It was coming up to Christmastide. The turnspits in the kitchen revolved and the air became thick with the scent of roasted fowl. The royal children spoke of nothing but the buttery taste of Christmas Pie and the games planned for Twelfth Night. Even Henrietta’s musty apartments took on some cheer as frost sugared her crop of mushrooms. But it seemed the season of goodwill had not thawed Caroline’s heart.
Men were bringing in evergreens to decorate the mantelpieces, leaving a carpet of leaves behind them. Maids of Honour dashed to and fro, squealing about the Yule log and speculating what Caroline would give them in their Christmas boxes. Henrietta was tempted to warn them: do not expect much. From the way Caroline spoke to Lord Argyll, one would think her on the verge of being seized for debtor’s prison. Of course it was all flam. Caroline did not want to pay the additional money. She could not forgive, even to help Henrietta free herself of Charles for good.
Henrietta’s head pounded in time with her footsteps. She had a lowering cold that tore up her throat, but she could not remain in bed. She had to get the money from somewhere, even if it meant angering George again. Men hauling slabs of meat passed her on their way to the kitchens. Blood stained their aprons in crimson streaks. She pictured the hogshead presented before the Christmas feast: staring, gaping, leathery with death. A shiver rippled through her. She could not let Charles keep his hold on her.
The Presence Chamber embraced her with the heat of a wood fire. She stopped beside the door and held out her hands to the flames dancing inside the grate. George did not notice her; he was absorbed with directing the placement of holly and mistletoe. She watched the decorating process for a while, aware that he would fly into a rage if the slightest twig was out of place. Finally, his eyes settled upon her. ‘God’s blood! What now?’
Henrietta twitched her head at the servants.
‘Leave us,’ he ordered. The men left their plants and made a quick retreat.
‘Your Majesty.’ She curtsied, feeling she would fall down with exhaustion. How to persuade and wheedle, when she felt so ill? ‘I am sorry to trouble you.’
He plucked a sprig of mistletoe and began shredding the leaves with his fingers. ‘Aye, you are nothing but trouble. They tell me now that you mean to divorce your husband! Do you have any idea of the noise that will cause?’
She wanted to make a quip about being hard of hearing, but it was not the time. Instead, she inched further into the room, keeping her eyes meekly trained on the floor. ‘You of all people know why I have to do it. Your mother . . .’
‘Do not bring my mother into this.’
‘I beg your pardon. I only meant to say that I might be rid of my tormentor for very little expense. It is not a divorce, but a private separation I seek.’ She peeped up at him. The mistletoe hung in green rags around his fingers now, with only the berries intact.
‘This expense you speak of. I suppose it is one you want me to pay?’
‘I did not want you to pay it. I am sensible of how much you have given me already. I asked my mistress first, but – ’
‘You did what?’ He dropped the mistletoe and ground it under the heel of his shoe. It lay splayed across the wooden floor like an animal hit by a carriage wheel.
Her breath caught. ‘I asked the Queen for an additional one thousand, two hundred pounds a year.’
His face turned liver purple. ‘Blast your eyes, woman! I thought you were discreet, I thought you were delicate? How dare you expose my wife to your tawdry schemes?’
Henrietta cringed back toward the fire. Lord, how she longed for a soft bed warmed by a cinder pan. She was too ill to play this game. She could not pretend, even for George, that Caroline was a genteel lady who would be shocked by the scandal of separation. Caroline had acted no better than a bawd in a Covent Garden bagnio. Why shouldn’t she cough up the ransom Charles demanded? ‘I believe I am the Queen’s servant. At least, that is what her man writes in the account book when I draw my wage. But I see that I was wrong to go to her. I should have trusted in your generosity first.’
He scoffed. Walking over to the throne that stood across from the fire, he flung himself down and crossed his legs. ‘What makes you think I will agree if the Queen has already refused you?’
She closed her eyes briefly and swayed on her feet. Her pannier knocked against the fireplace. She did not want to take this route, but what choice did she have? ‘I know that you are not ruled by the Queen. You make your own decisions.’
Suspicion darkened his brow. ‘There is a difference between standing together on a point and being ruled by one’s wife.’
She groped beneath her waist seam and pulled the crumpled paper from her pocket. For an instant, she was tempted to commit it to the fire. Then she remembered Caroline’s hard words. ‘That is not what your critics say.’ She edged toward the throne and dropped the satirical poem on his lap. It said that he was nothing but a strutting, puppet King who let his wife reign. That if he wanted to have any influence, he would need to lock her up like his mother. She did not envy the poor servants who would have to clean up after he read this. ‘You may wish to look at that paper before deciding whether to agree with the Queen. I shall be in my apartments awaiting your answer.’
Alight with shame and a strange thrill, she backed quickly out of the room and shut the door behind her.
