“I mean my patient. That is what he is for the foreseeable future. Please direct the kitchens to change his morning meal to porridge.”
“Porridge, sir?” Reynolds said.
“Thin porridge.”
“We do not even feed that to the scullery maids here at Kew,” Reynolds said.
Monro did not see fit to reply.
“You want to feed the King gruel,” Reynolds stated, his face printed with disbelief.
George pressed his lips to hold back a smile. Reynolds was loyal. A friend, even. It warmed the heart.
But he needed Monro’s help, so he turned to Reynolds and said, “Please do as the doctor orders. It is a new treatment, one with great promise.”
“Your Majesty.” Reynolds was clearly unconvinced.
“I am certain, Reynolds,” George said. “Go.”
Kew Palace
The Observatory
14 September 1761
The following day, George was less certain. But he was still determined to see this through. Doctor Monro had set up a laboratory in the basement of Kew, and he had moved George’s treatments to this dank level.
George should have felt some kinship there—it was a place of science, after all, with anatomical charts on the walls, and shelves full of books and jars. But all George could summon was terror. Unlike his celestial observatory, this place was dark and subterranean. The flickering torches cast sinister shadows, but worst of all, Monro had brought in cages filled with animals. Rats, mostly. A rabbit or two. Even some dogs.
They did not look well.
“This is the cure,” the doctor said, directing George to a straight-backed chair that had been bolted to the floor. “Submission. It is as I told you before. If you cannot govern yourself, you are not fit to govern others.”
George eyed the chair with horror. It was simply made, of iron and wood, but there were ominous knobs and levers, and what were those straps dangling from the headrest? Surely they were not meant to wrap across his face?
“Strap him in,” Monro said to his assistants.
George tried to control his breathing as leather restraints were secured around his wrists and ankles.
This is necessary, he told himself. This is right.
Govern yourself. Control yourself.
But his heart was racing, and his breath was moving through him with faster and heavier gulps. He was scared. This was necessary, and it was right, but he was scared. Surely that was normal. It had to be.
“Until you are fit to govern yourself,” Monro said, “I shall govern you. Do you understand me?” George nodded, and he started to say yes, but one of Monro’s assistants shoved a gag in his mouth.
“Do you understand me, boy?” Monro roared.
George nodded frantically.
“I do not give a damn who your father was, how many titles you have, or whether you are God’s own representative on Earth. In here you are just another animal in a cage. And just like an animal, I will break you.”
George closed his eyes just as Monro’s assistants pulled another leather strap tight across his forehead. He was ready to be broken.
Agatha
Buckingham House
The Queen’s Sitting Room
14 September 1761
And now she was having tea with the Queen. Agatha truly did not understand how she’d come to this moment.
Of course she understood. The Queen had dark skin and the Palace wanted to make sure she felt welcome and at home. Thus, they had decided that others with dark skin might be finally considered appropriate company. But Agatha did not understand how it had come about that the former Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz had been selected to be Queen in the first place.
Whispers were that the “old” ton, as the light-skinned nobility were calling themselves, were still wondering if the marriage might be annulled and a new queen found amongst their ranks. Many, if not most, still refused to accept the newly elevated peers. Several of the new lords, including Lord Danbury, had attempted to take up membership at White’s.
They had all been rebuffed at the door.
Agatha could not help but think that the Palace had not anticipated Charlotte’s skin color. If so, wouldn’t they have issued wedding invitations to London’s dark-skinned elite with a bit more advance notice? Agatha was not complaining; who complained about an invitation to a royal wedding? But it was a known fact that the old ton had received their invitations weeks ahead of the event.
So now England had nobility with a full range of complexions. Parliament was calling it “The Great Experiment.” And it was, Agatha supposed. Both great and an experiment. She eyed the new queen over the elaborate afternoon tea that had been laid out on the table between them. Did Charlotte have any idea the change she was fomenting? Just by her very existence? Agatha suspected that she did not, sequestered as she was in Buckingham House.
“It was kind of you to invite me to tea,” Agatha said.
Queen Charlotte smiled and nodded. It was all very polite.
Agatha motioned to the food on her plate, realized she had not yet tried it, and then took a hasty bite. “The scones are delicious.”
“Yes. I had not tried them before coming to London. We have different foods in Mecklenburg-Strelitz.”
“Do you? Of course you must. Are you enjoying the food here in England?”
“It is delicious. Everything is delicious.” As if to make her point, the Queen picked up an apricot biscuit and took a bite. But the motion was very sudden, and there was something about it that struck Agatha as inherently nervous.
Which was the oddest thing. Why would the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland be nervous to meet her?
“How wonderful,” Agatha murmured. She took a sip of her tea, desperate to do something with her mouth other than make conversation. Honestly, this was the most awkward tableau. How did one talk with a queen? Forgetting the matter of rank (as if that were possible), there were at least six servants in the room.
And a harpist. Who played just ever so slightly louder than was conducive to conversation.
“I am glad you could come,” the Queen said.
As if Agatha could have declined. She smiled politely and asked, “Are you meeting each of your ladies-in-waiting individually?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
The Queen waved carelessly at her servant. “Brimsley said to invite you. He said you would be the most discreet.”
This gave Agatha pause. “We require discretion?”
“Because I am on my honeymoon.”
“Your honeymoon?” Agatha echoed. Dear heavens, why had she been summoned to the palace during the Queen’s honeymoon? She cast a furtive glance at Brimsley. He looked alarmed.
Agatha gave him the tiniest of nods, one it was possible he would not even see. But she wanted someone to be aware that she understood the delicacy of the situation. It should not get about that the Queen had felt the need for companionship during her honeymoon.
Other than that of the King, of course.
But the King was nowhere in sight, and before Agatha had been directed to this glorious sitting room decorated in shades of teal, gold, and cream, she’d heard whispers that the King was not in residence.
“It is going wonderfully,” Queen Charlotte said. “It is a splendid honeymoon. My husband is the best of husbands. He is most intelligent. And very handsome.”