“My dear, you are very charming tonight. Is she not, Leon?”
Kathy felt herself colouring vividly, and was furious with herself. She didn’t look up, for she didn’t want to see those cold, masculine eyes surveying her with critical appraisal. Feeling like an unusually foolish schoolgirl, she said quietly:
“Thank you, signora.”
The Prince said nothing. Smiling rather archly, Signora Albinhieri sipped her drink in silence. Then she said:
“Soon, I am afraid, you will be becoming bored. No doubt you are accustomed to being surrounded by admiring young men ... here, there is no one even to take you to the theatre in Genoa. It is a situation which is quite deplorable!” Again, the old lady sipped at her drink, while Kathy felt the flush spreading to her neck and ears.
“I assure, you, signora, I’m not accustomed to being surrounded by admiring young men, and I don’t want to be taken out ...” Her voice sounded stiff with embarrassment.
“So!” The old eyes twinkled. “There is one man in particular, yes? But of course, that is it! You have a—what do you call it—an understanding. You are affianced, perhaps. These things are handled so strangely in England these days. But customs vary, and I daresay you find it quite romantic. Does he write to you ...? If he should wish to come here, of course you may receive him at any time you wish!”
“Really, signora, there is no one!” Kathy lifted a hand to her scarlet cheek, miserably conscious of the Prince’s gaze, bent intently upon her.
But to her surprise, Leonid was the next to speak. “I do not think, marraine, that we have any right to enquire into the personal life of Miss Grant.”
There was detachment and disinterest in his tone, combined with a note of distaste which seemed to indicate that her display of schoolgirlish self-consciousness had been rather more than he could stand. It was bad enough, he seemed to be thinking, to be obliged to dine with his sister-in-law’s little English companion; to be forced to discuss her private affairs and pursue the question of whether or not she had a fiancé awaiting her in England would be quite insupportable.
The subject was dropped then, in any case, for Natalia came in in a floating creation of golden net, and very soon afterwards they all adjourned to the dining-room.
Dinner was long-drawn-out and elaborately served, and the conversation moved lightly and smoothly around a number of trifling subjects which were of no very great importance to anybody present, and so were completely safe and proper topics for general discussion. Leonid took little part, she noticed, but she herself was skilfully drawn in by Natalia and Signora Albinhieri, and the ease and fluency with which they undertook the courtesy of invariably speaking nothing but English in her presence never ceased to amaze her. Signora Albinhieri said nothing further to embarrass her, and by the time they left the dining-table, shortly after nine o’clock, she felt more or less at ease. She did not even feel particularly alarmed when, after handing her her coffee cup in the adjoining salon, Leonid sat down beside her.
After all, she thought, his disapprobation meant very little to her. It really didn’t matter in the least what he thought of her ... she wasn’t afraid of him. But when she stole a sideways glance at him she saw that his face was not nearly as forbidding as it had seemed earlier in the evening, and although there was something curiously alert in the dark eyes as they rested on her, there was also a hint of unaccustomed softness.
“You are pale,” he said, but something in his voice robbed the remark of any suggestion of criticism. “Are you well ... happy here? You do not find it too trying that you are not permitted to go beyond the gardens?”
“No, of course not, I ... love it here. I think I’m really very lucky—there are such wonderful gardens to walk in. And it’s marvellous just to know that I’m in Italy.” She dropped her eyes, suddenly disconcerted by the intensity of his strange dark gaze. “The only thing that worries me is that there doesn’t seem to be very much for me to do.”
“You are here to amuse my sister-in-law ... to divert her, to handle her when her difficult moods arise. This you have accomplished very well.” He took out his cigarette-case and held it towards her. “You will not be persuaded to smoke ... Katherine?”
She shook her head. She felt confused and shy and strangely elated, because for the first time since he had asked her permission to use it, he had called her by her name. “No, thank you,” she said.
He lit his own cigarette. “So you are not bored. But life is dull for you, nevertheless. Tell me, do you like—”
A shrill exclamation from the other end of the room interrupted him, and Kathy, turning her head, was startled to see his sister-in-law standing with her back to the fireplace, her eyes blazing and a fiery point of angry colour highlighting each delicate cheekbone.
