But now something wild and wonderful within her leapt to meet the fire in him.
Once again he carried her into the sun and the light of it seemed to blaze around them as she knew this was another side of love which was wonderful, exciting, demanding – and she gloried in it.
He kissed her until Zena felt her misery and depression was swept away and her whole body vibrated to a force that was stronger and more vital than anything she had ever known before.
She felt as if she had suddenly come alive, and no sensation she had ever known in the past had been so rapturous, so ecstatic as all that the Comte was making her feel now.
His heart was beating tempestuously against her own and she knew the sensations he was giving her he was feeling himself, and it made them one person as truly as if they were married and nothing could divide them.
When at last the Comte raised his head, Zena felt that, if he was not holding her in his arms, she would have fallen to the ground.
Because she was pulsating with emotion she could only hide her face against his shoulder and say in a breathless little voice,
“I love you – I love you – and I thought I would never see you again.”
“And I love you!” the Comte said. “Never again my darling, will I lose you. Nothing shall prevent you from being mine.”
He spoke with a violence that seemed to echo his kisses and it was only with a superhuman effort that Zena remembered that what he was saying was impossible.
“I – I must talk to – you,” she stuttered.
The Comte’s lips were pressed against her forehead.
“What is there to talk about?” he asked. “I have learnt that you are not who you pretended to be, and the Vicomte de Villerny is really the Comte de Castelnaud.”
Zena raised her face to look up at him.
“You – know who Kendric – is?”
“They told me at the Gendarmerie that he is your twin brother,” the Comte smiled. “I was so overwhelmingly glad at the news that I would have given my informant several thousand francs if I had not been afraid of being arrested for bribery!”
He looked so happy as he spoke that Zena felt she could not bear to tell him the truth.
His arms tightened around her.
“How could you do anything so disgraceful as to come to Paris disguised in such a manner?” he asked. “I suppose I should be very angry with your brother for taking you to places where no lady should go and letting you meet people who might have involved you in a great deal of trouble if I had not been there.”
“But – you were – there,” Zena said, “and you – saved me from the Marquis.”
“If I had not been able to do so, I hate to think what would have happened,” he said and his tone was grim.
“I was – always aware that I – could run away,” Zena said feeling that she should make some explanation.
“You might not have been able to escape from the Marquis as easily as you escaped from me,” the Comte commented.
“I did not – want to – escape from – you,” Zena said in a whisper, “but Kendric found out that the Press were making ‘enquiries’ about us.”
“I cannot help feeling you will get into a great deal of trouble if your parents, provided they are alive, discover your extremely improper masquerade,” the Comte said.
The way he spoke told Zena now quite clearly that she must tell him who she was.
Just for a moment she played with the idea of persuading him to carry her away now, at this very moment.
Perhaps they could find somewhere in the world where they could hide and where nobody would find them, where they could be together and, if his love was as great as hers, nothing else would be of any consequence.
Then she remembered what Kendric had said last night and knew she loved him too much to risk his life, even though she might as well die without him.
The Comte put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
“You are so beautiful, so ridiculously, adoringly beautiful,” he said. “How could you not expect in that ridiculous guise of pretending to be a demi-mondaine that every man who looked at you would not wish to possess you?”
Now there was a scolding note in his voice which she knew was because he had been frightened for her.
“It may – seem to you very – wrong,” she said, “and perhaps – immodest, but if I had not – gone to Paris I would not have met you.”
There was a smile on the Comte’s lips as he replied,
“That is a very plausible excuse, my precious one. At the same time it is something that can have a lot of unpleasant consequences in the future.”
Seeing that she did not understand, he explained,
“I shall not be able to take you to Paris again, until not only the Prince Napoleon has forgotten what you look like but also the Marquis de Sade.”
“That would not – matter a bit to me if I could be – anywhere else with you, but there is something I must tell you.”
Zena’s voice trembled and the Comte looked at her searchingly.
“What is wrong?” he asked. “I love you and I know that you love me. All I want, my precious, beautiful little Wiedensteiner, is that we should be married and as quickly as possible.”
“What is – what I have to – tell you. I – cannot marry you.”
“Why not?”
The Comte’s voice was sharp and seemed to ring out.
Because she felt she could not bear to wipe away the love from his eyes or the smile from his lips Zena gave a little cry and said,
“Before I tell you, will you – kiss me once again as you did – just now?”
“You are making me nervous,” the Comte complained. “ Now I have found you nothing matters except to love you and look after you and above all prevent you from doing dangerous and unpredictable things like pretending to be ademi-mondaine!”
The smile was back on his lips, as he said,
“I think I felt from the first moment I looked at you that your darkened eyelashes and red lips were wrong, and when I talked to you I realised quickly how innocent you were, unless of course you were the most brilliant actress who ever performed on any stage.”
