Princess Dottie

Chapter Seven

Mike appeared in her room at noon next day, hung-over and apologetic.

“Don't know what was in that stuff I drank,” he said. “Maybe I should have stuck to beer.” He rubbed his head.

“What made you change the habits of a lifetime?” Dottie asked. She too wasn't feeling at her best today.

“I didn't want to offend Countess Bekendorf. Mind you, she wasn't so bad.”

“What on earth did you find to talk about?”

“It was some of the stuff your grandpa told me, about your royal ancestors.”

“But you told me you couldn't remember that.”

“I can't when I'm sober, but last night I wasn't sober.”

“So what was it?”

Mike looked rueful. “Sorry Dot, I'm sober again now.”

“Oh well,” Dottie sighed, “she was bound to try to find out if I'm an impostor. So now she knows that I'm the real thing. Not that it matters. They'll find someone else soon, and then you and I can go home and get married.”

She was eager for their departure. There was something about this place that made her behave unlike herself. It wasn't Dottie who'd insisted on kissing Randolph. Nor was it Dottie who'd teased him with her half-clad body, determined to get a response from him and bitterly satisfied when she received one. Dottie would never behave like that because she loved Mike, and it was love that mattered, not lust.

Lust. She considered it, trying to see it in relation to herself. All right, she admitted at last. She fancied Randolph. Fancied him like mad, if the truth be told. But that wasn't real life.

She didn't see him for a couple of days. He'd left in the early hours after the ball and gone to an estate he had nearby. She left a message for him, and he came to her as soon as he returned.

“You should have found another heir by now,” she said quietly.

“But I haven't. There's only you.”

“But I have to go back to England.”

“Are you going to abandon us?” Randolph demanded fiercely. “You have a short memory if you can forget how the people of this country have welcomed you. You know what our fate will be if you desert us.”

“They can put you back on the throne,” she said desperately. “It should be you by rights. I'm all wrong. You've said so often enough, and it's true.”

“Yes, it is, but it doesn't matter. I'm illegitimate and therefore barred from the throne.”

“Well, they can have a what d'you call it? Referee-”

“Referendum.”

“Referendum. People can vote for you to be king and then you can marry Sophie and everything will be all right.” She hadn't meant to add that last bit.

“If I tried to claim the throne, even with the consent of parliament and the people, Harold would use that as an excuse to start a war. And if I stand back and let him become king, he'll plunder the country and crush its people. The only person who can stop that is you.”

“And where does Mike come in your grand scheme of things?”

“He doesn't. You can't marry him. Surely you've realized that?”

“You mean I should just dump him? Oh, lovely. Sorry Mike, it's been nice knowing you but something better has turned up. A nice opinion of me you have! Remember how it felt to lose Sophie?”

The bleak, guarded look that she dreaded appeared in Randolph's eyes. “Why don't we go and talk to Mike?” he asked smoothly. “He's surely entitled to express an opinion.”

“I see your game. You'll give him the fancy speech you've just given me, and then you think he'll make the grand sacrifice.”

“I admit I don't associate him with grand sacrifices. He impresses me as a very down-to-earth young man, doing everything for prosaic reasons.”

“Right! And he'll tell you to jump in the lake.”

“I'm trembling.”

“And then I'll tell you to jump in the lake, and since I'm the crown princess you'll have to do it.”

“At Her Royal Highness's command I'll jump in any lake you care to name. Would you like me to wear a lead weight about my neck?”

“Don't be funny with me, buster!”

As they talked Randolph had contrived to urge her out of the door that led to one of the hidden corridors. Dottie followed him, furiously angry. At last she found herself on a little landing, outside a nondescript door. Randolph took a key and unlocked it, ushering her forward. She strode into the room, ready to confront Mike, but the sight that met her eyes drove everything else out of her mind.

