Shall We Dance?

“If you weren’t so damn rich I could threaten to cut you out of my will, no matter that you’re my only surviving kin. Now, listen to me. Princess Caroline cannot be crowned queen next year when Prinney—His Royal Majesty—has his coronation. She simply cannot.”

Perry scratched at his forehead. “You want me to kill her? Isn’t that sliding a tad far over the edge, Uncle, even for such a staunch Tory as yourself?”

“God’s teeth! No, I don’t want you to kill her. We…that is, I want you to spy on her.”

Perry dropped his chin onto his chest and looked at his uncle from beneath his remarkable winged eyebrows. “Oh, most definitely my hearing is gone. Your hair, my ears. What a terrible legacy of physical failings in our family, Uncle. You want me to what?”

“You heard me. I said spy on her. You’re a spy, ain’t you? And a damned good one. That’s the part of you I want, not that other part—I prefer not to remember what else you were ordered to do during the war.”

“A sentiment I share, Uncle,” Perry said tightly, then took a sip from his wineglass. And the man wondered why he didn’t go about, crowing of his exploits?

“Yes, yes. Rather sordid, bloodthirsty bits, some of that, eh, although necessary to our pursuit of victory. So we won’t talk about that. The king has put it to us to find a way to discredit the princess, gain him a divorce. His Cabinet, Parliament—we’ve been ordered to find a way.”

“And I’m that way?” Perry sat back, lightly rubbed at his chin. “Oh, hardly, Uncle.”

Sir Willard shook his head. “Not just you. There’s plenty of dirt already been dug, enough for the House of Lords to introduce a Bill of Pains and Penalties.”

Perry got to his feet, returned the wineglass to the drinks table. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Truthfully, neither had I, but we’ve been assured it’s legal, if an ancient process, rather outside our more commonly known legal system. Liverpool found it, and you know what a stickler he is. If she beats down a vote on the thing by Parliament, she’s queen. If we prove our case, the king gets his divorce. The procedure will be announced by the end of the week, possibly as soon as tomorrow. Think of it, Perry. If this works, he could marry again, provide another heir now that Princess Charlotte is lost to us.”

“Now there’s a vision that I would not want burned into my mind—Prinney riding atop some poor sweet princess sacrificed for her fertile womb. And again, not oddly, the request for a winch would probably not be unwarranted.”

“You’re lucky you’re speaking only to me,” Sir Willard warned him.

“And you’re lucky, Uncle, I don’t run hotfoot to Henry Brougham and the Whigs and tell them what’s afoot. Digging up dirt to divorce the queen? It’s unconscionable, even for you whacking-great bunch of rabid Tories.”

“So is watching the aging royal dukes running about, deserting morganatic wives and dozens of their bastard royals in order to wed any princess they can find and put an heir on her. We look like an island of rutting idiots. The world is laughing at us. Think on it, Perry. All that stands between England and anarchy at this moment is young Princess Victoria. We saw what happened with Princess Charlotte. This cannot be allowed.”

“So Prinney has to be shed of the queen, marry again, somehow produce an heir, possibly two or three. That’s the crux of this? You know, Uncle, I’d like to believe you, but I don’t. Our new king just doesn’t want his wife anymore, does he? Not only does he detest her, she’s more popular than he ever was. Or have you been so stuck—forgive me a small jest—here in your study that you are unaware of the spoiled vegetables and fruit that are tossed at our sire whenever he dares poke his nose outside the palace?”

With no small effort of will, Sir Willard disengaged his impressive girth from the chair and retrieved the rendering, furiously waving it in front of Perry’s nose. “See the girl? The one behind the Princess Caroline, just stepping onto the pier, holding on to that dog? Goes everywhere with the woman. She’s your entrée into the princess’s enclave.”

Perry snatched the paper before his uncle began beating him with it. “The queen’s enclave, Uncle. If Prinney is king, Caroline is queen consort.”

“Don’t bother me with trifles, not with the kingdom in such a damnable mess. Meet this girl, pay court to her, do whatever you must do, but get yourself accepted into Caroline’s circle. That’s where your pretty face comes in. Caroline likes pretty faces. Watch, observe, poke into closets, read any papers you may find locked up, and fetch me something the Lords can use to bring the dratted woman down. For England, Perry. And there’s not much time. The Lords convene this Pains and Penalties business in a few weeks.”

Perry squinted at the page. “Who is she? The artist wasn’t precisely inspired—all the faces look rather alike.”

“She’s Amelia Fredericks, one of the waifs Her Royal Highness has brought into her motley entourage, all but adopted. Remember how Caroline set up that supposed orphanage in Kent? No, of course you don’t, that was years ago. To hide the bastard son she formally adopted at one point, we all say, but can never prove.”

“Hiding her own son with a bevy of orphans. I’d call that inspired. This girl? She’s also one of those orphans?”

“Yes. The daughter of one of the princess’s maidservants, I understand, who perished in childbirth. Whatever, she’s been with the princess all of her life, a close companion and probably confidante. Meet her, romance her—I wager there will be orgies, knowing Caroline—and you will be in a perfect position to report on all that lascivious behavior, anything the Lords might use to discredit her. You’re a fool, Perry, a dilettante. Not threatening at all. You’re perfect for the job. No one would ever suspect you.”

