The opportunity arose shortly after breakfast, when the Princess sent her a message by one of the maids, asking her to visit her in her room.
Strong sunlight was filling the big, beautiful apartment when Kathy entered. Natalia was lying back against her lace-edged pillows, and the morning’s mail, partially opened, was littered across the golden satin of her eiderdown. Tossing some of the letters aside, she cleared a space so that it was possible for Kathy to sit down on the side of the bed, and then dropped a single sheet of extremely elegant notepaper, covered in spidery feminine handwriting, into the English girl’s lap.
“It’s Liczak,” she said, and sank back against her pillows. Temporarily distracted from the problems burdening her own mind, Kathy glanced at her, recognizing the danger signals with which she had gradually become familiar since entering the other woman’s employment. The brown eyes held an appealing look, and there was a faint flush in the alabaster cheeks.
“You see what she says.” One slim hand gestured towards the letter in Kathy’s lap.
“It’s in your language, madame; I can’t read it.”
“Well, she says she is coming here. Oh, Kathy, it was such a relief when she asked if she could stay in Paris for a while! But Leonid was not pleased, and now he will say it is good that she is to come! I don’t like her, Kathy! She makes me feel miserable!”
Mechanically, Kathy smiled at her, and put the letter back amongst the mass of correspondence littering the eiderdown. “Perhaps she won’t come,” she suggested, knowing quite well as she spoke that if the Baroness Liczak said she was coming there was very little chance indeed of her failing to arrive.
“Of course she will come.” Long lashes drooped across the lustrous brown eyes, and rather slowly, Natalia added: “She is bringing her daughter with her.”
“Well ...” Kathy wondered what she ought to say to this. “Won’t that be rather nice? I mean, she must be quite young. She might be an ideal companion for you.”
“I don’t care what she might be. I am angry that she should be coming here. Of course, the Baronin asks permission to bring her, but naturally she would be very surprised if it were not granted.” She sighed, then struggled into an upright position, and shot a rather curious look in Kathy’s direction. “I think ...” She paused, evidently pondering something. “I think I would like you to take a message to my brother-in-law for me. You will probably find him in the library. Tell him ... just tell him that I asked you to let him know about the Baroness.” Natalia seemed to smile slightly, and added: “You need not mention her daughter.”
Kathy felt herself turn pale, and her pulses started hammering uncontrollably. “Madame—” She struggled for words, trying to think. “Would it be all right if I gave the message to someone ... to one of the maids?”
“But why?” The Princess’s slim eyebrows rose, and she gave Kathy a long, rather wide-eyed stare. Then she looked away, and started sorting her letters.
“No. If you do not very much mind, petite, I would prefer you to give him the message.”
“But ...” Kathy tried to think of something to say, some plausible excuse to make that might save her from the necessity of coming face to face with the Prince—a situation which she had hoped to avoid. She had hoped, in fact, that it would not be necessary for her to see the Prince again.
She hesitated on the edge of explaining everything to Natalia; but her courage failed her, and in any case it would not have been easy to mention any such delicate matter when the person in whom she wished to confide was determinedly engaged in sifting through her correspondence. So she simply stood up, and said:
“Yes ... very well. I’ll do it immediately, madame.”
She had meant to let Natalia know that she had to leave ... she had intended to tell the other woman everything; now, somehow, she couldn’t do so, but she didn’t know how she was going to face Leonid— even for a few seconds. Perhaps, though, she would after all be able to give the message to his secretary.
It was quite cool in the big square entrance hall when she reached it, for the morning sunshine did not penetrate to that part of the villa. Kathy started to shiver, although she knew that it was nerves rather than the chill in the air which made her do so, and as she knocked on the library door she hoped that when it was opened the unsteadiness in her tightly clasped fingers would not be too noticeable.
When the door was opened she received a shock. She had been hoping to be confronted by the thin, bespectacled features of Jasik Grun, Leonid’s young Tirhanian secretary, but when the wide white door swung inwards it was a very different kind of face that looked down at her, and stood in tongue-tied immobility, while a painful flush mounted to her cheeks, and her eyes were instinctively lowered.
As her eyes were lowered, she didn’t see the troubled look in the Prince’s dark ones as they gazed at her. But she did hear his voice. He said:
“Good morning. I am glad you have come to see me.” His voice was soft, and curiously grave.
Some of the agonizing colour deserted her face, and she ventured to look up at him.
“The Princess Natalia sent me ... with a message. I am to tell you that the Baroness Liczak will soon be arriving from Paris.”
There was a pause. Then in a rather curious tone Leonid said: “I see. My sister-in-law felt that I ought to know that?”
“Y-yes.” Kathy felt confused again, and twisted her hands together. “She thought—she thought you would be pleased.”
“Ah, yes—well, I expect it will be a good thing.” He stopped, his eyes studying her face. “Katherine, come and talk to me,” he said abruptly.
She started. “Oh, but I must—I think I should go back ...” she began.
He glanced down at her with a trace of a smile. “Is Natalia waiting for you?”
