An Adventure of Love Page 6

  And it made her eyes look even larger than they were ordinarily.

  Then, as she peeped out into the corridor, she saw that it was not as dark as she had expected.

  There were a few candles still alight in the silver sconces so that there was no need to take her own.

  She set it down on a table just inside the door and went back to look first one way and then the other to make quite sure that there was no one about.

  When she and the Princess came up to bed, she had looked for the sitting room that Rudolf had told her about.

  She had seen because the door was half-open that it was only a few yards from her bedroom.

  There had been only one candle burning in it, she thought, but now, when she opened the door, the room seemed quite brightly lit.

  Rudolf was standing impatiently in front of the fireplace still wearing his decorations.

  Moving swiftly inside Zorina closed the door behind her and then stood still gazing at him.

  For some seconds neither of them moved.

  Then he said to her,

  “You have come! How could you be so brave and so wonderful?”

  “I-I am – frightened!” Zorina replied in a very small voice.

  It was then that he walked slowly towards her while she did not move.

  She had the strangest feeling that he was about to put his arms around her, but instead he turned and locked the door.

  Then, taking her hand, he drew her towards the sofa and she felt herself tremble because he was touching her.

  As they sat down, he asked her,

  “My darling, how could this have happened to us?”

  She stared at him in surprise and he said roughly,

  “What is the use of pretending? I fell in love with you the moment I saw you and all today I have been thinking of nothing but how quickly I could get back to The Palace to tell you so.”

  “But you – must not – say such things,” Zorina stammered.

  At the same time she felt as if a light had been lit within her and her whole body had come alive.

  Rudolf loved her!

  As she looked into his handsome face so near to hers, she knew that what she had been feeling about him was love as well, although she had not realised it earlier.

  “I knew today,” he went on, “when I left Hampton Court Palace to come here, that the only thing that mattered to me was that I should get back as quickly as possible to see you and to tell you of my great love for you.”

  Zorina made a little sound that was almost like a cry of an animal in pain and he went on,

  “You realise that there is nothing we can do?”

  “Nothing!”

  “If I was behaving properly,” Rudolf continued as if he was working it out for himself, “I should not tell you of my feelings and I suppose you then might never have guessed what I feel.”

  “I – knew what – I felt,” Zorina whispered.

  She looked into his eyes as she spoke and thought that he would now put his arms around her.

  If he kissed her, it would be the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to her.

  Instead he rose to his feet.

  “I am behaving abominably and inexcusably,” he muttered, “and you will have to forgive me.”

  “There is – nothing to – forgive.”

  “All I know is that I love you! And I am asking Fate or the Gods why this should happen to me.”

  Zorina drew in her breath.

  The agony in his voice was, she knew, an inexpressible pain that she had never heard before in her whole life.

  “The – the Queen told me – today that I had to – m-marry King Otto,” she said in a hesitating little voice, “but I – told Mama that I could not – do so.”

  “And what did your mother say?”

  “She said I – had to marry him – otherwise the Queen would be very – angry and she might even turn us – out of our Grace and Favour apartment – and then we would have – nowhere to go.”

  “It is intolerable,” Rudolf exclaimed, “absolutely intolerable that you should be forced into such a predicament.”

  “But – we have been and Mama has been so – unhappy since Papa was – killed. We have been so – very poor so you can easily understand that she is glad that I should – marry anyone so important.”

  “And you? What do you think?”

  His voice was hard and she thought, if he had not been keeping his voice low, he would have shouted at her.

  “I-I am – afraid and also – I know now that I – love you, Rudolf!”

  As she spoke, the tears ran down her cheeks.

  Rudolf crossed the room to kneel beside her.

  “My precious, my darling, don’t cry,” he urged her. “I cannot bear you to be so unhappy and I would rather kill myself than hurt you.”

  “Why did this have to – happen to us?” Zorina asked as he had just done.

  He looked down at her hand, which he had taken in his.

  “If I have to be crucified,” he said after a moment, “I would rather it was over you than anyone else.”

  “How can I – marry your father when I – love you?”

  She saw before he spoke that it was a question that she should not have asked him, knowing how much it would hurt him.

  Gently he put her hand into her lap and rose to his feet.

  He walked away from her, back to where he had been standing before with his back to the empty mantelpiece.

  “I have always known, my darling one, that there were penalties for being Royal, but, because I am just the younger son, I thought that I would avoid being pushed into marriage because it was expedient with some Princess who had no wish to marry me any more than I wished to marry her.”

  Zorina was listening, but there were still tears in her eyes, although she had wiped away those that had run down her cheeks.

  “Then when I saw you,” Rudolf went on, “I thanked my lucky stars that I was of no political importance. I thought it might be difficult to get permission to marry you because I would have to obtain my father’s consent, but I knew that I would fight to do so with every weapon in my power.”

