There was an audible sound which she thought was one of approval from the representatives who had been listening attentively and in complete silence to what she said,
“I want to serve Dabrozka and its people,” Ilona went on. “I want my country to find peace and prosperity, and I can imagine no-one better fitted to achieve these aims than my husband, Prince Aladár!”
She looked up at the Prince as she spoke and felt his fingers tighten on hers.
“The only position I want to occupy,” she continued softly, “is that of his wife!”
The Prince looked into her eyes and the cheers that rang out seemed to vibrate against the mirrors and echo and re-echo round the throne Room.
“I know I am speaking for everyone present,” the Prime Minister said, “when I say that we will accept Your Royal Highness’s recommendation whole-heartedly and without reserve!”
His voice rang out as he went on,
“Prince Aladár Sáros, will you accept the throne of Dabrozka and become the first Sáros to reign over our country?”
“I will!”
The Prince’s voice was very grave, and yet there was a positiveness about it which made Ilona’s heart leap.
“The King is dead - long live the King!”
As the Prime Minister went down on one knee he was followed by every man present.
Holding Ilona by the hand the Prince drew her onto the dais and she sat down on the Queen’s Throne.
Then as the Prime Minister rose to his feet the Prince seated himself and they all moved forward to pay him homage.
*
It was very much later that evening that Ilona and Aladár walked un the Grand Staircase.
She was wearing one of the beautiful gowns which had come from Paris.
Of green tulle caught at the sides with water-lilies, it made Ilona’s eyes very green, and accentuated the brilliance of her hair.
They had been cheered by the soldiers outside the Palace and Ilona had seen for the first time the Radák and the Sáros Regiments on parade together.
It was when they had finished inspecting the Guard of Honour that Ilona had noticed that the gypsies were encamped outside the Palace gates.
As they walked away from the parade the Prince had said in a low voice that only she could hear,
“I forgot to tell you that I was unjustly accused.”
“By whom?” she asked in surprise.
“By you!”
She looked at him enquiringly and he explained,
“The gypsies who you thought had followed me here had actually come to petition you!”
“Me?” Ilona exclaimed in amazement.
“As the King was no longer in the country they believed that you had the power to rescind the laws which prohibited them from being on Radák land.”
“How could I guess that was the – reason for their coming to the Palace so quickly!”
“I shall have to teach you to trust me, my suspicious darling, amongst other things!”
There was a look in his eyes which made her thrill, but then there was no more time for intimate conversation.
There was a dinner-party at which the Chef had done marvels considering that at short notice he had had to provide a meal for fifty guests.
Fortunately they did not stay long and left talking of meetings that had to take place the following day, and the preparations which were to be put into operation immediately for the Coronation.
“You will be the most handsome King Dabrozka has ever known,” Ilona said to her husband, as they reached the top of the stairs.
“And it would be impossible in the whole world, to find a more beautiful Queen,” he replied.
She gave a little sigh of sheer happiness. Then as they entered the bedroom she found to her surprise that there were no maids waiting for her.
Aladár came into the room and shut the door behind him.
“I told them not to stay up for you,” he said, as if anticipating the question Ilona had not asked.
He saw the light that came into her eyes and as he walked towards her he said,
“I could not wait any longer to have you to myself.”
He pulled her almost roughly against him, and as his lips came down crushingly on hers, his fingers pulled the pins from her hair.
A great cloud of red-gold tresses fell over her white shoulders and he kissed a handful of it before once again he kissed her lips.
“You are mine!” he said. “Mine, completely and absolutely! To-night I am going to undress you as I have wanted to do ever since we were married!”
“You are – making me – shy,” Ilona whispered.
“I adore you when you are shy,” he answered “but not when you are proud.”
“I will never be proud again,” she answered “except that I am very proud to be your wife and – overwhelmingly proud because you – love me!”
She was not able to say any more.
Aladár was kissing her with a passion that made the flames of desire rise higher and higher within them both.
It was all-consuming and their need for each other made Ilona feel as if they leapt into the fire itself and it was impossible to think or feel, but only to burn.
