A King In Love Page 7

  At the same time, when Zita reached the Palace and went up the side staircase to the schoolroom, she was thinking that if it had been frustrating before not to be allowed to meet the King while he was in the Palace, now it was a thousand times worse.

  All she could do was to think of him downstairs, sitting through a dreary and interminable luncheon, with speeches he would doubtless have heard hundreds of times before.

  If she had been there, she would at least have been able to watch him.

  Perhaps occasionally their eyes would have met and they would have known what each other was thinking.

  She gave a sudden shudder.

  ‘I must be mad,’ she thought, ‘to imagine that he would think of me. Even if I was myself, why should he give me a second glance? The only thing that intrigued him was the fact that I did not look like the usual innkeeper’s daughter and so he was puzzled by the way I could speak three languages.’

  Then she remembered what he had said about her hair and it suddenly struck her that, if he saw her grandmother’s portrait in the Throne Room, he might suspect who she was.

  But there was no reason why he should, because it was not on the programme for him to go to the Throne Room and that was the only place in the Palace where there was a really good portrait of her grandmother.

  ‘This is becoming like a detective story,’ Zita thought, ‘where the villain keeps leaving clues behind and sooner or later is bound to be caught!’

  She felt herself give a little shiver at the idea of her mother eventually finding out what she had done and she was quite certain that the punishment would inevitably fit the crime.

  For the rest of the afternoon she lay on her bed and tried to read a book, but all the time she kept thinking of the King and wondering whether tonight, or perhaps tomorrow, he would send a message to the inn asking her to meet him.

  Just for a moment she played with the fantasy of doing what he asked.

  Then she knew that it would not only be far too dangerous and too complicated, but also from now on she must play fairly and let him concentrate on Sophie.

  Once they were engaged, she would have to swear him to secrecy not to reveal to anybody that he had met his sister-in-law in very unusual circumstances.

  ‘I am sure he will be sportsman enough not to give me away,’ Zita consoled herself and tried hard to concentrate on her book.

  Tonight there was to be the Court ball and she felt it was unlikely that the King would think there was any chance for him to see her at the inn or anywhere else and he would be obliged to dance in the flower-filled ballroom downstairs until at least one o’clock in the morning.

  That was the usual time, she had learnt from the Lord Chamberlain, that her mother liked her parties to end and, when the National Anthem had been played, there would be nothing else the guests could do but go home.

  A rather unappetising dinner was brought upstairs to Zita.

  Baroness Mekszath, who was very much under the Grand Duchess’s thumb, looked in twice during the day to see if Zita was all right.

  When Zita said she was, she hurried away thankfully to return to the festivities downstairs.

  Her last visit was just before dinner and she came into Zita’s room in her best evening gown, a small tiara on her greying hair and a look of excitement on her face, which was unusual.

  “What is happening?” Zita enquired.

  “Oh, it is all very thrilling, Your Royal Highness!” the Baroness replied. “His Majesty is the most handsome man you have ever seen.”

  “What does Sophie think of him?”

  The Baroness hesitated for a moment before she answered,

  “I think Her Royal Highness is a little shy. She sat next to him at luncheon, but they did not seem to have much to say to each other and I thought that His Majesty was somewhat preoccupied.”

  “In what way?”

  The Baroness found it difficult to reply.

  “To tell the truth, His Majesty did not seem to be making much effort,” she said. “My mother always said that whatever company you find yourself in – ”

  The Baroness was off on another of the rambling stories of her youth, but Zita was not listening.

  She was thinking that, if she had been at the luncheon, she would have found a great deal to say to the King, the most important issue being his attitude towards Germany.

  After that she could think of nothing more interesting than to talk to him about his horses and compare them with the ones he would see in Aldross.

  It was obvious that the Baroness had no wish to stay upstairs when she might be enjoying herself below and she soon left Zita, advising her to go to bed early.

  ‘I don’t have much choice!’ Zita thought drily.

  She refused the last course the footmen brought her and, walking petulantly across her room, she wondered what would happen if she went downstairs to peep through the ballroom window.

  She knew that if she did so and was seen, her mother would be furiously angry.

  She then played with the idea of putting on her best gown, which was green to match her eyes, and walking into the ballroom to say that after all she had decided to join the party.

  She could imagine the consternation this would cause and the anger in her mother’s eyes and the hatred in Sophie’s.

  ‘Even Papa would look at me with disgust,’ Zita told herself and decided again that it would be an unsporting thing to do.

  For if the King did not propose to Sophie, Zita would be reproached over and over again for all eternity for having prevented him from doing so.

  Finally, when she had flung the novel she was reading across the room because it was so boring, she climbed into bed and extinguished the candles.

  Far away in the distance she thought she could hear the sound of music and, because she could not close her ears to it, she pretended that she was waltzing with the King.

  As he held her in his arms, she could feel them vibrating to each other so that the music came not only from the violins but also from their hearts.

