The Peril and the Prince Page 9

  There was, of course caviar, sturgeon, cold chicken stuffed with pâté de foie gras and a number of other delicacies which she knew, even without having been half starved as a monk, her father would enjoy.

  Then, as she wondered if she was expected to stay or, because of the way she was dressed, to help the outriders, the Prince said,

  “Sit down, Vida! We have with us specially chosen men whom I can trust with my own life and that of my friends.”

  Vida gave a little sigh of sheer happiness and sat down beside her father.

  “Tell us, Papa, what has happened to you,” she asked.

  “Later, my dear. For the moment, all I can think of is that I am extremely hungry and I left the Monastery before breakfast, which anyway would have been a very meagre meal!”

  Because she knew him so well, she was aware that he was making light of his afflictions.

  At the same time she was terribly afraid because they were still on Russian soil.

  “Where are we going?” she asked the Prince.

  “We are making for the Hungarian border,” he replied, “and tonight we will stay with some friends whom I can trust at Pololia.”

  “And tomorrow?” Vida queried.

  “With luck, we should be in Hungary.”

  “How can we ever thank you?”

  “You can do that when your father is safe,” he replied, “but we must not linger. Every moment he is still in Russia constitutes a danger which we would be very foolish to ignore.”

  “I have been wondering ever since I reached the comparative safety of the Monastery,” Sir Harvey said, “how I could possibly let you know where I was hiding.”

  “You have given me many anxious nights and days of worry,” the Prince said quietly.

  “I did not dare to trust the Abbot,” Sir Harvey explained. “He had been personally appointed by the Czar and there were several monks who were unpleasantly curious about me.”

  “They will know that their curiosity was justified when you do not return,” the Prince remarked dryly, “so the sooner we are on our way the better!”

  Having drunk several glasses of golden wine, Sir Harvey looked more like his old self and Vida said,

  “I love you, Papa! I don’t think I could ever bear to go through this agony again.”

  “You are right, my dearest,” Sir Harvey agreed. “This has been my swansong as far as Russia is concerned, but I think the Marquis of Salisbury will be delighted by what I have to tell him.”

  There was no time to say anything more because the Prince, who had moved away to speak to his men, came back to say,

  “Vida will now travel inside the carriage and her horse will be ridden by the footman who was on the box.”

  He smiled at Vida and then he said,

  “When we arrive at Pololia, you will be not your father’s daughter, but I will introduce you by the name on your passport. We must not make any foolish mistakes, just in case we are interrogated.”

  “And Papa?” Vida asked.

  “Your father is an old Hungarian friend whom we are taking back to his own country and his passport is in the name of your mother’s family.”

  “The Rákŏczis!” Vida exclaimed.

  “Exactly!” the Prince agreed.

  The outriders had already whisked the table and chairs away and, as Margit re-joined them from beneath the trees, Vida, followed by her father, stepped inside the carriage.

  As soon as it moved, Margit produced Vida’s clothes from a sheet she had wrapped them in, explaining that Sir Harvey had carried them on his lap so that they would not be seen by anybody watching him being conveyed from the hotel into the carriage.

  “It was His Highness’s idea! He thinks of everything!” Margit said proudly.

  While Sir Harvey buried himself in a newspaper, Vida took off the clothes in which she had ridden as an outrider and dressed herself in a very pretty gown that Margit had chosen for her.

  There was a small travelling bonnet to put on her head, but she decided that it would be uncomfortable, as they still had a long way to go.

  Instead she merely let Margit arrange her red hair as she always wore it.

  Later, because the Prince had said that she was to appear as the Countess Kărólski, she made up her face and her father watched with amusement.

  “You certainly chose a very alluring disguise, my dearest,” he said. “I am not surprised the Prince finds you beautiful and pressed you to stay on as his guest.”

  “I stayed because I thought only by doing so would I find out whether or not he was to be trusted,” Vida said.

  “I was very remiss in not telling you before I went on this wild trip,” Sir Harvey said, “that the Prince is a very old friend and somebody with whom I have worked for many years.”

  “I wish I had known that before.”

  “I did not tell you,” her father explained, “simply because I never dreamt for one moment that you would come in search of me. And as you well know, in this game the less anyone else knows the better.”

  “I know that is right, Papa. At the same time, I was terribly afraid that if I trusted the Prince you might be in worse danger than you were already.”

  She told her father how Vladimir Demidovsky had spoken to her in Budapest, and then how after she had seen him going into the Prince’s bedroom she had been certain that His Highness was not to be trusted.

  She had therefore felt she must leave the castle immediately.

  “I quite understand how it happened,” her father said, “and it was very brave of you, my dearest. But I cannot bear to think of your being involved in a situation that might have turned out very differently.”

  “We are not safe yet,” Vida said with a little tremor in her voice.

  “I know,” Sir Harvey agreed. “At the same time Lady Luck has always been on my side, and I cannot believe she will fail me now.”

  “I am sure she will not!”