  He paused before he added very movingly,

  “If I was still refused permission, I had already made up my mind that I would denounce my rank and leave Leothia to live somewhere else in the world. And that, Zorina, is how much I love you.”

  Again he hesitated before he asked her,

  “Would you have come with me?”

  Zorina did not hesitate.

  “You – know I would have – done so,” she answered, “and it is just – what I would – like to do now.”

  “Don’t say that,” Rudolf cried, “for God’s sake, don’t say that!”

  He looked away from her as he said,

  “It is what I want to ask you to do, it is what every nerve and instinct in my body tells me I should do – with the exception of one fact that I cannot ignore.”

  “What is – that?” Zorina asked in a whisper.

  “It is that I love my country and I know how essential you are to Leothia at this precise moment.”

  “Because – I am – English?” Zorina asked in a trembling voice.

  “Because you have been chosen by the Queen of Great Britain and because with you comes strength and power and the Union Jack to support and sustain our Monarchy.”

  Zorina gave a little cry and put up her hands to her face.

  “But – why me?” she asked. “Why could not – Mama have married your father? She is English – even more English than I am.”

  She thought, as she spoke, that Rudolf would not answer her.

  Then, as if he forced himself to do so, he responded,

  “My father would prefer a young Queen in order to increase his family, which consists only of two sons. He wants not only to make the succession sure but also to make the Royal Family of Leothia known and respected in other Courts in Europe.”

  For a moment
Zorina did not take in what he was saying.

  Then she realised, as if for the first time, that if she was married to the King, old though he was, he would give her children.

  She was very pure and innocent and had no idea what happened between a man and a woman when they were married.

  She fully recognised that it must be something very intimate and very personal.

  Although she had already felt horrified at the idea of the King kissing her, this was something far more terrifying.

  It was something that she shrank away from so that the fear of it seemed to run through her body like forked lightning.

  Suddenly she sprang to her feet.

  “I cannot do it – I cannot marry him!” she cried out. “How can you – expect me to do anything so – horrible when I – I love you?”

  “We should not be talking like this,” Rudolf cautioned her, “but I suppose it would have happened sooner or later.”

  Zorina did not reply.

  She only stood staring at him as he went on,

  “There is nothing either of us can do but accept our Fate and there is no escape from it.”

  “B-but I cannot – I cannot – do it!” Zorina wailed.

  “You have to,” Rudolf answered. “It is the penalty we pay for being born who we are.”

  He looked at her and then away again before he said,

  “I will take you to my father, but it will be impossible for me to stay to see you married to him and I shall leave the country as soon as it has happened.”

  “Where – will you – go?”

  “Does it matter? Around the world, to the top of the Himalayas, to Africa! Anywhere so long as I am not tempted by being near you, by seeing your beauty and – by hearing your – voice.”

  His own voice broke on the last words.

  He walked towards the window to draw aside the curtain as if he felt that he must have fresh air to breathe.

  After a moment he said and his voice was harsh,

  “Go to bed, Zorina, and try to forget me. I am behaving with a superhuman self-control which you are too young to understand.”

  “I – cannot leave you – like this, Rudolf when we are both so – unhappy.”

  “If you stay, you will try me too far. I am attempting to behave, as the English say, ‘as a gentleman’, but I am not an Englishman, Zorina.”

  He paused as if he was feeling for his words before he carried on,

  “In my country we are capable of great passion and we burn like the heat of the sun.”

  Zorina listened, bewildered, but at the same time deeply moved by the agony in his voice that told her that he was suffering unbearably.

  “I want you!” Rudolf was saying passionately. “I want to hold you in my arms and kiss you until you cry for mercy. I want to light a fire within you from the blazing furnace that consumes me utterly and completely!”

  He made a sound that was almost a sob before he added,

  “This morning, when we were close to each other, I would have sworn before God Himself that we were made for each other and nothing could ever divide us.”

  His voice rose a little and became somewhat louder as he went on,

  “It is too late! Do you hear, Zorina? It is too late and now – for God’s sake – go and leave me alone!”

  Zorina was already trembling.

  His last words were spoken with a desperation that she felt came from the very depths of his heart.

  It made her understand that she must drive him no further.

  With tears running down her cheeks, she stood looking at the back of his dark head and his hand that was clutching the curtain desperately as if for support.

  Then she turned and, moving soundlessly across the room in her slippers, she reached the door.

  As she turned the key in the lock, she looked back and said very softly,

  “I-I love you with – all my heart – and I will never – love anyone else.”

  Then she ran across the corridor and back into her rom.

  She threw herself down onto the bed to cry tempestuously and hopelessly until she was utterly exhausted.

  chapter four

  There was no sign of Rudolf when Zorina left Windsor Castle the next morning with her mother.

