The Enchanted Waltz Read online

  The music of the violins filled the room, the orchestra was playing a waltz and its haunting melody seemed to enfold them.

  There really was something enchanted about this moment.

  He had a wild desire to gather her up in his arms and take her away, away from Vienna, from the people with their chatter and gossip, which besmirched everything and everybody, away to somewhere where the world could not encroach upon them.

  Then the music stopped and he came back to earth and remembered his own position – penniless, a hanger-on at a foreign Court because he was exiled from his own country.

  He remembered his obligation to the Czar, the part he was supposed to be playing tonight and knew that, even by being here with this girl he had picked up in the ballroom at the Hofburg, he was jeopardising his position as a royal favourite.

  “We must go back.”

  With an effort he forced himself to call a waiter and ask for the reckoning.

  “Is it time to go? “ Wanda asked.

  “People may be wondering what has become of us.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She started guiltily as if she too had been touched by a magic wand that made her forget time and responsibility.

  Then, as she picked up her mask to put it over her eyes, Richard laid a hand on hers.

  “I shall see you again,” he said.

  “Do you really want to?”

  The ingenuousness of her question seemed to fire him far more effectively than any coquetry would have done.

  “I want it more than anything else in the world,” he answered and was surprised at the sincerity in his own voice.

  “I am staying with the Baroness Waluzen,” Wanda answered, “and my full name is Comtesse Wanda Schonbörn.”

  “We shall meet again tomorrow if it can possibly be managed.”

  He saw the light leap into her eyes and knew that she was glad, as glad as he was himself. His hand still enclosed hers and he felt his own heart beating surprisingly quickly.

  “Did you really think that all this could happen tonight and we could either of us forget about it?” he asked her in a low voice.

  “I shall – never forget.”

  They were both very still and then, as her eyes dropped before his, he rose to his feet.

  They left the restaurant and re-entered the carriage, which was still waiting for them outside in the street.

  As the door closed and they were together in the warm darkness, he said,

  “I, too, shall never forget tonight.”

  He heard her draw in a deep breath and then, before he had time to think about it, before he could consider anything but the thumping of his own heart, she was in his arms.

  He heard her give a little cry of surprise before his mouth found hers.

  Her lips were soft and yielding.

  It was a kiss such as he had never known before, a kiss that had some strange spiritual quality that was quite unlike the kisses he had given and taken so passionately and so hungrily from so many women.

  And then, as if the coach had flown to their destination, they found themselves at the door of the Palace.

  There was no time to say anything.

  A linkman opened the door and helped Wanda down. Richard followed her, pausing to pay the coachman.

  Then, when he looked round again, he found that she had vanished.

  She had not waited for him in the brilliantly lit hall and there was no sign of her in the corridors leading back to the ballroom.

  For a moment he contemplated going in search of her, then he remembered his commitments and went instead to where he had hidden the star-spangled cloak beneath the cushions of the big armchair.

  He found it crumpled but safe and, slipping it under his arm, repaired to a cloakroom, where he changed and replaced the Swedish decoration on his coat.

  Slowly and with a nonchalance he was far from feeling, he sauntered back to the ballroom.

  He stood at the end of the room deliberately conspicuous, letting his cloak fall back a little to reveal the glittering decoration.

  As he stood there, he was conscious that he was looking for Wanda, looking for her everywhere amongst the dancing laughing throng whirling around him. The merrymaking and the excitement had increased during the time they had been away.

  The dancers were looking dishevelled and it was quite obvious that the wine had played its part in accentuating their sense of enjoyment and fun. A little Columbine, oblivious of the fact that she was half-naked, was being carried high on the shoulders of a big man dressed as a pirate.

  Richard recognised one of the Russian envoys and wondered if the Czar was enjoying himself as much as at least one of his subjects and then he felt a hand clutch his arm and heard Katharina say,

  “Where have you been, Richard? The Czar has been looking for you.”

  “Is he still here?” Richard enquired.

  “He has retired and you are to go to him at once.”

  “To hear is to obey,” Richard said mockingly. “May I escort you, madame?”

  He offered her his arm with exaggerated deference.

  She was looking very beautiful tonight in a dress of deep blue that clung to her figure. There was a crescent of diamonds in her hair to represent the moon.

  Her shoulders were very white, her heavy-lidded eyes dark and mysterious and, as she moved beside him with a lightness that was characteristic of her, Richard thought, as he had thought so often, that despite her fair skin, Katharina was completely and absolutely oriental.

  “I missed you for a long time,” she complained when they were out of earshot of the crowds moving in and out of the ballroom.

  “How did you know that I was not the Czar?”

  “Is a woman ever deceived by the man she loves?” Katharina enquired.

  “Someone told you,” Richard said. “I don’t believe that you guessed.”

  She flashed him a glance from underneath her eyelashes, which told him that he had hit upon the truth.

  “The Czar was wrong,” he said. “He imagined that for once he would be able to escape the eternal vigilance that always surrounds him.”

  “No one knows but me,” Katharina said quickly, “and Butinski.”

