Shall We Dance? (18 page)

It was a lovely dream, one that went on to seeing himself as the queen's closest aide and confidant, seeing him as the new princess's guide and mentor as he explained the sensible alternative of tossing the Tories out of government and installing the Whigs once again. The king, already held in distaste by most of the populace, would see his subjects turn their backs on him entirely, to more fully embrace Queen Caroline, and toss roses at the new Princess of Wales, Princess Amelia.

So many dreams, so many plans.

“And the key to them all is the key that opens this chest,” he whispered dramatically as he, with much reluctance, released the lock and got to his feet once more. He looked around the box room, spied a dingy candelabra and snatched it up as if it had been the object of his visit.

“Good afternoon, Nestor.”

Bernard closed his eyes, his stomach turning almost far enough to reach embarrassing disaster, and slowly turned to see the royal princess—Miss Fredericks, he must remember to address her as Miss Fredericks—standing before him, her hand still on the latch of the now-open door.

“Miss,” Bernard said, holding up the candelabra. “I was polishing silver, as per the queen's request, and Mrs. Fitzhugh told me about this piece. We should want them all, shouldn't we?”

“Yes, of course. Carry on, Nestor,” Miss Fredericks said. “Oh, unless you have a moment to assist me?”

“Certainly, Miss Fredericks.”

“Thank you.” She went down on her knees in front of the tin case.

And then, as Bernard watched, amazed, Miss Fredericks took a large key out of her pocket and opened the traveling chest. He went up on tiptoe, attempting to peer over her head and catch a glimpse of the contents, and was hard-pressed to contain his disappointment when she rose once more, holding yet another locked chest. This one was small and wooden, no more than half a foot high and a foot long.

“If you'll hold this for a moment?”

Oh, God. His heart began to pound in his ears. He was holding it. The chest. Not the large tin traveling case, but a smaller chest. The sort that would be used to hide one's most precious documents.

Amelia locked the traveling trunk and got to her feet, holding out her hands so that he would return the small chest.

It stuck to his fingers. Could he dare to turn, run, escape this house? What would happen if he did? What if he was wrong, and nothing of importance was in this box? He would have destroyed his last chance, for nothing.

“I would be pleased to carry it for you, miss,” he said, choking out the words.

“Thank you, but no. I'll take it to the queen, then return it. I've something to locate in my own trunk, so you needn't linger, Nestor. But perhaps you might have someone brew you a cup of tea and have yourself a short rest before you return to the silver? You're looking rather pale.”

“Thank you, miss.” Bernard all but whimpered as Miss Fredericks turned her back on him.

But all was not lost. He was now certain he knew where all his answers resided. He would find a lock that was a twin to the lock on the larger chest, break the old lock, take the small chest, replace the broken lock with its twin, and…ah, and then! Then he would be Sir Bernard Nestor. Bernard Nestor, Earl of something-or-other. No! Duke. That was it! He'd be a duke!

Forgetting the candelabra he'd put on a shelf in order to hold the smaller chest for Miss Fredericks, Bernard wandered out of the box room, down the hallway, his eyes clouded with his heady dreams.

 

“I
BROUGHT YOU SOMETHING
, Your Majesty,” Amelia said, dropping into a deep curtsy before placing the chest on the bottom of the chaise where the queen was lounging, a tin of boiled sweets close at hand.

The book she had gone to the box room to retrieve was already safe in her own chamber, silly as it was for her to want to look at it again, cry again as she read of the funeral procession of Princess Charlotte and her stillborn son.

“My box? I didn't ask for my box.”

“Yes, ma'am, I know. But I had a thought, if you don't mind. I thought that perhaps we should think of another place to keep it?”

“I always keep it in my personal traveling trunk. You know that, girl.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Amelia took a breath, let it out slowly,
seeing again the strange, unhealthy glitter in Nestor's eyes as he'd stared at the chest she'd given him to hold for her. “But it is possible that we are not the only ones aware that you do so.”

The queen sat up straight, her nose all but quivering. “Who? Tell me immediately, Amelia. What did you observe?”

“The king would go to all lengths to discredit you, ma'am, we've agreed on that. Our new staff? We don't really know them, do we? It just seems…well, it seems prudent to keep your most precious belongings where they would not be easily discovered.”

