‘You think that we can help you?’ asked Sophia.
‘Yes, by inviting her here. Treat her with respect. If you did so she would understand that, in spite of the circumstances, she was being given all the honours that would be due to my wife.’
‘She would not be your wife,’ put in Ernest Augustus quickly. ‘That is quite out of the question.’
‘I know. I know,’ replied George William wearily. ‘I have sworn that I will not marry. But I could marry … morganatically. You could have no objection to that.’
‘The documents would have to be very carefully drawn up.’
‘Naturally.’
How time changed people! thought George William. Here was Ernest Augustus, wary and suspicious; and a few years ago he would have done anything in the world to please his adored elder brother.
‘Well, should we ask her here?’ said Ernest Augustus to Sophia.
She was pleased that he bowed to her decision in matters such as this; it was payment for refusing to hear the giggling and other noises which came from his bedroom.
‘We shall have to consider this,’ she said slowly. ‘To take her under our protection might be misconstrued.’
‘How so?’ demanded George William.
‘Oh, it is easy to make trouble. Look how John Frederick almost succeeded in snatching Celle from you. If you had not returned when you did who can say what might have happened.’
‘You must do this for me,’ insisted George William. He laid his hand on her arm.
She was conscious of the hand there – yet successfully she hid her reaction.
How he pleads for her! she thought angrily. He pleads for her as eagerly as he rejected me!
‘We will consider,’ she said coolly.
‘And you will give me your answer … when?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I shall expect you tonight,’ Sophia told Ernest Augustus. ‘There is this matter to discuss.’
He nodded. It was time they slept together again, and he had no other project in mind for the night.
In her bedchamber he sat on the bed watching her.
‘Well?’
‘I think we should invite this woman here.’
‘You would be prepared to do that?’
‘I think it would be good if he lived with his mistress. That is all she can ever be, of course. We must make sure of that.’
‘Naturally it is all that she can be. I have his signature on the documents.’
‘I saw a look in his eyes tonight. Ambition, I said. And I fear ambition.’
‘But he has signed the documents. I have them under lock and key.’
‘There they must be kept. But he has changed; and we must be careful. When he signed over his rights to you he was a feckless young man, wanting merely to flit from one adventure to another. Now he has become serious. He wants this woman to be his wife. What do you think he will want next? Children. And once he has them he will want estates for them.’
‘Which he can’t have.’
‘Which,’ agreed Sophia, ‘he can’t have. But that won’t prevent his wanting them. And this woman … she will want them too. Our George Lewis is the heir; but what if George William has a son?’
‘George Lewis will still be the heir.’
‘George William is rich … richer than you are … in spite of what he has assigned to you. I’d rather Celle than Osnabrück. And Celle must be for George Lewis.’
‘So it shall be.’
‘We have to be careful. That is why I want that woman here. I want to see what manner of creature she is who has worked this change in him. And I want her to know that it is useless for her to dream. She is a nobody and I am a Princess of a Royal House. I have English blood in my veins.’
‘Oh, how you go on about the English!’
‘I happen to be proud of my connection with a proud people.’
‘Who murdered your uncle!’
‘That was a few of their leaders. The people are now happy to have my cousin Charles back on the throne. I am proud of being English, Ernest Augustus, and I don’t care who knows it. They at least have one King to rule over them … they are not split into all these principalities which are not worth much alone. That is why George Lewis must inherit as big an estate as possible. He must have Hanover, Celle, Osnabrück … the whole of the Brunswick-Lüneberg inheritance. And that woman will try to prevent it if she can, because if she should have boys of her own … You see my point? I am going to ask her here. I am going to show her that if she comes into this family she comes on the wrong side of the blanket and need have no fine ideas of what her children will get, or she will get for that matter. She comes as the Madame of the Duke of Celle – not as his wife. That’s what I want her to know and that is why I am going to ask her here.’
‘So you are going to help our lovers?’
‘Yes, I am going to help them, because I think it is a good thing that George William settles down to produce a few bastards and remembers that they have no inheritance because when he passed me over to you, he passed over his rights with me.’
‘You sound as though you would punish him for rejecting such a prize.’
‘Punish him! I care not enough to wish for that. I’m satisfied with the way everything turned out.’
‘A pretty compliment, my dear.’
She came and stood before him – unseductive yet inviting.
‘We will have a large family,’ she said. ‘Two sons is not enough.’
There was excitement in the Olbreuse lodgings when the letter arrived from Osnabrück.
Eléonore hastened to show it to her father.
‘It can mean one thing,’ said the Marquis. ‘You are accepted by his family. This is the Duchess herself; and she is a Princess. It is couched in a very welcoming manner. This means that all is well.’
‘It means a marriage that will not be accepted as one.’
‘My dear, many morganatic marriages have been made before.’
‘My children would have no rights.’
‘You are clever enough to see that they do, I am sure.’
Eléonore looked at her old father. What it would mean to him if she accepted this invitation and married George William, she well knew. The first thing George William would do would be to settle a pension on the Marquis. He had said as much; and she trusted him to keep his promises.
She looked at Angelique – so gay and pretty. What chance had she of making a good marriage as the daughter of an impoverished Frenchman – aristocratic though he might be, even though the French nobility was of as high a social standing as a German Prince, and often more cultivated and civilized! Not that she would criticize her German Prince; his absence had taught her how wretched she was going to be without him.
Her family was urging her – but more insistent than anything else were her own inclinations.
‘I will go to the Princess,’ she said. ‘She has been so good to us and her advice will help me make up my mind.’
The Princess received her with pleasure; she read Sophia’s letter.
‘My dear Eléonore,’ she cried, ‘of course you must go to Osnabrück. This letter means that Duchess Sophia accepts you – and if she does so will every German. This is telling you that although you cannot be his legal wife because of contracts he has made preventing his marrying, in every other way you will be treated as such.’
‘You … you almost persuade me.’
The Princess laughed. ‘My dear demoiselle d’honneur. You know you have made up your mind. You love this man. Don’t be afraid of love, my child.’
Eléonore went solemnly back to her father’s lodgings. The Marquis and Angelique looked at her expectantly.
‘I shall write to the Duchess Sophia at once,’ she said. ‘And now … I am going to prepare for the journey to Osnabrück.’