To say nothing of the distance. The King’s advisors would have had to sail past dozens of duchies and principalities—with dozens of duchesses and princesses—before reaching Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
“I do not lie to you, Charlotte,” Adolphus said. “It is a fact. You were chosen.”
If Charlotte could have moved in her whalebone corset, she would have twisted to face him more squarely. But she could not, so she was forced to settle for a glacial stare. “And how difficult was it to be chosen?” she demanded. “What do they need? Nothing special. Someone who can make lots of babies. Someone who can read. Someone with all the social graces. Someone with a royal bloodline. That is all they required.”
“That is not nothing, Liebchen.”
“It is not a great honor. And you could have told them to choose someone else. Someone stupid enough to want it.”
“They did not want someone stupid. They wanted you.”
Good God, he could not possibly be so dense. “Adolphus, think,” she implored. “Why me? He could have anyone. Anyone. And yet they came hunting all the way across the continent for me. There must be a reason for that.”
“Because you are special.”
“Special?” She gaped at his naiveté. No, not that. He was not naïve, he was merely trying to placate her, as if she were some calf-witted child, too blind or stupid to recognize the web of treachery that had been spun around her. “I am a stranger to them,” she said. “They are strangers to us. You cannot think me this ignorant. There is a reason they wanted me, a stranger. And it cannot be a good reason. I know it cannot be a good reason because you have not looked me in the eye since you told me.”
It took a moment for Adolphus to speak. When he did, his words were useless. “This is a good thing, Lottie. You shall be happy.”
She stared at him, at this man she thought she knew better than anyone. He was her brother, the head of her house since the death of their father nine years earlier. He had sworn to protect her. He had told her she was good and worthy, and she had believed him.
She should have known better. He was a man, and like all men, he saw women as pawns to be shuffled around Europe without a thought to their happiness.
“You know nothing,” she said in a low voice.
He said nothing.
“You proclaim that I will be happy as if you could possibly know that. As if your mere words will make it so. Did you ever once ask me what I want? No, you did not.”
Adolphus expelled an irritated puff of air. She was trying his patience, this was easy to see. But Charlotte did not care, and her fury was making her reckless.
“Turn the carriage around,” she announced. “I am not doing this.”
Adolphus’s face grew hard. “I signed the betrothal contract. You are doing this.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Brother.” She gave him an obnoxiously pleasant smile. “Turn this carriage around or I will bounce. Do you wish to know what will happen if I bounce?”
“You shall tell me, I’m sure.”
“This corset of mine, made of the finest and most expensive whalebone, is rather delicate. And also, it is very, very sharp. And of course, I am in the height of fashion, so this corset is quite snug.” Charlotte snapped a finger against her midsection to make a point, but the joke was on her. She’d lost all sensation in her rib cage, and she might as well have been tapping a wall.
“Shall we loosen it?” Adolphus suggested.
“No, we shall not loosen it,” she hissed. “I must arrive on display, which means I must stay strapped into this monstrous thing. And thus if I give the appearance of a statue, ridiculous to your eye, it is because I cannot move. No, I dare not move. My gown is so stylish that if I move too much, I might be sliced and stabbed to death by my undergarments.”
Adolphus blinked.
“How joyful it is to be a lady,” she muttered.
“You are upset.”
She wanted to kill him.
“Charlotte—”
“It is a viable option,” she said. “Moving. I’ve considered it. Choosing to be killed by my undergarments. There must be an irony to it, although I confess I do not yet see it. Humor, yes. Irony . . . I’m not sure.”
“Charlotte, I mean it, stop.”
But she could not. Her mind was on fire. Her fury was righteous and she was scared, and with every mile she was hurtling toward a future she did not understand. She knew what was happening, but she did not know why, and it made her feel stupid and small.
“We have, what, an hour to go?” she railed on. “I believe if I am diligent with my movements I could most certainly bleed to death before we reach London.”
Adolphus appeared to be suppressing a groan. “Like I said, you are upset. Emotional. I understand—”
“Do you understand? Truly? This, I would love to hear. Because I am not upset. Nor am I emotional. I am angry. And I cannot breathe. And both are thanks to you, Brother.”
He crossed his arms.
“I shall do it,” she warned. “I shall bounce, and I will impale myself on this ridiculous corset and bleed to death.”
“Charlotte!”
At that, she finally shut her mouth. Adolphus rarely took that tone with her. In fact, she was not sure he ever had.
Before her eyes, her genial brother disappeared, replaced by the stern and powerful Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. It was disconcerting. Infuriating. And it made the little girl who still resided deep in her heart want to cry.
“I know I should have taken a firmer hand with you when Mama and Papa died,” he said. “I allowed you to read too much, and I indulged your every whim and frivolity. So I take full responsibility for the fact that you are now exceedingly headstrong and mistakenly think you can make decisions. You cannot. I am in charge. This is happening.”
“I do not see why you could not just—”
“Because they are the British Empire and we are a tiny province in Germany!” he roared.
Charlotte shrank into herself. Just a little bit.
“We had no choice,” he hissed. “I had no choice. You want a reason? Fine. I have none. There is no good reason. In fact, the reason might be terrible. I know that no one who looks like you or me has ever married one of these people. Ever. But I cannot question! Because I cannot make an enemy of the most powerful nation on earth. It is done.” He leaned forward, vibrating with rage and impatience and maybe even resignation. “So shut up, do your duty to our country, and be happy!”
Charlotte flinched. Because finally, Adolphus wasn’t lying. His skin was brown. Her skin was brown. Brown like chocolate, like warm, rich wood. She did not have to set eyes upon King George III of Great Britain and Ireland to know that his was not.
So why? Why was he doing this? She knew what the pale-skinned Europeans said about people like her. Why would he “pollute” his bloodline with a girl of Moorish ancestry? Her tree led to Africa, and it did not take many generations to get there.
Why did he want her?
What was he hiding?
“Liebchen,” Adolphus said. He sighed and his eyes softened. Once again, he was just her older brother. “I am sorry. But there are worse fates than marrying the King of England.”
Charlotte swallowed and looked out the window at the English countryside rolling by. It was green and bursting with life. Fields and forests, small villages with their quaint churches and high streets. She supposed it did not look so different from her homeland, although she had not spied a single lake.