Page 36 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)
K ing William IV strode down the corridors of Whitehall, his boots ringing hard against the marble floors. Persons of various stations stared and whispered as he passed. He ignored them all. He knew what they were saying.
They called him Silly Billy and wondered what had gotten him into a temper today. They compared his head to a pineapple and said his narrow brow was an outward sign of some inward mental impediment.
They thought he didn’t know. As if he had not come up in the Royal Navy, which drank down rumor and gossip along with the rum ration. As if he wouldn’t recognize an insult because it was disguised by a smile and a fluttering fan.
As if he had learned nothing as a prince in his father’s—and then his brother’s—vicious, deteriorating court.
Indeed, something both the navy and the court had taught him was the importance of good intelligence, not to mention the vital importance of maintaining the element of surprise.
Which was why he had not given the men of the Kensington Board any notice that he planned to attend their Whitehall meeting.
“My lords! The king!” bellowed the footman.
All the men in the room scrambled to their feet. Lord Dunham actually dropped whatever papers he’d been holding, and they scattered about the floor. He was red as a beet when he bowed.
William pretended to ignore it.
“No, no, no ceremony, no ceremony!” he declared, although no monarch had ever actually meant those words, and he certainly didn’t mean them now. “Sit, sit, all of you.”
William dropped into the chair at the head of the table and looked directly at the brandy decanter. “Drink? Very good.” He held out his hand, which sent Dunham and Dunfermline both scrambling to get a glass and fill it with brandy. Duncannon looked pained.
God’s teeth, how is it we wound up with a set of lords all titled with D s for this ridiculous committee?
The glass of brandy was put in his hand. “Your health, my lords!” William drank. Which meant they all had to drink with him.
He slammed his glass down on the table.
“Your Majesty, we had no word . . . ,” began Dunfermline, his nervousness deepening his Scotch accent.
“No?” William twisted in his seat to glare at his secretary Marsters, who stood hunched behind him like a particularly tidy crow. “No?”
“An oversight, sir,” replied Marsters. “I am sorry.” The man was amazing. William almost believed him, even though he knew for a fact the fellow was lying through his teeth.
“Oh well, nothing to be done about it now.”
“Sir John has just left, I’m afraid, sir,” said Lord Dunham. “We can perhaps still—”
William swept all this aside with a single gesture.
“No need, no need. You’re the fellows I want to talk to.
You’re the ones in charge of my niece’s household, after all, and it’s the household I’m here about.
” He watched them shooting glances at each other, shuffling their papers, trying to work out exactly what was happening.
They should know, b’gad. And they would know if all of them weren’t under the spell of that Conroy fellow. Conroy had them all convinced he would have the last word regarding little Victoria.
Well, time to put paid to that nonsense.
“Now. Let’s go straight at it, shall we?” The king planted his elbows on the table. “My niece is now sixteen. It’s time, past time, that as heir to the throne, she was given her own establishment.”
“But she is well established at Kensington,” said Lord Duncannon. Duncannon was a ginger-haired, sharp-faced little fellow with startling black eyes. Looked like a ferret, with his long hands and his tiny ears.
“You mean that mother of hers is,” William snapped.
“It is time the princess had her own house, with her own ladies about her.” Meaning ladies chosen by Adelaide, not that double-damned duchess.
“If she were a prince, it would have happened years ago. My brothers and I were barely breached when we were taken out of our mother’s house.
It may be different for girls, but still, for Victoria, it should have happened years ago.
Yes, yes,” he said before anyone could speak.
“There were other considerations at the time. Let that pass. Now. We consider that Buckingham House would be a suitable residence. You, my lords, will consult with the accountancy department to draw up a decent allowance to put before Parliament . . .”
“Sir . . . forgive me,” said Dunham. “But why now?”
Yet another Lord D. and yet another Scot, b’gad!
“I told you. It’s time. And frankly, I’ve never liked the way the girl’s mother schemes with that fellow Conroy.”
“Sir John was a trusted assistant to your late brother the Duke of Kent, sir,” said Dunfermline. “It is natural that the duchess should also place her trust in him.”
“Well, she places too damn much trust in him and always has,” growled William. “And he’s been allowed too much influence over the girl. It ain’t seemly.” Let them hear his definite opinion, just in case they weren’t already aware of it.
Let them see it was time for a prudent man to turn his coat.
But Dunfermline, it seemed, was unwilling to take the hint. “May I ask, sir, are you hearing these rumors from the Baroness Lehzen?”
“It makes no difference where the information comes from.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. But I fear it does.” Dunfermline smoothed down his bristling whiskers.
Like he needs to calm the unruly things.
“As Your Majesty is well aware,” Dunfermline went on, “things between the palace and Parliament are at a very delicate point. And the health and well-being of the princess is naturally of great concern to the whole of your government. If it seems that you are taking the word of a jealous servant over that of the girl’s mother and a baronet and the whole of the Kensington Board .
. . Your Majesty runs the risk of looking ridiculous, or envious. ”
“Because I’ve no legitimate children of me own?” bellowed William. “That what you mean to say?”
Dunfermline’s eyes widened, and all his whiskers bristled. “I only wish to present—”
“Yes, yes, I see very well what you wish. Now, sir, you will hear what we wish.” William slammed his hand on the table, rattling the glasses, the papers, and the whole gathering of mealymouthed men.
“We wish that our niece have an establishment and income suited to her age and her position as the next queen of the United Kingdoms. We do not wish to be pushed aside by some lackey whose only claim to our regard is that he once served our late brother. What have you to say to that, eh? What?”
Lord Duncannon cleared his throat. “Well, yes, of course Your Majesty’s wishes in regards to the heir are paramount.
” William felt his temper swell. Did the little weasel think to manage him?
“Perhaps if we were to wait until after the coming tour, to give Your Majesty’s councillors time to formulate a full plan . . .”
“Tour?” barked William. “What tour?”
Duncannon shrank backward, his ferrety little eyes darting in all directions as he looked for some way out. “I . . .”
“What tour?”
Dunfermline soothed his agitated whiskers. “Your Majesty was surely informed that the Duchess of Kent and Sir John have planned a new tour in September to take the princess into the North.”
“The devil I was informed! Why the bloody hell should I be informed? I’m only the fucking king of England! Why the fucking hell should any of you bloody, sodding, poxy, shit-eating, flabby-arsed buggers tell me anything!”
“Sir . . . ,” tried Dunham.
“What!” William surged to his feet, which forced them all to stand. “You want to tell me something now, do you? What is it? Eh? What?”
But Dunham just closed his mouth and bowed.
“Quite right,” growled the king. “Now, my lords, I shall tell you something. You will write up a bill for Parliament detailing the requirements of a new household for the princess. You will inform your peers and whoever else you think necessary that it is done by the king’s express wish, and you will do it before the month is out.
And you will none of you go babbling to Conroy or the duchess.
Is that clear? I’ll tell them what they need to know, or the queen will. Good? Yes?”
That should have been the end of it. But Lord Dunham didn’t have the sense God gave a goose. “The Duchess of Kent will not agree to the princess—”
“The duchess will do as she is told, or she will find herself out on her arse! Is there anything else? No? Good!”
William turned and barged out of the room, his secretary and retinue of footmen following behind in neat formation.
“Marsters?” he snapped without breaking stride down the wood-paneled corridor.
“Sir?” His secretary stepped up beside him.
“You’ll tell me which of them runs tattling to Conroy and the duchess, as soon as it happens.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Good man.”