“The King is saying.” She placed her hand over her heart, the very image of feminine rectitude. “I am only his mother. I say nothing.”
George let out a bark of laughter at that.
The only sign that Augusta heard him was a slight tightening around her mouth. She barely even paused before saying to Lord Bute, “The King wishes to expand the guest list for the wedding and add to the new queen’s court.”
George smiled. He finally understood. His mother was brilliant.
“Of course, Your Highness.” Lord Bute looked at Augusta, then at George, then back at Augusta. “It is only . . . the King realizes that the wedding is in six hours?”
“He does,” George said, grinning.
“The Danburys, I think,” Augusta said. “Your grandfather spoke of them, did he not?”
“I could not say,” George admitted.
“He did,” Augusta said firmly. “Not of the current Danburys, of course. He would never have known them. But he knew the father. Stupendously wealthy. Diamonds, I think. From Africa.” She looked at Bute. “Are you taking notes?”
“Yes,” he said quickly, scrambling for paper. George wished him luck. He was not likely to find any in his dressing room.
“Who else?” Augusta asked. “The Bassets?”
“An excellent choice,” Bute said, still looking for paper. And a pen. “Might I suggest the Kents?”
Augusta nodded her approval. “Yes, they will do. I’m sure there are more. I shall trust you and Lord Harcourt to determine who might be most appropriate.”
“Of course, Your Royal Highness. I shall have the invitations issued at once.” Bute cleared his throat. “It is very short notice. They may have other plans.”
Augusta flicked her hand in the air. It was a regal thing, and George was fairly sure she found it just as handy as he did. “Other plans?” she echoed, disbelief painted across her face. “Who would not want to attend a royal wedding?”
Agatha
St. James’s Palace
Chapel Royal
8 September 1761
If Agatha Danbury had known she’d be attending a royal wedding, she’d have worn a nicer dress.
Not that there was anything wrong with her current attire. To the contrary, her gown was the height of fashion, designed by Madame Duville, one of the top three modistes in London. The fabric was jacquard silk, the color a rich, lustrous gold that Agatha knew complemented the dark tones of her skin. Her stomacher, too, was a thing of beauty—adorned in the latest style with a single bow over the bosom, and then further dressed with silver embroidery and a magnificent Nigerian topaz.
So yes, objectively speaking, her dress was gorgeous.
The problem was that it had not been specifically designed to be worn at a royal wedding, and anyone with an ounce of reason knew that if one was to attend a royal wedding, one had to damn well pony up the funds to have a gown customized for the occasion.
But as it happened, when Agatha had opened her eyes that morning, she’d not been in possession of an invitation to the nuptials of King George III and his German bride. Nor had she any expectation of ever finding herself within spitting distance of royalty. Her side and their side did not mix.
Ever.
But one did not ignore a royal summons, and so now she and her husband were seated in a surprisingly well-located pew in the Chapel Royal, exchanging nervous glances with the other members of their set.
She was exchanging nervous glances. Her husband was asleep.
Leonora Smythe-Smith, who always used ten words when five would do, twisted around to face her. “Why are we here?” she whispered.
“I could not say,” Agatha replied.
“Have you seen how they are looking at us?”
Agatha resisted the temptation to hiss, Of course I see how they are looking at us. Honestly, one would have to be a complete lackwit not to notice the glares coming from the nobility-filled pews.
Nobility that was, to a person, in possession of porcelain-pale skin.
And while the Danburys and the Smythe-Smiths—and the Bassets, and the Kents, and quite a few other prominent families—enjoyed a life of wealth and privilege, it was still a very separate sort of wealth and privilege from the traditional British aristocracy. Agatha’s dark skin meant that she could never be considered a proper companion for their daughters, much less a possible bride for their sons.
It did not bother her. Well, only rarely. Truly, only at times like these, when she found herself in the same room with dukes and duchesses and the like. It was tempting to return their disdain with an announcement that she, too, was a descendent of kings and queens, that her birth name was Soma, and in her veins flowed the royal blood of the Gbo Mende royal tribe of Sierra Leone.
But what would be the point? Most could not find Sierra Leone on a map. Agatha would wager that half would think she was making up the entire country.
Idiots. The world was populated with idiots. She’d long since learned the truth of that, along with the depressing fact that there was very little she could do about it.
Such was the life of a woman, no matter what shade her skin.
Agatha stole a glance at her husband. He was still sleeping. She elbowed him.
“What?” he spluttered.
“You were asleep.”
“I was not.”
See? Idiots.
“I would never sleep in the Chapel Royal,” he said, brushing a piece of lint from his velvet waistcoat.
Agatha shook her head. How had he managed to get lint on his coat between their home and St. James’s Palace?
Her husband was . . . not her favorite person. She supposed that was as kind a way as any to describe him. He had been a part of her life since she was but three, when her parents had pledged her to him in marriage.
She’d wondered, as she was raised to be his perfect wife, what sort of man entered a betrothal contract with a three-year-old. Herman Danbury had been well past thirty when he had signed the papers. Surely if he was eager for heirs, he would have chosen someone who could provide them with a bit more haste.
She’d gotten her answers—such as they were—after her marriage. It was all about bloodlines. Danbury also came from royal blood, and he refused to mix his with any but the most elite of African-British society. Plus, as he’d cheerfully informed her, he’d secured himself fourteen more years as a bachelor. What man wouldn’t be delighted with that?
Agatha suspected that there were more than a few Danbury bastards sprinkled across the southeast of England. She also suspected that her husband provided little to nothing as support for these children.
It ought to be a crime. It really ought.
At any rate, he’d stopped producing children out of wedlock after their marriage. Agatha knew this because he’d told her quite explicitly that she satisfied all his needs. And based upon the frequency with which she found herself satisfying those needs, she believed him.
She shifted slightly in her seat. She’d been satisfying his needs that morning when the royal invitation had arrived. As a result, she’d not had time to take her usual postcoital warm bath. She was sore. And possibly chafed.
Well, more sore and chafed than usual.
But she was willing to ignore her discomfort because one, she had no choice, and two, she was at the royal wedding.
Such astonishments did not happen often in a lifetime, and never before in hers.
“Shouldn’t they have started by now?” Mrs. Smythe-Smith asked.