The Shadow Queen

by Rebecca Dean

  The purse was lizard skin with a solid gold clip fastener. Edith snapped the clip open, took out a photograph, and laid it by the side of Wallis’s newspaper cutting.

  It was the most sensational photograph of Prince Edward that Wallis had ever seen and had obviously been mass-produced for a royalty-loving public. He was in full-dress uniform—though of what regiment Wallis couldn’t tell. Gold braid was draped in double loops on the right-hand side of his chest; on the left was pinned a row of glittering medals with two huge medals of a different kind pinned beneath them, both of which looked to be diamond encrusted. In his right hand the headgear he carried looked like a huge black fur ball, and his left hand was resting on a sword.

  In the posed, studio shot, the prince wasn’t looking directly toward the camera. His glossy fair hair was parted crisply on the left, and his fine-boned face was as resolute as if he were about to ride into battle to slay a dragon and rescue a princess.

  As they looked at the photograph, not only was Edith no longer thinking of the beau who hadn’t wanted her when he’d known she would come to him penniless, but Wallis was no longer thinking of Win.

  “The headgear he is holding is called a busby and is made of bearskin,” Edith said helpfully. “And I have another photograph just like this at home, so if you would like this one, I can give it to you if you would like.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Edith. I would like that very much.”

  In all the years she had known Edith, Edith had never surprised her in any way, but she was surprising her now. She picked up the photograph. “How is it you are suddenly so knowledgeable, Edith? And how come you have not only one photograph, but two?”

  “Pamela sent me them.” Ignorant that John Jasper had once been Wallis’s beau, Edith never had the slightest compunction about bringing Pamela’s name into their conversations. “The prince is serving in France at the moment, but when he is home on leave Pamela and John Jasper are part of the circle of friends he likes to spend time with. She knows what an admirer of his I am.”

  Wallis let out a long, slow breath. Hearing John Jasper’s name linked with Pamela’s no longer had any power to hurt. She no longer even ever thought about him.

  Pamela, though, was different.

  She missed the very special kind of affinity she and Pamela had shared. She was close to Corinne—but there were things she could never tell Corinne, such as the way she had kept Win sexually satisfied throughout their courtship. As for telling Edith such a thing … The very thought made her want to burst into laughter. Edith would be so deeply shocked; she’d probably die of it.

  She could have told Pamela, though.

  She had always been able to tell Pamela anything.

  Edith broke into her thoughts, saying with a dreamy expression in her pale blue eyes, “I wonder who Prince Edward will marry? I suppose it will be a princess. Princes always marry princesses, don’t they?”

  Wallis didn’t know but presumed they did. She’d certainly never heard of one who hadn’t. She liked the thought of it, though. It would be so much more romantic—just like the story of Cinderella.

  “Pamela once had high hopes of becoming the Princess of Wales,” she said, tucking the photograph safely in her purse. “She was certain that if she could meet him socially often enough, he would fall for her big-time.”

  “Oh, but that must have been ages ago—when we were at Oldfields. She won’t have thoughts like those now she’s a happily married lady with a darling little baby boy.”

  Not wanting to put thoughts she knew Edith would find distressing into her head, Wallis merely smiled and changed the subject to that of bridesmaids’ dresses and bouquets. Inwardly, though, she was wondering just how Pamela must be feeling, having lots of opportunities to charm Prince Edward. She couldn’t now become the Princess of Wales, but she could become the Prince of Wales’s mistress. Knowing Pamela as she did, Wallis was certain that if given such an opportunity, Pamela would take it—John Jasper or no John Jasper.

  The thought didn’t fill her with outrage. Instead she felt something close to amusement. John Jasper didn’t deserve a faithful wife when he had treated her, Wallis, so badly. As for Pamela—Pamela had always been outrageous. It was one of the reasons Wallis had always found her such good company.

  She suddenly became aware of Edith asking, “When is it I have to go to Madame Lucile’s for my first fitting, Wallis?”

