So now, Victoria was in Buckingham Palace, assisting the girls in their moments of honor, and blinking with sentiment because these girls, commoners both, would now be respectable enough to present to society, and Victoria had helped accomplish that.
She was proud. Very proud.
Never once did she imagine how, if she were Raul’s wife and the queen of Moricadia, she would help many other girls like the Johnsons rise to the top of their potential.
Yet in leaving Moricadia, she had made the right decision.
She knew she had.
So why was she still yearning for Raul as if he were the missing half of her soul?
Queen Victoria’s master of ceremonies clapped his hands. “Young ladies, you have one-half an hour. We would like your companions to leave now and take their places in the receiving hall. For our debutantes, I suggest you use that time wisely. The convenience is this way.”
Victoria touched each girl lightly on the shoulder, then moved into the corridor with the other companions and governesses.
“Victoria?” The voice was vaguely familiar, the face rounded yet mature, with such sad, sad eyes.
“Belle!” Victoria flung her arms wide, embraced her old friend. “Belle, what are you doing here? Is one of your sisters being presented?”
“No, we can’t afford that.” Belle’s smile trembled.
“I’m here with Father. The queen summoned him, and since Mother’s illness and his … accident … I’ve had to accompany him when he goes somewhere.”
Victoria glanced around in search of an alcove and pulled Belle inside. “I’m sorry to hear he had an accident. What happened?”
“I think … I think he owed money to someone, the wrong kind of person, for Father was beaten so badly that he … Well, his leg didn’t heal well, and his face is quite scarred.” Belle couldn’t look Victoria in the eyes.
Appalled, Victoria said, “I didn’t know!”
“You can imagine we don’t tell most people how the accident happened.” Belle’s lip trembled. “Only you, dear friend.”
“But Raul didn’t mention it!”
Belle’s face lit up. “You saw Raul in your travels?
You didn’t tell me!”
Because I didn’t want to explain … things. “I’m sorry.
I was remiss in not writing you. Yes. I saw him. I spent time with him.” An understatement of sorts.
“How is he? We know he won the revolution and is king of Moricadia.We read all about it in the papers, and you can imagine our excitement. I mean, the excitement my sisters and I shared.” Not their father, Belle meant.
“I left before he was crowned, but I assure you, no one was going to keep him from taking the throne.” Victoria knew her voice rang with pride, but she didn’t care.
She was, after all, talking to Raul’s sister.
“You were there for the revolution?” Belle sank down on the window seat.
Victoria knew she shouldn’t tell Belle the truth. The tale was too terrible and wonderful and strange. It didn’t reflect well on Belle’s brother or on Victoria, Belle’s friend. But somehow Belle’s warmth and understanding wrapped around her and she found herself sitting beside her friend, relating the whole story: her visit to Moricadia, her kidnapping, the strange ceremonies, Raul’s constant determination to win the day and her.
When she was finished, she found Belle blinking at her in disbelief. “Raul wanted to marry you, but you left him? Raul? You left Raul because he didn’t love you?”
Victoria gaped at her friend. “Belle! I thought you would approve. Isn’t that what you always said? In school, late at night, when we talked? That you wouldn’t marry except for love?”
“I was a fool!” Belle spoke vehemently, wildly. “I would do anything to help my sisters and me escape my father’s creditors. It’s too late for me to have a life, but my younger sisters deserve a chance. For that, I would marry anyone!”
“Oh, Belle, I’m so sorry.” Victoria began to understand the depths of Belle’s misery. “Won’t Raul help you escape?”
“Father intercepts my letters to him.”
“That’s not right! When your brother is a king— ”
“I should be the sister of a king. Instead I’m the daughter of a wastrel. None of that is right! Or fair.”
Belle’s eyes blazed with frustration and fury. “Neither is what you’ve done. You could have married Raul. He’s handsome, he’s kind, he has all his teeth, and he’s young.
Yes, my father hurt him. And Raul may think he doesn’t love, yet he loved me; he loved all of our sisters.”
Taken aback by Belle’s vehemence, Victoria said,
“That’s true. But that’s not a man’s love for his partner.”
“Couldn’t you have married him and been patient?”
Belle snapped.
“But what if he never loved?”
“But what if he did? His love, so rarely given, would be worth waiting a lifetime for.” Belle put her hand on Victoria’s shoulder and stared into her eyes. “Go back.
Go to Moricadia and find him, and tell him again that you love him, and that you’ll teach him how to love. If he doesn’t want you anymore, he’ll tell you.”
Victoria’s breath caught at the anguish of that idea.
Belle saw, and understood. “It’s worth the gamble, is it not?”
For the first time in two months, the weight on Victoria’s heart lifted. She could take a deep breath, could think beyond the misery that had enveloped her. She could see a path before her that perhaps would end in suffering, but not in doubt. Never in doubt. “Yes,” she found herself saying. “Yes. It’s worth the gamble. Thank you, Belle. Of course you’re right. I will do just that.”
