She paused to add,
“That is why I – beg you not to – ”
The Prince put out his hand and laid it on hers.
“You don’t have to say that to me,” he said. “I knew at luncheon exactly what you were feeling.”
“You – knew?” Ancella asked.
It was hard to speak because the touch of his hand had given her a very strange sensation.
She could not explain it to herself. It was as if the excitement that she had felt ever since he had asked her to meet him had intensified until it was almost a pain and yet at the same time – wonderful!
“Ancella, look at me!” the Prince said in his deep voice.
It did not surprise her that he had used her Christian name.
Obediently she turned her head and raised her eyes to his.
“You are very beautiful!” he said, “but that is not important.”
His grey-green eyes looked into hers and he went on,
“I know it is too soon to explain, too soon for words and yet I think you are aware, as I was, that something happened when we met each other last night.”
Ancella found it impossible to speak and yet she felt as if just by looking at each other they were saying so much that could not be put into words.
The Prince gave a little sigh and took his hand from hers.
“I am rushing you. It is too soon and I should have waited,” he said. “I know all the arguments, but somehow they have no substance, no reality. It is what I feel at this moment that matters and I have the idea, although I may be wrong, that you understand.”
Still Ancella could not answer him and after a moment he carried on,
“You are so lovely, so unbelievably beautiful, as so many men must have told you.”
Now Ancella managed a little smile.
“No one has said – that to me.”
“I am the first?”
She nodded her head.
“And you have never been kissed?”
Now the colour rose in her cheeks as she said firmly,
“Of course – not!”
“Oh, my dear, I did not believe it was possible to find a woman who looked like you, to meet her in the Casino and know that she was unspoilt, untouched and an angel!”
He smiled as he added,
“Perhaps it was prophetic that you were called Ancella when you were born.”
“Few people know it is a derivative of the Greek for – ‘angel’.”
“My Greek is somewhat rusty,” the Prince answered, “but I knew that as soon as you introduced yourself.”
“You should not be – talking to me like – this,” Ancella said with an effort. “I am employed by Her Highness and, if she knew that we were – together – I think she would send me – back to England.”
“That is why, my sweet angel, we must be very careful.”
Ancella drew herself up.
“There will be nothing to be careful about, Your Highness.”
He gave a little laugh.
“Now you are rebuking me and quite rightly! Equally we have jumped so many fences already, you and I, that we cannot go back to the starting point. It is impossible!”
Ancella thought it was impossible too, but she told herself severely that she must not allow the Prince to speak so intimately.
“You brought me here to see Eza – ” she began.
“I did nothing of the sort,” he interrupted. “I brought you here because I had to talk to you and to see you alone. You have not been at the villa long, but you must know that Boris reports to my mother everything that occurs. He listens at doors and what he does not hear – he invents!”
“I thought that,” Ancella said, and she knew now who had examined her room when she had first arrived. “But if you know it – why do you – keep him?”
“Because he has always been my mother’s personal servant and she likes to know everything that goes on. It amuses her and as a general rule it hurts no one else. At the same time – ”
His expression darkened as he said in a different tone,
“I distrust Boris and I have never liked him.”
“I think he is a horrible man!” Ancella said. “And I am afraid of him!”
“He has not been impertinent to you?” the Prince asked sharply.
“No, no, of course not! It is just that he is – creepy and it is very un-English to feel that one is being – watched.”
She thought of telling the Prince that she was sure Boris had examined her room and her possessions, but she knew that she had no proof and it would sound rather petty.
“I want my mother to be happy,” the Prince said. “As the doctor will have told you, at times she gets very distressed and upset. So when she stays with me here or anywhere else, I try not to upset her. That is why I don’t wish her to know that we met this afternoon. And not for any other reason!”
He spoke emphatically and sincerely and Ancella knew that he was telling her that he was not ashamed of his desire to see her and would, if he had his way, be quite open about it.
She felt pleased. But she could not help wondering what the Marchioness would think.
“Tell me about yourself,” the Prince quizzed her.
“There is very little to tell,” Ancella answered. “Since my mother died, I have lived quietly in the country. For the last year I have been nursing my father who was very ill and died only last month.”
“So that you have had very little social life and met very few men.”
“Very few,” she admitted with a smile.
“Perhaps that is why you are so unspoilt and so unique!” the Prince said. “At the same time there is something more.”
“What is that?” she asked without thinking.
“The feeling you and I have for each other.”
“Perhaps you are – mistaken about – that,” Ancella said. “It may be just because we met – unexpectedly – and later you saw me doing – something that may not occur again in a – thousand years.”
“And if it does I shall be there!” the Prince exclaimed. “Just as I am sure that a thousand years ago we may have sat in this very place and talked or found each other as we did last night.”
