Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,27

slept peacefully. A wet nurse had already been arranged from one of the farms. The housekeeper had taken care of it. As she held her, the countess mourned the infant’s mother, who had brought sunshine to their lives for a year, and had loved her son. And thanks to Charlotte, part of Henry would remain. She was grateful for that. She couldn’t believe that Charlotte was gone now too, and she knew that, like Henry, Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte would live on forever in this child, who was her flesh and blood too. The countess felt a powerful bond with the helpless infant, Princess Anne Louise, named by her mother before she died. Glorianna hoped that fate would be kinder to her in the future than it had been so far, with no parents now to love her. She had come into the world in sorrow, not in joy.

Chapter 4

For weeks after her birth, they all hovered around the nursery, to make sure that the infant Anne Louise would survive the rigors of her birth, and her mother’s death. The doctor came to see her every day. He found a nurse for them who would stay, and despite the loss of her mother, she was a thriving, healthy, normal baby, with a hearty appetite and a lusty cry. She was the only ray of sunshine in the somber house.

The royal family had been grief-stricken by the news of Charlotte’s death. And the doctor had obligingly done as the countess had suggested in listing the cause of death as pneumonia and asthma. They knew nothing about a clandestine marriage, death following childbirth, nor about the surviving child.

The royal family had gratefully accepted temporary burial on the Ainsleigh estate, with the intention of moving Charlotte’s remains immediately after the war, rather than bringing her back for burial now, while London continued to be bombed. They preferred to leave her belongings and horse in Yorkshire too, until they came for her, which the countess said was fine. The secretary said that the thought of burying her in the midst of the ongoing air attacks was more than they could bear.

Both of Charlotte’s sisters were as heartbroken as their parents. Princess Victoria suffered even more than her older sister, remembering all the times that she had tormented her, belittled her, and argued with her.

A formal announcement by the palace was made on the radio and in the press that the king and queen’s youngest child, Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte, while staying in the country to avoid the bombing, had succumbed to pneumonia and died shortly before her eighteenth birthday. It said that the royal family was in deep mourning. Everyone at Ainsleigh Hall heard the broadcast, and none of them made the connection with Charlotte White, who had died shortly after childbirth at Ainsleigh on the same day.

“Strange, isn’t it?” Lucy had commented to the housekeeper after the broadcast, as they all sat in the kitchen. “She died the same day our Charlotte did, though from a different cause.” Everything seemed to be about death these days, in the war, in the cities, and at Ainsleigh. Lucy was spending all her time in the nursery, and loved holding the baby. She was a last link to Henry. She would sit and hold her for hours. She was there when little Anne gave her first smile, and was more adept at calming her than anyone in the house, when she cried for hours sometimes. The nurse said it was wind, but the countess always wondered if she was keening for her mother. Lucy was sorry that Charlotte had died, but she loved the baby.

The funeral for Charlotte in their cemetery had been simple and brief. The countess, Lucy, the housekeeper, and the maids attended. The vicar who had married her and Henry said the funeral service and was genuinely sad over the death of someone so young, and such a lovely person who had brought happiness to all. No one knew exactly what had happened or why, but they knew that there were mysterious circumstances surrounding the baby’s birth. No one except the countess and the vicar knew that Henry and Charlotte had gotten married, although they had all guessed easily who the baby’s father was. And now the poor child had only her grandmother, since both her parents were dead. The countess shared the baby’s history and royal lineage with no one. Charlotte’s parents deserved to hear it first, and what