He shook his head and gave her another of his wolfish smiles. “You think of everything.”
“Shy away from the baron of beef,” she advised solemnly. “It’s not seasoned quite right.”
Friedrich promised to pass on all beef and left her in the Octagon Dining Room. She surveyed the room. Unsurprisingly, the Octagon Dining Room was shaped like an octagon. A large table was in the center of the room flanked by chairs. Octagons weren’t as easy as square rooms for such a game as this.
Where could she hang the sheet?
It had to be positioned between the two doors that led to the room so that Friedrich could enter through one door and Herr Bauer and everyone else through the other. She walked over to the window, where holly and mistletoe hung. One corner of the sheet could be tied to the curtain and the other to the knight’s spear near the opposite wall.
Drina opened the door to the China Corridor, which led back to the Grand Reception Room, and requested two footmen to procure her a sheet and a single candle. They returned within a few minutes and followed her into the Octagon Dining Room, where she instructed them how and where to hang it. She took the candle and placed it on the table, then directed a footman to move one of the dining chairs in front of the sheet.
“Very good,” she said. “Thank you, that will be all.”
As they left the room, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Now she just needed to somehow convince at least a dozen people to leave the party and come with her to this room.
She walked quickly through the China Corridor, nearly skipping. She arrived out of breath at the Grand Reception Room. She saw Alice talking with Prince Louis and her brother Bertie. The Prince of Wales had brown wavy hair, a round face, and newly grown side whiskers that were rather sparse. His thick lips were pouty, but when he smiled, like he did at her now, he was almost handsome. Drina smiled back and walked to where her friends stood.
“There you are, Drina,” Alice said in English. “Bertie, I believe you have something to say to her?”
“I’m very sorry,” he said with an unrepentant smile. “I promise that it will never happen again.”
“I know it won’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t allow it to.”
“Is there anything I can do to atone?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something, but for now, I need you to play parlor games. I’m forming a group of young people to go to the Octagon Dining Room,” she said quickly.
“Anything to avoid the tedium of my mother’s state parties,” Bertie said.
Alice raised one eyebrow questioningly.
Drina could only whisper, “Please.”
“Of course,” Alice said and then asked Prince Louis, in German, if he would join them. He nodded vigorously.
“Wonderful,” Drina said. “Please wait in the China Corridor. I’ll be with you in a trice.”
She spotted George standing with Herr Bauer and Lady Clara in a corner of the room. At least he wasn’t allowing Herr Bauer to meet anyone else. She walked up to them.
“Princess Alice and I are gathering the younger members of the party to play parlor games in the Octagon Dining Room. Would you like to join us?”
George raised his eyebrows, but said, “Of course.”
“We’re meeting in the China Corridor.”
He nodded and took Herr Bauer by the arm, guiding him toward the door. Lady Clara was close behind them.
Drina needed a few more people for her plan to work. She saw a circle of young people in the center of the room, including Edward and Emily, Lady Hyacinth Fotheringham, and the lecherous Lord Weatherby. She pasted on her best smile and approached them.
“Should we escape our parents and play some parlor games?” Drina asked in what she hoped was a persuasive voice.
“Too right,” Lord Weatherby said.
She tried not to cringe in response. She looked at Edward imploringly, and he nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Yes, let’s,” he said, clapping his hands.
“Why not?” Emily said.
Lady Hyacinth Fotheringham nodded graciously. “I dearly love a game.”
“Follow me.”
She led the group from the Grand Reception Room to the China Corridor, where Alice, Bertie, Prince Louis, George, Clara, and Herr Bauer stood outside the door to the Octagon Dining Room.
“I have taken the liberty of having the room prepared for Shadow Buff,” she said. “I need a volunteer to discern our shadows.”
“I’ll volunteer,” George said.
“Yes. You stay here for a few minutes,” she said. “We’ll come for you when we’re ready.”
Edward held open the door for everyone and they filed into the Octagon Room and behind the sheet.
“May I borrow your fan, Lady Clara?” Drina asked.
