A Kiss for the King Page 3

  Anastasia knew then that the Viscount’s secret information was correct.

  It was not only the fate of Nice and Savoy that perturbed the Privy Council, but also the fate of Maurona. That was why she had to be married so speedily.

  That was why England had to declare forcibly, in a way that the French would understand, that they were interested in Maurona remaining independent! And why not, when there was an English Queen on the throne?

  ‘I am just a cat’s paw,’ Anastasia told herself. ‘I am not a person. I have no individual importance. I am just part of a diplomatic game. If France takes a step forward, so does Britain.’

  She thought again of how vehement some politicians were about the French intention of invading England.

  The whole suggestion had seemed somehow unreal – an idea drummed up by the newspapers and alarmists like Lord Houghton, who had declared,

  “The French eagles might stream from every steeple from Acton to Ealing and from Ealing to Harrow.”

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Anastasia had thought at the time.

  Despite the enthusiasm of the Volunteers and the noise they made drilling around Hampton Court Palace, she felt a French invasion was very unlikely!

  Anyhow, it did not concern her.

  And yet now her whole life was to change because of a French monarch’s ambition and desire for conquests.

  She was to be a Queen – a Queen like the one they had just left behind them in Windsor Castle.

  There was no doubt that Queen Victoria adored her husband!

  Anastasia had only to watch the way she looked at the Prince Consort and the manner in which she deferred to him to realise that she loved him very deeply.

  But then, Anastasia thought to herself, the Queen had not only invited the Prince to come to England on a visit, before she allowed him to propose to her, but she had also had the choice of several other Princes.

  ‘I have a choice,’ Anastasia told herself now, ‘to run away with Christopher, which would cause a terrible scandal, or to marry King Maximilian who does not want me and is interested not in the English but only in our enemies – the French!’

  She drew a deep breath and then decided that what she had been about to say to her mother was best left unsaid. She knew quite well that the Grand Duchess’s arguments would be based entirely on a desire for her own importance in the future. As far as feelings and emotions were concerned, her mother would expect her to be quite prepared to accept marriage as something that every woman desired, with or without love.

  ‘Christopher loves me, but I do not love him,’ Anastasia thought. ‘The King may actively dislike me, except that we have not met, so how can I know what I feel about him until I see him? Then it will be too late.’

  It seemed to her that she was in an extremely difficult position, and yet there was no one who could help her or even advise her what to do about it.

  The Grand Duchess went on talking all the way to Hampton Court Palace, but Anastasia was not listening.

  She was confronting the first big problem in her quiet life.

  Then, as they saw the beautiful, centuries-old red brick Palace in front of them and passed through Anne Boleyn’s gateway, she thought with a little lilt in her heart that whatever decision she came to, it would be exciting.

  Her dull and uneventful existence had come to an end. Ahead was adventure, but she felt as if she stood at the top of a mountain and whichever way she jumped could prove disastrous!

  ‘But anything,’ Anastasia told herself, ‘anything, and any man is better than staying here cooped up in these small rooms with interminable lessons and no one to talk to except old men and women waiting to die.’

  “Here we are – home again!” the Grand Duchess exclaimed. “And now, Anastasia, we have a great deal to do. We must make an immediate list of your requirements and arrange to visit London tomorrow.”

  She gave a deep sigh, as if of relief.

  “It is exciting, is it not, dearest?”

  “Very exciting, Mama!” Anastasia said truthfully.

  Then, as she walked in through the door of their apartment, she wondered with a little feeling of fear whether the Palace in Maurona, if she were married to a man who did not love her, might not prove even more of a prison than the Grace and Favour house at Hampton Court Palace had always seemed to be.

  Chapter Two

  As soon as Anastasia had helped her mother take their cloaks and personal bags upstairs while the coachman carried up their trunks, she slipped into the drawing room.

  She wanted to search amongst some magazines, which she knew were lying on a shelf in the Chippendale book cabinet. She vaguely remembered seeing, some weeks ago in the Illustrated London News, a picture of King Maximilian and after glancing through half a dozen back numbers she found what she sought.

  It was a full-page representation of the King showing him in uniform, wearing innumerable decorations and with a ribbon over his shoulder.

  Anastasia stared at the portrait for some time, trying to make up her mind what she felt about it.

  It was difficult to judge whether King Maximilian was as striking-looking as the artist obviously intended him to be. He had a square forehead above a straight, classical nose and what looked like a determined chin. His dark eyes looked straight ahead and Anastasia thought there was something stern about his expression.

  He looked rather intimidating and very unlike any man she had ever seen. He was definitely foreign-looking and different from the English men she was accustomed to, though not in the least like a traditional Frenchman or Spaniard.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Anastasia thought, ‘his features owe something to both his Greek and Roman origins.’

  She had been remembering, while her mother chatted beside her in the carriage, that Maurona had a long history of invasion and conquests.

  The Greeks, who were a sea-faring people, had early established a colony in Maurona. They were succeeded by the Phoenicians who, at the height of their power, conquered all along the coasts of the Mediterranean.

