A Royal Love Match Read online

  Clive knew that the way he put it would appeal to the King and it was something he could organise himself.

  He had walked in danger for so long that he was a past master at concealing from others what he did not want them to know.

  “Now what we have to do,” suggested the King, “is to think this all out very seriously. As you propose, Clive, when people are at luncheon they will not be looking out for surprises.”

  He paused as if he was carefully thinking out the whole scenario, then went on,

  “Naturally we don’t want them all rushing down to Hampton Court just on the off chance that you might be there.”

  “God forbid,” Clive muttered.

  “Or because they guess without us saying anything that something is going on about which they have not been alerted.”

  Clive guessed he was referring to the equerries who were always hovering in attendance and who believed it was their job not only to look after the King but to think for him.

  “Please work it out, Sire, I am sure Your Majesty will do it far better than I can.”

  “We have both had sufficient experience over the years in subterfuge to know one is always vulnerable to the enemy,” replied the King. “In this case that is undoubtedly the Countess, although we must give her credit for bringing you to your senses over Alissia.”

  Clive looked at him in surprise.

  The King smiled.

  “I felt from the first time I saw her, that not only was she very beautiful, but you were the only gentleman good enough for anyone so charming and so intelligent.”

  There was a twisted smirk on his lips as he added,

  “I would have pursued her myself, if my hands had not been overfull already!”

  Clive chuckled.

  “I should have found it difficult in that case to fight you for her. Although I think, Sire, we are very likely to be on equal terms if it comes to duelling or fisticuffs!”

  “I am thankful I do not have to experience either with you as my opponent, Clive, as tennis is bad enough when you beat me!

  “But now let us get down to brass-tacks. I think it would be wise if we did not tell Lord Dalwaynnie until the very last minute.”

  “I would certainly agree, Sire.”

  “In fact, Clive, I think the very best way would be to send an equerry to tell him I want him to have luncheon with me, but that he should come early at midday since I want to ask his advice about some current issue.”

  “That is an excellent idea, Sire. The Countess will undoubtedly think Your Majesty wants to ask his advice on your pictures or perhaps there is to be a meeting of experts to discuss improvements to the Palace.”

  “That is exactly what I thought myself.”

  There was a short pause before Clive said,

  “Yet another problem is that Alissia has nothing to wear but what she now has on. She cannot risk collecting her clothes from her Apartment for obvious reasons.”

  The King laughed.

  “I should have thought of that one myself, knowing how women fuss continually about their appearance!”

  “Well, it’s a good long way to Scotland, Sire, and just one gown is not particularly suitable for such a long voyage.”

  The King held up his hand.

  “Now just don’t disturb me, Clive, I am thinking. I suppose there is someone we can trust in the Dalwaynnie Apartment?”

  “There is someone who I should like to come with us to help look after my wife, Sire, and to whom I owe a deep debt of gratitude.”

  The King had heard the story before.

  “You mean Nanny?”

  Clive nodded.

  “Very well, Clive, she must be informed at once. Are you going to tell her – or shall I?”

  The King was only teasing and Clive added,

  “If you are now thinking of going in disguise and knocking on the back door, I am afraid you might not act the part sufficiently well not to be exposed!”

  “Very well then, Clive. What do you suggest?”

  “I think I should write a note to Nanny and have it delivered to her by my valet who I trust. They could both then collect all Alissia’s clothes and smuggle them out of the Apartment without anyone noticing their movements.”

  “I hope you are right,” sighed the King, “but as you know the Palace is stocked with eyes that see too much and ears that are listening to every flutter of the wind.”

  “A perfect description!” exclaimed Clive, “which will undoubtedly go down in history one way or another!”

  Both men laughed and then the King suggested,

  “Now I intend to send for my Chaplain and I think it would be a mistake for him to see you or to know your name until the Marriage Service is actually taking place, and therefore I would propose that you now go back to your future wife.”

  “I will do that, Sire, but when will we meet Your Majesty again? I am sure it would be dangerous for me to come to this room and then have to walk some distance to the Chapel.”

  “Then we will meet outside the Chapel at exactly a quarter-to-one, Clive. I will have with me – God willing – Alissia’s father, and no one will have the slightest idea that anything unusual is about to take place.”

  “Amen to that, Sire.”

  Clive then left the King’s Apartments and went to his own that was actually not very far away.

  When he arrived, he wrote a letter to Nanny making it as brief as possible.

  He next told his faithful valet, who he had brought from Scotland, that he was now on a secret mission.

  The man had been with Clive since he had arrived home after the Battle of Worcester and was very obviously elated at the whole idea.

  “That’ll be somethin’ new, my Lord,” he remarked cheerfully.

  “It is not only a secret, but it is absolutely essential that you do without question exactly all I ask you to do and without anyone except Nanny, who you know, being aware that anything is afoot.”

  “Your Lordship can trust me,” replied Angus.

