The Enchanted Waltz Read online

  “That is what I am asking of you. You are new to Vienna, you are beautiful and no one will know anything about you.”

  “But the Czar – ” Wanda’s hands fluttered a moment in her surprise, “ – he may not like me – I may not interest him.”

  “That, of course, remains to be seen. The Czar has a penchant for pretty women and yet you need not be afraid of him. You must forgive me if I speak frankly. It is best for you to know these things. He has a mistress, Madame Marie Narischkin, who he has lived with for a great number of years, but so as not to embarrass the Empress Elizabeth, who is here with him, Madame Narischkin is stopping on the outskirts of Vienna.

  “She has an extraordinary ascendancy over the Czar, for while she herself indulges in many and frequent love affairs, she expects from him complete and utter faithfulness. My informants tell me that he observes this to the letter, if not in the spirit. He likes women, he makes love to them and has an insatiable curiosity about them, but that is all. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Absolutely, Your Excellency. But how shall I meet the Czar? How shall I begin?”

  “Everything will be arranged,” the Prince answered. “All you have to do is to seize your opportunity, when it comes, and then listen, listen to everything he says. All men talk, whether they be Emperor or lackey, Prince or pauper. They talk if the women they are with are sympathetic and they receive even the slightest encouragement.”

  “And afterwards?”

  “You tell me what has been said. We have to be very careful about this, you and I.”

  “In what way?” Wanda enquired.

  “Vienna at the moment is a whispering gallery. Nothing goes on in one house or Palace that is not known in the next and even the walls have ears. If you are to do this work for Austria, it is essential that no one shall know or even guess what you are about.”

  “Of course. I understand that.”

  “Very well. You do not know me, you have no connection with me and we have never met. I will make arrangements for you to stay with someone eminently respectable who will give you the entrée to all the most exclusive gatherings and the best parties. You will be introduced to Vienna as your mother’s daughter. Few people knew that Carlotta and I were friends and no one must guess that you and I are even so much as acquaintances.”

  “But I shall see you again?”

  The impulsive question brought a smile to the Prince’s lips.

  “You will see me very often,” he said. “In public and in private, but we must be very discreet. Can you do this for me, little Wanda? I am asking it of you only because I am desperate.”

  Wanda’s eyes softened.

  “You know that I would do anything you ask of me, Your Excellency. My mother spoke of you often and she told me what a very wonderful person you are. I have learnt from her and from other people how much Europe owes you.”

  The Prince smiled at the admiration in her voice.

  “You will hear very different stories if you stay long in Vienna,” he said. “Lord Castlereagh, for instance, calls me ‘a political Harlequin’.”

  “How dare he!”

  “He is entitled to his own opinion just as you are entitled to yours. You must not show your partisanship too obviously. You are quite sure that you are not afraid to do this? If you would rather draw back, I shall quite understand. I will arrange for you to stay in Vienna, to attend balls and all the other gala occasions and this conversation between us can be forgotten.”

  Wanda stood up and with a swift movement laid her hand on the Prince’s arm.

  “I don’t think you quite understand,” she said. “When I told you that I love Austria, I meant that in all sincerity. I am ready to die for my country if it shall be asked of me – and if, as you say, there is a small way I can be of use, then I am proud and honoured to be chosen.”

  The Prince put his hand over her small fingers. They were warm and alive and he saw too that her cheeks were burning with the intensity of her feelings.

  “I am proud of you,” he said softly and saw the gladness light her whole face and make her for the moment almost breathtakingly beautiful.

  “But now you must go,” he added. “It is not wise for your carriage to stand outside the door any longer. Make no secret of the fact that you came here and waited for an audience, but that I was unable to see you. If anyone asks you why you called immediately on your arrival in Vienna, it was because you thought it polite to pay your respects on entering the Capital.

  “You will go from here to the house of the Baroness Waluzen. She is a distant cousin of my wife and she can be trusted. But even to her it is wise to say as little as possible. Arrangements will be made later for any communications you may have for me to be carried by safe hands. The first thing you have to do on arriving at Baroness Waluzen’s is to rest so as to be ready to attend the masked ball tonight.”

  “A masked ball?”

  “Yes, masked balls are one of the great highlights of the Congress. At them the guests of Austria, Sovereigns, Princes, Statesmen and notabilities of other countries mix freely with the crowd. Anyone may dance with anyone. All wear dominoes and masks, but I will see to it that before you arrive at the ball you will know how to distinguish the Czar of Russia.”

  “Shall I dance with him?”

  “You must make sure of it. A chance encounter is always much more exciting than a formal introduction, especially to a man who is suspicious.”

  “I can hardly believe – it is really going to happen.”

  Wanda spoke the words almost beneath her breath and then, as if the excitement of it all was too much for her, she gave a little cry that was half a sob.

  “It is all so wonderful. Thank you! Thank you!”

  She bent down and brushed her lips against the Prince’s hand and, as she raised her face again to his, he saw that her eyes were shining like stars.

