Love by Moonlight

CHAPTER ONE 1892-1

CHAPTER ONE

1892Konstantina Millbank’s eyes flew open.

The carriage had hit a rut in the road and startled her awake and for a moment she wondered where she was.

Then she turned her gaze to the window, as it must have grown cold outside for the glass to mist up so.

Taking a handkerchief from her reticule, she then breathed on the window and wiped it clear.

Outside was an alien land.

On the dimming horizon, a mountain range showed above the frosty pines of the forest, the kind of forest she had read about in Fairytales, where wolves’ eyes glinted in the trees and witches stirred cauldrons in thatched huts.

Konstantina drew back, smiling ruefully at herself.

Her imagination was running away with her!

On the other hand it was no wonder that she felt not quite herself.

Every turn of the wheel, every thud of the hoofs, carried her further and further from the only home she had known for the past seventeen years.

That home had been a neat cottage on the outskirts of London where she had lived with her parents.

Until she was ten, it had been Eden and then her father had died and she had grieved deeply as much for her widowed mother as for him.

Her mother had lived for another seven years, but whether she was ever herself again was another question.

Konstantina had never seen a couple as devoted as her parents had been.

Now both of them were dead and Konstantina was an orphan on her way to the home of a relation she had never met in her life.

Countess Mordhile Megherny.

She whispered the name to herself, as she had done ever since she had learned where her future and Fate lay.

Her dear mother, Rurinnia, had been a Megherny, an aristocratic family long established in a country East of the Danube.

Even though Mrs. Millbank had taught her daughter her own native tongue, she had rarely spoken of her Balkan origins.

She had never dreamed that her daughter would one day be forced to return to the Megherny estate near to the town of Priveska.

All Konstantina knew was that her grandfather, the Count Megherny, had brought his wife and daughter to London when she was a mere six years old.

Young Rurinnia was passionate about music and maybe it was inevitable that, when she met the dashing but penniless musician Alfred Millbank at a soirée, she fell head over heels in love with him.

Her parents were furious with her when she elected to remain behind in England and marry him.

They forbade the union, but Rurinnia defied them and then her parents returned to their own country, never communicating with her again.

Only Rurinnia’s old Nanny, Grete, wrote now and then to her one-time charge in England.

And it was from Grete the Millbanks learned that Rurinnia’s parents had adopted an eight year old orphan, Count Megherny’s great-niece, Mordhile.

This happened the very year that Konstantina was born and deeply wounded Rurinnia, as she was effectively disinherited for ever.

It was also through Grete that Rurinnia Millbank had later learned that her mother and then her father, the Count, had died.

Perhaps her father’s death was the final blow that she could not endure, for shortly after Rurinnia became ill.

A year later she was dead and Konstantina herself was an orphan.

The letters from the old Nanny, Grete, had ceased to arrive during the year that her mother was ailing.

In their place, however, there came letters from a most unexpected source – the Countess Mordhile, adopted daughter of the late Count and Countess Megherny.

The new Countess brushed off all questions about Grete that Mrs. Millbank posed to her in her replies, saying only that she had ‘returned North to her own homeland’.

What the Countess was really interested in was the well-being of her young relation, Konstantina.

She had heard that Mrs. Millbank was very ill and wished now to propose herself as Guardian to Konstantina should ‘the worst occur’.

Mrs. Millbank did not puzzle over such a generous proposition. It seemed natural that the young woman who had unwittingly usurped her in both her parents’ affections should wish to make some kind of reparation.

Besides, the offer was a godsend.

Alfred Millbank had bequeathed little to his family and Rurinna feared for her daughter’s future.

Konstantina’s eyes now were pricked with tears as she considered how love had cost her mother dear.

Mrs. Millbank had grown up a cosseted daughter with every advantage that wealth and title could give her.

She had ended her life as a seamstress, her eyesight affected by hours of sewing, and a widow in straightened circumstances, whose heart yearned for her dead love.

Konstantina remembered the rare occasions when her mother had opened up and talked, somewhat wistfully, of her childhood on the Megherny estate.

Playing hide and seek in the many long corridors of The Castle, riding her little pony through fields of scarlet poppies, picnics on the lake by moonlight, while musicians played on the shore.

“Do you miss all that, Mama?” Konstantina would ask innocently.

Her mother would smile and stroke her hair from her forehead before replying,

“No, Konstantina, I don’t. For there was little love in that place. Only old Grete showed me real affection. Although your father and I were poor, there was love. And love is worth more than vast estates and ancient paintings and silk dresses and picnics – ”

Konstantina would gaze at her mother in wonder.

‘Will I ever love a man as Mama loved Papa?’ she mused.

She shivered and plunged her hands deeper into her muff.

She looked out and was astonished to see flakes of snow. Snow, and it was only late October!

Her thoughts strayed again to the character of her new Guardian, the Countess Mordhile.

In her letters the Countess had been courteous, but careful. All her mother could tell Konstantina was what she herself had learned from the letters of the old Nanny, Grete, that Mordhile was something of a recluse.

The carriage now seemed to be slowing down and Konstantina frowned as she lowered the window and at once a cloud of snow whirled into her face.

