Heiress to the throne of England and more than that – a girl who had excited him from the moment he had first seen her when the Duchess of Oldenburg had hinted that his attentions might be welcomed. How wise he had been to retire from the field when he had done so! Had he stayed he would most certainly, while perhaps making some headway with the Princess, have ruined his chances of being accepted by her father.
Leopold always paused to think before he acted for he had at an early age learned that this was a wise way of life.
And now he was invited to England and such an invitation would never have been made if his success was not almost certain. He had, naturally, to win the regard of Charlotte herself and she was a young woman of some spirit for had she not sent Orange packing, although it was a match on which her father had set his heart!
He wished he did not feel so ill; the pain in his head – ‘rheumatism’ the doctors called it – made him dizzy; but when it was warmer he would feel better. This February east wind seemed to cut right into his bones. He must remember that he had acquired these ailments on the battlefield and a life of peace and comfort would soon banish them. He was, after all, a young man.
Lord Castlereagh who had come to meet him advised him to bury his face in his fur collar and make sure his travelling coat was wrapped about his legs. They were going to London where His Serene Highness could rest for a day and after that the Prince Regent would receive him at Brighton.
Charlotte sat bolt upright in the carriage which was taking her to Brighton. There was the faintest colour in her cheeks, a sign of intense excitement. Ever since she had heard that Leopold was coming to England she had had to restrain her emotion; she did not want everyone to know how elated she was. Leopold! Now she could think of him freely; she did not have to attempt to banish him when he came into her mind. How glad she was that F had not offered for her; what tragedy if she had taken him!
Leopold! The most handsome man she had ever seen. Or he had been. Was he still? That was something she would know in a very short time. She could scarcely wait.
She looked from Lady Ilchester seated beside her – so calm, so unaffected by this great occasion – to Old Famine opposite, bony hands on her lap, looking more like a skeleton than ever.
I’m glad, thought Charlotte, that I am not thin, but that would be very unlikely for a member of our family. But does he like thin women? Surely not. Everyone must like a certain amount of plumpness. Was she too plump? In some places perhaps. But Louisa always said she had beautiful arms because they were rounded and white and well covered. Did he like tall women? Well, she was not tall, and she was not short, either. And her complexion really was very good – if pale – for this smooth white skin was attractive. F had commented on it; so had Hesse. But she did not want to think of them.
The Pavilion glittered in the early spring sunshine like an oriental vision. She hoped her father would be kind to Leopold. He would be openly so because good manners would demand it, but if she heard that cold note in his voice she would know that there was going to be trouble.
Oh, dearest Papa, she thought, please like Leopold.
And then she laughed at herself. She didn’t eyen know whether she herself liked him yet. After all he had run away when he had thought there was going to be trouble.
She would remind him of that.
Her father, seated in a chair on wheels which he could operate himself, was waiting in the Chinese drawing room. His gout was bad, he told her, and he could not, without great pain, put his foot to the ground.
She expressed her concern which pleased him; and she was concerned to see him look so old. Even his impeccable clothes seemed for once to do little for him. She thought he looked as fat and ugly as old Louis XVIII. But perhaps that was because she was dreaming of a Prince Charming and with that image in her mind everyone else looked ugly.
‘Well, Charlotte,’ said the Regent a little sadly, still thinking of Orange perhaps, ‘very shortly this young man will be here.’
‘Yes, Papa.’
‘We shall see. We shall see.’
‘I am hoping that we are both going to like him,’ she said.
‘H’m,’ said the Regent, inclined to be predisposed not to like Saxe-Coburg when it should have been Holland.
He glanced at Charlotte. He had rarely seen her look so attractive and she was not uncomely this daughter of his. Lately she had improved.
Charlotte intercepted his glance and knew what it meant. She wondered what he would have said if he knew that the night before she had left Cranbourne Lodge she had put on an officer’s uniform and ridden out into the forest. It was a daring thing to have done but she had felt the desire to do it. She had passed through villages and people had glanced casually at her – an officer from the Guards at Windsor. What would they have said if they had known that it was the Princess Charlotte!
A mad thing to do, Mercer would say when told. It was the sort of thing her mother would have done. But she had had to do it; she had had to curb the wild exultation. And now she wondered why.
Mercer was a little preoccupied with her own affairs, for she had met a fascinating French count, and Charlotte believed that her friend was very serious about this young man. The last time they had met she had talked of little else. The Comte de Flahault had been an aide-de-camp to Napoleon and had come to England when the Bourbons were restored to the throne. He was very romantic and, according to Mercer, madly in love with her.
She will talk of the Comte de Flahault, thought Charlotte, and I of Leopold.
Leopold!
Her heart began to flutter for they were announcing him now.
‘His Serene Highness, the Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.’ And there he was being presented to her father, every bit as handsome as she remembered him. A little pale, but that made him all the more fascinating.
‘Welcome,’ said the Regent, extending an elegant glittering hand to be kissed. ‘I hear you have had a wretched journey.’
Leopold replied in rather halting English (How endearing! thought Charlotte) that the crossing had been bad and the weather inclement.
‘I must present you to my daughter, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Charlotte.’
They stood and looked at each other and smiled.
It was, said Charlotte, afterwards to Mercer, love at first sight – or rather a renewal of it because I knew – although I tried to delude myself that it was not so – that he was the Only One from the moment I first met him in the Pulteney Hotel.
The formal pleasantries over she was allowed to withdraw with him to a corner of the room that they might exchange a few words while the Regent was in conversation with Lord Castlereagh.
‘It gives me great … how do you say … to be here?’ said Leopold.
‘Well, it depends on what you want to say. It could be pleasure, sorrow, happiness or misery. There’s a whole choice. The point is are you glad?’
‘Glad?’ His eyes were beautiful, the most beautiful in the world – and serious. She liked his seriousness. F and Hesse had been such frivolous men … and look how they had behaved – Hesse refusing to return her letters and F skulking off and letting everything peter out. Leopold would never refuse to return her letters, not that there would be any need to. They would be together so there would be no necessity to write at all; but if they did he would keep them for ever … his dearest possessions.