The Golden Prince

by Rebecca Dean

  “You don’t look well, my boy,” Tsar Ferdinand said suddenly, forgetting whatever it was he’d been in the middle of saying about Kaiser Wilhelm. “Have you a headache? I get migraines. They’re beastly things. Is that what you have now?”

  It wasn’t, but Ferdinand had given him the idea he was looking for. “Yes,” he said. He motioned to the footman standing behind his chair. “The instant we rise from table, please offer my apologies to His Majesty and tell him I have the most ghastly headache and that I’ve gone to bed.”

  There were more than a hundred people seated at the banqueting table and when the meal came to an end, he avoided all eye contact with his parents and close relatives and left the room as unobtrusively as he could.

  Once in his own suite of rooms he said to a startled Finch, “I need help, Finch. I need to leave the palace for a breath of fresh air and I don’t want company. D’you have any ideas?”

  Finch, who had been seeing to his every want since he was seven years old, said, “Would you be walking when you go for a breath of fresh air, sir? Or motoring?”

  “Motoring.”

  “Then that’s tricky, sir.” It was a massive understatement. No close member of the royal family ever went anywhere alone—and certainly not in the middle of the night.

  “It’s important to me, Finch. I thought if I could borrow your motorcar …”

  Finch’s car was his pride and joy. With great self-control he kept his face impassive.

  “… and I wore your greatcoat and hat and left by a staff exit …”

  “Is this ‘breath of fresh air’ really so important, sir? There would be an unholy row if you were recognized and word got back to His Majesty.”

  The imaginary headache that had been his excuse for leaving the banqueting hall was now a real one. David felt as if his head was in a vise. “Yes, Finch,” he said, his face unnaturally pale. “It is important.”

  “Then so be it, sir. Do you know your way to the staff garages? My motorcar is the little blue tourer. It’ll be easy to spot. Only a handful of staff have vehicles.”

  “And your greatcoat and hat, Finch?”

  “Are at your disposal, sir.”

  Well aware that he was behaving exceedingly rashly, David made his way out of the royal apartments to the nearest backstairs. There, with no one about, he put on Finch’s coat and hat, pulling the brim low down over his brow. Then, furtive as a thief, he left the palace by one of the many staff exits. Should he be stopped and recognized he had already decided on what his response would be. He would play squiffy with champagne and say it was all a stunt: a bet he’d had with Tsar Ferdinand as to whether his leaving the palace in such a manner could be done or not.

  “Off for a little private celebration, Finchy?” one of the guards at the staff exit called out as he motored past him.

  He didn’t risk an imitation of Finch’s voice. Instead he gave a thumbs-up sign and, seconds later, unchallenged, he was motoring down the gas-lit Mall.

  It was still busy with revelers partying into the early hours. He grinned to himself, wondering what they would say if they knew who was at the wheel of the car driving past them.

  Cutting down the side of St. James’s Palace into St. James’s Street, he came to a halt outside the Harland town house. No lights were on. He wondered if Lily’s bedroom was in the front part of the house, or the rear. He wondered if she was asleep or lying sleepless and, if she was, whether she was perhaps thinking of him.

  A couple of dozen yards away two elderly gentlemen were leaving White’s slightly the worse for wear. White’s members were invariably titled and were also very often government ministers. Fearful of being recognized, he pulled Finch’s trilby even lower over his eyes. Without so much as glancing in his direction the men stepped into the rear of a chauffeured Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost.

  He watched it drive off in the direction of Piccadilly and then once again turned his attention to the darkened upper windows of Lady Sibyl Harland’s London home.

  He had hoped that just by being outside the house he would feel closer to Lily, but the sensation he yearned for eluded him. He couldn’t easily imagine her within the house, because it was a house he had never been in. Snowberry would have been different. Whether she was there or not, Snowberry would be imbued with Lily’s presence.

