Love At Last Read online

  “You are most kind, Lady Cecilia, to arrange this meeting between Countess Natasha and myself,” he began. “However, we will leave diplomatic matters until we return to London. I have been so looking forward to a traditional English weekend in your gracious home.”

  “Indeed.” Natasha shrugged her graceful shoulders. “It is such a privilege to be included amongst your guests.”

  “Here is tea,” Cecilia told them with a note of relief in her voice as the drawing room door opened to admit a retinue of servants bearing trays.

  The awkward moment had passed.

  Natasha drifted over towards Sir Guy and was soon flirting with him in a manner Ivan recognised all too well.

  Feeling thankful he realised that her appeal for him had finally vanished.

  Ivan wondered, however, if he could manage to get through the weekend without coming to blows with his ex-mistress and felt bitter regret that Cecilia should have been manipulated into extending her an invitation.

  Over dinner, to his relief, he and Natasha were at different ends of the table, he beside Cecilia, who had Sir Guy on her other side with Natasha beside the Earl.

  Ivan exerted himself to be at his most charming, both to his hostess, which was easy, and then to Rosalind, which called for considerably more effort on his part.

  As he had expected, there was music after dinner,

  And Natasha was the first to perform.

  She played a bravura piece by Rachmaninov in an extravagant manner and Ivan could almost see fireworks erupting from the piano.

  At the end of her display, she looked across at Ivan and said,

  “I hope you have brought your violin, Prince Ivan.”

  She lowered her voice and added intimately,

  “It is too long since I have heard you play – ”

  Cecilia turned to him.

  “We should all like to hear you, Prince Ivan. Have you indeed brought your violin? Shall someone fetch it for you?”

  Ivan felt an unaccustomed attack of nerves, but he forced himself to respond,

  “Thank you, Lady Cecilia. Yuri, my valet, will be able to produce both it and my music.”

  A footman was sent off.

  Meanwhile Rosalind was persuaded to sing a sweet song accompanying herself on the piano.

  Despite being nervous about the prospect of his own performance, Ivan found it easy to listen to her and to enjoy the pretty picture she presented at the piano.

  Could, he mused, as he joined in the applause, such an attractive compliant girl suit as his Princess?

  Then the footman arrived with his violin and music case.

  A stand was produced and Ivan took out his violin and the music score.

  To his consternation he found that, instead of the accompaniment to a charming solo he had thought ideal for such an evening, the piano score was for an adaptation of the orchestral part of a Bach Violin Concerto.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Cecilia quietly as he vainly searched for another piece of music in the case.

  “I am afraid, unfortunately, Lady Cecilia, I seem to have brought the wrong music.”

  “But I am sure we should love to hear this one,” his hostess said. “Would you not like to play it, Prince?”

  “It is a great favourite of mine,” he acknowledged. “However the accompaniment is, well – it is quite testing.”

  Cecilia looked across at Natasha.

  “Perhaps you would like to play for Prince Ivan? Maybe it is a piece you already know, Countess?”

  There was a slight undercurrent to her tone which suggested to Ivan that she had guessed something of the previous relationship between them.

  Natasha looked haughty.

  “I do not accompany,” she announced baldly.

  Ivan quelled a small smile.

  Natasha had once attempted to play the piece and had proved quite unequal to the task. She always tried to dominate rather than play in a partnership.

  “May I?” suggested Cecilia holding out a hand for the music.

  She scanned it.

  “I think I might be able to attempt this,” she smiled.

  She sat down at the piano and began to play the first few bars.

  “Is this the tempo you need?”

  Ivan nodded, delighted at her instant command of the score.

  “If you will forgive me my shortcomings, I am sure everybody present will do too.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement as Ivan tuned his violin and arranged his music on the stand.

  “The first movement only, I think,” he muttered, as he looked at Cecilia and gave her a nod that said he was ready to play.

  Soon he forgot that Cecilia was sight-reading.

  She might well stumble over the odd note, but her understanding of the music and how the violin and piano parts so closely intertwined was quite superb, the violin sometimes soaring to the ceiling, leaving at other times the piano in the ascendant.

  Loud applause greeted the end of the movement.

  Ivan went over to his accompanist and brought her forward to share in the ovation, kissing her hand.

  “You were wonderful,” he whispered.

  Cecilia blushed and then added her applause.

  “That was really brilliant, Prince Ivan,” she sighed when she could make herself heard.

  Calls were made for more, but Ivan shook his head.

  “You are very kind,” he said, clearly moved by the appreciation he was receiving. “But it is surely enough.”

  “Come on Guy,” urged Cecilia, “it’s time we heard you sing. I know Algy cannot be persuaded, I have tried too often in the past, but I am sure we would all appreciate your baritone.”

  Guy did not need any persuasion.

  Ivan put his violin back in its case while a footman removed the music stand.

  As he then turned to find his seat again, Ivan caught sight of Natasha.

  Her expression was very controlled – but he knew all her moods only too well.

  Beneath the mask he knew that she was very very angry.

