She made an exclamation and stamped her foot furiously.
She knew she had lost him.
She had lost the man who had meant more to her than any other man she had ever known.
The man she had been determined to marry.
‘What has happened?’ she asked herself. ‘What has occurred to make him change so quickly and so unexpectedly?’
She felt an impulse to run after him.
She would plead with him once more to stay with her if only for another hour or two, but she knew it was hopeless.
She could hardly make a scene in front of the servants. If she did, there was nothing which would irritate the Marquis more.
She stamped her foot again.
Then she walked to a gilt-framed mirror which hung over a chest on the wall. She stared at her own reflection, asking herself how, when she was so beautiful, he could possibly refuse her.
Why was he no longer captivated by her?
She had been so certain that he was completely in her power. It was only a question of time before he would ask her to marry him. She had been completely convinced that he would.
She had spent a considerable amount of money which she could not afford knowing that the Marquis, when they married, could very easily pay all her bills.
Now she had lost him and she was deeply in debt. She had no idea of what the future might hold for her.
“I hate him for treating me in this disgraceful fashion,” she stormed.
She wondered what she could do to make him aware of how much he had hurt her.
She had joined the ranks of a number of women who declared that the Marquis had left them with a broken heart and who had never ceased to regret they were no longer close to him.
“I hate him! I hate him!” Lady Sybil cried aloud angrily.
Then, as if she needed to relieve her feelings, she picked up a piece of Dresden china which stood on one of the side tables. She flung it onto the floor, where it shattered into a large number of pieces.
She looked at the wreckage, thinking dramatically that it was exactly what the Marquis had done to her heart.
Holding her head high, she walked out of the room and when she reached the hall, she found that the Marquis had already left.
Her carriage was waiting outside.
Lady Sybil swept past the footmen who looked at each other knowingly. One of them winked at another. It was the butler who showed her Ladyship to her carriage and bowed politely as she drove away.
As he walked back into the house he thought to himself, ‘that’s another one gone and a good thing too! She weren’t right for the Master and that’s the truth.’
*
The Marquis found his yacht, the Sea-Horse, moored and waiting for him by the Houses of Parliament and stepped aboard. The Captain welcomed him and there was no doubt of his sincerity when he said, “I am delighted to see you, my Lord, and it’s splendid to greet your Lordship aboard again.”
“Thank you, Captain, and I think the weather is right for sailing,” the Marquis replied.
A few minutes later the engines began to turn and the Sea-Horse moved into the centre of the river Thames.
The Marquis thought that he should spend more of his time at sea.
He loved his yacht.
It had performed outstandingly well at Cowes last year against all the other yachts.
Only the Kaiser’s could match it.
As he climbed up to the bridge, he was thinking of Watson. And he wondered how he could possibly find him in Berlin.
In fact he told himself it was really like looking for a needle in a haystack. If the Germans had kidnapped him, which he believed very probable, he could by this time be anywhere.
Unless the Kaiser wanted him directly under his eye.
The Marquis was certain that the Germans would be determined to obtain details of the gun if they suspected it was superior to the weapons on their own ships.
Even so he could not help thinking the story was too far-fetched to be true. How could the Kaiser, tiresome and boastful though he might be, really stoop to spiriting away a citizen of another nation?
He might think Watson had invented a weapon Germany did not possess, but kidnapping was not what was expected of an Emperor.
Yet if this was not the case, where had Watson gone?
If for instance he was attending the deathbed of some relative, why had he not communicated with anyone since his disappearance?
The Marquis was keenly aware that Watson shared his enthusiasm for their invention.
He was absolutely certain they had produced a potential weapon of war which no other country had conceived much less put into operation.
‘How could the Germans have learnt what we were working on,’ the Marquis repeatedly asked himself.
But if somehow they had found out about the gun, there was no doubt that it was something the Kaiser would insist on possessing.
Bombastic, greedy and determined to be more successful than his uncle, to display the gun would undoubtedly be a triumph the Kaiser could not readily resist.
‘If he is holding Watson,’ the Marquis thought, ‘then I have first to find where he is hidden and secondly in some discreet and magical way, spirit him back to England.’
It was very much easier said than done.
In fact the Marquis had not the slightest idea as to how he could achieve his objective.
The sea was calm and the sun was shining.
As he always enjoyed being at sea, he spent as much of the day as possible on the bridge.
The Captain kept the Sea-Horse well out to sea and in consequence they did not see much shipping before they neared the coast of Germany.
The Marquis decided to spend the night aboard and not enter the estuary of the Elbe river until the next morning.
The Captain was delighted.
He wished the Marquis would stay on board as long as possible and found a bay without any difficulty where they could anchor.
The Marquis had no wish to go ashore.
He ate an excellent dinner provided by his chef and returned on deck. He was looking not at the lights of Germany, but out to the North Sea.