  “I was so frightened when I came here, so afraid you would turn me away,” she said, “and now everything is changed. I am happy, so happy that I cannot put it into words or thank you enough.”

  “There is no need for words,” the Prince said.

  He put his fingers under her chin and held her face for a moment so that he could look closely at her and then commented,

  “You are not very much like your mother.”

  “And not in the least like my father,” Wanda added, artlessly.

  “No?”

  It was a question, but she did not understand it. The Prince let her go and walked to the writing desk. Sitting down, he penned a brief note and brought it to where she stood by the fireplace watching him.

  “This is for the Baroness Waluzen,” he said. “You will stay with her and she has also my instructions to buy you anything you need to wear. I promise you that socially you will not find Vienna dull.”

  Wanda gave a laugh of sheer happiness.

  “Dull!” she exclaimed. “I am not afraid of that.”

  She took the letter from him, turned towards the door and then stopped.

  “There is one more thing,” she said. “May I have my pendant back? It was my mother’s.”

  “Of course.”

  The Prince drew it from his pocket and held it out to her.

  She took it from him.

  “My mother told me to keep it always. It was given to her by someone she loved very deeply.”

  “Did she tell you who it was?”

  “No, but I guessed.”

  Blue eyes looked into blue eyes. The Prince bent his head and kissed the little fingers that held the necklace.

  “I am glad your mother did not forget me,” he said gently.

  “As if anyone could!” she answered.

  Chapter 2

  Princess Katharina raised two white arms above her head, stretched and, moving with exquisite grace, rose from the bed where she had been lying.

  Although it was still afternoon, the shutters were closed and the big blue-panelled bedroom in the Hofburg Palace wa
s lit by candles held in heavy gold candelabra decorated with cupids.

  She stood for a moment in the centre of the room silhouetted against the light and the soft diaphanous folds of the garment she wore, completely transparent, showed her figure to be as perfectly proportioned as that of a Greek statue.

  “A beautiful naked angel,” a deep voice came from the bed.

  Katharina turned swiftly.

  “Who told you I was called that?”

  The man watching her laughed.

  “Who? All Vienna of course. Let me think who it could have been who mentioned it last. The Emperor? The Cardinal? Or perhaps – could it have been – the inimitable Prince Metternich himself?”

  She laughed a little at that, but her eyes were serious as she answered,

  “No, not him. He, I think, has forgotten. It was a long time ago.”

  “Could anyone ever forget you?”

  “Do you think that impossible?”

  She moved back towards the bed to sit down at his side. He was lolling back against the pillows, the golden brown of his sunburnt skin sharply in contrast to the linen and the lace.

  Here, obviously, was no frequenter of salons, but a man who was used to the open air, to hard riding and to sport.

  The Princess bent forward to lay her hand against his brown cheek, but he caught it in his and covered the palm with kisses, hungry and passionate, the impetuous kisses of youth, which is never satisfied and never satiated.

  “You are indeed lovely. Metternich spoke the truth.”

  “Why do you keep reminding me of that time so long ago?”

  “I am telling you that I am seeing what he saw, a beautiful, naked angel.”

  “I remember only how young I was, how happy and as young as you are now.”

  “You could not have been as happy,” he replied between his kisses.

  “But I was.”

  She threw back her head a little with her eyes half-closed, as her thoughts drifted sensuously back into the past.

  “I shall never forget that day,” she went on. “Something had gone wrong, I was angry. I rushed to the Legation in my carrosse and, as it drew up, I did not wait for the footman to get down from the box, but sprang out myself and rang the bell with my own hands.

  “I remember standing there tapping my foot on the step, my cheeks hot with the fury of my feelings. A servant opened the door, but my ringing had been so imperative that the Minister had risen from his desk and entered the corridor to see what was happening.

  “He told me afterwards that he expected to find one of the Imperial Couriers. Instead, he saw me standing framed in the sunlight against the dark hallway – and I saw him! We stood looking at each other. Quite suddenly the world slipped away and I could not remember why I had come or why I was there. I only knew that the man in front of me was like Apollo descended to Earth.

  “Clement said that my dress, the very latest directoire fashion, was completely transparent against the sunlight. ‘A beautiful naked angel’, he called me.

  “I can only remember his eyes as he stood looking at me and the feeling in my own heart that I had been waiting all my life for that very moment.”

  Katharina’s voice quivered and trailed away.

  There was an oriental mysticism about her when she spoke like that, Richard Melton thought.

  Then suddenly, he sat up in bed and, putting his hands on her shoulders, shook her lightly.

  “Forget the past,” he said. “I am here and there is to be no other man in your life or in your memories. Do you understand?”

  She laughed at his jealousy, her eyelids drooping over her eyes so that for the moment she seemed shy and helpless. And then she opened them again to reveal the darkness of a rising passion so that the man looking down into them felt that he was lost in some strange whirlpool.

  He pulled her down onto the bed beside him, his hands running over the smooth silky skin, his lips buried against her soft neck where a pulse throbbed wildly.

