Page 7 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)

M ama pressed a hand against her mouth. Pain rippled up Victoria’s back.

“That is not possible. I saw the man.” She remembered it clearly. If she had paper and pencil, she could sketch the curve of the skull, the line of the shoulder in the rumpled black coat, the limp, unmoving hand.

“Then who was he, this man you claim you saw?” asked Sir John.

“I did not see his face.”

“No.” Satisfaction filled that single word. “I expect not.”

“Sir John?” breathed Mama.

He faced Mama and took her hand again. “There was no dead man, your grace. It may have been a hillock, or a pile of stones, perhaps. A shadow on the grass. But there was nothing else there, and I cannot think why Her Highness continues to speak such nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense!” cried Victoria. Startled, Dash barked.

“You will control that creature!” shouted Mama. “Or it will be removed!”

Victoria went cold as ice. She picked Dash up and handed him to Lehzen to take to his basket in the boudoir. When she turned back, it was to see that Sir John had laid his hand on Mama’s shoulder. Together, they looked down at Victoria.

Sir John smiled.

“If your story is not a lie, then what is it?” inquired Mama.

“It is the truth,” replied Victoria.

“The truth?” Mama’s brows arched. Sir John did not move.

He stood there, his smile never wavering, his caressing hand on Mama’s shoulder.

“The truth is you chose to go for a gallop after being expressly forbidden to do so. The truth is that you lost control of your horse. Then the truth is that to cover over your carelessness, you invented this outrageous story!”

“That is not how it was!”

“Then why does your groom contradict you?” inquired Mama. “Why didn’t Sir John find any sign of this . . . this . . . thing you claim you saw? Did the dead man get up and walk away? Did he magically turn into a pile of stones?”

It was too much. Words, swollen by feeling and memory, clogged Victoria’s throat. She could not answer quickly enough.

But Sir John could. Sir John always could.

“Your Highness is either lying or imagining things,” he said. “Which is it?”

“I am not lying! I did not imagine it. I saw —”

“Victoria, stop!” Mama started forward.

“I will not—”

But Mama had her by the shoulders and shook her once, hard. “You will stop! You must stop, or you will make yourself ill!”

Sir John loomed behind Mama. He gazed down at her, entirely satisfied with their work thus far.

And they were not done.

“She cannot stop. She is incapable of controlling herself or her temper. It was inevitable that the breakdown would come sooner or later.”

“But we have done everything possible.” Mama leaned toward him.

“I know, I know,” he breathed. “But it has always been in her.”

“I am not mad!” screamed Victoria.

The words rang in the air. Sir John and Mama both faced her. Mama on the verge of tears, Sir John smiling, cold and smug. Separate individuals again.

Victoria knew her face was flushed. She felt the hot tears, harsh against her skin.

Sir John watched her cry and was so very happy.

“How are we to know?” he breathed. “When you cannot control your temper or stand upright without growing dizzy, when you talk of seeing ghosts—”

Those words froze her. “I said nothing of ghosts.” I did not. I am sure I did not.

“You saw a dead man who was not there. What is that but a ghost? And you stand here, screaming like a banshee, insisting on the truth of a story that has already been contradicted. That is foolishness, or it is madness.”

Mama dropped both hands onto Victoria’s shoulders. “No. It is not so. It cannot be. I have watched. I have taken every precaution—”

“No one can blame you.” Sir John spoke to her gently, lovingly, and entirely. It was as if Victoria had dissolved and was no longer there. “No one can have shown more care. It is the family taint.”

“Her father showed no sign!”

“But there is her grandfather,” said Sir John. “And her uncles and her aunt Sophia,” he added, as if he had just thought of it, as if he had not repeated this slander a thousand times previously.

“You will stop this at once!” shouted Victoria.

But of course they did not stop. They were caught up in each other and their mutual imaginings.

Mama clasped her hands together. “What will we do? What can be done? We cannot tell the doctors! They will talk. This new man, Clarke! What will he say? We cannot know!”

Victoria felt her anger crumble as the panic burned through. Without thinking, she sought out Lehzen. Their eyes locked. She saw her governess willing her to resist the storm building inside her.

Be strong. You must be strong.

But she also saw how worried Lehzen was. Victoria suddenly felt acutely aware of how her back and head both ached. Her knees trembled.

No matter what Sir John might or might not do, she knew that she must lie down, or she would grow dizzy again. She had already shown him far too much weakness. She could not let him see her balance fail.

Victoria closed her mouth. Her back hurt, but she drew herself up. Her vision blurred from the pain. She forced herself to ignore it.

“I beg your pardon, Mama,” she said. “I should not have spoken so.”

Mama lifted her head and turned. Victoria arranged her features into an expression of calm regret. She dropped her gaze and made sure her hands were folded neatly before her.

You are not the only one who can play your part.

“I am tired. I believe I shall lie down a little before dinner.”

She raised her eyes. She made them wide. She made herself small. Made herself the Victoria that Mama wanted to see.

“Oh, my child.” Mama folded her in a close embrace. Victoria shut her eyes. “You must not frighten me like that!”

She loves me. She is afraid because he makes her afraid. She would not be so if he was not here.

Victoria shoved that thought roughly down into darkness.

Mama finally released her, and Victoria faced Sir John. Sir John frowned. He always did when she became this other thing—this little girl whom he could not fault.

“So, tell me, Your Highness . . .” His words dripped with acid mockery. “What did you see on the green?”

On the green, Sir John? What about in these rooms? I saw you strike your daughter. A weak, whey-faced creature trembling with cold and fear. You hit her so hard she was left with blood on her mouth, and her face was swollen and bruised. I know who you are, Sir John Conroy. I know what you are.

“I saw a dead man,” Victoria said. “He wore a black coat and had a bald head. Then Prince shied, and I could see nothing more. Now, as I said, I am tired, and I will go lie down before I dress for dinner. Unless, Sir John, you find some reason to object to that?”

Before Sir John struck Jane, he’d had a look in his eyes, a cold calculation, as if he already knew where he would strike but needed to decide how hard. Victoria saw that same look about him now, and for a shameful moment, she wanted to hide behind her mother.

Perhaps this once even Mama saw that the scene had gone too far.

“Let her go lie down,” said Mama. “She will be able to talk more sensibly after a rest.”

“Very well,” said Sir John. “Perhaps with rest, she will think the better of telling such an outrageous story.”

Victoria turned and walked toward her boudoir. Lehzen followed and closed the door.