Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,22

bed right after dinner that night.

For Lucy, it was a relief not to see Henry hovering over Charlotte, or know that he was next door in her arms at night. She could cherish her fantasies again, now that he was gone, and hoped he missed her. She and Charlotte hardly spoke to each other anymore, just to chat. The rivalry between them, for Henry’s affections, had been too strong. Lucy had never been in that race, no matter how hard she tried, but she chose not to see it that way. She still believed that Henry would have fallen in love with her eventually if Charlotte hadn’t come along. As she saw it, Charlotte had stolen her dreams from her.

For the next six weeks, their days were spent waiting for letters from him, which were brief and to the point. He said the training was arduous and he was exhausted every night, but he was well and hoped they were too. He wrote to Charlotte separately and told her how much he loved her, and how happy he was to be her husband. She put his letters in a drawer tied with a ribbon, and his parents shared the letters they’d had from him. They were proud to have a son serving the country. At the end of his training, he was allowed to come home for two days, before he shipped out. He still had no idea where he was going, and couldn’t have told them anyway.

Henry looked tall and handsome in his uniform when he came home on leave. His hair was short, and had been shaved at the beginning of his training, he had trimmed down, his shoulders looked broader, and every moment he spent with them was precious. He managed to share himself equally with his parents and his wife, and even spent a few minutes chatting with Lucy, and asked her to take care of Charlotte, which stung. Henry had no idea that Lucy still cherished romantic fantasies about him. She hid them well.

They shared an early Christmas with him, and his mother gave him a few things he could take with him. Then forty hours after he’d arrived, he was gone. Charlotte stood freezing on the platform in frigid weather, watching him go. His eyes never left hers as the train pulled out, and she watched him until he was only a tiny speck in uniform, and then she got in the car and went home with his parents. Charlotte was four months pregnant by then, and it was starting to show, but it didn’t really matter since no one knew who she was, and she hardly ever left Ainsleigh Hall. All they could do now was wait for his letters and pray that he was alive and well. Charlotte never mentioned the pregnancy to Lucy and the others, but they could see it now.

Christmas was quiet and dismal without him a few weeks after he left. Charlotte had three letters from him in January, and she guessed that he was somewhere in Italy or North Africa, but he couldn’t say, and there were several lines blacked out by the censors when he said too much. The days seemed interminable without him, and Charlotte was homesick for her family now too. Yorkshire suddenly seemed a long way from home. And as her pregnancy became more pronounced, she missed her mother and sisters, although they knew nothing of what was happening to her. Only Henry spoke of their baby in his letters, and then in the beginning of February, his letters stopped. His father suggested that his division was probably on the move from one location to another and reassured his wife and Charlotte that the letters would start again soon. They believed him for several weeks, and then the dreaded telegram came, informing them that Henry had died a hero’s death, in battle with the enemy. They regretted that it was impossible to bring his body home. He had died and his body had been lost at Peter Beach in the Battle of Anzio. The War Office extended their sincere sympathy to his parents. His father was inconsolable, and took to his bed immediately. Charlotte felt sick when she read the telegram again and again, and it sank in that her baby would have no father. She was bereft. She reported his death to her parents, and they wrote a personal letter of condolence to the earl and countess.

The earl’s health