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  But it was one thing to know how happy they would be together and quite another to realise that they had as much chance of being married as she and Marie-Henriette had of being granted the wishes they had talked about before Stephanie’s arrival.

  If the Grand Duchess had set her heart on her daughter becoming a Queen, she would not entertain for one moment the thought of her marrying anyone else.

  Whoever was sacrificed, whoever was made miserably unhappy in the process, nothing would alter her decision.

  “What can I do – Laetitia? P-please – please help – me,” Stephanie was saying.

  Laetitia took her arms from her cousin and rose to her feet to stand as she had before gazing out of the window.

  Then she said in a voice that had a note of determination in it,

  “We have to do something and the first step, although I don’t know at this moment how, is to prevent the King from proposing to you.”

  There was silence as she finished speaking.

  As she turned round, she saw that both Stephanie and her sister were staring at her almost in amazement.

  Then, as if she had hypnotised them into believing it was possible, Stephanie asked,

  “Could you – do that? But – how? How – Laetitia?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Laetitia answered, “but there must be a way and we have to find it and quickly!”

  Chapter Two

  Stephanie suddenly felt frightened and said that she must go home.

  “Mama does not know – I have come to see you.”

  “I think it would be a mistake if she found out,” Laetitia agreed, “but, dearest, try not to be too upset or unhappy because I promise you that I will do everything I can to save you.”

  “Do you mean – that?” Stephanie asked.

  “If it is humanly possible, you shall marry Kyril, and not the King,” Laetitia replied.

  Stephanie did not answer, but put her arms round Laetitia’s neck and the tears were back in her eyes.

  Then she said,

  “I love him! I love him – so much that I have to – marry him! But Mama would be very – very – angry!”

  Because Laetitia knew that this was true, there was no use going on talking about it.

  She kissed Stephanie and so did Marie-Henriette, then, tying the ribbons of her bonnet under her chin, they took her to the front door.

  Laetitia first looked out to see if there was anybody in the courtyard, then Stephanie hurried away and started running as quickly as she could back to the Palace.

  Although there were always sentries on the main gates and outside the front entrance, there were side doors that Stephanie and the girls could use where there was no guard.

  Laetitia watched her until she was out of sight amongst the shrubs and trees in the garden. Then she shut the front door and went into the sitting room to say to Marie-Henriette,

  “I feel as if the world is turning upside down. Why did we never guess that Kyril and Stephanie loved each other?”

  “It does seem strange,” Marie-Henriette agreed. “At the same time Cousin Augustina will never allow them to be married.”

  “We cannot allow Stephanie to be forced to marry the King when she loves Kyril.”

  “It would be horrible to be married to anybody one did not love,” Marie-Henriette said, “but Papa told me many years ago that was the penalty for being Royal.”

  “You talked to Papa about being married?”

  “Yes and he said that while he had been so very lucky to love Mama and be allowed to marry her, it was very unlikely that we should be so fortunate.”

  “That does not sound like Papa somehow.”

  “He was upset at the time because Cousin Carlotta – you remember her? – had been made to marry that horrible Prince of Württemberg and she told Papa how unhappy she was.”

  When Laetitia thought about it, she realised that nearly all their relatives had been married for political reasons and practically never because they had fallen in love.

  When she thought of the Grand Duke and the miserable life he lived with his Prussian wife, she thought that the whole custom was humiliating and degrading.

  “I really think,” she said aloud, “that the anarchists have some point when they wish to abolish the Monarchy.”

  Marie-Henriette gave a little cry.

  “Laetitia, that is a terrible thing to say!”

  “Yes, I know,” Laetitia agreed, “but I think that Stephanie is right. I would rather be dead than married to somebody I did not love.”

  “She will have the compensation of being a Queen,” Marie-Henriette said reflectively.

  Laetitia did not answer and she went on,

  “At least she will have beautiful gowns to wear, a comfortable Palace in which to live and mountains of delicious food to eat.”

  Laetitia gave a sigh, but she did not argue.

  Marie-Henriette had said things like this before, and she knew that she always deeply resented the change in their circumstances since their father’s death and their being so poor that they could never afford a new gown.

  As if her thoughts communicated themselves to her sister, Marie-Henriette gave a sudden cry.

  “Laetitia! I have just thought! If there is a State ball, Cousin Augustina will have to ask us whether she likes it or not and we have nothing, absolutely nothing to wear!”

  Laetitia knew that this was true and she replied,

  “I will speak to Mama, but you know how hard up we are at the moment. There is nothing left to sell except Mama’s engagement ring and we could not ask her to sell that.”

  “No, no, of course not,” Marie-Henriette agreed hurriedly.

  At the same time there was a look in her eyes which told Laetitia she was thinking that diamonds were not much use when there was no one to see them in the small confined house they now lived in.

  “I will think of something,” Laetitia said quickly, “but first we have to concentrate on Stephanie and her troubles.”

