He stood up and said carefully, ‘Now that we are no longer in Austria or Germany we don’t have to travel apart, Natalie.’
She looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘No. I know. And I’m glad. I’m looking forward to our being together tomorrow as we travel to Britain.’
He said gently, ‘We’re married, Natalie. In the normal way of things we would have been sharing a wagon-lit ever since leaving Belgrade.’
Her cheeks flushed with colour. Surely he couldn’t be suggesting they consummate their marriage now? On a train?
He could read her mind as clearly as reading a book. A small smile crooked the corner of his mouth. For a seduction as important as this one was going to be, a narrow bunk in a swaying wagon-lit was hardly the ideal setting. Especially when it would also have to be shared with a frolicsome puppy.
‘My wagon-lit is next door to yours on the left-hand side,’ he said, accepting that he would have to be patient for a little longer. ‘If you have a nightmare and want someone to talk to, give me a knock.’
‘Thank you.’ Her first reaction was relief. Hard on its heels came disappointment.
He walked out of the dining-car and down the corridor with her and then, as she paused outside her wagon-lit, he put his hands gently on her shoulders and turned her towards him.
‘Good night,’ he said, and lowering his head to hers he kissed her full on the mouth.
It was an intensely pleasant experience and one she wanted him to continue. He didn’t do so. He raised his head from hers, looking down at her, an expression she couldn’t quite understand in his eyes.
‘Good night, my love,’ he said huskily.
It was only when she was tucked up in bed, Bella at her feet, that she realized what the expression in his dark brown eyes had been. It had been amusement.
Britain was nothing like she had imagined. With what she now realized was colossal ignorance, she had expected it to be similar to Switzerland. Crisp and neat and sanitized. Sanitized it certainly wasn’t. The docks and railway station were dismally grubby and coated heavily with bird droppings.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Julian was saying ecstatically. ‘Didn’t you love the white cliffs? Every time I see them, when I’m returning from a long spell abroad, I get a lump in my throat.’
Natalie remained tactfully silent. To her jaundiced eyes the cliffs of Dover had also looked grubby and she couldn’t imagine why the British made such a fuss about them. The Kentish countryside, however, was pretty and her spirits began to rise. She liked the untidiness of the fields and the many small woods and occasionally there were streams that reminded her, just a little, of home.
Her pleasure died as they drew into London. The suburbs seemed to stretch into infinity. She had never imagined a city could be so large or, despite the hot July sun, so grey. She understood, now, why so many Englishmen referred rudely to Belgrade as being a glorified Balkan village. Compared to London, Belgrade was a village, a colourful village with an exotic hotch-potch of building styles and nationalities. London wasn’t colourful. There were no yellow-walled houses with verandahs creaking with flowers. There was no-one in peasant dress of any description. No plum trees or acacia trees. No violin-playing gypsies.
‘What do you think, my love?’ Julian was saying elatedly. ‘Isn’t it magnificent?’
‘It’s very big,’ she said truthfully, not wanting to be impolite.
The first thing she saw as they walked from the station was a news-stand. She looked eagerly at the headline of the paper prominently displayed and was mystified to see no mention of Sarajevo or of the terrible Austrian threat Serbia was now under.
Crowds milled around them. Crowds totally uninterested in Serbia. Her hand tightened in Julian’s as homesickness swamped her. She had naïvely thought Belgrade the centre of the world. Now, with a slam of shock, she realized that it was very far from being so.
Julian was greeting a chauffeur by name. The motor car waiting for them was a blue-green Mercedes with pale cream leather upholstery. Deeply impressed she momentarily forgot about Britain’s incredible lack of interest in Austro-Serbian relations.
The streets were even wider and the buildings even grander than they had appeared from the train. With relief she saw that her costume and yellow-feathered hat were not embarrassingly passé. All skirts were narrow and nearly all hats small and head-hugging. She saw several skirts, very long and tight at the ankle, worn with a kind of tunic reaching to just below the knee. They looked very dashing and surprisingly Russian and she determined on a shopping expedition at the soonest possible moment.
‘I sent a telegram from Belgrade,’ Julian said as the Mercedes weaved through a bewildering maelstrom of private motor cars, horse-drawn carriages and bicycles. ‘Mother and Father will be expecting us, though I doubt whether Diana will be at home, not in July.’
‘What about your older brother?’ she asked, suddenly aware that her attention had wandered when he had been telling her about his family and not wanting to make any faux pas when she was introduced to them.
‘Edward will be in Northumberland. He’s a country man by nature and looks after the family estate. He loathes London.’
A short while ago Natalie would have been in agreement with Edward. Now she wasn’t so sure. She had become aware of an agreeable feeling of excitement in the London streets and though the buildings were grey, they were even grander than she had first supposed. They would have magnificent ballrooms. As she thought of the balls to which they would be invited it occurred to her that London was perhaps not as appalling as she had first thought.
The Mercedes purred to a halt in front of a grandiose house set back from the road a little. There was no small park surrounding it, no ornate courtyard. She reflected that none of the other large houses she had seen had been set in private parks and that very few had been fronted by anything that could be described as a courtyard and that it was obviously the custom in London not to have either.
