Seducing the Princess

by Hart Perry, Mary

  She laughed and kicked her heels into her horse’s ribs. The animal leapt forward even as she shouted over her shoulder, “I’ll win this one too!”

  He watched her run her horse as if the devil himself was after her. In a way, he supposed, she was right. But he doubted ol’ Lucifer ever felt a spasm of guilt as he did now. Still, it had to be done. There was no other way.

  She was waiting for him at the oak and had already jumped down from her horse by the time he arrived. She stood holding the gelding’s bridle, nuzzling his nose against her cheek. “You did good, old man. Want to rest for a minute?”

  He wasn’t sure if she was speaking to the horse or teasing him.

  Gregory swung his leg over the saddle and slid down to the ground. He looked around, saw what he needed. Stooping, he picked up a stone the size of a croquet ball. He passed it back and forth between his palms, studying the rusty and amber veins of quartz running through it. “I would have won if I hadn’t been distracted by your horse’s gait.” He pointed at the animal’s right rear hoof. “I think he’s picked up a stone in his shoe. Looked to me like he was hobbling a bit.”

  “Oh no,” she said, “I would’ve noticed.”

  “I’ll check it for you anyway.” He took a step forward. “We don’t want him going lame on the ride back.”

  “I’ll do it.” She picked up a sturdy stick then bent over and lifted the horse’s hoof, bracing it between her knees as if she were shoeing it. She peered down at the iron shoe and ran the tip of the stick into the groove, prying out dried mud. “Just dirt, no stone. He’s fine, like I said.”

  Gregory tightened his fingers around the rock and brought it down as hard as he could on the back of her skull. The crack of bone and whimper that burst from her lips sickened him. Her glorious red hair flew wild as she tumbled to the ground.

  Standing above her, he could tell she was still breathing. He set the stone on the ground near her head, its bloody side turned up. More blood spilled onto it from the gash in her head. Gregory knelt beside her. She groaned once and whispered something that might have been his name.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here, my love.”

  He wasn’t supposed to feel anything. He’d told himself over and over—once he’d made the decision and acted, it would be like putting down a lame pony or an ailing loyal dog. Sad but necessary. But it wasn’t at all like that. Tears burned his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve no choice, you see. Sleep well, my angel.”

  He closed his hands tenderly around her smooth, white throat, tightened his fingers. With a little more pressure and a sharp jerk, he snapped her neck. At last, she lay still.

  Gregory sat back on his heels and closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe slowly, evenly, though his heart pounded with condemning ferocity.

  A fall from a horse, that’s what it must look like. And he couldn’t take her back with him. Couldn’t let her brothers and father see him with her body, on chance they’d suspect him.

  His mind spun and reached for the next step.

  And then he knew how it had to go. Return to her father’s cottage alone, with just the one horse. Pretend they’d become separated and he’d lost her. Ask one of her brothers to come with him and help look for her, because he was worried. She took too many chances while riding, he’d say. He’d seen her jump a stone wall recklessly many times. They’d been racing, and she’d outrun him. He lost her in the woods, spent over an hour searching. Scared, really scared now.

  He’d make sure someone other than him found her. He’d play the grief-stricken groom on the eve of his wedding day turned tragedy. It wouldn’t be hard. Gregory almost wished he hadn’t done it. Hadn’t killed her. But if he’d had to choose again, he’d have changed nothing. There was so much at stake.

  27

  Beatrice looked around at the other guests as they arrived and were introduced to the queen at the Duchess of Devonshire’s garden party. She had to remind herself to breathe, as if this essential bodily function wasn’t something that nature took care of without conscious effort.

  She and Henry had agreed to stand before the queen today, here at the party, and declare their engagement. They’d discussed the strategy at length. It seemed a good idea to have witnesses—as many and as important as possible. By making their intentions public, they would also make it more difficult for Victoria to simply dismiss their engagement.

