A Flaw in the Blood Read online

  “My letters.” Her voice was colourless. “All my private correspondence is gone.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I know exactly what age I was, when I learned that Mama was a whore.

  Well-bred and exceedingly high in the instep, to be sure—demanding the respect and consideration of the Polite World, as must be only natural in one of Royal blood—but a whore regardless.

  It was in the midst of one of our incessant Progresses, when Mama and Sir John Conroy—her Master of Household, the Demon Incarnate—put the Heiress Presumptive on display, among the great houses of England.

  I was eleven. My uncle, George IV, had died at last and I was exceedingly angry at being forbidden to attend Uncle William's coronation—Mama ascribing this calculated rudeness on our part to her delicacy of feeling. As Uncle William claimed ten bastards by the lovely Dolly Jordan, he could not be deemed fit company for the Heiress Presumptive—although he was King of England.

  And so I snubbed the new monarch, whose throne I must eventually fill, and was carried off to Holymount, in the Malvern Hills—by way of Blenheim, and Kenilworth, and Warwick Castle. The year was 1830, and the weather close and hot.

  We had halted perhaps an hour short of Blenheim, so that the horses might be baited and the entire party refreshed. I stood in the private parlour of the inn and stared through the half-open casement, the panes clouded with summer dust. The footman was lording it over the humble ostlers in the stable yard, bragging of his intimacy with the Great; I watched him hawk and spit, and drag his sleeve across the back of his mouth.

  And then a ripple of laughter floated through the open window. My mother's laugh. It was of a timbre I knew well—low and suggestive—followed by John Conroy's lilting Irish brogue. My cheeks flushed without warning and I felt an angry heat burn behind my eyes, an impotent fury clenching my fists. How could they? Mama had insisted on lying down for a while before nuncheon; she had complained of the heat, she had threatened to swoon. And Conroy had found her there, in the bedroom upstairs. His hand, as I had seen it once before in a chance moment at Kensington, sliding beneath the hem of her thin summer gown and rising along her leg, bare in her sandals at this season, his sensuous lips curling with lust—

  Mama's laughter rippled again.

  Dear Lehzen hurried to the casement and pulled it closed.

  I suppose I ought to have been more understanding. My mother had, after all, buried two husbands—both older than she, both more powerful, both men she was ordered to marry and for whom she cared not a jot. She had borne children as demanded, without the slightest reward of affection or income. My father's death when I was yet a babe at the breast had deprived her of the rank she was owed—something on the order of: Princess Dowager of Wales, or, Queen Mother, when once I took the throne—titles she made up, in her idle hours, along with lists of stipends, honours for herself and Conroy, peerages and imaginary posts—

  It was Lehzen who instructed and supported me, Lehzen who revealed to me, quite young, what Fate intended I should be. My cherished governess placed my genealogy as if by chance before me, during our long schoolroom hours; and it was only then, examining the family tree, that I comprehended my nearness to the throne. I burst into tears, overwhelmed by the horror of it. That was the moment I suddenly understood exactly why Sir John Conroy ruled my weak and silly mother—why his charmed caresses formed a noose round my neck. He meant to own the next Queen of England.

  He nearly succeeded. It is in the nature of men to strive for supremacy. All my life I have fought men for power, for the right to claim what is by birthright mine. But on the occasion I would mention, I was but sixteen, and ill with fever, and quite deserted by my friends; and Conroy thought to seize his opportunity.

  A squalid bed in a Ramsgate inn, the Demon towering over me in my fever, a pen in one hand and a riding crop in the other. . . . You will sign, Princess. You will sign this document your mother and I have drawn up, or you will not see a doctor again this side of the grave.

  Mama whipped my thighs herself with the crop that day; she bound my wrists and plunged my head into water until I despaired I would drown.

  Silly girl. Do you not understand what you owe your mother? What you owe the nation? So many sacrifices as Sir John has made for you . . .

  Later I learned that John Conroy believed himself descended from some bastard Royal, that he regarded it as his Destiny to rule England. His madness was animated by the grandest of private delusions.

