“You must tell me about England,” she said to Alnina soon after they had been introduced. “My father is always talking about it, but I don’t see how I can get there unless I fly like a bird.”
Alnina laughed.
“You must make your father take you to England in a ship,” she said. “It has been a marvellous voyage for us in the Duke’s yacht and I have enjoyed every second of it.”
She realised after she had spoken that she should have referred to him as her husband and not as the Duke and she hoped it was a slip the Princess did not notice.
William was now making himself charming to her.
Dinner was a delicious meal, cooked clearly by a French chef.
The guests were nearly all French and even if they were Georgian they spoke French with the Prince.
When the music started for them to dance after dinner, the Prince asked Alnina for the first dance.
She found to her surprise he danced extremely well.
“I hope you are enjoying yourself, madame,” he said.
“I am enjoying every moment,” Alnina replied. “I am thrilled to find that Georgia is just as beautiful as it was described in the books I have read about it.”
“I love my country, therefore I am so pleased when beautiful women, like yourself, praise it.”
“I will praise it even more when I have seen the Caucasus Mountains,” Alnina said, “and at even a brief glimpse I found them enthralling.”
“I hope you will find them as beautiful as I find you,” the Prince replied.
She smiled at the Prince. It was just the sort of compliment she felt a Frenchman would pay her and it was hard to think that he had not stepped out directly from the Rue de la Paix.
“Now tell me,” he was saying, “how I can find an English husband for my little daughter, Natasha.”
“She is so pretty that I don’t think there will be any difficulties about it.”
“And you will help me to find the right man?” the Prince asked.
Alnina, of course, said she would be delighted to do so, but at the same time she thought that they were skating on rather thin ice.
If the Prince bought her to England, he would learn that the Duke was not married.
It would be revealed that he was a liar and she was an imposter.
“I wonder,” she said rather tentatively, “why you don’t choose a French husband for your daughter. After all, you all speak perfect French here and I think on the whole a Frenchman is more adapted to other countries than an Englishman is.”
“France is not as important in the world as England is,” he replied. “Thus I am determined that my daughter will have an English husband.”
As he spoke, he glanced towards the Duke, who was dancing with Princess Natasha.
Alnina thought that there was almost an unpleasant look in his eyes.
It was as if he blamed the Duke for not telling him on his first visit that he was likely to come into a title.
So in order to change the subject, she talked again about Georgia and the Caucasus Mountains.
They were still talking when they left the ballroom to sit outside in the garden.
Nothing, Alnina thought, could be more beautiful.
The moon was creeping slowly up the sky to join the stars and, with the scent of flowers all round them and music coming through the open windows, it all seemed too exquisite to be real.
“And I am enchanted, absolutely enchanted by your country and your Palace,” Alnina told him.
“I hope perhaps you will add its owner to your list.”
Alnina smiled.
“My husband told me how charming you are and I have been looking forward to meeting you.”
“And now we have met, are you disappointed?”
“No, of course not. You fit so perfectly with this beautiful background and undoubtedly play the lead in this delightful drama.”
Alnina was choosing her words carefully. But she thought as she spoke that they sounded too romantic.
To her surprise the Prince took her hand and raised it to his lips and for a moment she thought it a strange thing for a Georgian to do.
Then she remembered that everything they did, like the way they spoke, was French and it was just how a Frenchman would have behaved.
She and the Prince went back to the ballroom to find that Princess Natasha was now dancing with William.
The Duke was looking for her and, as he walked towards her, she felt the Prince straighten himself.
Once again she was aware that he was looking at the Duke in a somewhat unpleasant manner. It was not only what she could see, but what she could feel.
She felt certain, although he had never said a word against the Duke, that he actually disliked him.
Later that night when they went up to bed, the Duke walked with Alnina into her bedroom in case anyone was watching them.
“Have you enjoyed yourself tonight?” he asked.
“I have enjoyed it all immensely,” Alnina replied. “but I do think we have to be rather careful of the Prince.”
“Why?” the Duke questioned.
“I don’t know why,” Alnina replied, “but I feel he dislikes you.”
“Nonsense! He was always most friendly when I was here before. I am sure now he is doing his very best to welcome us.”
“I may be imagining things, but although he danced with me several times and did not seem to be interested in dancing with anyone else, I had the distinct feeling that he was watching you.”
“I think you are exaggerating, Alnina. Of course he may be somewhat annoyed that I have come into a title when he might have pushed his daughter off onto me when I was here before and unmarried.”
“I am sure that he would have done that if he had known you were to become a Duke,” Alnina said. “He kept talking about how he wanted her to have an English husband and I replied that he must bring her to England. Then I realised that, if he did, he would learn that we are not married.”
