Because she was English they would consider them important even though at this very moment she was only a Governess to the three children of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
She felt sure, however, that the Count would carry out all her requests.
She gave her orders with such an air of authority that she even surprised herself.
And she knew that the children would be thrilled at the idea of being her bridesmaids.
They set off at a very fast pace, so fast that Linetta could not help wondering if they would be able to keep it up all the way to the Port.
It was just over half-an-hour later when the soldier galloping beside her suddenly drew in his horse.
“What is it?” she asked him anxiously.
“There is something beyond that hill,” he replied. “It would be a mistake, as we cannot see what is on the other side of it, to rush on without making some sort of investigation.”
There were some fir trees not far away from where they were.
Although it was by no means a wood, it was at the least some protection and there were sufficient bushes for them not to be seen.
Three of the soldiers and Linetta then rode under the trees.
The fourth soldier jumped down from his horse.
And going out to the field through which they had just come, he began to move towards the hill almost bent double so that the high grass, some of it in flower with the butterflies fluttering above it, made it difficult for him to be seen.
Waiting for him under the trees and being careful to ensure that their horses were completely hidden, the three soldiers watched in silence as he next went down on his knees as he neared the top of the hill.
As they had a quick glance of him reaching the top, he disappeared.
They waited breathlessly in silence.
Linetta’s heart was beating fearfully in case they would be prevented from reaching her father and mother waiting at the Port.
She was also concerned that the soldier might be noticed, as if there were indeed Russians on the other side, he could be accused of spying on them.
And they might kill him or perhaps torture him to give them information about the City and whether it was really intended, as they had heard, that the Prince was to marry a bride from Great Britain.
Linetta was well aware, although she did not put it into words, that if they could kill the Prince before he was married, then it would be very hard to find someone to take his place, someone who would undoubtedly have to fight violently to prevent the country falling into the Russians’ hands.
Also it would be highly unlikely that anyone would be willing to take on such a precarious post.
Then at last they were aware that the soldier who was investigating the hill was returning to them, although they only caught a brief glimpse of him moving in the high grass, they realised without being told that something was wrong.
When he reached them, he moved so swiftly into the cover of the bushes that they sensed danger.
“It’s the Russians,” he managed to say at last in a low voice. “There’s at least thirty or forty of them. All, I should imagine, making for the City, unless of course, they are watching the ships for some reason or another.”
Linetta felt herself tremble at the thought of them not only stopping her father and mother from helping to save the Prince, but perhaps slaughtering them before they even reached the City.
“What shall we do?” one soldier asked.
“I’ve no idea,” the other replied. “It’d be a mistake for them to see us.”
Suddenly there was a trumpet call which seemed to echo round and round.
The four soldiers and Linetta stiffened.
Then unexpectedly they could see quite a number of men climbing to the top of the hill.
‘They are going straight to the City,’ Linetta told herself. ‘Perhaps, although I have warned them, they will not protect the Prince and he will be killed.’
She so wanted to warn him and to save him from the Russians.
But she realised that she would be seen if she tried to turn back.
It would be a grave mistake to let her father and mother become involved in what would undoubtedly be a very vicious war.
‘What can I do? What can I do?’ she asked herself despairingly.
Then one of the soldiers gave an exclamation,
“They’re being lined up! It seems very strange, but some of them are facing the other way!”
Linetta was thinking it must be where the Russian Officers were who were giving them orders.
But she only saw the men on top of the hill.
Even so she realised that they were fully armed and in their Russian Army uniforms they looked exceedingly threatening.
It was these men, she thought, who must be the comrades of the two men she had killed at the wishing well.
Perhaps a spy had found out that the Prince often visited the wishing well and they had therefore been told to see if he was there and to kill him.
It would be, as she well knew, a tremendous feather in Russia’s cap if they could prevent the marriage, which had the blessing of Queen Victoria, taking place, at the same time removing the rightful Prince whose family had served Samosia for many centuries.
“I cannot think what they are doing,” the soldier nearest to Linetta murmured.
Then suddenly there came another blast of trumpets giving the orders to march.
It was then that all the Russian soldiers on the hill looked North as if trying to see the City in the distance. But now, to Linetta’s surprise, they turned left.
As they moved on, she could see clearly the heads of the other men below them and knew that they were on the march too.
They were heading for the wishing well where she had been this morning with the Prince.
It flashed through her mind that they were going in that direction because they had either found or would find the two men she herself had shot.
‘They are looking for them,’ she thought to herself ‘and when they find them, as they will eventually, it will be impossible for them to know whether or not they have been shot by the Prince they were seeking or indeed by someone else.’
