A Miracle of Love
Page 14
They arrived promptly at the small Port of Vienz the following morning at eleven o’clock.
When the Prince looked out of the porthole, he saw waiting for him not just his Lord Chamberlain but four troopers from his favourite Cavalry Regiment.
The Lord Chamberlain came aboard and the Prince shook him warmly by the hand.
“I am really delighted to see Your Royal Highness back,” the Lord Chamberlain said. “We were becoming increasingly worried as to what had happened to you.”
“I was afraid of that, but do tell me first, what is happening at the Palace,” the Prince answered.
The Lord Chamberlain knew, without his putting it into words, exactly what the question meant.
He replied,
“I don’t think it should upset Your Royal Highness, but Princess Marziale of Bassanz returned home and Ruta, who you kindly made a Duke, went with her.”
He paused for a moment and smiled, as he went on,
“We were informed a week ago that their marriage had been announced.”
“That is exactly what I wanted to hear. I feel sure they will be very happy.”
The Lord Chamberlain smiled again and the Prince was certain that he had guessed the real reason why he had made Ruta a Duke and then run away himself.
“You will understand, Your Royal Highness,” he said, “that the Prime Minister is very perturbed about it and is now looking through the Almanac de Gotha to find you another suitable wife.”
“I would hate him to waste his time,” the Prince replied. “In fact I have brought my fiancée with me!”
The Lord Chamberlain’s eyes now widened and the Prince realised it was news he had not expected.
“Your fiancée!” he exclaimed.
“I must let you into a secret. I have found someone whom I love and who loves me. As she also had run away from an arranged marriage that would have been unhappy, we were incredibly fortunate to find each other under the most bizarre circumstances.”
There was just a perceptible pause before the Lord Chamberlain, a little anxiously, asked,
“Will Your Royal Highness tell me the name of this extremely fortunate lady?”
The Prince was much enjoying this conversation as he had expected.
Slowly he explained,
“Her name is Sacia and she is a Princess! Her father is Archduke Otto of Austria and her mother is the second daughter of the late King Ferdinand II of Naples.”
He thought that if the Lord Chamberlain had not been so well trained, his jaw would have dropped open from sheer astonishment.
“I congratulate Your Royal Highness,” he managed to blurt out. “I cannot imagine anyone more suitable to be your bride and it will be a delight, as Your Royal Highness well knows, for the Prime Minister and all the Cabinet to dance at your wedding.”
The Prince laughed and it was a very happy sound.
“I am certain they will and I shall be dancing too, But it is vital that we should be married immediately!
“What I would like you to do is to go back at once and make all the necessary arrangements for our reception when we arrive. Then bring back two Ladies-in-Waiting for Princess Sacia in two days time.”
The Lord Chamberlain nodded.
“In the meantime will you communicate with her father and mother in Venice and arrange for them to be in the Palace for our arrival?”
The Lord Chamberlain laughed as if he could not help it.
“Your Royal Highness always springs a surprise on us when we least expect it. Of course I quite understand that it is important for no one to know that you have been alone together and unchaperoned.”
“I have not said that!” the Prince replied. “But it happens to be true!”
“Is the marriage to take place just as soon as the Princess’s family arrive?” the Lord Chamberlain asked.
“Naturally and before they can make trouble and upset her by saying that she should not have run away.”
“Was it for the same reason Your Royal Highness left us?” the Lord Chamberlain enquired a little cheekily.
“Yes! They wanted her to marry a minor German King who was years older than her. They thought it was essential for her to sit on a Royal throne.”
“Well, even the Prime Minister could not have thought of anyone so satisfactory from our country’s point of view. I can only commend Your Royal Highness for being exceedingly clever and tell you without reservation that this will be a great source of strength for Vienz.”
“That is exactly what I thought myself, but actually when you see Sacia you will realise that I am not merely clever, as you have just said, but the happiest man in the whole world.”
“What I will do, if Your Royal Highness agrees, is to return at once to the Palace, taking only one trooper with me as a bodyguard. I will leave the other three to attend to you here and everything will be in order in two days time.”
“We will arrive the night before the wedding and you must arrange for the Princess’s family to be at the Palace waiting for her.”
