The Lost Princess [Hamliza Anastasia AU]

Chapter Eighteen: Once Upon A December

December, 1911. Albany, New York. 

Two year old Beth hid underneath her bed, listening to the nurse's frantic footsteps as she searched the room for her. 

"Princess Elizabeth!" the woman called out. "Come out please. You need to go to bed."

"I don't want to," Beth told her, somehow knowing the woman was looking for her. "Mom and Dad aren't here."

"Oh!" The nurse exclaimed, and a second later, her face appeared in the gap between the bed and the floor. "There you are, you little rascal," She said. "Now come out"

Beth didn't know how she had been discovered, but that didn't really matter. "No," she told the nurse.

The woman sighed. "Please, Princess. Your parents won't be back for a few days. They're visiting the Adams family in Massachusetts Kingdom, remember?"

"But Mom always tells me a story before bed." 

"She does," Beth's three year old sister added, joining the conversation in support of her. "And your stories are bad."

The nurse sighed and sat up. "How about I go get the Dowager Countess Gertrude. She can tell you a story?"

"Who?" Beth asked.

"Your aunt Gertrude." The nurse said. "That's her title. Hang on a minute, I'll go fetch her."

"Ok," Beth agreed. Dowager countess. That was a fancy title. She hoped she'd get to be a dowager countess one day, since she'd never be queen. 

A few minutes later, the door swung open and Beth heard a voice she couldn't place but knew must be Aunt Gertrude's  "Elizabeth. Come out from under there right now and get into bed."

Knowing she had been beaten, and knowing her aunt was probably going to tell a story, Beth decided to do as she was told. She wiggled out from underneath her bed, then climbed into it and slipped under the covers."

"Good girl," Aunt Gertrude said, sitting down on the edge of Beth's bed. "What kind of story do you want to hear tonight?"

"Tell one about Mom and Dad!" Her older sister suggested. 

"Well," Aunt Gertrude said. "I don't know many stories about your mother, since I didn't meet her until she and your father were courting, but I know a lot of stories about your father as a child. Will those do?"

"Sure," Beth yawned. Her favorite stories were the ones her mother told, full of magic, fairies, and beautiful princesses, but she knew Aunt Gertrude didn't have the imagination for that type of tale. 

"When your father was ten, he loved lions." Aunt Gertrude began. "He was fascinated by everything about them. I remember he once wrote me a whole letter describing their hunting techniques."  

"Why did he write you a letter?" Beth asked sleepily. 

"Because I was already married to my husband," She explained. "He was a lord in Pennsylvania, and we were living in a town called West Chester. Anyway, because your father loved lions so much, our parents decided it would be a really special treat if he could see them for real. Philip was turning eleven in just a few weeks, so they hired the best circus they could find to come and perform for them. Circuses usually have lions, you see. My husband and I were invited to Philip's party, so we got to see the whole thing. There were lions, of course, and Philip was overjoyed about that, but what really caught his attention was the performance aspect. The way ordinary animals could be trained to do spectacular things."

"Like what animals?" Beth questioned her aunt. Her older sister probably would have been the one to ask, but she had fallen asleep. 

"Well," Aunt Gertrude thought for a second. "There were brown bears that danced. The brown bears here are too hard to catch, so the circus had to import them all the way from Russia."