by Rebecca Dean
It had been her ultrachic, elegant, and soigné mother who had still been living in the Dark Ages.
“Oxford? C’est une idée impossible!” she had said in near hysterics, so appalled that she had forgotten for a moment she was on a visit to England and wasn’t at home in France. “Oxford is for plain middle-class girls who have no hope of marrying well!”
Rose had been torn between exasperation and amusement. “Actually, Mama, Oxford is for anyone who has brains and wants to use them.”
Her mother had thrown up her hands in an extravagant gesture of despair, thankful that her other daughters showed no signs of becoming bluestockings and that her two French stepdaughters were far easier to understand.
Wryly amused at how constantly and inadvertently she disappointed her mother, Rose cycled down Snowberry’s long driveway and, with Homer gamely keeping up with her, sped out onto the country road that lay beyond its high wrought-iron gates. As a child she had looked striking—her sea-green eyes and thickly waving auburn hair had seen to that—but she had never been chocolate-box pretty. And chocolate-box prettiness was what her mother had expected in a daughter. She had also expected her to be demure and captivatingly shy.
On both counts Rose had failed abysmally.
It had been the final straw for her mother that as a young woman she had preferred to spend three years at St. Hilda’s rather than as a sensational adornment of London and Parisian high society. In her most recent letter her mother had written:
Though at least I have the satisfaction of knowing you will be in London and attending all the celebratory parties and balls when King George is crowned, as will Iris and Marigold. It’s such a pity that Lily hasn’t yet been presented at court and so isn’t eligible for invitations. As for your grandfather, since he so rarely takes his seat in the House of Lords, it’s a miracle the earl marshal even remembered to add him to the Abbey guest list. I’d give trillions to have been invited as well, but not a chance now I’m married to a French marquess. C’est une grande pitié!
The stone wall that ran along the side of the narrow road, marking the limit of the Snowberry estate, had given way to a thick hedge of hawthorn and beech rife with wild honeysuckle. Ahead of her was a blind bend and Rose could hear the sound of a motorcar approaching it from the opposite direction.
“On to the shoulder, Homer!” she shouted. Keeping him safely to the inside of the bicycle she swerved as near to the shoulder as possible in order to be well out of the way of whatever was coming.
No amount of swerving would have been enough.
The car careened round the bend, taking it so wide she thought it was going to hit her head-on.
She wrenched the handlebars violently to the left, screaming at Homer to get out of the way.
In equal horror the driver of the car spun his wheel, slewing across the road away from her, clipping her back wheel as he did so.
The result was catastrophic.
As the bicycle went into a spin she was thrown with great force over its handlebars. For a split second she was aware of the screech of tires and of demented barking. Then she hit the ground, slamming into a ditch beneath the hedgerow.
The impact was so savage every atom of breath was knocked from her body. Pain seared through her, and she fought against being sucked into a whirling black vortex, terrified that if she lost consciousness, she might never regain it.
As she lost the battle the last thing she was aware of was someone running toward her, and a voice hoarse with fear shouting, “Oh, God! Oh, Christ, Cullen! I think she’s dead!”
Chapter Three
“We need a doctor. If you stay with her, sir, I’ll drive for help.”
The voice was different from the first one. Terse and authoritative and with a definite Scottish burr.
Rose tried to get her brain to function. If there was talk only now of a doctor and an ambulance, then she must have been just fleetingly unconscious. Which must mean that she wasn’t critically hurt.
Somewhere near to her Homer was whining piteously. He needed reassuring that she was all right, but she hadn’t, as yet, reassured herself. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids wouldn’t obey the commands she was sending them. Coarse grass was prickling her cheek. She could smell foxgloves and hedge parsley.
“But what if she dies while I’m on my own with her?” There was a half sob in the voice of the person she could sense was down on one knee at her side, but whether his distress was on her account, or his own, she couldn’t tell and nor, because she was so angry, did she very much care.
