“Very,” she said. “My father taught me how to ice-skate and my family goes skating at Frogmore Lodge every Christmas. It is one of my favorite traditions. Do you enjoy skating yourself?”
“I haven’t had much practice.”
“If you need any help,” she said with a sly look on her face, “you should ask Drina. She’s a capital ice skater.”
“She appears rather preoccupied with royal princes at the moment,” George said bitterly.
Princess Alice smiled widely. “Then you’d better try harder, hadn’t you, George?”
“Almost there!” Bertie yelled over his shoulder. The three-storied white house loomed ahead.
“Where’s the pond?” George asked.
“In the back,” Bertie replied.
Bertie pulled the horses to a halt, and a groom quickly ran from the house to take the reins. Then Bertie hopped out of the sleigh and offered both arms to Drina, lifting her out of the carriage by the waist. George saw Drina place her hands on top of Bertie’s to gently dislodge them from her person. Prince Friedrich dismounted next to his cousin and offered his arm.
“Thank you, sir knight,” she said. Bertie followed them. Prince Louis helped Princess Alice out of the sleigh, leaving George the task of helping Lady Clara. He offered his hand to her.
“Oh dear, Lord Worthington,” she said. She giggled and held a delicately gloved hand to her mouth. “I believe it is too slippery for me to step down. Would you please lift me to safety?”
George grabbed Lady Clara’s waist and set her down on the snowy ground as quickly as possible. Not quickly enough though, for Lady Clara pressed her entire body against his and said breathlessly, “You are too good, Lord Worthington.”
“Not at all,” he said, stepping back so quickly he hit the carriage seat with his behind. He took a deep breath in and started to walk toward the house. Lady Clara grabbed his arm possessively and walked next to him.
When they entered the house, Bertie was asking to see Drina’s foot to find her a pair of skates. She lifted her skirt and pointed her shapely ankle. Bertie stroked both the ankle and the foot. George desperately wanted to punch the Prince of Wales in the face.
“You can take Vicky’s old pair,” Bertie said, handing a pair of skates to Drina. He grabbed a larger pair of skates and handed them to Prince Friedrich. “Here you go, Friedrich. My father’s skates.”
“Danke,” Prince Friedrich said.
Bertie didn’t measure any of the other lady’s feet with his hands. But he did give everyone a pair of skates, including George, who handled the strings awkwardly. He hadn’t skated since he was nine years old, and even then he hadn’t shown any aptitude for it. Still he followed the rest of the party out the opposite door and down a hill to a large frozen pond surrounded by beautiful evergreen trees.
Drina was the first to wander out onto the ice. George watched as she completed a figure-eight. Drina held her arms up like a ballerina and made several complicated turns on the ice. Each time, he held his breath.
What if Drina falls?
George awkwardly hobbled out on the ice. He wobbled forward and waved his arms like a chicken until he found his balance. He cautiously took a few more steps toward Drina, but he was too slow. Bertie and Prince Friedrich skated effortlessly out to meet her, Princess Alice and Prince Louis right behind them. Drina and Princess Alice took each other’s hands and spun around in circles, laughing. They released each other and skated toward the three princes.
“Let’s race,” Drina said. “The first one to Lady Clara wins. On your mark, get set, go!”
Lady Clara stood on the edge of the lake, in her skates but not on the ice. Drina, Bertie, Prince Friedrich, Prince Louis, and Princess Alice skated madly toward her. Drina deliberately slowed down at the end, letting Prince Friedrich win. He took hold of Lady Clara’s shoulders and she favored him with a flirtatious smile. Drina smiled too as she skated away hand in hand with Bertie. George looked back at the house and wished that there was a reason for him to go inside.
“Why aren’t you skating, George?” Drina asked in a breathless voice as she skated back to him. She came to an abrupt stop inches away. A small, teasing smile curved the edges of her beautiful lips.
“I’m surprised you noticed I wasn’t skating while you were making a spectacle of yourself,” George said.