Lady Clara held out her ivory fan. “What a lark.”
Drina took the fan and then walked over to Herr Bauer. “Prince Friedrich is waiting for you in the State Dining Room,” she whispered to him in German. “You are to change places as a part of the game.”
He smiled jovially and nodded. Herr Bauer was really the nicest of men. She took him by the arm and quietly opened the second door and sent him through. Drina took a deep breath.
This is going to work.
Several other members of the party switched effects and tried to make their silhouettes look different. Edward took off his jacket and stuffed it to his shirt to make his belly look round—clearly, he was trying to look like Lord Weatherby. Lady Clara borrowed a pigeon feather from Lady Hyacinth and put it in her hair. Emily took a napkin off the table and tied it over her very recognizable curls.
The second door from the State Dining Room opened and her cousin slipped into the room wearing the dinner jacket Herr Bauer had worn. No one seemed to notice him enter.
“Is everybody ready?” Drina asked. “I’ll go get George—Lord Worthington.”
She opened the first door to the China Corridor and beckoned George to enter the room. She sat him down in the chair and then joined the others behind the curtain.
“The ladies will go first,” Drina announced, pointing to Lady Clara.
Lady Clara sauntered in front of the table with the candle. It wasn’t her usual gait, and the feather on her head made her shadow look taller. Drina pointed to Emily; she walked across sideways, obscuring her profile. Princess Alice went next—she must have been bending her knees for she appeared to be Lady Clara’s height. Lady Hyacinth grabbed a bowl from the table and placed it in front of her stomach as she walked across. Drina was last. She stood on her tippy toes and fanned herself vigorously with Lady Clara’s fan as she walked in front of the sheet.
The ladies all stood next to the windows.
“All right, George,” Emily said. “Tell us the order.”
“Lady Hyacinth, Princess Alice, Lady Alexandrina, Emily, and Lady Clara,” George said.
Everyone in the room laughed.
“Wrong on every single lady,” Emily called. “Let’s see if you do any better on the gentlemen.”
Edward went first with his enormous fake belly. Next came Lord Weatherby, who leapt across the room like the “lords a-leaping” in the silly Christmas carol. Prince Bertie and Prince Louis walked together in perfect synchronization. Their shadow looked like one very large person. Cousin Friedrich went last. He made no attempt to hide his identity. He strode across with his broad shoulders back, the epaulets on his dinner jacket clearly displayed.
Drina exhaled slowly. This was going work—it had to. Both her and George’s futures depended on no one recognizing the prince switch.
Chapter 17
“Try to do better guessing this time, George,” Edward called from behind the curtain.
George harrumphed. He was only being gallant, letting the ladies win. He’d known who Drina was on her tippy toes. He could always recognize her silhouette.
Now for the gentlemen: The fellow who’d crawled with his coat sagging was clearly Lord Weatherby. He wasn’t
sure who had walked with Edward. One of the slimmer fellows, either Prince Louis or Bertie. The last man was undoubtedly Herr Bauer, who probably had no idea that he was supposed to hide his identity because he didn’t speak a word of English.
“Prince Louis, the Prince of Wales, Lord Weatherby and Edward, and Prince Friedrich,” he said at last.
“Wrong, all but one!” Edward called from behind the sheet.
George stood up and untied the corner of the sheet. It fell and he saw all the players in their “disguises.” They laughed at him and he joined in, until he saw the man whose arm Drina was holding wasn’t Herr Bauer. He was of a similar height and complexion, but blonder and handsomer. Somehow Drina had managed to avert disaster. She’d replaced the pretend prince with the real one. Relief bubbled out of him. He felt like a newly uncorked bottle of French champagne.
“You lost, dear cousin,” Drina said playfully. She tapped Friedrich’s arm with Lady Clara’s fan before returning it to its rightful owner. “George guessed your true identity.”
“I must have drunk too much wine at dinner,” Lady Clara said, fluttering her fan at her blushing face, “but I declare, Prince Friedrich, your features look entirely different in this light.”
