Freezing mist wound its way through London. Ghostly grey and flecked with soot, it veiled the streets where the great scenes had played out; the mob that had rushed at Walpole in the House of Commons, the petition from the City of London. Now the noise and light had retreated, it was cold around the palace; as cold as the corpse of the Excise Bill. Even George’s bubbling rage had crystallised. He sat rigid, an ice statue of a King, as his hunter frisked across the grass beside Henrietta and Dandy.
The horses’ shoes rang against the hard ground. Visibility was poor. Fat-bellied clouds and fog obscured the winter sun, leaving only a strange, pearl light. Henrietta did not mind. She didn’t care to see the expression on George’s face.
‘Look behind,’ he demanded. ‘Are the guard close?’
She made a cursory glance over her shoulder. ‘Really, how am I meant to see? Do not trouble yourself. No angry mob would be able to find you in this mist.’
‘I’m not afraid of the mob,’ he replied hotly. There was a chink as he reached for his sword. ‘If they came for me, I’d give them a damn good thrashing.’
‘I don’t doubt you would try, George. But they would overpower you and roast you alive if they thought it meant the end of this Excise Bill.’
George’s spurs glinted through the fog. His hunter danced to the side. ‘They are fools! It is my bill and my country. Walpole is my man now. Impertinent paupers! They do not know what they’re talking about.’
Dandy threw his head up, jangling the bit. Steam plumed from his nostrils. His brown ears flicked back and forth, unnerved by the tension. Once, the flare of George’s temper had made Henrietta uneasy too; now it disgusted her. What a pathetic, childish thing it was for a man to scream insults. He could not use his wit and solve a problem; he merely yelled at it, as if he could blow it away with the volume of his voice. ‘They are talking about their freedom. Even your poorest subject is qualified to speak on that topic.’
George wheeled his horse back toward her. Its hooves churned up the scent of cold leaves and frosted grass. ‘What?’
She pulled Dandy to a halt. Her heart raced. The drifting mist shrouded George and gave her the courage to speak her mind. ‘Lowering the land tax. Who does that benefit? The estate owners, the country squires. Not the poor.’
‘Have a care, madam.’ The threat in his voice carried through the fog.
‘You forget I have been poor myself. I know what an extra tax means. Oh, you might say it is only a custom, collected inland. No doubt that is what the Queen and Walpole tell you. But the truth is, many people can only afford to buy their drink and tobacco from smugglers. If you stamp out smuggling, you are as good as taking bread from their mouths.’
There was a swish and a thwack as George’s whip came down on his horse’s rump. He appeared gradually through the mist. Dandy sidled at the apparition. She put a hand on his neck to steady him.
‘I have come closer,’ George growled, ‘because I think you have forgotten whom you are talking to.’
She gritted her teeth on a spurt of temper. Enough, for now. He could make her poor once more, if he chose to, and her deed of separation would be jeopardised. ‘I am sorry that our opinions differ on this subject. Shall we make our way back?’
He considered her. She stared down at Dandy’s mane, uncomfortable beneath his gaze. Despite her schooled expression, despite the fog, she was sure he would see that her heart had changed toward him. That there was another man, far dearer, hovering around her.
‘It is the company you keep,’ he said slowly. ‘Those damned Berkeleys.’ Leather creaked as he adjusted his position in the saddle. ‘Oh yes, I know you have seen them, despite my orders.’
She held Dandy a few paces behind him, safe from his lashing whip and the hunter’s rear hooves.
‘There’s no end to the strife you have caused at my court. Compton, Gay, the Berkeleys. And the separation from your husband! It is as if you live to shame me.’
‘You cannot blame me for separating from Charles. You know how he treated me.’
His snarling expression made her recoil. ‘I know I paid a fortune to keep him at bay, even before your damned separation. Why did you need a legal paper too?’
How could she make him see? Any tie to Charles, legal or religious, sullied her. Her honour, her very soul, yearned to be free of him. ‘I needed security.’
‘Wanted to trap me into keeping up the payments, did you? You doubt my honour, now? Perhaps you are right. God knows, you do not deserve the wage I pay you.’
