The King's Bride

CHAPTER SIX

IT WAS very quiet in the King’s private rooms. The great clock in the corner silently proclaimed midnight, and the only sound was the rustling of paper on the big table that had been cleared of everything else. Outside the door Frederick sat with orders to permit nobody to disturb Daniel.

Nothing in his life had ever been so important as what he was doing now, fitting together the letters that had passed between two people for thirty years, until one of them had been cruelly struck down so that he could not even utter his beloved’s name. It was more than a correspondence. It was a testimony of powerful, enduring love that awed him as he read.

Lizzie had said there was no doubt that they had been lovers in every sense of the word, and Daniel had already discerned as much from the ‘Liz’ letters. Yet they were relatively restrained. Alphonse’s were totally frank. He had loved this woman with his heart, his soul and his great, vigorous body. He had loved her fiercely, sexually, without false modesty or pride, and she had stimulated him to ignore his advancing years and love her with the urgent desire of a much younger man. Daniel, no prude, found himself blushing at some passages.

Yet this in itself was not the greatest surprise. That had come with the discovery that his grandfather, a strictly traditional man where ‘a woman’s place’ was concerned, had turned to Liz for advice. As time passed she had become more than his lover. She had been his counsellor.

Suddenly Daniel grew still. His own name had leapt out at him from the paper.

I try to do my best by the boy, but what am I to do when he takes such wild ideas into his head? Why piano lessons? He’s going to be a king, not join an orchestra.

Daniel read the phrase again and again, and suddenly time turned back and he was a boy of ten, wanting to learn the piano because it was only in making music that he could find the strength to cope with the pressures that were already threatening to crush him. But all authority had lain with his grandfather, who didn’t understand, and who was impatient of explanation.

And then, out of the blue, Alphonse had yielded. A fine music master had been engaged and a new joy had entered Daniel’s life. Yet even while he’d rejoiced he’d puzzled over his grandfather’s volte face.

He went to the secret drawer where he’d kept the other side of the correspondence since Lizzie’s first departure, yanking it out in a violent movement quite different from his usual restraint. The letters spilled all over the floor and he dropped to his knees, searching as though his life depended on it.

At last he found what he wanted: a letter from Liz in response.

Say yes to what he asks, my dearest. His life will be so hard. Indulge him and make his coming burden a

little easier. Let the poor child have some pleasure. However much it is, it still won’t be enough.

There was more. For years Alphonse had laid his personal problems in his darling’s hands and trusted her answers. Daniel found the story of his childhood and teenage years relived in these letters.

He remembered his father’s death. How stiff and distant Alphonse had seemed over the loss of his only son. It was only to Liz that he had released the rage and pain that consumed him. In letter after letter he’d let out a howl of fatherly anguish.

Now he realised how much he’d overlooked when he’d first glanced through these pages. The sight of his own name in Liz’s letters gave him a sensation that he’d never known before, and which at first he couldn’t identify. But it was a good feeling-of being able to let down his guard in a trusted presence. Where Alphonse had worried how he should rear the future king, Liz had seen only the bereaved child.

He’s just a little boy…let him be happy while he can…make him safe…tell him you love him…don’t let him be ashamed to cry…be kind to him…be kind to him…

Over weeks, months and years she had counselled love and gentleness to the child.

In Daniel’s mind those years were a blur. But now scenes began to come back to him: himself at nine years old, fighting back the tears even in the privacy of his own room, because now he was heir to the throne, and a man, and men didn’t cry.

Then his grandfather coming in, seeing the tears he was too late to hide. He’d waited to be blamed, but instead the stern face had softened, a kindly hand had rested on his shoulder, and a gruff voice had whispered, ‘I know, my boy. I know.’

Other things. The music lessons-understood now for the first time. And Tiger, the mongrel, his own special care and his dearest friend. So much owed to this woman he’d never known.

