Kitabı oku: «Shall We Dance?»

Praise for
KASEY MICHAELS

“Michaels has done it again…Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review on The Butler Did It

“Using wit and romance with a master’s skill, Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“If you want emotion, humor and characters you can love, you want a story by Kasey Michaels.”

—National bestselling author Joan Hohl

“Sparkling with Michaels’s characteristically droll repartee and lovable lead characters, this Regency-set romance enchants with its skillful treatment of a familiar formula.”

—Publishers Weekly on Someone To Love

“Michaels demonstrates her flair for creating likable protagonists who possess chemistry, charm and a penchant for getting into trouble. In addition, her dialogue and descriptions are full of humor.”

—Publishers Weekly on This Must Be Love

Kasey Michaels
Shall We Dance?

To Tracy Farrell,

with many thanks.

Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly,

lavender’s green;

When I am king, dilly dilly,

you shall be queen.

—Anonymous

Contents

A Brief Primer

Choosing Up Sides

Let The Games Begin

Shall We Dance?

Endings and Beginnings

Author’s Note

A Brief Primer

Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,

Kissed the girls and made them cry…

—Anonymous

IN 1795, OVERBURDENED with debt, not at all in good odour with his family, Parliament, the populace—or his tailor—His Royal Highness, George, Prince of Wales, known also as Florizel, Prinney and “that extravagant jackanapes,” at last succumbed to pressure from all of the above and agreed to a marriage with his first cousin, Princess Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel.

That the prince had earlier entered into a morganatic marriage with Maria Fitzherbert, both a commoner and a Catholic, definitely two huge no-no’s for the prince, was deemed irrelevant.

That the princess Caroline was, at twenty-six, already rather long in the tooth for a bride, loud, overblown, often filthy—both in her language and in her personal hygiene—was overlooked by the Parliament that would settle the prince’s debts if only he would marry the woman, settle down and for goodness sake provide an heir.

Ah, the sacrifices one must make for one’s country. And yet, ta-ta Maria, hello princess (and at least temporary solvency). Men can be so fickle.

On the occasion of their first meeting, and already set to marry in three days, the prince took one look at his blowsy betrothed and said to an aide, “Harris, I am not well. Pray fetch me a glass of brandy.” And then he retired from the room, leaving the princess to comment to that same aide, “I find him very stout and by no means as handsome as his portrait.” In another age Harris would have written a very profitable book about the whole thing….

Meanwhile, back with the prince and his bride, it would be a vast overstatement to suggest that the marriage that followed proved to have been Fashioned In Heaven.

Love match or not, the pair managed to produce an heir, Princess Charlotte, and then they toddled off in disparate directions, the prince back to his normal pursuits (back to his middle-aged Maria and to spending money), the princess all but banished from the palace and her child (to become the darling of the citizenry and to spend lots of money).

In short, they both went about making total fools of themselves, living outrageously, spending prodigiously and openly disparaging each other in print and in deed. Since the prince had turned, politically, to the Tories, the princess, naturally, gravitated to the Whigs. Their only connection at all, their daughter, Charlotte, died in childbirth while Caroline was out of the country being as naughty as she could be, although never quite naughty enough for the prince to gain the divorce he so desperately desired.

But in 1820, George III, long ill, died, and suddenly Florizel was the king. His first thought, after rejoicing that his allowance would be raised, had to be that, if he was now the king, then—E-gods!—the hated Caroline was now his queen consort.

This was not to be borne!

The first thing the prince did was to delay his formal coronation for a year, launching a kingly demand that a way be found to discredit the new queen for her personal behavior, paving the way for that longed-for divorce.

The first thing Caroline did was to have a launch of her own—setting sail from Italy to England, to claim her rights as queen, dilly-dilly.

History reports what happened next, but imagination conjures its own scenarios….

Choosing Up Sides

Birds of a feather, flock together,

And so will pigs and swine.

Rats and mice, will have their choice,

And so will I have mine.

—Anonymous

PERRY SHEPHERD, Earl of Brentwood, was bored with being bored, which was the only way possible for him to reconcile himself to the fact that he had knocked on the door of his uncle, Sir Willard Humphrey, Minister of the Admiralty, Retired.

The earl had been rather adroitly avoiding his uncle for quite nearly three weeks. And he would have continued to ignore the man’s pleas to meet with him if not for the fact that it was already July, the London Season was over and everyone was still very much in superficial mourning for the late king, so that Town was dreadfully dull.

