Slumber

by Felicity Harper

  “Will you get the door for me, Mrs Lane?”

  Meekers had been as good as his word and a fire blazed in the hearth. He had also set up a pallet for the Princess and Gilbert gently laid Clementine’s body upon it. He glanced over his shoulder and, observing that Agnes was busy doing an infantry of the items Meekers had supplied, he leaned down and kissed Clementine on the forehead.

  Unbeknown to him, Clementine, who had been dancing around the maypole with the young maidens of the village, suddenly stopped and put her finger to her head.

  “Gilbert,” she whispered and touched her finger to her lips.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Only Mrs Finn and Clementine were waiting when Gilbert arrived to collect them from the Fair. Hill had declared herself ‘done’ and returned home hours ago and Hetty was staying in town with Molly for the country dancing that evening.

  “Did you sort out the problem, Gilbert?” Clementine asked once Gilbert had helped Mrs Finn up onto the gig, climbed up himself and sat next to her. Clementine stood on the buggy board. “Yes. Your body is now settled in the North tower,” Gilbert told her. Clementine wrinkled her nose.

  “It’s spooky up there. I hope someone is staying with me!”

  “Your old nurse is there with you and Dr Fellowes and Meekers are on hand to help, should it be needed.” Gilbert gee’d the horse and they started back to the house. “The hope is that no one even realises you’re gone.”

  “How flattering!”

  “Clementine!” Gilbert exclaimed, “I only meant that it would be easier if we can keep everyone out of the Tower until after your father returns.”

  “Do you know when the King is to return?” Mrs Finn asked and, to Gilbert’s surprise, Clementine answered.

  “Before the solstice.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because my aunt received a letter from him,” Clementine replied. She waved to a little girl who was trying to point out the Princess to her confused mother.

  “You haven’t mentioned a letter before,” Gilbert said. “What else did it say?”

  “That the wise woman he went to see in Saxonly thinks she might have a cure.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention this?” Gilbert asked in exasperation. “For goodness sake, Clementine!”

  “Don’t get all superior with me, Gilbert Thackeray!” Clementine said, “If you must know, the reason I didn’t say anything was because there is always someone who thinks they might have a cure and - inevitably - they do not!”

  “Fair enough, I suppose,” Gilbert said apologetically. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

  “Well I, for one, am worn out,” Mrs Finn announced when they reached the house. “If you don’t mind, Mr Thackeray, I shall enjoy the rest of my day off in the peace and quiet of my bed.”

  “Of course, Mrs Finn: you go ahead,” Gilbert said, helping the older woman down from the gig. He handed the reins to Jacob, the ostler. Once the man was out of hearing, he faced Clementine. “Let’s go to my study and see if we can’t work out who might be responsible for your Slumber, shall we?”

  Clementine huffed. “Well, that’s a fine way to ruin a perfectly lovely day, Gilbert Thackeray!”

  Clementine stared thoughtfully at the first name Gilbert had chalked up on his board: the Duke of Glossop. “As much as I would like to blame him and have him exiled forever, I really don’t think it’s the Duke.”

  “I think you are right,” Gilbert said and placed a question mark next to Sir Hugo’s name. “I suspect, from what you have told me, he would be better off with you alive.” He looked at Clementine apologetically. “That way, he would be father to the heir, which places him in a prominent position of power.”

  Clementine chewed her bottom lip. “So why not just cross his name out?” she asked.

  “Because, while I don’t think he’s actually trying to kill you, that doesn’t mean he should be ruled out entirely,” Gilbert said. “Think about it, Clementine. If he can keep you in Slumber and effectively out of the picture, any heir he begets by you would be solely reliant on him. If the King then dies or abdicates before the child comes of age, Glossop would effectively become Regent.” Clementine shuddered at the thought and Gilbert added, “As it happens, I think he should be exiled to the furthest reaches of Hell for that hideous plan alone.”

  Evangeline was their next suspect. Gilbert pointed to her name and made his argument for adding the Princess’ cousin to the list. “If you were to die, Lady Evangeline would be the sole heir to your father’s Kingdom.” He looked at Clementine: “I’m right in thinking you have no other family?”

  “No. There’s just my Aunt Charlotte and Evangeline,” Clementine confirmed. “Though I cannot believe Evangeline would wish me dead.” Despite her cousin’s odd behaviour of the last few days, Clementine was sure Evangeline thought of her like a sister. “Why would she do it, Gilbert?”

  “You would be amazed what people are willing to do for money and power,” he replied, “and I’m sorry to be blunt, Clementine, but, with you gone, Evangeline would have both.”

  “You don’t know Evie, Gilbert. She’s really not like that,” the Princess said, appealing for his understanding. “My cousin has never expressed any desire to be Queen. And as for money, my father has made sure she never goes without.”

  Gilbert wasn’t quite as convinced as Clementine of Evangeline’s innocence. “Let us leave your cousin’s name here for now,” he said and added a question mark next to it. “Next, we have Lady Motley.”

