But now it seemed as if a Russian ship had already found them.
The Duke was afraid it may contain the man Thalia was so frightened of.
He reached the top of the bay where his yacht was anchored.
As he did so, he saw that the ship, which was only a short distance from her, was undoubtedly Russian.
Then to his relief he saw that the boat he had come ashore in was pulled up on the beach.
Standing beside it was Jenkins.
He hurried down the cliff to his valet’s side.
“What is happening, Jenkins?” “The Ruskies be here, Your Grace, and some of the men be shut up in the Saloon with Her Highness.”
“You did not stop them coming aboard?” the Duke asked sharply.
He was dragging the boat, with the help of Jenkins, down the beach and into the water.
“They just walked in, Your Grace, and there were only one Steward on duty. They just pushed him on one side.”
As Jenkins was talking, he climbed into the boat and started to row the Duke the short distance to the yacht.
“I sent one of the seamen, Your Grace, to notify the Captain who had gone for a swim and they should be back any time now.”
“I sincerely hope so,” As they reached the side of The Mermaid, the Duke then pulled himself up to the deck.
Jenkins left the boat and followed him.
The deck was empty.
As he walked forward, Jenkins pushed something hard and cold into his pocket.
He realised it was a revolver and his fingers closed over it.
The Duke walked on without stopping to the door of the Saloon.
He opened it and entered with Jenkins behind him.
What he saw made him stop just inside the Saloon and draw his breath.
At the far end, Thalia had been gagged and ropes were being tied round her body by two Russians.
Watching them, with for a moment his back to the Duke, was an elderly Russian.
The Duke was sure that he was Prince Federovski.
Two other men were kneeling on the floor, pulling on the ropes and tying Thalia’s legs together.
The Duke walked forward.
“And what the hell do you think you are doing?” he demanded in a voice of thunder.
The Russian Prince turned round.
“I am taking back my own property,” he replied harshly.
Without really thinking too much about it, the Duke had spoken in Russian – as it so happened he was quite proficient in that language.
“She is not your property and, as the Princess is my guest, you will kindly not insult her as you are doing at this moment.”
The Russian sneered at him and there was no other word for it.
At the same time he pulled a revolver out of his pocket.
Before the Duke could draw his, Jenkins, standing behind him, shot the Prince in the shoulder.
He gave out a scream of agony, lost his balance and fell to the floor with a crash.
Then the other Russians started to reach for their weapons.
As they did so, there was a sound of men running across the deck.
A moment later the Captain burst in, followed by eight of his men, all carrying firearms.
Some of them were still in their bathing clothes.
Then there was the sound of even more footsteps following them.
Without being ordered to do so, the Russians put down the guns they had reached for.
“You take His Highness back to his ship,” the Duke ordered, “and set off to sea immediately. He requires the attention of a doctor.”
As he was speaking to them in their own language, the Russians could not pretend they did not understand.
With a wary glance at the number of seamen facing them, they moved towards the Prince.
He was groaning as he lay on the floor.
Four of the Russians picked him up and carried him out of the Saloon onto the deck.
The Captain followed them and gave instructions as to how to transport the wounded man back to their own ship.
As they left the Saloon, the Duke shut the door and went quickly to Thalia.
He first took the gag from her mouth.
Then he saw that fortunately the Russians had not been very skilful in tying her up.
The ropes fell off easily when he pulled at them.
Then he gently put his arms round her and pulled her out of the chair they had pushed her into.
It was then that Thalia burst into tears and hid her face against his shoulder.
“It is all right, my darling. They will not hurt you now and they will never take you away.”
As she went on crying, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the sofa.
He set her down on it.
Then, kneeling beside her, he wiped the tears away from her eyes with his handkerchief.
As he smoothed her hair back from her forehead, she then looked up at him, her eyes still wet with tears and whispered,
“I prayed and prayed that you would come to me and you came.”
“I felt that something was wrong. When I saw the masts of the Russian ship, I knew it meant danger.”
“They were taking me away and he claimed that he was going to marry me immediately.”
“That is something he will never do and I think his wounded shoulder will keep him out of mischief for a long time.”
“You came – and you saved me,” Thalia muttered again.
She looked so lovely, at the same time so pathetic.
Without really thinking, the Duke bent forward and his lips found hers.
He had not meant it to be anything but a gentle kiss to sweep away her fears.
But when he kissed her, he felt again that strange mystical feeling he had experienced on Delos.
It was the feeling he had subconsciously longed for and knew it belonged to the Gods, but now it was his.
He kissed her very tenderly at first.
Then, as he felt her respond, his kisses became more possessive and more passionate.
As he held her closer, her arms went round him.
He knew she was feeling the same as he was. It was an indescribable wonder that could only come from the Gods themselves.
