want me any – more,” Anastasia said in a very small voice.

  He turned to look at her and after one quick glance at him she found it impossible to meet his eyes.

  “What I have to say to you, Anastasia,” the King said very quietly, “is that we cannot go on as we were before all this happened,”

  “Why not?” Anastasia asked. “What do you mean? I don’t – understand.”

  “The night we married,” the King replied, “I gave you my promise that I would not kiss you or touch you until you asked me to do so. I meant to keep that promise, Anastasia. You told me I must woo your mind and that is what I was determined to do.”

  Anastasia clasped her hands together.

  She realised he was speaking in the past tense and she was trembling.

  “But now,” the King went on, “I cannot keep that promise. That first night, while you were asleep I realised not only how lovely you are but also that you are everything a man could long for and desire.”


  Anastasia felt a thrill run through her as the King continued,

  “Then the night in the cave when you put your arms around me, you not only comforted and sustained me, you also inspired me. I knew then that I love you as I have never loved a woman before.”

  Now Anastasia drew in her breath and her eyes were raised to the King’s.

  “Ever since then,” he said, “I have never ceased thinking about you. You are with me in everything I think and in everything I do.”

  He paused before he continued,

  “All during the fighting these past days I have found myself asking what you would think of as right, trying to behave always in a manner which I hoped would make you proud of me. You are so young, Anastasia, so innocent, so inexperienced in the ways of the world. And yet you have filled my whole life and now I know I am nothing unless I can gain your love.”

  He turned away from her as abruptly as he had done before to look at the fountain in the courtyard.

  “I am frightened of destroying the trust you have in me,” he said in a strange voice, “but it is because I love you unbearably, Anastasia, that I cannot go on as I intended, trying to win your mind and pretending that your body does not attract me to the point of madness!”

  His voice deepened as he added,

  “I am not an Englishman, I am from the sun. I tried to explain to you that love for me is an all-consuming fire which I cannot control!”

  There was a silence during which Anastasia could not speak.

  It seemed to her as if the whole room was lit with golden light.

  She could not move – she could hardly breathe –

  And then the King said,

  “That is why I have come to tell you tonight that you must ask me to stay as your husband or else I must leave you immediately!”

  The King made a sound that was half a laugh and half a groan.

  “There is no question, my beautiful one, of lying beside you on the bed and playing at our pretence of marriage. I know that I cannot even stay under the same roof without touching you, without making you mine! I want you – God knows, I want you!”

  His voice died away.

  Then he said almost sharply,

  “The choice is yours! If you tell me to go back to Sergei, I will obey you! But I beg you to release me from the promise I made you and allow me to show you the depth and reality of my love for you.”