Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (36 page)

After a few sips
she looked up at him. Her face was very white but her voice steady as she said:
“Very well. We have missed so much to-day and yesterday, and our opportunities
of being together are so few that I will grant what you ask. At what hour do
you wish me to meet you?”

His grey eyes
held hers. “It is after two already. I shall stop the band at three o’clock.
Give me half an hour to get rid of our guests. I will be outside the door at
half past three.”

She nodded. The
band had stopped. When she had finished her champagne, he took her back to the
ballroom. For a few minutes they talked to Count Harrach, then as the music
began again she asked the Count to dance with her.

At a quarter to
three De Richleau prepared to end the party with ruthless efficiency. He had
the band play a gallop as a prelude to the finale and ordered them to play the
National Anthem at three o’clock precisely. Then he sent servants out to warn
the coachmen and chauffeurs to be ready to take the departing guests home, told
others to have their wraps ready in the great hall, and his steward to have
half the candles put out as soon as the Archduke had retired.

No one except
Ilona guessed how well affairs had been stage-managed, as the dance seemed to
end perfectly naturally. But by twenty past three no one, except the servants
who were clearing up, remained downstairs. When De Richleau had seen off his
last guests he gave a quick look round and slipped out on to the terrace.

To his acute
distress he found that the spatter of rain had now increased to a steady
downpour. Up on that little balcony outside Ilona’s room there was not an inch
of cover for them; yet it was his fixed determination in no circumstances to
enter her apartments. He had hoped for half an hour with her. That was to have
been for him the high spot of all that had gone before. He had parted with
£2,400, and been to infinite pains to achieve this stolen meeting; yet now the
accursed weather must reduce it to a few moments and a mere good-night.

With quick light
steps he ran through the sheeting rain, along the terrace and up the spiral
steps that led to the balcony. He felt certain that she would not disappoint
him, but all the joyous anticipation he would normally have felt was turned by
the wet to bitter frustration. With his back against the stone wall he waited.

He had been
there no more than five minutes when a crack of light appeared and the door
swung open revealing Ilona. She was still in her ball dress of filmy white, but
now wore over it a long cloak with a hood which almost concealed it. Stepping
quickly out into the rain, she pulled the door to behind her.

“Princess,” he
murmured sadly. “We have had the most devilish hick. Even the weather is
against us. I dare not detain you for more than a moment or you will be soaked
to the skin.”

She smiled at
him. “Have you forgotten that I like the rain. I don’t mind a bit about getting
wet.”

Trembling a
little, he took a step forward and held out his hands; but she did not take
them. Instead, she raised her arms and flung them round his neck.

Her soft lips
were warm, moist and passionate, as she pressed them against his and clung to
him with all her strength. Then, throwing back her head and gazing up into his
eyes, she cried:

“Oh, Armand!
Armand! I love you! I love you terribly. So much that I could die of it.

It
was the afternoon following the dance. All the guests had left that morning, so
De Richleau was now alone in the castle except for his servants. The sun was
shining again and he stood once more on the little balcony where, twelve hours
before, he had held Ilona in his arms. Like some poor couple in the back
streets of a city, who had nowhere else to go, they had remained there,
clinging together in an angle of the wall, while the rain trickled down their
faces on to their sodden garments until they had gradually become soaked
through. It now seemed to the Duke as if hardly twenty minutes had elapsed
between his going up to the balcony in a sad state of dejection and coming down
from it as though he were treading on air: but, in fact, nearly two hours had passed,
for Ilona had not left him until the full light of the summer dawn had made it
dangerous for her to linger there any longer.

He could remember
practically nothing that either of them had said. Oblivious of their bedraggled
state, they had not once relaxed their embrace, but gone on kissing, and
kissing and kissing; with breath enough left between whiles only to murmur
those sweet endearments that lovers have used through all the ages. He realized
now that Ilona’s sudden surrender must have been brought about by the same
feelings that had harassed him so terribly during the past few days. Her
disappointment had equalled his at the Chotek’s unintentional ruining of their
plan for spending two days together, and she had been through the additional
ordeal of having to appear happy at public functions when she had hoped to be
at Königstein. No doubt she had not even visualized what might occur between
them there, but frustration had so preyed upon her mind that when, after all,
fate had permitted the longed-for meeting the strength of her emotions had
broken down all barriers.

They had made no plans:
there were none they could make. He would see her the following night, at her
birthday ball; but after that when, if ever, they would meet again lay on the
knees of the gods. To-day was Friday, June the 12th, and on Monday night he
must leave Vienna for Belgrade. He had meant to break the news of his coming
departure to her during her visit to Königstein, but that had been so curtailed
that he had not had the heart to do so during dinner or the dance, and later it
had been out of the question. Now it was going to be harder than ever. He could
not possibly tell her the truth and, within a few days of her having declared
her love for him, to say that any matter of business necessitated his leaving
her would appear unbelievably callous. Trained as she was to put duty before
all else, he felt that he could best soften the blow by saying that he had been
summoned to Constantinople to clear up certain questions in connection with the
Turkish military appointment he had held, and promise to be back as soon as he
possibly could.