  The Romans, Anastasia thought, must later have left many buildings behind them, and she vaguely remembered reading somewhere about the discovery of a great Roman Amphitheatre in Maurona.

  But all this was in the past.

  What she was considering now was the reigning King Maximilian III, who had inherited from his father a prosperous country – and one that was fiercely patriotic.

  That was all Anastasia remembered, but when she looked at the caption beneath the King’s portrait, she read –

  “King Maximilian III of Maurona, who has been visiting Paris as the guest of the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie. His Majesty is a frequent visitor to the French Capital.”

  One always got back to the same point where the King was concerned, Anastasia thought, which was that he was very pro-French.

  She shut the Illustrated London News up and put it back where she had found it. She did not wish to discuss the portrait of the King with her mother. She just wanted to learn more about him.

  She realised it was still early in the afternoon and that Viscount Lyncombe would not be arriving until later.

  Anastasia tiptoed across the drawing room and reaching the small hall with its narrow staircase, she listened. She could hear her mother talking to the old maid who looked after them, and she thought they would be unpacking.

  So, very quietly, she opened the front door and slipped outside.

  The red bricks of Hampton Court Palace were glowing like jewels in the winter sunshine. There was a feeling of frost in the air. Later, when the sun went down, it would be very cold, but for the moment Anastasia felt as if it renewed her vitality, so that even after her long drive from Windsor Castle she was not tired.

  She ran as quickly as she could along the Broad Walk to the door, which led to Lady Walters’s apartments.

  She did not question whether Lady Walters would be pleased to see her, for she knew that the old woman was alw
ays eager for visitors and would be longing to hear about the Christmas party at Windsor Castle.

  A servant so old that his livery hung on him as if it covered a skeleton rather than a body let Anastasia into the apartment.

  But the crested buttons, which had once seen the inside of many different Embassies were polished brightly, and the ancient retainer had a toothless smile on his wrinkled face as he went ahead of Anastasia towards the Drawing room.

  “Her Royal Highness, my Lady!” he announced in a stentorian voice that, owing to his deafness, was far too loud.

  What appeared to be a bundle of shawls seated at the fireplace stirred and a quavering voice asked,

  “Who? Who did you say?”

  Then Lady Walters saw Anastasia.

  “Oh, it is you, my dear!” she exclaimed. “You are back! I was remarking only this morning that you had said you would return today. I am so glad to see you.”

  Anastasia approached the armchair. Lady Walters was wrapped in several woollen shawls and her knees were covered by a very motheaten and patchy sable rug.

  But the colour of her face showed that she was still cold and the blue-veined arthritic hand she held out to Anastasia was like ice.

  “How are you, ma’am?” Anastasia enquired.

  “Very old!” Lady Walters replied. “But let’s talk about you. Did you enjoy yourself at the Castle, and did her plump little Majesty still look as usual like a pouter-pigeon?”

  Anastasia laughed and, because she knew it was expected of her, related all they had done and what the Queen had said to her. She made it sound more amusing and gay than it had in fact actually been.

  Lady Walters, her red wig a little askew, sat listening to every word.

  She was not as deaf as might have been expected at her age, although Anastasia knew that she was not above pretending to be hard of hearing when she was bored.

  Now, being determined to miss nothing of what she was being told, she heard every word that Anastasia spoke in her soft musical voice.

  Anastasia’s recitation of the Christmas Festivities came to an end, and she paused before she said in rather a different tone,

  “I have something to tell you.”

  “What is it?” Lady Walters asked. “Are you going to inform me you have fallen in love with that dashing young Viscount? I have been expecting it!”

  “No, I have not fallen in love with him,” Anastasia answered.

  “But he would like you to, no doubt,” Lady Walters said with a little cackle of laughter.

  Anastasia did not reply and the old woman went on,

  “He will not be allowed to marry you. The Queen does not hold with love-marriages, except where she herself is concerned, and as she is known as the most inveterate matchmaker in Europe, she will doubtless, sooner or later, find a husband for you.”

  “She has already,” Anastasia said in a low voice.

  “She has?” Lady Walters cried. “Who? Who has she chosen? The Ruler of one of those German Principalities? Heaven knows, there are enough of them! The ‘Thums and Thars’ my husband used to call them, since he could never remember their names.”

  “No, it is not a German,” Anastasia said.

  “Then who? Who?” Lady Walters questioned.

  “King Maximilian!”

  “Of Maurona,” Lady Walters cried. “I had forgotten him! Well, I think he should do nicely for you. You will like Maurona. It’s a lovely country. My husband and I once spent a week there when we were travelling from Marseilles to Gibraltar.”

  She was silent for a moment as if she were looking back into the past and trying to remember what had happened.

  “The present King’s father was alive then, a fine-looking man, but very stiff. The parties at the Palace were deadly, no one could speak unless they were spoken to and we had to stand for hours.”

  “And you saw the present King?”

  “A nice young man, handsome, with good manners. He seemed somewhat subdued and suppressed in those days – but from all I hear he has changed considerably in the last five years.”

  “Tell me about him,” Anastasia asked.

