by Erin McRae
Amelia took a sip of her own drink. The scotch was of a very good quality, and the silky burn of the alcohol helped ground her. “Like what, sir?” She could hardly ask the King to get to the point.
“What do you wish to be called, after your wedding?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your name. I, as King and Fount of All Honours, can and will give you the titles you deserve, but in order to pick the right ones, I should know. What is it you would like to be called?”
Amelia stammered. She hadn’t known there were options. “My family calls me Meels, but I imagine that’s not what you mean.”
The King smiled at her. “By default, upon your wedding, you will no longer be Meels. Or even Amelia. You’ll be Arthur, Princess of Wales.”
“That’s….” Amelia tried to think of a polite way to put it. Slightly satisfying if people saw how horrible it was. Otherwise, just plain horrible.
The King nodded. “A statement of sorts, but one you may not wish to make. If you’re amenable, I will invest you as a princess in your own right, and then you can use whatever name you choose. What is your full name?”
Amelia grimaced slightly. “Amelia Sarah Anne Proserpina Brockett.”
“You have plenty of names to choose from. And we are always fond of Anne in this household. But, this assumes you don’t wish to pick an entirely new one.”
“I hate my name.” Amelia admitted. “Not Amelia. But the rest of it. Sarah’s fine. Anne is fine if I don’t think about it too hard. But then my mother decided I needed to be named after Persephone, too.”
“The girl from Greek mythology?”
“The one who fell in love with Hades and went to join him in the underworld. Yes.”
“That’s the polite version of the story,” the King said.
Amelia looked him in the eye. “Yes. I know. But she was also strong and did what was necessary.”
The King held her gaze for a long time. Amelia wondered what he was seeing there. “Perhaps your mother knew exactly what she was doing,” he finally said.
“Your son is far kinder than Hades.”
“This is true,” the King admitted, but Amelia could hardly take it as a retreat.
“Are you saying Arthur is the god of death, then?” The conversation had turned too dark all because of a name Amelia had never liked, and she had no idea how to rescue it.
“No. I’m saying the life of the monarch exists apart from the world of the living.”
The sky outside the windows was now fully dark, and there was only one light on in the room, a small green-shaded lamp that leant the King’s face an almost sickly cast.
But then His Majesty shook his head and the effect vanished. Amelia blinked.
“Don’t listen to me, what am I talking about?” the old man said. “Yes. I’ll make you a princess on your wedding day. And you’ll be invested with the standard family honors. You just have to decide what name. You have time, so think it over, but do let me know.”
“Thank you, sir,” Amelia said. At the King’s nod, she stood, glad to leave the suddenly chilly room.
“Amelia,” The King called to her as she reached the door.
“Sir?”
“You’re marrying my son in three months. Do call me Henry.”
*
Try as she might, Amelia could not relax that night. As far as she knew, there were no other humans occupying this wing, but the house seemed alive with their absence. She made herself comfortable in the sitting room — which felt desolate without Priya’s things scattered about with her own — and tried to read a book.
Her distracted thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Goosebumps broke out up and down Amelia’s arms. It was nearly eleven, surely no one would approach her door this late in the evening. But the knock came again, louder, and the familiar voice of the one footmen called her name.
Amelia pulled her dressing gown tighter around herself and opened the door. “Yes?”
The footman inclined his head. “I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but Her Majesty has requested your presence.”
“Of course,” Amelia said tightly. She wondered what crisis had broken out for her to be summoned like this. “Let me get changed.”
The footman led Amelia, fully dressed now in day clothes, through the corridors to a wing that housed the King and Queen’s private apartments. He knocked on the door and opened it at a summons from within. The Queen, still in her clothes from dinner, lingered by a fireplace in a sitting room. Amelia was glad she’d bothered to redo her hair.
“Thank you,” the Queen said quietly. The footman withdrew, shutting the door behind himself.
The Queen turned to Amelia, who was trying and failing to hide her unease. “And thank you, Lady Amelia, for coming to me so late at night. I hope I did not wake you?”
Amelia shook her head “No. I hadn’t gone to bed yet. I couldn’t seem to want to sleep.”
The queen gave a sad-looking smile. “I’m not surprised. Even aside from the ghosts. The King told me of your conversation earlier today. The one about your name.”
Amelia glanced around the room, but there was no sign of the monarch. “Oh.”
“Will you sit down?” the Queen indicated a pair of armchairs. “I remember the conversation I had, with the queen — this king’s mother — when I was going to marry Henry,” she said as Amelia sat. “Of all the preparations I had been making to give up my old life it was that one that felt the most strange.”
“I thought it was just me.”
The Queen shook her head. “In this life you are never alone. No matter how much it may seem you are. That’s part of what I’ve been trying to teach you. Even if you can never speak with them — in this lifetime, at least — there are women who have come before you, who have suffered all the indignities you will suffer. Many of them worse. I find it helps, sometimes, when things are very strange and I am very lonely, to remember them.”
“How do you do it?” Amelia asked. They had come close to this issue, in their lessons and conversations, but had always retreated. Perhaps Cecile had only been waiting for this moment.