  “I hope you have not made things worse for her,” Marie-Henriette said. “She believes now that you will find some magical means of preventing the King from proposing to her. But I expect that when he arrives here Cousin Augustina will have the noose so tight round his neck that there will be no escape.”

  As this was indisputably true, there was nothing Laetitia could say.

  She walked into the small hall, picked up her bonnet, which she had worn for three years, and said,

  “I am going to talk to Great-Aunt Aspasia and ask her advice.”

  “She will not be able to help you,” Marie-Henriette answered.

  But, by the time she had spoken, Laetitia had already left the house and was running across the courtyard to a house on the opposite side.

  It was larger than theirs, one of the first to be built, and it was where their Great-Aunt now lived having been banished from the Palace by the Grand Duke’s Prussian wife.

  There had been a great deal of bad feeling about it at the time, but Princess Aspasia had settled down as comfortably as she could with a number of elderly servants to tend her.

  Because she found it hard to walk, she was unable to take part in any of the Court ceremonies, but she had in compensation filled her life with gossip.

  There was nothing that went on in the Palace, the Capital or even in the country itself that she did not know about.

  Her ‘spy system’, for that was what it amounted to, was a mystery to everybody and yet there was no doubt that she was the best-informed person in the whole of Ovenstadt.

  Most people were afraid of her or else disliked her, as the Grand Duchess did, but Laetitia had always found her fascinating and she knew now that if anybody could help her it would be the Princess.

  She knocked loudly on the door, but it was some time before the old butler had shuffled his feet slowly across the floor to open it.

  “Good morning, Felix!” Laetitia said.

  “Why, it’s you, Your Highness!�
�� Felix said, peering at her because his sight was failing. “Her Royal Highness’ll be delighted to see you.”

  “Don’t bother to announce me,” Laetitia said, knowing that he had no intention of doing so because it meant going upstairs.

  She ran up the staircase and into the sitting room that adjoined the Princess’s bedroom.

  It was quite a large room compared with other rooms in the Grace and Favour houses and was packed with an amazing collection of objects that the Princess had collected over her lifetime and from which she would not be parted.

  There were innumerable small pieces of china and silver she had received as gifts when she was young, besides a multitude of mementoes.

  These included the painting which one of her many relatives had done for her as a child and several amateur portraits of herself.

  There was a case full of the medals which had been worn by her father and the sword with which one of her brothers had fought in some long-forgotten battle.

  There were bunches of dried flowers, bowls of potpourri that had been made over the years and had been refilled annually without the original ingredients, which no longer had any fragrance in them, being thrown away.

  Everything was arranged on little tables and stools, so to reach her great-aunt, Laetitia had to pick her way carefully across the room to where the Princess was sitting in the window.

  She looked up with a smile at Laetitia’s appearance and said,

  “I was expecting you to come to see me, my dear.”

  Laetitia curtseyed, kissed the Princess’s hand and then her cheek before she replied,

  “You were expecting me?”

  “I knew you would want to talk to me about the visit of King Viktor.”

  Laetitia looked at her in surprise.

  “You knew he was coming here?”

  “Of course I knew,” the Princess said. “I heard weeks ago that woman was intriguing with our two-faced Prime Minister to bring him to Ovenstadt on a State Visit.”

  Laetitia smiled and sat down on the chair that was always placed very close to the Princess so that she could hear what her visitors were saying as she was growing increasingly hard of hearing.

  She had been very attractive when she was a young girl but never beautiful.

  Like many Royal Princesses she had been deliberately kept at home to look after her parents and, since therefore no marriage was arranged for her, she had become an old maid.

  However, although she was now nearly eighty, there was nothing old about her mind, and Laetitia found it extremely amusing the way she spoke so disparagingly about the people she did not like.

  ‘That woman’ was of course the Grand Duchess and she made no secret of despising the Prime Minister, who had climbed into power because the Grand Duchess intrigued with him.

  “As you know that King Viktor is coming here,” Laetitia said, “I suppose you are also aware that Cousin Augustina intends to marry him to Stephanie.”

  “I guessed that was her intention,” the Princess said. “Has she told the child the fate that is in store for her?”

  “Stephanie has just been to see us and she is dreadfully upset.”

  “One of my servants told me she was running through the garden and was crying,” the Princess said. “I suppose you know now that she is in love with your brother.”

  “You know that too?” Laetitia asked even more surprised.

  “Of course I know it!” the Princess replied sharply. “You would have seen them mooning about each other all the winter, if you had eyes in your head!”

  Laetitia laughed.

  “Oh, Great-Aunt Aspasia, there is nobody like you! Now, since you seem to know everything, tell me how I can stop the King from proposing to Stephanie and somehow find a way that she and Kyril can be married.”

  The expression on the old lady’s face changed and now she was not looking mischievous but sad.

  Instead of speaking she just shook her head.

  “Do you think it is impossible?” Laetitia asked.

  “I think it would require a miracle for Kyril and Stephanie ever to get permission to be married. You know that woman intends her daughter to be a Queen.”

