The Princess Dilemma: A Victorian Royal Romance Page 5

  Conflict warred in Edward’s brain. Murdo’s solicitors could take much of the burden off him. No more hunting for ears to listen, but a wife? His wife? Still, he needed to play along. “It won’t be easy. She’s twenty-five now and has never attempted to contact me. She might hate me. Or she might not remember we are married, any more than I did.”

  “She has the ear of the queen,” Murdo said. “Can she be seduced? She loved ye once, or at least found ye attractive when she was dizzy on elderberry wine.”

  At that, Edward growled at his cousin. “We spent a summer together, mostly completely sober.”

  “Any experience with seduction?” Murdo grinned. “Excuse me, of course ye have, though not recently. That general’s daughter.”

  Edward snorted. “I was more seduced than seducing. I was pretty green. Besides, this lady is a royal virgin, or at least she was. She won’t take me on when I have nothing to offer her.”

  “You’re after the throne. A kingdom is a high-stakes game.”

  “So you will help me?”

  “I have no interest in politics, and I already have all the land and money I could need. But ye are my cousin.” Murdo reached into a pocket. His cousin casually removed a handful of gold sovereigns and placed them on the table. “You know the way to a woman’s heart, right?”

  “What’s that, in your estimation?”

  “Presents, laddie. I’d tell ye to buy a new suit, but a present is more important. If ye think buying a gift for Charlie does ye some good, take this money with my blessing. At least some of it should be yours anyway.”

  Edward deliberated for the space of a heartbeat before he swept the coins into an inner pocket. It wouldn’t do to have them sitting about in a brothel. The women were trained to remove men from their money. He could scarcely believe that Murdo had parted with twelve sovereigns without so much as blinking an eye. “Thank you. Our fortunes shall rise and fall together.”

  The cousins stared at each other across the table. Murdo pushed back first. “I think I shall join a faro table. Will ye accompany me?”

  “No. I’m going to finish my dinner, then be off. I’m sure you will lose enough to cover my meal. Thank you for the stake.”

  “There is more when ye need it. I will set the lawyers on ye in the morning.”

  Edward nodded. “I look forward to moving my case along.”

  Murdo stood, picked up his glass, and tossed the rest of the contents back. Edward watched him to see if he weaved as he walked, but he remained steady. The potato and meat must have soaked up some of the brandy or he was used to it. He shook his head and ate the rest of his food, then drank his own glass dry. He’d had better brandy in the officers’ mess, but it wasn’t bad. Nor were the results of his visit here tonight problematic. He’d come in with his pockets to let and left with enough money to live on for a month or more.

  And a wife. He rubbed his temples, wishing he could remember something substantive about that long-ago Charlie.

  ~

  Ten days later he made his way to Kensington Palace. He’d left plenty of time to stop in and visit Lemuel, in the hopes of learning more about the von Scharnburgs.

  Lemuel, who’d had a haircut and a fresh shave in the recent past judging by the red bumps on his throat and uneven fringe across his forehead, pointed at him when he came in. “Look what I found for you, Colonel.” With an air of triumph, he waved a mangled copy of episode IV of “Pickwick Papers” at Edward.

  “Where did this come from?” Even with his largesse from Murdo, he hadn’t dared to waste money on entertainment. He might have to buy a present for Charlie. Even a ring. She must consider herself still married to him, given that such a beautiful woman had not married anyone else during the intervening years. What had his drunken, sixteen-year-old self done to her life?

  “My aunt. She has the bound edition and gave it to me with some other things to take to a secondhand shop. But I liberated it for you.”

  Edward’s fingers twitched and he had the urge to snatch it from the lad. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I need some information, if you have it.”

  “What?” Lemuel set the magazine down.

  “The von Scharnburgs, a German royal family? What do you know?”

  Lemuel sniffed. “Big royal family, even bigger than the Coburgs. Poor, like them Germans seem to be. But the sons are too young to come sniffing at our new queen’s heels, hoping for a marriage into our royal family.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Princess Charlotte, I hear, is a beauty. We’ve a couple regulars who are courtiers, you know, being so close to the palaces. I’ve heard comments about her. She’s a lady-in-waiting.”