  “In a month’s time. Phoebe is coming down from New York that weekend and Ellen is coming up from Virginia, as is my cousin Lelia, so you will all be being fitted for your bridesmaids’ gowns at the same time.”

  Every week was now huge fun—though Wallis took care not to sound as if it were when writing to Win, in case he got the impression that he wasn’t being very badly missed. It was hard, though, to pine, when there were so many family celebratory luncheons and dinners to attend.

  Many were luncheons and dinners she had known would be given for her, but some, such as a lifelong friend of her mother’s, Mrs. Aubrey Edmunds King, giving a splendid luncheon for her, and Aunt Bessie’s sister-in-law, Emily McLane Merryman, giving a luncheon for her at Gerar, her home near Cockeysville, were quite unexpected.

  Montague relations held parties for her in Virginia; distant Warfield relations held a party for her in Washington, D.C.; and Edith’s mother hosted a lavish tea for her at the country club. Along with all the celebrations came wedding presents. An elaborate silver cutlery service and a matching silver tea service, all in the Repoussé pattern of the famous Kirk silver-works; an engraved large silver fruit bowl; china settings and crystal; exquisite bed linens and table linens and so many vases and ornate picture frames Wallis couldn’t imagine how they would all fit into the small bungalow at Pensacola that she and Win would be moving into.

  There were many fittings for her bridal gown, and the fittings for the bridesmaids’ gowns turned into a giggly, girly affair with Madame Lucile, Wallis’s dressmaker of choice, dispensing champagne—though only when the gowns were once again safely under wraps.

  The only thing marring Wallis’s happiness was that Win, in one of his many letters to her, wrote that despite President Wilson’s being recently reelected on the slogan He Kept Us Out of War, Henry, and every other high-ranking military man, believed that war was coming.

  It was a prospect that elated Win.

  It didn’t elate Wallis.

  She didn’t want to marry and possibly become a war widow in the space of a year or so.

  “Don’t look on the black side, honey,” Alice said chidingly when she confessed her fears to her. “If President Wilson says we’re not going to war, we’re not going to war—and even if we did, there’ll be no one can look after himself better in a tight corner than Win. He’ll be here soon for the wedding and you’re just goin’ to look the most beautiful bride that ever walked down an aisle.”

  In the late afternoon of November 8, Wallis stood perfectly still as her mother and Corinne slid her wedding gown over her head. The white velvet and the pointed bodice encrusted with seed pearls gave the gown a lyrically lovely medieval look.

  “Now for Grandmother Warfield’s tulle veil,” Alice said, so overcome by how beautiful her daughter looked that tears glistened on her eyelashes.

  With infinite care the veil, attached to a delicate coronet of orange blossoms, was secured to Wallis’s glossily dark hair.

  Her bridesmaids, already dressed and carrying their bouquets, crowded into the room to look at her.

  “It’s a gown fit for a queen.” Phoebe wasn’t being merely flattering; she meant every word. The gown, with its court train falling from Wallis’s shoulders, most definitely had a royal look about it, helped enormously by the regal way her friend effortlessly held herself.

  “Here’s your bouquet, Skinny.” Corinne handed her her wedding bouquet of white orchids and lilies of the valley.

  “It’s five o’clock, honey.” Alice wiped away the tears of happiness and pride that were
threatening to fall. “Only an hour to go. Win’s friends will already be escorting family and friends into the pews.”

  “All the ushers are naval flight officers,” Edith whispered to Phoebe. “And they will all be in full-dress uniform.”

  Phoebe gave a shiver of delight. With war the topic of the moment, men in military uniform had taken on extra glamour. Being as fabulously rich an heiress as she was, her parents would never allow her to marry a naval air officer, but she was determined to have one as a secret beau.

  As her bridesmaids crowded around her dressing table to primp and preen for the last time, Wallis, anxious about a host of details her bridesmaids didn’t have to worry about, said to Alice: “I hope the church flowers are arranged just as I asked. Aunt Bessie has checked them, hasn’t she?”

  “She surely has, and she says they are magnificent. The altar is banked with Annunciation lilies, just as you insisted on, and there are bowers and sprays of white chrysanthemums decorating the aisles and every pew. Bessie says the scent is glorious.”

