Shall We Dance?

“I didn’t know you were in London,” Amelia Fredericks said, holding tightly on to Georgiana’s hands as the two of them sank onto the couch. “I’ve already sent you a note, hoping you could come visit, but to your mother’s country house.”

“No, no, they brought me here, to marry me off to any poor fool who would have me,” Georgiana said, then quickly looked up at Nate, panic in her eyes. “That is, um, Amelia? I should like to introduce to you my…my, um…”

“Sir Nathaniel Rankin, Miss Fredericks, although you may feel free to think of me as a prospective poor fool,” Nate said quickly, executing what he knew to be an impeccable leg. “A delight, I’m sure. Georgiana has told me that you and she are great friends. How affecting it is to see such joy in Georgiana’s eyes.”

“Sir Nathaniel,” Amelia said, allowing him to bow over her hand. “I cannot thank you enough for bringing Georgiana to me.”

“Yes,” Georgiana said, glaring up at him. “And now he’s going to take himself outside to check on a coach that we passed on the roadway, stuck in a ditch, and offer his assistance in righting it. Aren’t you, Nate?”

“I am? Oh, yes, of course, I am, I am. You two ladies just sit here and natter and I’ll be out of your way.”

A maid entered the room, carrying a heavy tea tray, and Nate grabbed up a freshly baked cherry tart on his way out the door, gratefully leaving Georgiana and Amelia alone to talk about whatever it is females talk about that men don’t really care to know.

A half hour later, having enjoyed himself to the top of his bent in putting his back to pushing the Bateman coach out of the ditch, Nate wiped one muddy hand across his cheek as Georgiana appeared behind him, her hands on her hips and a smile on her face.

“You’re filthy,” she said. “And you look embarrassingly happy about it.”

“It was tricky,” he told her as he pulled out his handkerchief, which Georgiana took, then held up to his mouth so that he could spit on it. “Oh, I say, Georgiana, don’t play mother with me—oh, all right.” He closed his eyes, spit on the linen. “The wheel was fairly stuck, but m’tiger and I figured out how to shift it.”

She scrubbed at his cheek. “Yes, I know. Amelia and I watched through the window. She thinks you’re a very nice gentleman. I think you’re an idiot, but a very nice idiot. Now, shall we go meet your aunt?”

“LAND HO, SIR, or ahoy, or whatever it is.” Clive scrambled to his feet once more in the boat, putting one foot up on the low bow to steady himself as he pointed toward the shore. “And there be a lady on the boards, M’Lord, watchin’ us come. See her?”

Perry narrowed his eyes and followed Clive’s pointing finger with his gaze. “It could be, my friend, that we’ve struck gold on our first shovelful. Seems the artist was more talented than I’d supposed. Not beautiful, but still rather striking.”

“She’s the one Sir Willard talked about? Miss Fredericks?”

“I think so, yes. But now brace yourself, Clive, or else you’ll—ah, too late,” he said as the Bow Street Runner, decked out in all his naval finery, toppled head-first into the water. “How very inventive of you, Clive. But, then, I knew you’d come in handy. What a splendid entrée into the queen’s residence, although first, alas, I’ll probably be forced to save you. You there—yes, you. Mind scooping up my friend with your oar before he sinks again? Don’t worry about the hat, it’s no great loss. There’s a good fellow.”

Then he looked to the small pier, where the young woman he most ardently hoped would indeed turn out to be Miss Amelia Fredericks was calling out orders to have Clive rescued, then brought up the hill to the queen’s residence.

Life, as Perry Shepherd had often found, was good.

THE QUEEN’S hastily put-together residence at Hammersmith.

Quite a crowded place.

The queen, of course, caught between her broken dreams and an attacking husband bent on destroying her.

Amelia Fredericks, practical, yet still harboring secret dreams, and utterly devoted to her queen.

Perry Shepherd, Earl of Brentwood, sent against his will and better judgment to seek out scandal by his uncle, Sir Willard, a staunch Tory and thus aligned against the queen.

And his faithful (and, at the moment, rather soggy) dogsbody, Clive Rambert.

Georgiana Penrose, Amelia’s childhood friend, unaware of any intrigue, but happy to tell most any fib if it puts her in her friend’s company and, frankly, keeps her mother and Mr. Bateman away from her as much as possible.

