How to Propose to a Prince (13 page)

Princess Charlotte flung her upper body over the arm of the settee and let her arms dangle from it. “It will work perfectly,” she whined. “Is it not time we go?”

“Almost.” Mercer looked at Charlotte. “You are wrinkling your gown. You do wish to appear mature and in complete command of your life. A wrinkled gown will not communicate that to the Prime Minister.”

Charlotte is meeting with the Prime Minister? Oh, dear
. Elizabeth thought.
What was this ruse about and why had she agreed to it?

Princess Charlotte slid back to her seat, and then stood to straighten her gown, before plopping back onto the settee.

Mercer looked critically at Elizabeth. “Now then, the modistes are French and have never met the princess. They have been instructed not to speak or look you directly in the face. They will only pin-fit the gowns, so there is no reason for you to speak at all, either.”

Elizabeth felt as twisted with nerves as the coils of fabric around her head. “Wouldn’t it be easier to simply schedule the modistes’ work for another day?”

Princess Charlotte huffed. “No. You are missing the point, Elizabeth. I have informed my governesses that I will be engaged in fitting until sunset at least, and then I will retire early, for I am always thoroughly exhausted after having so many gowns fitted to my form.”

“Your posing as Charlotte with the modistes, then retiring for the night, will give Charlotte the time she needs to travel to London to meet privately with Lord Liverpool and to return again,” Mercer explained.

Elizabeth was thoroughly confused. “Why
must your meeting remain a secret? I do not understand. You are the Princess of Wales, after all.”

Princess Charlotte huffed out her frustration with Elizabeth and shot a glance at Mercer, as if ordering her to deal with the dull miss from Cornwall on her behalf.

Mercer interceded. “Charlotte plans to inform the Prime Minister that she wishes to marry Prince Leopold.”

“Oh, oh—allow me to show you both the oration I have planned.” The princess folded her hands primly in her lap. “Lord Liverpool, my time at Cranbourne Lodge has been conducive to thought…” She glanced proudly at Elizabeth. “You gave me that bit.” Princess Charlotte straightened her back and instantly wiped all emotion from her face. “I know it is my duty and in the best interest of my country, as the daughter of the Prince of Wales, to make an advantageous marriage. I, therefore, decided I should choose from those I consider to be the most appropriate candidates for a husband—and from these, I have selected. And I only wish to confirm that you—being far wiser than I in judging how such a match would affect the country politically—support my decision. Putting my own personal criteria aside, and those
of my country first, I have chosen Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.”

Elizabeth stared at the princess, dumbfounded by what she was hearing. If Parliament supported a match between Charlotte and the prince, her own last threads of hope would snap.

Dark specks began to dance before her eyes. She dropped down upon a slipper chair and stared dully at Princess Charlotte, who was grinning from ear to ear.

“Oh, I know, Elizabeth,” the princess said, addressing her bout of faintness. “My oration was powerful, indeed. I was most convincing, was I not?” She looked to Mercer for her reaction. “I thought the bit about seeking his wise counsel was a perfectly manipulative touch, do you not agree, Mercer?”

“I do indeed.” Mercer looked down at Elizabeth, who was still sitting stupidly in the center of the room. “Oh, good heavens, Elizabeth. Did you not just hear my warning to Charlotte? Stand up, before you’ve wrinkled that gown.”

Elizabeth rose, but immediately felt herself teeter and fall.

When she opened her eyes, after losing consciousness for the second time that day, Mercer was standing over her looking most concerned.
“Are you well? Perhaps you ought to lie on the settee and rest for a time before the modistes arrive. Your body has surely been taxed from your accident today.”

“I am well. I believe I just need to sit for a moment,” Elizabeth replied softly, for she could not admit that hearing Princess Charlotte’s plan to address Lord Liverpool was far more of a blow to her body than plunging into the waters of the Thames.

“Do not worry overmuch, Mercer. This turn actually enhances our most excellent plan for the ruse,” Charlotte was saying. “For it gave me another idea. I will be sure to have Aida report to the governesses that I was so horribly fatigued, yet did not seem the least ill, that I collapsed and require rest. Perfect! Oh, you are a wonder, Elizabeth.”

Mercer helped Elizabeth into her chair. “Shall I remain here with you?”

Elizabeth’s mind was beginning to clear and an excuse for fainting in the presence of the princess somehow made its way through the fog in her brain. “No, no, I was simply unaccustomed to wearing long stays. They are much more restrictive to breathing than the short, aren’t they?”

