“It is symbolic. I daren’t tell the truth. You are so far above me … a Princess. What hope have I …”
“You should always hope.”
“You cannot mean …”
“I think they want me to be happy.”
“And you would be happy?”
Anne never troubled to hide her feelings; she was always frankly herself.
“I want to marry you,” she said.
Mulgrave caught his breath with joy, and surprise.
Marriage with the Princess Anne! That thought had entered his head, of course, but he scarcely dared hope. Why, if Charles had no legitimate child—and it seemed unlikely that he would—and James had no son, which also seemed a possibility, and Mary remained childless, well then it would be the Princess Anne’s turn. The prospect was dazzling. Married to the Queen of England! She was not an arrogant woman; one only had to look into that fresh-colored face, those eyes which, owing to some opthalmic trouble which had been with her since childhood, gave her a helpless look, at that body which was already showing signs of indulgence at the table, to realize that her air of placidity was an absolute expression of her true nature. She would be easy going, lazy—a comfortable wife even though she were a Queen.
No wonder he was in love with Anne.
He shook his head. “They would never allow it.”
She smiled at him fondly. “If I begged and pleaded …”
“You would do that?”
“For you,” she told him.
He drew her toward him and kissed her almost wonderingly. She was delightful—gentle, yielding, frankly adoring, and a Princess! He, of course, was a very ambitious man, but this seemed too much good fortune. He must not let her delude him into the belief that it would be easy to marry her.
It was a pleasant state of affairs when ambition and pleasure were so admirably linked. Ever since he had become Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Anne’s father he had observed the royal family at close quarters and consequently knew a great deal about their weaknesses. No one in the country could help being aware of James’s position at this time for already his brother the King had thought it wise to send him into exile on more than one occasion and the Bill, the object of which was to exclude James from the succession, was being discussed not only in Parliament but in every town and village.
Mulgrave had served with the fleet against the Dutch and been appointed captain of a troop of horse. The Duke of York was inclined to favor him; but what would his reactions be when he knew he aspired to marry his daughter?
Looking into the eager face of seventeen-year-old Anne he believed she was too simple—or too determined to have her way—to see the enormous difficulties which lay before them.
He caught her hands. “We must be careful,” he said.
“Oh, yes. We must be careful.”
“This must be our secret … for a while.”
She understood that.
“It would not do for His Majesty to know what is in our minds.”
“He has always been so kind to me,” she told him.
Kind, yes. Kindness was second nature to the King. He would smile at Anne, pat her hand, tell her he was delighted she had a lover; and immediately begin to arrange a marriage of state for her. In one respect Anne was a little like her uncle. There was a laziness in both natures which made them long for a peaceful existence and capable of doing almost anything to achieve it.
Charles was not very pleased with the Earl of Mulgrave at this time because he knew that Mulgrave had helped to increase the strife which existed between James and Charles’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth. It had become difficult for Charles to banish his brother and not send Monmouth away also; so Monmouth had been exiled too. Charles had seen the necessity, but he remembered that Mulgrave had helped to exacerbate relations between the two Dukes and when he knew of this greatest ambition of all, he might decide he had been too lenient.
Mulgrave wondered how to impress on Anne the need to be very cautious while not letting her believe that marriage between them was quite out of the question. Gentle and yielding as she was to him, so would she be to others; and if it were pointed out to her that she must take a foreign Prince as a husband, would she placidly smile and accept her fate?
“But you understand, my Princess, that we must be very,