She thought then that hundreds of women must have said the same thing and that he was an enigma like the Sphinx.
Even stranger was the fact that today he was obviously avoiding her.
What they had experienced in the room with the icons had not drawn them closer together, but had seemingly divided them sharply.
She felt the difference as soon as they all met in the morning when Lady Odele had already decided what they should do during the day.
“I thought this, morning,” she said, “that you would all like to visit the fascinating old Priory, which is on the outskirts of His Highness’s estate.”
She glanced out the window and declared,
“It’s a fine day and I know that you, Charlotte dear, would like to ride with His Highness.”
The Prince, who had come into the room while she was speaking, had his eyes on Lady Odele’s beautiful face and she flashed him an intimate little smile as she added,
“You will appreciate, Your Highness, how well Charlotte rides, and I know that she will wish to see the finest horseman in Europe on your famous black stallion.”
Lady Odele looked from the Prince to Shane.
“And you, Shane,” she said, “will drive your cousin in one of His Highness’s latest carriages, which are built for speed, while I shall ask you, Richard, to be my escort.”
It was all cleverly contrived, Alana knew, so that Charlotte would be alone with the Prince.
When an hour later they started off from The Castle, she thought that Charlotte looked so attractive in her well-cut riding habit that it would be difficult for any man not to admire her.
Shane must have thought the same thing, because as soon as they set off down the drive and Charlotte and the Prince had galloped away over the Park, he muttered in a bitter tone,
“What chance have I against a man like that?”
Alana looked at him in surprise.
“You cannot doubt Charlotte’s love for you?”
“She is very young,” Shane replied, “and look what he can give her! I thought last night that the sooner I went back to Ireland the better it would be for everybody.”
“I cannot believe you really mean that.”
“Oh, God, I don’t know what I mean,” Shane cried.
“I have known Charlotte for some years,” Alana said quietly, “and I am sure that she loves you with her whole heart, as she has always loved you. You are part of her life and, if she lost you, I think it would be like losing an arm or a leg besides destroying her only hope of real happiness.”
“Do you really mean that?”
He let the horses move more slowly, but, as Richard and Lady Odele had driven on ahead, Alana thought that there was no hurry.
What she and Shane were discussing was very important.
“I have been thinking,” she said, “that you and Charlotte are facing this crisis in the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Alana replied, “that even if the Prince does not ask her to marry him, there will be other men, her father and mother will see to that.”
Shane turned his head for a moment to look at her and she saw the misery in his eyes.
“What are you suggesting?” he asked.
“I think you will have to be brave and make a decision about yourself one way or the other,” Alana answered. “What we are trying to do now may come off, but I know that you will still be tortured when Charlotte goes to London to attend the balls and parties that had been planned for her before Lady Odele produced the Prince.”
“What have I to offer her,” Shane asked, “even if it was possible for us to be married, which I very much doubt?”
“I am not going to make suggestions,” Alana said quietly. “What I am going to say to you is that you must believe in yourself. My father always said that, if we want something badly enough, we can get it and it is not a question of what we do but what we think.”
As she spoke, she remembered the icons last night and the feeling they had aroused in her and so she added gently,
“Although perhaps it will embarrass you to speak of it, there is always a Power that can help us when we are desperate.”
Again Shane glanced at her as if in surprise and then after a moment he said,
“I know what you are saying and you are right I have been faint-hearted and have not had faith either in myself or in Charlotte.”
Alana smiled at him and suggested,
“Once you have decided exactly what you want of each other and exactly where your real happiness lies, then any obstacles are worth surmounting and any difficulties worth fighting one’s way through.”
“You are right – of course you are right!” Shane cried.
The light had now come back into his eyes and he squared his shoulders.
Then, as if he must express his feelings by action, he drove the horses faster until they had caught up with Richard and Lady Odele.
The ancient Priory was little more than a ruin and, although there were some matters of interest in its antiquities, Alana knew that visiting it had only been an excuse for the Prince and Charlotte to ride together while the rest of them must keep to the roads.
When they returned to The Castle for luncheon, there were a number of people who had arrived with their horses to spend the afternoon trying out the new Racecourse that the Prince had built on the estate and the jumps that only he seemed able to take effortlessly and with tremendous style.
“I hope that you have told His Highness how much you admire the way he rides and how well he handles a horse,” Alana heard Lady Odele say sharply to Charlotte.
“Yes, of course, Aunt Odele,” Charlotte replied submissively.
“Remember, all men, however important, like appreciation, Lady Odele admonished. “Go and tell him now how brilliantly you thought he took that last fence.”
Charlotte walked obediently towards where the Prince was riding his horse in from the Racecourse.
But before she could reach him she saw Shane talking to her brother and she lingered with them for so long that the Prince had dismounted and was busy inspecting several other horses that he wished to ride.