She hesitated and then added to herself,
‘Perhaps they are seeking the other soldiers who had come down from the Barracks, which like The Palace, is some distance to the right of where they are heading.’
If they were marching, perhaps there would be no real reason for them to hurry, she thought.
They would therefore not reach the wishing well for an hour or more.
If they did return immediately, she was sure by that time that her father and mother would have left the ship and would be on their way to the City.
“They are going away!” the soldier next to Linetta exclaimed. “I wonder where they are going. I expected them to march to the City straightaway, which we have just left and stir things up even more than they are already.”
“Well, one blessing is that they will not bother us,” the other soldier said. “When we leave this lady with the ship she is expecting from England, we had better get back as quickly as we can and warn them that these new soldiers have just come here by sea and because they are up to no good, the sooner they are sent back to where they have come from the better.”
“There we agree with you,” the first soldier said. “But we must drop this lady first as we were ordered to do.”
“Of course we must,” another agreed. “At the same time it is no use her walking into a hornets nest, as one might say, and we had best ride a bit to the left before we turn down the coast towards the Port.”
They all concurred with him.
Linetta said a little prayer of thankfulness as they rode out to the left side of the hill.
Looking back she could see that there was no one on the hillside any longer.
She was only very grateful that she had been saved from running into the Russians.
They wer
e clearly on the wrong track if they were intending to kill the Prince before he was married.
‘I have certainly been lucky today,’ she thought, ‘if at no other time.’
If she had not killed the two men who were out to shoot the Prince, then there would be no question of her marrying him to save his country.
She knew now that she wanted to save him more than she had ever wanted anything in her whole life.
She wanted to marry him.
She wanted to be his wife.
She wanted to feel that strange wonderful feeling within her when he kissed her again.
‘I love him, I love him!’ she said to herself. ‘This is the real love that Papa had for Mama. They have never regretted for one single moment leaving London and living in obscurity in Devon with only us children to talk to.’
She had never heard them complain and never felt that they wished for any other life than the one they loved so much together.
‘Just how could anyone,’ she asked herself, ‘want anything more than real love, a love that is so beautiful and so perfect that there is no need for anything else in the world.’
It was a blessing that she had begun to think she might never find for herself.
Yet she wanted it so much because the whole house she lived in had been filled with the love that her father had for her mother and her mother had for her father.
‘Is it really possible that I could feel the same?’ she asked herself and at once knew the answer.
She had known it almost before the Prince had kissed her.
When his lips had touched hers and she had felt a sudden fervour within her heart, she had known that this was what she had longed for and what she had prayed for, not only occasionally but night after night.
Now so unexpectedly, in fact, it seemed almost a miracle, that in carrying out the wishes of Her Majesty the Queen and being prepared to marry a man she had never heard of, let alone seen before Earl Granville came to their home, she had found the one man who could make her dreams come true.
‘I am lucky, extremely lucky,’ she thought as they rode on. ‘All I have to do now is to help the man I love and keep his country from being overrun and destroyed by those terrible Russians.’
It was a task she thought might petrify almost any woman.
But now, instead of being very frightened, she felt a deep inward happiness that was almost indescribable.
She knew that because of it she would concentrate her mind, her body and her soul in doing what her husband wanted.
And that meant making absolutely certain that this Principality of Samosia in the Balkans was saved from the Russian menace.
‘Thank You, God! Oh, thank You so very much!’ she said under her breath, looking up at the sky.
She was sure that her prayers reached God and the angels surrounding Him.
They and the Archangels would help her too.
She knew that in the future she could help educate and lead the women of Samosia into a world that they had never known before.
She would make it so wonderful for them that in the years to come they would bless her because she had given them what she had found herself, which was love, the pure undiluted love that all women dream about.
Because she was thinking so much while they were riding she was surprised when they reached the Port even sooner than she had anticipated.
It was then that she began to feel afraid in case the ship from England had not yet arrived.
Because her father had told her so much about his travels she knew that it would be a mistake to go looking for the ship herself.
Instead she went straight to enquire of the Officer in charge of the Port if a ship from England had arrived.
“I have come from The Palace,” she told him, “and His Royal Highness requires the occupants of the ship to come to him as soon as possible.”
“I understand,” the Officer replied, “and I know that you will be glad to hear that the ship came into Port late last night. You may walk to it now and board it.”
“That is very kind of you,” Linetta said.
Because she looked so lovely, at the same time far more important than he thought her to be, the Officer took her himself down a passage which was a far quicker way of reaching the ship at the quay than going the way usually used by travellers.