“You shall not say such things!” She was speaking to the Signora, and the words seemed to be coming from between her teeth. “Vasilli was an angel—a saint! I know! For five years—for five years—I was married to him, and always he was so kind, so sweet, so truly good! Everybody knew it. He would have been a fine king ... and that, too, everybody knew. Anton knew it, and he was jealous and afraid, so he caused Vasilli to be killed, and then he ... he ...”
“Natalia, you will say no more.” Leonid had risen to his feet. His face was white, and his eyes seemed to smoulder. His voice was like the crack of a whip, and Kathy was glad it was not against her that his anger was directed at the moment.
But Natalia took no notice of him. She walked towards Kathy, and knelt down in front of her so that her blazing brown eyes were on a level with the English girl’s bewildered blue ones.
“My husband was murdered ... murdered by my brother-in-law Anton. I swear that it is true!”
Leonid looked down at her as she knelt on the brightly tinted Persian carpet, her golden skirts about her.
“You are mistaken,” he said, and his voice was without any sort of expression. “You would not say such things if you were not tired. Go to bed.” There was a long pause, and then, very slowly and gracefully, Natalia rose to her feet. Her head drooped. “I ... am sorry,” she said, and her voice was a mere whisper of sound. “Truly I am sorry, Leon.”
Some of the tautness vanished from the lines about her brother-in-law’s mouth. “It is no matter, petite,” he said, as gently as if the young woman in front of him had been a small and weary child. “I am sure”—half glancing at Kathy—“that nothing you have said will go beyond the walls of this room. You are upset, and,” a little critically, “you have grieved too long for Vasilli.”
The Princess’s lip trembled. Signora Albinhieri crossed the room to take her arm, and as she did so, she threw her godson a rather curious look. “It is only a year, Leon, and some widows, you know, do not forget so quickly.” She set her fingers beneath Natalia’s elbow, and gently propelled her forward. “Come, cherie. Leon is right about one thing. You should go to bed.”
Completely docile once again, Natalia allowed herself to be led towards the door, and Kathy automatically started to follow her. But then she felt the pressure of a detaining hand on her own arm, and Leonid was looking down at her.
“You are not obliged to go to bed also. The Princess’s maid will attend to her.”
Kathy hesitated. “But surely ...”
At the door Natalia turned to face them, and she sent Kathy one of her sweet, abstracted smiles. “No, no, Kathy, you will stay here. Please. You are not to be dull because of me. I will see you in the morning, cheri.”
“But, madame ...”
Signora Albinhieri interrupted her, and her voice was decisive. “It is quite all right. I myself will accompany the Princess. You have a right, Miss Grant, to an occasional undisturbed evening. It is not so, Leon?”
“Certainly it is so.”
The door closed behind the two women, and for several seconds there was complete silence in the salon. Then Leonid spoke.
“I would prefer it if you sat down, Katherine. Are you so alarmed
because you have been left alone with me? You are—what is the expression—poised for flight?”
“I—no, of course not.” Blushing vividly, she sank into a deep chair, and then glanced up at the Prince. He was leaning against the mantelpiece, staring into the colourful depths of the pleasant Canaletto canal scene that hung above it, and something in his face startled Kathy. He looked drawn, and his mouth drooped wearily, and there was a quality almost of brooding sadness in the dark, velvety eyes that she had never seen in them before. She had wondered so much what he really felt about what had happened in his own country ... whether he was distressed or perhaps, in a sense, relieved ... whether it hurt him very much that he was now an exile and a refugee. Now she felt that she knew the answers, and she was confused, because she had no right to know. The feelings that showed in his face now were too personal ... but she could not take her eyes away from his face, and she felt such an agony of sympathy for him that tears started to her eyes, and pricked behind the lids.
And then he looked at her, and, afraid that her own feelings must have shown clearly in her face, she glanced hastily away.
“Katherine, are you fond of music?”