  “Butinski?” Richard repeated, wondering who that might be.

  Then he remembered. The Czar’s barber! So she was keeping a check on the movements of her Royal Master, as he kept a check on hers.

  “Are you cross with me?” Katharina’s voice was soft and seductive.

  And now, as they climbed the wide staircase, she put out her hand towards his cheek, but he turned his face away from her.

  “You know how much I dislike that sort of thing,” he said.

  “Darling, you make a magnificent Emperor.”

  Richard did not answer.

  They had reached the Czar’s apartments and he stopped just out of earshot of the sentries.

  “Are you coming in with me?”

  “No, I am going to my bedroom. I am not sleepy.”

  The invitation was very evident in her eyes and on her lips.

  “The Czar may keep me,” he said stiffly and, turning away from her, walked towards the guarded door.

  *

  On returning to the ballroom, Wanda ran first to the place in the amphitheatre where she had left the Baroness.

  When she saw that she was not there, she panicked, as perhaps the old lady was angry and had gone home in disgust.

  Then she remembered that the supper rooms were a more likely place to find someone who did not dance and, hurrying up the stairs to the circular gallery, she went from one room to another until finally her search was rewarded.

  At a large table occupied by many men and women as distinguished as herself, the Baroness was just finishing supper.

  As Wanda came to her side, she glanced up at her quizzically, but her words were commonplace.

  “Are you enjoying yourself, child?”

  “Yes, madame.”

>   “Are you ready to go home?”

  “If you are, madame.”

  “Very well. Give me your arm.”

  Wanda did as she was bid. She was well aware, as was the Baroness, that many curious glances were cast in their direction, but she was not introduced and, with the Baroness leaning on her arm, they went slowly from the supper room and down another staircase to the entrance hall of the Palace.

  It was only when they had climbed into the coach and the Baroness sank back against the soft cushions as if she was tired that she said,

  “I saw you dancing with the Czar. Did you find him a pleasant companion?”

  “Yes, he was very kind,” Wanda answered. “How – how did you recognise him?”

  “I am not bird-witted,” the Baroness retorted. “Besides, the Emperor Alexander courts recognition. Everyone in Vienna knows that.”

  The Baroness asked no more questions, although Wanda felt instinctively that her curiosity was aroused.

  When they reached the Baroness’s home and were going up the stairs together side by side to their bedrooms, she heard the old lady say, almost under her breath,

  “You are young, too young for this sort of game.”

  Wanda bade her hostess goodnight and found the maid waiting up for her to help her undress.

  Only when at last she was alone in her bedroom did she put her fingers to her mouth and touch her lips wonderingly and allow her memory of what had happened to her to sweep into her consciousness, ecstatically and with a sense of wonderment.

  He had kissed her!

  She could feel the touch of his lips on hers.

  Time had stood still.

  She had no idea how long he had held her close in his arms, her head against his shoulder. It was almost as if he had drawn her soul from her body and she had for a moment been transported by a happiness and a joy beyond anything she had ever dreamed of.

  He had kissed her!

  For a moment she could think of nothing else. It all had happened so unexpectedly, yet it seemed to her as if the whole evening had been a prelude to that moment.

  Then, slowly, as she stood there in the strange bedroom, her elation ebbed away from her.

  He was an Emperor, the Czar of all the Russias and she was allowing herself to think of him as if he was merely a man. He had a wife and a mistress. Had she gone mad to allow such liberties even in the interests of her country?

  Roughly and with a sudden revulsion of feeling, Wanda rubbed her lips fiercely, as if she would rub his kiss away from them.

  She had been told to dance with the Czar, to get to know hint. She had obeyed, but he had told her nothing that could be of the slightest interest to anyone save herself.

  The Baroness was right, she was too young and too inexperienced for anything like this.

  She was letting her emotions become involved and she was letting her feelings superimpose themselves upon her intelligence.

  She knew what the Prince wanted of her and she must think only of that.

  She was shivering as she blew out her candles and crept between the sheets of the huge canopied bed.

  In the darkness she tried to recapture her feelings when she had told Prince Metternich that she would die if necessary for the country she loved.

  But all she could remember were two eyes looking at her through the slits in a mask and lips that seemed to ignite in her body an unquenchable flame of delight.

  Chapter 5

  Richard awoke with the feeling that he had been dreaming.

  Then, as gradually his eyes focused to perceive the familiar objects in the room, he saw Wanda’s fan lying on the dressing table.

  From his bed he could see the broken pieces of mother of pearl shining in the pale sunshine that was seeping through the uncurtained window.

  He had drawn the heavy brocade curtains and thrown back the shutters last night to stand for a long time staring out at the star-strewn sky, hearing very faintly in the distance, as though it was little more than the breath of the night itself, the strains of music.

  ‘The enchanted waltz’ Wanda had called the Congress and he thought now that the whole evening had been enchanted.

  Could the girl he had met casually in the ballroom of the Hofburg have really been as attractive as he had thought at the time?