There was a note in his voice that made her vibrate in a manner that she could not explain.
When she had heard him talking on the balustrade, it had been his voice she had found herself listening to rather than the words he spoke.
Now it was almost like music and something within her responded to it, so that it was hard not to put out her hand to touch him.
“You will say that because I am Russian my emotions are more easily aroused than if I was European. But I swear to you, Ancella, that I have never in all my life felt like this about a woman!”
“What are you – trying to – say to me?” Ancella asked in a whisper.
“I am saying that the moment I saw you, I fell in love!”
“But that is – absurd!”
“Is it?” he asked. “Did you not feel as I did when we looked at each other? We both knew that something strange had happened, that we recognised each other.”
“It – cannot be – true!” Ancella said shakily.
“It is true – and you know it!” he replied. “When I brought you here today, I did not intend to say this or anything like it. I wanted to talk to you, perhaps to charm you or, perhaps more truthfully, to woo you. Instead I have said all that I am feeling in my heart. I want you to answer me from your heart.”
“It is – impossible! You know it is – impossible!”
Even as Ancella spoke, she remembered that Russian marriages were arranged, just as they were in France and often in England.
She remembered what the Princess had said about ‘mixed marriages’ and she knew that, if the Prince was talking of love, it was not the love that ended in marriage.
With a superhuman effort she forced herself to say stiffly,
“I think Your Highness is making a mis
take and because, as I am employed by your mother, it is essential for me to be absolutely circumspect, I must not listen to you. Either we must talk of other things or we must return to the villa.”
“I knew you would think it too soon,” the Prince said. “But it is impossible when I am with you to do anything but speak the truth, feeling that any subterfuge or pretence between us is unnatural.”
He sighed.
“I can only ask you to forgive me.”
He held out his hand palm upwards.
“Do you forgive me, my little Greek angel?”
Ancella felt herself quiver at the passion in his words.
Then because she could not help herself she laid her hand in his.
His fingers tightened, then he kissed her hand and she felt her whole body become weak at the touch of his lips.
He released her and, rising to his feet, said,
“Come! I must take you back, but first we will drink a glass of wine in the tavern, which is very old and was, I am sure, here when the Romans came.”
Slipping a little on the smooth stones, they walked a short distance down until the Prince opened the door of a house that had the sign of a ram outside it.
Inside it was very dark and cool.
There was an oak bar at one end and there were two wooden settles with heavy wooden tables in front of them.
They sat down on one and the Prince ordered a bottle of wine from an attractive woman dressed in peasant costume with a white embroidered linen apron.
As she was getting it, there was the cry of a baby wailing fitfully in a back room and, when she came back with the bottle, Ancella said in French,
“Is that your baby crying, madame?”
“He is teething!” the woman replied, “and he is so fretful that I can do nothing with him. He cries not only all day but also at night and it makes my husband very angry. Pray excuse, madame, if he annoys you.”
She went away before Ancella could speak to come back with a plate of olives and carrying the baby under one arm.
He was a small, dark, rather undersized baby and he looked unhappy as if he too had passed a number of sleepless nights.
“Have you tried giving him honey?” Ancella enquired.
“Miel?” the woman exclaimed. “Why?”
“It will soothe him and make him sleep,” Ancella explained.
“There is plenty of honey round here. How much shall I give him?”
“Just give him a little on the tip of your finger,” Ancella suggested, “and put half a teaspoonful in his bottle.”
Thinking that the woman was looking at her suspiciously, she tried to reassure her.
“I promise you it will keep him from crying and it will also make him grow strong. Honey is very good for babies.”
“I’ve never heard of that!” the woman exclaimed. “But now I think of it, my mother-in-law sometimes rubs it on an aching tooth.”
She went to the bar, looked around, found what she was seeking and put the pot of honey on the counter.
Ancella rose to her feet.
“Let me hold the baby while you give it to him,” she suggested.
The woman looked at her in surprise and put the baby in her arms.
He was still whimpering fitfully.
Ancella held him close against her and rocked him gently. He gave one small feeble cry, then he was silent.
Having opened the pot, the woman found a spoon and dug out a little honey and transferred it to the tip of her finger.
She paused to say,
“You are quite certain it will not hurt him?”
“I promise you will be surprised what a difference it will make,” Ancella replied.
The mother put the honey into the baby’s mouth. He opened his lips as if to cry and then started to suck avidly.
“He likes it!” she said in surprise. “Shall I give him some more?”
“Just a little, but not too much! Later he will be thirsty, so he will want a drink, but you can give him some honey whenever he feels fretful. It will not hurt him and always give it to him last thing at night. It will help him to sleep.”
“Well, I never!” the woman exclaimed. “You sound as though you have half a dozen of your own.”
“I hope one day I will have a son,” Ancella replied with a smile.
