Wanted a Royal Wife Read online

  He saw that his sister was about to speak and went on quickly,

  “I know a good deal about Oldessa and it is a most delightful country. It is not very large if you compare it with its neighbours, Hungary and Bulgaria, but it breeds horses that can beat those of Hungary and has Steppes to ride on.”

  Latasha appeared a little more interested.

  “It is, from everything Kraus has always told me, extremely beautiful and the people themselves are friendly, peaceful and remarkably intelligent.”

  “You make it sound just like a fairyland,” Latasha countered scornfully. “But I am extremely happy here in England and that is where I wish to stay.”

  Her brother held up the letter.

  “I think I should read you the next few lines – ”

  “I am listening, Harry.”

  “Kraus says further – ”

  “We are all aware here that Queen Victoria, who is known as the ‘Matchmaker of Europe’, has been providing British Royal brides as a major defence against the Czar’s ambition to take over the whole of the Balkans.

  I am therefore half afraid that your sister may well already be spoken for, since I know that your mother was a distant relative of Her Majesty. If this is so, I shall be very angry with myself for not having written to you sooner.

  If by a fortunate chance your sister is still available, please can you persuade her that we would do everything in our power to make her happy.

  I would love her, not just because she is your sister, but because she would save my country from the greedy ambitions of the Russian Czar.”

  Listening, Latasha knew this was in fact true.

  Queen Victoria had supplied an astounding number of relatives as Consorts to European rulers.

  She could quite understand that Oldessa desired the protection of Britain and the best way to be sure of it was to have a Queen on their throne who was British.

  The Duke had heard many speeches on the subject in the House of Lords and had discussed with Members of the Cabinet what could be done about the situation in the Balkans.

  Bismarck had set out to unite the smaller German Principalities into one large Empire and his great success had made Czar Alexander III think that if Prussia could do so, well, Russia could do even better.

  He was furious that Russia had failed in what he thought was her mission to dominate the Balkans and win control of the Dardanelles and thus give the Russian fleet full access to the Mediterranean.

  Stubbornly the Czar was determined to win what he desired by more subtle means.

  He would not under any circumstances go openly to war, but he would gain his ends by surreptitious methods which would not be recognised until it was too late to fight back against them.

  Although the Duke was well aware how serious the situation was, he had never imagined for one moment that he or his family might be personally involved.

  In addition the Marquis of Salisbury had just been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

  Since he was well acquainted with the Duke and his family, an offer which was more or less a command might come at any moment.

  As if she could read her brother’s thoughts, Latasha asked,

  “If it happened to me, would I be able to refuse?”

  “It would be most difficult for you to do so. You know what the Queen is like when she gets an idea in her head. She expects to be obeyed ‘at the double’.”

  Latasha did not even smile and he continued,

  “I have a feeling that by the time you realised what was happening, you would be married and sitting on the throne of Oldessa.”

  “How can I marry a man of whom I know nothing and you know very little too? You have only seen him as a boy.”

  “I would much rather you married my friend Kraus. He is a charming and very brave man. He was wounded in a nasty skirmish with some Russians who had, of course, caused trouble. He had insisted on removing the intruders himself rather than leaving them to his Army Officers.”

  “But, if he is the same age as you, Harry, and you are not yet twenty-eight, surely he will recover?”

  “I suppose he knows better than us what is wrong,” the Duke replied, “but he has a brother who could succeed to the throne.”

  There was silence and then the Duke remarked,

  “I have not finished the letter. You had better hear it all.”

  Latasha did not answer and he read on,

  “I have another rather different request and here I would be extremely grateful if you could help me as soon as possible.

  My sister, Amalie, who I do not think you have met, is now sixteen.

  I am very anxious for her to speak English fluently. As you know it has always been a great help to me that I was educated at Oxford University with you.

  The only Governesses who can speak in English in this part of the world are old, dull and not always reliable.

  If you can send me out an English Governess who is young and could be a charming companion as well as a teacher for Amalie, I think besides improving her English, it would make her much happier than she is at the moment.

  This is all a cry for help!

  Please help me, Harry, out of the kindness of your heart which has never failed me in the past.

  I do not wish to sound morbid, but unless I receive help, the menacing hand of Russia may easily fall upon me and my beloved country.”

  The Duke put down the letter on his desk.

  “I have had many requests for help in my time,” he reflected, “but this is the most demanding and the most difficult.”

  “You are so right,” agreed Latasha. “Insofar as it concerns me, I would love to tear up that letter, run away and hide in a cave where no one can find me!”

  “I can easily understand your feelings, but equally you cannot remain in a cave for the rest of your life. Now I think about it, I am worried that I might be summoned to Windsor Castle at any moment.

  “Someone was only saying the other day that Her Majesty was finding it almost impossible to assist all the Balkan Princes, who are constantly beseeching her to send them a Consort.”