  “Do you want the truth, or what would please you to hear?”

  “You know me well enough, ma’am, to know that I want the truth,” Anastasia replied.

  Lady Walters gave another cackle of laughter.

  “That is what people always say until they hear it! At the same time, you will have a lot to cope with from all I have heard.”

  Anastasia drew in her breath.

  “And you think I can ‘cope’ with it, as you say?”

  “Why not?” Lady Walters asked. “You are pretty enough to make any man’s heart beat faster! That has always been an essential preliminary step in getting the elusive male into our clutches.”

  She saw the expression on Anastasia’s face and went on,

  “It is no use your looking like that, my girl! All women want to capture and enslave a man. You are no exception.”

  “Is it – possible where a marriage is – arranged?” Anastasia faltered.

  “What else do you expect it to be where Kings and Queens are concerned?” Lady Walters asked. “Even a King is human, and you are very human, my child, unlike some of those stuck-up, snooty Royals who behave as if they were a race apart!”

  She cackled again and said,

  “As my husband always used to say – ‘they bleed if you prick them and all of them have to blow their noses when they have a cold!’”

  Anastasia laughed, she could not help it.

  “I knew I should not be frightened if I talked to you about it,” she said.

  “Frightened? There is nothing to frighten you,” Lady Walters said. “You will be a Queen and even these days that amounts to something. Whatever else, it ensures a great deal of material comfort.”

  “Tell me more about King Maximilian,” Anastasia begged.

  “Strangely enough,” Lady Walters answered, “I was talking about him only a month or so ago to a friend of my husband’s who had just arrived here from Paris.”

  “He was there at the same time as King Maximilian?” Anastasia asked.

  “He was indeed. He was telling me about the women who are causing such a sensation in the ‘Gay City’. Vulgar lot of creatures they seem to me, but with the Emperor behaving like a small boy let loose in a sweetshop and what can other men do but follow his example?”

  “Tell me about these – women.”

  “What do you think your mother would say?” Lady Walters enquired.

  “There is no reason for Mama to know what we say to each other.”

  “I should hope not!” Lady Walters said, “and I doubt if the Grand Duchess even knows of the existence of ‘les Grandes Cocottes’.”

  She paused, glancing at Anastasia’s intent face as she continued,

  “There have been courtesans, my child, since the beginning of time. In fact, as one of the mediaeval Bishops said, ‘Every City must have its sewer!’ But from all I hear the Parisian variety have achieved a place in Social history which is different from any they have occupied in the past.”

  “Why?” Anastasia asked.

  Lady Walters considered for a moment.

  “I think it is a question of a man’s desire to show off,” she replied slowly.

  After a moment she went on,

  “In England a man spends his money on horses, which are a symbol of his wealth, his taste and his expertise. In France a Frenchman chooses a mistress with the same discrimination.”

  “It seems – strange,” Anastasia murmured.

  “I think it is nothing short of lunacy,” Lady Walters replied. “Great fortunes are poured out at the feet of these common women, most of who come from the gutter. They parade themselves in the Bois and at the Opéra with an ostentation that would be considered disgusting in any other great Capital.”

  “Then why not in Paris?”

  “Because the Emperor himself encourages it,” Lady Walters re
plied. “In fact they say he cannot resist a pretty woman and that every courtesan’s ambition is to attract his attention.”

  “And do they love him when he does notice them?” Anastasia enquired innocently.

  “Love!” Lady Walters ejaculated. “There is no such word where cocottes are concerned. The most famous of them, ‘La Paiva’, if rumour is to be believed, loves only money, and hates men, children and animals unless they can provide it. Yet there is more money spent on her than on the defence of France!”

  Anastasia looked incredulous and Lady Walters went on,

  “She wears two million francs’ worth of diamonds, pearls and precious stones. I am told that the house which is being built for her in the Champs Elysée by her present lover will cost a million and a half.”

  “Can that be true?” Anastasia exclaimed in amazement.

  “Why not? My friend was saying that Cora Pearl, who came from the slums of Plymouth, is so extravagant that an Irishman spent his whole fortune of eighty thousand pounds on her in a week!”

  “It seems incredible!” Anastasia exclaimed. “Do the men who spend such enormous sums really feel it is – worthwhile?”

  Lady Walters laughed.

  “They are envied by their friends, and presumably they feel that they get their money’s worth one way or another.”

  Anastasia was silent, digesting what she had heard, and Lady Walters continued,

  “Noblemen, of course, who offer such creatures their protection, have more glamour about them than ordinary men, but nevertheless they are expected to contribute ropes of pearls, diamonds, or in the case of a Royal personage like Prince Napoleon, a house in a fashionable quarter of Paris or a château in the country.”

  Anastasia drew in a deep breath.

  “It is difficult to – understand.”

  “You are asking me this,” Lady Walters said, “because you are wondering whether King Maximilian, when you are married to him, will find Paris with one of ‘les Grandes Horizontales’ more amusing than his Palace in Maurona, with an English wife.”

  “It is obviously a – question that will be in my – mind,” Anastasia admitted honestly.