A Miracle of Love Read online

  Yet everybody in the Palace then behaved as if the marriage was settled and it was only a matter of walking up the aisle at the Cathedral where the Archbishop would be waiting for them.

  In fact as the Prince had to admit to himself the whole thing was now out of hand.

  It was his fault for giving in in the first place and inviting the Princess against his will.

  It had been a trap from the very beginning and now that he had stepped into it, it was going to be very hard to shake himself free.

  He had waited apprehensively yesterday afternoon when the party from Bassanz was due to arrive.

  He had to admit they did it in style. There were four closed carriages each drawn by a team of magnificent well-matched horses.

  Princess Marziale, when she stepped out of the first carriage to draw up in front of the Palace, was, the Prince had to admit, quite pretty. She had dark hair and dark eyes and a perfect complexion.

  She was of course dressed in a way that told him that whoever produced this show was certainly experienced at his job.

  The Princess entered the Palace wearing a gown of rose pink and the feathers in her hat of the same shade.

  She sank in a most elaborate curtsy in front of the Prince and he had to admit that she was playing her part exceedingly well.

  “Welcome to Vienz,” the Prince greeted her, “and I so hope Your Royal Highness will enjoy your stay here.”

  “I am sure I will,” the Princess said in a soft voice. “I had no idea until I looked out of the windows of the carriage that your country is so beautiful.”

  “The same might be said of you,” the Prince replied gallantly.

  He noticed as he spoke that it was with the greatest difficulty that the Prime Minister and those beside him did not applaud.

  They drank champagne to relieve the rigours of the journey and then the Princess walked up to the State rooms to change for dinner and the Prince to his own apartments.

  Princess Marziale had said very little while they were drinking in the huge Reception room overlooking the garden, but the Prince had been suddenly aware of the Comte Ruta.

  The Comte had gone on his orders to Bassanz to escort the Princess and her entourage over the border into Vienz and he had obviously primed her well as to what she should say and what she should do.

  The Comte, as chief of his many aides-de-camp, was older than the others and very experienced in social behaviour. He had suggested a number of alterations in the Palace that the Prince thought were in very good taste.

  He therefore deliberately chose the Comte to go to Bassanz as he was undoubtedly the right person to make it absolutely clear to the Princess that this was only a social visit and nothing more meaningful than that.

  The Prince had insisted on the Comte going rather than leave it to the Prime Minister to choose an envoy, as if he did the Prince was quite certain that he would inform the Princess that she would receive a proposal of marriage before the visit ended.

  The Prince thought with amusement that the Comte had doubtless rehearsed Princess Marziale on what she should say to him.

  At dinner time he was even more certain of it.

  She asked him about his horses.

  And what he was doing for the young people in the Cities and if they had developed anything new in the way of industry.

  The Prince knew when he replied to her questions that she was not really interested in the answers. They meant nothing to her.

  At the same time he told himself it was a good effort on the Comte’s part and he would congratulate him later on for being, if nothing else, a good tutor.

  Again at the Comte’s suggestion they danced after dinner. This was a change from sitting talking which the Prince usually preferred.

  The band had obviously been instructed to provide new tunes for the dances and the Princess was a very good dancer and the Prince then ‘opened the ball’, as it might mockingly have been called, with her.

  As everyone else took to the floor, they danced to a tune that had captivated Paris the previous year.

  It made the Prince remember he had, at the time, been pursuing one of the most attractive courtesans in the Capital and she had not only been attractive in her own way but was also witty and amusing.

  He had found himself laughing with her more than he had ever laughed in any other affaire de coeur.

  But Princess Marziale was silent until the dance ended and then she said almost as if repeating her lesson,

  “Your Royal Highness is a very good dancer.”

  “So are you, Princess.”

  “We don’t have too many balls back at home, but I have been practising this last month.”

  He did not have to ask why. Doubtless someone had informed her that there would be dancing after dinner.

  It seemed to him, when he went upstairs to bed, that the chains were being fastened around him and it would be quite impossible for him to find any fault with her as they undoubtedly anticipated he would.

  When he said goodnight to her, the Princess had made what he felt certain was a well rehearsed speech.

  She told him how much she was enjoying visiting Vienz and how thrilled she was with the Palace.

  “Tomorrow,” she insisted, “you really must show me your horses. I am told they are outstanding.”

  “I would like to think so,” replied the Prince, “but of course when you arrived I saw that your horses were most splendidly matched.”

  Then the Comte had interposed, saying,

  “Her Royal Highness’s father only recently bought the horses that carried her here today. He acquired them because, as Your Royal Highness observed, they were so perfectly matched. It’s not easy to find teams that size.”

  The Prince was acutely aware that the horses had been purchased just for this particular occasion.

  After climbing into his bed he had laid awake for some time thinking about Princess Marziale.

  It was difficult to find fault with her performance, but his intuition told him that it was just for his benefit and his benefit alone.