  “I know that I can, Angus, but you will have to be extremely clever about it. The things I have asked Nanny in this note to provide have to be transferred secretly to the Royal Barge, which will be waiting at the further entrance on the Embankment immediately below the Palace.”

  “I knows the one you mean, my Lord.”

  “I am going on a voyage,” Clive went on, “and I will need my clothes with me as well.”

  “Am I comin’ with Your Lordship?” Angus asked.

  “I think you had better do so, otherwise you will find it very difficult to keep the voyage a secret from those who will doubtless agitate to find out where we are going once we have left the Royal Palace.”

  He saw that Angus was thrilled with the secret – he already felt certain that his Master was eloping with some lovely lady or else involved in some daredevil escapade which at all costs must be kept from the nosey-parkers who surrounded the King.

  After a few more instructions Angus went off with his note for Nanny.

  Clive then walked as nonchalantly as he could to the Embankment.

  The Royal Barge where Alissia was waiting for him had not moved since he had left it.

  The Captain, on his instructions, had given orders that no one was to come aboard before he, Clive, returned.

  As soon as Clive then stepped onto the gangway, the Captain of the Royal Barge, who had been looking out for him all this time, came hurrying towards him.

  “Is everything all right, my Lord?” he asked Clive cautiously.

  “His Majesty was most pleased, Captain, with the way you carried out what he knew to be a difficult task.”

  The Captain almost blushed.

  “His Majesty,” Clive then continued, “considers it important that no one knows what has occurred and that the ship we left behind at the mouth of the Thames is not mentioned in any way at the Royal Palace.”

  “I’ll see that His Majesty’s instructions are carried out and I’ll i
nform my crew at once,” the Captain replied stoutly.

  “What I would now like, Captain, is to have a look at your Master Suite, and to know if you will be ready in two hours time to take us to Hampton Court Palace and to then leave at first light tomorrow morning, without anyone being aware of it, for Scotland.”

  He saw the Captain’s eyes light up at the idea of a long voyage.

  Clive realised that the King’s staff on duty at the Royal Palace found the lack of activity extremely boring – he himself had suggested there should be races amongst the Royal Barges to last over two or three weeks to keep the men happy.

  “There is, however, one further condition,” Clive added. “That is that we don’t tell your oarsmen that we are leaving until the voyage has started. They must have no idea until we are actually at sea that we are not returning to London for some considerable time.”

  The Captain did not hesitate.

  He promised that his men would not be informed of their destination and that he would not even tell his junior Officers that they were leaving London.

  Clive knew that the majority of the men on board who had been signed on as oarsmen were not married and they therefore had no particular commitment ashore.

  In the meantime he did appreciate that the Captain would have to be extremely careful.

  He had to bring on board whatever supplies would be needed, in particular sufficient food and water, without attracting attention.

  And it would be a mistake for anyone to question any of this before they had actually left for Scotland.

  After he had finished talking with the Captain, he went to the cabin where he had left Alissia.

  As he expected, she had remained in the cabin and had not gone up on deck where she might be seen.

  As he entered the cabin, she gave a cry of joy and ran towards him.

  “You are back, Clive!” she called out breathlessly. “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything is fine, my darling. We are going to be married a little before one o’clock in the King’s Private Chapel. I have arranged for your father to give you away, while His Majesty will be my Best Man. No one else will have the slightest idea what is taking place until we are too far away to hear them making a fuss about it.”

  “You are so very very clever,” Alissia sighed. “It would spoil everything if my Stepmama tried to stop us or made one of her dreadful scenes. Or if all those people at Court came rushing at us, which I know you would hate.”

  “You have to look after me just as I have to look after you,” Clive smiled, “and I can imagine nothing I will enjoy more.”

  He then kissed her.

  And it was a long time later before they were able to talk about anything again.

  Finally Angus came aboard with Alissia’s clothes.

  When she saw that they were all in bags that were normally used for the laundry, she laughed.

  “No one were a bit interested in me carryin’ these along the corridors,” Angus explained, “but they would’ve questioned where I were a-goin’ if I’d brought them in a trunk!”

  “Yes, of course they would” Alissia cried. “It was very clever of you and Nanny to conceal my clothes so brilliantly.”

  “There be a helluva lot more to come, includin’ his Lordship’s,” Angus told her. “Nanny told me to get back as quick as I could.”

  “And Nanny must always be obeyed, I have known that ever since I could crawl!”

  “Nanny be ever so excited to be comin’ with you, my Lady, but she didn’t tell me where we be a-goin’.”

  “I am sure his Lordship will do that when you see him,” giggled Alissia.

  When Nanny came aboard at exactly twelve-thirty, Alissia then quickly changed her day dress for one that was completely white.

  It was a dress she had never worn before and she had bought it because it was so pretty and as it happened, Nanny had said to her on its arrival from the dressmakers,

  “It looks so like one of them weddin’ gowns to me, dearie. Are you hopin’ it’ll come in useful?”