  The little car’s engine was still ticking over and decisively he put it into gear. He would drive to Snowberry. He’d never driven such a distance at night before—and even in daytime he’d only ever driven such a distance when accompanied by Piers Cullen. A drive into Hampshire in the early hours would be a drive to remember—and he would be able to think of Lily all the way.

  The route took him through Windsor, and with very mixed emotions he looked up at the massive dark outline of the castle. Windsor, more than any of the other royal palaces, symbolized England’s monarchical glamour and grandeur. Nine hundred years ago William the Conqueror had built a fortress on the huge chalk cliff above the Thames, and throughout the centuries, from then to now, Kings and Queens of England had counted it one of their principal homes.

  When he was King, no doubt he would do the same. As he continued to drive southwest, toward Hampshire, he thought of Windsor’s sumptuously ornate drawing rooms—the white, the green, the crimson—and of how, though masterpieces by Rembrandt, Canaletto, and Van Dyck hung on their walls, he far preferred the informality of Snowberry’s drawing room, its French doors opening onto the long lawn leading down to the lake.

  At last, in the orange glow of his headlamps, he saw that he was on the sharply curving road where his life had changed so monumentally when he had knocked Rose from her bicycle. His spirits soared.

  He was nearly there; nearly on what he was beginning to think of as hallowed ground.

  Snowberry’s high wrought-iron gates were open and he drove between them, slowing his speed to a crawl so that he wouldn’t waken Millie, or William, or the dogs.

  No matter how carefully he drove the sound of his tires on the gravel was horrendous. Panic-stricken, he came to a halt just short of the house. How the devil would he explain himself if he woke someone?

  The house remained in darkness and he let his breath out slowly. In the moonlit sky an owl flew low over Snowberry’s ancient, red-tiled roof. The unmistakable shape of a fox darted from one side of the shrubbery-edged driveway to the other. He fumbled for his cigarette case and as he did so light flooded from one of the bedroom windows.

  His heart began to beat faster. Even at unconventional Snowberry, no member of staff would have a bedroom at the front of the house. It could only mean he had disturbed one of the girls or their grandfather and, as he was certain the girls were still at their aunt’s house in St. James’s Street, the chances were that it was Lord May who was about to come out of the house, probably with a shotgun in his hand.

  For an insane moment he was tempted to swerve around and hightail it back to the main road. The car wasn’t known at Snowberry. No one would realize he was its driver. But if he did hightail it, it would be assumed that the driver was a burglar, and Lily and her sisters would be unable to sleep at nights without anxiety.

  At the thought of his darling Lily living in fear of a nighttime prowler he gritted his teeth, knowing he had no option but to front things out.

  As the massive front door opened he stepped from the car. Lord May was a reasonable and kindly man and, if David told him the truth about why he was parked outside Snowberry in the middle of the night, he might very well be understanding—and it would be a relief to tell her grandfather what his feelings for Lily were.

  As fast as the thought came, it went. The figure standing in the darkness of the doorway wasn’t that of a man—much less one with a shotgun. It was that of a woman. Fleetingly he wondered if it was Millie, and then the voice he loved called out tremulously and with enormous pluck: “Who is there, please? Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Lily! David!” Uncaring now of the sound of scrunching gravel,
he sprinted toward her.

  She gave a gasp of both relief and pleasure and then she, too, was running, running until she reached him and ran straight into his open arms.

  He had never kissed a girl before—not since he was nine and had shyly kissed his cousin, Anastasia, aboard the Russian imperial yacht at Cowes. Under any other set of circumstances, his kiss now would have been just as tentative and shy.

  Only it wasn’t another set of circumstances—and he didn’t give a thought to being shy. As his arms tightened around her, his mouth closed on hers in instinctive unfumbled contact.

  With a stab of shock she swayed against him and then, in total response, her arms slid up around his neck and her mouth opened beneath his.

  Her lips were as soft as the petals of a flower. Her dark hair, plaited in a nighttime braid, gave off the clean fresh scent of lemons. Her summer dressing gown was of thin lace-edged cotton and the feel of her body, so unconstrained against his, nearly unhinged him. In his wildest dreams he had never imagined that physical desire could be so urgent and overwhelming.