Still, if he left for the country without seeing his uncle, Perry knew the man would follow him. The only thing worse than being trapped in a room with Uncle Willie was being trapped on an estate with Uncle Willie, with no bolt-hole available.

So here he was, in his uncle’s black-and-white tiled foyer, stripping off his gloves, handing over his cane and removing the curly brimmed beaver from his blond head, relaxing the square jaw that was the only thing (save the scar on his cheek, which was, by and large, more attractive than detracting) keeping this green-eyed, near god of a man from being too pretty.

He adjusted his cuffs, quickly surveyed his reflection in the gold-veined mirror on the wall and knew that his new jacket suited his tall, lean, broad-shouldered figure admirably.

Goodness, but he was a sight, not that his uncle would notice.

“Ready, Hawkins. Shoulders back, loins girded, belly only faintly queasy. We may proceed. Take me to mine uncle.”

“Ah, My Lord, Sir Willard will be that pleased, if I may say so, begging your indulgence at my frank speech, sir,” Hawkins, butler to the great man, probably since before The Flood, said as he ushered Perry down the long hallway that led to his employer’s private study.

“Pining for me, is he, Hawkins? I suppose I should be flattered,” Perry said, adjusting the black armband that was his bow to the Royal Mourning, and quite understandable, considering the fact that George III had been locked up in his apartments, mad as a hatter, for over a decade, so that his passing did not exactly blast a large hole in everyday life. “Tell me, do you have any idea what flea Uncle Willie has got in his breeches this time?”

“None, My Lord. He’s been tight as a clam about the—that is, I’m sure I shouldn’t know, sir.”

“Not to worry, Hawkins. I’m sure I shouldn’t, either. But, alas, it would appear I’m about to find out. Announce me, my good fellow, then prepare to abandon the field before you are witness to Uncle Willie embarrassing us all as he throws himself on my neck, tears of joy racing down his cheeks.”

“Oh, I think he might be beyond that, My Lord,” Hawkins said, then knocked on the study door, opened it, announced Perry, turned to smile at His Lordship—rather piteously—and then took to his heels.

Perry, one eyebrow lifted, watched him go, so that he staggered under the unexpected blow as a large, beefy hand slapped him once on the back, then grabbed hold of his wonderfully tailored jacket collar and all but hauled him into the study.

“At last! Damn your eyes, Perry, anyone would have thought you were dead.”

Adjusting his jacket, now that his uncle had released it, Perry smiled at Sir Willard Humphrey. “I had considered putting about precisely that rumor, but I at once realized what a definite crimp it would put in my social life. Good morning, Uncle.”

“Don’t you good morning me, Nevvie. Where in thunder have you been hiding yourself? I’ve been sending notes round every day. Twice, yesterday.”

“Really? I had no idea. Well, that’s it, then, I shall have my butler sacked the moment I return to Portman Square.” He frowned. “Damn shame, that. I have rather a fondness for Fairweather, have known him since I was in short coats.”

“Cheeky. Always were cheeky.” Sir Willard deposited his considerable bulk into the chair behind his desk, his whalebone stays creaking as he bent himself almost in two. “Reminds how much you give me the headache, boy. You’ve been avoiding me. But I’ve heard about you. Going here, going there, racketing about like a useless twit without a care in the world—or for it, for that matter.”

“Guilty as charged, especially that last little bit,” Perry said, lifting the stopper from a decanter on the drinks table and holding up the decanter to his uncle. “No? Very well, although I feel the sot, drinking alone.”

“It’s eleven in the morning, for God’s sake. You shouldn’t be drinking at all. Tea, that’s the ticket. You can’t dunk a buttered scone in Burgundy, boy.”

“Nor would I want to,” Perry said, sitting himself down on the deep green leather couch completely across the room—ignoring the pair of uncomfortable chairs facing the desk. His left leg neatly crossed over his right, the stem of his glass resting on his bent knee, he smiled again at his uncle. “So? Are you going to tell me, or am I going to be forced to guess?”

“Do you have to perch yourself all the way over there? I’ll have to shout to—oh, hang it,” Sir Willard said, pushing himself out of his chair, forced out of his seat of authority by his insufferable nephew, who only batted his eyelids as he gave a wide, closemouthed and definitely not-innocent grin.

“I sit here as a favor. You need the exercise, dear Uncle,” Perry said, then arranged his handsome features in a frown of concentration and attention. “But to continue?”

