Princes and Princesses: Favourite Royal Romances Read online

  The water reflected the blue of the sky and, when they stepped out of the carriage, Twi-Twi ran ahead of them, his white tail held high.

  They followed him to where there was a seat under the trees overhanging the water.

  Angelina sat down and she thought that with the sunshine percolating through the leaves, the sound of the ducks in the distance and the swans sweeping majestically past them, everything was enchanted.

  She knew it was an enchantment that came from the man who sat beside her, his face turned to hers, his dark eyes looking, she felt, deep into her heart for something that was not apparent on the surface.

  “This – is the Serpentine” she said in a dreamy little voice.

  She spoke because she felt that the silence between them was somehow too intense and must be broken.

  “And this,” the Prince said, “is Xenos looking at Persephone and believing that she is the loveliest thing he has ever seen!”

  Angelina looked away again.

  “I don’t – think,” she said hesitatingly, “that you – should speak to me – like that.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “The Ancient Greeks always spoke frankly to their Gods. Sometimes they were quite abusive and sometimes they merely spoke of their love and their admiration and the Gods accepted it as their right.”

  “I-I am – not Persephone.”

  “You are to me,” the Prince replied, “but it is not you who must return to Hades after we have sat in the sunlight, but me!”

  “Hades!” Angelina exclaimed in surprise. “You cannot be speaking of Cephalonia!”

  “Not of my country, which I love,” the Prince answered, “but what I have to do for her. That will be Hades, as far as I am concerned.”

  “Why? I don’t – understand.”

  “Then I will tell you,” the Prince said. “I did not mean to tell you, but somehow I have to.”

  He paused and Angelina glanced at him and then found it impossible to look away.

  His expression was stern and she saw that the happy, laughing young man whom she had talked to this morning had gone and in his place was a man who looked older and she knew that his feelings matched the darkness of his eyes.

  “What is wrong?” she asked.

  He looked away from her across the silver water and she felt that he was seeing something very different from all that lay before his eyes.

  “I have not only come to England for the Coronation,” he said, “but for another reason as well.”

  “What is that?”

  “I have come to arrange my marriage,” he said, “with a Royal Princess.”

  He spoke abruptly, sharply, and Angelina sensed there was pain behind the words.

  There was a pause while she forced the appropriate answer to her lips.

  “I-I suppose it is – expected of any – Ruler that he should – m-marry.”

  “It is something I swore I would never do unless I fell in love,” the Prince said. “But because of the conditions that exist at the moment in my country, I have been forced into agreeing that I will take a wife who will please the people I reign over.”

  “Will it – please them?”

  “That is what I am told it will do.”

  He did not speak for a moment and then he said,

  “Perhaps I should explain it to you from the very beginning. When my father was alive, part of the island over which he reigned demanded that we should amalgamate with the mainland and that the Royal Family of Cephalonia should cease to have power.”

  “Surely that was – wrong?” Angelina asked.

  “The majority of the Cephalonians thought so,” the Prince replied, “and when my father died and I came to the throne it was thought that the opposition had died away because I would introduce reforms and all the improvements that my father had refused even to consider.”

  There was a faint smile on his lips as he added,

  “My father was very conventional, very conservative. What had been good enough for his father was good enough for him!”

  “But – you were – different,” Angelina said softly.

  “I have tried to be,” the Prince replied. “I want to bring in new ideas and encourage innovations that I think are important to my people.”

  “And they appreciate them?”

  “Some do,” the Prince replied, “but some of the older folk deprecate any change. They say I am too impulsive, moving too quickly, the usual sort of thing.”

  Angelina felt that she could see it all so vividly.

  “In the last two years things have got worse,” the Prince said. “Someone, I am not quite certain who, is stirring up trouble. There are revolts, small in themselves, but obviously important in a country as small as Cephalonia.”

  He sighed before he went on,

  “I have to pay attention to my advisers. They tell me that things are getting worse and a Royal marriage might divert the people’s minds from talk of revolution and so change the atmosphere.”

  “How could it do that?” Angelina asked.

  The Prince smiled.

  “The women like to feel that there is a woman they can appeal to and women are, of course, half the population.”

  “So you are – to be – married,” Angelina said and wondered why her voice sounded as if it came from a very long way away.

  “I have first to find a Princess who will accept me,” the Prince said drily. “The Minister and my Prime Minister, who is with me, are quite confident that they will find one.”

  He brought his hand down rather heavily on his knee as he said,

  “What could be more convenient than the opportunity of being in touch with such a large number of Kings, Queens and Ruling Princes from all over Europe because they are now congregating in one place?”

  “Yes – I can understand – that.”

  “I should, at this moment,” the Prince said, “be calling on the Crown Prince of some small Principality, who, I believe, has three unmarried daughters, each of them plainer and more gauche than the last!”

  Angelina started.

