The Last Princess Read Online Free

unsure creature who had been sent away to school. She was now full of grace and, though she little realized it, beauty. For as much as she thrived abroad, she was gradually becoming aware of a feeling that she didn’t belong there either. Europe had always somehow been a strange and foreign world—one that she never truly felt a part of. Now, with this missive from home calling her back, Lily found herself only too glad to go. She was filled with an overwhelming sense of longing to return to her home.
    It made no sense, perhaps, to go back to a home where she had been so miserably unwanted and lonely, and yet, for reasons she could not articulate, Lily knew that was where she wanted to be.
    She had always hungered for her parents to love and forgive her. Perhaps the time had come when it would happen—at last.
    As she got up and walked back into the villa, she had made her decision—she would leave for home as soon as she could book passage.
    Yet as she stood at the rail of the Ile de France and waved down to Colette standing below, the moment was bittersweet. Europe, after all, had been the only home she’d known for years and years. Tears streamed down her cheeks unchecked as she bid her dearest friend and the land of her youth adieu.
    At home the reunion with her parents was strained and awkward. Years of brief visits had forged little common ground. After a couple of strained dinners with their daughter the elder Goodhues resumed their social life, leaving Lily to amuse herself as best she could at home. It seemed any hopes for a real relationship with her parents were not about to materialize.
    Lily wandered through the house as though seeing it for the first time. Outside Charles’s old room she hesitated. Then, taking a deep breath, she opened the door. Her parents had kept everything exactly as it had been the day he died. They had even hung his small jodhpurs over the end of the bed. Dear Charles, she thought. I loved you too much to ever have hurt you. She walked back into the corridor and closed the door.
    Two weeks later she received the first hint of what had prompted her father’s decision to bring her home. She was at a dinner party seated next to Roger Humphreys, the son of one of her father’s best friends. Glancing down the table she saw that she was finally earning her parents’ approval. Not because of her sweetness of character, but because she exuded glamour and beauty. Colette would have been proud. Lily was a beauty. The candlelight played upon the delicate bloom of her cheeks, and her faintly accented English enchanted not just Roger but the whole table. Suddenly it dawned on Lily that she had been brought home to make a good match and provide her father with an heir to the family fortune. Strangely enough, Lily found herself not resenting that. It seemed only fitting that she, as their daughter, should marry well.
    After that first dinner her social success was assured. She was immediately in a whirl of activity.
    Weekends were spent visiting neighbors in Southampton, playing tennis at Forest Hills, or sailing off Cape Cod. But wherever she went, Roger Humphreys seemed to be present. His all-American good looks were the antithesis of the fine, drawn Europeans who had courted her in France, his blunt manner the opposite of their suave flattery. She found him refreshing and was intrigued by his Boston accent, his Harvard degree, and his athletic prowess. He never tried to make love to her, but although she was surprised, she assumed that it was an American kind of restraint, a trait which she rather admired. So she was completely unprepared for Roger’s embrace one day when they were forced to seek shelter in the boathouse. “Lily,” he blurted out, “I’m in love with you. I want you to be my wife.”
    She caught her breath. She had never thought of Roger in terms of romance. He was a pleasant companion, charming and good-looking to be sure, but she had felt no stirring of emotion when