A Miracle Of Love

CHAPTER ONE 1845-1

CHAPTER ONE

1845Prince Nicolo of Vienz rode his horse up to the front door of the Palace and dismounted.

There was a moment’s pause before a groom came running from the direction of the stables.

“Your Royal Highness be back here early,” he said breathlessly.

“Yes, I know,” the Prince replied, “but I think this horse is going lame on its left leg. Tell Petre to see to it.”

“Very good, Your Royal Highness.”

The groom took the horse slowly away and the Prince walked into the Palace.

“Your Royal Highness is back early,” one of the equerries piped up, having hurried into the hall when he saw him appear.

“As I have already been told,” the Prince answered rather sharply. “Where is Her Royal Highness?”

“She is in the garden, Sire. I think Comte Ruta is showing Her Royal Highness the lake.”

The Prince nodded.

He walked towards the side of the Palace which led into the garden, thinking as he did so that he should last night have suggested to the Princess that she might like to ride with him in the morning.

He had been so bored over dinner that he had not actually considered what would happen the next day.

Princess Marziale of Bassanz had arrived yesterday with an entourage of Ladies-in-Waiting and a Countess to chaperone her.

The Prince had felt hostile from the very moment they stepped into the Palace.

He had fought against his Government, his relatives and even his own people in his determination not to marry.

Eventually because of the number of revolutions that had taken place in Principalities around him, he had yielded to the urgent request, as such a marriage would unite Bassanz – quite a large independent country – with his own and make them both stronger.

Vienz had managed to remain independent while revolutions or annexations had taken place in many States in that part of Northern Italy since the defeat of Napoleon.

The Prince had often thought it was Napoleon who had upset everything and so it was difficult for the smaller States and Principalities to continue on their own.

The larger countries bordering Vienz were greedy and Austria particularly had been a menace for a long time.

The Prince felt that his Prime Minister was being over-anxious and yet he was well aware that a tie between Vienz and Bassanz would surely make them both stronger.

At the same time he had no wish to marry anyone.

At twenty-seven he was enjoying life enormously.

On his father’s death he had reigned for the last five years in Vienz and he had his own ideas and they were forceful ones of all he could do for his country.

He was very conscious that the people he ruled over admired him and were willing to follow him, but he had been obliged to listen to endless bleatings that he should marry and produce an heir and many younger sons.

“It is no use leaving it too long, my dearest,” his grandmother had said with tears in her eyes. “Supposing something happens to you – although I pray to God it will not – you know as well as I do, there is no one competent to take your place.”

“I am well aware of that,” Prince Nicolo replied. “Equally I can hardly imagine any heir, if I had one, taking over the country and being able to rule it for at least the next twenty years.”

He was speaking sarcastically but his grandmother added quite seriously,

“Of course the Prime Minister and the Cabinet will do that. But it would make sure of the continuity of our family. As you well know we have now reigned in Vienz for over three centuries.”

“Hanging on at times by the skin of our teeth,” the Prince countered jokingly.

However his grandmother still looked worried.

“I grant you there have been anxious moments, but the family has survived and that is what you must ensure for the future.”

If it was not his grandmother, then it was the Prime Minister. He was very able but a nervous man who always anticipated the worst.

“I don’t like what I hear is happening in Austria,” he had said not just once but a hundred times to the Prince. “We are as strongly armed as it is possible to be, but one never knows what might happen.”

“Of course we don’t know,” the Prince said rather irritably, “but our Army is enormous in comparison with other small independent countries and the Austrians are well aware of it.”

“What we really need is that Your Royal Highness should take a wife. And on looking around I am certain that Princess Marziale has the most to offer you.”

“I have never seen or met the Princess and I have no intention of marrying a ‘pig in a poke’,” the Prince replied caustically.

“She is reputed to be good-looking and charming, and she is also, I am reliably informed, very popular with her own people.”

The Prince did not feel that was exactly what he desired in a wife and it would be a great mistake to raise the hopes of the ruling family of Bassanz and then cry off at the last moment.

But it was impossible for him to go on fighting.

Finally he had agreed to invite the Princess to stay at the Palace so they could at least get to know each other.

He had meant it to be a purely social visit, but then needless to say, the Prime Minister, all his relatives and everyone else of consequence in Vienz thought differently.

They looked on it as a direct suggestion from him to the Princess that they should be married although he protested that it was only to be a friendly meeting of two neighbours.

But the Statesmen on both sides assumed that the purpose of their meeting was to decide the date for their wedding.

The Prince felt he had been caught in a trap from which it was impossible to escape and his situation made him not only apprehensive but extremely bad-tempered.

