The Golden Prince

by Rebecca Dean

  Without betraying by a flicker how hard she was finding it to maintain her composure, she said stiffly, “Brides for future kings of England have always been royal. Only someone brought up to be royal could possibly cope with the stresses and strains of the exalted position marriage to a Prince of Wales gives.”

  He ran a hand nervously over his golden hair. “Elsewhere, in other countries, accommodations have been made, Mama.”

  This time her stare wasn’t appalled. It was bewildered.

  “Emperor Franz Josef’s heir married a nonroyal, Mama, and morganatically. I don’t think Lily would mind such an arrangement. She’s marrying me because she loves me, not because she wants to become a princess. So the title of countess, which is Franz Josef’s wife’s title, wouldn’t matter to her. The thing is, we would still be married and …”

  “A morganatic marriage?” Queen Mary felt as if she were about to faint. How did David know about such a thing? He couldn’t, of course, know about her own morganatic family background. None of their relations, not even the crassly insensitive kaiser, would have talked of such a thing in front of him. She put a hand out to a nearby chair in order to steady herself. “England is not Austria-Hungary. In England there is no precedent for a morganatic marriage.”

  “But if Lily and I are happy to abide by the rules of a morganatic marriage—if we are happy that it would be Bertie’s children, not ours, who stood in the line of succession to the throne—why would it matter? It would be a solution to the problem, just as it was a solution for your grandfather when he married a nonroyal Hungarian countess.”

  Queen Mary’s knuckles were bloodless as she gripped the back of the chair. She wanted to express to David the humiliation her grandfather’s children and grandchildren had suffered as a result of that monumentally selfish marriage. She wanted to portray to him the agony she had undergone as a young girl, a lone serene highness among royal highnesses; the bitterness she still felt at having been perceived as someone not quite royal enough.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t do so. She was simply too inhibited. When it came to verbal communications of an intimate nature, she simply couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Even on her honeymoon with George she had had to resort to pen and paper in order to express her feelings for him.

  She did what she always did in such situations. She abruptly terminated the conversation. “Your father and I expect you to dine with us this evening. I believe Lord Esher will be joining us.”

  “Yes, Mama,” he said, equally tersely, knowing very well why Esher had been invited that evening. It was so that Esher, too, could impress on him where his duty lay.

  The door had closed behind her and, ignoring the letter he had been writing to Bertie, he walked across to the deep window that looked out over the front courtyard of the palace. Once again, nothing had gone as he had expected. His mother had not been sympathetic when he had suggested the possibility of his marrying Lily morganatically. At his mention of her grandfather’s morganatic marriage, she had simply brought the conversation to a swift end. He put a hand high on the window and leaned his head against his arm looking down at the great marble edifice that was a memorial to Queen Victoria. He had been so sure that the morganatic card was the one that would solve all his and Lily’s problems. Now he could sense from his mother’s reaction to the word that his assumption had been very, very wrong.

  Things were escalating fast.

  But all in the wrong direction.

  “Then it got worse,” he said despairingly to Lily.

  It was shortly after ten o’clock the next day and they were sitting on a wooden seat overlooking Snowberry’s lake.

  “Worse—how?” He had told her he was to leave for Germany the next morning. He had told her about the interview with his father and had just finished telling her about the interview with his mother, and her face was distraught. “How could things possibly have become worse, David?”

  His arm was around her and he hugged her tightly. “When I went in to dinner, I found myself facing not only Lord Esher, but also the prime minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Asquith told me it was my duty to put my country before everything else, and Archbishop Davidson lectured me as to how I must devote my life to the exalted, predestined role I will one day have to play.”

  His eyes glinted fiercely. “But I don’t have to play that role, Lily. It isn’t inescapable. There are options open to me.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t understand.” Tears stung the backs of her eyes as she thought of the way the five people at that dinner table—King George, Queen Mary, Prime Minister Asquith, Archbishop Davidson, and Lord Esher—had, together, crushed all their dearest hopes.

  He hooked a finger under her chin, tilting her head to his. “No one can force me to become King, Lily. If it is a choice between one day becoming King Edward VIII, or marrying you, then there is no choice at all.”

  “But how … ? Who … ?” She couldn’t understand what it was he was telling her.

  “Bertie will have to pick up the reins,” he said. “It won’t be easy for him, not with his speech impediment, but he’s got a dogged, determined nature. He won’t be the same kind of king that I would be, but he’ll do all right. I’ll be quite happy to put prince-ing behind me, dearest Lily. All I want is to have a life of my own, and a life lived with you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Long after David had returned to London, Lily remained in a state of heartsick, numbed disbelief. When they were in Paris together, David had been so certain that King George would approach the subject of their marriage from a very different angle now that they had proved their love by being constant to each other for nearly a year that she, too, had been equally confident.

  Now she saw with sickening clarity just how misplaced that confidence had been. David wasn’t just any prince. He was the Prince of Wales. The heir to the throne. The powers that be weren’t going to allow him to marry a plain Miss Lily Houghton. Only a princess—or the equivalent of a princess—was going to be acceptable to them.

