Princes and Princesses: Favourite Royal Romances Read online

  “That is what I read somewhere,” the Prince said. “They were acquired by the British when they burnt down the Summer Palace in Peking. Is that right?”

  “Yes, absolutely right,” Angelina said, “but very few people except yourself, sir, have any idea where they come from or why they look as they do.”

  “I feel you know far more on the subject than I do.”

  The Prince was about to add something else, when one of the aides-de-camp came to his side.

  He spoke in Greek, but Angelina, who had been making an effort to teach herself what was one of the more difficult European languages, understood one word, ‘waiting’.

  “Yes, of course.”

  The Prince nodded his head.

  Then to Angelina he said,

  “I hope, Miss Medwin, we may have the chance of meeting again, when we can talk of the fighting spirit of the belligerent Pekingese.”

  What he said seemed to Angelina so amusing that she gave a little laugh.

  “I should be very honoured, sir.”

  She knew that the Prince’s eyes were twinkling and she felt that hers were too.

  “What is this fierce dragon’s name?” the Prince asked, showing by that one word, that he knew quite a lot about the Pekingese.

  “Twi-Twi, sir.”

  “Then I must thank Twi-Twi for introducing me to a very charming neighbour.”

  Angelina curtseyed a little lower than she would have done ordinarily because she was apologising for her previous lapse.

  The Prince bowed and an aide-de-camp appeared from nowhere to escort Angelina to the front door.

  “Good day, Miss Medwin,” he said with a very pronounced accent.

  “Good day,” she answered and hurried down the steps without looking back.

  As she walked to her door, her heart was thumping in a very strange and peculiar manner.

  ‘I have met him! I have met him!’ she wanted to cry aloud. ‘I have met the Prince and he is more wonderful even than I expected him to be!’

  Chapter Two

  Angelina carried Twi-Twi across the road and, unlocking the gate, went into the garden.

  She was rather later than usual because the doctor had called to see her grandmother.

  After he had seen her, Sir William Enderby, a Royal physician had shaken his head gravely but otherwise he had not been very communicative.

  As Angelina took him down the stairs, he had said,

  “Give your grandmother everything she wants and make her happy. That is the best prescription I can suggest.”

  “I will do my best. Sir William,” Angelina replied, “and thank you for coming to see her.”

  “I will call again next week, unless you send for me in the meantime.”

  He then looked down at her and smiled as if at the pretty picture she made.

  “No need for me to ask you how you are.”

  “I am very well, thank you,” Angelina answered, “but then I always am.”

  “You are young and you are lucky,” Sir William remarked.

  Raising his hat, he stepped into his closed brougham and was driven away.

  As soon as he had gone, Angelina ran upstairs into her grandmother’s room to say, as she entered,

  “Sir William seemed pleased with you, Grandmama.”

  Lady Medwin, who was wearing her most attractive lace cap and daringly had a thin dusting of powder on her face, smiled.

  “I like seeing Sir William,” she said. “He has the courtesy that one expects of a physician. Very unlike these modern doctors with their rude manners.”

  She was referring to Sir William’s partner who had called on her last month when Sir William was out of London.

  Lady Medwin had taken a violent dislike to him, refused to do anything he suggested and made it clear that she did not wish to see him again.

  Angelina on the other hand found him rather intelligent and she was sure that he was much more up to date in his methods than Sir William.

  But if he did not please her grandmother, there was certainly no point in his coming again.

  Now as she tidied her grandmother’s lace-edged sheets, she asked,

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Grandmama, before I take Twi-Twi into the garden?”

  “No thank you, dear child,” Lady Medwin replied. “Take Twi-Twi for a walk and when you come back you can read to me.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “It is such a lovely day. I would like to go out myself. But Sir William wants me to rest. In fact he insisted that I try to sleep for at least two hours every afternoon.”

  “Oh, poor Grandmama! How tiresome for you!” Angelina exclaimed.

  “I shall do what Sir William suggests,” Lady Medwin said in a resigned voice, “and do you know, Angelina, he admired my cap!”

  She paused before she added,

  “Of course it was slightly familiar of him and not indeed what I would have expected him to say. At the same time it was rather flattering.”

  “You look very lovely, Grandmama,” Angelina said sincerely, “and I am sure that every man who saw you would think the same.”

  Lady Medwin’s old eyes seemed to light up for a moment and it suddenly struck Angelina that, having been so admired and fêted when she was young, she must miss the compliments now that she was old.

  “I tell you what, Grandmama,” she said on an impulse, “I saw some pieces of lace in your drawer the other day. Some of it I am sure is very valuable. I will make you another cap so attractive and becoming that Sir William will fall in love with you as soon as he sees you.”

  “Really, Angelina, you do say the most outrageous things!” her grandmother protested.

  However she was obviously pleased by the idea.

  It only took Angelina a few seconds to put on her hat, but she lingered for a moment to look at herself in the mirror.

  Supposing she saw the Prince again?

  If she did, would he think her attractive?