Alana saw Lady Odele’s lips tighten and she was obviously angry.
As if she had to vent her rage on somebody, she said to her in her iciest tone,
“I would hope, Lady Alana, that, as you have known my niece for so many years, you will do your best to contribute to her happiness and not attempt to prevent it.”
Alana knew what she meant but looked surprised and merely answered quietly,
“I assure your Ladyship, the one thing I want is Charlotte’s happiness.”
“If that is true,” Lady Odele came back coldly, “then I hope you will not again try to monopolise His Highness’s attention as you did last night. For your own good I must tell you that I consider your behaviour extremely fast and not what one would expect of a girl of your age.”
She did not wait for Alana to reply, but walked away, looking, as she did so, extremely beautiful despite the expression of anger in her blue eyes.
When they returned to The Castle from the Racecourse, their guests left and Lady Odele seized the opportunity, because she herself wished to rest, to virtually order Charlotte and Alana that they must do the same.
The Prince had already disappeared and again Alana had been aware, as she had at luncheon, that he was deliberately avoiding her and had not spoken a single word to her the whole day.
“You must try to keep the Prince away from me, Alana,” Charlotte was saying now. “I dare not be alone with him.”
“It’s not easy.”
“Why not? He was obviously interested in you last night.”
“I think he regrets what happened last night.”
“Regrets?” Charlotte asked, “What do you mean by that? What did he do?”
Alana felt she could not tell anyone, not even Charlotte, that the Prince had taken her to the room with the icon
s.
Instead she replied,
“We talked on rather serious subjects and I felt, in fact I knew, that for the moment he was interested in what I was saying. But now I am sure that he feels he must keep to his original intention of marrying you,”
Charlotte gave a cry of sheer horror.
“You cannot – mean that! Oh, Alana, that must not – happen.”
“It will not happen,” Alana said quietly, “I am only telling you what I am sure the Prince is feeling.”
“Whatever – happens,” Charlotte said desperately, “I must not be – alone with him”
“I think that is wise,” Alana agreed, “but I don’t know quite how we can prevent it.”
“If he suggests it, I suppose I can – refuse?”
Charlotte was obviously very agitated and walked up and down the room as if she could not keep still.
“I want to talk to Shane,” she said after a few minutes, “I want to tell him what I am feeling,”
“Shane knows, because he is feeling the same himself,” Alana observed. “But you must be careful, Charlotte. If your aunt becomes aware of what you feel for Shane, I am sure that she will make a fuss to your father and mother. Then they will not have him to stay with you and it would be difficult for you to see him anywhere else.”
“You said you would save me – you have to – save me,” Charlotte insisted anxiously.
“I will try, I will really try,” Alana promised her.
“Come and choose another gown,” Charlotte said, “and make yourself look so beautiful that he cannot help gazing at you.”
They went into the dressing room where Charlotte’s clothes were arranged in cupboards all round the room.
She pulled open the doors.
“There must be something here that you will look outstanding in and different from everybody else.”
Alana did not say so, but she knew that it was going to be difficult.
Tonight the party was to be bigger than that of last night and she had learnt that tomorrow Lady Odele had arranged a large ball, which was to be held in the huge ballroom.
If on those two occasions Lady Odele was determined to keep her in the background, she might easily pass unnoticed, especially if the Prince was in his present mood of being determined to avoid her.
The more she thought of his strange behaviour, the more she was certain, with the same inner perception she had had before where he was concerned, that he was regretting the impulse that had made him take her into the room with the icons.
He was fighting against believing that they were indisputably attuned to each other in a way that was difficult to explain.
Last night she had known what he felt and he too had been fully aware that the icons would mean to her what they meant to him.
Such an idea would seem incredible, Alana thought, to someone like Lady Odele and to most ordinary people.
But the Prince was not an ordinary man and she knew from past experience that in many ways she was not ordinary either.
‘He has turned away from me,’ she told herself. ‘He does not want to know any more – or to probe any – deeper.’
She remembered how he had said that she had secrets in her eyes, but Alana knew, almost as if he told her so, that he was determined to marry an English girl like Charlotte, who had no hidden depths or unaccountable perceptions.
She gave a sigh.
How could she compete with the rigid self-control that the Prince obviously had over himself and a power that it was possible to use either for good or for evil?
“There must be something here that will make you look different – and attract his attention,” Charlotte was saying desperately.
Alana looked at the long line of white evening gowns in tulle, satin, crêpe and lace, all of which were virgin-white although some were decorated with coloured flowers and ribbons.
Then she remembered the ribbon that she had worn round her neck.
“Where is your gown decorated with Parma violets?” she asked.
“I bought that one in the spring when I was in mourning for my Grandmama,” Charlotte replied. “But I told the maids at home to pack everything I possessed and they obeyed me.”
She opened another cupboard and Alana could see hanging there several gowns of pale pink, blue and mauve.
