Was it so much to wish for a lake?
“Will I ever return to Schloss Mirow?” she asked quietly.
Her brother’s eyes grew wistful, maybe even a little sad. “Probably not,” he admitted. “You will not wish to. In a year, we will be too rustic for your tastes.”
Charlotte had the oddest sensation that if she were anywhere else, if she were anyone else, she might cry. Yesterday, her tears would have flowed. Hot and angry, with all the passion of her youth.
But now she was to be Queen. She did not cry. Whatever lay inside a person, creating tears, forming sobs—it had been switched off.
“Sit back,” she said. She tugged her hands free from his and set them firmly in her lap. “You are endangering my gown. I need to look perfect when I arrive, do I not?”
Her palace awaited.
George
St. James’s Palace
London
8 September 1761
Most of the time, George didn’t mind being King.
The perks were obvious. He had more money than one person could possibly spend, multiple palaces that he could call home, and a veritable flotilla of servants and advisors, all leaping over each other to satisfy his every whim.
Chocolate in the morning with precisely three spoonfuls of sugar and a dollop of milk? Right here, Your Majesty, on a silver-edged saucer.
A copy of The History of Succulent Plants by Richard Bradley? Never fear, it does not matter that it was published in 1739, we shall find it for you immediately!
A small elephant? That might require a few months to procure, but we shall get on it straightaway.
For the record, George had not requested an elephant. Of any size. But it rather cheered him to know that he could.
So yes, being King was frequently delightful. But not always, and one could not generally complain, because one sounded like an ass when one complained about being King.
But there were drawbacks. One enjoyed a disturbingly small degree of privacy, for example. Like right now. A normal man might enjoy a shave from his valet with nothing to fill his ears but birdsong drifting through the open window, but George’s dressing room had been invaded by both his mother and one of his advisors.
Neither of whom were showing any inclination to shut up.
“She was being fitted for her gown when I left her,” Princess Augusta said.
“Everything is as it should be,” Lord Bute murmured.
“She wanted to wear some monstrosity from Paris. Paris!”
Bute nodded, a rather diplomatic motion that indicated neither agreement nor dissent. “I believe the French capital is known as a center of fashion.”
George closed his eyes. It was odd, really, but people seemed to speak more freely in his presence when his eyes were closed, as if somehow he could not hear them.
It was not a trick George could employ often; it would not do, for example, to close one’s eyes while sitting on a throne or receiving heads of state. But at times like this, reclining with a warm towel on his cheeks and throat as he awaited his valet’s arrival with foam and a straight razor, it could be quite illuminating.
For his mother’s discussion with Lord Bute centered on George’s fiancée, which would not have been so remarkable, except that George had not yet met his fiancée, and the wedding was in six hours.
Such was the life of a king. One would think being anointed by God would grant one the right to clap eyes on one’s bride ahead of one’s wedding. But no, a king married for his country, not his heart or loins. It didn’t really matter if he did not see Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz before they took their vows. In fact, it might be better, all things considered.
Still, he was curious.
“She is marrying an English king,” his mother said. “She must wear an English gown. Did you see what she was wearing this morning when she was presented to me?”
“I am afraid I did not notice, ma’am.”
“Fusses and frills. It was altogether too much for a morning call. Sapphires. In the middle of the day. And lace made by nuns. Nuns! Does she think we are Catholics?”
“I am sure she merely wished to make a good impression upon her future mother-in-law,” Bute demurred.
Princess Augusta snorted. “These Continentals. They are entirely too full of themselves.”
George allowed himself a smile. His mother had been born Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. One could not sit more squarely in the middle of the Continent than Gotha.
But Augusta had been a princess of Great Britain for twenty-five years. More than half her life. She was supposed to have been Queen, but that honor had been denied to her when George’s father, then the Prince of Wales, was hit in the chest by a cricket ball and died shortly thereafter. The Crown would skip a generation, traveling from grandfather to grandson, and with no husband to be King, Augusta could not be Queen.
Still, she had devoted herself to this country. Princess Augusta had birthed nine princes and princesses, all of whom spoke English as their mother tongue. If his mother now saw herself as wholly British, George supposed that was understandable.
“She is attractive, though,” Bute said. “Her face was most pleasing. And she held herself well. One could say that her posture was regal.”
“Yes, of course,” Augusta agreed. “But she is very brown.”
George opened his eyes. That was unexpected. “The earth is brown,” he said.
His mother turned to him. Blinked. “What on ea—” She stopped herself before she punned, which struck George as a mild tragedy. He quite liked puns, intended or otherwise. He loved the way words clicked together, and if sometimes this meant his sentences were four hundred and sixty-three words long, then that was a problem for someone else.
He was the King. Long sentences were his birthright.
“What,” his mother said again, after a pause that didn’t seem nearly lengthy enough to have contained the full stretch of George’s thought process, “does that have to do with anything?”
“I love the earth,” George said, thinking that explanation enough.
“Don’t we all,” Bute murmured.
George ignored him. He didn’t mind Bute; he was mostly helpful, and the two of them shared a common love of natural philosophy and the sciences. But he was also occasionally annoying.
“The earth is brown,” George said again. “That which springs all life, all hope. It is brown. It is lovely.”
His mother stared at him. Bute stared at him. George just shrugged.
“Be that as it may,” his mother persisted, “no one told us she was so brown.”
“Is that a problem?” George asked. He closed his eyes again. Reynolds had arrived with the razor, and it was much more relaxing this way. Although logically speaking, one should never feel too relaxed with a razor near one’s throat.
“Of course not,” she said quickly. “I certainly don’t care what color she is.”
“You’d care if she were purple.”
Silence. George smiled in his mind.
“You are going to give me a megrim,” his mother finally said.
“There are a great many doctors in the palace,” George said helpfully. It was true. There were far more doctors than any one person could possibly require.
Except a king, apparently. A king required a great many doctors. This king in particular.