“Now, I’m quite happy,” the Queen said. “I know it must be hard to believe, but it’s true. After fifty years of this life, I can’t imagine any other. You make friends, of a sort. You enjoy your occupations. You love your children. And, in time, your marriage finds its rhythms. Henry and I weren’t a love match,” she said.
“You can’t tell,” Amelia blurted.
“Yes. That’s the point, which you’d do well to remember. But we were friends and fond enough of each other. When he asked for my hand I knew I would be a fool to say no, though I feared — as you must for yourself and my son — what the future might hold. He did what he could to make me happy. I tried to lessen, if I could not share, the burden of his royal obligations. We adored our children. And I found, in time, that we loved each other. Not the passionate first love of youth, perhaps. But love that had grown out of our shared struggles and been strengthened by time. I do not think we have wound up anywhere much different than most couples do after so long a time.”
Amelia looked the Queen in the eye in the same forceful and perhaps impertinent manner she had used with the King earlier. She may not have been made for patience and duty, but such was now the shape of her life. In time, perhaps she could learn to be grateful for the rewards that would eventually come of it.
CHAPTER 17
PALACE PARAMOURS REUNITED
22 May
Year 21 of the Reign of King Henry XII
I am learning there is a certain rhythm to the cloistered life of a member of the royal family. I cannot say that I am suited to it, as hypnotic as it may be to follow protocol and to act in a manner that is always mindful of history.
Arthur returns from Australia soon, and I feel a quiet, nervous anticipation at that fact. Does he expect this time here to have changed me? Because I am not certain it has. I am myself, always. Which s
eems not entirely suitable for a girl who will, one distant day, be queen.
The most delightful thing about Sandringham is also its most insidious. There is no such thing as a general public here. Papers arrive late. Televisions are few and far between. No wonder the north has been so mistreated. No one knows anything beyond these gates exist.
*
As the King departed once again the following week, Arthur arrived back in England. And so, at a dreadful morning hour, Amelia followed instructions and journeyed to the airfield at Sandhurst. She wore a cream-colored suit, a hat with a chocolate brown flower on it, and her rings.
No one from the royal family accompanied Amelia to meet Arthur’s plane. It was only her — and the waiting crowd of functionaries who were apparently necessary to welcome the Prince of Wales back to English soil — that watched the dramatic sight of Arthur’s plane land and taxi in.
She held her breath as stairs were rolled up to the plane and the door was finally opened. Amelia just wanted to be a girl welcoming her fiancé home. A girl whose fiancé happened to take chartered jets to countries that still recognized his father as their God-ordained king, but still.
Arthur, when he finally emerged from the jet, looked around as if startled to find himself on solid ground. After the twenty-six hour journey from Melbourne, Amelia could hardly blame him.
When he finally reached the bottom of the stairs and passed the various officials arrayed to greet him, he stopped in front of Amelia. He looked more exhausted in person than he had sounded over the phone last they spoke. Amelia had to suppress the urge to touch his face and soothe the lines of worry between his eyes.
He took her hands, and for a wild moment Amelia thought he might kiss her right here on the tarmac. Surely that would make excellent press after the debacle with Gary. But he dropped her hands and gathered her up in a hug.
Amelia closed her eyes and pressed her face to Arthur’s chest. He was warm and smelled of stale airplane air and just the faintest whiff of his cologne. Amelia knew this was an entirely platonic gesture, but Arthur was holding her in his arms, trusting her. The intimacy of it took her breath away as Cecile’s words echoed in her ears. Arthur may not love her now, but perhaps he would, someday.
*
After the long drive back to Sandringham and luncheon with the Queen, Arthur invited Amelia to take a walk with him in the grounds.
“Don’t you want to sleep off your jetlag?” Amelia asked, even though her heart leapt at the offer.
Arthur shook his head. “It’s easier if I push through.”
Arthur’s dogs had arrived at the estate by car from London shortly after he had landed. Now they frisked joyfully around him as Arthur offered Amelia his arm and led the way outside.
“Have you enjoyed your time here so far?” he asked
“Yes and no,” Amelia admitted. “I’ve learned a lot, though.” She wondered if she should bring up the pigeons. Or mention the battle ghosts. She decided against both.
“Then we’ll call that a success. And now, for a brief matter of business — since I’m back home, the wedding preparations begin in earnest. Later this afternoon the designer for your wedding dresses will be here.”
“Wedding dresses?” Amelia repeated.
“You’ll need at least two,” Arthur said.
“Two?”
“One for the ceremony. And another — at least one, maybe more — for the receptions.”
“Oh.” The excess was absurd. But Amelia supposed she should have expected it.
“For more details, you’ll have to ask the designer. Or my mother.”
“Oh, I will. Do you have to wear multiple suits?”
Arthur shook his head. “Uniforms.” Of course; he’d served in the military. “But, effectively, yes. To be honest it’s nice to be able to change as the day goes on. Things get sweaty.”
