I, Alexandrina Page 5

  She was not. I knew it. I wanted to help fix her. I wanted to make her laugh and smile and heal, whatever it took.

  **

  And then I discovered pornography. Soft-core pornography, rather. I stumbled across an obscure French film in which a newlywed husband and wife celebrate their wedding night. The man stretches out spread-eagled on the bed. He is naked, his penis standing erect. Purple and swollen. His wife wears a transparent gown that does little to hide the dark circle of her nipples. A proud black bush grows between her legs.

  My throat went dry as another part of me became wet. I was not exactly sure what was happening on the screen, as I knew little about sex. Mrs. Rubberstone liked to sigh when she talked about how clueless Victoria and Albert must have been. “They loved going at it,” Mrs. Rubberstone said, “but honestly! Someone should have taken the poor fellow or the poor woman aside and told them about other ways of pleasure besides penis in vagina. Miserable Victoria, always pregnant.”

  Mrs. Rubberstone never did elaborate on those other ways of pleasure. My knowledge of sex amounted to the fact that a man put his penis inside a woman and released sperm to make a baby.

  Now here was the act of baby making. The woman got on top of the man and glided him inside her. She rode him like he was a horse. More intensely than that, actually. They moaned and groaned and made tortured faces.

  My body felt the torture on their faces. It needed some sort of release, some strange sort of release, but…how? What could I do?

  Oh, I throbbed down there. I throbbed so very badly, and I turned the TV off before the film could further work me up. Somehow, I fell asleep, and I woke about eleven p.m. I was absolutely famished. I tried to fall back asleep, but my body was having none of it. Not only did my stomach cry for sustenance, thought after thought circled through my mind.

  At least, that is how the thoughts began, in orderly circles. Before long, they devolved into a mess of chaos, zinging here, colliding here, exploding here, re-forming over there. Plus, the need that had developed in me from the French film was worse. Rather than allow my thoughts and my need further reign, I moved out of bed and addressed the desires of my bladder. I wiped sleep from my eyes, brushed my hair, and decided that the dress I still wore from dinner was presentable enough for a sojourn to the kitchen.

  First, I would check my beloved night sky. Oh, disappointment! My heart crashed to my stomach. Most of the stars that twinkled and jostled for space in Marslavia were vanished, leaving a few faint creatures in their wake. Why? Where had they gone?

  I lit a candle to guide me to the kitchen, and the door to my apartments opened smoothly, soundlessly. Thrills shot up my spine despite my despair about the missing stars. In Marslavia, the door would have been locked, rendering nightly sojourns impossible.

  The dining room was empty, the food from earlier gone. The candle revealed two doors on opposite sides of the room, and I chose one. A few paces confirmed that I had found the kitchen. I fumbled with a switch, and light flooded the room. Modernity reigned. Sleek, metallic appliances everywhere, a far cry from the Frogmore in Heather Rubberstone’s books.

  “Alex!” Caroline’s voice caused me to jump.

  I whirled around, thoughts of food replaced by bubbles of joy. And the need between my legs. The penetrating, yearning, gnawing need. Being with Caroline again! “Hi,” I said shyly.

  Her eyes twinkled. “I see that great minds think alike.” Perhaps I had read between the lines incorrectly earlier. Perhaps Caroline truly had been resting, for she looked amazing. Better than she looked even during our first meeting. She wore a silk blue nighttime gown that brought out even more color in her eyes (and a gown that, of course, reminded me of the gown the woman from the French film wore). Caroline’s gown ended mid-thigh, and I dared not bring my gaze down there, lest my interest betray itself. Caroline smelled of softness: cherry, lavender, apricot.

  I felt so very self-conscious in my wrinkly dress and in my plain skin. Alas.

  Caroline rummaged through the refrigerator and came up with leftovers from dinner. “How do you like your apartments?”

  “They are comfortable. Thank you.”

  “Sorry I missed you at dinner. I was bushed. It’s been a long few days.”

  I chuckled. “Yes, yes, it has.”

  “I hope Philip was not too dreadful.”

