“What are you doing here?” he asked. “And how could you have anticipated that Prince Ivor would behave like that?”
“I knew he was determined to hurt – you.”
The Duke looked at Prince Alexander.
“I feel, Your Royal Highness,” he said, “I should apologise for my wife. But if she had not intervened, I doubt I would have been able to make this apology.”
“That is quite true. I suggest, since the behaviour of my fellow countryman is something I deeply regret, that we all say nothing more about it.”
The Duke’s seconds now appeared behind him and Prince Alexander turned to them to say,
“I know I can trust you in the British Embassy not to allow a word of what has occurred here this morning to go any further. Prince Ivor will not be particularly proud of his behaviour when his wrist has mended. I shall make it clear to the Empress that he is in disgrace.”
“I do believe, Your Royal Highness, it will make matters much easier,” said the Duke, “if my wife and I leave Russia immediately. It is something I had planned anyway as soon as this duel was over.”
“That is most sensible of you. At the same time I regret you are leaving St. Petersburg after so short a visit.”
“Perhaps we will come another time.”
Prince Alexander held out his hand to the Duke.
“Bon Voyage.”
Then he turned to Elva.
“I can only commend you, Duchess, for being such an extremely good shot. I hope you will come again and grace another ball as you graced the occasion last night given for our beloved Empress.”
Elva curtsied.
“Your Royal Highness is very kind not to be angry with me.”
“I should have been much angrier if your husband had indeed suffered as he undoubtedly would have done and given rise to an international incident.”
He looked at the two men from the Embassy as he spoke and they bowed.
Prince Alexander walked away towards the end of the Alley, whilst Prince Ivor, with blood pouring from his wrist, was being treated by his seconds.
He was groaning and swearing at the same time.
He sounded most unpleasant and even though he was prostrate on the ground, Elva still found him sinister and wanted to hurry away.
It was as they walked from the Bowling Alley that Elva realised Danton was not with them.
She was not really surprised when they reached the main entrance to find that he was waiting for them with two Embassy carriages, their luggage already piled into the second one.
Elva recognised that Danton must have arranged it with the servants, who were now standing in a row on the doorstep.
The Duke understood at once what was expected of him and he tipped them all generously and they went away smiling.
Elva climbed into the first carriage and because the trauma of the morning was all over, she suddenly felt limp and exhausted.
She leaned back on the seat and closed her eyes.
As she did so the Duke joined her.
Without asking questions the two diplomats had tactfully climbed into the second carriage with Danton and the luggage.
The footman closed the door behind the Duke and as the horses moved off the Duke put his arm round Elva.
“I have to thank you, my darling,” he sighed in a deep voice, “for saving my life.”
Then his lips were on hers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Elva could hardly believe it was happening.
Yet as the Duke’s kisses became more demanding and more possessive she felt her whole body come alive.
It was the most exquisite and wonderful sensation she had ever known.
She closed her eyes feeling that this was something so thrilling and so marvellous that it could not be true.
The Duke raised his head and for a moment he just looked down at her and then he said,
“Tell me now what you feel about me.”
“I – love – you. I love you, but I – did not – know that love – was like – this.”
The Duke did not answer but just kissed her again.
As he did so she knew she had really loved him for a long time.
She had loved him when they had first met at Aunt Violet’s house.
She had loved him when they had argued.
She had loved him when they had been duelling with words on the Sea Horse.
She had loved him when he had been so kind and thoughtful to her.
She had loved him frantically and desperately last night, when she realised he had to fight a duel with Prince Ivor.
It was love, she was sure, which had triggered her instinct that he was in danger.
Love, which had told her how to save him.
He was kissing her again and she felt they were flying up into the sky.
Only when at last the Duke raised his head did she manage to whisper,
“I have – loved you – for so long, but I did not – know it.”
“And I have loved you from the first moment I saw you,” the Duke told her tenderly. “But I fought it because I could not believe that anyone could be so beautiful and at the same time so perfect in every way.”
Elva could not answer him.
She could only look at him with love in her eyes.
The Duke knew there was no need for words.
He was holding her close in his arms and his lips prevented her from speaking.
So they now drove on in silence and it was quite a shock when they realised they had reached the Quay.
The Duke took his arms from around Elva as the horses came to a standstill.
The footman on the box jumped down and opened the door and the Duke jumped out and helped Elva to join him.
The other carriage from the Embassy carrying Mr. Barnier and Mr. Sharp had already arrived.
The Duke walked towards Mr. Barnier and asked him,
“Will you please now see that our luggage is taken aboard and inform the Captain that I wish to be put to sea immediately.”
“I will do so, Your Grace.”
There was a look of surprise in Mr. Barnier’s eyes because the Duke was not going to issue his instructions to the Captain himself.
