by Joan Wolf
She lowered her gaze to his neckcloth. "But not the Prince."
Franz did not reply.
She raised her eyes to his. "And not you."
Impossibly, his eyes grew even bluer. "What makes you think that?"
Bravely, she sustained his gaze, and a little color flushed into her long white throat. "Isn't it true?"
Slowly he shook his head. Then he reached for her gloved hand, turned it, and lifted it to his mouth. As his lips touched the veins of her exposed wrist, her pulse began to hurry. "Beautiful Lydia," he murmured. "Beautiful, beautiful Lydia. No, it is not true."
The Prince arrived back in Hanover Square half an hour after Franz and Lydia had left for the park. "Is his lordship at home?" he asked as he relinquished his hat and gloves to the footman who had opened the door for him.
"The only family member who is at home is Lady Charity, Your Highness," the footman replied.
The Prince nodded. "Where is she, Robert?"
The footman's eyes sparkled with delight that a Royal Prince had remembered his name. "I believe she is in the garden, Your Highness," he said.
The Prince walked the length of the house and let himself out the back door, which opened on a patio and small garden. Charity was sitting at a small wrought iron table, a book propped in front of her and a half-filled glass of lemonade beside it. Hero was sleeping in the shade of a pear tree a few feet away.
"Am I disturbing you?" the Prince asked courteously.
She looked up from her book and her small face lit. "Oh, it's you, Prince. No, not at all. How was your meeting? Was the treaty all right?"
He had viewed the final draft of the treaty today in order to approve it before it was formally drawn up for his signature.
As he crossed the stone patio toward her table, she suddenly realized the inadequacy of her greeting and jumped to her feet. As she began to curtsey, he waved his hand in an impatient gesture and said, "For heaven's sake, don't do that. Sit down."
She ignored him, spreading her sprigged muslin skirts and dipped gracefully until her knee almost touched the ground. She then spoiled the effect by shooting back up with more energy than grace and said, "Mama would have heart palpitations if she knew I had forgot to curtsey to you."
He gestured to the empty chair across from hers and said, "May I join you?"
"Of course you may join me," she replied. As they both sat down she said again, "I am dying to know how your meeting went. Was the treaty all right?"
He turned his chair so that he could stretch out his long legs and replied, "There was only one small change. Castlereagh said he would have it ready for my signature tomorrow." A smile he could not quite contain tugged at the corners of his firm mouth. "I told his lordship to alert the Royal Navy that we shall be ready to sail for Jura in two days' time."
The look that came over Charity's attentive, wide-browed face made him suddenly uneasy. "What is the matter?" he demanded.
She sighed gustily. "I hate to have to tell you this, Prince, but while you may be ready to sail in two days' time, and while Father and Harry and I may be ready to sail in two days' time, I can assure you that Mother and Lydia will not be ready. Not in two days' time."
He was astounded. "Why not? They have known about this trip for weeks. Surely they are prepared."
She raised her shoulders almost to the level of her ears in a giant shrug. "I can't tell you why they won't be ready, but they won't be," she replied. "It always takes Mama forever just to move from the country to London. I can imagine how long it will take for her to change countries."
The Prince's frown deepened. "There is a great deal to be done in Jura to prepare for the wedding. My people were cheated out of the spectacle of a coronation and I want this wedding to be as big a show as I can make it. I need to get home as soon as possible." Impatiently, he began to tap his forefinger on the arm of his chair.
Charity watched him, an identical frown on her own clear forehead. Suddenly her eyes opened wide. "I just had an idea," she said.
His finger stopped tapping and he lifted an eyebrow. "What is it?"
She leaned toward him, as if to confide a secret "Take two ships," she said, her sparkling eyes showing childish delight in her suggestion. "You can leave for Jura in two days' time, and Lydia can follow you in a few weeks. That will give you a chance to do all the things you need to do without having to bother with Lydia, and she will have all the time she needs to get ready."
