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“Well, she’ll just have to meet with her privy council and assess them. But that is the reason it is so important you find someone to marry,” the queen continued, addressing Justine now. “Someone you may trust as you trust your sister. Someone who will help you with the burden of the crown, like my Albert. I do not mean to be indelicate when I say that time is of the essence for you, my dear. Youmusthave someone on whom you can depend. On whom the country can depend. If you don’t, the courtiers will eat you alive.”
Justine made a sound of disbelief. Here they were again, returned to her glaring lack of a husband and her inability, apparently, to be queen in her own right.
The queen leaned back and pushed her teacup away as she shrewdly studied Justine. A footman was there at once to refill it. “Do not misunderstand me, dear, please. You are perfectly capable of being a queen, and I daresay, a good one. But the world wants a king. As you can’t give them that in a sovereign, you can give them a consort to admire.”
The queen took the tea the footman had poured, and poured that into another cup. She now had three discarded cups. “Now. What names have you considered for a husband?”
The princess royal looked up from her tea, eager to hear the answer.
“I, ah... I haven’t, actually. My mother has, umm...retained the services of someone to help me, ah...put together a list, so to speak.”
“Yes, but who has been put forth for the list?” A footman stepped in and cleared away the empty cups.
“I don’t rightly know,” Justine said apologetically. “But I know many have been suggested.”
“Of course many have!” the queen declared. “You’re young and comely, and you appear to have a figure suitable for providing the next heir. You’ll make a fine catch for a man with ambition, won’t you? Are you particular? You’ve every right to be. The wrong man will take your throne if you’re not careful.”
Once again, Justine’s surprise nearly caused her to choke on her tea. “Pardon?”
“Men like to control things. Albert was a bit like that when we first met, wanting to tell me what to do.”
Her daughter laughed.
“But I married him because he was so very handsome, and there is no one dearer to me than my family.”
That would argue that Victoria had not followed the advice she was offering, but had married based on looks alone.
A footman appeared with a plate of scones. He set them on the table along with small tubs of clotted cream and honey. They looked delicious, and Justine’s belly might have given a slight rumble.
“I don’t want them,” the queen said. “I had my mind set on cake. Take it,” she said, and the footman deftly removed the scones. “You’ve nearly finished your tea,” she said to Justine. “Have more.” The queen lifted her hand to signal the butler.
“I wouldn’t want to trouble—”
“Of course you must. A pity the cake wasn’t baked properly. It is most excellent. You’ll have to take my word for it.”
The footman poured tea into Justine’s cup, and with the eyes of the queen and princess royal on her, she carefully transferred the contents to yet another cup. As she worked to cool her tea, the queen continued to offer her advice. “There will always be men who think they know what’s best for you, but no one will ever know what’s best for you as well as you know it yourself. You must trust your instincts. Do you hear me? And your ladies-in-waiting! Oh, but you must beverycareful there. Have at least two, if not three. Choose ladies who don’t always agree with each other. If they don’t agree with each other, one of them will be whispering in your ear about the other, and you’ll never miss a thing. Heed me, dear. If you don’t decide who you want for your ladiesstraightaway, your prime minister will install ladies for whom you have no camaraderie and therefore, cannot trust.”
Justine thought at once of Lady Bardaline. This warning was not new to her—her father had said the same, and really, it was not something she needed to be told, particularly when people as august as the queen and her father spoke of it like it was a matter of life and death. It certainly was for her father—there had been an attempt to poison him eight years ago when they’d been in London.
But Justine’s problem was a little different. It wasn’t as if people were telling her untruths or she was listening to the wrong advice. People didn’t tell her anything at all. As if they thought she was easier to manipulate if she was kept in the dark. Well...with the exception of Douglas, who was determined to be honest in a way she didn’t care for.
She didn’t need a minder, either, and that was precisely what they’d asked Douglas to be. It was humiliating! She knew exactly what he’d been asked to do, not because anyone hadtoldher—because they nevertoldher—but because she knew Robuchard. There was a man who liked his power. He had her mother’s ear, and while Justine didn’t know what the two of them had sorted out as far as Douglas was concerned, she was quite sure it had nothing to do with her happiness. She was not daft. And she intended to nip this wrinkle in the bud.
The tea was concluded when no pastry would meet with the queen’s approval. Justine was disappointed—she’d hardly managed to say a word, and there were so many questions she had not had the opportunity to ask. Fortunately, the queen extended another invitation.
“The Duchess of Wellington has invited the mistresses of the robe and ladies of the bedchamber together to knit socks for our soldiers in the Crimea. We’ll have a lunch—perhaps you and your sister would care to lend your considerable talents to the endeavor?”
Neither one of them had considerable talents with knitting needles, but of course Justine had accepted the invitation, pleased to have something to look forward to in the near future.
She was escorted out of the castle, to where her coach and her Weslorian guards were waiting. She climbed inside and looked straight ahead as the coachman closed the door behind her. When she was alone, she leaned her head back against the silk squabs and stared blankly at the brocade pleats in the ceiling.
She dreaded going back to Prescott Hall, to spending hours in the company of the Bardalines. They would be so eager to hear every word the queen uttered today, and Justine couldn’t put them off entirely.
She thought of the invitation Douglas had extended to see the Duke of Sutherland’s picture gallery. She’d had no intention of accepting it and hadn’t even mentioned it to Bardaline. But as London rolled by her window, she wondered if perhaps she was missing an opportunity to be free of her English prison because she was vexed. She still thought Douglas a scoundrel of the first water, but he might be a way out from under the watchful eye of the Bardalines. There were far worse options, she supposed, and at least he was pleasing to look at.
Yes, she decided as the coach picked up speed, rocking along the road, she would tell Bardaline to accept Douglas’s invitation to Stafford House.
CHAPTER SEVEN