  Smile, smile. Oh, her legs! Yes, I had availed myself of glances while Caroline was occupied with the refrigerator. Her feet were bare, and her ankles enticed me for nibbles. I could begin nibbling there, work my way up to her knee, and, oh, the curve of her buttocks as she shifted her weight to the other foot. My hands longed to touch her. Goodness! I had to stop this. “He was fine.”

  “I should show you my rooms,” Caroline said. “You need to know where they are so you can get me anytime you like.” She looked me over, and her intense blue eyes flared. Even now, many years later, the blueness of them that night amazes me. “Or is tomorrow afternoon a better time?”

  “Now is wonderful.” I struggled to cap my excitement, to prevent it from spilling over to my expression. Any time Caroline asked me to be with her would be perfect, just perfect. “Wait. Won’t we wake Philip?”

  “Wake Philip? What do you—oh! Oh. You think we…no. We do not sleep together, Alex. Remember, we are separated. We live in unconnected apartments.” She shrugged, but the casualness of her gesture could not conceal the pain that flashed into her expression. “It is what it is.”

  “Ah.”

  Caroline and I took up two trays. “When I moved in five years ago, we were overrun with staff. I couldn’t go anywhere without bumping into a servant. It is much better now. I can breathe. Most everyone goes home at night. Snug as bugs in their cottages. Okay, now, you’d turn here to go to your apartments.” She tilted her head rightward at the top of the winding staircase. “For mine, we go left and walk a distance. It’s a maze, I’m afraid.” She laughed. “I made Philip give you my old apartments.”

  I gasped. “Caroline!”

  “It’s nothing,” Caroline said. “You are new here. I wanted you to have accessible apartments that are easy to find. Speaking of finding things, did you come across my surprises yet?”

  My heart. My poor heart and stomach. Filled with giddiness and jittery butterfly wings. Sweet Caroline! Oh, sweet Caroline. “Surprises? No.”

  She winked, the weak light filtering through the windows no match for her vivid blue eyes. “I hope you enjoy them.”

  We wandered through several hallways until, at last, we reached Caroline’s apartments. I tried my best to memorize the path and resolved to do better on my way out. “Bit of a mess, I’m afraid,” Caroline said as she nudged the door to her apartments open.

  Bit of a mess, eh? How about a heap of a mess? I have always been a tidy person, a person of few possessions. In Marslavia, we children were not spoiled. We were made to pick up after ourselves, and although we had cooks, we participated in cooking lessons, sewing lessons and the like.

  I did not mind that Caroline was spoiled and that she did not pick up after herself. If anything, it drew me to her more.

  “Sit, sit.” Caroline indicated the sofa, one of the few bare surfaces in the sitting room. “I’ve not finished unpacking, as you see.”

  We set down our trays atop the few inches of space on the coffee table. “Caroline, it’s nonsense that you gave up your apartments for me. Sweet, but—”

  Caroline pressed her finger to my lips, and I sunk into the intimacy of her touch, the casualness of it, the playfulness of it. “Alex.” Her breath fanned across my face in a deep, throaty utterance. The area between my legs tingled. “Alexandrina, darling. Shh. Hmm?”

  Oh. Oh. For two women having sex with each other, with no penis present, perhaps appendages such as fingers or tongue substituted. I imagined Caroline’s finger not on my lip but inside me, and desire pooled between my legs. Caroline withdrew her finger, and my body ached for her.

  We turned to our food,
and it tasted much better than it had at dinner.

  “Philip says you and he have an engagement tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes. We’re opening a playground about thirty minutes away. What will you do?”

  “Someone is going to show me around the house and the grounds.”

  “Splendid, splendid.” Caroline had a piece of turkey on her lip, and on impulse, I brushed it off. My touch lingered a beat too long, my gaze searching hers out, catching hers. Wanting to know if I was seeing things, feeling things for no reason.

  Caroline smiled. “Had something on my mouth, did I?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” No confirmation either way from Caroline. So be it. We ate the rest of our snack in silence, and I wondered where Philip’s apartments were. Did not care enough to ask.

