Page 46 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)

W hen Victoria reached Aunt Sophia’s sitting room, it was to find a waiting woman holding a tray with a pot of chocolate and a rack of toast on it.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The woman’s curtsy was slightly awkward because of her full hands. “Her Highness has not yet risen for the day.”

“Oh, I’m sure she won’t mind me visiting,” said Victoria. “Is that her chocolate? I’ll take it in.”

Victoria took the tray out of the woman’s hands and breezed toward Aunt Sophia’s boudoir, with Dash scampering behind. What could the woman do but open the door for her?

And close it right behind her.

Because Victoria—a Royal Highness and a member of the blood family—could enter Princess Sophia’s bedchamber when she was en déshabillé.

Protocol dictated, however, that Lady Flora must wait outside until invited.

Victoria felt quite sure Aunt Sophia would not be inclined to include one of Mama’s spies in their conversation, however trivial that conversation might be.

And what Victoria had to ask her aunt was far from trivial.

Aunt Sophia lay in her broad carved bed, under a tapestry canopy. In her nightclothes and cap, she was a tiny, pale, ruffled doll in a sea of brocade silk and velvet.

“Vickelchen!” Aunt Sophia cried. “What a lovely surprise!”

“Good morning, Aunt! I came to see how you are.” Victoria set the tray on her aunt’s lap and kissed her cheek. “I hope you do not mind Dash.”

“Not at all. Put him up here.” She patted the bed beside her. Victoria complied, and Aunt Sophia rubbed the spaniel’s chin. “There’s a good doggy!”

“Should I pour you some chocolate?”

“Yes, yes, and I’ll ring for a cup . . .”

“Oh no,” said Victoria as she poured the rich brew into the gilt-rimmed cup. “I’ve had mine. But I’ll steal a slice of your toast.”

“Greedy girl.” Sophia laughed.

Victoria hopped up on the bed, just as she had when she was small. Now she and Aunt Sophia sat side by side, propped up by the silk bolsters. Dash lay between them, looking mournful and thumping his tail hopefully against the covers until Victoria fed him several bits of toast.

Her aunt took a long, guzzling swallow of chocolate. “Ah! Now. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company on this horrid morning?” She waved at the windows. The rain had stopped, but the day remained thoroughly gray.

Victoria thought about saying she’d just wanted to visit. She didn’t have to disturb her aunt or herself. She could find another way. She could let the . . . the . . . other matter go.

Because if she spoke, she might very well break something precious, and she knew it.

“Vickelchen?” said Aunt Sophia. “ Was ist los? What is it?”

Victoria took a deep breath. She patted Dash’s back. She found she could not look her aunt in the eye. “Aunt Sophia, I have to ask you about Dr. Maton.”

“Which Dr. Maton? I understand there is an entire flock of them.”

“Dr. William Maton. The household physician.” Now Victoria was finally able to lift her gaze. “The one who died.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I’m teasing.” Aunt Sophia selected a piece of toast from the rack and gnawed at it.

“Aunt . . .”

“Out with it, girl.” Aunt Sophia waved her toast, scattering crumbs across the bedcovers. “I’m too old for all this foot-dragging.”

“Was Dr. Maton your son?”

Aunt Sophia put down her toast. She drained her chocolate cup and set that down, too.

“My son?”

“Yes.” Victoria did not let herself look away.

She had said this thing, and she would face what came next.

She would look her aunt in the eye, and she would hear whatever she had to say.

Even if she fell into one of her screaming fits.

Even if she burst into tears. “You . . . you had a child when you were younger.” Out of wedlock and out of sight.

You had a secret lover and a secret bastard.

Just like your brothers did. “And you’d been working to make sure Dr. Maton was paid extra beyond his stipend from the household, and Sir John and Mr. Rea were helping you. ”

This was what she’d learned from the letters she’d stolen.

Aunt Sophia had been a young and lonely woman.

Her father’s madness had kept marriage out of reach for her and her sisters.

The fact of her being a woman had kept her from having her own home, a luxury that all her brothers had been allowed.

There had been a great deal of sighing over the boredom and isolation of that time, of the endless days with nothing to do but sit with her sisters and her mother and embroider or play solitaire, waiting—for hours, for days, for years—for their father to get better.

There had been more. Victoria had read veiled hints about what King George III did in his madness and about her brother the Duke of Cumberland. Things she could not quite understand. Or perhaps I don’t want to.