The question took her completely by surprise, but she was able to answer swiftly and naturally: “Why, yes, I love it.”
“Do you play the piano?”
“Only a little. I learnt while I was at school, but I haven’t practised for ages.”
“That is a pity. My godmother has a wonderful piano. I had hoped that you would play to me.”
She lifted startled eyes to his face. “Oh, I—I’m afraid I couldn’t ... I mean, I was never very good ...”
“Probably you are very good, but would you not like at least to see the piano? My godmother assures me that it was once used by Rossini.”
She stood up, grateful for the diversion. “Yes, of course I’d love to see it.”
He led the way to the door, then stood aside for her to pass through it ahead of him. They walked along a corridor, and crossed the main entrance hall. Then he pushed open another door, and they were in a handsome room a little shorter than the library. The floor here was of polished wood, scattered with vividly coloured rugs, and most of the furniture was beautiful and rather fragile, and looked as if it might belong to the period of Louis Quinze. And in one comer there was a beautiful ebony piano.
Leonid walked across to it and opened it up, revealing a keyboard only slightly yellowed with age.
“Is it not beautiful?” His long, sensitive fingers caressed the dark wood. “Would you not like to play on such a piano?”
“It’s a wonderful piano, but really I’d rather not play.” She looked at his transformed face, and said gently: “I expect you play yourself?”
“Yes,” he said simply. His hands wandered lightly over the keyboard. “This piano knows me well ... as I know it.” He looked up and smiled faintly. “Wouldn’t you even like to try it?”
“Oh, no ... Really, I’m quite out of practice.” She actually shrank back, so appalled did she feel at the thought of being obliged to display her musical skill in front of him, and she saw that he noticed the movement. “Wouldn’t you ... wouldn’t you like to play yourself, monsieur?”
“And will you sit and listen to me?” he demanded. “Or will you run away, as I know you are longing to do?”
She coloured, but said a little stiffly: “Of course I don’t want to run away. And I’d love to listen.”
“Very well.”
He waited until Kathy was seated on an elegant gilt-legged chair near the fireplace, and then he sat down in front of the old piano. Once again his fingers touched the faintly yellowing keys, and this time the contact seemed charged with magic. Ripples of melody that were almost agonizingly beautiful spread across the room, and Kathy, enchanted, forgot to feel uncomfortable. He had not asked her whether she had any particularly strong preferences where piano music was concerned, but he wandered from Chopin to Brahms, and from Brahms to Schumann, and almost everything he played seemed to be a favourite of hers. He seemed temporarily to have lost all awareness of the passage of time, and each liquid melody followed its predecessor after only the tiniest pause. It was as if the music provided him with a kind of safety-valve ... an outlet for some sort of pent-up emotion, and perhaps because of this the well-known nocturnes and cantatas seemed especially wonderful and strangely disturbing. Kathy thought of all the regret and disillusionment and nostalgia that he must be feeling, and which he usually concealed so effectively, and realized that it was being given expression, perhaps for the first time, in his interpretation of Chopin and Brahms.
He ended with a softly executed Chopin nocturne, and as the last quiet notes died away Kathy realized for the first time how silent it was in the villa. It was a living, breathing silence, an extraordinary stillness, and Leonid seemed a part of it, for he remained quite motionless for several seconds after his fingers had ceased to travel over the keyboard. And Kathy remained quite still too, for the enchantment still lingered in the air like a vital, living presence, and she felt that a movement or a word would dispel it.
And then, saying nothing, Leonid slowly swung round to look at her. Her eyes were huge and luminous, and she made no attempt to conceal the wonder and admiration that shone in them.
“That was ... marvellous!” she said, and for the first time, as she spoke to him, there was no trace of shyness in her voice.
He did not answer, but only stared at her, and in such a curious way that at last she became conscious of it, and all her pulses started to beat more rapidly. Nervously, she stood up, and began to walk towards the door.
“Thank you,” she got out jerkily. “For playing to me, I mean. It was—it really was wonderful. But I think I’d better go to bed now. I must see if the Princess wants anything ...”