At the sound of the carriage wheeling its way
to the front of the house, Princess Charlotte rushed to the window. “Quick, Mercer, give me your maid’s cloak and gypsy bonnet. It is time.”

“Yes, it is.” Mercer lifted the bundle sitting on the edge of a glossy table near the door and handed it to the princess, who excitedly settled the bonnet upon her head and swirled the cloak around her shoulders, obscuring from view the vibrant blue satin gown edged with layers of frothy ivory lace. “Now take a deep breath, my dear Charlotte. For today may well be the single most significant day of your young life.”

The princess grinned excitedly and drew a lung-filling breath, then, with a twinkle in her eye, turned and dashed for the door with Mercer at her heels.

At the door, Mercer turned to Elizabeth one last time. “I am to understand that you have agreed to loyally assume your role as the princess on this important day?”

“You may count on me,” Elizabeth said confidently, though she felt anything but confident. “I am the princess’s most loyal servant.”

She knew there was no possible way she could carry off this ill-thought-out ruse.

The Gamekeeper’s cottage
Cranbourne Lodge

L
eopold crossed one leg over the other. “The princess is like a golden filly, full of spirit and energy, but sadly, completely without discipline, control, and restraint.” He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and gestured, palm up, to Sumner, who sat in the companion chair a stride away. “The only way to bring out my dear Charlotte’s full potential, her grace and elegance, is by breaking her.”

“I have not heard one word from you about your attraction to her, or of love,” Sumner said. The acrid scent of the cold hearth beside him irritated his nose, but he did not move away. He
needed an answer. “How can you wish, so keenly, to marry her? I do not understand.”

Leopold shook his head, as if he were about to needlessly explain his obvious reasoning in this matter to a child. “Cousin, I am the first to admit that after meeting Princess Charlotte in London last year, I had no reason to believe I stood a chance to win her hand. She was in love with another, and her father still had aspirations, and still might, that she marry the Dutchman, William of Orange.” He lifted a bruised hothouse orange from the small bowl of fruit on the side table, gave it a little squeeze, then returned it to its place. By the slightly damaged look of it, it was not the first time Leopold handled the orange in that manner.

Sumner rose and refilled Leopold’s glass, then returned the decanter to the table, earning a pleased sigh from his cousin.

“Everything changed the moment I received a letter from Mercer advising me that if I still had aspirations regarding Charlotte I should return to London directly. The princess would very likely respond favorably to my attentions.”

“But you did not return then?”

“Certainly not, our regiment was on active service at the time and Napoleon was on the march with an army a quarter million strong,”
Leopold said, making Sumner feel that his question had been taken as a personal affront to the prince’s character. He lifted a sharp gaze to Sumner. “I do have my duty, after all.”

Sumner narrowed his eyes, wondering if Leopold’s comment was a not so subtle reminder meant for him. But he would put the interests of Saxe-Coburg first. He would sacrifice his happiness, perhaps even his life, to help Leopold claim Princess Charlotte’s hand in marriage. “Why did you not inform me of this letter?” He leaned forward and awaited his cousin’s reply. There had never been any secrets between them since they were children.

Except one—one very large secret.

“Because Charlotte was rumored to be extremely fickle. I knew that to come rushing to her was the surest way to see her shy from my advance.” Leopold smiled to himself. “And it seems as though my delay was the right decision. After Waterloo and my subsequent installation in Paris, I received another letter from Mercer, informing me that Charlotte had set her heart on marrying me. My delay in contacting her and crossing the Channel made me far more desirable. Why, I do not know. The princess is a romantic, it seems.” He drank deeply from the crystal.

Sumner gazed down into his untouched glass of brandy. “You knew, however, that now was the time to slip away from Paris to solidify your claim for her hand.”

“I did.” Leopold uncrossed his legs and leaned toward Sumner, pinging the side of his glass agitatedly with his index finger. “I beg you, do not judge me for what you do not understand as clearly as I. My family lost vast holdings to Napoleon, and we are only now able to reclaim what was taken. But I learned a valuable lesson from this. A minor prince, of good manner and quite handsome features”—he grinned over his glass at Sumner—“has the ability to make an advantageous marriage and never risk his family’s ancestral holdings again.”

“I see.” Sumner lifted his gaze and peered directly at Leopold. The next question was very important. “So despite appearances to contrary, there is no love between the two of you.”