Daniel took out the picture that Lizzie had left behind. It was hard to see much of Liz, standing in the shadows behind the other two. But he could make out the gentle glow of her face. And suddenly he could identify the unknown feeling that had eased his heart. His mother had died when he was a baby, and he’d never known a mother’s love, but over the years and the miles Liz had tried to make up for that lack. And she’d succeeded more than any other woman could have done. Looking at her now, Daniel thought he could understand why.

He hadn’t noticed the hours pass until Frederick knocked on the door. He answered it, but didn’t allow him in. Frederick was startled at his pallor.

‘Speak to my secretary,’ Daniel commanded. ‘Cancel any appointments I have for tomorrow. Say I’m detained on urgent business. And send me in some food.’

Through the night he worked, and then through the following day. When he came to an end he was unshaven and exhausted. But now he knew what he had to do.

She would sell the house, Lizzie decided as the plane headed back across the English channel. She had kept it almost as the Dame had left it, but now everything would remind her of the man who’d won her love with a lie. Just because she

was a historian that didn’t mean she must live in the past. With the house gone she would put everything behind her, abandon her book on Alphonse, and find a new life for herself.

Her anger lasted until she was indoors and under the shower. But the hot water couldn’t lave her grief away and she let the tears come freely. She was a woman who never cried, but she cried now for the magic that had been a delusion, and for a feeling that she knew would never come again as long as she lived. Tonight she would let herself mourn what might have been. Tomorrow she would put it behind her and become a different woman, a more resolute and, if necessary, a harder one. Her mourning was for that too.

She spent the next day making plans. By evening the house bore a ‘For Sale’ notice and she told herself that things were proceeding wonderfully. Now all she wanted was to get out of here fast. She obtained some tea chests and began packing things away. With luck she could be out in a few days, leaving an agent to sell the house.

She worked blindly while the thoughts thrummed through her head. Everything that had happened in Voltavia had been an illusion, including Daniel’s feelings. She’d been useful to him. Now he had what he wanted, and she was disposable. That was all there was to it. At least she had the advantage of knowing exactly where she stood. As she threw things into tea chests her anger mounted.

Midnight passed, then one, then two in the morning. With her mind in turmoil there was no point in going to bed. She was still working frantically when the front bell rang. She opened the door and at once a hand came through the gap, preventing her slamming it closed.

‘Don’t shut me out,’ Daniel begged. ‘Not until you’ve heard what I have to say.’

‘We’ve said everything. Please go away Daniel. Nothing can make it right, and why bother?’

‘Listen to me!’ As she turned away he seized her shoulders fiercely. ‘You have to.’

‘Don’t tell me what I have to do. I’m not one of your subjects.’ She wrenched free and went into the kitchen to put on the kettle. It was a way of not looking at him. If he saw her face he might also see the leap of joy she hadn’t been able to suppress at the sight of him. She thought she’d controlled it now, but she couldn’t be sure, and it was wisest not to trust him.

He followed her and stood watching as she moved about. ‘Not a word?’ he asked at last. ‘I turn up at this hour and you’re not even curious?’

‘What is there to be curious about? I’m sure you snapped your fingers and everybody jumped. Did they hold the plane for you?’

‘There wasn’t one. I chartered a special plane because all I could think of was getting to you. And I find a “For Sale” sign and you packing to leave.’ His voice became tinged with anger. ‘You really weren’t going to give me a second chance, were you?’

‘You don’t need a second chance,’ she cried. ‘You’ve got everything you wanted. And you were brilliant. I’ll give you that. You schemed and manipulated like a pro. But then, of course, you are a pro. A king would have to be. Well done, Your Majesty. But don’t expect me to applaud and say it’s all right.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked quietly. ‘You think there was nothing in my feelings for you but scheming?’

She shrugged. ‘Why deny it? It’s a perfectly honourable

position for a king. Not for a man, of course, but what does that matter? The man can always hide behind the king, and that’s what you’re good at.’