She sat back, an expectant expression on her face as she awaited his response.
"You don't think your sister would object to not having my escort?" he asked doubtfully.
She looked at him as if he was ten years old. "I think she will object far more to being rushed onto a ship in two days' time."
He leaned back in his chair and regarded Hero as the dog drowsed in the sun. The more he thought about this idea, the better he liked it. Charity had hit home when she said it would be far easier to return to Jura without Lydia to worry about.
Charity's voice intruded into these pleasant thoughts. "Besides, we will have Papa's escort. Surely that will suffice."
The Prince's frown returned. "Your father must sail with me. We have trade issues to resolve. He would not be available as an escort."
Charity's lips parted. Then her cheeks flushed and her eyes turned almost golden. She sat bolt upright on her chair and said, "May I come with you and Papa, Prince? I want so much to see Jura, and if Mama is there she will stop me from going to the places I want to. I know she will. Oh, please please please may I come?"
The Prince could not help but smile. "I do not have the authority to decide that," he said gently. "You must speak to your parents."
"Papa will let me go," Charity said. She bounced on her seat. "I know he will."
The smile died away from the Prince's face and he sighed. "I cannot leave your sister and your mother without a male family member to escort them, Lady Charity. If I should decide to sail without them, I'm afraid that your father will have to stay behind as well. And, needless to say, if your father does not come, you cannot come either."
"They will have Harry!" Charity cried passionately. "He can escort Mama and Lydia."
Charity's raised voice woke Hero, and he lifted his head to look at her with bemused wonder.
The Prince replied regretfully, "I do not think Lord Stepfield is old enough to undertake such a responsibility."
"He is three and twenty," Charity said. "I think that is old enough."
The Prince simply shook his head.
"When you were three and twenty you were old enough to direct a campaign against the French." There was a definite note of accusation in her voice.
"Your brother's life has not been like mine," the Prince replied soberly. "I was much older at twenty-three than he is."
Hero got up, stretched his front and then his back, and ambled over to Charity.
"I know!" Charity's smile was blinding. "Leave Count Adamov to escort them. He and Lydia get along famously."
Hero sat at Charity's feet and looked up at her in silence, waiting to be acknowledged.
The Prince also looked at her in silence.
She leaned toward him, the locket that was her only jewelry swinging against the delicate skin of her long slender throat. "Please, Prince, oh pretty, pretty please," she said. "I want so much to have the chance to see Jura without Mama around. And Lydia will be almost as much of a nuisance as Mama. It will be such fun to be on our own for a while!"
The Prince realized that she was right. He wanted time to meet with his friends, to organize his council of state, to have formal wedding announcements sent out, to prepare the capital for a spectacular show. He could do all of this much more efficiently if he didn't have to worry about entertaining Lydia and her relatives.
Once she was his wife, she would have her own activities to occupy her. He was rather vague about what those activities might be. His mother had spent at least half her time in Venice and when she was
in Jura all he could remember was that she always seemed to have things to do.
If she had a baby, that would occupy her, the Prince thought. It would be a good thing for Jura, too. He had been Jura's only heir for twenty-seven years and had found the burden a heavy one. If something should happen to him, the direct line of succession from father to son that had characterized the Adamov dynasty for centuries would be broken.
His mother had said that his father was proud of his remaining in Jura to fight, but Augustus remembered how his father had begged him to accompany his parents to the safety of England. Our whole hope of retaining the Adamov dynasty depends upon you, his father had said. You do not have the right to put your life in jeopardy.
In the ensuing years he had jeopardized his life many times, and he had always felt guilty doing it. It would be a great relief not to have to shoulder the whole burden of his dynasty alone.
All of this passed through his mind in about thirty seconds, then he looked at the eager young face across from him. At last he said, "I will see what I can do."
"Hurrah!" Charity cried, snatching the ribbon off her hair and waving it over her head. She looked at the Prince through the tumble of golden-brown locks and laughed giddily.
