It meant there had been truth in her words—truth the Queen had already known, truth she had been waiting for someone to confirm. And now it was in the Prince Regent’s hands.
Elizabeth had done all she could. She had been assured there was nothing more to worry about. So why did it feel as though something was coming?
A sharp knock at the door startled Alice into a flinch.
Elizabeth’s stomach dropped. She exhaled slowly, carefully. There was only one person who would be knocking at this hour.
The door opened, revealing her father, the Marquess of Ashwick, standing on the threshold with an expression of considerable amusement. “Well, well,” he drawled. “It appears my daughter has acquired the peculiar talent of being summoned to royal audiences twice in one day.”
Elizabeth’s spine went rigid. “What do you mean?”
The marquess stepped inside, holding a folded letter between his fingers. “A royal messenger just delivered this for you.”
Elizabeth stared at it.
Her father beamed as he extended it toward her. “The Queen desires to be ‘entertained’ by Lady Elizabeth this evening, to banish her melancholy. I sincerely hope you have been practicing your Bach and your Clementi.”
Alice gasped. “Her Majesty requests your presence?”
Elizabeth’s mind raced as she reached for the letter, unfolding the thick, cream-colored paper. The message was brief—formal, polite, and utterly confounding.
There was no mention of their earlier meeting. No hint of its true purpose.
Just a simple, gracious command:
“Her Majesty, the Queen, commands the presence of Lady Elizabeth Montclair at Buckingham House this evening, that she might lend some agreeable company to dispel the melancholy which currently dims the light of the royal household.”
“You must have made quite the impression, petal.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the letter, and she blinked unseeingly at the paper. There was nothing about this that made sense. “Father,” she asked, her voice a distant echo even in her own ears, “is the Queen known to summon the ‘agreeable company’ of someone with whom she is barely acquainted, and at such an hour?”
Her father paced idly, hands behind his back. “The Queen has always been a mercurial creature—the whims of royalty, of course. One mustn’t read too much into it.”
Elizabeth looked up sharply. “You are not curious about why she would send forme?This is hardly common.”
“Hardly,” he agreed. “But I imagine it has something to do with the unfortunate business with Perceval. The Queen must be beside herself with worry for her family. Perhaps the king had a difficult episode, as has been rumored. It stands to reason she would seek some pleasant distraction.”
Pleasant distraction.
Elizabeth inhaled slowly.
She knew better. Her father’s theories were reasonable, but they were wrong. She had stood before the Queen only hours ago.
She had seen the calculation behind those dark eyes, the way the Queen had given nothing away—and yet had already determined a course of action. And now, Elizabeth was being summoned again.
This was no idle whim.
Should she tell her father?
She could say it now—tell him why the Queen was calling for her, why she had already had an audience earlier that day, why this had nothing to do with courtly amusements and royal melancholy.
But she knew what he would say. She could hear it now.
“I believe that you believe what you saw.”
“I am sure whatever you thought you witnessed was very serious indeed.”
“Let the ministers handle it.”