  Then she remembered all the beautiful women he would be meeting at the parties being given for the Coronation and felt quite sure that she could not compete with them.

  Inside the garden Angelina put Twi-Twi down on the grass and walked slowly and slightly self-consciously towards the shrubs where she could peep, as she had yesterday, at the front door of the Ministry.

  Before she reached it, she looked across the garden towards the beds of geraniums and then felt her heart leap in a very strange way.

  For the first time for ages there was someone else in the garden besides herself, who she saw now walking towards her.

  It was the Prince!

  She waited until he was within a few feet, feeling as if she was rooted to the ground. Then hastily, remembering how badly she had behaved yesterday, she made him a deep curtsey.

  “Good morning, Miss Medwin!”

  “Good morning, Your Royal Highness.’’

  “I was hoping that you would bring Twi-Twi for a walk in the garden. I understand that you come here every morning.”

  “Several times a day, sir.”

  Her heart was thumping in her breast and she found it hard to take her eyes from the Prince’s. There was something in the way he looked at her that made her feel shy.

  At the same time she knew that it gave her strange sensations she had never known before.

  “I would like to talk to you, if you will allow me,” the Prince said.

  He felt that she hesitated and added with a smile,

  “After all we were introduced by Twi-Twi and Kruger, which I have discovered is the name of the ginger cat.”

  “Kruger!” Angelina exclaimed.

  It was the name of the President of the Boers of South Africa against whom the British had been fighting up until May this very year.

  The Prince smiled at her tone of voice.

  “Not everyone, I understand, sympathised with England’s aggressive war in South Africa.”

  “The Kaiser for one!” Angeli
na flashed, “but I did not think that the Greeks – ”

  “The Greeks are, let me say very quickly, pro-British,” the Prince interrupted.

  They smiled at each other as if their exchange of words had been somehow a little ridiculous.

  Without consciously thinking of what he was doing, Angelina realised that the Prince was leading her towards a seat that was set in the shade of a large oak tree just in front of the largest flowerbed in the centre of the garden.

  As they seated themselves, the Prince said,

  “You are certainly very patriotic in this country, even when it comes to flowers!”

  It had never struck Angelina before that red geraniums and blue and white lobelia were, in fact, the national colours and she laughed as she replied,

  “It is, I am sad to say, in Belgrave Square, our only decoration for the Coronation. Are they very impressive in the Mall and in Trafalgar Square?”

  The Prince looked at her in surprise.

  “You have not seen them?”

  Angelina shook her head.

  “My grandmother is ill and she will not let me go and stand in the crowds as I wish to do.”

  She felt that it sounded as if she was complaining and added quickly,

  “I can understand it would be impossible, but I am sure that the streets are very pretty and decorative.”

  “Very,” the Prince agreed, “and it is sad that you cannot see them.”

  “It had been exciting anyway to see you arrive next door,” Angelina said, “and I told myself, that you would be my little bit of the Coronation!”

  The Prince gave a laugh.

  “A very small bit,” he said. “I assure you that I have only just squeezed into the procession from Westminster Abbey. There are so many more important Kings and Queens ahead of me.”

  “But you will be there and it will be a very impressive Ceremony,” Angelina said in a dreamy voice.

  She was thinking as she spoke of how magnificent the King would look and how Regal when the Archbishop lowered the great jewelled crown onto his head.

  The Prince was watching her face.

  “It will be just like any other Coronation,” he said, “except that the British do these things so well.”

  “That is exactly what Mama used to say,” Angelina replied excitedly, “when she told me about the drawing rooms at Buckingham Palace.”

  “And you have not been to one yet?”

  “No. My mother is dead and my grandmother has been too ill to present me.”

  “I can see that your real name is ‘Cinderella’,” he smiled, “and I wish I could wave a magic wand so that you could go to the ball, or rather in this case the Coronation.”

  “Your aides-de-camp are very lucky they can be in attendance,” Angelina said, “but you could hardly arrive with a Lady-in-Waiting.”

  “I think everyone would be rather surprised if I did,” the Prince answered.

  They both laughed as if the idea was amusing.

  “Are you enjoying being in London?” Angelina asked, when there was suddenly a little pause between them.

  “Very much,” the Prince responded. “I have been here before, but not for about five years. I have had so much to do at home.”

  “I have tried to find out about Cephalonia,” Angelina said, “but there is very little about it in the history books.”

  “For which we are exceedingly grateful,” the Prince replied. “In some ways we did not suffer as badly in the past as the mainland. At the same time – ”

  There was an obvious pause.

  “You are having trouble?” Angelina asked.

  “A little,” he replied.

  She would have liked to ask him what it was, but she felt that he might think it impertinent for her to be so curious.

  So she waited and after a moment he said,

  “Tell me about yourself. What do you do when you are not taking Twi-Twi for a run in the garden?”

  “Very little, I am afraid. I read the newspapers to my grandmother, practise the piano and I read. I do a great deal of reading.”

  “So do I, when I have the time,” the Prince said. “And what do you read?”

  “A great deal about Greece.”

