In exactly ten minutes Alana Wickham in her cheap wool travelling cloak and unfashionable bonnet had vanished.
In her place was the extremely elegant Lady Alana O’Derry, dressed in the very height of fashion and looking as smart as her friend, Lady Charlotte Storr.
With his usual foresight, the Viscount had sent away the Storr footman who should have waited to see them off on the train and made sure that their luggage was safely aboard.
“There is no need for you to wait, James,” the Viscount had said in a lofty fashion. “As we are going in a Private train, it may be delayed and you know that his Lordship does not like the horses to be kept standing about.”
“You’re quite sure you can manage, my Lord?” James had asked.
“You have found us a porter,” the Viscount replied, “and there is really nothing else to do, so goodbye, James.”
“Goodbye, my Lord, and I hopes you have a pleasant journey,” James answered.
As soon as Charlotte and Alana appeared, the Viscount hurried them quickly to the side platform where the Prince’s train was waiting.
Shane was already there, having seen to the disposal of the enormous amount of trunks that Charlotte had with her.
“I have brought with me almost everything I possess,” she told Alana, “so you will have a large choice for what will suit you best. Fortunately, I had a number of gowns made for the summer when I should have been presented, which Mama had forgotten about, so she has been buying me new ones ever since Aunt Odele’s first letter arrived.”
Alana had only a quick glimpse of her reflection in the small mirror in the cloakroom of the ladies’ waiting room, but she knew that she looked very unlike her usual self.
Now in the private train she felt that it really must all be a dream and she would wake up to hear one of the Bredon children crying.
She had, of course, seen the Viscount in Church when he had first noticed her and, riding in the Park and many times in the past when he had driven through the village or she had seen him in the distance.
But she had never spoken to him and now she thought that he was an extremely good-looking well-dressed young man and just the sort of brother Charlotte that should have.
“It is very kind of you to do this for us,” he said in a low voice.
“I am only afraid that I may – fail you,” Alana answered.
On the other side of the carriage, Charlotte and Shane were looking into each other’s eyes and talking in a low intimate manner that displayed all too clearly their absorption in each other.
The Viscount gave them a quick glance and said,
“Be careful how you behave. You know as well as I do that servants have ears.”
“We will be very very careful,” Charlotte promised.
“You must look after Charlotte,” the Viscount said to Alana. “If my aunt gets any idea that she is in love with my friend Shane, she will tell my mother and father and I shall never be able to bring him to The Castle again.”
Alana gave a little sigh.
“It all seems a terrible tangle, but I do want Lady Charlotte to be happy.”
“That is what I want too and somehow you and I must manage to see that she is.”
The Viscount dropped his voice lower than before and went on,
“I am quite certain of one thing, if she was forced to marry the Prince, she would be miserably unhappy.”
“I am sure that is true,” Alana agreed, “and that is why I am here. But please, my Lord, you must tell me exactly what to do and help me not to make too many mistakes.”
“I will help you all I can, but as far as the Prince is concerned, you will just have to use your instinct.”
He paused for a moment and then continued,
“But if he is not bowled over by you, and I am sure he will be, then he certainly cannot have two eyes in his head.”
Alana gave a little laugh.
“Thank you, my Lord. That certainly makes me feel more confident.”
“I think,” the Viscount said after a moment, “you must now call me by my Christian name and I will call you ‘Alana’. If you are really Shane’s cousin, I would have met you a dozen times when I stayed with him in Ireland. And remember you became friends with Charlotte when we both went there three years ago.”
“Very well,” Alana agreed, “but it seems somewhat – familiar.”
“We have known each other since we were children,” Richard said firmly, “and you must remember that too, Charlotte.”
“I have known Alana since I was a child,” Charlotte retorted, “so it’s not difficult for me.”
It was impossible for them to speak intimately after that because the servants on the train offered them first coffee or a drink and then later provided them with a large and delicious luncheon.
To Alana every minute was an excitement.
Only when finally, late in the afternoon, the train stopped at the Halt for Charl Castle did she suddenly feel cold and the fear rising in her throat made it impossible to talk or laugh as she had done all the hours that they had been travelling.
She also felt overawed by the same reception that Lady Odele had received. The red carpet, Mr. Brothwick waiting to greet them, and the carriage, which was far more comfortable and more impressive than anything that the Earl of Storrington owned.
Then, with her first glimpse of Charl Castle, Alana wanted to run away back into obscurity.
Never had she imagined that any private building could be so enormous or so magnificent. It was indeed, as the article that she had read in the Illustrated London News had trumpeted,
“A fitting background for its owner, who has the Royal blood of the Czars in his veins and who lives more in the style of an Eastern Potentate than an English Squire.”
Both Alana and Charlotte were silent as they drove down the long avenue of lime trees and reached a huge courtyard in front of Charl Castle itself.
As the footmen hurried down the steps to open the carriage doors, the Viscount murmured to Alana,
“Good luck.”