  Henry would, of course, come by separate carriage to the Palladian-style mansion. It was one of the grandest homes in all of London, designed by William Kent over a hundred years earlier, standing majestically on Piccadilly. Henry had agreed to arrive a stylish thirty minutes or more into the party so that most of the guests would have already had a chance to greet the queen. That would leave the stage free for them to make their announcement.

  While Beatrice waited for him, she took extra care settling her mother into the most comfortable chair in the shade of the duchess’s rose arbor. She sat beside her mother, making sure she had plenty of tea and a selection of the nicest biscuits, while steering conversation toward light topics. When two members of parliament, whose political views always irritated Victoria, started to approach the queen, Beatrice left her seat and boldly headed them off.

  “The gout has put Her Majesty in a most negative mood, sirs,” she said. “If you have expectations of turning her to your side, you may want to wait until she is in less pain.”

  They scampered like pigeons shooed away after the bread crumbs were gone. Pleased with the results, she returned to her seat beside the queen.

  And then, suddenly, there was her Henry, striding through the garden gate, elegant in his military uniform. Wide shoulders capped by epaulets, tucked waist, polished black boots, dazzling smile. Her pulse quickened with adoration as he made his way across the garden, nodding to those courtiers and noblemen he knew. Women turned in the midst of lively conversation to ogle him or whisper to each other behind plumed fans as he passed. Never had it been more obvious to Beatrice that she wasn’t alone in admiring him.

  She didn’t mind. Other women’s interest made her all the more proud that he had chosen her.

  When Henry was no more than twenty feet away, his eyes met Beatrice’s. She read hope and excitement in their steady blue gaze. He looked so very brave, a soldier going to battle, determined to emerge victorious. And she was the prize of this war, the sought-after spoils.

  Admittedly, she had failed to make her wishes understood when she’d faced her mother at breakfast that other day. But Henry wasn’t the sort to become awkward or tongue-tied. He knew his way around the elegant courts of Europe. Surely he would charm the queen as thoroughly as he had her daughter.

  “I wonder what he is doing here,” her mother said and, when Beatrice turned to see who she was talking about, Victoria’s stony gaze had fixed on Henry. “The duchess can’t have invited him. She has an aversion to foreigners.”

  “Wasn’t her mother French?”

  “I can’t recall. But the French and Germans are entirely different, my dear. There are already far too many Germans scurrying about England.”

  Beatrice felt a bubble of panic begin to form low in her chest. “What a funny thing to say.” A nervous laugh escaped her. Why was her mother talking like this when her eldest daughter, the Crown Princess, had married a German who would likely make her an empress any day now? If that wasn’t enough to make any mother happy, what was?

  The woman’s moods seemed to swing on a pinhead. But it was too late to wave Henry off. He had started toward them with a smile on his face. Hoping to avert disaster, Beatrice dashed forward, all too aware that her mother was watching, and dragged Henry by the arm behind a nearby privet hedge.

  “We have to wait,” Beatrice gasped. “I don’t understand why she’s acting like this. She adores flowers, being outside, garden parties.” She chewed her bottom lip. “I’ve rarely heard her sound so cheerful and calm as she was th
is morning, but now, suddenly she’s—”

  Henry pressed a white-gloved finger across her lips. “No sense panicking. We’ve made our decision. The stage is set. We shall bravely advance according to plan.” Henry pecked her on the cheek.

  Beatrice held her breath as Henry rounded the hedge, after giving her hand one final squeeze of reassurance then releasing it. He approached the Queen, stopped and bowed.

  “Your Royal Majesty, how very well you look today. I gather you have recovered your health since returning from Darmstadt.”

  “My health is of no concern to you, young Herr Battenberg.” The Queen flashed a suspicious look at her daughter then turned back to Henry. “Baby told me of the presumptuous letter you wrote to her. I hope she hasn’t let you down too hard. But I know how young men are—intrigued for the moment by one woman, then off to experiment with others.”

  Henry’s smile froze. “Not I, madam. Once I declare myself to a lady, I never waver.”

  “Then you speak from the experience of having proposed to other young women?” Victoria raised a meaningful eyebrow.

