“I shall never do that,” she replied. “I shall only be afraid that you will find me dull and inexperienced without the wiles or graces of the other women you have known.”
“You cannot compare yourself with them,” he cried masterfully. “You are different, utterly different from anyone else. I love you and I ask only of the future that we can be together with our love – in safety.”
“Of course we shall be safe – once we are married,” Wanda said confidently. “Why should you doubt it?”
He would not worry her with his fears, so he evaded the question.
“We will be married as soon as we reach Vienna,” he said, “and we will leave for Brussels tonight. Do you trust me?”
“You know I do,”
“Then don’t ask for too many explanations for the moment. As soon as we arrive, we will go and see Lord Stewart, the British Ambassador. We can be married at the Embassy.”
There was silence for a moment and then Wanda said in a very low voice,
“Would you be angry with me if I asked a favour?”
“Angry?” Richard questioned. “My darling, you must not be afraid of me. Of course I should not be angry, whatever you asked of me.”
She stirred in his arms at that and looked up at him confidently.
“Then – could we go first to see Prince Metternich?”
She felt him stiffen.
“Please,” she cried hastily. “You promised that you would – not be angry! But because of the Prince’s kindness to me, and because too of my mother’s fondness for him, I would like to ask, if not his permission, at least his blessing – on our marriage. Please, Richard, please!”
The soft pleading in her voice swept away his antagonism.
“It shall be as you wish,” he answered.
She would have thanked him, but he added quickly,
“No, you are not to thank me for something that I have no right to refuse. You must not spoil me into becoming selfish and autocratic. I will spend my life, my little love, in trying to make you happy but I have a reason for wishing to be married with all possible haste, so you must forgive me if I seem impatient.”
“We will go to the Prince first,” Wanda said, “and then straight to the Embassy.”
He drew her closer into his arms.
“All I want is to be sure of you,” he said. “Nothing must separate us now – nothing!”
Close in each other’s arms, as trusting as two children might have been in the Fate that had brought them together again, they slept for the last part of the journey.
*
Daylight was breaking as they entered the City by the south gate.
“Drive to Prince Metternich’s villa,” Richard ordered, as the Russian driver would have swung the horses towards the Hofburg.
The team was tired out, but the driver managed to make them travel in style down the beautiful avenue that led to Prince Metternich’s private house and to draw up with a flourish at the door.
Richard stepped out of the sleigh as the Major Domo hurried down to see who could be arriving at such an early hour.
“See that the Russian driver of this sleigh has breakfast and that the horses are rested in the stable. I do not wish them to return to the Hofburg for some hours.”
The Major Domo’s face did not change at this curious request.
“Very good, sir. You have an appointment with His Excellency?”
“No,” Richard replied, “but he will wish to see the Comtesse Wanda Schonbörn. Please inform His Excellency that she is here and craves an audience. It is of the utmost import.”
He turned to assist Wanda from the sleigh.
She was stiff and cramped and would have fallen if his arms had not gone round her.
But her lips were smiling and her eyes were bright with laughter.
“My legs have forgotten how to obey me,” she said, “but I am not complaining. I have enjoyed our journey together.”
Richard suppressed the thought in his own mind that the journey might have had a very different ending.
It was no use thinking of the past. There was the future to be considered and time was of vital importance.
Gently he helped Wanda up the steps and, as they entered the large beautifully proportioned hall, she looked down at her crumpled gown and her hands went to her bonnet.
“Could I tidy myself before I see the Prince?” she asked of the Major Domo.
A housekeeper in rustling black silk was produced in a few minutes.
She led Wanda away while Richard also retired to wash and make himself presentable.
“There is no hurry, sir,” the Major Domo informed him. “His Highness usually breakfasts about half past eight and it is not yet a quarter to eight.”
“Then find me a barber,” Richard commanded, “and a fresh necktie.”
“Your clothes can be pressed, sir, while you are being shaved,” the Major Domo informed him.
Richard smiled as he undressed.
It seemed to him that he was always borrowing neckties or being shaved in other people’s houses. He remembered the night after the fire, when he had been obliged to clean his blackened face in the Baroness Waluzen’s house and then had sent for Harry to come and join him.
Harry would be worrying now, he thought.
But the little man would be pleased at the news that they were to leave Vienna. He had never liked what was popularly supposed to be gayest city in Europe.
When Richard was washed, shaved and arrayed in his freshly pressed clothes, he was led to a small room overlooking the garden.
“His Excellency has been informed that the Comtesse is here, sir. He will be down in a few minutes,” the Major Domo assured him.
Alone, Richard walked across to the window and looked out on the snow-covered lawns.
He was beginning to worry now as to what the Prince would say when he learned of the events of the past week and was told that the girl he was interested in because he had loved her mother was going to marry a penniless and exiled Englishman.
There was no time, however, for his thoughts to become heavy on him before the door opened and Wanda came in.
