For a moment Tarena was simply taken aback by his reply.
Then she felt her anger rising.
Almost, as if he sensed it, the Count came to her side to say,
“I am sure that Your Royal Highness must be tired after such a long day when so much has happened. Try to get to sleep and then forget everything until it is daylight tomorrow.”
Because she realised that he was being kind and considerate to her, she felt her heart moving towards him.
For a split second she forgot everything else, even Prince Igor standing sourly at her side.
Knowing that Count Vladimir was there, she was no longer angry but happy.
Without saying another word, Prince Igor walked out of the room.
There was no sign of the Comtesse who must have already left.
It was then that Tarena felt as if she was sending a cry for help to the Count from her heart.
She ran upstairs hoping the night would go quickly and, if she could ride tomorrow, she would at least forget Prince Igor for a while and her dislike of him.
Without bothering to send for her lady’s maid, she undressed herself and she had told the woman to put out her riding clothes before she went down to dinner.
She climbed gratefully into her comfortable bed.
*
The next morning it only took her a short time to slip into her riding habit.
When she left her room, she found that the Count was waiting for her in the corridor.
“Oh, you are here!” she called out excitedly.
“I thought as we are playing truant that we had better go out by a side door where we will not be seen by the servants and where the horses are waiting for us.”
The Count then led the way down the corridor to a staircase Tarena had not noticed and when they went down it, she found there was a door that opened directly onto the garden where there were no sentries.
The Count did not speak, but led the way down a winding path.
A little below them, there were two lively-looking stallions being held by a groom.
The Count, without saying a word, lifted Tarena onto the side saddle of the horse she was to ride and then mounted himself on the other one, saying to the groom,
“Be waiting here in an hour when we will return.”
The groom touched his forelock and they rode off with the Count leading the way.
He took her through the trees at the back of the Palace into a field that led to open land behind the City.
When they reached it, Tarena knew instinctively what he intended to do.
She pressed her stallion forward into a gallop and the Count did the same and then they were riding over long grass and butterflies and birds rose up in front of them.
It was some time before the Count pulled in his horse.
When Tarena looked round, she found they were quite a long way from the City. In fact she could only just see the roof of the Palace and little else.
“That was lovely!” she breathed.
“I thought it was a diversion you really needed,” said the Count.
Now their two stallions were walking quietly side by side and then suddenly Tarena exploded,
“He is horrible! He is beastly! I cannot marry him!”
The words seemed to burst through her lips and for a moment she broke the beauty and the quiet around them.
“I knew you felt like that last night, but there is nothing we can do about it,” the Count sighed.
“But we must! We must! How can I possibly be married to a man like that who intends to ignore me and to prevent me from taking any part in ruling the country – my country.”
“He most certainly will not be able to do so. At the same time I do admit he is exceedingly unpleasant.”
“I hate him! I hate him!” Tarena expostulated.
“Do you think I have not thought about that?” the Count said in a low voice. “Oh, my darling, if it was at all possible, I would save you.”
For a moment Tarena could hardly believe her ears. Then, as she looked at him questioningly, he added.
“I love you, of course I love you. I have loved you since the first moment I saw you and thought you were the most beautiful and perfect woman I had ever seen.”
There was silence.
Then Tarena said in a voice he could hardly hear,
“I think – I love you – too.”
“This is something you must not do,” the Count insisted firmly. “It will only make you unhappy. I swear I will try to be man enough to bear it. But I could not live if I thought you were suffering too.”
“I have never been – in love,” Tarena admitted. “But I know now that I do love you. When you appear, I feel happy as if the sunshine envelopes me, but when you are not there – I am frightened and uncertain.”
The Count closed his eyes as if it was agony to listen to her and then he said,
“You are clever enough and wonderful enough to know that the only person who could save this country is you.”
“But do you imagine Prince Igor will let me do it?” “I think once you are married he could be forced by the Cabinet to do what you want and to stop treating you as a woman of no stature.”
“That is what he was deliberately doing last night. How can I help the people, as you and everybody else want me to do, if that is his attitude?”
“You will have to assert yourself as Queen,” the Count said, “and you will have full support from the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and me.”
“You are the only person who matters,” Tarena answered. “But how, feeling as I do about you, can I live with a man like Prince Igor?”
The Count did not answer her, but she could see by the expression on his face the agony he was suffering.
“Oh, Vladimir,” she exclaimed, calling him by his Christian name for the first time, “why don’t we run away together?”
The Count turned to look at her and she could see the pain in his eyes.
“Do you suppose I have not thought of that?” he asked. “Night after night I have lain awake loving you and wanting you, but knowing full well that you were as far out of my reach as the furthest star in the firmament.”