Shane looked into Charlotte’s eyes and squeezed her hand as the carriage door was opened.
All four of them, as they stepped out, knew that the curtain had risen on the first act of a play that might turn out to be a comedy, as they fervently hoped, or else a complete tragedy.
They had all been primed by the Viscount on exactly what to say and what to do and, as the butler announced them in the magnificent salon where Lady Odele and Prince Ivan were sitting alone in front of the fire, Charlotte ran forward.
“Here we are, Aunt Odele,” she cried, kissing her aunt affectionately. “We have had a wonderful journey and I do hope you will not mind that we have brought with us Shane’s Cousin Alana.”
Lady Odele was already looking at Alana questioningly.
“She arrived unexpectedly,” Charlotte explained, “because we never received her letter telling us that she was coming to stay and her luggage has been lost somewhere in the Irish Sea.”
Before Lady Odele could speak, the Prince interposed to say,
“There is always room at Charl Castle for one of your friends, Lady Charlotte. And now may I welcome you and say how delighted I am that you are here.”
He spoke in a deep voice and with a sincerity that Alana thought dispersed some of the tension she was feeling, and she sensed that Charlotte felt the same.
“Your Highness is very kind to invite us,” Charlotte replied. “I have been longing to see The Castle and it is even bigger and more impressive than I thought it would be.”
“I am so glad it pleases you,” the Prince said with a smile.
He held out his hand towards the Viscount.
“How are you, Storrington?”
He then shook hands with Shane, who introduced Alana.
“My cousin, Your Highness, Lady Alana O’Derry, arrived just as we were leaving and I felt you would understand that we could not leave her behind.”
“
But, of course, not,” the Prince said.
As he took Alana’s hand in his, she looked at him with her large dark eyes and saw that he was exactly what she had expected him to be. Overwhelmingly handsome and very different from any other man she had ever seen before in her whole life.
She thought that it was not only his good looks that made him outstanding, but there was something very compelling about him, something that seemed to vibrate from him and he exuded not only a strong personality but an inescapable aura.
The Prince was looking at her searchingly and she guessed that it was the way he looked at all women, as if he was penetrating deep into their hearts.
She wondered what he expected to find and if he was often disappointed.
Then Lady Odele, who had kissed Richard, was saying,
“I too must welcome you to Charl Castle and to the little party I have arranged for my niece.”
There was no doubt, Alana thought, that the word welcome was not sincere when spoken by Lady Odele and the expression in her eyes was hard.
Then, as they moved towards the fire, she said briskly, almost as if it was a rehearsed speech,
“His Highness and I have arranged such a delightful programme for you, Charlotte. There is no one staying at The Castle except ourselves, but there will be luncheon and dinner parties every day, dancing every evening to a band specially brought from London and innumerable equestrian amusements to keep both Richard and Shane happy.”
“It all sounds thrilling!” Charlotte exclaimed.
“I am sure you will find it so and I really have scoured the country on His Highness’s behalf to find all the young people of your age and, of course, Richard’s. I felt sure that you would not want a lot of old fogies like myself here to spoil your fun!”
As Lady Odele expected, Charlotte protested automatically at such a description.
“An ‘old fogey’ you will never be, Aunt Odele. Richard was telling us that your photographs have sold more than those of all the other beauties including Mrs. Langtry.”
“Is that true?” Lady Odele asked. “Who could have told you that?”
“I asked in three shops,” Richard replied, “and they all claimed that they had always sold out your photographs the moment they put them in the window.”
“That is certainly very gratifying,” Lady Odele said with a smile. “And now I am sure, Charlotte, you and your friend Lady Alana would like to see your bedrooms. And I suggest you have a little rest before dinner as I expect you will all be dancing until the early hours of the morning.”
“We are dancing tonight?” Charlotte enquired.
“Yes, indeed,” her aunt replied. “We shall be fifty to dinner and the band arrived early this afternoon.”
Charlotte clapped her hands together and enthused,
“It all sounds thrilling!”
But she was looking at Shane as she spoke and Alana knew that she was excited because she could dance with him.
“I feel sure that you too enjoy dancing,” the Prince commented to Alana.
“I do enjoy it,” she replied, “but in Ireland we don’t have the chance of learning many of the new steps and I am afraid that I may disappoint my partners.”
“I am sure you will not do so.”
As if Lady Odele was aware that he was talking to the intruder rather than to Charlotte, she said sharply,
“Come along, Lady Alana. We must find somewhere for you to sleep and I suppose we should find you a gown as your luggage has been lost crossing from Ireland.”
“She can wear my clothes, Aunt Odele,” Charlotte said. “We are luckily about the same size, except that Alana is thinner than I am.”
Her aunt did not bother to answer. She was already walking towards the door.
“Don’t worry about not knowing the new steps,” the Prince said, continuing his conversation with Alana. “I am sure that you will have plenty of partners only too willing to teach you.”
“I hope Your Highness is right.”
