Love At Last Read online

  “I shall invite you to my next ‘Afternoon at Home’, Prince Ivan,” she purred after they exchanged civilities.

  “I shall be delighted,” he replied with a click of his heels.

  “And now I should like to introduce you to my friends?” suggested Cecilia, taking Ivan round the group of her guests. She introduced each of them with a few words that would enable him to place and remember them.

  Ivan kissed the girl’s hands and shook those of the men, managing to find a different greeting for each and to sound sincerely interested in meeting them.

  When Rosalind was introduced to him, he paused before her longer than with any of the other girls.

  “I feel I have met you before,” he smiled into her huge blue eyes that looked completely captivated into his. “There is a portrait in my Palace in Rusitania of a young girl dressed in white looking just like you.”

  “Ooh,” responded Rosalind faintly. “Who is she?”

  Ivan gave a small shrug of his shoulders.

  “No one knows. It was painted some two hundred years ago. There is a legend that the Prince of that time wished to marry her, but she died of a fever. It is probably all rubbish, but,” he added thoughtfully, “you do look very like her. She was very pretty – ”

  Rosalind blushed a lovely rose-pink.

  Cecilia thrust away an unaccustomed feeling of loss as she led Ivan on to the last of the female guests, a dark girl with a haughty face and almond-shaped eyes.

  Irene Portland’s father was a well-known financier who was generally held to be fabulously wealthy.

  “Sir Ralph Portland, Irene’s dear Papa, is a banker,” Cecilia explained, making the introduction.

  “Then he is someone I would dearly like to talk to about the economic situation in my country,” Ivan assured Irene. “Tell me, Miss Portland, does the talk of financial affairs bore you to distraction?”

  Cecilia, who had never known her friend Irene to smile at anyone or to respond in any meaningful way, was astonished to hear her say,

  “I enjoy discussing financial affairs with my father, Your Royal Highness, Papa often says that ‘money maketh man’, but that it is not done to mention the matter!”

  She gave Ivan a smile so dazzling Cecilia blinked.

  “I am sure Papa will be delighted to talk to you.”

  “Now that you have met everyone, we can go into luncheon,” Cecilia announced smoothly. “Perhaps, Prince Ivan, you will be kind enough to escort me into the dining room?”

  “Of course, my Lady.”

  Ivan held out his arm and Cecilia placed her hand on it as she had done so many many times with other men in the past.

  But never before had she been so aware of such hard muscle.

  “May I say that this is a most elegant mansion, Lady Cecilia?” he commented, his voice lively and sincere.

  “Is that perhaps a painting by Courbet?” He waved at a picture of a French family on a country road.

  “Why, yes, it is. My Mama had a great interest in modern art. She admired Courbet’s ability to capture the sincerity and honesty he saw in ordinary men. Poor artist, he suffered so much because of his principles. You know he was imprisoned for his beliefs? He had to leave France on his release and flee to Switzerland.”

  Ivan nodded.

  “I am another admirer. I have one of his paintings hanging in my study. Whenever I find the letters I have to write particularly boring, I break off to study the friendly and solid practical-looking couple he has depicted.”

  He gave a self-deprecating smile that was suddenly intimate.

  “I do so wish that I could place my problems before them, hear their down-to-earth advice and know I could trust it.”

  Cecilia would have wished to continue with this conversation, but they had reached the dining room.

  “I have placed you at the centre of the table,” she remarked. “I thought that from there you could command everyone’s attention.”

  “You have gone to so much trouble, Lady Cecilia,” Ivan said. “And all the girls you have invited are so pretty. But I hope that you will not be far away. I am sure that none of your guests will offer conversation as captivating as yours.”

  He gave her a small bow.

  He was so practised at compliments that his actual words meant nothing, Cecilia told herself, as she left him at his place and made her way to one end of the table.

  By the time the luncheon drew to its end, all the girls were in love with Ivan and he had managed to make the young gentlemen think that he was a real ‘goer’ with no ‘side’ to him.

