Lucy Gordon - Princess Dottie

“I know a few people on that council,” Sternheim said. “I could put a rocket behind them.”

“And get rebuilding started quickly?”

“In a few days. And temporary accommodation for those poor unfortunates in the meantime. Much better than a lengthy commission. Leave it all to me.” Sternheim looked at Dottie who was giving him an alarming smile. “Happy to, er, be of service.”

“I'm sure Her Royal Highness won't object if you left now,” Randolph said. “You'll be wanting to get on with things.”

Sternheim mopped his brow and bowed himself out. Randolph turned to Dottie with an air of triumph, and their eyes met. Yes!

“You did it,” she crowed.

“No, we did it,” he said firmly. “I did the talking but you provided the substance.”

“Will it work?”

“I think we can look for the bulldozers to start clearing the site double quick, and the building work to proceed soon after. And when things are well under way, and it's too late to stop them-” he looked at her with almost a touch of mischief.

“What?” she breathed.

“Then we'll send in the commission.”

Her eyes widened. “But… Didn't you just make a deal with Sternheim?”

“No, but I let him think I did.”

“Oh, Randolph,” she breathed in awe, “you really know how to fight dirty.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” he said, correctly interpreting this as a compliment. “I think we've got him by the, er, short and curlies.”

She crowed with laughter, then sobered and admitted, “You do this better than me.”

“Let's just say we're a good team.”

“The best.”

She moved toward him, her hands outstretched. In another moment she would have thrown her arms about his neck, forgetting everything except that he was wonderful. But then it seemed to her that he flinched and took a half step back. His eyes were fond and smiling, but there was no doubt that he had avoided making contact with her. After their perfect communication it felt like a snub, and her happiness faded.

But not entirely. The moment might have been brief, but it had happened, and she could treasure it.

Even with a kind of truce things were never going to be smooth between them. He was naturally imperious and she was learning fast. Power, Dottie discovered, was the sweetest thing in the world. Better even than ice cream.

Her intervention about the rebuilding had been a triumph. The papers carried the story of, “I'm going to get this sorted,” and the sudden activity next day was proof, as though anybody needed it, that Princess Dottie kept her word.

Her success gave her an appetite for more intervention, with varied results. Sometimes she achieved something, more often she misread an unfamiliar situation and put her foot in it. Randolph always managed to smooth things over, but her ministers were beginning to regard her with alarm, and Randolph told her crisply that while she might think of herself as Joan of Arc she actually resembled a loose cannon, blundering across everyone's toes. After that the atmosphere became chilly again.

There was so much to be put right about this country, she decided. Increasing the numbers of female politicians was more complicated than she'd thought. It wasn't just the outdated parliamentary hours, but beyond them a whole raft of laws and social conditions that created pointless obstacles to women.

At least, Dottie thought they were pointless. Enderlin spoke of tradition and the need to move slowly. She spoke of the twenty-first century and the need for Elluria to get there without delay. He clutched his head. She poured him cups of strong tea, which he drank and felt better. He was a courtly, gracious man who never allowed their battles to affect his liking for Dottie, nor allowed that liking to make him yield easily. Soon they could exchange prejudices freely, while staying friends. When things reached crisis point Randolph was called in to referee.

He did so reluctantly. “Can't you cope with her yourself?” he demanded.

“Nobody can cope with her,” Enderlin groaned. “Her new idea is to reorganize the civil service training so that everyone can learn to do gardening, which, apparently, is good for the soul.”

“She's winding you up,” Randolph said, exasperated. “Can't you recognize it yet? If you react she just gets worse.”

“I am not used to being 'wound up' by my sovereign,” Enderlin replied with dignity. “And I'm too old to start now.”

“Nonsense! My father enjoyed practical jokes.”

“So he did,” Enderlin said, much struck. “I'd forgotten. It's just that from a woman it somehow sounds strange.”

“Don't say that to her,” Randolph begged in alarm. “She'll give you a speech about equal rights, and this time she won't be joking.”

“I have to admit that she brightens the place up. I accompanied her on a recent trip to my hometown and she insisted on walking through the streets and talking to the crowd. She noticed a child in a push chair, who'd lost a shoe, and blow me if she didn't pick the shoe up from the pavement and put it on the kiddy's foot herself, then chat to the mother for five minutes about the outrageous price of children's clothes.”

“She didn't promise to 'sort' them as well did she?” asked Randolph, alarmed.

“No, I managed to intervene just in time. But, to be fair, it's not anything she says. It's what she is. She gives them that smile…you know the one.”

“Yes,” Randolph said quietly. “I know the one.”

“It seems to bring the sun out for them. Mind you, I'm not sure if that's what a monarch is supposed to do…”

“Could a monarch do better than make the sun shine on her people?” Randolph asked, still in the same quiet voice. “It's a great gift, and she has it.”

“Well, I don't deny that she's lovable, and maybe that's important.”

Randolph nodded. “And maybe it's the only thing that matters.”

“If only somebody could reign her in.”

His significant voice and look brought Randolph out of the semitrance in which he'd been wandering. A horrible suspicion of having betrayed himself made him explode, “Forget that idea now and never mention it again.”

“But your duty to your country…”

Randolph said something very rude about his duty to his country. Enderlin shook his head, trying to believe he'd really heard what he thought he had, but he couldn't manage it.

