The Peril and the Prince Page 5

  Chapter Three

  The party was certainly one of wild gaiety.

  To begin with Vida had been overcome by the beauty and elegance of the Prince’s guests.

  When she had gone downstairs and was escorted from the hall by one of the footmen, she had heard the laughter and chatter of voices coming from the salon even before the door was opened.

  Everybody was, as she expected, speaking French and it was impossible to imagine any of the ladies present could have been dressed anywhere but in Paris.

  Her father had often told her how the Russian Court favoured France not only in speaking that country’s language but also in having French Tutors for their children.

  What was more, the Nobles all gravitated towards Paris as if it was a special paradise created for them.

  It was obvious at a quick glance that Frederic Worth had dressed the beautiful women clustered around the Prince and Vida was immediately glad that her gown, which had seemed theatrical in London, did not look dowdy in this highly competitive scene.

  As she walked down the salon under the huge crystal chandeliers, the Prince moved towards her and she thought that he looked even more magnificent and overwhelming in his evening clothes than he had done in the daytime.

  He kissed her hand and she fancied that his eyes flickered over the emeralds she wore in her hair and then at those round her neck before he said,

  “My guests are all eager to meet you, Countess, and there is no need for me to tell you how beautiful you look.”

  He offered her the compliment in the manner she might have expected and in French it had a smoothness that made her feel that it was more polite than personal.

  She, however, gave him a somewhat provocative little smile and looked up at him from under her carefully mascaraed eyelashes.

  When she met his eyes, she felt uncomfortably that he was being perceptive about her and she was afraid that he would penetrate her disguise.

  She was therefore glad to greet his guests and receive the compliments of the gentlemen and the somewhat searching glances from the ladies.

  The Prince explained how she had found the pass through the mountains very restricting and her journey had taken much longer than she had intended.

  Amid exclamations of sympathy Vida, had the uncomfortable feeling that the Prince was well aware that she had intended to stay in his castle and there was nothing accidental about it.

  Then she told herself that she was being needlessly apprehensive and there was no reason why he should suspect that she was anything but what she purported to be.

  Because she was a newcomer the Prince announced that he was taking her into dinner.

  They proceeded into the huge and very beautifully decorated dining room, where she found that she was sitting on his right, even though there were a number of ladies in the party of very much higher rank.

  Nobody asked her any awkward questions until the gentleman on her other side said,

  “I cannot remember ever meeting anybody with the name of Kărólski before. Where is your family seat situated?”

  Vida had anticipated that this question would be asked sooner or later and she replied,

  “I am afraid there are very few of my family left now. We lived when we were in Russia, although I have never been there, in the Caucasus near the border with Georgia. My father used to tell me it was very beautiful, but alas, I have never seen where my ancestors once were considered powerful.”

  “A sad story,” the gentleman replied, “and something that might apply to quite a number of Russians. Your father preferred Western Europe?”

  “He liked travelling,” Vida answered, “and when he was not travelling you will not be surprised to hear that he enjoyed living in Paris.”

  “A place I also enjoy and where the majority of my friends find everything a man could possibly desire.”

  Vida looked at the faces of the ladies round the table and thought that she had never seen a more beautiful assembly anywhere else in the world.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, the Prince on the other side of her said,

  “As you see, I am a connoisseur of beautiful people as well as of antiques.”

  “That is your reputation and you certainly live up to it,” Vida replied. “If you really are kind enough to allow me to stay tomorrow, I hope I may see some of your treasures.”

  “I am looking forward to showing them to you,” the Prince replied, “but I thought it might amuse you if we had a luncheon picnic in the loveliest place on my estate, which I also like to think is one of the most beautiful in all Russia.”

  “I find it very hard to refuse such a suggestion.”

  “I would not allow you to do so,” he said quietly.

  Vida knew in a strange way that he was trying to dominate her and told herself that she must be very very careful.

  The food at dinner was as good as any she had eaten in Paris and the wine complemented it.

  When they all moved together, French fashion, from the dining room she found that they were now in a different salon from the one where they had assembled before dinner.

  There was a polished floor in the centre of the room, which was obviously meant for dancing and a string orchestra was playing soft and romantic music that made Vida long to waltz.

  Without even asking her, the Prince put his arm around her and drew her onto the floor.

  Then, as they began to dance, the tune that had been soft and seductive became a call from the heart that she found impossible to resist.

  It was like being surrounded by flowers and feeling their fragrance becoming part of her imagination until she thought of herself as living in one of her own Fairy stories.

  She was the Princess partnered by Prince Charming in a land of happiness where nothing unpleasant ever happened.

  As if the Prince felt the same, although she knew, of course, it could not be so, he pulled her a little closer to him and they danced in silence as if speech would have interrupted the magic of their imaginations.

  Then, as the dance came to an end, the Prince drew her from the room where they had been dancing into a conservatory that opened out of it.