“Continue? When in blue blazes did I start? You’re a confounding piece of work, Perry, always were, always told everyone you were. If I were to tell England the truth about you no one would believe me.”

“They’d probably lock you up with your own strait waistcoat,” Perry agreed, then sipped at his burgundy. “Wait, come to think of it, you’re close to that now. Don’t you know our new good king has left off his stays? The explosion could be heard for miles.”

“You’re a fool, Nevvie.”

“True. Everyone knows I’m a fool. An amicable, titled, sinfully wealthy, well-dressed and exquisitely turned-out fool, but a fool nonetheless. Oh, and heartbreakingly handsome.” Perry sighed theatrically. “I’ve so many gifts.”

“And that’s why you’re here.”

Perry’s left eyebrow shot heavenward. “Because I’m pretty? Gad, if I’d known it would call me to your attention, Uncle, I would have dropped a sack over my head.”

“Would you stop? It’s not just that face of yours. I need you because of what the world thinks of you, in total.” Sir Willard turned round one of the chairs and wedged his bulk into it. “Let me begin at the beginning.”

“Oh, please, Uncle, I beg you, don’t do that. Adam and Eve, the apple—it’s all so tedious. Start at the middle, why don’t you? Most things start there.”

Sir Willard’s neck was becoming rather red. “The war’s been over for years, Perry. Others have come forward to take credit for their service to His Majesty in the more…covert activities of the thing. You could have medals. You could be lauded. You could—”

“Toot my own horn, while many of those who crept about in secrecy like me now lie dead in foreign soil, if they weren’t carted back here in vats of pickle juice and then stuffed into the family mausoleum? No, thank you, Uncle. I’m happy as I am.”

Sir Willard rubbed at his red, bulbous nose. “All right, all right, I won’t force the issue, not when I consider how well your ridiculous modesty suits the mission.”

Perry paused in the action of sipping on the Burgundy. “The mission? You may be right, Uncle, perhaps I should forswear spirits before noon, although that leaves only water, which, as we both know, can be even more dangerous to my health. But no, I couldn’t possibly have heard you correctly.”

“You heard me correctly, Nephew,” Sir Willard said, reaching behind him for the folded scrap of broadsheet that lay on his desk, then tossing it at Perry. “You’ve seen this?”

Perry unfolded the rumpled square featuring a rather detailed woodcut. “A poorly executed rendering of Her Royal Highness, Princess Caroline, disembarking in Dover, surrounded by, if we can believe this, both her extensive entourage and a wildly cheering crowd. Oh, and a dog. Yes, what of it?”

“What of it? She’s come back, that’s what of it. Come back to claim her share of the throne.”

“It is hers to claim, isn’t it?”

Sir Willard looked ready to tear at his hair—which would have been difficult, as he’d parted with the last of it a good two decades earlier, leaving nothing but huge bushy white eyebrows and a bald pate above them. (Sir Willard was possibly the only man in England to still be wishing back powdered wigs.)

“We in government can’t have it, Perry. She’s totally unsuited to the role of queen. My God, man, she’s been running about the world with a paramour, and a foreigner at that. In plain sight. Thumbing her nose at all of us. Putting a crown on that head would be sacrilege.”

“I think England has put the crown on quite a few heads that might not have been precisely up to the honor,” Perry said, tossing the rendering onto the couch. “May I dare a bit of treason and suggest that our recently elevated king could be numbered among them? Last I heard, you know, he was crowing to everyone that he was present at Waterloo. If he had been, which we all know he was not, there wouldn’t have been a camp stool large enough for him to hide his shivering bulk beneath when the battle began.”

“I like you better as a fool than when you’re being supercilious,” Sir Willard said. “But all right, all right, I’ll take the gloves off, shall I?”

“Do whatever pleases you, dear Uncle, it makes no nevermind to me,” Perry said, wondering if his favorite club would be serving spiced ham today. He was quite fond of spiced ham. “Anything so that I might kiss both your rosy-red cheeks in farewell and toddle off on my aimless, pointless pursuit of pleasure once more.”

He was lying, of course. Perry was very interested in whatever his uncle would soon say. It was always interesting to learn how the minds of aged men in power worked, as they so very often worked in ways that had a lot to do with the benefit of aged men in power, and the devil with the rest of the world.

Sir Willard leaned forward in the armchair. Well, he attempted to lean forward. But his bulk had rather stuck between the arms, so instead he rested his elbows on them, clasped his hands together, and pushed his melon-with-eyebrows head toward his nephew.