  Henry looked horrified. “No, never. My love of your daughter has been unique, constant, and I can honestly say I have no desire to ever love another. That is why I have come today to speak with you.”

  The queen lifted her chins and stared down the length of her nose at him. “Then, sir, you have wasted a trip. My daughter understands that a union between the two of you is impossible. She has other obligations that are much more important than becoming a wife.”

  “Mama, please—” Beatrice rushed forward, shaking her head, hoping Henry wouldn’t take the queen’s words to heart. She stood by his side to face the queen. Already she felt a heavy sadness crushing her chest, and an overwhelming sense of doom. A lump rose in her throat, making it near impossible to speak. She forced the words out. “Please give him a chance to speak.”

  If Victoria heard her, she gave no sign of it and continued talking. “I have made my position perfectly clear, Henry Battenberg. Beatrice will not leave my side. Even if I were able to spare her, I would not want for her the degradation of being converted into any man’s servant for his wicked pleasure and the breeding of his children. Her fate will be a much more exalted one, which she fully understands. She has no desire to become any man’s wife.”

  Henry stood silent, shock etched into his features.

  “How can you say such things, Mama?” Beatrice wailed, ignoring the muffled gasps and whispers of guests around them. “What you want and what I need to be happy are very different. You can’t speak for me!” She lurched forward, prepared to throw herself to her knees.

  Henry put out his arm to stop her. “Your Royal Majesty, my respect for your daughter is such that I would never make demands upon her to harm or offend her in any way. I treasure Beatrice, will cherish her forever and—”

  “Enough!” Victoria pushed herself to her feet. Although barely five feet tall she seemed to rise above them all. “You presume too much. Beatrice doesn’t know what she wants. She thinks she needs what her sisters have—a man. But ask them if they are happy with their choices. My dear Alice died, exhausted by her efforts to provide her husband with still more heirs when she’d already given him eight. Helena grumbles constantly about her husband’s impossible behavior. Louise flits all over the globe without her husband; one can quite easily guess what that means. And my eldest, the Crown Princess, has bred a crippled monster who will one day become emperor. Marriage, and all it entails, is far too dangerous for my Baby. I won’t allow her to be turned into a brood mare.”

  “But I am prepared to—”

  The queen cut him off with a slash of her arm. “All of this aside, disturbing rumors have reached our ears. Rumors involving you, Battenberg. As often as they are repeated I expect at least some are true.” She took a deep breath, puffing out her bosom. “I command you to leave us. We wish to never see you again.”

  Henry stared at Beatrice, visibly stunned. Beatrice was no less so. Hadn’t Louise promised her that persistence would pay off? If anything, their situation had worsened!

  Henry lunged forward raising his hand in a combined gesture of objection and pleading. Immediately, the two nearest guardsmen stepped forward, their faces cramped into belligerent expressions. Each one grabbed an arm.

  “Mama!” Beatrice shrieked. The day had gone horribly, disastrously wrong, and she feared there was no way of fixing it.

  “I will persist, Your Majesty,” Henry shouted, struggling against the soldiers’ grip. “I will prove to you I am worthy of your daughter. I will make her happy.”

  “That will be difficult,” Victoria murmured, her voice stripped of emotion, “as you are no longer welcome in this country.” She spoke a little louder, as if to make sure the departing nobleman, and everyone else in the garden, heard her. “Henceforward, Henry Battenberg, you are banned from setting foot in England. Guards, escort the gentleman from our presence. He needs to attend to his travel arrangements.”

  A whimper of anguish escaped from Beatrice’s lips. She shot a look of remorse and apology at Henry, wanting to run to him, to cry out before everyone that she loved him, would follow him anywhere. Anywhere at all! But Henry moved his head slowly side to side, subtly warning her as though he knew her intent.

  Helpless, she watched as four more of the queen’s guards surrounded the young man and marched him out the gate. Guests had already begun slipping away, but now they seemed to melt into the foliage by the dozens—behind hedges, down garden paths, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the queen’s temper.