She looked closer, saw that there was one that was black and lifted it out of the cupboard.
“Mama had that made for me for the first month that I was in mourning,” Charlotte explained, “but after that I was allowed to wear mauve or white.”
“It’s a very pretty gown,” Alana commented reflectively.
It had been made for a young girl and was not the sombre black that was connected with grief and tears.
Of fine net embellished with lace and black velvet ribbons it was swept round in the front in the fashionable folds that accentuated the smallness of the waist and the largeness of the bustle.
At the back there was frill upon frill of net surmounted by a huge velvet bow.
Alana’s eyes suddenly had a sparkle of mischief in them.
“I am going to wear this,” she said. “It will certainly be a surprise and I also have an idea.”
“Black!” Charlotte exclaimed. “Are you sure, Alana? Remember, you have to look beautiful, much more beautiful than me.”
“It will look fantastic,” Alana said positively.
She put the gown over her arm and kissed Charlotte on the cheek.
“Cheer up. I have a feeling that everything is going to be all right for you and Shane.”
“What sort of feeling?”
“A magic feeling like the one you attributed to Papa.”
Charlotte’s smile made her look radiant.
“Do you really mean it?”
“I really mean it,” Alana replied, “and you know I would not say so otherwise.”
“Now you are making me feel happy again,” Charlotte said, “and, if I cannot talk to Shane at the beginning of the evening, will you tell him if you have the chance that I love him?”
“I think he knows that already,” Alana smiled, “but I will most certainly tell him that you said so.”
She went to her own room, where her maid was waiting to help her undress so that she could rest.
“I wonder if you would do something for me,” Alana asked her.
“Of course, my Lady.”
“Then would you please ask the gardeners who are preparing the flowers for this evening if it would be possible for me to have a number of small white flowers, in fact quite a large amount of them?”
“What sort of flowers, my Lady?”
“I must leave that to them,” Alana replied. “Perhaps they will not have many that are white, but please ask them to try.”
“I’ll tell them, my Lady.”
The maid looked somewhat disparagingly at the gown that Alana had brought from Charlotte’s room and then she said,
“I’m thinkin’ your Ladyship’ll need flowers to cheer that up a bit. There’s not many ladies’ll be wearin’ the black, not when they’re dancin’.”
“That is what I thought,” Alana said quietly.
Later, when the maid was arranging her hair, there was a knock on the door to say that the flowers had arrived.
When Alana saw them she gave an exclamation of delight.
The gardeners had not failed her. There were dozens and dozens of orchids, exquisite in their star-shaped delicate fragility and pure white except for their stamens.
With the maid’s help Alana pinned the orchids round the décolletage of her gown and, when she put it on, she realised that it not only made her figure almost startlingly shapely it also accentuated the translucent whiteness of her skin.
The orchids gave her a touch of fantasy and there was no doubt that she looked very unlike the ordinary Society debutante she was supposed to be.
With the remaining blooms she constructed a wreath that encircled the back of her small head
like a halo and this too made her look ethereal and at the same time amazingly beautiful.
“I’ve never seen anythin’ like it, my Lady,” the maid exclaimed. “I never expected a black gown could look as fantastic as that.”
“Thank you, Judy.”
“You’ll be the belle of the ball, that’s what you’ll be,” the maid enthused. “But her Ladyship’ll – ”
Alana was aware that the maid had been about to say, ‘her Ladyship will not approve’ when she lapsed into silence.
Because she was determined to help Charlotte by attracting the Prince’s attention, Alana deliberately waited until she thought that a number of the guests would have arrived already.
There would be over a hundred for dinner tonight and she had heard the carriages coming up the drive for a long time before she finally took a last glance at herself in the mirror.
Then she began to walk slowly along the corridor towards the Grand Staircase that led down to the huge marble hall.
As she descended slowly, she told herself that she was playing a part not in a play but in Grand Opera.
How could she possibly be Alana, the help from the Vicarage, when she was dressed like a leading actress and deceiving one of the most notorious personalities in Europe?
Then, like a cold hand sweeping away her excitement and elation, she thought that perhaps her efforts would be in vain and the Prince would continue to ignore her as he had done all day.
In which case she would fail in her endeavour to help Charlotte and would return to the Vicarage as a failure without even the consolation of her friendship with Richard in the future.
She was halfway down the stairs when she remembered what she had said to Shane when they were out driving.
‘I must succeed! I will succeed!’ she murmured beneath her breath. ‘I am not fighting for myself but for Charlotte and for what is right and good. The Power is there to help me – if I can but – use it.’
She thought of the icons hidden away in the room that the Prince had taken her to and she had a sudden longing to go there and ask for their help.
She knew that the help she needed was not only concentrated in the icons, it was within reach as it always had been if you could only find a way to be in touch with it.
Princes and Princesses Page 143