  As he took his seat ready to listen to Sir Guy’s warbling, Ivan remembered that Algy had said there could be no danger to him or to Cecilia at Yarlington Hall.

  But neither of them had reckoned on the presence of the Countess Natasha!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As her maid helped to undress her, Cecilia tried to shake off a feeling of imminent disaster.

  All through the afternoon and now the evening so many tensions had swirled around her, it was like being on a battlefield never knowing where the next attack would come from.

  It had seemed such an excellent idea to invite the Countess Natasha for the weekend.

  She had sounded so sincere when she had said she wanted to help sort out the difficult situation between the two Princely cousins.

  However, from the moment Cecilia had brought Natasha up to Ivan, she had known that this was not the reason she had angled for an invitation – a flash almost like lightening had passed between them.

  Poor Rosalind, reflected Cecilia, slipping into her nightgown, stood no chance against the dangerous charms of Natasha.

  No one could.

  Cecilia dismissed her maid, saying that she would brush her hair herself.

  Seated at her dressing table, she thought back to the morning when she had taken Natasha to her couturier and she had seemed so sympathetic and confiding.

  “Prince Peter and I, well, I hope that quite soon we shall have a happy announcement to make,” Natasha had murmured as she tried on a striking hat.

  Cecilia could not forget how attentive Prince Peter had seemed to her as he took her round the exhibition.

  Then he had shown every sign of being strongly attracted to her. Did he behave in the same way with every available woman? At the time Cecilia had thought him sincere in the way he paid court to her.

  She had to admit that Natasha was very much more beautiful than her – and she did seem to know Prince Peter extre
mely well.

  Now it appeared that she knew Prince Ivan equally well!

  Cecilia put down her hairbrush and tried to ignore her growing despair at recognising the intimacy that must exist between Ivan and Natasha –

  Yet it seemed that he had been shocked to see her at Yarlington.

  He obviously did not believe that she was trying to act as an ambassador for Prince Peter.

  Cecilia picked up her brush again.

  Was the Countess trying to reignite a flame that had once burned between them? Even more significant, had she succeeded?

  Cecilia tossed the brush aside and threw herself on her bed.

  She felt so miserable she could hardly think.

  And she knew it was not the death of Rosalind’s hopes of being Princess of Rusitania she was mourning –

  It was the horrifying realisation that she, Cecilia, had fallen hopelessly in love with Prince Ivan.

  The truth had slowly crept up on her.

  The first spark had been struck at that Buckingham Palace Reception.

  Cecilia saw now that the reason she had arranged the luncheon for him had been because she had wanted, oh, how she had wanted, to see him again!

  He was not only charming and very handsome, he was intelligent and wanted so much to do the best for his country. He was undoubtedly a man of principle – and he was also witty and fun.

  Ivan, in fact, was not only every young girl’s dream of a fairy tale Prince, he was a man an intelligent girl who had known a wide range of attractive young men could fall desperately in love with.

  Had she hoped he would realise young and pretty girls might well be eligible, but they could also be dull and boring?

  Had she hoped he would find her more interesting than they were?

  She lay back on her bed and remembered how at one they had seemed to be playing Bach that evening.

  Ivan’s command of his violin had revealed a side of him she had not even guessed at. Music meant so much to Cecilia. She had studied the piano with one of the leading teachers of the day and he had mourned the fact that she had chosen medicine rather than music for her career.

  Laughing, she had told her teacher,

  “As a pianist I will never be more than a very good amateur. I can entertain my friends, maybe even mount a concert to raise funds for a charitable cause, but nothing more. As a doctor I could bring healing and be of real benefit to others.”

  It was an argument her teacher finally accepted and Cecilia had never regretted her decision. Even though she had had to abandon her medical studies, she knew her East End clinic was bringing badly needed help to poor people who had little hope without it.

  Maybe that was even better than being a doctor.

  Accompanying Ivan on the piano had been a great challenge calling for great concentration.

  To find that he was such a consummate musician and that they could share a piece of music together in such intimacy had finally brought Cecilia to realise the depth of her feeling for him.

  There was, however, she realised, no hope for her.

  Why, oh why, could she not have been born with the magnetism of the exquisite Countess Natasha?

  *

  The next morning was bright and cold.

  Cecilia woke feeling drained as she dragged herself out of bed.

  The weekend was not even half over.

  How was she as hostess going to keep control of all the emotions swirling between the various elements of the house party?

  It had been agreed the afternoon before that most of the party would join the local hunt that was meeting that morning at Yarlington Manor.

  Rosalind, however, had said that she would rather not ride and Lady Broadstairs was to take luncheon with some neighbours.

  Cecilia took a last look at herself in her dark green habit, which was beautifully cut and she knew that it made the most of her elegant figure.

  How was she going to look next to Natasha with her flame-red hair?

  She had ridden since she was old enough to walk and so perhaps, on the hunting field at least, she could hold her own.

  The hunt assembled on the gravel drive in front of the house and servants moved among the riders with stirrup cups of whisky and brandy to keep out the cold.

  Ivan was riding one of the Earl’s best hunters, a big chestnut with plaited tail and mane.