  “It’s time we were goin’.” The prompt came from Corinne. “Your Uncle Sol is waiting for you downstairs and getting mighty fidgety.”

  “You are quite certain about this, honey, aren’t you,” her mother whispered to her as the bridesmaids crowded out of the room and down the stairs. “Because if you’ve any doubts and want to call it off, both Aunt Bessie and I will stand full square behind you—not that we think you should be calling it off,” she added hastily. “We both think Win the most charming man imaginable.”

  Wallis kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Mama. I don’t have any doubts. Not a single one.”

  Her mother and Aunt Bessie left for the church first, followed by the bridesmaids.

  Sol, grim-faced, offered her his arm.

  Having determined to let nothing of the bad feeling that now existed between them show publicly and spoil what she was determined was going to be a perfect day, Wallis slid her free hand into the crook of his arm and, holding her lavish bouquet in her other hand, walked with him out of the house to the horse-drawn carriage waiting for them.

  Insanely, her last thought as she stepped into the candlelit church wasn’t about whether Win would be standing at the foot of the altar waiting for her, or whether she would be able to make her responses correctly, or whether her voice would be so choked with emotion that she wouldn’t be able to be heard, but of how much she wished Pamela were waiting inside the church to share her big moment with her.

  Instead, as the organ struck up the first chords of the wedding march, it was Corinne who led her bridesmaids down the aisle in front of her to where Win was waiting, flanked by Dumaresque, who was acting as his best man.

  Before their families and friends and the crème de la crème of Baltimore high society, they exchanged their vows, and Win, his eyes burning hers in a way that made her blush, slipped a plain gold band onto the third finger of her left hand.

  Wallis was certain that at that moment, there wasn’t a happier woman in the entire world.

  As they walked back down the aisle together, returning joyful smiles every step of the way, she saw the Baltimore Sun’s high-society columnist busily taking notes and knew that a lengthy—and very detailed and admiring—account of her wedding would be in one of the forthcoming issues.

  “Oh, my! Isn’t this just magnificent!” she heard Corinne say to the world at large as they exited the church to find Win’s fellow officers ceremonially lined up, their swords raised and crossed for them to walk beneath.

  After that came a storm of rice and rose petals, and then Wallis stepped into the white satin-lined wedding carriage that was to take her and Win to the Stafford Hotel where, despite her Uncle Sol’s stern disapproval, their lavish wedding reception was to be held.

  Win’s hand gripped hers tightly. “How does it feel to be a married lady, Mrs. Earl Winfield Spencer?” he asked as everyone they passed on the sidewalks waved and, whether they knew them or not, shouted out good wishes.

  “It feels blissful, Win. Nothing could be better than this. Nothing at all.”

  He flashed her a dazzling white smile. “Wait until tonight, Mrs. Spencer. Then you’ll see how blissful things can really be.”

  Between her thighs she felt damp heat. She was looking forward to the night with far more eagerness than she knew was proper. However, maidenly modesty had been cast to the winds months ago when Win had first guided her hand below the waistband of his trousers. Pretending to it now would be downright foolishness, and she was quite sure that though Win wanted a virginal bride—and was getting one—he didn’t want a bashful one. Bashful was a word not in her vocabulary. What she was, though, was curious—and very, very expectant.

  The reception was being held in the Stafford’s magnificent ballroom, and as she and Win entered there was a roar of thunderous applause from their guests and the orchestra struck up with a waltz.

  Laughing with happiness, Wallis handed her bouquet to Corinne and allowed Win to lead her out into the middle of the floor. Then, as the applause continued, the two of them circled the ballroom in each other’s arms to the sumptuous strains of a Strauss waltz.

  It was the gayest and merriest of wedding receptions. Win’s naval friends lent the occasion extra glamour. Phoebe captured the handsomest of the officers for a beau within minutes of the dancing starting and looked as though she intended to be a very naughty girl before the night was over.

