It was the most beautiful ballroom that Aletha could have ever imagined.
The flowers that decorated it were all white, which complemented her gown.
The long windows were open to the splendid gardens outside and lights were hidden in the fountains that illuminated the water they flung up towards the diamond-studded sky.
The gypsy orchestra was exactly what she had expected it would be.
The gypsy women were dressed in their brilliantly coloured costumes and they wore huge earrings and a profusion of bracelets on their arms.
Their headdresses of red ribbons were ornamented with endless gold and precious stones.
They sparkled and glittered with every movement they made.
The music started with the clash of cymbals and the bell-like ring of tambourines.
Then the volume of sound lifted the wild joyous music of a gypsy dance up to the sky.
Among the guests some of the young girls and men moved hand-in-hand in a traditional gypsy dance in the centre of the ballroom.
Then the music changed and became sweeter and more tender.
The Prince put his arm around Aletha and drew her onto the floor.
Everybody began to dance and the gypsy music gradually became compelling and more romantic.
After only a little time, the wildness came back into the gypsy instruments and those who were dancing moved quicker and quicker around and around.
Aletha had found herself dancing with various other men for a while, but now once again she was with the Prince.
He drew her closer to him.
To her surprise she found now that she could follow his steps exactly even though she had never learnt them.
Faster and faster the rhythm rose and quicker and quicker they moved.
Then, as the dance grew even wilder still, she felt as if he carried her into the night air.
Their feet were not moving on the ground as rather they flew like birds.
It was all so exciting and exhilarating and, when finally the music stopped, Aletha was breathless.
She also felt as if she was tumbling down from a great height back to reality.
Prince Miklós still had his arm around her.
As she looked up at him, her breasts were moving tempestuously beneath the soft chiffon of her gown.
She thought that there was a fire in his eyes, but told herself it was only a reflection of the light.
The guests were loudly applauding the wild music which had carried them away.
Aletha was convinced that they danced with their hearts and not with their feet.
The Prince was now drawing her from the ballroom through the French window and into the garden.
She took a deep breath of the cool night air, as if somehow it would be able to soothe the tumult within her.
The Prince put her arm through his and they walked past the fountains and over the soft green lawn.
They then reached some bushes covered in profusions of blossom.
They passed through them and surprisingly there was a glasshouse shining amongst the trees.
The Prince opened the door.
As they entered, Aletha saw that the whole place was filled with orchids.
They were white, purple, green, pink and every other colour imaginable.
In some unusual manner the glasshouse was lit from the floor and all the orchids were so lovely that Aletha stood looking at them as if spellbound.
The Prince closed the door gently behind them.
Then he said,
“This is the right place for you. I thought perhaps you could dissolve into the flowers you resemble. Then I would never lose you!”
Slowly, because she was a little shy, Aletha turned her head to look at him.
She thought as she did so that no man could look more handsome or so magnificent.
His evening clothes fitted tightly to his slim and athletic body. He wore one large pearl in the centre of his shirt and Aletha knew that if it was a more formal occasion and Royalty had been present, his coat would have been covered with decorations.
Her eyes met his and they just stood there gazing at each other.
At last he said,
“You are so incredibly lovely and so beautiful that you will always be in my heart and soul.”
Aletha was about to reply that he would always be in hers as well when he added,
“I have brought you here tonight to say ‘goodbye’ to you.”
“Goodbye?” Aletha repeated. “I-I did not – know that we were – leaving tomorrow.”
“It is not you who is leaving,” the Prince replied, “it is I!”
Aletha could only look at him wide-eyed.
Then he said harshly,
“I am crucifying myself and I cannot stand being tortured any longer!”
“I-I don’t – understand,” Aletha stammered.
“I know,” the Prince replied. “I know every thought in your exquisite head, every breath you breathe and every beat of your heart.”
The way he spoke made Aletha quiver with the feelings he aroused in her.
Instinctively she put her hand to her breast to quell the tumult within.
“I love you!” the Prince declared. “I love you, as I have never loved a woman before. That is why, heart of my heart, I have to go away.”
“But – why – why?” Aletha asked. “I just don’t – understand!”
“Of course not,” he said. “You are so unspoilt and so utterly desirable. I want to take you in my arms and carry you with me to my house in the mountains where we would be alone with no one around to disturb us.”
Aletha felt her whole body tremble with a strange excitement.
There was a fire in the Prince’s eyes that she had not seen before.
“Once we were there, my lovely one,” he said, “I would teach you about love. Not the cold empty love that an Englishman would give you but the wild, burning irresistible love of Hungary!”