She had discarded her bonnet and cloak and was wearing a dress of pale blue mousseline cut low in the neck to reveal her favourite pendant of turquoise and diamonds.
Her hair had been skilfully dressed, her complexion was exquisitely clear and she might, Richard thought, have stepped from a Parisian bandbox rather than have spent a night of terror and danger in an open sleigh.
She ran towards him, and as the servant closed the door behind her, Richard put his arms round her.
“I love you,” he said fiercely. “Are you certain that nothing else matters?”
“Quite, quite certain,” she smiled. “Oh, my darling, I love you too. I have not had time yet to thank you for saving me.”
“I didn’t do it entirely for your sake,” he answered.
Her eyes widened at that.
“Why then?” she enquired.
“For my own,” he said. “I wanted you. I need you, I adore you. Do you imagine I could bear to lose you?”
He held her closer still as he spoke.
His lips sought hers and they clung together, forgetting everything but the rapture of their love, the ecstasy of a rising passion.
He felt the fire of desire ignite an answering flame in her, so that her breath came quickly and excitingly and her lips opened softly beneath his kisses.
Her body was trembling against him, not with fear but with new and strange emotions that made her pulses throb and her eyelids feel warm and heavy.
“Tonight you will be my wife,” Richard whispered hoarsely against her mouth and then his kisses seemed to demand the surrender of her very soul.
They did not hear the door open and someone come in.
It was instinct more than anything else that told them they were not alone.
With a start they jumped to find that Prince Metternich was sta
nding beside them.
He was wearing a dressing gown of sapphire blue velvet, his hair was beautifully arranged and there was an alert vivacity about him that made it almost impossible to believe that he ever relaxed in sleep.
“I heard that the Comtesse Wanda Schonbörn wanted to see me urgently,” he said in an amused voice. “Is this the reason – for such urgency?”
Flushing, Wanda sank in a deep curtsey.
“Please forgive us for not hearing you come in,” she said.
“Love is perhaps deaf as well as blind,” the Prince murmured and his eyes went towards Richard.
“Richard Melton, at your service, Your Excellency,” he introduced himself.
The Prince held out his hand.
“I knew your father some years ago when he was in Paris.”
Then he turned to Wanda again.
“What have you to tell me?” he asked, “or can I guess?”
“We came because we are going to be married today,” Wanda told him, “but I wanted you to know first and I wanted you to meet Richard.”
“To be married!”
There was a frown on the Prince’s forehead.
“Yes,” Wanda said quickly. “I love Richard and he loves me – but he feels that it is of the utmost importance that we should be married today – at once. We have to leave Vienna, you see.”
“Indeed! This is news to me,” the Prince said. “Perhaps, young man, you will explain yourself.”
“I think, Your Excellency, I can do that more easily if I see you alone – ” Richard began, only to be interrupted by Wanda.
“No, no, I refuse!” she cried. “I know that you think to spare my feelings when you recount what happened at the Razumovsky Palace, but I have nothing to be I am ashamed of. I want the Prince to know what has happened and I am not afraid to hear you tell it.”
Wanda moved as she spoke and slipped her hand into Richard’s. His fingers closed over hers and he smiled down at her.
“Very well, then. We will tell him everything together,” he agreed.
Then he looked at the Prince with a touch of defiance on his face.
The Prince looked from one to the other and raised his eyebrows.
“If it is to be a long story,” he said at length, “it would be best for us to sit down.”
They crossed to the fireplace and, while the Prince seated himself in a high-backed wing chair, Wanda and Richard sat facing him on a brocade and gilt sofa.
The Prince listened attentively as Richard recounted all that had happened since he and Wanda had met that first night at the Hofburg.
He told how he had impersonated the Czar, how he had fallen in love with Wanda and how Katharina had discovered that she was a spy.
He told what had happened at the Razumovsky Palace and how the fire had broken out in time to save Wanda from the Czar, of their stay with the Baroness Waluzen and what had happened yesterday evening when the sleigh, purporting to come from him, had carried her away from Vienna en route for Gruzino.
As he spoke, relating his story simply and without elaboration, Prince Metternich’s eyes never left his face, until finally he finished,
“That is all, Your Excellency. I have decided that the only thing for us to do is to get married immediately and to leave Vienna. When Wanda is my wife, I shall be in a position to protect her. But I am not so foolhardy as not to realise that I have made two very bitter enemies. I intend that we start for Brussels tonight where I shall throw myself on the mercy of the British Ambassador there. He may be able to help me to obtain employment of some sort.”
“You are exiled from England?”
“Yes – exiled!” Richard answered. “For a duel I did not fight and for the death of a man I had no quarrel with.”
“What happened?” the Prince asked.
Richard explained briefly.
“I know your cousin,” the Prince said. “Duelling has a hold on him as another man might become a slave to drink.”
“There was nothing for me to do at the time but to accept the conditions he proposed.”