“I love you,” the Duke sighed when he could speak.
“And I love you,” Thalia answered. “I have known it ever since you saved my life – but I believed that I could never mean anything to you.”
“You mean everything I have always searched for and longed for, Thalia, but thought I would never find.” Then he was kissing her again.
Kissing her wildly and determinedly, as if he was afraid he might lose her.
He felt, as he did so, as if he was now at one with the Gods.
He was certain, although he could not put it into words, that there was the whirling of silver wings that he had heard on Delos and which he knew came from Apollo himself.
“I love you. I love you!” he cried again and again.
He felt that when he kissed Thalia they were both carried into a Heaven they had never known before in their own world.
It might have been a thousand years later or perhaps only half-an-hour, when the Saloon door opened and the Captain appeared.
“We have got the Prince on board his ship, Your Grace, and it would be wise if we sailed away at once.”
“Yes, yes of course, Captain,” the Duke managed to say. “Keep out of sight of the mainland if you can and try to make it impossible for the Russians to follow us.”
“I don’t think that is their intention, Your Grace, but I never trust the Russians and certainly not those who came here today.”
“You are quite right, Captain, and the sooner we are well away from them the better.”
Even as he spoke, he heard the engines turn over and they would soon be moving away from the Russian ship.
Then, when the Captain had gone, closing the door behind him, Thalia held out her arms crying,
“
Please don’t leave me. I will not feel safe until we have left that horrible man behind.”
“You are safe with me,” the Duke assured her, “and you always will be.”
She looked at him enquiringly and he thought that no woman in the whole world could look so lovely or so ethereal.
There was an expression in her eyes he had not seen before.
Her glorious auburn hair, which had been loosened when the Russians had put the gag on her, now fell either side of her cheeks.
It made her look very young and at the same time, the Duke thought, almost like an angel or perhaps the right word would be ‘a Goddess’.
“I cannot believe that I have really found you,” the Duke sighed. “I was quite certain you did not exist.”
“I thought when you prevented me killing myself, you were like an archangel come down from Heaven and the most wonderful man in the world.”
“When did you know you loved me, Thalia?” “I think almost as soon as I first saw you. I was so frightened that you would go away without me that I knew, even if you were angry, I had to be with you.”
“I can only thank God you did. I must have been crazy, after I had seen you and knew you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, to think of leaving you behind.”
“And I can stay with you now?” Thalia whispered.
“You can stay with me for ever. I am just trying to think and it is difficult when you are so close to me, where we can be married.”
“Do you really want to marry me?” Thalia asked him softly.
“I am going to marry you and keep you with me from now into Eternity,” the Duke asserted.
“Oh, it is wonderful, so unbelievably wonderful. I am only afraid it is just a dream and I will wake up.”
“It is real, so real that I cannot wait to marry you. I am going to tell the Captain now to turn the yacht round and we are going back to Athens.”
Thalia gave a little cry of horror.
“To Athens!” she exclaimed. “But why? Why? They will persuade you to send me back to my uncle.”
“No one in the world can ever do that. I have no intention of even letting you see your uncle. What we are going to do, my precious one, and I know it is right, is to be married in the Royal Chapel at the Palace.”
Thalia stared at him.
“But will they let you?” she asked.
“I think it would be difficult for them to refuse. I am sure the King will understand when I explain to him why that is what I really want.”
“Why do you want that?” she asked in a frightened little voice.
“I am making sure that your uncle does not claim to be your Guardian and therefore by law is entitled to choose a husband for you and marry you off to whom he pleases.”
“Yes, he told me he could do just that.” “He might try to make trouble if we run away to be married,” the Duke went on. “So, to be certain he cannot, we will be married at once in Greece, your own country, and I am hoping that the King and Queen will be present at the Ceremony.”
He paused before he added,
“I am sure, if I ask him to, he will understand why it is essential.”
“You are so clever,” Thalia exclaimed. “Only you could realise that this would prevent there ever being any dispute about my being your lawful wife.”
“I thought you would agree. And the moment the Service is over we will leave for our honeymoon and will not listen to any protests, if there are any.”
He smiled at her as he went on,
“The wedding will be announced first in the Greek newspapers, and then in the English, French and German ones as well. I will see to it and afterwards it will be quite impossible for anyone to take you away from me.”
Thalia threw her arms round the Duke’s neck.
“I love you and I think you are the most fantastic man in the whole world,” she murmured happily against his shoulder.
He kissed her.
And then when his lips set her free, she asked,
“How could I have guessed when you pulled me off the parapet that I would ever be your wife? You are so wonderful and marvellous and I will ask myself for the rest of my life how I could have been lucky enough to find you.”