“Shall I summon Hawkins, Uncle?” Perry asked, doing his best to keep his expression sober. “And perhaps a winch?”

“If you weren’t so damn rich I could threaten to cut you out of my will, no matter that you’re my only surviving kin. Now, listen to me. Princess Caroline cannot be crowned queen next year when Prinney—His Royal Majesty—has his coronation. She simply cannot.”

Perry scratched at his forehead. “You want me to kill her? Isn’t that sliding a tad far over the edge, Uncle, even for such a staunch Tory as yourself?”

“God’s teeth! No, I don’t want you to kill her. We…that is, I want you to spy on her.”

Perry dropped his chin onto his chest and looked at his uncle from beneath his remarkable winged eyebrows. “Oh, most definitely my hearing is gone. Your hair, my ears. What a terrible legacy of physical failings in our family, Uncle. You want me to what?”

“You heard me. I said spy on her. You’re a spy, ain’t you? And a damned good one. That’s the part of you I want, not that other part—I prefer not to remember what else you were ordered to do during the war.”

“A sentiment I share, Uncle,” Perry said tightly, then took a sip from his wineglass. And the man wondered why he didn’t go about, crowing of his exploits?

“Yes, yes. Rather sordid, bloodthirsty bits, some of that, eh, although necessary to our pursuit of victory. So we won’t talk about that. The king has put it to us to find a way to discredit the princess, gain him a divorce. His Cabinet, Parliament—we’ve been ordered to find a way.”

“And I’m that way?” Perry sat back, lightly rubbed at his chin. “Oh, hardly, Uncle.”

Sir Willard shook his head. “Not just you. There’s plenty of dirt already been dug, enough for the House of Lords to introduce a Bill of Pains and Penalties.”

Perry got to his feet, returned the wineglass to the drinks table. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Truthfully, neither had I, but we’ve been assured it’s legal, if an ancient process, rather outside our more commonly known legal system. Liverpool found it, and you know what a stickler he is. If she beats down a vote on the thing by Parliament, she’s queen. If we prove our case, the king gets his divorce. The procedure will be announced by the end of the week, possibly as soon as tomorrow. Think of it, Perry. If this works, he could marry again, provide another heir now that Princess Charlotte is lost to us.”

“Now there’s a vision that I would not want burned into my mind—Prinney riding atop some poor sweet princess sacrificed for her fertile womb. And again, not oddly, the request for a winch would probably not be unwarranted.”

“You’re lucky you’re speaking only to me,” Sir Willard warned him.

“And you’re lucky, Uncle, I don’t run hotfoot to Henry Brougham and the Whigs and tell them what’s afoot. Digging up dirt to divorce the queen? It’s unconscionable, even for you whacking-great bunch of rabid Tories.”

“So is watching the aging royal dukes running about, deserting morganatic wives and dozens of their bastard royals in order to wed any princess they can find and put an heir on her. We look like an island of rutting idiots. The world is laughing at us. Think on it, Perry. All that stands between England and anarchy at this moment is young Princess Victoria. We saw what happened with Princess Charlotte. This cannot be allowed.”

“So Prinney has to be shed of the queen, marry again, somehow produce an heir, possibly two or three. That’s the crux of this? You know, Uncle, I’d like to believe you, but I don’t. Our new king just doesn’t want his wife anymore, does he? Not only does he detest her, she’s more popular than he ever was. Or have you been so stuck—forgive me a small jest—here in your study that you are unaware of the spoiled vegetables and fruit that are tossed at our sire whenever he dares poke his nose outside the palace?”

With no small effort of will, Sir Willard disengaged his impressive girth from the chair and retrieved the rendering, furiously waving it in front of Perry’s nose. “See the girl? The one behind the Princess Caroline, just stepping onto the pier, holding on to that dog? Goes everywhere with the woman. She’s your entrée into the princess’s enclave.”

Perry snatched the paper before his uncle began beating him with it. “The queen’s enclave, Uncle. If Prinney is king, Caroline is queen consort.”

“Don’t bother me with trifles, not with the kingdom in such a damnable mess. Meet this girl, pay court to her, do whatever you must do, but get yourself accepted into Caroline’s circle. That’s where your pretty face comes in. Caroline likes pretty faces. Watch, observe, poke into closets, read any papers you may find locked up, and fetch me something the Lords can use to bring the dratted woman down. For England, Perry. And there’s not much time. The Lords convene this Pains and Penalties business in a few weeks.”