He had enjoyed a number of affaires-de-coeur with charming women and they had known from the start that it was quite impossible for him to marry them.

And they had therefore enjoyed being with him, not because he was a Royal Prince, but because he was a very handsome man.

He for his part found that however attractive these women were sooner or later he grew bored with the liaison.

This was because he was exceptionally well-read and he therefore found it tiresome to be with a woman who never read anything but social gossip in the newspapers or a few rather sickly love stories.

He had gone from one casual love affair to another and by the time his family found out that there was a new face in the Palace, the lady in question had usually left the country.

‘When I take a wife,’ the Prince had often thought, ‘I want someone I can talk to about the affairs of State and discuss the problems of keeping my own people happy and content.’

He rather doubted from what he had seen of the ruling families in other States that this was possible.

Of course he had been invited to stay with the other Rulers of neighbouring States, large and small, and he had found that most of them were extremely dull. Also he felt that they were not doing enough for their own people or for the development of their countries.

In the back of his mind was always the fear that Austria would gobble them up, as had happened to many smaller States in the past.

What was worse, the daughters of the Rulers who were paraded in front of him as soon as he arrived were in most cases dull, plain and badly educated young women.

It was of course a universal practice that the men must have the best education possible, while the daughters, both of Royalty or aristocracy, should be content with a governess, who knew little more than themselves.

The result was, the Prince found, that while the young Princesses looked at him with admiring eyes, they had nothing to contribute to the conversation nor had they any knowledge of what was happening in the world outside their own countries.

‘How can it be possible,’ the Prince used to ask himself as he went home, ‘that I could listen day after day and year after year to such idiotic conversations as I have endured in the last few days?’

But when he returned to Vienz he had to listen again to the pleading that he should put a wedding ring on some plain but Royal young woman’s finger.

Immediately, according to them, she would produce a brilliant heir. An heir who would follow him when he was no longer capable of ruling his country himself.

“The whole idea is rubbish from start to finish,” the Prince raged, but no one would listen to him except his valet, who was paid to do so.

All his protests fell on deaf ears until finally he was forced to invite Princess Marziale to pay him a visit.

He tried to make it very clear it was only a matter of a friendly meeting and that there was no suggestion of anything more.

Yet everybody in the Palace then behaved as if the marriage was settled and it was only a matter of walking up the aisle at the Cathedral where the Archbishop would be waiting for them.

In fact as the Prince had to admit to himself the whole thing was now out of hand.

It was his fault for giving in in the first place and inviting the Princess against his will.

It had been a trap from the very beginning and now that he had stepped into it, it was going to be very hard to shake himself free.

He had waited apprehensively yesterday afternoon when the party from Bassanz was due to arrive.

He had to admit they did it in style. There were four closed carriages each drawn by a team of magnificent well-matched horses.

Princess Marziale, when she stepped out of the first carriage to draw up in front of the Palace, was, the Prince had to admit, quite pretty. She had dark hair and dark eyes and a perfect complexion.

She was of course dressed in a way that told him that whoever produced this show was certainly experienced at his job.

The Princess entered the Palace wearing a gown of rose pink and the feathers in her hat of the same shade.

She sank in a most elaborate curtsy in front of the Prince and he had to admit that she was playing her part exceedingly well.

“Welcome to Vienz,” the Prince greeted her, “and I so hope Your Royal Highness will enjoy your stay here.”

“I am sure I will,” the Princess said in a soft voice. “I had no idea until I looked out of the windows of the carriage that your country is so beautiful.”

“The same might be said of you,” the Prince replied gallantly.

He noticed as he spoke that it was with the greatest difficulty that the Prime Minister and those beside him did not applaud.

They drank champagne to relieve the rigours of the journey and then the Princess walked up to the State rooms to change for dinner and the Prince to his own apartments.

Princess Marziale had said very little while they were drinking in the huge Reception room overlooking the garden, but the Prince had been suddenly aware of the Comte Ruta.

The Comte had gone on his orders to Bassanz to escort the Princess and her entourage over the border into Vienz and he had obviously primed her well as to what she should say and what she should do.

The Comte, as chief of his many aides-de-camp, was older than the others and very experienced in social behaviour. He had suggested a number of alterations in the Palace that the Prince thought were in very good taste.

He therefore deliberately chose the Comte to go to Bassanz as he was undoubtedly the right person to make it absolutely clear to the Princess that this was only a social visit and nothing more meaningful than that.

The Prince had insisted on the Comte going rather than leave it to the Prime Minister to choose an envoy, as if he did the Prince was quite certain that he would inform the Princess that she would receive a proposal of marriage before the visit ended.

The Prince thought with amusement that the Comte had doubtless rehearsed Princess Marziale on what she should say to him.