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Albrecht was grateful for the restraint, though his gratitude offered him little comfort. His wife had admitted the acts herself. Her guilt no longer depended upon his capacity to believe a servant.

He moved from their London lodging into rooms offered by the Matlocks. He refused the grandest apartment, explaining that he was quite unable to sleep in a chamber designed for entertaining a visiting prince.

"Then you may have the room Richard occupied as a boy," Saye said. "It contains less grandeur and considerably more evidence of bad behaviour."

"I heard that," Richard called from the passage.

"I intended you should."

Albrecht looked between them with an expression Elizabeth had come to recognize. It mingled grief for Friedrich with affection for the two men who reminded him of his youth. He smiled and accepted the smaller room.

No one pressed him to speak of Adelheid at table. Lady Matlock ensured that a place remained for him when he wished to join the family and that solitude was equally available when he did not. He was neither displayed as a tragic guest nor subjected to continual reassurance. Elizabeth thought that this kindness did him more good than any number of speeches.

One afternoon he found her in the music room, where she was helping Georgiana rehearse a duet. Elizabeth could not yet hold her violin comfortably because of her shoulder, so she had confined herself to turning pages and offering opinions of such authority that Georgiana threatened to send her to the orchestra.

"Have you come to rescue Elizabeth?" Georgiana asked Albrecht.

"I had thought to hear music," he answered. "I see instead that Miss Bennet has made herself a commander without troops."

Elizabeth laughed. "I have soldiers enough. Richard tells me the army requires a drummer."

Georgiana returned to the pianoforte, and Albrecht settled beside Elizabeth. For a little while they listened. When the piece ended, he asked if he might have a private word with his niece.

She led him to the smaller drawing room, where Lady Matlock's maid was arranging flowers and would be within call. Albrecht produced a folded letter.

"It is from our son," he said. "He has learned that his mother is involved in proceedings here. He asks whether I mean to deprive him of her."

Elizabeth did not answer too quickly. She knew Albrecht loved his children, and she knew that no account of Adelheid's crimes could make their memories of her kindness unreal.

"What have you told him?" she asked.

"That his mother must answer for her conduct, and that no one proposes to punish him for having loved her. I have told him he may remain at Falkenried with the steward and our relations until I know when I can return. He must not travel in haste through countries at war merely because I am unhappy."

"That seems very wise."

"It does not feel wise. I want him here, and I dread explaining all that has occurred. Our youngest, Wilhelmine, has written to ask whether you still wish to be her cousin. She has heard only enough to fear you must despise us all."

Elizabeth felt tears threaten. "Will you let me write to her?"

"I hoped you might."

She sat at the writing desk and began in German. "My dear cousin, you have done nothing to deserve the sorrow in your home, and I have done nothing to deserve the kindness you have offered me. I hope we shall not allow the first fact to destroy the second."

Albrecht watched her write. "Minna would have spoken like that," he said.

"Then I am glad she taught me the language in which to say it."

They spoke of the children for some time, and Elizabeth promised that she would never use Adelheid's conduct to demand that her cousins choose between their parents. They might love their mother and condemn what she had done; the contradiction would be painful, but it belonged to their lives, not to outsiders eager to make a moral spectacle of them.

The following week brought word of a possible inheritance, not a final award of property to Elizabeth. Herr Weiss had located the papers concerning a settlement made by Princess Dorothea for her only daughter. The settlement reserved certain investments and personal jewels for Wilhelmine and, under specified circumstances, her descendants. When Wilhelmine disappeared, the estate's trustees had continued administering the property, although some income had been held in suspense and other portions dealt with under provisions whose application was now disputed.

Elizabeth's claim was not as simple as opening a locket and receiving a fortune. Henry had married the woman known in England as Minna Reuter; the link between that woman and Princess Wilhelmine had to be established satisfactorily under the governing documents and local law. The English marriage register and the record that banns had been called named Henry Bennet's bride as Minna Reuter—the surname she had borrowed with Doctor Reuter's knowledge because she could not remember her own. Henry's surviving letters described the physician's care of her, the unusual locket, and her voyage to England; Elizabeth's baptismal entry identified Henry and Minna as her parents. Those documents, the account of Reuter's surviving household, the portrait and inscription inside the locket, the Falkenried family records, and Albrecht's identification of his sister together formed a chain of evidence. Yet each link required scrutiny, and the terms of Princess Dorothea's settlement—not Elizabeth's newly discovered rank—would determine what passed to a daughter and to that daughter's child. The trustees had therefore reserved judgment while the German and English representatives examined certified copies and, where possible, original entries.

"Then I am not suddenly a princess with a hundred estates?" Elizabeth asked Saye when he explained the position.

"You have never been suddenly anything," he replied. "You have been yourself for twenty-one years. A sensible man will be grateful for the warning."

"And my title?" she asked, unable to resist.