Rebecca Dean - The Golden Prince  

ALSO BY REBECCA DEAN

Palace Circle

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Rebecca Dean

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Broadway Paperbacks, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

BROADWAY PAPERBACKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dean, Rebecca, 1943
The golden prince / by Rebecca Dean.
1. Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 18941972Fiction. 2. Great BritainHistoryEdward VIII, 1936Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.E1537G65 2011
813.6dc22 2010016784

eISBN: 978-0-307-72075-7

v3.1

This book is dedicated to my grandson,
Jacob George Grumbridge,
with love.

The Golden Prince is a work of fiction. While many of the characters in it are historical figures, many others, including the Houghton family, are fictitious. Unlike the royal palaces mentioned, both Snowberry and Castle Dounreay are also fictitious.

In The Golden Prince, Edwards love affair with Lily Houghton is fictional. What is fact, however, is that in the summer of 1917, when Edward was twenty-three, he fell in love with the unmarried youngest daughter of the Duke of Sutherland, Rosemary Leveson-Gower. They met during the war in France when she was a Red Cross nurse. In Michael Thorntons book, Royal Feud, he cites the Dowager Lady Hardinge of Penshurst, whose husband was at that time assistant private secretary to George V, and subsequently private secretary to both Edward VIII and George VI, as writing of Edward and Rosemary, he wished to marry but there was opposition to the match. One can wonder forever how the history of our Monarchy in the twentieth century and after would have turned out, if the Prince of Wales had had his way in those early days.

He also quotes Lady Victor Paget, one of Rosemarys closest friends, as saying of Rosemary, One day she came to see me and told me that the Prince had asked her to marry him. When King George refused to countenance the match, because Rosemary, though a dukes daughter, was nonroyal, Lady Paget ventured this opinion to Michael Thornton, The Prince was bitter and furious. Idont think he ever forgave his father. I also felt that from that time on, he had made up his mind that he would never make what might be called a suitable marriage to please his family.

I believe Lady Pagets surmise to be correct, for after his love affair with Rosemary he never again fell in love with anyone single and suitable. All his subsequent affairs were with married women.

In March 1919, Rosemary married Eric, Viscount Ednam. In July 1930, she died in a plane crash over Meopham, in Kent. A year later, Prince Edward opened, in her memory, the Rosemary Ednam Memorial Extension at the Royal Northern Hospital at Stoke-On-Trent.

MAY 1911

A slightly built , blond young man stood beneath Dartmouth Naval Colleges flamboyantly splendid portico. With his hands deep in his pockets, he stared glumly across a broad terrace to where twin flights of steps led down to manicured gardens and beyond the gardens to a steeply sloping, tree-studded hillside.

At the foot of the hill lay the river Dart, clogged with college boats of all shapes and sizes. More than anything in the world he wished that, like many of the other cadets in his group, he were aboard one of them. Although he hated the academic side of his training, he loved being out of doors and active. Spending time aboard a sailing cutter, with the wind of the estuary blowing against his face, was the only thing that made life at Dartmouth bearable.

His cadet captain strolled from the shaded recesses of the grand entrance hall and drew to a halt alongside him. Off on a weekends leave? he asked affably.

David nodded, making an effort to look happier about it than he felt.

His captain hesitated slightly, as if about to say more. Then, thinking better of it, he merely nodded and, with one hand hooked in the pocket of his naval uniform, he strolled on his way.

David watched him, his eyes bleak. He knew very well that his captain had been about to offer his usual good-bye to cadets going home on leave. Give my best to your parents. Given Davids unique circumstances, this would have been a familiarity not at all appropriate.

Besides, he simply had too many names. Seven, to be exact. Edward, after both his grandfather and an uncle who had died as a young man. Albert, after his great-grandfather. Christian, after one of his godfathers. George, after his father, or was it because George was the patron saint of England? He wasnt quite sure. Certainly Andrew was after the patron saint of Scotland, Patrick after the patron saint of Ireland, and David after the patron saint of Wales. With that little lot to choose from it was no wonder people paused before addressing him.

Within his family circle he was known as Davidand David was how he always thought of himself. If hed had any close friends, it was the name he would have liked them to useonly he didnt have any close friends.

It wouldnt be wise, his father had said grimly, hands clasped behind his back, legs astride. Not in your position. Thats why youre at Dartmouth and not Eton or Harrow. When you leave Dartmouth, your former classmates will be pursuing careers at sea and you will rarely, if ever, see them. That wouldnt be the case at Eton or Harrow. Any friendships formed there would run the danger of continuing after your education and would become a burden to you. You dont want that, David, do you?

No, sir, hed replied dutifully, thinking there was nothing hed like better than to have a couple of lifelong friends.

As if he had read Davids thoughts, his fathers protuberant blue eyes had narrowed.

If that is all, sir ? David had said, eager to be free now that the familiar knot of fear was forming in the pit of his stomach; eager to be on the other side of the library door once again.

Beneath his trim beard and waxed mustache his fathers mouth had tightened, but the expected explosion of temper hadnt come. He had merely made a sound in his throat that could have meant anything and given a curt nod of dismissal.

As his cadet captain disappeared from view, David gave a heavy sigh, knowing all too well that in a few hours time there would be a similar interview at the castle and that this time his fathers ferocious temper might very well not be held in check.

He stepped from beneath the portico and began walking along the terrace fronting the college. Weekends at home were definitely not weekends he looked forward to, but they did have one redeeming feature. They enabled him to practice his driving. Slightly cheered, he rounded the building and strolled across the broad graveled drive to his Austro-Daimler.

As expected, Captain Piers Cullen was seated behind the wheel.