But, as he raised the Baroness’s hand to his lips, he was uncomfortably aware that Natasha was only the other side of one of the painted and gilt doors.
Could she be listening? He would not put it past her!
But even if she was not, he was aware that she was in the vicinity and the fact that he found the Baroness attractive would amuse her.
“You are very stiff and formal,” the Baroness said after a moment, “just as you used to be before I had melted some of that icy reserve that everyone believed had frozen your heart”
Her lips were very close to his and she asked softly,
“Shall we see, mon cher, if I can melt it once again? Have you really forgotten those nights in Paris?”
“I could never forget them,” Lord Athelstan answered in a low voice hoping that what he said could not be overheard.
“How long are you staying here?” the Baroness enquired.
“I leave tomorrow,” Lord Athelstan replied.
He had already thought it would be wise to do so, but now he made an irrevocable decision that it was essential for him to leave as early as possible the next day.
“Then we have so little time,” the Baroness said. “I shall, however, be resting between six and seven o’clock – I shall be – alone.”
There was no need to say more and the Baroness’s lips seemed to find Lord Athelstan’s without his making any movement whatsoever.
As she touched him, he knew that what had been between them was over.
Once she had been able to fire him as few women had been able to do.
Once he had found her fluttering flirtations and the invitation in her eyes provocative, the pout of her lips irresistible, but suddenly the magic had vanished.
She belonged to his past and he was no longer interested.
With a little sigh the Baroness rose to her feet.
“I must leave you, D’Arcy,” she said, “there are several people in the Palace that I have promised to visit, but I shall expect you at six o’clock. I am in the Empress’s suite. Any servant will tell you where it is.”
Lord Athelstan had risen automatically and now he raised the Baroness’s fingers to his lips and kissed them in a manner that seemed to please her.
Even as he did so, he knew that she no longer excited him and he would make no effort to find the Empress’s suite at six o’clock.
“Until six, dear D’Arcy!” the Baroness said. “I know that we shall find again even in the short time available all the enchantment and the wonder that made us so happy together in Paris.”
She laughed softly.
“I know that beneath that dry diplomatic exterior there lies a very passionate and a very wonderful lover!”
She touched his cheek with her hand and then, her crinoline swaying like a flower in the wind, she moved across the room and had gone before he could reach the door to open it for her.
He stood staring after her, thinking as he did so how easily the fires of yesterday could be extinguished so that not even their embers remained.
Then he heard the door on the other side of the sitting room open and Natasha came in.
He had only to look at her face to realise how angry she was.
“How dare she!” she exclaimed in a voice vibrant with emotion. “How dare that woman – that friend of yours – defame Princess Anna and the rest of us?”
Lord Athelstan did not speak and she went on,
“She obviously judges everybody else by her own standards! Her nights in Paris were hardly comparable to the nights when we lay shivering in the bitter cold with nothing but a worn blanket and our rags to cover us.”
She paused to ask aggressively,
“Why did you not tell her how little food we had to eat? How we were persecuted and made to suffer by the Imam’s chief wife? And how even the servants vented their spite on us?”
She paused as if waiting for an answer and Lord Athelstan said,
“I am sorry that she should have spoken like that, but you cannot be so naïve as not to realise that women in this sort of place have romantic notions about the Tartars.”
“Romantic!” Natasha ejaculated.
“There are stories that have been told and repeated all down the years,” Lord Athelstan tried to explain. “It is inevitable with men who are so good-looking and so masculine.”
“But surely you could have told the Baroness that what she was repeating was untrue?” Natasha insisted in an accusing tone.
“How do you know I did not do so?” Lord Athelstan asked.
“I heard what you said,” Natasha answered. “It amused me to learn that after all you are not entirely made of granite!”
“I have always considered it very ill-bred to listen at keyholes,” Lord Athelstan said scathingly.
“And certainly unfeminine!” Natasha added.
She was obviously unrepentant concerning what seemed to Lord Athelstan quite inexcusable behaviour.
After a moment he said,
“May I suggest that until we leave the Palace you should be a little more careful than you were just now? If you do betray yourself, it is not only I who will suffer but also your brother.”
Natasha walked away to stand at the window, looking out onto the garden below.
“I realise that I was indiscreet,” she said, “but she made me so furiously angry. How dare that woman, who has always been wrapped in silks and satins and protected from cold winds, talk as if we had gone out on an amorous expedition with those barbarians?”
“You have suffered – I am not denying that, but you had better restrain your anger until we are clear of Russian territory.”
“What you are really suggesting is that I should keep my Arabian Nights tales for the harem,” Natasha flashed at him. “So you think that the fat concubines will want to listen to me or are you suggesting that I should regale the Sultan himself with our sufferings?”
“I am suggesting nothing!” Lord Athelstan answered angrily. “I do not wish to think of you or your future. All I am concerned with is the present.”
“And yourself!” Natasha added scornfully.
