She was worrying that perhaps Clive had just been concerned to save Alissia and he was not really interested in her future.
Equally she realised that when he had boarded Lord Pronett’s ship, it was difficult to think of anything except that she had prevented Lord Pronett from marrying Alissia.
When she had first discovered her mother’s plans, she had gone up to her bedroom, thrown herself down on her bed and had cried for a long time.
She did not really know why but from the moment she had first seen Lord Pronett, she had thought he was a very attractive man.
He had danced with her, because her mother had more or less insisted on it and she had found, although she could not explain it to herself she felt strangely attracted to him.
He was very different from the other men she had danced with – perhaps it was because he was so tall, in fact as tall as Clive. His hair was dark and he seemed to her much more handsome than the other men she had met.
When he came to call at her mother’s request, she listened at the door and she had heard her mother telling Lord Pronett that he was to take Alissia away and marry her.
It was then she felt as if a thousand swords pierced her heart.
Even then, having never been in love, she did not fully realise that she was in love with Lord Pronett.
Then she had witnessed him dragging Alissia away and she knew that they were then to be married when they reached Norfolk.
She was past crying and had not wished to go on living.
How could she bear to stay on day after day at the Royal Palace with her mother and stepfather?
If they left London for the country, there would be no one she wanted to see – there were men at the Palace, of course, but they were nearly all old.
The King was certainly comparatively young and so was Clive, yet neither of them was at all concerned with her.
It was just her mother who had such ambition for her and it came to Nancy as a huge shock that the man her mother was pressuring her into marrying was Clive, the Marquis of Morelanton.
He had never paid any attention to her, but it was not only that, she felt he was too big and overwhelming and his personality was too strong.
If she did marry Clive, she would be swallowed up and no longer be herself.
‘I don’t want to be a Marchioness,’ she told herself. ‘It is not the title that matters, but the man behind it.’
She knew instinctively that he was not interested in her, even though he had danced several times with her and was very polite when he did so.
“I will be eternally grateful to your stepfather,” he had said, “and, of course, to Nanny and Alissia who saved me from the Cromwellians.”
“What would they have done to you if they had found you?” Nancy had asked him.
“I would have been thrown into prison and perhaps executed. Then they would have confiscated my house and estate and I would in point of fact have been better dead than alive.”
Nancy had heard from Nanny a thousand times how she had disguised him.
“The Cromwellians must have been very stupid,” she commented when Clive talked about it.
“I was much younger then,” he remarked, “hardly more than a boy and it was undoubtedly Alissia’s curls that convinced them that I was a young woman in bed sleeping peacefully.”
“You must have been very scared,” she remarked.
“As I was a man, I did not admit to it, but I never tell a lie if I can help it.”
It was only when he talked to her about the past and how he had been saved by the ingenuity of both Nanny and Alissia, that he seemed at all human and actually addressed her as a real person.
Otherwise she was just another young girl finding the Royal Palace full of old and rather decrepit people.
‘I would so like to be with young gentlemen,’ she had thought, ‘of my own age, who would laugh and talk to me and perhaps tell me they love me.’
Whenever she had danced with Lord Pronett, she thought he was much easier to talk to than Clive.
He did seem to understand her when she told him how she would like climb trees or swim, not in the Thames which was too frightening, but in a small lake that was not too deep.
“I have one like that at my home,” he volunteered, “and I used to swim in it in the summer, but there was no one to swim with me, so I was very lonely.”
Now she was wondering, as he would no longer be taking Alissia to his home, if she might go in her place.
Perhaps she would swim in his lake with him and he would tell her about all the pictures he owned.
She admitted to herself that she knew nothing about pictures except that some of them were very pretty and it would be so exciting if Lord Pronett would explain to her why they were so significant.
All this passed through her mind as she went down below to the cabin where he was waiting.
But it was not what she expected.
Lord Pronett was standing with his back to her and gazing out of the porthole.
She closed the door gently behind her, but he did not move.
And then she murmured,
“Lord Morelanton – told me I was to come – with you while he takes Alissia back to the Royal Palace.”
There was silence before Lord Pronett answered,
“I suppose he also told you that I have made a fool of myself.”
Nancy shook her head.
“No, he did not, and I am sure it is something you have never done.”
“Why should you be so sure?” he asked without turning round.
“Because you are different from the other people at the Royal Palace who are always wondering if they are saying the right thing and fussing about to be important in the eyes of the King.”
Freddie was listening and thought that this was a very strange thing for Nancy to say.
He then turned round and saw her standing near the door.
“I am sorry,” she said hesitatingly, “if things have gone wrong for you.”
“I think maybe they have gone right, Nancy. I was doing what your mother told me to do and that was a big mistake. How could I have been such a fool as to think that I could marry anyone who did not want to marry me?”
He knew, as he spoke, it was because he was so inexperienced and he was sure that Clive was laughing at him because he had admitted not having made love to any woman.
