Love and Apollo (9 page)

Now, as if the Duke had suddenly found his voice, he asked,

“And what about the King?  What about our Royal mission to Larissa?”

There was silence and then the Marquis said quietly,

“There is only one person who can help us and I am prepared to go down on my knees if necessary to beg her to do so.”

He was looking at Valona as he spoke.

She stiffened as he continued,

“Please, Valona, only you could take Rose's place and, if I may say so, you are far more Royal than she is.”

“I cannot do it.  Just how could I?” she murmured almost beneath her breath.

The Marquis moved closer to her and sitting down in the chair next to hers, he took her hand in his.

“Now listen carefully to me, Valona, from what I have gathered from the Ambassador, the King has not long to live, so your marriage, I am sure, will be in name only.”

He could feel Valona's fingers trembling in his.

“If you become Queen of Larissa, you will be in a very distinguished position.  If you decide to stay on, you will be able to ask your mother to come and join you.  I am sure she would be pleased to make friends in Greece once again and to be with you.”

Valona was now listening wide-eyed.

“You are intelligent enough to understand that to be the Queen of Larissa, if only for a short while, will be so completely different to living in a Grace and Favour house in Hampton Court and forgotten until you were useful to Queen Victoria.”

“That is indeed true,” interposed the Duke, “at the same time you are asking a great deal of Valona, who only came out here to be Lady-in-Waiting to Rose and we were very thankful to her for agreeing to take the position.”

He hesitated over the last words.

He had been about to say that they had only asked Valona because they had not wanted to take someone older who was more sophisticated and who would gossip.

The Marquis understood what he meant.

“We are deeply grateful to you,” he said to Valona, “for coming and I shall be even more grateful if you will make me the happiest man in the world and let me marry Rose.”

As if Lady Rose thought Valona was hesitating, she added quickly,

“Oh,
please
, please, Valona, do help us.  You know how much I love Gerald and how unhappy I have been at having to leave him.”

Her voice broke on the last words as if the agony was still with her.

Again there was silence until Valona replied,

“
I will do it
.  But I am very frightened that I may do something wrong and you will all be angry with me.”

“We would never be angry with you, as you have been so kind,” said the Marquis.  “And I promise you that Rose and I will do anything in the future that you ask of us, because we can only be together if you say ‘yes'.”

“Then I will try my best,” Valona answered him in a small scared voice.

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“I can only say thank you, Valona, from the bottom of my heart.  Now we have to move quickly because Rose and I are leaving on a passenger ship to Alexandria.”

Rose looked at him with starry eyes, but she did not speak.

“I have booked the very best cabins available in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Sharm – my passport is being altered at this moment.”

“How on earth did you manage to do that, Gerald?” the Duke enquired.

“Quite easily as it happens.  I have always been told that there are men standing outside Embassies who will sell you a passport if you pay enough for it.”

“Did you find one?” the Duke asked in a voice that was almost incredulous.

“I found a man who is ingenious enough to alter the name on my passport and it is not actually so very difficult.  Now Mr. Sharm will be travelling with his wife, whilst the Marquis of Dorsham was alone!”

The Duke laughed.

“I do congratulate you, Gerald, you have thought of everything.”

“What I am concerned most with at the moment is boarding that ship and disappearing.  As I have said, we are going to have a very long honeymoon.”

He saw the radiant excitement in Rose's eyes and went on,

“When we do finally return home it will seem quite natural to all my relations and friends that I have remarried and what could be more appropriate than that my new wife should be your sister, Arthur?”

“I am perfectly prepared to give you my blessing,” the Duke admitted.  “I can only hope that things go off as smoothly as you expect, but you are leaving us in rather a mess and I suppose we should be angry with you.”

“We have left you with a most suitable Queen for King Phidias who, as I understand it, is in no position to complain,” retorted the Marquis.

The Duke laughed.

“You have an answer for everything.  Valona and I will come and witness your wedding and just hope that we shall not get into trouble over it in the future.”

“Of course I want you for my Best Man, Arthur.”

“And I want dearest Valona to support me,” Lady Rose exclaimed.

“Then put on your hats and coats at once as I have a carriage waiting for us on the quay,” urged the Marquis.

The two girls rose to their feet.

As they did so, the Duke enquired,

“By the way is it legal for you to be married in a Greek Orthodox Church even though you are not a member of that Church?”

The Marquis smiled.

“You have just said that I always have an answer for everything, Arthur, so I even have an answer for that too!”

The Duke did not say anything, but waited for the Marquis's response.

“As I have explained to you, the old Priest will ask no questions.  We shall be married by him, we feel sure, in the eyes of God and to make it absolutely legal, we shall be married again at our first port of call in a Protestant Church or perhaps even by the Captain of the battleship.”

The Duke laughed.

“You win, Gerald, as you always do!”

“Thus Rose will be tied to me first by the Orthodox Priest, for better or for worse, and for ever!”

“Which is the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to me,” Rose murmured in a rapturous voice.

She looked up at the Marquis as she spoke and she knew by the expression in his eyes how much he wanted to kiss her.

With an effort he called out,

“Hurry!  Only when we are on board shall I know that there is no chance of your being spirited away to Larissa.”

Lady Rose turned and caught Valona's hand.

“Come and help me,” she begged.

They hurried into her cabin.

As the door closed behind them, Rose put her arms round Valona and kissed her cheek.

“How can I thank you, Valona?  How can I tell you what it means to me to be able to marry Gerald?  I have been so desperately unhappy at the thought of leaving him.”

“I am so glad for your sake, Rose, that his wife has died.”