  Clementine sighed regretfully. “As horrible as it sounds, I can imagine it of my aunt. She has always resented me.”

  Gilbert underlined her aunt’s name. “Lady Motley would certainly gain from your death,” he said. “Her daughter would be heir to the Kingdom which, in turn, would make her a very powerful dowager.”

  There was little Clementine could add to that: it was all true. But it didn’t make her feel any less wretched to realise that her own relations might wish her dead. She suddenly understood that her father was all she had in the world, He was the only one she could be certain truly cared for her and loved her except ….

  “Gilbert, why are you helping me?”

  He blinked, taken aback by her unexpected question. “I promised your father,” he said, then shook his head. “No, it’s more than that. I …” he blew out a breath. “I - care about you, Clementine. I don’t want to see you harmed.”

  “Is that all, Gilbert?” Clementine asked, drifting closer to him. “Because, if it is, then you should tell me now - before I do this ….”

  Clementine pressed her face against his. Immediately, the study disappeared and she was in Gilbert’s arms. The two of them felt solid and alive, locked in their embrace, while the world fell away - ephemeral and unreal.

  Gilbert cupped her face with his hands and his thumb brushed her lips. “Clementine?” he whispered. And then it ceased to matter whether it was real or illusion: he bent his head to hers and claimed her soft lips.

  Clementine clung to him as his mouth moved across hers. Her lips parted on a sigh, deepening the kiss; her tongue flicked out to explore him. Gilbert groaned as his tongue met hers. His hands caressed her back and he pulled her closer. This was what Clementine had waited for; had wished for her whole life - and she hadn’t even realised until this very moment.

  She pulled back to gaze at him in wonder, threading her hands though his hair. “I love you, Gilbert Thackeray,” she said and pressed her lips to his once more. His arms tightened around her for a moment, his mouth crushing hers and then - reluctantly - Gilbert pulled away and released her. The moment he broke away, they were back in the study.

  “Gilbert!” Clementine said softly, floating closer to him. He backed away.

  “You don’t love me, Clementine,” he said. He ran his hand through his hair, his agitation evident in every line of his body. “Your feelings are not real: they are only a product o
f the extraordinary circumstances in which you find yourself. Once you are back in your own world, you will realise this,” he finished miserably and then he wrenched open the door and marched out of his study.

  Clementine didn’t follow him. There was no point. Gilbert Thackeray was a stubborn man who would simply have to learn the hard way that she loved him and she was not going to change her mind.

  Later that night, once she was sure Gilbert was asleep, Clementine slipped into his room. She took her place in the chair near the empty fireplace and watched him sleep. Loving Gilbert had reminded Clementine of something very important.

  She wanted to live!

  It dawned on her that she had never really thought of herself as a real person with a future before. Having a curse hanging over her head had given Clementine a sense of unreality, as though her very existence was never supposed to be anything more than temporary. Because of that, she had lived her life as if it was a fairy-tale: one in which she knew there would be only one ending.

  Strangely, it had taken Gilbert’s list of suspects to make Clementine see she must change the ending herself; that she was not supposed to die. How could she when she was the heir to a Kingdom? She had an important role to fulfil and her father and the people of Rosenly depended on her to carry that out. She would not let a curse, or anything else for that matter, take that away.

  But what could she do, stranded as she was in Slumber? And then, as she watched over Gilbert while he slept, she realised there was something she could do. She could believe in her future. She could have faith that she would live. She could prepare herself for the day she would be Queen. And she could trust the man who was sleeping beside her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Gilbert entered his study the next morning, Clementine was already waiting for him.

  “Good morning, Gilbert Thackeray!” she called from her perch behind his desk. “if you’re not too busy with your other work today, I’d like you to teach me.”

  “Teach you what, exactly?” he asked, shooing her spectral feet off his desk.

  “Everything!”

  She sat up and pointed to the pile of books she’d collected from his shelves. “I thought we could start with these!”

  Gilbert bent to read the spines. “There’s a lot of history and politics there!” he said as he straightened up. “I seem to remember a conversation we had when I was first asked to tutor you. It went something like ‘Absolutely no dead people stuff or legislative thingamajigs’ - or am I mis-remembering?”

  Clementine was fairly certain that, back in the North Tower, her cheeks had just turned a violent shade of red. “No …” she said, trying not to sound as embarrassed as she felt, “I might have said something a bit like that …” Gilbert raised his eyebrows. “Or exactly like that. But - and this is the important thing - I have had a change of heart,” she finished.

  “About both the ‘dead people stuff’ and the ‘legislative thingamajigs’?” Gilbert asked, slapping a hand to his chest as though shocked.

  “My goodness, you can be irritating at times, Gilbert Thackeray!” Clementine sputtered furiously.

  He laughed at that. “Very well. I shall stop mocking you if you tell me what this is all about.”

