The Incredible Honeymoon (Bantam Series No. 46) Page 8

  In the spring there had been a spirit of content over the whole Continent which had not been seen for many years.

  Only two weeks ago the new British Foreign Secretary Lord Granville, had said blithely to the Duke that there was ‘not a cloud in the sky’.

  Peace was everywhere except, the Duke had learnt, that it was the hottest summer in memory and there were reports of droughts in several parts of France which had the peasants praying for rain.

  It was the sort of crisis he was used to in Hertfordshire and to find the French newspapers filled with news of an incipient war had in fact astounded him.

  The Duke was quite certain that the Emperor, whom he had known for many years, in fact since he was exiled in England, had no wish for war. But he was to learn that the Emperor was being pushed hard into being aggressive by his heavy-handed Foreign Secretary, the Due de Graumont.

  His hatred of the Prussians was a personal issue because he had never forgotten Bismarck for calling him ‘the stupidest man in Europe!”

  When the Duke, deprived of Antonia’s company, had sought an aperitif in the Palais Royal before luncheon, he had met several acquaintances who were only too anxious to discuss the political situation.

  “It is the Empress who is determined we shall attack Germany,” one of them said. “I have myself heard her declare dramatically as she pointed to the Prince Imperial: “ ‘This child will never reign unless we repair the misfortunes of Sadowa!’ ”

  “I understood the Emperor was not well,” the Duke remarked.

  “He is not,” was the answer. “He has begun to suffer the tortures of the damned from a stone in the bladder.”

  “In which case I think it extremely unlikely that you will go to war,” the Duke replied.

  He felt however that his friends were not convinced and as he sat in the Cafe Anglais reading Le Figaro he realised that the editorial articles and news items were extremely inflammatory and obviously intended to whip up the flames of bellicosity.

  “Thank goodness England will not be involved whatever happens!” the Duke thought to himself.

  He was aware that Britain was, if anything pro-German as was most of Europe.

  The Queen with her German relatives was inevitably more inclined to favour the Prussians than the Emperor Louis Napoleon, of whose personal behaviour and his irrepressible Capital she had always disapproved.

  “I am sure the whole thing will blow over,” the Duke told himself, “and like so many other war-scares will end in nothing but a few diplomatic insults.”

  He put down the newspaper and looked again at his watch.

  He could not help thinking that if there was a danger of keeping the horses waiting rather than himself Antonia would have been here by now.

  The Cafe Anglais, which was the smartest and the most famous restaurant in Paris, was filling up.

  There were a great number of men having luncheon alone because it was near the Bourse, but there were also some very attractive women.

  They were all wearing the new gowns which had a suggestion of a bustle and were swept back from the front of the body so that the wearer looked like the figure-head on a ship.

  Or, as someone put it more poetically, ‘like a goddess moving forward against the wind!’

  The crinoline had been discarded two years earlier, and although it was still worn in London, in Paris there was not a sign to show it had ever existed.

  Instead there was a profusion of beautiful women, so elegant, so chic that the Duke wondered why a man would wish to spend his time and amuse himself in any other Capital.

  He had found for himself some years ago how alluring Paris could be.

  The only demand was for ‘pleasure’, a criterion set by the Emperor, who never refused the temptation of a new and pretty face.

  Louis Napoleon was in fact notorious not only for his love-affairs, but also for his charm and gallantry. Even Queen Victoria had attested to this when she had written:

  “With such a man one can never for a moment feel safe!”

  It was, however, not safety which men and women sought in Paris, and the great Courtesans of the period had spent more money and established themselves as having more power and fewer morals than in any other period in history.

  Immense fortunes passed through the hands of the demi-mondaines. Even Egyptian Beys could be ruined in a matter of two weeks.

  The Emperor was said to have given the lovely Comtesse de Castiglione a pearl necklace costing 432,000 francs besides 50,000 a month pin-money, while Lord Hertford, who was reputed to be the meanest man in Paris, had given her a million for the pleasure of one night in which she promised to abandon herself to every known volupté.

  The Duke had found it all very amusing on his various visits to Paris, and it did not in fact, he remembered, cost him anything like the large sums expended by his fellow-countrymen.

  He was not a particularly conceited man, but he did know that the women with whom he had spent his time had welcomed him for himself and were in fact not interested in what he might give them otherwise.

  He was just about to draw his watch once again from his waist-coat pocket, when he saw the occupants at other tables near him turn their heads in the direction of the doorway.

  The Maître d’hôtel was speaking to a lady who had just arrived, and although she was some way from the Duke he noticed, as obviously the other gentlemen around him were doing, that she had an exquisite figure.

  Dressed in a gown of vivid flamingo pink with touches of white which gave it an indescribable chic, it revealed the perfect curves of her breasts and the smallness of her waist before it swept to the ground in a flutter of frills.

  As she walked down the restaurant she was the object of every masculine eye, and the Duke could not help ejaculating to himself:

  “God! What a figure!”