  That they had taken such trouble in Bassanz made him suspicious and it increased his feeling of being caught in a trap.

  When he had finally yielded to the urging of his Prime Minister and of his family and had invited Princess Marziale to the Palace, he had tried to make it absolutely clear that it did not commit him in any way.

  But now he was feeling that he had been a fool to have given in to them.

  What he should have done was to go to Bassanz himself, call on the Princess’s father and quite casually meet the Princess while he did so – instead he had allowed the arrangements to be orchestrated by the Prime Minister.

  He was now sure that in Bassanz they were waiting with bated breath to hear that the marriage was arranged.

  ‘Why the hell did I get myself into this mess?’ the Prince asked himself when he found it difficult to sleep.

  *

  In fact he rose early and rode off alone the moment he had eaten his breakfast.

  He of course had to have a bodyguard of soldiers in attendance, but on his instructions they invariably kept a long way behind him so he did not have to talk to them.

  If there was one thing that he really disliked it was people chattering away in the morning before he had time to think what he had to do during the day.

  Because he had not slept well, he rode faster than usual and his bodyguard had difficulty keeping him in sight.

  When he finally turned back, it was because he had a feeling that, if he stayed away from the Palace for too long, the Princess would be waiting to astound him with another performance the moment he returned.

  It was still quite early and he had no appointments arranged for at least another hour.

  The Prince rode up to the front door, dismounted and walked indoors.

  He was told the Princess was in the garden and he thought that this was an excellent opportunity for him to talk to her sensibly.

  He h
ad already thought out what he would say and told himself that any woman would understand his feelings if he was tactful about it.

  He would tell her that he had no wish to commit himself until such time as they both found they could get on well together.

  ‘I will let her know what I expect of my wife,’ he decided. ‘If she does not like it, then we can acknowledge that the whole idea, which came not from us but from those who surround us, can be put aside outright.’

  Even as he figured this out, he was certain that the Princess would be too scared of her parents not to accept his proposal if in fact he made it.

  ‘What I have to do is to convince her that she must have a mind of her own and thus if she does not love me, it would be fatal for us to be married and have children.’

  This idea had always been in his mind since he grew up.

  He had known even when he enjoyed his affaires-de-coeur with courtesans and married women that this was not really what he wanted or should have.

  He recognised only too well that for Princes in his position marriage was normally not a question of love – what really mattered was the benefit it would bring to the countries they ruled.

  Equally he would have been very stupid, which he was not, if he had not realised that women found him extremely attractive.

  When his affaires-de-coeur with them ended, there were usually tears and it was never a question of whether the woman would love him, but if he could love her.

  ‘I want to love my wife,’ he had thought during the night. ‘I wish to love, adore and worship the mother of my children and in consequence I want my Palace to be a very happy place.’

  He had visited quite a number of different States since his reign in Vienz began and he thought that in the majority of them the Royal families were extremely dull.

  Even if the Queen or Princess appeared to be fond of her husband, he was generally bored with her and he made it clear that she was not expected to take part in any intelligent conversations.

  Watching them the Prince had sworn to himself that was a life he would find intolerable.

  ‘What I wish for is that my wife should be in love with me and I with her,’ he determined.

  He told himself that so far his heart had not been really touched despite the often fiery passion of his love-making, and he was intelligent enough to realise that for him an affaire-de-coeur was just a passing pleasure.

  The love he was seeking would last for the rest of his life.

  Perhaps he was hoping for the impossible.

  Maybe it was something he would never find.

  Yet the books which filled his library and which he pored over when he had time told him it was possible.

  There were many examples in history of a love that had made a man greater because of it.

  How, he now reflected, could an arranged marriage, which simply enhanced the status of a country, really be satisfying?

  Every man wanted to find the true and perfect love that had been sought since the beginning of civilisation.

  ‘Can I fall in love with this young girl?’ he asked.

  A Power greater than himself gave him the answer.

  ‘Only if I do, however much I am then pushed and shoved by those who think they know better than I do, will I ask her to marry me.’

  This decision was ringing in his ears as he walked out at the back of the Palace. Then he stood for a moment gazing at the beauty all around him.

  The gardens blazed with blossom of every colour and beyond them was the artificial lake his father had made and which he had improved considerably.

  It was perfectly cemented and attractively designed and in the centre of it was a group of cupids surrounding a fine statue of the Goddess Aphrodite.

  He had been very young when he had learnt about the Goddess of Love.

  His teacher told him all about Delphi and the Gods of Olympus and the story of Aphrodite excited him.

  He had found pictures of her in books and when he was older he had visited Greece to see her. He had learnt from the Greeks how much they revered and loved her.

  The flowers that bordered the lake and the trees he had planted were always a delight to him and he felt that no one could fail to be moved by the beauty he was now surveying.

