Princes and Princesses

by Cartland, Barbara

  Dawkins, as already instructed by the Duke, was waiting for them and only as all four disappeared inside did the Duke give a sigh of relief and move the car that he had kept running to the other side of the quay.

  Then deliberately sauntering in a casual manner, he walked up the gangplank and went on board, where Stevens was waiting to take his cap.

  “Is the rest of the party aboard, Stevens?” the Duke enquired.

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Then tell the Captain we are ready to leave immediately.”

  “I think he’s aware of that, Your Grace.”

  As the Steward spoke, the yacht began to move away from the quay and the Duke could hear the vibration of the engines.

  The next moment Harry came up from the Saloon.

  “We’ve done it!” he exclaimed.

  The Duke nodded.

  “Everything went according to plan, but the sooner we are out into the Sea of Marmara the better.”

  “I agree with you,” Harry said, “but I cannot imagine that anyone would dare to stop us.”

  “One never knows,” the Duke replied.

  He walked into the Saloon where the rest of the party was obviously waiting for him to give them an explanation.

  Dolly jumped to her feet.

  “I simply must ask you what all this is about,” she asserted. “As you can imagine, I am consumed with curiosity and it was really very rough in the boat. I thought I might be seasick.”

  It was just like Dolly to find something to complain about, the Duke thought, but he was so delighted at the success of his plan that he found it difficult to be critical.

  “You must tell us who those men are who have just come aboard,” Nancy said, “and the woman.”

  She spoke without thinking and Dolly looked at her sharply and asked,

  “Woman? What woman? Nobody said anything to me about a woman.”

  “I was looking out of the porthole,” Nancy replied, “and I thought that I saw three men in yachting clothes followed by – a woman.”

  She looked apologetically at the Duke as she spoke and he knew that she had not meant to be indiscreet, but had thought that as everyone was aboard there was no longer any reason for secrecy.

  “You didn’t tell me,” Dolly said almost indignantly, “that you had invited so many people to join us and who is this woman anyway?”

  Without answering, the Duke walked across to the porthole.

  The ship was gathering speed and now they were well away from the shore and moving towards the open sea.

  He knew it would not be long before he need have no more apprehension and the Grand Duke would be, to all intents and purposes, as safe as he would be in Cairo.

  “I am waiting, Buck,” Dolly persisted and now there was an undoubted edge to her voice.

  The Duke turned from the porthole.

  “Forgive me while I just find out if our guests have everything they require,” he replied, “than I will tell you everything you wish to know.”

  He heard Dolly give a cry of protest as he left the Saloon to go below to the cabins.

  He had instructed Stevens to place the Grand Duke in the largest and best cabin that was not being used and he found him now lying on the bed with one of the Princes taking off his shoes and the Princess holding a glass of brandy to his lips.

  Stevens was standing near the door and, as he entered the cabin, the Duke said sharply,

  “You have the soup ready and the other food I ordered?”

  “It’s coming now, Your Grace,” Stevens replied.

  He glanced past the Duke as he spoke to where two Stewards carrying trays were waiting to enter the cabin.

  They set the trays down on a side table and the Duke said,

  “I think what will help His Royal Highness better than anything else is the soup I have ordered and I imagine you will all appreciate some substantial ‘elevenses’ after the anxiety of the last few hours.”

  He smiled at them as he spoke and then followed the Stewards from the cabin.

  He understood that the Russians in their state of near-starvation would not wish to eat for the first time in front of other people.

  He had therefore instructed the Stewards to tell the chef that what would be required the moment they arrived was a really nourishing soup made from beef, chicken and game if they were procurable, besides patés, vol-au-vents and other snacks that were quick to consume and easy to digest.

  He did not provide any wine or spirits, which he thought would be disastrous on an empty stomach, but instead tea, which he thought the Russians would prefer, as it was almost a national drink, with coffee in case they had developed European tastes.

  Satisfied that he had shown forethought, the Duke went back again to the Saloon.

  As he entered, he saw that Dolly was pouting and he told himself that he was bored with her.

  He decided to ignore her pretty but petulant face and spoke to Nancy.

  “I can now tell you what you want to know.”

  “You can imagine we are bursting with curiosity,” Nancy replied.

  “I know that,” the Duke answered, “but it really was important that you should know nothing until my new guests were safe, which I believe them now to be.”

  The Duke had the feeling because it had been so nerve-racking that he should touch wood.

  He told himself that the Grand Duke was not as it were on British soil and it was doubtful, however much pressure the Soviet spies might try to exert on the Turks, if they would be prepared to interfere.

  He walked to the end of the Saloon, appreciating that Nancy and George were giving him their rapt attention and so was Dolly although she pretended otherwise.

  Only Harry had a faint twinkle in his eyes as if he knew the Duke was still enjoying the drama of what had just occurred.

  “My chief guest, whom I have just brought on board, with considerably difficulty and your very valuable help,” he began, “is the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia.”

  There was an audible gasp and George Radstock said,

  “I thought he had been assassinated!”

