“Consider the farmer and his waggon to be signs from Providence,” Stockmar suggested. “—Who, in Its infinite wisdom, prefers you alive to burning in Hell.”
“And if I already burn, here on earth?”
“Endure it for your wife’s sake. And that of England. They both need you.”
“My wife!” Albert barked with sudden laughter. “Victoria!”
“You’ve always loved her.” Stockmar stared at him, the beginning of a frown creasing his brow. “My dear boy—what has broken your heart so completely?”
Albert turned. “That Hell you spoke of, old friend. It comes to men like me in the form of a paradox: the lie you cannot accept, versus the truth you cannot utter. In that kind of world, Death is the only honourable choice.”
“I was wrong,” Stockmar said. “You have been in England too long.”
Albert drew his chair close to the baron’s ear. He began to talk. And late into the Coburg night, Stockmar listened.
Part One
Chapter One
The carriage made little sound as it rolled beneath the iron portcullis of Windsor; the harness and wheels were wrapped in flannel, the paving stones three inches deep in sawdust. But its arrival fell upon the place like an armed attack, shaking the ostlers out of their torpor. They sprang to the horses’ heads before the equipage had even pulled to a halt, as though Patrick Fitzgerald brought tidings of war.
Fitzgerald made no move to step down into the sawdust. His hands were thrust in his coat pockets for warmth, his eyes fixed on the flaming torches and silent men beyond the carriage window. Once before, he had been to the great stone pile west of London—summoned, as tonight, by the woman who ruled there. But he was thinking less of the Queen now than of the man who lay in her private apartments, shuddering with fever.
“Let me come with you.” Georgiana’s gloved hand—that supple hand, so deft with the knife blade—reached for him. “I want to come with you.”
“No.”
Darkness filled the carriage. Only the gleam of her eyes suggested a presence; she had drawn the hood of her cloak close about her face, like a thief.
“It may have nothing to do with you, Georgiana. You cannot always presume—”
“And what if
“Georgie—”
But she’d turned her head away, her profile outlined against the squabs. She was biting down hard on her anger, as though it were a haft of iron between her teeth.
“And she’d never let you near him,” he attempted. “You must know that.”
“Then she’s a fool!”
The coachman stumbled as he jumped from the box; the noise reverberated against the chilled stone like a gunshot, and the ostlers stared in outrage.
“Wait,” he told Georgiana. “I shan’t be long.”
She didn’t attempt to argue. She would be freezing soon, he thought, despite her layers of petticoats. But Georgie would never ask for a hot brick, a brazier of coals. Her pride would kill her one day.
A footman led him into Windsor by the lower entrance, and there, too, the stone floor was blanketed with sawdust. The castle was known for its menacing silence—the vast, carpeted halls absorbed every footfall, and its people trafficked in whispers. Fitzgerald neither spoke nor offered his hand to the man who awaited him—William Jenner, court physician and eminent man of science.
“You took your time,” the doctor snapped.
Fitzgerald handed his gloves and hat to the footman before replying. “I was in Dublin but two days since.”
“And you stink to high heaven of strong spirits.”
“Would you have had me miss my dinner, then? I only received your summons at five o’clock.”
“It is nearly ten! As I say—you took your time.” Jenner’s eyes were small and close-set, his jowls turned down in perpetual disappointment. He surveyed the Irishman’s careless dress, his unkempt hair, with disfavour. “It may be that she will not receive you, now.”
“I didn’t ask for the audience.” Fitzgerald shrugged indifferently. “Is it so necessary?”
“I would not thwart her smallest wish at such an hour! I fear too much for her reason.”
“And your patient? How is he?”
“Typhoid.”
Jenner had made his reputation, years ago, by distinguishing typhoid fever from its close relative, typhus. The physician was the acknowledged expert in the thing that was now killing Prince Albert.
“The Prince will rally,” Jenner said.
From the vehemence of the doctor’s words, Fitzgerald concluded that there was no hope.
He followed Jenner up a broad staircase. Through shadowy passages and paneled doors. The final hallway was remarkable for its dimness; oil lamps burned low. A pair of footmen stood immobile by one chamber. He was led beyond, to the Red Room.
“Wait,” Jenner ordered, and stalked away.
To sit would be forbidden. Indeed, it was a testament to the chaos of this night that Fitzgerald was left alone at all, in such a place—that he should have the freedom of Windsor—and for a wild instant he was tempted to fly back into the passage, to trust in the footmen’s trained invisibility, to roam at will over the seat of British power and take from it such tokens as he chose. But Patrick Fitzgerald was not quite the savage young man he’d been on his first visit more than twenty years ago. He was six-and-forty years now and had earned a dubious reputation at the Bar. His views were Liberal and his opinions on the Irish Question—the eternal Irish Question—sometimes surfaced in the London papers. For an instant, Georgie’s eyes rose before his mind and he wished with all his heart and soul that he was still raw, still young, still braced with hope. Then the rustle of silk proclaimed her coming.
“Your Majesty.” He went down on one knee.
“Mr. Fitzgerald.”
She had taken up a position behind the sopha. The plump white hands grasped the wooden frame; had her grip been less fierce, the fingers might have trembled. She was a short woman of forty-two, with sagging cheeks and a mass of dark hair dragging at her temples; but once she had been a dab of a girl—a joyous girl, tricked out in silver net and flashing diamonds, her hand coquettish on her husband’s arm as he led her into the opera. A bruising rider on her gallops through the park—a passionate performer on the pianoforte. The unkind and malicious said she ate like a glutton. That she was given to odd fits of temper and caprice, like her mad old grandfather. They said a woman was too weak to rule. Fitzgerald knew better. Weakness had never been Victoria’s failing.
“I am here at your command.” He chose his words carefully. “Pray inform me how I may serve Your Majesty.”
With a gesture, she bade him rise. “You know of our great trouble? Of the Prince’s ... illness?”
“You have my deepest sympathy.”
A blank expression of terror in her blue eyes; contempt as she looked at him.“We do not
