Chapter 9 #2
Neither of the two people who had emerged from the room he was waiting outside were his parents. Some sort of gentlemen officials, from what he could tell, all red coats and gold buttons and wigs, self-important expressions on their faces that he did not like.
Slowly, heavily, he sank back onto the chair.
That was the trouble with waiting, of course. One became stuck with one’s own thoughts, and at the moment, Rupert was being plagued by terrible memories of the night before.
Well, not the night itself. That had been wonderful…perfect.
A slow smile crept across Rupert’s face. He could not have imagined something better, anything more glorious.
Betsy underneath him, quivering at his touch, moaning…
But afterwards. In the morning, when he had believed everything understood between them…
“Well, Your Grace, I think I am quite done with this particular scandal with a sovereign. No one will believe you, by the way, I would imagine my name is quite ruined.”
Rupert’s jaw tightened. It had all gone so wrong, so quickly; how could he have predicted it, prevented it?
Betsy was still so new to him, even if he felt he had known her for his entire life.
She seemed made for him, perfect for him…
but she was now perfectly distant, and worse, he had no idea how to find her again.
If she even wanted to be found.
“Good day, Your Grace.”
A heavy sigh shook his chest as Rupert dropped his head into his hands. What did he care if the servants saw it? he had nothing else, nothing at all. this loneliness, this aching solitude; he had truly thought it would be ended once he found her. Betsy.
He had known, something within him had, at any rate, the moment he had seen her.
But of course, there were no guarantees when it came to calling in love.
His mother had never said, for example, that when a gentleman fell in love, it was certain that the woman in question would fall in love with him in return…
Rupert clenched his jaw and tried to force down the sensation of panic within him. He would find her. Somehow, even if it meant—but she was in London and here he was, in Brighton.
Had he mentioned that to her?
He could not remember.
Another door opened, and he looked up, lifting his head from his hands…but it was not his parents.
Where were his parents? What on earth could they be doing that was more important that speaking to him? He had tried to send a message to them, made the man promise that he would only place the sealed note directly into either his mother or his father’s hands.
But that was hours ago.
Rupert pulled out his pocket watch, his eyes widening as he saw the time. He had been here hours, in fact. No wonder his buttocks were so uncomfortable.
Rising from the irritatingly stiff chair and finding his back just as stiff, Rupert paced slowly up and down the corridor, weak sunshine pouring through the windows.
Was she out there, in London, thinking about him? Was she angry at him, furious perhaps that he had not immediately proposed marriage the moment they had been discovered?
But a Crown Prince simply could not do that!
Rupert sighed heavily. He knew that. It was obvious to him, btu that did not mean it was—
“Rupert! What on earth are you doing here, skulking about?”
He turned on his heels and smiled weakly at the sight of his parents, who both had a rather confused and concerned look on their faces as they examined him.
They were dressed formally, as would be expected on a visit to a foreign country, their Austrian fashion settling his wayward heart just a little. It was like being at home, for a moment, in the midst of all this pain and confusion.
“Mama, Papa, I tried to have word send to you,” Rupert said eagerly, stepping forward. “I need to speak to you about—”
“Is it important, son?” His father frowned as he turned to a servant who passed him a piece of paper. “We have three additional meetings added to our time here, and—”
“Four,” added Rupert’s mother, her brow furrowed. “These English, they do not know the meaning of the word ‘rest’. I have told them twice, I have told them a thousand times, your father needs to rest!”
“I am hardly falling apart, my dear, and besides, the opportunity to speak with—”
“I did not say you were falling apart,” said Rupert’s mother with a teasing smile. “But if you do not slow down, you soon will be!”
Rupert sighed with a smile as he watched his parents bicker comfortably before him.
There was something rather special about the way one could speak to one’s spouse, wasn’t there?
He had hardly noticed it before, but now that he had spoken with Betsy…
well, did they not have a similar manner to his parents?
Had they not ribbed each other, jested, teased?
“Rupert?”
Had she not smiled when he spoke, had he not seen the desire in her eyes?
A desire that had flickered and died in her eyes the moment he had not immediately thrown himself on bended knee and proposed a match he simply could not make on his own?
“Rupert!”
Rupert started. his parents were staring at him again, this time perhaps with even more concern.
He tried to smile broadly, but was not entirely sure whether he had managed it. “Yes?”
His mother frowned and immediately placed the back of her hand on his forehead. “He’s sickening for something.”
“I am not sickening for something,” said Rupert automatically, but it was no use. once his mother got something like that into her head—
“There is a doctor about this place, isn’t there?” asked his father to the servant, who immediately bobbed his head and strode away.
“I am not unwell,” Rupert tried to remind his parents. “It is just—I have something important to…”
His voice trailed away as the caring faces of his parents both stared at him. How was he supposed to explain this? He had never been one for flaunting his dalliances in the past, and in a very real way, he rather hoped his mother had no idea about it all.
But this…this was no dalliance. This was the woman he hoped would be his bride.
How would his parents react to such a conversation?
“Speak, man,” said his father, not unkindly. “We wish to hear it.”
“There is nothing you can say, after all,” said his mother with a laugh, “that will truly shock us! it is not as though you could have entangled yourself into a scandal after just one night in London!”
They laughed merrily, and Rupert joined them with a dark laugh of his own. “Oh, I would not bet on that…”