  Even so, Vida felt a little tremor go through her almost as if it were a warning not to be overconfident.

  She talked to her father during the afternoon while Margit slept peacefully opposite them.

  There was so much she wanted to tell him, so much she wanted to hear.

  While he was reticent about his adventures, she did learn that as soon as he entered Russia he had quickly become aware that he was being followed.

  After some close shaves when he was nearly captured by the Czar’s Secret Police, he had, in desperation, entered the Monastery as a travelling monk.

  He had told the Abbot he was on his way to Odessa, but felt too ill to go any farther.

  The Abbot had believed his story and after he had been nursed back to health had begged him not to hurry on his journey but to stay in the Monastery for as long as he wished.

  “That was fortunate for you, Papa.”

  “It was fortunate that I was still there when you and His Highness arrived,” Sir Harvey said, “but I was beginning to find an enclosed life of continual prayer very restricting.”

  Vida laughed.

  “I am sure you hated every moment of it.”

  “I missed my creature comforts,” Sir Harvey admitted, “and of course you, my beloved daughter.”

  “As I missed you, Papa.”

  One thing Vida had not told her father was how the Prince had come to her bedroom, believing her story that she was a widow and intending to make love to her.

  She felt it would upset him and make him angry, when she herself was so grateful to the Prince that she had no wish to do anything but praise him.

  She loved listening to Margit now extolling his virtues, when previously the old maid had been so suspicious.

  She wondered what had happened to his other guests at the castle and thought it was something she must ask him when there was a chance of their being alone together and not in a hurry.

  They arrived at Pololia when the sun had lost its warmth and it was in fact growing late.

  The horses might
not be very tired, but owing to the dust and the heat Vida was certain that they were thirsty as she was.

  She had hoped the Prince might stop for a little while during the afternoon, but she was sure that he had his own reasons to keep going and that they were good ones.

  Pololia was a small town, little larger than a village.

  Overlooking it on a low hill with trees protecting it from the North was a large house.

  It was not a castle, but it was certainly old and was sturdily built, as if at one time it had been a fortification of some sort.

  Vida realised that the Prince had sent one of his outriders ahead to alert the owner of their arrival.

  Because of the speed they had travelled at, however, he could not have been more than half an hour ahead of them.

  Nevertheless they received a very warm welcome from an elderly man with white hair and his wife, who was considerably younger than he was.

  It was quite obvious to Vida from the way she looked at the Prince and the way she talked to him that she found him extremely attractive.

  Vida therefore felt glad that she was dressed once again as a Countess and was wearing a gown that might have belonged to any of the beautiful women among the Prince’s guests at The Castle.

  She was given a large comfortable bedroom on the first floor with her father in the room next door.

  The Prince was on the other side of the corridor and, although the house was not in any way as grand as his castle, there were plenty of servants to wait on them.

  What Vida enjoyed more than anything else was that she could have a bath.

  After she had soaked in the scented water for some time, she exclaimed to Margit,

  “Now I feel better! This will be a very exciting adventure to tell my children someday, if I have any!”

  “We’re not out of the wood yet, Miss Vida,” Margit warned.

  She spoke in English and, as if her words made her realise that they were still in Russia, Vida said quickly,

  “Be careful!”

  Margit put her hand up to her lips.

  “I keep forgettin’. All I can think of is thankin’ God that the Master be with us.”

  “That is what I have been doing,” Vida said with a smile. “But remember, Margit, I am a Countess and not until tomorrow when cross into Hungary can I be myself.”

  She spoke in a whisper while concentrating on her face before she went down to dinner.

  There was fortunately nobody else staying in the house and the dinner was a delicious meal of good food, good wine and stimulating conversation.

  The Prince made them laugh with stories of his travels in different parts of the world and some of the strange characters he had met in Monte Carlo.

  But he was very careful, Vida noticed, not to talk about the Czar or St. Petersburg or even of what was happening in his own castle.

  “We live very quietly here,” his hostess said, “and I cannot tell you how thrilling it is, Your Highness, to be able to entertain you.”

  “I have been very remiss not to have paid you a visit for the past five years,” he replied, “but, as soon as I return home, you must both come to stay with me.”

  Her excitement at the invitation and the expression in her eyes told Vida all too clearly what she was feeling.

  She suddenly thought that the sensations the Prince had aroused in her were probably felt by every woman he met and therefore to him must seem very commonplace.

  Fortunately the lights in the dining room were dim, for she was finding it difficult to smile, let alone laugh.

  ‘He makes love to every woman who attracts him,’ she told herself, ‘and, when he has left us in Hungary, I don’t suppose that we shall ever see him again.’

  As she went up to bed, there was a heavy feeling in her breast, as if there was a stone there.

  It persisted even after she had kissed her father good night and had said over and over again how happy she was to know that he was sleeping in the next room.

  “I am looking forward to a comfortable bed,” Sir Harvey admitted. “I assure you that the monks have a pallet that is as rough and stony as the path to Heaven!”

  Vida laughed.

