The Princess Dilemma: A Victorian Royal Romance

by Heather Hiestand

  Did she want to be forced to acknowledge their marriage?

  Edward shuddered, prompting a curious glance from a passerby that he didn’t recognize. Judging from the shabby clothing, the man was a servant on an errand. He lifted his head into an arrogant pose and strode on.

  When he reached his boot maker’s street, he popped in and discovered his new boots were ready. The gleaming leather reminded him of how recently he’d felt his financial house was in order. Now, he regretted the expense. Still, his feet would thank him, given that he might find himself walking to Windsor Castle all too soon.

  ~

  The next night, Quintin made an occasion of polishing the new boots across from Edward at his kitchen table. Saturday night, and again he sat in his rooms while the rest of the world moved on with no awareness of him. At least Quintin no longer appeared to be at death’s door. He had color in his cheeks and no longer walked like every step hurt.

  Edward couldn’t read his paper, nor could he concentrate on Pickwick. They were back on rations and it was poor fare indeed, with Quintin being incapable of doing something as simple as toasting bread and cheese. He had never been a cook.

  He took a stick from a basket near the fire and cut off a piece of his loaf, then began to toast it.

  “Going to find us some more money soon, sir?”

  “Fancy meat, do you?”

  Quintin shrugged. “A man runs better on meat. Might put ye in a better mood.”

  “It’s sex I need, not meat. The princess has been deviling me.”

  “Find yerself a whore.”

  “No money.” And no desire for one, either. He set his stick on the grate and cut a piece of inferior cheese, then placed it on his bread, to bubble and brown.

  “That would go nicely with a foamy cup of ale.” Quintin licked his lips.

  Edward grunted and stared at his cheese. “I told the chit I loved her and still didn’t receive permission to remove my trousers.”

  “Wants her mother’s permission to consider herself married,” Quintin said.

  She’d never get it, not unless he won the throne. “I suppose.”

  “Both o’ ye are daft. Find someone else to spark against. She canna be the only woman at court.”

  “Ah, but she’s the only one I want, my best support. What am I to do, throw myself in with Sir John in his final days?”

  “If ye are at a dead end with your sister, Colonel, it is time to move on.”

  “I’m not at a dead end, I am at the end game. I expect the College of Arms will rule quickly. They have to.”

  “Then what?”

  He sneered. “We could move to Germany. I am to be an ambassador.”

  “Lot of money in it, sometimes.”

  “Not this posting.”

  “Foreign service will take on a life of its own. You’ll be posted somewhere better.”

  “I’m not an aristocrat. These men will have grown up together, gone to Eton, that sort of thing. I’ll never be one of them.” He pushed his bread onto a plate, ignoring his burned fingers, and added ketchup from a jug Quintin had purchased at a market.

  His valet shot a longing glance at his food, unburnt and properly browned, but said nothing. Edward bit in savagely, enjoying the valet’s reaction. If the man tried, he could do just as well, now that he was healthier.

  “What are ye going to do? Canada or Germany?”

  “Neither,” Edward said. “I refuse to do either.”

  “Well, then, you had best change some part o’ yer plan.”

  Edward licked cheese off his palate and rubbed his tongue against the burned spot inside his mouth. At least pain distracted him from lust.

  He heard a knock on the outer door. Quintin sighed loudly and rose from the table to answer it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I thought lodgings on Jermyn Street would be more suitable,” Murdo said, following Edward to the kitchen.

  Edward hadn’t stood on ceremony for his cousin. What was the point? The man knew his pockets were to let. “We’re fine here. Want some bread and cheese?”

  Quintin pointed his backside at the men, standing over the fire with his own stick. Edward looked at his half-eaten meal, his stomach rumbling.

  Murdo shook the idea away with his impeccably gloved hands. “Come with me to Madam Antoinette’s. Excellent food there, and I’ll treat ye to a woman.”

