Page 39 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)

“A h, there you are at last, Sir John.”

Victoire was so attuned to the man’s presence, she did not even need to look up to know it was him. She could tell by the rustle of his coattails and the soft fall of his footstep against the carpet.

“I was not aware I had kept you waiting, ma’am.” She heard the smile in his voice. He was humoring her.

She was in no mood to be humored.

“You are so often absent these days.” She kept her attention on her letters, sorting them into piles according to how urgently they needed to be answered. “I almost think you are avoiding me.”

“You know how busy matters are at present.” There it was, that first touch of impatience.

She was not responding to his presence with proper warmth and gratitude.

He was very sensitive to that. “Our departure date is scarcely a fortnight away.” He paused.

Perhaps he looked around the room or glanced at the clock.

“Is Victoria on her walk? Who is with her?”

“Your very own Jane, of course.” Victoire looked over her latest letter from Leopold.

It was filled with his usual long paragraphs of sound and excellent advice, exhortations to trust herself to his adviser Baron Stockmar’s excellent judgment, and so forth.

It begged for news of the king and Parliament and whether they meant to continue paying his pension.

Being king in Belgium, it seemed, was an expensive proposition, and he needed the money.

She laid that letter down on the least urgent pile.

“She has begun badgering me to let her go out riding again,” Victoire said. “I suppose I will have to. We have told so many people she took no hurt from her fall, and . . . what happened.”

“As it happens, I agree that she should go riding as soon as possible.” He paced around the desk, then came to stand within her field of vision.

He wanted her undivided attention. “It will help dismiss any lingering gossip about what happened, and I’m sure you agree that now more than ever, it is important the princess be shown in the best light.

We want buoyant crowds on her tour, not fearful ones. ”

Victoire looked up at Sir John. How many years had he been at her side now? How much had she relied on him because her husband had urged her to? And because she desperately needed an ally—any ally?

Was it possible she had made a colossal mistake?

“The king does not approve of this new tour.”

He chuckled. “The king has never approved of any tour. With any luck, he will give himself an apoplexy.”

Victoire permitted herself a tiny smile to indicate she understood the joke but did not approve. One should not joke casually about the death of kings. Not even Silly Billy.

“What is bothering you, Victoire?”

Victoire stood. She walked to the window, indicating that he should join her.

The windows had been opened wide to catch the slightest possibility of a breeze.

Therefore, it was easier than usual to see down into the gardens.

There Victoria walked arm in arm with Jane Conroy, with Dash gamboling at their heels.

From the corner of her eye, she watched Sir John smile down on the little trio affectionately. Indeed, triumphantly.

“What a remarkable change you have wrought, Sir John,” said Victoire. “My daughter, who was so indifferent to yours, has now clasped her close.”

“And I have explained it to you,” he said oh so patiently.

“Victoria has turned her fancies to this business of Dr. Maton. She has always had a girl’s love of the dramatic, and this engages her overheated imagination.

She wants to uncover a great scandal. Jane is humoring her, which is why they are now friends.

Jane is also keeping me informed of what Victoria is up to.

There is no reason to be concerned. You know I will not let the matter go too far. ”

“And you are certain that’s what she’s doing?” inquired Victoire.

“I don’t understand you.”

“No, I expect you do not.” She turned abruptly and stalked away. She did not know where she planned to go, but she could not be so close to this man anymore.

“Ma’am, what is the matter?”

“Sir John, I have trusted you all these years.”

“And you can always trust me.” He was coming close again. She could feel his warmth, his worry. She could all but hear the wheels of his mind turning as he tried to guess what she was about to say.

She whirled around suddenly and was rewarded by the sight of him taking a step back in surprise.

“Trust you? When you have made such a terrible blunder!”

“What blunder?” he demanded. “Who have you been talking to?”

“I have been talking to my daughter, Sir John, and my friends in the palace. They inform me that you have been entirely taken in by a little girl, and it may cost us everything we have worked for!”

Sir John drew himself up, silent, furious, astonished.

“Did you know that the king is planning to demand that Parliament give the money to create a separate household for Victoria? And that the queen supports this?”

“Of course. It is of no matter. You are the girl’s legal guardian. Nothing can be done about her living arrangements without your permission. That is the law.”

“The law, the law,” she mocked. “What your English law gives, it takes away.”

“You cannot believe that the king or Parliament is interested in going to war with us over custody of—”

“The sole heir to the British throne?” inquired the duchess sweetly. “Especially now, when the king’s health is failing? Especially when the men of your great English Parliament believe that I am morally unfit to be her mother?”

“What?”

“They believe we are lovers, Sir John,” she snapped. “You have permitted them to believe we are lovers.”

It was true. She watched his face—the ways his eyes darkened, the way his busy mind searched frantically for some lie.

But there was no lie that could brush away this truth.

He was a man like all the others. He preened and swaggered in front of his compatriots, and each of them tried to outdo the others with their claims about which grand lady they had managed to fuck.

That she had teased and flirted, that she had worked to wrap him around her little finger, that was beside the point. She pushed it all to the back of her mind and locked it away.

“Victoire,” he began. “I promise . . .”

I find I am uninterested in your promises just now. “And you have permitted Victoria to go gallivanting about with no one but your daughter and that traitorous Lehzen to protect her—”

“Victoria is playing a game . She thinks she is on the cusp of unearthing some great mystery behind Maton’s death. If she’s occupied with that, she cannot be focusing on this nonsense about the new household . . .”

“Unless she’s using this freedom to press her case to be removed from my care!”

Again, Sir John fell silent. Victoire took a perverse satisfaction in having shocked him twice within the space of a few minutes.

“I know my daughter, Sir John. I have watched her. Despite all our efforts—all your efforts—she has not grown more biddable or dependent. She has grown ever more defiant, and she is more clever than her antecedents would suggest. And . . .” Victoire paused to make sure she had his full and undivided attention. “She hates you.”

“Ma’am—”

“She hates you, and she hates me.” Tears sprang into Victoire’s eyes. Not the pretty, playful tears she used with courtiers and men of influence. These came from her sore heart. “She is working with the queen to get herself removed from our care.”

Victoire watched Sir John begin to realize the extent of what he had missed.

“How can she be in communication with the queen?” he demanded. “She is constantly watched. We read all her correspondence.”

“She uses Lehzen, of course.” Every one of Victoire’s words dripped with sugar and acid.

If Sir John had been raised in a court, it would have been as obvious to him as it was to her.

But for all his machinations, Sir John was an interloper in these halls where she was the native.

“Lehzen has been having secret meetings with Mrs. Wilson, who waits on the queen. Victoria has blinded you with this ruse about chasing after phantoms and dramas on hillsides. The truth is much simpler. She is conspiring with the queen to get her own household, and she has flattered your daughter into helping her.”

“No,” said Sir John. “She is a tiny fool of a girl. She is not capable—”

But the doors opened, and the footmen entered, and they had to close their mouths and turn to see the Earl of Dunham rush into the room.

“Dunham!” cried Sir John. “What brings you here at this time?”

“Forgive me for barging in on you like this, your grace, Sir John. I . . .” He bowed hastily. “There has been a development with the board.” He cleared his throat. “And the king.”