  “She’s not the common sort,” Edward agreed. “Quite lovely.”

  “My aunt has always followed the royal families of Europe. My aunt’s husband has a claim to the French throne, of all things.”

  “Everyone has their obsessions,” Edward said, biting his tongue. Little did Lemuel know who he was talking to.

  “So, do you want it?” Lemuel waved the magazine, its half-torn cover flapping.

  Edward reached for it, but the boy pulled it back. Edward’s hand stilled instantly. He wouldn’t play games.

  “I know men who would shoot you for less than that,” he said.

  Lemuel wrinkled his nose. “I don’t doubt it, in the wilds of Canada. But you have to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  Lemuel glanced glanced around before he answered. “There is a French book, banned here, that I’d like a copy of. I know where to get it, but I can’t be seen purchasing it. Will you buy it for me? I’ll give you the coin.”

  “Why don’t you get yourself a whore?” Edward asked, amused. “What’s the point of reading about something you could be doing?” His mind flashed on an image of a girl’s soft lips and even softer cheek. His cock strained against his trousers as he leaned into the gently curved belly of someone. Someone he’d been undressing. Was this a long-lost memory of Charlie? Or that general’s daughter?

  Lemuel’s splotchy neck flushed red. “I want to do it right, when, you know, I do it.”

  Edward sighed. “It comes quite naturally, I assure you.”

  “When you look like you do, I’m sure the ladies simply swoon for you,” Lemuel said with bitterness. “When you look like me, though, the ladies are more likely to laugh. They might put their hands over their mouths to hide it, but I know what’s going on.”

  “You thought a little knowledge might give you the requisite air of a rake?”

  “Precisely.” Lemuel drew himself up. “I don’t want to pay. I want girls to swoon.”

  “A future despoiler of virgins? And you’ll pay for my services with one battered copy of one episode of that story?”

  Lemuel grimaced. “And ‘Oliver Twist.’ New, each time it comes in.”

  Edward nodded. “And a daily paper, any time I come by.”

  “Done.” They shook hands.

  “Expensive book,” Edward said, pocketing the coins and pulling the latest Spectator from the stack at the end of the counter. He placed the precious Pickwick episode on top.

  Lemuel snorted, an unfortunate affectation given his overlarge nostrils. “Here is what my aunt said about the von Scharnburgs. She said Her Serene Highness is no better than she should be.”

  Edward felt a strange clutching in his chest. Charlie had gone on to other adventures? “Princess Charlotte?”

  “No, her mother, Princess Hildegard.”

  Edward tucked his hand into his jacket. “I see.”

  “She is Prince Ludvig’s third wife. He married proper princesses from other royal houses at the start of his marital career, but both died young and without children.”

  “Did he kill them?” Edward spoke without thinking, but one never knew with royals. They seemed to go insane at a rate faster than the general population.

  Lemuel grinned. “I think the dampness of his castle sent them to their reward. It
is reputed to be in appallingly bad repair.”

  “I see. Princess Charlotte seems sturdy enough despite a childhood in such a place.” What had she been doing in Scotland that summer so long ago?

  “Yes, because she is only half royal.” Lemuel lowered his voice as a couple of gentlemen entered the shop. “Her mother was an opera dancer the prince actually married.”

  Good for the prince. “He must have thought he had done his duty.” Watching two wives die could not be fun for any man.

  “It worked,” Lemuel agreed. “Seven children with the third wife. Your Charlotte is the oldest. Five girls, then two boys.”

  “Large family.”

  “The opera dancer had a child every two years exactly. The prince died a year ago, leaving the oldest boy, a fifteen-year-old, his kingdom under his mother’s regency.” Lemuel smiled politely as one of the gentlemen, with grasshopper-like, overlong limbs, approached the counter and placed an expensively bound work of natural history on the table, along with a handful of coins.

  “And five impoverished daughters to marry off. No dowries.”

