Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series) by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online Page A

was so young to die. What was this fever? What had caused it? No one could be sure.
    She was a widow of nineteen with two babies and her reputation for frivolity had changed a little. There was a sinister tinge to it.
    She laughed thinking of it. What had she cared. She would rather be thought a wicked woman than a fool. Louis had treated her shamefully – and Louis had died. Perhaps that would be remembered if anyone else decided to treat her badly.
    It was not to be expected that she would remain unmarried; and if a husband was found for her she might have to leave the Court of Berlin.
    ‘I won’t do that,’ she had declared.
    But she knew they would force her to it.
    Her family was very proud of its connections with the Court of England, which was natural when one compared little Mecklenburg-Strelitz with that great country. All her life she had heard references to ‘your Aunt, Queen Charlotte of England’. It was a legend in the family – the story of how one day news had come to her grandfather that his daughter the Princess Charlotte was sought in marriage by King George III.
    And that same Charlotte had many sons and one of these, Adolphus, the Duke of Cambridge, was four years older than Frederica, entirely eligible, and of course the English royal family could have no objection to his marriage with a niece of the Queen.
    Adolphus came to Berlin. No one could dislike Adolphus; he was too mild and pleasant. Dull, was Frederica’s comment. And if I married him I should have to leave Louise.
    She talked the matter over with Louise. ‘We’d be parted,’ admitted Louise, ‘and that would make us most unhappy. But you have to marry, Freddi, and Adolphus is very kind.’
    ‘I wonder what it’s like at the English Court with that old legend Aunt Charlotte in command.’
    ‘There is a king, you know. And the Prince of Wales is said to be the most exciting Prince in Europe.’
    ‘Ah, the Prince of Wales! Why didn’t they offer me him instead of Adolphus?’
    ‘Adolphus will be good to you.’
    ‘And what of us?’
    ‘You must ask him to bring you here often. Perhaps you could settle here. Why not? He could live in Hanover. They might give him a position there.’
    ‘That’s true. I see I could do worse than Adolphus.’
    And so she had become betrothed to him, and was becoming moderately reconciled to marriage when she met Frederick William, Prince of Solms-Braunfels, a Captain of the King’s Bodyguard, who had seemed at that time devastatingly attractive. Was it because he was so different from Adolphus – gay and dashing and determined to seduce her?
    ‘But I am betrothed to the Duke of Cambridge,’ she protested.
    ‘Do you think I should allow that young man to stand in my way?’ demanded Frederick William of Solms-Braunfels.
    Frederick William certainly had a way with him, and perhaps she was in rebellion against those who would choose her husband for her, and against the legend of Aunt Charlotte.
    It was not enough to make her his mistress. That was a secret affair. He wanted to flout the Duke of Cambridge, to throw his defiance at the English Duke; he wanted the world to know that the beautiful Frederica was so enamoured of her bold captain that she would turn from mighty England to little Solms-Braunfels. And she had believed it was due to his passion for her! She married him secretly, and made one of the biggest mistakes of her life.
    She shuddered even now to recall the storm that arose when it was discovered that she had married. She had brought about a coolness between England and Prussia because she had jilted a son of the King of England; she had married unsuitably and behaved in a manner which could only bring discredit to herself and the family.
    She did not want to think of the years that had followed when she learned slowly and bitterly what a fool she had been. Being banished from the Court meant that she had lost Louise, and Frederick William was soon showing himself for what he was