  “So did I,” the Duke replied, “but he is, in fact, alive and has been in hiding all these years since the Revolution. However he is in a very weak condition from starvation.”

  “How terrible for him!” Nancy said. “But how can he have survived?”

  “In the South of Russia they are not so loyal to the Revolution as in the North,” the Duke answered, “and his own people were able to help him, even against the Bolsheviks who were determined that he should die.”

  “And now he is safe?” Nancy enquired.

  “He is safe!” the Duke repeated as if he confirmed it to himself, “and so is his nephew, Prince Alexander Saronov and Prince Ivan Kerenski, whom I knew when I was in Russia.”

  “And the woman?”

  Dolly’s voice rang out sharply.

  “She is the Grand Duke’s daughter,” the Duke answered, “Her Serene Highness Princess Militsa.”

  He thought for a moment that Dolly was impressed that their last guest was so distinguished.

  Then she said,

  “She must be a tough creature to have endured such hardship.”

  There was no doubt that she implied that the Princess was unfeminine, but Nancy said,

  “Poor woman! Is there anything I can do to help her?”

  “I feel certain that she will be grateful for your help later,” the Duke answered, “but for the moment I have left them alone, first to the realisation they are no longer in danger and second to the very different conditions they will find here from those Harry and I found them in last night.”

  “You saw them last night?” Dolly asked. “Why did you not tell me?”

  “Because, as I have said, it was a secret and the fewer people who knew that they even existed, the better from their point of view.”

  “I was not likely to betray them,” Dolly said sulkily.

  “Not deliberatel
y, of course,” the Duke agreed, “but you might have done so inadvertently.”

  “Really, Buck! You talk to me as if I was half-witted!” Dolly remarked disagreeably.

  The Duke knew that she was annoyed because other people had joined the party and was determined to pick a quarrel with him. Harry wondered how she could be such a fool.

  The Duke was, however, too pleased with himself at the moment to take much notice of Dolly and her behaviour.

  Instead he said,

  “After a somewhat serious morning, but nevertheless a very successful one, I think that we all deserve a drink! Ring the bell, Harry. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a glass of champagne!”

  “Well, I certainly need one,” Dolly exclaimed, “after pitching and tossing in a boat that smelt of fish and being kept in the dark about secrets which I consider I had every right to be told!”

  “The Duke and I were creeping about in disguise, Dolly,” Harry said, “and you are far too beautiful not to be noticed, even if we dressed you up in a yashmak.”

  He was trying to coax her back into a good humour and, because she enjoyed compliments, she gave him a smile before she said,

  “I thought once of giving a party with every woman veiled except for me. Then I thought Buck would find it an irresistible temptation to lift their veils.”

  “He has always been curious,” Harry said, “but in this case with excellent results. I don’t mind telling you all that it was Buck’s brilliant plan which has saved the Grand Duke and the others from the death the Bolsheviks had planned for them.”

  “That sounds just like you, Buck,” George Radstock said. “I only wish that you had let me in on the secret. It sounds to me exactly like a story by Phillips Oppenheim.”

  “That is what it has been!” Harry laughed, “and when we reach Cairo there will be a happy ending.”

  “Why?” Dolly enquired.

  “Because Prince Ivan has friends there who he thinks will find him some sort of employment and Prince Alexander intends to join the Foreign Legion.”

  “The Foreign Legion!” Nancy exclaimed. “How romantic!”

  It was nearly one o’clock and they were moving smoothly through the Sea of Marmara when the Duke sent Harry down below to say that he hoped his guests, with the possible exception of the Grand Duke, would join them for luncheon.

  The Duke had been aware when he saw them as they came from the wood that they had both shaved off their beards, but he had not realised what a difference it would make or how in his smart yachting clothes they bore no resemblance to the ragged rough peasants he had seen last night in the empty house.

  Now, except that he looked desperately thin and ill, Prince Ivan seemed to have regained his charm and a little of the dash that had made him such an outstanding figure in St. Petersburg.

  There was no doubt too that Prince Alexander was an extremely handsome young man.

  As Harry came back accompanied by the Princes, the Duke walked towards them.

  “Let me welcome you aboard, Your Highness,” he said to Prince Ivan, “and we all hope that this will be the beginning of a new chapter and a very much happier one in all your lives.”

  “It is difficult for me to express my gratitude, Your Grace – ” the Prince began.

  “Then please don’t try,” the Prince interrupted. “Let me present my party.”

  He introduced Dolly first, then Lord and Lady Radstock.

  Then, when he had presented them to Prince Alexander and they all began to talk, he said in a low voice to Harry,

  “What about the Princess?”

  “She wishes to stay with her father. Dawkins has put the Grand Duke to bed. He has had something to eat and is now resting.”

  “I should have thought Dawkins could have looked after him while the Princess joined us for luncheon.”

  “Yes, he suggested that,” Harry replied, “but she refused. She may be shy, I don’t know.”

  “Ask Nancy to go down and see her,” the Duke suggested.