“I will be doing the same. I believed you did not exist and that all those stories of looking for ‘the other half of oneself’ were just people’s imagination.”
“They are true, really true,” Thalia cried. And I know now that it was the Gods who brought us together.
“Just one God and that was Apollo.”
He thought as he spoke that it was Apollo who had planted in him these overwhelming feelings of love.
He had imagined that they existed, but had never been certain of it.
Now he knew they were real.
Every single time he kissed and touched Thalia, they would be united by the love that came from Apollo and also, he now thought, from Aphrodite as well.
How was it possible, the Duke wondered, that the statues of the two Gods could have brought them together in such a curious way and at the same time giving them the love that he had never expected to find anywhere in this world.
*
They arrived back in Athens when there was only the moonlight to glitter on the Parthenon.
However, the Duke hoped that the King, if not the Queen, would be awake.
He left Thalia well protected by Jenkins and the Captain and hurried to the Palace.
He was right, neither the King nor the Queen had retired and they were sitting happily together in one of the Palace drawing rooms.
When he entered the room, announced by a servant, the King jumped to his feet.
“What has happened, David?” he asked him. “Why have you come back? Has anything gone wrong?”
“I have something to tell you that I think you will find hard to believe, but you may have guessed already why the Goddess Aphrodite was left behind.”
“I am sure that naughty child took her place,” the Queen remarked.
“You are quite right,” the Duke admitted. “But that child, as you call her, has had a further very unpleasant experience.”
He sat down and told them how he had placed the statue of Apollo exactly where the King had told him to put it.
How on returning to The Mermaid he had found a stowaway on board and how they had sailed on to anchor out of sight of Delos.
And how the Russian ship had somehow managed to find them.
The Queen gave a cry of horror.
“Oh, that awful man has not taken the poor little Princess away, has he?”
“We saved her from that,” the Duke replied. “But now the only way I can make certain he does not try again, is for us to be married at once. If Your Majesties would allow us to be married here in your Palace, there could be no argument about it once the Ceremony has taken place.”
For a brief moment, the King and Queen appeared speechless.
And then the King laughed.
“You have never ceased to surprise me, even when we were boys together, David,” he said. “But I think she is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen with naturally the exception of my wife. I am not surprised that you want to marry her.”
“And she wants to marry me. So we hope we will both be as happy as you are.”
“Of course you will be,” the Queen added. “And as you say, things being difficult, you had better be married as quickly as possible.”
“That is what I want and we would be grateful if we could be married first thing tomorrow morning before there is time for the Russian Prince to get here and try to make trouble.”
The King spread out his hands.
“The Palace is at your disposal, my dear David, and Olga and I will be only too delighted to be witnesses at your wedding.”
“That is just what I hoped you would say, sir, and I am extremely grateful. After that I will be taking my wife on a honeymoon and then to England. I doubt if her uncle or Prince Federovski can the
n make any trouble at all.”
“It will be quite impossible for them to do so,” the King agreed. “I suggest that you have your wedding about nine o’clock.”
“That will be marvellous, sir. You will understand if we leave immediately afterwards, just in case her uncle or any of her other relatives turn up to make trouble.”
He deliberately did not say any more about the Russians.
“Now I will go back to the yacht and tell Thalia how kind you have been.” The Queen gave a little cry.
“I have just thought of something. Being a man, it has not occurred to you.”
“What can it be?” the Duke asked.
“The poor child will obviously only have the dress she was wearing when she crept into the case that should have held Aphrodite.”
The Duke waited and the Queen continued,
“Bring Thalia here at eight o’clock and I will dress her as a bride should be.”
She smiled at the Duke.
“Of course I will also give her as a wedding present a few dresses of mine to start her honeymoon with until you take her somewhere where there are dress shops.”
“You are very kind, ma’am. And of course clothes matter more to a woman than they do to a man.” “Oh, you and George look good in anything, but I am sure that Thalia will want to remember her wedding day and nothing could be worse than if the bride feels she is not looking her very best.”
“You have always been most generous, ma’am, and I know how grateful Thalia will be.”
The Duke kissed the Queen’s hand and then turned to the King,
“Thank you, sir, more than I can ever say.”
“I know you would have done the same for me if our positions had been reversed. The only thing I ask in return, David, is that, when your honeymoon is over, you come back here and tell us how happy you are.”
The Duke smiled.
“We will certainly do so, sir.”
Then he hurried back to The Mermaid.
He had given orders that Thalia should have every possible protection.
Yet he was still afraid that something might happen at the last moment to separate them.
*
The following morning the Duke and Thalia went aboard The Mermaid after what had been a very moving and incredibly beautiful Service in the Royal Chapel at the Palace.
The King and the Queen were the only witnesses.
Love and the Gods Page 13