  He felt her teeth fasten themselves into the lobe of his ear and then their desire became a burning fire that consumed them both –

  Later, much later, Katharina rose and crossed the room to the dressing table.

  “It is time you got dressed,” she said. “We were speaking of the day I first met Clement. I remember that he was wearing an open silk shirt and a purple silk dressing gown trimmed with sable and he was so bemused by my appearance that he forgot to beg permission to change into more formal clothing.”

  “And did he remember to ask you why you had come?” Richard enquired.

  “I told you, I forgot what it was at the time and I have forgotten now.”

  “I daresay the Czar would remind you or I am sure that Volkonski could find it on the files – the memory of the Imperial Secret Service is proverbial.”

  The note of sarcasm in his voice was very apparent and Katharina turned round to look at him, a jewelled hairbrush in her hand.

  “Why do you dislike our Secret Service so much?” she enquired. “You never miss an opportunity to be unpleasant about it.”

  “I dislike the system,” was the reply, “and I detest the idea of anyone spying, especially you!”

  “Who told you that I did?”

  “The Czar, as it happens. He spoke of you as his most beautiful and most skilled agent.”

  Katharina shrugged her shoulders.

  “Why worry? As I have told you, those days are past now.”

  “Unless he has need of you again.”

  “Not at the moment. Metternich is his most bitter enemy, but I am no longer any use to him in that quarter.”

  “Women should be kept out of politics and out of diplomacy too. It is a dirty game at the very best.”

  Katharina laughed, a sweet musical sound that seemed to ring round the large room.

  “There speaks the Englishman. Wouldn’t I know that sentence came from English lips into whatever language it might be translated?”

  The man on the bed rose and came across the room.

  He wore an elaborate dressing gown of sapphire blue velvet and, watching him through the big silver-framed mirror on the dressing table as he approached behind her, Katharina made a little pout of pleasure with her lips.

  “You are such a boy, Richard,” she said softly.

  “I am twenty-five the day before Christmas and I am blasé, sophisticated, and exiled from my own country. Does that sound very youthful?”

  She laughed again and threw back her head to rest it against him as he stood behind her.

  “You make me feel young,” she murmured, “and that is enough.”

  He could see the rounded column of her throat and the nakedness of her beautiful body reflected in the mirror.

  He reached forward to cup her breasts with his hands, but Katharina, however, pushed him away from her.

  “No, no, you must be good now. It will soon be time for me to dress for dinner. The Czar will be expecting to see you. You know how it irritates him if he is left too long without knowing what any of us are doing.”

  “I’ll tell him if you like.”

  “My dear, he will know already. One of Prince Volkonski’s men will have reported that you were seen entering my room and when you leave he will hurry to his Master with the information that you have left.”

  “Damn Volkonski and his blasted impertinence! One day I shall wring his neck.”

  “And then you will be exiled from Russia as well!”

  “It will still leave me half a dozen other countries that I can find sanctuary in, but I don’t wish to leave you, so Volkonski’s neck is safe.”

  “He should be grateful.”

  Richard bent to kiss the point of her bare shoulder.

  “I have no wish to depart,” he said, “but it is draughty in the passage outside and the agent of the Imperial Secret Service is doubtless feeling the cold.”

  He moved across the room without another word, jerked open the door and closed it noisily behind
him.

  Princess Katharina gave a little sigh.

  Richard was too English, she thought, ever to accept foreign methods of life easily or with a good grace. They had had these arguments before and often she had had to use all her tact to keep him from doing injury to some servant who had been ordered to report on their movements or to some lackey who had been listening at the door under Volkonski’s instructions.

  It was part of the life that she knew. In Russia there were spies everywhere. She remembered that her husband, Prince Peter Bagration, before he was killed in battle, had also resented the spies who shadowed them wherever they went.

  In Austria it was just the same. It was well known that every detail of what occurred in the Hofburg Palace and in the whole City was reported daily to the Emperor Francis by Baron Hager.

  It was true that Katharina had herself been an agent for Russia. She had been sent by the Russian Government to dazzle Clement Metternich and the fact that she had fallen in love with him, desperately and overwhelmingly, had merely made her assignment easier and more pleasant.

  Both Katharina and Clement were enthusiastic agents of their respective Governments and perhaps the fact that they were both violently partisan to their own cause helped rather than distracted from the joy and ecstasy of their love for one another.

  Katharina, beneath her childlike appearance, was extremely intelligent, but what was more, she believed fervently with all the fire of her oriental ancestors in the greatness of Russia and in the part that her country must play in world affairs.

  Once, wearing only a filmy pink negligée, she had been sitting on the arm of Metternich’s chair. They had dined together in her boudoir and, as they talked, they slowly sipped the liqueurs that the servants had left beside them before discreetly withdrawing from the room.

  Clement sat staring into his glass and she knew by the expression on his face that for a moment he had forgotten love and was thinking of politics. But as if he felt her silence calling him, he turned his head.

  She stared down at him, her arm thrown lightly about his shoulders, and then, as they looked at each other, the pupils of her eyes suddenly became larger, darkening until they covered almost the entire iris.