  It seemed to him that all his life he had been pursuing women and, when he had caught up with them, they had proved sadly disappointing.

  If they were beautiful, their conversation was banal to the point of exasperation. If they were intelligent, there had been something about them, perhaps some quite small thing that had repulsed him on closer acquaintance.

  There had not been a jarring note the whole of the time he had spent with this unknown girl.

  How simple she had been in her enjoyment, how spontaneous in her laughter!

  It was the fashion among the young ladies of St. James’s to be blasé and the bucks and dandies who were his friends when he was in London had made it the fashion to yawn through every type of entertainment and to swear that even the most acclaimed beauty made them die of ennui.

  A great deal of it was pretence, of course, but one must move with the fashion and he had grown used to languid voices and bored faces.

  Here in Austria things were different. Foreigners were much more volatile and certainly in most cases far more entertaining.

  In the weeks that he had been in Vienna he had spent the majority of his time with the emotional capricious Katharina.

  He had enjoyed himself and he would have been churlish to deny it. No one could have been more generous with her favours, but it was after all just another love affair.

  What he had felt last night was something very different, so different that now in the clear light of the morning he did not believe it was true.

  He rang the bell by his bedside, but a few minutes passed before Harry came hurrying into the room.

  “’Wake early, ain’t you, Guv?” he asked cheerily.

  “What time is it?” Richard enquired.

  “’Bout ’alf past ten and I’d said to meself, I said, ‘it’ll be noon before the Guv open’s ’is peepers or I’m a Dutchman’.”

  Harry started to tidy up the clothes that Richard had thrown on a chair the night before.

  “Must ’ave been sober as a judge by the look of you,” he added.

  “That’s enough, Harry,” Richard said. “I don’t know why I put up with your impertinence.”

  “I’ll get your shavin’ water,” Harry grinned. “’Er ’igh and mightiness be expectin’ you to breakfast, so you’d better look your best.”

  He went out of the room and Richard could hear him whistling as he went down the passage.

  He tried to frown, but only managed to smile. It was no use being cross with Harry. He was not a conventional valet and nothing would ever make him one.

  He had come to Richard originally as a groom in a flush period when he could afford a stable full of horses and half a dozen men to look after them. Then, when things deteriorated, the servants had gone, one by one, until only Harry was left.

  He had not worried if his wages were paid irregularly or if his duties ranged from cook to butler.

  He took everything in his stride and gave his Master an absurd touching devotion that Richard knew could not be bought for all the gold in Europe. But he said what he thought and no one could stop him saying it.

  He had taken a dislike to Princess Katharina, not that that was anything unusual, because he was habitually jealous in one way or another of Richard’s ladies. Perhaps he was all the more vulnerable where she was concerned because she was a Russian and he had loathed the whole Russian nation from the moment they had joined the Czar’s entourage.

  Richard was half-afraid that one night he would find Harry with his throat cut from ear to ear or with a knife sticking in his back.

  At the same time it was a relief beyond words to have him with him in his exile. Harry was a link with England, a link
with the only place in the world where Richard wanted to be and which was barred to him perhaps forever.

  He wondered with a sudden sense of desperation what the future held.

  Was he to spend the rest of his life driven from foreign Capital to foreign Capital? A hanger-on of Princes, an impecunious Courtier who must pay for his supper by making love to unattractive women or by picking the pockets of some unsophisticated young Nobleman sowing his wild oats?

  The idea was frightening and a sudden nostalgia brought Richard from his bed to stand at the open window.

  Below lay a courtyard and beyond it were the formal gardens of the Palace. There was the iridescent glitter of a dozen fountains, a magnificent array of statuary, a vista of artificial lakes and a Delphic Temple set among the elegant uniformity of cypress trees.

  But Richard saw instead the untidy, badly clipped lawns of his home in Hertfordshire, the rough parkland sloping down to a twisting trout stream and rising again towards the thick woods that sheltered the pheasants.

  What did he want with balls and masques and diplomacy? He wanted only the bitter wind blowing up the Lea Valley, the smell of the earth in his nostrils and the sound of the huntsman’s horn in his ears.

  His reverie was broken by the crash of the door being kicked open by Harry as he entered with a jug of hot water in one hand and a shaving bowl in the other.

  “Met one of ’er igh and mightiness’s slit-eyed slaves along the passage,” he said cheerily. “You’re to get along there pronto. ‘There’s no rest for the wicked’, as me old mother used to say.”

  “Hurry up and shave me,” Richard said wearily, turning from the window. “And be careful your hand doesn’t shake like it did yesterday morning or I’ll knock your head off.”

  “’Twas that filthy drink them Ruskies gave me,” Harry replied. “Vodka or some such outlandish name it be called. Looks like gin, tastes like muck and five minutes after you’ve ’ad it, it ’as the kick of a mule in your innards! I was so foxed I thought me ’ead would burst when I woke. I’m stickin’ to ale from now on, not that you can get a decent pint outa England.”

  “You know, Harry, you’re an ungrateful cove,” Richard said.

  “Ungrateful, Guv? ’Ow’s that?”