Bride to the King Read Online Free PDF

was persuaded to write the all-important letter to his uncle, King Wilhelm of Prussia, inviting him to assume the title of Emperor.
    The fury that this had aroused in Lützelstein, Zosina thought now, must have been echoed in Dórsia.
    All she could recall was that her father stormed about the Palace in a rage that lasted for weeks while Councillors came and went, all looking grave and disturbed.
    This, she thought to herself now, was really the first step in uniting Lützelstein and Dórsia by a marriage between herself and the King.
    She wondered if it had been in her father’s mind ever since then and she had the uneasy feeling that perhaps he and the Regent of Dórsia had been waiting until she and the King were old enough to be manipulated into carrying out the plan of alliance.
    It was all so unromantic and so business-like in its efficiency, that she thought cynically that no amount of pretty frilly gowns could make her anything but the kind of ‘Cardboard Queen’ who was operated by the hands of power!
    ‘I suppose the King feels the same,’ she thought, but even that was no consolation.
    She could almost see them both sitting on golden thrones with crowns on their heads, just like a child’s toy, while her father with his Councillors and the Regent with his, turned a key so that they twirled round and round to a tinkling tune having no will and no impetus of their own.
    ‘I suppose if I was stupid enough,’ Zosina said to herself, ‘I would take no interest in politics and would just be content to do as I was told and not want anything different.’
    She remembered how one of their Governesses had said to her,
    “I cannot think, Princess Zosina, why you keep asking so many questions!”
    “I wish to learn, fraulein ,” Zosina had answered. “Then confine yourself to subjects that are useful to women,” the Governess had gone on.
    “And what are they?” Zosina enquired.
    “Everything that is pretty and charming – flowers, pictures, music and, of course, men,” she had replied with a self-conscious little smile.
    Zosina had not been surprised when soon after this the Governess, who was really quite attractive, was seen by her mother flirting with one of the Officers of the Guard.
    She had been dismissed and the Governesses that had followed her were all much older and usually extremely unattractive in their appearance.
    Now, Zosina thought, it was not only the Governesses who were ugly but her mother’s Ladies-in-Waiting and any other women who were to be seen frequently in the Palace.
    Which raised the question that she had asked already as to whether this was intentional because of her father’s interest in the fair sex.
    ‘Surely it would be impossible for Mama to be jealous of me?’ Zosina asked.
    But she was not certain!
    When she had gone down to the study to show her father one of the new gowns that had been made for her State Visit, he had looked her over and said approvingly,
    “Well, I may have been cursed with four daughters, but nobody could accuse them of being anything but extremely good-looking!”
    Zosina smiled at him.
    “Thank you, Papa. I am glad I please you.”
    “You will please Dórsia or I will want to know the reason why,” the Archduke replied. “You are a beauty, my girl, and I shall expect them to say so.”
    The Archduchess had come into the study at that moment and, when Zosina turned to look at her with a smile, she felt as if she was frozen by the expression on her mother’s face.
    “That will be enough, Zosina,” she said sharply. “There is no need to tire your father and do not forget that beauty is only skin-deep. It is character which will matter in your future position.”
    The way she spoke told Zosina only too clearly that she thought that was a commodity in which she was lamentably short.
    She had left the study feeling as if for the first time she had really begun to understand what was wrong with the personal relationship between her father and