  “Exactly.” Lemuel swiped the coins off the table and wrapped the book, then handed it to the gentleman with a smile.

  The gentlemen departed, sober-faced. Both looked like they could use a night of carousing at Trumbull’s, instead of a night poring over the habits of insects. Neither of them would be concerned, like young Lemuel, with the development of their sexual skills.

  “At least Baroness Lehzen found work for one of them.”

  Edward watched the coins disappear into the till. “Does being a lady-in-waiting pay very well?”

  “Well enough. But influence, connections, those are the primary coin. Can you take a position at court?”

  “I’m still in the army, just on leave. I have a career.”

  “But royals have army officers working for them, don’t they?”

  There was that. “I suppose so.” That was how Sir John Conroy took his post with the duchess originally. Edward’s father, the prince, had hired him. He could not have known the long-term effects of that decision.

  Lemuel’s father appeared in the doorway, looking at his pocket watch. Lemuel pointed to a scrap of paper tucked into the top of ‘Pickwick.’ Edward took that as sign to leave, even though he had plenty of time before his appointment. He picked up his contraband and nodded at Lemuel’s significant glance. To further this relationship, he’d have to purchase the forbidden French book.

  The mild weather and bright sun that occasionally peeked through the clouds gave Edward pleasure. He’d understood it had been a bad winter, with another bad one predicted. At least at this time of year, the walk to Kensington Palace was pleasant. He presented his letter from Charlotte to a footman.

  “Sir?” the footman said, looking confused.

  “Colonel,” Edward corrected. He was, after all, in uniform again, as he expected his sister would appreciate it.

  “You are at the wrong palace, Colonel, and at any rate, Her Majesty wouldn’t be taking appointments today. She’s gone to Buckingham Palace to live.”

  “I was given this appointment weeks ago,” Edward protested.

  “I’m sorry, but an error has been made. Perhaps the queen is expecting you at her new residence?” His expression made his doubt clear. “She left at two, with her mother.”

  In other words, don’t expect a secret meeting for him. “I’ll have to reschedule,” Edward said, clenching his teeth. Two weeks of waiting for nothing. He hadn’t even tried to see his wife. He’d witnessed his uncle’s funeral, met his cousin, made a few acquaintances in Parliament, and tried hard to make the best use of his cousin’s money. What he hadn’t done was make headway on his great issue. And for that, he was furious. With Charlotte, himself, and yes, he felt anger at Victoria as well. How dare she deny him, her elder brother? How dare her lady-in-waiting be so disorganized as to promise him an audience she couldn’t deliver?

  How dare his own wife attempt to keep him from his throne?

  Chapter Four

  Charlotte liked her rooms in the north wing of Buckingham Palace. Comfortably furnished, new, and private, they were much nicer than her chilly room at home in ancient Scharnburg Castle, shared with two of her sisters. She had her own bedroom and sitting room here, furnished with good wood items. Tonight, though, instead of the coziness of her room, the full moon beckoned her, along with the unread missive from Edward she’d received earlier.

  She’d expected some sort of irate, immediate response days ago, given that she’d ruined his chance at an audience with her mistress by writing the wrong appointment day in her letter to him. She’d only discovered her error when he hadn’t arrived the past Wednesday, the day before they had moved to Buckingham Palace.

  Charlotte folded the note and slid it into her reticule. She was sorry to have contributed to his woes, but the queen would never have given him a fair hearing. No bastard would get anything from her. The queen wanted to distance herself from her Hanoverian uncles. Charlotte knew Edward couldn’t possibly be legitimate. Wouldn’t that have been sorted out long ago, before the queen was even born?

  She couldn’t remember the subject having even come up that summer when they had fallen in love. She did remember Linsee Castle being much nicer than her home in Scharnburg, had agreed to marry Edward one fine day when they’d been drinking wine stolen from the cook, because she thought it would be grand to live with him, a handsome, sixteen-year-old grandson of a wealthy duke. Had she even known who his father was?