“It was that Fitzhugh drab, wasn't it? Sneaky eyes, smelling to high heaven of peppermints. Curtsies like a hog caught in a bog. Turn her off, girl. Turn her off today!”

“And replace her with whom, ma'am? Turn off our new butler and get what in return? No, ma'am, I beg you to reconsider. I think we must simply be diligent in protecting Your Majesty's privacy.”

“Answer my question, girl. Who was it? What did you see?”

Amelia knew she'd get nowhere until she told the queen everything. “I went to the box room to fetch a book I'd placed in one of my traveling trunks, ma'am, and I saw Nestor, our new butler, ma'am, kneeling in front of your traveling trunk, touching the lock. He has no idea I observed him.”

“My bloody damn husband sicced him on me! Spies! I'm surrounded by spies, traitors, back stabbers! I can't keep on, Amelia,” she said, her bottom lip beginning to
tremble as she fell back against the cushions. “I have no protectors. No ladies in waiting, no courtiers. Gone, all gone, now that I'm no use to them. Only you remain, Amelia. I am aught but a weak, sick, tired woman. Utterly friendless, defenseless. Is this how one treats a queen? At least the French queen died swiftly, with one chop to her neck. He kills me by inches, Amelia. The man won't be happy until I'm in my grave. Or does he build a guillotine at the Tower? Tell me. Tell me!”

Amelia fetched her queen a restorative glass of wine, which the woman drank down in one long gulp. “Ma'am, I will not ask you if there is something…something perhaps dangerous to you inside this chest. That is not for me to know. But if there is, perhaps the best thing for Your Majesty to do would be to remove it from these premises?”

“Ha! And do what? Tie it up in a weighted sack and sink it in the Thames? Burn it? No! I cannot have my treasures destroyed, even if they end by destroying me. They're all I have, all that's left to me. Ah, sweet Lord, I am so oppressed…”

“Oh, ma'am, please, you must be strong. The king can only destroy you if you let him. You are Caroline of Brunswick, Queen of England, ma'am. You must never forget that.”

The queen, who had been burying her face in the lifted skirt of her gown, lowered the material and looked shrewdly at Amelia. “Sometimes, girl, you are more of me than I am. You have a plan, don't you?”

“Yes, ma'am. I told Nestor I would be replacing the
chest in your traveling trunk, so he will only look for it there. But the Earl of Brentwood, ma'am? I'm confident that, if I were only to ask him, he would take the chest to his own residence and keep it safe for you. After all, ma'am, no one can find what isn't here.”

Her Majesty whimpered, held out her arms until Amelia picked up the box and laid it on the woman's lap. The queen reverently stroked the inlaid lid. “My memories. My memories are all here, safe in here. No, Amelia. I cannot let them go. Don't ask me to let them go. There has to be another way.”

Amelia thought for a moment. Entrusting the chest to Perry had seemed such a good answer, such a logical answer. But there was her own book, her own hiding place. “I suppose I could keep the chest in my chamber? No one would think to look for it there. There is a cabinet beside my bed. It has a lock.”

The queen hugged the chest to her. “And you could bring it to me here? Bring it to me whenever I ask. Yes, yes, do it, Amelia. Keep the chest safe. Keep me safe.” She lowered her eyelids for a moment, then looked up, straight into Amelia's eyes. “Keep us all safe.”

 

E
STHER
P
IDGEON
poked her head around the corner of the hallway, checking to make sure it was safe for her to proceed.

Not that she should be terribly worried; she was housed in an asylum of imbeciles.

The consumptive-looking butler she, as a lesser servant, was forced to address as Mr. Nestor.

Mrs. Fitzhugh, a woman of low breeding who did not know a ladle from a demitasse spoon and who spent most of her time locked up in her private sitting room with that Clive Rambert person, a wholly unsuitable creature. They probably copulated, and a more unpalatable mental image she could not contemplate.

Then there were the Italians, with all their gibbering and hand waving. Not that Esther paid much attention to foreigners, who couldn't have a full brain among them. Everyone knew that about foreigners.

The dozens of lesser staff? Truly, never had there been a more apt description for a staff.

