Of course I turned my eyes away, blushing to the roots of my hair and the soles of my feet. A man in his underwear wasn’t something I’d ever seen before but Finch took no notice, as if it was perfectly normal to see the prince in a state of undress. When I thought about it later, that was probably how a valet sees his master most days. He just pointed to me again to pick up the breeches and said, ‘Thank you, sir, we will return these first thing in the morning. Just to remind you, it is a six o’clock start, sir, for the rehearsal at Carnarvon tomorrow afternoon. Will that be all?’
‘That will be all, Mr Finch,’ said the prince, ‘and you too, little Miss Romano.’ Finch bowed and I curtseyed again, and I copied him as he shuffled crabwise out of the chamber so’s not to turn his back on His Royal Highness. I was that elated about the whole business that I seemed to glide along the corridors and downstairs to the sewing room without touching the floor. What a red letter day it turned out to be. I had just been within inches of my heart’s desire, the boy who would be King of England. And Finch said I was the best seamstress in the palace.
After that I was so determined to prove it, I spent most of the night on the alterations to the prince’s breeches. First I had to remove the knee band and the satin rosette on each leg and then take in both side seams. The satin was so delicate that every stitch threatened to rip the fabric unless I used the very finest of needles with a single strand of silk thread, and sewed the tiniest of fairy stitches. Knowing that if I had got it wrong there would be no going back and my job at the palace would probably end here and now, I cut away the excess fabric and oversewed the seams to stop them fraying. Then I had to re-gather, with a double line of tacking stitch, and sew back the below-knee band and fit the rosette in exactly the right place. It wouldn’t do for it to hang out at the back or stick out at the front – or, nightmare of nightmares – to fall off in the middle of this investi-wotsit.
After all that, I pressed the seams flat with a very cool iron ever so carefully – imagine if I had singed them – so that they would sit perfectly on the prince’s beautiful limbs. The big clock on the sewing room wall ticked around at an alarming pace, but I was finished at ten minutes to five o’clock, so I wrapped the breeches in some white cambric, picked up my sewing kit again and went in search of Mr Finch in the servants’ hall.
I heard nothing more for quite a few days and so I had to assume that my work had been to the prince’s satisfaction. Gossip in the servants’ hall was that the event had been a great success, that the rain had held off, and the prince had said his lines in Welsh correctly and the king had been very pleased. There were photographs in the newspaper, and to be honest he did look a bit of a ninny even with the slimmed down version of the satin breeches I’d created, but at least I had done my best. After all the excitement of that night, I felt a little let down that my efforts had gone unnoticed and un-thanked.
Until Mr Finch arrived in the sewing room one afternoon and passed me a note. He stood in the doorway while I opened it, my fingers trembling terribly as I’d given a bit of cheek to the housekeeper the day before and feared I might be for the sack.
It was unsigned, but had the Prince of Wales crest at the top: ‘Dear Miss Romano, I have some further sewing for you to do. Please come to my chamber at ten o’clock this evening.’
We went through the very same rigmarole as before. Finch called for me at five minutes to ten precisely. From his silence and the set of his shoulders as we made our way to the prince’s chambers I could tell he was dreadful put out, having to escort the needlework maid around the palace at this hour.
This time, the prince was in a red velvet smoking jacket and Harris tweed trousers, and seemed a deal more relaxed, resting on a chaise by the fireplace with a cigarette, and a newspaper in his hands. When we entered he looked up with that smile like spring sunshine.
‘That will be all, thank you Mr Finch,’ he said. ‘Miss Romano will see herself out once we have finished. There is no need for you to wait.’
I could feel Finch hesitating beside me, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He cleared his throat and said, quietly, ‘Excuse me, sir. Are you sure? It’s just that …’ he struggled to find the right words, ‘Miss Romano may not be too familiar with the route …’
The prince looked at me with a mock-serious frown and a little smile on his lips. ‘I am sure you can find your own way back to the servants’ quarters, Miss Romano, can you not?’
What was I supposed to say? I could not disagree with the prince, whatever trouble that got me into with Finch later, so I mumbled, ‘I think so, sir’, and he said, ‘Very good, very good’, before waving his hand at Finch. ‘Thank you for your concern, Mr Finch, but that really will be all. See you in the morning.’
The next few hours was like a dream. Even now I cannot really merit that it actually happened and, believe me, I have thought of it almost every day of my life. In the Hall they give you drugs to forget, and I didn’t want to forget a moment of this time, so after a while I refused to take them. What else did I have but my memories?
I asked what it was he wanted me to sew for him, and he laughed and said, ‘There’s no mending to be done tonight, little one, except perhaps my poor life. It’s been so dreary since they made me leave naval school and all my pals. No, I’ve invited you here because I want to have a conversation with someone normal. And you have such a charming smile I felt sure you would be fun to talk to.’
I hesitated then, I really did, and my heart started banging in my chest at the unusualness of the situation I found myself in. It was not my place to go round having casual conversations with princes, let alone at night when everyone else was asleep.
‘Are you sure, sir, I mean, Your Royal Highness,’ I stuttered. ‘I am a very ordinary girl you know, not even needlework mistress. When Miss G gets back to work, perhaps …’
He interrupted, ‘But that, little one, is exactly why I want to talk to you. Now come and sit down beside me, and tell me about your life.’ He wanted to hear about everything, he said.
Well, I barely knew how to start, not being in the habit of having conversations with princes, but I knew better than to string it out too much so I just told him briefly about the nuns and his mother the queen, when she was a duchess, coming to The Castle, about how we arrived at the palace and how me and Nora liked to have a laugh together. He sat quiet, as if he found my every word fascinating, and those blue eyes was on me the whole time, smiling with amusement or frowning in sympathy. He must surely be the best listener in the world, I thought, not that anyone much had ever listened to me before.
I told him about Miss G and how she needed a prince’s kiss to cure her warts and he hooted so long and loud I was afraid it would rouse the rest of his family, wherever they slept. When he stopped, his beautiful soft eyes went serious and he put his hand on mine, leant forward, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I nearly jumped away with the shock of it.
‘There,’ he said. ‘A prince’s kiss to make Miss Romano even more beautiful.’
‘Oh sir,’ I gasped, blushing to the tips of my toes.
He lifted my chin with his finger and turned my face towards him, then planted another kiss – this time on my lips. It was my first proper kiss, imagine that, and so delicious. He tasted of marshmallows, vanilla and icing sugar, and I wanted it to last for ever, but after a few seconds he pulled away, stood up suddenly and walked over to the fireplace, stopping with his back to me. I must have been holding my breath the whole time, for my head started to swim and I thought I might faint clean away, so I kept my eyes to my lap to stop the room from spinning round.
After a long moment he spoke. ‘I am so sorry, I got carried away. Please forgive me.’
‘There’s nothing to apologise for, sir. It’s surely my fault for being so impertinent, sitting here and going on about my ordinary little life.’
‘But that’s just it, don’t you see?’ he said, walking back across the room towards