  He was watching the way she moved and it was not until she had almost reached his table that he realised incredulously that the woman he had been admiring was not a stranger and not French—but Antonia!

  The Maître d’hôtel pulled out a chair for her and only then did the Duke rise to his feet, an unconcealed expression of astonishment on his face.

  Although he knew that Antonia had large eyes, he had never before realised quite how huge they were or that they filled her small face, which was set on a long, beautifully rounded neck.

  Now with her hair swept up in a fashion not yet known in London which gave her a new height, she looked entirely different from the dowdy, insignificant young woman he had brought with him to Paris.

  There was something indescribably alluring in the tiny hat perched forward on the very top of her head which consisted of little more than ribbons of the same colour as her gown and a few small white roses.

  The angle at which it was set and the shadowy darkness of her hair gave her a piquancy and fascination, while as to her gown...

  The Duke glanced again at the perfection of his wife’s body, and wondered if he ought to resent the fact that it was obvious to every other man in the room besides himself.

  “I did not realise it was you at first,” he said.

  Antonia’s face lit up with a smile.

  “That is what I hoped you would say. I do not feel in the least like ... me!”

  “It is a transformation!”

  “Monsieur Worth has been very kind. He did not wish to see me at first as he is tired and intends leaving the country in a few days.”

  “How did you persuade him?” the Duke enquired, still so bemused by Antonia’s appearance that he found it hard to collect his thoughts.

  She laughed.

  “I was ready to go down on my knees in front of him, but when he saw me he was so horrified at my appearance that I think he considered it a challenge!”

  Antonia sighed contentedly.

  “I am so glad you are pleased.”

  “I suppose I am,” the Duke replied. “At the same time I can see that from now on my role of husband is g
oing to be rather different from what I had envisaged!”

  He did not have to explain to Antonia what he meant for she exclaimed delightedly:

  “That is a compliment and the first you have paid me!”

  “Have I really been so remiss?” the Duke enquired.

  “You have had nothing to compliment me about,” she said, “and do not bother to tell me how terrible I looked! Monsieur Worth has said it both in French and in English!” She gave a little laugh before she went on:

  “What is so exciting is that he is coming to England in a month’s time and he has already begun to plan a winter trousseau for me. I only hope you are as rich as you are reputed to be!”

  “I can see that sooner or later it is going to be a choice between clothes and horses!” the Duke said.

  “That is unkind!” Antonia flashed at him. “You know quite well which I should choose!”

  It was strange, the Duke thought, as the day progressed, that instead of sitting and talking seriously to Antonia as he had done previously, he now found it quite easy to flirt with his own wife!

  It was absurd that clothes should make so much difference, but he knew that instead of being an unfledged country-girl with whom he had nothing in common but horses, she had now in her Worth gown assumed an aura of glamour.

  And yet her eyes were still very innocent and he found himself watching them reflecting her reaction to everything that happened and to everything he said to her.

  After luncheon they called on some friends the Duke had known on his last visit and inevitably the conversation was of war.

  “I do not mind telling you, Duke,” one of the guests said pompously, “that I have taken a very large wager that war will be declared, if not to-night, to-morrow!”

  “Are you not worried?” Antonia asked.

  The Frenchman who had spoken smiled.

  “Here in Paris we are as safe as, how do you say, in your country—the Bank of England!” he answered. “And it will only be a few days before our magnificent Army puts those Prussians, once and for all, in their proper place!”

  “I have heard that their troops are well trained,” the Duke said, “and the railways in Germany in recent years have been planned with a particular eye to Military needs.”

  “We have something far more important,” the Frenchman replied. “We have a destructive device in the cartridge-firing chassepot rifle which has nearly twice the range of the Dreyse ‘needle-gun’. And we also have a secret weapon called the mitrailleuse.”

  “What is that?” someone asked.

  “It is a gun consisting of a bundle of twenty-five barrels which by turning a handle can be fired off in very rapid succession.”

  The speaker gave a loud laugh.

  “The Germans have no answer to that!”

  The Duke said nothing, but he was thinking that he had heard of a steel breech-loading cannon which Herr Krupp had made for Prussia but which at the time the French military leaders had refused to take seriously.

  When they drove back to their house from the Reception Antonia asked:

  “You do not think there will be a war?”

  “I hope not,” the Duke replied. “But if there is it will not be fought here, but in Germany.”

  “Do you think the French can advance without the Germans stopping them?”

  “That is what they believe,” the Duke replied.

  He had already told Antonia they were dining that night with the Marquise de Barouche before a Ball that she was giving in her magnificent Chateau near the Bois.

  As she changed for dinner Antonia was not only thrilled with the wonderful gown that Worth had delivered for her to wear, but also the fact that she had a French maid.

  It was one more arrangement which had been made by the Courier who had gone ahead of them. He had engaged a French woman so that Antonia would be properly looked after when she arrived in Paris.

  It was typical, she thought, that everything that concerned the Duke was meticulously planned down to the very smallest detail.

  She knew that when she returned to England Mr. Graham would have engaged an English maid to look after her and one who was experienced in attending to riding-habits.

