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The Golden Prince

Page 22

by Rebecca Dean


  “I wondered, Mama, if I might have a word with you alone about something very, very important before I try on my robes.”

  Queen Mary’s unmaternal nature prevented her from having anything but a remote relationship with her children. Try as she might, she simply never knew how to communicate with them. David, for instance, was now fiddling with his tie. The fact that he was doing so out of acute nervous tension was completely lost on her. She simply found it an annoyingly irritating habit. His statement that he had “something very, very important” to say to her annoyed her also. The task in hand was the trying-on of his investiture robes. Any problem he had was something he should be talking to his tutor at Dartmouth about.

  “I’m sure it is something that can keep, David,” she said stiffly. “Or that it is probably something you should be speaking to your cadet captain about. As for speaking to me alone, apart from Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber we are alone.”

  Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber were the ladies-in-waiting in attendance on her.

  David’s disappointment was intense. There was always someone in attendance. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d been truly alone with his mother. If it wasn’t her dressers, it was one of her four women of the bedchamber, peers’ daughters who performed the same function as the equerries of the King’s household.

  Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber were not women of the bedchamber. They were ladies of the bedchamber and ranked higher. Their function was to attend his mother on her bigger and more impressive engagements—which indicated his mother would be en route to such an engagement the minute the little matter of his investiture robes had been taken care of.

  Taking him by surprise, she said suddenly, “As the man from Ede and Ravenscroft hasn’t yet arrived with your robes, please tell me what it is you wished to say.”

  David looked toward Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber, and then, since he couldn’t possibly tell his mother about Lily in their presence, he thought up an alternative subject fast. “I was wondering, Mama, why you chose to be crowned as Queen Mary, instead of being crowned as Queen May.”

  Queen Mary wasn’t accustomed to being questioned by her children—or by anyone else—but on this occasion she summoned up patience.

  “I couldn’t possibly have taken the name May. It isn’t one of my Christian names, merely a name used in affection by the family because I was born in the month of May.”

  “But why Queen Mary when Victoria is your first name?” He was genuinely puzzled.

  “Both the King and I were in agreement that being called Queen Victoria would cause too much confusion.”

  “You could have been known as Queen Victoria Mary. There wouldn’t have been any confusion then.”

  This was something Queen Mary was well aware of. Until the question had arisen of what name she would be known by as Queen, she had always signed letters and official papers with the first two of her eight Christian names, liking both the look and the sound of them. George, however, hadn’t.

  “I detest double-barreled names,” he’d said bluntly. “I never liked Eddy’s given name of Albert-Victor. I doubt anyone else did either, apart from Queen Victoria, who wanted both her name and her beloved Albert’s to be perpetuated together. It was why Eddy was always known as Eddy. It’s a diminutive of Edward, his last name,” he’d added, just in case she had forgotten.

  That she would have liked to have been crowned as Queen Victoria Mary was not something Queen Mary was about to share with her eldest son. It would have been a criticism of George’s decision.

  “I much prefer Queen Mary,” she said crisply to him. “It’s beautifully short and simple.” Then, as the man from Ede and Ravenscroft was announced, she turned away, signaling that the conversation was over.

  David dutifully allowed himself to be dressed in the robes that someone—he didn’t know who—had deemed suitable for the grand ceremonial of his investiture. The result was almost more than he could bear.

  His breeches were of white satin trimmed with gold brocade and knee rosettes. His doublet, barely reaching his thighs, was of crimson velvet worn with a gold sash and edged in ermine. The mantle was of purple velvet. Worn with an ermine cape fastened with gold clasps, it fell into a cumbersome train behind him.

  He looked ridiculous. This time he knew that even Lily would agree with him.

  With his face pale and set, he said tautly, “None of this fantastic costume has any historical significance, Mama. It’s ridiculous. What will the cadets at Naval College say when they see me in it? I look like a player in a pantomime, and I absolutely and utterly refuse to wear it.”

  “You can’t refuse to wear it, David—and you must stop taking things so seriously. I quite agree that the costume has no historical precedent, but as a prince you are obliged to do certain things that may often seem a little silly.”

  The prospect of having to do things that “often seemed a little silly” for the rest of his life filled him with despair. “I don’t mind the ceremony, Mama,” he said, trying to meet her halfway. “I wouldn’t even mind wearing my Knight of the Garter robes at it. But not these.” He indicated his white satin, rosette-trimmed knee breeches in distaste.

  “I think what you are forgetting, David, are the political aspects of your investiture. Mr. Lloyd George is a radical. He shocked your father inexpressibly a few years ago with a speech attacking inherited privilege. His suggestion that a royal ceremony be revived after many centuries wasn’t done out of respect for the monarchy.”

  She smoothed her white-kid gloves over the backs of her hands. “As a Welshman, Lloyd George suggested it because he knew it would appeal to the national pride of the Welsh—and that it would please his constituents and win him political support.”

  China-blue eyes, with more than a hint of steel, held David’s steadily. “As a new and inexperienced king, Papa needs to be on good terms with Mr. Lloyd George. He is, after all, chancellor of the exchequer and may very well be the next prime minister. In carrying out the role assigned to you at the investiture—and doing so without causing unnecessary waves—you will greatly help Papa in dealing with a very difficult man.”