  Charlotte hoped that Victoria’s moral ways didn’t mean that all the men around would be as old as Lord Melbourne. The man had been dashing in Lord Byron’s day, or perhaps not since the mad poet had cuckolded him, and he was old enough to be Edward’s father. From her mother’s perspective, though, Lord Melbourne would be the proper suitor, a powerful, rich widower, not an impoverished army officer.

  Edward FitzPrince had no means to bring her family up in the world and had been best forgotten, according to her mother. He could supply no suitable husbands for her four sisters, no money for repairs to the crumbling old castle. She remembered telling her mother that the Duke of Linsee was wealthy, but her mother hadn’t thought he would do much for them. Maybe her mother had been right. Edward didn’t look to be in the pink of fashion, though he was certainly handsome. On the other hand, his family had paid for his commission.

  After one last peek through her bedroom curtains at the moon, disgusted with herself for not making a better picture in her own shabby dress, Charlotte marched to her door and went into the corridor in search of air and the night sky.

  When she reached a courtyard, she looked up at the tapestry of stars with relief. She reveled in the sensation of feeling utterly unimportant for a moment, not the overburdened hope of a royal family with too many daughters and debts.

  Her brothers were too young to bring heiresses into the fold. Here, under the moonlit sky, none of that mattered. There had been a sprinkle earlier, and the air was heavy with humidity and a summer, floral fragrance. She drank it in, eyes closed, at peace.

  After some minutes quite undisturbed, she leaned on a balustrade and opened the letter again. Edward’s handwriting, so large and bold, was visible by the light of the moon alone. No angry scrawl, the words were few, orderly, clipped. He requested another appointment, due to “unfortunate issues” with the first date he’d been given. She suspected he would never recognize her as his lost wife if she didn’t tell him the truth. What kind of letter might he have sent her then?

  She could do nothing for him, having already spoken to the queen. Victoria had refused to give him another opportunity. She’d claimed a weak moment when she had agreed to the first appointment, and this was a chance to set her oversight to rights. Fortune had smiled upon her, and all that sort of nonsense.

  Charlotte didn’t think this was fair or kind, but she was older than the queen, saw things more clearly. Victoria could do far worse than to
have a brother like Edward close and in her debt.

  She stared at the sky and mulled over her options. The only option she could think of was to have him come to the first levée. The reception was two days from now. He might have only a moment with Victoria, but all the leading men of the kingdom would be there. He could make valuable friends. The biggest problem? Court dress was required. Did he have the requisite claret-colored coat, knee breeches and white stockings, and sword?

  She stared at the letter. His clothing could not be her problem. All she could do was provide the opportunity. Tomorrow, she’d go to the secretary in charge of the levee and have him send an invitation to Edward. She owed the man something for her mistake.

  Also, she wanted to see what his lower limbs looked like in stockings.

  She grinned. If only he was rich and powerful. Everything both she and her family needed would have been wrapped into one neat package.

  ~

  “I came as soon as I received yer note.” Murdo’s hair was flattened under his top hat, sticking to his forehead in a damp swirl. Heat had kept most customers out of the coffeehouse with its offering of a bitter, boiling brew unsuited to the weather.

  Edward pushed a coffee cup and a slice of seed cake toward his cousin as he sat down. “Are you going to the levee tomorrow?”

  Murdo shrugged. “Hours of standing around, banging into other men’s swords.”

  “It’s my only chance to see Victoria,” Edward said. “I’m lucky to get this. Charlie gave me the wrong appointment date and I missed my opportunity for a private audience.”

  “The queen doesn’t want to see ye,” Murdo said blandly. “Your wife is lying to protect her.”

  Edward shook his head. “I don’t think so. Something about the tone of her letter. I need to go. She’s my only ally at court, and now she’s in my debt.”

  “What did the lawyers say?”

  “I’ve set them to the task of authenticating my letter from George III, and also to getting independent confirmation of my mother’s religious conversion date. The College of Arms won’t talk to me without that. Even so, it doesn’t look good. Something about needing to be listed in the books of the Privy Council, which the lawyers do not have access to. I cannot believe this is as far as I’ve come in nearly a month.”