Charlotte turned a suspicious look on Elizabeth.
Elizabeth shook her head. “Not yet. Do I have time to do it before we must leave?”
Darcy consulted his watch. “We have a quarter hour yet.”
Elizabeth took her friend’s hand. “Very well. This may come as a shock, Charlotte, but Georgiana wishes to offer you a position as lady-in-waiting. She thought you might be more likely to accept if I asked you.”
Charlotte paled. “Me? But she barely knows me, and I am no one!”
“You may have only met her for a short time when you both visited Jane at the stables, but you are one of the very few people who knew her first as Georgiana Darcy. That is of more importance than you might imagine. Now everyone who meets her sees only the queen and what she might do for them, not the girl who has been through a difficult and painful few years. She needs people around her who can recognize that side of her. I hope you will accept because I wish to see more of you, and, quite frankly, having another sensible person to share her care would be a tremendous relief.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “Are you teasing me, Lizzy?”
“I am quite serious, and so is Georgiana – I mean Her Majesty. But I will understand if you do not wish to leave your family and Meryton behind.”
Charlotte hesitated, then a determined look filled her eyes. “If the queen wishes it, I would be honored to accept.”
Elizabeth hugged her. “I am so glad!”
Epilogue
“Not again!” Kit slumped down in his chair.
Elizabeth gazed at him sympathetically. “You might as well give in with good grace. We have done everything we can. Every newspaper tells us that Major Christopher Darcy is now Christopher, Duke of Sussex and soon to be Prince Christopher. We have encouraged clergymen to pray from the pulpit for Christopher Darcy. We have even sent out servants to pubs to buy a round of drinks in honor of the future Prince Christopher. It makes no difference. To the populace you will always be Kit Darcy.”
“But Prince Kit sounds ridiculous. I am not a schoolboy,” Kit protested.
Elizabeth could not quite suppress a smile. “Prince Christopher does sound more stately, and I can understand your preference for it. But England first fell in love with you as dashing Kit Darcy. Her Majesty Queen Charlotte Augusta is every inch an intimidating royal to them, but Prince Kit is the younger brother of all England. You humanize the queen. Kit, it is rather embarrassing how much people adore the very idea of you. They want to use your nickname because they love you.”
Kit groaned. “They only think they love me. None of them have any idea of who I truly am. I feel like an actor playing a role all day long.”
“So do we all,” said Darcy. “I had thought once England was ours, I could stop pretending to be someone I was not. But no, it is even worse now because everyone thinks I am some sort of hero.”
Elizabeth turned soft eyes on her husband. “You are a hero. Just not for the reasons they think.”
“I think I was happier as an underground Loyalist and expecting every day to be killed by the French,” grumbled Kit. “At least I had a purpose then. Now I am just a toy soldier on display.”
“Kit, listen to me,” said Elizabeth. “You do have a purpose. You and Georgiana, or rather Charlotte, are the glue that holds England together after the French tore us apart. You are serving your country.”
“It is true,” said Georgiana – the real Georgiana Darcy, late of Canada. “I came to England after the French were defeated, but there was still fighting between Englishmen. Neighbor against neighbor as they tried to reclaim their old lands and goods; the North turned against the South; Loyalists trying to dispossess those who had been forced to work with the French. The one thing they all had in common was that at the end of the day they would lift a glass together to Queen Charlotte and her Major Kit. Without a working government, England could easily have fallen into civil war, but the two of you are the symbol that held us together.”
Elizabeth clapped her hands. “Well said!” She still did not know this new Georgiana well. It was challenging to suddenly have two flaxen-haired sixteen year old sisters who answered to both Georgiana and Charlotte, but apart from that, the two girls had little in common. Georgiana Darcy had not yet lost the hint of a Canadian accent, but she moved and spoke with the smooth confidence that showed years of practice at being royal. There were hints now and then that she did not always feel the confidence she portrayed – perhaps something she did have in common with the real Charlotte. Still, if the two girls were to walk together into a room of complete strangers, everyone would think Georgiana Darcy was the queen, not the excitable, playful girl William had protected all those years.
“I still say it is not fair,” grumbled Kit. “We defeated the French, but Desmarais gets to live in peaceful obscurity at Pemberley tutoring local children in Latin, while we have to pretend to be something we are not. Sometimes I wonder if we truly are the winners.”
Darcy said mildly, “I can assure you Desmarais was as uncomfortable with his fame as you are. He was simply more practiced at it.”
“And Frederica,” Kit continued. “She did much more than I did, but few people know of her except as the Duchess of Wellington.”
“Freddie always did prefer to stay in the shadows,” said Darcy. “But I agree with you. She has been very fortunate to be spared the fame she deserves.”
Elizabeth, her hand on her swollen abdomen, said tartly, “William, you are as bad as Kit. Georgiana – the one who wears the crown, that is – has been nagging me about your title, and she swears that if you do not choose one, she will give you so many you will not be able to walk for the weight of all the chains of office.”
