The Golden Prince (49 page)

“You’re not taking into account that faced with such stubbornness on David’s part, King George might well change his mind and give his consent after all.”

“I’m not sure he can. There’s never been a nonroyal Princess of Wales—or not since medieval times. Mr. Asquith has spoken to David and has told him it’s something the government couldn’t possibly countenance. The Archbishop of Canterbury has told him the same thing. When David comes back from Germany and tells his father what he intends, the almost certain result is that he’ll never succeed to the throne.”

“How does Lily feel about that?”

Rose drained her glass. “She isn’t going to allow him to make such a sacrifice.”

“Just how is she going to stop him?” Rory asked with deep interest.

With an unsteady hand Rose set her empty glass down on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

“Lily says that her refusal to marry him wouldn’t be enough to prevent him from acting as he intends. She says he would be so certain she would marry him if she could that he’d simply take no notice of her. She says the only thing that will prevent him abandoning all his royal duties is if she marries someone else.”

Rory, who had strong private thoughts on who that someone else should be, swirled the whiskey around in his glass and said, not giving his thoughts away, “That could well be a very good idea.”

“It may be a good idea, but it isn’t a feasible one.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one is likely to propose to her. Lily is pregnant, Rory. Seven weeks going on eight.”

The blood drained from Rory’s face.

She said tautly, “What Lily and I have decided is that while David is in Germany she will write to him telling him she has fallen in love elsewhere and has married. She and I are then going to go somewhere she can have the baby and where she can stay long enough so that if David ever does discover she’s had a baby, she’ll be able to fudge about exactly how old it is.”

The shock he had sustained turned to incredulity.

“Are you telling me David doesn’t know about the baby?”

“No—and for obvious reasons he must never know he is the father—and nor must anyone else know he is the father.”

“Sweet Christ, I should think not!”

At the thought of the scandal and the constitutional repercussions if it ever became known that the seventeen-year-old Prince of Wales had fathered a child Rory’s head spun.

He put down his glass of whiskey and rose to his feet.

Her hand shot out to restrain him. “Please don’t go back to London, Rory! I want you to be here when Lord Esher arrives. I want you to be here when Lily and I tell Grandfather about the baby—and about what Lily has decided to do.”

“I’m not going back to London.” His voice was as grim as his face. “I’ll be here when Esher arrives. Where is Lily now, Rose? In her studio?”

“Yes, she wanted to be on her own for a little while.”

“I daresay she did, but I’m not going to allow her to be on her own. I’m certainly not going to allow the two of you to go off to God knows where by yourselves.”

With a pulse pounding at his jawline, he strode from the room.

She hesitated for a moment and then sprang to her feet and hurried after him, wanting to know what he intended saying to Lily, but by the time she reached the hall he was already taking the second flight of stairs two at a time.

Rory didn’t knock on the studio’s door. He simply opened it and walked in.

Lily was seated on the long seat in front of the floor-to-ceiling skylight, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms around them. Startled, she turned her head toward him, her eyes darkly ringed, her face deathly pale.

“Rose has told me,” he said. “She’s told me everything.”

“About the baby as well?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to go away.” Her voice was hoarse from all the crying she had done. “It’s the only way I can prevent David from ruining his life. You see, Rory, David was predestined to be a prince. He’s only just begun to carry out public duties, but already when he does so, he makes far more impact than King George has ever done. King George is too stern to be charming, but David can’t help but be charming. He simply is.”

He drew up a battered bentwood chair and sat within touching distance of her.

She said, “When we were in Paris, because David’s visit was a
private one, he was there incognito, and for the first few weeks the incognito worked—sort of. After that, if he went to the opera or somewhere similar with the Marquis and Marquise de Valmy and a party of their friends, photographers sprang out of the woodwork and crowds gathered to cheer him and wish him well. He was
fantastic
with those crowds, Rory. He responded to them in a way that was quite wonderful. Though he doesn’t like a lot of what he describes as ‘prince-ing,’ he’s very good at it. More than just good. He’s gifted. That is why he can’t possibly abandon the role he was born to fulfill. That is why I’m going to have to lose him—and he’s going to have to lose me.”

He took her hand in his. “You’re right to think that only if you marry someone else will he give you up. So what I’m going to ask you, Lily, is this: Will you marry me? I know you’re not in love with me. You are still in love with David and maybe always will be. That’s something I’m prepared to accept. But I’m in love with you, Lily. If it hadn’t been for David, I would have told you so months ago. I know that you like me an awful lot and that you like being with me and that’s a start, isn’t it? Who knows, maybe you’ll begin to love me a little, and one day love me rather a lot.”

Time wavered and halted. As sunlight streamed through the skylight window onto his fiery red hair, Lily remembered all the times when she had raced happily to meet him, at Snowberry and at her great-aunt Sibyl’s and at Castle Dounreay. When she had been with Rory she had never been unhappy. He was handsome and honorable and brave and never boring, and she knew that debutantes in their droves would, if he had proposed to them, have accepted instantly.