She thought that the Prince was about to say something else when she realised that Lady Odele with Charlotte beside her was waiting for her and frowning.
She hurried towards them.
A little while later when alone with her niece, Lady Odele made her feelings quite plain.
“Now listen, Charlotte,” she said, “I am not particularly pleased at your bringing an extra girl with you.”
“Surely it cannot matter, Aunt Odele?” Charlotte replied. “The house is big enough for an Army!”
“That is not the point, I want the Prince to concentrate on you and for you to concentrate on him.”
“How can he possibly do that when you are here, Aunt Odele?” Charlotte asked in a deliberately guileless voice. “After all you are so beautiful that I am certain that he will have eyes for nobody else.”
“I made it very clear to your mother,” Lady Odele answered, “that the Prince wishes to marry again and I know that you, dear child, will make him a perfect wife.”
She paused for a moment before she added,
“If it comes to that, a man does not want a wife who is too beautiful and who attracts too much attention from other men.”
Charlotte did not speak and after a moment’s pause Lady Odele went on,
“I want you, my dear, to show him that you think him handsome and charming, which indeed he is. Listen to what he says and do show your appreciation of everything here at Charl Castle. Girls are often tongue-tied and it is such a mistake.”
“I will try to do as you ask, Aunt Odele,” Charlotte said in exactly the way that Richard had told her she was to speak and behave.
Lady Odele smiled.
“I am sure at the end of this little visit we will have wonderful, wonderful news for your father and mother and I know, my dear, you will make a lovely bride,”
Without saying anything more, Lady Odele swept from the room.
She would have been very surprised if she had known that, as she closed the door behind her, her good dutiful little niece put out her tongue!
A few minutes later Charlotte was in Alana’s room, which was just on the other side of the corridor.
“Aunt Odele is furious that we have brought you,” she related. “I thought she would be!”
“She is very beautiful,” Alana remarked in an awed voice. “I am not surprised the Prince is in love with her.”
“He can be in love with Venus de Milo for all I care,” Charlotte said positively. “What I don’t want is for him to be in love with me.”
Alana did not answer her and after a moment Charlotte added in a different voice,
“I am frightened, Alana. Aunt Odele has it all fixed up. She said just now that when we go home I would have ‘wonderful, wonderful news’ for Papa and Mama.”
“I too am frightened,” Alana admitted. “I think it has been just a waste of time you bringing me here. How could you imagine for one moment that he would look at me when Lady Odele is so beautiful?”
“Richard thinks you are far lovelier than she is.”
“That is because she is Richard’s aunt and one looks at one’s relatives differently from the way one looks at anybody else.”
Charlotte clasped her hands together.
“Oh, Alana, if you fail, I shall have to marry him! You must try to make him interested in you.”
“I will try because I promised you I would,” Alana said, “but he is not like an ordinary Englishman. He is different and that makes it much, much more frightening.”
As she spoke, she was thinking that, if the Prince was like the Viscount, her task would have been easier.
She knew already, from the way Richard looked at her and the note in his voice when he spoke to her, that he found her attractive, but the Prince was not English.
Despite his genial manner and his courtesy, she felt that there was something hard and perhaps cynical about him or perhaps it was just the attitude of a man who had tasted all the good fruits of life and for who
m there were no surprises left.
After a long consultation with Charlotte, having chosen the gown she would wear that evening from the dozens the maid had unpacked in her dressing room, Alana was alone and she found herself thinking about the Prince.
He had been indeed what she had expected and yet there had been something more.
For one thing, she had not expected him to be so vital and so alive and she was sure too that he would be difficult to deceive.
‘I must be very careful what I say and what I do,’ she admonished herself.
Even though she was supposed to come from Ireland and therefore be unsophisticated in many ways, the Prince might still be perceptive enough to sense that she was not what she pretended to be.
Yet, when finally she was dressed for dinner with the help of a very experienced maid, she thought that even her own father would have found it hard to recognise her.
The gown she had chosen from Charlotte’s wardrobe was plainer than most of the others.
The fashion was for endless trimmings of lace and flowers, pleats and ruchings and bows of satin ribbon.
But the gown Alana liked best was, of course, white, as Charlotte was a debutante. It had something almost Grecian in the folds at the front, while the sweep of the bustle billowed out behind her like the waves of the sea.
The bodice showed the curves of Alana’s breasts and the maid had pulled in the waist until it looked almost ridiculously small.
The whiteness of her skin was displayed by a low décolletage swathed with tulle over the shoulders.
Then, as she stared into the mirror, she thought that because she was pale with fear she looked almost ghost-like.
There was a knock on the door and when the maid went to answer it she brought back a large tray on which was arranged a variety of flowers.
There were bunches of orchids of every description and buttonholes of gardenias and carnations, which were obviously for Richard and Shane.
Alana looked at them in a bewildered fashion.
“There are so many!” she exclaimed. “I thought that there were only six people staying in Charl Castle.”
The Power and the Prince Page 6
