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Authors: Rebecca Dean
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two days’ time. Or he could if he were sure Piers Cullen would keep his mouth shut about it.
An owl swooped onto a turret a few yards away and regarded him unblinkingly with yellow eyes. He stared back at it, deep in thought.
Though Piers Cullen had arrived at Snowberry obviously intent on swiftly removing him from it, he had behaved surprisingly well once the game of doubles had been suggested. Had that been because of Marigold? She was probably just the right sort of age for him. She was also as sexy as any Hollywood vamp. Whatever the reason for Piers acting so completely out of character, his doing so had made it impossible for him to tell the King of any future visits, without hopelessly compromising himself.
David determined to leave for Dartmouth early enough to be able to spend a few hours en route with his new friends. That he now had people he could call friends filled him with a warm rosy glow. Whatever the difficulties of his future—a future that had been mapped out for him before he had even been born and which he couldn’t alter in any way—he knew he would be able to come to terms with it if, unknown to his family and to courtiers,he had the solace of Snowberry and the friendships he had made there.
Especially his friendship with Lily.
At the thought of Lily his knees grew weak.
Not only did she look like an angel, she had the sweet, sunny nature of an angel. He wanted to see her again more than he’d ever wanted anything else in his life, ever.
And he would be seeing her again in two days’ time.
The very thought made him feel like a new person. The isolation at Naval College caused by his royal position no longer mattered. The fact that he couldn’t choose for himself what his future would be no longer mattered in the same way. His dislike of anything that set him apart as a person requiring homage—as would most certainly happen at the coronation and at his investiture and afterward on endless, innumerable occasions his whole life long—no longer mattered. At Snowberry he could forget all about his royal status and be treated like any other young man his age. At Snowberry, with Rose, Iris, Marigold, and Lily, he could simply be himself.
Euphoria surged through his veins. He felt as if he could take on the world. The imminent abrupt ending of his naval training was a bad blow because, once he was no longer driving regularly between Dartmouth and Windsor, opportunities to visit Snowberry would be much harder to come by, but he was going to allow nothing to stand in the way of his finding them.
He dropped the glowing stub of his cigarette and ground it out beneath his foot. With a great flapping of wings, the owl flew off to continue to hunt. As David watched it disappear into the star-studded darkness a quite different thought occurred to him. His father had been so irate at Bertie coming sixty-first in his year group that he had completely forgotten to take David to task over his own poor positioning in geometry and trigonometry.
A grin split his face, and as he walked back to the access door he was whistling, as happy and as carefree as a lark.
Four days later, David had made up his mind that although his visits to Snowberry had to be kept secret, he couldn’t possibly keep them secret from Bertie, so he arranged a meeting with his brother on the far edge of Dartmouth’s playing fields.
Bertie was the brother nearest in age to him and being brought up totally isolated from other boys until Naval College, apart from seldom-seen royal cousins, meant there was a very close bond between them.
As Bertie came trotting across the field toward him, the expression on his face was anxious. It was an expression that was almost permanent, for if David had found much of his time at Dartmouth difficult, Bertie, far more introverted and even shyer, was finding it a nightmare.
“W-what is it, David?” he panted, floundering to a breathless stop. “D-did the K-k-King ask about my class
An owl swooped onto a turret a few yards away and regarded him unblinkingly with yellow eyes. He stared back at it, deep in thought.
Though Piers Cullen had arrived at Snowberry obviously intent on swiftly removing him from it, he had behaved surprisingly well once the game of doubles had been suggested. Had that been because of Marigold? She was probably just the right sort of age for him. She was also as sexy as any Hollywood vamp. Whatever the reason for Piers acting so completely out of character, his doing so had made it impossible for him to tell the King of any future visits, without hopelessly compromising himself.
David determined to leave for Dartmouth early enough to be able to spend a few hours en route with his new friends. That he now had people he could call friends filled him with a warm rosy glow. Whatever the difficulties of his future—a future that had been mapped out for him before he had even been born and which he couldn’t alter in any way—he knew he would be able to come to terms with it if, unknown to his family and to courtiers,he had the solace of Snowberry and the friendships he had made there.
Especially his friendship with Lily.
At the thought of Lily his knees grew weak.
Not only did she look like an angel, she had the sweet, sunny nature of an angel. He wanted to see her again more than he’d ever wanted anything else in his life, ever.
And he would be seeing her again in two days’ time.
The very thought made him feel like a new person. The isolation at Naval College caused by his royal position no longer mattered. The fact that he couldn’t choose for himself what his future would be no longer mattered in the same way. His dislike of anything that set him apart as a person requiring homage—as would most certainly happen at the coronation and at his investiture and afterward on endless, innumerable occasions his whole life long—no longer mattered. At Snowberry he could forget all about his royal status and be treated like any other young man his age. At Snowberry, with Rose, Iris, Marigold, and Lily, he could simply be himself.
Euphoria surged through his veins. He felt as if he could take on the world. The imminent abrupt ending of his naval training was a bad blow because, once he was no longer driving regularly between Dartmouth and Windsor, opportunities to visit Snowberry would be much harder to come by, but he was going to allow nothing to stand in the way of his finding them.
He dropped the glowing stub of his cigarette and ground it out beneath his foot. With a great flapping of wings, the owl flew off to continue to hunt. As David watched it disappear into the star-studded darkness a quite different thought occurred to him. His father had been so irate at Bertie coming sixty-first in his year group that he had completely forgotten to take David to task over his own poor positioning in geometry and trigonometry.
A grin split his face, and as he walked back to the access door he was whistling, as happy and as carefree as a lark.
Four days later, David had made up his mind that although his visits to Snowberry had to be kept secret, he couldn’t possibly keep them secret from Bertie, so he arranged a meeting with his brother on the far edge of Dartmouth’s playing fields.
Bertie was the brother nearest in age to him and being brought up totally isolated from other boys until Naval College, apart from seldom-seen royal cousins, meant there was a very close bond between them.
As Bertie came trotting across the field toward him, the expression on his face was anxious. It was an expression that was almost permanent, for if David had found much of his time at Dartmouth difficult, Bertie, far more introverted and even shyer, was finding it a nightmare.
“W-what is it, David?” he panted, floundering to a breathless stop. “D-did the K-k-King ask about my class
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