Kathryn Caskie - [Royle Sisters 02] (17 page)

“Elizabeth? Answer me, gel. Come on now.”

Blinking her eyes, she focused on the face hovering a breath from her own nose.
Apsley
.

She opened her mouth to speak when a young woman’s familiar visage appeared over her. “Is she injured?” the woman asked.

Oh, criminy. It could not be.

Elizabeth swallowed hard as she stared at the pair of concerned, large blue eyes peering down at her. The woman’s hair was golden-hued, not quite brown but not flaxen like Anne’s at all. Her skin was fair, quite pale actually. Perhaps it was because she was so close, but it seemed to Elizabeth that the woman’s nose was rather long, but delicate, too, and decidedly aristocratic. No, there was no question about the young woman’s identity—it was Princess Charlotte.

Apsley offered Elizabeth a hand and helped her to sit upright, but Elizabeth never took her gaze from the young woman.

“Are you injured?” the woman asked her directly.

Elizabeth nodded. “No, Your Royal Highness.”

Apsley helped Elizabeth to her feet and bent to retrieve her straw bonnet.

Elizabeth’s ribs ached fiercely, and her breathing had not completely returned to normal. She was stunned. But not from Apsley’s daring rescue of her before she was crushed beneath hoof and wheel of the carriage. She stared, wide-eyed, at the princess, searching for any familial similarities. It was because…la, Princess Char
lotte might very well be her half sister! It was certainly possible—even likely.

She brought her hand to her mouth to hush the excited laughter bursting forth.

“I am glad that you are unhurt.” Princess Charlotte laid a gentle hand on Elizabeth’s arm and peered hard at her. “Are we acquainted, miss?”

“Miss Elizabeth Royle, Your Royal Highness.” Belatedly she dipped into her proper curtsy to honor her.

Princess Charlotte gave a questioning glance to an older woman standing at her side. “Is she—?”

The other woman nodded.

An amused smile came upon the princess’s pink lips. “You are not yet known to me, but dear Miss Royle, today has changed that. I am very pleased to know you at last.”

At last?
Elizabeth was so stunned, she could not manage any sort of verbal reply, and so she bobbed another serviceable curtsy.

“Good day, Miss Royle.” Her Royal Highness spun on blue silk slippers and was handed up into her carriage.

A crack of a whip started the team of glossy
ebony horses forward, and within a moment, the carriage had quit Pall Mall and had turned onto Cockspur Street.

Elizabeth watched until she could no longer see the dust kicked up from the carriage wheels, and then faced Apsley. “Thank you, dear sir, for snatching me from the path of the carriage.”

Apsley shrugged. “You are most welcome, though I daresay, Miss Elizabeth, you might have at least acknowledged me to Princess Charlotte.”

Elizabeth gasped. “Oh dear me.”

Apsley laughed. “Perhaps someday you will have another chance. She may be your sister, after all, no?”

“Yes, that’s true. And now we have met.”

Apsley began to chatter on, but Elizabeth barely heard him at all. She was too confused.

Why had her dream frightened her so, when the outcome was probably the most amazing and exciting event of her life?

“Allow me to escort you home, Miss Elizabeth.” Apsley offered Elizabeth his arm and warily guided her across the street. “I’ve always been fortunate enough to find a hackney at the Opera House. He stepped to the edge of the pav
ers and tipped his hat toward an approaching hackney. “Oh, oh, see there? What did I tell you? I excel at finding exactly what I need precisely when I need it.” He grinned charmingly at her as he passed her up into the cab.

“Yes, I expect you do.” Elizabeth leaned toward Apsley as he took his seat across from her. “Would you please ask the driver to hasten his way to Berkeley Square? I cannot contain my excitement much longer.”

Apsley chuckled and rapped knuckles on the front of the cab, and the hackney lurched forward. “Eager to tell everyone that MacLaren is not the only hero about?”

“Oh, heavens no.” Elizabeth shook her head fiercely. “I must tell everyone that I met my
sister
…I mean…Princess Charlotte.”

“Oh, that.” Apsley looked positively crestfallen. “Jolly good.”

Berkeley Square
Late that afternoon

“D
ear Elizabeth, I know you were thrilled to meet Princess Charlotte, but please, let Anne speak.” Lady Upperton sighed. “We have yet to hear about what she found at MacLaren Hall.”

“But you don’t understand,” Elizabeth huffed. “It did not strike me at first, because I was stunned by our meeting, but I realize now that Princess Charlotte looks nothing like me. Nothing like any of us. I am beginning to wonder if she truly is my half sister at all.”

