The queen pinched her lips and rolled her eyes. “Such nonsense. Henry was pulling the wool over your eyes. He is a far cleverer young man than I’d suspected. I should have kept you away from him.”
“But you didn’t, Mama, did you?” Beatrice was shouting now. On her feet and shouting. And she didn’t care. “And now that I’ve discovered how much I enjoy Henry Battenberg’s company and how deeply I care for him—it’s too late, isn’t it?” Beatrice felt fire in her veins. She had never spoken to her mother in such a way before. But she simply couldn’t hold back. Before her mother could say another word Beatrice added, “I know that Henry is serious because he wrote me a letter asking for my hand in marriage. Or rather asking for my permission to ask you for permission to come and request my hand. He wants to do this properly, you see. Even though I would have told him in a heartbeat, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ he still wants your blessing. And so he will come to London, to see you and—”
“No! Absolutely not. I do not wish to see him, and neither do you.”
Beatrice felt the air rush from her lungs leaving her nauseated, disoriented. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t draw even a whisper of a breath.
“Now that that’s settled, you’ll write one last letter and tell youngerrH Battenberg that under no circumstances will you ever consider marrying him. That will save him a trip. And save me the uncomfortable task of having to tell him myself.”
Could this really be happening? Beatrice heard her mother’s words as if from a great distance. As though reaching her from another room, another continent…another century.
“Mama,” she gasped, “I am twenty-seven years old. From the time Papa passed on—”
“Don’t you
dare
bring my precious Albert into this argument. He would never have allowed you to—”
“Never have allowed me to marry?” Beatrice shook her head violently. “Oh, I think you’re wrong. I can’t recall much from those years, but I do remember him waltzing me across the ballroom, calling me his littlest princess, and telling me I would be a beautiful queen someday. As there were eight heirs to the English throne before me, it seems clear he wasn’t speaking of my becoming Queen of England. He meant for me to marry a king. Well, Henry isn’t a king and never will be, but he isn’t a commoner either. He’s very special, born of a distinguished noble family, and I like him so very much.”
Her mother rested back in her chair, closed her eyes, looking weary with their quarrel. “He will see you into your grave, Baby. It’s what men do, you foolish girl. If I let you marry him, he would demand physical acts of you. Acts you could only find disgusting, shocking. And the pregnancies—so many babies inside of you, until you are so weakened you will die a wretched death, before your time, like your poor sister Alice.” Beatrice opened her mouth to object. Her sister had died of diphtheria, not in childbirth. But the queen rambled on before she could get in a single word. “At the very least, you will be made an insignificant member of a family that ignores you. Husbands take away your freedom, stifle your individuality. They force a woman to live in places not of her choosing. Once a woman marries, she loses all of her rights. She loses herself.”
Beatrice jammed her palms down on the table edge and leaned over the white expanse of damask toward her mother. “And what rights do I have now? I have no freedom so long as I live with you, Mama. You allow me nothing of my own. Nothing! No decision is made without your consent. You never listen to me. Never let me do or experience or feel anything that you don’t want me to.” Hot tears coursed down her cheeks. “You’ve robbed me of my childhood, my friends, of any hope of happiness. And now you warn me that my life could be so much worse.
How?
Tell me that. How could it be any worse?”
Her mother’s sour gaze fixed on her face. The queen remained silent, indomitable, unmoved.
Beatrice let out a wild shriek of frustration. A wash of tears blurred the room around her. She kicked the chair back and out of her way. It toppled over with a crash, the sound of her fury echoing through the palace. And she didn’t care, didn’t care about anything at all.
Beatrice gathered her skirts and rushed from the room.
Victoria looked up from the correspondence on her desk at a soft knock on her door and sighed. It had taken hours and three cups of tea to calm herself after the scene with Beatrice that morning in the breakfast room. What was she to do with the child?
The knock was louder the second time. It was about time. Beatrice would be coming to beg her forgiveness for her outrageous behavior. Victoria hadn’t yet decided whether she would forgive her or withhold her pardon, at least for a while.
“Yes?” she snapped.
Far too many demands were being made upon her strength and her time. If it wasn’t the prime minister, it was squabbling MP’s, gossiping ladies of her court or—worse yet—news of another political disaster in Ireland, Europe, or the Dark Continent. Lately she’d begun to wonder if Britain might even lose its grip on India, the jewel in her crown. And the horrid situation in Khartoum? Major Gordon and his staff had been trapped during a siege in the Sudan for weeks. If Parliament didn’t act soon and send a rescue mission—well, the inevitable bloodbath was too awful to contemplate.