“Well, all I can say is that I am extremely grateful to you. If I had come here unmarried, I am sure I would have been forced somehow into marriage and, as you well know, it is what I intend absolutely to avoid.”
“I have certainly received that message loud and clear, John, and I consider it an insult to my sex that you prefer a mountain to any of us.”
“Wait until you see it, Alnina, and then you will understand.”
“Have you arranged to go there?” she asked.
“I certainly have and William and I will be leaving as soon as we have finished breakfast. I thought you could spend the morning exploring the little shops and the many bazaars in Tiflis. It’s not very far to walk.”
“Of course the mountain comes first – ”
“You are laughing at me. Therefore the sooner I go to bed the better. Goodnight, Alnina, and may I say that you have played your part brilliantly tonight. No Duchess could have been more dignified or, may I say it, more attractive.”
Alnina curtseyed to the Duke.
“Thank you, kind sir,” she murmured.
He opened the communicating door, then paused.
“Goodnight again, Alnina. If you are disturbed or frightened in the night, you know I am next door.”
“I hope, like the Georgians, you will have your revolver with you,” Alnina replied.
“I think to be correct, it ought to be a dagger,” the Duke said. “Actually the answer to that question is ‘yes’.”
“Then I really feel protected.”
“I have locked your door for you and unless an intruder climbs through the window it is unlikely you will be disturbed.”
“Thank you,” Alnina said, “and thank you again for everything. It is all even more wonderful than I expected.”
“That is exactly what I wanted to hear you say.”
He left the room and closed the communicating door between them.
Alnina began to undress.
She could not help thinking it
was all very strange and she felt all the time that they were acting on a stage rather than living in real life.
Of one thing she was quite certain.
If the Prince managed to find out that the Duke was not married, he would certainly make every possible effort to marry his daughter to him.
‘She is a nice girl, but very Russian,’ she thought, ‘not only to look at but to hear her talking. I doubt if she would make the Duke happy.’
As she climbed into bed, she thought how thrilling everything was.
She had never expected to find herself in a Palace and how different it was from her own house where she was selling everything that was worth any money.
‘I will be able to look back on this and feel quite sure that it was just my imagination,’ she told herself.
Then, because it had been a very invigorating but tiring day, she fell asleep.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning the Duke was determined to have a word with the Prince about the mountain he wanted to buy.
And then he had decided that he and William would visit it to make quite certain that the place where he had originally seen the gold had not subsequently been mined.
He had not said a word to anyone at the time, but he was sure that, if there had been further exploration and development, he would have heard about it in one way or another.
The Duke went to the Prince’s private sitting room immediately after breakfast.
The Prince was waiting for him.
“I have been wanting a word with you, my dear Duke,” he said, as soon as they had sat down, “about my daughter, Natasha.”
“I have been thinking about her,” the Duke said quickly. “My wife and I would suggest that you send her to London and I will find her a delightful and influential chaperone to stay with.”
Before the Prince could answer, the Duke went on,
“Now I have something to ask of you. When I was here last, I was very taken with the mountain right at the end of the Caucasus range. It is, of course, on your land. I have had an ambition ever since to own a mountain and I would very much like to buy that one from you.”
The Prince looked at him in surprise.
“You want to buy it!” he exclaimed.
The Duke nodded.
“I suppose every man dreams of owning something unique and different and I want you to make my dream come true.”
“You really want my mountain?”
It was as if he could not believe what he had heard.
“I just want a mountain that is mine,” the Duke said firmly. “No mountain I have ever seen is quite as beautiful and striking as that one.”
There was silence and then the Duke added,
“It would make me exceedingly happy to own it.”
“It is something I must think about seriously,” the Prince said. “The mountain has belonged to the Palace and my family for many centuries and it might upset our people to let someone who is a foreigner become the owner of it.”
“I see your difficulty, but I am prepared to pay a good price for it and, of course, as I can hardly take it away with me, you will have the pleasure of looking at it in the future just as you do today.”
He thought the Prince would feel reassured by that statement, but he merely answered,
“I must think about it. I must consider your idea very seriously!”
“Of course you must,” the Duke said. “Meanwhile I would like to take William and look more closely at the mountain than I was able to do when I was last here.”
“I can understand that,” the Prince remarked, “and I will tell my overseer to take you there and show you the best way into the large cavern, which I think you found when you were here before.”
“I want to go inside and explore it again and, when I come back, I will make you a very large offer for it.”
The Duke smiled before he continued,
“It will certainly pay for the beautiful gowns your daughter will require when she takes London by storm.”
The Prince smiled and replied,
“I was expecting that to be expensive!”
