“Lady Elizabeth Darcy, Baroness León.”
She felt Darcy’s hand leave hers—the peace disappeared. She turned and curtseyed to Lady Matlock who took her right hand. They walked slowly towards the Queen. Lady Matlock curtseyed to Her Majesty, turned slightly, then curtseyed to the Prince; she retreated, stepping carefully backwards.
Elizabeth took a step forward. She gave a very deep curtsey to Queen Charlotte. As Lady Matlock had, she turned and curtseyed to the Prince. The Queen beckoned her forward, removing her right glove as she did so. Elizabeth, her heart hammering, removed hers also, stepping close. The Queen took her hand. Elizabeth jolted as memories assailed her, and there,not so distant, was a darkening, yet still, the memories waxed and waned.
“Lady Elizabeth, our General, the Earl of Wellington, tells me that you did our Dominion a very great service.”
“Your Majesty, it was my duty and honour.”
The Queen leant forward, and kissed Elizabeth’s forehead. “Nonsense, Lady Elizabeth,” she said. “I have heard of what you did. You went beyond honour and duty.” She paused, lowering her voice. “I was told you have visions—is that correct—of some future events. It was how you were able to warn Wellington of his danger.”
Elizabeth raised her eyes. “Your Majesty, it is a curse I carry, not a gift. I am not a seer, I do not tell fortunes.”
“Is there anything that you might say to me?” The Queen bent lower, her voice the veriest whisper. “I fear for the Crown, His Majesty…”
A memory came to Elizabeth, unlike those that were directly tied to the person whose touch she felt. This memory flew down the generations, like a leaf being blown by the wind.
“You have a granddaughter, Ma’am, she is yet to be born. But she rules,suo jure, the largest empire the world has ever known.”
The memory faded. Gone, the merest, fleeting thought. But not lost, transformed into a smile of the veriest wonder spreading across Queen Charlotte’s face. “Lady Elizabeth, you do us great honour. You must visit us at Windsor.”
Almost reluctantly, the Queen released Elizabeth’s hand. The interview was over.
Elizabeth backed away, once more giving a deep curtsey to the Prince, and then to the Queen, who, in a breach of protocol, acknowledged Elizabeth with a small, deliberate nod, the kind that passes between two women who understand each other perfectly. There was a murmur throughout the hall, for suchcondescension was without precedent. Truly, Lady Elizabeth Darcy, Baroness León, was exceedingly well-favoured.
They filed into the anteroom, the circus over. Darcy found her hand. Elizabeth felt tears threatening; but, she would endure the ceaseless introductions, the banal conversation. Darcy held her hand, and that was all that mattered.
* * *
Running across the Meseta Central she had worn the costume of a maja—tonight she wore silk; then she had run barefoot—now she wore satin slippers; in Spain, even in the company of Don Mateo and Colonel Fitzwilliam, she had felt alone—tonight, William held her hand. To be precise, her left hand; his other hand was about her waist. She looked into his eyes. The music began, and he swept her away.
Lady Matlock’s ball, in honour of her presentation to the Queen, had become the event of the season. Elizabeth’s elevation to Baroness, and that she had chosen the title Baroness León, was as exotic and more mysterious than Lord Wellington being named Baron Douro in ‘09.
The whispers had begun the moment she entered on William’s arm. “They are all staring,” she said quietly, as he turned her in the dance, gazing with pride as she matched his steps.
“They are,” William agreed.
“At me, or at the title?”
He considered this. “At Lady Darcy,” he said at last. “You and the title, Baroness León, are a mystery they cannot account for.”
She laughed—a real laugh, not the careful, measured thing she had deployed in drawing rooms before Spain. Several heads turned at the sound. She found she did not care.
The Matlocks had done everything handsomely. The ballroom blazed with candles, the supper magnificent, and Lady Matlock—who had taken Elizabeth up with a warmth that still surprised her—had ensured that the guest list read like a page from Debrett’s. A smattering of Dukes and their duchesses, Earls and their countesses, Generals who had served under Wellington, members of Parliament whose opinions mattered and members who merely thought they did. All of them present, all of them curious.
Half of London, when the Letters Patent had been published in the London Gazette, had spent the past fortnight attempting to discover the precise nature of her service in Spain. The other half, recalling theon ditpublished in the Morning Post, had invented something far more scandalous, yet were wary of Lord Matlock’s sudden penchant for lawsuits for libel and slander.
Elizabeth thought of León—she thought of how very frightened she had been, and how she had refused to acknowledge her fear until it was done. None of that was known here. Here there was only the music, and the candlelight, and William’s hand at her waist, sure and steady.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“That I am very glad to be here with you,” she said.
He drew her, perhaps, a fraction closer than was strictly proper. She did not object.
“Lady Darcy is exceedingly handsome, is she not?” Lord Wellington watched Elizabeth and Darcy swirl across the dance floor, held close in the waltz.
“Darcy is a lucky man,” replied Lord Matlock, “but she is a handful—a beautiful handful, nevertheless.”
