“A bit of bubbly before bedtime?” he offered. She wasn’t tired and she let him come in, and he sat down across from her in front of the fire and stretched his legs out as he filled two glasses with champagne, and handed one to her.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, looking relaxed. “It’s all a bit serious for me, and a little formal. But staying home alone on Christmas would be depressing. So I let my father talk me into it. And to be honest, I hoped you’d be here. I wasn’t sure if you’d be in Kent instead.”
“I thought I should be here this year.”
“Be careful. The royal life is a web you’ll never escape.”
“You make it sound ominous,” she said as she sipped the champagne.
“Not ominous, insidious. After a while, nothing compares to it and you get trapped. Like Victoria. I’m sure there are a dozen places she’d rather be. But she’s still here.”
“It’s home to her,” Annie said.
“She’ll wind up an old maid if she’s not careful. Men are afraid of this, and she won’t be young and beautiful forever. She’s already forty-two, and I don’t think any of the men she’s been in love with wanted to take this on.”
“Why not?” Annie looked surprised, as he finished his glass and poured himself another. She wondered if he was a little tipsy, but he didn’t look it.
“Because the queen makes the rules, my dear, for the entire family. And the cabinet. And the prime minister. And the archbishop. And all the rules and traditions that have existed for hundreds of years. You can’t escape that. It’s a prison of sorts, a golden one, but nonetheless the walls are thick and the doors are barred, and they let very few people in. Queen Alexandra is a stickler. It will happen to you too if you’re not careful. You can’t just marry whoever you choose now. They have to approve.”
“Are they still that strict?” Annie looked surprised. These were modern times, and the queen was young.
“They are,” he answered. “You’re far enough down the line, so they may not be as tough on you. But poor George and Albert will have to marry the girls their mother approves of. No go-go dancers for them,” he said, and she laughed.
“Well, they don’t need to worry about me. I don’t want to get married. I just want to be a jockey one day, if they ever relax the rules and let women into the inner sanctum of racing.”
“You can’t wait for that forever.”
“Yes, I can,” she said confidently. “That’s my only goal for the moment.”
“Then God help the racing committee. I get the feeling that you always get what you want.”
“Not always, but I’m willing to wait and be patient.”
“You’ll probably marry and have ten children before that,” he said lightly.
“I hope not. I’m not sure I want any,” Annie responded seriously. “It certainly didn’t work out well for my mother,” she said quietly, and he looked at her gently.
“Are you afraid of that happening to you?” he asked, and she nodded. It was her worst fear, dying in childbirth. He had his own demons.
“That was a long time ago, during the war. She was young, and you probably weren’t born in a hospital,” he said sensibly to reassure her.
“No, I wasn’t, but it still happens even now.”
“Think of Queen Victoria. She was as small as you are, and she had nine children, all at home, and she was fine. I suppose we all have our terrors. I’m afraid of the woman I love leaving me, the way my mother walked out on my father. It nearly broke him. I don’t think he ever recovered. I don’t think he’s loved a woman since.” Although he had dated many, and had a reputation as a ladies’ man.
“It’s odd how the things in our childhood mark us forever,” Annie said. “Once I knew about my mother, I decided I didn’t want children. It seems safer not to try.” And yet she never played it safe on horseback, and had no fears there. But she guarded her heart. And so did Anthony and his father.
“It’s not too late for you to change your mind about having babies. You’re young. It will be fine, if you fall in love with the right man. Finding a woman who won’t fall in love with someone else and leave you is harder,” he said, expressing his own fears.
“Maybe you don’t know the right women,” she said, and he stared into the fire as he thought about it and then looked at her.
“Probably not. The ones that sparkle like diamonds in the snow are always the most dangerous. I don’t trust them, but they’re always so damn tempting. I think my mother was like that. She was the daughter of a marquess, and she was a famous beauty. My father was dazzled by her. But she left him for another man, as you know.”
“Love seems complicated,” Annie said softly, and he nodded.
“It does, doesn’t it? It shouldn’t. It should be so simple between two good, honorable people. The trouble is, so few people are honorable. And the ones who are can be damn boring,” he said and then laughed. “Like your aunt Alexandra. She’s a woman of duty and honor, and a profoundly good person, but I don’t imagine she’s much fun to live with and must be rather dull. Victoria is a great deal more amusing, but I wouldn’t trust her. I suspect she can be very naughty, and even wicked. Her love affairs never last and they’re never with suitable people. She prefers the high-risk ones, but when you do that, you wind up alone like her.” He was in a serious contemplative mood, but Annie suspected that his analyses were correct. “Who knows, maybe your mother would have left your father by now, if they’d survived.”
“I don’t know much about her. No one likes to talk about her. It makes them too sad. She was so young when she died.”
“I can understand that. And one thing I do know,” he said, looking seriously at her, as he slid out of his chair across from her and came to sit on the floor next to the low chair where she was sitting. “I know you’re an honorable woman, Annie, and you’re not boring. I always have fun with you, that’s a rare combination.” She smiled down at him, and always felt comfortable with him.