Inevitably he was thinking of how he could find Watson. He had come to no conclusion before he decided it was time to retire.
It was only when he was actually in bed, which was very large and comfortable, that he thought of Lady Sybil. He wondered if she would be difficult in the future. He was well aware that she was very possessive.
He appreciated that he had escaped her for the moment, but she might be waiting for him when he returned. If he intended to stay in London, it would be very difficult to evade her.
‘If I do not find Watson, I may as well stay on the yacht and travel to the Mediterranean,’ he decided.
Then he remembered his racehorses and that there were several race meetings for which they were entered before Royal Ascot.
As he had missed winning the Grand National, he was all the more determined to achieve the Gold Cup.
He was quite certain he owned a horse which could win the race. If he could engage Nightingall, he would have the right jockey.
It was something he had not thought of until now. He wished he had spoken to Nightingall after the Grand National.
He expected quite a lot of owners would be trying to get him to ride for them, but he doubted if any of them would own better horses than his.
‘I must see to this matter the moment I return,’ he told himself. He hoped he would not be too late.
Then as he turned over on his pillow he was worrying again about Watson.
When the Marquis awoke in the morning the engines were still silent.
It was only after he had finished breakfast that they started up and the Sea-Horse slowly moved towards the estuary of the Elbe.
It did not take long to reach Hamburg.
There the Marquis was obliged to leave the yacht and travel to the railway station. Before departing he
gave his final instructions to the Captain.
Then, accompanied only by Dorkins and a courier who had organised his travelling arrangements, he caught a cab to the station.
When the Marquis was travelling on a long railway journey, he would arrange for his own drawing room to be attached to the Express. It was in many ways superior even to the one owned by Queen Victoria.
However, it was only a short distance from Hamburg to Berlin. It had therefore not been worth the trouble of bringing the drawing room carriage from Calais, where it was kept.
At the same time the Marquis remembered how much the Kaiser enjoyed pomp and circumstance.
He might have been more impressed if he had arrived in his own drawing room.
He recognised that the Kaiser regarded him with suspicion because he was such a close friend of the Prince of Wales.
The Prince always liked to be surrounded by men younger than himself. There was no doubt that all the most amusing men and the most beautiful women found their way to Marlborough House.
In fact the Marlborough House set was not only talked about but envied throughout Europe.
On the other hand the Kaiser at the Neues Palace gave large and formal dinner parties which were exceedingly boring.
He did all the talking.
The Court balls, which were undoubtedly impressive and glittering, were dull and dreary occasions.
‘I think I am wise,’ the Marquis told himself as the train neared Berlin, ‘to have accepted the invitation of Baron von Honentaal. Unless I have been misinformed, he owns a magnificent collection of pictures and furniture. Also in his house I may meet men who do not have to kiss the Kaiser’s feet all the time. One of them might be able to give me a clue on Watson’s whereabouts.’
He was quite certain he would learn nothing of any use at the Palace. Everyone was terrified of the Kaiser and always looked over their shoulders before they spoke.
The courier who had met the Marquis at Hamburg had arranged for a carriage to meet him at Berlin to convey him to the Baron’s house.
The Marquis had not informed his host of his exact time of arrival as he preferred to travel under his own steam.
It was a lovely day.
Berlin with its trees, its woods and its shining river looked very beautiful. The Marquis observed that the houses seemed to have increased considerably in number since his last visit.
Like Simona, he thought Berlin was a city of palaces. The roads were wider than in any other capital city with the possible exception of St. Petersburg.
When he first saw the Baron’s house, he was extremely impressed, as was the intention. It certainly looked like a palace. It was also large enough, the Marquis thought with a smile, to be an army barracks.
There were a great number of servants to welcome him when he arrived. He was taken down a corridor lined with priceless pictures to a drawing room where he was received by the Baroness.
“My husband informed me that you were coming to stay with us, my Lord,” she said as she greeted the Marquis. “But we were upset that we did not know the time of your arrival and therefore could not send our carriage to the station to meet you.”
“I would not wish to put you to so much trouble,” the Marquis replied politely.
He thought she must have been a good-looking woman when she was young, but now she had definitely lost her figure and her hair had begun to turn grey.
She was however very friendly and asked after various members of the Marquis’s family whom she had met when she had been staying in London.
She also enquired after the health of Queen Victoria, adding how the Germans were impressed that she had reigned for so long and was such a great Monarch.
The Marquis answered her questions politely.
He was somewhat relieved when the Baron arrived.
He too greeted the Marquis most effusively repeating several times how delighted he was to welcome him to Berlin.
“I feel quite certain, my Lord,” he continued, “that you will be more comfortable here than you would be at your Embassy, which is rather cramped, or with our Emperor who has not yet finished renovating the Neues Palace since he moved in.”
“I have heard that he has made a great many improvements,” the Marquis remarked.