  Chapter Four

  It was impossible to sleep and after a while Zita drew back the curtains from her bedroom window and looked up at the stars, wondering what Fate and the future held for her.

  She knew that because of her position in life, however much she fought against it, sooner or later she would have to accept a marriage which was advantageous to her country or politically expedient in one way or another.

  Ever since she was a child she had had it drummed into her that being Royal had great responsibilities.

  She knew now that what her mother had really been saying was that, as a Royal Princess, her only service was to make a marriage that would be an advantage to Aldross.

  Therefore, when she had imagined love and dreamt about it, Zita had seen herself not as a Princess but as an ordinary girl, as she was unable to be in real life.

  The man of her dreams was faceless and not of Royal birth.

  She had told herself stories in which the man she loved was Hungarian, a magnificent rider, and a man with whom she danced wildly to gypsy music, or galloped over the Steppes side by side with him into an indefinable horizon.

  Alternatively she would imagine that she fell in love with an Englishman who owned fine horses. They would watch them win the Derby or the Gold Cup at Ascot and, walking beside him, she would lead their horse into the unsaddling enclosure.

  Both her father and her mother had told her what happened at race meetings in England and how their organisation and setting were superior to those in any other country in the world.

  She had also imagined a large impressive Georgian mansion, which her husband would own and they would live there quietly, training their horses and playing only a very small part in the affairs of the country.

  This was the life her mother had lived as an obscure member of Queen Victoria’s family until it had been decided that she would marry the Grand Duke of Aldross.

  “Tell me more about
your childhood, Mama,” Zita would plead.

  When she was young, the Grand Duchess had talked both to her and to Sophie in a human and revealing manner.

  It was only when Zita grew so pretty that her mother pushed her aside and kept her confidential reminiscences for her favourite elder daughter.

  There was one nationality that never figured in Zita’s dreams and that was the French.

  Although she was fascinated by the descriptions of the beauty of Paris and its gaiety and extravagant glamour, she had learnt from Madame Goutier that nearly all Frenchmen had arranged marriages.

  These were socially advantageous to their families and a wife’s dowry was of tremendous importance, but also married men regularly had mistresses, who were kept entirely apart from their family life.

  At the same time such women were considered of equal significance in contributing to a man’s happiness.

  ‘I would hate that!’ Zita thought.

  It flashed through her mind that Sophie would find it humiliating if she ever learnt that the King, like so many Frenchmen, had a wife in public and a mistress in private.

  ‘Perhaps Sophie, because she is rather stupid, will never find out,’ Zita thought consolingly.

  Equally she felt what was almost a disgust at the idea of the King, or any other man, leading a double life.

  Now her thoughts were of her father and mother, and she knew, although it might be wrong of her, that her sympathy was entirely with her father.

  ‘Mama is so cold and Papa likes warm, laughing, extroverted women,’ she thought.

  She tried to imagine her father kissing her mother passionately and found it impossible. In fact she could not think of her mother as passionate in any way, except with anger.

  Even then, because she was English, the Grand Duchess had an almost inviolate control over her feelings.

  When she was really incensed with one of her daughters or anybody else, she only grew stiff until she appeared to be made of marble and her voice was cold like the ice that covered the lakes in winter.

  She was very unlike the people of Aldross, who, if they were angry, raged, screamed and threw things at one another!

  The next moment they would put out their arms and, with tears of contrition in their eyes, kiss passionately and insistently to wipe away any unhappiness they might have caused.

  ‘I am sure life is much easier like that,’ Zita reflected.

  She remembered how often she had been punished as a child for losing her temper or for saying what she thought.

  “Royalty do not show emotion,” the Grand Duchess had said over and over again. “Royalty do not cry in public – Royalty hide their feelings behind a mask.”

  “Why? Why? Why?” Zita had enquired, until she was cowed into not arguing with her mother or with her Governesses, who voiced the same admonishments.

  Once she had even stamped her foot and shouted,

  “I hate being a Royal Princess! I am going to run away and live with the gypsies and you will never see me again!”

  She had run from the room and even went as far as leaving the Palace, determined never to return.

  But, she had been brought back and sent to bed for the rest of the day with only bread and water for supper.

  She did not feel repentant, but she had learnt that it was more prudent not to express her feelings so volubly but to keep them to herself.

  All these thoughts brought her back to the King and she told herself that, although it was very exciting to talk to him and it would be even more thrilling to flirt with him, she was very sorry for Sophie.

  ‘If she falls in love with him as Mama did with Papa,’ Zita thought, ‘she will sit in the Palace with an aching heart while the King is visiting La Belle, or somebody like her, or having a very important ‘diplomatic engagement’ in Paris.’

  She wanted to laugh at the idea, then insidiously, almost as if somebody was whispering in her ear, she thought that whatever the suffering afterwards, it might be worthwhile for Sophie if she was made love to by the King rather than the stolid Margrave of Baden-Baden.