  “I have to thank you again for accompanying me so splendidly last night,” he now remarked, looking directly at Cecilia.

  She flushed.

  The intensity of his dark blue eyes seemed to drag out her heart from inside her and lay it before him.

  “I enjoyed it very much indeed,” she replied to him simply. “I only wish I had had the opportunity to practise before we played.”

  “I could not believe how expertly you sight-read.”

  He smiled at her and Cecilia felt her bones turn to liquid.

  She was both annoyed and grateful when Guy came up on another of her father’s horses.

  “You are looking particularly lovely this morning, my dear Cecilia,” he called from his saddle.

  Cecilia heard the possessive tone in his voice and sighed – soon she would have to find some way of letting Guy know that she could never become his wife

  Could she possibly, she wondered mischievously, do something outrageous so that he realised that the Lady Cecilia Beaumont would be a serious drawback as the wife of a future Member of Parliament?

  Through the mêlée of riders Algy rode up, elegantly dressed in a bright red jacket and a raffish black top hat.

  “I say,” he muttered to Cecilia. “Have you seen the Countess Natasha this morning?”

  His tone was all admiration.

  There was movement amongst the riders and heads were turning.

  “Well!” exclaimed Guy.

  Natasha was in a habit of midnight-blue with a cute hat in the same colour with a white plumed feather. Her hair was neatly swept up in a dark blue snood and she rode a pale grey mare that belonged to Cecilia. Not only did she look sensational, she held herself superbly and it was quite obvious that she was in complete control of her mount.

  Cecilia’s heart sank.

  How could she have believed for a moment that she could match Natasha in any way!

  Ivan’s horse moved restlessly, causing him to pull at the reins.

  “Jester can be wayward,” Cecilia confided to him. “But he responds to strong signals.”

  He grinned at her.

  “Why, that could be a description of myself!”

  For a brief moment her heart rose.

  Then the huntsman blew his horn, dogs and horses moved forward and Cecilia found her father beside her.

  “Well done, my dear,” he called out.

  She was not sure what he meant as he added,

  “Fine morning for it.”

  It was indeed. The air was cold, but the sun was bright and the air crystal clear.

  The hunt moved off down the drive and then struck out across the Park towards the flowing fields beyond.

  Soon the pack was in full cry and the horses moved from a canter into a gallop.

  A couple of fences were jumped and then across a wide meadow loomed a daunting hedge.

  Some of the riders decided to take the easy course and went through a nearby gate.

  Cecilia found Natasha beside her.

  “Cowards,” she sneered, pointing her whip at those who had flunked the hedge.

  “We will jump it, Lady Cecilia, you and I, no?”

  “Yes!” shouted Cecilia and dug her heels into the side of her horse, a gallant black stallion she had ridden for a number of years.

  The hedge seemed to grow higher and higher the nearer they rode.

  Cecilia became aware that she was just ahead of Natasha and her mouth was curving in satisfaction.

  “Go, Hector, go,” she shouted at her mount.

  Cecilia timed her take-off to perfection and felt a brief moment of exhilaration as her stalli
on rose in the air.

  Then there was a big chestnut beside her and they cleared the hedge almost together, more horses thundering behind them.

  At the height of the jump, there came the sound of a shot.

  Ivan fell forward against his horse’s neck.

  Cecilia gasped, but both Jester and Hector landed safely.

  Unable to understand what had happened, Cecilia grabbed the chestnut’s reins and brought both horses to a shuddering halt.

  Lying on his mount’s neck, Ivan appeared lifeless.

  Hastily, her heart in her mouth, Cecilia dismounted.

  Other hands helped her release Ivan’s booted feet from the stirrups, pull him off the horse and lay him on the ground.

  “I say, look!” shouted Algy. “He’s been shot.”

  There was a bloody wound in Ivan’s chest.

  To Cecilia it looked as though the bullet could have found his heart.

  She dropped instantly to her knees beside him and felt for a pulse in his neck.

  It was there, faint but clear. With trembling fingers she started to unbutton his jacket

  “There’s the rotter!” cried Algy.

  In the distance they could see the figure of a horse and rider galloping away.

  “Come on, chaps, let’s get him.”

  Led by Algy some half-dozen riders hallooed their way in pursuit.

  Natasha slid from her horse.

  “Ivan!” she screamed. “My darling!”

  She flung herself down beside the still figure.

  “My God, he is dead!”

  “No,” countered Cecilia, trying to sound reassuring. “He is well and truly alive.”

  But Natasha collapsed dramatically into a graceful swoon across Ivan’s body,

  “Can someone please lay Countess Natasha on the ground away from the Prince?” Cecilia ordered coolly, “I need to investigate his wound.”

  The senseless Natasha was gently moved off the injured Ivan.

  One of the female riders produced a little phial of sal volatile and waved it under Natasha’s nose.

  Meanwhile Cecilia unbuttoned Ivan’s shirt to reveal his chest – the pale scars from previous wounds shocked her, but she forced herself to study the fresh one.

  With relief she could see that the bullet had missed his heart, but only just.