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

– a bully even capable of physical violence towards her. What unhappiness for herself and for Louise! And of course there was the war. Nowhere was safe from Napoleon’s troops; and soon she was pregnant and her daughter was born. She called the child Louise – which seemed some consolation.
    She could not bear to think of that time, although there was reconciliation and she and Louise were allowed to be together again. But the disaster of war threatened continually and when peace came Louise was about to bear her tenth child; and soon after that …
    No, she would not think of it. It was over. She now had Ernest and although they had lost their first child there would be others.
    She had sat by Louise’s bed; she was the one who was with her to the end. She could feel the pain in her heart now. ‘Louise, Louise, we were to have been together for the rest of our lives. And now you are leaving me.’
    But Louise had gone and she had been alone in a world of hostility, dominated by a husband whom she had come to hate; but she was not the woman to sit down and cry over her troubles. Instead she snapped her fingers at Fate and sought a way out of them. She had lost Louise, the one she loved best in the world, and she was left with a husband whom she had grown to hate. She took one lover, two lovers. Her reputation was becoming tarnished – even worse, for there were many who remembered what had happened to her first husband; but she did not care.
    And then she met Ernest.
    What was there to attract her so strongly in the brother of that Adolphus whom she had so shamelessly jilted? He was scarcely handsome – at least he was not to others; but to her there was something completely fascinating in his somewhat sinister face. He had lost an eye at the battle of Tournay and his expression was sardonic. One could believe the stories that were told of him. His reputation matched her own. He was said to have murdered his valet who discovering his master in bed with his wife had attackedhim with the Duke’s own sword. Ernest’s retaliation – so it was said – was to cut the valet’s throat. Was Ernest a murderer? It was a question which was constantly asked.
    It was said of Ernest that there was no vice which he had not practised and looking at him one could believe this. He had lived as dangerously as she had herself; she was immediately attracted by him and he by her. They were of a kind – different from other people. They took what they wanted from life and were prepared to pay for it.
    A new excitement had come into her life such as no man had ever given her before. It was inevitable that they should become lovers. Inevitable too that the Prince of Solms-Braunfels should discover this. How indignant unfaithful husbands could be when they learned that their wives were playing the same game! This amused her; she laughed at him.
    ‘I will divorce you,’ he had cried.
    ‘Nothing would please me more,’ she retorted.
    ‘Do you realize you will be an outcast in Europe?’
    ‘I realize that I shall be free of you, which gives me so much pleasure that I can think of nothing else.’
    In a fury he set divorce proceedings in motion; he produced evidence of her adultery; she did not deny it and the divorce was granted.
    Immediately afterwards he died … mysteriously.
    She laughed now remembering the storm. To have one husband who had died of an unidentifiable fever was scandalous enough, but when a second did the same, then conjecture must become a certainty.
    ‘How strange that he should die at that time,’ it was said.
    ‘Of course she had her divorce but it would have been awkward having him alive if she planned to marry again. Did she arrange for him to die?’
    ‘Did I?’ she asked of Ernest. ‘You were suspected of murder once, my love. From the moment I met you I wanted to share our experiences. I had to be your equal, you know.’
    He was amused. He did not ask her if she had murdered her husbands; she did not