“Well, gel, you do not resemble Prinny, either. Be thankful for that,” Gallantine teased.

Elizabeth scowled. “He may be our father, so please be considerate of our feelings, my lord.”

“Elizabeth, Princess Charlotte resembles her mother, Caroline, far more so than the Prince of Wales,” Anne explained. “Whether or not we bear any similarity of countenance is of no consequence. Even if you were a walking mirror image of the princess, the fact remains that we have no proof of our lineage.”

“You are correct, Anne. We
still
have no proof. You should not have bothered traveling to St. Albans.” Elizabeth grabbed a book from the Sheraton table and sat down in the window seat.

“Elizabeth, I would not have agreed to go to MacLaren Hall with the countess if I did not believe that the letters were hidden there. But they weren’t.” Anne looked at the three Old Rakes, lined up shoulder to shoulder on the drawing room’s petite settee.

“And you searched the library especially well?” Lady Upperton asked.

“The library, oh yes. Every book, every crevice.” Anne felt the blood begin to creep into her cheeks.

Lady Upperton lifted her lorgnette and peered
closely at Anne. “I expect he owned a desk. Did you check it?”

“Yes, yes!
Especially
the desk.” Anne raised her hands in defeat. “In fact, we were seen in the library so many times supposedly searching for something interesting to read that it became a joke between us. I even wrote to Mary, asking her to please send me something for I could not seem to find what I was looking for in the library.”

Elizabeth looked up from the text she was reading in the muted light from the window. “She must have had a merry chuckle when she sent Anne Father’s dreary
Book of Maladies and Remedies
.” She held it up for everyone to see. “It is so dull, even Father did not read every page.”

“How do you know that, my sweet?” Lady Upperton asked, more out of politeness than interest, it seemed to Anne.

“Because several of the pages haven’t been cut. See here?” Elizabeth fanned the pages, and just as she had said, more than a dozen double pages toward the end of the book had yet to be separated with a page cutter for reading. “Boring.”

Something about the book caught Lord Lo tharian’s eye and he leapt up, which for a man of his years was quite impressive, Anne thought.

“Let me see the book, please.” Lotharian met Elizabeth midway across the drawing room and quickly took the book from her. He ran his fingers along the edges of the pages. “No, the pages have
all
been cut open—but some have been sealed back together for some reason. That’s damned odd, isn’t it?”

He returned to the settee and opened the book for everyone to see. “Look here. One of the sealed pairs of pages is thicker than the others—341 and 344.”

“What did you say?” Anne stiffened.

“Just the page numbers, Anne,” Lilywhite told her,” 341 and 344.”

Anne whirled around and met Elizabeth’s own shocked stare directly. “Get the page cutter!”

Elizabeth raced from the drawing room and returned a moment later with the ivory blade Lotharian had stolen from beneath the floorboard hiding place in Laird’s bedchamber. She handed it to Anne.

Anne scanned the etchings on the cutter until
she found what she was looking for. “Here it is. ‘BOMAR 342.’
Book of Maladies and Remedies
…page 342.”

Lady Upperton clasped her hand to her heart. “Could it be that we’ve had the letters all along, but didn’t know? Hurry, Lotharian, cut the pages! Cut them!”

Anne handed the ivory blade to Lotharian and cupped her hand over her mouth lest she squeal with excitement.

“Clear the settee.” He flicked his hands outward and to his sides, as a maestro might. “Give me room, for God’s sakes.” Lotharian flipped up his coattails and reseated himself.

Anne held her breath as he carefully lowered the blade and inserted it into a small gap between the spine and page pairing. He slid the blade along the sealed bottom of the page.

“Mary was always thumbing through this book,” Elizabeth blurted.

Lotharian’s hand froze in place.

Elizabeth exhaled in frustration. “Well, why did she not notice that the top and bottom of this page were sealed when the others are not?”

“Hush, gel!” Gallantine snapped. “Lotharian needs silence so he does not slice whatever is
hidden inside.”

Lotharian gave a frustrated sigh. “Because, sometimes the glue in the spine can spread when the book is bound. And I am sure your sister was focusing on Royle’s notes in the margins rather than the binding glue.” He huffed. “Now, if everyone is finished chattering, I should like to learn what is between the pages.”

Instantly, everyone became silent. No one spoke. No one moved, and for several moments, no one even breathed as Lotharian finished his incision.

He paused then and raised the book up to Anne. “You saw the notation on the blade. Go ahead. You do the honors, my dear. Reach inside.”