  “Of course I am,” replied Alissia, “but I only hope I don’t have to wait until it goes out of fashion!”

  She had been speaking jokingly to Nanny.

  But at the same time it did pass through her mind that the only gentleman at Court she would really like to marry would be Clive, although so far he had paid little attention to her.

  ‘But I am going to marry him,’ she told herself, ‘and this gown is exactly what I want him to see me in on our wedding day.’

  There was no wedding veil amongst her clothes, but she found some tulle which she knew would be even more becoming than a heavy veil – but she would not put it on until she entered the Chapel itself.

  Angus went backwards and forwards conveying the clothes, laundry bag after laundry bag.

  On his last journey he brought Jimbo back with him and two spaniels belonging to Clive.

  Alissia gave a cry of delight.

  “How could we go without them?” she asked.

  At twenty minutes to one Clive came on board and knocked on her door.

  She had not moved outside the cabin where Nanny was arranging her clothes, just in case she might be seen by anyone looking out of the windows of the Royal Palace.

  Now when she saw Clive, she gave a loud cry of astonishment.

  He was dressed in his kilt, sporran and plaid and she thought he had never looked so smart or attractive as he did in all his Highland regalia.

  “I didn’t think you would be married dressed as a Scotsman,” she told him.

  “Which is what I am, Alissia, and therefore I am hoping that I will not be recognised as we skip through the corridors to the Chapel!”

  “I hope I will be smart enough for you,” Alissia asked him, slight doubt creeping into voice.

  “You look as lovely as I am sure you expect me to tell you, and I promise that I will say it a thousand times more once we are married.”

  Nanny came bustling in from the other cabin.

  “Thank you, Nanny,” said Clive, “for coming with us. We could not mange without you.”

  “I should think not,” replied Nanny. “I’ve looked after her Ladyship since she was born, as I once looked after you, and it’d be a real sad day if you could manage without me.”

  Clive laughed and reassured her,

  “I promise you we will never do that.”

  He took Alissia ashore at a quarter-to-one and they knew that by the time they reached the King’s Apartment her father would be with him.

  Clive looked to see if the King’s Private Chaplain was in the Chapel and then he knocked on the door of the King’s sitting room.

  He noticed as he did so that the King’s equerry who usually sat beside the door had been sent away and there appeared to be no one in the Private Apartments except themselves.

  He heard the King call out,

  “Come in.”

  As they walked in Alissia ran towards her father.

  “My darling daughter,” he cried. “His Majesty told me exactly what has been happening and I am exceedingly grateful to Clive for having saved you. And I am delighted and thrilled that you are marrying the one man I would have chosen for you had you asked me to do so.”

  Alissia having curtsied low to the King, kissed her father.

  Then the King suggested,

  “I feel so involved in this wedding that I am going to call Clive and Alissia, ‘A Royal love match’.”

  And next he smiled broadly,

  “Come on. Let us get it over with and the married couple can be off to Hampton Court.”

  “Is that where you are going after the Marriage Service?” Alissia’s father asked Clive.

  “Only for the one night and then we are going to Scotland. We will, of course, write to you from there and tell you when we are coming South again.”

  “I cannot spare you for too long,” the King insisted. “For the simple reason that I will want to play tennis with
you, Clive. Everyone else I play with I can beat too easily, so you must come back as quickly as possible to prevent me from becoming too proud of myself!”

  They all laughed.

  And then they walked into the Chapel.

  Alissia had put on her veil and now she slipped her arm through her father’s.

  The Marriage Service was short but inspiring.

  The Chaplain was an old man who made the words seem to have a special meaning for the two people making their vows in the sight of God.

  When he gave the Blessing, Alissia felt certain that her mother was near her, making sure that her daughter would be as happy as she had been with her father.

  There was the best mulled wine waiting for them in the King’s sitting room.

  When the King had drunk their health, they hurried down the stairs to the Embankment and the Royal Barge.

  Lord Dalwaynnie then joined the luncheon party, which had been the excuse to deceive the Countess.

  It had all been planned so carefully and in minute detail.

  Clive and Alissia ran up the gangway together and were piped aboard and the Royal Barge began to move out into the Thames as soon as they were safely on board.

  Alissia was absolutely certain that no one had the slightest idea that a very important marriage had just taken place secretly in the Royal Palace.

  The King had made arrangements for their stay at Hampton Court Palace to be secret.

  The Royal Apartments had been opened for them and the King had emphasised in the letter he had sent to the Officials in charge of the Palace that no one outside was to be told they were present.

  There were cascades of flowers in the sitting room and the bedroom.

  They had enjoyed luncheon on the Royal Barge on the way to Hampton Court and then, as they were to leave early the next morning, Clive ordered dinner to be served at seven-thirty.

  Because Alissia had never been to Hampton Court Palace before, they spent most of the afternoon exploring the many rooms.