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Chapter Text

Victoria

I don’t remember the moment I decided I didn’t want to be Queen. Not exactly. It must have been simmering in my head for some time, despite all those grand ideas of my childhood, and my more recent notions of duty before inclination.

Blame my youth, blame my passionate nature. I don’t care. Not anymore. I may have lived only two decades but it’s enough to know that I can’t spend the remaining five or six living a pantomime life, with forced smiles and demure nods.

I should never have gone to Brocket Hall. Or maybe, I should never have left. Not after he said those words to me.

But you cannot give it to me.

He said it with such finality and pushed my hand, the one he had held captive and caressed so gently, away. When he released me I felt in free fall, tumbling into a black void that would swallow me whole. Stars must feel the same, as they fall from the heavens, burning and screaming all the way down.

The unlikeliness of the attraction, the incompatibility of our vastly different ranks, ages and histories, the unsuitability of it all (my clandestine visit to Brocket Hall being the latest in a long line)…any of this might have been the reason he pushed me away. Maybe all. He made those same old excuses, clinging to them as he later clung to me at the ball for Uncle Leopold, where he played Leicester and I played Elizabeth.

But I know better now. As soon as Emma told me that he’d opened the glasshouses at Brocket Hall, I knew the truth. He feared my passing affection. I was too young to know myself or my feelings. They would prove me false. And leave him alone and broken all over again. That’s what he thought. I could read it plainly in his painfully familiar features.

You were happy too?

You know I was.

Discontent is a wild weed, and it flourished within me in the weeks after, twisting up within my soul and choking out all the flowers that might be found there. My cousins made their inevitable appearance. My uncle continued to lecture me on duty. Mama and Sir John schemed and kept biding their time. The others whispered that the Crown must be secure. An heir must be produced. The monarchy depended upon it.

And I didn’t care. I had grown so tired of it all.

Albert was a good piano player, he had strong opinions and I suppose he was as good a match as I, Alexandrina Victoria, could ever hope for. It was expected. It was the right thing to do. But sitting across from the German prince at dinner, looking at his handsome, boyish face, listening to him explain how Schubert meant his music to sound, I saw my life play out in calm, domestic tranquility.

And I didn’t want it. Not one second of it.

Mama could have the crown if she wanted it. Or Sir John. If he could manage it, he might as well wear the thing outright. He’s spent most of his life pursuing it. I would respect him more if he just admitted that he wanted it, that it meant everything in the world to him, that he loved it over everything else. And that he could not be happy accepting a more suitable choice.

See what you’ve done to me, Lord M? I thought to myself, risking a small glance at my Prime Minister, across the dance floor, standing with Emma. I’m empathizing with the villain of my life.

They all think that I’m clay, ready to be molded. Youth is a curse. From Kensington to Buckingham, I’ve known my own mind. I’ve been sure in certain things and forced to learn others, because that knowledge was withheld from me. And maybe in all of this I was too like a child, too passionate, too reckless in showing my feelings. But for better or worse, that’s me. And I cannot be anyone else.

Of all the men and women in my life, he’s the only one who’s ever understood that. Absently, I touched the white petals of the gardenia I wore at my breast.

And now, even he’s forsaken me. Standing over there, with Emma, likely speaking so civilly over the inevitable connection between me and the German prince which must sever all ties between him and I. Damn duty, damn propriety and damn him for his stubborn nobility in seeing them appeased.

He was a fool. In putting his wants and desires aside, for the country’s sake, for my sake, he only made me love him more. It was a terrible miscalculation on his part. One that was impossible not to forgive. He thought me better than I was. A better queen would put the country’s needs above her own. A better woman would take it in stride, put aside all notions of inclination and accept her fate. With a smile on her face.

But I could not smile. I could not force myself to accept a life I knew, in the depths of my soul, would be a lie. The weeds of discontent could not be hacked down. They grew stronger and more numerous as I danced, spinning and spinning around, with an endless parade of dignified, political partners, all expecting, wanting, waiting for me to make the correct choice.

Oh, how I wish someday a dance could be just that. A dance.

Cousin Ernest was a wonderful dancer. I could nearly forget as he spun me around, my mind filled, so briefly, with nothing but music and movement. I smiled and felt the smile linger on my lips. But even he couldn’t just let it alone. Dance with Albert, he said as the dance ended. Get him to dance a waltz with you.

My smile turned terse. It was expected. It was the right thing to do.

Impulsively, I caught Lord M’s eye. He couldn’t refuse me, despite his efforts. He wandered over offering me his hands, which I took gladly.

I spoke some little pleasantries which he returned in kind. The music began again. A waltz this time. At Ernest's insistence, I'm sure.

Lord M was asking me to dance but he stopped abruptly. My cousin Albert, the eternally suitable German prince, was walking across the dance floor to claim my hand, my heart and the rest of my story for his own. I turned and saw my future laid out before me in red and gold trim.

I felt Lord M’s hands slip away from mine. He receded into the background. It was not my doing and I would have reached out and seized them back if I were braver. I would be brave soon.

“May I have the pleasure?” Albert asked, holding his hand out with confidence and finality that was palpable.

The candles cast a golden glow on the scene and pleasant music serenaded the moment in time. The German prince with his hand outstretched. My Prime Minister, willingly stepping aside and banished to the shadows behind me. All the other players fixed and motionless as marble statues. This was a moment that would never come again. A moment that would change everything. Forever.

“No,” I answered breathlessly. I shook my head as I walked past poor Albert, unable to stay in that room another minute, my newfound self-awareness drowning out any regrets, “No, you may not.”

Chapter Text

Emma

She had refused the prince. She had danced with everyone else who asked but when Albert offered his hand, she refused him. With finality. In front of too many important players in this game. And then she left the dance without another word, locking herself in her bedroom and refusing to come out.

Leopold was fuming. Albert declared he would not stay in this country another hour. A fool’s errand. I heard him say this to his brother, over and over again, in both English and German, as he fumed through the halls of the palace. He was hurt and angry and the sooner he left, the better.

Victoria had made her feelings clear, as clear as the newly washed windows of the Brocket Hall glasshouses. There was no going back.

The Queen’s other ladies tried to coax her out of her room. But she was headstrong and stubborn and wouldn’t answer them. She had done this once before, when William told her he could no longer be her Prime Minister. If I were a betting woman, I would guess William was entangled in this as well, whether he wanted to be or not.

I had watched him and the Queen together in those moments before Prince Albert approached her, with their hands clasped, fingers interlaced, speaking in those intimate tones that no one, in all of England, could mistake as anything but a scandal waiting to happen.

“I hope it does happen,” I told my husband this, as we sat in our open-air carriage the next morning, carriage wheels rambling over the cobblestone streets of London. The sky was a crisp blue and bright sunshine bounced off the surface of the Thames, as we made our way to Dover House. Edward was hopeful that William might be able to smooth over the misunderstanding of last night. I was of a much different opinion, which didn't surprise Edward. This is not the first time I’d expressed my wish for the most inappropriate of endings.

“You are mad, Emma,” Edward answered me, grimacing and putting a hand to his head, as if to stop the throbbing ache that my words had started. “A liaison of that magnitude would destroy the monarchy. She would never recover.”

“Men are always so dramatic,” I replied tartly, not taking any of this as seriously as he wished, I’m afraid. “The monarchy has survived far worse than an ill-advised tryst between monarch and devoted subject. Look at Elizabeth…look at her father, for God’s sake! Ripped the country in two because he fell in love with his wife’s lady-in-waiting, defied the Holy Father, murdered everyone who stood in his way and still, he wore the crown to the end.”

“You want Victoria to emulate Henry VIII?”

“Of course not. I’m merely pointing out that, for all this talk of our young Queen needing to fall in line and marry the German prince, it’s certainly not unprecedented for her to follow her own inclinations.”

“And you are sure that those inclinations lean towards William?”

“Oh, I have no doubt, Edward. I’ve seen them together. Victoria is in love.”

Edward sighed heavily, grumbling over the concept, “Love.”

“Yes, love,” I answered, grinning slyly on the inconvenience of it all.

“Well, can’t you convince her it’s a fair-weather feeling? Young girls fall in and out of love so easily. I don’t see why her first love should be her last,” he said bluntly, woefully unaware of the nature of love I was referring too.

“I’ve been in the Queen’s service for years now. She’s young and impulsive, but she’s not capricious. She’s no Henry VIII,” I replied, with a bit of pride coloring my tone. The Bedchamber Crisis had indeed endeared Victoria to me. True, I was not her closest confidante. Perhaps third, after Dash and her dear Lord M, but I loved the queen as if she was my younger sister and Edward knew that. He knew better to argue this with me.

Still, he would try. For better or worse, our marriage was built on minor bickering.

“Melbourne will make her see reason,” Edward declared, though his confidence was already wavering.

“I hope not,” I said, while another teasing smile twisted over my lips. My smiles irritated Edward but I couldn’t help it. Court life is dull, until it isn’t. Life is a bland affair, until love enters it. Besides, he should just accept the inevitable. Last night’s dance was the moment of truth. The die was now cast. That preoccupied frown on his face could not take back Victoria’s stark, shocking refusal.

“He knows the price of scandal,” Edward insisted, but weakly.

“And he’s paid it,” I countered. “More times than he deserved. He was nearly destroyed by it. You and I both know how he fell into despair after Caroline and Augustus’s deaths. Five years ago, he was nothing more than a shade of himself…you said that to me yourself. And then, one blessed day, Victoria appeared. You saw him come alive, Edward. Like a cold, barren glasshouse suddenly teeming with all manner of flora. Would you truly be happy seeing him fade away again? Be honest now.”

“You speak unfairly, Emma,” he muttered over the words. “There’s more at stake here than that.”

“Not from my view, Edward,” I said flatly. “It’s this simple—William loves her and she loves him. Truly and honestly, with no hidden motives, games of court or play at politics involved. He loves her for who she is, Queen or not. And she loves him back, because he makes her feel safe. The whole notion is refreshing and, forgive me, but I’d like to see it played out to its natural and fated conclusion. Maybe that sounds like romantic nonsense to you, but I’m not going to apologize for wanting two people I love to find some glimmer of happiness in the utter bleakness and disappointment that life tends to deal out in spades.”

Edward grunted something gloomy and pessimistic, as he closed his eyes and started massaging both his temples compulsively, adding only, “No, this headache isn’t going away.”

Chapter Text

Melbourne

“Lord Melbourne!” The Duchess of Sutherland’s voice was alive with relief as soon as she saw me walking up the hall. She and the other ladies were gathered outside the Queen’s bedchamber, hovering. The term ladies-in-waiting had never been more appropriately applied. The Duchess ran up to me, “She won’t come out. She won’t talk to us. The silence is somehow worse than the last time and I’m worried she’s done something foolish.”