The woman gave the baby a little more honey, which he sucked appreciatively. Then, as Ancella held him in her arms, he closed his eyes as if satisfied.
“I really believe he is going to sleep!” the mother exclaimed in surprise.
“Put him into his cot and tuck him up warmly,” Ancella said. “He will sleep and, when he wakes for his feed, give him a little honey after it and don’t forget it last thing at night when you want to go to sleep.”
“I’ll remember,” the woman said, “and not only will I bless you, madame, but so will my husband! He is fed up with being kept awake!”
“I am sure he is,” Ancella said. “You might try giving him some honey as well!”
The woman laughed as if she thought it was a joke.
Then she said,
“You mean that, madame?”
“I do mean it,” Ancella said. “It makes everyone sleep well, especially babies and old people.”
“Tiens, we certainly live and learn!” the woman remarked as she took the baby away.
Ancella felt that she had neglected the Prince and she smiled at him a little shyly as she sat down with him again on the wooden settle.
“Is a ministering angel never off duty?” he asked.
She knew that he was teasing her and she smiled as she said,
“My father found honey the one thing that made him sleep and I was always quite sure that it made him better-tempered!”
“You are full of surprises!” the Prince said. “As that woman so rightly remarked, one lives and learns!”
Ancella sipped her wine. It had a delicate flavour and, although it was not such an exceptional wine as those they drank at the villa, she enjoyed it.
The Prince was watching her and the fact that his eyes were on her face made her feel shy.
“This place is very old,” she said, looking round the dim low-ceilinged tavern. “I wonder how many people through the ages have sat here and worried about themselves and their future.”
“I am not concerned with the past or the future,” the Prince rejoined, “just the present and – you.”
She felt herself quiver at the passionate note in his deep voice.
He went on,
“You know that what has happened to us is different from what has ever happened before in our lives!”
“In my – life,” Ancella agreed, “but – ”
“There are no ‘buts’ where we are concerned,” he interposed. “This is quite different and very wonderful.”
Ancella met his eyes and drew in her breath.
Somewhere far away she heard a clock strike.
“We should go – back,” she whispered.
“It is impossible to believe that time can go so swiftly,” the Prince answered.
He put down his glass, laid several francs beside it and rose to his feet. As he opened the door, he called out,
“Au revoir, Madame, et merci!”
“Merci beaucoup, monsieur et madame! You have been very kind. Please come again soon.”
“We will do that,” the Prince promised.
They went out into the hot sunshine and started to walk downhill to where the car was waiting for them, still surrounded by a crowd of admiring peasants.
The Prince helped Ancella into the front seat and overtipped the small boy who had looked after it. Then, having started up the engine, he drove off.
It was rather a hair-raising descent down the twisting road and Ancella recalled stories of cars whose brakes had failed and caused accidents.
But there were no mishaps and, just as they reached the end of the road where it joined the Lower Corniche, the Prince asked,
�
��You have been happy with me?”
“You – know I have!” Ancella replied.
“That is all I wanted to hear,” he said. “Somehow we must contrive to be together again, tomorrow or the next day, but it may not always be easy. You do understand?”
“I understand,” Ancella answered him a little stiffly.
“I know what you are thinking,” the Prince said, “and it is not true. I want to be with you. I want to take you everywhere and to show you the world, but just for the moment it is impossible.”
He paused and then went on slowly,
“I am not going to explain because I believe there is no need for words between us. All I ask is for you to trust me. Will you do that?”
He spoke with such a note of sincerity in his voice that Ancella knew she would have done anything and promised anything he might have asked of her.
She looked up at him and their eyes met.
The world stood still.
“I do – trust you,” she murmured.
Chapter Five
“We must go back.”
“There is no hurry.”
“What will the servants think?”
The Marchioness sat up as she spoke, making a little sound of pain as if her back was stiff.
“Damn the servants!” Freddie Sudley ejaculated. “This is the first time I have enjoyed myself since we came South!”
“I feel guilty,” the Marchioness said, “not because we are here, but because we should be concerning ourselves with worrying as to how we can pay our bills. I had a poisonous letter from Paquin this morning.”
“How poisonous?”
“They are threatening to sue me!”
“How much do you owe them?”
“Nearly two thousand pounds!”
“Good God, Lily!” Freddie Sudley exclaimed. “How can you have spent so much money?”
“I have to have clothes,” the Marchioness replied. “As you well know, it is only men who think that one is beautiful unadorned and talk about ‘not painting the lily’!”
“But surely the paint need not be so exorbitantly expensive?”
“I imagined when I ordered most of the gowns that Lord Corwen was going to pay for them, but, as you know, he sheared off and married that young pudding-faced girl simply because her father’s estates march with his.”
105. an Angel In Hell Page 10