  The luncheon was, in fact, greatly enjoyed by all –

  Except for Guy, who complained afterwards that, sitting at the far end of the table, opposite Cecilia, he had found the two young girls seated next to him, inexpressibly boring.

  “Had I realised you were inviting me to a nursery event, I should have made my apologies,” he asserted only half-jokingly.

  “I am so sorry, Guy,” Cecilia replied with an effort. “Selfishly, I wanted your support. I should have explained the reason for the luncheon rather better.”

  He coloured, seemingly rather taken aback by her rare acknowledgement of need for his company.

  “It was plain enough. You seem to be setting up a marriage market! I hope it proves successful.”

  It had not escaped her notice that Ivan had shown Rosalind rather more attention than any of the other girls.

  After Guy had left, Cecilia thanked her staff for their efforts, then went and changed.

  She handed the hated mauve dress to her maid.

  “Take it, Mary, I never want to see it again.”

  In the study, dressed in a pretty muslin gown, she attempted to address herself to plans for her clinic that required important decisions.

  But she could not concentrate.

  Time and again she found that Ivan was invading her thoughts.

  There was no point, she now told herself angrily, in thinking about the man. He would never consider her in the light of a Princess of Rusitania.

  And why should she want to abandon her father and her clinic anyway?

  It was no good.

  Finally she went into the music room and attacked the piano in a passionate rendering of a Chopin Scherzo.

  Although the music healed some of her frustrations, she closed the piano feeling profoundly depressed.

  Looking through the window at the wintry scene outside, she decided to interest herself a little further in Ivan’s search for a suitable bride.

  At least that way she might enjoy a little bit more of his company.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ivan was in high good humour as he returned to the Rusitanian Embassy.

  “I rather think I may have found my Princess,” he confided to Yuri, as he changed from his formal suit and slipped into his silk dressing gown before sitting down to enjoy a cup of tea and cucumber sandwiches.

  That evening he would again have to don military uniform for yet another diplomatic Reception.

  Yuri did not appear very interested as he inspected the Prince’s suit before putting it away.

  “You should see her,” he continued, relaxing into the comfortable chair. “The most astonishing eyes. Quite, quite lovely.”

  He sipped his tea thoughtfully for a moment.

  “I shall court her in the established manner. I shall talk to Algy Montmorency, you will recall the Honourable Algernon, Yuri? He visited us while I was at Oxford.”

  “If you remember, Prince, I did not have the honour to work for you then,” Yuri replied a little sulkily.

  “Of course! Stupid of me.”

  Ivan helped himself to another cucumber sandwich and watched his valet place that evening’s uniform ready.

  A reminiscent smile crossed his face.

  “I found no one approaching her suitability in Paris, but here, almost as soon as I arrived, the perfect choice has presented itself, someone with all the attributes I have been seeking.
>
  “I believe that I fell in love with her at first sight – certainly at second,” he laughed. “I feel light as air, Yuri. I shall try and sweep this English rose back to Rusitania!”

  “You seemed happy enough in Paris,” commented Yuri as he checked the polish on the Prince’s dress boots.

  “In Paris I was on holiday – ”

  He rose and began to pace the room.

  “After all I was not very long back from the war. I think I deserved it, don’t you?”

  Yuri placed the boots next to the uniform.

  “Life hasn’t been easy for any of us,” he muttered.

  “And I forced you to leave that enchanting little girl you found along the corridor of our hotel in Paris. I am sorry, Yuri.”

  He thought for a moment,

  “Perhaps you can persuade her to visit Rusitania. Perhaps for Christmas?”

  Yuri looked startled.

  “You plan to go back so quickly, Prince?”

  “If my wooing goes as well as I hope, yes. I do not want to leave my country too long.”

  Ivan gazed out of the window.

  It was almost dark and the leafless trees below him looked stark.

