Bride to the King Read Free

to get off my hands one way or another. You cannot imagine I am going to find available Kings for all of them!”
    Zosina drew in her breath.
    “I suppose – Papa, you would not – consider Helsa – going instead of – me? She is very anxious – to be married, while I am quite – happy to stay here with – you and Mama.”
    Her question, spoken in a somewhat hesitating voice, brought the blood coursing into her father’s face.
    “How dare you argue with me!” he raged. “How dare you suggest that you will not do as you are told! You ought to go down on your knees and thank God that you have a father who considers you to the extent of providing you with a throne, which is not something to be picked up every day of the week!”
    His voice deepened with anger as he went on,
    “You will do exactly what I tell you! You will go to Dórsia with your grandmother and you will make yourself pleasant to the King – do you understand?”
    “Yes, Papa – but – ”
    “I am not listening to any arguments or anything else you have to say,” the Archduke roared. “It is typical that, after all I have done for you, I find that I have been nurturing a viper in my bosom! You are ungrateful besides apparently being – half-witted!”
    He coughed over the word, then continued,
    “There is not a girl in the whole Duchy who would not jump at such an opportunity, but not you! Oh, no! You have to complain and find fault! God Almighty! Who do you expect will ask to marry you – the Archangel Gabriel ?”
    The Archduke was really carried away in one of his rages by now and Zosina, knowing that nothing she could say would abate the storm, rose to her feet.
    “I am – sorry you are – angry, Papa,” she said, “but thank you for – thinking of me.”
    She curtseyed and left the room while he shouted after her, “Ungrateful and half-witted to boot! Why should I be afflicted with such children?”
    Zosina shut the door and was glad as she went down the passage that she could no longer hear what he was saying. ‘I should have kept silent,’ she told herself.
    Her father had taken her by surprise and she knew that she had been extremely stupid to have questioned in any way one of his plans. It always annoyed him.
    ‘He is also annoyed,’ she thought, ‘because he cannot make the State visit himself. He would have enjoyed it so much. But it will be fun to go with Grandmama.’
    Queen Szófia, the Queen Mother, was both admired and loved by her four granddaughters.
    Because she had an abundance of traditional Hungarian charm, she had captivated most of the population when she reigned in Lützelstein.
    But there had been a hard core of Court officials who found her frivolous and too free and easy in her ways.
    Now, when she was well over sixty, she still appeared to laugh more than anyone else and life in the small Palace to which she had retired five miles away, always seemed to Zosina a place of happiness and gaiety.
    She reached the hall and was going towards the stairs when out of the shadows emerged Count Csàky, the Ambassador to Dórsia.
    He was an elderly man whom Zosina had known all her life and as soon as she realised he wished to speak to her, she went towards him with her hand outstretched.
    “How delightful to see you, Your Excellency!” she exclaimed. “I did not know you had returned home.”
    “I only returned two days ago, Your Royal Highness,” he replied, bowing over her hand. “I imagine His Royal Highness has told you what news I brought him?”
    “We have just been talking about it,” Zosina said, hoping the Ambassador had not heard her father raging at her.
    He smiled,
    “In which case I have something to show you.”
    She walked with him into one of the anterooms where distinguished personages usually sat when they were awaiting an audience with her father.
    The Count went to a table on which she saw a diplomatic box. He opened it and drew out a small leather case.
    He handed it to her and,