“Did you really – think that?” Zena asked. “And it did not – shock you?”
“I was very shocked that you should have been to that low dance hall in Montmartre and that you agreed to have luncheon alone with a stranger in the Bois.”
He paused and Zena said in a voice he could hardly hear,
“I-I did not mean to let you – kiss me – but it was – so wonderful – so perfect that I cannot – believe even now that it was wrong.”
“It was the first time you had ever been kissed?” the Comte asked.
“Y-yes.”
“I knew it!” he exclaimed. “I knew when my lips touched yours that they confirmed what I had already thought, that you were pure and innocent.”
“I am – glad you thought – that.”
“At the same time it is certainly something which must never happen again,” the Comte said, “and it never will when I am looking after you.”
His words brought back to Zena’s mind what she had to tell him and because she was afraid she felt herself trembling.
“What is upsetting you?” he asked. “Tell me, my darling, and let us get it over. Then we can make plans for our future.”
It was what he had said before and she remembered when she left Paris she had known there was no future with him.
Then, as the tears would have swept over her in a floodtide, she closed her eyes.
“Kiss me – please kiss me,” she pleaded, “then I will tell you – what you have to know.”
The Comte held her so closely against him that she could hardly breathe.
Then he kissed her at first gently, then compellingly and possessively.
He took his lips from hers to kiss her eyes, her nose, then the softness of her neck beneath her ear.
&nb
sp; She was surprised he should do so and she felt rising within her a strange and exciting feeling that was different from anything she had ever felt before.
It made her feel wild and for some reason she could not understand it was hard to breathe and when she did, her breath came in little gasps from between her parted lips.
Once again the Comte kissed her lips and she wished she could die before she must tell him who she was and know they must say goodbye again.
When finally he released her, her cheeks were flushed, her lips were red from his kisses and her eyes seemed to hold all the sunlight in them.
“I – love – you – Jean.”
It was the first time she had ever used his Christian name and somehow it made her feel as if she belonged to him so completely that there were no titles or rank to divide them.
They were just a man and a woman in love – Zena and Jean.
He looked down at her and there was a smile of triumph on his lips as if he felt he had won a battle and the enemy had surrendered.
“Now tell me what you have to say,” he said.
As if she could not bear to do so while he was touching her, Zena moved away from him to stand at the window looking out into the garden.
She did not see the sunshine, the trees, the flowers, or Kendric in the distance lying on the grass reading the newspapers.
Instead she only saw the grandeur of the Palace, the Throne Room where her father and mother sat on Official occasions and the smaller chairs on either side of them which were also very ornate and rather like thrones for Kendric and herself.
She must have stood silent for several seconds before the Comte said,
“I am waiting!”
“I – I – ”
Zena’s voice seemed to come from a very long way away and be almost inarticulate.
“I am not – who you – think I – am.”
“Not the Comtesse de Castelnaud?”
“ N-no.”
“Another disguise?” the Comte asked.
Zena nodded.
“Then who are you?” he asked. “Let me say before you tell me, that whoever you are – Zena Bellefleur or La Comtesse de Castelnaud or whoever else – to me you are the woman I love and whom I will make my wife.”
“If only – I – could be – married to you, I would be the – happiest girl in the – whole world.”
The way she spoke was so poignant that even the Comte was startled.
“Why can you not marry me?” he demanded. “You cannot be married already?”
“N-not – exactly.”
“Then if you are engaged,” the Comte replied, “ forget it! I suppose, as in all French families, you have been affianced to some suitable young man by your parents and you have no choice in the matter. Then let me make it clear before we go any further – you will marry me!”
Once again Zena wondered if she should agree to do as he wished, on condition that he took her away immediately.
She was sure she could persuade Kendric to help them, and it could actually be quite easy to escape from the house at night, climb over the garden wall and be over the border into France long before dawn.
It might take them a week or longer to find out that it was the Comte who had spirited her away and by that time they would be married and legally she would be his wife.
‘That is what we will do,’ she thought. ‘I will pretend that all I was going to tell him was that I am engaged.’
As this was going round in her head, she remembered Cousin Gertrude and what had happened to the man she had loved.
Would this be different?
Zena knew she dare not risk it and she must tell the Comte the truth.
As if he was reading her thoughts, which he had told her before he could do, he insisted,
“You must tell me the truth, Zena, however difficult it may be. To have secrets from each other would spoil our love and raise reserves and barriers between us.”
Zena knew that he was right.
However hurtful it might be for her, he must know the truth, and she could not sacrifice him to her love, however great it might be.
She took a deep breath.