She was confident that my sudden appearance would right everything. I felt it in her posture and general demeanor. But she was as foolish as her Queen.

My presence here was wrong. The fact that this scene, already played out over a year ago, should be repeated, with the Queen locking herself in her room like a child, was madness. Her stubbornness rivaled that seen in the Grecian gods and their mythical exploits.

But Emma had insisted that my presence was required. At Dover House, she had said it plainly. Edward had begrudgingly agreed, though his customary frown begged me to find a different way.

“William, she won’t come out for anyone but you,” Emma stated bluntly. “You can deny it all you want. We’ve done this once before and you remember how that turned out. I don’t see that anything has changed in the meantime.”

“I don’t require a reminder,” I muttered my answer and Emma pursed her lips, suppressing a smirk. In the war of convention and good sense, Emma was an enemy informant and she enjoyed her provocative role immensely.

I wished I could smile with her. I wished I could laugh. And not the cynic’s laugh I mastered so skillfully decades ago, after being served life’s sour fruit too many times. No, true laughter, the kind that bubbles up like a spring of fresh water from the land of underground palaces and old earth. I hadn’t tasted its rich flavor in my mouth since I was a young man. However long ago that was.

There was no happiness on the horizon, despite Emma’s best wishes. There was only scandal and heartbreak and tragic truths. And here’s the worst of it. Knowing what I know now, I would do it all exactly the same. Not one change in the playwright’s script, lest I lose the parts that I have loved best. There is madness in this.

Love is all madness. If only I could make the Queen understand that. I had taught her many things but that particular lesson didn’t take, now to the ruin of us both.

So I groaned at Emma’s manner but rose from where I was slouched in my tall-backed chair. I dressed and I went to the palace, despite the screaming ember of practicality in my head that repeated over and over again: You fool, you fool, you old fool!

All she had to do was dance with the German prince. Just one dance. Smile at him once or twice and let herself be swept up in the sugared spell of young romance. Any two attractive young people can manage it easily enough. Why couldn’t she just do what was expected? I had released her, with every blessing. All she had to do was dance.

My torment would, of course, continue but hers would have ended, and I would have been satisfied with that. Nearly satisfied. I would have retired and gone away with as much grace as I could muster, taking with me a few choice memories that I would keep safe and hold fast while they faded, quickly and with no regrets, from my dear girl’s heart.

But she didn’t dance with him. Damn her, she didn’t dance. She chose the road never traveled. I could not be her guide there, as no person can guide another down a path that neither has gone down before…but she knew that. She knew I couldn’t abandon her there and so must join her. She wanted me to join her.

She had grown up as an orphan, with a puppet mother and a cruel, scheming guardian in Sir John Conroy. I had been orphaned too, by faithlessness and death, leaving me to my darkest thoughts, counting the hours to the end of my life in grim contemplation. It was foolish of me to think that this might play out any different. Two orphans cannot help but cling to each other.

When I realized my error, I pushed her away. Her soul had cried out to mine once in the dark of night, just before she came to me at Brocket Hall. I had felt it, as if a knife blade cut into my palm, and ignored it, hoping this proved me wise and worthy of redemption. I had refused her at Brocket Hall, though those pale fingers in mine pulsed with something more than passing inclination.

I couldn’t trust her feelings to last. I still couldn’t. And yet, she didn’t dance with Albert.

Now standing in the hall beside her quavering ladies, I knocked on her bedroom door, “Ma’am?”

No answer. Icy fingers of fear clutched around my heart. She wasn’t a child, for all her bright eyes and eager nature. She must know what her actions meant. And what if her regret had turned sour? The Duchess of Sutherland’s words echoed in my head, I’m worried she’s done something foolish.

I set my jaw, not giving those thoughts more than a moment’s notice. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Instead, I knocked on the door a bit more insistently.

I heard footsteps on the other side, small and careful, moving towards the door. She approached the gate between us but didn’t unlock it. I could imagine her plainly on the other side, waiting, refusing. Stubborn to the last, she didn’t want to hear what I had to say.

Damn her. Damn her for being this way.

All her ladies, save Emma, still hovered nearby. But lines had already been crossed, so I only hesitated a moment before speaking words that I knew would be answered.

“Victoria,” I used her given name as a command, the syllables breaking so strong and familiar across my lips, in pure contravention of all the laws of men and good sense. I repeated her name, “Victoria, open this damn door and let me in.”

Within seconds, the lock clicked over.

Chapter Text

Sir John

Excerpt from Sir John Conroy’s personal diary

Do you know what it’s like? To see your life’s ambition squandered because a spoiled girl doesn’t understand how much you’ve done for her? I blame the Duchess—she’s been revealed as a silly, weak-willed woman. I miscalculated her from the beginning and have paid dearly for it.

She has absolutely no influence with Victoria whatsoever. How can this be? What kind of mother isn’t able to mold and mentor her child? It’s a failing of the Duchess’s that I’ve never understood. Other women are able to do it so seamlessly. And here I am, thrown together with the one mother in the world who can’t claim an audience with her own daughter, much less a bent ear.

Now, after a decade and more, she suddenly stands up to me and says that we must leave Victoria alone. That we must let her find her own way. That we must take a step back and wait for her to invite us back into the fold? It’s utter nonsense.

Her sudden resolution is comical, to say the least.

I’m not a monster, despite what you may have heard in the newspapers. I understand she can’t help but love her daughter, despite the girl’s monstrous manners and insolent demeanor. Maternal instinct is so predictable. But if she had been stronger and not somehow alienated Victoria’s affections when the girl was young, well…the monarchy would not be on the precipice of disaster, I can tell you that.

Melbourne played his cards well. I won’t deny that. From that first ill-fated meeting at Kensington, he stole Victoria away and now she is firmly entrenched. I’ve never seen a woman, young or old, so enamored. So bound together with a man. Having been outcast from her inner circle, I can’t claim that I’ve seen it first hand in nearly a year but these things aren’t easy to hide and the specter of “Lord M” casts a long shadow.

I’ve heard something today that burns the ears. A scandal is brewing but in that there is no great surprise. I warned her. How many times did I warn the little brat to take care, to make rational decisions? I offered her my good counsel and she threw it back in my face, casting aspersions on Flora that still tear at me like an open wound. I’ll have my revenge someday. Perhaps sooner rather than later.

The Duchess will not tell me of last night’s happenings, nor what has the palace in such a tense and uneasy state. But I am not so without resources that I must depend on the fickle and feeble-minded Duchess of Kent. She has been a forced connection for too many years and now, to be stuck with her, without anything to show for my time and energy…I doubt any other man has had to bear such a burden.

Imagine dragging a millstone for a hundred miles with the hope of someday trading it in for a golden crown. Now imagine you reach your hundred miles and instead of a crown, you are told to carry your millstone back to where you started. Such is my unhappy, unfair fate.

But not for much longer. I have not spent the last two decades of my life suffering through the ill manners and stubborn nature of that insufferable girl, only to have it all turn to ashes in my hands. I am not so easily defeated and I have my connections.

My informant tells me that the German princes are leaving. This very day, if they can manage it. And they further tell me that Melbourne is at the center of it.

Of course he is. The man is without shame, without propriety. His manner has always offended me. Offering his assistance to the Queen as if it is his pleasure and honor and not his duty and ambition, as if he has nothing to gain by the connection. As if he does it out of love. And then pretending that he wants to retire, demurring and then letting her call him back, placing her affections always in his unworthy hands. It’s a ruse, a game. And oh, the bastard plays it well. How Victoria can’t see through him is beyond me.

She takes after her godawful mother. That’s been a problem since the beginning.

I will make plans with the Duke of Cumberland this morning and we will decide on our next course of action in due course. Here’s hoping that Victoria, in her youthful intemperance, has made our way clear.

Chapter Text

Victoria

He slipped into my bedroom and closed the door behind him. His eyes were storm clouds, raging black with anger, disappointment and dismay. In me, in the situation I created and his part in it. I fell headlong into his gaze and could not speak, though I opened my mouth once to say something, anything. I found the words would not come, as behind those storm clouds in his eyes, I recognized something else. Something fiery and dangerous, heated sure, but only raging in its forced suppression.

Is it wrong that I was glad I could stir these feelings in him?

“Your Grace,” he stated, unwilling to call me by my given name for a third time apparently. I would have commanded it, if I thought he would listen. His eyes flickered over my face and further. My hair was undone and worn long, past my shoulders. I was in my nightgown and sheer robe and I had been weeping, long into the night. I’m sure I looked the part of a mad woman, roaming the damp meadows in search of her lost love.

Though here was mine, standing in front of me. I wanted to run into his arms, I wanted to bury my head in his waistcoat and feel his strong arms wrap around me, telling me that this was right, that I had done the right thing and that everything was as it should be. But I couldn’t move my feet, just as I couldn’t speak, knowing that he would not say these things, that he would not touch me and that he would push me away as before, as if nothing had changed. Nothing had changed. I was still the Queen of the British Empire and he was still my Prime Minister. And Albert was still the appropriate choice. Despite the fact that he stood there, good and kind and loving me (oh, how his eyes betrayed him), it didn’t matter.

The truth didn’t matter.

The fact that the three foot distance currently between us was carving my heart in two didn’t matter. I felt tears welling up in my eyes again and I felt the strength in my legs falter. I wished God, in his infinite mercy, would strike me dead in that moment, if only to save me the searing pain of what I knew he would say once he started and once he…

He bridged the distance between us in two steps. He said nothing at all. Not in words, which failed us both so miserably. His dark eyes spoke volumes, but not in a language I can express here. They stormed and sparked with a brooding desire that I had guessed at for so long. Seeing it written, so close, so plainly, his lips mere inches from mine, I suddenly realized the power I held over him, not as a Queen holds over a Prime Minister, but as a woman holds over a man who loves her. The force of it shocked me and I shivered at the revelation.

He saw me waver and his arms were around my waist, steadying me. And then his lips claimed mine and my hands were on his face and in his hair. The surrounding world—the ladies wringing their hands in the hall outside my bedroom, the morning sun peeking through the spaces in the curtains I’d drawn close in my despair—it all disappeared and I knew nothing but William Melbourne’s kiss, deep, sullen and stealing away my breath. I pulled his face down, closer to mine, needing more. He was so tall, so strong, as he lifted me towards him, my bare feet nearly losing their hold on the wood floors.

I held on for dear life and with my body crushed against his, I felt on fire and more alive than I had ever felt before. I was awakened to more in that single minute, drowning in that kiss, than in the prior twenty years put together. When he broke away (for it wasn’t me who did the breaking), I felt a physical pain at the suddenness of the separation, despite the fact that I remained in his arms, despite the fact that he now gazed down at me in abject wonder, love…and remorse.

No, I pleaded silently, those tears returning with more force than before. There’s nothing to regret.