  That endless day, I refused to sign his scrawl—I sweated, I vomited, I cried out for Lehzen when the pain in my throat grew unendurable—and still they would not relent.

  No doctors, my mother hissed. No doctors until you sign.

  It was weeks before the bruises on my thighs faded. Months before I could tolerate the sight of my mother. From that day forward, I never looked Mama directly in the eye; I spoke always with the royal we. And two years later, when I ascended the throne of England, Sir John Conroy was banished utterly from my world.

  * * *

  The Irish are born gamblers. When forthright dealing fails them, they resort to guile and subterfuge; violence and charm are their left and right hands. That day in Ramsgate the Demon Incarnate threw his cup of dice and lost; but I have not been able to abide his race from that day to this.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Like every other establishment the length and breadth of England, The Bear was closed in respect of the Sabbath—as well as the Consort's death. But the publican was willing to let von Stühlen conduct his private business in a parlour upstairs of a Sunday—for a consideration.

  The Bear dominated a corner of Milk Street, in the very heart of the unfashionable part of London known as the City. The bankers and merchants who made money there were officially beyond the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police. They disdained the protection of mere Bobbies. They maintained instead a private constabulary of toughs. The City's watchmen answered only to money, and they were ruthless in earning their wage.

  Such men had no interest in justice or enforcing the law; they could be bought and used, and this was why von Stühlen cultivated them.

  He had hired a few in the past—when a courtesan proved too demanding; when a friend failed to honour a debt. This was the largest undertaking he had ever attempted, however. His orders were clear: Find Patrick Fitzgerald and Georgiana Armistead quietly and quickly. Make certain they never posed a threat to Her Majesty again.

  If he had a secondary motive, he kept it firmly to himself. That was von Stühlen's way. He made friends easily and widely, he was spoilt and sought after as a darling of Society—but nobody in England knew him at all. Not now that Albert was dead. He wore his fundamental loneliness like a well-cut coat, and the world mistook it for elegance.

  By four o'clock that Sabbath, he was engaged in the final interview of the day.

  Jasper Horan was stooped and simian; his teeth had rotted in his head, but his fists were as blunt as a blacksmith's. Most days he worked as a warehouse foreman for a reputable firm of tea importers, but in his hours of leisure he earned far more against his old age. Already that Sunday Horan and his toughs had found Patrick Fitzgerald's chambers, ransacked Miss Armistead's home in Russell Square, and hunted her down in St. Giles. Now he was back in Milk Street to tender his report.

  “You lost them in Covent Garden?”

  “I wouldn't go so far as to say lost,” Horan countered. “The Paddy put up a devil of a fight, he did. My blokes call him a murderin' savage, like what all them Irish are. Left one man fer dead on the rookery roof, and the rest scarpered.”

  “Then I suggest you hire some Irish, capable of killing him,” von Stühlen said evenly.

  “I've got them papers as you wanted from the Temple.” Horan tossed an oilskin packet on the table, nearly oversetting von Stühlen's claret. “And look what I pinched from the bird's 'ouse.”

  The Count's eyes flicked up. “I believe I told you what to take. You were not to steal
anything else.”

  “Nor have I.” Horan reached into his vest and withdrew a packet of letters, tied with a narrow black ribbon. “These 'ere have the Royal crest, they do—fetch a pretty penny from the newspapers, I reckon. What'll you give me for 'em, then?”

  With his good eye, von Stühlen studied the foreman. “Do you read the newspapers, Horan?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Then you must be aware of the tragic end of the Queen's coachman?”

  “Aye. Broke his neck on 'ampstead 'eath.”

  “There are so many ways to die in the dark.” Von Stühlen extended one white hand for the stolen letters. “Don't haggle with me, Horan. I might consider too deeply how you failed me today—losing Patrick Fitzgerald in St. Giles.”

  It was Alice who drafted the telegram to the consulate in Nice. She had sent one the previous night, at eight o'clock, when Papa was still alive.

  Pray break to Prince Leopold that the Prince is very ill and we are in great anxiety about him.