  It was emotional blackmail of a very tall order and he caved in beneath it.

  “All right, Mama,” he said in defeat. “For Papa’s sake, I won’t cause waves. But I do need to talk to you as soon as possible about something truly important.”

  With one problem satisfactorily dealt with, Queen Mary was feeling magnanimous. “What is this oh-so-important subject, David?”

  “It’s about my future, Mama.” He blushed furiously. “It’s about getting married.”

  To his stunned amazement, instead of looking horrified, she looked pleased. “I’m glad you realize an early marriage will be beneficial to you. It’s a subject Papa is eager to talk to you about.”

  With that, happy that the tricky conversation King George wanted to have with David wasn’t going to be quite so tricky after all, she exited the room, Lady Airlie and Lady Coomber attentively in her wake.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rose was in a tea shop in a small street just off the Strand. Seated opposite her, as if a tea shop was his usual watering hole, was Hal Green. The tea shop had become their usual rendezvous. It suited Rose, who felt uncomfortable at the attention she aroused at the Daily Despatch when closeted with Hal in his office.

  “That last article was surprisingly good,” he said, helping himself to a toasted, lavishly buttered crumpet.

  “Why ‘surprisingly’?” Much as she was beginning to like him, her eyes flashed fire.

  He grinned. He loved goading her. It had become his major pleasure in life. “Because young women whose education has consisted of a finishing school in France—or did you perhaps go to one in Germany?—aren’t usually capable of writing a concise news article. Or, I should think, of writing so well.”

  “Have you had a vast experience of women writing journalistic pieces, Mr. Green?” she asked, anno
yed that he assumed her education had consisted of nothing further than learning to arrange flowers and speak a foreign language, and pleased that he thought she wrote well.

  He demolished the crumpet and pushed his chair a little away from the table so that he could stretch out his legs and cross them at the ankles.

  She wondered if he was again wearing purple sock suspenders, but she couldn’t see because the gingham-clothed table hid his feet.

  His grin deepened. He had attractive laugh lines at the outer corners of his black-lashed eyes and a cleft in his chin that, though she tried hard not to let it, always riveted her attention.

  “Perhaps not. But then I’ve never had one turn up in my office the way that you did.”

  Rose brushed a crumb from her skirt. She was dressed in suffragette colors—something she always did when meeting with him in London.

  He was beginning to find the constant green, purple, and white theme a little tedious.

  “Don’t you ever wear any other colors?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “No. I regard wearing the colors of the WSPU equivalent to the wearing of a military uniform.”

  He cracked with laughter.

  That he was running a national campaign demanding that imprisoned suffragettes be given the status of political prisoners and yet privately still thought the suffragette movement a joke enraged her. The urge to kick him was so strong she could hardly contain it.

  Her bag was on the table and she reached out for it, about to snatch it up and storm off in high dudgeon. He covered her hand with his.

  The effect was like a bolt of electricity shooting through her.

  “I’m sorry for laughing.” His gray eyes darkened with sincerity—and with something much deeper. “I think suffragettes like Lady Harbury are just as brave as soldiers who wear the uniform of their country.”

  In turmoil with emotions she had never experienced before, she released her hold of her handbag. He removed his hand from hers.

  “What did you think of the Daily Despatch’s royal correspondent’s coronation coverage?” he asked, as if he hadn’t touched her, as if nothing extraordinary between them had happened. “It was a bit flat, wasn’t it? Competent, but didn’t convey to the reader the exhilarating sense of being there. I think if I’d let you run loose with it, you would have done much better.”

  It was such a compliment she didn’t know how to respond.

  He cocked his head to one side, looking at her measuringly, a lock of straight black hair falling low over his brow. “I could ask you to cover the Prince of Wales’s investiture,” he said musingly. “Since you are not the Despatch’s official royal correspondent, though, I wouldn’t be able to get you into Caernarvon Castle, of course. Still, if you did your homework, had all the details of the ceremony to hand, and were at Caernarvon itself to soak up the atmosphere on the streets, I think you would turn in something that would be a welcome addition to the royal correspondent’s piece. What do you think? Do you think you could do justice to Prince Edward’s big day?”

  “Yes.” She was so overwhelmed by the thought of being able to report on the investiture, she forgot all about being angry with him.

  He took a pocket watch out of his waistcoat pocket and clicked it open. “Time to be going, I’m afraid.”

  She thought of his reaction if she was to tell him of her close friendship with Prince Edward, and as Hal paid the bill, giggles were fizzing in her throat.

  “I’m still curious about your finishing school, Rose,” he said, as they stepped out onto the pavement. “Was it in France, or was it in Germany?”

  “Neither.” She smiled sunnily. “It was in Oxford—and it wasn’t a finishing school. It was St. Hilda’s.”

  The elation she felt as his eyebrows shot high was an elation that sustained her as she journeyed by train back to Hampshire.