Stretched out on the grandiose bed, her eyes closed in pleasure, lay a naked young woman. The rest of her face was obscured by the back of Mike's head. He was also naked, and far too occupied with what he was doing to realize that his fiancée had entered the room. Only drastic action was going to get through to him, so Dottie took it, raising her hand high above her head and bringing it down hard on his vigorously working rump.

His yell of surprise and outrage hit the ceiling. Wriggling away to escape, he contrived to fall right off the bed, landing in an undignified heap at her feet, and revealing the identity of his companion, who screamed as she saw Dottie's doom-laden face.

“You've got a nerve, Bren,” Dottie told her. “But I'll come to you later, when I've thumped him to kingdom come and back.”

“Now, Dot,” Mike said from the floor where he was haplessly trying to cover himself and squirm away from her at the same time. “Don't lose your sense of proportion.”

“I don't have one,” she growled. “As you're about to discover. Oh, get up for pity's sake!”

He did so, his hands clutched protectively in front of him, his eyes fixed warily on Dottie. Randolph had been discreetly locating Brenda's robe and helping her put it on. Mike's clothes were scattered about the room, suggesting some urgency in their removal, which did nothing to improve Dottie's temper.

“What are you doing here anyway?” she demanded of Brenda.

“I won a holiday,” Brenda said sullenly.

“Oh really!” Dottie turned her fire on Randolph. “Courtesy of the Ellurian Tourist Authority, I suppose? You weren't offered a honeymoon as well, by any chance?”

“None of your business!”

“Oh yes it is,” Dottie said wrathfully. “You forget you're talking to the queen.”

“Not quite yet-” Randolph murmured.

“You hush!” she told him firmly. “You've told me often enough about my power. Well, how's this for power?” She swung back to the other two. “I could have both of you arrested, locked up and nobody would ever hear of you again.”

Brenda gave a little squeak, and Mike edged closer to her. “She can't do it, love,” he muttered. “We haven't broken the law.”

“Think treason,” Dottie suggested dangerously. “Think firing squad.”

“Her Royal Highness is naturally disturbed by this breach of protocol,” Randolph said smoothly, “and she desires only to find a way out of the unfortunate situation.”

“A firing squad,” Dottie said stubbornly.

“Aw, c'mon Dot,” Mike said placatingly. “You'd finished with me anyhow. You just hadn't gotten around to telling me yet.”

Before she could answer Randolph drew her aside. “Perhaps you shouldn't blame him too much,” he murmured. “After all, you too have permitted yourself-shall we say the odd moment of dalliance?”

She met his eyes and saw in them something that made her gaze fall. He was reminding her of scurrying excitements that he could cause in her, thrills that she'd never known with Mike. They were starting again, reviving the memory of the kiss that had made her feel so guilty. But she'd fled temptation, she remembered. Mike had embraced it full-on.

“That's different,” she muttered. “I didn't go in for…what they were doing.”

“Are you sure it might not have happened, if the circumstances had been right?”

“Quite sure.”

His eyes called her a liar. She whirled away from him and confronted Mike, who'd hastily resumed his clothes, and with them, some of his confidence.

“What do you mean by saying I'd finished with you?”

“You've belonged here from the start. And you knew it really. What would you do in Wenford after this? Besides,” he indicated Randolph who was talking kindly to Brenda, and dropped his voice to say, “you've gotta marry him.”

“I-he-what are you talking about? I'm marrying you. At least, I was before you turned out to be a devious, treacherous, unfaithful…”

Mike gave her his sweet smile. “I'm not really, Dot. I'm just an ordinary feller, who wants an ordinary home and an ordinary wife. Thing is, you ain't ordinary.”

Randolph returned to them. “The kindest thing you can do for Mike is to let him go back to England, where he can marry Brenda, and settle down with his own garage.”

“He hasn't got a garage,” Dottie pointed out grumpily.

Randolph held up a set of keys. “These keys unlock the place you had your eye on, Mike. It was purchased last week by the Ellurian embassy, and can be transferred to you whenever you wish, together with a check that I believe will be sufficient for you to make whatever improvements are needed. There is, of course, a condition.”