  The anger and contempt in the Prince’s voice was disturbing.

  “Y-you should not – speak like that,” she suggested hesitantly.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why should I not be natural about it? Do you think I want to marry some woman who is interested only in my rank and not in the least in me?”

  “I – think she would become – interested in you – whoever she was,” Angelina said. “But surely – this is a very – foolish way of getting married?”

  “I have explained to you the circumstances.”

  “And I understand them,” Angelina replied. “At the same time – if you have a wife who does not love Cephalonia – who does not understand what the Greeks have given to the world – surely the result in your country will be to make it worse than it is at the moment?”

  The Prince turned round on the seat to face her again.

  “What are you saying to me?” he asked.

  “I am saying – I think I am saying,” Angelina said, “that for a country to be happy – it must be ruled by people who love it – and perhaps who know – love between themselves.”

  “Surely that is not to be found in any Court in Europe?” the Prince commented.

  “That is not true,” Angelina replied. “Perhaps when there is an arranged marriage they do not love each other at first, but if they are both – attractive people, if they have the same interests and the same feeling for the country – they reign over, then they also find love.”

  She smiled and added,

  “Remember how devoted Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were to one another.”

  “What you are really saying,” the Prince said, “is that I am not seeking love. I am just resenting the fact that I have to marry someone I do not know.”

  “I am trying to say that,” Angelina agreed, “and also something else.”

  “What is that?”

  “The most importa
nt thing, as you have just said, is your country and the people who live in it. If there is friction – if there is boredom and unhappiness in the Palace – do you not think it will be known?”

  The Prince did not answer and Angelina added,

  “A marriage in such circumstances might make everything – far worse than it is already.”

  “You are right! Of course you are right!” the Prince exclaimed. “But how can I be sure that the woman I marry will understand what is required of her?”

  “Because you must choose her yourself,” Angelina answered. “You must see her, talk to her and, only when you are certain that she will learn to love Cephalonia – will you allow your advisers to make representations to her father.”

  “Certainly what you are saying makes sense,” the Prince said. “Why should you be so wise and sensible, when I have been so extremely obtuse about the whole scenario?”

  “Perhaps – outsiders see more of the – game than those who are participating in it,” Angelina suggested.

  “I certainly never expected anyone like yourself to advise me so sensibly.”

  The Prince’s voice dropped as he went on,

  “I have been pushed, badgered, cajoled, coaxed, threatened and approached on this subject in every possible way until I thought I should go mad!”

  He put out his hand in an eloquent gesture as he said,

  “Now, suddenly, a small Goddess has completely changed my whole attitude to the question.”

  “Is – that true?” Angelina asked.

  “But, of course, it’s true!” he said. “I know now it is exactly what I should do. There should be no question of making up my mind in the short time between now and my leaving London, which was my Prime Minister’s idea.”

  He paused before he continued slowly,

  “Instead I will make a grand tour of Europe. I will find a Princess who understands what I am talking about. And as you say, who understands the feelings, aspirations and the ambitions of the Greek people.”

  “That is what you must do,” Angelina said positively. “I am sure that then you will be – happy.”

  As she spoke, she looked at the Prince and realised that there was a very different expression in his eyes from what she had expected.

  “Happiness?” he asked, in a strange voice. “Are you saying that will bring me happiness? That, Persephone, is where you are wrong!”

  Chapter Three

  Before Angelina could answer, a voice beside her asked,

  “Excuse me, but could you tell me what sort of breed that peculiar-looking dog is?”

  Angelina started, because they had been talking so intently to each other that she felt as if she and the Prince were alone in an enchanted world where no one could encroach.

  Now she found herself looking at the curious eyes of a middle-aged lady, encased in rustling taffeta, who was not looking at her but at Twi-Twi.

  He was watching a swan that had approached rather near the edge of the water and was growling at it in his throat.

  “He is a Pekingese,” Angelina replied.

  “A Pekingese!” the lady exclaimed. “I don’t believe there is such a dog.”

  “He is Chinese.”

  “Chinese? Well, that accounts for it.”

  The lady spoke in a somewhat disdainful tone, as if anything from China must be strange or slightly immoral.

  Then, as if to assert herself, she said sharply,

  “Personally, I am quite content with British dogs. They are the best in the world!”

  She turned and flounced away as she spoke.

  Angelina glanced at the Prince and they both laughed.

  “I have always been told that the British are intolerably insular,” he remarked.

  “And very patriotic,” Angelina answered. “Perhaps I had better buy Twi-Twi a red, white and blue ribbon to wear round his tail!”

  The interruption had, for the moment, swept away the darkness from the Prince’s face.

  “I think I ought to go back,” Angelina said. “If I am too long, the servants might go into the garden to look for me.”

  It was unlikely. Equally, if her grandmother asked for her, it would be very difficult to explain why she had taken Twi-Twi anywhere else other than the garden where she was allowed to go alone.