But he was extricating himself already. Though I clung to his collar, then his shirt, he was gently pulling away. Slowly, steadily, with infinite care, now with only the slightest touch left between us, as he couldn’t yet take his hand from my wrist, where he was turning my small hand over in his own, turning the palm upwards and tracing the lines he found there with his thumb.

“You know what you’ve done, Victoria,” he rasped the words, his gaze finally turned from mine, now intent upon my hand in his. The scene was devolving into the same one we had played out at Brocket Hall, though this time I was dressed in a nightgown and he still had the taste of my lips on his. He whispered, so softly, I almost couldn’t hear his stubborn words, repeated too often, “And it cannot be.”

You cannot give it to me.

I swallowed my tears and softly inhaled, before managing to grasp at a few words out of the many that had abandoned me.

“It’s done,” I stated, just as softly. “Whether you wanted it or not, I’ve made my decision.”

“I can’t let you abdicate. I won’t let you,” he replied, firmly, still not meeting my gaze. The harshness of his tone didn’t match the softness of his touch as he continued stroking my captive hand. He muttered, sadly, “Not for me.”

“It’s not your choice,” I insisted, with much less strength of tone than I would have liked. I wished he would look at me. “I’m not the child you first met. I don’t need your protection anymore…I need your love.”

“You have it, Ma’am.” I watched the corners of his mouth lift ever so slightly, in a wry, ironic grin that spoke of anything but happiness. The world-weary sadness that clung to him was weighing him down heavily. And his cynical nature was impossible to breach. “But I’m afraid it will destroy you.”

“Destroy us both,” I amended, curling my fingers around his. “Together.”

He shook his head slowly, whilst the battle in his head raged so visibly on his face. He allowed my caress for only a few seconds more. Then he brought my hand up to his lips and pressed one more kiss there.

“This is the end, Victoria,” he managed, his voice breaking on terrible, desolate words that his faithless mouth allowed him to say. Oh, why didn’t he just look at me? Just one look, Lord M. But he withheld it from me and said only, with feeling, “I wish you every happiness that God allows on this earth.”

And then I remember nothing but the feel of his hand slipping away from mine and the sound of my bedroom door opening and closing, like a vice on my soul, like a stone over a tomb, as he left me.

I fell to my knees and covered my face with my hands.

Chapter Text

Ernest

“Where is the carriage?” Albert was always impatient but this was different. We were both downstairs, waiting. The luggage was being brought down by our respective valets and the carriage had been ordered, over half an hour ago. “Do they mean to insult us further by keeping us here against our will?”

“The carriage will come,” I assured him, adding. “Soon.”

My brother gave me a general look of displeasure. He didn’t appreciate my natural tendency to remain calm and optimistic. So I’m easily persuaded to accept any change in fortune, what of it? It’s served me far better than my brother’s headstrong pragmatism.

He believes the world should go according to rules. If the rules are followed, the results should remain constant. That is the greatest difference between us. He believes the world is a game of chess. I know it to be a coin toss.

I pity my brother. He hides an inner self that is so terribly vibrant. The suppression eats at his moods. And when something like this happens, he is suddenly and irreversibly called to action. As if leaving England will set the rules right again. I love my brother but he is foolish about certain things.

Women, for instance. And Her Majesty, Alexandrina Victoria, in particular. I told him to flatter and compliment her, but no, he insisted on being abrupt and rude. I told him to try the games she likes and attempt a more flexible interpretation of Schubert…but he must be true to himself. His damnable sense of self-worth demands it.

Fine, I thought to myself. Then your true self will have the pleasure of competing with her true love. Let’s see how that turns out, shall we?

Speak of the devil, Lord Melbourne descended the stairs while Albert and I were still waiting for our carriage. The older man looked ill, if I’m being honest, grave-faced and preoccupied. I don’t think he noticed us, even in our garishly colored uniforms and even with Albert’s incessant pacing across the red and gold-colored Parisian rug that would forever feel the force of his angry steps.

He may have passed us without a word. Like I said, I don’t know that the man was aware of his surroundings. But my brother, catching sight of the Prime Minister, felt the need to call out his name.

“Lord Melbourne!” Albert said, almost as an accusation. I groaned inwardly. I missed my chance. Should’ve gagged my brother an hour ago. That was obvious.

Lord Melbourne looked up at the sound of his name. He saw us, but nearly in afterthought. The myriad of emotions currently passing his features was unreadable. He attempted a courtly smile but it failed miserably, turning wry immediately. This was unfortunate, as Albert has always hated irony and those who wield it well. Lord Melbourne was a great proficient.

Not that Albert would have been pleased to see the Prime Minister in any case. But it certainly didn’t help set the stage for their forthcoming exchange.

“Your Highness,” Lord Melbourne gave the appropriate bow to us both. Even in that, Albert saw some impertinence. It was the man’s mere presence that nettled him so there was little that Lord Melbourne could do to prevent Albert’s ire.

“It’s an early hour for the Prime Minister to be at the palace, don’t you think, Ernest?” Albert wasn’t speaking to me, despite addressing the question to my name. His heated gaze was firmly locked on Lord Melbourne.

I didn’t answer the question. I’m not foolish enough to be dragged into something that has nothing to do with me, something that was avoidable and unlikely to be resolved to either party’s satisfaction.

“I was summoned,” Lord Melbourne answered, predictably, politely, adding only, “We are the Crown’s servants at whatever hour.”

“Your sense of servitude to the Crown is far too familiar for my sensibilities, Lord Melbourne,” Albert spat out the words, intent on breaking the veneer on this masquerade.

“Ah,” Lord Melbourne nodded, still distracted and perhaps not comprehending the offense that my brother was attempting. Or perhaps he comprehended and just didn’t care. The Prime Minister was not an easy read and in the short time I’d been in his acquaintance, he struck me as a singular sort of man.

From the first, he struck Albert as a thorn to be removed. And having failed to do so, my brother lashed out in pain and anger that was unlike him.

“I told her she should marry you. She said there was nothing in it,” Albert huffed on a rueful laugh, devoid of joy. “But why did you encourage my connection with the Queen? That’s what I don’t understand. Englishmen lack the most basic sense of honor…”

“Albert…,” I warned, but he was intent on voicing his grievances.

“You allowed me to think I had a chance,” he continued, his voice strained on righteous anger. “And yet, there you were, always hovering, always the first claim on her affections. You should have left a long time ago! But you stay near, despite knowing that you will ruin her. It’s disgraceful, sir, and I don’t know how you live with yourself.”

The Prime Minister looked like he might not answer Albert at all. For half a minute, I swear he considered it. But the half minute passed and the Prime Minister’s inherent sense of gentility managed a short reply.

“With difficulty, I assure you,” Lord Melbourne’s blunt answer held all of his usual wit and cynicism, but the tone was unusually dark and the shadows passing his features betrayed deeper conflict. Conflict that had nothing to do with Albert or myself.

Albert might have said more but fate stepped in and one of the footman appeared through the front door. Our carriage had arrived.

“Come, Albert. We have overstayed our welcome,” I beckoned, nearly pushing him towards the door. He continued his grumbling, but his desire to depart had him out the door quickly. I gave the Prime Minister a parting bow, “Auf wiedersehen, Lord Melbourne. Our regrets that we cannot take proper leave of Her Majesty but truly, bonne chance to you both.”

Chapter Text

The Duchess of Kent

I was unsure. Sir John said it was the only way. But he had said that before and Drina had proved him wrong many times. I shouldn’t feel pride at that, I know. She’s twenty-one now, but still a child in need of our guidance.

Yet, she’s my child and I cannot say that seeing her, young and impulsive as she is, embraced by her people at her grand coronation did not tease a smile from my lips. Of course, she has made so many mistakes since then but…my feelings are conflicted. And Sir John says this is the only way.

“It’s time for a regency,” Sir John insisted, from behind the desk he had long ago claimed as his own, in my set of rooms in the north wing, piled high with letters to Drina’s ministers and politicians, already sealed and ready to be sent out.

“A co-regency,” the Duke of Cumberland grumbled brusquely, from where he stood by the nearby window, looking out on the northern grounds with an ever critical eye. There were grey clouds rolling in from the north, promising a downpour in the next few hours.

I was reminded again of that day that Drina wandered aimlessly in a rainstorm, fretting and weeping over her prime minister’s abrupt departure like a part of her soul had been torn away. I tried to comfort her, as best I could, suppressing all those words on my tongue that would have said “but I warned you, Drina” and “you cannot give your heart so easily, Drina.” There was a moment when I thought she finally understood. I thought she finally saw, in her girlish grief, the obvious danger and painful consequence of allowing that man first position in her affections.

Bitte, Drina.

She embraced me and for a moment, deluded by a mother’s hope, I thought we finally understood each other. But too soon, Lord Melbourne returned and Drina was only further swept under his influence.

“But, of course,” Sir John replied immediately, nodding to the Duke. “I misstated the term, my apologies. A shared regency between yourself and the Duchess is the best and most prudent way forward. The monarchy has suffered a significant blow and we must inspire confidence if we are to save it.”

“The people are ready for a change,” Cumberland agreed, in his morose, blunt manner. “They’ve had enough. Her youthful exuberance may have charmed them in the beginning but each new scandal shows her inexperience and her failure to handle the vast responsibilities of the Crown. Her mind, too—there’s a feebleness there that cannot be denied.”

“Not feebleness, sir,” I countered, my curls shaking with the sharp movement of my head.

“Influence, then?” he tried. “Melbourne has been whispering in her ear for years. Her thoughts are not her own.”

With regret, I nodded my assent. I would not let them blame Drina for the actions of her mentor. She was a child, she needed a guiding hand. And she had chosen the wrong one but…she was my daughter. It was not her mind that was soft, only her heart.

Oh, Drina. Meine tochter…

“Yet, in influencing her so, Melbourne has created a puppet. Her thoughts are her own. No, Duchess, I don’t mean that she is to blame for this madness that has infected her mind…but we are left with the stark fact that Victoria’s thoughts and actions have been molded into something unsteady and built on corrupted sand. Even when she acts without Melbourne, she now emulates his ideas and his philosophies, without knowing it,” Sir John mused. “There’s a feebleness in that.”

I was still so unsure. But Sir John knows more about politics than I do and he’s never steered me wrong before. I was tempted to return to Coburg again, as I had at the beginning, when Drina so cruelly severed our prior intimacy, exiling me to the north wing of her new palace with such little regard for her mother’s feelings.

The unfairness of her actions, after all I’d done, after all Sir John had done, to make sure she was respectable and prepared for her duties and obligations as the Queen of the greatest empire of the world—the sour taste in my mouth lingered. Every once in a while, Gott vergib mir, I was tempted to hate her. My own child.

But I recalled, as Sir John had kindly said, this was not my dear Drina’s fault.

This was Lord Melbourne’s doing. All of it. Horrible man. He had stolen my Drina from me and now? Oh, we had no choice. Sir John was right, as always.

