Даниэла Стил - Royal

“I’ve never been,” she said innocently. She hadn’t been anywhere, although that was about to change in her new life. Until then, she had spent most of her life in Kent on the Markham estate, and Liverpool where she went to college. “I’d like to go to the States one day. It seems so exciting.” There was something about her openness to new experiences which touched even him. She was very young, and seemed even younger than her years. There was an Alice in Wonderland quality to her, which was accentuated by her girlish looks and tiny size, and at the same time there was something very old and wise in her eyes.

She was an odd mix of naïveté and experience. She was different from the women he knew. They all seemed so jaded and sophisticated compared to her. He liked the childlike quality about her, much to his own surprise. She had a lot of growing up to do, and a lot of the world to see. “I’ve been thinking about going to Australia to race there. And I’d like to see the Kentucky Derby one day.”

“I went with my father once. We had a horse in the race. He didn’t win though. Kentucky is an odd place. We bought a horse there. I like New York better.” America was a mystery to her, as was his way of life. He had mentioned that he was thirty years old, and the difference in their ages and life experience was enormous. He had gone to Eton and Cambridge, had traveled extensively, and moved in a fast crowd. They had nothing in common. “So when are we going to race?” he asked her halfway through dinner. “It should probably be sometime when my father’s not around. There will be hell to pay if he catches us. He’s going to an auction in Scotland next week. Maybe then, if I’m not in London. I’m going to Saint Tropez for a weekend. I have a friend who has a yacht there.” He would have asked her to come, she was pretty enough, but it would be like taking his little sister. There was nothing racy about her, and he could sense that she had no interest in the fast life of fashionable beach towns and yachts. All she cared about was horses, and her dream of being a jockey. “And after horses, what?” he asked her. “Marriage and babies?” She seemed like that kind of girl. He had no interest in either one for now.

She looked blank when he asked her. “I never think about it. I just think in terms of horses right now.”

“I have a half-sister like you, from my father’s second marriage. She breeds horses in Ireland. She and her husband have a big operation there. My father helped them set it up. They have seven kids. Scary thought,” he said and she laughed.

“I have twin brothers. They’re sixteen, and they drive me crazy. I’ve been helping my dad with them since my mother died…my stepmother,” she corrected, in her new life. “Actually, my world is a little confusing right now. I thought she was my mother all my life, and I loved her that way, and now it turns out she wasn’t. My real mother died when I was born, but I never knew about her until after this mother died, and it all came out. Now suddenly I’m a Royal Highness, and the queen is my aunt. I haven’t sorted it all out yet. I’m going to Balmoral to meet the rest of the family for a weekend at the end of August. I suddenly feel like two people, or one person in two worlds, my old life and my new one. The only constants in my life at the moment are horses and my stepfather. He runs the stables for John Markham. Most people in horse circles know John.” She was so honest and open about everything that he didn’t know what to say. There was no artifice about her. She was a straightforward person who had been cast into a new life that would have daunted most people. It forced him to be real with her too, which was new to him and unfamiliar. He was used to much more complicated girls who always wanted something from him. She didn’t, which was refreshing.

“It must be a little strange to suddenly be a Royal Princess.”

“The queen and her mother were very nice to me when I saw them. I haven’t met Princess Victoria yet.” And the queen had gotten her the highly coveted internship.

“She’s more exciting than her sister. She’s never married or had children, but she’s had some exotic romances, with the Aga Khan, an American senator, a few married men no one talks about, except the tabloids. She was in love with someone who died when she was young. I think she decided to pursue a different life after that. She’s very amusing,” Anthony volunteered. “I see her in nightclubs a lot. She actually went out with one of my friends a year or two ago. She and her sister are chalk and cheese. She’s the racy one. The queen is all about duty and the job. I think the crown is heavier to wear than one thinks. It can’t be a lot of fun.”

“I wonder what my mother was like in the midst of all that. She died when she was so young.”

“So did mine,” Anthony said quietly. It was the first serious side of him she’d seen.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said with a forgiving look. “You haven’t been around for all the scandals. She left my father for another man when I was eight. They were killed in a car accident in the South of France shortly after. I went off to boarding school a few months later, and that was the end of family life as I knew it. She was my father’s third wife, and he never married again. He’s always had women in his life, but no one he’s serious about. He’s probably closer to the queen than anyone else. She’s his best friend. I’m not sure he ever got over my mother. He doesn’t talk about it. He’s a decent father, though he probably likes his horses better than his children. Very British, you know.” It made her realize how lucky she was to have Jonathan in her life. He was warm and loving, and the only father she had ever known, and she would always think of him as her father, even though they weren’t related by blood. “I can’t really see myself settling down, not for a long time anyway. I have no role model for it. I hardly remember my parents together before she left. They were always out somewhere. He didn’t start his horse operation until after she was gone, and that’s really his first love now. I don’t think he’ll ever marry again.”

“I’m not sure I will either,” Annie said, looking pensive. “My parents had a good marriage and they loved each other, but it seems complicated. I grew up in a tiny cottage with them and my brothers. My mother was the housekeeper on the estate where my father works. Marriage doesn’t seem to work out for most people. I’m not sure it’s for me. Horses are a lot easier,” she said, smiling at him.

“Or wine, women, and song. That works for me,” he teased. But underneath the glib exterior, the good looks, and the charm, she had the feeling that he was afraid of getting close to anyone, maybe because his mother left when he was so young, or he was having too much fun now. The kind of life he led was a mystery to her and didn’t seem very appealing. But he wasn’t as arrogant as she had thought when she met him. There was a soft side to him. Outwardly, he was just the stereotype of the handsome playboy. She couldn’t imagine going out with someone like him, or with anyone for now. The hub of her life and her only interest were the stables.

He drove her back to the horse farm after dinner, and they walked into the guesthouse together. He invited her to his room for an after-dinner drink, and she didn’t think it was a good idea. She was worldly enough to be cautious about going to men’s rooms with a bottle of scotch for easy sex. She was still a virgin, and had no intention of changing that for him.

“I have to be up at five-thirty,” she used as her excuse. “I promised to exercise Flash again at six.”

“You’re the only girl I know who’d rather be with a horse than with me,” he said, laughing, and she thanked him for dinner, and went to her room. It had been a nice evening, and for some reason, even with all the trappings, the fancy car, his good looks, and the racy life he seemed to lead, she felt sorry for him. He’d had a lonely childhood and no mother to love him. She’d been better off growing up as the daughter of a housemaid and a stable hand who both adored her. It had been a simple life, but they were real, and she knew how much they loved her. She never doubted it. The life he led seemed empty to her. He was a lost boy in a glittering world that had no appeal at all to her.