  There was no way he could hide his body’s response to her. She pulled away from him slightly, and even in the darkness he could see she was rosy with embarrassment.

  “I’m sorry!” he gasped, utterly mortified. “Oh God, Lily, I’m so sorry! I won’t let it happen again! I promise!”

  “It’s all right, David darling. Really. It’s just all so … strange … isn’t it?”

  Her eyes looked into his with perfect trust.

  “You mean our loving each other?”

  She nodded. “I thought perhaps it was just me that loved you. I never dared to hope … because of who you are … that you would love me back.”

  “I do, Lily.” His voice was raw with emotion. “I love you more than you can ever imagine.”

  She let out her breath in a long, deep sigh of happiness.

  In the moonlight the delicate features of her face were absolute perfection. He said with awe, “You’re so beautiful, Lily. As beautiful as an angel.”

  She pressed close to him again and as her body dovetailed with his in a way that was new and exciting to them both, he said devoutly, “I’ll love you always, Lily. I promise.”

  “I shall always love you, David. I couldn’t possibly love anybody else. Not ever.”

  As he lowered his head once more to hers, he knew that nothing, not his father, not the prime minister, not public opinion, would ever separate them. It may always have been traditional for the Prince of Wales to marry someone of royal blood, but it was a tradition that was going to be broken.

  Later, he said huskily, “I didn’t expect to find you here, Lily. I thought you would still be in London, at your aunt’s house.”

  She slid her arms from around his neck, saying as he took her hands in his, “Rose, Iris, and Marigold are still there, but I came home with Grandpapa. What made you drive all this way when you didn’t think I’d be here? Whose little motorcar is that? Is it your brother’s?”

  “No. Bertie is still too young to drive. The car belongs to my valet, Finch, and I drove here because I wanted to be somewhere I could feel near to you—even if you didn’t know I was there. I went to St. James’s Street first, but being there didn’t make me feel the way I wanted to feel, and so I drove down here.”

  “I’m so glad you felt like that, because I couldn’t sleep for wanting to be near to you. Should we walk down to the lake? Just in case our talking together so close to the house wakes Grandpapa.”

  He nodded agreement and, hand in hand, they began walking toward the lawn.

  “What on earth possessed you to come down to the front door and challenge me, when you didn’t know I was the driver of the car?” he asked in concern as they reached the edge of the lawn and she slipped her feet out of her satin mules so that she could walk on the grass barefoot. “Because it was me, I’m so glad you did, darling. But what if it had been someone else? What if it had been a burglar?”

  “I didn’t think about it being a burglar. I just thought it was Rory, or one of Rory’s friends, and that they’d arrived here so late they didn’t like to wake anyone in order to be let in.”

  “Whatever you thought, it was a very brave thing to do—but promise me you’ll never do it again, darling.”

  She looked across at him in the darkness, shooting him a radiant smile. “I promise. Isn’t it wonderful being alone like this? I want to know so much about you, David. I want to know what life was like for you as a little boy. I can’t imagine being small and being brought up in a palace.”

  “I wasn’t actually brought up in a palace. Until my grandfather died and my father became King, we lived mainly at York Cottage, on the Sandringham estate. It’s a villa not much bigger than Snowberry—though not as ancient or as beautiful. Its rooms are tiny. That’s one of the things my father liked about it. He says it reminds him of the cramped conditions he always lived in aboard ship when he was in the navy.”

  “Did you like York Cottage?”

  “Not very much. But that wasn’t because of the size of the rooms. It was because I was never very happy there.”

  “Why?” Her voice was fierce. “I can’t bear the thought of you being unhappy.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an upbringing like the one you, Rose, Iris, and Marigold have enjoyed at Snowberry. You have always known that you were loved. Until now—with you—I’ve never been loved. At least not in any way that was shown.”