She felt Aladár’s fingers undoing her gown, and as it fell to the floor he lifted her in his arms.
With his mouth holding her captive he carried her away into a glorious secret kingdom of their own where there was no pride . . only a fiery, uncontrolled, ecstatic love.
THE END
OTHER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
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Lies for Love
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Love and the Loathsome Leopard
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Barbara Cartland, who sadly died in May 2000 at the grand age of ninety eight, remains one of the world’s most famous romantic novelists. With worldwide sales of over one billion, her outstanding 723 books have been translated into thirty six different languages, to be enjoyed by readers of romance globally.
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THE PROUD
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Barbara Cartland
Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
This edition © 2012
Copyright Cartland Promotions 1976
eBook conversion by M-Y Books
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The descriptions of Czar Alexander, 1881-1894, are all correct and he was in fact one of the most unpleasant and cruel rulers Russia ever had.
His first act on becoming Emperor was to tear up the unsigned manifesto lying on his father’s deathbed that made provision for a limited form of representative Government at a national level.
The Czar opened his reign with a persecution of the Jews that was to be unequalled until the advent, fifty years later, of Adolf Hitler in Germany.
It was proclaimed by him that one-third of all the Jews in Russia must die, one third emigrate and one third assimilate.
The Czar wore his clothes until they were threadbare, his children were often hungry and he reduced his Civil List by down-ranking the Nobles. It is not surprising that Mediaeval gloom hung over the Court.
The Secret Police instigated by Nicholas I and known as ‘The Third Section’, terrified the whole country. They were ruthless, corrupt, and savagely cruel.
Chapter One
1886
The clerk knocked tentatively on the door of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
There was a pause before the Marquis of Salisbury replied,
“Come in.”
He was writing at his large flat-topped desk and did not look up for some seconds while the clerk stood somewhat uncomfortably at the doorway.
“What is it?”
“I am sorry to disturb your Lordship, but there is a young lady here who insists on seeing you.”
“A young lady?”
“Her name, my Lord, is Miss Anstruther.”
For a moment the Marquis looked blank and then he said,
“I wonder – ? Show her in.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
The clerk closed the door quietly and returned a few minutes later to announce,
“Miss Vida Anstruther, my Lord.”
The Marquis rose slowly to his feet as his visitor came towards him.
She looked very young, but her composure and self-confidence made him think that she was very likely older.
She was certainly very lovely and, as he held out his hand, he said,
“I think you must be the daughter of Sir Harvey Anstruther.”
She smiled and it was as if sunshine suddenly filled the rather gloomy office.
“Indeed I have come to talk to you about him.”
“I rather suspected that,” the Marquis said. “Will you sit down?”
He indicated an upright chair on the other side of his desk and she seated herself slowly and without the indecision that he might have expected from a girl.
The Marquis of Salisbury, who was also the Prime Minister, was in fact a very intimidating man. Even his colleagues in the House of Lords looked on him with awe.
He was also extremely clever and he knew that he had the full confidence of Queen Victoria as well as the whole Cabinet.
“What I have come to ask you, my Lord,” Vida Anstruther began, and now there was undoubtedly a worried note in her soft voice, “is what has happened to my father?”
“It is a question I have been asking myself since I received a report a few weeks ago that he was missing,” the Marquis replied. “But I am quite certain, considering where he is, it is too soon for you to worry about him.”
“That is where you are wrong, my Lord,” Vida Anstruther contradicted. “I am, in fact, extremely worried, for while it is only in the last few weeks that you have heard that my father is missing, I have not heard from him for nearly two months.”
The Marquis leant back in his chair and said in a serious tone,
“As long as that? I am surprised that you did not communicate with me before.”
“I did not do so because, as you know, Papa dislikes very much being interfered with when he is travelling more or less incognito.”
She paused and then went on.
“But I expect you know why he went to Hungary. The reason he gave to his friends was that he was visiting my mother’s family and he was taking a holiday after so many strenuous years in the service of his country.”
“Of course I understand,” the Marquis said, “and that was exactly what your father told me he would say before he left.”