  What was it Caroline said? I miss being touched. It’s been years. Should I take some initiative and touch her? My body felt like it might implode. The built-up tension from the film, being here with Caroline, wanting to touch her…I lifted my hand to brush her knee, but Caroline’s words stopped me before I got there.

  “I talked to Louise about an hour ago,” Caroline said.

  “Louise?”

  Caroline nodded. “I got her to calm down. Everything’s fine. I think she finally understands what she needs to do. Her original plan was to avoid you and pretend you did not exist, and hope her fortune tellers changed their tune about you and Albert.”

  “Ah.”

  A ghost of a smile. “I suggested joint photos. You and her. You in positions like sitting, her standing. A clear assertion of authority. Make it clear who the queen is. She can’t avoid you. She simply can’t.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “I said she needs to do it as soon as possible. She will try to come here tomorrow afternoon.”

  What? What, now? The queen of England here at Frogmore, tomorrow? Blink, blink.

  “Hush about it,” Caroline said. “She wants to keep it on the down low. And guess what?” Caroline turned gleeful. “She’s going to see if Albert will come. Are you ready to meet your future husband, Alex?”

  My heart crashed to my stomach. Caroline did not care if I touched her or not. I had misread her entirely. Or had I? As Philip said, his wife was a woman of contradictions.

  “It’s a lot to take in,” Caroline said, noting my expression. “I am getting ahead of myself. I apologize.”

  “It’s okay.” But it wasn’t.

  Caroline chuckled. “Darling Albert. You’ll fall in love with him right away.” A belly laugh. “I did! Definitely. Everyone does. We can’t help ourselves. We want to jump him and have our way with him.”

  I did not want to hear about Albert. I wanted this woman. I wanted Caroline.

  Her gaze turned serious. “It may not be romantic love. In fact, it probably won’t be. The odds are astronomical for you and Albert to be soulmates like the old Albert and Victoria were. But as a woman in an unhappy marriage and who has seen her family members and friends make unhappy union after unhappy union, this is what I have to say. Truly happy marriages are rare. When you go into marriage expecting romance and passionate love to last forever, you will be disappointed. It is best to marry a good friend. Someone honest and kind and decent. Someone you can get along with forever. Albert is going to keep sleeping with all the women he likes, no matter what. It’s a fact. He’s a man. Men are wired that way.” A faraway, sad look crept into her eyes. “Women and men are built differently. I’m telling you right now not to expect faithfulness from him. He will make you laugh. He will never embarrass you. He will treat you well.”

  “You act as if we are engaged already. He will not want to marry me. I am no one. I am plain and unexciting.”

  “I’m old,” Caroline said with a sigh. “I’m twenty-six and old.”

  What this had to do with anything, I did not know.

  “He will marry you if his mother wants it badly enough,” Caroline said. “Both Louise and Albert know his wiring. They know that his wife needs to be someone who understands she is not destined to be his bedmate for life. They know that his wife needs to be a special kind of woman.”

  “That’s me?”

  “I think so.” Caroline spoke lightly. “You are rational and level-headed. You may think it an inferior way of life, but it is far superior.”

  An uneasy feeling spread in my stomach. I wanted to be in love! I wanted to experience idiocy and silliness in the name of love. Never mind my earlier feelings against romantic foolishness happening to me.

  “It is best to know the devil you are getting into a relationship with,” Caroline said. “I attest to the fact that Albert is a good man. Who knows if another man you would want to marry will be good?”

  “Ah.”

  “Anyway! Enough about Albert,” Caroline said. “You look tired.”

  I did? Oh. This was Caroline’s way of bringing the night to a close. “I am tired,” I said, playing along. If nothing else, Caroline’s downer of a conversation had rid my body of its sexual urgency. “I’ll return our trays to the kitchen.”

  “Oh, no, no. Leave them. The maids will get them tomorrow. Come, I’ll help you get back to your apartments. Where is the…damn it.” Caroline searched through a towering pile of documents. “Ah! Here it is.” She plucked out a pink sheet. “I drew this for you. It’s not to scale, but it’s something.”