  Because the King, the prime minister, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were united and adamant in their demand that the future Queen of England should be a queen with royal blood, David was going to walk away from his destiny by not acquiescing to their demands, but by marrying her anyway.

  Their marriage would mean he would never be Edward VIII, would never be crowned in Westminster Abbey, would never live up to the duties and responsibilities of the life he had been born into. The people’s much-loved Golden Prince would never be a much-loved great king.

  Instead, Bertie would be King. Shy, stammering, introverted Bertie, who didn’t have a scrap of David’s handsome looks, glamour, and charisma and who was highly unlikely to ever be the modernizing, radical kind of king that she knew David was intent on being.

  Sitting up in her aerie, finished and half-finished paintings scattered around her, her bust of David taking pride of place, Lily knew it was a sacrifice David couldn’t be allowed to make.

  At the thought of how strong she was going to have to be, pain knifed through her. She tried to breathe deeply and steadily, but it was as if the walls of her studio were closing in on her.

  Abruptly she rose to her feet. If she was to think clearly about what she had to do next, she had to have fresh air. She hurried downstairs, snatched a jacket from a hook in the lobby, and, with Fizz and Florin at her heels, set off for a long trudge in the woods.

  Rose hadn’t been back to Snowberry in more than three weeks, and as she stepped off the train and walked toward the lone taxi that served the station, she was deep in unhappy thought. Though she’d tried her best to continue taking assignments from Hal and generally behave toward him as if he didn’t set her blood racing and her pulse pounding, it was proving to be impossible. There was only one answer as far as she could see, and that was to stop taking projects from him and to stop writing articles for the Daily Despatch.

  It was a har
d decision to have to come to and not only emotionally, for in writing, and then seeing what she had written published in a national newspaper to be read by hundreds of thousands of people, she had experienced a fulfilment she knew no other kind of work would ever give her. Finding another Fleet Street editor who would give her a chance as Hal had done would not be easy and might well prove impossible.

  When she stepped out of the taxi at Snowberry, her grandfather walked out of the house to meet her, a small rifle under his arm, Homer at his heels.

  “Hello, my pet.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Are you staying for a while?”

  “Not for long, Grandfather. I’m leaving for Southampton on Thursday night to be given a press tour of the Titanic.”

  “Well, that will be a grand experience for you, but make sure you have a word with Iris before you leave. She’s at Sissbury all the time now and she has some very special news for you.”

  One look at her grandfather’s highly satisfied face and Rose knew at once what Iris’s news was.

  “She’s having a baby?”

  He nodded happily. “It’s due in early September. Don’t go dashing up to the studio in search of Lily. She went out about an hour ago with the dogs.”

  “Which direction?”

  “The woods. I’m not going in the same direction. I’m heading for the hill.”

  “To shoot rabbits?”

  He said defensively, “Wild rabbits aren’t tame rabbits, Rose. They have to be kept under control.”

  It was an argument she’d heard before and didn’t agree with, but she’d no intention of getting into a discussion about it now. “I’m off to meet up with Lily,” she said, and hoping he would be unsuccessful once he reached the hill, she set off toward the woods.

  When after a fifteen-minute walk she saw Lily approaching from the opposite direction, she came to an abrupt halt. Lily’s head was bowed, her shoulders were hunched, and though Rose couldn’t be sure, she was almost certain Lily was crying.

  “Lily!” she called out, beginning to walk again, this time very fast. “Lily! What’s the matter? Are you all right?”

  Lily lifted her head, and Rose saw she wasn’t merely distressed, but grief-stricken.

  Appalled, she ran up to her, saying urgently as she came to a breathless halt and put her arms comfortingly around her, “Lily love, whatever has happened?”

  “David and I are not going to be able to marry.” Lily’s voice was raw with pain. “King George won’t even consider it, and neither will the prime minister nor the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s worse, Rose. David won’t accept their decision. He says he’s going to marry me anyway, even if it means that he never becomes King.”

  Rose blinked. “He can’t not be the next King, Lily. Not unless he dies before his father.”

  “He can if he steps down from the succession in order to marry me. That is what he is going to do, Rose. Not even my refusal to marry him will prevent him from doing what he’s set on, because he won’t accept such a refusal. He’s shatteringly obstinate. Once he’s determined on a course of action, nothing in the world will deflect him. The only thing that would is if I were to marry someone else. I would do that, only it isn’t an option I have.”

  “Of course it is! You could …”

  “No, I couldn’t, Rose. I’m having a baby.”

  Rose opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.

  Fizz and Florin skittered around their feet. In one of the nearby trees, two rival birds wrangled noisily. A small woodland creature scuttled fast into the undergrowth, evading the dogs.

  All Rose could think of was that if things had been different, if King George had given David and Lily his blessing when David had first asked for it, the baby Lily was carrying would be second in line to the throne.

  “Oh dear God!” she said at last. “Oh dear God, what on earth are you going to do?”