When she saw the imposing British Battleship just below her, Linetta wanted to cry out with delight at the sight of it.
Then she guessed that the Queen herself, or more likely Earl Granville, had chosen a Battleship just in case they had to escape quickly from the Russians.
They might have to fight their way to freedom.
Thanking the Officer politely for bringing her to the Battleship, she ran up the gangway.
She found her father and mother on deck and they rushed towards her in excitement when they saw her.
“We did not expect to see you quite so early, my dearest,” her father exclaimed in delight, as she kissed him affectionately.
“You will need every available moment when I tell you just what I have planned for you, Papa,” his daughter answered.
She sat down opposite them on a deckchair.
As a Steward hurried to fetch her some scrambled eggs to eat and some coffee to drink, she told them that she was being married at four o’clock that afternoon.
And that the sooner they were ready to drive to the City the safer it would be for them and for Prince Ivor.
To make them appreciate the urgency of the current situation in Samosia, she told them a little of what had happened earlier in the day.
Whilst her mother gave a cry of horror, her father merely said,
“It is a miracle that I taught you to shoot with both hands. I will always be eternally grateful to those pistols that belonged to my mother.”
“They most certainly saved the Prince’s life and mine,” Linetta told him. “But I am afraid that the Russians might try a last desperate effort to prevent the marriage taking place.”
Her mother gave another cry of horror.
“How can we be ready in that time?” she asked. “I have brought you a wedding dress, but do you really intend to wear it to travel in?”
“I will certainly not be able to change at The Palace before we go to the Cathedral,” Linetta answered.
She hesitated for a moment before adding,
“I think I must tell you, Papa, that I have told the Count to inform everybody that it is Her Majesty’s wish that we should be crowned as soon as the Wedding Service is completed.”
“Crowned!” her father exclaimed. “I feel sure that Her Majesty never said such a thing.”
“She is not likely to deny it when she knows that it will save the Prince’s life and his country more effectively than if we are to reign over Samosia as mere Prince and Princess.”
She paused for a moment before she went on,
“You know just as well as I do, Papa, that for the Russians to kill a relative of Her Majesty is bad enough, but if they should be King and Queen there is no doubt that the English would go to war.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Prince Vladimir said, “but it would be very unfortunate if Her Majesty should say that she never gave such an order.”
“How could she do that and let the Russians back into Samosia?” Linetta asked.
Her father laughed.
“I can see you have an answer to every question and I can only imagine, my dearest, that you will make an excellent Queen, although a somewhat bossy one!”
Linetta grinned.
“Mama has taught me ever since I can remember that you are the Head of the Family and so you are always right.”
“Of course he is,” her mother agreed. “That is why we are so happy together. I find it much easier to let him have his own way than to argue about it!”
She smiled at her husband as she spoke.
He bent forward and kissed her on the cheek.
“I love and adore you,” he said,
“and, if Linetta is going to be as happy as we are, then she will be a very lucky girl.”
Linetta did not say anything more, she only smiled at her parents.
Then she hurried below decks with her mother to the Master cabin.
“I bought you everything that I could, my darling,” she said. “Even though your father would not allow me much time in France, I snatched everything I thought might come in useful.”
Actually Linetta was delighted with all the clothes that her mother had brought her.
She realised that they would undoubtedly dazzle the eyes of every woman in Samosia.
There was that touch of chic about them that only the French could give to the clothes they designed.
Because she was as clever in her own way as her husband was in his, she had bought a selection of the most entrancing hats for her daughter.
There were pretty underclothes and nightgowns that seemed almost transparent.
At the same time with very little embroidery they were pieces of art that no other country could produce.
“Thank you! Thank you so much, Mama!” Linetta exclaimed. “They are all simply lovely. But please pack them up again as quickly as you can.”
A note of fear suddenly came back into her voice as she urged her parents,
“We must go. I am so afraid that the Russians will make a last effort to kill the Prince. If they do, the City and the whole country will be theirs.”
Her mother hurriedly packed the clothes back into the boxes she had brought with her.
Then she carefully lifted up the wedding dress from another box.
It was, Linetta thought, exactly the wedding dress she really wanted.
It would definitely leave the women of Samosia gasping when they saw it.
It was made of the softest white chiffon.
Almost as if she had been clairvoyant when she had told the bridesmaids to wear white dresses and carry pink roses, there was just a hint of pink in her wedding dress.
Linetta felt that it was just like a touch of sunshine seeping through the mystery of the wishing well.
Her mother had also brought the family jewels with her.
The tiara was an exquisite piece of work that Prince Vladimir had inherited from his mother and it had been handed down by the family for endless generations.
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