Chapter Fifty
Recalled to their surroundings by the bustle of young women lining up in the corridor, Victoria and Belle leaped to their feet, promised to meet later, and hurried into the queen’s regal receiving room.
There, courtiers and proud parents lined the carpet where the girls would walk, waiting breathlessly for the newest season’s debutantes. At the head of the carpet was the dais awaiting the arrival of the queen.
With polite requests and curtsies,Victoria worked her way toward the Johnsons. They stood in the front with the other parents, lining the rich red carpet like proud flowers along a garden path. When Victoria reached the spot at Mrs. Johnson’s right shoulder, she touched her lightly.
Mrs. Johnson turned and gave an exclamation of relief. Linking arms with Victoria, she drew her forward.
“Where have you been? We were worried.”
“I met an old friend.”
“From the glow on your face, I would guess it was an old, dear friend!” Mrs. Johnson smiled roguishly.
“What’s his name?”
“It wasn’t a man.” Victoria almost laughed at Mrs. Johnson’s blatant disappointment. “It was Belle Lawrence, daughter of the Viscount Grimsborough.”
“Of course. They would be here, wouldn’t they?”
“What?” Mrs. Johnson was quite scatterbrained, but Victoria didn’t understand that at all.
“Shh!” Mr. Johnson glared them both to silence.
Mrs. Johnson squeezed Victoria’s arm.
Victoria squeezed back, feeling for the first time since her return to England relaxed and clearheaded.
After she had landed on Britain’s shores and reestablished herself with the Johnsons, Victoria had taken the time to visit her family. She had been astonished to discover that her mother kept a book where she pasted Victoria’s letters and the map she’d used to keep up with her travels. Victoria’s siblings had been impressed by her worldliness. Her stepfather was sullen about her achievements, but for the first time, Victoria didn’t notice or care.
Instead, she concentrated on building these important, lasting relationships with her brothers and sisters, and, most significant, with her mother. Those relationships made no difference to her career or her future, yet
somehow she felt that with her family at her back, she had a solid foundation with which to live her life, and so much old hurt just … slipped away.
But for the most part she had been busy with Maude and Effie, their gowns, their manners, the procedures to be followed during the presentation. And every day, she thanked God for her occupation, because every night, she woke up reaching across the bed for Raul. Dreaming erotic dreams about Raul. Most of all … longing for Raul.
Now she glanced across the walkway in time to see a path opening to allow Viscount Grimsborough to pass as he made his way to the front row. He leaned heavily on a cane. His face was disfigured. And he carried an air of darkness with him, a heaviness that kept everyone at a distance.
Belle walked behind him, her eyes downcast, her face expressionless.
Victoria hurt for her friend and her bleak life. But soon, perhaps, Victoria would be at Raul’s side. She would call his attention to his sisters’ unhappiness, and together they would bring them to Moricadia. And even if he no longer wanted her— her breath caught on a shard of pain— she would tell him about Belle’s despair and he would rescue his sisters. Then at least something good would come of Victoria’s foolish flight from Moricadia.
The room stilled as Queen Victoria was announced.
As the crowd dipped in their obeisance, the queen made her stately way to the center of the dais and stood waiting for the debutantes. In stature, she was a small woman, but in her posture and confidence, no one would ever mistake her for anything but the queen of England.
Certainly Victoria Cardiff felt wonder as she stood before her monarch, and when it seemed the queen’s gaze rested on her, she flushed with awed pleasure.
“Here come the debutantes,” Mrs. Johnson whispered.
Maude and Effie walked about midway through the procession, two lovely girls who showed nothing but shy poise and beauty, and were everything that a young Englishwoman in search of a husband should be.
Victoria found herself tearing up. She told herself she cried because she was proud of the part she’d played in their training, and ignored her recent regrettable tendency to cry over little things, like the loneliness that nagged at her.
When the girls had curtsied before the queen, they took their places to the side and watched while the others were received. Then, with a collective sigh of relief, the young ladies waited to be dismissed.
But Queen Victoria had other intentions. In her firm voice, so startling from such a tiny frame, she announced,
“Today it is my honor to welcome one of Europe’s newest monarchs from one of Europe’s most ancient royal families— ”
Stupidly, Victoria didn’t understand what was happening.
“… a country but recently recovered from a long subjugation …”
A smiling Mr. and Mrs. Johnson cleared a little space in the crowd around her.
“… we are proud to be the first country to welcome the newly crowned King Saber of Moricadia!”
And he stepped in the door.
Raul.
Dear heavens. Raul Lawrence … King Saber.
Victoria’s heart started to thunder. Her chin trembled. Her hands shook.
She heard a collective indrawn breath, and one of the debutantes unwisely whispered, “My heavens!”
In truth, Victoria didn’t blame the girl for her protocol break.