“As you say – myself!” Lord Athelstan replied.
He turned and walked into his bedroom leaving Natasha alone in the sitting room.
He had definitely made up his mind that he would not visit the Baroness at the time appointed.
But when six o’clock came she sent her own maid to the suite to fetch him.
“His Excellency Baron Walchian requests the honour of your Lordship’s company,” the maid said.
She spoke in French and was obviously a Parisian who, Lord Athelstan guessed, was responsible for making the Baroness the best-dressed diplomat’s wife in the whole of Europe,
“His Excellency?” he asked, accentuating the pronoun,
“Monsieur le Baron wishes to see you, my Lord.”
It was impossible in the circumstances for Lord Athelstan to refuse and he rose to his feet to follow the French maid just as Natasha entered the room.
She did not speak, but she raised her eyebrows at the sight of the Frenchwoman and he knew exactly what she was thinking.
‘It’s none of her business!’ Lord Athelstan told himself as he walked along the wide exquisitely decorated corridors.
At the same time the fact that he knew she was criticising him made him feel that his decision to visit Kyril might have been precipitate.
He had found her very amusing and without doubt one of the most attractive women he had ever been infatuated with.
There had been many women in Lord Athelstan’s life.
In fact women pursued him relentlessly, but he was very fastidious and only a few of those who offered their favours all too generously evoked any response from what the Baroness had rightly called his ‘frozen heart’.
He had thought often enough that actually his heart was never engaged when he pursued his amatory adventures.
He would desire a woman, he would find her fascina
ting and he was often attracted to the point when he would wish to see her again and again.
But he knew, if he was honest, that he had never really been in love.
Kyril was one of the few women he had been attracted to for quite a long time. Usually the flame of his desire burnt itself out quickly.
Then Lord Athelstan would grow more reserved and more detached than ever and the mere fact that he was indifferent to them would drive more and more women almost mad in their efforts to ensnare him.
Kyril’s charm made her shine like a light even amongst the beauties that thronged Paris and made it the gayest City in the world.
It was almost impossible to believe there could be so many beautiful, extravagant and alluring women in one place and yet, as far as Lord Athelstan was concerned, he found Kyril eclipsed them all.
She was not only intensely feminine, which he liked, and more passionate than any woman he had ever known, she was also intelligent and knowledgeable on a variety of subjects he was interested in.
She had, too, a puckish sense of humour which could at times be spiteful, but which always amused him.
Even in the midst of their love-making he would find himself laughing at something she said, but even so when she was making love Kyril would make her lover believe that he was a King among men and there had never been anyone like him.
All men like being flattered and Lord Athelstan was no exception to the rule, but Kyril did it with subtlety to a point where he found himself believing all she told him and in consequence having a greater conceit of himself than he had before.
He wondered now as he approached her suite whether what he had suspected when she touched his lips a short time ago was true and their attraction for each other had really gone.
Where she was concerned he was not sure.
He had the feeling she did in fact find him, as she had in the past, someone who excited her to the point where she was prepared to throw caution to the winds and brave any scandal that might result from their liaison.
The Baron was a much older man than his wife, and Lord Athelstan suspected that he had long since given up worrying as to how Kyril behaved in private as long as she was circumspect in public.
There had been moments in Paris when it had been Lord Athelstan who had applied the brake and made an effort to safeguard the Baroness’s reputation.
Knowing Kyril’s insistence on getting her own way, Lord Athelstan expected when he reached the Empress’s suite to find the Baroness alone.
To his surprise, however, His Excellency, the Austrian Ambassador was standing at his wife’s side, looking resplendent in an array of decorations.
“Athelstan, my dear fellow, how nice to see you!” he exclaimed in his excellent English as Lord Athelstan was announced.
“I had no idea you were coming to Georgia,” Lord Athelstan replied.
“As I expect Kyril has told you, we are on our way to stay with the Shah.”
“I was with him two weeks ago,” Lord Athelstan said.
He realised that this was all social chit-chat and of no particular consequence.
Then the Baron glanced at the clock and said,
“You must forgive me, Athelstan, but I have an important meeting with the Viceroy which I am afraid will continue up until dinner time. That is why I wanted a word with you now as I learn that you are leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, I must go home,” Lord Athelstan said.
“I can understand that! I just wondered what sort of report you intend to make to the Queen about the Imam.”
With an inward smile Lord Athelstan realised that this was the reason why the Baron had wished to see him.
The Ambassador was attempting to find out, doubtless at the instigation of the Russians, whether England even at this late hour was prepared to support Shamyl and what advice Lord Athelstan intended to give the British Foreign Office.
Instead of prevaricating and evading the truth with well-turned diplomatic phrases, Lord Athelstan decided to be honest.
“I think,” he said slowly, “it is only a question of time, perhaps two or three years, before Shamyl has to acknowledge defeat!”
A sudden light in the Baron’s eyes told Lord Athelstan that this was what he had hoped to hear.