He was about to hurl an angry reply at her when he caught a look at her face and read in it the misery and exhaustion of the last thirty-six hours.

‘I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you,’ he said. ‘It’s true I wasn’t honest with you at the start, but I swear that was only for a short time. It didn’t take me long to see how good and true you are, how much better than my fears. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend my life making it up to you.’

But his words washed over her. She couldn’t answer. She could only look at him sadly, thinking of the chance that was lost for ever.

‘How is Bess?’ he asked.

‘Holding on, but she’s very weak. I’m visiting her today.’

‘Good, because it’s partly her that I came to see.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘I was never more serious in my life. Since you left I’ve been reading all the letters-both sides of the correspondence, fitted together-and I’ve seen many things. I’ve seen that my grandfather wasn’t at all the way he seemed, cold and remote. He was a man with a warm heart, which he found hard to show, except to her. But I’ve seen something else. Lizzie, you must let me meet Bess. I know now that she virtually raised me.’

‘Whatever do you mean by that?’

‘I mean that she guided my grandfather in his dealings with me. He’d have got everything wrong if she hadn’t put him on the right path. I told you about the dog, the music lessons-it was her doing. But for her my life would have

been so different, so much harder. She has been almost my mother, and I must thank her while there’s still time.’

‘She’s a very old woman,’ Lizzie said slowly. ‘She hardly knows what’s happening-’

‘All the more reason for you to take me to her, today. And there’s another reason-something I must tell her before anyone, even before you.’

His voice rang with sincerity but Lizzie was bruised from their last encounter. She searched his face, desperately seeking an answer.

‘Lizzie, you must trust me,’ he cried passionately. ‘I beg you to believe me this one time.’

‘Very well,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll take you to see Bess.’

Bess had come through her heart attack weak but lucid. They found her lying propped up against some pillows. She smiled at the sight of Lizzie, but her smile turned to awe when she saw Daniel. Frail though she was, she instinctively reached out a hand to him, and Daniel took it at once.

‘You,’ she whispered. ‘You-’

Lizzie drew a quick, dismayed breath. ‘Bess-it’s not-’

‘No, my dear, it’s all right. I didn’t really think-well, perhaps for a moment.’

To Lizzie’s pleasure, Daniel sat beside the bed and spoke to Bess quite naturally. ‘I believe I look very like my grandfather.’

‘A little,’ she conceded. Then her eyes twinkled as she added, ‘Of course, he was much better looking. Just the same, I would have known you anywhere.’

‘We have been acquainted for a long time,’ Daniel said gently, ‘although I’ve only just found out. It was you who softened his heart-’

‘Oh, no,’ Bess said quickly. ‘He always had a great heart. But it was imprisoned. He used to say that I had set him free.’

‘Yes,’ Daniel said gravely. ‘That’s very easy for me to believe-now. Won’t you please tell me about him. How did you meet?’

‘It was fifty years ago. He came to London for the Queen’s coronation, and he went to the theatre one evening. The show was Dancing Time, starring Lizzie Boothe. She wasn’t Dame Elizabeth in those days, but she was at the height of her fame and beauty. After the performance he came backstage to meet the cast, and I was there too, lurking in the shadows to catch a glimpse of him. He noticed me and made someone bring me forward. My knees were knocking, I was so nervous. But he smiled at me, and suddenly I wasn’t afraid any more.’

There was a hint of mischief in Bess’s voice as she said, ‘After that I was weak at the knees for another reason. He invited himself to lunch next day, and of course he brought an aide, and the aide whispered in my ear that His Majesty would like to speak to me alone. And when I saw him he told me that he loved me. It was as simple as that.’

‘But what about the Dame?’ Lizzie asked.

‘She was our friend,’ Bess said at once. ‘She let us use her as “cover”. It was all right for people to believe he admired her, in a theatrical kind of way. He once said, “I don’t mind if people think I’m a glorified stage-door Johnny.”’