He eyed Mike significantly. Mike eyed Dottie nervously. Reading resignation in her face he changed from nervous to sheepish.

“Sorry, love,” he said, accepting the keys. “But it's better this way. You're a smashing lass, but you're like a steamroller.” He added confidentially to Randolph, “You'll find that out.”

Randolph grinned and nodded.

“I suppose you're going now,” Dottie said.

“Well, we're a bit in the way, aren't we?” Mike suggested.

“Yes,” Randolph said, “but it has been a pleasure knowing you. A car will take you to the airport. Just pack your immediate necessities. The rest will be sent on.”

An historian would have been intrigued by the way Her Royal Highness bid farewell to her victorious rival. But he wouldn't have understood a word.

“You always said you'd have him off me,” Dottie said. “I suppose I should have listened. But you be good to him, or you'll have me to deal with.”

“Honest Dot, I'll make him happier than you would have.”

“Bet you don't!”

“Bet I do!”

“Bet you don't!”

“We'll call our first girl Dottie.” Brenda patted her stomach. “She should be settling in nicely by now.”

“What?”

“Well, I have been here for two weeks.”

“Two-I see.” Dottie cast Randolph a look that boded ill for him.

For her final words to Mike she drew him aside, out of earshot of Randolph.

“What were you on about, saying I was marrying Randolph? You're daft, you are.”

“No I'm not. Everyone knows he has to marry you so that he can be king, like he was supposed to be. That's what it's all about.” He kissed her cheek. “'Bye love. It was great knowing you.”

She kissed him back and said goodbye, but by now she was functioning on automatic. Mike's last words were whirling in her head. She'd been brought here to marry Randolph, and everyone knew it, including Randolph.

While Randolph escorted the lovers to the waiting car, Dottie stormed back to her own apartments. None of this was Mike's fault. He'd been manipulated into betraying her. Just as she herself had been manipulated.

From her balcony she watched as the car drew away, taking her old life with it. She was here for good now, because she had nothing to go back to. Randolph had seen to that.

As he returned to the building he glanced up at her and she summoned him with a small movement of her head, something that once she would never have done. He arrived a few minutes later, looking like a man bracing himself. “All right. Say it.”

“Say it,” she seethed. “You mean say it and get it over with, so that you can brush it aside. Because you don't actually mean to take a blind bit of notice.”

“I'll do whatever you wish. Shall I fetch Mike back?”

“You know it's too late for that.”

“It was always too late,” he said flatly.

“Only because you've been pulling strings.”

“I didn't force him to make love to Brenda.”

“You put her there.”

“I put her into his room, not his bed. That was up to him. I suppose he could always have controlled himself.”

“She'd been here two weeks,” Dottie said, choosing to ignore this. “What a time you must have had keeping us apart, making sure I never suspected anything. Quite a conspiracy. You've been determined to break us up since we arrived.”

“Since before that.”

She gasped. “You admit it?”

“Why should I deny it? There's no place in your life for Mike. You have to realize that.”

“Oh really? Well, maybe being princess has some advantages, and one of them is that I don't need to let you tell me what I have to do. I'm the one who says whether Mike has a place in my life.”

“Doesn't he have a say? He turned away from you to Brenda.”

“Only because you fixed it.”

Randolph gave a snort of impatience. “I fixed it so that you wouldn't walk into the wrong marriage. He wouldn't have been happy with you. You're too much for him.”

“That's not true. We were perfectly happy before you came. All I wanted was a cozy little home-”

“And a cozy little husband,” Randolph finished. “Don't you realize your destiny is greater than that?”

“What I realize is that you've been conniving to get your own way, and never mind how I felt.”

“That's right,” he said in a harder voice than she'd ever heard him use before. “Never mind how you felt, or how I felt. Never mind anything except the welfare of your people. You disappoint me, Dottie. I thought you were a woman of your word, but you're backing out on the deal. We've found nobody and never will. That means, it ought to mean, that you stay here for good. But you're chickening out.”