But would he be able to
get back once he had taken up his duties as a Lieutenant-General in the Serbian
Army? If he could succeed in foiling Dimitriyevitch’s plans for provoking a
war, all might yet be well. If not, the probability was that he would be caught
in Serbia when the war opened. He could, of course, desert and, since he was
entering the Serbian Army only as the secret agent of Britain, he felt no
scruples at the thought of doing so. But by that time, if he made his way back
to Vienna, what would be his position there? The odds were that all Europe
would by then be in flames and he, as an Englishman, be ranged among Austria’s
enemies.

It was difficult, almost
impossible, to realize that perhaps in as little as ten days, if Dimitriyevitch’s
evil coup succeeded, the fighting would have started and he, De Richleau, be an
enemy of the country which meant so much to him. When he was exiled from France
it had been a toss-up whether he became an Austrian or an Englishman. He had a
title and this fine estate in Austria, and not even a permanent home in
England. He loved the Austrians, too, for their gaiety, culture and graceful
way of life. Yet he had become an Englishman because he believed that on the
British had fallen the spiritual mantle of Imperial Rome. The two Empires had
been built on the same traditions of justice, tolerance, and freedom for all
their peoples, irrespective of race or creed; and he believed in these things.

Only a dozen years
earlier France had expelled the Chartreuse Fathers and seized their property.
In Russia politicals were still sent without trial to Siberia and Jews knouted
to death. Germany regimented her whole people. Italy was a sink of corruption.
Austria repressed her Serbs and Croats; Hungary her Rumanians. The British
alone seemed to possess the secret of gaining strength through liberty, and by
a steady, ordered progress uniting the 500,000,000 people over whom they ruled
by common interests that made for the prosperity and security of them all.
Their example had already done an incalculable amount to influence other
nations in the same direction, so it had seemed a sane and reasonable hope that
within a few more generations tyranny and oppression would be expurgated from
the world. De Richleau had thought that he might live to see that, but now, if
Britain were to be drawn into a conflict against the Central Empires, and her
championship of individual liberty jeopardized, then, for the very reason he
had become a British citizen he must, if need be, spill Austrian blood.

With a sigh he descended
to the terrace and began to make his own preparations for returning to Vienna.
He cast a last look round the gracious rooms, wondering how they would look if,
and when, he saw them again. It did not even enter his mind that the castle
might be sequestered and his property stolen or damaged by the Austrians. They
were much too civilized and chivalrous to indulge in petty spite against an
individual because he happened to be fighting on the other side; but if the
Russians invaded they were quite capable of looting it; or it might be
partially destroyed through some hazard of war. He made a mental note to write
later on to his second cousin, the Grand Duke Nicholas, and request that, in
the event of the Russian armies approaching Königstein, special steps should be
taken to protect the people on has estate from brutal treatment, and his
property from pilfering. Then having once more thanked his steward and left a
considerable sum of money to be distributed among the servants, he set off for
the capital.

Next morning, when he
awoke in his bedroom at Sacher’s, his mind began to revolve round the sort of
present he could give Ilona for her birthday. It had to be something small,
which could be pressed into her hand when they danced together that night, as
it was contrary to etiquette for royalty to accept personal presents from
anyone outside their own families. On the contrary, it was their practice to
give presents to others in the form of honours, decorations and pensions. Of
this De Richleau was soon to have embarrassing evidence.

The whistle in the
stopper of the speaking tube beside his bed piped gently and, when he answered
it, the hall porter informed him that Captain Count Adam Grünne was below,
asking to see him urgently.

It was not yet half past
seven, but De Richleau asked that his visitor should be sent up. Then, getting
out of bed, he put on a dressing-gown and went into the sitting-room to receive
him.

The dapper Count Adam was
as spick and span as ever, but he did not return the Duke’s cheerful greeting.
Instead, he bowed formally and, holding out a thick envelope eighteen inches
wide by a foot deep, said:

“I pray your Excellency
to excuse the unusual hour of my visit, but I was commanded by Her Imperial
Highness to give you this without delay.”

Returning his formal bow,
De Richleau broke the seals of the huge crested envelope and took out the
parchment it contained. Under the Imperial arms the following was set out in
copperplate:

“By these presents I,
Ilona Theresa
” etc. etc.,
“do
hereby commission and appoint my good and loyal servant Count Königstein,”
etc.
etc.,
“to hold the honorary rank of Colonel in my own
Regiment of Hussars.”

“Good God!” exclaimed the
Duke.

“There is more to it,” said
Count Adam grimly. “I am further commanded by Her Imperial Highness to order
you to have the dress uniform of this rank in her regiment made to-day, and to
appear in it to-night at her birthday ball.”

“But this is absolute
madness! It must be stopped at once.”

Adam Grünne abandoned his
formal attitude and made a grimace as he sat himself down on the arm of the
sofa. “My friend, I wish to Heaven it could be; but it is too late. The appointment
was made yesterday and will appear in this morning’s
Gazette.
All Vienna that has an interest in such matters will
read of it over their coffee and rolls within the next few hours.”

“Could you not prevent
her committing this folly?”

“I knew nothing of it
till half an hour ago, when I reported for duty and S
á
rolta brought me out the commission
and message for you.”

De Richleau stared at the
document and, seeing Ilona’s rounded scrawl against the red, beribboned seal at
its foot, said quickly; “Surely all commissions in the Imperial Army must be
signed by the Emperor and the
Gazette
will not publish anything that has not first received his approval?”

“In this case it is
unnecessary. The Archduchess has an absolute right to give anyone she likes a
commission in her own regiment.”