The Protection of Love Page 8
“Why?” Meta enquired.
“Because it degrades a man if his wife has more money than he and my title is not large enough to compensate for not being able to pay the bills.”
Meta knew exactly what he was saying.
She had understood that in London and in other parts of the world that he had enjoyed himself with women who were safely married and they were either the same age as himself or even a little older.
She thought about it and decided that, to Richard, life was a game.
He accepted what the Gods might bring him, but did not take it all too seriously.
The women enjoyed being with him as he appreciated their beauty and their expertise.
When he left them, there were no hard feelings and certainly no recriminations.
‘That is the life that suits Richard,’ Meta told herself when he went away to London and left her alone.
But what was happening now was something very different.
Nathlia was very young and, although she seemed sophisticated, she was still, in English eyes, more or less a schoolgirl.
Richard would be twenty-seven on his next birthday. |
He had in many ways been older than his years because he was so clever.
He had travelled a great deal and met a great many distinguished and interesting people.
‘I am sure he could never really be in love with someone as young as Nathlia,’ Meta told herself.
She was, however, a little uncertain.
Worst of all there was the shadow of darkness over both the Prince and his sister and this made it imperative that Richard should not become too closely associated with them.
‘Eventually,’ Meta reflected, ‘he will have to have them arrested and deported from the country.’
It will be extremely reprehensible for him to be on anything but friendly terms because he is renting The Manor to them.
Then she thought of how exquisitely the Prince played the piano.
How was it possible that any man who could do that so well could be spying for anyone so despicable and wicked as Czar Alexander III?
It was a question that she could not answer in any way.
Yet it was there at the back of her mind not only when she had time to think at night but in the daytime as well.
When she was riding with the Prince, she was vividly conscious of how well he handled his stallion and how well he jumped.
He looked like a God from Mount Olympus as he galloped across the flat land beyond the stables.
‘He is unique,’ Meta told herself.
Before she fell asleep she was wanting the night to pass by quickly so that she could ride with him again.
The evening after they had spent a comparatively quiet day with no visitors, Nathlia said that she wanted to play chess.
“Are you good at it?” Richard enquired.
“I will challenge you,” Nathlia answered, “and if I win, you must give me a present and if you win, I will give you one.”
“Agreed,” Richard affirmed.
Meta brought out the chessboard, which was very old and one of the treasures handed down from one of their ancestors. All the pieces were made of ivory inlaid with beautiful mother-of-pearl and exquisitely carved by a Chinese craftsman
When Nathlia saw it, she clapped her hands together.
“That is the sort of thing we have in Russia,” she said. “I did not expect to see it here.”
“Now you are being somewhat rude,” Richard complained. “We pride ourselves here on having many antique treasures in England, but perhaps they are not so Oriental as those you have in your own country.”
He sounded as if he was rebuking her, but Nathlia laughed at him.
“Stop being pompous,” she urged, “and, while you are boasting about your chess set, we will see if you are clever enough to beat me with it.”
While they were talking to each other, the Prince unexpectedly took hold of Meta’s hand.
He took her out of the drawing room and down the passage.
She realised that they were heading for the ballroom.
“I composed something during the night,” he said, “which I want you to hear.”
“How exciting,” Meta answered. “Is it a dance?”
“Wait until you hear it,” the Prince suggested.
The ballroom was in darkness and so they lit a number of the candles.
Then he moved to sit down at the piano.
But first of all he arranged a chair for Meta, not beside him, but in front of him.
“I want to watch your face as I play,” he said, “which will tell me honestly whether you are pleased or disappointed without you having to put it into words.”
Meta sat down on the soft cushions of the chair.
The Prince then began playing very quietly.
As he did so, without him saying anything, she knew that what he composed had been written for her.
She felt that it was a compliment and yet very much more than that.
The music was perfect and it was also very moving.
She felt as if the Prince was actually speaking to her and telling her, although it seemed incredible, how much he admired her and how much she meant to him.
She knew too that there was something more, but she dare not put it into words.
All the time he was playing, he was gazing at her.
Because she felt shy, she did not look directly into his eyes.
Yet she was acutely aware of him.
The expressive melody he was playing seemed to seep into her body and move through her veins and, if she was truthful, into her heart.
Then, somewhat unexpectedly, the last notes seemed to sink very softly into silence and come to an abrupt end.
Meta knew that he had now finished his piece.
At last she looked up into his eyes.
“You know without my telling you,” he said in his deep voice, “why I have written this.”
“It is very – beautiful,” Meta answered him.
