A Curious Beginning

Stoker gave me a quizzical look. “What the devil are we doing here?”


“I have never been to the Tower of London,” I told him simply. “It might be my last chance.”

“Veronica—” he began, but I waved him off.

“I am not prey to martyrdom, Stoker. I have no intention of letting these ruffians abscond with me. But I would be a fool not to take advantage of the opportunity for new experiences, you must agree.”

He gave a gusty sigh. “Very well. But why here? It is bloody cold.”

“You have answered your own question. We are not likely to be followed or overheard, and I always find a brisk breeze clears my head. So we shall stand up here and let the wind buffet us while we work it out.”

He peered over the edge of the tower to the swirling green waters of the Thames.

“Traitors’ Gate,” I observed. “Just think of all the Tudors who came this way to meet their fates—Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, the Countess of Salisbury, poor little Lady Jane Grey. Not a comforting thought.”

“Yes, well, royalty has a history of going to bloodthirsty lengths to retain its hold on power,” he commented dryly. He dropped his head. “Damn me for a fool. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You are not wrong. The history of our country is quite forthcoming on the fate of traitors and pretenders. Even unwilling ones,” I said, thinking of the sad little puppet Jane Grey. “But that was a different time. We live in a modern age, Stoker. And in a world with steamships and telegraphs and suspension bridges, I find it difficult to believe anyone would be put to death for the misfortune of having the wrong blood.”

“Are you willing to take that chance?” he asked.

“No.” I took one last shuddering glance at the padlocked gate and turned to Stoker. “So let us begin. Who would have motive to wish me harm?”

“The royal family,” he said promptly.

I considered, then shook my head. “I think not.”

“They have the most to lose if you make your claim,” he pointed out.

“But look at them—really look at them. What are they? They may be royal, but they have the values of middle-class Germans. They believe in God and duty and respectability. Granted, my father may have erred against that in his liaison with my mother, but consider what he did. When he believed himself in love for the first time, he did not simply seduce the girl. He married her. No one in the whole of the Empire could have known better than he what he was risking in doing so. But he did it. He may have regretted it afterward when he realized the enormity of it all, but he did not simply sin with her and damn the consequences. The Prince of Wales is a romantic.”

Stoker snorted. “Have you paid attention to the newspapers? Your princely father has seduced the wives of half the court. He has been named in divorce proceedings, Veronica. That is hardly the sort of thing one would expect from a romantic.”

“It is precisely the sort of thing I would expect,” I countered. “He thinks with his heart. He is in love with women and the idea of love. He believes himself chivalrous. He married Lily because it was wildly improbable, like something out of myth—or his own family history. Have you forgot Edward IV? He married a widowed nobody and made her Queen of England. No doubt the Prince of Wales thought he could do the same, and somehow, between marrying Lily and announcing his betrothal to Princess Alexandra, he changed his mind. But what?”

Stoker retrieved the page he had torn from the Brief History and scrutinized it for a long moment. “He changed his mind—or something changed it for him,” Stoker said slowly. “And I’ve just realized what it was. The date your parents married—it was the autumn of 1861. By the following year, he became engaged to Princess Alexandra. Do you remember what happened in December of 1861?” he asked, brandishing the page.

“Hardly,” I replied. “I was, you will recall, in utero at the time.”

“In December of 1861, Prince Albert died.”

I stared at him, comprehension turning to certainty as Stoker elaborated. “The Prince Consort fell ill after he visited the Prince of Wales at university. The royal court never addressed the rumors, but they walked together for hours in a chilling rain. What would drive a man of not terribly robust health to take his son for a private walk where no one could overhear them in killing weather?”

“A scandal about to break,” I finished breathlessly. “He had learned of the marriage.”

“Or at least heard something of their liaison. Enough to send him straight down to school to upbraid his son, even though they would have been together in just a few weeks for Christmas.”