Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series) Read Online Free PDF

debtor’s prison. Dorothy Jordan, unable to rest in her grave, had come back to haunt the man who had treated her so badly.
    William declared he did not believe either of them. Fanny Alsop, Dorothy’s daughter, had always hated him and would tell any tale that might harm him. As for Boaden, he had been mistaken. The whole thing was a fabrication.
    But was it one of the reasons why no one seemed anxious to become his wife in spite of a promise – a vague one it had to be admitted – of a crown?
    He had, however, great hopes of Miss Wykeham. In his pocket he carried Southey’s poem to the Princess Anne of Denmarkwhich a little adjustment had made applicable to Miss Wykeham.
    He would forget past failures and concentrate on success.
    He joined George at the Pavilion, where he was staying with their sister Mary. George embraced him with great affection.
    ‘So you have come, William, to be with me in my sorrow.’
    George always acted so well that one immediately took one’s part in whatever drama was being enacted. Mary, who was now Duchess of Gloucester, wept with George for the loss of his daughter; and as they talked of Charlotte William could not recognize in his niece the young woman whom death had endowed with qualities she had never possessed – or at least her father had not admitted she possessed – in life.
    William was thinking of his wooing. A sailor learned to be practical. But even he realized that this was not the moment to speak to his brother and sister of his intentions.
    But Miss Wykeham was staying in her house at Brighton, for like most of the rich and fashionable she had a house there; and William took the first opportunity to escape from the gloom of the Pavilion in mourning to Miss Wykeham’s house.
    She received him a little archly. She was fully aware of why he had come. He needed a bride and Miss Wykeham – who was no fool – knew that the death of the Princess made the need imperative and, from her point of view, the match more desirable.
    ‘How good of you to call.’
    ‘Oh, I had a purpose.’
    He was very lacking in the graces of polite society. Was it due to all those years of bourgeois existence with the easy-to-please Dorothy Jordan? wondered Miss Wykeham.
    ‘A purpose? Now I wonder what that could be.’
    She fluttered her eyes at him. She had been told they were very fine. As fine as her fortune? she had wondered, for she was a somewhat cynical young woman.
    ‘You shall see. Here read this. Or would you like me to read it to you?’
    ‘You read it to me. But pray first be seated.’
    She led him to a couch and they sat down together while he read Southey’s poem to the Princess Anne of Denmark.
    ‘What flattering words. Did I really inspire them?’
    ‘No one but you, my dear Miss Wykeham. And you must know why.’
    ‘In case I have misunderstood, don’t you think you should explain?’
    ‘It’s as simple as this,’ he said. And he repeated the speech he had learned by heart. ‘Dear Miss Wykeham I have not a farthing to my name, but if you would like to be a Duchess and perhaps a Queen, I should have great pleasure in arranging it.’
    She laughed. Plain Miss would certainly like to be a Duchess; she would like even better to be a Queen. An exciting prospect.
    ‘That is what is called a rough sailor’s wooing, I suppose,’ she said.
    ‘You can call it that, but I mean every word of it. Well, what’s the answer?’
    ‘Please arrange it,’ she said.
    He laughed with her. He kissed her. She was young, she was not unhandsome; she was very rich, and at last he had found a woman to accept him.

Kent
    THERE COULD NOT have been a more domesticated couple than the Duke of Kent and Madame de St Laurent.
    It had been said that the Royal Marriage Act countenanced adultery and fornication in the royal family. An Act which forbade the sons and daughters of the King to marry without royal consent until the age of twenty-five and after that without the consent of the Parliament