  Harry understood it was something he did not wish to do himself, so he spoke to Nancy and she hurried from the Saloon.

  She returned only a few minutes before it was announced that luncheon was served and was alone.

  “She is charming,” she said to the Duke in a low voice, “but we will talk about it later.”

  She glanced towards Dolly as she spoke and the Duke understood that it would be wise not to raise the matter of the Princess for the moment.

  It was in fact several hours later before the Duke went out alone on deck and was followed by Nancy Radstock.

  The sun was still shining, but now the wind was blustery and cold and Nancy was wearing a thick coat and a hood trimmed with fur.

  “I am glad we have left Constantinople behind,” she said. “The poverty there made me miserable and the empty Palaces gave me the creeps even before I learned about the suffering of your Russians.”

  “You spoke to the Princess?” the Duke asked.

  “She said that she did not wish to leave her father and join us for luncheon,” Nancy replied. “I think too there are other reasons.”

  “What were they?”

  “The first is that having been starving for so long and then being plied with food when she arrived on the yacht, it was impossible for her to eat any more.”

  Nancy smiled and put her hand on the Duke’s arm.

  “That was considerate of you, Buck. I never expected you to be so understanding where suffering was concerned.”

  “Go on with what you were telling me,” the Duke said as if he felt embarrassed at her praise.

  “I think the Princess is acutely conscious of having nothing to wear.”

  He turned to look at Nancy.

  “But surely – ” he began.

  “Yes, of course. I offered her anything she wanted. She accepted a nightgown and said that otherwise she would wear what she owned.”

  The Duke stared at her incredulously.

  “But surely – ” he began.

  He remembered the ghastly ragged garments the Princess had been wearing when she had called on the yacht and last night in the empty house.

  “She has a dress that she is wearing now,” Nancy said, “which must have been an expensive model in perhaps 1916, although it is now threadbare, darned and looks a little strange. But it is hers.”

  “I suppose it is what I should have expected,” the Duke said in a low voice. “You will have to get round it somehow, Nancy.”

  “I don’t know how I can,” Nancy replied. “She is very firm on the subject. ‘You are most kind, Lady Radstock,’ she said, ‘but you must understand that in all these years I have not begged, borrowed or stolen and I do not intend to start now’.”

  The Duke looked slightly sceptical and Nancy said,

  “I gather from what she told me that she has worked in some way or other, as did the Princes, for the food they obtained from the peasants before they managed to leave.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “I gather, although she was not explicit, that the Princess cooked and even scrubbed floors for anyone who would employ her and the Princes worked on the land. If you look at Prince Ivan’s hands, you will see that there is no doubt of the way he has toiled so that they could eat.”

  The Duke leaned over the rail and looked out to sea.

  He was thinking that the Russians had ideals and principles that most English people and certainly those of any other nation would think absurd. Yet one could not help admiring them for refusing to lower themselves to the level of more ordinary human beings.

  “What can we do, Nancy?” he asked and she knew that he was worrying over the Princess.

  “I will try to think of something,” she promised, “but it’s not going to be easy and, Buck – ”

  It was the way Nancy said his name that made the Duke look round enquiringly.

  There was a pause.

  Then Nancy said,

  “I supp
ose you realise that, when she does not look so ill or so emaciated, the Princess is very beautiful?”

  The Duke did not answer.

  He was only thinking that, despite his promise of emeralds, Dolly, when she saw the Princess, was bound to be difficult.

  Chapter Four

  The Duke, as he usually did, spent a great deal of the day on the bridge beside the Captain.

  He enjoyed navigating his own yacht and he also found it a relief to get away from the chatter of his women guests, which actually meant Dolly.

  She had been petulant during luncheon and would have been more so had not Prince Ivan put himself out to exert the charm that had been so characteristic of him in the old days.

  There was no doubt that the two Princes were finding it a joy beyond words to be in civilised surroundings, apart from the fact that they appreciated the excellent food and drink which had been denied them for so long.

  The Duke liked the way they did not speak of their sufferings, but the terrible experiences they had been through were only too obvious in the thinness of their bodies, the sallowness of their skin and the condition of their hands which revealed the manual labour they had been forced to undertake.

  They were wearing the Duke’s clothes, which, even if too large for them, made them appear the gentlemen they were and they seemed to merge easily with the other guests and might in fact have known no other life but one of carefree luxury.

  However, the Duke was acutely aware that there was one member of the party missing and that was the Princess.

  She was well enough in health to join them and it irritated him to think that he could not overcome her prejudice and persuade her to be as sociable as the Princes were.

  He guessed that, after she had eaten with her father, the Grand Duke would undoubtedly rest during the first part of the afternoon and she would do the same.

  He therefore waited until after tea had been served in the Saloon and Dolly was intent on playing Mah-jong before he slipped away as if he was going to his own cabin.

  As he reached the door of the Saloon, Dolly called out,

  “Don’t leave us, Buck. I want to dance when I have finished this game.”

  “I shall not be long,” the Duke replied vaguely, “and you have plenty of partners without me.”