The King Without a Heart by Barbara Cartland Page B

Duchess travelled in the second carriage with two dignitaries and the Minister of State who had travelled with them from England.
    Titania was left with Darius and the two Ladies-in-Waiting.
    â€œNow,” said Darius to her, “you are seeing Velidos at its best. There are, I am afraid to say, very much poorer parts of the City and the people find it hard to scrape a living.”
    â€œSurely there are products that you make here which could be sold to other countries,” asked Titania.
    â€œIt is difficult for us to think what our people can do and nothing grows that is easy to export.”
    Darius spoke as if it worried him and then added quickly,
    â€œBut of course there is nothing you can do about it, Miss Brooke, and I should not be troubling you or your cousin with such matters.”
    By the way he spoke, Titania knew he was thinking it would be quite useless to discuss this subject with Sophie.
    She had been aware when Sophie appeared after her seasickness that Darius had looked at her eagerly and had even gone out of his way to talk to her whenever he had an opportunity, but he soon learned that Sophie never listened to anyone unless they were talking about her and her own concerns.
    After three or four attempts to tell her about the country where she was to live, Darius had given up.
    The procession moved slowly on and Titania could see that many of the children lining the route were poorly dressed. Some wore no shoes and were bare-footed and others had torn and ragged clothes which hardly covered them.
    â€œAre you a poor country?” she asked Darius, thinking it was a question that she should have asked him earlier.
    â€œWe never seem to have enough money for our needs, but it is not anything that can be easily changed. I have talked to the King about the problem, but like everyone else he cannot think of anything we can export. We can only just manage to feed ourselves.”
    â€˜There must be something,’ Titania thought and wished her father was with her.
    She remembered how he had made suggestions to countries they visited about improving their wealth and prosperity and often they had followed his ideas and found them very successful.
    She thought that the Crown Prince with German blood in him would be ambitious enough to want Velidos to stand out amongst the other small Balkan States.
    However she had gained the distinct impression that he was too busy enjoying himself to worry about the poor and unemployed.
    â€˜Perhaps I am being uncharitable,’ she corrected herself, ‘but I fear that Sophie will find him a very self-centred man who will not trouble unduly about anyone except himself.’
    At last they reached the Palace and Prince Frederick led Sophie up the long flight of marble steps covered in a bright red carpet with the rest of the procession following closely behind.
    Titania found the fountains enchanting and the flowers growing around them were more colourful than anything that could be seen in an English garden.
    But when they entered the Palace, Titania was somewhat disappointed.
    It had been cleverly sited with a magnificent view over the City and the mountains in the distance, but the furnishings were rather dull and ordinary. There were not the many beautiful pictures and treasures of china and silver that she had anticipated.
    She had been in quite a number of Palaces one way or another and most of them, especially those in India, had been filled with treasures that thrilled the eye and which she had often longed to possess.
    In contrast this Palace seemed almost austere and then she remembered that the last Queen had been German.
    Now she understood that everything she was seeing fulfilled all necessities, but there were no frills or furbelows to delight the mind and the imagination.
    The party proceeded to the Throne Room, where a large number of guests had gathered to greet the Royal party.
    Prince Frederick took Sophie onto the raised platform in