“Thank you. I have fun with you too, except for the time I nearly killed myself racing with you.”
He winced. “Christ, I thought you were dead. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” she said. “I was lucky.”
“We both were.” He leaned forward and the next thing she knew he was kissing her, not violently or passionately, but tenderly, as though he meant it. She was shocked and hadn’t seen it coming.
“What are you doing?” she said in a whisper, and he kissed her again, and this time she kissed him back. She hadn’t expected anything like this from him.
“I’m kissing you.” He answered and smiled at her, and did it one more time. “Every time I see you, something happens to me. You’re everything I want in a woman, Annie. But I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of ruining what we have. Of you leaving me one day. Of the royal rules squeezing the life out of both of us. It terrifies me, but I know I want to be with you one day, and be married to you, and have babies with you, and I won’t let it kill you, I promise.” He sounded frighteningly serious about all of it.
“You don’t know that it wouldn’t kill me,” she said, remembering her mother.
“I don’t want anything bad to ever happen to you. I hate the idea of your being a jockey. You could break your neck and die, a lot easier than in childbirth. What I can never figure out is how we get from here to there. I’ve thought about it. How do we get from where we are now to a grown-up married life with children and dogs and all the good things that go with it?” He looked genuinely worried.
“Maybe we just wait till we’re ready.” He had opened new doors and windows to a vista she had never even considered, but she liked it. He put his arms around her and held her close as the fire crackled and she felt the warmth of him around her and on her lip
s when he kissed her. She had never felt anything like it for any man, until now.
“I don’t want to wait,” he whispered to her, and then pulled away slightly to look at her, “and this isn’t just a clever plot to get you into bed on Christmas Eve and walk away the next day. I’m in love with you. I knew it the day I nearly killed you when we were racing. I just haven’t figured out what to do about it. And you’re too young to get married, maybe we both are. I still have some growing up to do too, but I don’t want to lose you while we wait. And I sure don’t want to lose you to some stupid horse race.”
“You won’t.” But he knew he could if she got her wish and was able to become a jockey. “So what do we do?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know. Let’s spend time together when we can. I can come to the stables when I have free time, and you can come to London to see me.”
“Should we tell people?”
“Eventually. Not yet. They’ll figure it out. And there will be lots of people telling you I’m a player and not to take me seriously.” She laughed at that.
“Victoria already has, after she saw the photo of us in the newspaper at your party for the Texan.”
“She should talk.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s slept with half of Europe. I’m an amateur compared to her. And in the past she would have been right about me. I feel differently about you, Annie. You’re different, and I’m different when I’m with you.”
“And when you’re not?” She wasn’t entirely oblivious to his reputation.
“Leave that to me.” He kissed her again then, with mounting passion, their champagne forgotten, all he wanted were her lips and to feel her in his arms. He derived strength from her, and he trusted her, and knew he could. She was a good woman. “Would you go away with me?” he asked her when he pulled away to catch his breath. And she was out of breath too, as she thought about it.
“Maybe. Not yet. It’s too soon.” He nodded and didn’t argue with her. “I don’t want to get pregnant. My mother did that. I don’t want to start out that way, in a panic, and doing the wrong thing.”
“There’s a pill you can take now, not to get pregnant. They have it in the States.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know about it, and had no reason to. She was entirely innocent. “I would do that. I don’t want us to make any mistakes.” He nodded, neither did he. He wanted this to be right, for both of them. It was a first for him, but he’d been thinking of her that way for a while, since the party.
“I’d love to go to Venice with you,” he said, “or somewhere in France.” She nodded, carried away with the images he was sharing with her, and eventually he carried her to the bed and lay down next to her and just held her. “I love you, Annie,” he said peacefully, and she had never felt so safe in her life. He didn’t try to do anything he shouldn’t. Eventually when the fire died down and the room got chilly, he got up regretfully, and stood and smiled down at her. “My beautiful angel. I don’t know why you dropped into my life. I don’t deserve you, but I’ll try. I promise you that.” She smiled up at him, got off the bed, and followed him to the door of her room. He peeked out to make sure there was no one in the hall, and he didn’t have far to go to his own room. He kissed her one last time. It had been an important night for both of them. Life-changing, if they stuck to it and all went well.
“I love you,” she whispered to him. “Happy Christmas.”
“Happy Christmas,” he whispered back and then sped down the hall to his room and disappeared. She softly closed the door, wondering what would happen and if he really meant it. If he did, she had never been happier in her life. She was still smiling when she went to bed and burrowed under the covers. In his room, Anthony was standing at the window, looking at the snow on the ground, and thinking of his mother, hoping he would be luckier than his father had been. But with Annie, for the first time in his life, he thought he had a chance. He had opened his heart to her, and all he could do now was pray that he was right. She was the first woman he had trusted in his entire life. It was even more important than loving her.
Chapter 16
Everything about Christmas changed from the moment Anthony told Annie he loved her. It was the most beautiful Christmas of her life. They met at breakfast the next day, and all appeared to be normal. They sat next to each other and held conversations with the other people at the table as though nothing had changed. But their entire universe had altered overnight. Annie felt as though she was floating.
