Barbara Cartland - Imperial Splendour

He not only used them as goldsmiths, carpenters and ebony carvers but for his private theatrical company and his Corps de Ballet .

He had his own theatre where he gave performances for his friends and his wife was as beautiful and valuable as his other possessions.

She had, however, both Austrian and English blood in her and she had often said to the Duke that she hoped that her children, when they grew up, would not marry Russians.

The Duke, with his retentive memory, had now a very good idea why she was pressing upon him the attractions of her daughter Tania.

It would, in fact, be a very suitable match for the daughter of one of the richest and most important Noblemen in Russia to marry one of the richest and most prestigious Noblemen of England.

But the Duke told himself that the Princess would be disappointed. He was now thirty-three and had so far evaded matrimony.

Although he had come perilously near to being swept up the aisle from time to time, he had always at the last moment extracted himself from a difficult position.

In the past few years he had ensured that the danger did not occur by having little or nothing to do with young girls.

His love affairs were always conducted with married women or widows and he made it clear from the beginning of his acquaintance with the widows that he preferred his bachelor freedom.

“ You will have to marry one day to have a son .”

It was a sentence that was repeated and re-repeated to him until he told himself that, as far as he was concerned, the Dukedom could go to his younger brother and his family without it causing him one qualm of regret.

The more he saw of the women who had made London under the Prince of Wales, now the Prince Regent, the gayest and one of the most promiscuous Cities in the world, the more he was determined that love affairs were one thing but marriage was most certainly another.

He had no intention of marrying a woman who would be unfaithful to him and disliked the idea of having to deceive his wife or to lie in an effort to protect himself.

He knew that he was too proud and had too much integrity to wish to debase himself in any way least of all by falsehood and deception.

“I shall never marry,” the Duke had said not once but a thousand times.

He thought now that it would be a pity if he could no longer indulge in such delightful intrigues such as the one that had happened last night without experiencing a somewhat guilty conscience the following morning.

As it was, he imagined with amusement, that either the Czar or someone in the Foreign Ministry would undoubtedly be now asking Katharina what she had learned from him the night before.

And, although he was certain that with her agile mind, she would give them something to chew over and he had said nothing to her that could not have been published in every Russian newspaper that existed.

He had seen Katharina in the distance at luncheon looking alluringly attractive in a gown that was definitely Parisian and wearing fantastic jewels, which he was certain had not been given to her by her aged and fortunately absent husband.

Their eyes had met for just one moment across the Reception room into which they had moved when the meal was over.

She told the Duke without words that she wanted him and he had only to lift his finger for her to be at his side.

What she signalled, however, made the Duke decide that before he concerned himself once again with their fiery love-making, he should extend his knowledge of St. Petersburg and perhaps find out from outside The Winter Palace what other people were thinking.

Accordingly he walked down the magnificent marble stairway with its white and gold pillars to the front door.

Here he ordered one of the drotskis that were always at the disposal of the Czar’s guests and, having given instructions to be taken to the Ysevolsov Palace, set off in the sunshine.

Even for August it was very hot and there was just a little breeze coming from the river although there was a touch of salt in the air.

The enormously wide roads laid out by Peter the Great had practically no traffic on them at this time of the day when most people preferred to remain at home, and anyway, owing to the ominous news, there was less entertaining than usual.

As he drove along, the Duke enjoyed looking at the magnificent Palaces and buildings so different in their brilliant colours to the grey Palladians of England.

The Roumainzov Palace was painted orange, the Ministry of Justice blue, the enormous Pavlovski Barracks designed for Czar Paul was yellow.

The Duke was most interested in the Manège de la Garde à Cheval . It was painted green and had a portico of eight Doric columns of white granite.

With his great knowledge of horseflesh, the Duke had already admired the black horses of the Gardes à Cheval , the chestnuts of the Chevaliers Gardes and the dapple greys of the Gatchina Hussars.

The drotski drawn by two excellent horses reached the Ysevolsov Palace within five minutes.

The Duke entered the hallway, which if not as magnificent as that in The Winter Palace, could certainly stand comparison with any house he had visited elsewhere in the world.

A footman took him up the grand marble staircase, which divided and rose to a landing ornamented with exquisite specimens of Chinese porcelain.

They passed through a huge Reception room so large that two hundred people or more could easily be entertained in it without crowding.

The Duke expected to be asked to wait, but the footman, speaking in hesitating French, explained,

“ Madame la Princesse is in the theatre, monsieur. ”

The Duke nodded his understanding and they then walked on again through a number of magnificently decorated rooms until, in the centre of one of them, they reached a staircase made of priceless malachite descending to the floor below.

The Duke had heard in England that Prince Ysevolsov’s private theatre was exceptional, but he was not prepared for the utmost beauty of what he saw when the servant opened a gold-encrusted door and he was shown in to what was obviously a Royal Box.

Very small and holding fewer than a hundred people, it was like a child’s doll’s house in a Royal Mansion and yet it had all the charm and the beauty of an Imperial theatre.

In the stalls there were white and gold carved chairs. The circle was supplied with seats in crimson velvet, as was the box he had entered.

The footman had not announced him and he stood at the back noting that in front of him was the figure of the Princess, who had not heard his arrival as she was intent on watching what was taking place on the stage.

A girl was dancing to the music of a small orchestra seated in the pit below.

The Duke glanced at the performer perfunctorily. He then assumed with the Prince’s obsession for the theatre that it would be either a member of his own special Corps de Ballet giving a performance or else, what was more likely, one of his family.

At the back of his mind he remembered the Princess or someone else telling him that the Prince himself enjoyed acting and expected his family to perform with him.

If there was one thing that the Duke really disliked, it was amateur theatricals and he hoped what was taking place would not continue for too long as he wanted to talk to the Princess.

Then the girl who was dancing made a deep curtsey.

‘Thank goodness!’ the Duke sighed to himself.

He was just about to move forward to make his presence known to his hostess, when the girl, and he could see that she was very pretty, ran from the stage and the music changed and another performer appeared.

She was moving on the tips of her toes and wearing the traditional ballet skirt worn by those who took part in Les Sylphides.