  The Princess was obviously excited over the thought of Zorina’s trousseau and could talk of little else.

  She had already arranged through one of the Ladies-in-Waiting that the best dressmakers that were patronised by the Queen should come to Hampton Court for their orders.

  “We must also go to Bond Street,” the Princess told her, “and at long last, dearest, I will see you elegantly dressed as I have always longed for you to be.”

  Zorina wished that she could feel in some way even a little bit enthusiastic about the prospect.

  But all she could think of was the pain in Rudolf’s voice before she had left him last night and of the hopelessness of her future.

  She was certain that he was speaking the truth when he had said that he would not remain in Leothia after she was married to his father.

  Now Zorina thought of how terrifying it would be to have to live in a strange country where there was no one she loved.

  For the first time she realised that everything was already planned and laid out in front of her like a map.

  The glamour had now completely gone and her whole life and future were becoming more and more horrifying.

  “I thought that Prince Rudolf was a charming young man,” the Princess was saying, “and I am sure that he will look after us on the journey out and tell you what to expect when you arrive in Leothia.”

  Zorina did not speak and the Princess chatted on,

  “The Lord Chamberlain told me that we are to travel very grandly with a private coach attached to the Express train and it is a luxury that I shall look forward to myself.”

  She gave a little laugh as she added,

  “I shall most certainly need a new gown for you must not be ashamed of your mother’s appearance.”

  “I could never be ashamed of you,” Zorina answered. “And, Mama, you are so beautiful that I cannot think why you cannot marry the King instead of me.”

  Zorina already knew the answer, but she had spoken spontaneously and wanting to pay her mother a compliment.

  Now, remembering what Rudolf had said about the King wanting more children, she felt herself shudder as if she was very cold.

  “I met an old friend last night,” Princess Louise said as if she was following her own train of thoughts. “He was a young Diplomat when your father and I knew him in Greece.”

  She paused for a moment before she continued,

  “Now he tells me that he has been appointed the new British Ambassador to Leothia.”

  She smiled as she added,

  “That means, if I ask him, I know that he will look after you, dearest, and you can consult him at any time if you are in any difficulty once you have arrived.”

  Zorina thought that the difficulties she would be in would not be a subject that she could discuss with anyone except perhaps with her mother.

  There was no point, however, in saying so and she only felt despairingly that she was being swept along on a vast tidal wave of increasing power.

  And, almost before she was aware of what was happening, she would find herself in Leothia.

  The next few days were so filled with activity over her trousseau that she hardly had time to think and she fell asleep each night almost as soon as her head touched her pillow.

  At the same time every morning before the Princess came downstairs for breakfast she slipped away to the Cartoon Room.

  It was just in case by some miraculous chance Rudolf would be there waiting for her.

  It was a forlorn hope, but still she waited, gazing out of the windows with blind eyes.

  All she could see was Rudolf’s face, hear his voice and feel their vibrations touching each other as they had moved side by side round The Palace.


  ‘I love him! I love him and it would be impossible for me ever to find another man so handsome and attractive!’ Zorina whispered.

  Then she could hear his voice saying,

  “There is nothing either of us can do but accept our Fate that there is no escape from.”

  Yet he loved her.

  She would repeat to herself over and over again when he had breathed to her, his voice deep with passion,

  “I want you! I want to hold you in my arms and kiss you until you cry for mercy. I want to light a fire within you from the blazing furnace that consumes me utterly and completely!”

  This was exactly the love that she had always wanted, the love that was omnipotent and irresistible.

  Instead she had to marry an old man because he wanted more children.

  “You are very pale, dearest,” the Princess chided her. “I know how tiring it is having so many fittings and standing for so long. But think how lovely you will look when you reach Leothia.”

  ‘Lovely for whom?’ Zorina wanted to ask and she naturally knew the answer only too well.

  However, for the first time in her life she found that she was of some importance.

  The Prime Minister, the Marquis of Salisbury, who was also the Foreign Secretary, came to Hampton Court Palace to talk to her.

  To her surprise he told her mother he would like to speak to her alone and she realised that it was because he thought that she might feel rather constrained if there was anyone else present.

  “I believe that Her Majesty the Queen has already explained to you the importance of Leothia as a buffer State between four other countries?” the Marquis began.

  “Yes – my Lord.”

  “It would be a great help if you could impress this factor upon the King.”

  Zorina looked at him in surprise.

  “But – surely His Majesty must be – aware of it already?”

  She had the idea that the Marquis was finding it a little difficult to answer her before he went on,

  “You have heard the saying ‘it is difficult to see the wood for the trees’? In other words, Your Royal Highness, those who are on the outside and a little further away from all the problems of those directly involved in them have a better view of what is going on.”

  Zorina understood what he was trying to say and after a moments reflection she asked him,