Gingerly she flexed her legs, discovering with relief that neither of them was broken.
“Don’t go just yet, Cullen!” Though the now-familiar voice was still unsteady, there was vast relief in it. “She’s moving!”
Rose’s eyelids obeyed the command she had been giving them for so long. They fluttered open and the first thing she saw was dry mud and, beyond it, tangled weeds.
That she had landed in a ditch increased her anger to boiling point. She struggled into a sitting position and then, in a manner very different from the tearful one her anxious audience had been expecting, said furiously to the tight-lipped man in army uniform who was looking down at her, “Just what the hell did you think you were doing driving so fast around a blind bend? You could have killed Homer! You could have killed me!”
Outrage at being spoken to in such a way—and especially by a woman—flared through his eyes. “Are you all right?” he demanded curtly. “No broken bones?”
His manner showed he no longer felt he was addressing a well-brought-up young lady. Rose didn’t care. She wasn’t in the habit of swearing like a stable boy, but there were times when she thought it a perfectly reasonable reaction and this was one of them.
The young man who had been kneeling white-faced beside her helped her to her feet, saying apologetically, “Actually, I was the one who was driving …”
Rose wasn’t listening. She was too busy making a fuss over Homer and too conscious of how disheveled she looked. Her straw boater was nowhere in sight. Her hair was coming loose from its pins. There was mud on her high-throated, lace-trimmed blouse—and possibly on her face as well—and there were grass stains on her skirt.
She had never been so angry in her life.
“I’m so sorry,” the fey-looking young man said again. “All my fault. I’m afraid your bicycle is unrideable. I’ll pay for the repairs of course …”
Rose steadied her breathing, removed a stem of hedge parsley from her hair, and glared at him. He seemed to be no older than Lily and with his golden hair and fiercely blue eyes would have looked more at home in a choirboy’s surplice than in what appeared to be a naval uniform. Also, though she was certain she’d never previously met him, he looked oddly familiar.
“Are you telling me that you were driving?” she said as witheringly as she would have done to a younger brother.
He flushed. “Yes, I’m afraid I was and …”
“Then in taking that corner as you did, you behaved very, very stupidly.”
The older man sucked in his breath. “This has gone quite far enough! You simply cannot speak in such a way to …”
“I can speak common sense to anyone I please.” Rose, now fully recovered from her shock, brushed a stray fallen leaf from her skirt and eyed him coolly. It was men like him who were refusing to give women the vote and keeping them subservient, and she hadn’t the slightest intention of letting him intimidate her. “I don’t care who your young friend is,” she said in the crisp, no-nonsense way that had served her so well at St. Hilda’s and as a member of the WSPU. “He could be Prince Edward or the Aga Khan for all I care. He took that corner in a way that could have ended in someone’s death, and I want to make quite sure he realizes it and never does such a thing again.”
The young man flushed an even deeper red and said, sounding terribly apologetic about it, “Actually, I am Prince Edward.”
Rose ignored this pre
posterous joke.
“If you have a pen and paper on you,” she said, speaking to the older man, “I would like to give you my name and address so that you can reimburse me for the damage done to my bicycle.”
He didn’t deign to speak to her. Instead he said to his golden-haired companion, “This has gone quite far enough, sir. I propose that I make a financial settlement now, to avoid any further unpleasantness, and that we continue on our way as speedily as possible.”
Rose did a double take. Sir? She wondered if the younger man outranked him. She squinted for a glimpse of gold braid on the naval-looking uniform and couldn’t see any: even if there had been some, she didn’t think rank would still count when they were members of different sections of the armed services.
Slowly she became aware of a growing sickening sensation that had nothing to do with how bruised she was.
That silkily straight blond hair. Those stunningly blue eyes. The handsome face so delicately boned it stopped just short of effeminacy. No wonder she thought she had seen him before. Until now, because he took no part in public life as yet, there had been few published photographs of the heir to the throne, but with ghastly certainty she knew she was now in his presence—and that she had just sworn in front of him and told him he had behaved very, very stupidly.
