THE GRANGE
CHACOMBE-AT-BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND
JANUARY 1973
They sat in Win’s room as snow swirled outside.
The house bent and wailed in the wind, the three of them warmed by the fire, which Mrs. Spencer kindled with letters from “unexceptional lovers.”
“Were they unexceptional in social status?” Win wanted to know. “Or in sexual performance?”
Pru blushed, despite the cold. She pulled the bearskin throw farther up onto her shoulders with one hand and held a book to her face with the other. She’d taken to reading during these interviews, to pass the time between Mrs. Spencer’s filibusters. No one seemed to mind, or even notice at all.
“Ha!” the old woman barked. “Sex or status. That is the question, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about the men,” Win said. “Unexceptional or otherwise.”
“I don’t have ample time left on this earth to tell you about the men.”
“Fair enough. I’ll be specific. Let’s begin with the Duke of Marlborough.”
“Nice try. But no.”
“Why not? Because you can’t speak to his sexual prowess? Or you don’t want to?”
Mrs. Spencer pretended to take a sip of bourbon. It dribbled onto her purple silk gown.
“All right,” he pressed on. “If you won’t yield on the duke, surely you can regale us with stories of your prior betrothals, the broken hearts you’ve left along the way.”
“Ah!” Mrs. Spencer’s face brightened. “Well, there were quite a number of them. I was very attractive in my youth. As your friend Miss Valentine can attest, if a woman has the beauty, she will also have a history of affiancing. She’s already one down.”
“Mrs. Spencer!” Pru said, and yanked her gaze from the book.
That night it was H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau. Dog-Man, Hyena-Swine, and Fox-Bear Witch were appropriately ghoulish for a dark and howling winter’s night at the Grange.
But certainly when I told the captain to shut up I had forgotten I was merely a bit of human flotsam, cut off from my resources, and with my fare unpaid …
“Oh, Miss Valentine, don’t fret! One betrothal at your age is acceptable. It’s true you have a ways to go, more’s the pity, but it’s a valiant start!”
Win’s eyebrows lifted straight off his face.
“Well, now,” he said. “I’ve ragged her a bit, joked that I’d include her in my book. But it’s beginning to seem like a better idea by the minute.”
“That snoozer?” Mrs. Spencer said and affected a yawn. “Miss Valentine is a pretty thing but her life story wouldn’t fill a cocktail napkin.”
“You two are much too kind,” Pru grumbled. “Really.”
“Fine then,” Win said, an eye still on Pru, who tried to bury herself beneath the bearskin throw. “Let’s leave Miss Valentine be and discuss the Crown Prince of Prussia. It’s one of my favorite Blenheim stories, told often, as it’s where the two of you met. I couldn’t walk past the tennis courts without picturing you on them.”
“Never played a set in my life.”
“Prince William of Prussia,” Win continued. “Little Willy they called him. You beat him. In tennis, at a minimum.”
Mrs. Spencer snorted.
“Oh, Little Willy,” she said. “Little indeed.”
“He was tall,” Win said, wiggling his mouth to chase away a smirk. “And fair from head to toe. Rumor was Little Willy’s ears would turn red in your presence. I feel as though I have the same effect on our Miss Valentine.”
Pru glared at him from over the top of her book.
“I only blush when I’m perturbed,” she said.
“Perturbed. Riled up. Excited beyond reason. So, Mrs. Spencer, as the story goes, the young prince first saw you at Blenheim, where he witnessed your wicked serve and ultimately fell victim to your punishing forehand. Your beauty and intellect enchanted the man and your athletics paralyzed him. No one had ever beaten him before. And Little Willy liked his beatings.”
“You make it sound so libidinous,” Mrs. Spencer said, her lips twitching into a smile.
“By week’s end,” Win said. “Whilst on a drive, you coaxed the confirmation ring right off his finger and declared yourselves engaged. Much to the dismay of the kaiser, as you were never a true princess.”
“I don’t need a fledgling biographer to tell me that I’m not a princess.”
“You’d lured Willy into an engagement though he was, as everyone knew, happy to be caught. He never would’ve had the balls to do it himself, to upset Vater.”
“You’ve got that right,” Mrs. Spencer mumbled.
“When political powers on both sides of the Atlantic heard about your engagement, a surge of relief washed across the globe. This would not be a simple marriage but instead an important alliance between Germany and the United States.”
“I’ve had many engagements, Mr. Seton, but I don’t recall a single one of them surging anything across the globe. What’s an alliance anyway but a verbal agreement among two separate people with opposing interests? Easily formed, quickly broken.”
“They say the two of you could’ve prevented the first war.”
“Oh, I hardly think—”
“Mrs. Spencer, admit it. Everyone knows your love might’ve saved the world.”