He was gorgeous, regal, noble, and stern, yet at the same time so very, very wicked. And tempting. And, as always, he moved with that long, rolling walk that looked as if he knew everything about how to pleasure a woman.
Which he did. Oh, God. He truly did.
Victoria watched in dizzy appreciation as, with kingly dignity, Raul strode up the carpet.
Her knees threatened to collapse in anticipation.
He was going to see her.
But wait. No. She had to move back. She had to hide.
If she didn’t, he would see her and think … think that she had set up this meeting on purpose, when truly, she had had no idea he was even in England, much less London, much less here.
Why hadn’t the newspapers reported his visit?
She tried to wiggle into the crowd.
But the people behind her strained forward to take a look. Mrs. Johnson held her arm. Victoria was trapped.
Looking neither right nor left, Danel and Prospero walked three paces behind their king. They wore dark, conservative suits, had sober haircuts, and had clearly bathed. They moved like gentlemen, proper gentlemen, poised and confident.
Pride swelled in her heart; she had trained them …
and she wouldn’t have recognized them on the street.
On the other hand, Raul looked more than ever like a fairy-tale prince in a tailored black suit with a starched white shirt and that fiendish cravat… . He had tied her up with his cravat and done unspeakable things to her innocent body.
No fairy tale such as she had ever heard spoke of such shocking pleasures.
His stern face had hollows beneath his cheeks, but his lips were the same gloriously plush curves that promised passion and fulfillment… .
Don’t think of that!
His hair had been trimmed off his shoulders, and it shone with that blue-black, almost iridescent gleam that made her recall its silken texture when she ran her fingers through the strands… .
Don’t remember… .
She waited, panicked, for him to notice her.
But he didn’t. Instead, his head swiveled toward the other side of the carpet. There, he met his father’s eyes.
He stopped. He stared, his face forbidding.
Grimsborough stared back, equally forbidding, too proud to make the first advance.
But after talking to Belle, Victoria knew it was vital for Grimsborough’s family that Raul acknowledge his father, and she held her breath, praying for Belle’s sake that Raul would make a gesture of reconciliation.
He did, a short, curt bow of acceptance.
In return, Grimsborough bent his head in respect.
It was a moment awful and wonderful in its significance. It was an act that would buy Grimsborough time to recoup. It was a deed that brought a trembling, hopeful smile to Belle’s lips.
Victoria sighed with relief.
Raul walked on to stand before Queen Victoria. “Thank you for England’s kind welcome to me, and to Moricadia as it joins the world as a country and a monarchy.”
Victoria flushed with sudden warmth. That deep, generous voice recalled nights and days of such freedom and passion as no woman had ever experienced before… .
Sternly she told herself, This is not the time to think such thoughts. Somehow, she needed to blot those memories from her mind and find a way to escape.
So again she tried to squirm back into the crowd.
Raul said, “I have come to En gland not only to pay my regards to one of the greatest monarchs in the world— ”
Queen Victoria preened under his regard.
Victoria stopped squirming and glared. The hussy.
Raul continued. “— but also to beg a boon.”
“I will, of course, grant your boon if it is possible,” the queen replied.
How odd. It sounded as if they were reading from a script.
Then Raul said, “I want a wife.”
Victoria froze.
Shoving ensued among the debutantes.
Queen Victoria turned her stern gaze on them.
The pushing stopped.
The muffled buzzing in the crowd around her made it difficult for Victoria to think, but she had to wonder—
Did he mean her? Had he come for her?
Or had she, Victoria, by some cruel act of fate, been placed here when he came to ask for the hand of some more appropriately noble woman?
She felt sick.
Raul continued. “During the recent revolution, I found at my side a most wonderful woman, a woman of unsurpassed courage and kindness. She is the woman to whom I wish to pledge my life and my kingdom.
” He turned his head and looked into Victoria’s eyes.
Oh. He had seen her. He did know where she was. He did mean her.
He did mean her.
Relief fought with horror.
She didn’t want him to marry another woman. Never.
Neither did she want him to do this here, in front of everyone.
But in typical Raul style, he was not giving her a choice— and she knew why. He was the kind of man who, when he decided to do something, used every resource at his disposal— in this case, a proposal in the most public of places before her monarch.
A king?
Yes, he was a king.
But he was a knave first. A knave through and through.
She ought to box his ears.
He projected his voice around the great room. “Your Majesty, this most estimable of women is one of your subjects, and I hope to have your help in my wooing of her.”
Victoria Cardiff had been duped. She saw that now.
Set up. Completely and absolutely misled.
By Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, who insisted on buying her a new gown “as a thanks for your constant care for our daughters.”
By Raul Lawrence, who had plotted this nefarious scene.
And by Queen Victoria herself.
“Who is this paragon, King Saber?” Queen Victoria showed a real flair for the dramatic.
“Miss Victoria Cardiff,” he answered, and never had she heard her own name spoken with such resonance.
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