William raised an eyebrow. “I am looking forward to the title of ‘Father.’”
“I could not quite hear that,” said Elizabeth pointedly. “Kit, did it sound to you as if he said Earl of Curbar and Viscount Castleton?”
Kit’s eyes lit with mischief. “I could have sworn he said Marquess of Derby, too.”
Elizabeth shook her head judiciously. “No, I am certain I would have heard it if he had said Marquess.”
“Very well,” said the royal Georgiana from the doorway. “Curbar and Castleton it shall be. You are very unkind to me, William. Giving out honors is the best part of being queen.”
Kit muttered good-naturedly, “I thought it was being able to tell people what to do.”
“No, silly,” retorted the queen. “But I came to announce I have completed the plans for my new Order, and you will all be invested in it tomorrow after our wedding.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows shot up. “All of us?”
“Yes. It is a most unique order. I have been burning to tell you for weeks. The Order of the Hayloft will be second only to the Order of the Garter, and it will be given exclusively to those people who knew my true identity while I was in hiding, regardless of their sex or rank. The four of you, Frederica, Lady Matlock, Sir Edward Gardiner, Mrs. Reynolds, and of course Mr. and Mrs. Simmons, since it was their hayloft in the first place. All of you will receive a special privilege, which is to abstain from all public acknowledgement of me as queen – no bows or curtseys, no ‘Your Majesty.’”
Kit laughed. “You mean just like it is now?”
“Oh, stop it, Kit! I am serious.”
“Mrs. Reynolds will never be willing to ignore your royal courtesies,” teased Kit. “She is too proud of them.”
“She managed it quite well for six years!”
Elizabeth pushed her bulky body up from the chair and kissed the queen’s cheek. “Thank you. That is very touching. Who would have imagined that the night we spent in a hayloft would become the most beloved symbol of your reign?”
“I admit I was not so fond of it at the time,” said the girl. “I was picking off bits of hay all the next day. Hay itches!”
Kit raised a glass of wine. “To the royal hayloft.”
Elizabeth’s eyes suddenly wid
ened. “I may have one small problem with your plan.” Her voice was tight.
The queen’s brows drew together. “What is it? Do you think people will be offended that I am including women?”
“No.” Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut and then reopened them. “I do not think I will be attending your wedding tomorrow after all.”
“But you must! Are you unwell?” asked the girl.
Darcy jumped to his feet. “What is the matter?”
Elizabeth placed a hand on her bulging stomach. “It appears the future Viscount of Castleton, or perhaps the future Lady Charlotte Darcy, thinks he or she should take precedence over a royal wedding. I do not think I am in a position to argue.”
Darcy paled. “But it is not supposed to be for another month!”
A smile flickered across Elizabeth’s face. “You will have to take that up with your son or daughter. And I suspect you will be able to do so tomorrow.”
Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.
Historical Note
I have kept the discussion of history, both real and altered, in this book to a minimum in order to avoid interrupting the story line, but a great deal of historical research about the Napoleonic period went into this book. In addition to the fictional invasion of Great Britain, I have employed one deliberate historical inaccuracy. In 1805 Arthur Wellesley had not yet received the title of Marquis (later Duke) of Wellington, so he would have been known as General Wellesley, not General Wellington. I took the liberty of using his later title in this book because many readers would not recognize Wellesley as the same person as Wellington. I have used the term ‘England’ in place of ‘Britain’ in the story since that was the general usage at the time.
Napoleon came very close to invading Great Britain. From 1803-1805 he had an army of 200,000 men known as the Armée d'Angleterre trained and ready in Channel ports, along with a purpose-built flotilla including 2,000 invasion barges to carry troops. Many historians believe he would have succeeded in conquering England if he had been able to cross the Channel, and during that time the British lived in terror of the possible invasion. Napoleon’s grand plan depended on gaining control of the English Channel briefly by drawing off the Royal Navy with a feint. The French and Spanish fleets were to break out from the British blockades at Brest and Toulon, sail across the Atlantic with the British navy in pursuit, and quickly return to destroy the few remaining British ships in the Channel. In reality, only the Toulon fleet managed to break the blockade and follow the plan, so half of the British navy remained in place to defend the channel.
After this failure, Napoleon turned the invasion force into the basis of his Grande Armée and marched them east on the Ulm Campaign. Contrary to popular beliefs, the invasion had already been called off by the time of the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, a victory which cemented British control over the Channel but did not prevent an invasion. For the purposes of this book, I have assumed that Napoleon’s feint worked. There is a hidden irony in Nelson’s self-blame for having been ill during this time; he was in fact in charge of the blockade at Toulon which the French broke, and he fell for Napoleon’s trick and followed the French fleet across the Atlantic. In my altered history backstory, Admiral Collingwood’s fleet failed to maintain the blockade at Brest as they did in reality, leading to the channel being left undefended.