Because the way he spoke was so compelling, Aletha instinctively took a step towards him.
To her surprise he moved away from her.
“Don’t come near me,” he said harshly. “I dare not touch you! If I do, I will make you mine! Then you could never escape and I would never let you go again.”
“You – you love – me?” Aletha stammered as if it was the only thing she understood in all that he was saying.
“I love you!” the Prince repeated, “I love you wildly, uncontrollably and irrevocably. But, my sweet, my precious one, there is nothing I can do about it.”
“W-why? Why – not?”
“The answer, quite simply, is that you are just like these flowers, pure and unspoilt. How could I damage anything so beautiful and so perfect?”
Aletha continued to stare at him.
Then, as the starlight touched her hair, he turned away as if he could not bear to look at her any longer.
“I don’t think that I ought to put it into words,” he said, “but it would be unfair to leave you wondering.”
“Please – tell me – please explain – what you are saying,” Aletha asked him piteously.
“I have told you I love you,” the Prince insisted, “and I believe that you love me a little.”
Aletha made a little murmur and he went on,
“I can imagine nothing nearer to Heaven than to take your love and make it a part of mine, which it is already.”
He made a sound that was one of pain as he added,
“But it is something that I dare not do.”
“Why not – please tell me – why not.”
“Because my precious, beautiful little English girl, you are a lady. If you were not, if you were just the relative of an ordinary man who bought and sold horses like Hévis, I would take you away with me and I think, my beloved, we would be very happy together.”
Aletha did not make a sound.
She was beginning to understand what he was saying and she felt as if her whole body
was turning to stone.
The Prince made a gesture with his hand.
“That way is barred and, because of my family, I cannot make you my wife.”
The words had been said and to Aletha they seemed to ring out in her mind.
She wondered why the orchids did not fall to the floor and the glass that covered them smash and scatter into pieces.
“You have seen my father,” the Prince was saying, “and you are imaginative enough to know that it would break his heart if, as the eldest son, I took as my wife anyone who was not the equal of our blood.”
Aletha did not move.
She only felt very cold as if the blood had drained away from her body and her life had gone with it.
“From the first moment I saw you,” the Prince said, “I knew you were something special and something different from anyone I had met before. As you stood at the balustrade outside the Royal Palace, it was as if you were surrounded by a white light and I thought that no one could ever be lovelier.”
The Prince put his hands over his eyes for a moment as he continued,
“I could not sleep for thinking about you. And the following days and nights you were always with me until I believed that I was haunted.”
He paused for a moment before he said and his voice was raw,
“Then you came back and for one moment I was wildly ecstatically happy just because you were here.”
His voice deepened as he carried on,
“Nothing else seemed to matter. I merely waited for the moment when I could hold you in my arms and kiss you until we could no longer think of anything but each other.”
Aletha knew that was exactly what she wanted too.
Yet she could not speak as the Prince continued,
“There is no need for me to say that you ride better than any woman I have ever known. You even equal the Empress herself but that is immaterial.”
He stared at her before he said,
“It is not what you may do, what you say, or even what you think. It is something Divine within yourself, which I have searched for and dreamt of but thought I would never find.”
Aletha knew that it was what she felt about him.
She wanted to cry out and beg him not to destroy anything so perfect as their love.
But the words would not come to her lips and he continued,
“If I did make you my wife, which I do want more than my own salvation, it would be impossible for me to make you happy because, though we would be in Heaven while we were together, we would have to live in the world as it is.”
He drew in his breath before he went on,
“My family would never forgive me for making what to them would be a mésalliance. It would hurt you not once but a thousand times a day to know what they were saying, what they would do and what they would think.”
He paused for a moment and then went on,
“It would be impossible for me to protect you and gradually, like water dripping onto a stone, it would destroy our love.”
He drew himself up and seemed to grow taller as he said,
“That is why, my darling, I am going away tomorrow and after that we shall never see each other again.”
There was such despair in his voice that made Aletha want to reach out her arms towards him.
She wanted so much to tell him that he need not suffer and that she could sweep away his unhappiness.
As she was trying to find the right words to say to him, he said,
“Goodbye, my lovely sylph. I pray God will protect you and that one day you will find a man who will love you as I do and who would take his own life rather than hurt you in any way.”
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he went down on one knee and raising the hem of her gown kissed it.
Aletha looked at him in amazement.
As he rose, she said in a voice that hardly sounded like her own,
“Miklós – wait – I have something to – tell you – ”
Even as she spoke the words, he was gone.
He had opened the door of the glasshouse and then disappeared into the shadows outside before her sentence was finished.
