“But the duchess would never have agreed-” Durmand protested.
“Why not? People had jeered at her as too old to give her husband a child. After that the jeers stopped, and she traveled on to England with 'her' baby in her arms. The maid was bought off and thrown out. But she talked and the story has been preserved.”
Enderlin stepped in, as much Dottie's champion as he had been her combatant. “But nobody heard of it until now,” he said. “It's surfaced too conveniently for my liking.”
“And might never have surfaced at all,” Sophie said, speaking for the first time. “But for the invaluable assistant of Mr. Michael Kenton.”
“Mike?” Dottie exclaimed. “I don't believe it.”
“We had such an interesting talk the night of the ball,” Sophie continued, turning directly to Dottie. “He repeated tales he'd heard from your grandfather, when he was in his cups, and there was enough to put us on the trail.”
“But that was ages ago,” Dottie exclaimed. “Why wait until now?”
“It was just a rumor,” Harold said. “It's taken until now to get the proof, hidden in the Swiss archives.” He waved his papers again. “But the proof is here. Examine it. In the meantime I demand that this false coronation is called off.”
Through the whirling of Dottie's head only one thing was clear. If Harold was clever enough to make this credible, Randolph would lose everything for the second time. She herself would lose the friends she'd made and the country she'd come to love, but it was for him that her heart ached.
“Randolph,” she said, clasping his hand.
“It's all right, my darling. Everything is going to be all right.”
“But can this be true?”
“It wouldn't surprise me at all,” he said calmly. “Old Egbert was very free with his attentions. I should think he had any number of liaisons. He undoubtedly married his wife for her money and she was some years older than him. It all sounds very likely. How fortunate that it didn't come to light before.”
“But, Randolph…what difference does that make? It's out now, and that means I can't be the queen and-”
“It means no such thing. Trust me Dottie, I'll make you a queen before the day's out.”
Sophie was regarding Dottie with a mixture of triumph and malevolence. Harold and Durmand were having a shouting match, with Harold's voice growing shriller every moment.
“This woman is an impostor. She should be arrested for offenses against the state.”
“But you'll never get the king to agree to that,” Randolph observed mildly.
Harold rounded on him. “I am the king.”
“No,” Randolph said, still in the same mild tone. “I am.” Ignoring Harold's sneer he went on, “I have been king of Elluria since the moment of my father's death.”
If Harold's announcement produced consternation this one caused turmoil. Everyone was staring at Randolph as if unable to believe their ears, but his glance was for Dottie, as though only her reaction mattered to him.
“Your researchers have been hard at work, Harold, but so have mine. And I too have found something interesting. It concerns Ellie Trentworth, the young woman with whom my father went through a form of marriage. I say 'a form of marriage' because it wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Ellie already had a husband, two in fact. Probably more than two. Goodness knows who she was really married to, but it certainly wasn't my father.
“So the 'form of marriage' had no basis in law. It was invalid, leaving him as much a bachelor afterward as before, and therefore free to marry my mother. There never was a stain on their marriage, or my legitimacy.”
Harold had gone very pale but he recovered himself.
“Words,” he scoffed. “Where is your proof?”
“Here,” Randolph said, pulling some papers from inside his jacket. “These are the marriage certificates of Ellie Trentworth to both husbands. Since I discovered the truth I've kept them on me at all times. I had a feeling I might need to produce them at a moment's notice, especially today.”
Harold snatched at the papers. The whole cathedral seemed to be holding its breath as he went through them.
“These are forgeries,” he snapped. “I don't believe any of it.”
But Sophie believed it. As she saw her last chance vanish she screamed and went into hysterics. Nothing else could have so effectively demolished Harold's claim, and two soldiers moved discreetly to take their places behind him. Sophie's sobs grew louder, prompting him to hiss, “Shut up!”
“This is most irregular,” the archbishop said worriedly, looking at Dottie. “Is this lady of legitimate descent, or isn't she?”
“It doesn't matter, since she makes no claim to the throne,” Randolph said. “Indeed, she never did make a claim to the throne. It was forced on her, and she accepted it as a duty, and from love. But it was based on a misapprehension. The mistaken belief that I was illegitimate because my parents' marriage was bigamous. These certificates prove otherwise.”
Durmand was studying the papers with increasing delight. “Then the marriage was valid, and your claim to the throne cannot be challenged,” he told Randolph. “You are, and have always been, the rightful king.”
“You need never have brought me here at all,” Dottie breathed. “Randolph, how long have you known about this?”
“I discovered soon after you arrived in Elluria.”
Her brain whirled. “You mean…before we married?”
“Yes.”
She couldn't speak. The implications were so enormous, so wonderful, that she didn't dare believe them. “But why did you keep quiet?” she asked at last. “If you'd spoken then you wouldn't have needed to marry me.”
He put his hands on either side of her face and spoke in a voice deep with tenderness. “Darling, beloved Dottie, I wanted to marry you. I longed to marry you. I've loved you since the day we met in London, when you took me out of the narrow, constricted world I'd known, and showed me another world that could be mine, but only if you were there. Since then I've plotted and schemed, pulled strings, behaved unethically, broken rules, all to keep you with me. You made the sun shine for me, and I knew if I lost you the sun would never shine again.
“I was afraid that if you learned the truth, you'd pack your bags and go. I couldn't face the thought of losing the only woman I have ever loved. It was a deception, but one for which you will, perhaps, forgive me?”
“But you could have been king all this time,” she breathed, still not daring to be convinced by the love she saw in his eyes, a love that more than matched her own.
“Earlier today I told you that there were things you don't know about me, and perhaps never would, because they could only be told at the right time. Now that time has come.” He raised his voice. “I call on everyone here to witness that I would rather be your consort than king, and married to any other woman.”
The congregation broke into loud applause. The royal guests in the front row rose to their feet and were followed by row after row behind them, clapping and cheering. High up aloft the choirboys joined in.
But Randolph and Dottie saw only each other. His gaze said that this was the measure of how much she mattered to him. She was more to him than his duty, more than his life. She was his life. She was awed by the sacrifice he'd been prepared to make, rather than lose her.
The archbishop's worried voice broke in on them. “But can we have a coronation or not?”
“Of course we can,” Dottie told him. “The coronation of Elluria's rightful monarch, King Randolph.”
“And his consort, Queen Dorothea,” Randolph put in, “who reigns as supremely in her subjects' hearts and she does in her husband's.”