He was a troll, not a troll, maybe a troll, she was so beautiful—
“Your Majesty.”
It was Reynolds. He put a calming hand on George’s shoulder. Kept it there until George’s breathing settled and he was able to take a sip of wine.
“Good color on this wine, Reynolds,” George said.
“I shall let the kitchen know, Your Majesty.”
George nodded slowly. He could do this. He wanted to do this. He could—
She was here. But she did not see him yet. She was not looking at the table; instead, her gaze seemed to be set on something off in the air, maybe nothing at all.
She did not look quite like herself. She looked . . . unmoored.
He felt his heart cracking. This was not the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued woman he had married.
He stood. “Hello, Charlotte.”
She stopped in her tracks. Even in the candlelight he could see her eyes flick this way and that, as if she were plotting her escape.
“Hello,” she said, perhaps a little cautiously. She did not move toward the table. Her little servant stood behind her, taking in the scene.
George motioned to the feast laid out before them. “Is it all right if I join you for a meal this evening?”
“A meal?” she echoed.
He started to reply, but she was not done.
“A meal?! Are you—A meal?!”
She was angry, then. But at least she seemed once again to be herself.
“You truly think I would just sit across the table from you and share a meal after—” She threw up her arms. “You are mad.”
George winced. Reynolds stepped forward.
“That can be the only explanation.” She was talking to herself, but each word pierced George to his soul. His throat felt tight. It was hard to breathe.
“Your Majesty,” came Reynolds’s voice, low and reassuring.
George forced a nod. Then realized she was leaving. “Charlotte, please. Don’t go.”
She did not listen.
George hurried after her, pausing only to jab one finger in Brimsley’s direction. “Stay.”
Brimsley looked as if he might disobey, but Reynolds put a hand on his arm.
“Charlotte!” George called again. She was moving fast, faster than anyone in a gown like that ought to be able to. “Where are you going?”
“I do not know! Just . . . away from you!” She turned around for just long enough to spit out, “Wherever you are not!”
“Charlotte,” George pleaded. “Charlotte, please. If you will give me a chance to—”
There was nothing for it. He had to be the King. “Charlotte,” he commanded. “Stop walking this instant.”
She did. But she didn’t turn around.
“I realize you have no reason to like me,” George said to her back. “You have no reason to trust me.”
“None,” he thought he heard.
He cracked his neck to the side, the motion somehow helping him to rein in his emotions. “You are justified in those emotions. I marry you and then I disappear into my observatory, and then I come here to dine as if . . .”
As if what? Even he didn’t know.
He exhaled. “But if you will just give me one evening of your time. Allow me to show you where my mind has been. It will not make you forgive me, but it may make you hate me a little bit less.”
She sighed. He did not hear it, but he saw it in the gentle rise and drop of her shoulders.
“Please,” he said.
She turned around.
He held out his hand, and miracle of miracles, she took it.
Charlotte
Kew Palace
The Observatory
An hour later
“Look. Do you see it?”
Charlotte adjusted her position in front of the eyepiece. George had brought her back to his observatory and was trying to show her something through his enormous telescope. But she had no idea what she was looking at. It was all just pricks of light with the occasional sparkle.
“Not like that,” he said. He put his hands on her shoulders and readjusted her. “Now. What do you see?”
“I do not see anything.”
“Well, concentrate.”
She rolled her eyes. Or rather, she rolled one of them. The other was still fixed on the eyepiece. She squirmed her shoulders, trying to get him to give her space. “I cannot concentrate with you hovering and breathing and telling me to concentrate.”
He let out a tiny puff of air. This annoyed her.
“All right.” He reached in front of her. “Just let me turn the focus a tiny bit.”
“Would you just step away and let me—”
She gasped.
“Oh my word,” she exclaimed. “What is that?”
“That is Venus,” George said with palpable pride.
“Venus. Venus.” Charlotte pulled her head back for just a moment. George looked utterly delighted, and perhaps a bit proud. Charlotte could not even begin to imagine the breadth of emotions traveling across her own face. Wonder, perhaps? Awe?
She moved back to the eyepiece. “The planet Venus. I am staring at Venus?”
“You are. I have—”
“The planet,” she clarified, looking back up at him.
“Yes, the planet.” He gave her an amused smile; he was clearly charmed by her delight.
“The planet,” she said again. “I am staring at a planet. Surely I—” She had to pause just to consider the ramifications. “The wonder of it. Someone invented this”—she motioned to the telescope—“and it is capable of allowing us to see thousands of miles—”
“Millions,” George said.
“Millions?”
He grinned.
She just stood there for a moment, blinking. “I don’t even know how to conceive of such a distance. From here to Mecklenburg-Strelitz is, what, five hundred miles?”
“About. A little more, perhaps.”
“It’s—I—”
He grinned. That same unaffected grin he’d given her back in the chapel garden. When he was Just George. “What?”
“I am trying to do the arithmetic. A million miles is . . . I think . . . Well, two million times more than five hundred miles. Correct?”
He nodded. “And Venus is far more than a million miles away.”
“Mein Gott.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“It is remarkable. It is wunderbar.” She shook her head in amazement. “I do not know a word in English that is up to the task.”
“Perhaps you shall have to make one up,” he said. “If you recall, that is your right as Queen.”
She laughed. She couldn’t believe it. She’d been so angry at this man. She still was; he would not be let off the hook so easily. But still, he had managed to make her laugh.
“I cannot imagine what scientists might invent next,” she said.
“It is something I think about every day,” he said earnestly. “What if we could go to the moon?”
“Don’t be absurd,” Charlotte scoffed.
“What if we could see inside our bodies without cutting them open?”
“That’s just disgusting.”
“But what if we could?”
Charlotte shivered with distaste. “I prefer to ponder Venus.”
“Excellent choice.” George’s face shone with excitement. In truth, his whole body did. He seemed almost electrified, lit from within. This was what passion did to a person, Charlotte realized. It was rare to find someone who cared so deeply about something. She’d thought she felt that way about music, but seeing George . . .