Aletha stared after him.
It was then that she put up her hands to cover her eyes.
Could this really have happened to her?
Could she really have heard Prince Miklós tell her that he loved her?
At the same time, he would not marry her.
‘I must – tell him,’ she thought, ‘I must – tell him he is – mistaken and that his – family would – accept me – and we can be together – and we can be very happy.’
She took a step towards the open door.
Suddenly a pride that she had not known she possessed made her stand still again.
If he was so intuitive, if he really, as he said, could read her thoughts, her feelings and understand the beating of her heart, why did he not know the truth?
Why was he not aware that her blood was as blue as his own if not more so?
Why did he not guess that her family were as important in England as the Estérházys were in Hungary?
He should have known intuitively that she was not what she pretended to be.
How long she stood surrounded by the orchids with the stars shining through the glass above her head Aletha had no idea.
When at last she realised that she must go back to The Palace, she moved slowly as if in a trance.
It was then she told herself that her dream had come to an abrupt end.
The Man of her Dreams had failed her.
‘If he was really so closely attuned to me, he would have known who I am and that my Family Tree is not of the least consequence.’
She reached a side door of The Palace and slipped upstairs.
The gypsy orchestra was still playing in the ballroom and there was still the sound of voices and laughter.
Aletha went to her bedroom.
She did not ring for the maid who she knew would be waiting to help her.
Instead slowly with stiff fingers that did not seem like her own, she took off the beautiful white gown.
The diamanté were still glistening on the flowers.
She removed the flowers from her hair and let it fall down over her shoulders.
It seemed to take her a long time to undress herself and climb into bed.
Only when she had blown out the candle and was in darkness did she hide her face in her pillow.
It was then that the tears began to fall.
They were tears of despair, not only because she had lost Miklós and her heart.
He had also destroyed her dream.
Chapter Seven
Aletha cried despondently until she was completely exhausted.
Then she lay awake thinking that her Castle of Dreams had fallen in ruins around her.
Never again would she dream of a special man who would love her for herself.
It was exactly the reverse of what she had expected to happen.
In England her father had been convinced that she would be married because she was the daughter of a Duke.
In Hungary the Prince thought that she was not good enough for his family and his love was not strong enough to fight them all single-handed.
Like a child who has been hurt, she wanted to go home where everything was familiar.
She wanted to leave Hungary now and at this very moment.
She wanted to find herself at back at Ling Park where all that she loved was around her.
Hungary had given her feelings that she had never in her life expected to feel.
She realised that it was the passion that comes with love and is part of love.
When it touched the soul, it was Divine.
‘I must leave,’ she thought, ‘whatever Mr. Heywood may say.’
He was quick-brained and he would doubtless by now have decided which of the horses he wanted for her father’s stables.
It would merely be a question o
f price and arranging for them to be safely transported to England.
‘I will tell him that we must leave as soon as he is awake,’ she told herself.
It was still dark outside, but the stars were fading in the sky.
She pulled back the curtains and then she went and stood at the window waiting for the first fingers of the dawn to appear on the horizon.
When they did, she knew that it was still too early to approach Mr. Heywood.
‘I will go riding,’ she decided.
She would ride for the last time in Hungary.
After that she would do her best to try to forget the wild gallops before the wild emotions that the Prince had aroused in her.
She told herself despairingly that she would never ever feel them again.
Her marriage would be conventional.
Because she no longer cared, she would accept the husband her father chose for her.
It was all the more bitter to know that she only had to tell Prince Miklós who she really was and everything would be changed.
But however persuasive he might be, she knew that she would never trust his love and never believe it was what he felt for her.
‘If he had been one of the peasants we saw yesterday coming back from the fields,’ she told herself. ‘I would marry him and be happy in a cottage, loving him and our children.’
This again was all part of her imagination.
As unreal as the romance of Hungary and in a way The Palace itself.
It was too beautiful, too perfect and far too dream-like to be substantial enough to build a future on without true love.
The love that as the Prince had himself claimed was irresistible.
But it was not irresistible enough for him to sacrifice his own pride for and the pride in his aristocratic family.
“I must – leave,” she cried aloud and then started to dress.
She felt that she could not be confined at the moment within the walls of The Palace.
The Prince would be too near her.
Perhaps by the time that she returned from her ride he would have left as he had said he intended to do.
Then she would never see him again and she prayed that she would forget him.
She put on a thin white blouse and her riding skirt.
Then she picked up her jacket and hesitated.
Yesterday had been hot and she had the idea that today would be hotter still.
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