“It will be, but she will look very lovely and will doubtless enchant a great number of distinguished young gentlemen.”
He thought that the Prince was pleased at the idea.
Then, as he was in a hurry to see the mountain, he left the Prince and went to find William, also the overseer who was to escort them there.
As soon as they had left, the Prince went to find Alnina.
She had been told by the Duke what he was going to do and so, having finished breakfast, she had gone into the garden.
She would have liked to go with him, but he had not invited her and she knew instinctively that he wanted to go alone with William as he had before. They wanted to make certain that there had been no development in the large cavern and that the gold was still actually there.
Alnina found herself a comfortable seat among the flowers.
She was thinking how beautiful they were when she saw the Prince standing outside the Palace.
He was looking round the garden and she hoped that he would not notice her, as she wanted to enjoy the serenity of the flowers alone.
But when the Prince saw where she was, he came walking towards her.
Alnina rose and curtseyed.
“I thought somehow that I would find you here,” he said, “and that my flowers would attract you.”
“They are lovely, perfectly lovely,” Alnina replied. “I wish I could have a photograph of them.”
“I never thought of having them photographed, but I will certainly have it done especially for you.”
Alnina smiled at him.
“Thank you very much, as it will be something to remember when it is raining in England or very cold. Then there is nothing in the garden but weeds.”
She made it sound very pitiful, spoken in French, and the Prince laughed.
Then he said,
“I think it would still be beautiful if you were there, madame.”
“I enjoy your compliments, Your Royal Highness, and, as you well know, no one can pay them better than the French and that is why they always sound so right in that language.”
“I would rather say them in Russian, but I feel you might not understand them.”
Alnina was about to say that she spoke Russian and then she thought it would be a mistake. It was a language few women in England would ever learn and therefore he might think it odd that she could speak it and somehow connect it with her presence here with the Duke.
There was no doubt that the Prince was very acute.
She had realised last night when sitting beside him at dinner that he was very interested in English social life.
She suspected that he read the English newspapers whenever they were available and so he might suspect that the Duke was not married, even though she had arrived here as his wife.
“What I am wondering now,” he was saying while she was ruminating, “is would you be interested in coming with me to see the Caucasus Mountains?”
Alnina turned to him with a murmur of excitement.
“Not the one that your husband is interested in,” he went on, “but a little further up where the mountains are staggeringly high above a vast ravine.”
“Oh, do take me there,” Alnina cried.
“I am sure you would find it not only beautiful,” the Prince said, “but unique in that nowhere else in the world are there mountains like ours.”
He spoke with a note of pride she did not miss and she was afraid that, if he felt like that, he would not want to sell his own mountain to anyone.
However it was an invitation she could not refuse and she said,
“Of course I would love to come with you and see the mountains. I was thinking about them all the time we were coming here.”
“Then I will order a carriage,” the Prince said, “and I expect that you will want to put on a hat.”
“I would rath
er take a sunshade, but then you might be ashamed of me, driving out beside you without being properly dressed.”
“You look breathtakingly lovely just as you are.”
Again in French his compliment sounded far more sincere than it would have done in English.
Carrying her sunshade and with only a small bow of ribbon in the front of her long fair hair, Alnina climbed into the open carriage.
It was to take them through the town and up to the place where the Prince told her that the mountains were most beautiful.
As they drove off, the Prince began,
“This is a range that I think is the most exquisite of all the mountains and I have, as you can imagine, visited them hundreds of times since I was a little boy.”
“This is very very exciting for me,” Alnina replied. “I have read that the forests are particularly extensive on the Southern slopes of the Caucasus range.”
“That is true, but first I would like you to see how charming our little town is. People come from all over Georgia to buy our jewellery and the embroidery made by our women.”
Alnina did not say that she had read all about it in her books, but instead asked him questions and the answers she found more interesting than anything she had read.
She saw the vineyards as they passed them and the large orange groves and, when they came to the bazaar, the Prince ordered the driver to go very slowly.
Alnina could see the Persian jewellers with their jewels glittering in the sun.
She longed to stop and buy some silk garments, but the coachman had his orders and they moved out of the bazaar and into the countryside.
As the carriage drove on, the Prince pointed out the rooftops where in the evening the Georgian beauties took the air.
“They fan themselves,” he told her, “and eye the swaggering warriors who prowl about in their soft leather boots.”
“I am told they are very dangerous fighting men – ”
“You only have to read our history to know that, by hook or by crook or rather by gun and dagger, we always get what we want.”
He spoke in a way that sounded rather threatening and she quickly turned the conversation to other matters.
She watched the children, who looked well fed and were running beside the horses.
104. A Heart Finds Love Page 10