“I'm doing no such thing. I just don't like the way you did it.”

“All right, you don't like my methods. I don't like a lot of the things that have happened to me recently, but I don't complain because my feelings aren't what it's all about. And nor are yours. That's the fact, whether you like it or not. From the moment we knew who you were, your marriage to Mike was impossible.”

“Why? Because I'm being set up to marry you?”

She hadn't meant to blurt it out like that but she was too angry to think straight.

Randolph drew in a sharp breath of surprise, and his face was very pale. “That's something we had best not discuss for the moment,” he said curtly.

Dottie's head went up and her eyes glinted. “I will decide what we discuss,” she said regally. “It's the truth, isn't it? All this training me to be a queen is just so much hot air because the real plan was to marry me and take the throne back that way. I certainly think we should discuss the idea, if only so that I can tell you where to put it.”

“You're angry-”

“Hey, you noticed!”

“-and therefore you're bound to put the worst construction on this. When you've thought it over you'll see that neither of us has a choice.”

“Wanna bet?”

He regarded her in tight-mouthed silence, and Dottie realized that she'd never before seen him as bitterly angry as he was at this moment.

“I think we should both calm down,” he said after a while. “A little time to think-”

“Will just give me the chance to recall all the ways you've pulled my strings,” she flashed. “Starting with the very first evening. You set out to charm me. I realized long ago that it was calculated, but I thought you were simply doing it to get me here. Only you were looking right ahead and doing a number on me.”

“Doing a-”

“Work it out. You thought I was such an idiot that you could dazzle me until I lost all judgment. And who knows how well it might have worked if Mike hadn't opened my eyes today? What next? Would you have been crass enough to try to make me think you were in love with me? I suppose I should be grateful to have been spared that piece of dishonesty.”

He stepped closer to her, his eyes very hard. “Be quiet,” he said. “You make your glib judgments and you think you know everything. Try looking at the reality.”

“The reality is that you want your throne back and there's only one way of getting it without starting a war,” she flashed.

“And you think I'm low enough to cheat and deceive you to get it.”

“That's exactly what you did at the start. Mr. Holsson and the tourist authority. You've won a prize to sunny Elluria. I wonder you can look me in the face.”

“I did what I had to do,” he shouted.

“That's a rotten excuse and you shouldn't hide behind it. You did what suited you and called it duty. That's what being royal means, isn't it?”

“Being royal means doing what you have to, whether it's what you want or not. It means giving up what you love and settling for what you can get.”

“So you give up Sophie and settle for me? Do I congratulate you?”

He didn't know how to answer her in this mood. Dottie's eyes warned him to be careful. She was bitterly, wretchedly angry, in a way that was new to him. Where was the chuckling pixie who'd enchanted him? This woman looked as though she'd never laughed in her life.

While he stood there, dumb, she walked away to the window and stood looking out at the avenue of limes. After a moment he went up behind her, and spoke softly.

“Do you remember what you said to me that first evening by the Thames?”

“Don't,” she said huskily, putting a hand over her eyes. “Don't ever mention it again.”

“I must, because that night you opened your heart and spoke to me out of your true self. You said that you'd dreamed of being a children's nurse. Now I know why. It's in you, that instinct to care for those weaker than yourself. Now you have three million children looking to you. 'A true mother to her people,' they called you. Who will care for your children if you don't?”

“Oh, you know all the right things to say, don't you?” she cried in despair.

“No, it's you that says the right things. I merely remind you of them. That night you spoke of fate and destiny, and how there was a niche waiting for you somewhere in the world, that only you could fill. Those were your very words.”

She turned. He met her eyes, hoping to see in them understanding and acceptance, but there was only the dread of a trapped animal.

“Dottie,” he said gently, touching her.

But she sprang back at once as though his touch was hateful to her. “Keep away from me,” she said hoarsely. “I can't bear to look at you. Keep away.”