  She saw it was filled with exotic flowers, all lit in the amazing way that her father had described to her as peculiar to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

  There were lights that shone behind the leaves of the orchids and the lilies, making them transparent – there were lights that illumined flowers growing on the floor and flowers hanging from the ceiling.

  Everything seemed to be in bloom and it was an enchantment that made Vida feel once again that it could only be part of a Fairy story.

  Looking up at the flowers above her, she clasped her hands together and sighed,

  “It is so lovely that I know it can only be part of a dream.”

  “As you are!” the Prince said very quietly. “I am only afraid that you will vanish in the same unaccountable manner in which you arrived.”

  “I will not do that until I have seen everything in this magical castle,” Vida smiled.

  “Thank you,” he answered, “and now come and hear some music that comes from our neighbours and which I feel you will appreciate.”

  The string orchestra had now been replaced by a band of Hungarian gypsies. They were very colourful, the women wearing full red skirts with velvet bodices and the men with their sashes glistening with jewelled weapons.

  Vida had always heard that the Russians appreciated gypsy music and were in fact kinder to the gypsies than any other nation in Europe.

  She realised at once that these performers were particularly talented, not only in their playing but also in their dancing when she knew that she was watching women who could rival any ballerina, however acclaimed.

  Now the tempo of the party seemed to rise with the gypsy melodies.

  The dancing became wilder and it seemed to Vida that her heart beat quicker and she became irrepressibly excited.

  Although she dan
ced with two or three other gentlemen, the Prince seemed to claim her for dance after dance.

  She deliberately ignored what she thought were angry and questioning glances from one of the ladies in particular, who looked even more entrancing than the others.

  Only when once again the Prince had taken Vida into the conservatory to look at the lights on the flowers did the lady come in behind them to exclaim,

  “Do you intend to neglect me, Ivan, for the whole evening? I cannot imagine why you should be so cruel to me when I have come such a long way to visit you.”

  “I am sorry, Eudoxia, if I have seemed neglectful,” the Prince replied lightly, “but I cannot allow a newcomer who knows nobody else in the party to feel that she is not being properly entertained.”

  Princess Eudoxia gave a spiteful look at Vida, who said quickly to the Prince,

  “As it happens, Your Highness, I was just about to ask you to excuse me if I retire to bed. It has been a long and very exhausting day for me and I am finding it difficult to keep my eyes open.”

  ‘Then I must not try to persuade you to stay up,” the Prince said, “and there is always tomorrow.”

  “Of course,” Vida agreed, “and I am looking forward to your picnic.”

  He escorted her to the bottom of the stairs, then, lifting her hand, he held it in both of his before he said,

  “You promise that you will not disappear during the night back to Olympus or wherever it is you came from, so that I shall not see you in the morning?”

  “I promise – ”

  She laughed as she spoke, then, as she looked into the Prince’s eyes, she found the sound dying away on her lips.

  For a moment they just looked at each other, then he bent his handsome head and kissed her hand.

  It was not a perfunctory gesture and she could feel his lips hard and sensuous on her skin.

  Then, suddenly afraid of the feelings it evoked within her, she took her hand from his and ran up the staircase without looking back.

  Margit was waiting for her in her bedroom.

  “You should not have stayed up!” Vida exclaimed. “You must be very tired.”

  “I’m seein’ you properly into bed, Miss Vida,” Margit said in English, “and makin’ sure you lock your door.”

  “Be careful!” Vida said in a low voice. “And do remember to call me ‘my Lady’.”

  “There be nobody here who speaks English,” Margit said. “You may be sure of that!”

  “We cannot be sure of anything!”

  Vida knew as she spoke that she was not in the least sure about the Prince. In fact she was afraid of him.

  *

  It was something she felt again the next day when, having awoken late because Margit said no one was being called early, she found him waiting for her.

  Outside the front door there was an array of carriages of every sort and description, all drawn by the most superbly outstanding horses Vida had ever seen.

  She could not help admiring first one, then another, perceiving that the majority of them had been bred in Hungary and were therefore, as she had always known, superior to any other horses in Europe.

  The Prince accompanied her, a faint smile on his lips, as if he was amused by her enthusiasm.

  “Now that you have admired these,” he said, “you must see the many horses in my stables that are too good to be driven, but which I know you would appreciate if you were in the saddle.”

  “I may not be here tomorrow.”

  “That is something we will argue about later,” the Prince said.

  The rest of the party appeared and they all seemed to be paired off, so that inevitably Vida found herself in a chaise with the Prince.

  There was no sign of Princess Eudoxia and Vida wondered if she was staying behind because she was sulking or whether she had left The Castle.

  She was, however, too tactful to ask questions and they drove off, the women looking, she thought, in the sunshine like a collection of exotic birds in their feathered or flowered bonnets and wearing Parisian gowns.