“You've never failed in your duty before,” he pleaded.

“Ideas of duty vary, Enderlin. I'm doing mine now by trying to teach this crazy woman how to occupy the throne without blowing it up. But I recognize no duty to marry someone who goes through life like a jumping bean. And if my countrymen think otherwise, they are welcome to try it for themselves. Let me make it quite clear to you that she is the last woman I would ever dream of marrying. And that's official.”

Then, calming down just a little, he added hurriedly, “But you'll never repeat that to anyone.”

Enderlin promised and kept his word. But walls have ears and the story reached Dottie by the end of the day, and duly affected the atmosphere. It was a measure of how far she'd traveled that instead of treating Randolph to her frank opinion of him she merely smiled sweetly at their next meeting, and left him wondering.

The first time Dottie saw a picture of Prince Harold she thought there had been a mistake.

“But he's supposed to be a monster. Wow, what a hunk!”

The man in the picture had everything to attract the female fancy, including a brilliant smile, regular features and eyes that seemed to gleam with fun. His mouth was full and sensual, and his body, as another picture revealed, was tall and lean.

“He looks good on horseback,” she observed, picking up a third. “You did say that I'd be going riding with him, didn't you?”

“I don't believe your schedule includes it, no,” Randolph said coldly.

She looked at him but he didn't return her gaze. His attention was absorbed in some papers and even the set of his shoulders seemed forbidding. She grew cross. Which of them was the boss here?

“Better fix it so that it does,” she said coolly.

“That is impossible. The schedule has been laid down and agreed with the Korburg embassy. It cannot be changed now.”

“Rubbish, you changed it only yesterday. I know you did.”

He still didn't look up but the back of his head clearly revealed his irritation. “And I'm not changing it again,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You're not? Don't I get a say?”

“You get too big a say as it is.”

“My people have no complaints. Ask them.”

“Oh yes, I've seen the latest opinion polls. They see you visiting sick children and homeless shelters, and they adore you because you do it wonderfully well.”

“That's not all I do.”

“No, some of your meddling has been lucky.”

“Meddling? How dare you!”

“What about the mayor of Sellingen?”

“I apologized for that.”

“And the wretched little man whom you decided was running a disorderly house?”

“It was a misunderstanding. He forgave me. Those roses over there come from his garden.”

Yes, that was it, Randolph thought, exasperated. She made the most outrageous mistakes, brought them all to the edge of disaster and her victims sent her roses.

“You jump in with both feet, never stopping to ask questions first, and count on people only remembering your successes,” he said. “There are rules that govern these things, just as there are rules that govern every aspect of your life now. The sooner you get used to that the better.”

“Oh, I know about the rules. It doesn't mean I'm going to lie down under every single one. Maybe I can change some of them.”

“Then you will do it after due consultation with me,” he said bluntly. “And don't threaten me with a decree or any of that nonsense.”

“I've never actually issued one yet, just talked about it.”

“Yes, because you rely on the threat to bring people to heel. I give you credit for trying. But often you're not trying in the right way.”

“You mean I'm not doing it your way. But why should I?”

“Because I happen to know a great deal more about what this country needs than someone who's still playing games.”

“If that's what you think I wonder you tolerate me here at all. Send me back and have Harold. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.”

She could have bitten her tongue off as soon as the words were out. Randolph's eyes grew cold with contempt.

“I thought better of you than that. Blackmail. Cheap, and despicable.”

She knew it and would have given anything to unsay the words. But she couldn't admit it to the bitterly contemptuous man who turned his scorn on her now.

“You're playing at being queen, Dottie. No more than that. Don't turn away from me.” He seized her arm as she turned and pulled her unceremoniously back to face him.

“Let me go,” she snapped.

“Not till you've heard me out.”

“Let me go at once, or I'll scream and bring the guards in.”

“I'm trembling.”

“You should. 'Laying unauthorized hands' on the monarch is high treason. You taught me that.”

“Why, you cheeky little-”

“Calling the monarch names is probably treason, too. I'm sure I could find a law about it somewhere. But I won't need to. You won't risk me calling the guards. Think how undignified it would be.”

In the silence his hand fell from her arm. Nothing in his lifelong training had prepared him for this situation, and his outrage and confusion were almost tangible.

Dottie took advantage of it to say, “You have our permission to leave.”

“What?”

“The crown princess gives you her permission to leave.”

“Dottie, you're beginning to do it very well but-”

“You will address me as Your Royal Highness, and you will not approach me again until I say so.”

She was shocked by her own temerity. After a stunned moment Randolph stepped away, bowed his head, clicked his heels and departed without a backward glance.

Everybody knew. In less than an hour the news of the breach had gone through the palace. By the next day everyone knew that it was worse than that. Prince Randolph had waited one day to give her the chance to summon him. When she didn't, he'd taken off to his estate in a terrible rage.

“He was just like this as a boy,” Aunt Liz recalled. “There were dreadful storms, when it was best to keep out of his way. But don't worry. Just give him a little time to calm down, then send for him again.”

“In a pig's eye I'll send for him.”

“Then you seem condemned to perpetual stalemate,” Aunt Liz said crossly.

“No way. He'll bring me the papers tomorrow as usual, and I'll let him know that he's forgiven.”