It was absurd and funny, and Amelia was glad to be back by his side. They walked on mostly in silence, following the path that led through the formal gardens down to the woods. Arthur threw a stick for the dogs to chase. While Io and Ganymede ran off after it, Callisto stuck to Amelia’s side.
“I think you’ve stolen the affections of my dog,” Arthur said, amused.
“Her affections are her own,” Amelia said tartly. “She can give them wherever she wants.”
“True enough. But in that case, she’s given her heart rather firmly to you.”
“She just missed you,” Amelia said, as they came upon a moss-covered stone folly. Grecian-style columns in a circle, three meters across, supported a domed roof that dripped ivy.
Arthur led the way up the steps. “And you? Did you miss me?” he asked.
Amelia stared at him. “What kind of a question is that?”
“An honest one,” Arthur said. There were stone benches inside, but he didn’t sit. “You had a hell of a time on your own while I was gone, with your ex. You might fairly blame me for it and want nothing more to do with me.”
Seeing Arthur unsure of himself was somewhat a new experience “If I didn’t want anything more to do with you,” Amelia said, a bit archly, “I would have let you know.”
“I suppose you would have.” Arthur chuckled. “So you did miss me?”
Somewhere in the distance, a bird trilled with pleasure. The shadows on Arthur’s face were green in the light filtered in through the ivy. His eyes glittered at her. She realized he was now standing very close to her. He hadn’t often shown her this much affection.
“More than I thought possible,” she confessed.
“Me too,” Arthur said. “I don’t want to go so far without you again.” And then he kissed her.
Making out with the Prince of Wales in a garden folly on the Sandringham Estate was yet another new experience for Amelia. And not a bad one. Arthur pushed her back up against the cool stone of one of the pillars. He cradled the back of her head with one hand and gripped her waist tightly with the other. Amelia whimpered into his mouth and wondered whether they would finally go to bed together tonight.
One of the dogs barked sharply.
Arthur broke the kiss and stepped back hastily, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I’m not,” Amelia shot back. “But someone might come.” She levered herself up off the column. “How’s my makeup?”
Arthur lifted a hand and wiped what Amelia assumed was a smear of lipstick from the corner of her mouth. “There. Now you’re perfect.”
*
When Arthur had mentioned meetings with the dress designer, Amelia had not realized that she would be sitting across a table at Sandringham house with the head of a very chic, very famous fashion house. He greeted her warmly as though he met with royalty all the time — which perhaps he did — and unpacked a thick folio of sketches, photos and fabric swatches.
“Sorry I’m late,” Arthur said, opening the door without knocking and then closing it again behind himself. The designer stood and bowed to him, which Arthur acknowledged with a nod before sliding into the seat next to Amelia.
“Are you even supposed to be here?” Amelia asked him, surprised. When they’d parted at the edge of the garden she hadn’t expected to see him until dinner.
“Yes, I’m afraid. I won’t see the final dress before the big day, but,” Arthur tipped his head toward the growing pool of pictures on the table, “protocol demands some sort of involvement from me. Mostly so that if anyone tries to make a fuss about the suitability of the dress, they can holler at me and not you.”
“Is that likely to happen?” Amelia asked with a frown.
Arthur didn’t answer. He nodded to the sketches instead. “Take a look.”
Amelia, with a glance for permission at the designer, took the one closest to her and spun it around to look at it. And then she looked at Arthur.
“Did you know about this?” she asked faintly.
“I had a few ideas. But I’m not the creative genius in this room, no.”
Amelia looked a
t the drawing in her hands and then at the others scattered across the table. Arthur wasn’t any sort of genius at all. The sketches showed dresses made of different materials, with different necklines and sleeve lengths and silhouettes, but on all of them, on the bodice or the skirt or the sleeves or the train, were roses: white…and red.
“Can you even put color on a royal wedding dress?” Amelia asked, to mask her reaction, which was horror. To marry Prince Arthur, to stand in Westminster Cathedral and give up her name and her old identity — she was prepared for that. As prepared as anyone could be. But she didn’t think she could do it in a white gown dripping with red.
“Long story short, yes,” Arthur said. “I was worried it might be a bit too on the nose with the symbolism, but I think all of these have tremendous potential.”
“You’ve seen these before?” Amelia asked, not sure if she should be affronted.
“There were a lot of car rides in Australia,” Arthur said. “It’s a very spread out country. I had to do something.”
“Did you think about the symbolism?” Amelia focused her attention on Arthur, not the designer. None of this was his fault; he’d just done as he’d been told.
“The symbolism of our two houses coming together?” Arthur asked mildly.
“Of me walking down the aisle in a dress that looks like it’s covered in blood.”
“I hardly think —”
“That’s what this looks like!” Amelia exclaimed.
“If I may —” the designer began, desperate to intervene, but Arthur talked over him. “It’s a wedding dress. With roses on it. White for York, and red for Lancaster. And also, red for love and passion and any of a half-dozen other things the color and the flower mean.”
“It looks like I’ve been shot with arrows!” As far as Amelia was concerned this was worse than the pigeons and the ghost battle combined.