I nodded my consent, finally, begrudgingly. Sir John gathered up his missives, sworn statements from me, my ladies-in-waiting and a few others in the household detailing Drina’s descent into insanity, which if not true now, would certainly become true in the near future.

We would send them out today. Sir John’s friends in the House, my dear Flora’s brother among them, would bring forth a motion for co-regency by the end of the week.

Chapter Text

Skerrett

She asked for a black frock.

“One of yours,” she said. “I don’t care which one but the plainer, the better.”

Before I was out of her bed chamber, she called me back, her teeth dragging along her bottom lip slightly, hesitating for a moment before she added, “And a basket.”

“A basket?” I repeated, worried that the rumors were all true after all. Was the Queen losing her mind? She’d met with the appropriate politicians and dignitaries tonight, for the first time since the German princes’ departure. We were all glad to see her take up the old routine, as her uncle Leopold was returning the next day and it surely wouldn’t suit to have the Queen of England receive her uncle through her locked bedroom door.

“Yes, Skerrett,” my lady replied, in a flat tone that seemed weary and worn out. “A large one, big enough for Dash to be carried around in it.”

I suppose I should have put it all together right then and there but well, there was a lot to be distracted by.

The rumors that I mentioned were swirling around the palace as fast as a rushing bend in the Thames. And it spilled out into the streets as well. All London rang out with it. They were saying that the Duchess of Kent and the Duke of Cumberland had been right all along and that the Queen would be declared incompetent before the month was out.

I didn’t believe it. Yes, my lady was distressed. Any half-witted idiot could see that. Even Francatelli mentioned something about it this morning, winking at me inappropriately, while forcing me to take a bite of something ridiculously delicious that he whipped up in the pre-dawn hours. Oh, but I wish he wouldn’t discuss these things with me. His attention is another distraction I could do without.

We had all hoped that Lord Melbourne would put her back in a good humor, as only he can. It had worked so well that first time. With one simple note from that man, my lady was up and dressed in no time. So why not try the same old tonic again? Lady Portman and I shared a knowing glance as she donned her cloak and gloves, on her way to Dover House to fetch the prime minister.

But his visit the morning after the dance had been terribly short and he left the palace almost as soon as he entered it, in as dark a mood as my lady. And what's worse, Mr. Brodie has heard from one of the stable boys who heard from a cousin who works at Dover House, that Lord Melbourne has left town for some unknown destination. Brocket Hall would be the most likely place but Mrs. Jenkins said she heard from the florist that a coachman she knows was commissioned by Lord Melbourne to take him north, away from the city altogether.

It's a shocking turn of events. And now there's a lingering tenseness up and down the halls of Buckingham Palace, like that moment before a champagne glass hits the floor and shatters into a million pieces. Everyone feels it.

I visited her room after Lord Melbourne’s visit and found Her Majesty dreadfully calm, though her puffy eyes and tear-streaked cheeks were telling a far different story. She allowed me to dress her and accepted a tray from the kitchens but she didn't ask me to arrange her hair and she stayed locked up in her bedroom for another day and a half.

I don’t claim to know the names written on other people’s hearts but I’d bet my year’s wages that Lord Melbourne’s name is scrolled round and round my lady’s very soul. It’s an inconvenient fact but Queen or not, she’s as much a woman as any of us. And the heart wants what it wants, no matter the level of suitability.

I feel sorry for her, I do. She’s always on display and there’s them that’s always waiting for her to fail. You can see them, whispering in narrow corridors or on the stairs. That awful John Conroy is visiting the Duchess again and he hovers around the palace, uninvited, unwanted. I wish he’d go away and leave my lady in peace. She’s grieving over something lost to her forever. Don’t they see that?

I’ve always been too romantic for my own good. It gets me into such trouble. And I fall for it every time. A certain dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian sprung to mind without my permission. You will not fall for Francatelli, Nancy Skerrett, I reminded myself for perhaps the tenth time today.

But my lady and Lord Melbourne—perhaps everyone was right to scoff at the notion. Mrs. Melbourne, they had called her as a joke. I remember Flora Hastings relating that piece of news to the Queen with such vicious pleasure, as if Her Majesty would be infuriated by the term and immediately set out to contradict it. My lady was furious, but the object of her fury was Lady Hastings, not the piece of gossip itself.

Which is not to say that she didn’t mind the rubbish newspapers and their vulgar insinuations. Her skin was not as thick as all that. But she set them aside with a sigh or a set frown and shook it off, as only my brave lady could do. She refused to let her behavior be changed or influenced by men who made money off the mere scent of scandal.

She was strong. She would have to be strong again soon. This morning’s newspapers had already run a couple of questionable pieces and there was an unflattering caricature of the events of the ball that every cotton-brained servant from here to Belfast would be snickering over for a day or two.

The storm would blow over but another would follow. And my lady grew weary of it. I could see it in the mirror as she stared at her reflection, her expression unreadable but her thoughts certainly far away.

As I arranged her hair, she reached for a small box on the vanity. She opened it and I saw the Brocket Hall gardenias spill out into her hands. The petals were not as white and fresh as on the night of the dance, but they were stubbornly refusing to wilt. Her Majesty caressed the petals with gentle fingers, as she continued to stare at her reflection for a long time, not saying a word to me.

Until I was finished, that is. Then, my lady asked me to bring her a plain, black frock...and that basket. Oh, I should have known. But her tone was so fixed and determined that I could never have dreamed of refusing her.

Chapter Text

Melbourne

I could not go to Brocket Hall to watch the rooks this time. I could not hide away in the glasshouses, coaxing African violets and white gardenias into bloom. There was no escaping her there. Despite years without a woman’s presence, Victoria was somehow in every brick, stone and leaf at Brocket Hall. I could not sit in my usual spot, back against that cold, stone pillar, without seeing the same vision of her—both hands lifting a lace, black veil to reveal her lovely face, those blue eyes, that wide grin, returning to me through a whirlwind of autumn foliage.

She would come to me there and I didn’t have the strength of will to turn her down a third time.

So I did not go to Brocket Hall when I left Dover House but ran, like a coward, north to Scotland, thinking a border between us would be enough. To those who asked, I blamed the sudden excursion on an extended, long overdue holiday.

If they believed me, they were fools. For it was a fool’s errand and I found myself rooted to a high-backed chair in the cottage I stayed in, not so unlike my own chair at home. And there I stayed for two days, drinking cheap wine and brooding over any number of useless contemplations.

I was not a young man. How many times have I repeated this to myself and to her? And I was certainly not a naïve one. My mother’s scandalous exploits left early stains that I’ve never been able to wash out. Caro had destroyed any lingering innocence, for both us, casting her as a scarlet woman and me as a cuckhold. We made peace, she and I, but that didn’t erase the stinging bite of love’s less rose-colored facets.

But somehow, with my age and experience to lean on, I still let myself be swept away by this…this…oh, it was a disaster, whatever it was. She was the Queen of the British Empire. She was twenty years my junior. She was…absolutely perfect.

I can’t remember what my expectations were that morning I went to Kensington to meet the new queen. Perhaps I had none at all. I remember meeting Emma and Edward on the road and I remember saying something about wanting to retire and contemplate the rooks. There was a moment when I considered turning the horse around and doing just that, leaving the new queen to a new order.

But nonetheless, I arrived at Kensington.

John Conroy met me on the front steps, quickly conveying his desires so blatantly with so little humility that I had to suppress a smirk. His thirsty ambition amused me, as I’ve met many men like him over the course of my career and somehow, they’re always convinced that they can manipulate the world at their pleasure. His confidence in being appointed Her Majesty’s personal secretary was unassailable. I remember thinking that little Alexandrina Victoria would be revealed as John Conroy’s homemade puppet, with all the strings showing.

I’m nearly ashamed to admit that. To think that she would ever be anyone’s puppet…

That doll she had propped up on a chair—I remember picking it up and noting the little gold crown on its white head. A Queen that plays with dolls? I remember thinking. Well, we’ve had monarchs with worse habits. But then I asked her the doll’s name. And she told me that it didn’t have one, that it was Number 123. She said it flatly, with little indication to how she might feel about Number 123.

I think I loved her then, at that exact moment. Or perhaps it was the next, when she declared that John Conroy would not be her personal secretary, that he would never hold that post, or any other. The diminutive girl who stood in front of me sparked with so much life and so much feeling, even though she kept her voice level and her true emotions firmly in check, that I was stunned and found myself offering my assistance impulsively.

I hadn’t done anything impulsive in twenty years.

And now it appears I can’t stop. I shouldn’t have kissed her. Dear God, forgive me, I shouldn’t have kissed her.

I drained another glass of wine. The wine wasn’t working as it should. I felt no pleasant haze of deadened emotion. If anything, it stirred up my darker thoughts and I felt compelled to act. To do something, anything. That’s why I wouldn’t leave this room, despite knowing that sitting here with ghosts and visions of the past was a dangerous occupation.

Still less dangerous than walking through that door and returning to her side. Which is what I would do, God help me, if I allowed myself to walk through that door.

I stared at the bedroom door of the Scottish cottage for an hour at least, considering, tempting myself.

Come to your senses, man, came a strong voice in my head. It was a prime minister’s voice, resolute and firm, and my own voice until so recently.

Remember how love can carve us up, Caro’s cautioning voice was next. I imagined her pale, mournful face looking up at me from her death bed.

She should never have left you. I would never do such a thing. Victoria’s voice, imploring, pleading with those blue eyes, begging me to see that she was different, that the love she gave me was without reserve, without hesitation.

I know, Ma’am. I know. I would reassure her until the end of my days, as I had nothing else to give her. Nothing else I could give her.

I turned away from the door finally, my better judgment winning out, thankfully. But just as I had turned away, there was an insistent knock that begged my attention. With effort, I pushed myself out of the high-backed chair and answered it.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, milord,” said the young Scotsman at the doorway. The hallway was dark and the young man held a candle in his hand. Night must have fallen though I had no idea of the hour. Nor the day, if I was being honest. “The telegraph office in town brought a message for ye. They said it was urgent, or I’d not be disturbin’ you at this hour.”

He forced the small square of paper into my hand and dipped his head subserviently. Then he was gone, off to other errands or perhaps a good night’s sleep. I watched him go, envious, as no such sleep would be coming to me tonight.

The message was from Emma and it was six words long, composed with the knowledge that it would be transmitted on a public line:

Come home now STOP She is missing STOP

She is missing…

Victoria is missing…

“Dear God…,” I heard the words leave my lips, as if someone else said them aloud. I was befuddled and clumsy, my wine-addled brain grasping at fragments, looking around the room for…?

But then I grabbed my coat and I was out the door.

Chapter Text

Victoria

If he could run away, I decided I could certainly do the same.