“Oh, no.” Leopold chuckled confidently. “She loves me quite dearly, or has convinced herself that she does. And why shouldn’t she?”

“But
you
do not love her.”

Leopold dropped his head back against the rest. “Once she is brought into line, I am sure I will one day come to love her immensely. But my feelings have no place in this matter. My
duty to my family, and the principality, must come first.” He paused for several moments, adding weight to his next words. “I know you, of all men, can understand that, Sumner.”

Sumner remained silent and nodded solemnly.

Indeed he did. All too well.

Cranbourne Lodge
Princess Charlotte’s bedchamber

No less than nine French drapers and modistes crowded about Elizabeth, pinching fabric around her waist. Twisting and tugging her arms this way and that, pinning and poking, and accidentally stabbing her thrice with their stitching needles, they worked to ensure that each gown, riding habit, walking dress, and morning frock fit…perfectly.

Elizabeth’s own slim frame.

Not Princess Charlotte’s shorter, more curved, royal figure.

They were only meant to pin the gowns, not complete the fitting with needles and thread. Charlotte had explained this quite clearly to her. Worried over this problem, Elizabeth tried to complain that she required more room for movement, and that they should only pin the fabric,
but her French was limited to a few fashionable phrases, courtesy of Lady Upperton, and those were sadly insufficient to communicate her needs. She snatched up a cushion of pins and held it out to them, but the modistes only took the pins from her and set them out of her reach. Waving her arms and patting her waist, she attempted to gesticulate to help them understand her words, but this attempt, too, was to no avail. They would not look directly at her, for they had been instructed to avoid doing so.

After enduring seven hours of their torture without making herself understood even once, Elizabeth ultimately decided that the princess had to have anticipated that using a taller, thinner woman as a dressmaker’s form for pin-fitting would result in longer, more slender-cut gowns and ensembles. And la, she could not stop them from their final fittings. They were simply too quick and efficient.

There was simply no way to stop the busy modistes without abruptly marching from the bedchamber and destroying the illusion that she was Princess Charlotte. And she was not so daring as to draw the moody princess’s wrath by doing that.

No, she would adhere herself to the princess’s plan and simply hope for the best.

When the crickets began to chirp as night fell, and the modistes had departed, Elizabeth sat gazing out of the princess’s bedchamber window as the last glimmers of orange light sunk down beneath the line of trees at the horizon.

There was knocking at the bedchamber door. Elizabeth looked up and waited. Three more raps. It was the signal from Aida, who had been ordered to undertake sentry duty, to warn Elizabeth that she should turn away from the door so her evening meal might be brought in without the bearer realizing she was not the true princess.

Elizabeth remained motionless and continued to stare out into the cloudless night sky. She sniffed as the aroma of beef drifted past her nose, making her empty stomach growl. It was sad that eating her beef would be her greatest diversion all afternoon and evening.

After just one day of pretending to be the princess, Elizabeth already pitied Princess Charlotte. Even she could hardly believe it.

She, the commoner from Cornwall, pitied the grand princess. The same woman who would put a quick end to her dream. The young royal who, even now, was working to garner support of Parliament for her own marriage to Prince Leopold.

But pity her, Elizabeth did.

Cranbourne Lodge, so large and beautiful, was naught but a gilded cage imprisoning the young royal. Freedoms were few, and only, from what Elizabeth had witnessed herself, claimed by the princess more often through deceit and trickery of others. From all accounts from house staff and even her closest confidante, Mercer, it was a sad, tiresome life the princess led most of her days.

Princess Charlotte’s own mother, unable to endure it, had fled the court and her marriage to the Prince of Wales, for a life of freedom on the continent. No wonder the princess was so ill-mannered, Elizabeth concluded. She would be, too, if she had to endure life as a prisoner—even if she could wear a glittering tiara atop her head.

Suddenly, she realized that not once had she seen the tiara that the prince had sent Princess Charlotte from Hamilton and Company. She leapt to her feet and quietly began searching the princess’s bedchamber, until she came upon a box marked with the company’s name tucked beneath the princess’s dressing table.

She lifted the lid of the box, holding her breath, hoping upon hope the tiara was inside. Her tiara. The one Sumner had placed on her
head. Her heart thudded hard as she untied the lacings of the linen bag inside the box and reached inside. Her fingers alighted at once upon cool stone and metal and snatched it up.

