Читать книгу Prince Charming in Disguise - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 8

Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover, spring 1705

It was with great excitement that George answered his father’s summons on a warm spring morning. The leaves were green, the sky was blue, early flowers were blooming in a profusion of colours throughout the Herrenhausen gardens. Spring was in the air and in his veins. George could nearly feel it thrumming in his very pulse. He was acutely aware of being a man in his prime and the vigour of youth coursed through him fast, hard and hopeful, and not without reason.

With the coming of spring and the thawing of the ground had come the thawing of his matrimonial hopes, which had predictably frozen with the roads. Winter made courier runs irregular at best. At least his hopes had frozen on a high note, giving him something to sustain him through the long winter. His grandmother, the dowager electress, had put forth a name as a prospective bride and a glowing description of the young woman’s virtues. Caroline of Ansbach. George had never met her but thoughts of her lovely attributes had kept his mind and heart much occupied through the cold German nights. Now it was time to see what would become of those hopes.

His father barely waited until they were alone in the grand office of Herrenhausen Palace before he said the words George had waited the winter to hear. ‘I think it’s time to go to Ansbach.’

‘Perhaps I might take grandmother’s ring,’ George ventured hastily. He’d long imagined how this meeting might play out. This would be an honest courtship between two people. In this matter, he would represent himself. He would see her and judge her on his own. She would be able to do likewise. It would be an enormous compliment to her that he wanted her to judge him on his merits, not the merits described in letters from political dignitaries.