Then the Duke added,
“My wife and I are going into this Church.”
He next turned towards a small Russian Orthodox Church behind them.
The Church had actually been erected on the spot where Czar Peter, according to legend, had buried a casket containing the relics of St. Andrew and the ground had been blessed and sprinkled with Holy water.
Elva remembered reading this story.
The Duke took her by the hand and led her towards the Church.
She did not say another word, but because he was touching her hand again, she felt a flash of ecstasy spring throughout her entire body.
She sensed that he was feeling the same.
They then both walked into the Church, which was attractively decorated with a fragrance of incense in the air.
Kneeling in front of the altar was a Priest.
Elva next expected the Duke to walk into one of the ancient carved pews.
Instead he strode up to the altar steps where they stood waiting for a moment until the Priest rose.
As he turned round the Duke said,
“I would like, Father, to show my appreciation and gratitude to God and I feel sure you will put this to good use.”
He took a wad of notes from his pocket and Elva noticed that they were all high denominations.
The Priest turned and took a gold bowl from the altar and the Duke placed the notes in it.
“Thank you, my son,” intoned the Priest. “It is so good to remember God if God has remembered you.”
“He has been most kind to us, Father,” the Duke told him, “and as we are departing on a long sea voyage, I would be very grateful if you would not only give us your blessing but also marry us.”
The Priest looked surprised.
&nbs
p; “If that is what you desire, my son, then I will join you as husband and wife with the blessing of God.”
He placed the bowl containing the money on the altar in front of the Cross.
At the same moment the Duke pulled the wedding ring from Elva’s finger that had belonged to her mother.
The Priest asked their Christian names.
The Marriage Service was conducted in Russian and Latin, but Elva understood every word and so did the Duke.
At the right moment the Duke placed her mother’s ring on her finger again.
Finally they knelt.
The Priest blessed them and Elva could feel a shaft of Divine light covering them both.
When they rose to their feet, the Priest was once again kneeling in front of the altar in prayer.
Without speaking to him the Duke drew Elva down the short aisle towards the West door.
She found it hard to realise that their marriage had really taken place.
She was now the wife of a man who had said he never wished to marry anyone.
‘I love him. I do love him,’ she told herself, ‘and I must try to make him happy.’
They did not speak, but walked from the Church in silence and went back to the Quayside and the waiting Sea Horse.
Again they were piped aboard and the Captain was waiting to greet them.
As he greeted the Duke he said,
“I was not expecting Your Grace to leave so soon, but the gentleman from the British Embassy has informed me that you wish to put to sea immediately.”
“I have reasons for such haste, Captain, and I only hope you have no men ashore at present.”
“As it happens thankfully they are all on board.”
“Then as soon as our guests leave us,” ordered the Duke, “let us put to sea.”
Mr. Barnier and Mr. Sharp were inspecting the Sea Horse and making most complimentary comments about everything they were shown.
The Duke did not invite them down to the Saloon. He just shook them warmly by the hand.
“I am exceptionally grateful to you, gentlemen, for all your help while we have been in St. Petersburg, and I will inform the Prime Minister how grateful I am for your assistance.”
Mr. Barnier looked pleased and the Duke added,
“I hope, as Prince Alexander has suggested, that nothing will ever be heard in St. Petersburg about the unfortunate incident this morning, and I will certainly not breathe a word about it in London.”
“I think that is very wise of you, Your Grace,” replied Mr. Barnier.
The Duke thanked them again and so did Elva.
The two diplomats stepped ashore as the sails were being set. The Sea Horse was released from her moorings and as they began to move down the river the Duke turned to Elva,
“I think, my darling, that as we have both had a disturbed night and an even more disturbed morning, we will ask for some breakfast and then retire to bed.”
“I hope you managed some sleep last night,” asked Elva.
“I was not as clever as you were, my loved one.”
“I cannot imagine how I could have slept at all,” sighed Elva. “But I was so very tired.”
“Which was not surprising,” commented the Duke.
They walked to the Saloon, where the Steward had just finished laying the table for breakfast.
Elva had no idea what she ate and drank.
She only knew that the Duke’s eyes were on her all the time, which made her feel just a little shy, but equally wildly excited.
She was married, she was now his wife.
It all seemed too incredible.
Yet it was the most marvellous thing that could have happened in the whole world.
‘I love him, I adore him,’ she kept saying to herself over and over again.
When she looked at him she could see the love in his eyes.
Because the Steward was in the room waiting on them, they did not speak while they ate their breakfast.
By the time they had finished the Sea Horse was well out of the River Neva and moving down the Gulf.
They went down below and found that Danton had unpacked most of Elva’s clothes and the sheets on the bed in the Master cabin had been turned down for her.
The Duke walked to his own cabin.
As Elva undressed she noticed that Danton had put out an especially pretty nightgown for her and she thought it was just like him to be so sensitive.