Besides, I had to. I knew what Mama and Sir John were planning and I wouldn't let them do it. Not willingly. I would never be caged in that way. Not again.

I hadn't forgotten Kensington. The bleak emptiness that I felt whenever my thoughts drifted to my lonely, childhood prison would always be with me. I carried it like a sharp piece of shrapnel, embedded in my skin, never quite healed over.

Be strong. I reminded myself, setting my expression, blinking away any leftover tears that might dare show themselves. And I could be strong, just not here. Not now. Not in this palace, not in this city, not without him.

He didn't understand. He never understood, though I thought I'd made it clear enough. He thought he held me back. He thought he would drag me down from the resplendence of the English throne and bury me in the mud of scandal. But I didn't care.

Don't you understand? We can fly away from any scandal…because you, and only you, give me wings.

And if he truly thought that Mama and Sir John would stop if he stepped away…well, I could forgive his foolishness in that, I suppose. He didn't know them as I did. I knew that Sir John would never stop. No matter what. And in his persistence, I might never escape his grasping clutches.

William could dismiss Sir John with a simple laugh, ever wry and always unimpressed by my former guardian's schemes. Just one huff of laughter and Sir John was forced into silence, stewing but unable to form any sort of reply. I don't think William knew he held such power and, if I told him it was power, he'd likely say I spoke nonsense. But he didn't understand. He couldn't understand.

I could never laugh Sir John away. There was no conviction in it. Sir John's power over me was deeply ingrained, made up of a thousand little moments that I could never wash out.

When I was twelve, I remember he took my wrist roughly, stopping me from going down the stairs by myself. It was nothing more than his fingers cruelly wrapped around my wrist, digging against the bone and tendons. But I was a child and no match for his strength. And there was something that sparked in his dark eyes that spoke of hatred and loathing, power and hunger…and I found myself frozen, all defiance fleeing in the face of a man who saw me as the avenue to his darkest ambitions.

Even now, I can conjure the feel of his fingers around my wrist, pressing, digging and…oh, I could not stay a minute longer.

In Skerrett's dress and with my hair arranged simply, in two long braids, like a common wash-girl or flower-seller in the street, I melted into the background with the rest of them.

My heart had been beating wildly since I left the palace. The fear of being discovered was not easy to shake, especially in those first few miles. I knew that if I could get out of London without anyone recognizing me, I'd have a chance. But that was easier said than done.

I'd raided the desk in William's office for money. I found enough for carriage fare and, once a safe distance from the city, I pawned one of three plain, gold necklaces I'd stuffed beneath the blanket in Dash's basket. I had two gemstones as well and a diamond ring, but I wouldn't sell those unless I had to. There would be far more questions asked of a girl trying to sell off crown jewels, than a girl with a length of gold chain.

And there were questions enough anyway.

"The craftsmanship on this necklace is stunning," the old man behind the counter of the pawn shop in Liverpool commented to me.

"My grandmother had elegant taste in jewelry," I replied, which was true enough. Portraits of both my grandmothers would convince anyone of their regal splendor, although I certainly wouldn't be sharing any family portraits with the pawn broker. But yes, Sophia Charlotte, my father's mother, had been the owner of this particular chain. It was simple but beautiful. And, more importantly, useful…its worth would buy me ship's passage to Ireland.

I had settled on Ireland in my head as soon as I left the palace, under dark of night, Dash sleeping quietly in the basket on my arm. It was romantic nonsense, of course. But I needed a green country full of old magic. I needed a few strands of the sea between me and the monarchy. I needed to think, I needed to disappear.

I could have crossed the channel to the Continent or perhaps even the Atlantic to America. But I knew my heart couldn't take that sort of distance. The Irish Sea was nearly too far.

Too far from him.

Was I foolish to trust that he would know where to find me? I had left no note, too afraid that it would be discovered and deciphered by someone else and that I would be dragged back to Buckingham Palace before he made this right.

For he must make it right. He must understand. How could I make him see? I would never love another. I would never accept that he didn't love me back. Not when it was written across his face so plainly. My life was worthless without him, in my heart was a gaping hole—and not even an empire could fill it.

As I boarded the ship in Liverpool, these were the thoughts swirling around my head. I set Dash and his basket down by the rail as I took a moment to gather myself. The nerve and danger of what I had done already and what I was about to do, a queen abandoning her own shores…I pressed my fingers to my eyelids and took a deep breath. In this moment, I drew the attention of the ship's captain.

"Miss, will your parents be joining you?" he mistook me for a forlorn child, not a grieving woman. A hot retort leapt to my lips. But it was a queen's offense that I felt and I suppressed the reply admirably, merely shaking my head.

"I'm of age, sir, but thank you for asking," I replied steadily, more humble than I have ever been, in a calm tone that was utterly false, considering the turbulent emotions I was currently sifting through.

"Oh, my apologies, ma'am," the grizzled sailor dipped his head with a kind smile and I suddenly had a reckless notion to…

"Sir?" I called him back, timidly, after he had already turned away. He returned to my side, mild concern etched in his weather-beaten features.

"Yes?" he asked, ready to be of service. I was used to this sort of manner in men…and women. I realized that I could no longer expect it, but was grateful that this stranger, who didn't know me as Victoria or even Alexandrina, was willing to assist me nonetheless.

"Captain, would I be able to leave a letter in your keeping?" I wondered quietly. "I'm afraid a family emergency has made it so I must depart immediately but I do think that my—that a gentlemen may inquire after me on these docks in the near future."

His kind smile deepened. My story was vague enough, but perhaps familiar enough, at least for a sailor on the Liverpool docks. He probably assumed I was fleeing a disapproving family, with my lover to follow close behind.

God…if only.

"Of course, lass," the captain answered simply. "And what name will this gentlemen be seeking?"

I hadn't thought. I couldn't think. The name spilled out before I had a chance to second guess the choice,

"Elizabeth," I stated immediately, the memory of a dance and his arms around me giving me strength. "He'll be asking after Elizabeth."

Chapter Text

Duke of Wellington

In the throne room, the ministers gathered before a vacant chair. I watched them all scamper around, frantic, helpless, looking for precedent, of which there was none, and guidance, of which there was less.

The little Queen was certainly leaving her mark on the Empire, though perhaps not in the way any of us might have expected. Her grandfather, with all those voices in his head, had been less troublesome.

And he, at least, had kept to the palace grounds.

Opinions and speculation could be found in every corner of Buckingham Palace, new schemes hatching between the Duke of Cumberland and that weasel, John Conroy, Robert Peel and other members of our party attempting to reconcile the Queen's actions and plan a way forward, the Whigs noticeably absent—floundering to find their footing, with Melbourne not yet returned from his sudden and ill-timed holiday.

No matter what happened next, the news would not stay within the palace walls for long. The servants had heard enough. And this was not something that could be hushed up, even if we all, Whigs, Tories and weasels alike, agreed to it. All of London would be buzzing in a day or two. It would be whispered first, then spoken freely, finally shouted in the streets by newspaper boys and gossiping women.

The Queen has fled the palace! The Queen has abandoned her throne!

"But how can we spin this?" Peel wondered aloud, looking at me with a little too much optimism in his hang-dog features. He was grasping at straws, as if an appropriate resolution might present itself through the mere act of asking the air for answers.

But there were no answers here. This was unprecedented. This was untried. I'm an old man. I've seen many things. But never this.

I'll be honest. A part of me admired the little queen. She showed a strength of will and brazen nerve that no monarch I've ever met could rival. And the older one gets, the more one recognizes the sheer absurdity of life and all our rules and contradictions, fencing ourselves in to prisons of our own making.

The fact that the Queen had staged a prison break amused me, despite my better judgment.

John Conroy would have us believe her actions stemmed from a feebleness of mind that had infected her actions from the day of her coronation forward. His battle-cry had become predictable and monotonous over the last few years. The horrid man nearly drives himself mad with it.

After the events of last week, I'd been told that he was finally taking action, having whispered and planned and plotted for long enough. Peel and some of the others had been informed that Conroy was calling in physicians to formally examine the queen. And the queen's reckless actions left enough doubt that the party was inclined to allow it. Lady Flora Hastings' brother led the noise in the house, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

The examination had been scheduled for this very day, though the Queen was not aware of it. Providence granted her a reprieve—Victoria had missed her appointment by hours only.

They needed the bold, confident signatures of two impartial physicians to give them the regency they so desired. Those physicians were present in the room with the rest—mulling about, speaking to each other in hushed tones. Dr. Rose, an Englishmen who had roomed with Charles Clarke, the Hastings' family doctor, at university and Dr. Josef Von Karlsson, a grey-haired German with a pronounced limp and solid ties to the Queen's Uncle Leopold. I understand politics well enough but these were hardly the impartial sort.

If and when she returned, they would be waiting for her at the gate of the palace, ready to sign any order John Conroy put under their pens.

Perhaps with reason—but I was unconvinced. The young woman who sought my assistance forming a government, honestly and hopefully, with duty placed squarely ahead of bitter, bitter disappointment, was no more mad than the rest of us.

Stubborn, of course. That Bedchamber Crisis had been something to behold. The exasperation I felt with the little queen had rivalled the rest of them. I'll admit that my initial impression was prejudiced by her youth and inexperience. I thought she was a spoiled child, throwing a tantrum over not getting her way. But then she surprised me, speaking so forcefully that day I came to speak with her,

You were a soldier, Duke?

I didn't realize you were fighting a war, ma'am.

Because you are not a young woman, sir, and I expect no one tells you what to do.

Impulsive, passionate and certainly unwilling to be John Conroy's marionette, or anyone else's for that matter—these were her only crimes. I could not judge her for any of them.

I'll admit it freely. I was growing soft in the late winter of my life and a creature of early summer could enchant me with little effort. The Queen, haloed in golden strands of sunshine and the vernal fragrance of orchids and gardenias, was just such a creature.

It was no wonder that Melbourne was utterly bewitched by the girl.

The romantic fancy of my addled, old mind had briefly entertained the idea that the Queen had convinced Melbourne to run away with her, but seeing him enter the throne room finally, world-weary expression firmly affixed on his pained face, those fancies vanished quickly.

I met the man's wandering gaze across the room and realized that he was more at a lost than the rest of us, for reasons that went far beyond politics, scandal and the fate of the English throne. I pity him…even if he is a Whig.

I took a long, deep breath, watching the chaos she had left behind in silent introspection.

Chapter Text

Emma

"William, would you slow down?" I chided the tall man in front of me. William walked through the halls of the palace with brisk, determined steps. I couldn't keep up with his much longer stride, not even at the flittering pace of a lady in waiting late for afternoon tea.

And I've never been one for flittering paces.

The length of the west hallway was obnoxiously long, certainly, but running down it would not help us find Victoria any sooner.

