Barbara Cartland - Imperial Splendour

“Stop thinking about war, Blake,” the Princess Katharina now cried insistently. “I can find something far more interesting to talk about.”

The Duke standing by the bed, knew what such a conversation involved, but instead of surrendering to the invitation of her lips he replied,

“I think it is time you returned to your own room.”

“There is no hurry.”

“I am thinking of your reputation.”

The Princess laughed and it was a low musical sound.

“You are the only man I know who is so considerate or is it perhaps that I am boring you?”

There was no doubt she assumed that was an impossibility and the Duke, with just a touch of cynicism in his voice, answered,

“How could I be so ungallant?”

“You are very handsome, mon cher ,” the Princess pouted, “as far too many women have told you. I adore handsome men and no man could be a more alluring lover.”

She had then broken into French, as if it was easier to express herself in that language when she spoke of love.

French was the language of the Nobility in St. Petersburg and French culture was a status symbol.

Someone had told the Duke on his arrival,

“Everything is uneatable for dinner if it is not first dressed by a French chef, no gown is elegant if it is not a Parisian one and yet there is surely no one in the whole City who does not blaspheme against Bonaparte and lament Lord Nelson!”

“You are very beautiful, Katharina,” the Duke said now in French,” but I still think that you should leave me for what is left of the night.”

The Princess made a petulant little sound. Then, bending forward to reveal the exquisite curves of her naked breasts, she put her hand on the Duke’s.

“You are too serious,” she murmured, “let’s be happy and enjoy ourselves. After all what is Russia to you?”

“An ally,” the Duke replied, “if a somewhat vacillating one.”

Katharina laughed softly and then she asked,

“Tell me what you want to know about your ‘ally’ and I will give you the right answers.”

“I am sure of that,” he replied. “I am only wondering what such information will cost me.”

Katharina laughed again.

She was well aware that the Duke knew why she had sought him out, why she had flirted enticingly with him since he had arrived at The Winter Palace and why last night after he had retired to bed a secret panel in the wall of his bedroom had opened suddenly and then she had appeared unexpectedly.

That was not entirely true, because the Duke had been expecting her, although not in the particular manner by which she had affected her entrance.

“You know, of course,” Lord Castlereagh had said to him in London, “that the Czar employs some of the loveliest women in St. Petersburg to spy on our Ambassador and any other Emissary we may send to Russia.”

He had seen the smile on the Duke’s face and added,

“Not that, Welminster, it will be a novelty for you.”

“I will admit that it has happened in the past,” the Duke replied, “and, having heard of the beauty of the women at the Court of St. Petersburg, I am quite looking forward to the experience.”

“Be careful,” the Foreign Secretary warned him.

“Of what?” the Duke enquired. “Giving away State secrets, most of which I suspect are known to the Russians already, or of losing my heart ?”

“The latter has not entered into my calculations,” Lord Castlereagh replied with a touch of irony.

The Duke had been expecting an enchantress, but he had to give the Czar full marks for his choice of the Princess.

As it happened, the Duke already knew a great deal about Katharina Bagration. She was half-Russian, half-Polish and had married at twenty a General many years older than herself.

A Countess in her own right with Royal blood in her veins, she was, with her husband, admitted to the highest circles of the Russian Court.

The fact that she was highly intelligent as well as beautiful, together with the traces in her of a Mongolian ancestry, gave her the faint air of Oriental mystery that made her unique even amongst a host of other beautiful Russian women.

It was the Czar who had ordered his Foreign Minister to use this effervescent and lovely young woman as a spy.

The Duke had already heard what had happened at Katharina’s first assignment.

She had been told to make the acquaintance of Count Metternich, the Austrian delegate to Dresden, who the Russian Diplomats in Vienna insisted was of far greater importance than his youth and minor appointment suggested.

Count Metternich, then an almost unknown young man, was described on the secret files in the Kremlin as an intimate of the Emperor of Austria and the instrument who had been primarily responsible for the downfall of Thugut.

Princess Katharina, young, lovely, but with a shrewd little mind well hidden behind her childlike face, had called at the Legation in Dresden and, as a footman opened the door, it happened that Count Metternich was passing through the hall.

He was expecting the arrival of one of the Imperial Couriers with grave news.

Then framed in the sunlight against the dark hallway he saw a small exquisite figure.

She was wearing one of the thin, almost transparent muslin gowns that were the fashion and against the sun her body showed through the diaphanous material like a beautiful marble statue.

Count Metternich was for the moment spellbound into a strange stillness.

He said afterwards to one of his friends who repeated it to the Duke,

“She was like a beautiful naked angel.”

At that moment the young Austrian and the Russian Secret Agent fell in love.

Their affair was a wild, fiery and insatiable union of all-consuming passion that had all Dresden talking.

The Duke had trained himself to file away information about people, especially those concerned in the Diplomatic world and he remembered as soon as he was introduced to Princess Katharina in The Winter Palace that he had been told that within three months of her meeting with Count Metternich, she found that she was to have a child.

This had been whispered about, argued over, discussed and re-discussed and there was actually a great deal of speculation as to what would happen next.

In fact, the Duke recalled, there had been an urgent command from the Czar, who wished to safeguard his beautiful agent’s reputation at all costs.

General Bagration went through the ritual of announcing that his marriage was shortly to be blessed with a child and after the birth of a daughter he formally acknowledged paternity.

The Czar was no less accommodating and the Court of St. Petersburg formally recorded the birth.

The baby was summarily handed over to Count Metternich’s adoring, patient and very understanding wife.

Utterly without conscience about the love-children he fathered, he was only grateful that his love affair could continue and, whatever was said privately, there would be no outward scandal.

Ten years later the Duke, however, was quite certain that, because Katharina had been so successful with by now the most outstanding Diplomat in Europe, the Czar had chosen her to win another triumph where he himself was concerned.

He was certain that the efficiency of the Russian Secret Service had noted that he was most fastidious where women were concerned, that he was the most sought-after bachelor in England and that, if they had recorded his many love affairs, they would doubtless by this time have filled many files in the Diplomatic archives.

At the same time he found Katharine’s expertise and her sophisticated art in love-making a very pleasant part of his visit.

The Duke was, however, quite ruthless where his own interests were concerned.