“We are returning to the drawing room,” Andrew stated as he led the other two young men out of the dining parlour. Lord Holder and Robert Darcy followed the younger men and closed the door behind them.
“Your Highness, who is your daughter?” Richard suspected who it was. He remembered the way his Aunt Anne and his mother both had stared at…Lizzy! By their bearing and professionalism, he recognised men from the royal guard imbedded in the footmen and outriders the Bennets employed. He looked at the Prince, his father, and Mr. Bennet all watching him as his mind wrestled with the problem.
“Do you have a question you need to ask, son?” Lord Matlock asked.
“Mr. Bennet, Lizzy is not your daughter is she? She is the daughter of His Royal Highness from his first marriage. Oh good Lord, William called a princess ‘riffraff!’” Richard concluded.
“Lizzy does not know,” Bennet owned. “We need you to swear under pain of death you will not disclose what you have stumbled on toanyoneuntil she is told when we feel she is ready.”
“Is it not treason so keep a royal in your household, Mr. Bennet?” Richard worried.
“No, Richard, it is not, as I have given the Bennets royal indemnification to keep and raise my daughter…” Frederick gave Richard an abbreviated explanation of why Lizzy was being raised by the Bennets.
“So Mr. Taylor is there to make sure Lizzy is healthy, not to see to you when you visit?” Richard asked.
“That would be correct, except he would take care of me as well, were I to fall ill when at Purvis Lodge or Netherfield Park,” the Prince cleared up.
“Aunt Anne, may she rest in peace, and Mother found out eight years ago at Holder Heights. They would never keep secrets from you and Uncle Robert, so you have known since then, have you not Father?” Richard puzzled out.
“Yes, Son, but you understand why it is imperative to keep this knowledge to yourself?” Lord Matlock asked his son. “You cannot act any differently than you always have around Lizzy. This knowledge is a burden you will have to bear on your own for the next five years, and, as you know, you are now one of Lizzy’s protectors.”
“Netherfield Park was Lady Priscilla’s, was it not?” Richard asked.
“Yes, and now it belongs to Lizzy, or it will when she turns one and twenty,” Bennet explained. “That is another thing which is kept secret, Lizzy’s wealth—which is vast—for obvious reasons.”
Richard was almost sorry he pushed the point, for he was quickly seeing that the knowledge was a burden. He could not talk to Andrew, Jamey, or William about it; no one outside of the small circle who already knew. Lizzy, a Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Richard just shook his head, wishing it would shake the knowledge back out of his consciousness.
“When we have absolute privacy you may talk to any of us, including your Uncle Robert and Lord Holder,” the Prince assured Richard. “Swear to me, Richard Fitzwilliam, swear to me as your Prince that you will not reveal what you have learnt to another; we have five years to get through before it is to become known.”
“On my life, I give you my vow of secrecy,” Richard swore.
“Think of this as good practice for the army, Lieutenant,” Frederick stated.
“Yes Sir, Field Marshal, Sir,” Richard snapped off a smart salute. He often forgot Uncle Freddy was one of the highest-ranking military officers in the realm, and now he had sworn his oath to both personas as well as his trusted uncle, and it was a vow he would keep.
Chapter 16
August 1806
His Royal Highness Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, Earl of Ulster, marvelled at his daughter’s beauty. In the last three years, she had matured into a refined young gentlewoman. She had always looked like her mother—the holder of his heart—but never more so than now that she was almost fully grown. In the last year, he had been bestowed with an additional honour from his father, the King.
In 1801, the Prince had been vocal in his support of the establishment of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, which promoted the professional, merit-based training of future commissioned officers. He had opined that in order for the army to have the best, then the officers needed training, professional training, and not just the ability to purchase a rank.
The King had been so impressed with the quality of the officers being produced at Sandhurst, he made Frederick the honorary Warden of Windsor Forest in September 1805. As much as he appreciated the honour from his father, Frederick would have preferred that the wife of his heart was still alive to share his life and honours with him.
As he looked at his daughter, the Prince offered thanks to on high for being able to be part of her life. He was concerned that in two years when the truth was revealed to her she could be very angry at all of those who had withheld the information from her. Elizabeth prized honesty above all else, but he was willing to risk her possible ire to protect her for two more years.
He was at least sure about what the King would do if Elizabeth agreed to meet her royal grandparents. One day he had been visiting Buckingham House and he posited a hypothetical to his father, asking what he would have done had the dead boy lived, as far as succession went.
The King had given his son’s question consideration and then had replied although the child would have been recognised as a legitimate son, and a Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the King would not have angered the spiritual leaders of the Church of England by having a child born after divorce so close in succession to the throne. He would have the prime minister bring an act to the commons to remove the boy from the line of succession.
It was one of the few times in Frederick’s life his father had expressed remorse for forcing the divorce. It did not repair the heartbreak that had been caused, but Frederick treasured the fact his father was willing to acknowledge such to him.
What the King did not admit to was that he knew he had made two women unhappy along with his son. Princess Frederica Charlotte lived in seclusion at his son’s estate of Oatlands Park near Weybridge in Surrey. Although he acknowledged the pain his actions had caused to three, the King knew what he had done had been done for good reason, as now Prussia was an ally in the fight against the little tyrant and his wars in Europe.
The prince was returned to the present as he watched his daughter and some of her sisters talking quietly in the drawing room. Priscilla had left him the most special of gifts in the form of Elizabeth.
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