She bent forward trembling to kiss his lips. He reached up his arms and drew her onto his knees, kissing her wildly, until he felt her lips open beneath his, her whole body alive with passion.
Forgotten for the moment were all intrigues, Russia, Austria, everything was laid aside except this wild desire for each other.
Then with her heart against his, Katharina whispered,
“Oh, my Clement, what a terrible thing it would be if Russia and Austria should ever go to war with each other! If we were to be on opposite sides I could not bear it! It would kill me! And yet, why should I worry? It is inconceivable that any nation could go to war against the Government you represent.”
Metternich had laughed at that and a few minutes later, still with their arms around each other, they were talking and arguing about world affairs. Katharina, unlike any other woman he had ever met, had the ability to pass from moments of infinite tenderness and passion into intellectual discussions as astute as those a Statesman or a diplomat might have with him.
How happy they had been!
Katharina gave a little sigh now as she thought of those nights of love and argument, when passion and politics were indivisibly mingled and the hours had slipped away too quickly for them to keep count of them.
How could Richard Melton or any other man understand what it meant to be loved by Metternich and to love him? She supposed there would always be part of her heart that belonged to him. Yet, while she was still beautiful and still desirable, there would be many other men in her life.
Richard was one.
There was something about him that attracted her wildly, something that made her heart beat more quickly when he came close to her. She must be lovely for him tonight and even at the thought of it, she bent towards the mirror and saw the tiny almost invisible lines at the corner of her eyes, the first warning that youth would pass and beauty would fade. For the moment they were easily disguised, but the day would come –
Katharina felt herself shiver and then imperiously she rang the bell for her maids.
She wanted massage, a bath and the skilful applications of lotions, perfumes, ointments and powders before she could attend the ball tonight.
In his own room, Richard Melton changed slowly into the coat and breeches fashioned by Weston of Bond Street, which made many of the Noblemen at the Congress eye him enviously.
He was almost too broad-shouldered for the languid elegance that was required of a Georgian dandy, but when his valet had finished arraying him, his cravat was tied to his liking and he assumed the proper bored expression of a buck who had been everywhere and seen everything, he was not displeased with his appearance.
He had just picked up his watch to set it in the pocket of his vest, when there came a loud knocking at the door.
His valet, a small, bow-legged Cockney with a scarred cheek, went to open it.
An aide-de-camp in a resplendent uniform stood there.
“His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, requests the company of Mr. Melton,” he said in stilted English.
“All right. Say ’e’ll be along in a jiffy.”
Richard’s cockney valet shut the door sharply.
“The Cock of the Roost wants you, Guv,” he announced unnecessarily. “Lord lumme, you can’t get a moment to yourself in this place, can you?”
“True enough, Harry, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Now don’t you start talkin’ about beggars, Guv, we ain’t down and out yet by a long chalk.”
“Not as long as we stay here, Harry, and while we do so, it’s no use your forgetting which side our bread is buttered.”
“I’m not forgettin’ that. Guv, but I’m not takin’ a lot of foreign sauce with it neither. These chaps give me the creeps, hangin’ about the place with their slit eyes. And what they put up with too! If anyone treated me as they’re treated, I’d kill ’em, that’s what I’d do.”
“I can quite believe it,” Richard said drily, “but if we don’t want to start looking for somewhere else to lodge, you had better keep such sentiments to yourself.”
“Mum’s the word, Guv. I can keep me chaffer close,” Harry said cheerily and added more quietly, “You ’aven’t ’eard anythin’ from England, ’ave you?”
“Only that my devoted cousin, the Marquis, is in good favour at Carlton House Terrace. He was dining with the Prince Regent last week.”
“Blast ’is eyes! I ’opes all ’e puts in ’is gizzard chokes ’im.”
“A sentiment I fervently concur with,” Richard Melton said with a sigh, “but unfortunately the Bible tells us that the evil flourish like a green bay tree, and doubtless my honourable cousin passed a very enjoyable evening.”
“You should ’ave seen the Prince yourself, Guv, and told ’im the truth.”
“Now, Harry, we’ve been through all this before,” Richard answered, “and you know no one would have listened to me. I was alone when I came upon the unfortunate Mr. Danby lying in his blood and there were three of them to swear that I had done it.”
“Lord, Guv, you’d no quarrel with the poor gent.”
“They would have sworn I had. No, Harry, there are times in life when one has to accept the inevitable and that was one of them. At least the Marquis paid my debts and gave me five hundred pounds for my journey!”
“Fine and dandy of ’im, I’m sure,” Harry said sarcastically. “The tallow-faced cull! One day ’e’ll get what’s comin’ to ’im.”
Richard could only hope that Harry was being prophetic. He certainly had no love for his cousin, the Marquis of Glencarron.
Richard could see his dark spiteful face now as it had been when he stepped from the library window at Melton House into the moonlit garden. How he had cursed himself afterwards for being such a fool as to go to his cousin for help at such a late hour!
But the duns had been pressing him and when he found that his cousin had already left White’s, he had gone to look for him at his home.