“It was certainly needed,” the Baron replied. “Even now it is a mumbo-jumbo of good and bad muddled together.”
He spoke rather scathingly.
As he most certainly would not have done had the Kaiser been present.
The Marquis hoped that perhaps he would be lucky enough to find that the Baron was sympathetic towards him if he admitted to him frankly the real reason for his visit to Berlin.
Equally he knew he must be careful not to make a mistake as he could make everything even more difficult than it was already.
“Tell me about the Neues Palace,” he asked the Baron. “The last time I was in Berlin the Kaiser was using the Old Palace, which I believe he disliked.
“Personally,” the Baroness said before her husband could speak, “I think he made a great mistake, but as you are well aware, everyone is far too frightened to argue with the Emperor.”
“You must judge for yourself,” the Baron said. “There are two hundred rooms in the Palace, and the private apartments of their Majesties number about fifty-eight.”
“I believe they have some exceptionally fine treasures in the Palace,” the Marquis suggested.
“That is true,” the Baron agreed. “There are all kinds of bibelots and curios, magnificent pieces of boulle and quaint examples of rococo work which past generations of the Royal Hohenzollerns hoarded.”
“I should certainly like to see them,” the Marquis said.
“Which I am sure you will,” the Baron replied, “as soon as His Majesty learns that you have arrived. But for the moment I hope you will enjoy our hospitality as we are giving a dinner party for you tonight.”
“That is very kind of you,” the Marquis murmured.
“Among our guests,” the Baron announced, choosing his words carefully, “is one of the most beautiful women in Germany. I do not know whether you have ever met her.”
The Marquis did not reply.
He thought few German women were beautiful and waited to hear more.
“Her name,” the Baron said rather ponderously, “is Countess Zivana von Tassen.”
The Marquis shook his head.
“No, I do not think I have, but I will be very interested to do so.”
“I shall be very surprised,” the Baron added, “if you do not find her most alluring. The Emperor himself is a great admirer of hers. In fact her portrait is amongst those of the beautiful Princesses which stand on his writing table.”
The Marquis was amused.
He had been told that among the portraits of beautiful women which the Kaiser collected was one of the Duchess of Aosta, formerly Letitia Bonaparte.
Her portrait was remarkable for the fact that her Imperial Highness’s ample bust was uncovered, except for a collar of pear-shaped pearls!
The Marquis thought it was a strange possession to exhibit to the world and wondered if he would have a chance to see it on this visit.
“Now I would like to show you some of my treasures,” the Baron offered, “and while we are doing so my wife will order English tea for you, which I am sure you would find it difficult to go without.”
The Marquis did not contradict this statement.
He was just about to follow the Baron from the room when two young girls appeared.
They were both attractive, he thought.
The Baron introduced the first one as his daughter Karoline and the Marquis shook her hand.
He thought that for a German she was unusually pretty, without being as heavy in the body as so many were.
Then, as the Baron brought forward the second girl, he realised at a glance that she was English.
“This is Simona Bell, who was at school with my daughter,” the Baron announce
d. “I expect you know her father, Lord Belgrave.”
“Yes of course,” the Marquis replied.
He stretched out his hand towards Simona.
As he touched her he was surprised that her fingers were trembling.
He held her hand a little longer than was necessary as if to reassure her.
As he looked into her large and beautiful blue eyes, he realised there was a fear in them which he did not understand.
She was indeed very lovely.
Her features were small and perfect.
Her eyes, which seemed abnormally large, dominated her pointed face.
He knew a great deal about beautiful women, but it struck him that there was something about this girl that was different. What it was he could not for the moment explain to himself.
“We have been out shopping,” Karoline was saying, “and Simona has bought some presents for her father and mother for when she returns home.”
“That is something I am hoping she will not do for a long time,” the Baron said. “We like having you here, Simona, and I am sure it will be nice for you to have a fellow-countryman with whom you can talk English, even though I know that your German is almost perfect.”
“That is a compliment that would delight my father,” Simona replied.
As she spoke the Marquis thought her voice was soft, musical and very attractive.
He had not expected to find an English girl in this German household. Especially one as lovely as Simona Bell.
He saw her looking at him and again there was a strange expression in her eyes and he was sure it was one of fear, although he could not imagine why she should be afraid.
How was it possible that this young girl, who could not be more than eighteen, was frightened of him, and why?
He could not of course speak to her alone over tea, but he did however ask after her father and why she had come to Berlin.
“I expect you know,” Simona replied, “that Papa has been a great traveller in his time. He suggested that staying at Karoline’s home in Berlin was an opportunity I should not miss.”
“And you are enjoying Berlin?” the Marquis enquired.
“I have only just arrived, so I have not seen much yet, Simona answered.” But I find it is a city of palaces, and quite different from any other city I have ever visited.” Just as they were finishing tea, the butler announced the Countess von Tassen.
Love Wins In Berlin Page 5