  “Oh, Papa, I promise you that from now on you shall always have a feather bed which will be as comfortable as a cloud.”

  “I shall be looking forward to it,” her father replied.

  He kissed Vida again and added,

  “I am very touched and very proud, my dearest, of what you have done to save me. But it is something I will never let you undertake again.”

  “Then you must not get into any more trouble, Papa, otherwise you know that I shall always attempt to rescue you, however difficult it may seem.”

  “Now you are definitely blackmailing me!” Sir Harvey protested.

  He kissed her once again before he went to his own room.

  Vida sent Margit to bed because the old maid looked very tired.

  She undressed herself, brushed her hair until it seemed to dance with an electricity of its own, then, wearing one of her pretty lace-trimmed nightgowns, she slipped between the cool linen sheets.

  *

  Vida was so tired after such a long day of combined fear and excitement that she fell asleep immediately and only awoke when her father came into the room.

  He was wearing a silk dressing gown, which he had obviously borrowed from the Prince and he said,

  “It’s still very early, my dearest, but I know the Prince intends that we should leave immediately after breakfast and I wanted to have a talk with you first.”

  “What about, Papa?”

  Her father sat down beside the bed and said as if he was a little embarrassed,

  “Well, actually, it is about His Highness.”

  Vida sat up, patting the pillows up behind her.

  There was a little silence and then he began,

  “You are very young, Vida, and, although we have done many things together and travelled in a lot of different countries, I know that you have never met a man like Prince Ivan Pavolivski before, for the simple reason that he is unique.”

  “That is what I thought, Papa.”

  “But because he is unique, because he is one of the most intelligent, as well as one of the most handsome men I have ever seen,” Sir Harvey went on, “I do not want you to lose your heart.”

  It was not what Vida had expected him to say and, as she looked at her father in surprise, she was annoyed to feel the colour coming into her cheeks.

  “And you think that – is what I might do – ?” she asked defensively.

  “Yes, because it is what happens with every woman the Prince meets,” her father told her.

  He gave a little sigh before he continued.

  “There is something magnetic about him. He is a Pied Piper and I have never known a woman who did not find him irresistible.”

  That was what Vida had thought herself, but she had no wish to admit it.

  “I was thinking only last night, Papa, that it is very unlikely that we shall ever see His Highness again after we reach Hungary today, as we hope.”

  “That is what I myself expect,” Sir Harvey replied. “But it is quite obvious to me that Prince Ivan admires you, and therefore I can only beg you, my dearest, to remember that he is a will-o’-the-wisp, a man who will sweep into your life like a meteor passing through the sky and disappear just as quickly.”

  There was a worried note in Sir Harvey’s voice that Vida thought was rather touching.

  “I understand exactly what you are saying, Papa,” she said, “and I promise you that I will not only be on my guard but will make quite certain that I recognise the Prince for what he is.”

  There was a little pause before Sir Harvey said,

  “I know that you will not mind my saying this to you, my dearest. It is, after all, what your mother would say to you if she was alive. But I could not bear, after all we have been to each other, that you should be unhappy over a man who never in any c
ircumstances could mean anything in your life.”

  “Of course not, Papa,” Vida agreed. “He is Russian and one place I will never visit again is Russia!”

  She thought as she spoke that they might meet the Prince in Monte Carlo, Paris or perhaps London and then told herself that was irrelevant.

  Her father was right – he was a meteor flashing past them and the sooner she forgot the sensations he aroused in her the better.

  But at the back of her mind was a question she could not dismiss, which was,

  ‘How will you forget the first kiss you ever received?’

  Having said what he had come to say, Sir Harvey started to talk of other things, suggesting to Vida that they might visit her mother’s relatives when they had crossed the border into Hungary.

  “I think, Papa, that is a wonderful idea – !” Vida was saying when suddenly the door opened and to her surprise the Prince came into the room.

  One look at the expression on his face made the words she was saying die on her lips.

  “The Secret Police are here,” he said in a low voice. “Get into the wardrobe, Sir Harvey!”

  There was a large carved wardrobe on one wall of the room and, with the swiftness of a man who was used to facing danger, Sir Harvey moved across the room almost before the words had been spoken and disappeared inside it.

  Then to Vida’s astonishment the Prince threw off the silk robe he was wearing and even as there was the sound of footsteps in the passage outside he got into the bed beside her.

  Before she could even look at the Prince, let alone ask what he was doing, his arms went round her and he pulled her close against him.

  As the door opened, his lips came down on hers.

  At first she was terrified at what was happening.

  Then, as she felt the hard pressure of the Prince’s mouth and the closeness of his body, she was more vividly aware of him than of the danger they were in.

  It must have been only the passing of a few seconds and yet it seemed like an interminable passage of time before, as if the Prince was suddenly conscious that there was somebody in the room, he raised his head and looked towards the door.

  Standing in the doorway were three men and, as Vida looked at them too, she thought that if she had seen them anywhere she would have suspected they were Secret Agents.