“Excuse me?” Drina said. She placed her hands on her hips and scowled at him like the Princess Rothfield always did.
His good sense told him to hold his tongue, but his feelings were too strong to remain bridled. He raked his hands through his hair. “You were … carrying on with His Royal Pain in the Ass.”
“You have no right to make any comment on my behavior,” she snapped. “If it weren’t for His Royal Highness no one would have believed our prince switch last night. No one there dared contradict the future King of England.”
“I suppose you think I should be grateful to Bertie.”
“You should be grateful to me,” she retorted. “I risked my entire future to help you. But it never is about me, is it? It’s always about you!”
George was too dumbfounded to answer—he stood there frozen with his mouth open. Luckily, he didn’t need to. Drina skated away in a flurry of skirts and jumps. Back to Bertie’s open arms.
Chapter 19
Drina was still fuming hours later as she drank afternoon tea with Alice in the Crimson Saloon. She took a vicious bite out of a biscuit.
“What has that biscuit done to offend you?” Alice asked.
“It isn’t the biscuit that’s offended me, it’s George.”
“Better and better.”
Drina shook her head and sighed. “I’m tired of waiting for George to return my affections. And I don’t want him to pursue me out of jealousy, but out of love.”
“They’re very often two sides of the same coin,” Alice said. “Jealousy and love.”
“He’s behaving atrociously.”
“Love often causes one to behave atrociously,” the princess agreed as she sipped her tea. “At least it does in novels. I don’t know much from my own limited experience. But I did watch my sister Vicky’s romance with Prince Frederick of Prussia, but since she was fourteen years old and he twenty-four, it wasn’t very romantic. They were never alone and Vicky did almost all the talking.”
“Vicky always does most of the talking,” Drina said dryly. She swallowed before asking, “Are you ever alone with Prince Louis?”
“Never,” Alice admitted. “I feel as if all our conversations are stilted because another person is always near, hovering over us. So we talk about the food at dinner. The weather. Innocuous topics that are shallow and insipid and tell me nothing about his heart or his head. How are we ever to truly know each other?”
“Perhaps I could help?” Drina offered. “I will distract the chaperone so you and Louis can talk without an audience.”
“It’s the best plan I’ve heard so far,” Alice said, shaking her head. “I just wish my sister were here to guide me. Vicky always knows what to do.”
She set down her tea cup. “Do you miss her very much?”
Drina had never been overly fond of Vicky—she was too perfect and too clever, and she knew it. Vicky also had the nasty habit of telling on them to the dreaded governesses, or worse, to her parents.
“Of course I do,” Alice said. “She’s my sister. And I feel sorry for her, too. She’s having a difficult time adjusting to her life in Prussia. She loves Fritz dearly, but she wrote to me that she feels like a fly struggling in a very tangled web, and that she feels weary and depressed and even a little hopeless.”
“I’m sorry to hear that she’s struggling,” Drina said. “It’s difficult to leave your home and start again in another country.”
“My dear Drina,” Alice said, taking her hand. “I’d forgotten you experienced something similar coming to England.”
“It’s hard when you don’t know the customs and everything is different,
especially the language,” she said. “And the holidays can be the most difficult.”
“Especially at Christmas,” Alice agreed, patting her hand. “This was always the time of year when we felt like a normal family instead of a royal one. And now it might be my last one at home…”
“Must you marry a prince?” Drina asked quietly.
Alice sipped her tea. “Nothing creates closer diplomatic ties then a royal marriage, even to a minor German prince. My father wants to modernize Germany through marriage.”
“How so?”
“He thinks that the German states should be more like England, with a constitutional monarchy,” Alice explained. “He has positioned Vicky in Prussia and hopes that I can be influential in Hesse or Hoburg.”
“I’m not sure modern ideas would be well accepted in Hoburg,” Drina admitted. “Could you marry an English lord and stay in England?”