“That is what I try to put into my music,” he smiled.
“It is wonderful and really brilliant. How could you possibly not want the world to hear anything so perfect?” Meta asked.
There was a little twist to the Prince’s lips as he replied,
“I do not want to betray my private thoughts to the populace. This was composed for you and you alone and I like to think that only you will understand and appreciate it.”
Meta did not know what to say to him.
She could only look up at him, feeling that her heart was beating in an unusual manner in her breast.
There were no words that could come to her lips.
“You are very lovely, Meta,” the Prince said in a strange voice. “And too lovely for any man’s peace of mind. That is why what I have just played to you will never be written down and I doubt if I will ever play it again.”
With that he rose from the music stool and closed down the piano.
To Meta’s astonishment he then walked over the ballroom, out of the open window and into the garden.
He disappeared into the night and she was left alone.
For some minutes she did not move.
She felt that she was completely hypnotised by the music that she had heard and stunned by the Prince’s behaviour.
‘How could he do this to me?’ she asked herself.
She knew only too well that her whole being had responded to what he had played to her.
It had, she sensed, come from the very depths of his being.
‘It is because he is Russian,’ she tried to think, but knew that it was much more than that.
There was no question of nationality between them. It was a man speaking to a woman and a woman responding to a man.
She sat looking at the open window and was wondering if he would come back.
Then she knew that it would be a mistake if he did.
They had both been swept away into an ecstasy of sound.
Now it was impossible to think clearly or to express what they had felt in words.
Meta rose from the chair and, crossing the room went out into the passage.
She hoped that, when the Prince returned, he would blow out the candles.
Then she realised that even to think of it meant that she was now coming back from the dreamland that he had taken her into and to reality.
He said that he would never play the music again and she would never listen to it again.
It meant too much and made her forget all the difficulties and problems that surrounded him.
She did not go back to the drawing room, although she was sure that Richard and Nathlia were still there.
She went slowly up the stairs to her own bedroom.
Then she stood at the window, looking out at the multitude of stars overhead.
Somewhere in the garden she was sure that the Prince was doing the same.
Instinctively they both knew that they could not, and indeed should not, look at the stars together.
‘What has – happened? What are – we – doing?’ Meta asked herself.
She knew the answer only too clearly, but dared not express it.
Now she was frightened – frightened for the Prince and for herself.
If she felt like this about him now, what would she feel like if she and Richard had to betray him to the Prime Minister?
‘We cannot do it. It is – something – we just cannot do,’ she murmured.
At the same time they were acting under a Royal Command.
If, as the Queen suspected, the Prince was a part of some Russian threat to England or to England’s possessions, how could either she or Richard turn traitor to the country they loved?
It was agonising to think about it.
Suddenly she put her hands over her eyes.
She could not go on looking at the stars and not hear again that incredibly lovely music seeping into her consciousness and in its own way taking possession of her body.
‘What – can we do? What – can I – do?’
The questions seemed to ring out loudly in her ears.
There was no answer as far as she could see and, as far as she could think, there was no obvious solution.
She walked across the room and threw herself down on the bed.
She had not cried for a long time.
Not since her mother had died.
Now the tears came readily because she was not only afraid for the Prince but also afraid of love.
Chapter Five
Invitations came rolling in.
And it seemed to Meta as if they never had a single moment to themselves.
They rushed off somewhere to see someone’s horses or friends came to ride with them.
There were luncheons, dinner parties and dances all lined up.
Everyone in Leicestershire now wanted to meet the Prince and Princess and the word had gone around how attractive they both were.
Also Meta knew that a great number of people who had been very fond of her father and mother were eager to show her and Richard that they had not been forgotten.
It meant, she thought, that she never had time to think or to be with the Prince.
They all rode together in the morning and were trying out the new horses one by one.
Richard found another local owner who was ready to sell several outstanding stallions.
“I think you will have to go in for breeding mares,” the Prince remarked.
Richard looked at him in consternation.
“We cannot do so much so quickly,” he said. “Give me time until I have the estate in a better shape.”
The Prince was obviously eager to help him.
When Richard went off to see the farms, the Prince went with him.
It took Meta a little while to realise that the Prince was avoiding her as she thought that she ought to avoid him.
Then she was hurt because she wanted desperately to be with him and knew that there was no one who could take his place.
She had always thought that love would come to her softly, gently and be rapturously magic.
Instead she felt on edge, worried and anxious.
When the Prince was there, it was more of a pain than a pleasure.
She kept asking herself what she should do if they had to denounce him as a spy.