“I have dreamt that my prayers would be answered, or perhaps it is really your prayers, dearest Valona.  You said we would be together sometime.”

“I was certain you would be, but I did not think it would happen so soon!”

“And you did not think it would involve you,” Lady Rose added.  “Oh, I am so grateful, so very very grateful, but I don't know how to put it into words.”

“Words do not matter, Rose, but do hurry or Gerald will be angry with you.”

“I really don't think he could be angry with anyone today,” sighed Lady Rose happily.

She turned towards the cupboard in the cabin where her clothes were hanging,

“Because I do love Gerald so much I want to be married in white.”

“What about your wedding dress?” asked Valona.

“Oh, it is far too grand and hasn't been unpacked.”

“Then why not that dress?”

She pointed to a large white gown hanging in the cupboard.

“It's one of my best evening dresses.”

“Then why should you not wear it on what is the most important occasion of your life,” suggested Valona.

Rose's eyes lit up.

“All right, now I think about it this gown has a lace wrap which will make a perfect veil for my head.”

“Then what you must do,” Valona said quickly, “is to put that on in the carriage.  If the Marquis wants to be incognito and no one is to know about your wedding, you cannot be seen leaving the battleship dressed as a bride.”

“No, of course not, Valona.  How silly of me.”

“Put on your white dress, which I can see is not cut too low, and you can wear a small hat just to leave the battleship and get into the carriage.  Then I will arrange the veil on your head and we must find something to hold it in place.”

Rose thought for a moment.

“There is a pretty wreath in the drawer.  It belongs to another dress that is pink and white, but I daresay a few pink roses on my head will not matter.”

Valona found the wreath.

It was rather small, but she reckoned that it would hold the veil in place perfectly.

The pink roses were very pale and there were white ones nestling amongst them.

“You will look lovely!” she exclaimed, “and all you need now is a bouquet.”

“I expect Gerald has already thought of it.”

She was right.

When they hurried down the gangplank with Lady Rose wearing a small blue hat on her head, the seamen on duty appeared to take no particular notice of the two ladies.

The Marquis was intelligent enough to divert their attention by asking the way to the British Embassy.

One of the seamen, who had been to Athens before, described the way.

The Marquis thanked him and hurried on down the gangway to join the rest of the party who by this time were inside the closed carriage.

Rose was holding a small bouquet of lilies in her hand.

“What about our luggage?” she asked the Marquis as they drove off.

“I have arranged with my valet to take it as soon as possible directly to the ship we will be sailing on.  He will inform the Captain of the battleship before he leaves that I have received very bad news, which means I have to return to England immediately and I am doing so overland.”

“What are you going to tell them about me?” Lady Rose enquired.

“I am leaving that to Arthur,” the Marquis replied with a glance at the Duke.

“I thought I would be left with all the dirty work to do, but I shall think of some good explanation!”

“You always had a most fertile mind and I cannot believe that it will fail you now.  The only really important thing is that no one must know that my wife is dead or that Rose and I are married.”

“Leave it to me,” the Duke conceded flamboyantly, “and I would like to say that all this trouble you are putting me to is now adding up, in my opinion, to a very generous wedding present from me to the happy couple!”

The Marquis chortled.

“You are quite right, Arthur.  Equally I shall expect something rather more concrete when we do return home to England, and, of course, we will come and stay with you as soon as we arrive.”

“I shall be very offended if you go anywhere else,” smiled the Duke.

It did not take them long to reach the little Church, which was in the Northern district of Athens and almost outside the City.

When she stepped out of their carriage, Lady Rose looked a very lovely bride.

Although, according to the Marquis, they were over twenty minutes late, the Priest was waiting for them,

He was kneeling in prayer at the front of the altar.

The Church was very small.

The carved pews and the ancient windows made a picturesque background for the bride, as did the altar with six candles burning on it and seven silver lamps hanging over it.

The moment he heard them enter the Church the Priest rose and stood waiting for them on the altar steps.

When the bride and bridegroom were both standing in front of him, he started the service.

Most of it was in Latin, but Valona understood the parts that were in Greek.

There was no wedding ring for the Marquis to take from his Best Man, but Rose had tried out the Duke's and the Marquis's signet rings in the carriage.

Actually the Duke's fitted her much better than the one worn by the Marquis.

“You shall have it back soon, Arthur,” promised the Marquis, “as once we reach Alexandria, I shall find a good jeweller where I can buy Rose her own wedding ring.”

Watching the wedding, Valona felt that the service was very beautiful.

The happiness of the bride and bridegroom seemed to vibrate through the whole Church and she could feel it filling the air around her and moving upwards as if towards Heaven.

It was a happiness, she thought, that she had always wished for herself when she married.

But it was something she would now never know.

Then she told herself she was being selfish.

She prayed fervently that Rose would be as happy for the rest of her life as she was at this very moment.

When the bridal couple knelt down for the Priest's blessing, Valona felt as if a light from Heaven was shining on them.

It seemed impossible for their marriage ever to fail them.

When the service finished, the bride and bridegroom thanked the Priest and the Duke and Valona shook him by the hand.

The Duke passed him the envelope that the Marquis had given him in the carriage – a very substantial donation to his Church for which the old Priest was most grateful.

Then, as they walked out, there was another carriage waiting beside the one in which they had arrived.

“Rose and I are now going straight to our ship,” the Marquis told them. “I am anxious to be aboard before the passengers who are exploring the town return.”

He smiled before he added,

“I can only thank both of you, Arthur and Valona, for making this the most perfect day of my whole life which I shall always remember.”