‘You do not mean that,’ she whispered.
He grunted. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I am not a monster; I will keep paying your husband, as agreed in the settlement. That’s all you really care about. That is the only reason you took up with me.’
Henrietta flinched. It was so close to the truth that her conscience stung. ‘No! I care for you.’
‘If you did, you would relieve my sorrows, not add to them. You were supposed to be a consolation for me, a place of retreat. Now you are against me, just like Fred.’ His eyes were cold as chips of ice. ‘I tell you plainly, your dog of a friend Lord Chesterfield will be dismissed for his part in quashing my Excise Bill. If you so much as look at him again, or the damned Berkeleys, you will be dead to me.’
Drizzle beat down upon the cobbles. Moonlight winked off their wet glaze. A stream of mud and offal slid down the street, washing Caroline’s hopes with it. ‘So it is over. We must give way.’
Hervey and Walpole shuffled behind her. With her back to them, she let tears spill over her lashes and fall down her face. Foolish, to cry over an Excise Bill. But defeat weighed heavy upon her chest, forcing her to lean forward and press her forehead to the window’s cool glass. How had it all unravelled so fast?
Walpole cleared his throat. ‘I fear we must. The clamour is too loud. I cannot carry a majority.’
Golden streaks lit up the western sky. The setting sun, or another mob burning effigies of her and Walpole? She wished she had been at the riots with the constables, drumming her foolish subjects over the head with a wooden club. ‘Well, then. Tomorrow we surrender.’
‘The King!’ A servant announced.
Caroline turned at the sound of her husband’s footsteps.
‘So, you have heard?’ George stalked over to the window seat and sat with a huff. ‘Puppies, blockheads and whimsical fellows; that’s all I have in my Parliament. They threw out a bill which was for their benefit! Well, let them pay a higher land tax and be damned!’
‘But the people will think they have won in a battle of wills against us. This looks like weakness. You must not allow – ’
He jerked, reddening. ‘Don’t you start, madam. I have had enough bold-faced cheek from your servant, thank you. I will not tolerate any more.’
‘Which servant?’
‘Which do you think? My Lady Suffolk.’ George clicked his jaw. ‘In all my life, I never heard her carry on like she does about this Excise Bill. Very high and mighty she is, too! Deaf, peevish old beast! The title of countess has gone to her head.’
Caroline caught Walpole’s eye. His advice cawed in her ears like a flock of crows. Befriend the harlot. Imagine what young, ambitious vixen the King might take up with. Vultures circled already; the girls’ governess would leap into George’s bed, given half a chance. ‘Have patience, my love. Lady Suffolk is not herself; her friend Mr Gay is seriously ill.’
‘What!’ The word exploded from him as he rose to his feet. ‘That scribbler? That hack? Of all the friends to cherish! I know very well what his Beggar’s Opera was about, madam.’ He gestured to Walpole. ‘Mocking my minister! My government! If he was not already at death’s door, I would run him through myself!’
A wave of pain took Caroline unawares. She clenched her teeth, trying to make it look like a smile. ‘I agree, my love. Lady Suffolk keeps strange company. And it is ludicrous of her to start having opinions at her time of life. But I’m sure she will settle down, once her grief subsides.’ She hoped she was right. Since building Marble Hill, Henrietta was unpredictable. She had a retort for every chide and a brisk, outraged step that made her skirts swell with air. Caroline’s mild lady had gone.
‘She had better settle down or she will be out on her ear. I have made it clear I will not speak to her if she sees Lord Chesterfield again.’ He rubbed his hands together with a froth of lace cuffs. ‘He’ll be dismissed immediately for the part he played in scuppering our Bill.’
Unease tugged on Caroline’s skirts. They could hardly afford to make more enemies. ‘Mutiny must be punished, of course. But do you think we ought to wait until the cry has settled down? Already, our standing with the people – ’
‘Damn the people!’ George slammed his palm against the wall, making picture frames shake. ‘They are my people. They should bow to my will.’