“Then why do – we not do what we really want – to do?” Tarena asked hesitatingly.
“Because we both know that without you Karlova is doomed. I don’t want to frighten you, but you are the only hope we have at present of preventing the Russians from taking over.”
The Count gave a deep sigh before he went on,
“They thought it was going to be easy, and so it would have been if you had been an ordinary, rather stupid Englishwoman. Instead it is you, beautiful Tarena, who has awakened your people, and now they are as excited about the wedding which will take place tomorrow as if they were children at a Christmas party.”
“You really think they want me as their Queen?” “They want you, oh, how they want you and I am told the Russians are absolutely furious that you have upset everything just as they had it so carefully planned.”
“I want to be with you, Vladimir. I am frightened, very frightened of Prince Igor.”
“I swear to you that I will help you and, although it will be an agony I cannot express, I will dedicate my entire life to serving you and protecting you.” The Count spoke almost violently.
But Tarena asked him plaintively,
“Oh, Vladimir how can we be together, yet apart?”
He knew exactly what she meant.
“From this moment on, I will not tell you again how much I love you. But I will be there close to you, to help you if I can in the ruling of the country. We must, however, also control ourselves, knowing that without us the people will be at the mercy of the vile Russians.”
“Why! Why did this have to happen to us?” Tarena asked. “I always hoped I would fall in love and be happy wherever I was with the man I loved and how could I have guessed, how could I have imagined for a moment when I came out here that I would find you?”
“I think perhaps we were meant to find each other,” the Count said. “We can only pray that one day by some unbelievable miracle I can love you as it was meant when we were born.”
“What you are saying, Vladimir, is that we have known each other in other lives and now we have come together in this one and so we are not really strangers.”
“I think you have always been in my heart and at the back of my mind. From the moment I saw you I knew you were the one I had been looking for ever since I was old enough to know there was such a thing as love between a man and a woman.”
“I want you to love me and I want to love you so that you will never be disappointed,” Tarena murmured.
“Then we can only pray, Tarena, that one day it will happen. One day we will be free. What could happen I cannot say. I only know that I will dedicate my whole life to you, my darling, and perhaps one day we can really be together.”
As he spoke, he looked back.
Tarena turned her head as well and saw that four soldiers on horseback were in the distance.
She looked at the Count questioningly and he said,
“It’s quite all right, I told my men to come and look for me when it was time to return and they are just obeying my orders.”
“You mean we must go back, Vladimir? Please, please can we ride like this another day?”
“It is something I would love more than anything else, but after tomorrow morning you will have a husband who would interfere.”
“If he does, we must somehow evade him. I must see you, I must talk to you, I must be with you.”
“My darling, my precious, Tarena, do you suppose I don’t want to be with you every day and every night? But duty calls, and as Queen of Karlova you have to return. While I as Commander of the Palace Guard must look after you.”
He did not say anything more, but set his horse into a brisk trot towards the soldiers now coming towards them.
There was nothing Tarena could do but ride back beside him.
*
When they reached the Palace, it was nearly nine o’clock and Tarena went into the dining room.
She had only just seated herself when the Comtesse came hurrying in.
“You did not tell me, Your Royal Highness,” she blurted out, “that you were going riding and I have only just learnt of your return.”
“It was such a lovely morning and I needed the exercise.” “I am supposed to know all Your Royal Highness’s movements,” the Comtesse replied in a disagreeable voice. “So I would be grateful if another time you would be kind enough to tell me, ma’am, what you are doing.”
Tarena did not answer.
She was able to do so without seeming rude when at that moment her Uncle Richard came into the room.
She jumped up to kiss him and he remarked,
“I can see you have been riding. How very sensible of you! I wish you had told me, as I would have liked to accompany you.”
“Why should we not go riding now?” “I would love to do, but I am told I have to attend a meeting in the Palace this morning.”
“A meeting?” Tarena queried.
“I thought you might have been told,” the Earl said, “that the Prime Minister has called a special meeting to discuss the final organisation of the wedding and of course to take immense care of you and your bridegroom.”
“Do you mean that they think we might be attacked on the way to Church?”
“I don’t think that anyone has put it as bluntly as that, but naturally you will need protection and it would be a disaster if anything went wrong.”
“Yes indeed!” Tarena exclaimed.
She was on the verge of saying more when Prince Igor appeared and the Earl and the Comtesse both rose respectfully to their feet.
“I have had breakfast,” Prince Igor said. “I only stopped by to tell you that I am going to inspect the Palace and the stables. The Lord Chamberlain is anxious I should know my way about and appreciate what is here.”
There was a note in his voice, when he said the last words, that made Tarena think he would not be impressed by anything.