  “Of course! It is obvious that you feel an affinity with the Goddesses who are so much a part of everyone who loves beauty or who has Greek blood in them.”

  Angelina longed to tell him that as well as loving beauty she had a little Greek blood as well, but she thought that he might ask embarrassing questions and anyway, she had been told often enough, never to talk about it.

  “I am trying to decide which Goddess you most resemble,” the Prince said. “I think it must be the one who to me was the most beautiful of them all, Persephone.”

  “I hope not!” Angelina exclaimed. “After all she was incarcerated in Hades for six months at a time and was only allowed back when Zeus interceded for her.”

  Even as she spoke, she thought that perhaps in a way her present life was rather like being incarcerated in darkness.

  Outside the house in Belgrave Square was a whole world of excitement, a Coronation, Kings and Princes to see and admire.

  But for her there was only imprisonment in the quietness of a house filled with very old people.

  “Exactly!” the Prince remarked.

  She started and looked at him in surprise, because he had read her thoughts.

  “Well, what can we do about it?” he asked as if she had agreed that he was right in what he was thinking.

  “Nothing,” Angelina replied, “but perhaps, when Papa returns from India, it will be different. If only he would take me back there with him.”

  “Where is your father?” the Prince enquired. “I have learnt that he is an important General and serving overseas.”

  Angelina was delighted that he had been interested enough to make enquiries about her and she replied,

  “Papa is on the North-West Frontier and he says that it is not the place for women and therefore I cannot join him.”

  “I am sure that your father is right,” the Prince said. “I would hate to think of your life being in danger.”

  “It might be rather exciting,” Angelina said provocatively.

  “If you want excitement, there is plenty in London, I am quite sure of that!”

  “Not for me! But you must not think that I am complaining. Everything would have been different if poor Grandmama was not ill.”

  “But she is and therefore Cinderella cannot go to the Coronation.”

  “I can see one of the Princes who are attending it setting off in all his glory,” Angelina smiled.

  As she spoke, she suddenly remembered that she had been talking to the Prince just as if he was an ordinary person and without addressing him formally.

  ‘I must remember to behave as I have been taught and as he would expect,’ she chided herself.

  The Prince, however, was obviously thinking of something rather deeply.

  Then he said,

  “Suppose I invited you to drive with me this afternoon and see the decorations?”

  Angelina looked at him in astonishment.

  “N-no – of course not – I could not – do that, sir,” she said hastily. “I have not told my grandmother that I have spoken to you. I am sure that she would think it quite – wrong.”

  She paused and then added,

  “Even if I had a – chaperone.”

  “Quite frankly, I think a chaperone would be a confounded nuisance,” the Prince said. “But I want to show you the decorations or, shall I say, I want to talk to you. I have a feeling that any moment you will disappear back into the bowels of the earth.”

  Two dimples appeared on either side of Angelina’s mouth.

  “Grandmama would not take that as a compliment.”

  “Stop teasing me and be sensible,” the Prince said. “If I may not be allowed to take you to see the decorations, where else could we go?”

  Angelina looked at h
im wide-eyed.

  “I have a feeling, sir, that whatever Grandmama might say, your Minister would not approve.”

  “My Minister does as he is told!” the Prince asserted. “And must we ask your grandmother’s permission?”

  Even as he spoke, Angelina remembered that Lady Medwin had just told her that Sir William had said she was to rest for two hours in the afternoon.

  She knew that, in this case, it was likely that he had prescribed for her grandmother a little medicine glass full of white liquid that, if she took it, always made her drowsy, even after she awoke.

  Even if she was called after two hours of sleep, it was unlikely that she would want Angelina to read to her.

  She thought to herself that the Prince was tempting her, but it was the most fascinating and exciting temptation that she had ever had in her whole life.

  “Say yes,” the Prince pleaded. “We will not go anywhere where we might be recognised and talked about, if that is what you are afraid of. Perhaps we could drive in Hyde Park. I am sure that Twi-Twi would enjoy the Serpentine.”

  Angelina did not reply that it was unlikely that anyone would talk about her, for the simple reason that she was unknown.

  It suddenly seemed far more exciting than seeing the decorations for the Coronation to be alone with the Prince in Hyde Park and sit by the Serpentine and talk to him as she was doing now.

  Her eyes were very large in her small face, as she said,

  “I know I – ought to – refuse Your Royal Highness’s – suggestion –”

  “But you will not do so,” the Prince said in a triumphant tone. “If your father is brave enough to fight on the North-West Frontier, then why should you not show a little courage in London?”

  Angelina’s small chin went up.

  “It is not that I am afraid,” she said. “It is just that I am not used to doing anything – unconventional.”

  “Then it is about time you started,” the Prince replied. “If we all did the right and conventional things, the world would be a very dull place.”

  He spoke gaily, but there was something in the tone of his voice that made Angelina think, although she had no grounds for doing so, that he too was showing courage in a manner she could not understand.

  “At what time will you be free?” he asked eagerly.

  Somehow Angelina thought that he was hypnotising her into doing what he wanted.