Miss Kinsworth’s face hardened. “Honestly? I’d say the most likely culprits are the Whigs around Caroline, rather than Caroline herself. Not Earl Grey, but someone such as Brougham or Wallace. They’d do it. They’re passionately opposed to the Dutch alliance, and I don’t believe either of them would hesitate to ruin Charlotte if they thought it would stop the marriage.”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Hero. “Who else?”
“There must be forces in the Netherlands who feel the same way, but I know nothing of them.”
“You said the Regent didn’t know about Hesse at the time the cousins were meeting in Windsor Park. That implies that he does now.”
Miss Kinsworth brought up one hand to rub her forehead. “I can’t begin to guess how he discovered the truth, but he’s said one or two oblique things that made it obvious he found out somehow. He has so many spies. Everywhere.”
“Could the Prince himself have sent someone to steal the letters?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it? He knows Charlotte is furious with him for tricking her into the betrothal to Orange. And she is determined to fight his attempts to set things up so that she’ll be forced to spend most of her life outside of Britain.”
“You’re suggesting the Regent might see the letters as some sort of insurance against the possibility that the Princess could try to break her betrothal? So that he could essentially blackmail her into marrying Orange? Surely even he couldn’t be that contemptible and conniving.”
“Oh, he’s that contemptible. As for being that conniving, perhaps not the Regent himself, but someone determined to see that His Highness gets what he wants.”
“Someone like Jarvis, you mean.”
“I didn’t say that, my lady.”
“No.” Hero gave her friend a slow smile. “You were very careful not to.”
On Sebastian’s second visit to Connaught House, he found Caroline of Brunswick seated beside a roaring fire in her rather sparsely furnished morning room. She wore a tattered shawl over a plain gown with a plunging round neckline and was fashioning a crude doll out of wax when he was shown into her presence.
She looked up, her plump face breaking into a wide smile. “I thought you’d be back.” She did not give him permission to sit, so he stood with his hat in his hands and watched her work on what he realized was a wax image of her husband, the Prince of Wales. She said, “Do I take it you’ve learned something new?”
“Jane Ambrose’s husband was murdered yesterday.”
“So I heard. He vas a nasty man.” She used her shoulder to swipe at a loose curl tickling her cheek. “I told Jane she should leave him long ago. But she never listened to me, and now she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“You think he killed her?”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know. The question is, if he did, then who killed Edward Ambrose?”
“Obviously someone who did not like him. I’ve no doubt there are many.”
“Valentino Vescovi is also dead.”
“Ja. That death is far more triste.” She gave a heavy sigh that heaved her ample expanse of exposed bosom. “He played the harp like an angel, and now he plays vith the angels.”
The sentiment was undeniably maudlin, but Sebastian suspected the tears he saw glittering in her eyes were real. He said, “Several weeks ago, someone stole a packet containing letters Charlotte once wrote to her cousin Captain Hesse. Do you know who did that?”
She focused on draping a doll-sized purple velvet cloak around the wax figure’s shoulders. “You think it vas me?”
“No, Your Highness.” Not necessarily. “But I’m hoping you might have some idea who did.”
She smiled faintly as she settled a miniature tin crown on the figurine’s head. “Vhen I vas first married, Vales gave me my own rooms at Carlton House and furnished them to his own taste. And then, several months after we ved, he sent servants to take back most of my furniture. He said he could not afford to pay for it. But I noticed none of the furniture in his rooms disappeared.” She held the wax figure at arm’s length, studying it. “He also took back the pearl bracelets he gave me as vedding presents and gave them to his mistress, the putain Jersey. She delighted in wearing them in my presence. And there was nothing—nothing—I could do about any of it.”
The implication was clear: As a new, young bride she had been alone and powerless, unable to defend herself in any way, let alone strike back. She was not so powerless anymore.
Is that what this is? he wanted to ask. A game of revenge against your bastard of a husband? With your daughter as the helpless pawn?
Except of course that one did not say such things to the Princess of Wales.
She took a pin and thrust it into the wax doll’s foot, her face twisting with bitterness as she shoved it deep. Then she laughed and said, “I hear he has a bad case of gout. I vonder how that happened?”
She picked up another pin, then paused to look over at Sebastian. “Vhen Vales sent my daughter down to Vindsor for months, trying to keep her avay from me, young Charles Hesse vas kind enough to carry letters back and forth between us. Then, vhen he and Charlotte were forbidden to meet, she came to me in tears, begging for my help.” The Princess shrugged. “So I passed correspondence between them and arranged for them to meet in my apartments in Kensington Palace. It vas all intensely romantic and utterly innocent, and I regret none of it.”
And locking them alone together in your bedroom? thought Sebastian. Was that “innocent”?
Caroline thrust the next pin deep into the wax figure’s bowels. “Are you familiar vith vhat happened to Sophia Dorothea, the mother of King George I? Her husband imprisoned her in the castle of Ahlden vhen she was just twenty-seven, and he kept her there for thirty-three years until she died. Then he ordered her casket thrown into the castle’s cellars.”
When Sebastian