  When it came to the cutting of her multitiered wedding cake, she and Win did it with a sword, and when it came to the champagne toasts, there were so many of them Wallis knew that if she wasn’t very careful she would become tipsy.

  Win certainly became tipsy and, by the end of the evening, was drunk—though Wallis doubted very much if many other people would be aware of it. Win was skilled at keeping an outwardly steady appearance when heavily under the influence of alcohol. It was a requirement he said was a necessity in a naval air officer.

  Finally it was time for her to change out of her wedding gown and into her elegant French blue going-away dress. She threw her wedding bouquet into her sea of guests, where it was caught by one of her old school friends and then, through yet another storm of rose petals, left the Stafford Hotel with Win for the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., where they were to spend their wedding night.

  Once in the car, Win put a hand immediately on her breast, and then, even before beginning to fondle her, fell against her, eyes closed.

  Acutely aware of the chauffeur’s interest, Wallis felt only relief.

  There would be enough time for fondling—and much more—once they were in the privacy of their hotel bedroom.

  The distance from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., was short, which was why they had chosen it for their first-night destination. In the morning they would start their honeymoon by driving to White Sulphur Springs and its famous Greenbrier Hotel.

  As their car drew up at the Shoreham, Wallis gently shook Win’s shoulder to rouse him. “Win, darling. We’ve arrived. We’re at the hotel.”

  He came to instantly, and again she knew his ability to do so from a drunken stupor must have come from long practice. Amused, she stepped from the car, slid her hand into the crook of his arm, and, as bellboys took care of their luggage, walked into the hotel lobby to proudly sign her married name in the hotel register.

  The room they had been allocated wasn’t the bridal suite. It was the Greenbrier that would be producing that luxury. It was, though, a very tastefully decorated room with an enormously big and high brass-headed double bed.

  “At last,” Win, said, unbuttoning his white naval jacket and throwing it carelessly over the nearest chair. He drew her toward him and slowly began unbuttoning the river of buttons on her going-away dress.

  “I’ve waited so long for this moment, Wallis.” His eyes were hot, his voice thick with desire. “So very, very long.”

  So had Wallis, but she didn’t think it was something a bride should blata
ntly admit.

  “I love you, Win.” Her voice was soft and husky as her dress fell to her waist, leaving her high small breasts covered only by a flimsy lace-edged camisole.

  The room was seductively lit by antique oil lamps, and the flickering light cast her body in a soft glow as he slid down first one camisole strap, then the other.

  For a long time he looked at her, and then he lowered his head, taking first one pale pink nipple into his mouth, sucking on it and rolling it around with his tongue, then doing the same with the other.

  Wallis gasped. Kissing and cuddling had previously always aroused her, but now she felt as if a bolt of electricity had shot through her, traveling straight down to her vagina.

  When Win finally raised his head, he said, his voice no longer thick only with desire, but slurred by the liberal amount of champagne and spirits he had drunk, “Take the rest of your clothes off, Wallis. I want you now. Straightaway. I don’t want to waste another moment.”

  Neither did Wallis. Without even first taking her honeymoon negligése from her suitcase, she stepped out of her dress and took off the rest of her underclothes. At the other side of the bed Win unsteadily scrambled out of his dress shirt, his trousers, his underwear.

  They both tumbled into the flock-mattressed bed at the same time, hurtling into each other’s arms.

  Wallis was well aware of what was to happen next, but had no idea of how it would feel. With excitement at boiling point and with an urgent delicious ache between her legs, she returned Win’s passionate kisses and then, as he rolled on top of her and she opened her legs to accommodate him, he did what he had done in the car.

  He passed out.

  “Win?” His dead weight was so heavy she could hardly breathe. “Win! Wake up, darling. Please!”

  A snore was her only reply.

  With great difficulty she eased herself from beneath him.

  Then, as his snoring became ever more deep and rhythmic, she moved a little away from him, folding her arms behind her head and looking up at the ceiling.

  This wasn’t the way she had anticipated spending her wedding night, but she reckoned that after a score of champagne toasts, it was probably the way nine out of ten brides spent it.