She called Jonathan and the twins to wish them a Happy Christmas.
Anthony snuck into her room that afternoon to kiss her, and again when she was changing for dinner. He could hardly keep his hands off her. She didn’t want to do anything foolish, and he wanted to be responsible. After dinner on Christmas night, he stayed with her for hours and they talked about the future. It sounded magical to her. He lay on her bed and held her and they kissed endlessly, but they didn’t make love. That was new for him. Any woman who hadn’t slept with him before, he had lost interest in immediately. With Annie, it was all different, and he didn’t want to do anything to hurt her or put her at risk.
They managed to avoid the scrutiny of the entire group by being discreet and appearing casual with each other. And no one suspected anything by the time they all disbanded on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. The queen had to get back to Buckingham Palace, Victoria was going skiing with friends in Saint Moritz, and Cortina after that. Anthony’s father had business to attend to. The young princes had to go back to school, and the prince consort was going hunting in Spain with the king. They all had their roles to play and their lives to pursue. He hated to let Annie go back alone on the train for the long trip back to Newmarket, but it was how she had come, and he had to drive his car back from Sandringham. He couldn’t leave it there. His father had come in his own car, so he couldn’t drive Anthony’s back for him. And he was stopping to see people on the way back so couldn’t offer Annie a ride.
The head steward put Annie on the train, and she felt as though she were in a dream all the way back to Newmarket, and in a cab back to the stables. It had been the most magical Christmas of her life. Anthony couldn’t even call her at the stables, without everyone knowing. Instead he showed up three days later for the weekend. His father was away, and he had dinner at the pub with Annie, and the next day they rode out together on a trail that was muddy but not icy, and they were cautious so the horses didn’t fall. He smiled at her as the horses walked along side by side.
“When are you coming to London?” he asked her.
“I have three days off in two weeks. I could come then.”
“It’s going to be so hard having you here,” he said, impatient to spend time with her. “I’ll get you a room at the Ritz,” he said and she nodded. He came to her room that night, when the other trainers were out for dinner, and they lay on her bed for a while.
“How would I get that pill you mentioned?” she asked him shyly and he smiled. He didn’t think she was ready and he was surprised. “I don’t think I trust us,” she said wisely.
“I’ll take care of it,” he promised. “I have an American friend who can mail them to me. They’re easier to get there.” He didn’t want to make any mistakes either and spoil everything. She was too important to him.
He left the trainers’ quarters before the others got back, and stayed in his father’s house. She visited him there the next day, but they were circumspect, with a great deal of kissing and touching and fondling, but nothing more dangerous than that.
He hated to leave her on Sunday night, but she promised to come to London in two weeks on her time off. He wrote her short funny letters which made her laugh, and told her how much he loved her. She got a steady stream of mail from him, and had to force herself to concentrate on her work. And at the end of two weeks, she took the train to London, he met her at the station, and drove her to the Ritz. H
e hadn’t intended to stay with her, or he would have taken her to his apartment. But in the end, he couldn’t leave her, and she didn’t want him to. He had come prepared just in case. He didn’t want to risk an accident the first time.
He was as gentle as he could be with her, and made it as painless as possible, knowing she was a virgin. But she was a willing, exuberant lover and surprised him. They hardly got out of bed all weekend. It was raining and cold, and they were cozy in the suite. He had brought the birth control pills as promised, and warned her that they would take a week or so to be effective, so they were careful.
They slept and talked and ordered meals, and went for a few walks around the neighborhood of the hotel, and by the end of the weekend, they belonged to each other, and Annie felt like a woman of the world.
She felt as though everyone would notice how changed she was when she went back to the stables, and she could hardly pull herself away when he took her to the station and put her on the train.
“I love you, remember that,” he whispered to her and they waved to each other, until the train pulled away and entered a tunnel, and then she sat dreaming of the weekend all the way back to Newmarket. He threw caution to the winds and called her that night. There was an open phone in the trainers’ quarters, so she couldn’t say much, but he told her again and again how much he loved her and she said she did too.
She almost wanted to tell Jonathan about Anthony, but she didn’t dare. And remarkably, they managed to keep their affair a secret for the next several months. She stayed at his apartment in Knightsbridge the next time, and thereafter, and they cooked breakfast together, and at night he took her to dinner at his favorite restaurants. Miraculously, they never ran into anyone they knew, and never got caught on their weekends together. She got two weekends off a month.
All she had done since Christmas was work and see Anthony. It was like living in a bubble, and in March, the queen’s secretary called her to invite her to attend the Cheltenham Festival in Gloucestershire. It was a three-day event for chasers and hurdlers, with the Champion Hurdle, the Champion Chase, the World Hurdle, and the highlight of the jump season, the Cheltenham Gold Cup. She was thrilled to be asked. They had a horse running in the Champion Chase, and the secretary said she was welcome to invite her father as well if she liked. She didn’t dare ask if she could bring Anthony too, but she knew he could ask to go with his father, since he would be in the royal box too.
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