Free Bride to the King by Barbara Cartland

things as – easy as possible.”
    “ Easy !” the King replied, his voice rising on the word. “I see nothing easy about your being here or this damned marriage!”
    Zosina started when he swore, because, although she knew it was a swear word, she had in fact, never heard a man use it in her presence.
    “Do you – hate the idea so – much?” she faltered after a moment.
    “Hate it? Of course I hate it!” the King snapped. “I have no wish to be married. All I want is to be free, free of being ordered about, free of being told what to do from morning until night.”
    “I can understand your – feeling like that,” Zosina said, “but you know why our marriage has been – arranged?”
    “I know why they say it has been arranged,” the King answered, “but the real truth is that Uncle Sándor wants someone to take his place, someone who will manipulate me, as he has always done.”
    “I am sure that’s not true,” Zosina cried, “and if it were, they would not have chosen me!”
    “That is why they have chosen you,” the King said. “It is well known that your mother bosses your father and that Lützelstein has a petticoat Government.”
    “That is a lie!” Zosina protested. “Whoever told you that has deceived Your Majesty with a lot of rubbish!”
    The King laughed and it was not a pleasant sound.
    “It is a fact whether you know it or not,” he said, “and if you think you are going to rule my country I promise that you will be disappointed!”
    “I have no wish to rule anything or anybody!” Zosina said.
    She saw the King did not believe her and after a moment she said more quickly,
    “I did not wish to – get married either – I was merely told – that I had to do so.”
    “Do you expect me to believe that?” the King asked. “Every woman wants a crown on her head.”
    “Then I am the exception. I want to – love the man I marry.”
    The King laughed jeeringly.
    “Love is a cheap commodity – ” he said. “There is plenty of it about, but one cannot marry it. Oh, no! That is arranged by one’s Councillors or in my case by my uncle.”
    He spoke in a manner which told Zosina that he hated the Regent.
    She had been standing while they were talking, but now she sat down in a chair as if her legs would not carry her. “What – can we – do ?” she asked helplessly.
    “Do?” the King questioned. “What we are told to do, of course! Uncle Sándor has it all neatly tied up, while the Prime Minister and all those idiotic creatures who kow-tow to him behave as if I was a performing animal in a circus. ‘Jump through a hoop, Your Majesty! Turn a somersault, Your Majesty! Fly on the trapeze, Your Majesty!’ You don’t suppose I have any chance of refusing them?”
    Zosina clasped her fingers together.
    “I know it seems – unfair – and perhaps cruel,” she said in a small voice, “but the menace of the – German Empire is real – very real!”
    “That is what they tell you,” the King answered. “Personally I don’t care a damn if the Germans do incorporate us in their Empire. We would very likely be better off than we are now.”
    “No! No!” Zosina cried. “How can you say such a thing? We have to keep our independence. How could we be ruled by the Prussian Emperor?”
    “He would leave me on my throne.”
    “For as long as you did as you were told,” Zosina said. “If you think you are badly off now, it is nothing to the position you would find yourself in under the Germans.”
    “Now you are talking like Uncle Sándor,” he sneered. “I think it’s all a lot of ‘bogey-bogey’ thought up by politicians who have nothing better to do!”
    “Oh, it is real – it is true,” Zosina insisted. “I read the newspapers and I have also heard what my father says about the menace of the German might. We cannot let Lützelstein and Dórsia come under Prussian rule!”
    “All I want,” the King replied, “is to enjoy myself and to have a good time. If I