The Golden Prince (10 page)

Severely miffed, she headed toward the French doors leading to the terrace.

Two minutes later he joined her in the darkness. She slid her arms up and around his neck, not wanting to waste a second of their illicit time together in boring conversation.

His mouth came down on hers firm and sweet, but he didn’t
prolong the kiss and caress her as he would normally have done. Instead, far too soon, he lifted his head from hers and held her a little away from him to look into her face.

“What I have to tell you is going to be very difficult for me, Marigold,” he said, praying to God that he would have the willpower to carry his decision through. “More difficult than you’ll ever know.”

Her pleasure at physical contact with him died. From his tortured expression it was obvious that what he had to say wasn’t anything to do with the lack of Liberal peers in the House of Lords, or Home Rule for Ireland. It was something to do with the two of them—something she wasn’t going to want to hear.

She stood very still, her hands pressed against his chest, waiting.

“We haven’t been as careful as we thought, Marigold.” The rich resonant voice that spoke so commandingly on national and international matters was bleak. “Your grandfather has given me a word of warning.”

She removed her hands from his chest. “And?” she said, knowing very well that it would have been Rose who was behind her grandfather’s cautionary words and not understanding what the fuss was about when with one smooth lie Theo could put all her grandfather’s fears to rest.

“And, since your grandfather is aware that you have, in his words, ‘a crush’ on me, it means a suspicion has been aroused. Our affair can’t continue, Marigold. Continuing with it would be suicidal.”

She stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. “I thought,” she said, when she could trust herself to speak, “that you were in love with me? That nothing like me had ever happened in your life before? That if necessary you would die for me?”

He groaned and, releasing his hold of her, passed a hand despairingly across his eyes. He’d never said anything to her that he didn’t mean. In twenty-five years of marriage he had rarely been unfaithful to Jerusha—and on the occasions he had been, it had
been with married women who had known the rules of the sport being played.

Marigold was different. In being young, single, and virginal she had been off-limits and different right from the very beginning. But he’d been too intoxicated by her to care. So intoxicated he’d cast all reason and restraint to the wind.

Now the day of reckoning had come. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t divorce Jerusha and marry Marigold—divorce for a man of his class and social position was unthinkable. As for Marigold, if word got out that she was no longer a virgin, her reputation would be ruined. No truly eligible young man would even consider marrying her. The life of the person he had come to care passionately about would be ruined—and he would be the one who had ruined it.

Overcome with remorse, he said unsteadily, “I shouldn’t have started this, Marigold. I took advantage of you in a way that was quite despicable.”

That he thought he, or anyone else, was capable of taking advantage of her, filled Marigold with indignation so hot it swamped all her other feelings.

“No one,” she said fiercely, the tears she had been about to give way to now held in check, “has ever taken advantage of me. Not you, Theo. Not anyone.”

He mistook her meaning, believing she was trying to ease the guilt he felt. “You were a nineteen-year-old virgin, my darling,” he said thickly. “My seducing you was unforgivable.”

She gave him a long, long look. She had been mad for him for over a year, and she was mad for him no longer. Instead, she was infuriated with him. That he would end their steamy romance merely because her grandfather had warned him off was incomprehensible to her. Theo’s attraction had always been that he was such a powerful public figure. But a powerful public figure who couldn’t allay an elderly friend’s suspicions and fears wasn’t, in her book, a powerful figure at all.

Her disillusionment was deep—as was her desire to hit back at him.

“I’d never realized you thought you had seduced a virgin,” she said waspishly, “but it is at least one burden I can lift from your shoulders.”

Her reaction was so unexpected—so unlike the pleas and tears he had braced himself for—that he was totally thrown. Bewilderedly, he said, “I’m sorry, Marigold. I’m not following …”

“I wasn’t a virgin when we started our affair,” she said, hoping the lie wouldn’t show in her voice. “I’m sorry, Theo. When we first went to bed together, I thought you would be able to tell.” She gave a careless, expressive shrug of her shoulders. “When you said nothing, I thought it best for me to say nothing.”

Jethney couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak.