Her whereabouts were still…dismally unknown. She'd left no note, no clue as to her destination. There was talk of abduction and murder, as well as abdication, but no one knew which story to believe. Rumors would soon fan the speculation into a wildfire, with flames stretching out beyond London, the news unable to be tamed.

Oh Victoria, where have you gone?…

William looked back at me and stopped, standing just outside the staircase leading down to the kitchens and the lower wing of the servant's quarters. He was out of sorts and ran a hand over his haggard, sleep-deprived features.

"Apologies, Emma," he muttered, in afterthought.

He wasn't sorry, not really. He was as restless and impatient as I've ever seen him. The worry lines in his face could not be rubbed out, no matter how many times that wandering, fidgeting hand passed over them. But his natural inclination, even in crisis, tended towards gallantry and he waited for me to catch up just the same.

"I don't believe she was taken or…anything of that nature," I mentioned off-handedly, finally bringing up the topic that neither one of us had dared breach all morning. My confidence in this statement was based on a feeling, no more. But I'm more willing to trust feelings than most.

William should consider trusting his own.

"You don't know that," he sighed, every breath riddled with tense impatience. Not at me necessarily, but rather, at himself and at her absence. He continued, "She has enough enemies to fill the throne room ten times over."

"Her most dangerous enemies had a vested interest in her being present at the palace this morning," I reminded him, trying my hardest to allay his deepest fears with a heavy dose of practical sense. "John Conroy's current disappointment can't be contained by the north wing, I assure you. They tell me he's already sent out for private investigators. He'll retain them out of his own resources if he can't convince Parliament to fund the search. He won't rest until she's found and dragged back here."

"That man is a menace," William set his jaw. "If he thinks he can commandeer the throne on the cheap signatures of his two half-wit physicians…"

"Oh, he's already made arrangements for Dr. Rose and Dr. Von Karlsson to be guests of Buckingham Palace for the indefinite future," I replied, relating what Edward had told me only an hour ago. "If the Queen does return, she'll be walking into a trap…"

"When Victoria returns…," William amended my words immediately, automatically, unwilling to contemplate a different outcome. His usual gentility slipped a little as he repeated himself forcefully, adding, "When Victoria returns, John Conroy and his two physicians can go hang themselves."

I couldn't help but smirk at his words, devoid of all court pretense. Despite the tense situation we all found ourselves in, unknowns and uncertainties swirling around the palace like the snow squalls of a vicious blizzard in January, John Conroy should consider his next steps carefully. If Sir John kept drawing attention towards himself with all these schemes, he was in danger of having William Melbourne give him more notice than he might like. I had little doubt how that contest might turn out.

"He's a snake in the palace," I agreed whole-heartedly. My eyes took on a sly glint that I hoped spoke volumes, "He needs to be chased out and the sooner the better."

"Well, I'll leave that to your capable hands, Emma," William replied, knowing me well enough to know that I'd already taken some steps in that direction, beginning with Edward's natural befriending of the relatively affable Dr. Rose. I'd also found out through one of Harriet's cousins that the German doctor had an affinity for a particular brand of Irish whiskey that might just be a catalyst for all manner of personal weakness. I'd already ordered two cases.

"You should," I said, smirking a little more.

But William wasn't in the mood for smirks and political games. Darkness tinted the light in his weary eyes. He was imagining up all sorts of calamities for Victoria. I could read his face plainly. It wasn't healthy. And he would drag himself into such a state if continued this way, wringing his hands, imagining the worst.

"You need to go after her," I told him gently. "It has to be you."

"We have no idea where she's gone," he stated flatly, nearly angrily. Again, not at me. He was angry at himself for leaving London in the first place, he was angry at her for doing something so dangerous, so reckless. "She could have at least…"

He couldn't finish, his words not for me. They were for the girl that currently fixated his every thought. His jaw moved on more silent contemplations, the flavor of which I could only imagine slanted darker still.

"I wouldn't say we have no idea," I tut-tutted, surprised at him. He was so distracted, however. He wasn't thinking clearly.

"Truly, Emma? Should we ask the walls of the palace? Perhaps they'll tell us where their Queen's run off to?" he was being testy. His tone turned sardonic too easily. It was the strain of the day. But I knew it was out of love and fear and all those unknowns that he said these things, so I took little offense and waited patiently for him to finish.

"Nearly right," I answered in kind, cleverly, as is my habit, tipping my head to the staircase beside us. "When information is required, Lord Melbourne, I find it's helpful to ask the servants…"

Chapter Text

Melbourne

Thank God for the Skerrett girl and her meddling Italian.

Emma was right. Of course, she was. The servants see all. And what's more, the servants like Emma and are willing to share with her where they might not with me. Especially in the mood I was in that morning which, I cannot say was my usual, bright and cheerful self.

My impatience was difficult to rein in as I pressed Francatelli for more information on a young laundress he saw leaving the palace before dawn the day before, as he met a fruit vendor out behind the palace kitchens.

"You say you mistook the girl for Skerrett here at first? But upon reflection, that it may have been the Queen?" I demanded, repeating his jumbled account. "How would you know that? And why didn't you bring this information forward sooner?"

William…Emma side-eyed me from nearby, silently but successfully quieting my line of questioning. My voice carried accusations—I heard it too. But I didn't mean it. I knew the cook and the servant girl had nothing sinister to confess. There was no stopping Victoria once her mind was made up.

My headstrong, impulsive girl…

"She asked for one of my frocks, Lord Melbourne," Skerrett admitted, her voice going low with blame. "I swear I didn't know what she planned to do. I was foolish, I suppose, but she's Her Majesty and I just—I couldn't refuse her."

"You're not alone," I muttered grimly, the memory of that kiss from days before coming back to me swiftly and without invitation.

That damn kiss.

"Where was she headed, Francatelli?" Emma asked the sensible question. "Did you see where she ran off to?"

"Well, I followed her at first, thinking it was Miss Skerrett," Francatelli shrugged. "But soon I discovered it could not be Skerrett. She was far too little, for one thing, and her step was unfamiliar."

The Italian grinned at Skerrett, who proceeded to blush.

"And where did you last see her?" Emma kept us on track.

"She hailed a street carriage a quarter mile from the palace," Francatelli answered, in a casual tone that didn't quite comprehend the direness of the situation. "By that time, I'd turned around and so, I cannot tell you which way the carriage went. But I know the driver, if that helps?"

"Yes," I replied, understatedly, sensing Emma's sideways glance again and keeping my more impatient comments to myself. "That would be helpful."

I spoke to Francatelli's driver, who couldn't recall the passenger but knew his route well enough to lead me to a second driver who had driven a young woman fifty miles out of the city for an exuberant price which must have used up most of the cash she took from my desk.

He chuckled about the price, saying he'd never been paid so much per mile. I held my tongue and kept my temper at bay when tempted to throttle the man for taking advantage of a woman in a desperate state.

I followed her trail north, leaving as soon as I could make arrangements. I was led, not so much by the driver's clues, of which there were dismally few…but somehow, by the sense of her. Of Victoria. Of the roads she would take and the destination she would be drawn by.

She wouldn't hide away in some inn or tavern, only to be tracked down by Conroy's men and dragged back to her prison. I knew this much. Victoria was running away. And Victoria did nothing in half measures.

When you give your heart, it will be without reservation…my own damn words confirmed it.

She was leaving England. Had done already, if she could manage it. Where she was bound for—oh, I couldn't imagine…

Eventually, I found myself standing on the Liverpool docks, having been led to the port city on impulse, now aimless, lost, staring out over the harbor to the sea beyond. She had been here. The sea breeze had spun in her dark hair, brushing against her smooth cheek. I could feel it. Whether through some delusion of the mind or magic of the soul, I knew she had passed this way.

But it was romantic nonsense. Such nonsense. I was too old to believe in any of it. My heart had led me on a wild goose chase that ended, as so many do, with a witless man looking out at the churning waters of a fathomless sea.

Victoria, if you think I can find you by feeling alone, you ask too much.

"Sir?" a man's voice broke me out of my vain vigil on the dock. I don't how long I had been standing there, staring west—wondering, waiting for a sign…

"Yes?" I replied. The man's uniform marked him as a ship's captain. His eyes flickered over a vague recognition when I turned to him. This recognition crystallized with a second glance. My caricature had been in enough newspapers over the years, all over the country, that even a Liverpool captain could likely see the resemblance in my features to the many-times-disgraced William Lamb, Lord Melbourne.

But then…his recognition of me spurred something else, something unexpected. I watched his hand reach into his breast pocket and retrieve a letter. I couldn't see who it was addressed to but even a glimpse of that handwriting was enough.

Oh, my heart pounded out a damning betrayal of all my feelings. I was surprised the captain couldn't hear it, as he stood only a few feet away.

"Beg pardon, sir," the captain said. His expression flickered again, seeming to put together pieces of a story he didn't know he was reading, until this very moment. He added, more to himself than to me, "I know who you are…"

He had seen her, met her, spoken with her. That much was clear.

"You didn't know it was her though, did you?" I replied.

He shook his head, confirming, astonished, "Never would've thought…not in a million years, m'lord."

My gaze went back to the letter in his hand. It took all my strength not to reach out and seize it from his weathered hands. But if she left a letter in a stranger's keeping, she would have left instructions not to hand it over to anyone but the intended recipient.

"She said someone would come asking for her," the captain continued. "She said they would ask for her by name…"

For Leicester would never desert his Elizabeth. Not even if she ran away to the ends of the Earth…

"…and the name they would ask for is Elizabeth," I finished for him, before taking Victoria's letter from his outstretched hand.

Chapter Text

The Letter

Lord Melbourne stood at the rail of the ship, salty sea air whipping at the lapels of his long, wool coat as he broke the seal on Victoria's letter and let his eyes pass over the hasty but still elegant script filling the page.

In her letter, Victoria neglected to include a greeting. She began as if they were already in the middle of a conversation…which they were, in a way. They'd been running round and round the same conversation since that day at Brocket Hall and had yet to find resolution.

As evening gave way to night on the open water, Melbourne's gaze turned nearly rueful as he read her words many times over. He didn't speak, he didn't go below. Once the light failed, he tucked her letter in his coat pocket and braced his hands against the deck rail, gripping the rough wood tightly. He stared out over the black water with a faraway look in his dark eyes. Inscrutable as always, not even the heavens could guess his thoughts.

Victoria's letter played in his head, her soft voice speaking the words over and over again:

"I couldn't dance with Albert.

I know you wanted me to. I know you gave me your blessing. And I know it would have been easier if I had…for both of us. But I couldn't dance with him or marry him or whatever else they all expect.

I couldn't, William. Do you understand? I'm not that brave. I'm not that strong.

I can't marry another man while you walk this earth. I can't give my heart away when you hold it in your hands. Didn't you feel it too? That day we met—you must have felt it.

