“Yes, my lady,” said Mrs. Braithwaite. With a curtsey, she turned her back on the Princess. Three other ladies-in-waiting were engineering her clothes, hair, and jewelry, some of which were already mounted on Caroline, others on wooden effigies. The Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm sat across from her, keeping her company. She was already dressed, albeit more simply. For anyone below the rank of Princess, dressing for mourning could be a simple undertaking. Eliza’s yellow hair was screened behind a fontange of stiff black lace and the rest of her was in black silk. It was expensive and well executed as such costumes went, but still deserved the name traditionally given to such garments: weeds.

“My son has reprimanded me,” announced the Duchess.

Caroline gasped and put a hand to the base of her throat in a gesture of mock outrage, as she understood that Eliza was being facetious. Henrietta Braithwaite, who knew the Duchess only by gossip, had to turn around and look to discern as much. Then, realizing she had been obvious, Henrietta turned back to the work at hand: running her fingertips over the ivory tool, inspecting for rough places.

“And why would such a well-brought-up young man speak to his mother so?” Caroline demanded.

The Duchess leaned closer, and spoke a bit more softly. All of the ladies in the room suddenly found ways to do whatever they were doing in nearly perfect silence. On the pretext of needing better light, Henrietta Braithwaite turned towards a window, bringing one ear to bear upon the target.

“I am sorry!” the Duchess said. “Until he told me, I had no idea that I had stupidly interrupted something! I thought I had found you alone in the garden.”

“You did find me alone-but only because, when he heard a carriage approaching, he took flight, not knowing it was only you.”

“Isn’t that just like a mother! Interrupting her son at such a moment! You should have shooed me away!”

“Oh, no, it is perfectly all right!” the Princess assured her. “We were never truly alone anyway, for I thought I could hear one or two people skulking about.”

“Spies!?”

“Oh, no, Eliza, this is not some Byzantine, spy-infested court such as Versailles. Doubtless they were some guests, here for the funeral, who simply forgot their manners.”

“Those must be the ones my dogs barked at. Naughty dogs!”

“It is nothing. This evening, at dusk, Sophie shall be at rest across the way. The English delegation, and most of the noble and royal visitors, will have departed. Then he and I shall meet where we met this morning, and resume where we left off.”

“I thought my son seemed…frustrated.”

“It is good for men to be frustrated,” Caroline announced, “that is when they behave in the manner that is most pleasing to us, with beautiful displays of daring and gallantry.”

The Duchess considered this for a long time before answering, “There is truth in that, your royal highness. But some day when we have more time I might tell you a tale of one whose frustration became perhaps too enormous.”

“What did he do then?”

“Behaved in a manner that was perhaps a bit over-daring, and too gallant, and kept it up for rather too long.”

“All for you, Eliza?”

Again this had to be considered. Eliza, who had shown no reluctance to discuss Caroline’s affairs of the heart in front of an audience, was suddenly reticent. “At the beginning, perhaps it was all for me. As it went on and on-it is difficult to say. He became rich, and powerful after a fashion. Perhaps he then began to act out of a desire for worldly increase.”

“So out of love for you, he did deeds of phantastickal gallantry and daring over many years-then went on to become rich and powerful? Why haven’t you married him yet?”

“It is complicated. Some day you will understand.”

“I see that my words have struck deeply into your heart, Eliza, for all of a sudden you are patronizing me.” Caroline said this cheerfully enough.

“Please forgive me, your royal highness.”

They were into it now.

“I do know something of complications-not a hundredth of what you do-and I know that there is always a way to surmount them. Do you love him?”

“The man I spoke of?”

“Is there any other man under discussion?”

“I believe that I did love him once, when he had nothing.”

“Nothing except you?”

“Me, a sword, and a horse. It was later, when he began to conceive absurd schemes for getting things, that we fell out.”

“Why should he concern himself with getting when he had you?”

“That is what I tried to tell him. It hurt my feelings, in a way!”

“If half the stories are true, you could have made more than enough to support yourself and him as well-ah, there’s the rub-it was masculine pride, wasn’t it?”

“That, and a perverse desire to better himself-to prove he was worthy of me, by becoming more like me. What he did not understand-and what I could not tell him-was that I loved him precisely because he was unlike me.”

“Why don’t you tell him now? Is he coming to the funeral?”

“Oh, no no no! You don’t understand, highness, I do not speak of recent events. This happened thirty years ago. I’ve not seen him since. And be assured he is not attending the funeral!”

“Thirty years.”

“Yes.”

“Thirty years.”

“…”

“THIRTY YEARS! Longer than I have been alive. The whole time I have known you, this has been going on!”

“I should not say anything was ‘going on.’ It is an episode of my girlhood, forgotten.”

“Yes, I can see how well you have forgotten it.”

“…”

“Where is this man? England?”

“Two people can be a world apart, even when both are in the same city-”

“He’s in London!? And you have done nothing!?”

“Your royal highness-”

“Well, this is another good reason I must go there and become Princess of Wales, or Queen as the case may be, so that I can wield my monarchical powers to patch up your love life.”

“I beg you not to-” said the Duchess, looking thoroughly rattled for the first time. Then she stopped, for there had been an interruption.

“The rite is about to begin, your royal highness,” announced Henrietta Braithwaite, gazing out a window over a crowd in black wool and black silk, funneling itself toward the entrance of the family chapel. She turned to face the Princess, then cast her eyes down in submission, and held up the ivory tool. “This is smooth,” she added. “Be assured that no matter how many times we are forced to use it, your royal highness may go out this evening perfectly unmarked.”

“Henrietta,” said the Princess, “my life would not be the same without you.” An ambiguous statement-but Mrs. Braithwaite chose the most flattering interpretation, and responded with a curtsey and even a blush.

“I HAVE A PROBLEM, MADAME,” said the dark lean figure who had marred Eliza’s peripheral vision for the last quarter-hour, “and you have an opportunity.”

“Ugh, not another one!” Eliza said, and turned finally to confront this fellow, who had been following her around like a doppelganger despite her efforts to shake him off in the crowd of mourners.

They were outside the Palace of Herrenhausen, among the parterres of the northern end of the garden. Inside the palace was a private chapel, not nearly large enough to contain all of the mourners. Sophie’s funeral service had begun an hour ago. Caroline and other members of the family were within; the others were scattered like a flock of black doves across the white gravel of the paths.

In the corner of her eye Eliza had noticed that this troublesome man was dressed in black, and that his wig was white; but the same was true of every man here. Now, looking him squarely in the face for the first time, she saw that the white mane, though it was certainly fake, was no affectation. He was quite old.

“Even on the brightest days I have no desire to be pestered by men with opportunities. On a day like this-”