She picked up the tuft of red seaweed at the same time. It was the prettiest seaweed she had ever seen with tiny shells attached to it and she was determined to take it back to the villa.
Hidden under the balustrade she was looking at it when she heard voices and stiffened.
She felt it would seem somewhat strange if she disclosed herself at this moment, even the gardeners would think it unusual for a lady to climb down the iron ladder and thereby reveal, had there been anyone to watch her, quite an improper amount of ankle!
Accordingly, her brooch in one hand, the seaweed in the other, Ancella moved even further under the balustrade and kept still.
“I thought I would find you here,” a man’s voice said.
“I hoped you would have the sense to follow me, Freddie,” a woman replied.
Ancella guessed that Freddie must be the Captain Sudley Maria had referred to so scathingly.
“I have been longing to talk to you, you know that,” Freddie said. “Oh God, Lily, how long do we have to go on with this charade?”
“Until His Highness makes up his mind, I suppose.”
Ancella told herself that the slightly affected dramatic voice must belong to the Marchioness of Chiswick.
“Surely you can bring him to the point?” Freddie asked.
“It depends what you mean by that.”
“Good Lord! You are not suggesting..
“I am not suggesting anything, Freddie,” the Marchioness interposed. “I intend to marry Vladimer and the sooner he realises it the better! But if it means that I must become his mistress first, then there will be no arguments on that score!”
“What do you think I should feel about that?”
“What you have always felt, I suppose – that I must have a rich husband and I am not likely to find anyone richer than the Prince.”
“Blast his eyes!” Freddie ejaculated. “Why cannot I break the Bank for once in my life?”
“If you broke a dozen Banks, I doubt if it would last you long,” the Marchioness replied in a tired voice. “You know as well as I do that money runs through your fingers like quicksand or whatever the expression is!”
“You don’t hang on to it very long yourself, old girl,” Freddie remarked.
“That is why I have to bring Vladimer up to scratch and as quickly as possible.”
“I cannot think why he is being so slow about it,” Freddie remarked. “He seemed keen enough in London.”
“I think it’s because his mother is here. I hate her and she hates me! That grotesque creature, Boris, repeats everything to her, I know. That is why we must be careful. I knew when I found him listening outside my door the other night that we must take no chances.”
“That is all very well, Lily,” Freddie said. “But if you think that I can stand seeing you while unable to touch you, you are very much mistaken! If I don’t have you to myself I shall go mad!”
There was a note of passion in his voice that seemed to vibrate on the air.
There was a pause and then he added,
“Let me come to your room tonight. No one will know.”
“You are crazy!” the Marchioness retorted quickly. “It would spoil everything! I am quite certain that hobgoblin Boris sleeps with one eye open and, if he found out and told Vladimer, our plans would collapse with a bang, my dear Freddie! You know that is the truth!”
“I have a feeling that the Princess is the danger,” Freddie said tentatively. “She is like a witch! She puts a spell on any woman her son fancies. So you had better be careful.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Look what happened to the girl he was engaged to.”
“What did happen to her?” the Marchioness enquired curiously.
“She was found drowned. Not here, but in another villa they owned nearer to Monte Carlo.”
“I don’t suppose that Vladimer really cared,” the Marchioness said. “It was sure to have been an arranged marriage.”
“I expect it was,” Freddie said. “At the same time there was also a nasty accident to that dancer he was keeping. What was her name? Olga something.”
“Olga Konveroski,” the Marchioness said.
“Yes, that is right. I remember seeing her dance once. She really seemed to float across the stage.”
“What happened to her? ”
“She had an accident. She fell out of a window in St. Petersburg and broke her neck. The papers were full of it because she had just been such a success in Paris. You must have read the reports.”
“I don’t think they interested me,” the Marchioness replied. “I did not know Vladimer in those days.”
“Well, it’s all in the past,” Freddie said. “I don’t mind saying I would have wagered my last sixpence that he would have proposed to you by now.”
“I would have thought so too,” the Marchioness agreed. “Oh, Freddie, if we don’t bring this off, what shall we do?”
“Quite frankly I don’t know!” Freddie replied. “Things are getting pretty awkward. If I go back to England, the bailiffs will be waiting for me.”
“That reminds me,” the Marchioness exclaimed. “I have something for you. Vladimer gave me a thousand francs to gamble with last night. I told him I had lost it, but I have eight hundred for you. Take it out of my bag.”
“Thank you, darling. It’s jolly welcome, I can tell you. I am not spending a penny more than I can help while I am in the company of a Prince, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. I have to pay for a drink sometimes or tip a servant in the Casino.”
“Yes, of course you do! I know how difficult it is for you, but everything will be so different if Vladimer will only ask me to marry him. You could have polo ponies, a decent flat, anything you wanted, if I only had his money.”