He laughed back. It was the only thing one could possibly do in the face of such incandescent joy.
8
Charity had predicted correctly that neither Lady Beaufort nor Lydia would be ready to sail in two days' time. When the ladies were offered the choice of leaving immediately with the Prince, or sailing a few weeks later with Franz, they chose the latter option with alacrity. Consequently, the windblown group gathered on the dock in front of H.M.S. Falcon this chilly, overcast July morning did not include either the Prince's bride or her mother.
The Falcon was one of the largest of the navy's ships, carrying a hundred and one eighteen-pounders mounted on three gun decks. If the nation had still been at war, it would have stood at anchor out in the bay, ready to sail at a moment's notice. In these days of peace, however, the Falcon was in port, enabling the Prince's party to board the easy way, via a gangplank.
Besides the Prince, the Jura-bound group included Count Hindenberg and Marshal Rupnik, Princess Caterina, Lord Beaufort, Harry, and Charity. At first Lady Beaufort had refused to allow Charity to travel with just her father to look after her, but when she learned that Princess Caterina was going she changed her mind. Harry had been almost as eager to see Jura as Charity, and so he too was going with the earlier group.
The wet, salty wind blowing off the water was strong enough to flatten Charity's clothes against her body and cause her to hold on to her hat. She was relieved when the young officer who had come ashore with the ship's captain said to her father, "We may go aboard, my lord."
Lord Beaufort offered Charity his arm, and she rested one hand on his sleeve while continuing to hold her hat to her head with the other. They walked forward into the wind and stepped onto the gangplank. Harry came after them, and then Count Hindenberg and Marshal Rupnik.
An honor guard of ten sailors awaited them on deck, forming an aisle next to the boarding gate through which the passengers entered. As Charity and Lord Beaufort moved away from the sailors and stepped under the shadow of one of the gun decks, a whistle split the air with sudden, deafening sound.
Charity jumped and her hat tilted forward over her nose. She shoved it back again, looked toward the gangplank, and saw that the sailors who formed the naval "sideboy" had removed their hats, as had every other officer and sailor on deck.
The Prince was coming aboard, his mother on his arm, Captain Wilson, the ship's commander, at his side. Charity's eyes sparkled as she regarded the tall, slim figure passing with such natural dignity through the honor guard that had been arranged for him.
He is so perfect, she thought with delight. It filled her with joy to know that the Augustus she had dreamed about for so many years had not been a figment of her grandmother's imagination, that he really did exist in the world. The wind gusted and she jammed her hat more securely on her head, all the while watching as the Prince bent to listen to something the captain was saying to him. The Prince had effectively dealt with the hat-and-wind problem by dispensing with the hat, and the stiff breeze blowing off the water ruffled his blond hair as he fixed his clear, direct gaze on the captain.
Captain Wilson was explaining a navigational problem. "The wind is blowing in the wrong direction to enable the Falcon to sail away from the dock, Your Highness. If the ship is to leave Portsmouth without delay it will be necessary to tow her out by using the ship's boats—quite an exhausting task for my men, who will have to row for hours. If there is no urgency, I would prefer to wait until the wind changes."
The Prince was usually the most reasonable of men, but now that his feet were actually on the deck of the ship that was going to take him home, he felt he could not wait one more minute to be under way. The voice in which he conveyed this information to the captain was mild and faintly apologetic, but definite. Captain Wilson's lips tightened slightly, but he bowed his head and turned to give the necessary orders.
So it was that by nightfall the Falcon was out in the Atlantic, sailing toward Spain and Gibraltar, where it would pass into the Mediterranean and so on to the Adriatic and Jura. The Prince was in high spirits as he sat at table in the captain's quarters to partake of dinner. Rather to his surprise, the only people in his party to join him, Captain Wilson, and Wilson's second-in-command, Commander Nelson (who informed them that he was not related to the late hero), were Lord Beaufort and Charity.