But they never would. Without the contrary nature of the English, George would not have a crown on his head in the first place. The people chose their own kings now; blood meant very little, divine right nothing at all.
Walpole wet his lips. ‘Her Majesty may remember that I spoke to the King some time ago, about a marriage for the Princess Anne.’ Caroline’s stomach folded in. She didn’t want to hear it. ‘Earlier today, the King and I discussed the subject once more. We feel now may be the perfect time for a royal wedding.’
George nodded. ‘Give the mobs something to gawp at. They will forget their blasted freedoms when the fountains flow with wine.’
Caroline had no plausible argument against it. Anne was desperate to wed; she always had been. But the idea of separation was unbearable. ‘Whom do you consider?’
Walpole’s eyes slid away. ‘A fine Protestant match, Your Majesty. One always popular: the Prince of Orange.’
Her heart seized. The English loved the House of Orange for the sake of King William, who had saved them from Catholic despotism. But the current prince was no match for her darling. ‘Is he not deformed? Or a dwarf? I heard something of the like . . .’ She began to pace like George, her panniers swinging. ‘This would be a fall in consequence for Anne. She will not do it. Why, he has not twelve thousand pounds a year!’
George stopped by the fireplace. ‘She will marry him if I tell her to,’ he grunted. ‘Ring for her now – we will discuss it.’
A servant moved and a bell echoed in a distant part of the palace. Its sound throbbed through Caroline as though it were a tocsin. The thought of her daughter, stuck in some awful backwater with an ugly man . . . ‘Shouldn’t we marry Frederick instead?’ she tried desperately. ‘It is more fitting, for the succession.’
George goggled at her. ‘Have you run mad? Give that puppy a co-conspirator? You would have some sassy, upstart princess winning over the people. We would have to increase his allowance and give him houses of his own. Has he deserved that, from his behaviour to you?’
‘Very well. But if it is to be Anne, surely there must be some better match for her . . . ’
‘There is none,’ Walpole admitted. ‘Unless you want her to marry a Catholic.’
‘No, that will never do.’
Anne’s footsteps rang on the floorboards outside.
George looked at her earnestly. ‘You know, Caroline, this prince’s appearance might not be so bad. And our girl is hardly a beauty herself.’
Caroline’s retort died on her tongue as Anne sailed into the room. Looking objectively, George was right. Anne’s plump bosom burst over her bodice and her stays creaked as she walked. A lace cap hid her golden hair and fell into pleats framing her round face. Pits speckled her skin where the smallpox had been. The scars made her look wrinkled, older than twenty-five.
George sighed. ‘Well, then. Sit, child.’ Anne pushed up her carmine skirts and took a chair. ‘We have been discussing your marriage, Anne.’
Her eyes glittered. ‘At last! Will I be a queen?’
Something twisted within Caroline. She looked down and toyed with the lace at the crooks of her elbows, deliberately avoiding Anne’s gaze.
‘No,’ George confessed. ‘Though perhaps the wife of a Stadtholder, one day.’
‘The Prince of Orange, then.’ Anne exhaled. ‘I thought so. There’s not really another choice, is there?’
So she had been studying the houses of Europe. How pitiful to think of her poor daughter pouring over genealogies, desperate for a mate, finding only one solution.
‘He is two years younger than you.’ George’s voice turned gruff; perhaps he had misgivings too, now Anne sat before him. ‘But very amiable, by all reports. I fought alongside his father; he was a fine man.’
Anne shifted on her seat, sending up a waft of jasmine. ‘Well, I must marry. I pray God will preserve you for many years Papa, but I cannot be here when Frederick’s reign comes. I hate the fellow.’ George snorted. ‘Mama? What do you think?’
Caroline squeezed her eyelids shut. ‘I understand . . .’ Her voice drained away. She tried again. ‘I have heard there may be some physical abnormalities about the man. But he is the only option you have.’
‘That’s settled, then.’ Anne brushed her skirts. ‘I must have a husband. The Prince of Orange is my only chance. I would marry him even if he were a baboon.’
‘Well, it will be something from the menagerie,’ George muttered.