  He had an image of Rosalind’s blue eyes and sweet face framed in ermine going to the Cathedral for midnight service on Christmas Eve.

  He realised that he needed a bride for more than her looks and dowry.

  He remembered the delight his parents had in each other’s company, the way they knew exactly what the other was thinking and the warmth in their eyes as they looked at each other and the tenderness in their voices.

  That was what he needed for himself.

  Little Rosalind Dampier seemed to have exactly the sort of qualities that might make his dream.

  He began to make plans for his wooing.

  *

  As soon as he could find him, Ivan consulted with Algy.

  “Rosalind Dampier? I say, old chap, you’ve got the goods there all right. Old Lord Dampier has a fortune the size of Montblanc and she’s his only child. Keeps a close watch on her – all fortune hunters strictly warned off!”

  The two of them were in the Embassy’s guest suite, where Ivan was being fitted for an overcoat and a country tweed suit.

  “Beats me how you managed an introduction.”

  “Lady Cecilia Beaumont, the Earl of Yarlington’s daughter, invited me to a party and she was there.”

  Ivan twisted round to see the back of the overcoat.

  “Did she, by George! How did you manage that? Cecilia has never invited me to any luncheon – or anything else, come to that!”

  “You know Lady Cecilia, Algy?”

  Ivan allowed the tailor to remove the overcoat and replace it with the suit jacket, tacked and marked in chalk.

  “We more or less grew up together. Her mater and mine were the best of friends, don’t you know. Suggested we made a match of it at one time.”

  Ivan knew well that show girls and actresses were the females his friend felt comfortable with. With girls of his own background he grew inarticulate and awkward.

  “Would that have pleased you? To make a match with Lady Cecilia?”

  “Would not have pleased either of us. She’s too much of a brainbox for me and she thinks I’m a bonehead. Pleasant bonehead, though – don’t get me wrong – we’re good pals. But she’s dedicated to being a diplomat’s escort and that air is too rarefied for me!”

  He thought for a moment, swinging a long leg as he slouched on the arm of a chair.

  “Did ask me to luncheon once and I went. Most boring time of my life. Room full of old chaps and their wives talking about Eastern Europe. Something to do with her pater, the Earl. Reckoned I was asked along as a sort of partner for Cecilia. Thanked her afterwards, of course, but said if she was looking for someone to do that sort of thing, I wasn’t the man, don’t you know.”

  Ivan thought of the tall handsome thirty-something Sir Guy Anstruther who had been sitting opposite Cecilia at the luncheon.

  He could see Sir Guy and Lady Cecilia making a match of it where the Honourable Algy would indeed be the famous square peg in a round hole!

  “It was very kind of Lady Cecilia to arrange the luncheon party for me,” said Ivan, approving the cut of his jacket. “It was there that I met the lovely Miss Dampier.”

  “No doubt she was flattered to have the attention of a Prince,” Algernon remarked with no hint of jealousy.

  Ivan shrugged his shoulders.

  “Perhaps, but I do need to pay her some attention, Algy. I need to invite her to some function – but not a Reception. Some event which is pleasurable and where we can talk – I cannot afford a long drawn out wooing.”

  His friend shook his head.

  “I suppose I should wish you luck, Ivan, instead of thinking that you’re putting your head into a noose, even if it is one made of gold thread! I say, that’s rather good, isn’t it? Gold thread! Because the little Dampier gel is so ruddy rich?”

  Ivan sighed.

  “Very good, Algy. But what I want is a suggestion from you for entertaining Miss Dampier.”

  “Of course, of course. Let’s think now. The Music Hall’s no good, of course. And since it’s winter, a picnic or a boating expedition won’t do.”

  He mused for a moment and then his face lit up.

  “I’ll tell you what, Ivan, there’s rather a good little steeplechase scheduled for a few days’ time and not too far from London either.”

  “A steeplechase?”

  “A race meeting – over the sticks. Good fun and fashionable too. Papa Dampier – Lord Dampier that is, would not blink an eye at his little girl being asked there. Not if she was in a party with a chaperone.”