“I’ll leave the Foreign Office,” he said, his eyes holding hers. “We’ll live at Gruinart, which is about as far from Windsor and Buckingham Place as it is possible to get. At Gruinart you’ll be able to paint and sculpt to your heart’s content, and I’ll be far happier managing the family estate instead of leaving things in the hands of an estate manager. It will get you out of the terrible situation you are in—and it will make me very happy. Please say yes, Lily.”

In her present hideous situation she knew that this was a proposal she would be insane to refuse—though she also knew that it was one she would have turned down if it hadn’t been Rory proposing to her.

But she wasn’t going to refuse Rory’s proposal.

He had been part of her life ever since she was born and though she had never thought herself in love with him, she had most certainly always loved him, and he loved her. If she was to save David from regal suicide, it was enough. It was more than enough.

“Yes,” she said. “But we’ll have to marry soon, Rory. Before David returns from Germany.”

“The sooner, the better.” He drew her to her feet, kissing her on the cheek, as he had always kissed her. Passion would come later, when she was over her grief for David. He was too much in love with her—and too desperate for her to be in love with him—to want to spoil things by rushing them.

Rose’s reaction
, when Rory and Lily had entered the drawing room hand in hand and had told her they were going to marry, was one of unspeakable relief. Hard on its heels came fresh anxieties.

“Lord Esher must be told
why
Lily is marrying in such haste. He has to be told that David intends abdicating his royal role in order to spend the rest of his life with Lily and that the only way she can prevent him from reneging on his birthright in such a way is by marrying elsewhere. It has to be impressed on him that it will all be for nothing if David is told of the marriage, or of Lily’s reasons for entering into it, before it takes place.”

There was something else that she felt was vitally important.

“The only people to know that the baby is David’s, and not Rory’s, must be the three of us. No one else must know. Not Iris. Especially not Marigold. Not even Grandfather.”

Rory and Lily’s agreement was total and then, with that matter settled, Rory said, “Since the wedding needs to take place before David returns from Germany, we have to decide where it is going to take place so that the banns can be called. Is it to be on Islay, or here, in Hampshire?”

“Hampshire, I think,” Rose said, as if she, not Lily was to be the bride. “The more people who can vouch to the wedding having taken place, the better. I suggest both of you go and speak to the vicar straight away. Banns have to be called on three successive
Sundays, which will give you a wedding date of somewhere around the end of April.”

Neither Lily nor Rory wanted a fancy wedding, so when Rose received an invitation later in the day to an afternoon party at Lord Westcliff’s, in Hampstead, Lily insisted she return to London in order to attend it.

“There are hardly any wedding arrangements to make and so you may just as well be in London.” Lily sounded almost as practical as Iris. “I didn’t know you knew Lord Westcliff. Is he a friend of Great-Aunt Sybil’s?”

“No, I don’t think so. And I don’t know him.”

Lily stared at her, mystified. “Then why have you received an invitation from him?”

“I don’t know.” And then realizing she needed to do at least a little explaining, she said, “He owns the
Daily Despatch
, Lily. Perhaps the invitation has been sent to me in mistake. Or perhaps it isn’t a genuine invitation and someone is playing a joke on me.”

“Why don’t you ring Mr. Green? He’d know if it was a joke or not.”

Rose hadn’t rung Hal, but she had rung his secretary.

“Of course it isn’t a mistake, Miss Houghton.” Hal’s secretary was quite affronted that Rose had thought such a mistake even possible. “Lord Westcliff is a socialist who behaves very generously to his employees. The party is an annual event.”

“Does everyone go?” she’d asked.

“Absolutely everyone. Even the husbands and wives of employees are invited. Children aren’t, of course, but Lord Westcliff always makes an exception with Mr. Green, and he always takes Jacinta.”

For a moment Rose wondered if she had heard correctly. She couldn’t have. It wasn’t possible.

“Jacinta?” she said, waiting for the world to be made right again.

Hal’s secretary said helpfully, “Jacinta is Mr. Green’s adopted daughter. She’s a sweet girl. It’s always a pleasure to see her. Do please remember, Miss Houghton, that absolutely
everyone
attends Lord Westcliff’s party. To not attend is quite unthinkable.”

The line went dead and Rose, feeling as if the ground was falling away beneath her feet, clutched the telephone receiver, her knuckles white.

An adopted daughter? Surely only married men had adopted daughters? As she thought of what his behavior in asking her out to dinner would mean if he was married, she felt physically ill. It would mean he had no respect for her at all. It would mean he wasn’t even close to being the kind of man she had believed him to be. With difficulty she prized her fingers from the telephone. Then she went in search of her grandfather.

“Do you know if Lord Jethney is at home or in London?” she asked.

Her grandfather put down the newspaper he had been reading. “He’s at home, Rose. Why do you want to know?”

“Nothing important. I just wanted to ask him something about an article I’m writing.”

She left him to his paper and ten minutes later was cycling in the direction of Theo’s family home.

She had been there before on occasions such as a birthday party for Jerusha, but she had never been there unaccompanied—and had certainly never been there uninvited.

When the butler opened the door to her, she could tell by the expression on his face that though he recognized her as being one of Lord May’s granddaughters, he had no idea which granddaughter she was. Like all good butlers he was imperturbable, and though he thought her windblown unexpected arrival most odd, he didn’t betray his feelings by a flicker.