  It was a map of Frogmore’s interior with labels such as “Caroline’s Apartments,” “Philip’s Apartments,” “Alex’s Apartments,” “Kitchen,” and so on.

  I stared at the paper. How could a woman who drew me a map like this want to marry me off in a union of convenience?

  “Thank you for the map. I will show myself back.”

  “You’re upset.”

  “No.”

  “You are.” Caroline sucked in a hard breath. “I speak my mind too bluntly sometimes. My words wound. You are young. Of course you want a lovey dovey and passionate marriage. I just don’t want you to make the mistake I did, and I know Albert. He is a kind man, a really decent man. He will be good to you.”

  I miss being touched. It’s been years.

  Maybe Caroline acted like this from lack of being touched. So, perhaps I should try, after all. I moved my hand to her knee, which was as bare as mine in the car had been. I set my hand there and moved my thumb as she had moved hers.

  Her body came to life. She tried to hide it, stiffening, saying nothing, but I felt it. Her erratic pulse. The riot of gooseflesh.

  I met her gaze. I watched a French film, my eyes said. A woman rode atop a man. I want to be your rider, and I want you to ride me. I want us, together, to moan and groan and sweat.

  Her mouth parted slightly. Her pink tongue darted out. In. Out. Back in.

  “You said you missed being touched,” I pointed out.

  No reply.

  “Good night,” I said, rising.

  V.

  “Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.”

  -Queen Victoria

  I was shaken awake in my bed at eight a.m. by the same lady who showed me to my apartments yesterday and escorted me to dinner. I had neglected to ask her name.

  “Your Royal Highness,” she said. “It seems you have forgotten about your meeting.”

  “Meeting?”

  “Yes, fifteen minutes ago with the young lady who is to show you around the grounds.”

  No one had told me the time of the meeting! “What is…I’m sorry, but I did not catch your name yesterday.”

  “Call me Broward.”

  “Broward. Okay. Please tell the young lady I will be down as soon as possible. I must shower.” I had not showered since Marslavia, and my body itched to be rid of the grime that comes with travel.

&n
bsp; Broward sniffed in disapproval. “Yes, Your Royal Highness.” She turned and began to leave.

  “Broward! What do I wear?”

  Broward pretended not to hear me and was gone.

  Fine. Jeans and a T-shirt should do. I stumbled into the shower. Fortunately, the knobs were easy to maneuver, and the shampoo and conditioner proved a delightful scent of strawberry. The water, too, proved agreeable, being strong and efficient. Fifteen minutes later, my hair wet but brushed and an apple in my hand from the bowl of fruit in the sitting room, I was ready for the morning.

  VICTORIA IS FREE! blared the top headline on the top stack of newspapers next to the fruit bowl. A huge picture of me on the walkabout outside Frogmore. Philip had remembered about the newspapers. Good. I had a lot of catching up to do, but it would have to wait.

  **

  The young lady met me at the foot of the grand staircase. “Hello, Your Royal Highness.” Quick curtsy. She was dressed in jeans too.

  I liked her right away. She had a wholesome look about her, dark-red hair, sunny cheeks and inquisitive green eyes. I held out my hand. “Please, call me Alex.” I resolved to do the same for Broward next time I saw her.

  “Alex? Awesome. Okay. I’m Delilah.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  As Delilah and I walked, I could not help but take in the nape of her neck, the smoothness of her cheeks, the riot of freckles on her face, the snug fit of her buttocks in her jeans. It seemed as if Caroline had brought a part of me to the surface, and I could not help but survey women.

  “What do you know about Frogmore?” Delilah asked.

  “A lot, I believe. At least, I do know the information from Queen Victoria’s lifetime.”

  A laugh. “Haha. Okay, let’s check out the gardens. Oh, look. There’s the tea house.” She pointed to a brick, twin-towered cottage that belonged in fairy tales. A faint Heather Rubberstone memory stirred.