Brunswick Palace
December 1794
Caroline stared down at a carriage that had been brought around from the stables. A driver and groom were cloaked and muffled against the miserable weather. Two trunks had been secured on top; they appeared to be taking someone on a journey.
The time had not yet arrived, but soon a carriage would be waiting to take her as well. From one prison to the next. From Brunswick Palace to St. James’s Palace.
Princess Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel turned her gaze to the town’s red roofs, stretching off into the distance beyond the 326 spiked iron bars of the fence at the end of the palace courtyard. Icy rain had been falling for an eternity, and the Oker River lay like a sluggish grey snake beyond the leafless trees.
Rousseau said that man was born free but was everywhere in chains. This cold, loveless palace was her home. But it was also her prison. From the moment Caroline took her first breath, she’d been bound with gilded chains. Growing up, she was watched. Herded about like a prize sheep. Berated and chastised bitterly if she were to try to speak to a commoner or, God forbid, a man. She’d been educated to please others. Dressed to please others. Persecuted to please others.
Be silent. Submit.
Though she’d struggled to resist, her shackles still weighed her down. Her life wasn’t her own. Her mind wasn’t her own. Her future wasn’t her own. She was living the desperate existence of a convict.
Still, there was no other place she wished to be. Nowhere else she wished to go. It crushed her to think of it. But go she would, when they decided on the date. To England. Married off to her first cousin, a man who already had a wife.
Those details have all been worked out. The woman will be gone and forgotten long before you arrive. Her mother’s cold assertion was a nail raked across slate.
Gone and forgotten. What kind of man simply dismissed and forgot a woman he’d been attached to for years? The knowledge only added to her disgust for the English prince. A drunken whoremonger. A notorious wastrel. Marrying her only because his Parliament promised to pay his debts. And when he had what he wanted, she too would be deserted and forgotten.
Caroline’s fate would be no different from her older sister’s. Poor Augusta, married off to the prince of Wurttemberg. Abandoned in St. Petersburg after giving her husband two children. And then found dead. Most likely murdered.
No questions were asked by the family. Augusta did her duty, Caroline, as you will do yours. Her mother’s words echoed off the walls the day she announced the tragic news.
Her duty. She was nothing more than a pawn in her parents’ game of self-advancement. Caroline’s past and her secret marriage, the death of the only man she’d ever loved, and the well-hidden fact that she had a son had all been buried within the cold, marble halls of Brunswick Palace.
Her marriage to the future king of England was the “brilliant” match the duchess had been scheming for. Augusta Guelph, sister of King George III of England, wanted her claws and influence back on the English throne. And the union of the two houses raised her family’s status to the greatest heights.
Caroline was another sacrifice on the altar of their ambition.
The door opened and closed behind her. Caroline stared out at the gleaming iron bars. She knew who it was, and she didn’t turn to greet her mother. No one else entered without knocking. Only her prison guard.
“It’s time,” the Duchess of Brunswick said curtly. “The English delegation is en route. You must be prepared to go when they arrive.”
“As you wish.”
Caroline turned and faced the duchess, who stood as still and lifeless as a statue. The battles she’d fought, the tears she’d shed, the words she’d pleaded were all behind her. In this very room, she’d been berated, crushed, and silenced.
“I’ll do as you wish,” Caroline repeated, trying to keep her emotions in check. Her voice threatened to break. “But you must live up to your promise. You must take care of my son.”
Her mother’s face showed no change. No hint of what she was thinking or feeling. If she felt anything at all.
“I shall do with him as I see fit.”
“You promised to keep Cinaed at Brunswick Palace. You promised to raise him in a manner befitting his parentage.”
“I said no such thing. All I promised was that the boy will live.”
“Live?” Caroline snapped. “He is no sheep to be slaughtered. He is my son. Mine. And regardless of all the lies you’ve told about my ‘unblemished’ past, I can end this engagement you’ve arranged the moment your visitors arrive. I’ll tell the delegation from England that I was married and I have a son. I’ll tell them that Cinaed is the direct descendent of—”
“You’ll do no such thing.” The duchess’s voice rang through the room, her eyes flashing like red coals in her heavily powdered face. “I own him as I own you. Do you know how easy it is to end a four-year-old’s life?”
She wouldn’t dare, but Caroline’s entire body stiffened. Her hands formed claws to tear out the woman’s eyes.
“A push down the stairs. A plate of food tainted with a drop of poison. A fall from a boat. If you fight me now, Cinaed will meet a far worse fate than the one planned for him. And he wouldn’t be the first, as you well know.”
Caroline could say what she might. She could fight her with words, with her pleas. But the invisible chains she’d had been bound with for her entire life rattled and bit into her flesh. Her shoulders sagged. She knew what her mother was capable of.
“My son will live. You said he’ll live,” she repeated, weighed down with defeat. “You must assure me he’ll be safe.”
Her mother said nothing for a moment. Caroline forced herself to wait. Fighting her only made the older woman lash out more. Her disobedience would only result in more suffering for her sweet child. Finally, the duchess broke the silence.
“I’ll regret these maternal feelings of mine. But I came up here to give you the chance to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” She followed the duchess’s gaze to the door into the adjoining room.
The cold panic of understanding washed through her. She knew this time would eventually come. The day when they would be separated. But this was too soon.
Caroline felt the air being squeezed from her body. “Where? Where are you sending him?”
“Scotland.”
Scotland. The land of his father. Caroline moved as if in a dream to the door. Her heart ached so badly that she feared it would stop beating.
In the next room, she found her beloved boy standing beside Anne Mackintosh. They were both wearing traveling cloaks. Anne was a spinster, a friend, a woman of integrity who’d joined her entourage in the days when Caroline was with child, after she’d been torn from her husband’s arms and dragged back to Brunswick Palace.
Anne knew the truth. She knew who’d fathered Cinaed. At least, she was the one taking him away.
Small hands tugged at Caroline’s skirts. “Are you sending me away?”
She crouched and pulled Cinaed into her arms. She couldn’t find the words to explain the curse of her life to her son.
“We both must go.”
“You’ll come with me?”
His large blue eyes were fixed on her face. Tears Caroline would not allow to fall in her mother’s presence now ran freely down her cheeks. Sharp claws clutched at her throat.
She kissed her son’s face, speaking only to him. “No, but I’ll come and see you. I’ll come for you.”
“I don’t want to go.” Arms clung to her neck. The child buried his face against her breast. “Please, Mama. Keep me with you. I love you. Keep me. Please!”
Tears turned to sobs. Caroline searched for words. “We don’t have a choice, my love.”
“I want to go with you.” The arms tightened more, the young voice growing louder. “I’ll be good!”
She motioned to Anne, and the Scotswoman pried the child from her arms. Cinaed screamed, fought to get back to her, but Anne handed him to an attendant at the door who quickly left with him.
“I’ll come for you,” Caroline repeated again and again. Hearing her son’s cries move down the hallway, she felt something die inside her. It wasn’t her heart, for that had already been torn from her chest. But she felt something else shrivel and wither away to nothing.
“I have to leave. He’ll be better once we’re on the road.” Anne touched Caroline’s shoulder and moved toward the door.
“Wait!”
From inside her dress, Caroline drew out a chain and ripped it from her neck. A ring dangled from it, and she thrust it into Anne’s hands.
“Keep this for him, please,” she gasped. “Keep him safe. And tell him … tell him I’ll come for him.”