‘Here we go,’ Julian said as the chauffeur opened the door for them. ‘Mother and Father are going to love you. I know they are.’
‘You have told them about me, haven’t you?’ she asked in sudden apprehension.
He grinned, his hair falling low across his brow, suddenly looking more English and foreign to her than he had ever done. ‘My telegram was terse and to the point. RECALLED STOP MARRIED STOP NO PROBLEMS STOP.’
‘Will you tell them why we married?’ His arm was lovingly under hers and he was leading her towards the front door. ‘Will you tell them about Sarajevo?’
He didn’t answer her. The heavy front door had swung open and a butler could be seen, waiting to greet them. She picked Bella up, tucking her under her arm, frantically wondering why she hadn’t asked all these questions when they had been on the train.
‘Welcome home, sir,’ the butler, an elderly man, was saying genially. ‘Welcome to London, ma’am.’ If he found it odd to be addressing a miss scarcely out of the schoolroom as ma’am he gave no sign of it. His manner was genuinely welcoming and her sudden rush of panic began to die.
If a Serb married and brought a husband or wife home to the zadruga, they were immediately incorporated into the family. Her own parents would most certainly have regarded any husband she or Katerina brought home to Belgrade as being part of their family.
The butler, moving ahead of them, opened a pair of double doors and with her hand securely in Julian’s she walked with him into a drawing-room densely packed with furniture and objets d’art.
There were two people in the room. A grizzled-haired, bearded man, far older than she had expected him to be, and a woman possibly in her mid-fifties, beautiful with the kind of beauty that is bone-deep and that never completely fades.
As Julian strode forward, shaking his father’s hand, kissing his mother on the cheek, Lady Fielding’s eyes met Natalie’s. They were very cool and very clear and there was not a hint of welcoming warmth in them. Instead there was a chill that would have fr
ozen the Sava.
Deeply disconcerted Natalie set Bella down, certain she must have made a mistake.
‘My wife, Natalie,’ Julian was saying with pride. ‘Natalie, my mother. My father.’
‘Welcome to England,’ Lady Fielding said with a slight, polite smile. There wasn’t the least intonation of sincerity in her words and with deep shock Natalie realized she had made no mistake. Julian had been wrong in thinking his mother would love her. Lady Fielding was never going to love her. She was never even going to like her.
‘Natalie’s maiden name is Karageorgevich,’ Julian was saying, wanting his parents to know right from the outset that their new daughter-in-law wasn’t an obscure Balkan peasant. ‘She is a member of the Royal House of Karageorgevich.’
His father’s eyebrows rose in genuine interest. ‘Are you indeed? I met King Peter once, years ago, in Switzerland. He wasn’t king then, of course. He was in exile and passing his time by translating John Stuart Mill’s Essay on Liberty into Serb. Curious choice of book I thought. Are you familiar with Mr Mill’s works, Miss … Miss …’ he broke off in confusion.
Julian said with a hint of amusement in his voice, ‘As Natalie is your daughter-in-law I think it’s quite in order for you to call her by her first name.’
‘Yes, of course, stupid of me.’ His father shot her a sheepish smile. ‘Apologies for being such a bumbler, my dear. The truth of it is, it’s rather difficult for me to believe that you are my daughter-in-law. Julian’s telegram only came three days ago and we had no prior warning. He never mentioned in his letters that he was contemplating becoming engaged and …’
‘Natalie must be tired,’ Lady Fielding interrupted, clearly impatient with her husband’s attempts to put Natalie at her ease. ‘I’m sure she would find a cup of tea welcoming. I’ll have one of the maids show her to her room and a tray sent up.’ Without waiting for Natalie to express an opinion she pressed a button by the side of the elaborate marble mantelpiece.
‘Our room, I hope?’ Julian said and though his voice was pleasant there was an underlying note of steel in it.
‘Of course, dear,’ his mother said, unfazed. ‘I’ve had the double room on the second floor made ready for you.’
A maid entered, little older than Natalie. ‘You rang milady?’ she queried respectfully.
‘Yes, Ellen. Would you show Miss … Mrs Fielding into the bedroom that has been prepared for her and arrange that tea is sent up to her.’
Natalie looked towards Julian.
‘I think that would be a good idea, my love,’ he said, an expression in his eyes she couldn’t quite read. ‘I need to explain to my parents that there is nothing untoward about my being recalled to London so suddenly and that my being so was the reason for our rather hasty marriage.’
She nodded, knowing now that he would never in a million years confide the Oriental bazaar episode to his mother.
She followed the maid out of the room and before the door closed behind her she heard his mother say in deep pain, ‘My dear Julian. Whatever were you thinking of? A Balkan and a child at that. As for the dog …’
‘It’s a nice looking little dog,’ his father interrupted inconsequentially. ‘It will make a good gun dog one day …’
The door closed. Seething with fury she followed the maid up two flights of stairs and into an opulently furnished room. From the window there was a magnificent view of rolling grassland and trees and she realized that it must be the public park of which Julian had spoken.