He looked at the empty places that had been set for the princess, Harry, Count Hindenberg, and Marshal Rupnik, and said, "Where is everyone else?"
Captain Wilson said, "I regret to tell you that we have a few absentees due to sickness, Your Highness. The seas have been quite rough today, and I'm afraid it isn't going to get better for a while. We appear to be heading into a storm."
Charity said cheerfully, "I looked in on Princess Caterina and she was in bed. She looked green."
Her own complexion was its usual delicate pink and white and her brown eyes were sparkling. The Prince thought with amusement that clearly his mother's condition had not been serious enough to disturb Charity's enjoyment in what she obviously regarded as an adventure.
Lord Beaufort said, "My son is not feeling well, but fortunately I myself have never been subject to seasickness. We must hope that the seas are calmer tomorrow."
The captain invited his guests to be seated and the soup course was brought in. The Prince listened courteously to Captain Wilson's conversation and watched Charity as she tried to cope with the oscillating liquid in her soup plate. She stared intently at the plate, then as the ship rose to one side and the soup rushed to the opposite end of her plate, she quickly dipped her spoon in and filled it. She glanced up triumphantly and found the Prince's gaze on her. He winked and turned back to his conversation with the captain.
When dinner was finished, the Prince invited Lord Beaufort to his cabin for a glass of port. The earl accepted, and as the two men moved toward the cabin door, Charity said quickly, "Please, may I come too, Prince?"
He turned in surprise and found himself engulfed in a pair of huge golden-brown eyes. He heard the earl say something in an impatient voice, but when Charity spoke again it was to him. "I won't get in your way, Prince, I promise. It is just that my room is so tiny that it makes me feel as if I can't breathe."
Lord Beaufort said, "If you get into bed and close your eyes, you won't see the size of the room."
"I am much too excited to sleep, Papa." The big reproachful eyes glanced at Lord Beaufort then returned to the Prince. "Please, Prince. If you are going to talk about state secrets, I'll swear on the Bible not to tell."
He laughed. "We are not going to discuss state secrets, Lady Charity. If you wish to join us, it’s all right with me if it’s all right with your father. We are going to discuss trade, and that will probably put you right to sleep.
"
The remarkable eyes turned to Lord Beaufort. "Please, Papa."
"Oh all right," the earl said with a sigh. "But you can't have any port."
The Prince had been given the cabin that normally belonged to Commander Nelson. It was considerably larger than the small closet Charity occupied, but not nearly as large as the captain's cabin. A narrow berth was fitted into a recess along one wall, and on the other wall there were two doors, one of which Charity supposed must be the water closet. The commander's room also boasted two portholes and had a fine Persian rug on the floor.
As the door closed behind them, the Prince looked around and made a discovery. "I’m afraid I’m short a seat. If you and Lady Charity will take the chairs, my lord, I will sit on the bed."
"I'll sit on the bed, Prince," Charity said blithely, heading in the direction of the low berth. "I'm the smallest and it's awfully close to the ground. You and Papa won't have room for your legs."
She was absolutely right. "Thank you, Lady Charity," the Prince said gratefully.
The earl grumbled, "I have a feeling that your mother would not approve of this, Charity."
"She's not here," Charity pointed out with a radiant smile. As she was lowering herself to the bed, the ship suddenly listed in the opposite direction, catapulting her forward. The Prince instinctively opened his arms to catch her as she cannoned into him. He felt soft breasts pressing against the hardness of his chest and he looked down into a pair of startled brown eyes.
"Goodness," Charity said.
He put his hands around a slender waist, turned her around and escorted her back to the berth. "Sit down quickly, before the ship rolls again."
She dropped to the berth with unconscious gracefulness. He remained where he was for a moment, standing over her, his hand braced against the wall. "All right?"
She looked up at him. "All right."
The earl said. "I think I shall forgo the port, Prince. I don't fancy having it spill all over me."