He put out his hand but he was too late to stop her. She evaded him and darted for the door, then outside, and he heard her footsteps along the corridor. After a moment she appeared on the ground, racing along the long drive where Mike's car had departed, as though she had some wild hope of calling him back. But then she turned aside. Randolph's last view of her was disappearing into the trees.

For an hour Dottie wandered beside the lake, her thoughts too jumbled to make any sense. Sometimes it seemed that she wasn't thinking at all, just feeling. But feeling hurt too much. Randolph was right. It was better to do without it.

She hoped he wouldn't send anyone after her. She needed the solitude of this place, to be away from him. She'd relied on Randolph every moment since she came here, and now she didn't know how she could ever rely on him again.

Looking around, she realized that she was in the place she'd seen from her window the night she came to Elluria. In this spot Randolph had wandered with the woman he loved, his arms around her, thinking himself hidden by the darkness.

It was a long time before she returned to her room. He was no longer there and she sat for a while, not allowing anyone in. Just now she needed solitude. After a while she rang the bell and summoned Aunt Liz.

She had much to keep her occupied for the rest of the day. Her dressmakers brought several half-finished outfits to be fitted and there were decisions to be made. What should she wear for this reception and that? What shoes went with what? She was meeting an ambassador and must wear the jewels that had been a gift from his country.

It was strange how rivetingly interesting new clothes could be one day, and how depressing another.

It was silly to quarrel, she thought, as her anger evaporated. This was what he'd meant when he'd talked about realpolitik. It was the real world of royalty.

She didn't like this world. It was a place where she was expected to marry Randolph and be satisfied with the outward show; a world where her heart and feelings had no place.

But she couldn't afford to be at odds with her chief advisor. She would smooth it over somehow. She called his room on the internal phone, and his valet answered.

“Prince Randolph isn't here,” he said. “He left the palace some hours ago to visit his estate. Do I understand that he left without informing Your Royal Highness? Oh dear.”

“No,” she said quickly. “He did mention it of course. I forgot.”

“Do you wish him to be notified that his presence is required?”

“No, that won't be necessary.”

As she went to bed that night Aunt Liz mentioned that she'd left her “a little light reading,” on her table. This proved to be a scholarly history of Elluria, and a reference book on the country's constitution.

She discovered that the sovereign's power was considerable. Elluria had an elected parliament from which most of the cabinet were drawn. But she could appoint anyone as a minister, elected or not. Also she could, at any time, declare a state of emergency and rule by decree. No wonder she scared them. She scared herself.

Now more than ever she needed Randolph here to explain everything and reassure her. But he was also the last person she would trust, because it all added up to a reason why she should marry him.

And pigs would fly first.

Next day Aunt Liz was bubbling over with excitement.

“Are the rumors really true? You're going to stay? Oh, that's wonderful!”

Dottie was touched by the older woman's obvious delight. But perhaps Liz was only pleased because she foresaw a marriage. A different candidate might have been a man, or already married, leaving Randolph out in the cold.

Was this what it meant to be a queen? To be suspicious of everyone who was nice to you? If so, it was a bleak prospect. And now there was nobody to help her. She was truly alone. The aloneness of royalty.

She soon realized that the news that she was staying had changed everything. Now she must appoint ladies in waiting, meet her cabinet and have in-depth discussions with her prime minister.

About what for heavens sake? Somebody tell me what I'm supposed to be doing.

“Of course you met your chief ministers when you arrived,” Aunt Liz reminded her. “But today it will be the full cabinet. I think your clothes should be slightly severe, your hair up, just one piece of jewelry, this brooch that bears the coat of arms of Elluria.”

As she dressed for her first cabinet meeting Dottie's thoughts swung about like a pendulum.

He's left me like this to show me that I can't manage without him. I didn't think he'd descend to that.

It seems I got him wrong. Well, he got me wrong too. Do I need him?