Without saying a word to her, he then walked back towards the door.
Tarena suddenly became aware that the Comtesse’s eyes were following him.
She wondered if what she was feeling for him was just admiration for a man of his position or perhaps she had other feelings for him.
Then she told herself that she was only imagining that there was any intimacy between them and she thought again how unpleasant he was and how much she hated him.
When breakfast was finished, the Count arrived to tell Tarena that there was a deputation of women who were waiting to see her and would she be kind enough to meet them?
“A deputation? Who are they and what do they require from me?”
“They are women who have campaigned for some time to improve the country’s schools.” “Is it repairing or extending they need?” “That is exactly the point,” the Count smiled at her. “That is what they want to talk to you about. There are not many of them, but I have a distinct feeling that they will be very voluble on the subject.”
Tarena laughed.
“Of course, I will see them just as soon as I have finished my breakfast.”
“I would really love to go riding,” the Earl said, “and I do want to before I leave.”
Tarena gave a little cry.
“You are not thinking of leaving so soon, Uncle Richard?”
There was silence for a moment and then the Earl responded,
“You know, my dearest, that I have a great deal to do in England. Although I would like to stay here and help you with your problems, I must not neglect my own duties. You know better than anyone else that there are a great many of them.”
Tarena sighed.
“I hate your going away, Uncle Richard.”
“Perhaps I will be able to come back for a little while next year. I will certainly try.”
“I suppose I will have to be content with that,” Tarena commented, “but I will miss you very much.”
She finished her coffee and rose from the table.
“I am ready to see these women now,” she said to the Count. “There is no hurry. They have settled themselves comfortably in one of the anterooms, and I think it’s the very first time they have been brave enough to come to the Palace.”
“Then I will listen to them and all their problems,” asserted Tarena.
They left the breakfast room and when they were outside, she turned to the Count,
“If Uncle Richard is really going home, is there a gift I can give him to thank him for bringing me here? It was at a very awkward time for him, when he would have much preferred to stay at home.”
“I think he would be very pleased if you gave him the Star of Karlova,” the Count replied.
“What is that?” Tarena asked him.
“It is much the same as the Order of the Garter in England, which, as you know, is highly prized by anyone who receives it.”
“Then that is what I must give Uncle Richard.” “Once you and Prince Igor are crowned,” the Count said, “there are a number of people to whom you will have to award medals and titles.”
Tarena gave a little cry.
“I have forgotten that a Queen could do that. Can I then give anyone a title like Uncle Richard’s Earldom, if I think they deserve it?”
“Of course you can. I will give you a list of those who should be given a higher rank and those who deserve even the Star of Karlova.”
“Can I therefore see what I am going to give to Uncle Richard?” Tarena asked.
“Of course. You will find a drawer of them in the library and also a book in which is written the names of everyone who has received the Star of Karlova in the last two hundred years.”
“I will most certainly read it,” Tarena smiled.
They then reached the room where the women were waiting for her and an equerry on duty outside hurried to open the d
oor for her.
“Shall I see you at luncheon?” Tarena asked the Count.
“I am not certain. I will join you if I can. But as I have already told you, the meeting starts at eleven o’clock and I expect we will be talking for a long time.”
Tarena was about to smile at him and then she remembered the meeting was to arrange her wedding.
Almost despite herself, she gave a little shudder.
As the equerry pulled open the door, she went in to listen to the women who were waiting for her.
*
It was well after eleven o’clock before they left.
When they finally said goodbye, all very grateful to her for her promise to help them, Tarena remembered that she wanted to find a Star of Karlova for her uncle.
She had already found her way to the library.
She thought while she was there she would choose some books to take to her bedroom so that she could read them in the night if she woke up and found it impossible to sleep.
It was then she suddenly remembered that it was likely her husband would expect to be in the bed beside her.
She knew that there were two large Staterooms side by side and she would then make it clear from the very beginning that he slept in his room and she in hers.
She felt her whole being scream out at the thought of his coming near her and making her his wife.
Then, because she was frightened and upset by the very idea, she hurried into the library.
The drawer in which the Count said the Stars of Karlova were kept was in a large inlaid chest at the far end of the room.
When she opened the top drawer, she found what she was looking for.
There were a number of beautifully embroidered sashes and attached to each of them glittering brightly was a large Star of polished gold.
It was certainly a very distinctive medal and she could understand that any man who wore it would feel exceedingly proud.
Also in the drawer there was a sword with jewels in the hilt and Tarena knew it was for use at investitures to reward worthy Karlovan citizens. She was handling the sword and thinking that the stones on the hilt must be very valuable, when she heard someone coming into the library.
The Queen Wins Page 11