  There was no sign of the Princess or the Comte.

  Then he realised they would probably be sitting in the comfortable pavilion he had built in the form of a small Temple looking out at the glorious statue of Aphrodite in the centre of the lake.

  It was where he often sat himself and his mother had always gone there when she wanted to pray rather than go to the private Chapel in the Palace.

  Slowly the Prince walked towards the little Temple which shone white against the green of the trees.

  He thought as he went that one day he would take the woman he loved and who loved him to Greece and they would move from Temple to Temple looking for Aphrodite because she had already blessed them.

  She had always meant so much to him personally that he had never had an affaire-de-coeur in Greece.

  He knew the reason even though he did not always put it into words. He was waiting for the day when he would introduce the woman he really loved to the Goddess from whom their love came.

  He had often told himself he was being ridiculously sentimental, but he could not fight against everything he had believed in ever since he had first thought of women as desirable.

  To enjoy a better view of Aphrodite he did not walk along the side of the lake but through the tall trees and he reached the Temple from the rear.

  As he did so and was just about to walk round and tell them he was there, he heard the Comte saying,

  “My darling, my sweet. It is wonderful to be alone with you for this beautiful moment, but it will be agony when we have to go back to the Palace.”

  The Prince froze.

  Then a soft voice replied,

  “I love you, Ruta, and so how can I possibly accept Prince Nicolo as Papa and everyone else wants me to do?”

  “You will have to do it because it will help both your country and ours,” the Comte answered. “But when you marry the Prince, I will have to go away.”

  “No! No!”

  The Princess’s words were a cry from her heart.

  “How could you leave me? How could I possibly endure being here if I could not even see you?”

  “Have you thought what agony it will be for me?” the Comte asked.

  “It will be far worse for me if I cannot see you. I would rather die than lose you, Ruta.”

  “You must not talk like that, my darling, it is wrong of me to listen to you, yet as you know I have loved you since the moment I first set eyes on you.”

  “And I love you. You were the man of my dreams and since I met you I have dreamt every night that we might be together. Oh, Ruta, darling, please marry me so that I can be with you for ever.”

  He tried to laugh, but it was only a whimper.

  “Do you think for one moment your father would accept me? He is determined that you should make a grand marriage and what could be more splendid than being the wife of Prince Nicolo of Vienz?”

  “I don’t want to be grand. I don’t want to be the wife of a Ruling Prince. I want to be your wife and to be with you, Ruta.”

  The Comte groaned.

  “God knows I want nothing else, but I tell you, my darling, it is impossible.”

  He then obviously looked at his watch as he said,

  “Now we must go back to the Palace. The Prince will be returning from his ride and you must make yourself charming to him.”

  “Oh, what am I to say, what am I to do?” Princess Marziale wailed. “I have no wish to talk to him. It is just agony when I cannot be with you.”

  “I feel the same,” said the Comte. “But we must do our duty. As you know I owe my allegiance to Vienz.”

  “Then kiss me. Kiss me before we must go back,” the Princess sighed.

  Listening, as if he had be
en turned into stone, the Prince was now aware that they were on their feet.

  The Princess was in the Comte’s arms.

  Very cautiously he stepped away from the Temple, being careful that he did not make a sound as he moved through the undergrowth.

  Then he saw them walking slowly along the side of the lake.

  They were not speaking, they were not touching each other, but he knew after what he had just heard that their hearts were beating in unison.

  Their love was an agony within their breasts and at the same time a rapture beyond words.

  The Prince waited until they had reached the end of the lake and were moving up the lawn towards the Palace, and then he went into the Temple and sat down on the very comfortable sofa they had just vacated.

  He looked across at Aphrodite in the centre of the lake with the cupids playing round her.

  Then he asked her, as if she was a real person and indeed she was very real to him,

  “What can I do? What the hell can I do?”

  He sat there for a long time.

  Then, feeling that the Goddess Aphrodite had not answered him, he slipped out of the Temple.

  He walked slowly back through the woods and no one watching for him from the Palace would guess that he had been down at the lake – least of all the couple who had just come from there.

  He entered the Palace by another door and found two of his aides-de-camp were waiting for him.

  They exclaimed,

  “Oh, there you are, Sire! We have been wondering where Your Royal Highness could be and the Princess has been asking for you.”

  “I am sorry about that,” the Prince replied. “But I had something I needed to do.”

  He went into his office and sat down at the desk.

  “There are a number of people waiting to see Your Royal Highness,” an aide-de-camp said, “including the Prime Minister.”

  “Tell them I am far too busy to see anyone at the moment. If they really want to see me and it is urgent, tell them to come back again this afternoon.”

  “You will not see them before the gala luncheon, Sire?”

  “No, I want to be left alone for the moment.”

  The aide-de-camp hurried from the room and then the Prince sat back in his chair.

  He knew now he had to escape from the impossible position he found himself in.