  “I will take you back,” the Prince declared, “but I have to talk to you. There is so much I want to tell you and so much I want to ask you.”

  “There is – tomorrow,” Angelina murmured.

  “Tomorrow is the day before the Coronation,” the Prince said, “and I have several engagements I shall be obliged to fulfil.”

  “Y-yes – of course.”

  At the same time she felt her heart sink dismally.

  Once the Coronation was over, the Prince would go away and she would never see him again.

  There would be nothing to look forward to, no one to peep at through the bushes and shrubs that faced the Ministry and no one to meet in the garden.

  Even now she could hardly realise that she had been daring enough to drive with the Prince to the Serpentine and sit talking to him on the edge of the water.

  It had been so exciting. No – that was not the right word – the one she had used before was better – ‘an enchantment’ was how she described it.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, the Prince said,

  “I have to see you. You know that.”

  The way he spoke told Angelina, although she dared not put it into words, that this was an enchantment to him too.

  “I have a suggestion to make,” he went on.

  “You said that once before, and perhaps – you could tell me about it, as we drive home. I really – must go.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  Angelina rose from the seat to pick up Twi-Twi.

  “You may be Chinese,” she said, “but whatever anyone else may say, there is no other dog as beautiful as you in the whole of Hyde Park.”

  “Are you assuaging Twi-Twi’s feelings,” the Prince asked, “or your own?”

  “I was furious with that woman for criticising him,” Angelina replied. “How could any dog be more beautiful?”

  “One of your writers once said, ‘love me, love my dog!’ and I think that applies to everybody. Their dogs are special to them, just as Twi-Twi is special to you.”

  “Of course,” Angelina agreed, “and have you a dog of your own, sir?”

  “I have quite a number all together,” the Prince replied, “but only three in the Palace, which follow me everywhere. I would like you to see them.”

  Angelina wanted to answer that she not only would love to see the dogs but also the Palace where the Prince lived and indeed Cephalonia itself.

  But, carrying Twi-Twi, she merely moved beside him across the grass to where the carriage was waiting for them.

  As they went towards it, she glanced at the Prince from under her eyelashes and thought that the stern look, or was it a grim one, was back on his face and that once again he was thinking of the marriage he had to make.

  She knew herself it was something that she would hate more than anything else, to have to marry a man with whom she had little or nothing in common simply because they had both been born in a certain stratum of life.

  ‘I am glad I am a commoner,’ Angelina thought with a little sigh.

  At the same time she was sure that the Prince need not worry as to whether or not his wife would love him.

  How could anyone resist a man who was so handsome, so attractive and so interesting in every way?

  ‘Whoever she may be, she is very very lucky,’ Angelina told herself.

  She wondered if the Prince’s marriage would be reported in the newspapers. If it was, she would be able to read about it.

  Then it struck her that, if he married an English Princess and if they were married in England, there was no doubt that the Wedding and every detail of it would be reported.

  As usual her imagination carried her aw
ay and she was seeing a description of the bride’s gown in The Ladies Journal and reading in The Times the list of distinguished guests present in the Church and at the huge Reception afterwards.

  It struck her that now she knew the Prince he might invite her to his Wedding, but even if he did, she would not be able to go while her grandmother was not well enough to accompany her.

  She wondered if, at his marriage, he would look as he did now – stern, grim and with an expression in his eyes that made her think that he was hurt in a way that made her want to comfort him.

  They reached the carriage in silence, the Prince helped her in and Angelina placed Twi-Twi on the opposite seat.

  As the horse moved off, the Prince said,

  “We now have very little time together. I want you to meet me tonight and you must promise that you will do so.”

  “Tonight?” Angelina echoed in astonishment.

  “Yes, tonight,” the Prince said. “Listen, I have been thinking about it. It will be quite easy.”

  Angelina looked at him wide-eyed as he asked,

  “At what time does your grandmother go to sleep?”

  “She has dinner at seven-thirty and so do I,” Angelina replied. “Then at eight o’clock I say ‘goodnight’ to her.”

  “What do you do then?”

  “I sit downstairs and read. Or I go to bed and read there.”

  The Prince smiled.

  “Then that makes it very easy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he said, “that I will be waiting for you at a quarter-past eight and, if you cannot manage to be on time, then I will go on waiting.”

  “B-but I cannot – ” Angelina exclaimed, “I cannot come! I cannot leave the house. Ruston, the butler, locks the front door after dinner and, if I went out before he did so, I would be unable to get back in.”

  “Our two houses are built side by side,” the Prince said. “Surely you can get into the mews at the back, as I can?”

  Angelina looked at him in astonishment.

  She had never, all the time that she had lived with her grandmother, gone into the mews from the house.

  If the carriage was wanted, one of the servants notified old Abbey the coachman and he brought the carriage round to the front door.