“I will send a carriage and a Cavalry Escort to Venice at dawn tomorrow morning,” the Lord Chamberlain promised, “and that should give them time to dress, leave in the afternoon and have a quiet night before you arrive.”
“And the wedding?”
“I will arrange it at the Cathedral and Your Royal Highness’s people will start decorating the streets at dawn. I presume you will want to have fireworks and all the usual entertainments they always expect?”
“Double what they expect! I shall enjoy them all myself. As I have already told you, I am a very very happy man!”
“You can imagine I am very curious, Your Royal Highness, to see how anyone can have captivated you, if that is really the right word, so completely,” the Lord Chamberlain pronounced.
“You will not be in the least surprised when you see Princess Sacia – ”
He insisted that the Lord Chamberlain should have something to eat and drink before he left and he continued talking to him while he was doing so.
All this time he had told Sacia to remain in her cabin.
“I don’t want anyone to see you,” he insisted, “until you appear officially as my fiancée and the future Royal Ruler, with me, of Vienz. Then when they do finally see you, they will be overjoyed and completely overcome by your beauty and grace.”
He smiled at her as he carried on,
“It will give them something to think about without worrying us with uncomfortable and difficult questions.”
Sacia laughed.
“You think of everything, Nico. I only hope your people will love me and not take a violent dislike to me.”
“No one could possibly ever dislike you, they have been on their knees begging me to be married for at least five years. So they will receive you with open arms and it will be up to you to make them love you as much as I do.”
“You know what I really want to do, my darling, is to love you and help you to be the greatest Ruler of your Principality there has ever been.”
The Prince thought, but did not say so, that it would be thanks to Sacia if he was not deposed if ever the dangers threatened that everyone had foreseen.
All that mattered was that she was his and once they were married in the Cathedral of Vienz there would be no question of his being badgered to marry anyone else.
“I love you! I adore you!” he cried when the Lord Chamberlain had departed.
He had told the Captain to move the yacht a little way out to sea.
“Tell the Escort we will be back in the evening! But now we just want to be alone in the sea with only the mermaids to stare at us.”
The Captain laughed.
“I think, sir, considering how beautiful your wife is, it is more likely to be mermen taking a peep at her!”
The Prince laughed too and he thought it somewhat amusing that the Captain still had no idea that he was of any particular consequence. He would have assumed that the Cavalry Escort belonged to the Lord Chamber
lain.
They moved out into the Adriatic, just far enough to be out of sight both of Vienz and Italy.
“Now my darling,” the Prince sighed, “we are alone again and for the moment unimportant. We can look back and think how astute we both were to run away as we did and find each other.
“I wanted to be an ordinary man and as an ordinary man to find the true love I have always believed was only written about by poets and dreamt about by people like myself – and which would never actually materialise.”
Sacia gave a little laugh.
“Do you really think you could ever be an ordinary man?” she asked him. “You are extraordinary, unique and unlike any other man who has ever been born. I love you, my Nico, because you will never become ordinary, but will remain extraordinary for ever.”
The Prince blushed at her words, picked her up in his arms and carried her towards the bed.
“As an extraordinary man, I am going to make love to an extraordinary woman. We both know that we have been totally blessed by the Gods and Goddesses of Greece and in particular by Aphrodite herself, who has made our love Divine.”
His voice deepened as he went on,
“It will carry us up into the sky and we will never, either of us, ever run away again.”
Sacia laughed and then before the Prince could kiss her, she replied,
“I love you! I will love you for ever! That is a vow that will never be broken and I am certain, my wonderful, exceptional and very handsome husband that if Aphrodite is listening, she will bless us and keep us in love with each other, not only for this world, but for all Eternity.”
The Prince drew her closer to him still and then he was evoking in her the sacred emotion of Love.
It came from Aphrodite and has inspired men and women since the beginning of time.
It is a love that is not only physical but spiritual.
It has sprung directly from the Gods and Goddesses of Greece and from God himself.
God has made mankind in His image and has given them on earth, if they sought for it, the Glory which is in Heaven.
Where to buy other titles in this series
The Barbara Cartland Pink collection is available for download at the following online bookshops :-
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