“Bless you!” there was a warmth in Freddie’s voice that died away as he continued,
“It said in the papers that he gave that ballet dancer emeralds the size of postage stamps! It seems to me he is doing you on the cheap!”
“That is because at the moment I am neither fish, fowl nor good red herring! He has not asked me to be his wife or his mistress. Most men, my dear Freddie, even if they are Russians, do not pay up until the goods are delivered!”
“I hate your talking like that, Lily,” Freddie said reprovingly. “I love you! You know damned well that I love you! I cannot bear to think of you belonging to another man.”
“We have no alternative, do we? How long is it now since we fell in love with each other?”
“Ever since I first saw you when you were married to that boring old fossil,” Freddie replied. “There should be a law against girls being married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers just because they are important!”
“He was a Marquis,” the Marchioness said, “and after all, if I had been able to have a child, things would have been very different.”
“I know! I know!” Freddie said irritably. “The estate was entailed, provision being made for any child of the marriage, but nothing for the widow. The whole thing was damned unfair!”
“I still have a thousand a year!”
Freddie laughed and it was not a pleasant sound.
“It just keeps you in hairpins, my sweet, and anyhow you have mortgaged that about five years ahead!”
“Yes, I know,” the Marchioness said helplessly, “but I do love you, Freddie! There has never been another man who makes me feel as you do! I suppose naturally I am a cold woman!”
“You are a one-man woman!” Freddie said sharply. “But when the one man has not a bean to bless himself with and his only qualification is an undistinguished Army career which he could not afford to continue, there is not much chance of our being happy together.”
“But we will be!” the Marchioness corrected softly. “Once I have a rich husband!”
“That is what I am counting on,” Freddie sighed.
There was a pause and then he added with a deep note in his voice,
“Let me come to you tonight, my darling.”
“We dare not! Vladimer is busy tomorrow with his yacht or something. We could take a drive into the woods at St. Hospice or up the hill.”
“What use would that be with a coachman driving us?” Freddie asked crossly, “and doubtless a footman on the box?”
“We could go for a walk by ourselves and they would not dare to follow.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Of course I mean it! You know I want to be with you as much as you want to be with me – and Freddie – ”
“Yes, my precious?”
“If I think it is safe, I will come to your room tonight, but we shall have to be careful – very, very careful!”
“I shall be waiting for you. You know that. If only we could put ‘knock-out drops’ in Boris’s drink!”
The Marchioness laughed.
“You must go back now. We have been here too long. I am quite certain we are being watched. We can only be thankful that no one can overhear us here!”
“Yes, we must be thankful for small mercies!” Freddie said dryly. “Goodbye my darling and thank you for the francs!”
“I will get you some more tonight if it is possible, but you will not gamble, will you, Freddie?”
“I cannot afford that sort of extravagance,” he replied almost savagely.
Ancella heard his footsteps as he walked away, but she dared not move, knowing that the Marchioness was standing just above her, leaning against the balustrade.
She must have stayed there for nearly five minutes before there was the sound of footsteps approaching and then a very different voice, deep and attractive, and with a charm that was entirely lacking in Freddie’s, said,
“Why are you out here, Lily? I thought you would be lying down.”
“It is so beautiful!” the Marchioness replied softly. “I am having such a lovely time, Vladimer, and I am so grateful to you!”
“I want you to be happy.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Of course I mean it. Women who are as beautiful as you should never be anything else!”
“You say that too easily for it to be the personal compliment I hoped for!”
“You know you are beautiful! When you enter the Casino, everyone turns to look at you. I thought last night you looked like one of the Goddesses painted on the ceilings!”
“Dear Vladimer! You always make me feel as if I want to purr like a cat!” the Marchioness said. “May I return the compliment and say that you are by far the most handsome and attractive man I have ever met?”
“Do you mean that?”
“You know I mean it!”
“Lily – ”
There was something urgent in the way the Prince spoke her name.
“Pardon, Your Highness!”
It was a guttural voice that interrupted them.
“What is it, Boris?” the Prince asked in a slightly irritated manner.
“Her Highness asked me to tell you that she is awake and would like to speak to Your Highness before she starts to change for dinner.”
“Tell Her Highness that I will be with her immediately!” the Prince replied.
The servant must have bowed in acknowledgement for Ancella heard him moving away.
“I must go to Mama.”
“Must you leave me? Our conversation was just beginning to be interesting!” the Marchioness said softly.
“We will continue it later,” the Prince promised. “Will you stay here or will you walk back with me? I have a feeling that you should be resting, so that you will dazzle them tonight even more effectively than you have done on previous evenings!”
“The majority of the men in the Casino would not raise their eyes from the tables to look at Venus de Milo!” the Marchioness laughed.
“They will look at you, just as I shall do,” the Prince replied.
They must have walked away because Ancella heard their voices very faintly in the distance and then there was silence.