  The French maid was vivacious and very efficient.

  She chatted away gaily as she arranged Antonia’s hair in the manner the Coiffeur had done who had come to Monsieur Worth’s while he was fitting Antonia into the gown in which she had dazzled the Duke at luncheon.

  “For no other lady, however important or grand she might be, Your Grace, would I put myself to such trouble,” Monsieur Worth had said.

  “Then why am I so honoured, Monsieur?” Antonia had enquired.

  “Because, Your Grace, I am English, like yourself, and I am fed up with the French always expecting an Englishwoman to look dowdy, ungainly and to have protruding teeth, as most of them do!”

  They had both laughed but Antonia knew it was not only patriotism which made the great man take so much trouble. She also, as she had told the Duke, presented a challenge he could not resist.

  “Why did I never realise,” she asked herself as she looked in the mirror, “that I had such a good figure?”

  She knew the answer was that her mother would have been outraged by the thought of her being conceited about anything so immodest.

  Her long neck, her ears which were perfectly shell-shaped, her huge eyes, now they were fully revealed by the up-swept darkness of her hair, were all new and exciting discoveries.

  When she went into the Salon where the Duke was waiting to take her out to dinner, wearing a gown of golden orange tulle, glittering with diamante and ornamented with mimosa, she felt for the first time in her life glamorous and romantic.

  She saw the glint of admiration in the Duke’s eyes as he looked at her, and as she walked towards him she felt she was on a stage waiting for the plaudits of the audience.

  “Do you approve?” she asked as he did not speak.

  Now there was a touch of anxiety in her eyes.

  “I am very proud to be your escort!” he answered and saw the colour come into her cheeks because she was so delighted by his reply.

  If she had any doubts left they were soon dispelled by the compliments that were paid to her by the dinner-party guests and the flirtatious attitude of both of her partners at dinner.

  “You are enchanting—fascinating!”

  “I would never have believed that a star could fall from the sky so early in the evening!”

  Antonia told herself that she might have found such exaggeration incredible but despite her inexperience of men she could not help realising that their admiration was sincere.

  In fact as soon as the Ball opened she was besieged with partners in a way which made her realise that this was an experience very different from anything that had ever happened to her before.

  She returned to the Duke’s side after waltzing with a handsome and ardent young Diplomat.

  “You are enjoying yourself?” he asked.

  “It is wonderful! More wonderful than I could ever have imagined!” Antonia replied. “But I would like...”

  She was about to say that she would like to dance with him, when their conversation was interrupted by a cry of joy.

  “Athol! Mon Brave! Why did no-one tell me you were in Paris?”

  An entrancingly pretty woman was holding out both hands to the Duke and looking up into his face in a manner which proclaimed all too obviously her interest in him.

  “Ludevica!” the Duke exclaimed. “I heard that you had returned to Vienna.”

  “We went—we came back!” the lady answered. “I missed you—Hélas! How I missed you!”

  She spoke in a fascinating manner which seemed to make every word have a hidden meaning, both intimate and provocative.

  She was holding both the Duke’s hands in hers and as if he suddenly remembered Antonia’s existence, he said:

  “I am here on my honeymoon and we have only just arrived. May I pres
ent my wife—Madame La Comtesse de Rezonville.”

  The nod that Antonia received was so brief as to be almost insulting. Then the Comtesse was holding onto the Duke’s arm and looking up into his eyes.

  She made it obvious that whatever they had meant to each other in the past, her feelings at any rate were unchanged.

  Because she felt embarrassed and at a loss how to behave in such circumstances Antonia glanced round the ballroom and almost immediately her next partner was at her side.

  She allowed herself to be escorted onto the dance-floor only to look back and see the Duke with the Comtesse hanging onto his arm disappearing through one of the open windows which led into the garden.

  There were Chinese lanterns hanging from the branches of the trees, but otherwise the shadows were dark.

  As Antonia had already discovered, there were small arbours discreetly arranged where there were soft cushioned seats and the reassurance that anything that was said could not be overheard.

  She could not help feeling that even if the Duke had not asked her to dance he might have taken her into the garden.

  If the Marchioness had been present, that was where, she was quite certain, they would have ended up.

  She gave a little sigh, then thought to herself that if the Duke had been thinking of the Marchioness while they were on their way to Paris and perhaps earlier to-day, he would certainly not be thinking of her now!

  Never had Antonia seen anyone quite so fascinating as the Comtesse de Rezonville.

  She gathered from the reference to Vienna that she was in fact Viennese. Her hair was certainly the deep, dark red beloved of the Austrian women who all wished to look like their beautiful Empress.

  Yet her eyes were dark, almost purple in their depths, while at the same time they sparkled as everything about her had seemed to glitter and shimmer.

  She had made Antonia feel that however elegantly she might be dressed in a Worth creation there was something lacking inside herself which the Comtesse had in superabundance.

  “You are very pensive,” her partner said, breaking in on her thoughts.

  “I was thinking,” Antonia replied.

  “I wish it could be of me!”