  Quintin cleared his throat with a noise suspiciously reminiscent of the phrase, “Do it.”

  “I don’t care to be treated to a woman, thank you,” Edward said in his coldest tone, one usually saved for junior officers who were still wet behind the ears.

  “The food then, until your man can go shopping. God, Cousin, don’t you want a steak?”

  Edward heard someone’s stomach rumble, but wasn’t sure whose. “No, thank you.”

  “Still mooning over your princess? You know you’ll never be able to hold her in the end.” Murdo stretched his arm out to encompass the room. “Especially not living like this. Has she been here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing with the money I gave you?”

  “He bought her a present,” Quintin said, standing up with his blackened toast pointing into the air. “And now he’s giving her cash.”

  Murdo’s ginger brows lifted to his hairline. “Ye must be mad. Giving my money to your wife?”

  “She needs money for her brothers’ school fees.”

  “Is she blackmailing ye? Extra tallywag down there?” Murdo asked, leering in the direction of Edward’s trousers. “Otherwise I cannot imagine how ye would be such a fool as to give her cash. Jewelry is one thing. She can wear it, show herself off, which makes ye look like something.”

  “If she admitted I had given it to her. Ironically, the queen admired the bracelet,” Edward admitted. “I probably should have given it to Victoria instead.”

  Murdo put his hands to his forehead. “I never thought ye a fool. I have to leave town for my Surrey estate. I won’t be a ready source of money for ye, but that might be for the best, given what a soft touch ye are.”

  Edward folded his arms across his chest. He could not take much more of this. Something had to break free. He promised it to his brothers and now, strangely, he felt he owed something to Murdo and Charlotte as well. If he failed, they all took a piece of that failure with them. “The queen will be my pigeon,” he vowed aloud. “I will hear from the College of Arms soon. However that goes, I will be ready to make my next move.”

  Murdo shook his head and picked up Edward’s toast, taking a bite from the uneaten end.

  “Good God, man, I’d have made you a fresh one.”

  Murdo smirked. “I only wanted a bite.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather bag. “I will only give this to ye if ye promise not to give the princess any more.”

  Edward gritted his teeth. He wanted good food as much as the next man. “Fine.”

  Murdo dropped the bag on the table. “It’s a pony. Should keep ye well enough for a while if ye aren’t bloody stupid about it.”

  Twenty-five pounds. Not enough to risk moving to Windsor, but then, if the queen was out of town, she probably wouldn’t remember to exile him, or even demand he take the ambassadorship. With a sick sense of desperation, he realized he didn’t want to be separated from Charlotte for any length of time either. He didn’t even know when they were going. God. He made fists and put them to his head, knuckling his eyes.

  “Thank you for thinking of me before you left,” he said in a conciliatory tone.

  “Now, will ye go out with me? For a walk if nothing else. The air in here is stifling. Leave your man to the boots.”

  Edward nodded. “Very well. I could use some amusement.” He broke his toast in half and offered Murdo the rest of the part the man had bitten from.

  They finished it off and Edward nodded. “I’ll stand you a pint, eh? Start the evening off right.”

  Murdo rolled his eyes. “I’ll
take ye to my club. You’re such a provincial. We don’t need to drink in a public house.”

  Edward shook his head. Maybe he was meant to be an ambassador to a German backwater. “Whatever you like.”

  Murdo nodded. “Not the evening I had planned, but you can meet people. You never know who will turn out to be of value.”

  Like his cousin. He’d actually miss the freckle-faced Scottish bastard. Even more than he’d miss the money. He tucked the bag into his pocket. Both Quintin and Murdo went squinty-eyed.

  “Dinna gamble it away, Colonel,” Quintin said.

  “What do you take me for?” Edward bared his teeth. “I’m nothing but a gambler.”

  ~

  Charlotte sat up abruptly in bed, the veil of sleep leaving her in an instant. What had she heard? The furniture in her bedchamber wavered in dim lines in her vision. The dark curtains, more appropriate for winter, hid the time of day from her. Blinking, she debated pulling up the covers and trying to close her eyes, but then she heard something again. A floorboard creaked. A footstep?