Friedrich lifted her free hand and kissed it. “You wound me, Fräulein, for I could never have forgotten your lovely face.”
Lady Clara’s blush deepened to a berry red and she smiled, but she kept blinking at Prince Friedrich as if she wasn’t quite convinced that he was the same prince.
Drina gave a nervous, high laugh that sounded unnatural. “My cousin has many faces, Lady Clara.”
“I suppose it is a trait of all Hoburg princes,” Alice added dryly.
The princess clearly wasn’t fooled. George met Alice’s eyes and she gave him the slightest of winks. She wouldn’t betray their secret.
Lady Hyacinth bit her lip; she did not look entirely convinced, either.
Bertie stepped forward, taking Drina by the elbow. George clenched his teeth and his fists.
“This discussion is growing tedious. I can assure you all that this is my friend, Prince Friedrich of Hoburg,” Bertie said in a pleasant voice, but one that brooked no argument. “Now what of the forfeits?”
Drina gave Bertie a glowing smile and George almost did, too. No one in the room was going to contradict the Prince of Wales.
“My cousin must pay the forfeit,” Drina piped up, stepping away from Bertie and breaking his hold on her elbow. George’s hands unclenched.
“Yes, you must, Prince Friedrich,” Lady Hyacinth said eagerly.
“What is forfeit, Fräulein?” Prince Friedrich asked with a pronounced German accent.
Every eye in the room was on the prince and they were all smiling. Somehow, they’d actually done it! George reached for Drina’s hand and squeezed it before letting go. She gave him a glowing smile that left him breathless. Her full lips were red and appeared entirely kissable. There were only a few inches between them. Drina’s eyes glanced at his own lips.
“You were incredible,” he whispered, so softly that only she could hear.
“We’re a formidable pair,” she said.
He felt a link between them that was as tangible as a bridge joining two sides of land. “We are, aren’t we?”
Lady Clara stepped between them, breaking their connection, before standing in front of Prince Friedrich. “You must kiss every lady in the room—”
“Spanish fashion,” Drina said, cutting her off.
“I think I would much rather kiss every lady in the room Hoburg fashion,” Prince Friedrich said. “But I’m fond of Spain as well. And I’m most eager to learn how to kiss Spanish fashion from these lovely ladies.”
“Come, Friedrich,” Drina said, and led him by the arm to the eager Lady Clara, who stuck out her chin and puckered her lips. Prince Friedrich was about to lean forward and kiss her when Drina tapped his shoulder. He stood up straight and Drina pecked Lady Clara’s cheek.
“I’m becoming less fond of Spain by the minute,” Prince Friedrich said. “When I return to Hoburg, I intend to declare war on them.”
Bertie, Edward, and Weatherby clapped their hands and guffawed. Drina led Prince Friedrich to Princess Alice. Again, it was Drina who kissed Princess Alice’s cheek. Next, she kissed Lady Hyacinth’s cheek and finally, Emily’s cheek.
Prince Friedrich picked Drina up, twirling her around in a circle and planting a kiss on the top of her head. “Ha! Drina, you little minx. I got a kiss after all.”
Drina and Prince Friedrich broke apart, laughing like old friends.
“It’s so dark in here,” Lady Hyacinth complained.
“Perfect for a game of Snapdragon,” Edward said. He walked over to the door and yelled to the servants. “Oy, you there! Yes, you! Please fetch us a bowl of brandy and pile it full of raisins.”
George scanned the room and found Drina standing next to his sister-in-law near the curtains. Bunches of holly and mistletoe hung in front of the window. Lord Weatherby walked up to the pair.
“I believe you are standing underneath mistletoe,” he said pompously. “I’ve come to collect my prize.”
Drina stepped back as Emily moved forward and planted an enthusiastic kiss on Weatherby’s unsuspecting face. The entire room roared with laughter. George even chuckled himself, though he felt anything but jolly at that particular moment.
“If that kiss had lasted any longer,” Edward called, “I would be obliged to call you out, Weatherby!”
“It would have been worth it,” Weatherby said with a lecherous laugh.
