“Fustian,” she said calmly. “Stockmar's letter refers to Papa's accident last autumn, and that was more than a year ago—long before Nelly Clifden.”
The baron had said little that was explicit; but what he had said was enough. That is why I saved his letter. I might have quoted it to Alice, from memory.
Your desire for death, revealed to me during our talks at the Rosenau, is one you must fight to your last breath. Whatever the nature of your doubts about your children, my dear Prince, you can do nothing to alter the past. Let us have no more accidents with carriages, no dramatic runaways. Make of each day what you can, by ensuring that it is not your last.
I rose from my chair. “For most of your brother's life, poor dear Papa regarded him as unfit to rule. He strove to improve Bertie's mind and character, throughout his childhood; but to no avail. Bertie's flaws broke Papa's heart. It was the recognition of failure—for the Kingdom and the world—that drove your Papa to his grave. And I shall never forgive your brother for it. Never.”
“Bertie's flaws,” Alice repeated. “The flaw in his blood?”
“If you will,” I flashed. “Yes. The blood of our Hanover line. You know what the Regent was! And my Uncle William, with his ten bastard children! No amount of whipping could beat the tendency out of Bertie. We tried every method possible to break your brother's spirit.”
“Thank you, Mama,” Alice said. “I see matters quite clearly, now.”
And she left me without another word—chastened, I hope and pray, by the evidence all about her of masculine frailty.
Chapter Forty-One
They reached Coburg a few minutes past four o'clock on the last day of the year.
The red-tiled roofs of the stucco houses tumbling down from the great castle on the hill were wrapped in shadow, and there was snow in the cobblestoned streets.
The weather had turned steadily colder as Fitzgerald and Georgie left the Mediterranean behind them, climbing north from Toulon, where Fitzgerald—dangerously low on funds—sold his watch, and Georgie her dress. They embarked on a train for Lyon at nightfall, and by dawn had veered east to Dijon. From there, they went north through Reims, east again to Namur in Belgium, and finally crossed the Rhine into the great city of Cologne—which Protestant Prussia had claimed from the French after Waterloo. Cologne was several hundred miles away from Prussia, across a clutch of autonomous duchies, and its people were steadfastly Catholic. Constant strife between rulers and ruled was the result—so that Fitzgerald, a scion of another colonized people, felt immediately at home there. The bells of the Angelus tolled and the great cathedral of the archbishopric loomed blackly against the sky. They spent the night in an inn near the river, and pressed on again to Mainz in the morning.
There the direct route ended, and the rails became local affairs, halting endlessly at every Thüringen station between Mainz and Coburg. They were aching and dispirited as they stepped down from the coach at last. Georgiana shivered in her French peasant's clothing, though they had spent precious coins in Namur to purchase a coat for her. She had insisted on posing as Fitzgerald's manservant—and demanded that he call her George.
She had settled into her role and grown more remote with each mile they traveled into central Europe. Perhaps it was her lingering illness, or her sense of urgency. Fitzgerald could not be sure. Once, when they found themselves completely alone in a train car, they had debated what they knew.
“If the Queen fears for her own legitimacy—if she thinks that Leopold's disease betrays her dubious parentage, and threatens her right to rule—I understand why she wants to silence me,” Georgiana said. “But any number of people might stumble on the truth. She cannot fight science forever, Patrick.”
“Few of us understand your theories, lass,” he said gently. “And there's no proof. What we suspect is sheer guess—with the truth sealed by a parcel of tombs. Victoria's devout enough; she'll trust to Providence, and some sort o' Divine Right of Queens, to carry her through.”
She looked out through the train window at the rolling landscape of Flanders. “But you, Patrick. I don't understand why she's hunting you. That business about Edward Oxford—the assassination attempt in 1840—how can it matter now?”
“I've given it some thought,” he said. “You remember the conspiracy behind the murderous lad? The pistols marked with the Duke of Cumberland's initials?”
“Victoria's uncle—yes.”
“Cumberland said he was the right ruler of England. He called Victoria usurper in Oxford's letters. Most people dismissed the word, but—”
“You think Cumberland knew something?”
“Or thought he did. Victoria's old dad—Cumberland's brother—had a girl in keeping for thirty years, a Frenchwoman he acquired while playing soldier in Gibraltar; but she never produced a child. Maybe Kent couldn't father one.”
Georgie knit her brows. “The world would know if he had. All the Royal by-blows are acknowledged. I suppose Kent's mistress might have been barren—”
“So she might. Cumberland couldn't prove anything wrong with Victoria's parentage. And he's been dead now at least ten years. But the Queen still feels unsafe—there's Cumberland's son to think of, the present King of Hanover. He might want to rule Great Britain. And if someone gave him cause—”
“You're the only person who remembers that old conspiracy, Patrick.”
“I'll lay money Cumberland's son has not forgot! Think, Georgie! To rule the empire that rules the world! He'd be a fool not to watch for his chance.”
When she still looked doubtful, he persisted. “Why else summon me to Windsor and make me swear I'd never revive the story? Albert's dying must have stirred the poor Queen's fears, all her vulnerability. I'm Irish, Georgie. She assumes my kind want her torn from the throne. And if she learned somehow of my friendship for you—”
“—von Stühlen again—”
“She may have believed I'd carry your theory direct to Cumberland. We're both dead dangerous.”
They were speaking very low despite the privacy of the carriage, their faces mere inches apart; and regardless of her boyish clothing or perhaps because of it, Fitzgerald was sharply aware of Georgiana's body. His gut constricted; his hand rose to her cheek. Her eyes were dark wells, unblinking; her lips parted; she stunned him then by reaching for him hungrily.
Roaring in his ears, and a wave of heat; the tightness of her arms on his shoulders and the sense of falling into her, like falling into night. Everything in his being—grief, love, the wildness of frustrated touch—came to life and he might have taken her there in the empty compartment without hesitation. But a porter thrust open the passage door, proclaiming the next station in heavy Flemish; Georgiana broke away, gasping.
She was harder than ever to reach after that. Fitzgerald was careful not to touch her again.
The river Itz ran through the heart of Coburg, which was larger than he'd expected. The castle looming on the heights was uninhabited; Ernest, Duke of Coburg—Albert's syphilitic brother—preferred the Rosenau. It lay dreaming beyond the city's edge, wrapped in its forests above the river.
“We shall have to ferret out this baron of yours,” he told Georgie.