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  “Welcome, my Lord,” Prince Vladimir was saying. “This is a very unexpected visit.”

  “It is so very good to see you again,” the Earl said. “And I have often wondered if you would ever return to London.”

  “I am perfectly happy where I am,” Prince Vladimir answered. “As you know, I have been away for so long I would hardly know my way down Piccadilly!”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I am sure that is not true,” he retorted. “If you did come back, there would be many willing hands to show you around again.”

  “Fortunately I have no intention of returning,” he answered. “But, please do sit down and I expect after that tiring journey, which I am very glad to say that I do not have to undertake, you would welcome a drink.”

  “We would certainly not refuse one,” the Earl said. “Now let me introduce you to someone I have brought with me who is the reason for my visit to you.”

  He introduced the Count.

  He was well aware that, as Prince Vladimir shook his hand, he was looking at him curiously.

  The Earl thought with a feeling of concern that it was somewhat suspiciously.

  As if the butler knew what was expected of him, he entered at that moment with a tray on which there was a bottle of champagne.

  There were also a number of petits-fours on a silver salver.

  The drinks were handed round and, when the butler had left the room, Prince Vladimir said,

  “Now let’s get down to business. I do realise that you have come here in a hurry and so I don’t wish to waste your time or mine.”

  “That is true,” the Earl murmured. “To waste time would, as I am sure you are well aware, give the Russians an advantage they would not ignore.”

  “The Russians?”

  Prince Vladimir repeated the words just beneath his breath.

  At the same time there was a question in his eyes that told the Earl he was now suspicious as to why they were there.

  “I think, Your Royal Highness – ” the Earl began.

  Prince Vladimir held up his hand.

  “Wait a moment,” he said. “I think you are aware that here I am a mere Baron which I called myself when I left London. Most of my servants here have no idea that I have any other title.”

  “I am sorry,” the Earl apologised. “I will not make the same mistake again. Equally it is difficult for me not to remember you as you were when you used to come and stay with me and play in the cricket matches we arranged every year.”

  Prince Vladimir smiled.

  “That is true and, of course, I have not forgotten. At that time you called me by my Christian name and that is how it should be now.”

  The Earl chuckled.

  “Very well, Vladimir, and may I say that you have altered very little during the years.”

  “Thank you indeed, George,” he answered. “Now you must tell me please why you are here.”

  “That is just what I was about to do,” the Earl said. “I hope you will understand without my going into details the menace the Russians currently are to Bulgaria and other Balkan States. Therefore I think you will guess why the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Count Yuri Unkar, is with me.”

  He saw Prince Vladimir stiffen.

  He knew, because he had always been very quick-brained, that he had already guessed why he and the Count were now sitting opposite him.

  And the Earl thought that it was only right for him to put his project clearly in front of Prince Vladimir, so he stated firmly,

  “Samosia, where my friend the Count is Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is now on the verge of being invaded by the Russians.”

  He hesitated before he further explained,

  “His country, as I am sure you know, is very close to the sea and the Russians need, above all, an exit into the Aegean that will lead them into the Mediterranean.”

  The Earl could very easily see by the expression on Prince Vladimir’s face that he was well aware of this and went on,

  “Her Majesty Queen Victoria, has, as I am sure you know, sent a good number of her relatives as brides to the Principalities of the Balkans. She is rightly now known as ‘The Matchmaker of Europe’.”

  “Yes, yes,” Prince Vladimir said hurriedly. “Please go on.”

  “Well, now another Prince has begged for her help and, as she has no more relatives, she thought that she must refuse him his request point-blank and let Samosia suffer.”

  There was a long silence as the Earl finished.

  Then at last, as if the tension was too much for him, the Count spoke up,

  “Please, please, Your Royal Highness, if you do not help us the Russians will move in and I expect as happened in so many Principalities that they will kill the Prince and his family and take over the whole country.”

  There was another poignant silence.

  Then Prince Vladimir said looking at the Earl rather than at the Count,

  “I knew when your messenger said that you were accompanied by a Samosian that there was a reason why you were seeking me out after all these years when I had thought that everyone had forgotten me.”

  “You are still a cousin of Her Majesty the Queen”, the Earl declared quietly.

  “And I would suppose that makes you think I will give you my daughter and send her into danger in a country that most people have never even heard of.”

  “She will be in no danger, as you well know,” the Earl assured him, “if she has the blessing of the Queen of Great Britain and proudly carries with her the Union Jack and the protection of the British Army and Navy.”

  Prince Vladimir rose and walked across the room to the French window.

  He stood gazing at the fountain throwing its water up towards the sky, so that every drop of it glittered in the sunshine.

  Then he said without turning round,

  “I have been so happy here with my family and I know that they have been completely happy with me.”

  He hesitated before he continued,

  “Why on earth should I ruin everything by letting my daughter go to a foreign land I have never visited to marry a foreigner I have never even seen?”

