A Queen from the North (The Royal Roses Series, #1)

A NEW PARAMOUR FOR THE PRINCE?-3

PRESENTLY CAME THE announcement that the King and Queen Consort were arriving. The guests were chivvied by Gentlemen at Arms into two long lines while King Henry XII and Queen Cecile walked down the aisle between, greeting a few select attendees. One of the Gentlemen at Arms, who was roaming a few feet ahead of the royal couple, stopped in front of Amelia and informed her that their Majesties would be speaking with her.

Amelia had never, ever been singled out for attention like this. No one else in her family had been either, to her knowledge. Her parents may have been important and docile enough to get invited to these parties with some regularity, but they were still from the northern peerage.

She stammered her way through her acknowledgement of the protocols. This had to have been Prince Arthur’s doing. She wondered if the King and Queen knew what their son had offered her, or what they thought of it if they did.

Amelia felt her mother’s eyes boring into the back of her head and could sense everyone else holding their breath. With a silent and heavy grace, her father shifted to the side so Amelia could step into the front row.

When King Henry, Queen Cecile at his side, reached where Amelia and her family were standing he did not greet her parents first or, in fact, at all. Instead, as they all made the proper bows and curtsies, the King turned his eyes — so very like Princess Georgina’s — to Amelia. He was not a tall man, and his frailty was apparent. Even so, he shone with a delighted vibrancy.

“Lady Amelia,” he said in a voice Amelia had heard on the radio and on TV every year at Christmas. His gaze was kind but remote, distant and assessing. A king sizing up a subject and deciding if she were worthy.

“Your Majesty.” She ducked her head away from his gaze as Queen Cecile looked from one member of the family to the next, taking in their reactions and those of the people around them. Whispers had broken out, but they fell silent as the Queen’s eyes fell on the crowd.

The Queen murmured something warm and polite, Amelia greeted her as well, and the pair moved on down the line.

Charlie put a steadying hand on Amelia’s back, but Amelia didn’t let herself lean into it. Now that the eyes of the King were gone from her, the eyes of everyone else in a ten-meter radius were trained on her instead. No daughter of York should be seen to collapse in the face of a Lancastrian king.

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