  “A party?”

  Ivan thought for a moment.

  “You would come, Algy? And I should ask Lady Cecilia, as after all, it was she who introduced us. And there was her aunt at the luncheon – a Lady Broadstairs.”

  “She’s the Earl’s sister. Cecilia drags her in when a chaperone is required, that is, if she’s not resident at the Broadstairs estate in the Midlands.”

  The outing was quickly arranged.

  Algy checked the date in his pocket diary and Ivan immediately penned letters of invitation, then summoned Yuri to take them round by hand.

  *

  Ivan returned from another diplomatic Reception at ten o’clock, having endured several hours of boredom.

  He removed his cloak with a sigh of relief.

  Yuri appeared as if from nowhere, took the cloak and whispered to him,

  “Prince, the Countess awaits you in the salon.”

  Ivan looked at him in surprise.

  “Countess Lewinski?”

  “No, Prince, Countess Natasha.”

  “Countess Natasha?” he repeated in bewilderment. “You cannot be serious! She isn’t even in England.”

  “Prince, she is in the salon. She is most anxious to speak with you. She has been waiting more than an hour.”

  “An hour?”

  Ivan found it difficult to believe that Natasha would wait an hour for anybody or anything.

  “She has been served wine. Should I order other refreshment for you?”

  “No, Yuri,” Ivan snapped as he strode to the salon.

  Natasha sat in a chair by the fire.

  She put down her glass, rose to her feet and held out her hands.

  “Ivan – at last!”

  She was wearing a low-cut gown in black velvet that clung to her curves. Her flame-coloured hair was piled on top of her head in a way that revealed her long neck and framed her face.

  She looked as beautiful as Ivan had ever seen her.

  “Natasha,” Ivan said without emotion. “What has brought you to London?”

  Her green eyes shone bright as jewels, her perfect skin was pale as ivory, her pouting mouth deep crimson.

  “I came because I cannot bear life without you – ”

  She uttered the words sim
ply and without artifice.

  Ivan removed his ceremonial sword, threw it onto a side table and then cast himself into a chair.

  “Really?”

  He infused the word with deep cynicism.

  In a soft rustle of velvet, Natasha sank to the floor before him and took his hands in hers.

  “Have you forgotten everything we once were to each other?”

  She looked so lusciously vulnerable that he, despite himself, felt something stir deep within him.

  She sensed it immediately and cast her head down on his knees, gripping his hands tightly.

  “Oh, my darling, you must remember how much I love you?”

  She looked into his face, her eyes full of feeling.

  “No one has ever meant as much to me – ”

  Ivan could only remember the way she had cast him off for his cousin Peter.

  He had a sudden vision of the two of them together at the signing of the Treaty and pushed her roughly away.

  “Get up, Natasha. Have you really lost all sense of dignity?” he cried, his voice raw with disgust.

  She still lay on the floor.

  Embarrassed, Ivan rose to his feet and stepped over her. He strode over to the bell and rang for a servant.

  “You are leaving Natasha,” he insisted. “When the footman comes, you will ask him to bring you your wrap.”

  She rose in a single graceful movement and there were tears brimming in her eyes.

  Ivan stood by the fire and gazed implacably at her.

  A footman entered.

  “You rang, Your Royal Highness?”

  Natasha’s expression became glacial.

  “I am leaving, please bring my wrap and find me a cab,” she muttered.

  As the footman left, she turned back to Ivan.

  “You will regret this,” she spat at him, her eyes narrow with hate.

  Ivan banished a last lingering regret.

  “I think not, Natasha.”

  *

  Three days later a happy party was driven in the Rusitanian Embassy’s large coach to the steeplechase.

  Cecilia, Lady Broadstairs and Rosalind had all been happy to accept Ivan’s invitation and Algy was there too.

  As the coach bowled along, Ivan was pleased with how well everything was going.