The door swung open, and Major-General the Right Honorable Sir Henry Ponsonby, secretary to Her Majesty, entered her office. He approached the paired desks set in the center of the room and waited patiently for Victoria to invite his communication.
She lifted her gaze only as far as dear Albert’s desk, across from and facing hers. Her staff knew to keep it precisely as he’d left it: a clean blotter, his favorite pen, a full inkwell, the lovely crystal-and-silver oil lamp she’d given him when he complained of his eyes tiring from strain. All there as if he might stride into the room at any moment with a “breathtaking morning, my dear—don’t you think?” And a kiss on the cheek. Always a kiss. Then they’d knuckle down to their day’s labor over stacks of documents. Together.
Always together.
Tears came to her eyes.
She’d leaned on Albert so completely that his absence, even these many years later, left an aching void in her life. An emptiness beyond his disappearance from their bed—in a shared bedroom, even though this raised eyebrows in court. It was thought proper for husbands and wives to have their own discreet sleeping areas except during occasional times of intimacy.
Yes, even in her role as monarch, Albert had been her guiding light. Relieving her of decisions when she’d felt overwhelmed by the demands of her reign. Taking on the distasteful duty of meeting with dignitaries whose personalities or requests she found unpleasant. It was Albert who made tolerable the uncomfortable task of being seen by and speaking to her subjects.
With him by her side, she had felt strong and capable, except for those times when carrying another child or recovering from yet another birth temporarily robbed her of her vigor. Without him, even the simplest decisions and tasks took on a crushing weight that left her head pounding.
Oh, my dear, beloved Albert, today is one of those most despised days.
Beatrice, their youngest, whom she had believed would remain always faithful to her, had struck her a wicked blow. Even now, hours later, as she had struggled to complete the letter of thanks she owed the duchess of Kent for a recent visit, she felt appalled by Beatrice’s traitorous behavior. Had she known the girl was cavorting in the woods with that sneaky Henry Battenberg she would have put a stop to it. She would have sent her guardsmen to drag the silly girl back to the castle so that she could talk sense into her. But events of the day had distracted her. She still felt ill at the thought of her son-in-law, the Grand Duke, and his mad plan to marry his mistress. How dare he even contemplate bringing a woman of such reputation into the family!
“Oh, my dear Alice,” Victoria whispered to herself, “I’m glad you aren’t here to know of your husband’s betrayal and your little sister’s foolishness.”
“Ma’am?”
Victoria looked up to see her secretary standing before her desk. She’d entirely forgotten him in the fervor of her emotions. She pressed the back of one hand to her throbbing forehead.
“What is it then, Ponsonby?”
“The master of the royal mews wishes to speak with you about an important matter concerning the stable boys. Shall I tell him he must return…at a more opportune time?”
Her secretary had echoed her favorite, and most frequent, response to those who wished her attention. She was well aware that if she sent them away enough times, they’d likely give up trying to bother her. But her precious horses she never wished to ignore.
“Is one of my horses ill or injured?” The very thought of her animals in distress pained her.
“I am unaware of the nature of his concerns, Your Majesty.”
“Nevertheless, the matter must be critical for him to interrupt his day and come in person. Send him in immediately.”
Victoria stood up from her desk, feeling suddenly restless. At first she had resented the men she’d brought in to replace her beloved John Brown as master of the royal mews, finding each of them inferior and sending them away, one after another. But Elton Jackson had proven gentle and adept at managing her horses, a stern taskmaster over the palace’s squadron of grooms and stable boys, and he kept her precious animals healthy and content. She had grown to respect him.
Before the man could cross the room, she held out a hand to stop him. “Which one is it? Who is sick or hurt—I can’t bear to hear it is one of my favorites.”
“No, no, Your Majesty. Please, mum, don’t distress yourself,” he said, his weather-roughened face flushing. “It’s not about one of your horses I come.”
She took a deep breath, relieved, then immediately irritated. “Then why are you here, Mr. Jackson?”
He blinked sheepishly at her. “You said you wished to personally approve all new staff to the mews.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve found a replacement for the boy who had the accident last week.”
She scowled, trying to remember. “He took a fall while exercising one of my horses?”
“No, mum. It was in the city while running an errand. A carriage done run him down. Nearly killed the lad. It was terrible bad.”
“Such awful drivers we have in London.” Victoria tsk-tsked. “You’ve seen that he has a proper doctor and treatment?”
“Of course, mum.”
“Good.” She wouldn’t want it said that she didn’t care about her people. “But he won’t be back to work in the stables?” “Not for a very long time, if ever. His leg’s broke and a shoulder dislocated. Lad’s no good for horses now.”
“But you have a satisfactory replacement?”
