Chapter Three
The palace was brimming with every haughty nobleman in the kingdom. When Daniel stepped into the ballroom, their daughters and some of their wives turned their heads to watch him. Almost all of them smiled. He set his eyes on his queen at the end of the long chamber, seated on an elaborate throne, her smile going softer and more genuine when she spotted him.
He made his way toward her, giving her the honor of greeting her before he spoke to anyone else.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed before her chair when he reached it.
“My lord?” Anne grazed her eyes down the length of him, then back up to his neck and bare head. “You appear before me in undress?”
“Hardly, Ma’am. I merely prefer comfort to propriety. Besides, I thought you might like this.” He pulled the lace from around his neck and handed the pile to her. “I’m told it’s imported from Spain. It would better serve you.”
“You presume to know what I like, General?” She kept her eyes on his while she raised the fabric to her nose. Everyone knew the queen loved him. Still, Anne did her best to appear austere toward him. She failed often.
“It’s my duty to know everything about you, my queen.”
Finally, she offered him an indulgent smile, handing her lace over to a servant at her side. “And your wig?” Her gaze rose to his deep auburn crown. “Do you refuse to wear it because you enjoy torturing my lady guests?”
He shook his head and raked his hand over his shorn waves. “You know I only enjoy torturing your enemies, Your Majesty.”
His smile hardened when he turned away from the queen and spotted the Duchess of Blackburn. He didn’t go to her. Instead, he cut a path to Jeremy Embry, Viscount Stockton, and his wife, Amanda, who were visiting the palace. He’d known them both for years and sought their friendship among his enemies.
“Tonight they’ll dream of hacking off your bare head.”
Daniel pivoted on his damned high-heeled shoes and raked his eyes over every eye that looked at him unkindly because of jealousy and resentment. He didn’t give a rat’s arse what they thought of him.
“Why must you provoke them to dislike you more by making the duchess and almost every other woman at court purr like a kitten?” Stockton asked him, handing him a drink.
“I don’t provoke them,” Daniel muttered wryly. “Their inadequacies do.”
Amanda laughed and slipped her arm through his. “Dance with me tonight, Daniel.”
“That wouldn’t be wise, my lady.”
She sighed and stomped her slippered foot beside his. “I don’t care what the duchess thinks about it. You’re the best dancer in England and my husband is the worst.”
Daniel smiled. He loved Jeremy and his wife, and would go to any lengths to keep them safe. “Another time, perhaps.”
“Dinner at our home next Sunday?” She grinned and tightened her hold on his arm. “We’ve missed you at the last two gatherings.”
He glanced around at all the stately, powdered faces and high wigs. “You know how much I dislike all this, Amanda.”
“How am I supposed to find you a wife if you never attend any gatherings?”
“I’ve no time for a wife.”
“Oh, nonsense.” She slapped his arm softly and looked up at him. “You choose to spend your nights alone rather than provoke her ire.” She glared at Charlotte across the hall.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked with a wry quirk of his chiseled features.
“It leaves you with an empty bed and empty arms.”
She might be correct but there was little he could do about it presently.
“His bed isn’t always empty,” Stockton told his wife quietly. “He’s simply discreet about his affairs.”
Daniel cut him a quick glare before offering a pretty raven-haired woman a slight smile. “As I wish you were, Stockton.”
“Whom have you been with?”
Daniel laughed, moving his gaze to Stockton’s wife. “Amanda, that’s not a proper question to—”
“Lady Eleanor Hollister, for one,” her husband confided.
Daniel stared at him while Amanda gasped and opened her eyes wider.
“She’s pretty enough,” Amanda decided, still holding on to his arm. “But her father is a heavy gambler. He’s known at all the tables and is slowly losing the family fortune.”
“I don’t plan on wedding her, Amanda.”
“That’s wise, dear.” Stockton’s wife smiled at him and then scowled at the man coming toward them with Charlotte on his arm.
Richard Montagu, the Earl of Manchester and one of Charlotte’s present lovers, tipped his wide-brimmed hat and quirked his thin lips into a sneer when he reached Daniel and his friends. His salutation was brief but his eyes, as dark and dull as the thin mustache above his upper lip, lingered on Daniel long enough to make Amanda squirm beside him. Daniel’s body, on the other hand, went stiff with the authority of his rank and confidence of his skill.
“What is this wise thing you’ve done, Darlington?” Montagu asked. “Tell us”—he glanced at Charlotte, then continued—“so that we may believe in the impossible.”
The duchess deserted her escort, much to Montagu’s indignation, and took Daniel’s arm from Amanda’s grasp. “Pay him no heed,” she offered him, ignoring Montagu. “He is jealous of the favor I show you. Are you not, Richard?”
Montagu turned two different shades of crimson and glowered at Daniel’s purposely ill-concealed smile. They were enemies. Daniel didn’t care who knew it. “Of course not, I am merely—”
“Riddled with resentment, Richard,” Charlotte cut him off. “Do not deny it.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Montagu gave in with no further quarrel.
Daniel had offered him friendship over the years. Montagu had refused, choosing instead to let his covetous heart rule him. He was the queen’s cousin and only living relative, if one believed that James Stuart, the Pretender, was just that, a pretender. Montagu hated Daniel because he had the queen’s favor and he constantly brought false accusations against Daniel before her, trying diligently to discredit him in Anne’s eyes. Daniel had no use for him and preferred being away from his company.
“I shall see you later, Richard.” Charlotte waved her hand at him, then turned to Daniel, dismissing her lover from her thoughts as well.
Montagu didn’t want to go and remained in his spot casting his murderous glare on Daniel.
Daniel showed him no mercy and smiled in return. “That will be all then, Montagu.”
Standing to his right, Stockton snickered.