She was so appalled that for the first time in her life she didn’t know what to do. Should she curtsy? After all that had happened and in the grass-stained state she was now in, to do so would be ridiculous. She should certainly apologize for swearing in front of him and not addressing him as “sir.” Telling him he had behaved stupidly had been unfortunate, but since it had also been true, she didn’t feel she should apologize for that. Doing so would be hypocritical and compromise her principles.
As she struggled with her dilemma he rescued her by saying in concern, “You’ve grazed your face badly and it’s bleeding, Miss … ?”
“Houghton, Rose Houghton,” she said, adding hastily, “sir.”
The older man clicked his tongue with impatience while Prince Edward clumsily handed her a spotlessly white handkerchief.
She accepted it gratefully.
“I shall now give Miss Houghton a lift to wherever it is she wishes to be taken, Captain Cullen,” the prince said, and for the first time Rose realized that his accent was quite odd. Very plummy, but with a slight trace of cockney in it. She wondered where on earth the cockney had been picked up. She also realized that Captain Cullen was absolutely aghast at the prospect of her being given a lift anywhere.
Seemingly unaware of his equerry’s fierce disapproval, the prince returned his attention to her. “Where is it you would like to be taken, Miss Houghton?”
“Home, sir,” she said, having no desire to continue on to the village when she needed to wash, apply something soothing to her grazed face, and change into clean clothes.
“Then if you would give me directions, we’ll be on our way.”
“That is very kind of you, sir. Snowberry is half a mile on the right-hand side in the direction you were heading.”
She stepped toward her bicycle. It had fallen in the middle of the road, but someone, presumably Captain Cullen, had lifted it out of the road and onto the grass shoulder. The rear wheel was buckled, the spokes dented. She lifted the flap of her saddlebag and took out the two letters she had been on her way to post. At the sight of King George V’s head on the stamps—and at the thought that his son and heir was about to give her a lift—amusement put paid to any lingering remnants of anger. It intensified as a thunderous-faced Captain Cullen yanked the bicycle upright.
“This won’t do, sir. It’s colossally irregular,” he said, so tight-lipped that Rose thought it a miracle he could speak at all. “If news of this escapade gets back to Windsor, it would be catastrophic. I would lose my position, and His Majesty’s trust in you would be greatly damaged.”
“It’s only a half-mile drive,” the prince said with exquisite patience as Homer, anxious for Rose’s safety, tried to clamber into the motorcar with her. “No harm can come of it.” He turned to Rose, giving her a shy, sweet smile. “D’you think your dog would like to get in the jump seat, Miss Houghton? It will be rather fun for him, don’t you think?”
From the expression in his voice, Rose suspected that, now he knew she wasn’t seriously hurt, he was finding this deviation from the routine of his life rather fun as well. She bundled Homer into the jump seat, and a minute later they were passing Captain Cullen who, the bicycle hoisted on one shoulder, was walking up the road, fury and indignation in every line of his body.
“Don’t forget the name of the cottage!” the prince called out helpfully to him. “It’s Snowberry! I’ll wait for you there!”
Giggles fizzed in Rose’s throat. Whatever Snowberry was, it wasn’t a cottage. She just hoped Captain Cullen wouldn’t find the walk up its long drive too fatiguing.
The prince, his lesson learned, was now driving with meticulous care. The noise of the engine and the sound of the wind streaming past their ears made talking difficult—and this was, she assumed, why the prince had lapsed into silence. Then she wondered if the silence between them was caused by his shyness. He was, after all, very young. Sixteen or seventeen. She couldn’t remember which. Her instinct was to try to put him at his ease, but she knew speaking to the heir to the throne without being spoken to first wasn’t done. Remembering how grossly she had already breached this particular piece of royal etiquette—and in what an appalling way—she decided that any further breaches couldn’t possibly matter.
