Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,20

it was to her too, and to Henry and his parents.

“Charlotte! You’re a royal princess? I never even guessed. I thought your father was a spy or something. Does anyone else know here?” He looked bowled over by her news. He had thought her sisters’ names were a coincidence. The truth seemed enormous to him now.

“Only your parents know, and now you,” Charlotte said. “It doesn’t change anything, but it complicates things a bit. No one is supposed to know I’m here, which is why I’m using a different name, at the request of the cabinet and the prime minister, to ensure my safety.”

“And you live in Buckingham Palace?” Henry was still staring at her in disbelief, as it all came clear to him.

“Yes, until I came here,” Charlotte said quietly.

“Am I supposed to call you ‘Your Royal Highness’ now?” He looked nervous and she laughed.

“Hopefully not.” She smiled at him. He sat looking into the distance for a moment, trying to absorb what she had just told him. It all felt so unreal, especially when he fell asleep that night with his arms around her, and realized again that his new parents-in-law, whom he’d never met, and knew nothing of his existence, were the King and Queen of England, and his wife was their daughter.

“Good night, Your Royal Highness,” he whispered to her as they fell asleep. She laughed and cuddled closer to him. It was even more shocking to realize that the baby they would have would be fourth in line to the throne. In his wildest dreams, Henry had never imagined anything like this happening to him. He was married to a royal princess, and he was only seventeen. It sounded like a fairytale to him. But all that mattered to both of them was how much they loved each other, for better or worse, and Charlotte was now his wife.

Chapter 3

Two weeks after Charlotte and Henry’s clandestine wedding in the little village church, they celebrated Henry’s eighteenth birthday at dinner. Lucy sat at dinner with them that night, and drank a little too much of the wine the earl had opened for the occasion. Because of the war, it was a bittersweet event.

Charlotte was sleeping in her own room again, after their wedding night in Henry’s room. Henry was spending every night upstairs with her. They tried to be as quiet as possible, so Lucy didn’t hear them, but she was well aware that Henry was in the room next door with Charlotte, and more than once she peeked into the hall in time to see Henry head down the stairs before everyone else got up. Lucy fully understood what was going on, or thought she did. She was sure that Henry and Charlotte were having an affair, and she had guessed that Charlotte was pregnant because she threw up consistently. They had admitted nothing to anyone, and Lucy was biding her time to see what they would do. She had no idea that Henry’s parents were aware of it, or that the two young people had gotten married. And she had no suspicions at all about Charlotte’s royal birth. She thought she was just a fancy London girl, possibly with rich parents, judging by her accent and clothes. It had occurred to her immediately that the information about their affair, and possibly an illegitimate baby, might prove useful to her one day. She had to think of her future and what she would do when the war was over. She had nowhere to go. Maybe they would pay her to keep quiet. And she wondered if Charlotte would give the baby away and have it adopted in secret when it was time for her to go home. Lucy thought she wasn’t likely to keep it at seventeen. Lucy wasn’t normally a conniving girl, but alone in the world now, she had to think of herself. And Henry’s loving Charlotte instead of her still stung. She would have liked to be the one in his arms every night. And she thought she might have been if Charlotte had never come.

* * *

—

Charlotte had given up her morning rides on Pharaoh ever since she realized she was pregnant. She missed riding him, and meeting Henry along the way.

A week after his birthday, Henry received the notice he’d been expecting for months. He had to report for training in five days, at Catterick Camp in North Yorkshire, the largest training camp of the British Army. He’d