Seeing his reaction and satisfied with the body blow she had delivered, Marigold turned swiftly away from him and headed toward the French doors.

As her hand touched the handle, he said, “Take a word of advice from someone who cares very deeply for you, Marigold. Accept the first marriage proposal made to you before gossip means there will be no suitable offers. Once you are safely married, you can discreetly indulge in as many love affairs as you please. As a single young woman you can’t. A ruined reputation would be disastrous for you, my darling.”

Keeping her back toward him, she turned the handle downward and opened the door.

He said quietly, “If you ever need help in any way, you know where you can come.”

The tears she’d held at bay for so long threatened to choke her. Not turning toward him—knowing that if she did she would lose all dignity and precious self-control—she nodded her head to show she had heard, then she stepped into the brilliantly lit ballroom, leaving him alone in the darkness.

As the sea of Sibyl’s guests surrounded her, the tears she
hadn’t shed burned the backs of her eyes. Her affair with Theo had mattered far more to her than she’d allowed him to believe. Its necessary secrecy had been intoxicatingly exciting, and she didn’t know how she was going to endure the boredom of life without it. The way that he had ended such a blissful affair so—to her—unnecessarily was something she didn’t think she would ever get over.

She caught the eye of Daphne Harbury, one of Rose’s WSPU friends, and vowed such a thing would never happen to her again. In the future, where men were concerned,
she
would be the one who ended things.

“Marigold!” Daphne swooped down on her, angular and agonizingly plain. “I don’t suppose Rose is in London as well, is she?”

Marigold shook her head, hoping no one would think that, like Rose, she was a bosom friend of Daphne’s and a fellow member of the WSPU.

Daphne’s horsy face fell. “What a shame. There’s a terrific demonstration being planned for Sunday. I’m hoping to get myself arrested.”

As Marigold said, deadpan, “I do hope you’re successful, Daphne,” she saw Lawrence Strickland. He was leaning against the jamb of the ballroom’s double entrance doors, his arms folded, one foot nonchalantly crossing the other at the ankle.

He wasn’t watching the dancers.

He was watching her.

“Excuse me, Daphne,” she said, her stomach muscles contracting giddily. “There’s someone I simply must speak to.”

Leaving Daphne once again standing on her own, she headed straight for the double doors.

Strickland didn’t look remotely surprised that she was doing so.

When she came to a halt in front of him, he didn’t stand up straight or unfold his arms. He simply said, “You want me to paint you.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.” Her mouth was dry, her heart hammering. “I want to see my portrait exhibited publicly, at the Royal Academy, as Margot Asquith’s was.”

He cocked his head to one side. “I’ll do so, but only on one condition.”

“What is that?”

“That I also paint you as a goddess of Greek legend, because that is how I see you.”

Marigold tried to remember the paintings she had seen in the National Gallery depicting ancient Greek nymphs and goddesses. As far as she could recall, the nymphs and goddesses in them had all been seminaked—sometimes even completely naked. She wondered if that was the way Strickland wanted to paint her. Looking into his mud-dark eyes, she rather thought it was.

Common sense told her she should speedily walk away from him as, for entirely differing reasons, she had just walked away from Theo and, earlier, Toby.

She didn’t.

Strickland was an acclaimed artist. If he wanted to depict her as a Greek goddess, it was an opportunity too good to miss. Besides, she looked wonderful naked. Theo, who had never seen a natural redhead before, had been mesmerized.

A slow smile split her face. Here was an adventure far more erotic and shocking than her adventure with Theo.

Knowing how deep the waters were that she was plunging into—and not caring—she said, “I think that would be a splendid idea, Mr. Strickland.”

Rose and Iris
were seated in cane chairs on the lawn, glasses of lemonade in their hands. Rory was on the grass beside them. “I’m sure the two of you are telling me the truth about Prince Edward’s visits to Snowberry,” he said, amusement in his voice, “but you have to admit it takes a lot of swallowing.”

“He likes being here,” Rose said matter-of-factly. “I think he’s beginning to regard Snowberry as a refuge. It’s somewhere he can forget about being Prince Edward and can simply be a young man called David.”