It would be a feather in his cap if he could convey such information straight from Lord Athelstan’s mouth to the ears of the Viceroy and through him to Field-Marshal Prince Bariatinsky.
Ironically, Lord Athelstan told himself, he had paid the Ambassador back for the times he had enjoyed with his wife in Paris.
Once again the Baron looked at the clock.
“You must forgive me, my dear fellow,” he said, “but I don’t like to keep our host waiting. You know how punctilious he is in such matters.”
“I do indeed,” Lord Athelstan agreed.
“I shall see you at dinner,” the Baron smiled.
He turned to his wife.
“Persuade his Lordship to come and stay with us in Rome,” he said. “I think he would enjoy himself.”
“I am sure he would!” the Baroness answered with a glance under her eyelashes at Lord Athelstan.
Her husband kissed her hand and walked across the room.
He looked older than when Lord Athelstan had last seen him, but he was still an impressive figure of a man.
The door closed behind him and Kyril held out her arms.
“You see, mon cher,” she said, “I was not deceiving you when you were told the Baron wished to see you.”
She looked so mischievous that Lord Athelstan could not help laughing.
“How did you know I suspected the message?” he enquired.
“I had the feeling and you know quite well, D’Arcy, that I can always, always rely on my feelings that you did not intend to visit me this evening. Perhaps your young Prince put you off. Perhaps you have other and better loves than me.”
There was just a touch of wistfulness in her voice that struck Lord Athelstan as pathetic.
Could it be that Kyril was beginning to doubt her own charms?
That seemed impossible and yet women were unpredictable and none more so than Kyril herself.
He leant towards her, but unexpectedly she rose to her feet and linked her arm in his.
“Come, I have something to show you.”
They walked across the room and Lord Athelstan was conscious that she smelt of the same exotic fragrance that had haunted him when he had been her lover in Paris.
There was something unforgettable about it. A scent that had remained with him long after he had left her.
She opened the door of a room, drew him inside and only then did he realise that it was her bedroom.
It had a magnificent canopied bed surmounted with the Voronzov crown, which was supported by a number of gilded cupids.
Lord Athelstan heard the key turn in the lock behind him and then Kyril was in his arms.
“Oh, D’Arcy! D’Arcy!” she cried. “I have missed you! I have missed you more than I can ever say! Love me as you used to do! Love me and make me believe that we can be close again.”
Automatically Lord Athelstan’s arms went round her and she turned her heart-shaped face up to his. Her eyes were pleading with him and he knew that it was impossible to refuse her.
So much of the past lay between them, so many things they had done and said together hovered like ghosts around them and were just as insubstantial.
It was an illusion, he knew, not only for himself but also for Kyril to imagine that their relationship could ever again be as it had been in the past.
But for the moment they would both pretend!
They could try to fan the almost extinct embers into a small flame.
His mouth came down on hers and he lifted her in his arms.
*
It was more than an hour later that Lord Athelstan returned to his own suite.
He was glad to find that the sitting room was empty when he reached it. He rang the bell
and ordered a bottle of champagne.
When it came, he sat back in an armchair drinking, for him, an unusual number of glasses, for he seldom drank alone.
He was conscious as he did so that he could still smell Kyril’s fragrance. It hovered in his nostrils like a narcotic.
He believed that he had made her happy, but he knew, as far as he himself was concerned, that there was nothing more dead than a dead love affair.
He had often thought of Kyril when he had been in India and, even when he had been with other women, finding they did not measure up to her either in beauty, passion or charm.
She had always been the standard by which he judged every woman who had ever come into his life. And now there was no longer Kyril.
In fact there was no one.
‘I am thirty-five,’ he told himself. ‘It’s time I settled down and produced an heir.’
He thought of his great possessions in England and how he had always planned that sooner or later he would retire from the Diplomatic Service to look after his estates and play his part both in the County and in the House of Lords.
But he could not contemplate living at Athelstan Park alone.
It was too large, too imposing, and apart from anything else, he needed a hostess.
Even as he thought of it he told himself he wanted much more than that.
He wanted a woman he loved, a woman who would be part of himself, a woman he would be proud to have as the mother of his children.
‘I have almost left it too late!’ he mused.
He realised that at his age he could not contemplate marrying some child who was just out of the schoolroom.
How could he tolerate an unfledged, tongue-tied debutante with whom he could have no intelligent conversation and who would doubtless giggle rather inanely at anything she did not understand?
The older women he knew were all married.
Those with whom he flirted and made love, like Kyril, had husbands who, whether complacent or jealous, were an insurmountable obstacle to marriage.
It seemed almost incredible that he knew no one whom he could contemplate for a moment as his wife. But that was the truth.
He supposed there were few Society families in which he would not be a welcome guest and who had not sent him invitations to house parties, receptions, balls, assemblies and every other sort of hospitality they extended to their friends.
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