Anne’s hands trembled as she took the book and slipped her fingers between the pages. She looked at everyone in the room one by one, then inhaled a deep breath and grasped what was inside.

It was very thick; vellum, she guessed. Hardly what most people would use for a letter, but then the prince was not most people, was he?

Her heart pounded as she withdrew the paper.

It was vellum, but not a letter.

Even folded several times as it was, she could see the horizontal lines running across the paper.

Her hands shook wildly. “I can’t. Lotharian, please, will you open it?” She held it out to him.

He did not reply, but took the vellum and opened it. Beads of sweat broke across his brow. “My God,” he muttered.

“What is it?” Elizabeth cried. “Tell us, else I think I shall faint this very instant!”

Lotharian’s gaze met Lady Upperton’s and remained there.

“It’s the register, isn’t it?” she asked, but it was clear she already knew the answer.

He nodded, still too stunned to speak.

Lilywhite took the vellum from his hands and ran his finger over it in the air until he found what he was looking for. “Do you know what this is?” he asked Anne and Elizabeth.

They both shook their heads.

“Please, won’t someone tell us?” Anne begged.

Lotharian finally spoke then. “It is the marriage register that the Prince of Wales and Maria Fitzherbert signed…on their wedding
day.”

Elizabeth’s eyebrows drew close. “Is that all? A register? But this doesn’t prove our heritage. Where are the letters?”

“The letters may no longer exist, I fear,” Gallantine told her, laying a comforting hand across her shoulders.

“I think this is the evidence of the prince’s illegal marriage that MacLaren somehow obtained. When hidden, the passing of the bill to name the Prince Regent became possible.”

“But why would our father have hidden the register for the old MacLaren?” Anne asked. “All MacLaren possessed was the cutter, with the location of the register. Not the register itself. I don’t understand.”

“MacLaren and Royle were bosom friends for a time,” Lilywhite told her. “We all were.”

“But that doesn’t explain—” Elizabeth interrupted.

“Perhaps, Dove, it was because your father was already the keeper of one potentially treasonous secret—you three gels—the prince’s secret daughters with his morganatic wife, Maria Fitzherbert.” Lady Upperton shrugged her shoulders. “We may never know why your father hid the
register.”

“And the register, when…it is revealed?” Anne asked.

Lotharian grew darkly somber and serious. “
If
revealed—or if the prince learns the register has been found and considers it to be a threat to the monarchy, for indeed, he and Mrs. Fitzherbert have concealed their union from the people for many years—the simple possession of such politically damaging evidence could be deemed by the Crown…
treason
.”

“And possessing this register now—are we in danger?” Elizabeth was trembling with worry and dread.

“I don’t know, dear.” Lady Upperton slid her tiny body down from her chair. “But it is a possibility. To protect ourselves, and your futures, no one must know of this. No one!”

“B-but, I must at least tell Laird—Lord MacLaren.” Anne grasped Lady Upperton’s hand and pleaded with her. “He is about to take his seat in the House of Lords. This could jeopardize everything. He must know. I must tell him what we’ve found! He’s been involved every step of the way.”

“No, dear. At worst, everyone who knows of
the register’s existence could be implicated in a plot to commit treason if the Crown decided that is what should be done. It has happened before, at the prince’s whim.”

“At best, no one learns that we have the marriage register—until we have enough evidence—to solidly prove your heritage,” Lotharian added. “Either way, you must remain silent about what we have discovered this night, Anne.”

Lady Upperton hugged Anne to her. “If you care about him, and I suspect you do, do not put an end to his days in the House of Lords before they have yet to begin. You cannot let him know.”

Anne nodded dully. She could not deny it, though she wished with all of her heart that she could. Lady Upperton was right. As much as she was loath to believe it, she felt the truth of her warning with every fiber of her being.

After everything she and Laird had overcome to find their way into each other’s arms, into each other’s hearts, his father’s wrath had reached out for him again.

Through her.

Laird finally had redeemed himself in his own heart. After years of being told he accounted for
nothing, Laird finally believed his own worth.

And now this disaster.

A cold realization snaked over Anne. Her legs seemed to lose their ability to support her, and she crumpled onto the settee alongside Lady Upperton.

“Dear child, come here,” the old woman crooned.

Tears sprouted in Anne’s eyes, and she buried her face in Lady Upperton’s comforting arms.

She had involved Laird far too deeply already.

She had no choice now.

If she truly loved Laird, no matter how it tore at her, Anne knew what she must do. Her course was clear.

She had to cry off.