‘My grandfather said that?’ Daniel asked, startled.

‘Oh, yes. He had a very neat line in humour when he was in the mood.’

‘I never saw him in that mood,’ Daniel said regretfully.

‘He kept it for me,’ Bess sighed. ‘And for the Dame, too, because he was grateful to her for helping us.’

‘Didn’t she mind?’ Lizzie wanted to know.

‘Only at first. She had so many conquests, and of course she’d have liked to add his scalp to her belt, for the fun of it. But when she saw how things stood she was very kind. And of course he gave her jewels and flowers, so the world thought she had his scalp, and that was really all she asked. She once told me that the situation suited her very well. “All the kudos and none of the inconvenience,” was how she put it.’

‘What did she mean, “inconvenience”?’ Lizzie asked.

Bess paused before saying delicately, ‘Well, my dear, contrary to appearances, the Dame wasn’t a very sensual person. She liked to be admired from a distance. She used to say that frantic passion was all very well in its place, but it made such a mess of the hair. Alphonse was a very vigorous man, and I-well, let’s just say that I never cared about my hair.’

‘You’re making me blush,’ Daniel murmured.

‘Well, it won’t do you any harm,’ Bess retorted with spirit. ‘I wasn’t always a dried-up old stick. And I have a very good memory.’ She smiled, but she wasn’t looking at them. ‘Oh, yes, I remember everything. Everything he ever said to me-everything he did-every kiss-every whisper-’

Lizzie’s eyes blurred, for suddenly the years had fallen away from Bess and she was once more the little maid, living in the shadows, in her thirties, thinking she would never know love. But then the most glorious man in the world had come striding into her life, caring nothing for the others but only for her and the special something she had to offer.

‘He used to come over here incognito, whenever he could,’ she said. ‘Once we stole away and went to a fair. Nobody recognised him, and we went around all the stalls. He won this at the coconut shy, and gave it to me.’ She pointed to the cheap ring on her finger. ‘It was the only jewel I’d let him give me. He wanted to give me some of his family jewels. I couldn’t let him, of course-the scandal-so he made a financial settlement on me, so that I should never be in want.’

‘So that’s how you could afford this place,’ Lizzie said.

‘That’s right. Oh, if you could have seen his face when he told me about the money! He was so afraid that I’d be offended. Money might have meant that I was a certain kind of woman, you see.’

‘But a man expects to provide for his wife,’ Daniel said. ‘And in his heart you were his wife and Queen.’

‘That’s what he said. We used to talk of the day when I could come to Voltavia and live in a little cottage near him. But it was all a pipe dream. People would have known and looked down on me and, although I wouldn’t have minded, he would have minded for me. And besides, I couldn’t leave the Dame. She’d been good to me, and she was getting old and blind. He understood that my duty had to come first. He said it made him love me more.

‘I used to think that when she no longer needed me I might go out to him at last, and hang what people said. But then he had a stroke. They said it was savage and terrible, cutting him down in a moment, and all communication between us was cut off, so cruelly. He couldn’t write to me, and I didn’t dare write to him. It was as though he was dead. And yet I knew he was alive, longing for me.’

‘He always knew that you loved him,’ Daniel said. ‘I didn’t know anything of this at the time, but I’m certain of this.’

Bess smiled. ‘How like him you are. Now I can see it. You have his eyes and his loving heart.’ She laid a feeble hand on

Lizzie’s. ‘You’re very lucky my dear. When the men of this family love, they really know how to love. It’s very exciting.’

Lizzie’s eyes met Daniel’s. ‘Yes, it is,’ she murmured.

Daniel took Bess’s hands between both his, and spoke very gently. ‘I had a special reason for coming to see you. I have a letter-his last letter-one that you never received.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘He must have been in the middle of writing it and laid it aside because he wasn’t feeling well, and the stroke caught him before he could take it up again… At all events, it was found locked away with your letters to him. He never had the chance to finish it, and so you never received it.’