The fictional conditions in occupied England are based on those described in French-occupied Prussia and Germany, including the very high taxes on the population in accordance with Napoleon’s plan to have occupied countries pay for their own occupying forces, as well as for his wars. The story of Jérôme Bonaparte marrying George III’s daughter Princess Amelia was based on the true story of his life. Napoleon created the Kingdom of Westphalia, declared his brother King, and married him to a princess of one of the constituent states to improve his claim – even though Jérôme’s first wife was still alive and the pope had refused to annul his marriage. His tenure as king ended with the invasion of the Prussian and Russian armies. The use of warships with cannon pointed at cities was a tactic Napoleon used elsewhere to keep rebellion in check. Putting hostages aboard was my own invention.
The discovery that Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales was indeed the exact age of Georgiana Darcy during the Pride & Prejudice years inspired much of the plot of this book. The real Princess Charlotte was very popular with the people and far more of an outrageous, impulsive madcap than I have portrayed her. Her love life was outrageous as well: her first infatuation at age 14 was with an illegitimate cousin who rode beside her carriage every day and would sit in private conversation with her at unseemly length. When he was called away, his place was taken by the handsome Lt. Charles Hesse. Charlotte’s mother blatantly encouraged this romance, passing letters between the two and encouraging Lt. Hesse to sneak into her own rooms at Kensington Palace for illicit meetings with her daughter. She went so far as to lock Charlotte and Hesse into her own bedroom and said, “I leave you to enjoy yourselves.” Charlotte was then but fifteen.
Princess Charlotte had several other tempestuous romances in her teen years and a widely publicized episode when she ran off to escape an unwanted marriage. My Charlotte’s choice to deliberately induce Kit to kiss her was not only in character, but downright tame for the historical princess. The real Charlotte did not have an anxiety disorder to the best of my knowledge; I created that in order to keep ‘Georgiana’ calmer than Princess Charlotte ever could manage to be without completely mangling her real personality. Charlotte never became queen owing to her untimely death in childbed, the result of medical malpractice and frequent bleedings and purgatives during her pregnancy to reduce her ‘spirits.’ If not for that, we would have had the Age of Charlotte instead of the Victorian Age. For more details and references on Princess Charlotte, please see my blog post about her at Austen Variations. http://austenvariations.com/the-other-princess-charlotte-2/.
All my French characters in England are purely fictional, including General Desmarais. Napoleon’s generals had a high fatality rate, with almost 50% of his over 2,000 generals killed or seriously wounded, leaving many openings for deserving officers to be promoted. I have pulled pieces of Desmarais’s story from the biographies of other Napoleonic generals. The Loyalist military leaders in Milford Haven are all historical characters.
Still, even an obsessive amateur historian will miss details and context, and no doubt I have mistaken some important details. All historical errors are my own.
Acknowledgments
As always, I could not have written this book without the assistance of many people. Dave McKee, Nicola Geiger, MeriLyn Oblad, and Susanne Barrett gave feedback on the final version and saved me from many typos. David Young helped with the historical side and corrected my limited French. Sarah Rakhmanov came up with the perfect title for this book even before she knew what Darcy was concealing. Many readers at Austen Variations gave encouragement and helpful opinions on the first part of the book, and didn’t give me too much grief when I left them hanging with the discovery of Georgiana Darcy’s true identity.
My family, as always, deserves endless thanks for their patience and support.
About the Author
Abigail Reynolds may be a nationally bestselling author and a physician, but she can't follow a straight line with a ruler. Originally from upstate New York, she studied Russian and theater at Bryn Mawr College and marine biology at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. After a stint in performing arts administration, she decided to attend medical school, and took up writing as a hobby during her years as a physician in private practice.
A life-long lover of Jane Austen's novels, Abigail began writing variations on Pride & Prejudice in 2001, then expanded her repertoire to include a series of novels set on her beloved Cape Cod. Her most recent releases are the national bestsellers Alone with Mr. Darcy and Mr. Darcy's Noble Connections, Mr. Darcy’s Journey, and Mr. Darcy's Refuge. Her books have been translated into seven languag
es. A lifetime member of JASNA, she lives on Cape Cod with her husband, her son and a menagerie of animals. Her hobbies do not include sleeping or cleaning her house.
Pemberley Variations
Austen Variations
Also by Abigail Reynolds
What Would Mr. Darcy Do?
To Conquer Mr. Darcy
By Force of Instinct
Mr. Darcy’s Undoing
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World
Mr. Darcy’s Obsession
A Pemberley Medley
Mr. Darcy’s Letter
Mr. Darcy’s Refuge
Mr. Darcy’s Noble Connections
The Darcys of Derbyshire
The Darcy Brothers (co-author)
Alone with Mr. Darcy
Mr. Darcy’s Journey
The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice
Morning Light
Conceit & Concealment: A Pride & Prejudice Variation Page 38