She realised that she had been very tense as she stood listening, concealed beneath the balustrade.
Now she relaxed and moved tentatively over the slippery rocks towards the ladder.
She was intrigued and indeed fascinated by all she had heard.
Who could believe, she thought, that the Marchioness of Chiswick would behave in such a manner?
There was something positively unpleasant in the way she was trying to capture the Prince while at the same time being in love with Captain Sudley.
Ancella told herself it was ridiculous to be shocked. This after all was how she had always expected the fashionable world to behave.
There had been enough gossip and talk about the ‘Marlborough House Set’ and their love affairs.
Even living quietly with her father she had known that the Prince of Wales had been enamoured first with the exquisite Mrs. Langtry, then with Lady Brooke and now with Mrs. Keppel.
There had been beautiful women who were talked about by others who were either envious, curious or shocked.
Sometimes the newspapers even hinted about liaisons that were well known to all Londoners and which percolated slowly back to the country to be related to the Earl by his visitors when they wished to keep him amused.
Ancella had listened, but the scandals had not seemed to her to be particularly interesting because she did not know the people concerned.
Also the Social world had seemed very far away and utterly remote from her or her life.
But now, within a few hours of arriving in the South of France, she had stumbled inadvertently upon a social intrigue that not only surprised but also disgusted her.
‘How could a lady behave in such a manner?’ she asked herself.
She was also outraged at the idea of a man, who should be a gentleman, accepting money from a woman which she had obtained from another man.
Ancella climbed up the ladder and peeped over the balustrade to see if there was anyone in the garden. Then quickly, hoping she would not be seen from the villa, she climbed back onto the terrace.
Carrying the piece of red seaweed and her brooch she hurried back under the shade of the trees.
The water from the fountain was iridescent in the crimson and orange rays of the sun and she hoped that this would distract anyone from noticing her movements before she reached the villa.
She had no intention of entering it by climbing the white marble stairs. Instead she walked up a path at the side of the building and found, as she had expected, a door that was open.
Inside Ancella moved along various passages until she found a staircase and climbed it to find herself in the corridor where her bedroom was situated.
She went inside, closed the door and locked it. She wanted to think over what had happened and she wanted to feel that for the moment she personally was safe from the intrigues that were taking place around her.
She walked to the dressing table and opened the drawer where she had put the leather box in which she kept her brooch.
As she did so, she had a strong impression that someone had been in her room.
It was difficult to be certain and yet she had the feeling that someone had examined her personal belongings and replaced them not quite in the same way as she had left them!
Who could it be?
And why?
Chapter Three
As Ancella dressed for dinner she thought how incredible it was that she should be going to a big social dinner party and then on to the Casino in Monte Carlo.
She thought, when her father died, that her life, which had always been quiet and uneventful, would continue even more so.
The only prospect in front of her, until Sir Felix had come forward with his suggestion, was that she should live with one of her disagreeable and strait-laced aunts who thought any pleasure must be wrong simply because one enjoyed it.
She had never in her wildest dreams thought that she might travel to the South of France and that she would
only have to look out of her window to see the exquisite and breathtaking beauty of it all.
‘That in itself should be enough for anyone,’ she thought.
But on top of it to know that she was about to visit the most sensational and controversial building in Europe and to see, and perhaps meet, some of the distinguished and notorious personalities of the time was incredible.
She had learnt from the Princess that, while there were a number of guests staying in the villa, almost every evening friends joined them for dinner from the hotels or from the villas nearby.
“But we shall be a small party tonight,” the Princess said, “because my son has told me that he has been invited to dine with the Grand Duke Mikhail of Russia to meet the Prince of Denmark. It is an invitation he cannot refuse and therefore I must look after his guests and we shall meet later in the Casino.”
“Does everybody go to the Casino in the evening?” Ancella asked.
“Everything that is amusing takes place in Monte Carlo,” the Princess answered, “and one night, if I spare the time from the tables, we will attend the theatre.”
“There is a theatre in the Casino? “ Ancella exclaimed in astonishment.
The Princess smiled.
“It was built by Charles Gamier who designed the Paris Opera House,” she replied. “There are just as many golden giants, golden naked boys and nubile slaves holding golden candelabra as there are in Paris!”
The Princess chuckled and added,
“They always tell the story of how François Blanc’s wife, when she saw it, said acidly,
“‘All this vulgar display of gilt will only serve to remind the customers how much gold they have lost at the tables!’”
“I would love to go to the theatre!” Ancella said.
“We shall have to see who is appearing,” the Princess replied. “Last year I watched Faust and saw Sarah Bernhardt in some play – I forget the name.”
She chuckled.
“The divine Sarah was very unfortunate at the tables.”
“Was she wonderful on the stage?” Ancella asked.
“Some people thought so.”
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