Then she said, slowly and in a voice that trembled on every word,
“I – am the Princess Marie-Therese – of Wiedenstein!”
There was a long silence.
Zena felt the tears come into her eyes and she clasped her hands together so tightly that she squeezed the blood from her fingers.
“Is this true?” the Comte asked at length.
Zena was unable to speak, but she nodded her head.
“And as the daughter of the Ruler of this country you dared to go to Paris pretending to be a loose woman of a kind you should know nothing about?”
“Kendric was – upset and – unhappy, because – Papa had told him that he is to go to Dusseldorf for a year to train with the Prussian cadets.”
“I can easily understand his resenting that!” the Comte agreed. “But if he decided to go to Paris, how could he have dared to take you?”
“We have always – done everything – together,” Zena answered, “so it would have been very – cruel of him to – leave me behind.”
“He could have taken you as his sister.”
“If he had done so, he thought it would prevent him from enjoying himself because I would have to be chaperoned. So I – became his – Chère Amie.”
“I can follow his thinking. At the same time it was a mad, crazy idea from the start and I cannot understand what your attendants did when you had run away.”
“We managed it because we were coming here,” Zena said. “The Paris Express stopped at Hoyes while our train was in the station. We jumped into it leaving a – letter for the two old people escorting us, telling them that if they told Papa we had – disappeared he would be very – angry with them.”
“It was quite ingenious, I admit,” the Comte said, “but now the day of reckoning has come, Zena, what do you intend to do about us?”
Zena turned from the window.
“I want to marry – you, Jean. I would – give up my – hope of Heaven to be your wife, to live with you and – love you. But it is – something I – cannot do.”
“Why not?” the Comte asked. “Is the pomp and circumstance of being Royal more important to you than our love?”
Zena walked towards him and put her two hands flat on his chest.
He did not put his arms around her and she thought the way he looked at her was cold and critical.
“I love – you and I – swear to you I – love you more than – life itself,” she said, “and if you were to marry me – I would go with you – anywhere in the world.”
“But it is something you will not do because you are a Royal Princess!”
“I want to – do it,” Zena answered, “and if in order to hide we could only live in a hut I would wait on you and – love you – and nothing else would – matter.”
“And yet you still intend to send me away?”
“ I have – to.”
Her voice broke on the words.
“Why?”
She thought now there was a definite hardness in his eyes.
Because she had to make him understand, she looked up at him pleadingly before she answered,
“Last night I told Kendric I could not – bear losing you – and I intended to run away – to go back to Paris to – find you.”
“But Kendric, very sensibly, persuaded you against it,” the Comte remarked.
“He told me that if I did so,” Zena replied, “ you would – die!”
She felt the Comte’s body stiffen against her fingers.
“Why should he say that?”
“Because that had happened to one of our cousins. She was madly in love with a Diplomat, but she was told she had to – marry the King of Albania.”
“What did she do?” the Comte asked.
“She was going to run away with the Diplomat, and they thought
nobody knew about it. But he had what was called ‘an unfortunate accident’ when he was out riding and was found with a – broken neck!”
“And you think that kind of, thing might happen to me?”
“Kendric is – sure of it or else if you are not of – great importance you would be – imprisoned on some trumped up charge, perhaps for spying.”
“In which case I would be shot,” the Comte remarked reflectively.
Zena gave a little cry.
“How could I – allow it. How could I be – responsible for – that?”
She felt somehow that he was not convinced and she added,
“I love you! I love you so – desperately that if there were no – danger for you, I would pack my things and come away with you – now. But if we did so and you died, I would – kill myself!”
The last words were very low, but the Comte heard them.
It was then he put his arms around her and as he did so Zena burst into tears.
“I love you – I love you,” she cried. “To be without you is like having a – thousand knives – driven into – my heart! But what – can I do? I cannot live – without you, but I cannot let you – die for my sake!”
The tears became a tempest and now she sobbed despairingly against the Comte’s shoulder.
His arms tightened, they were very comforting and she felt his lips on her hair.
“Don’t cry, my beautiful one,” he said. “Our love should be happy and, even though we met in extremely reprehensible circumstances, I would not wish you to regret it.”
“I don’t – regret it! It was the most – wonderful thing that ever – happened to me,” Zena sobbed, “but you might have been injured or even killed by the Marquis and now we have to say – goodbye to each other and in a way everything is my – fault.”
“I think we should rather blame Fate,” the Comte said. “Fate made you and your brother brave enough to run away, Fate put us next to each other at the Artists’ Ball, Fate made me able to find you after I thought I had lost you for ever.”
“But you – still have to – leave me.”
She looked up at him as she spoke and he thought that even with the tears running down her cheeks and her lips trembling she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
The Wings of Ecstacy Page 12