Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,10

in properly, how to set the table, or serve. She was used to everything appearing, with no thought given to how the servants did it, and she knew that here she’d have to learn in order to make herself useful. The countess looked embarrassed when she saw Charlotte carrying in a bowl of thin stew made with pork from the pigs on their farms. She started to tell Charlotte that she didn’t need to serve, and the earl gave her a cautioning look. Her Royal Highness would have to be one of the normal people here, pitching in as everyone else did, so no one would suspect her true identity. She was Charlotte White, a commoner now, but nothing about her demeanor made that convincing. She was a princess to the core, and looked it, even in simple clothes. After the meal, she and Lucy carried the plates back to the kitchen. Charlotte looked as though she might drop them but she didn’t, much to everyone’s relief.

They all retired early and kept country hours, since they woke at dawn. Henry often left to help on the farms before sunrise. He walked Charlotte back to her room that night, and offered to lend her a book about Arabian horses that he had just read, and she thanked him. After he left, she sat down at the small desk in her room to write to her mother. The countess was going to mail her letters for her so no one would see who they were addressed to. With a sigh, Charlotte picked up her pen, wondering what to say to them. She didn’t want to shock them by telling them about serving dinner, or worry them, nor tell them about the tiny room that would be hers in the drafty dark manor for the next year. She was anxious to hear from them soon, Alexandra had promised to write too.

“Dear Mama and Papa,” she wrote in her elegant penmanship, and began telling them about riding Pharaoh in the beautiful Yorkshire hills. That was something they would understand at least, and she could tell them honestly that she hadn’t been troubled by her asthma on the first day there, and didn’t need her medicine. She told them about Lucy and said she was very nice. She didn’t mention Henry, who had been pleasant to her too, but it didn’t seem proper to write about him. She talked about the earl and countess, and their hospitality. It took her an hour to finish the letter, and there were tears in her eyes when she sealed it. Her family, and the palace, and all the problems in London seemed so far away. It was going to be a very long ten or eleven months until she could return. For now, Pharaoh was her only reminder of home in this unfamiliar world. Lucy seemed almost too withdrawn to become a friend, and Henry was a boy, so they wouldn’t be close. The earl and countess were kind but seemed so old. She missed her parents and sisters fiercely as she left the letter on her desk and undressed for bed in the tiny room. She had never felt so alone in her life, and the year ahead seemed like an eternity, as she cried herself to sleep that night.

Chapter 2

Charlotte rapidly fell into a routine of leaving the house at dawn every day, and riding Pharaoh through the fields and along paths in the forests for several hours before coming back to the house. There were no morning chores she had to do, and no one objected to her going out riding. Henry saw her leaving the stables one morning, when he was late going to a nearby farm, and asked if he could ride with her. Neither of them could resist the temptation to race each other, and Charlotte always won, because of Pharaoh’s extraordinary speed, and her ability to urge him on.

“You shouldn’t ride out alone,” he chided her gently. “I know you’re a very fine rider, and Pharaoh is sure-footed, but if anything ever happens, there would be no one to help you.” In part because of her size and the fact that she was a girl, he felt protective of her.

“I don’t want to be slowed down by a groom on an old horse,” she said, and he laughed.

“Maybe I should ride with you every day.” She blushed when he offered, and didn’t answer. She could tell that he liked