Carefully, she lifted the tiara from its hiding place and stared at it admiringly for several minutes, before sitting down at the dressing table, intent on doing the unthinkable.

She peered into the mirror and imagined Sumner was holding the tiara in his hands as she lowered it down atop her head. She exhaled softly as she beheld her image.

Quietly, she studied her reflection, wanting to hold onto the memory of the day she first met her prince. Wanting to preserve it, before the princess returned this night and the moment was twisted from the grasp of Fate and placed into Parliament’s hands.

A tear budded in the innermost corner of one of her eyes, for she knew it was already too late. By now Princess Charlotte had obtained Lord Liverpool’s promise of support. It was only a matter of time before Prinny would be convinced to do the same—and Prince Leopold would marry Princess Charlotte.

Elizabeth gulped back a sob as she whisked the tiara from her head and replaced it in the box beneath the dressing table. She propped
her elbows on the table’s surface then rested her face in her hands and let the tears she had fought off come at last.

Shortly after midnight, Elizabeth decided it would be permissible to return to her own bedchamber. Princess Charlotte and Mercer would no doubt be returning from London very soon, after all. Quietly, she eased open the door, to find Aida slumped against the doorjamb. The maid’s mouth was agape and a slight snore met the air with her every exhalation.

Elizabeth squeezed her shoulder, calming the startled maid as she awoke with a gentle “Hush.” Elizabeth settled a quieting finger over her lips, then waved good night and headed up another flight of stairs to her own bedchamber.

She changed from the princess’s dressing gown and into her own, then sat at the edge of her tester bed. She was too restless to sleep, however. She could not rid her mind of upsetting thoughts of a future without Sumner. Rising from the tester bed, she paced the bedchamber before finally realizing that, lud, if she remained inside the life-stifling lodge a moment longer, she would surely scream.

Stepping into her slippers, Elizabeth hurried
from her bedchamber, down the dark staircase, through the doorway, and then raced out into the night.

A light breeze parted the opening of her dressing gown and blew the sides behind her like great gleaming banners of blue. She didn’t bother to conceal her silk chemise, for no one but a distraught lady’s companion would be about at this hour.

For the second night, the moon, set on a bejeweled black velvet blanket, was bright and nearly perfectly round. She sighed, remembering standing at the edge of the garden with Sumner just one night before and seeing the same image above.

She had been so full of hope. So filled with excitement for the growing possibility of a life together with Sumner.

But everything had changed now.

It was a fool’s decision she made then, Elizabeth knew, but with the moon as her guide, she walked from the lodge until she met the river trail. Why she walked such a dangerous trail now, she didn’t know. It was as if she wanted to go to the last place she and Sumner were together…alone.

It seemed something beckoned her, called her there.

The nearer she came to the bend in the trail, the deeper she fell into mourning what might have been. Her ribs felt contracted, the backs of her eyes stung with heat.

Her sense of eminent loss grew with every step, until she could smell the Thames, hear its rush just below the trail. Tears slipped down her cheek as she rounded the path’s curve and was about to come upon the very place where she and Sumner had lain. Together.

She held her breath until she could see around the trees to the stretch of soft moss. Their bed.

Then she stopped.

She squinted against the moonlight, but there was no question. There, in a bath of silver moonlight, was her prince.

“Sumner.”

Sumner was sitting on the soft bed of moss, one arm wrapped around a raised knee, when he heard his name upon the breeze over the roar of the river.

At first he thought it a game of the night and the rushing, gurgling Thames, but then he saw her, his Elizabeth, standing in a blue finger of moonlight.

He blinked, unable to truly believe what his eyes beheld. It was if his earnest wish to say
good-bye had somehow conjured her from her bed to this moonlit spot.

“Elizabeth?” he murmured.

“Sumner!” She ran to him, arms outstretched.

Pushing up to his feet, he stepped forward and met her warm embrace. Without conscious thought, his arms came up and wrapped around her. She trembled against him, and he bundled her even more tightly.

He didn’t ask her why she was on the river trail just now. It didn’t matter. What did was that she was here, in his arms, where he wanted her to be. Needed her to be.

So that, God help him, he could tell her good-bye. A stab of pained reluctance cut into his heart. “Elizabeth, I—”

She leaned back a bit, so she could look up at him. Tears wet her cheeks and sparkled in her eyes. “Do not say it. I already know,” she said, her voice full with emotion. “Princess Charlotte has gone to see the Prime Minister.” A sob broke from her lips and punctured her next words.