  Surely just a maid, though no one would be setting a fire on this August day. Was it time for her can of water and cup of tea already? She reached for her wrapper. Normally the maid didn’t wake her until she pulled the curtains. Charlotte was far too used to servants to allow them to disturb her sleep. Somehow, though, she didn’t think a maid was in her sitting room.

  She heard a creak again. The maid never rocked the floorboards. This must be someone heavier. Thoughts of her grandfather, assassinated the year before she was born, flashed into her mind. She reached for the candlestick holder she’d brought to bed with her. Not much of a weapon but at least it was metal. She pulled back the covers and pulled her wrapper around her shoulders, then crept to the window to open the curtains and let in some light.

  Her hand was at the curtains when her door creaked. A sliver of light appeared as it opened. Should she dart behind the curtains? No, sterner stuff than that filled her veins. She stood, her back to the window, heart pounding, as a large form filled the doorway. When she pulled the curtain back, wishing to see her assailant clearly, she recognized him.

  “Edward?”

  He shut the door behind him and turned the key in the lock.

  She left the curtain open and moved toward him. “What are you doing here? It is not even full dawn yet.”

  He smelled of cigars and brandy and his eyes were bloodshot. Still, he had moved with purpose and she didn’t think he was cupshot.

  “I had to see you.”

  “Why? What is wrong?” She reached him and touched his sleeve. “I don’t understand. You are risking everything. What if a maid sees you?”

  “Even they aren’t up yet.”

  “You’d be surprised. In the kitchens--”

  He stopped her with a decisive shake of his head. “We’re well away from that part of the palace.”

  She realized she still held her bit of metal, with its candle stump. Feeling silly, she set it down. “What did you need to tell me at this hour?”

  “Oh, Charlotte,” he said, pulling her into his arms. Instead of kissing her, he put his head on hers and held her close.

  She slipped her arms under his unbuttoned coat and slid her hands around his back. “Am I dreaming this?”

  He shook his head against her hair. “No. I should apologize. But I didn’t know when I’d see you again.”

  “We aren’t leaving for Windsor for another week.”

  She felt his chest still. “I see. I didn’t realize. We didn’t have another meeting planned.”

  “We rarely do.” The last time she’d seen him he’d professed his love for her. Had he become so obsessed with her that he couldn’t stand to stay away? He’d ruin them both if he insisted on pursuing her like this. “You have to be strong, Edward.”

  He pushed himself away from her. “Strong? Do you know how strong I have to be to touch you? To hear your moans of pleasure and know I am not allowed to share the same ecstasy? I am being driven mad. My cousin offered to buy me a woman tonight and I said no, of course I did, but I thought about it.”

  She folded her arms over her thin summer nightgown. The early dawn chill had her nipples tightening with the cold now that he’d deprived her of his body’s warmth. His words were equally chilling. How long could she hold such a virile man as her husband? “That time in Kensington was different.”

  “Yes, and how long ago was that, Charlotte? One slice of heaven and the rest denied to me.”

  She could hear the scoff in his voice and made a feeble attempt to gain the upper hand. “You’ve been drinking. You are not thinking clearly. How dare you break in here and accost me in my private room?”

  “Words, wife of mine. You know they are just words. When I came to you there was no hesitation. You love me too but you refuse to grant me the words.”

  She stared at him. For the first time, she saw the soldier in him, instead of the bastard royal. “You risk your London life, and mine, for a declaration of love? At this time of morning?”

  “When else could I do it?” He pulled something from his pocket and dropped it into her hands.

  “What is this?” She felt objects tumble in the bag, and recognized them for coins.

  “Twenty-five pounds. My cousin gave it to me this evening. He’s leaving town and that is the last of what I shall have anytime soon. It’s yours. I’d rather starve than not help you, Charlotte, but you have to put me out of my misery.”

