The Passion and the Flower by Barbara Cartland

Author:Barbara Cartland
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788670005
Publisher: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
Published: 2017-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Lokita stood looking out onto the small square.

There was a garden in the centre of it, but the trees seemed grey and somehow lifeless compared with those in Paris.

The sky was overcast and she felt that London was in fact all grey, dull and dismal like the despair in her heart.

She was thinner than she had been a week ago and there were dark lines under her eyes because every night she had wept until she was exhausted.

She had wept for the Prince, for her lost dreams, for missing the Russian party he had arranged for her and the future held nothing but loneliness.

She could hardly believe that she was hearing aright when Andy had told her that they were leaving for London that very night.

She had come off the stage to the tumultuous applause of the audience with her eyes alight and a rising excitement within her at the thought of the evening that lay ahead.

All day she had been unable to talk of anything else.

“Prince Ivan has said that his garden will look like Russia, Andy,” she had said. “Do you think he will have snow on the ground and if so what will it be made of?”

“It is not always snowing in Russia,” Miss Anderson had replied in a voice as if the words were dragged from her. “In the South it can be very hot and there is sunshine and flowers.”

“You told me about that before,” Lokita replied, “but I always think of sleighs moving over the snow and the domes and spires of St. Petersburg gleaming gold against the sky. Papa used to describe it to me.”

Miss Anderson did not answer and Lokita had thought that she was reluctant that they should go to the party because she would meet people there and she had never been allowed to make friends.

“I am interested in no one except the Prince,” Lokita whispered to herself.

She had run ahead of Miss Anderson up the iron staircase to her dressing room, knowing that the Russian costumes the Prince had promised to deliver at the theatre would be waiting for them.

They were lying on the armchair and she gave a cry of sheer delight when she saw them.

“Look, Andy, how beautiful they are!” she exclaimed.

But to her astonishment Miss Anderson said harshly,

“Change into the clothes you came in.”

“But, why, Andy? It was arranged that we should dress here and go straight to the party.”

“Do as I say!” Miss Anderson ordered.

“I want to wear my Russian gown,” Lokita protested. “How can I go to the party without it? It is so beautiful!”

“Put on your ordinary clothes.”

There was something in the way she spoke that made Lokita look at Miss Anderson apprehensively.

There was a silence and then she said in a voice hardly above a whisper,

“What are you – saying?”

“We are leaving for London tonight!”

“For London? But – why?”

“Because we can no longer stay here in Paris.”

“Why? Why?” Lokita demanded.

Because she had obeyed Miss Anderson all her life, she was soon dressed in her ordinary clothes, which were covered by her velvet cape.

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