Perry squinted at the page. “Who is she? The artist wasn’t precisely inspired—all the faces look rather alike.”

“She’s Amelia Fredericks, one of the waifs Her Royal Highness has brought into her motley entourage, all but adopted. Remember how Caroline set up that supposed orphanage in Kent? No, of course you don’t, that was years ago. To hide the bastard son she formally adopted at one point, we all say, but can never prove.”

“Hiding her own son with a bevy of orphans. I’d call that inspired. This girl? She’s also one of those orphans?”

“Yes. The daughter of one of the princess’s maidservants, I understand, who perished in childbirth. Whatever, she’s been with the princess all of her life, a close companion and probably confidante. Meet her, romance her—I wager there will be orgies, knowing Caroline—and you will be in a perfect position to report on all that lascivious behavior, anything the Lords might use to discredit her. You’re a fool, Perry, a dilettante. Not threatening at all. You’re perfect for the job. No one would ever suspect you.”

“I believe I have, in this past minute, been insulted in more ways than I care to count,” Perry said, idly stroking the thin white scar on his left cheek with his thumb. “But tell me. If I say no, then what happens?”

“Then we’ll send someone else, who might not have your pure heart and chivalrous ways. Why, he might feel that the only way to infiltrate the princess’s enclave would be to seduce this Miss Fredericks. Ruin her. Not that you’d care a fig, eh? You don’t care a fig for anyone.”

“How very naughty of you, Uncle, to pink me straight in my pesky honor as a gentleman.” Perry held up the broadsheet yet again. “I read here that Her Royal Highness is quartered with Alderman Wood. My, my, he was Lord Mayor of London once or twice, wasn’t he? What happened? Was she turned away at the palace, or didn’t she chance a rebuff?”

“Wood offered, and it avoided a circus, with the populace there to witness it. But she’s already found other quarters in Hammersmith. Right on the water. I do believe our impudent queen enjoys the notion that her many admirers—and, yes, I admit she does have them—can choose to travel across the water to make their bows to her. The woman has a love of theatrics that is most embarrassing.”

“Unlike our new king, who is staid and retired and quite above showing himself off. Why, the Pavilion at Brighton is no more ornate than a monk’s cell, I swear it, if said monk had a fondness for silk, gilt and minarets. But, yes, I understand. Who did you have in mind?”

“What?”

“Whom did you have in mind to seduce Miss Fredericks? You must have all but given up on me by now. So? His name, Uncle.”

“Jarrett Rolin.”

Perry controlled his expression with some effort. “Rolin? I thought he left town with his tail tucked between his legs after that debacle at Westham’s a month ago.”

“Yes, I’d heard about that. The Marquis of Westham is your good friend, isn’t he? Odd, that, considering he’s the one who sliced that scar into your cheek.”

Perry spared a moment to think of his good, once hot-headed friend (hence the dueling scar on Perry’s cheek) and their very recent coup of routing Jarrett Rolin after the rotter had attempted to kidnap Westham’s beloved.

“Never mind that. Rolin is a bastard. A pretty bastard, but a bastard all the same. The man lives to seduce innocents. You can’t think to use him.”

“Can’t we? He’s perfect, Nevvie. An outcast from Society for the nonce, hiding out on his estate in Surrey. The princess adores outcasts, feels an affinity for them, I believe. But, as I said, he would be our second choice.”

“You know, Uncle, if I have a failing in life it has always been in underestimating you.”

“Only that, Nevvie? If you applied to me, I could provide you with a detailed list of your shortcomings. Now hurry along, dear boy. Miss Fredericks awaits. Oh, one thing more. Report here tomorrow and I’ll explain.”

“I could be on the continent by tomorrow,” Perry suggested, his hand on the door latch.

“True, but you won’t be. I do so enjoy honorable gentlemen. And you are that, Perry, for all that you’re also an idiot. Tomorrow at two, agreed?”

Perry inclined his head slightly, then departed, carrying off the broadsheet he’d grabbed up, hoping the artist had at least gotten the slim female figure right.

“I COULD BE SKINNY and bony like you, you know, instead of more fashionably plump,” Her Royal Majesty said as Amelia Fredericks entered the small salon overlooking the Thames. “If I so wished.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Amelia said, smiling at the queen as she placed a fresh dish of boiled sweets on the table beside the woman, then retook her seat in front of the window. “A lovely day, isn’t it, although the sun doesn’t seem quite as bright here as it did in Jerusalem.”