“I believe I have, in this past minute, been insulted in more ways than I care to count,” Perry said, idly stroking the thin white scar on his left cheek with his thumb. “But tell me. If I say no, then what happens?”

“Then we’ll send someone else, who might not have your pure heart and chivalrous ways. Why, he might feel that the only way to infiltrate the princess’s enclave would be to seduce this Miss Fredericks. Ruin her. Not that you’d care a fig, eh? You don’t care a fig for anyone.”

“How very naughty of you, Uncle, to pink me straight in my pesky honor as a gentleman.” Perry held up the broadsheet yet again. “I read here that Her Royal Highness is quartered with Alderman Wood. My, my, he was Lord Mayor of London once or twice, wasn’t he? What happened? Was she turned away at the palace, or didn’t she chance a rebuff?”

“Wood offered, and it avoided a circus, with the populace there to witness it. But she’s already found other quarters in Hammersmith. Right on the water. I do believe our impudent queen enjoys the notion that her many admirers—and, yes, I admit she does have them—can choose to travel across the water to make their bows to her. The woman has a love of theatrics that is most embarrassing.”

“Unlike our new king, who is staid and retired and quite above showing himself off. Why, the Pavilion at Brighton is no more ornate than a monk’s cell, I swear it, if said monk had a fondness for silk, gilt and minarets. But, yes, I understand. Who did you have in mind?”

“What?”

“Whom did you have in mind to seduce Miss Fredericks? You must have all but given up on me by now. So? His name, Uncle.”

“Jarrett Rolin.”

Perry controlled his expression with some effort. “Rolin? I thought he left town with his tail tucked between his legs after that debacle at Westham’s a month ago.”

“Yes, I’d heard about that. The Marquis of Westham is your good friend, isn’t he? Odd, that, considering he’s the one who sliced that scar into your cheek.”

Perry spared a moment to think of his good, once hot-headed friend (hence the dueling scar on Perry’s cheek) and their very recent coup of routing Jarrett Rolin after the rotter had attempted to kidnap Westham’s beloved.

“Never mind that. Rolin is a bastard. A pretty bastard, but a bastard all the same. The man lives to seduce innocents. You can’t think to use him.”

“Can’t we? He’s perfect, Nevvie. An outcast from Society for the nonce, hiding out on his estate in Surrey. The princess adores outcasts, feels an affinity for them, I believe. But, as I said, he would be our second choice.”

“You know, Uncle, if I have a failing in life it has always been in underestimating you.”

“Only that, Nevvie? If you applied to me, I could provide you with a detailed list of your shortcomings. Now hurry along, dear boy. Miss Fredericks awaits. Oh, one thing more. Report here tomorrow and I’ll explain.”

“I could be on the continent by tomorrow,” Perry suggested, his hand on the door latch.

“True, but you won’t be. I do so enjoy honorable gentlemen. And you are that, Perry, for all that you’re also an idiot. Tomorrow at two, agreed?”

Perry inclined his head slightly, then departed, carrying off the broadsheet he’d grabbed up, hoping the artist had at least gotten the slim female figure right.

“I COULD BE SKINNY and bony like you, you know, instead of more fashionably plump,” Her Royal Majesty said as Amelia Fredericks entered the small salon overlooking the Thames. “If I so wished.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Amelia said, smiling at the queen as she placed a fresh dish of boiled sweets on the table beside the woman, then retook her seat in front of the window. “A lovely day, isn’t it, although the sun doesn’t seem quite as bright here as it did in Jerusalem.”

“Nothing seems quite as bright here,” the queen said, her scowl warning Amelia that another fit of hysteria was knocking on the door of the woman’s consciousness, eager for admittance. She had, just minutes earlier, climbed up into the boughs of the queen’s injured pride and dragged her down with the promise of the boiled sweets. “Rainy, dreary, damp. And that pile they call a palace? Blow your skirts up over your head, just walking down the hallways on a windy day. I hate it. I hate it all. I hate them all. And I’m old, and I’m ugly, and I’m fat. I hate me!”

The dish of boiled sweets landed on the fireplace grate and smashed into several pieces, the candies skittering everywhere.

Amelia suppressed a sigh. “I’ll ring for someone.”

“No! Leave it.” The queen blinked rapidly, her kohl-darkened eyes already tearing. “I must stop this. I must collect myself. That sniveling selfish bastard will not do this to me. I am queen!”

“Yes, ma’am, that you are,” Amelia said, her gaze shifting toward the thick pages of vellum sitting on the table in front of the queen, all stiff and important and covered in official seals. “This means nothing, ma’am, less than nothing. His Royal Majesty is desperate, and desperate men make mistakes. Mr. Brougham said as much before he left us.”

“Henry Brougham, Amelia, wants what he has always wanted, to use me to further his own ends. It has been this way for years. I could have settled for a sizable allowance and exile, you know, but Brougham talked me out of it, talked me into coming back here. He’s still talking, damn his eyes. You think he cares a fig for me? Tories, Whigs. They fight each other, using me as their battlefield, their cannon fodder.”

Amelia nodded. That was her role, to agree, to silently nod, and she knew her place. Chafed at it, but knew it.