“Who says I can't be Princess Dottie?” she asked defiantly.
Then she saw that his eyes were warm and smiling. “You can be anything you wish,” he said, offering her his arm. “Well done, Dottie. You've staked your claim to the hearts of your people.”
Chapter Six
Within hours the press conference had beamed around the world. Television channels showed it again and again, always focusing on the wonderful moment when Dottie had lifted little Elsa in her arms.
The Ellurian newspapers hailed her as Our Laughing Princess. Some played up the family resemblance. Others claimed she'd already showed how she would be “A true mother to her people. ”
“On the basis of one incident?” Dottie demanded over breakfast two days later. ”
“But it was great, Dot,” Mike said. He'd dropped in to tell her he'd be out sailing all day. “Just fancy, your grandpa being right all along!”
“Did he bend your ear with those stories, too?”
“Only the once. He took me to the pub. We got real plastered, and he came out with all this stuff about Duke Egghead.”
“Egbert. What did he say about him?”
“Well that's it, after I'd sobered up I couldn't remember, and I never have. When I get tiddly again it starts coming back to me, but it goes again.”
Those who'd feared, or hoped, that Dottie's unorthodox ways might bring her down were confounded. She was a darling. That was official. Her oddities were no more than charming eccentricity, only to be expected in one who'd been reared “with wider horizons than royalty normally enjoys.”
Even Randolph raised a smile at that. He was delighted at the way people were determined to see the best in her, even though the facts behind the headlines sometimes made him tear his hair.
He hadn't, for instance, been amused when Dottie vanished again, and turned up in the kitchen, chatting happily with the cooks and eating ice cream “like a greedy child,” as he caustically put it.
“Well, I tucked in because I was sure you were going to arrive any minute and spoil the party,” Dottie told him, adding gloomily, “And you did.”
She didn't mention the fun she'd had reducing Fritz, the head chef, to jelly. But Fritz invented a new ice cream which became known as The Dottie Special, despite horrified attempts by the palace old guard to quell the name.
Dottie fell on it with delight, even ordering it for breakfast one morning, and sending down a note with the empty dishes saying. Dear Fritz, terrific as always. How about doing one with peaches? Ever yours, HRH, Dottie.
Somehow the story got into the papers and vastly increased her popularity, which might, or might not, have been the intention of the person who leaked it.
Messages of congratulations began to flood in from governments and royal houses, including one from Prince Harold of Korburg, that made Randolph snort with disgust.
He had an air of tension these days, the reason for which everybody guessed, although it was spoken only in whispers. Dottie's acceptance as the true heir had finally broken the patience of the Bekendorf family. Sophie's father had stormed in to see Randolph and finally broken the engagement. The Bekendorfs did not marry nobodies.
Hearing the story, Dottie winced, imagining what that cruel barb must have done to a man of Randolph's pride.
“Don't believe the lurid tales,” Aunt Liz advised. “Randolph's valet is married to my maid, and I can tell you that Randolph did not knock the man to the floor, nor did he make a noble speech about true love conquering all, which is the other version doing the rounds. He merely observed that he had already freed Sophie from all obligation to him, and asked Bekendorf to leave.”
“Poor Randolph,” Dottie murmured. “How terrible he must feel.”
Aunt Liz shrugged. “I suppose he must, but he'll never tell anybody.”
Dottie nodded, thinking of the magical evening they'd spent together, when she'd seen only what he wanted her to see, the smiling charm, the pleasure in a shared joke. And all the time…
She tried to remember his eyes, and could recall only their warmth. Even his remoteness had been hidden that night, while he'd encouraged her to open her mind as she'd done to nobody else. And she felt again the little flame of resentment against him.
The days began to merge into each other, and slip away, each one too packed with activity for Dottie to think. When she wasn't being fitted for new clothes and wearing the triumphant results at receptions, she was discovering Elluria on horseback. Now it was Randolph who escorted her through the countryside, full of spring blossoms. He often smiled at her eager pleasure in her surroundings.
“Anyone would think you'd never seen the countryside before,” he said once.
“In a way that's true. I've always lived in London. I never knew anything as beautiful as this.”
They had dismounted to let their horses drink from a stream that ran through a small wood. When the beasts were satisfied, Dottie and Randolph tied them to a tree and wandered away by the water. Ahead of them the sunlight slanted between the branches, and the light seemed to mingle with the sound of birdsong and the soft crunch of their feet against the earth. At moments like this she wished it would never end. There was peace here, something she dimly recognized that she had never found before.
Randolph walked beside her in silence, handsome and maddeningly unreadable. Dottie longed to say something to comfort his sadness, but she guessed he would hate for her to introduce the subject, and she couldn't risk it. Lacking any other way to reach out to him, she showed her sympathy by a careful gentleness. At last he said, wryly humorous, “Dottie, please don't treat me with kid gloves. I promise you it isn't necessary.”
“I can't help it. I heard what happened.”
“It was bound to happen. Bekendorf couldn't let the situation continue. No father could.”
“But doesn't Sophie get a say?”
He looked across the water. “Sophie has been more loyal to me than I deserve. She would have abandoned everything to marry me, even as a commoner. I can't accept her sacrifice, although I honor her for her generosity.”
“But do you lo-”
“Please can we discuss it no further? The matter is ended.”
“If you can end it just like that, then…” She stopped at the look in his eyes.
“Yes,” he said dangerously, “Go on. Am I in for some sentimental psychobabble about not having loved her? The only true feelings are the ones that are paraded to the world? Because I don't bare my soul on Oprah, I have no soul? Isn't that how it goes?”
She didn't answer, only stood looking at him. He sighed and calmed down.
“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lost my temper with you.”
“Probably did you good,” she said. “I can't see you blurting it out on Oprah either, but keeping it all in isn't good for you. All right, that's psychobabble, but sometimes even psychobabble gets it right. You're too controlled.”
“Control was instilled in me as a child. It's too late for me to abandon it now.”
“But don't you ever want to be simply happy?”
His answer was an eloquent shrug, and suddenly, as if a window had been opened, she saw into his mind. “You don't think happiness matters, do you?”
“Not for me,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone that had no trace of self-pity.
“What does matter to you?”
“My duty to the people of this country, in one way, if not another.”
“You mean teaching me to take your place?”
“Of course.”
“But doesn't that hurt terribly?”
“It doesn't matter,” he shouted. “Why can't you understand that? Whether it hurts me or not is unimportant. Let me tell you-” he checked and took a deep breath.