“What is this, George?” she said aloud.
He sighed.
“Was this why you left me and went to Kew? You didn’t want me to see you like this.”
He mumbled. More nonsense.
Charlotte closed her eyes, then shut them tight, squeezing a tear down her cheek. She was married to this man. And she liked him. She even loved him.
Or did she? The George she loved . . . Did he even exist? Was he just a piece of an unknowable whole, and if so, what size was that shard?
What if Just George—her George—was only a sliver?
He talked of mathematics. Very well, she could do sums and products and percentages, too. What percent was her George? Would she get him half the time? Three-quarters?
Less?
“What am I to do with you?” she said softly.
He didn’t answer. She hadn’t thought he would.
There was a soft knock at the door, and Reynolds opened it without waiting for her response. He brought in a basin of water. Behind him, Brimsley carried towels.
Charlotte stared at him. Had Brimsley known? Had he served her all these weeks, five paces away, and never told her that her husband was a madman?
Brimsley swallowed uncomfortably. “If Your Majesty prefers to retire, Mr. Reynolds and I are perfectly capable—”
“Am I not permitted to wash the King?” Charlotte demanded.
Brimsley looked pained. “It is just not . . . usual.”
“I confess I still have much to learn about palace procedure,” Charlotte snapped. “For instance, I just pulled the King out of a hole in the vegetable garden. Where he was busy discoursing with the sky. Is that usual?”
Brimsley did not reply, which was fortunate. Whatever he wanted to say, she did not want to hear it. Not tonight.
“We will do it,” Reynolds said to Brimsley. “Just . . . keep watch in the hall.”
“Of course,” Brimsley said. He stepped out, shutting the door behind him.
“Concentric circles,” Charlotte said.
Reynolds looked at her. “I beg your pardon.”
“We are concentric circles around the King. You and I, the closest. We wash his body. Then Brimsley. He guards the door. Then— Well, I do not know who then. His mother, I suppose. Lord Bute? Earl Harcourt? I assume they all know.”
“They do, Your Majesty.”
Charlotte dipped a towel in the basin. The water was warm, but not too hot. Gently, she got to work on George’s hands. Reynolds did his feet.
“They all knew,” Charlotte said. “How they must have laughed at me.”
“No, Your Majesty. They did not.”
“And how would you know? I can see that you are close to the King. His most trusted confidant most likely. But you do not attend government meetings. You do not have Parliament’s ear.”
“Servants hear more than you would think, Your Majesty.”
Charlotte let out a grim laugh. “So it was you who laughed. The staff.”
“No!” Reynolds said. He turned to Charlotte with a fervent expression. “We—I—never laughed at you. On the contrary, you are my greatest hope.”
She looked at him. She could feel tears welling in her eyes, but she would not cry. She was the Queen. She would not cry in front of this man.
“You have done more for him than I could have ever dreamed,” Reynolds said. “You are good for him.”
But is he good for me?
It was a question she could never speak aloud.
St. James’s Palace
The following morning
Charlotte had not slept.
Once she and Reynolds maneuvered the King onto his bed, she’d returned to her own bedchamber. She’d crawled under her quilts, her body wrapped in the softest of bedsheets, and she lay on her back, staring up at her canopy.
At some point, her numbness had bled into despair. And at some point after that, the despair had given way to rage.
Which was where she was right now.
Enraged.
On fire.
And on her way to see Princess Augusta.
“Your Majesty—”
Charlotte strode down the hall, her boots making angry clacks with each step. “Stop following me, Brimsley.”
“I beg you, this will not end well.”
Charlotte whirled around, her expression so fierce Brimsley stumbled back a step. “This will not end well, you tell me? This will not end well, you tell me now? Where have you been all these weeks up to now? You say you are here to serve me. You say you have pledged your life for my welfare. And yet you keep this secret?”
“I did not know, Your Majesty.”
“You did not know,” Charlotte practically spat. She had seen him last night. “I do not believe you.”
“I did not know,” Brimsley cried, and he reached out, almost as if he might grab her arm. But of course he did not. “I suspected,” he admitted. “Not this. I could never have suspected this. But I knew that something was being hidden. I tried to find out what. I swear to you I did.”
“I can understand this of her,” Charlotte said, throwing her arm out in a violent motion toward Princess Augusta’s sitting room. “She is selfish. She cares only for the Crown. But you were supposed to be on my side.”
“I am, Your Majesty.”
Charlotte did not respond. She had already reached the sitting room. She barged in without a care for decorum or protocol. Princess Augusta was taking her breakfast with a friend.
“Charlotte?” Augusta smiled with both surprise and affection. “I did not expect you. The Danbury Ball was a triumph. Well done, my girl.”
Charlotte could not listen to this. “Has Your Highness ever tried cutting English mutton with a dull knife?”
Princess Augusta went quite still. “I beg your pardon?”
“The knives at Buckingham House used to be sharp enough. Then one day, they were all quite dull.”
“I’m sure I do not know what you mean.”
“It was the day the King joined me there.”
Charlotte fixed a placid expression on her face, waiting for Augusta to respond.
Augusta turned to her companion. “I believe we may have to break our fast another morning, Lady Howe.”
Lady Howe departed with all possible haste. Still, Augusta held a hand up until several seconds after the door had been closed behind her.
“You were saying?” Augusta said.
“The knives,” Charlotte reminded her. “Suddenly dull. Odd, I thought, but surely a coincidence. Surely a coincidence, too, that the very same day the windows were sealed shut on the upper floors. I found that a little bothersome. I do like fresh air while I sleep.”
“I—”
“But suddenly there were locks everywhere. Locks on the armory, in the kitchen, the shed where the gardeners keep their shears. A coincidence, surely.” Charlotte stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as they cut into Augusta’s. “What I could not quite convince myself was a coincidence, though, was when the library’s set of Shakespeare was suddenly missing King Lear.”
“Forgive me,” Princess Augusta said, stone-faced. “I am not a Shakespeare enthusiast.”
“Are you not? Then let me educate you. King Lear is the one about the mad king.”
“Charlotte.”
That was what set her over the edge. Augusta’s patronizing, placating tone, as if Charlotte were imagining everything. As if Charlotte were stupid, as if she were the one who was losing her mind.