“No, but—”
“I have something to say to you ... Please listen to me. Just for a few minutes, Katherine.”
She swallowed. “Well, I—”
He put his head on one side, and surveyed her thoughtfully.” I promise you, you will be perfectly safe.”
“Yes, of course! I—I didn’t mean ...” She broke off, blushing furiously. “Naturally, if there is anything you would like to say to me—”
“Well, there is ... and I don’t want to postpone it, Katherine.”
He ushered her into the room, and closed the door. She stood still, a little way inside the room, looking distinctly uneasy, and very much as if she were poised for instant flight. Her blue eyes were very wide, and there were tell-tale shadows underneath them which showed quite plainly how little she had slept the night before.
“Won’t you sit down?” He gestured towards one of the huge leather armchairs.
“No, I ... I’d rather stand by the window. It’s such a lovely morning. It doesn’t seem like December, does it? I mean, not an English December. But of course, this isn’t England. It’s Italy.”
“Yes, it’s Italy.” He followed her over to the window, and glanced over her shoulder at the sunlit gardens of the villa. “Do you feel... strange here, Katherine? Bewildered? Homesick?”
“No, I’ve been perfectly happy here,” she told him truthfully, and wished he would not stand so close to her. Why couldn’t he say what he had to say, and let her go? He fumbled with his cigarette-case, as if he intended to smoke; but then he apparently changed his mind, and returned it to his pocket unopened.
“Katherine,” he said suddenly, “if I ask you something will you give me an honest answer?”
“Yes, of course. Of course, monsieur.”
“Why did you run away last night, after I had kissed you?”
Once again she flushed painfully and to conceal the fact moved closer to the window.
“Surely,” she said in a muffled voice, “it was obvious why I ran away.”
“You were alarmed ... shocked, perhaps?” She wondered if he could be making fun of her, but he sounded perfectly serious—even anxious. “You were angry with me?”
For a moment or two Kathy couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all. And then, somehow she seemed to discover a new composure, and her voice was almost detached as she said:
“It was the music, the atmosphere—everything, I expect. You were... carried away.”
He was silent. He was silent, in fact, for such a long time that she began to feel embarrassed again. Why did he go on torturing her like this? He had evidently asked her into the library in order to satisfy his curiosity concerning the odd mentality of a foolish little English girl who upset herself over a casual kiss. The interview had gone on quite long enough, and as she didn’t think she could stand very much more of it it seemed to her that the only thing to do was to bring it to an end as quickly as possible.
“There is no need to apologize,” she said—rather drily, for it didn’t seem to her that he had any intention of apologizing, or even that he saw any necessity to do so. Not that she wanted an apology— she knew very well what she wanted, but also knew that the less she thought about it the better.
Suddenly determined, she turned briskly to face him, and as she did so she saw that he was staring at her as if there were something about her that bewildered him. Before she could move any further, he put both his hands on her shoulders, and looked down into her face.
“Did you say ... Katherine, do you believe that—that last night I was carried away by the music?”
She lowered her eyes. “Well ... well, I suppose—it was very emotional music, wasn’t it?”
He drew a deep breath. “And I am a lonely, exiled prince, and you are a pretty little beggar-maid?” Strange little sparks appeared at the back of his dark eyes, and his fingers gripped her shoulders more tightly. “Tell me, is the attraction purely temporary, do you think? It might be ... but of course, it might also last for quite a while—perhaps as long as a month! I am not absolutely sure how long it is usual for such an attachment to last ... it will be necessary for you to tell me. You see, Mademoiselle Katherine, I have been wasting my opportunities. Obviously it is expected of me that I should flirt with young women ... it is my—what is the word?—prerogative! It is distressing to think how many have probably been disappointed. But, you understand, I had the strange idea that, should I attempt to make love to such a young woman as yourself, that young woman would in all probability assume me to be in love with her. And as I have never before been in love, I have accordingly never before made advances to such a young woman as yourself!”
Kathy stared at him. Her legs were trembling slightly, and she was trying to sort out what he had been saying—to bring it into focus in her mind. She had the vague impression that, despite all the anger and sarcasm in his voice, he was trying to say something absolutely wonderful. But she didn’t believe it. It didn’t make sense—it couldn’t make sense ...
And then she heard the soft hiss of tyres on the gravel driveway beneath the window, and the whisper of an excellent engine subsiding into silence. At first she didn’t pay very much attention to either of these sounds, but gradually she became aware that Leonid was paying attention to them, that, in fact, his attention was being completely distracted by something he could see below him in that open space where the car would have stopped. She had her back to the window now, but he could see through it easily, and so completely absorbed did he appear to be in whatever or whoever it was that had just arrived outside that at last she turned her head and followed the direction of his eyes.
A large grey Mercedes had come to a standstill outside the main door of the villa, and while a smart, uniformed chauffeur bent over the contents of the boot, the three people who had just alighted from the car sauntered slowly towards the steps which led up to the front door of the house. One was a man, somewhere about forty years of age, tall and distinguished and vaguely military-looking, but it was the two women, one of them rather more than middle-aged and the other young, who caught Kathy’s eyes.