  He gave a laugh with no humour in it, as he added,

  “I am told that one reigning Prince who requested an English bride is nearly eighty and both blind and deaf!”

  “Apparently Prince Stefan is not quite as bad as all that,” murmured Latasha. “But I cannot agree to marry a man I have never seen and whom I don’t know.”

  “I was just thinking, Latasha, if we both went out there for a visit, would that make things any better?”

  “It would make it much worse. How could we stay with them and then at the end of the visit say I don’t like him and am unwilling to marry him!”

  She threw up her hands.

  “You know perfectly well I would be unable to say so since you and Prince Kraus are such good friends.”

  “I do see difficulties about it,” the Duke admitted. “But are there any of our relations who would like to be the reigning Princess of the petty Principality?”

  “I was just thinking the same. All I can think of at the moment are the aunts who are getting on for sixty and our cousins most of whom are still in a perambulator!”

  The Duke laughed.

  “That is just the sort of joke Her Majesty would not think funny!”

  “I don’t think it funny that I might have to go out to this tiresome Principality and find my bridegroom is so unpleasant that I cannot bear to look at him.”

  “Now you are exaggerating, Latasha.”

  “Have you forgotten, Harry, that we have a perfect example of one such marriage in Helen?”

  There was no need for her to say any more.

  Helen was their elder sister who had been born two years before Harry.

  When she was eighteen she was very lovely and she made quite a stir in the Social world when she appeared as a debutante.

  The Ruler of a small Principality in the South of Germany had met her an
d he realised that she was not only exceedingly attractive but also had Royal breeding.

  There was no doubt that Helen’s antecedents were the envy of a great number of Germans of lesser consequence.

  It had all seemed very glamorous and exciting and the Prince himself was a tall good-looking young man.

  Helen accepted his proposal of marriage.

  It was only two years ago that Latasha had realised how unhappy she was.

  On Helen’s last visit to England, she had wailed,

  “I now cannot bear to go back to Germany. If only I could stay with you and Harry.”

  “Are you really unhappy, Helen?” asked Latasha.

  As there were many years between the two sisters, they did not often communicate with each other and Helen had never been confidential with Latasha.

  She had hesitated before she explained,

  “I cannot describe to you the utter boredom of it. I see nothing but women – old fat German women, who have never had a thought in their heads that is not domestic and dull.”

  “But you have your husband,” Latasha pointed out wonderingly.

  “Otto is very polite to me in public and he gives me anything I require. But in the last three or four years he has taken on a number of mistresses.”

  Latasha stared at her sister in astonishment.

  “Mistresses!” she exclaimed.

  “Of course,” replied Helen. “He finds a wife dull, and, as I have given him two sons and a daughter, he has no more need to be particularly interested in me as when we first married.”

  “Oh, Helen, I am so sorry. It never occurred to me you were unhappy.”

  “Bored is the right word,” replied her sister. “I am bored with the Germans, their conversation, their food and their passion for noisy music. If only I could come home for a year or so, I would begin to think it was worth going on living.”

  “Oh, Helen, why not do so?” enquired Latasha.

  “There would be a great commotion if I did. Of course as the Prince’s wife I sit on numerous committees, I receive deputations from women, I visit schools and talk to fat little German children who are much happier than I am. But there is nothing to make my heart feel as if it is leaping with joy as it used to before I married.”

  Latasha was very upset at what Helen had said, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  Soon Helen would have to leave for Germany as a letter from her husband told her that they had an important engagement at which they had to receive the Emperor.

  She departed without saying anything further.

  As Latasha waved her goodbye she felt that Helen’s beauty, which was very English and at the same time very classical, was wasted on all those Germans – they did not appreciate either her beauty or her brains.

  When she told Harry what Helen had said, he too had been upset.

  “There is so little we can do about it,” he reflected. “I had always believed, although I don’t like the German race, that Helen enjoyed sitting on the throne and being the most important lady in the land.”

  There was no answer to that.

  Latasha knew that there was nothing either of them could do for Helen, but she thought now that was not the sort of life she herself could bear.

  Somehow she must avoid it at all costs.

  “What can I do, Harry?” she asked. “How can you reply to your friend Prince Kraus?”

  The Duke made a helpless gesture with his hands.

  “I don’t know what to say. I can see your point of view, Latasha. Yet we both know that if the Queen insists on choosing a husband for you, it could be someone a good deal less attractive than young Stefan who, if he is anything like his brother Kraus, is certainly charming.”

  “And if he is not?”

  Again her brother just put out his hands.

  Latasha walked to the window.

  She realised that they were both in a position when words were hopeless – there was really nothing they could say which had not been said before.

  “One step at a time,” suggested Harry. “Can you think of anyone as a Governess for Kraus’s sister? What did he say her name is?”

  He looked down again at the letter.

  “Amalie. Quite a pretty name.”

  “You are lucky that you don’t have to marry her,” added Latasha somewhat spitefully.