  Zita looked up at the sky and realised that she had been thinking for so long that the stars were not now as bright as they had been.

  Because dawn came earlier at this time of the year, very soon there would be the first glow of morning on the other side of the mountains.

  She decided that she would ride as she had yesterday morning, but today there was no hurry because everybody in the Palace would be exhausted after the ball last night.

  She dressed slowly, putting on the full skirt of a very becoming light green riding habit and wearing with it a thin muslin blouse inset with bands of lace and a jacket to match.

  It made Zita look very fresh and young and, because she had no intention of wearing a riding hat since no one would see her, she merely brushed her long red hair until it seemed to dance as if it had a life of its own.

  She then tied it at the base of her neck with a green satin ribbon.

  By the time she was ready, a glow was rising in the sky and turning the snow on the peaks to gold.

  Zita walked through the Palace by the same route she had taken the day before, unbolted the side door, which was the nearest she could get to the stables, and went outside.

  She noticed that since the King had arrived the number of sentries had been increased and, when she had saddled Pegasus, she realised that it would be impossible to leave the Palace grounds by any of the main gates.

  She therefore guided him through the trees until in front of them was a five-barred gate which was the entrance used by the gardeners.

  There were no sentries on duty there and, while the gate was padlocked, it did not constitute a serious obstacle for Pegasus. He jumped the gate with ease and with a good six inches to spare.

  Then they were trotting down back lanes and uninhabited ways towards the meadowlands that Zita was sure were very like the Steppes of Hungary, which she had always longed to see.

  By the time she reached the valley the early morning mist was just beginning to rise and she felt as if she was riding into a mythical world of dreams that had nothing to do with the Palace and the world she had left behind her.

  Because she had so much time on her hands, she took Pegasus gently through the mist until it began to vanish altogether and now she could see the brilliance of the flowers.

  As the first rays of the sun came over the peaks, they filled the whole valley with a golden glow.

  It was so beautiful that it made Zita wish she could show it to the King and challenge him to produce anything so lovely in his own country.

  Then, as she thought of him lying asleep in the Palace, some instinct made her look back over her shoulder and she saw in the distance a man riding towards her.

  She stopped and thought with a sudden sense of apprehension that she had been seen leaving the stables and somebody had been sent to bring her back.

  Then, as the rider came a little nearer, she had an idea that seemed completely incredible and, yet with every stride of his horse towards her, she became convinced that it was in fact the King.

  For some reason, which she could not explain to herself, she waited for him.

  Then, when she saw that her supposition was true and it was the King riding a huge black stallion not unlike Pegasus, a sudden gleam of mischief came into her green eyes.

  She knew that he had seen her, knew he was spurring his horse in order to catch up with her and she waited just a few seconds longer before she touched Pegasus with her whip and started him off at a gallop.

  She knew that it was what Pegasus had been wanting ever since they had come from the Palace and he moved so swiftly that it seemed as if his hoofs scarcely touched the ground.

  Zita realised that this was a challenge that no rider like the King could resist.

  Without looking back, she was aware that he was galloping too, striving by every means in his power to catch up with her.

  She was determined th
at he should not do so and yet she could hear his stallion coming nearer and nearer until finally they were galloping side by side at a speed that Zita knew she had never reached before in all her years on horseback.

  They rode for a long way and, as she glanced at him, Zita was aware that he rode better than any other man she had ever seen and that included her father, who was exceptional.

  The King seemed part of his horse and she knew that just as his stallion was magnificent, so was he.

  They rode until the speed of their gallop seemed to snatch the breath from their lips.

  Then, as if they communicated without words, they both gradually reined in their horses, which were as breathless as their riders.

  Zita turned a laughing face to the King.

  “A dead heat, I think, Your Majesty! Or must I, as a woman, concede to you the victory?”

  “I will accept that we are both the victors,” the King replied, “but I would like to know how it is possible that a mere woman can ride so well.”

  Zita laughed and the sound seemed to ring out in the quiet of the morning.

  The King pulled his stallion to a halt before he said,

  “Your horse is superb. To whom does he belong?”

  “He is mine,” Zita replied, “and as you can imagine, I love him very much.”

  “As doubtless you love the person who gave him to you.”

  There was a note in the King’s voice that she found jarring.

  She looked at him for an explanation and he added,

  “As the gentleman in question is obviously wealthy, it seems extraordinary that he should allow you to work at an inn.”

  Zita smiled, wondering what she should reply and the King asked harshly,

  “What does this man mean to you? Do you love him as you love his horse?”

  Zita was so astonished at the question that for a moment she only looked at the King in a bewildered fashion before she understood exactly what he was implying.

  Then, as she was aware that what he was saying classed her with La Belle and the other women with whom he was rumoured to associate, her chin went up defiantly.

  “As I consider what you have said offensive, Your Majesty,” she said coldly, “I will leave you.”