Bride to the King Read Online Free PDF Page A

them and who, as far as the world was concerned, had made an excellent job of it.
    Because she was looking for signs of deeper feelings than appeared on the surface, she realised by the way her mother looked at her father that beneath an almost icy exterior there was a frustrated and unhappy woman.
    Looking back, Zosina recalled that at Court functions, which they had been allowed to watch from the balcony in the Throne Room or from the gallery in the ballroom, her father had always singled out the most attractive women with whom to dance or converse, once his official duties had been completed.
    At the time she had merely thought how sensible he was to waltz with his arm round a lady with a tiny waist and whose eyes sparkled as brightly as the jewels in her hair.
    Now she wondered if these days, the reason there were so few entertainments in the Palace, was the fact that her mother deliberately wished to isolate him from any contact with other women and keep him for herself.
    She could understand how frustrating it was for her father that he was no longer free to ride alone with a groom every morning as he had done before his gout made him almost a cripple.
    She felt certain too that he was not allowed to entertain any friends that he might have away from the strict protocol of the Palace.
    Vaguely, because she was so often daydreaming or engrossed in a book, she remembered little things being said about her father’s attractions, which should have given her an idea long ago that he had other interests that his family did not share.
    ‘Poor Mama!’ she thought to herself. ‘It must have been difficult for her to hide her jealousy, if that was what she was feeling.’
    Then it struck her that she might find herself in the same situation.
    It was all very well for Katalin to talk about her reforming the King, if he was a rake. Supposing she failed?
    Supposing she did not reform him and spent her life loving a man who found her a bore and only wished to be with other women rather than herself?
    When she thought such things, usually in the darkness of the night, she found herself clenching her hands together and wishing with a fervour that was somehow frightening that she did not have to go to Dórsia.
    Most of all that she did not have to marry King Gyórgy or any other man she had never seen.
    ‘It is not fair that I should be forced into this position just because Germany wants to drag our two countries into their Empire!’ she reflected.
    At the same time she could understand how desperately Lützelstein and Dórsia desired to keep their independence.
    The might of the Prussian Army, the behaviour of the Germans when they conquered the French, had made every Lützelsteiner violently patriotic and acutely aware that their own fate could be as quickly settled by a German invasion.
    Zosina remembered how, when nearly five years ago, King Ludwig of Bavaria had capitulated without even a struggle against the Prussian invitation that he should join the Federation, Lützelstein had been appalled.
    Because Bismarck was so keen to have the King’s approval, he had offered Bavaria an illusion of independence, she was to preserve her own railway and postal systems, to enjoy a limited diplomatic status in her dealings with foreign countries and a degree of military, legal and financial autonomy.
    Zosina had heard the story so often of how to be certain of the King’s acceptance, it was even suggested that a Prussian and a Bavarian Monarch might rule either jointly or alternately over the Federation.
    This made the Lützelsteiners hope that things might not be so bad as they had anticipated.
    Then disaster had struck.
    There was talk of a Prussian becoming Emperor over a united Germany.
    When the Prussian representative called to see King Ludwig, he was in bed suffering from a sudden severe attack of toothache.
    He did not feel well enough, the King said, to discuss such important matters, but somehow in some mysterious manner, he