  “I understand your feelings,” the Earl said. “At the same time Her Majesty the Queen has no one else who she can send. Prince Ivor and all the people of Samosia are on their knees begging us for help.”

  Then the Count spoke up again,

  “If Your Royal Highness will not let your daughter save us, then I think you must face the fact that hundreds, if not thousands, of our people will die and it is unlikely that the Prince of Samosia and any of his relations will stay alive.”

  Prince Vladimir did not answer.

  Then the Earl rose from his chair and walked to stand beside him at the window.

  “I know it is very difficult, Vladimir,” he said, “for you to face such a problem.”

  He smiled at him before he continued,

  “I promise you that I would not have suggested it if I had not felt it wrong for England to let the Russians take over a country that could in consequence be a grave danger to our own people as well as to those countries bordering the Mediterranean.”

  Prince Vladimir did not respond and the Earl went on,

  “Her Majesty’s first impulse was to affirm that she could do nothing. In fact she had forgotten that you were her cousin. As the years have passed by – twenty-two of them if I am not mistaken – a great number of people have forgotten you too.”

  “That is just what I hoped they would do,” Prince Vladimir said.

  “But there are many others just like myself,” the Earl continued, “who remember you as you were and have regretted that you were still not with us.”

  The Earl spoke very quietly.

  Yet he realised that Prince Vladimir was becoming wary of his persuasive arguments.

  Again there was silence until Prince Vladimir said,

  “You are asking too much. How can I possibly part with my daughter?”


  It was a difficult question to answer and the Earl said,

  “If she is as beautiful as I would expect a child of yours to be, then sooner or later she will be married and leave you. If she goes to Samosia, there is no reason at all why you should not visit her there regularly.”

  He smiled as he went on,

  “After all, Vladimir, the turmoil you caused when you married has never reached Samosia and then you can expect a lot of people in London to have also forgotten you.”

  Prince Vladimir laughed.

  “I might well have remembered,” he said, “that you always had an answer to every question, George. I think you are a very clever man and I can understand why you are where you are now.”

  “That is easily the nicest compliment I have had for years!”

  The Earl looked serious as he continued,

  “I realise, Vladimir, that this is a terrible problem for you, but then for your daughter it is a chance of making herself not only the saviour of Samosia but, because she is your daughter, she could make it one of the most famous and respected countries in the whole of the Balkans and even of Europe too.”

  Prince Vladimir then let out a deep sigh and there was silence for what seemed to the Earl a very long time.

  Then he suggested,

  “I tell you what we must now do. You must talk to Linetta. She must be the one to decide her own future. If you are persuasive enough, you could be able to make her realise that this is an opportunity for her to save the lives of thousands of people or just pass by on the other side.”

  The Earl and the Count were listening intently and he went on,

  “Then it is up to her, not to me, to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to your proposition, George.”

  Without waiting for the Earl’s reply, he turned and walked to the mantelpiece and pulled on the bell-rope that hung beside it.

  As if he felt that he needed sustenance, he walked over to where the butler had put the champagne and poured himself another full glass before he then offered it to his guests.

  Both men refused as they still had some left in their glasses beside them.

  The door opened and the butler appeared.

  “Please will you ask Lady Linetta to come to me here, Hunter,” Prince Vladimir ordered.

  “Very good, my Lord,” Hunter replied.

  He closed the door and the Earl said,

  “I am very sorry, Vladimir, to have upset you. But I promise you that there is no one else in the whole of the country we could turn to for help.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “In fact,” he continued, “we have been through Her Majesty’s relations and most of my assistants too had completely forgotten that you existed.”

  “I presume you were the only one who remembered it,” Prince Vladimir said sourly.

  “It would be impossible for me to forget you when we were such friends,” the Earl replied.

  Prince Vladimir gave another sigh,

  “We have indeed had some happy times together in the past, George.”

  “And I would like to have more of them now,” the Earl answered. “But then you hid yourself away very cleverly. It was only a year ago that I happened by chance to learn where you were.”

  “I am glad I was bright enough to cover my tracks,” Prince Vladimir retorted.

  The Earl was about to answer him when the door opened and a girl came in.

  As she walked across the room, the Earl turned to look at her.

  He was wondering if after all this she would be a disappointment.

  Then, as she came towards him and he looked at her critically, he realised that she was in every way exactly what he had hoped she would be.

  He recalled that her mother had been acclaimed as beautiful and her father had always been outstandingly handsome.

  It was not surprising therefore that she was lovely in a very different way from any woman he had ever seen before. In fact there as only one word to describe her and that was ‘ethereal’.

  Her hair was fair with an occasional touch of red in it.

  Her eyes were the blue of the Mediterranean and were framed with dark eyelashes.

  He somehow expected her to be like so many of the English aristocracy, which was to be pretty, but without the outstanding features that would make her different from her contemporaries.