No. There was no one here to fear.

Why, she might even feel an urge to linger, to enjoy herself awhile, as feeling superior was such a cheering emotion, except that her brother would soon wonder where she had taken herself off to—whenever he took time to notice she wasn't at the dinner table, whenever he bothered to read the note she'd penned before she left, whenever he cudgeled his brain and realized that their aunt Mary, whom Esther said she'd gone to visit in Kent, had died five years ago.

She had to act when she had the opportunity, linger only long enough afterward so that no suspicion fell upon her, and then hie herself home, to await Florizel as he drove up in his magnificent gilded carriage, to whisk her away to his palace, the last obstacle to their union gone.

The kitchens had been bustling in preparation of the dinner party, so that Esther could not chance being seen
there, among so many people, so had wisely chosen to offer to fetch the tea tray up to Her Majesty's chambers herself. Everyone had been most grateful to her, and much too busy to see that she had not taken the tray up directly, but had stopped for a moment, hidden in a corner of the hallway, to fuss with the contents of the tray.

But now everything was back in its place, more than back in its place, and Esther moved on, head held high, her ears ringing with the sweet words her dearest Florizel would whisper into her ear once he'd learned how she'd saved him. Mentally she began penning the note she would send to him, informing him of her genius.

 

“C
HILDREN
! T
HANK GOODNESS
you got my note! Come, come. Georgiana, sit with me,” Aunt Rowena said, patting the cushion next to her. “No, no, Nathaniel, you are not to remain standing there, glowering down at me. Sit! Sit!”

Nate looked at Georgiana, who was fighting a smile, and grudgingly sat himself down on the edge of a facing sofa. “Aunt, I am a dutiful nephew, I really am. But I had expected to arrive here to see you broken and bloody, at the least. Didn't we, Georgie?”

Georgiana freed her smile. “No, that would be you, Nate. I thought Aunt Rowena's note was perfectly understandable. She has uncovered new information, and this information needs our immediate attention. There was nothing in it about being broken and bloody. Was there, Aunt Rowena?”

The old woman glared disapprovingly at her nephew. “There most certainly was not. Although, now that you
mention it, I suppose I could be in danger, seeing as how I'm the one who's been given the damning information.”

“Oh, good grief,” Nate said, pulling out a pair of dice he then began rolling through his fingers. He'd paid five pounds to a sharp to teach him the trick. “Another dream, Aunt?”

Aunt Rowena laid one bony hand on Georgiana's forearm and leaned toward Nate. “So much more than a dream, Natey. The cards. The cards told me all.”

Nate looked at the table between them and saw the Tarot cards and, before he could catch himself, muttered, “Oh, bugger it.”

“Nate!” Georgiana warned, then giggled.

What a brick she was, his Georgie.

“A thousand apologies, Aunt Rowena,” he said, knowing he was coloring to the roots of his hair. “Tell us about the cards.”

“No.”

“What? What do you mean, no? Dash it all, Auntie, we all but broke our necks rushing over here, so don't you go cutting up all stiff at me now.”

Aunt Rowena sat back and folded her arms over her slender breast. “You are not approaching this with the seriousness it deserves, Natey. I won't be made a fool of.”

“Too late for that,” Nate mumbled, wisely this time only loud enough for himself to hear. “I'm sorry, Aunt. Please, Georgie and I only want to help. But we can't do that if you don't tell us what's going to happen, now, can we?”

“He's right, Aunt Rowena,” Georgiana told the woman. “We really do want to help.”

The old woman looked from one to the other, then said, “Oh, very well. Someone is going to attempt to assassinate Her Royal Majesty.”

Nate couldn't help himself. He knew better, he really did, but he had to ask. “When?”

“Oh? Suddenly you have this deeper interest? Very well, Natey. The when of it is immaterial, for it has already happened. But she escaped without harm.”

“Figures. Can't say she's right or wrong, can we, if the queen escaped.”

“Another perished for her,” Aunt Rowena said quietly. “It was all here, in the cards. But there will be another attempt. I feel sure of it.”

Nate looked to Georgiana, whose cheeks had gone pale. “Georgie?”

“She said…she said…”