Vida Anstruther did not speak and he continued,
“What I suspect has happened is that he crossed into Russia, which is what he intended to do and is either on the track of something of great importance and therefore will not return immediately or else he has decided to go on to Odessa and come home by a different route from the one he took on his outward journey.”
“That sounds very plausible, my Lord,” Vida Anstruther replied, “but I am quite certain that Papa is in danger!”
She thought that the Marquis looked sceptical and she added,
“You may think it strange, but because Papa and I have been so close to each other since Mama died, we each know what the other is thinking. My sixth sense, if that is what you like to call it, tells me that either the Russians have arrested him or else he is in hiding and finding it impossible to return home.”
“I can understand your feelings,” the Marquis remarked after a moment, “but what you are saying is entirely supposition and you have no genuine foundation for such ideas.”
“Only my conviction that what has undeniably saved my father’s life many times in the past has been his instinct.”
There was silence.
Then, as if the Marquis was convinced by the certainty with which his visitor spoke, he said after a moment,
“I think you must be aware, Miss Anstruther, that even if you are right there is nothing I can do about it.”
“I know that, my Lord, and that is why I am going to do something myself.”
The Marquis stiffened.
“I hope that you are not speaking seriously.”
“I am very serious. I intend to try to find Papa and I need your help.”
“If you are thinking of going out to Hungary and from there into Russia, I can only say that it would be an extremely foolhardy action of which I know your father would disapprove. I shall try my very best to make you change your mind.”
“You will not be able to do so, my Lord,” Vida Anstruther replied, and now there was a touch of steel in her voice. “I have thought it out very carefully and what I intend is to tell everyone that I am going out to join Papa in Hungary and that we had arranged it before he left.”
She looked at the Marquis as if she was challenging him. He did not speak and she went on.
“All I need from your Lordship is a passport with a false name under which I shall travel. It would be very stupid, if I am right in thinking Papa is in danger, to be known as his daughter once I have left these shores.”
The Marquis appreciated that this was common sense, but he had no intention of giving in so easily.
“Let me make a suggestion, Miss Anstruther,” he said. “I will send one of my most trusted men to look for your father. I have already had reports that he arrived safely in Hungary and was received by your mother’s family with enthusiasm.”
“And what did you hear after that?”
“I was told that your father had gone on a hunting expedition which might or might not have carried him into Russia, but he had not returned and there was a certain amount of anxiety as to what might have happened to him.”
Vida Anstr
uther’s eyes were stormy as she asked,
“And you were content with that report?”
“Of course I was not content with it,” the Marquis replied, “but there can be many reasons for your father’s disappearance. The last thing he would want is for anyone to go looking for him and perhaps reveal his identity. That could prove embarrassing and might even endanger his life.”
He spoke sharply because he told himself that the young girl facing him had no idea of the difficulties her father might be encountering or what damage might be done by inexperienced handling of the delicate situation.
Vida Anstruther merely said in much the same tone as the Marquis had used to her,
“Of course I am well aware of what you are saying, my Lord. You forget that I have been with Papa for the last five years in all sorts of strange places and at times in very uncomfortable circumstances. That is why you can trust me not to do anything foolish or what you would call unprofessional when I go to look for him.”
The way she spoke made the Marquis feel, although it seemed ridiculous, that he ought to apologise and after a moment he said,
“I must admit, Miss Anstruther, that I was not aware how close you are to your father. In fact I had supposed that when he went ‘travelling’ as one might say, you were left behind in whatever Embassy he was posted at that time.”
“I never allowed Papa to go alone,” Vida replied, “and I can assure you he found me very useful. When I was younger, people usually did not think it mattered what they said in front of a child and later he found that, since I am as good at languages as he is himself, I could often pass on information to him which was extremely useful.”
The Marquis thought with a glint of amusement in his eyes that if Miss Anstruther had acted as a spy, which was what she was implying, she was certainly a very attractive one.
It was a pity that the Foreign Office could not make use of her!
But he knew it was his duty to dissuade her from becoming mixed up in what he was well aware was a very tricky situation.
The Russian Czar had, for some time, been behaving in a manner described by Queen Victoria as ‘shameful’.
Princes and Princesses Page 32