  Beatrice spun back around. “Mama!” She very nearly growled the word. “How could you do this to me? How could you humiliate me in front of Henry and all of society this way? His only desire is to make me happy.”

  Victoria pursed her lips and lifted one shoulder in dismissal. “Foolish girl. Don’t you understand? You’re only important to him because you are a queen’s daughter. I’m saving you from terrible grief when he throws you over, which he most certainly would do.”

  “No!” Beatrice screamed, stomping her foot so hard she jammed the heel of her shoe into the packed dirt between stone pavers. “He would never do that to me.” She looked toward the gate through which Henry had disappeared moments earlier and pulled her heel free from the crack.

  “I know your mind, Baby. Do not consider running off with that man. I will make it very hard on him. You will be his ruin, just as he will be yours.”

  Beatrice let out a screech frustration. “Oh!” And then, she bolted.

  She snatched up handfuls of her skirts and ran across the garden, weaving between the last fleeing guests. The duke and duchess had positioned themselves at the main gate, as if in a last ditch effort to see off a few of their guests with decorum. She ran past them. When she reached the street, Henry had already secured a hansom cab and boarded. The driver lifted his whip to urge the horses forward.

  Beatrice launched herself in front of the team, waving her arms. “Stop! Stop your horses.”

  Henry peered down at her from the open side of the carriage. “Beatrice, what are you doing?”

  “I want to be with you,” she cried, swallowing the flood of tears she’d forcibly blinked from her eyes but couldn’t entirely defeat. She rushed around to the carriage door. “I want to go with you to Germany. Now! Please, Henry. We’ll be married. There’s no way she can stop us.”

  He reached down and pulled her up inside the cab with him but signaled the driver not to leave yet. “There are many things she can do to stop us, my darling. You of all people shouldn’t underestimate her.”

  “But what shall we do? I can’t lose you. I love you so much. I’ll die if we must part.” She fell into his arms.

  “No, you won’t. We’ll both be miserable but we won’t die. The thing of it is—” He pressed her cheek to his lapels and stroked her hair “—if my father knows the Queen has refused to gi
ve her blessing, he will be furious with me for stealing you away behind her back. He won’t dare defy the queen. He will cut me off straight away. There will be no money from my family for us to live on. And you know there wouldn’t be a shilling from your mother.”

  “Oh, Henry.” Was that what her mother had meant by saying she’d make things hard on him? On them both, it appeared, as he’d explained the consequences.

  “I can’t ask you to live under those conditions—ostracized by society, scraping up a bare living as we can.”

  “But we would survive somehow. At least we’d be together.” She looked up into his troubled eyes and could see he was thinking.

  “No,” he said at last. “What we must do is exactly what your sister suggested before. We must give her time and be persistent, wear her down. I will return to Germany to appease her. But we will write to each other as often as we can and stay true to our vows of loving no other. And I will find a way, somehow, to convince your mother that she can trust me, and that she’ll be able to see you as often as she likes. After we’re married, we can spend half of every year in London, if that is your wish and hers. She will tire of fighting us if we are brave and wait her out.”

  Beatrice sighed, wrapped her arms around him, and squeezed as if to never let him go. “I will be bereft of you, Henry. I want to be with you, not separated by an ocean.”

  “Be brave, my darling.” He kissed her forehead when she blinked up at him. “I will be true to you, no matter how long it takes. Trust me, as I trust you.”

  She sniffled. “I do trust you. I do. And I will write every day with news of her moods and tell you of the slightest sign that she might be weakening in her resolve to keep us apart. Maybe you can go to your father and ask if he can speak to her. He and my father were dear friends. She has a soft spot in her heart for him. Perhaps he can sway her where we cannot.”

  “I will talk to him. But now you must let me leave, before the situation worsens. Your mother might change her mind and decide I should not leave.” He tipped his chin to indicate the two guardsmen who now stood on either side of the two horses hitched to the carriage, hands holding the bridles. She understood. Under no circumstances would they allow the coach to leave with her in it.