What she did understand was that Aunt Sophia had fallen pregnant and she had given birth. It was all meant to be in secret, but that secret had escaped. That was why she was exiled here to Kensington Palace, with no one except one disgraced brother to keep her company.

Victoria waited for Aunt Sophia to shout or cry or accuse her of being ungrateful, selfish, and a host of other epithets. But she just sighed.

“I would ask how you found out about my son, but I have a feeling I don’t want to know.” She shook her head sadly. “But to answer your question, no. Dr. William Maton was not my son. However, he was there when my son was born.”

Victoria’s breath hitched.

“I had wondered when you’d find out about Tommy. That’s his name, by the way. Thomas Garth. Would you like to see his picture?”

Victoria nodded. Aunt Sophia reached beneath her wrapper and pulled out a gold locket that hung on a chain around her neck.

She opened it carefully. Inside waited a painted miniature.

The man it depicted was round-faced and popeyed and was wearing an officer’s scarlet coat.

His brow, his eyes, and the dark waving hair all declared he was related to Sophia, to the rest of the royal family.

To me. It was the first time she had seen any of her illegitimate cousins, and Victoria felt a strange frisson inside. Because he looked exactly like the few legitimate ones she had met.

Aunt Sophia seemed to be waiting for her to say something. What could she possibly say?

“He’s very handsome.”

“Thank you.” Sophia gazed at the portrait, her wide eyes swimming with tears.

Victoria knew she should cringe back from her aunt.

There could not be any sympathy. Aunt Sophia had permitted herself to be ruined.

She deserved her lonely life and should be grateful that the family had continued to support her at all.

The man in the portrait—despite how normal he appeared—was tainted by the nature of his birth.

Mama had said all this and more about Uncle William and his mistress and his children.

But somehow, as Victoria sat here beside her old aunt, with the chocolate pot and toast crumbs and her spaniel dozing between them, the outrage and horror she knew were proper responses refused to manifest.

“Do you ever speak?”

“Oh, not directly. Not in years.” Aunt Sophia snapped the locket shut.

“My brothers were all allowed to raise their bastards, at least until they had to join the race to produce a legitimate heir. I was never even permitted that much time with my son. I gave birth in a public house, and within hours he was taken from me to be raised elsewhere.” She closed her bony hand around the locket and held the image of her son close for a moment before she hid it away again.

“Every so often a letter still finds its way to me. Mostly asking for money.”

“Do you give it to him?”

“When I can. I have a bit of my own, you know. Living locked in a tower is a marvelous way to husband one’s income.” She chuckled, and she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped at her eyes. “I’ll have some more chocolate, there’s a good girl.”

Victoria filled her aunt’s cup and put a slice of toast on the saucer. She kept her gaze averted while Aunt Sophia mopped her eyes and her nose and generally pulled herself together. In fact, she did not look up at all until her aunt took her cup and downed half the contents in a single gulp.

“Ah!” Aunt Sophia threw her head back and sighed harshly up to the canopy. “Say what you will about tea, but it’s chocolate that saves one at such times.”

Victoria smiled, but just a little, and only for a fleeting instant.

“Aunt, I have . . . I have another question.” She stopped. She steeled herself and began again. “Aunt, did my father . . . Were there any outside children?”

“Like that whole litter of Fitzes belonging to dear William?” Aunt Sophia’s mockery was sharp.

“Or Sussex’s pair away off in Germany or Italy or wherever it was?

” The sneer slid across Victoria’s skin, and it felt prickling.

Dangerous. Victoria reminded herself that Aunt Sophia had a right to her anger, particularly on this subject. “What makes you ask now?”

Sir John says his wife is my sister. Sir John tells his children that they are my blood relations because she is my father’s natural daughter. “It’s simply that . . . when I am queen, I should not like to be . . . surprised.”

“Mmm . . . yes. There’s sense in that. No other reason?” She cocked her head. “A reason from Sir John, perhaps?”

Victoria froze. Aunt Sophia patted her hand.

“You found out his ridiculous delusion about his wife, didn’t you? That’s what’s behind this sudden interest in all our bastards.”

Victoria swallowed. “Jane said . . . said her father said . . . about her mother . . . I wanted to know if it might be true.” She blushed.

This stammering was not like her. She had come here determined to face any and all truths she might learn.

“Jane told me that Sir John thinks his wife is . . . is my half sister. Could it be true?”