Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (53 page)

“Nothing could be
lovelier than another kiss,” murmured the Duke as he obeyed her.

From her bag she took a
bright scarlet ribbon, to which was attached a star set with brilliants. Having
passed the ribbon round his neck, she said solemnly, “It is His Imperial
Majesty’s pleasure that for distinguished service to the Empire you should be
received as a Knight into the Order of Leopold. By his command, and on his
behalf, I, Ilona Theresa, hereby invest you, Jean Armand Duplessis von
Königstein, with the Military Cordon of the Order.”

As he opened his eyes she
gave him another joyous kiss, and exclaimed: “There! Wasn’t it lucky that my
grandfather spoke of you when I saw him yesterday? He told me he meant to give
you the decoration, but I asked that, as you were my officer, he should let me
deputize for him; and he agreed at once.”

Taking her hand, he
carried it to his lips. “Princess, no Knight of this illustrious Order ever had
my good fortune to be invested with your kiss. That will make it more precious
to me than any other decoration I possess. I am most touched, too, that in his
grief the Emperor should have found time to think of honouring me.”

She gave him a queer
look. “I don’t think he is really sorry about my cousin Franz’s death. He was
shocked, of course, and horrified at the brutality of the act. But I am told
that when Count Paar broke the news to him his first thought was that by the
succession passing to my cousin Charles, it has once more been secured from
risk of taint to the Imperial blood. They say he exclaimed, ‘How horrible! But
the Almighty does not allow himself to be challenged with impunity. A higher
Power has restored the old order, which I unfortunately was unable to uphold’.”

De Richleau shook his
head. “How sad that anyone could possibly believe that God would exact
vengeance on a man because he married for love, instead of according to the
dictates of an entirely artificial convention. In point of fact, his own blood
is no bluer than the poor Chotek’s—or, for that matter, any street-sweeper’s.”

“That may be true. Yet
one cannot altogether rule out heredity. Generations of nobility beget a sense
of duty and responsibility to others that is not found as an instinct among
common people. They may acquire it later, but are not born with it; and to come
by such a sense naturally is of great importance for all who are destined to
rule.” Ilona sighed suddenly, and added: “All the same, I would to God I were a
man.”

“Why should you wish
that, when God has made you the most beautiful of women?”

She smiled at him. “Because,
if I were a man and you were a woman, I would follow Franz Ferdinand’s example.”

His hand trembled as he
took hers. “Do you really mean
—
?”

“Yes. Even if it broke my
grandfather’s heart, I would marry you.”

“My sweet!” he murmured. “My
sweet!” Then he swallowed hard, now utterly at a loss for further words. But
his mind was racing with wild thoughts which he had never before permitted it
to entertain. To have her for his wife! To wake with her beside him! To spend
long carefree days with her in the sunshine of the Riviera! The opposition
would be terrific. He would be branded as a fortune hunter. It would never be
permitted, and some charge would be faked up against him as an excuse for
shutting him up in a fortress. But they could elope. That would mean that she
would have to live in exile for the rest of her life. How much would she mind
that? He felt certain that his love for her would endure. But by the time she
was forty, would she curse the day she had met him? She was born to be a queen
or empress. Would she later bitterly regret all she had given up for his sake?
No! Why should she? Thrones held no glamour for those who occupied or stood
near
them. To her, a throne would mean only a loveless
marriage and condemnation to a life-long round of official duties.

Slavery had been
abolished in the modern world; except for those of royal blood, who were forced
daily to leave their palaces in invisible chains, to posture and smirk before
their peoples. How infinitely more fortunate were those even of modest means,
but born free to live where and how they would. Ilona would be giving up
nothing that could bring her real happiness. On the contrary, she was beating
on the bars of her gilded cage and asking him to rescue her. And she was quite
old enough to know her own mind. Then he would do it, and be damned to the
consequences.

At length he said, “Ilona,
if you will entrust yourself to me, I swear to you that I will never give you
cause to regret it.”

With a start, she drew
back. “Oh Armand, no! I did not mean that.”

“From what you said, I
thought
—“

Sadly she shook her head.
“I said only that were our sexes reversed I would marry you. God, or whoever
made the rules for us, has been hard on women in many ways, and my case is an
example of that. If a man chooses to marry beneath him, he can, at worst, only
be accused of having displayed ill-taste. And if the girl be beautiful, he
escapes severe criticism on the grounds that physical desire is natural in man,
so a legitimate. excuse for becoming bewitched into almost any folly. But women
are supposed to be made differently. If a girl runs away with an attractive man
of lower station than herself, she is immediately stigmatized as unchaste. For
the rest of her life people whisper about her behind her back and point at her.
She soon becomes a woman with a past and fair game for every unprincipled man
she may meet: and she has brought indelible dishonour on her family. That, I
could not support. Marriage, alas, can never be for us; and I beg you, my love,
to forget the stupid thing I said just now.”

He kissed her hand again.
“I understand. It was foolish of me to dream such dreams, even for a moment.

Then, in order to break
the awkward pause that followed, he fingered the ribbon about his neck, and
said: “This favour that the Emperor has shown me: does it mean that I may be
able to see more of you without giving rise to scandal? If so, I shall prize it
even more highly, as a magic talisman to Heaven.”