  “Yes, I know,” Laetitia said, “but Stephanie is so desperately unhappy that she says she would rather die than marry the King.”

  “She will be a Queen and that will be some compensation,” the Princess said sharply.

  “That is what Hettie said, but I understand what Stephanie is feeling. I am sure that nothing could make up for the misery of loving one man but having to marry another.”

  “I agree it complicates things a great deal that Stephanie is in love with Kyril,” the Princess replied. “Otherwise she might have been quite happy with the King.”

  Laetitia looked at her in surprise.

  “You say that, but we have always been told that he is horrible.”

  “That is what that woman thinks,” the Princess replied, “simply because he is somewhat unconventional and not strictly conformable by Prussian standards.”

  She spoke scathingly and went on,

  “Personally, I would like to meet King Viktor. From all I have heard of him, I think we would get on rather well.”

  “What have you heard about him?” Laetitia enquired.

  “A great deal that I should not repeat to you,” the Princess replied.

  Now there was a glint in her eyes which Laetitia knew only too well meant that she knew some amusing and doubtless improper piece of gossip that had been related to her by one of her informers.

  “Tell me, please tell me,” she begged.

  “Why are you so interested?”

  “I promised Stephanie I would try to save her.”

  The Princess made a sound that was half a laugh and half a snort of derision.

  “You are taking a great deal upon yourself, my girl,” she said. “You had better not let that woman hear that you inciting her daughter to rebellion. You know she expects every decision she makes to be obeyed and at the double!”

  Laetitia laughed as if she could not help it, because, as she hated the Grand Duchess, it was somehow a consolation to hear her talked about so scathingly by the old Princess.

  “If only they could run away!” she said wistfully. “But Stephanie thinks that if they did the Military would bring them back and Kyril might be imprisoned or even shot for treason.”

  “That would certainly happen if that woman had anything to do with it,” the Princess said quietly. “You will have to think up something better than that.”

  “We don’t have much time,” Laetitia said following her own thoughts. “The King is arriving in a week. That brings us to Thursday.”

  “That is correct,” the Princess replied. “I hear he is going to drive or ride from his Palace in Zvotana, which will take him all day, and stay the night at Thor Castle in the mountains.”

  Laetitia gave a little exclamation.

  “I never thought of that! Of course! It is obvious that is where he will stay.”

  She knew and loved Thor Castle because every year during their childhood her father, until his death, and the Grand Duke used to take their families to The Castle for holidays especially in the winter.

  As the Grand Duchess disliked the cold and was always busy seeing to State affairs in the Capital, she used to stay behind.

  For Laetitia and for others it had always been a gloriously happy time with nobody to find fault with them and dozens of exciting things to do.

  The Grand Duke and her father would climb the snow-capped mountains which towered above them or drop down a few hundred feet to ride where it was possible on more level ground.

  For the children there was tobogganing on the snow-covered slopes and what Kyril enjoyed more than anything else was to climb the walls of The Castle itself.

  He took, Laetitia used to think nervously, dangerous risks as he clambered up the towers on the outside or walked precariously on the crenellated battlements to show that
he was not afraid of heights.

  In the evenings because the Grand Duchess was not there they would sing and dance in the great Baronial hall with its huge fireplace burning whole trees.

  Princess Olga would play the piano for the three girls and the two boys, Kyril and Prince Otto, to dance the wild gypsy dances which they had watched and learnt ever since they were small.

  Sometimes they would act charades or even a play that Laetitia would write and produce and which would always be highly dramatic and amusing, although sometimes unintentionally.

  It was only when her father had died that their holidays at The Castle ceased.

  Laetitia knew the Grand Duchess had deliberately stopped their going there as she had put an end to every other amusement she could, where Prince Paul’s family was concerned.

  “Of course,” Laetitia said aloud, “that is where the King will stay and I only hope he appreciates it. Papa loved The Castle.”

  The note in her voice told the Princess how much she missed the old days and she said,

  “I doubt if he will appreciate anything when he comes down from the clouds to meet that woman and learn what is expected of him in Ovenstadt.”

  “As the King is very important and reigns over a much bigger country than ours,” Laetitia said, “I cannot think why he has to come here to upset everything and obey Cousin Augustina if that is what he is going to do.”

  “As I can imagine you are very curious about him,” the Princess said, “I will tell you what I know or rather what it is advisable for you to hear.”

  “Please tell me everything,” Laetitia pleaded. “I am thinking frantically of how I can save Stephanie and I cannot do so unless you help me.”

  “King Viktor,” the Princess began, “is, from all I have heard, having a lot of trouble in Zvotana at the moment.”

  “Why is that?” Laetitia asked.

  “He inherited the throne only three years ago,” the Princess answered. “Previously to that, owing to an extremely incompetent and stupid Regent, the country had become very out of hand.”

  “In what way?”

  “There were revolutionaries working up the people against the Monarchy, both politically and financially they were in a mess and King Viktor, who had been educated in France, was pitchforked into a situation which might have appalled any young man.”