H.R.H. Read Free

inevitable restrictions she had to live with were bound to chafe, just as they had him at her age. They would weigh heavily on Freddy too when he got back in the spring, although Freddy was far more artful about dodging his responsibilities than either his father or his sister. Fun was Freddy's only job now, a full-time career for him. Since leaving Harvard, he had indulged himself constantly. It was all he did, and he had no desire to grow up or change.
    “Don't you get tired of what you do, Papa? It exhausts me just watching all you squeeze into every day.” His hours were seemingly endless, though he never complained. His sense of obligation was part of who he was.
    “I enjoy it,” he said honestly, “but I didn't at your age.” He was always truthful with her. “I hated it at first. I think I told my father I felt like I was in prison, and he was horrified. One grows into it in time. You will too, my dear.” There was no alternate course for either of them, except the one that had been set for them at their birth and for centuries before. Like her father, Christianna accepted it as her lot in life.
    Christianna's father, Prince Hans Josef, was the reigning Prince of Liechtenstein, a principality of 160 square kilometers, with thirty-three thousand inhabitants, bordered by Austria on one side and Switzerland on the other. It was entirely independent and had been neutral since the Second World War. Its neutrality set the stage for the prince's humanitarian interest in oppressed and suffering people around the world. Of all the things her father did, his humanitarian pursuits were what interested Christianna most. World politics were of less interest to her, and more her father's passion, out of necessity. Freddy had no interest in either, although he was the crown prince of the principality, and would step into his father's shoes as ruler one day. Although Christianna would have been third in line to the throne in other European countries, in Liechtenstein women were not allowed to reign, so even if her brother did not take his place as reigning prince, Christianna would never rule her country, and had no desire to do so, although her father liked to say proudly that she would have been capable of it, more so than her brother. Christianna did not envy her brother the role he would inherit from their father one day. She had enough trouble accepting her own. She knew that from the day she returned from college in California her life would be here now forever, carrying on her duties, and doing what was expected of her. There was no question and no choice. She was like a fine Thoroughbred racehorse with only a single course to run, that of supporting her father, in the small unimportant ways she could. More often than not, the work she did seemed utterly meaningless to her. She felt as though she was wasting her life in Vaduz.
    “I hate what I do sometimes,” she said honestly, but she wasn't telling her father anything he didn't already know. He didn't have much time to reassure her, since he had the meeting with the finance minister in a few minutes, but the anguished look in his daughter's eyes touched him to the core. “I feel so useless here, Papa. As you said, with all the troubles in the world, why am I here, visiting orphanages and opening hospitals, when I could be somewhere else, doing something important?” She sounded plaintive and sad, as he gently touched her hand.
    “What you're doing is important. You're helping me. I don't have time to do what you do for me. It means a great deal to our people to see you in their midst. It's exactly what your mother would have done, if she were still alive.”
    “She did it by choice,” Christianna argued with him. “She knew when she married you that that would be her life. She wanted to do it. I always feel like I'm just passing time.” They both knew that if she followed her father's wishes, eventually she would marry someone of similarly high birth, and if