“Nothing seems quite as bright here,” the queen said, her scowl warning Amelia that another fit of hysteria was knocking on the door of the woman’s consciousness, eager for admittance. She had, just minutes earlier, climbed up into the boughs of the queen’s injured pride and dragged her down with the promise of the boiled sweets. “Rainy, dreary, damp. And that pile they call a palace? Blow your skirts up over your head, just walking down the hallways on a windy day. I hate it. I hate it all. I hate them all. And I’m old, and I’m ugly, and I’m fat. I hate me!”

The dish of boiled sweets landed on the fireplace grate and smashed into several pieces, the candies skittering everywhere.

Amelia suppressed a sigh. “I’ll ring for someone.”

“No! Leave it.” The queen blinked rapidly, her kohl-darkened eyes already tearing. “I must stop this. I must collect myself. That sniveling selfish bastard will not do this to me. I am queen!”

“Yes, ma’am, that you are,” Amelia said, her gaze shifting toward the thick pages of vellum sitting on the table in front of the queen, all stiff and important and covered in official seals. “This means nothing, ma’am, less than nothing. His Royal Majesty is desperate, and desperate men make mistakes. Mr. Brougham said as much before he left us.”

“Henry Brougham, Amelia, wants what he has always wanted, to use me to further his own ends. It has been this way for years. I could have settled for a sizable allowance and exile, you know, but Brougham talked me out of it, talked me into coming back here. He’s still talking, damn his eyes. You think he cares a fig for me? Tories, Whigs. They fight each other, using me as their battlefield, their cannon fodder.”

Amelia nodded. That was her role, to agree, to silently nod, and she knew her place. Chafed at it, but knew it.

“I should never have come back here. Even the old king tried to use me, damn his soul. Sick? That’s what they said, that he was sick, off his head. And I still say that the old madman tossed me down on a couch soon as he came back from opening Parliament—when was that? Oh, I remember. Back in ’02, while George and I were still pretending. Threw me down, Amelia, and would have had his way with me, were it not that the couch had no back and I was able to kick him off, roll free of him. I never moved so fast, before or since. Filthy Hanovers, the worst of our family. Users. And they all did their best to use me. Me, and my poor Charlotte, lost and gone these two terrible years. They kept her from me, you know, even when she cried for me, begged for me. And now she’s gone. My own child…”

Amelia’s soft heart was touched. Her Royal Highness could be crude, could be cantankerous, could be ridiculously generous one moment and horribly selfish the next; dangerously free with her affections and her words. Mercurial. But, at the bottom of it, at the heart of it, the woman hadn’t had the best of lives, and Amelia loved her dearly.

And, loving her dearly, she said the first thing that sprang to her tongue, “We can leave again, ma’am. The world awaits, all of it eager to please you.”

The queen, her coal-black hair fresh from another visit with the dye pots, nodded fiercely, the childish curls bouncing around her rouged cheeks. “Yes, yes. We could go. Pergami would fly to me, I know it, if I were to abandon this damn, damp island. Byron left, you know. Ungrateful England all but tossed him out.” She blinked back tears. “He was such a pretty boy, even with that twisted foot. I could have had him, you know, if I’d but crooked a finger in his direction. Chose Spencer Perceval instead. He was helpful, but not pretty. Sir Sydney Smith? Ah, he was almost pretty, and reportedly hung like a—”

“Yes, ma’am,” Amelia said placidly.

“But you know, Amelia, I only really committed adultery the once—three or six times, in truth. But that was with the husband of Maria Fitzherbert.”

Amelia couldn’t help but smile at Her Majesty’s reference to the king’s morganatic bride. The queen’s outrageous statements, as well as her rather erratic behavior, had lost the power to embarrass her years ago. Still, she had to steer the woman back on point, even as she’d stupidly let it slip that she wished to put England behind them once and for all. “So, dear ma’am, shall I give the order? We can set sail by week’s end. Paris. Rome. Anywhere your heart desires.”

The queen snorted. “I doubt we could make Dover on what’s left of my allowance. That hangs in the balance, you know. The king—I spit on calling him thusly—holds the purse strings now. That’s another part of this Pains-and-Penalties business. My pain, the penalties he’d order. I have to win, Amelia, or else he’ll control every aspect, every penny in my purse, every bite that goes into my mouth. He’d like nothing more than for me to live in penury.”