  During the past week she had sent letters and telegrams to brothers and sisters far from Windsor: to Affie at sea in the North Atlantic, and to Vicky in Berlin. Vicky was the most desperate for news, being Papa's firstborn and special pet. When Papa asked what she'd written, Alice said calmly: I told her you were very ill.

  He had looked at her with his heartrending smile. You did wrong. You should have told her that I am dying.

  Which made her press her hand to her mouth in agony and walk swiftly from the room.

  He had known what was coming. He had looked over the black edge of the abyss, and hurled himself in.

  Alice wished she had held his hand, and gone, too.

  Her father had never been a man to cling to false comfort. He spoke the absolute truth, no matter how brutal. Which made the words he'd muttered into her ear, in his final hour, all the more disturbing.

  There is no one I can talk to, she thought. Not Vicky, far away in Prussia. Not Bertie, already burdened with guilt. Never Mama.

  She looked up from her paper and pen, overwhelmed with the sharpness of loss, with the terror of being alone. She missed Leopold acutely; despite the ten-year difference in their ages, they were fond of each other. What would Papa have said to her eight-year-old brother? What should she write to a child, so utterly alone?

  Stay away from this place, my darling. There is no home here anymore.

  But she could not send such a telegram over the wire. They would think her mad, at the consulate in Nice.

  Please break to Prince Leopold that the Prince Consort passed away at ten minutes before eleven last evening. . . .

  Mad.

  Alice closed her eyes. She would have to tell someone. But who?

  Chapter Fifteen

  These are the symptoms of typhoid fever, as I have observed them in the wasting frame of my Beloved: stomach pains, a general weakness, persistent aching of the head, loss of appetite. And fever, naturally—although Albert's was not so high as is often seen, Jenner tells me. My Dearest was sleepless, and spent much of the last week of his life in roaming about the halls of Windsor, murmuring under his breath, which Jenner also declares is not generally associated with the malady. Albert failed altogether to throw out the characteristic typhoid rash of flat, rose-coloured spots. I asked Löhlein whether he had observed such a thing in his washing and dressing of the Prince, when I met the valet in the Blue Room this evening; he replied in the negative, his dear face quite contorted with emotion. Albert suspected Löhlein was his natural half brother—the old Duke his father being a dissipated and corrupt man, much inclined to exercising his droits du seigneur among the household servants, of which Löhlein's mother was one. The intimacy of blood would perhaps explain the valet's devotion.

  I had gone to the Blue Room just before dinner to strew flowers about the bed on which Albert expired. His remains have been moved to the neighbouring one, and he looks very fine in his uniform—although rather like a wax figure out of Madame Tussaud's. Jenner would not allow me to touch the corpse or kiss it for fear of infection, which I know to be sheer nonsense—no one else in all of Windsor has contracted typhoid—but I submitted to his strictures, as being the best course of conduct for the Kingdom.

  It was only a few weeks ago that our dear nephew, the King of Portugal, was carried off by typhoid, along with his brother; it is this, I must suppose, that has given Jenner the idea of it. Stomach pains, weakness, persistent aching of the head—it might have been any kind of disorder that killed that Angelic Being. But Jenner is an acknowledged expert in typhoid; he sees it everywhere. For my own part, I will maintain Albert died because he preferred it to living.

  “Do you feel at all indisposed, Mama?” my daughter inquired as we met before the door of my rooms. “You look decidedly unwell.”

  “That is to be expected, dear child, is it not?” I attempted. “I have lost the All-in-All of my existence. I cannot long endure on this earth without the support of my Beloved. You will understand a little better, Alice, when once you have been married.”

  She took a step closer, and searched my countenance keenly. “Perhaps you should take dinner on a tray, Mama.”

  “I have no appetite. My head aches acutely. But if you would be so good, dear child, as to order a pot of tea, and perhaps some gruel—and a few of the Scotch oat cakes—to be sent up to my rooms, I should wish for nothing more.”

  “Very well.” She turned away, then hesitated a moment. “Violet informs me, Mama, that some of my silk flowers—for the dressing of my hats—have gone missing. She found them absent from the wardrobe when she turned out my gowns.”