Her voice trailed away as he stood up and took a step towards her.
“Please don’t go,” he said, and his voice was rather taut. “Not yet, Katherine.”
“But I must ...” Once again she broke off, for he had lightly taken hold of her wrist, and as a result the hand attached to that wrist had begun to tremble uncontrollably. But she had to get away ... she had to get away from those suddenly limpid dark eyes that were devouring her face. She had to get away from the softly compelling voice which seemed to be tearing at something inside her. She had never felt like this before, and she was frightened ...
“Katherine,” he said softly, “my beautiful little Katherine.”
She ventured to glance up at him, and saw that he was looking at her as if she mesmerized him.
“Your eyes are like the sky at midnight,” he said, “Did you know? Katherine!”
And then his arms were about her, and he had kissed her, quite lightly, on the lips.
For several seconds she stood absolutely still, listening to the violent, erratic pounding of her own heart, unable to think or move or speak. And then she broke away from him and dashed towards the door, blindly struggling to get it open—not even hearing Leonid’s voice as he called after her, conscious of nothing but the hot tears welling into her eyes, and the knowledge that she had to get away ... somehow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KATHY lay awake for a long time that night, before finally managing to get to sleep, and even when weariness did overcome her, and her heavy eyelids closed, it was not for long. The slightest sound from far away in the villa had the power to disturb her, and at five o’clock, tired of struggling with insomnia, she got up and dressed. It was still quite dark, but she knew that the dawn could not be far off now, and in her present mood she felt that to sit by her window and watch the sky turning paler would be infinitely pleasanter than remaining in bed and pretending to sleep.
It was going to be necessary for her to leave the Villa Albinhieri, and with as little delay as possible. That much was clear to her. But getting herself back to England was going to require a tremendous effort of will-power on her part, and just at the moment she felt a l
ittle dazed at the prospect of attempting it. She didn’t seem to be able to think too clearly ... she was unhappy and bewildered, and tired too. She thought a little ruefully that perhaps she should at least have made sure of getting a good night’s sleep, since she was going to need to be fresh and able to think for herself, and she wondered how she was going to face the day that lay ahead of her.
She was in love with Leonid. She knew that now, and supposed that if she had been prepared to admit it to herself she would have known it long ago. As far as she was concerned he was the centre of everything that made her life worthwhile, and she was quite well aware that when she had accomplished her intention of interposing some fifteen hundred miles between herself and him she would feel as if she had suddenly moved out of vivid sunlight into cold and infinitely depressing shadows. But she was not the sort of young woman with whom Leonid could ever contemplate sharing his life. That was quite obvious. When he did eventually marry, his wife would undoubtedly be chosen from amongst women of approximately his own social standing—or at least, from among women to whom attached some sort of material advantage. No doubt some such person as an American heiress would be regarded as an extremely useful addition to the family, especially as their circumstances in the future could hardly be precisely what they had been in the past.
And she, Kathy Grant, had nothing whatsoever to offer. The daughter of an English country clergyman, with scarcely a penny to her name—without even any surviving relatives to whom she could turn in an unexpected emergency—it was completely impossible that Leonid could at any time have looked upon her as the sort of girl whom he might, conceivably, honour with an offer of marriage.
And yet he had kissed her ... and that one kiss had upset her more than anything else. As far as she was concerned, its only immediate effect had been to consolidate her feelings, revealing to her in a startling flash of realization that she loved him, and possibly had done from the first day she met him. But he did not love her—or if he did, it was not the sort of love he would be likely to bestow on a woman whom he intended to marry. Perhaps, encouraged by her schoolgirlish admiration for his skill as a pianist, he had merely been indulging—or attempting to indulge —in a light flirtation, or perhaps he had had in mind an association which would be rather more serious, though scarcely more satisfactory from her point of view. She was actually more inclined to believe that in kissing her he had merely succumbed to passing impulse, and by the morning might even have forgotten the incident, but whatever the explanation she knew that she could no longer remain in his sister-in-law’s employment, and that the first thing she had to do was to explain her decision to Natalia at the earliest opportunity.
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