Ilona brightened again. “It
will certainly help. Greatly as it distressed me at the time, your immediate
departure from Vienna, after my birthday ball, nipped scandal about us in the
bud. And Adam tells me that now I am simply accounted cleverer than people
thought, in having secured a paladin for my regiment. Unfortunately, as the
Court is in full mourning, there will be no entertainments of any kind at which
we can meet. But as soon as you are well enough, you can take up your duties,
and that will enable you to come to see me at the Palace at least once a week
without exciting undesirable comment.”

“And in the meantime?”

“That will be even easier,”
Her blue eyes sparkled. “One of the heaviest crosses that we poor royal women
have to bear is the convention that we should spend half our lives posing as
angels of mercy, visiting the wards of hospitals. Heaven knows how weary I am
at pretending interest at the sick beds of people I have never seen before, and
shall never see again. But now the dreary custom will stand us in good stead.
Owing to the manner in which you received your wounds, it will be thought only
proper that a member of the Imperial Family should regard you as her special
invalid. I’ll come to see you every other day. I would make it every day, were
it not that my visits could be only an unhappy farce on the days that Paula is
on duty.”

“Then I shall never
recover,” he laughed up at her. “The temptation to remain here and be sure of
an hour with you in every forty-eight will prove too great. But you have not
told me yet about your own health, my sweet, and I have been intensely worried
about you.”

“Do I not look well?”

“You look more beautiful
than any houri the dreams of man could fabricate.”

“Then let it rest at that.”

“No. I am told you had to
keep to your bed for the best part of a fortnight. That seriously alarmed me. I
have no confidence in a physician who maintains that there is nothing really
wrong with you, when these attacks not only keep recurring, but are of
increasing severity. I beg you to call in a lung specialist—someone really
first class, like that Swiss, Dr. Bruckner, who spends a good part of the year
here as a consultant— and submit to a thorough examination by him.”

She shrugged. “It is
quite unnecessary. But I like you being so concerned for me, dear Knight; so to
please you, I will consider seeing Bruckner. Tell me now of your extraordinary
adventure.”

He told her, a little
sheepishly, the same story that he had told Count Berchtold and the others
earlier in the week. Her eyes widened with excitement when he spoke of his
fight for life in the châlet and, when he had done, she said:

“How fortunate I am to
have the love of such a courageous and
resourceful
man.
You can have no idea how proud of you this makes me. But do you know the
amusing story that is going round the town? They say now that I was requested
by our secret service to appoint you as a Colonel of my regiment as a
blind—simply to throw dust in the eyes of those horrid Serbians, and lead them
to suppose that you were a stupid court dandy whom I favoured for your good
looks; while all the time you were a great nobleman, who had consented to
demean himself by becoming a spy in the service of Austria from patriotic
reasons.”

De Richleau squirmed. The
guess was so horribly near the truth, yet in fact poles apart from it. He
wondered miserably what Ilona would think of him if she knew that he was indeed
a spy, and one who had deliberately set about penetrating the secrets of
Austria as well as Serbia. He took refuge in a half-truth, and said:

“How utterly absurd!
People of my standing have never been known to dabble in such matters, and
personally I should find work of that kind most uncongenial.”

“Naturally,” she rejoined
quickly. “The very idea is fantastic. And on your behalf I resented the
suggestion as an insult.”

In the pause that
followed Adam Grünne said without turning his head, “May it please Your
Highness, since I have been sitting here I have not once looked at the Great
Wheel. But my watch suggests that it must have gone round at least ten times,
as each revolution takes a good ten minutes.”

“Oh, Adam! How horridly
right you are,” Ilona exclaimed. “We must be off. Please go on saying nice
things to Sárolta for just another two minutes, then I’ll let you drag me away.”

Again she put her arms
round De Richleau’s neck, and he held her to him in a sweet embrace; while
between more kisses she murmured, “Till Monday, Armand! Till Monday! I’ll
hardly live till then.”

Five minutes later they
had gone, and he was left to his whirling thoughts. She loved him! She loved
him! And he loved her most desperately. But what could come of it? And if she
learned the truth about him, what then? She would regard him as beyond words
despicable.

On the following Monday
and Wednesday Ilona paid him further visits. As before, Sárolta and Adam
accompanied her and occupied chairs in the big bay window, while she sat
perched on the invalid’s bed so that they could hold hands, gaze fondly into
one another’s eyes and exchange caresses easily.

She appeared to be
glowing with health and happiness on both occasions; but from time to time she
could not repress a fit of coughing, and on the Wednesday De Richleau caught
her trying to conceal from him a handkerchief that was tinged with the
brilliance of blood. Attempting to laugh it off, she declared that it came from
a strained muscle in her throat that had bled a little now and then for a long
time past, and that she had been too busy to do anything yet about consulting a
specialist. But now he insisted that she must, and extracted a firm promise
from her that she would see Dr. Bruckner during the coming week.

The Duke was now well
enough to be allowed visitors in the evenings as well as in the afternoons, and
it was after dinner on this night, July the 8th, that Count Tisza came to see
him. The Hungarian Minister-President had already sent the invalid kind
messages with a present of books and wine, and he said at once that he would
have come in person before this, had not the crisis of the past week kept him
desperately busy.

Ilona and some of De
Richleau’s other highly placed visitors had told him a certain amount about
what was going on behind the scenes and although the popular fury against
Serbia remained unabated, he had gained the impression that the likelihood of
any drastic step being taken had materially decreased in the last few days. But
Count Tisza soon disabused him of that comforting belief.