“No, I can see that,” the Prince replied. “There was no alternative under the circumstances. But that forces me to ask you a pertinent question. How do you propose to keep a wife?”
“I can answer that frankly,” Richard answered. “I don’t know. I can only hope and pray that fortune will favour me.”
As Richard did not answer, Wanda sprang to her feet.
“We will manage somehow,” she said.
She crossed the hearth and knelt beside the Prince’s chair.
“I love Richard. I want, above everything in the world, to be his wife. Please give us your blessing.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You could not be so unkind or so cruel,” Wanda protested. “Now that Richard has told you everything, you must understand what we mean to each other. Indeed, if he did not wish to marry me, I should want only to die.”
“That is all very well,” the Prince said in a harder voice. “But you still have to be housed. You have to eat, to clothe yourselves.”
“Richard will find some employment when we get to Brussels.”
“Richard knows, as well as I do, that employment for a man who has been brought up only to be a gentleman is a rare phenomenon,” the Prince retorted.
“Nevertheless, whether I have employment or not,” Richard answered, “I intend to marry Wanda today.”
The eyes of the two men met.
“I forbid it!”
“Have you the right to do that? “ Richard asked.
“I think I have,” the Prince replied slowly.
“No, no, you could not be so cruel.”
Wanda put out both hands as she spoke and laid them on the Prince’s arm.
“Can you not understand what this means to us?” she pleaded. “I was made for Richard and he for me. We love each other desperately. Have you never been in love that you can deny us something that means more than life itself?”
Her voice broke for a moment, but still the Prince did not move and did not look down at her.
And then suddenly she continued,
“You loved my mother. I know that – and she loved you. I did not understand how much or what it meant until I came to Vienna. Then I heard people talking – I saw the Baroness looking at me, I heard her murmuring strange things – and then – I understood!”
The Prince turned and looked down at her.
“What did you understand?” he enquired.
“I understood – or thought I did – ” Wanda faltered, “that I was born of love! Your love for my mother – hers for you. Am I right?”
She seemed to tremble at her own temerity.
The Prince bent towards her and put his hand under her chin to lift her face to his.
Blue eyes looked into blue eyes and then he said,
“You are right – my daughter.”
“I am glad – glad! I thought it must be so and yet it seemed presumptuous even to dream of such a thing. But now you have told me. I am proud – terribly proud to call you – Father.”
The Prince bent down and kissed her forehead.
Then he raised his head to look at Richard.
“Does that answer your question as to my authority?”
“An unofficial authority!” he answered a little stiffly.
“Naturally,” the Prince agreed.
He rose to his feet as he spoke and drawing Wanda to hers, put his arm around her.
“Listen, little Wanda,” he said, “this situation requires thought. Will you give me an hour – perhaps less – to think it over and to see if I can find a better solution than the one this young man of yours has suggested?”
“There can be no better solution than that we should be married,” Wanda said hastily.
“There might be a better one than you should wander penniless over the map of Europe. All I ask is time to think.”
As he spoke, the Prince glanced at the clock over the
mantelpiece.
“I have guests for breakfast,” he went on, “they will have arrived. I will give orders that a meal shall be served here for you two alone. When I return, a solution may have occurred to me. Will you trust me?”
Wanda glanced at Richard and then she turned impulsively towards the Prince.
“We will wait,” she said, “but on one course we are both determined – we must be married at once.”
Her eyes were anxious as she spoke, fearing the Prince would be angry with her for defying him.
Instead he smiled.
“Give me an hour,” he said.
“On one – condition,” she replied.
His eyebrows went up at that.
“A condition?” he enquired.
“Yes,” she replied. “The condition being that when the hour is over, whatever solution you may have come to about our future, you will be present at our wedding – today.”
The Prince threw back his head and laughed.
“I warn you, Richard,” he said, “you will have to be a very masterful man to rule your household, for your wife will, if you are not careful, twist you round her little finger as she twists me.”
“Then you agree!” Wanda gave a little cry of sheer joy. “Oh, thank you, thank you! I knew you would understand.”
She would have kissed his hand, but the Prince took her in his arms and kissed her cheek.
“You are a shameless schemer,” he scolded her. “I cannot think from where you get such talent!”
Wanda laughed up at him with delight.
“My eyes are not the only things I inherited, mon père.”
“Minx!”
The Prince kissed her again and went from the room.
He did not, however, go at once to the breakfast room where his guests were waiting for him.
Instead he went to the desk in his private sitting room and took a letter from a locked drawer. It was a bulky letter of many pages and he had sat until the early hours of the morning writing it.
He stood staring at the envelope, which was addressed to the Comtesse Julia Zichy.
It had been too late last night when he had finished writing to send it to her house and now he hesitated.
He had written it under the mad impulse of the moment, baring his heart and soul to her, revealing his innermost secret self as he had never revealed himself to any woman before.
The Enchanted Waltz Page 23
