The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean

Author:Rebecca Dean
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical fiction, Great Britain - History - Edward VIII, General, Edward, 1936, Historical, Fiction, Windsor
ISBN: 9780767930567
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-21T10:00:00+00:00

“So you are once more in town for an indefinite period?” Strickland said, blowing a plume of Turkish cigarette smoke into the air.

Though they were in his studio and though he was wearing a paint-spattered smock, he wasn’t working. He was perched on the corner of a table that was crowded with brushes, palettes, and tubs of paint, one long-limbed leg swinging free.

“I’m here for as long as it takes me to convince you not to go ahead with the painting. Or at least not with the Persephone/Pluto painting. I’m simply not going to sit for it anymore. A portrait of me in my presentation gown would be all right. But I’ve decided that being painted without even a wisp of chiffon is just too vulgar for words.”

She was wearing a tawny-colored narrow skirt topped by a diaphanous yellow-bronze tunic pulled in at the waist and tightly belted by a broad snakeskin belt, her only jewelry a heavy amber necklace. He couldn’t decide whether she was trying to look Russian, or to look Romany. She certainly looked distinctive and, as always, provocatively voluptuous.

He grinned. He could believe a lot of things about Marigold, but not that she had been overcome by a sudden attack of quiet good taste.

“What if I told you I no longer needed you to sit for the painting in order to finish it?”

Though she was doing her best to try to appear unperturbed, he could see that she was seriously concerned.

“I don’t want that painting to be shown, Strickland.” She remembered how paganly beautiful she looked in it and added, “Or at least not until a family matter has been resolved.”

More intrigued than ever, he stubbed his cigarette out. “Unless you tell me why you’ve got cold feet, that painting is going to be publicly exhibited within weeks.”

“You’re a bastard, Strickland. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Plenty of people, but none of them of your age, sex, or upbringing. Now why don’t you tell me what is behind all this? You love feeling wicked, so why this sudden loss of nerve?”

Accepting defeat, aware that he knew her far too well to be fobbed off without being told at least a smidgeon of the truth, she sank down onto the studio chaise longue and said, “It’s because one of my sisters has the chance of marrying someone really, really distinguished and as a family we can’t risk the slightest whiff of scandal. Otherwise it will all be off and her life will be ruined.”

She didn’t add that if scandal robbed her of the chance of living within the palace circle, her life would be ruined also.

He regarded her thoughtfully. Marigold was the granddaughter of an earl. Her great-aunt, Lady Sibyl Harland, was a countess and a hostess in the grand manner. The prime minister often dined at her home on St. James’s Street, as did the leader of the opposition, the Marquess of Lansdowne. Prince Louis of Battenberg was another regular guest. King Edward VII had been, in Sibyl’s words, “a very dear and close friend.

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