It had only taken one glance round the small paved garden for him to realise what had happened. Charles Danby was lying sprawled on the grass and the blood was seeping in a dark flood over his white shirt just above his heart.
He had known by the attitude of the men standing beside his cousin that they were perturbed and worried by his sudden appearance and then he remembered that the Marquis had been warned only a month earlier that the Regent would have no more of his duelling.
It was hard for a brilliant swordsman and a man with a fiery temper to control himself, but the Marquis had been duelling for too long and the mother of his latest victim had gone to Carlton House and made things very unpleasant. He had been warned that the next duel would be his last and now he had fought it.
Then, as they all stood looking at each other in silence, the Marquis whispered to the men on either side of him and Richard saw a crafty look come into his eyes and knew, almost before he spoke the words, what he was going to say.
It was clever, Richard had to allow that, clever enough for him to see no other way out of it than to agree that his debts should be paid and that with five hundred pounds in his pocket he should accept voluntary exile from England rather than face the consequences of being tried and convicted of a duel he had not fought.
“We were lucky to have somewhere to go,” he said aloud, following the train of his own thought and then, without listening to Harry’s blasphemous reply, he went out of the room and down the passage.
*
The best rooms in the Hofburg had been divided between the five Sovereigns and their suites, but, as the Czar had brought a greater entourage than any other, he had undoubtedly the lion’s share of the Palace.
The salon that he had taken as his private sitting room was a charming apartment overlooking the formal gardens and decorated with furniture and pictures of great antiquity and value. The walls with their panels picked out in gold leaf and the huge sparkling chandeliers glowing iridescent from the painted ceiling were a fit
ting background for the good looks of the man who occupied them.
Alexander I was thirty-seven, but he looked much younger. He had fine regular features, a good complexion and a tall majestic figure and with his golden blond hair, which usually was dressed like that on the heads of cameos or ancient medallions, he seemed to have been predestined to wear a crown.
As one of his critics had remarked, he played the role of Monarch to perfection.
As Richard came through the doorway, the Czar greeted him with a smile that had a captivating quality about it and then said with a boyish impulsiveness,
“Richard, I have an idea!”
“An idea, Sire?” Richard enquired.
“Yes, for tonight. You remember it is the masked ball and we are all going, it is expected. Well, I want you to go as me!”
“As you, Sire? I am afraid I don’t understand.”
“Yes, yes, it is quite easy! We are all to be masked and we all wear dominoes, but everyone knows that I and the other Sovereigns are not so completely disguised that people cannot recognise them. At the last masked ball I dispensed with all decorations beneath my domino except for L’Épee de Sweden. Tonight I shall do the same, but you will be wearing my uniform and I shall go as an ordinary gentleman.”
“I see the idea, Sire, but do you think we shall deceive anyone?”
“Why not? Have you forgotten that we are cousins?”
“Very distant, Sire. It is true that my great-grandmother was a Bagration, but I have always thought that I looked unexcitingly English.”
The Czar linked his arm in Richard’s and, drawing him to the mantelpiece, stood with him facing the gilt-framed mirror that surmounted it. The ornaments of Sèvres china were in the way and impatiently Alexander thrust them aside, Richard bending forward to save, by a hair’s breadth, a vase from destruction as it toppled on the edge of the marble shelf.
“Now look!” the Czar commanded.
Richard did as he was bid and had to admit that there was, if one looked for it, a distinct resemblance between them. They were both fair and of the same height and almost the same build, only Richard’s shoulders were broader.
They had the same firm chin, well-moulded lips and finely chiselled nose. It was in their eyes and expressions that the greatest difference lay.
The Czar had the look of a visionary and an autocrat, while Richard seemed to regard life with a lazy indifference.
“You see what I mean?” the Czar said, “You can arrange your hair as I do mine! I will send you Butinski, my own barber, and, wearing a mask, no one will know that you are not me. My skin is fairer than yours, it is true, but cosmetics can remedy that and, if you enter the room with the other Sovereigns, no one will suspect for a moment that the L’Épee de Sweden graces your coat and not mine.”
“And you, Sire?” Richard asked with a smile.
“Tonight I shall be at liberty to dance with whom I please, to hear the truth from lips that would otherwise school themselves to say what they think I wish to hear. I want to find out, Richard, what the ordinary men and women in Vienna think of my championship of Poland and of the part I have played in saving Europe from Napoleon.”
“I can see that this may lead to a lot of trouble, Sire,” Richard said drily, “but, if it pleases you, I am game.”
“I knew you would not fail me,” the Emperor replied, “and I shall look forward to tonight. I have had a difficult day. Metternich was more obstructive than usual. It seems incredible that, in the whole of this great gathering of peoples, I should be the only one to interpret the ideals and principles of Christian liberalism.”
He spoke with a sincerity that made it very clear to Richard that he believed what he said and yet, knowing the autocracy and Imperialism of the Russian Court, it was hard for anyone to credit that the Czar could really expect Congress to visualise him in such an unlikely role.
“Is the Empress to know of this plan?” Richard asked, determined if possible to sidetrack the Czar from expounding his ideas on the Polish question, which he had heard far too often.