“I’m very appreciative, sir,” she said as they neared Snowberry’s gates. “We turn in here.”
He swung the wheel to the right and coasted into Snowberry’s grandiose drive, saying, “I take it, then, that Snowberry isn’t your average country cottage, Miss Houghton?”
Her mouth tugged into a smile. “No, sir. It’s a William and Mary house, built in 1689 on the foundations of an Elizabethan manor house. My grandfather is Lord May. Snowberry is his family home. I’ve lived here with my three younger sisters ever since the death of my father sixteen years ago.”
“And your mother?” he asked.
“My mother remarried. She and her husband, the Marquis de Villoutrey, live in Paris.”
They cruised round the last curve of the drive and Snowberry lay in all its mellow beauty before them. With its huge buttressed chimney stacks, gables, and diamond-leaded windows, it was achingly beautiful.
Rose felt her throat tighten. Though she longed to spend time in London, being politically active as a suffragette, she loved her home deeply and didn’t believe there was another house as perfect in the whole of England.
The prince brought the Daimler to a noisy halt. “What a cracking house, Miss Houghton,” he said as, from behind him, Homer rested a friendly paw on his shoulder.
Coming from a young man whose various homes included Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Balmoral, and Sandringham, the compliment gave Rose great pleasure.
Under normal circumstances she would have waited until her driver had opened the passenger door before stepping out of the car, but the situation was so bizarre—how could she expect a prince to open her car door for her?—that she opened it herself, stepping down from the running board in such a hurry she nearly fell.
Regaining her balance, she said, flustered, “Thank you very much for bringing me home, sir.”
He, too, had now stepped from the car and she wondered what she was to do with him until Captain Cullen arrived.
The correct thing, of course, was to invite him inside and offer him some refreshment. Orange juice, or perhaps tea. But how could she sit in the drawing room sipping orange juice or tea with her future King when her hair was disheveled, the graze on her face needed attention, and there were grass stains on her skirt?
He said in his habitually hesitant manner, “Does Snowberry have an orangery, Miss Houghton?”
She shot him a blazing smile, aware that her problem was
solved. “Yes, sir. Would you like to see it?”
He nodded, and as they began walking he said, “Kensington Palace has a splendid orangery. There aren’t only orange trees in it; there are lemon trees and fifteen-foot-high tangerine trees.”
“We have lemons and tangerines, and a few years ago we began growing Persian limes.”
“Persian limes?” He looked fascinated.
Rose suppressed a smile. It was like being with a very likable nephew. If over the last forty minutes or so royal protocol had gone to the winds, he showed no signs of minding. In fact, she had a sneaking suspicion that he was trying to prolong the experience.
She was just about to tell him that one of the advantages of Persian limes was that they had no seeds when they rounded the corner of the house to be greeted by the sight of Lily sprinting toward them over the vast lawn as fast as her skirt would allow.
“We heard the motorcar, Rose!” she shouted, her waist-length dark hair held away from her face by tortoiseshell combs. “Who is our visitor? Would he like to make a double at tennis?”
Rose clamped her mouth tight shut, knowing that to yell that their visitor was His Royal Highness Prince Edward would be even worse than remaining silent until Lily was near enough for a dignified introduction to take place.
Her hopes that Lily would also now stay silent were shot to pieces. “It’s jolly hot, isn’t it?” she called out to the prince cheerily as she drew nearer. “There’s a jug of lemonade down by the tennis court.”
There was a happy smile of welcome on her face—and then she registered how disheveled Rose was and saw the graze on her face.
Her smile vanished instantly. “Rose! You’re hurt! What’s happened?”
“I came off my bicycle,” Rose said as Lily raced up to her, “and Lily, before you say anything further, I must explain who …”
“But you must go and bathe it, Rose!” Lily was too concerned about Rose’s injury to care about introductions. “It looks dreadful! It might turn septic and leave a scar!”