  As the Earl had been aware, Linetta was twenty.

  Being a tall girl with an exquisite figure she walked elegantly across the room.

  Not, as was expected of an English debutante, but with a grace that somehow made her appear exceptional and enchanting at the same time.

  She was so completely different from other women in a way that he could not explain.

  As she drew nearer, the Earl realised that she was lovely in an individual manner of her own.

  Her skin was perfect and her face was dominated by the largeness and the unique beauty of her eyes.

  Her neck was long and this made her seem taller than she actually was.

  ‘She would make a perfect Queen,’ he thought to himself.

  He knew that if she sat on a throne everyone seeing her would find it just impossible to look away or to notice anyone else.

  As Linetta reached the Earl, she looked up at him and smiled saying,

  “Papa was astonished when he was told that you were coming here today, my Lord. But I have always wanted to meet you because he has so often talked about the exciting games of cricket you arranged at your house and he said that you were undoubtedly the best bowler in the team.”

  “That is certainly true,” the Earl answered. “May I say he has been greatly missed, but I hope your brother is as good at cricket as your father.”

  “He is in the First Eleven at Eton,” Linetta said proudly. “But, of course, he will be leaving Eton next year and going to Oxford, where he hopes he will be chosen to play in the University Eleven.”

  “If he is anything like his father he most surely will be,” the Earl replied.

  “I must tell him that, my Lord. I know it will make him very keen to go to Oxford. At the same time he is not sure if he would not rather go to a French University than an English one or even go to Italy to study art in Florence or Rome.”

  Linetta glanced at her father as she spoke.

  Prince Vladimir turned to the Count and said,

  “You see I have difficulties even in my own family. If I am allowed to choose, I would want Charles to go to Oxford.”

  “Where you yourself excelled at cricket,” the Earl intercepted, “and I enjoyed rowing with you in the boat races more than I have ever enjoyed any sport.”

  The two men laughed.

  Then unexpectedly Linetta asked,

  “But why are you gentlemen here if it is not an impertinent question? Why was Papa so upset when your messenger arrived early this morning to tell us that you were coming to see him?”

  She moved towards at her father.

  Then, as he looked almost appealingly at his friend, the Earl suggested,

  “Please sit down, Lady Linetta, and let me tell you that my friend and I have come here especially to see you.”

  “To see me!” Linetta cried in astonishment. “Why should you want to see me?”

  The Earl thought that many men would be able to answer that question quite simply.

  But aloud he said,

  “We have a most important proposition to put in front of you. I hope that you will listen to it and study it in the same way as your father studied at Oxford and, as you doubtless know, won First Class Honours, which he had worked very hard to achieve.”

  “Is it as bad as all that?” Linetta asked.

  Then, as if she was curious, she looked at the Count who she had not been introduced to.

  The Earl followed the direction of her eyes and then quickly added,

  “I am sorry that I am so remiss as not to introduce you to my friend, Count Yuri Unkar, who is the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
in Samosia, a large country in the Balkans.”

  He thought, as Linetta put out her hand towards the Count, that there was an expression in her eyes that had not been there before.

  The Earl was certain that she was shrewd enough now to be aware that the reason for their visit definitely concerned her and her future.

  CHAPTER THREE

  There was rather an uncomfortable pause and then the Earl addressed the Count,

  “I think, Yuri, this is where you say your piece.”

  He realised as he spoke that the Count was looking tense.

  Equally there was almost a beseeching look on his face which was more than understandable.

  Very slowly and speaking extremely good English, although with a slight accent, the Count told Linetta of the present situation in Samosia.

  He did not exaggerate, but it was obvious that every word he spoke was the truth.

  It would be impossible for anyone to question it.

  He spoke for nearly ten minutes and then, as if the full horror of his country’s situation had exhausted him, he sat down again in his chair having stood up while he was speaking.

  There was a silence and then Linetta said in a small voice,

  “Are you really asking me to marry a man I have never seen and, in fact, never heard of until this moment?”

  “There is no other way,” the Count answered, “to save Samosia. I assure you that a great number of people will die and those who remain under the Russian yoke will be desperately unhappy and persecuted for the rest of their lives.”

  Linetta drew in her breath.

  Then she turned to her father.

  He did not speak, but put out his hand towards her.

  She rose from her chair to sit down on the floor at his feet.

  Then, as if she was ignoring the other two men in the room, she looked up at him and murmured,

  “Tell me, Papa, what do you want me to do?”

  “Of course I would want you to stay here with us,” he answered. “At the same time have we the strength in our hearts to let those people suffer and perhaps die simply because they are not strong enough to withstand the greed and arrogance of the Russians?”

  He paused for a moment before he added,

  “I know only too well that they are fully determined eventually to take over all of the Balkans and Samosia is vital to them as it is so close to the Mediterranean Sea.”