“You’re nothing but a guardsman’s son,” Montagu accused through clenched teeth. “You may have my dear Charlotte and the queen fooled, but I see right through you.”
“Your dear Charlotte is the wife of the Duke of Blackburn, lest you forget. And what is it you see?” Daniel challenged him, keeping his cool behind the dangerous curl of his mouth.
Before Montagu replied, Charlotte held up her palm to stop him. Daniel didn’t need her to defend him, but he enjoyed watching her berate her jealous lover—though it denied him the pleasure of doing it himself.
“In case you have forgotten, Richard, the general quelled a planned invasion by the queen’s stepbrother, James, last year, ending a Jacobite uprising. Since then, he has subdued three other rebellions started by James’s supporters, killing more of the traitorous Scotsmen than any single soldier before him.”
Daniel never boasted his feats or accomplishments, for they often didn’t feel like such things. But now, his hard gaze lowered on the Earl of Manchester and he allowed his smirk to sharpen when Montagu glared at him. Daniel hoped to provoke him. He wished his opponent had more confidence to actually oppose him… or even to oppose the duchess.
“Most important,” Charlotte continued, “he is the queen’s favorite. If you insist on continuing to insult him, you will force her to have you removed from court. Is that what you want?”
“No.”
She didn’t wait to hear him say anything else, but tugged Daniel toward the entrance, dismissing the rest of her escorts.
“I wish to have words with you in private, General Marlow.” Her powdered face glowed against her dark periwig. Her full, rosy lips parted, exposing a glimpse of the slight, beguiling space between her teeth.
Charlotte Adler was an attractive woman. Daniel appreciated her allure, but she was like a feline predator on the prowl for food. Beautiful and deadly. He had no intention of being her next meal. Montagu was proof of the consequences of taking her to bed.
“Perhaps when I return to court, we can—”
“You’re going somewhere?” Her dark eyes sharpened, but not on him.
“He’s leaving on an errand for me.” The queen waved over her shoulder, dismissing the servant who’d wheeled her close to Charlotte. She didn’t look up at her friend but kept her eyes on Daniel. “He leaves in the morning.”
Charlotte’s glare at the queen was almost treasonous. Anne missed it. Had she missed it on purpose?
“Is he a boy that he should run errands?” Charlotte’s voice was somehow sweet, sickeningly so.
“No, Charlotte.” Finally Anne turned to look at her from her chair. “He’s a man whose courage and loyalty I value above all others. That is why I would like a few moments with you in private. You may wheel me to the garden.”
“Please excuse us, Daniel,” Anne said as the Duchess of Blackburn took up her position behind the queen.
Daniel watched them, his legs aching to go before Charlotte had time to toss Anne and her chair over the side of the palace wall. The duchess looked angry enough to kill. She didn’t like anyone stepping on her toes, including the queen, but she knew her place and wouldn’t dare argue too much. He took off after them but stayed behind, far enough away to remain hidden. He followed them to the gardens and moved in the shadows behind them.
What did Anne want to speak to her about? Did it have to do with him? With the Highland Jacobite he was going to escort back here because he’d gone as mad as his queen?
“We are all friends, Charlotte.”
He heard Anne’s soft voice as he stepped around one of the queen’s prized peach trees. “But when it comes to your affairs, please don’t confuse my silence with my pardon toward them. I don’t approve of your indiscretions, but they are yours to deal with, save when it comes to Daniel. Don’t think I’ll sit idly by while you try to seduce him.”
Charlotte laughed and the sound rang empty against Daniel’s ears. “Anne, dear, he was not born to you, despite how deeply you would have liked him to be.”
Knowing Anne’s past tragedies with the births of her children, it was a cruel thing Charlotte said to her.
“When are you going to tell him the truth, hmm, Anne?” Charlotte cut her off. “He should know, or do you like him playing the part of errand boy?”
“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.”
A thread of panic in Anne’s voice perked Daniel’s ears. What truth? He moved a bit closer to them, still unseen, and inclined his ear to her.
“Has he been asking you things?”
“He asks me many things.”
Daniel could hear the smirk in Charlotte’s words.
“Things that we were just speaking about,” Anne clarified.
“You mean his birth?”
His birth? Did he hear Charlotte right? Why would he ask her about his birth? He was Edward and Olivia Marlow’s son. Born in—
“You must never tell him, Charlotte. Vow it to me again.”
“He should know, Anne. What are you afraid of?”
Daniel’s heart pounded. He wanted to go to them and demand to know what they were talking about. But they wouldn’t tell him. Anne wouldn’t tell him. His heart pummeled to his feet. What kind of secret was she keeping from him?
He remained hidden, certain they could hear his short, shallow breath.
“Are you afraid he will want to return to Denmark? Or do you want to keep him at your beck and call the way his father, Prince George, kept his serving girl until she died giving him the son you could never give him?”
Daniel leaned against the palace’s west wall, trying and failing to take in what he’d just heard. Twice he almost threw his head back and laughed at the absurdity of it. His father was Prince George, younger brother of Christian VI, the king of Denmark?
Daniel’s world spun on its axis. No. Of course, he wasn’t. General Edward Marlow was his father. He was born and raised in England. He visited Denmark when he was a young child, but—
“Charlotte”—Anne cut off his thoughts—“Daniel is the only living son born to George. He is a royal bastard of Denmark and that must make him very appealing to you, but you must never tell him! Do you understand me? I told you about this because I trust you. Are you still worthy of that trust? Because if you are not…”
Anne. Daniel closed his eyes and did his best to remain in his spot. This all couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be. There had to be an explanation. Something that didn’t involve Anne lying to him his whole life.
“Don’t worry, Anne,” Charlotte assured her. “I’ll take your secret to my grave.”