Strangely enough he seemed more carefree than he had been ever since he had come to The Manor.
There was, however, no question of Nathlia and him going to London.
They were content to enjoy themselves with their host and hostess and with new country friends.
There was no doubt that Nathlia was a wild success with the young men in the County.
The number seemed to Meta to increase day by day and anyone who met her at a dance came calling the next morning.
They had obviously bullied their parents until the hospitality they had received at The Manor was reciprocated.
Yet all the time something within Meta was crying out for the Prince.
She so wanted to be alone with him.
She could not understand why, having played her the music which told her what he felt for her, he had shut the door firmly between them.
She could no longer come near him.
‘Why? why? why?’ she asked herself. ‘What have I done? What have I said?’
The servants the Prince had brought with him seemed to have settled down in the house and in the stables without any obvious difficulty.
Forster said that Feodor was excellent with the horses and Bell had no complaints about Serge.
They certainly caused no trouble.
As everyone in the house was very busy with the parties, they just seemed to be a part of the whole organisation.
The previous night Meta, Nathlia, Richard and the Prince had all been to a very amusing party given by Henry Thornton’s parents.
There had been about forty people there.
After dinner other neighbours had come to dance in a large drawing room, which had been emptied of furniture for the occasion.
The local band had played quite well.
They were, to their own surprise, suddenly in demand from a number of houses that had never paid any attention to them before.
Because she knew that it was going to be a smart evening, Meta had acknowledged that she needed a new gown.
She had worn the ones she already had so often that she admitted that she was bored with them herself.
With some difficulty she persuaded Nathlia to go into Leicester with her to visit Madame Rosa.
She was aware that Nathlia was hoping to be with Richard.
He had announced that he and the Prince were riding out to one of the more distant farms on his estate.
They were also intending to visit Lord Waterton, who had sent a message to say that he had a horse or two for sale.
It was Richard who said firmly to Nathlia,
“You must go and help Meta to choose a pretty gown. It is your fault that she is asked to so many parties.”
“They are your friends,” Nathlia retorted.
“I know,” Richard replied, “but then you are someone who is new and that, of course, is an irresistible attraction.”
“Just because I am new or because I am me?” Nathlia asked.
Richard’s eyes twinkled as he replied,
“You know the answer to that without me saying it.”
“But I want you to say it,” she insisted almost petulantly.
“I have a feeling,” Richard said slowly, “that you are getting spoilt. It would be such a pity because, when you first came from Russia, you were grateful for small mercies and not greedy for big ones.”
Nathlia made a grimace at him.
“Now you are definitely being unkind to me,” she said, “and that is something you were not when I arrived.”
Richard was looking at her with an expression in his eyes that Meta thought was very revealing.
Then he said quietly,
“I would never be unkind to anything so small and so vulnerable.”
With that he walked out of the front door where the horses were waiting for him and the Prince.
For once Nathlia did not follow him.
She merely stood where he had left her and looking wistful.
Because she knew only too well what Nathlia was feeling, Meta put her hand through her arm,
“Come along,” she said. “If those men don’t want us, we will now go to Leicester and spend their money. That at least will be some consolation!”
“I want to be with Richard,” Nathlia murmured almost beneath her breath.
“You will find that Englishmen have times when they think that all women are a bore,” Meta advised her lightly.
“I don’t think that your brother thinks of me as a bore,” Nathlia said. “He thinks I am just a child and that is something very different.”
She did not wait for Meta to answer, but ran up the stairs to fetch her hat and cloak.
Meta had already ordered a carriage and when, a few minutes later, they then drove off, Nathlia seemed to have recovered from whatever she was feeling.
She talked to Meta first about what clothes they would buy and how she had left a great number of hers behind in Russia.
“There are one or two I wish I had brought with me,” she said. “They are exactly what I want for these parties, like the one we had last night.”
“Can you not send for them?” Meta suggested.
There was a short silence.
Then Nathlia said in a strange voice,
“No! No! That is impossible.”
Meta wanted to ask her why, but she had the feeling that she was on forbidden ground.
She was sure of it when a minute later Nathlia began to talk quickly and in French of her partners the night before.
They had each made her promise that she would give them half-a-dozen dances or more when they next met.
“I don’t like being tied up,” Nathlia said. “It is a great mistake because one promises one man a dance and then finds someone new who is preferable.”
“That is called being fickle,” Meta pointed out.
“Well, I think it stops me choosing whom I prefer,” Nathlia replied. “But I would rather dance with Richard than anyone else I have met so far.”