Lizzie stared at him. ‘I had no idea…’

‘It was the surprise I had for you before you left,’ he told her. ‘That was how much I’d come to trust you by then, but things went wrong for us.’ He took out a sheet of paper and carefully placed it in Bess’s hand. ‘After all these years, this is his last message to you.’

The old woman’s voice was husky. ‘I can’t see-read it for me, please-’

Daniel moved very close to her and took one of her hands in his.

‘“My dearest love,”’ he read, ”’always dearer to me thananyone else on earth, because you know everything about me, and love me in spite of the worst-my heart is heavy tonight because yesterday we parted. Perhaps it is only for a little while, and we may still hope for the next meeting, in a month, as we discussed. But as I grow older I fear that each parting may be the last, and I may never again have the chance to tell you what you are, and have been to me.

‘“And so I set it down, in the hope that when I can no

longer say the words it will somehow reach you. Others see you occupying a lowly position, but to me you will always be a great, great lady: the woman who brought my heart to life and showed me what love could be. I lived encased in stone until you broke me free.”’

‘You sound-just like him,’ Bess murmured.

‘I was just like him,’ Daniel said softly. ‘Until my Lizzie came to me. Encased in stone, needing to be set free. But only if she wishes.’

Bess regarded Lizzie with eyes that saw everything. ‘Whatever he has done to offend you,’ she said shrewdly, ‘it is as nothing beside the love that you share. Throw the defences away, my dear. They have no place about your heart.’

‘Yes,’ Lizzie said with her eyes on Daniel. ‘I know that.’

‘Finish the letter for me,’ Bess pleaded.

‘There isn’t very much more,’ Daniel said, taking up the page again. ‘“I do not know what the future holds,”’ he read, ‘“But I am certain that it must be a future together. If not in this world, then in another that we cannot even imagine. However long the wait, I shall watch for you with my arms open and my heart as much yours as on the day-”’ He stopped. ‘That’s where it finishes.’

‘It is enough.’ Tears were streaming from Bess’s eyes. ‘He always promised not to leave me without a last message, and he was a man of his word. Oh, my dears, my dears-if only you could be as happy as I am-’

Two hours later Bess slipped quietly out of life. Daniel and Lizzie were with her as she fell asleep, still holding her beloved’s final letter. When they had both kissed her Lizzie took the paper gently from Bess’s fingers.

‘I’ll put it back before the funeral,’ she said. ‘And it can be buried with her.’

‘Would you like to have her taken to Voltavia and placed near him?’

After a moment’s hesitation Lizzie shook her head. ‘Thank you, but there’s no need. I believe that they’re together now, and that’s what matters.’

‘And what becomes of us?’

‘What do you want to become of us, my love?’

‘Be my wife, and keep me always in your heart, for only there will I be safe.’

Six weeks later King Daniel of Voltavia married Elizabeth Boothe in a small private ceremony, attended only by his children and a few trusted friends. His daughter was a bridesmaid, and his sons, following royal convention, shared the role of groom’s supporters.

There was much talk about the King’s wedding gift to his bride: a fabulous diamond set, including a tiara, necklace, bracelets and earrings. But nobody knew of his real gift to her: the complete correspondence between King Alphonse and ‘Liz’, with his permission to publish it as she pleased.

Nor did anybody know that she had thanked him and refused to publish-the first time in Voltavia’s history that the King’s bride had turned down his wedding gift and made her husband a happy man by doing so.

But Lizzie had one final gift for the man she loved and who loved her beyond anything he could express in words. On their wedding night they stood before the great open fire in his apartment and tossed the letters-every last one-into the flames, watching until there was nothing left.

He took her into his arms. ‘No regrets at depriving history?’

‘No regrets,’ she assured him lovingly. ‘We’ve done them justice. History would never have understood them as we do, and only the future matters now.’