‘I’ll have tea sent up immediately, Miss,’ the maid said, adding uncertainly, ‘Would you like me to take the little dog down to the kitchens? I’m sure Cook will be able to find something nice for her. A beef bone perhaps, or some chicken left-overs.’
It was a kind offer and Natalie handed Bella to her saying, ‘You’ll take good care of her, won’t you? Everything will be very strange to her.’
‘Yes, Miss. Don’t worry, Miss. I have a dog of my own at home.’
As the maid took Bella out of the room, Natalie wondered where her home was. Kent, perhaps. Wherever it was, it wasn’t as far away from London as Belgrade.
Slowly she took her hat off and dropped it on a chair, then she crossed to the windows and stood, looking out over the park. Balkan. She hugged her arms in an effort to stop herself shaking with rage. It had been uttered as the worst possible kind of insult. Never would a Serb have greeted a guest in such a way. Especially a guest who was also a daughter-in-law.
The maid returned with a tea-tray and informed her that Cook was making a great fuss of Bella and that she was not to worry about her. Later still, when the tea was cold, Julian entered the room.
‘I thought you would be resting,’ he said as she turned away from the window, her close-fitting costume jacket still buttoned.
‘I can’t live here,’ she said starkly, her eyes big and grave. ‘Your mother doesn’t want me here, nor does she want Bella.’
He crossed the room towards her and put his hands gently on her shoulders. ‘My mother’s behaviour was appalling,’ he said, making no attempt to excuse or explain it. ‘It won’t be in the future. You have my word.’ He slid his arms around her, holding her close. ‘You can live here, Natalie. It will only be for a short while. I’ll soon be given a fresh posting. In the meantime we can enjoy London together,’ a hint of laughter entered his voice, ‘and Father liked Bella. He thinks she will make an excellent gun dog.’
It was nice being held so close. She could hear his heart beating and smell the faint tang of his cologne. His lips brushed her temple and then he moved a hand to her hair, removing the pins from her chignon and letting them drop to the floor. She remained perfectly still, her heart beginning to pound in short, slamming little strokes. Was he about to make love to her? Now? In the middle of the afternoon?
As the last pins fell to the floor her hair tumbled around her shoulders in a riot of waves and curls.
‘I think you should take your jacket off,’ he said huskily, hooking a finger under her chin and raising her face to his. ‘I think we should go to bed.’
Natalie thought they should go to bed too. A most delightful sensation was spreading through her body and she wanted to be even closer to him. Slowly, her eyes never leaving his, she raised a hand to her jacket and began to undo the tiny covered buttons.
Heat flushed the backs of his eyes. Without a word he turned from her, drawing the curtains, plunging the room into muted light.
She pushed the jacket back off her shoulders and it slid down her arms and then on to the floor.
He came back to her, lifting her lightly in his arms, carrying her towards the bed. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ he said thickly as he laid her down. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to be very, very gentle.’
She lay watching him as he pulled off his shoes and socks, his jacket and tie, excitement spiralling through her. She had never seen a man naked and it seemed incredibly strange that now she was about to do so, the man in question was one she regarded merely as a friend.
Deftly he undid his collar-button, removing his high starched collar.
She wondered if she should tell him she had only the haziest idea of what married lovemaking entailed. In the normal way of things her mother would have told her everything she needed to know, but her wedding had been so sudden, and there had been so many things to arrange, that the vital mother and daughter conversation had never taken place.
He took off his shirt, his chest muscles rippling, his shoulders looking even broader than they did when he was clothed.
‘My mother didn’t …’ she began hesitantly, ‘I don’t know …’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ His trousers were snug on his hips and she felt her cheeks flush as he unbuttoned them. They dropped to the floor and her flush deepened. Without the least trace of embarrassment he lay beside her on the bed, propping himself up on one arm, looking down at her with an expression that sent the blood fizzing along her veins.
He undid another button and another. When they were all undone he slid his strong, well-shaped hand up beneath her camisole, cupping her breast, his thumb brushing her nipple, his mouth coming down warm and demanding on hers.
She didn’t hesitate. At the touch of his hand on her flesh desire had roared through her. Not knowing quite what was to come next, not caring as long as the magnificent, wonderful sensation continued, she slid her hands up into the coarseness of his hair, her mouth opening willingly beneath his.
‘I love you,’ he said hoarsely afterwards as they lay nakedly together, limbs still abandoningly entwined, bodies glistening with perspiration. ‘I love you with all my heart and I’m going to love you for the rest of my life.’
She gave a contented, satisfied murmur, her face nuzzled against the side of his neck.
His arms tightened around her as he waited for the words he so desperately wanted to hear. They didn’t come. He fought disappointment. They would come. She couldn’t have responded sexually to him as she just had done if she didn’t love him. It simply wasn’t possible.
The next day, a week to the day that the Archduke and Duchess had died in Sarajevo, he showed her London. They strolled hand-in-hand through Regent’s Park, ate mouthwatering strawberry ice-creams in Gunter’s, visited Westminster Abbey and fed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
She was far from home, still in a state of intense anxiety about Gavrilo and Nedjelko, still waiting tensely to hear what Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia was going to be, and yet she was incredibly, extraordinarily, happy.
Zadruga Page 16