You think I'm a silly girl and that this is a passing fancy. You think I'm too young to know my own feelings. Or that I misjudge these feelings to be deeper than they are…

But if you truly believe those things, then perhaps you do not feel as strongly as I do. And that's what frightens me the most. More than leaving Kensington behind, or becoming queen, or the snares that Sir John plans for me, or even this running away.

I can think of nothing but you. And I've tried to do what you've asked. I've tried to forget. But I can't.

I just can't.

I can't pretend that I don't long for your touch, for your kiss, William…for your arms to slip around my waist as we dance once again.

Oh, how I wish that someday a dance will just be a dance. Not some game I'm playing, not some part I'm trying to play. But just a dance, where I can choose my partner and I can listen to the music playing without thinking of anything but you and how safe I feel in your arms.

I'll wait for you in Belfast. I know what you will say but I beg you, for both our sake's…please don't say it."

Chapter Text

Victoria

"Elizabeth?" Mrs. O'Grady, the owner of the Belfast lodging house I'd found myself staying in for the last week, stopped me on my way down the stairs. The severe Irishwoman was wearing a frown. This appeared to be her favorite expression.

She had been abrupt and unfriendly when I requested a room the first night, but didn't ask questions like some of the other proprietors around Donegal Square. She merely grunted at the name I gave her, "Elizabeth Lamb," and held out her hand for payment.

I paid her for an entire week in advance. But the week was up and she was holding her hand out again. I nodded glumly.

"I know, Mrs. O'Grady," I answered, promising meekly. "I'll have the rent for you this afternoon."

It was an empty promise. My gold chains were gone, sold to pay for the passage over and the first weeks' rent. I still had the diamond ring and those jewels, hidden down deep in the basket that Dash slept in upstairs, but I was too afraid to sell them. Well, nearly.

One of the gems was in the pocket of my dress. I'd taken it out of the basket before I came downstairs. My heart beat faster at the thought of selling it. The danger was acute. But I had no choice. I couldn't stay here another night unless I paid the woman behind the front desk. And I had nothing else.

I didn't know what to do and I was running out of time. Oh William, where are you?

But I mustered a smile for the landlord as I ducked out of the traveler's house and took to the hustle and bustle of the streets of Belfast, hoping an answer would come to me on the way to the pawnbroker's shop.

It was the strangest sensation, walking those streets in a servant's dress, with my hair worn down and so plain, with only a small silver clasp to hold back those dark strands that would otherwise fall into my eyes. I was shuffled in among the crowd, looking up occasionally to meet the gaze of men and women passing me by, some friendly, others preoccupied, headed to errands or work or wherever.

They didn't know me. And I didn't know them. I had no guards around me, no net of safety and seclusion which had been carefully thrown around me since childhood. The Irish weren't exactly enamored with the English at present. Nor with me, should they discover who I was. I was on the streets of a strange city, alone and surrounded by strangers. I should be running for home, as fast as my feet could carry me. And yet…

I wasn't. There were other things that frightened me and fought for notice in my scattered, addled mind. Of course there were. But not this. I don't even know how to describe it. I had lived a half-life for so long, sheltered and pampered and kept apart from all this…life. But there was a sweet rawness to my experiences since I left the palace that I'd never felt before.

I wasn't a queen any longer. I was a person. Just a person. Who was jostled in the street, and felt cold in the rain, and wished to God she had more money in her pockets.

And as frightening as that should be—and part of me knew I should be terrified—I felt thrilled instead.

At least…until I reached the pawn shop. As my laced boot hit the first step, I hesitated, suddenly filled with dread. And this was the dread I'd been suppressing for the last week. My ruse was at an end. As soon as I handed over the emerald in my pocket, one of two things would happen. At best, they would discover who I was and I'd be forced to return to London. At worst, they would mistake me for a thief and throw me in prison.

But the thought of being thrown out on the streets was just as frightening. And I was still caught up in the whirlwind of escape, not thinking clearly.

I took another step, almost against my will…

Suddenly, my wrist was seized by a man's strong grip. He pulled me back just as I might have opened the shop door.

"Don't you dare," he muttered softly at my ear, in a tone I knew so well. My feelings of dread vanished in favor of astonishment. I looked up to meet William's dark eyes, staring down at me with a myriad of emotions that I couldn't untangle, even if I tried. There was anger there and desperate questions—why did you do this thing, Victoria?—but there was love too.

Oh, he couldn't hide it. Not from me.

My breath caught in my throat and I had to stop myself from throwing my arms around his neck and jumping into his arms. The desire to feel his arms around me was strong, coiling warmth in the pit of my stomach, even on a busy city sidewalk. But I held myself back, unsure. I couldn't read his expression, haunted and brooding as ever. Had he come to take me back?

I couldn't even manage his name, though it scrolled through my head like a shout of hope. I waited, my eyes locked with his, my wrist tingling under the familiar weight of his fingers.

"Victoria…," he said my name as a gruff sigh, pain and joy mixed together in four syllables. Without another word, he pulled me away from the pawnbroker's shop, leading me down the street a little further to a brick alley off the main road. He looked in every direction, alert and watching for…someone?

"Sir John has sent men to drag you back to London," William answered my unasked questions, muttering, more to himself than to me. "They won't be far behind."

"I'll refuse," I said, brazenly.

"You'll have no choice," he replied firmly, but stopped short of saying what I feared he would say. That I wouldn't have a choice with him either. And that he had come only to drag me back as well. My heart froze on the idea, frosting over with a chill that went deep.

I blinked back tears, waiting for the inevitable words. William served the Crown—had done for as many years as I'd been alive. I knew he served me too. I saw it in his eyes. But I had hoped in attempting this escape I could show him that we—the Crown and Victoria—were not one in the same. One was an idea conjured up by ghosts and dead men looking for immortality, one was a flesh and blood woman, who just wanted to face mortality in the arms of her lover. I had hoped…

He pulled me further into the abandoned alley. His touch was smooth, gentle, but with a strength that spoke of vitality and want. He pushed me up against the wall of the ivy-draped building we ducked in beside, his left hand flat against the stones, his right releasing my wrist to slip around my waist and tug me flush against his body.

My arms twined around his neck, after all, hands sliding over his collar before drifting further, up into his dark hair. He bent down and claimed my lips, hungrily. And I answered that kiss the same, with as much passion as had been burning through me like a wildfire ever since I fled that dance with his gardenias at my breast.

Chapter Text

Mrs. O’Grady

Oh, I’ve seen them all come through this place.

Young and old, brazen and shy, those who can’t help themselves and those who know exactly what they’re doing, consequences be damned.

A lodging house is a lush garden of secrets. They flourish in the seedy seclusion of a rented room. And, believe me, there’s no secret more common than two people who are hiding their love away from prying eyes, whether because it’s forbidden or merely inconvenient, I wouldn’t know. But I know the type. I can spot a dangerous liaison from miles away.

I knew from the moment she entered my lodging house that Elizabeth Lamb was waiting for someone. A woman like that, young, pretty, wide-eyed, doesn’t travel alone. She didn’t say a word about it, of course, but I knew. I knew the way you know about a storm coming—a charge in the air, dark clouds in the sky. And by the look of those clouds gathering out my front window, we’ll have a flood in Belfast tonight. Mark my words.

She was a likable enough girl. But she was a slip of a thing that any wind might blow over. Not much older than a child, really. Given a wager, I’d have to bet against the little thing surviving any forbidden dalliance. She was anxious as the day is long and looked like she might burst into tears at any moment. She was on the run, no question. Her family was likely in tatters over it. I’d alert the authorities but that’s not the kind of business I keep here.

Live and let live, I say. And, in any case, her days waiting for her lover in my lodging house were limited in number. Especially if she didn’t pay me the rest of the rent. Today.

I may guard the secrets of my guests like the best of them but I don’t run a charitable institution.

I expected her father, whoever he was, would eventually show up and drag her back from whatever ruin she intended to indulge in. I’d wager it was the customary sort. Her father should hurry. At the very least, I expected her to figure it out on her own. Once the money ran out, she’d come to her senses and realize that there’s no man worth throwing a life away over.

Take it from a middle-aged widow running a second-rate boarding house in Belfast that caters to vagrants and transient ne’er-do-wells.

By the end of the day, I assumed there would be a resolution one way or another. She owed me money and there’s only one way to get around that mountain. She needed to pay up or vacant immediately. Given the way these things usually go, I was fairly certain I’d have another room to let out by six o’clock that evening.

But by Christ Almighty, I did not expect her to bring her young man into the lodging house at the very hour I would have called in the debt.

Nor to discover that her young man was not so young at all. Nor so poor. He was taller than her by a foot, stately and suave, better dressed than the better half of Belfast. He was almost familiar, to be honest, though I couldn’t place where I might have seen him. Older than his lady too, by a score of years, I’d guess.

That last part didn’t surprise me. Again, I’ve seen it all.

They made an interesting pair. Where she had been uncertain and anxious in my presence, he was all decisions and steadiness. And yet, having been reunited with the man she was waiting for, Miss Lamb or Mrs. Lamb or whatever the situation, looked nearly serene, all her prior fears and anxiousness vanquished so easily. She had his left hand clutched in both hers as if she’d never let go. He allowed her the public display, although his dark eyes hinted at a hesitation that went far beyond my powers of speculation.

I’d feel some general empathy for him—love in impossible circumstances, yes, I’m sure there’s an entire story, there always is—but as he handed me the money owed, I saw a haughty disapproval in his eyes aimed at me that I didn’t care for one bit.

“We’ll need the room only one night more,” he said to me, brusquely, commanded more like, his low voice so authoritative in nature that I wouldn’t be able to refuse him even if I tried. “We’ll be gone in the morning. I trust this settles Elizabeth’s bill.”

I nodded, seeing the money that passed from his hand to mine. My curiosity was piqued by the sheer amount, as it paid her bill three times over. But I know when to keep my mouth shut. I forced a smile, disingenuous though it might be, and watched them climb the stairs to her room without another word.

I will say I saw no wedding ring on either of their fingers. The way that girl was looking at him, though…no, theirs would not be a chaste stay. The young woman should take care. The road she’s embarking on leads to scandal and the Magdalene Houses far too often. Ah, but it’s none of my business, now is it?

I put the money in my cash box and thought no more about it, as one of my other guests had entered the lobby in the meantime, ducking in out of the first sprinkling of rain. The wind had picked up too, stressing the shutters and blowing the inside door open with a slam against its old hinges.

He was a regular and I gave him a dark look that he knew too well.

“Yes, Mrs. O’Grady,” he said glumly, knowing what I would say. “I’ll have the rent for you later this evening.”

Sure now, that’s what they all say.

Chapter Text

A Stormy Night in Belfast

My love, my love…

Their hushed but fervent whispers mingled in the dark hours of midnight, as impossible to suppress as their desires…which, having been held back so long, were breaking like a dam in the middle of a storm.