The air was damp and cold. Fine rain soaked through Caroline’s hood and made the short curls at her temples flatten around her face. She inhaled the scent of earth as she watched her gardeners unrolling turf and scattering seed. Knocking things down and building them anew gave her a sense of control – as if she could command the very order of England’s trees.
Of course, she could not. She could not even curb the pen of her former courtier, Mr Gay. How many of the carriages splashing through the muddy park toward town would be going to see his new satire, The Beggar’s Opera? She wiggled her frozen toes inside her shoes and felt the familiar stab of gout. Reason urged her to protect what was left of her health and return inside, but she would rather brave the rain than George’s current mood.
What folly she had committed in snubbing Gay! The written word was a powerful thing; she had always known that. But when Gay needed employment, spite had drowned all her reason. She had encouraged George to slight the man – and now there was this. A play that mocked Walpole and exposed the government as a hotbed of corruption, and that blasted, blasted poem . . .
Below the sharp wind, she heard hooves crunch across gravel. Curious, she wandered away from the gardeners, dragging her gouty leg. A foaming horse skidded to a halt before the palace in a shower of stone. It steamed under the rain. Its rider, splattered with mud, flung from the saddle and darted past the guards.
Goose flesh crept up Caroline’s arms. The sight of a messenger in haste always recalled the day of baby Georgie’s death. She closed her eyes as rain sprinkled over her face. Surely not Fred?
Shaking, she limped back to her ladies. They looked miserably cold with their damp gowns plastered against their skin. ‘Enough of this. I will go inside to the King and tell him how we progress.’
Lady Bristol sighed with relief. Only Mrs Clayton looked at Caroline askance. She had wit enough to realise George cared as little for gardens as he did for painting. She crept up to Caroline’s side. ‘Perhaps you feel unwell, Your Majesty? We will sit you beside the fire and warm you through. Then I will fetch you some of that cordial Colonel Negus makes.’
Dare she confess what she feared? No; she had grown too close to a servant before. ‘I merely wish to speak with the King on a private matter.’
Pulling her skirts clear of the mud, she wound her way toward the palace and entered with her head held high. Every tendon ached with the effort of appearing calm. Rather than taking the mahogany steps up to her own apartments, she climbed the King’s stone staircase with its iron balustrades. Her progress was slow. Her rasping breath and heavy footfalls echoed in the stairwell. From the walls, painted figures watched her struggle; the leading courtiers from Georg Ludwig’s reign. She felt her dead father-in-law’s shadow over her still. He had parted her from Fred. If anything happened to him before she had the chance to see him again . . .
George’s voice carried from the King’s Gallery. Reaching the top of the stairs, she turned right and pushed her burning muscles on. The gallery was long and high with white moulding and a pale wooden floor. In the gloom, its red damask walls looked dark as blood. The messenger’s footsteps had left mud tracks leading to the fireplace where George leant, his hand to his forehead. Four courtiers clustered around him with pinched faces. The moment they saw her, they bowed.
Fear was a solid lump in her breast. She could not even acknowledge their courtesy. ‘George?’
He flung away from the mantelpiece and whispered to Colonel Lome. Nodding, Lome waved a hand at the other men and they disappeared through the door toward the drawing room.
‘George, for pity’s sake, tell me what is wrong. Is it this Beggar’s Opera again?’
‘No. It is Fred.’ She held herself tense, unable to breathe. ‘He is coming home.’
Her knees buckled. As her panniers knocked against the wall, she put out a hand and touched the soft fabric to hold herself steady. ‘But … but that is good news,’ she gasped.
George snorted. ‘You think so? Wait until I tell you why I have sent for him.’
She turned her eyes to the wind-dial above the fireplace and imagined a breeze carrying her son home. But the hand, linked to a vane on the roof, showed that the wind was in the East. ‘Why?’
‘I have intelligence from our envoy in Prussia. Fred plans to escape Hanover and elope with his cousin Wilhelmina.’
For a moment she was so relieved that Fred was safe that she didn’t absorb what George said. But then she looked up into her husband’s face and saw resentment there. Her foolish, foolish boy. He had done for himself. ‘We left him alone too long,’ she murmured. ‘The young are so restless – ’
‘No!’ George barked. Spittle foamed onto his lips. ‘You will not defend him! This is wilful disobedience, contempt for my authority. I told you – I told you that he was my father’s creature!’
She shivered. It had been Georg Ludwig’s wish that Fred marry the Prussian princess. She had heard the girl was so violent in her temper that she fell into fits. How George’s foe, the King of Prussia, would crow to saddle them with such a daughter-in-law. ‘Are we in time to stop him?’
‘To stop the marriage? Yes.’ He drew his watch from his waistcoat pocket and swung it around on its chain. His face set. ‘But for me and Fred . . . I fear it is far, far too late.’