How could he explain that he had never had the chance?
He had been shut up in a large house with a very old man and a team of elderly servants.
Then as he looked at Nancy he thought that in her own way she was very pretty, not flamboyant, not striking like Barbara Castlemaine or for that matter, Alissia.
But gentle and sweet like the flowers in the spring.
‘If I kiss her,’ he asked himself, ‘I wonder what I would feel?’
Then, as he gazed at her and went on gazing at her, he knew it was something he just had to find out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Clive walked back to Alissia who, as he reached her, looked at him questioningly.
“It’s all right,” he told her gently. “We are going back to the Royal Palace, and as I want to talk to you now, I suggest we go down into the cabin.”
He guessed as she smiled at him that she had been worried he might insist at the last moment that she should go back to Lord Pronett.
Clive closed the cabin door behind him.
He had changed his mind and told the Captain he should now take them slowly back to the Royal Palace.
“I mean slowly,” he repeated.
“Thank you! Thank you, Clive,” Alissia cried as he came towards her. “I was desperate, but somehow I knew you would save me.”
“Just as you once saved me, Alissia,” replied Clive. “I think therefore I must now look after you for the rest of your life.”
He realised as he spoke that Alissia stiffened.
As she looked up at him there was a question in her eyes.
“I am asking you, Alissia, my darling,” he said very quietly, “in a rather roundabout manner if you will be my wife.”
Alissia gave a gasp.
Then, as he saw a wonderful radiance transform her face, he put his arms round her and pulled her against him.
“I just know I cannot live without you, Alissia.”
And then he was kissing her.
As he did so, he realised that it was different from any kiss he had ever given or received in his life.
Her lips were deliciously soft, innocent and very sweet and they were giving him feelings and emotions he had never experienced before.
It was a wonder beyond words, an ecstasy that until now had always eluded him.
Yet he had known he would find it one day.
He kissed her until the Royal Barge suddenly rolled as it turned round against the current.
Then he sat down on the sofa and pulled her close against him again.
“I love you so very much, my darling,” he sighed deeply.
He had never really been able to say these magical words before to any woman.
“And I have loved you ever since you rode away in disguise,” Alissia whispered to him. “I prayed and prayed then that you would be safe on your long journey North and I have prayed for you ever since.”
“That is what you must go on doing, Alissia. I do know, my dearest, we will be very very happy together.”
Alissia made a little sound which was almost a sob before she mumbled,
“I thought that this would never happen.”
“But you wanted it to?”
“Yes, I wanted it, of course, I wanted you to love me,” Alissia answered. “But I thought there were so many beautiful women in the Court that you would never notice me now I have grown up.”
“I have thought of you a million times since I left your house in Worcestershire carrying your beautiful curls in my pocket. They have always been with me and have brought me even more luck that you brought me then.”
“It is something I will always try to do,” Alissia breathed, “and I cannot believe that you really want me to be your wife.”
She looked up at Clive and he saw a flicker of fear in her eyes – fear that this beautiful moment which seemed so perfect would prove to be only an illusion.
“I tell you what we will do,” he suggested softly. “We will get married immediately.”
Alissia gave another gasp.
“I can see you are worrying in case I have second thoughts, my darling. Also you are dreading, as I am, the fuss and commotion there will be when the Court knows there is to be a wedding.”
Clive paused before he added,
“Doubtless your stepmother will be disagreeable because I am marrying you and not Nancy.”
“That certainly is true, but, Clive, just how can we be married – secretly?”
She hesitated over the words as if she thought that she was being presumptuous even to think of such a thing.
Clive smiled.
“If I am going to look after you for the rest of your life, you have to trust me, my darling. What I am going to do is to tell the King in strictest confidence and I know that he will be really delighted at our news.
“He will be the only one to be told of our wedding, and he will help me in arranging for it to take place in his Private Chapel.”
Alissia was listening to him wide-eyed.
Then he carried on,
“After that, my precious darling, I am going to take you in this Royal Barge – or whichever one His Majesty will lend us – to my ancestral Castle in Scotland. We will spend our honeymoon there. And then when everyone has become used to the idea of us being married, we will return to London.”
“I don’t believe it. Am I dreaming this and when I wake up I will find I am alone in my bed? Or perhaps still a prisoner of the dreadful Lord Pronett!”
“He is happy because he is going to marry Nancy, who will suit him far better than you. You are too clever, my darling, not to have ideas and thoughts of your own. But I am quite sure that Nancy will think whatever Lord Pronett thinks and will agree to everything he suggests.”
“But do you not want me to do the same for you?”
She was teasing him and Clive gave a laugh.
“I expect that we will argue over many things. But what is all-important is that you love me as I love you and nothing could be more wonderful than that.”