“I believe so, mum. He’s from up north. Very good with the horses. Scottish lad. Comes from the county round about your Balmoral. If you approve I’ll start him right away, break him in to our routines, see how he fits. If you’d like me to bring him to meet you—”
She waved him off. “I’ll go for a carriage ride soon and see him then.”
“Very good, mum.”
“You’ll watch him closely, won’t you? Start him with the calmer horses until you know he can be trusted.”
“I will.” The stable master bowed and looked toward the door as if waiting for permission to leave.
“What’s the boy’s name, Mr. Jackson?
“Gregory, mum. Gregory MacAlister. May I be excused, mum?”
“Wait,” she said, frowning at the familiarity of the name. “I think I know him…or his father perhaps. James MacAlister. He’s a minor noble, a landholder from Aberdeenshire, is he not?”
“That he is, mum.”
“Are you sure you have the name right? Why would the son of a lord seek a low job as a stable hand?”
“He’s a third son—a bit of a waster, I should guess.” He gave her a toothy, tobacco-stained smile. “My expectations are the father’s thinking to teach the lad a lesson. Make him work a bit for his meager share of the inheritance. The boy will never have the title for hisself, or the land, since he’s got two healthy older brothers.”
“You think so? Punishment? Then he might resent his duties and shirk them. I can’t say I like this, Mr. Jackson.”
He shrugged and kept his eyes down, looking increasingly nervous to be forced to converse for so long. “May be the family is in worse financial straits than they’re letting on, Your Majesty. It happens. He might be here to truly earn his own way.”
Perhaps
, she thought,
it was just that simple: the old lord getting rid of a son who was a drain on the family’s resources.
Victoria was only vaguely aware of giving her stable master a wave of her hand to dismiss him. When she looked up out of her thoughts, Jackson was gone.
A young man from up north. Well, that would be a change from the local farm lads they’d depended upon in recent years.
Refreshing to hear a Scottish brogue again at Buckingham.
Or maybe not. Victoria shook her head. She just hoped hearing and seeing the Aberdeenshire boy wouldn’t make her sad. How she missed the Scot’s company and strong physique. She’d always felt so safe around him.
Henry Battenberg read Beatrice’s letter in disbelief. Twice. By the third reading the bad news finally sank in.
He pressed a fist to his chest in shock and disappointment. It wasn’t until Vicky leaned over and kissed him on top of his head that he became aware his brother Louis and his new bride had entered their father’s dimly lit library.
“Little brother,” she teased, “are we so unimportant to you that you cannot look up from your work?”
Henry slowly lifted his bleary gaze from the little square of ivory parchment, neatly lined with Beatrice’s familiar script. “Not work,” he said. “More like reading my own obituary.”
His brother laughed. “Liko, come now!” He turned to Vicky. “Henry, the romantic, we used to call him. What is it now? Have you broken another heart and she pleads for your lost kisses?”
Henry bit his tongue to stop himself from flinging back an angry retort. It was always his older brothers who had cut a wide swath through the ladies in his father’s domain, and beyond. But it wouldn’t do for him to remind Louis of that now—not with his wife standing at his side.
“It’s from Beatrice.”
“Oh, how sweet of Aunt Bea to write to you,” Vicky cried. “Will you answer? She’d be so pleased, I’m sure. Such a lonely life she leads, shut away with her dull old mother.”
Her husband stared at her in feigned shock. “How dare you speak of the queen of England with such irreverence.”
“Oh, I’m not saying anything her entire court doesn’t think. I love
Grand-mere
of course, but she can be such an old-fashioned, bossy thing. Don’t you think, Henry?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said glumly. “I haven’t had many chances to be around her.”
“But you were around Beatrice a great deal during our wedding week,” his brother said, giving him a sly wink, “were you not?”
Henry caught Vicky casting her husband a sidelong look of puzzlement. “Around Aunt Bea?”
“To Henry,” Louis said, with a wicked grin, “she’s not ‘aunt’ anything. She’s the same age as he. The l-o-o-ovely Beatrice. Mysterious goddess of mourning. Me thinks Henry is smitten.”
Vicky clapped a hand over her mouth and stared at him wild-eyed. “He is
not
.”
Henry quickly folded the letter and shook it at her. “I fear I am. And all for naught.”
“Why do you say that?” Louis snatched up the note before his brother could tuck it away into his frockcoat pocket.
“I say there, give it back,” Henry shouted. “That’s personal.”
“Don’t I always look after you, little brother? I want to see what this wicked woman has done to shatter your dreams. Up to her old tricks, is she? She spurned me, and now she’s tossing you over. We’ll teach the wench a lesson.”