A veritable blizzard had blown up outside.

Konstantina heard the coachman order the horses to halt and for a moment there was silence, broken only by the sound of a chomping bit.

The coachman then leapt onto the ground from his box, sending a spray of soft snow into the air as he landed.

“What is it?” Konstantina called out.

“We are not doin’ well, miss. The snow be thick and we have yet to go through the Priveski Pass. It is very narrow and we might find ourselves stranded there.”

Konstantina gazed helplessly at him and asked,

“What do you suggest we do?”

He pointed beyond the carriage with his whip.

“Not far ahead of us be Razghadi Palace. The old Prince is in residence and he will not refuse us shelter. In my country a stranger be always welcome.”

The carriage set off again slowly and after a long time turned in at elaborate wrought iron gates.

Konstantina gasped when The Palace came in view through the swirling snow.

It was an amazing Fairytale Palace – all spires and turrets and balconies with long shuttered windows.

The front door heaved open as the carriage drew up and a woman in a housekeeper’s cap appeared. Then the coachman leapt down and went forward to talk with her.

The housekeeper listened and then looked past him at Konstantina at the window and beckoned.

The coachman hurried to open the door for her and Konstantina clambered out into a biting chill.

“Poor creature, you must be frozen,” murmured the housekeeper. “I will let Prince Razghadi know you are here. Meanwhile – ” she gestured to the coachman, “if you take the carriage round to the stables, you will find food and water for your horse.”

The coachman touched his forehead and was gone.

The housekeeper helped Konstantina to remove her cloak while a maid ran to inform the old Prince that he had an unexpected guest.

As her cloak slid from her shoulders, Konstantina gazed in awe about her.

The floor was of black marble, the walls hung with yellow silk as a fire blazed cheerfully in a marble hearth.

The maid came with instructions that Konstantina be shown to the best guest room available and then the housekeeper smiled with satisfaction.

“Take the young lady to the Blue Room,” she said to the maid.

Konstantina, about to follow her, realised that she had been remiss in not giving her name.

“I am – Konstantina,” she said. “Miss Konstantina Millbank.”

The housekeeper raised an eyebrow.

“Millbank? You are English, then? I congratulate you, miss. Your accent is near perfect.”

Konstantina felt a surge of pride at this. She was almost a native in her mother’s homeland, her mother had instructed her daughter well!

Mounting the stairs behind the maid, she continued to feel awe at the manifestation of wealth and taste about her. There were priceless ornaments, mahogany chests and vivid paintings by artists she thought she recognised.

She could not help but wonder if she would find Megherny Castle to be as beautiful and as welcoming as Razghadi Palace.

As she followed behind the maid up the second tier of the staircase, her eye was drawn to a portrait ahead of her on the landing.

It was of a handsome young man.

Dressed in a green cape tossed casually over one shoulder, he stood with his hand on the hilt of a sword.

His dark almost arrogant stare met Konstantina’s own gaze. His lips, expressing a half-smile, seemed almost to mock her.

Reaching the landing, she halted at the painting.

“Who – who is that?” she asked.

The maid held up the oil lamp she was carrying.

“That is old Prince Razghadi’s grandson, Gregor.”

“Gregor.”

Konstantina tried the name on her tongue.

“He be a Hussar in the Emperor’s Army,” the maid cheerfully offered. “He doesn’t come to Razghadi as often as he might. There was – there was an affair of the heart.”

The maid said the last few words in a lowered voice, as if this ‘affair’ was an unfortunate occurrence.

Konstantina followed behind her but could not help turning to gaze over her shoulder at the handsome Gregor.

Those eyes of his seemed to darken still further as the lamplight moved away from him.

Konstantina felt a strange lurch of her heart, as if the portrait was real and as if the admiring gaze she had bestowed on Gregor was returned a thousand fold!

‘If only I might meet him,’ she thought dreamily as the maid led her on. ‘If only I might meet him and know from him the kind of love my darling Mama once knew!’

*

Konstantina could not believe that she was to sleep in such a large bed, canopied with blue Chinese silk. She looked in bewilderment at the maid and asked,

“This – is to be my room for the night?”

“Yes indeed, m’am,” she replied, before closing the shutters against the raging blizzard outside.

The maid departed and Konstantina crept forward to peer through into an adjoining washroom where a large enamel bath, curved like a conch shell, took centre stage.

After she had freshened herself, she was summoned downstairs to take sherry with the old Prince.

“Ah, the young lady is here,” came an elderly voice as the maid ushered her into the library.

The old Prince stood facing the door, his hand on the back of a chair.

Konstantina was about to move forward when she detected a movement to her right, as a tall elegant figure had risen from the window embrasure and bowed.

She did not need to hear the old Prince announce his grandson to know immediately who it was.

The gentleman whose portrait had greeted her with such effect at the head of the stairs.

It was Prince Gregor Razghadi!

His eyes seemed dark and brooding in the firelight and they lingered on her no longer than was necessary to acknowledge her presence.

He then sat down again at the window and turned his gaze to the fire.

“You are most welcome to Razghadi,” said the old Prince, beckoning Konstantina forward.

She felt her limbs unsteady as she made her way towards him.