“Come, everyone. Sit down around the table,” Princess Alice said in a crisp voice. “Pick your position for Snapdragon.”
George noticed that Prince Friedrich and Bertie were both still glued to Drina’s side, which irritated him to no end. Drina should have been holding his arm, sitting by his side, and whispering witticisms in his ear. Not Bertie’s. George looked away only to see Edward’s knowing eyes. His brother shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “You had your chance.”
Ignoring his brother, he sat down next to Princess Alice, who gave him a slight smile before turning to talk to Prince Louis in German. George only understood about one word in twenty, but he did hear the German word for Christmas—Weihnachten.
A servant opened the door and set a large bowl of brandy piled with raisins in the center of the table.
“That will be all,” Bertie said. He picked up the candle left over from the Shadow Buff and placed the flame near the bowl. It instantly ignited.
“And go!”
Everyone except Prince Friedrich tried to snatch the raisins out of the bowl without burning their fingers. George quickly grabbed the raisin closest to him, careful not to set his shirt sleeve on fire. He popped the flaming raisin in his mouth and experienced the unforgettable taste and the burning sensation.
Edward, always indulgent when it came to food, was the finest and fastest player. He ate the last raisin and only the brandy was left burning, filling the room with a sickening smoke.
“I say,” Bertie said bombastically, smiling down at Drina. “I’ve never enjoyed a night at Windsor Castle more, eh, Alice?”
“Very enjoyable,” Princess Alice said. When she stood to leave the room, everyone followed after her, leaving the servants to clean up the mess they had made.
George was the last person to leave the room. He felt as if everything was singed—his fingers, his tongue … and his heart.
Chapter 18
George was one of the first guests to enter the dining room the next morning for breakfast. He saw his mother sitting next to Viscountess Jocelyn and remembered Drina’s advice to ask his mother for help in becoming an engineer.
Taking a deep breath, he walked to his mother’s side. “Mother, might I have a word with you?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t even turn his way. “Not now, George.”
Those three words summed up his entire relationship with his mother.
“Right,” he said, cursing himself for even trying to talk to this woman who was nothing more than a stranger. He went to the buffet and filled his plate with eggs, sausages, and kippers before choosing a seat as far away from his mother as possible.
Drina entered the dining room with her mother, trailed by Prince Friedrich. Bertie entered shortly after and sat next to Drina.
“Tante Wilhelmina, you are far too beautiful to be anyone’s great-aunt,” Prince Friedrich said gallantly.
George rolled his eyes. Princess Wilhelmina was still a fine-looking woman with an abundance of light hair braided like a coronet around her head. She had a straight figure and faded blue eyes, but she had to be at least sixty years old.
“You know what I miss most about Christmas in Hoburg?” Drina asked.
“The Yule log?” Prince Friedrich ventured.
“Ice-skating on the lake near the castle,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “You and I would hold hands and spin so many circles on the lake that we would fall over. And then we would get back up and do it all over again.”
“We’ve got a nice frozen pond near Frogmore Lodge,” Bertie said from her other side. “It’s only a short carriage ride away and it’s perfect for skating. We can go this afternoon if you wish, Drina.”
She glanced from one prince to the other and readily agreed. George sighed. He wasn’t a good skater, and he didn’t like being upstaged by either prince. But he didn’t want to be left behind, either.
The party that entered the sleigh an hour later consisted of Bertie, Princess Alice, Prince Louis, Prince Friedrich, Drina, the Weatherby siblings, and Lady Hyacinth. The sleigh had three rows of seats and Drina sat next to Prince Friedrich and Bertie in the first row. Bertie drove the sleigh. George found himself next to Princess Alice and Prince Louis in the second row. The Weatherbys and Lady Hyacinth sat in the last row.
George was forced to watch two Crown Princes fawn over Drina and he didn’t like it one bit.
Next to him, Princess Alice and Prince Louis were speaking in German. When there was a pause in their conversation, George asked her, “Are you fond of ice-skating, Princess Alice?”
A Royal Christmas Quandary Page 13