Kasey Michaels - Shall We Dance?

“Also not exactly mind-boggling news. He’s loathed her for decades. And done squat about it, may I remind you?”

“But she hasn’t been queen for decades, Nate. Think on it. He detests her, we all know that. The crowd jeers him, cheers her. Not to mention having to share the coronation with her, place the crown on her head? Why else do you think he has postponed the ceremony for a full year?”

“In hopes she’ll go away? Yes, I can see that. She’d get bored, cooling her heels here, hie herself off somewhere to see the muffin man, and miss the whole thing.”

“You’re not nearly so amusing as you think you are, you know,” his mother said, snapping open the fan and waving it beneath her chin. “He plans to divorce her, strip her of any right to the crown.”

“But Aunt Rowena believes he’s going to have her assassinated, not just divorce her. But why would he do that, if he can get Parliament to do his dirty work for him?”

“Because it might not work, that’s why. At least that’s what your father says. He’s embarrassed to be a part of it.” She leaned closer once more. “He has heard that they’ll be examining evidence that is most distasteful. Stained bits of clothing snatched from hampers, dried residue from chamber pots, all sort of tawdry evidence.”

“Well, that’s fairly disgusting.”

“I should say so! Then your father foolishly said the king would be better served to just arrange some fatal accident for the queen and be done with it.”

“And Aunt Rowena heard him? What a dust-up that must have caused.”

“Exactly. Your father is a brilliant man, but can still be extremely obtuse, just like the rest of your sex. And now Rowena’s taken it into her silly head that the queen is in mortal danger. So you see, you have to do it.”

“No.”

“Nate.”

“No.”

“Nathaniel, Rowena is your godmother.”

“Damn.”

AS THE LAW OF AVERAGES (and Aunt Rowena) would have it, for every Perry Shepherd there is, also roped into the thing against his will and better judgment, a Sir Nathaniel Rankin.

And for every Bernard Nestor, alas, there is also an Esther Pidgeon. As dedicated as he, as rabid as he, but with her motives and loyalties in direct opposition to his, Esther believed the only way for the king to reign easily was to have that totally unsuitable Caroline removed, permanently.

To Esther the supposed queen is a slut, a whore, a flighty, unwashed animal, and her name must not be spoken in the liturgy each Sunday when the Crown’s loyal subjects were asked to pray for their king (pulling out and holding up religion like a sword was always such a marvelous rallying point for people like Esther).

Sister of the publisher of one of the lesser newspapers in the city, she’d already been made privy to this magnificent Bill of Pains and Penalties, and had spent half the evening rejoicing at the news.

This was her time. At last. She had been good, she had been patient, and now her time had come!

It is amazing how a woman like Esther Pidgeon can take one evening’s casual tumble into bed at a house party a quarter of a century earlier and mold that night, twist it about, until the Grand Florizel has become the Love of One’s Life, sadly pining for his dearest Esther but kept from her side by his royal duties. Why, he has even spent those sad, lonely years trying to find substitutes for her…all his women aging, fat, motherly. Just like Esther. Really. Especially the “fat” part.

But that was Esther, a woman who had dedicated her sad life to worshipping this oblivious man from afar.

And so the Bill of Pains and Penalties filled Esther with joy. For a while.

Now, as midnight neared, she paced the floor of her small chamber tucked into the second floor rear of her brother, Lewis’s, house and worried, then worried some more.

What if it didn’t work? What if Caroline slipped free of justice, as she had done the first time? Men, left to their own devices and shortcomings, often bungled things, badly.

Esther stood in front of the mantelpiece in her night rail, gazing up adoringly at the colored print of her dearest Florizel, a print she had surrounded with sprigs of rosemary and pretty pink bows, the whole of it lit by candles she placed on the mantel reverently, every night.

And then she would pull over the small embroidered stool, stand on it, stretch herself up, up, until she could place a kiss on Florizel’s hand—or whatever part of the man’s anatomy seemed appropriate for her mood, but it’s best not to dwell on that—before retiring to her lonely bed with two glasses of wine. One for herself, one for Florizel.

As Esther abhorred waste, she eventually would drink her absent lover’s wine as well and, over the years, the two glasses had somehow grown to two bottles, so that if Esther wasn’t always deep in her cups, she continued to make a valiant effort to become so.

But tonight? Tonight she was angry. Enough! She had suffered enough! Waited long enough!

Was she destined to live always in the shadows, waiting for Florizel to feel free to come to her? Or would she at last step up, stand up, and fight for what was hers? Yes! Yes, she could do that.

Caroline must die, Esther decided halfway into that night’s second bottle; there was nothing else for it. And anyone—anyone at all—who might dare to stand in the way of Esther’s…um, the king’s happiness, must die along with her.

All that was needed was a way, some way for Esther to insinuate herself into Caroline’s household.

THE SOON-TO-BE rather crowded household of the new queen woke hours earlier than the mistress of the place, to tend to their duties, to crowd around the butler, Carstairs, and listen to what the king had been up to now, then to tiptoe about the house, knowing it was going to be a difficult day. A difficult month. A difficult life…

Amelia, awake and dressed before dawn, had already penned a new menu for the day—one that consisted of Her Royal Majesty’s particular favorites—and she finally ran down the housekeeper-cum-companion, Mrs. Maryann Fitzhugh (and if that had been Fitzherbert, the woman would have been turned away in an instant!).

Mrs. Fitzhugh had come to the door, highly recommended and greeted with relieved resignation; for a housekeeper familiar with English ways was definitely needed, as was a paid companion, if Amelia was to go out and about at all during their time here in the house by the water.

Amelia felt certain she should have checked the woman’s thick sheaf of references, but time had been of the essence and still was, as the household was far from complete.

In the few days they had been in residence, Amelia had already learned that Mrs. Fitzhugh was…somewhat odd.

She chewed peppermints constantly, which was not all that terrible, except that the smell was at times over-powering (at least Amelia knew when the woman was approaching). She talked to herself, for another, and was doing so now, as Amelia entered the woman’s small quarters down a hallway from the kitchens.

“Should we be here, Mrs. Fitzhugh, in this den of iniquity, no matter that it’s just what we thought we wanted? Are we that selfish?”

And then she did that other thing that made Amelia uncomfortable. Mrs. Fitzhugh answered herself.

“Now, now, Maryann, she’s the queen, after all. One can’t climb much higher than to be housekeeper to a queen. Could have been a scullery maid, but he did better than that. And you know that’s not the whole of it, not by a long chalk. I vow, Maryann, you can be such a ninny.”

“Mrs. Fitzhugh! That was cruel!”

Amelia rubbed at her forehead, wondering if she should interrupt the two halves of the strange whole of Mrs. Maryann Fitzhugh, and then decided that if she continued to think of the woman as two persons, she might soon begin talking to herself.