“And that’s really what you call him?” Rory ran a hand through hair that was as turbulently curly and as flame-red as Marigold’s. “You don’t call him Prince Edward, or sir, or Your Highness?”

Iris giggled. “No. He’s David. And to him we are Rose, Iris, Marigold, and Lily.”

“And what happens if anyone finds out about his visits? What if, when he’s here, Tessa Reighton rides over from Chanbury Hall to spend time with Marigold? There would be no more keeping things secret then.”

Rose took a drink of her lemonade. “If that happened, and gossip got out and reached the palace, then his visits would come to a very swift end. King George would see to that. And if the visits mean as much to David as I think they do, it would be a great pity.”

Rory quirked an eyebrow. “Especially if he’d fallen in love with one of you.”

Rose tossed her lemonade straw at him. “Idiot,” she said affectionately. “There’s nothing like that about things at all—and besides, we’re too old for him.”

“You, Iris, and Marigold may be. Lily isn’t.”

Rose’s eyes widened, and Rory knew that Prince Edward falling for Lily was something that had never occurred to her.

She said uncertainly, “I don’t think that’s something that is happening, Rory. David is very shy.”

“Shy or not, I think it would be impossible for him—or anyone else—to spend time with Lily without falling in love with her. And they are the same age.”

There was an odd inflection in his voice and Iris wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps Rory was a little in love with Lily. She knew no one else would think it likely. Rory was twenty-six and his taste in girlfriends was for the glamorous and sophisticated. They never remained long on his arm. Once they began thinking of engagement rings, they were smoothly dropped and speedily replaced.

Rose said, “Even if he is taken with her, nothing will ever come of it. Royalty only ever marries royalty. When did you ever hear of the heir to the throne marrying anyone other than a royal princess? It’s never happened, and it isn’t going to start with the heir to the most prestigious throne in the world marrying a viscount’s daughter.”

“Poor Marigold.” There was amusement back in Rory’s voice. “Can’t you just imagine how much she’d love to have a sister who was Princess of Wales?”

“Dear Lord, yes!” Iris rose to her feet. “Whatever you do, Rory, don’t even put the idea of it in her head or she’ll be planning her outfit for the wedding! And while you two continue to sit out here, baking in the sun, I’m going inside where it’s cooler.”

She walked away from them toward the house, Homer loping after her, and when she was out of earshot, Rory said, “How is Marigold these days, Rose? Do you still have anxieties where she and Theo Jethney are concerned?”

“I did have until I spoke with Marigold earlier this morning.” With no father to turn to for advice, and with a grandfather who was very unworldly, Rory had always been Rose’s sounding board if she had any family worries. “She promised me she’ll never flirt with Lord Jethney again and she told me that at your grandmother’s party, she never even danced with him.”

Rory moved from the grass to Iris’s vacated chair. “Whom did she dance with?” he asked, knowing that where Marigold was concerned it was always best to try and stay one step ahead of the game.

“Toby, Patrick Shaw-Stewart, the Duke of Stainford.”

Since the Duke of Stainford was so elderly as to be doddery, Patrick Shaw-Stewart pallid-faced and freckled, and Toby uninteresting to anyone but Iris, it didn’t sound to Rory as if Marigold had had a very exciting time.

He didn’t say so, though. It would only make Rose worry about what Marigold might next do that would be exciting, for with Marigold there always had to be something. Her need to be the center of attention was an annoyance to everyone in the family but him.

He understood. Marigold had only been three when her father had died and five when her mother had remarried and gone to live in Paris. They were abandonments that Rose, four years older than Marigold, had toughly come to terms with and that Iris, always stoic and practical, had also come to accept. Lily had been saved from damaging grief by being so young. For Marigold, though, things had been very different.

He could vividly remember her pathetic bewilderment when her father had died—and then the heartbroken crying, crying that hadn’t ceased when everyone else’s had. “The little mite sobbed herself to sleep for months,” Millie had once told him. “And when her mother upped and went off to Paris … well, that was terrible, truly terrible. She was so distraught, it made her ill.”