  “I will not trade my virginity for your money,” she said, offended, attempting to hand him back the bag.

  “Come, sweetheart, I did not mean it that way. You know I did not. I asked you for a declaration of love.”

  “Oh.” She hugged herself tighter, chastened. What did it matter if she loved him? It was only sentiment. “I thought you meant intercourse. I’ve always been told men want love proven.”

  “They are two separate things, love and sex. Take the money. That is the first item. And the second, that is to love me.”

  This strange, wild, thrilling man should frighten her, but he did not. How should she answer him? She could scarcely remember being fourteen. He had been in her dreams for years, until the real Edward had superseded the dream one. Here was the real man. Older, harder, more experienced. A soldier and courtier, not a stripling grandson of a duke.

  “I want you,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s love. You say it isn’t. But I can’t stay away from you. I can’t even be angry with this, you risking my only chance of helping my family.”

  “What about your family? What about me?”

  “We agreed to not think about that.”

  “Murdo won’t let me forget. You are my wife, Princess, whatever your mother wants you to believe. Now that I know my sister, I know she would never let you set me aside, not with Murdo’s testimony.”

  “But it is in your best interest, Edward. You must see that. What do I bring you? And you are so close to resolving your case. Stay the course, sweetheart.”

  “You tell me not to consider you a wife, yet call me sweetheart? You refuse to love me but admit to lust?” He lunged forward and pulled one of her hands from her chest.

  Before she could understand his intent, he had pressed her fingers against the front of his pantaloons. She could feel the defined ridge of his erection. “What do you want?”

  “Do to me what I’ve done to you. Put your mouth on me. Prove your lust isn’t simply a one-sided affair.”

  She pulled her hand away. “You cannot ask that of me. You must be drunk after all.”

  “Why not? Didn’t you like it when I rubbed between your legs? Take me in your mouth, darling Charlotte. You might like it, a lusty girl like you. It gives women a sense of power, to see what they can reduce men to. We’re nothing but beggars in the end.”

  Despite her shock, she could feel a trickle of moist heat between her legs. The rake was arousing her with his unseemly conduct. This rake, her husband. How tired she w
as of self-denial. At twenty-five, did she not desire to be a true woman at last?

  “Can you consummate our marriage without risking pregnancy?” she asked.

  He put a hand to the back of his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “What? You won’t give me pleasure with your mouth, but you might be willing to surrender your body to me?”

  “Can you keep me safe? I cannot risk what Lady Amy has.”

  “Sweetheart,” he said, putting his hands on her upper arms.

  “You haven’t answered my question.” She felt as tightly tuned as the string on a bow. How could she be thinking this? But she could smell him. His cologne, his sweat, his arousal. A faint tinge of spirits and cigars. He had a life apart from her and she didn’t like it. She wanted to claim him. Too primal, perhaps. Not love. But oh, she wanted that marriage bed, to uncover every mystery left between a man and a woman. He was clever. He’d make his fortune somehow. He was her best choice, all these wasted nights at Victoria’s dinner table had proven that. Her mother had miscalculated.

  “I won’t spill my seed inside of you,” he promised.

  She heard a clatter on the other side of her bedroom wall. “The maid! They are coming with water cans. You have to go.”

  “When will you come to me? Or should I return tomorrow night?”

  “No. I’ll sneak out tomorrow night. Meet me behind the first large tree on your usual approach to the palace. An hour after full dark.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” He seared her mouth with a hard, possessive kiss, then dashed from the room.

  Her hand went back to her mouth. What had she done?

  ~

  Sunday night. She had spent the day listening to sermons, the evening embroidering in a corner while the queen chattered away with Lord Melbourne. She started every time she thought she heard Edward’s name, but callously, his name never even came up. Victoria might consider her a dear friend, to the extent royalty had friendship, but the queen was not her friend. And she had no confidante of her own.