The meeting was in the parliament building, in the city. At noon Dottie was ready, pale but determined. She heard the faint knock at the outer door, but barely registered it until Bertha hurried in to say, “Prince Randolph asks leave to attend you, ma'am.”

She discovered that she could assume the royal mask, so that nobody could suspect the way her heart leapt. Nor did her voice quaver as she said, “Please ask him to enter,” although she was trembling inside.

Randolph looked like a man who'd spent a desperate, sleepless night. Dottie had meant to stay angry with him but she couldn't. In another moment she would have opened her arms, apologized for her angry words and asked him to be friends again. But before she could do so he bowed and said, “I am at Your Royal Highness's service.”

His cool politeness was more hurtful than a slap in the face. He was doing his duty. No more.

“I thought you would be away for several days,” she said quietly.

“Forgive me for leaving without first informing you,” he responded. “That was improper of me.”

She wanted to cry out, Don't talk to me like that. This is me, Dottie.

But it was too late. There was no going back to the old days: happy days, she understood, now that they were gone.

“Are you coming with me to the cabinet meeting?” she asked.

“If that is what you wish.”

“I can't manage it without you.”

“Then I shall certainly be there. It won't be very terrible. Remember they're more nervous of you than you of them.”

“Impossible.”

“You can dismiss them at will and appoint your own nominee.”

“Yes, that's what the book said. It doesn't sound very democratic.”

“It isn't, but it can be very effective.”

“Then why don't I just appoint you prime minister? That would be fair, wouldn't it?”

It was a mistake. If possible his face closed against her even more firmly, and his voice seemed to come from an arctic cave.

“It would be far from fair to dismiss Jacob Durmand, one of the best prime ministers this country has ever had. Nor do I wish to be the subject of your charity. I trust I make myself clear.”

“Perfectly. Shall we go?”

“Wait one moment,” he said imperiously. “There are things to be said between us first.”

“You're angry about what I said yesterday, but-”

She stopped, for Randolph had held up his hand as if warding her off. He didn't deny that he was angry, she noticed. He merely consigned the subject to the realms of the unimportant-as feelings were, to him, she reminded herself.

“Listen to me,” he said quietly. “And heed what I say, for I have never been more serious in my life. Once you've attended that meeting, you're committed, finally and irrevocably to the people-your people. After today a door will slam shut behind you.”

“Oh no. The door slammed shut yesterday. You must have noticed. You did it.”

“I think it could be opened again. You could return to England, reclaim Mike.”

“How could I ever do that?”

Randolph put his fingers beneath her chin and lifted it. “Remember what you told me once? 'A smile usually does it.' In London I watched you turn the chef into your slave. And Fritz in the kitchens here-he'd lay down and die for you. You have the gift of winning hearts, Dottie. You could win Mike's back. You could win…any man's.” The last words seemed to come from him reluctantly.

She scanned his face in wonder at this strange talk. His expression was gentle, but beyond that she couldn't read.

For a moment the temptation dazzled her. To regain all she'd lost and return to her contented life.

Then reality kicked in and she gave a little sigh. “It's no use. Mike never really loved me. He just thought he did because-” she gave a jerky little laugh, “because I kept telling him. Like he said, I'm a steamroller.”

“A sovereign needs to be a bit of a steamroller. But she also needs the gift of winning hearts, which you have. I'll help you all I can, but you must give me your word that you're totally committed. We can accept nothing less.”

“We?”

“Your subjects,” he said quietly.

“But-”

“That's what we are,” he interrupted her. “Every one of us. We've given you our hearts, and all we ask in return is-everything. Your life, your freedom, your independence, your time. We ask you to think of us day and night, to put us first no matter what your own feelings dictate. In other words, we ask your love.”

“Everything,” she whispered.

“Yes, it's a lot to ask. This is your last chance to escape. After today there's no going back.”

Dottie gave a wry smile. “There never really was, was there?”

“No. There never really was.”

She put her hand in his.

“I think we should go now,” she said. “They're waiting for us.”