“It’s illegal for a princess in England to marry without her parents’ and parliament’s permission. The last English princess to marry a commoner was Henry VIII’s sister Mary, and it was her second marriage. Her first marriage was to the elderly King of France.”
“Rather like my parents,” Drina said, taking another sip of tea.
“The list of eligible princes is rather slim,” Alice said. “Vicky’s husband, Fritz, vetoed his cousin Prince Albert of Prussia. He said he wouldn’t do for ‘one who deserves the best.’”
“I agree with him entirely! You do deserve the very best.”
“Prince Willem of Orange came in January this year,” Alice said. “But I didn’t like him. Thankfully my parents didn’t, either.”
“Which leaves the last two choices: Prince Louis or Prince Friedrich.”
“They are both very handsome,” Alice said. “There could be worse fates than to be forced to marry a handsome prince.”
Drina smiled at her friend, but it held no joy. Marrying a foreign prince would mean leaving her family, her home, and her country. She feared Alice would be like Vicky—struggling in a very tangled web. Despite Alice’s rank, she would always be considered a foreigner in Germany.
“Your cousin is clearly not interested in me, and Prince Louis seems to like me well enough,” Alice said. She sighed and added, “But I’m afraid the most attractive thing about me is my family.”
“Nonsense!” Drina said, more loudly than she’d meant to. Several people in the room looked at them. Drina spoke in a lower tone, “You are beautiful and clever. A talented artist. A wonderful nurse. A cracking rider. An advocate for women’s rights and the best companion anyone could hope for. The prince you accept will be the luckiest man alive and if he doesn’t already know it, I will tell him.”
Alice laughed and her tea cup clattered on its saucer.
The room full of people became nearly silent. Drina looked around and saw Queen Victoria and Bertie enter the Crimson Saloon. She and Alice scrambled to their feet.
Queen Victoria was only four feet, eleven inches tall, yet she somehow filled the space. She scanned the room with her enormous eyes and fixated on her daughter Alice and Drina. She walked toward their sitting area, every eye in the room following her.
“Alice, I believe you will find Prince Louis and Prince Friedrich are both in the Green Drawing Room,” the Queen said in an overly sweet voice.
Alice gave her mother an elegant curtsy. “Yes, Mama.” She immediately left the room.
Queen Victoria stared at Drina, who dropped her eyes.
“Alexandrina,” she said.
Drina looked up reluctantly.
“I have given your request about your father’s estate some thought.”
“And?” she asked with a gulp.
The Queen gave her another penetrating stare. “I shall give you your answer after Christmas. See that your behavior until then does not influence my decision detrimentally.”
“I’m sure it won’t, Mama,” Bertie chimed in, grinning. “Drina is exemplary at all things: art, music, dancing, languages. I only wish that I could be more like her.”
“Come on, Bertie,” Queen Victoria said imperiously. “We have more important people to speak to.”
“Yes, Mama,” he said. He took Drina’s hand and bowed over it. “But there is no person that I would rather talk to. Please say you’ll save some dances for me tonight, Drina?”
The Queen’s already pinched face tightened in obvious disapproval.
Drina could have laughed out loud. Cousin Victoria had told her not to allow her emotions to show on her face. Clearly, that rule did not apply to queens.
“Of—of course I’ll save you some dances,” she managed.
Cousin Victoria’s protruding eyes looked ready to pop out of her head and she cleared her throat.
Bertie finally released Drina’s hand and followed his mother to the next grouping of chairs. Drina exhaled and made her own retreat from the room. She walked through the Lantern Lobby to avoid the Green Drawing Room with the two royal suitors.
As much as she’d missed her cousin, she didn’t want to leave England again. Drina smiled at the irony—eight years ago, she would have stowed away on a ship to return to Hoburg. But now, England was home. She clung to it even tighter than she had Hoburg.
She would do whatever it took to keep the Rothfield estate.
And she would show the Queen what kind of marchioness she could be.