  Lily began walking again, her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket. “I don’t know. I only know I mustn’t tell David about the baby. If I do, no force on earth will prevent him from announcing himself to be the father, and then his reputation will be in tatters, the scandal worldwide. The only way to avoid such a nightmare is for me to go away, which will be relatively easy for me to do because David is about to leave for Germany in order to perfect his German. Once he realizes what I’ve done he will, though, race back and try and find me. The only way to prevent him from doing so is for you and Grandfather to convince him that I’ve married someone else.”

  Giddily, Rose tried to think. “Is David leaving for Germany immediately?” she asked, seizing on the only thing that could possibly give them breathing space in which to act.

  “Yes. He leaves for Württemberg tomorrow.”

  “Then what you are thinking of doing could be done. But wherever you went, Lily, you couldn’t go on your own.”

  “I was hoping you would come with me.” Her voice was hesitant, as if with the best will in the world, Rose might not be able to.

  “Of course I’ll come with you. How could you possibly think for a moment that I wouldn’t?”

  “I don’t know … your life in London … Christabel … the Daily Despatch.”

  “Christabel can easily do without me, and so can the Daily Despatch.” She didn’t say a word about Hal—who would probably not even notice her absence—because she couldn’t trust herself to say his name without her voice giving her away.

  As they stepped out of the woods and began approaching the house, Lily said bleakly, “How could something so beautiful as David’s love for me, and mine for him, turn into a situation so ghastly, Rose?”

  Rose had no answer.

  She was too busy feverishly trying to work out what to do next.

  They entered the house to be met by a harassed-looking William. “There has been a telephone call for his lordship from Lord Esher, Miss Rose. I told Lord Esher his lordship was out for a morning’s shooting and he said not to worry, but that he would be at Snowberry by lunchtime.”

  Rose and Lily looked at each other. Lord Esher was not a close friend, or even an acquaintance, of their grandfather. He was, though, known to be a close friend and adviser to King George. Both of them knew what his purpose was in coming to Snowberry.

  “I’m going up to the studio.” Lily was so pale she looked ill. “I need to be on my own for a little while, Rose.”

  Rose nodded. To get her thoughts in order, she, too, needed to be on her own for a little while. One thing was abundantly clear. Lily’s horrendous situation had made her own confusing predicament relatively simple. She wouldn’t now wait until after her tour of the Titanic to sever all contact with Hal and the Daily Despatch. She would do so immediately. And as for where she and Lily should now go, she would speak to Rory. Even if Iris and Marigold weren’t told the entire truth of the situation, Rory would have to be told. She needed someone she could confide in, someone whose advice she could trust.

  She walked into the drawing room. If she telephoned Rory now, and if he was in London, then it was just possible that if he drove fast, he could be at Snowberry before Lord Esher arrived.

  She put her hand out toward the telephone, and Fizz and Florin erupted in a storm of barking to tell her that a car was coming down the drive.

  She dropped her hand, her heart racing. Was Snowberry’s visitor Lord Esher? When he had telephoned Snowberry, had he already been nearby and not, as she and Lily had assumed, still in London?

  The drawing room didn’t look out over the drive. From its French doors and large windows she could only see the vast lawns stretching down to the lake and the hill rising on its far side, the hill where her grandfather, oblivious of Lord Esher’s impending arrival, was still happily hunting rabbits.

  She heard the front door open. Heard footsteps approaching the drawing room. Feeling as if her heart were somewhere up in her throat, Rose smoothed her skirt and faced the door.


  Rory, kilt swinging, strode into the room.

  “Oh dear God.” Weakly she sank on to a sofa. “I thought you were Lord Esher.”

  “Esher? Why on earth? He’s not Marigold’s latest conquest, is he?”

  “No. Though I wish Marigold was the reason he’s coming. As it is, King George now knows Lily’s identity and Lord Esher is coming down to speak with Grandfather.”

  “I take it King George isn’t happy about the prospect of David marrying Lily?”

  “No, he isn’t. From what Lily has told me, the King has reacted exactly as everyone—other than David and Lily—expected him to react.”

  Rory sat down on the arm of a nearby chair. “So this is the end of the fairy tale?”

  “Yes—and the beginning of a nightmare.”

  Rose never indulged in unnecessary dramatics and Rory frowned. “How so? If the King now knows and disapproves, they have to stop seeing each other. That’s all there is to it.”

  “No, it isn’t. Will you pour me a whiskey, Rory? You’d better have one, too. A large one.”

  He’d never known her to drink spirits and with his frown deepening, he did as she asked. When he was again seated on the arm of the chair and they both had glasses in their hands, he said, “Come on, Rose. Tell me the worst. It can’t be that bad.”

  She didn’t waste her breath in telling him that it was. She said, “I know you are on friendly terms with David, having met him so often at Snowberry, but you don’t know the real David. The real David is the most obstinate young man alive. When he wants something he won’t allow anything to stand in his way—and I really do mean anything.”

  She took a swallow of her whiskey. “He has told Lily that even if it means abnegating all his royal responsibilities and Prince Albert stepping into his shoes, he is going to marry her.”

  “He can’t. The Royal Marriages Act won’t allow him to. Ever since 1772 no descendant of King George II has been allowed to marry without the monarch’s consent. Not if he, or she, is under twenty-five.”