Twelve years have passed.
May 1838, London, UK.
Adele woke up at dawn, despite the fact that she and her brother arrived at the mansion late at night. It’s always like this with her: how long she would not stay behind another interesting book, she always woke up invariably in the early morning.
The sun had not even risen above the horizon, but only painted the sky pinkish. The young princess got out of a warm bed and, walking barefoot on the floor, went to a high window. She pushed aside the heavy velvet curtain preventing her, she opened the window sash and let cool morning air into the room.
The skin was immediately covered with goosebumps from a draft that broke into the room and the girl shivered chilly. From the garden came the sweet smell of flowering peony bushes, a huge flowerbed planted with these flowers of various shades was right under Adele’s bedroom window. It will be necessary to order Nastya to collect a large bouquet for her and put in a vase near her bed.
The girl happily breathed in a delicate aroma and, climbing onto the windowsill, dreamily leaned her head against the wall.
So she is back in London. I wonder if anything has changed here over the years that she lived in Russia? The last time she spent summer here two years ago, when she came to the anniversary of her grandfather, the Duke of Rutland. But what did she see then?
Of course, shops: this was the best place in London, according to Adele. Were her will, she would not crawl out of them all day long. In London there were whole streets, consisting of only shops: clothes, shoes, hats, children's toys, grocery stores, pharmacies, books, jewelry, furs, perfumes ... it could be endless! And wander about them, too, for Prince Vyazemsky had never in his life refused anything to his only, adored daughter.
Instead of trying to temper the charming young spender, he only with a smile paid a lot of bills that appeared in the house the next day after Adeline’s next visit to Oxford Street. The prince was firmly convinced that his girl should have access to all the very best that she wished. And no matter what it was - a hundred and forty-eighth hat or a purebred English horse.
Perhaps, in this way Andrei Alekseevich tried to somehow compensate his daughter for the fact that she grew up without a mother. Alas, his wife was a very eccentric nature, which led her to tragedy. Princess Vyazemskaya, nee Elizabeth Rutland, died on the hunt, unsuccessfully falling from a horse and breaking her neck. She died instantly, without torment, barely having time to understand what had happened. Their son, Michel, was ten years old, and Adeline was six years old. The prince was so depressed and shocked by the ridiculous death of his wife that he just drank alone for several weeks, forgetting everything in the world, including children. When he came to his senses, he tried to make up for lost time and began to shower his son and daughter with gifts and entertainment, and then completely took them on a long European tour, where they spent two years moving from country to country, from city to city.
As a result, from childhood Adeline got used to constant travels: London, Paris, Venice, Vienna, Zurich, where she just did not visit with her father and brother!
True, to her chagrin, when she was nine years old, papa remembered that the young princess needed a better education, and locked her in the most famous guesthouse for noble girls in St. Petersburg - the Smolny Institute.
The study was not easy for the restless and wayward princess, but mainly because of her own laziness. Although Adele didn’t treat all subjects like this: for example, she loved music and dancing, and not only all the young ladies of the boarding house admired her clean, crystal soprano, but also teachers, including even the stiff director — Princess Golitsyn.
Playing the piano too was easy for her, and her ability to languages helped her to master English and French without difficulty. All other subjects, such as geography, arithmetic, the history of the princess studied, of course, but without much zeal. It was much more interesting to her to sneak from a classy lady to read French love stories, which, incidentally, were strictly forbidden to be read by smolyanka.