  “I agree with you, Latasha, but at least the girl will have charm like her brother or should I say brothers?”

  Latasha gave a little cry.

  “Now you are trying to persuade me into accepting this idiotic, stupid and quite impossible idea!”

  She turned from the window and walked back to her brother.

  “I want to be in love when I do marry, Harry. You know Papa always said he fell in love with Mama the first time he saw her. She said she felt something strange about him as soon as he touched her hand. Of course it was love at first sight.”

  “That happens only once in a million years. If you are going through your life seeking the impossible, there is every chance, my dear pretty sister, that you will end up an old maid.”

  “I think it would be better to be an old maid than to be married just because my husband is frightened of the Russians and I can provide him with a Union Jack!”

  “He has good reason to be frightened. You cannot deny it, the Russians are behaving appallingly as everyone has said. In fact I would not like to tell you the language that is used about them in White’s Club.”

  “I can guess what they say, Harry, but that does not make it any easier for me.”

  The Duke put his arm round her.

  “I know that, my dearest, and I don’t want to scare you. At the same time this is a very tricky problem and for the moment I cannot imagine how we can get out of it.”

  “We have to, Harry,” muttered Latasha.

  “What you really have, although we don’t like to face it, is a choice between marrying a young man whose brother we know is a delightful and charming person or at any moment receiving a command from Windsor Castle.”

  The Duke’s voice deepened as he continued,

  “You will then be ordered to marry a man who we would know nothing about, who may be any age between eighteen and eighty and who wants you just as a defence to keep the Russians at bay.”

  “I know that, of course, I know that,” Latasha cried angrily. “But why does this have to happen to me? There are millions of other girls in the world who are not forced up the aisle to marry a man they don’t even know.”

  “We are privileged enough to have Royal blood in our veins. Although Mama was never that interested in her Royal relations, Royal blood is now being used to fight the Czar’s policy of expansion.”

  He paused for a moment before he added,

  “Actually the extraordinary thing is that they are afraid of us. The Czar was made to look a fool over Prince Alexander of Battenburg. The one thing he cannot afford is war with Great Britain.”

  “Of course you are right,” asserted Latasha. “At the same time sooner or later someone will have to stand up to them.”

  “I agree with you, but I only hope it does not have to be me.”

  “For the present it seems to be me,” sighed Latasha.

  There was a note in her voice which told the Duke she was really upset.

  He put his arms round her.

  “Cheer up, old girl. I promise you I will do my best to try and find a way out of this mess. I admit I cannot at the moment see one – but I swear I will try.”

  Latasha put her head on his shoulder.

  “I know you will, Harry, but I am frightened, very frightened.”

  “Try not to think about it, Latasha. Let’s forget for the moment the horror of it and concentrate on finding a nice little Governess for the sixteen year old. She at least can wait another year before she is pushed into marrying someone she has never met!”

  “I wonder if there is anyone in the local village who would like to go to Oldessa,”
said Latasha reflectively.

  “Now listen, don’t make a mistake about this,” her brother contended. “The Prince will want someone well-bred and intelligent. After all he made a First at Oxford himself and I expect his family are as clever as he is.”

  “The only candidate I can possibly think of is the Vicar’s daughter,” retorted Latasha. “But if she leaves, who is going to play the organ on Sundays?”

  Her brother chuckled.

  “Now leave the village alone. Think of someone suitable you have met in London who is either poor enough or bored enough to want to visit Oldessa.”

  Latasha did not answer him and so he continued,

  “I can assure you that it is a lovely country. Who knows, she might pick up a charming young man and it could be the greatest opportunity of her life.”

  “Now you are turning it into a fairy story – she will marry the dashing Prince and live happily ever after!”

  “But why not? Stranger things have happened in life.”

  Then he saw that his sister was staring at him.

  “I have an idea,” she murmured. “It’s stupid of me not to have thought of it before.”

  “What is it?” he enquired.

  Latasha answered him very slowly and deliberately.

  “I will go to Oldessa as the Governess for Princess Amalie. Not as myself of course, but under an assumed name. It will give me an opportunity to see the situation out there and if I could like Prince Stefan enough to marry him. While I am away, Queen Victoria will not be able to marry me off.”

  The Duke was astonished he could hardly believe what his sister was saying.

  “You cannot mean it, Latasha,” he said eventually.

  “But I do mean it, Harry. Here you are, frightened, although you will not admit it, that you will have to say no to your friend Kraus or that Queen Victoria will give you an order you cannot refuse – and I have the solution!”

  She sank down again into her chair.

  “What is it now, Latasha?”

  “Let’s work this out carefully – you write to Prince Kraus and say that you are looking for someone who might be the right wife for Prince Stefan and you are also looking for an experienced Governess for his sister.

  “But she may take a little time to find, so you are sending out temporarily a young girl you can recommend personally. She will, of course, unknown to them be me!”