  I stared all my bewilderment. “I must suppose that such things are often gone missing! In a household so large as this— And who is Violet, pray?”

  “My dresser, Mama,” Alice faltered. “We were to meet with the seamstress, to prepare my mourning clothes—and it was then Violet noticed. She thought perhaps my little sisters had taken the flowers for playthings.”

  “I know nothing of trumpery trimmings,” I returned, with a commendable hold on my patience, “—other than that you cannot expect to require them for the next twelvemonth. I do not suppose the flowers were black?”

  “No, indeed,” Alice said. She curtseyed dutifully, and quitted my presence without another word.

  I studied her the length of the hall, until she turned at the landing and disappeared from view.

  I shall have to speak to the Master of Household about Violet.

  Once in the privacy of my own bedchamber, I withdrew Albert's nightgown from his wardrobe and pressed my face into its dear folds, drinking in the scent even as it vanished—that ineffable, unforgettable odor of a distinct and irreplaceable human being. It was then, at long last, that the dreadful sobs were torn from me—the stricken grief of one who has lost the core of strength from the very centre of her being. I did not bother to undress; I did not admit my personal maid; I lay in a paroxysm of weeping in the centre of the great bed, my husband's linen entwined in my arms, until all light had failed and a discreet knock at the door informed me my tea and gruel were arrived.

  I have written frankly, in these secret pages, of the intensity of my passion for Albert; how I craved the touch of his hands, the alabaster smoothness of his body—the muscles of his legs, firm and etched like a stallion's. I cannot entirely comprehend that no hand will ever touch me in an intimate way again—that no one will call me Victoria any more. Once our marriage vows sanctioned physical love, I abandoned myself to the enjoyment of his body—little dreaming that Albert regarded my passion as unseemly. Liebchen, he would mutter, face flushed with embarrassment, his erection surging despite his distaste, a little conduct, if you please. Remember who we are.

  It became a habit between us: Albert aloof and cold, fastidious as a cat, until my appetites whipped him to heat.

  All my life, I have been cursed by fits of despondency—a habit exacerbated by the excesses, so my doctors hint, of childbearing I have endure
d. When my fits of temper frayed Albert's patience, he would retreat to his study and write long lectures in German. Remote as Zeus upon Olympus, he denied me his sex—and I would fall sobbing on our bed and sulk behind locked doors. Albert treated me as he might an unruly child, sick from greed and sweets.

  Your passions will kill you, Albert wrote. They are unbridled. Sinful. Beneath the dignity of a woman, much less a queen.

  And worse—Bertie inherited every one of them.

  Gradually, I understood that I was wanton, a whore like Mama—that I possessed a flaw in the blood I could not fight. A whore like Mama. The Demon Incarnate in the upstairs room, the low suggestion of Mama's laughter, the coarse Irish hand sliding along the leg and the stink of the semened bed— With the intensity of my love came a jealousy of all Albert touched, all those to whom he spoke. To give to them the attention denied to me was insupportable.

  When I learned, perhaps a month before our final visit to Coburg, that he had gone so far as to cultivate that woman—Miss Georgiana Armistead—who could boast of no marriage vow; who threw every outrage in the face of public decency, through her way of life; who had the impertinence to write his Adored Name on a piece of common writing paper—oh, my darling, how could you desert me so?

  He is beyond the reach of my sobs now. But Miss Armistead—she might be exposed, she might be made to answer for her crimes before the public view, and know what it is to deprive the frailest of women of that peace and security found only in the arms of her Beloved.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The boy Davey was exhausted that night as he entered the rookery in St. Giles. It had been a fruitless and dispiriting day—first Lizzie so ill, and the lady doctor butchering her like a side of beef; then the gentleman sending him down to stand watch at the back door, where he'd been cuffed in the head by one of the coves who'd torn through the tenement. Davey had slipped outside, not wanting to be kicked like a ball of India rubber among the lot of them. He realised the fight had moved to the roof only when the gentleman's topper came spinning over the tiles to the street below. Scooping it up, he'd run off immediately to sell it in the Garden.