And it was storming. Outside, in the Belfast night, it continued raining. The light shower of hours ago was now pouring against the window panes, streaming down the glass in merging rivulets and tributaries. It was late autumn and the weather threatened a frosty turn. That cold, bitter rain would spit snowflakes at the slightest dip in temperature.

But in the upstairs bedroom of Mrs. O’Grady’s Belfast lodging house, Melbourne and Victoria created their own heat in the single bed of a cheap rented room.

Shallow beats of breath fluttered against bare skin, the sheets shifting at each slip of movement—her thigh wrapped at his hip, his lips at the base of her throat, her fingers digging into the soft mattress, his hand sliding down the smooth curve of her waist. As he moved lower, her arms came around him, fingers moving up the ridges of his muscular back and shoulders and then further, now tangled in the thick, black curls of his hair. She found herself closing her eyes at his many attentions, lost to the pleasure of his touch—warm lips, strong hands—exploring her entire body.

The Queen and her Prime Minister were certainly on intimate terms this night.

Leopold had always said they were too close. The newspapers had winked at the suggestion for years. Lehzen had warned her young charge of the danger from the first, as she begged Victoria to allow a chaperon when meeting the thoroughly disreputable man who waited in the Kensington sitting room to meet his young Queen…

Oh, how disreputable. Victoria grinned to herself on the word as she felt Melbourne’s lips graze the swelling rise of her right breast.

“Victoria…,” his voice spoke in the darkness, low and sensual as ever, the name alternating with his trailing kisses. The sinuous tone sent heated coils of flame all through her and she nearly shivered at the sound, as there was always such power in the way he said her name.

From now on, I wish to be called Victoria.

Queen Victoria…

She’d chosen the name of her own accord. But it was his voice that first said it aloud, and the idea that the same man who said it then, with such decorum on a balcony of state, said it now, in the midst of a fevered night of passion, thrilled her beyond reckoning.

Melbourne felt the tremor run through Victoria’s body and paused, briefly, concern coloring his features. He wouldn’t hurt her for the world. A part of him—the part that could still manage sense before madness—knew this very night would prove those words false. But God help him, he wouldn’t hurt her. He asked, “You’re cold?”

“No…,” she could barely speak, caught up in the whirlwind of what was happening and not wanting him to stop. Her hands spoke the words she couldn’t form, fingernails lightly digging into the skin at his back once again. Insistently, she begged, “Please, William.”

He didn’t need to be asked twice. All his regrets and hesitations, of which there were still plenty, were locked up in a corner of his mind where they could not disturb nor dissuade him from sharing Victoria’s bed. Not tonight.

The line had been crossed as soon as they came upstairs. No, long before that. The stolen kiss in the alley, the letter she wrote in Liverpool, the dance where she refused Albert…or perhaps the very hour he first visited her at Kensington.

For in that hour, fate ensnared them with insistence and they were powerless against it.

He knew better, of course—a stronger, wiser man would have told her that he couldn’t stay, that he would be back to fetch her in the morning, so they could return to England as soon as possible. Duty before inclination until the last.

And, young as she was, she knew better too—a woman of sense would have thanked him at the door and let him leave, knowing in doing so, he saved them both.

But she was stubborn and hopelessly in love, refusing to relinquish his hand and keeping it between her own. His fingers curled around hers as they had done at Brocket Hall, as they had done in the palace, the morning after the ball. His dark eyes, brooding, moody, stormy as ever, did their best to avoid her gaze. But she wouldn’t allow him the safety of forbearance and reached up to catch his stubbled chin, forcing those eyes to meet her own.

When they did, she smiled too prettily, confirming, beneath all his murky sullenness, the mirror image of adoration and love that sparkled in her own.

And he couldn’t leave without kissing her once more.

Damn my blackest soul to hell, he thought. He just couldn’t.

One kiss became another, and then another, and then a dozen more. It was her nimble, graceful fingers that first reached for the cravat at his neck and then the brass buttons on his vest, unbuttoning them against his feeble protest. She moved by instinct, her lack of experience no match against her terrible affection. And, after a groan at his own weakness, it was Melbourne who undid the silver clasp in her dark hair, his hands combing through the long, loose strands lovingly before helping her undo the silk ties of her corset. The clothes now lay in a cluttered heap on the bedroom floor, abandoned hours ago.

And now there was no going back, for either of them. A spark of lightning lit up the bedroom briefly and thunder echoed in the distance, but they were oblivious to any warnings from the heavens.

His mouth found hers again and she fell headlong into his many kisses, sinking against the softness of the mattress and pulling him down with her, tongues tangling as the kiss went deep. The taste of his lips was different each time—brooding, hungry, guilty, reverent—and she found she couldn’t get enough of each flavor, always coming back for more.

As for Melbourne, he felt alive—truly alive for the first time in as many years had passed since Caro ran off with Lord Byron, since he buried his son, since the whole world had been doused in black shadows and he found himself standing alone, in the dark.

If Victoria’s unexpected appearance in his life had struck a spark, her kiss was like kerosene. And he was on fire, the old darkness no match for the heat and brightness of those flames.

“Victoria?” her name again, falling off those same lips. His kisses had trailed to the soft skin just below her earlobe where he whispered it once more. The question had only one answer.

“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. “Oh God, yes.”

Chapter Text

Melbourne

I held two mugs of steaming tea in my hands as I came up from the galley of the ship, one for me and one for Victoria.

The sea breeze was mild, though the air was quite chilly as autumn was upon us and winter would follow close behind. The sea seemed to shiver on the season, soaking in the sunset like a wool blanket thrown across its knees.

Sailors were busy at their evening routine, scrubbing the decks and tangling with the cables and ropes up in the rigging. It was a welcome sound to my ears.

Their work was endless and constant, day in and day out, as they traversed the waters from one harbor to the next, seeking a safe berth, enduring the storms that came their way, knowing another would be inevitable, but continuing on the set course just the same.

For they had committed to it. And there was no going back.

Would you want to go back?

I didn’t answer myself, not wanting to hear my own reply. Or the competing replies from that part of my brain that could still manage rational sense.

Bury your rational sense, Lord M. Bury it deep. For my sake.

Soon enough, I caught sight of Victoria at the rail of the ship, her wandering gaze cast out over the water, watching the sun slip beneath the horizon with all its peach and orange shades spilling out on the sparkling sea.

She was dressed no better than a servant girl, wrapped up in the folds a knit sweater that I’d bought her in Belfast. No silks, no taffeta, no tiaras. Her dark brown hair was worn down around her shoulders and her expression held a pensive quality that I wondered at.

But the last rays of sunlight fell on her face softly, framing her features with an angelic quality that had me tempted to remember that I was in the presence of a Queen.

The Queen of the British Empire—the woman who currently shares your bed.

She heard my footsteps approach and turned. Her smile deepened, dimpling her cheeks as I joined her at the rail. She took the offered cup of tea, wrapping her cold fingers around the warmth of that mug, heat seeping from the heart of the liquid within.

“Two sugars?” she wondered, as she blew at the white steam.

“As you requested, Ma’am,” I answered, nearly brazenly. I was convinced that the mere title of address, so innocent to most ears, would expose our identities outright. We were traveling under false names and had made an effort to be discreet. And yet, I couldn’t help but give it to her, as I knew she wanted.

She’d said as much in our bunk below deck the night before as we continued those same activities we’d started in Mrs. O’Grady’s lodging house.

I would have you call me “Ma’am” until the last of my hair has turned grey, she whispered at my ear.

“Do I look different?” Victoria asked me now, curious as always and seeking my opinion. I wondered what she meant.

Did she wonder if this path that we’d set out on had changed her? Did she wonder if what we’d done and what we were continuing to do, so rashly and with so little endeavor into the dangers and consequences it would bring, would manifest itself on the delicate features of her beautiful face?

Or was that just me…?

She was leaning over the ship’s side again, her elbows balanced on the railing, the hot tea held tight in her hands far above the waves beneath. A few strands of her dark hair twirled lightly in the sea breeze and it was all I could do not to reach out and stroke them back behind her ears…and kiss her.

And then kiss her again.

Once I started kissing her, it seemed impossible to stop. I held back my hand, but only because I knew that we would retire for the evening soon. And my touch was best served to her below decks, away from the prying eyes of sailors and fellow passengers.

But I took a moment to inspect her features nonetheless, same as I’d been doing since we woke together in that lodging house in Belfast, and the morning after, aboard this ship, and now the morning after that.

“You look a little tired,” I spoke truthfully, the ruefulness in my voice only slight now.

If I had regrets, it was impossible to rectify them now. I’d gone too far and dragged her with me. I knew someday, perhaps someday soon, all those regrets and the gravity of what I’d done would crash down on me like a wave intent on drowning me. But for now I was…calm. Utterly calm.

And terribly happy.

I knew I didn’t deserve this feeling. But I couldn’t help it. Victoria insisted on it.

“But you look beautiful too,” I continued, unable to lie to her.

Her cheeks flushed a little at the compliment, pleased that I was giving them so freely. After that first night, she’d said we were in this together now. She made me promise that I wouldn’t say the words she knew I must say, no matter the cost of staying silent or the wrongs I had done her.

I don’t want to hear it. I never want to hear it, William. Not now, not ever.

I promised, and sealed that promise with another kiss, as unwilling to voice those lingering objections as she was to hear them. She currently had it in her power to elicit whatever promises she wanted from my lips.

I was defeated, thoroughly and gloriously.

I had been resisting this for so long. Resisting her. Since that day I met her in Kensington. It was hopeless to think otherwise. And I had grown so weary of the resistance. Giving in to her was like coming home and I was not strong enough, nor brave enough, to say no to that sort of homecoming.

Not when she banished away the shadows so easily, seizing my hand and bringing me out into the sunlight for the first time in as many years as I could remember.

One of the sailors up in the rigging had pulled out his harmonica and graced the twilight with a melodious tune that caught Victoria’s fancy. The toe of her laced boot tapped gently against the deck planking. That look in her eyes asked me a question that I wouldn’t think to deny.

I couldn’t deny her anything. And what’s more, I didn’t want to.

“I want to dance with you,” she confirmed. Her tone was quiet but strong, knowing the faraway echo of those words too well. Once, she said them with champagne on her lips, giddy and too free with her affection. And once, I answered as a fool, not realizing the depth of that affection.

Not tonight, Ma’am.

But those words were gone. That time was gone. Never to return again.

The sun set in the west and we sailed straight for it. To a new life, to a new world. Lord Melbourne and Queen Victoria, no longer. Just William. Just Victoria.

No, never “just” Victoria, I amended in my head. Victoria, my love.

Victoria, the queen of my heart.

“Come dance with me then, Ma’am,” I reached over and slipped the mug from her hands, setting it aside with mine. As the sailor’s tune turned wistful, I held out my hand to receive hers.

With a wide grin, Victoria took it.