The Czar frowned.
“Certainly not,” he said. “No one is to know, not even Katharina.”
“I doubt my ability to play the role of Emperor half so cleverly as you will play the part you have undertaken,” Richard said, “but I will do my best.”
The Czar looked him over quizzically.
“We will, of course, wear powder tonight,” he said. “I know it is out of fashion in England, but here it is still ‘de rigueur’. Don’t forget to lighten your skin. I wonder if I should look well if I was sunburnt.”
“The ladies of Vienna assure me that Your Majesty’s appearance could not be improved upon.” Richard replied.
The Czar smiled.
“The ladies! Ah! but then they are always flatterers, but honestly, Richard, have you ever in your life before seen so many beautiful women gathered together in one place?”
“Never, Sire,” he answered truthfully.
“‘Their stature is like to the palm trees and their breasts to clusters of grapes’,” quoted the Czar.
Richard tried not to smile. He was used to the Czar sprinkling his conversation with Biblical references, but he thought that this one belaboured the point.
“The Congress is unique in that if nothing else,” Alexander went on, “and I saw someone today who surpasses all the beauties I have seen already.”
“Who was that?” Richard asked.
“I call her ‘La Beauté Céleste’. She is named the Comtesse Julia Zichy. I must meet her again. Yes, I must be certain to meet her again. Remind me to ask Volkonski to tell me all about her, as he will know, in fact there is nothing he doesn’t know.”
“We will see how soon he guesses what has happened tonight,” Richard said.
The Czar clapped his hands together.
“It is an idea, Richard. We will test him out. Now, what I suggest is this. When the banquet is over, I shall come upstairs. You will follow me. You will put on my coat, mask and domino and leave my apartments as if you were me and join the Empress, who will be waiting downstairs.”
“The Empress will be sure to recognise me if I speak to her,” Richard queried.
“There will be no need to talk to her,” the Czar said. “You will merely walk at her side to the ballroom. You will be late and the others will be impatient to start, if they have not left already. Once you reach the ballroom, you mingle with the dancers as will be expected.”
“I see that you have every detail worked out,” Richard said.
“Even the smallest engagement in war is worthy of thought and preparation,” the Czar ventured pompously.
“War, Sire?” Richard questioned.
“And in peace, too,” the Czar said quickly. “Tonight I am battling against the secrecy and isolation that surrounds those who wear a crown. Tonight, like the prophets of old, I go in search of the truth.”
“And I, Sire, on your behalf, will go in search of adventure,” Richard laughed.
Chapter 3
By the time Wanda arrived at the Baroness Waluzen’s house, some of the elation and excitement that she had felt while talking with Prince Metternich had begun to ebb away.
Sunset had come and gone and dusk was hanging over Vienna as her coach drove slowly down the twisting streets crowded with carriages of all sorts and descriptions.
She suddenly felt very small, very young and very unimportant.
Had she really been brave enough, she asked herself, to make this journey alone to Vienna, to come un-chaperoned to the greatest social gathering in the whole world?
She thought of her dresses in the leather trunks where they had been packed by her maid, an elderly woman ailing in health who had been unable to accompany her, and she felt sure that they would prove countrified and inadequate.
It had been a desperate struggle to set out for Vienna against the disapproval of her father’s sisters and their continual prophecy that no good would come of it
. They would have prevented her if they could, but her mother’s dying wishes could not be ignored and finally they had let her go, croaking like old crows with grim foreboding of what awaited her.
Now she wondered if they had not been right in their judgment.
She knew no one except the Prince.
He, it was true, had been kinder than she had dared hope. She could still feel the fire of excitement within her that he should not only welcome her, but ask her to help himself and Austria.
But, whereas everything had seemed very easy and plausible when he spoke of it, now that she was alone the chill hand of fear laid itself crushingly over her enthusiasm.
How easy for the Prince to suggest that she should get to know the Czar, dance with him and make him talk to her! How difficult, now that she was alone, to visualise such a thing happening!
She did not, as yet, know in what sort of a place she was to sleep that night, what reception she would get from the Baroness Waluzen or whether obstacles from that quarter might be laid in her path to prevent her going to the ball.
And what was she to wear? To a woman’s mind this seemed to be the greatest problem of all.
In a moment of panic Wanda felt that she must tell the coachman to turn round and they would return the way they had come, to home, to security, to all the things that were familiar, easy and not in the least frightening.
Then she remembered her mother’s face, worn and pale from suffering and yet alight with some echo of her lost youth as she said,
“I want you to be gay, darling. I want you to have some of the excitements I had when I was young. Dances, balls and – and beaux.”
“And where am I to find them here?” Wanda had asked laughingly.
She had loved her home, perched high as it was upon this mountainside, miles from the town. But they would often go for months without seeing anyone, except the peasants who worked on the estate.
“No, I suppose it is impossible,” Carlotta Schonbörn replied. Her eyes had closed wearily and she lay back against her pillows as if she was too exhausted to think of anything but sleep.
The Enchanted Waltz Page 3