The sunlight was pouring in through the portholes turning her golden hair into a halo.
When the Duke did return to the Master cabin, he stood for a moment just inside the door looking at her.
She did not speak but held out her arms to him and then he walked to the bed and sat down on the side of it.
“My darling, my sweetest,” he began in his deep voice, “you are now my wife.”
“How could I have known – how could I have ever guessed that you would think of – marrying me in such a wonderful way?” asked Elva.
“I hope it did not shock you, but we have a long way to go. I knew last night I could no longer pretend that I had no wish to be married.”
“A long way to go? But I thought we were going back to England.”
The Duke shook his head.
“We are sailing first to Rotterdam, my dear sweet darling, where I will send a classified message by courier to the Prime Minister as well as an equally important letter to your father.”
“To Rotterdam?”
“We shall need to take on provisions,” explained the Duke, “and the Prime Minister must know that I have obtained the information he required.”
He reckoned as he was speaking that Prince Ivor had arranged for the Empress’s secrets to be passed on to him by his sister only to further his own ends.
Which was to seduce Elva!
Otherwise it might have taken him much longer to find out and he might have failed altogether to obtain the information that Princess Natasha had so gratuitously given to him.
The Prince had obviously calculated that having heard so much intelligence from his sister, the Duke would have wanted to hear much more, so he counted on having plenty of time to seduce Elva before the Duke left Princess Natasha to return to the Palace.
“After we have stopped at Rotterdam,” Elva was saying, “where are we going to next?”
“You told me you wanted to see the world,” the Duke replied. “I thought we would sail down the coast of France, Spain and Portugal, and once we have arrived in the Mediterranean I will have a great deal more to show you.”
Elva gave a little gasp and the Duke continued,
“You will undoubtedly enjoy Gibraltar, Rome, and of course, Venice.”
“I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed.
The Duke smiled.
“Then I really would want to show you Greece and see you dance among the other Goddesses. Then perhaps you would like to ask the Sphinx to tell you its secrets?”
“How could you think of anything so wonderful?” Elva sighed breathlessly. “But I know that anywhere I go with you – will be like reaching Heaven.”
“That is exactly what we are going to make our life together, my darling Elva.”
He climbed into the bed beside her and drew her into his arms.
“How can you possibly be everything I thought I would never find in a woman?” he murmured. “That was why I was determined to remain a bachelor for ever.”
“You are so clever – so kind and – so marvellous, my wonderful husband. I am so – frightened I will – disappoint you.”
“It is just not credible you could ever disappoint me, but, my darling, exceptionally well-educated as you are and intelligent with your brilliant brain and intuition, there is one matter you are particularly ignorant about.”
“What is that?”
“Love,” the Duke answered, “and that, my lovely one, is what I am going to teach you. It will be the most exciting adventure I have ever undertaken.”
“If yo
ur lessons make me feel as I do now, then I will no longer be human – but a little angel flying in a Heavenly sky.”
“It will be just as marvellous as that and more. Do you realise, my precious, that from the first moment we met we have each known instinctively what the other was thinking? I have never seen you do anything which was not perfection itself.”
“That is just what I want you to say, Varin, but as you have just said, I am so very ignorant about love. You must be patient and – not be angry with me – if I make mistakes.”
The Duke laughed very gently.
“I could never be angry with you, my beautiful Elva, and there is one thing of which I am quite certain. We shall be wonderfully happy for the rest of our lives and when we die we shall meet again as we have met before so many times. This is definitely not the first time we have found each other.”
“I feel the same about you, my dearest – husband, and I think that no one could have had a more unusual and exciting wedding than us.”
She gave a little laugh before she added,
“How could you have thought of getting married at the last moment in that dear little Russian Church?”
“I had intended, my darling, to ask the Captain to marry us at sea which, as you know, is completely legal. But when I spied the Church, I felt that the angels from Heaven were pointing it out to me.”
He held Elva a little closer.
“I am so very certain of one thing, that never again would I go through the night with a bolster between us!”
Elva hid her face against his neck.
“I did – just think,” she said in a whisper, “that it would be very thrilling if you had – pushed it on one side and – kissed me goodnight.”
“It is exactly what I longed to do and it would not have been just a kiss. But I had promised to protect you not only from real devils like Prince Ivor, but also from myself!”
“But now I am yours,” mumbled Elva very softly.
“You are mine, my precious Elva, and I will never, and this is a vow, lose you again. I don’t think I have ever been as frightened as I was when I ran up the stairs and heard you scream.”
“I believed that when you appeared you must be the Archangel Gabriel or a Knight in shining armour. You had come to save me, and it was then that I knew that what I had been feeling for you was – love, although I could not put a name to it.”
Rivals for Love Page 12