Chapter 20
Miss Russon assisted Drina into a white satin evening gown with diamond-shaped puffs on the skirt. Her collar was trimmed with point lace and reached only the edge of her shoulders. Drina put on a coral necklace with three strings, a coral bracelet on each wrist, coral earrings, and strands of coral in her flaxen hair. She wore more ornaments than usual, but she thought her pale complexion needed the color that the red coral gave her.
Drina slid on her gloves and her social smile. She was going to be on her best behavior tonight in front of the Queen. Her future security depended upon it.
When she reached the Grand Reception Room, she walked to the opposite side of the enormous rectangular room and stood by Edward and his wife.
“You look stunning, Drina,” Emily said kindly.
“Maybe you’ll finally catch a husband,” Edward said with a knowing grin.
“I didn’t know you could catch a husband,” Drina said tartly. “Is it like catching a cold?”
“The worse kind of cold,” Emily said, and squeezed her husband’s arm with both of her hands. “For you never can be cured of it.”
Drina gave a fake laugh. She saw her mother enter the room wearing a stunning tiara of all diamonds. Her father walked a step behind his wife. He was wearing a black suit and his graying hair stuck up in the back. The crowd of people parted to let her mother through; People always did. She was like her cousin, Queen Victoria. She had presence.
Drina turned toward Emily and faked another laugh. She hoped that her mother would stop and talk to someone else. She hoped in vain.
“Drina,” her mother called, gracefully waving her over.
She bowed to Edward and Emily and walked the few feet to her mother, who took Drina by the arm and whispered in her ear: “Why are you wasting time talking to Edward? He is already married. You need to go stand by the young people. Mingle, is that the right English word?”
“It depends what you think mingle means,” Drina countered.
Her mother motioned her hands together. “You know, socialize.”
“Then mingle is the correct word,” her father said. “But there’s no need to rush Drina off right away. I’ve barely seen her in days.”
“You’ll see her plenty at home if she doesn’t find a husband,” she said. “And this is her best opportunity to find one.”
Drina looked to her father for help. He smiled at her reassuringly. “Wilhelmina, it’s Christmas. Let’s enjoy the festive spirit, eh?”
“Your daughter doesn’t know what is best for her,” her mother said. “I know what is best for her.”
“Oh, look. They’re lining up for dinner,” he said, pointing to where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stood at the head of the procession. “Should we take our places, dearest?”
Her father drew her mother’s hand through his arm and dragged her away from Drina. He looked over his shoulder at his daughter and winked.
Papa is a dear.
Drina was one of the last ladies to join the procession, which meant she was escorted to the dining room by Lord Weatherby. He held her chair out for her and sniffed her neck when he pushed her chair in. She shivered in disgust. He tried to touch her shoulder, but she leaned forward quickly. It was going to be a very long dinner.
She took only a small portion of every course and tried to make as little conversation as possible with Lord Weatherby. Like most men of her acquaintance, Lord Weatherby was more than happy to make all the conversation. His favorite topic was himself—he proved to be equally loquacious when speaking about his title, his house, his fortune, and his favorite racing horses.
As the dessert courses were taken away, Drina tried not to smile too widely when it was time to leave the gentlemen to their port and cigars. She stood to follow the other ladies when she felt a hand touch her arm. Alice stood beside her and linked her arm with Drina’s.
“How was dinner?” she asked.
“Dreadful.”
Alice laughed. “I won’t tell that to the cook.”
Drina flushed. “Oh, no. I meant the company.”
“I know,” Alice said. “But I couldn’t resist teasing you a little.”
They walked arm in arm to the Waterloo Chamber, where there was a string quartet playing. Not long after, the gentlemen joined them. Prince Louis asked Alice to dance and Drina noticed her friend’s complexion blush as she accepted him. Drina stood on the side of the room, waiting to be asked. She saw George looking at her, but he turned away when he met her eyes.
“Drina, will you dance with me?” Friedrich asked.
A Royal Christmas Quandary Page 14