For the elder of the two was the Baroness Liczak, and the younger was one of the most striking women she had ever beheld in the entire course of her life.
She was not, perhaps, strictly speaking, as beautiful as Natalia, whose fragile, golden, unsophisticated looks really were remarkable; but there was a kind of poise, a flawless elegance about the slim figure of the girl now slowly mounting the steps to the main entrance that would turn a good many heads at any gathering, and for no obvious reason Kathy felt an extraordinary chill as she looked at her. Sleek, shining dark hair and smooth, pale skin; a cream-coloured silk suit that bore the hallmark of Paris ... She and the Baroness were talking now, to someone who had met them in the doorway, and Kathy could hear the younger woman’s soft, attractive laugh, and then her light, rather husky voice as she spoke to someone in fluent Italian.
Leonid’s hands had dropped from Kathy’s shoulders, and he turned away from her into the room. Kathy stood still, feeling bewildered and curiously deflated, like someone who has been abruptly awakened from a happy dream. She was silent, for she couldn’t, in the circumstances, think of anything to say, and she was still feeling rather dazed, for she hadn’t any idea why the dream had been disturbed.
But Leonid had walked coolly over to a big desk at the far end of the room, and had started to sift through some papers, evidently looking for something. To her astonishment, he suddenly looked up and glanced at her, rather as if she were something that had temporarily escaped his memory.
“Katherine,” he said, “we will talk later. You do not mind?”
“Of course not.” Kathy’s voice was small and tight and stiff, and it hurt her, rather as it had hurt her once when she had laryngitis. “I’ll tell Her Highness that the Baroness has arrived.”
“Yes, it will be best for you to do so. And mention also that she is accompanied by her daughter, and by my friend, Colonel Zanin.”
The Baroness’s daughter! Well, the Baroness could justifiably be proud of her. Not only was she extremely lovely, but she had the power to make Leonid of Tirhania drop everything as soon as he caught sight of her—even when he was in the middle of conducting a flirtation with his sister-in-law’s English secretary!
As soon as Kathy had delivered the Prince’s message to Natalia, she retired to her own bedroom, pleading as an excuse that ever since the night before she had been suffering from a slight headache. Natalia was very sympathetic, promising to make all the necessary excuses on her behalf when she failed to put in an appearance at lunch, and pressing on the English girl some pills which she assured her were excellent for headaches.
“You will lie down all the afternoon, and then by dinner-time you will be well again, and ready to join us downstairs. I am sorry that you cannot be with us at lunch, for Liczak is so much easier to bear when you are there, but you must not worry about that, cherie.” She gave Kathy rather a curious look. “What did Leon say when you told him about Liczak? Of course, he did not know that she was going to arrive so quickly!”
“He said he expected it would be a good thing,” Kathy told her, remembering his words without the slightest difficulty, just as she seemed to remember everything he had ever said to her.
“He’s a tyrant,” said Natalia lightly. But her eyes narrowed as she studied Kathy’s small white face, and with more perception than she was usually given credit for recognized the tension in the clouded blue eyes. “Go and lie down, cherie,” she repeated. “And this evening I think we will have a little talk, you and I.”
But before Kathy had had a chance to have any ‘little talk’ with her employer, their mutual hostess, Signora Albinhieri, elected to pay her a visit. It was about five o’clock when she tapped lightly on Kathy’s door, and the rest of the villa was fairly quiet. Kathy had been sitting in an armchair, staring through her window at the broad, distinctive top of an umbrella pine-tree, but when the signora entered the room she stood up rather hastily, and in an attempt to conceal the fact that she had been idly brooding, picked up the novel which had been lying beside her on a small table.
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br /> “My dear!” The signora smiled at her, her peculiarly sharp dark eyes seeming to take in every detail of her appearance. “Forgive me for intruding upon you, but when I heard that you were not very well I felt that I should make an effort to find out whether you were comfortable.”
“Oh, I—I’m very comfortable, thank you signora,” assured Kathy rather hastily, wishing that the old eyes were not quite so penetrating. “And as a matter of fact, I’m not really unwell. I ... just had a bit of a headache. It was very kind of the Princess Natalia not to insist upon my being present at lunch.”
The old lady looked a little amused. “Yes, you should not under-estimate the extent of the sacrifice she made. You are a great support to her, and she is so frightened, poor child, of Elena Liczak. A married woman, and the sister-in-law of the King—the ex-King—” rather drily, “of Tirhania, and she is terrified of that woman! She is such a bambina, that one ... it is incredible.”
Not being quite sure whether or not it would be strictly ethical for her to join in this discussion of her employer’s peculiarities, Kathy smiled a little uncertainly, and then suddenly remembered her manners and urged the signora to take a seat, indicating the luxuriously comfortable arm-chair which she herself had been occupying. The old lady accepted the invitation, and lowered her unsubstantial frame into the chair with an effortless dignity which Kathy could imagine being instilled into her years ago in Tirhania, when she was still a very young girl, and her life was ruled by stern and unrelenting governesses.
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