  They all held small sunshades to protect their skin from the bright sun.

  They drove for nearly an hour on a driveway that had been cut through the thick fir woods, then came unexpectedly on a small lake surrounded entirely by trees, except where at one end of it there was a silver cascade pouring down from the mountains that towered above them.

  It was, Vida saw, so lovely that it seemed like a mystical painting that could not actually be real.

  The contrast between the dark green trees, the mountaintops above, on which there were still traces of snow, and the cascade pouring down into the bottomless lake was spectacular.

  The banks round the lake had been planted with a profusion of irises – gold, purple, and white – that were all in bloom and they were as exquisite as the orchids she had seen last night in the Prince’s conservatory.

  There was a large wooden hut to be seen amongst the trees built of logs.

  They stopped at the very edge of the lake, where a table had been laid for their picnic.

  The luncheon was, in fact, the height of luxury with servants in livery to wait on them and the dishes that were as delicious as at dinner the night before.

  They drank French champagne from golden goblets and, after the main courses, the table was piled with the local fruits, strawberries, peaches, raspberries, nectarines, melons and in strange contrast passion fruit and pomegranates.

  “The whole trouble is,” Vida smiled, “it is impossible to eat any more.”

  “I see you enjoy your food,” the Prince commented, “and that pleases me.”

  “Why?”

  “It tells me that you are still very young and not worrying, as so many women do, about your figure,” he answered.

  She felt guiltily that she had perhaps betrayed herself and revealed the fact that she was younger than she was pretending to be.

  Then she hoped that he was just paying her a compliment and it would be a mistake to be worried about it.

  “I find the Russian air makes me hungry,” she remarked.

  “I think too it has done you good,” the Prince answered. “You don’t look as worried as you did last night when you arrived.”

  “Worried?” Vida questioned. “As I told you, I was tired.”

  “And worried,” he persisted, “or perhaps nervous.”

  She turned away from him a little petulantly.

  “I cannot think why you should imagine such things,” she said. “If I was worried, it was only because I was afraid that you might be inhospitable enough to say that your castle was full and I should have to sleep the night in one of your barns!”

  The Prince laughed.

  But she told herself that she must be more careful and that he was far too perceptive.

  The luncheon had been very enjoyable with everybody laughing and talking in an animated way across the table, which Vida thought made the meal much more fun than if it was formal.

  As they finished, the Prince said to her,

  “Would you like to see behind the cascade, Countess?”

  “Could I do that?”

  “Come with me,” he replied.

  They walked slowly round the small lake until they came to the cascade, where it was difficult to hear oneself speak because of the roar of the water.

  Then the Prince took Vida’s hand and drew her through what appeared to be a gap in the rock.

  For a minute or so they were in darkness and she could only let him guide her, conscious as he did so of the strength of his fingers.

  She had the feeling that, as he touched her, there was something magnetic about it that she had never known with anybody else.

  The dark passage came to an end and she found herself standing in a huge cave, the blinding silver curtain of water in front of her as it crashed down from the mountain heights into the lake below.

  It was so lovely, a shimmering wall of silver, and the noise of it seemed somehow to deaden the
senses so that Vida felt that she could no longer think but only feel somehow disembodied and part of the beauty and sound of the water itself.

  Then she was aware that while she was looking at the cascade, the Prince was gazing at her.

  There was something in his eyes that made her feel nervous and without speaking she moved back towards the passage.

  Only as she reached the entrance in the rock did she look back and see that he had not moved but was still standing staring at her.

  As she waited for him to join her, she had a very strong feeling that he was calling her, almost hypnotising her to come to him.

  For one fleeting moment she felt that she had to obey.

  Then with what was both a mental and a physical effort she began to walk very slowly through the dark tunnel in front of her.

  She put out her hands on either side to guide her and reached the sunshine before the Prince caught up with her.

  They walked away from the cascade and with an effort Vida managed to say lightly,

  “Thank you, that was a unique experience!”

  “I thought you would enjoy it,” the Prince said simply.

  They joined the others and then drove back to The Castle.

  Waiting for them there was tea made in the Russian way for those who required it and caviar sandwiches and various sweetmeats to go with it.

  There was champagne for the gentlemen or any other drink they fancied.

  Vida found that the ladies were expected to rest before dinner and she therefore went with them up to her bedroom, where Margit was waiting for her.

  To her surprise, while Margit was undoing her gown, she spoke to her almost in a whisper and appeared to be nervous.

  “Say little, my Lady, not safe!”

  Vida nodded her head to show she understood.

  When she was resting in bed, she wondered what Margit knew and how she could be safely alone with her to find out.

  ‘Perhaps we could go into the garden together,’ she thought.

  She remembered how her father had always said that it was safer to talk out of doors than anywhere else.

  She slept a little and, when Margit came to call her, there was no time for anything but to put on another of her specially chosen gowns.