  Rose was traveling alone on her trip home. Since Marigold had returned from her weekend at Belden Castle she had been seeing Prince Maxim Yurenev every day. Great-Aunt Sibyl approved highly of Prince Yurenev and was sure their mother would approve highly of him as well, so Rose hadn’t interfered. Marigold was so sexy that someone was always going to be in love with her, and, unlike Lord Jethney, Maxim Yurenev was a bachelor who was not only handsome, but a Russian royal rich as Croesus.

  As the train rattled through Berkshire it occurred to Rose that her title-loving mother could very well end up with two daughters bearing royal titles. Lily as the Princess of Wales, and Marigold as Princess Yurenev. Since Iris would one day be Viscountess Mulholland, the only person letting the side down was herself, and she had no intention of marrying anyone.

  Unbidden, Hal Green’s image blazed into her mind’s eye. She banished it. She was a militant suffragette, and militant suffragettes did not embroil themselves in romantic relationships. Her reaction when his hand had covered hers had been a freakish aberration. Even if it hadn’t been, not in a million years could she imagine her mother accepting as a son-in-law a very common-sounding plain Mr. Green.

  Nor in a million years could she imagine Hal Green putting himself in the position of being anyone’s son-in-law, for if any man was blatantly not the marrying kind, that man was Hal.

  When Rose arrived back at Snowberry, it was to find that Lord Jethney was to dine with them.

  “It’s been weeks and weeks since he was here,” her grandfather said in high satisfaction. “He asked if all you girls were now at home and I told him that you and Marigold were in London, staying with Sibyl. He’ll be very pleased to find that I was wrong about one of you.”

  Another guest expected at dinner that evening was Toby. Rose suppressed slight irritation. Now that he and Iris were engaged, she was going to have to get used to Toby being always at Snowberry. The snag was that she and Lily wouldn’t be able to talk about David in front of him.

  “Where is Lily, Grandpa?”

  The investiture was on Saturday and it was now Wednesday. If she was to gather unique background information before leaving for Caernarvon, she was going to have to do so fast.

  “In her studio.”

  Without even pausing to remove her hat, she set off for the top of the house.

  “Sorry to interrupt you, Lily,” she said breathlessly five minutes later. “But Mr. Green has asked me to go to Caernarvon to report on David’s investiture. The Despatch’s royal correspondent—who has a press pass—will be doing the main piece. Since I don’t have a press pass and won’t be inside the castle, I’m to report on the atmosphere on the streets. I want to do much more, though, and wondered if you would be speaking to David before Saturday? He does telephone you, doesn’t he?”

  Lily flushed rosily. “Every evening at six. How wonderful that you will be writing about David for the Daily Despatch. It will amuse him no end. He’s dreadfully nervous about it all. He hates wearing ceremonial robes, and apparently the robes he will be wearing on Saturday are just the product of someone’s imagination—not historically traditional robes. David says they are quite ghastly.”

  She put the loop tool she had been working with down on her work table and wiped the clay from her hands with a cloth.

  “Do you want to speak to him? What sort of thing is it you want to know?”

  “I’d love to speak to him and I want to know anything he can tell me. The information about the robes is interesting. I bet the Despatch’s royal correspondent doesn’t know David’s robes aren’t historically traditional. When I hand my piece in, Hal Green’s eyes are going to pop.”

  Now that her hands were free of clay, Lily gave her a welcome-home hug. “Do you always use Mr. Green’s Christian name as well as his last name when speaking about him? It seems an odd thing to do. It makes it sound as if he’s a friend as well as an employer.”

  “He isn’t a friend—though we do have a quite friendly relationship. He just always calls me—and probably everyone else—by their first name. Very properly I always call him Mr. Green, but because he calls me Ros
e, I don’t actually think of him as Mr. Green.”

  Lily gave a gurgling laugh. “How do you think of him, Rose? You’re not a little in love with him, are you?”

  “Most certainly not!”

  Her denial was so vehement it only confirmed Lily’s suspicions.

  As they left the studio and walked downstairs Lily hugged her sister’s arm. Rose had always been the academic in the family and had never shown interest in the opposite sex. It had been Iris’s dour prediction that, like a lot of her fellow members in the WSPU, she never would. That the interesting-sounding Mr. Hal Green was changing Rose’s attitude toward men was, as far as Lily was concerned, a very good thing.

  For Rose, Iris, and Lily there was underlying tension at dinner as they all strove to keep the conversation away from the subject of the Prince of Wales. Because of the investiture, it was an impossibility.

  “Hal tells me you are going to be in Caernarvon in three days’ time,” Theo Jethney said, smiling across the table at Rose. “I never thought, when I suggested you meet with him, that this kind of thing would be the result.

  “I’ll be present at the ceremony,” Theo continued. “As will Jerusha.” His smile died. “That is, she will be if she is well enough.”

  Rose’s eyes widened.

  Iris laid down her knife and fork.

  Lily gave a small sound of concern.

  They were all so accustomed to Theo dining informally at Snowberry unaccompanied by Jerusha it hadn’t occurred to any of them that her present absence was caused by illness.

  Aware of their alarm, Theo said quickly, “It’s nothing serious. Just headaches. She’s been getting them for a while now and when she has them, they lay her low for a day or so at a time. The doctor says they are nothing to worry about.”

 

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