“Give me that!” Henry dove over the desk, reaching for the letter, but his brother was quicker. It disappeared behind his back. “You’ll teach her no lesson. The poor girl is beside herself with grief.”
Vicky was shaking her head in obvious confusion. “I don’t understand. What’s going on? What’s happened? Somebody please tell me! She’s my dearest aunt and I must know.”
“Now, now, my precious, don’t be concerned until we discover what has transpired to so upset Bea and destroy my brother’s usual cheerful countenance.” Louis stepped further back from the desk, even as Henry sank disconsolately into the chair and let his head fall forward on folded arms.
“Oh, dear,” Vicky murmured a few seconds later, and Henry guessed from the crinkling sound of paper that she was reading the note along with Louis. A moment later she let out a gasp. “Henry, you asked for her hand in marriage?”
“I did.”
“And she’s saying no?”
“In effect, yes.”
“But why?” Vicky asked.
“Because,” her husband answered, saving Henry the painful trouble, “the queen refuses to let her marry my brother.”
“But Henry is ever so perfect for Beatrice,” she objected.
“You didn’t finish the letter. Here. She explains…albeit in perplexing detail.”
Henry heard his brother’s steps approaching him but he didn’t look up. A hand rested on his shoulder. “The woman is a fool.”
“Beatrice is
not
a fool.” Henry shot to his feet, ready to lash out physically in defense of his love. “You take that back, sir. Brother or not I’ll thrash you within an inch of—”
“Not Bea, you idiot. The queen. She’s a fool if she thinks she can keep her last child to herself forever. Maybe that’s the way it used to be—hold back the youngest to care for the aging parents when there was no one else to do it. But she’s the queen of England, for God’s sake. She has hundreds of staff, servants, and the court, all loyal to her and ready to do her bidding. Why does she need to make an old maid of her daughter?”
“She isn’t an old maid,” Henry grumbled, his protest weaker. All the fight had suddenly gone out of him. “But you’re right about one thing. It makes no sense.”
“Listen to this,” Vicky whispered, “she says here, ‘Mama is so delicate in both health and spirit, so in need of my attentions.’”
“Ha! Delicate?” Louis railed. “I should be so delicate. That woman is a force to be reckoned with.”
“But she
is
getting along in age,” Henry said. “She may have few years left.” He could only hope.
Louis laughed. “Victoria will live to be a hundred. If Bea waits until then to marry—if she herself lives that long—no man will have her. Not even you, Henry.”
I would,
he thought
. I’d want her even in our old age.
“But what can I do? Beatrice says it’s off. We’re done. She believes her mother will never change her mind.”
“Oh, Henry, no-no-no.” Vicky, cheeks pink with excitement, rushed toward him waving the letter in his face. He grabbed it back from her. “You must persist! You really must. Beatrice may say it’s impossible, but if you love her as I love my sweet husband and he loves me, then you must soldier on. She may find the strength to stand up to her mother if you are there to support her.”
“But if the queen says no—”
“Vicky is right,” his brother said. “This is only the first mention of an engagement. If you prove yourself worthy to the queen as a husband for her daughter, and if Bea proclaims that she can never be happy without you in her life, how can the queen deny her last and favorite child? Victoria may be ruthlessly selfish, but if she fears Bea will withdraw her love from her, if she refuses to let her become engaged to you, she may come around.”
“Not just engaged—married,” Henry said firmly. Yes, marry the girl, the sooner the better. A long engagement meant frustration, sexually and otherwise. He wanted Bea in his bed, not a long-term correspondence from hundreds of miles away and open-ended engagement.
“Engaged first,” Vicky said. “Your brother is right. That’s the first step. It takes
Grand-mere
a long time to get used to the tiniest changes. If you make yourself part of Bea’s life, if you’re frequently in London and present in Court, then the queen can’t help but be won over.” Her eyes sparkled with encouragement. “Truly, patience will win her hand.”
“You really believe this?”
“We’ll help,” Louis promised. “We’ll be your seconds, there to patch you up after each royal parry, after each cruel thrust from the queen. If you stand strong, you cannot fail, brother.”
Henry sighed. It was good of Louis and his sister-in-law to be there for him. But when he thought about other examples of the queen’s determination—more like, her supreme pigheadedness!—he felt little real hope. Years ago, hadn’t she insisted on parading to her Accession Day celebration even after her Secret Service officers and Scotland Yard warned her of a plot against her life? And they’d been right. The day had been a disaster the likes of which London would never forget.
But he would try. By God, he would try to convince the woman that her daughter should be his—for the sake of his own happiness and for his darling Beatrice.