“Nothing! Nothing!” cried Alissia. “Oh, please my dear wonderful Clive, let’s do it your way and as quickly as possible, before anyone finds out that Nancy is missing and starts to search for her.”
“I expect your stepmother,” Clive smiled somewhat cynically, “will think up a perfectly good explanation for her absence, but your father is more likely to be perturbed about you.”
“Papa will be terribly hurt if he is not present at my wedding and we must tell him what has happened before we go to your Castle in Scotland.”
“Yes, of course we will,” he agreed. “Leave it to me and all you have to do, my precious darling, is to trust me and love me.”
He kissed her before she could answer.
And he continued kissing her until he realised that the ship was slowing down and they must now be nearing the Royal Palace.
“I want you to stay here, my darling Alissia,” he suggested as they docked at Whitehall, “while I go ashore and make all the arrangements. If I take a long time, you are not to be frightened – ”
“I know I trust you,” answered Alissia, “and please, dearest wonderful Clive, remember I have nothing to wear except what I am standing up in.”
“I have thought of that too, Alissia, and I will think of every detail of what you will need for our wedding, just as I will guard you for the rest of our lives together.”
“I love you, I adore you,” sighed Alissia. “You are the most marvellous man in the whole world and I cannot believe that you really love me.”
“I will make sure you do once you are my wife – ”
He kissed her again.
Then as he heard the gangway being secured, he left the cabin and closed the door behind him.
Alissia put her hands up to her face.
She could hardly believe that what had happened to her was true.
Yet her whole body was pulsating with the wonder and excitement of it all.
‘I just adore him and I have always loved him,’ she told herself. ‘And thank you, thank you, God, for making him love me.’
It really was a miracle, she thought, that Clive had been able to save her from such an appalling fate – and that Nancy had been there to tell him what had happened.
She hoped that Nancy would be as happy with Lord Pronett as she herself would be with Clive.
At any rate she was sure that Nancy would be much happier and certainly more sure of herself when she was well away from her mother’s far from benign influence.
The Countess had always ordered Nancy about and
Alissia had felt for her.
Now Nancy would have to think for herself and the man she married.
Alissia was sure that under these circumstances she would gradually become a very different person.
After giving instructions to the Captain that no one was to board the Royal Barge until he had returned, Clive went straight to see His Majesty the King.
He hurried through the Royal Palace to the King’s Private Apartments.
The King was just finishing breakfast and when he saw Clive he rose to his feet.
He then suggested they go into a room next door where they could not be overheard.
“What happened, Clive?” the King asked eagerly. “I have been wondering why you had been away so long.”
Clive told him briefly how taking Nancy with him, he had commandeered the Royal Barge on the Palace steps.
And how they had overtaken Lord Pronett’s ship by a superb effort on the part of the Royal oarsmen.
“I am sure the Captain
enjoyed having something positive to do,” the King chuckled.
“He was in his element, Sire.”
Then Clive proceeded to tell the King how he had meant to thrash Lord Pronett and teach him a lesson, but instead of which he had felt sorry for him.
The King listened intently to every word and when Clive told him that he intended to marry Alissia he clapped his hands enthusiastically.
“Exactly what I wanted for you, Clive,” he cried. “She is lovely, quite outstandingly beautiful and therefore precisely the wife you should have.”
Clive smiled.
“You could not pay me a higher compliment, Sire, but actually I now need your help – ”
There was nothing the King enjoyed more, now that he was King, than helping other people.
For years he had had to be beholden to those both in England and France who had helped him and at times he had found it very difficult to continue being subserviently grateful.
Now he really wanted to give rather than take and it delighted him to feel that he was powerful enough and rich enough to do so.
“Tell me what you want, Clive,” he asked eagerly.
“I would wish to be married to Alissia very quickly here in Your Majesty’s Private Chapel with just you there as my Best Man, if you would be so gracious as to do so, Sire, and it would be very kind to ask Lord Dalwaynnie to give away his daughter.
“But it is essential that no one else should be aware of our marriage until we have left for Scotland and it would be delightful if we could possibly spend the first night of our married life in one of Your Majesty’s Palaces.”
The King laughed.
“I know exactly what you are thinking about and of course you must surely go to Hampton Court, then without anyone knowing you can leave early the next morning for Scotland.”
There was a little pause and then as Clive waited, the King added,
“I suppose you want my Royal Barge too?”
“I was too polite to say so, Sire – ”
“You know perfectly well that the choice is yours, Clive, and as I have three of them, you can take the one you have just been sailing in, if you like, as it is the most comfortable.”
“You are most generous, Sire. I think if you send for Lord Dalwaynnie under some pretext or other that will not cause his wife to be inquisitive, we could be married at noon. Then if we leave for Hampton Court Palace whilst everyone else is having their luncheon, we should be able to avoid the nosey-parkers who will be furious at missing anything as exciting as a wedding in the Royal Palace!”
A Royal Love Match Page 12