  Remembering all that Captain Cullen had told her of King George’s harsh temper, she squeezed his hand. “That’s beastly,” she said with feeling.

  As if reading her thoughts, he said, “It wasn’t all my father’s fault—though he terrified me when I was a child and often still does. The real misery was caused by my nanny. She was a real horror.”

  They had reached the lakeside and she remained quiet, sensing he was about to tell her things he had never told anyone before.

  Still in silence they walked out onto the small jetty.

  They sat down together at the end of it and he undid his shoelaces and pulled off his shoes and socks.

  “Every teatime, when I was brought down from the nursery to visit my parents, she would twist my arm to make me cry just before we entered the drawing room.” He rolled up his trouser bottoms. “Naturally my mother would ask her to take me away again.”

  His voice was so bleak and filled with such remembered pain, both physical and emotional, that she felt sick.

  He plunged his feet into the cool water of the lake. “It was always like that. Every day there would be arm-twisting and pinching. Poor Bertie came off even worse. She always kept him hungry, and Bertie has suffered chronic tummy trouble ever since.”

  “The woman was a sadist!” Lily’s tender heart was outraged. “Surely your parents must have realized there was something terribly wrong if you were crying whenever they saw you?”

  “Oh, I suppose they just thought I was a difficult child. People don’t like crying, bawling babies, do they? Eventually, after three years of this torture, the nanny had a nervous breakdown and left and Lala Bill—who now looks after John—became my nanny.”

  Lily, who couldn’t imagine how, day after day, for three years, any mother could banish a crying child instead of taking it in her arms to comfort it, fumed silently. It wasn’t up to her to tell David that his mother had ice in her veins, but she knew she would never feel the same about Queen Mary ever again.

  He said with deep regret, “I can’t stay for much longer, Lily. It’s going to be dawn in an hour or so and I have a busy day ahead of me. It’s the traditional Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead tomorrow.”

  They rose to their feet and he rolled down his trouser legs, stuffed his socks into the pockets of his trousers, and pushed his wet feet into his shoes.

  Then he took her hands in his. “There’s something I have to ask you, Lily. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever asked anyone—or
ever will ask anyone.”

  His eyes held hers pleadingly, his hair gleaming pale gold in the fast-fading moonlight.

  She waited trustingly, ready to do whatever it was he asked.

  He said with a tremor in his voice, “Will you marry me, Lily? Please, please say you will. I need you so very much, you see.”

  Her bewilderment was total. “How can I marry you, David? I’m not royal. I’m not even a little bit royal.”

  His hands tightened hard on hers. “That doesn’t matter, Lily darling. All that matters is that I want to marry you—that I can’t face the thought of life without you. Being royal is such a nightmare for me. I can’t face the thought of it without you by my side. Once my father understands that—and once he meets you and knows how sweet and wonderful and beautiful you are—he’ll be only too happy to give his consent to our betrothal.”

  “But … it would mean I would become Princess of Wales!” Her next thought stunned her. “It would mean I would one day become Queen!”

  The horror in her voice was so naked he felt as if the ground was shifting beneath his feet, as if at any moment he was going to fall into a bottomless chasm.

  “You wouldn’t be Queen for years and years, sweetheart,” he said, desperately trying to reassure her. “My father is only forty-six. He’ll probably reign for as long as Queen Victoria—and she reigned until she was eighty-two. Please don’t think about any of that king and queen stuff. Just think of me and of how much I love you and how much I need you. Please say you’ll marry me, sweet darling Lily. Please!”

  The blood pounded in her ears and then, overcome by his all-encompassing need of her and by all the love she felt for him, she said with quiet certainty, “Yes, of course I’ll marry you, David. It’s what people in love do, isn’t it?”

  With a sob of relief he caught her to him. “Thank you, thank you, darling Lily.” He swung her round and round off her feet. “We’re going to be so happy, sweetheart!” Tears of joy filled his eyes. “For the rest of our lives we’re going to be the two happiest people in the world!”