  Clementine tried not to look self-conscious. “When the time comes for me to become Queen of Rosenly, I want to be prepared,” she muttered. “I want to be clever, Gilbert.”

  “You were always clever, Clementine!” he exclaimed. “It was making you believe it that was the hard part.” He pulled the books towards him and selected The Royal Prerogative: An Historical Perspective, “We shall start here and let history be your guide.”

  Pleased that Gilbert should think her clever, Clementine floated happily back across the desk and sat down. And then she saw which book he had chosen. “Oh that one!” she grimaced. “I remember it from my school room days as The Book Of Dead Kings And Queens And How Mean They Could Be. I won’t lie, Gilbert: it wasn’t a favourite of mine.”

  He opened the heavy tome in front of her. “Think of it not as a book of dead people who did bad things but as an historic warning of what it means to have absolute rule and where that can lead,” he said, before softening his scholarly tone with a smile. “At the very least, it will help you to understand why your father has ministers to advise him.”

  “Very well.” She plopped her elbows on the desk, ready to start reading. “Have you had breakfast, Gilbert?”

  “No. I rarely bother,” he said distractedly as he searched for another book on his bookshelf.

  “Well you do now,” she said firmly. “Go and break your fast, Gilbert Thackeray!”

  He eyed her askance. “Are you and Mrs Finn in cahoots by chance?”

  Clementine crossed her arms over her chest. “I am more than willing to side with that dear woman if her objective is to get you to look after yourself,” she said. She pointed to the door, “Now go!”

  “Spare me from bossy women!” Gilbert said to no one in particular - but he went in search of breakfast anyway.

  Clementine glanced up thoughtfully from the book she was reading. “A tutor once told me there are those who hate the sovereign merely for the sake of his existence. He said it was therefore important for a King to justify his Kingship or risk revolution, as happened in Franconia.” She looked at Gilbert with knitted brow. “Do you think that’s true?”

  “It is true there are those who are vehemently republican. Your father is a wise man who has learned his history. And I am sure you will too,” Gilbert said, seeking to reassure her. “We are fortunate in Rosenly that our King does not believe in the divine right of Kings. Instead, your father understands that he answers to his people; his ministers; his barons and his tenant farmers and not solely to God.”

  “But that’s father’s way,” Clementine said. “I take it that it hasn’t always been so?”

  “No, even in the Kingdom of Rosenly there have been tyrant Kings and capricious Queens and it is from the mistakes of those Monarchs that you can learn.”

  “Like Papa did,” Clementine said proudly. “He is a good and kind King.”

  “He is,” Gilbert agreed. “But even he learned from the experiences, mistakes and teachings of others.”

  “Like whom, Gilbert?” she asked. “Who else should I study?”

  “There’s King Bute of Noland,” Gilbert answered, pulling a book down from the shelf. “He was a man greatly admired by your father. He was also a rarity when it comes to Kings. He felt he had a moral duty to his people to transcend self-interest and the advancement of a favoured few for the good of all denizens of his Kingdom. As you can imagine, it made him unpopular among his barons and dukes but hugely popular with the rest of his people.” Gilbert put the book on the pile in front of her. “Bute also believed that Kingship offered no exemption from moral conduct. Instead, he saw it as his duty to lead by example. In essence, he believed that, to be a good King, it was essential to be a good man.”

  “Well that certainly sounds like Papa!” Clementine said, reaching for the book. “I’m just not so sure I can live up to that!”

  “Why not, Princess Clementine? Are you such a wicked person?” Gilbert asked.

  “No!” Clementine wrinkled her nose. “But I’m not sure I could hold myself up as a shining example of how one should behave either.”

  “Utter rubbish!” Gilbert said, dismissing her worry with a wave of his hand. “What have you done of which you could possibly be ashamed?”

  “Well, I fell for a pillock like the Duke of Glossop simply because he was handsome and an expert horseman,” she said mournfully.

  “Yes, it has to be said: that wasn’t your finest hour,” Gilbert gently mocked. Clementine’s eyes narrowed crossly so he wisely added, “Although I’m sure he played a sophisticated game.”

  “Quite!” Clementine said haughtily. “And I shall make up for that flaw in judgement by marrying a sensible, clever man who
my people can respect and look up to.”

  “Well, good luck finding one of those among the pea-brains I’ve seen prancing in all their finery around the Palace courtyard.”

  “Oh fear not, Gilbert Thackeray,“ Clementine said smugly. “I already have just the man in mind.”

  A knock interrupted them and Mrs Finn popped her head round the door. “You’ve a visitor, Mr Thackeray.”

  “Are you going to tell me who it is, Mrs Finn, or should I guess?”

  “’Tis Lady Evangeline, Sir.”

  “Show her into the sitting room, I’ll be straight along,” Gilbert told his housekeeper and to Clementine he said, “Say nothing.”