The Golden Prince (48 page)

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 hard 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.”

“What happens after they are twenty-five?”

“I’m not sure. I’d have to check. But I think that after they are twenty-five they can marry if they give a year’s notice to the King’s privy council. Or they can if both Houses of Parliament don’t object.”

Rose pushed a straying strand of chestnut hair back into the thick knot in the nape of her neck. “The Royal Marriages Act isn’t going to prevent David from telling King George that unless he’s allowed to marry Lily he’s no longer going to carry out any of his duties as Prince of Wales. That is what he’s going to do when he comes back from Germany.”

“Germany?”

“As of tomorrow he’ll be at the Court of Württemberg, and he’s going to be there for several weeks. Once he’s back and has dropped his bombshell, the King, the prime minister, and the Archbishop of Canterbury are all going to consider him a disgrace to his position. After all, if he isn’t putting duty first in this situation, how can he be expected to do so in the future, when he’s King? If what you say is true, it will all be for nothing. Because of the Royal Marriages Act he
still
won’t be able to marry Lily.”