Sir Nathaniel Rankin, baronet, a young man who has reluctantly taken on one chore, protecting the queen on orders from his dotty aunt Rowena, only to find a second, much more enjoyable way of occupying his time.

Mrs. Maryann Fitzhugh, a most unlikely housekeeper, both of her.

Bernard Nestor, out to make any mischief, find any proof that would further his ambition…er, the queen’s case.

And Esther Pidgeon, still pining for her Florizel, a woman for whom dreams have become an obsession, and willing to go to any lengths to destroy the upstart queen. Any lengths. Any.

Let The Games Begin

Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?

I’ve been to London to visit the Queen.

—Anonymous

AMELIA HAD SPENT a lovely half hour with her good friend Georgiana before an urgent summons from the queen’s maid had cut their visit short. With promises to see each other again as soon as possible, Amelia had hastened off to the queen’s chamber, expecting to find Her Majesty still abed, still playing at tragedy queen (not that she didn’t have good reason).

Instead, she’d found Her Majesty at her dressing table, her eyes half-shut while a fussing maid applied rouge to her cheeks.

As there was no sign that the bathtub had been employed, or even the pitcher and ewer on a dressing table to one side of the room, Amelia knew that the queen was in some sort of rush—and when the queen was in a rush, personal hygiene took a distant back seat to wherever the woman was in a rush to.

“Your Majesty,” Amelia said, curtsying to the queen.

The rouge pot and brush went flying when the maid, clearly unprepared for Her Royal Majesty’s abrupt about-face in her chair, turned on Amelia to ask in some excitement, “Did you see? Did you see?”

“See, ma’am? I’m sorry—”

The queen fluttered her ringed fingers toward the bank of long windows. “Oh, just go look—look! My people. My subjects! They come to bow to their queen, Amelia, in her hour of greatest need. I will win! You’ll see, you’ll see. For once in my life, I will best him. I will win!”

Amelia had gone to the windows, knowing what she would see below her, in the water. Boats. Boats and more boats, of every shape and size. And then she leaned closer to the glass. “There are banners,” she said. “Signs.”

“Yes, yes,” the queen said, returning her attention to her toilette. “I had someone fetch me a spyglass. See it? Pick it up, my dear, and read to me from the banners.”

Amelia located the spyglass on a table and did as she was bid. “Long Live Our Queen,” she read, peering through the glass. “Hip, Hip, Hooray.” She saw two more: Kick His Arse, Caroline, and Show Us Some Bottom, Dearie, but those she did not repeat to Her Majesty.

“You have so many admirers, ma’am,” Amelia said, sliding the spyglass shut and replacing it on the table. “In England, indeed, in the world. It is so very gratifying.”

“Ha! It’s tweaking that miserable husband of mine, that’s what it’s doing. I can see him now, being told of what’s happening. Stomping his feet, weeping copious tears into the bosom of his latest fat, aged mistress, calling for his leeches so that he can be bled of his ill humors. My heart has not been so light for years! Oh, enough, enough. When I wave from the balcony all they’ll see will be their queen, not her wrinkles,” she said, batting away the maid’s hand. “Amelia, we must keep them coming here, hold on to their loyalty. Feed it.”

Which was how Amelia had ended up donning a light wrap and picking her way down the flights of wooden stairs that eventually led to the small pier where she now stood with three footmen carrying heavy baskets of cakes and fruit, watching a pathetic man being pulled out of the water by the seat of his pants.

“Gently, my good man, gently. We shouldn’t wish to crease him.”

That voice, laden with amusement. Who’d said that? Who would say such a thing?

Amelia tore her frightened gaze away from the unfortunate fellow just now coughing and gasping on the pier, and looked at the gentleman gracefully picking his way to the front of the lightly rocking boat, then onto that same pier. He planted his cane on the dock, pressed both hands on the knob and leaned forward slightly, to look down at the nearly drowned man.

“Gad, Clive, all that spluttering. I warned you to be careful. Or did you think you’d spied out a mermaid?”

The nearly drowned man choked on yet another cough and raised his face to the man. “I coulda drownded.”