The King's Bride

After all, she argued with her conscience, she’d already told him the truth. If he chose not to believe it, was that her fault?

‘What is it?’ he asked, studying her face. ‘Are you about to come clean after all?’

She didn’t answer directly. ‘Your Majesty both over- and underestimates me,’ she said demurely.

‘I don’t-quite-understand you.’

And I’m going to keep it that way, she thought. Aloud she said, ‘You credit me with more cunning than I possess, but less intelligence.’

Not a bad answer, she thought. It sounded clever, while meaning absolutely nothing. His eyes showed bafflement, as though he were seeking some deep significance in her words.

‘I see,’ he said at last.

You don’t, she thought. You’re waving as you go down for the third time. Fine. You fooled me. Now we’ll play my game.

She spoke slowly, like someone still deciding her words, although her sharp mind was operating coolly now and her strategy was laid out.

‘If you really do see,’ she mused, ‘then perhaps you also see that this isn’t the time to talk. There are things to be considered.’

‘I thought we’d already considered them. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”’

‘But yours is so much bigger than mine,’ Lizzie pointed out.

‘I beg your pardon!’ He was startled.

‘I don’t just want to see letters. I wanted to browse through the archives. You have such huge archives, and I-’ She shrugged self-deprecatingly.

‘What you possess is valuable more for its content than its size-which, after all, isn’t everything.’

‘True. But don’t forget I’ve told you that I don’t have anything to trade.’

‘That’s true. You’ve told me.’

‘But you have a good deal.’

‘I am not showing you the letters.’

‘I’d rather we left them for another time,’ Lizzie said truthfully. ‘Let’s talk archives.’

‘Very well,’ he said, becoming businesslike. ‘I’ll send my archivist, Hermann Feltz, to see you. You’ll find him extremely helpful. We’ll talk later. Good day.’

He was gone in a moment, evidently having decided to waste no more time on her.

After that the day improved. Hermann Feltz turned out to be a charming old gentleman, eager to be helpful. He took Lizzie to the great library and placed himself at her disposal. File after file was produced at her request. The historian in Lizzie took over and she became lost in her work. They ate lunch together, talking all the time, and Hermann told her what a pleasure it was to work with someone so knowledgeable and sympathetic.

Day became evening. The old man began to yawn and Lizzie said, ‘I can manage, if you’ll trust me here alone.’

‘The King’s orders are that you’re to have everything you want,’ he said.

She’d guessed it, and while it pleased her it also reminded

her what a dangerous tightrope she was walking. When Daniel discovered the truth…

So what? She’d been honest from the outset. Was it her fault if he couldn’t recognise the truth when he heard it?

She worked on. A meal appeared at her elbow. She thanked the footman who’d brought it and was buried in files again before he’d left the room. She spent the next hour with a morsel of food in one hand and a paper in the other, occasionally dropping the food to make a note. At last she yawned and stretched with her eyes closed. When she opened them Daniel was standing there.

‘Still at work?’ he asked.

‘There’s so much to get through, and it’s all such good stuff,’ she said happily. ‘I can’t tear myself away.’

‘Don’t worry, it will still be here tomorrow. It’s time you stopped for the night.’

‘Good heavens! After midnight. I lost track of time. It’s fascinating, all those social reforms he promoted-’

‘Social reforms?’

‘Yes, I’m working on the fifties now. All those new laws-everyone thought the King was putting the brakes on, trying to maintain the status quo, but actually he was urging the Prime Minister on behind the scenes. He did so much good that he’s never been given the credit for-’

‘Or the blame if things had gone wrong,’ Daniel observed. ‘An appearance of political neutrality was useful to the King even then. But is that all you’ve been working on today? I thought you had other concerns.’

‘Oh, his love life’s interesting, of course,’ Lizzie agreed in a faintly dismissive tone that she’d calculated to a nicety, ‘but don’t let’s get it out of proportion. He was a fascinating

man for many more reasons than that. I’ve been reading the cabinet papers for 1955, and guess what I found- here, look at this-’

He settled beside her and followed her pointing finger. ‘That’s misleading,’ he said when she’d explained what had attracted her attention. ‘My grandfather never meant it that way, but the Prime Minister explained it badly in cabinet, and once they’d seized the idea-’

He talked on, fetching more files for her. They argued. She talked about the lessons of history. He told her she didn’t know any history worth knowing. He accused her of jumping to conclusions, she accused him of having a narrow point of view. Lizzie grew heated, hammering home her point with a fierce enthusiasm that he would have called unfeminine but for the burning, beautiful light in her eyes.

‘No, listen,’ she said, interrupting him with a lack of protocol that would have made his courtiers faint, ‘you’ve got this wrong, and there’s a document in the Public Records Office that proves it.’

‘And what does a British office know about King Alphonse?’

‘It’s got all the cabinet records of that year, including his contacts with Sir Winston Churchill, and there’s a memo that says-’ She was away again, barely pausing for breath and not allowing him to get a word in edgeways for five minutes.

‘Is it my turn now?’ he asked at last.

‘You’re not listening to me.’

‘I’m not doing anything else,’ he said, exasperated to the point of raising his voice. ‘Now, look, read this again-’

They were still at it, hammer and tongs when the clock struck two, amazing them both.

‘Enough for tonight,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. She was standing, but she sat abruptly, yawning and running her hands through her hair, which had grown untidy.

Daniel regarded her, remembering the perfectly groomed woman of the ball. Now her face was bare of make- up, her eyes were drooping and she was too weary to be putting out her charms to seduce him. And that made her more mysteriously seductive than ever. As king, Daniel was used to women being consciously alluring for his benefit, their attractions all for show and not a thought in their heads but expensive gifts for themselves or advancement for their husbands. One who discarded politeness to argue with him for the sake of intellectual truth, and whose mental activity had tired her to the point of vulnerability, was new to him. She was suddenly far more intriguing than any woman in the world, and he had an urge to kiss her that was almost overwhelming.

Gently he took her hands and drew her to her feet. She opened her eyes and looked at him vaguely. ‘Time to go to bed,’ she sighed.

The words could have been provocative, but there was nothing teasing in the way they were said, and that provoked him more than anything. He fought his desire down. Not now, but later, when the time was right. And he would personally see to it that there was a right time. Whatever other disputes were between them it was growing clearer by the minute that she had to be his. He’d seen her as a woman of the world, boldly challenging him with her sexual promise. Tonight she’d been an academic, driven by an obsession with knowledge. Now the eyes that looked sleepily into his were

as innocent as a child’s. There had to be a way of reconciling those three aspects into the same woman.

Slipping an arm about her waist, he went to a concealed door that led into a bare wooden passage. It would take them directly to her room, and it was better that nobody saw them together like this.

At the door to her room he stopped and pushed her gently inside.