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“Your mother had the speech of someone raised among educated German households,” Her Majesty observed. “That is a clue to her upbringing, but not proof of descent. Such matters must be established through family records and testimony. I shall ask a trusted member of my household whether old correspondence may assist your guardian.”

“I would be grateful for any remembrance of her,” Elizabeth said. “Even if no estate, rank, or fortune were attached to it.”

“Then you have already understood what is most valuable in this inquiry,” the Queen said.

The audience lasted only a short time. Elizabeth did not leave with a royal pronouncement of identity; the Queen had been careful not to give one. Yet she carried the knowledge that the woman in the locket had been real to someone outside the family, and that her mother had not been forgotten at the German court.

Darcy was waiting when the visitors returned to their lodgings in Windsor. Georgiana had spent the afternoon drawing a border of leaves to accompany a song Elizabeth liked and was eager to show it to her. Seeing Elizabeth's expression, Darcy sent his sister ahead with Lady Matlock and remained beside Elizabeth in the passage, where servants and family were still within hearing.

“You look as though you have received good news and found it difficult to bear,” he said.

“Her Majesty remembers my grandmother. Not as a crest or a title, but as a woman who wrote about her children.” Elizabeth glanced at him. “I think I have been foolish. I wished so much for someone to tell me who Mama was that I forgot they might also tell me what she had lost.”

Darcy took her hand. “You have not been foolish. You have been a daughter.”

They returned to London the following morning, stopping for the horses and for a meal rather than attempting the journey without rest. The Queen's kindness did not shorten the passage of letters across Europe, but it gave Elizabeth something steadier to remember while she waited.

One evening, during the long interval before letters from Germany could answer her questions, Elizabeth came upon the Earl in his study. The house was quiet, and he had been examining a map without appearing to see it. She paused in the doorway, uncertain whether to disturb him.

"You look as though you have declared war upon the Continent," she said.

He folded the map. "Only upon the inconvenience of having no power to make ships sail more quickly."

Elizabeth came to sit near the fire. She had expected everyone else to be as impatient for answers as she was; she had not expected to see her guardian sitting awake with the worry plainly visible in the line beside his mouth.

"I do not wish you to suppose I regret any of it," she said. "Learning about Mama. Writing to Albrecht. It has given me more than I hoped for."

"I know." The Earl turned his watch once between his fingers before putting it away. "But you were hurt by uncertainty long before you came to us, and I dislike being unable to spare you another season of it."

Elizabeth considered the old habit she had acquired of treating fear as a problem to solve alone. She took the map from his hand and spread it upon the desk between them.

"Show me where the letters might travel," she said. "If we must wait, we might at least be impatient together."

They bent over the route until the lamp burned low. When the countess came to find them, she brought another candle and made room beside Elizabeth rather than asking why either had remained awake.

When Albrecht received Elizabeth's letter, it was midsummer. He read her account of Minna's roses beside the same window from which he had watched his sister hurry into the garden years before. At the mention of the lullaby, he could hear his mother's voice with an exactness that startled him.

Adelheid entered as he lowered the page.

"You have heard from England?" she asked.

"From Elizabeth." He held the letter out. "She writes beautifully. Minna taught her German herself. Listen to this account of her childhood."

He began reading. Adelheid listened with an expression of sympathy she no longer trusted herself to feel. When he reached Elizabeth's mention of the songs and stories Minna remembered without knowing their origin, her breath caught.

"Did she speak of anything else?" she asked. "Any old grief? Her mother's memories, perhaps?"

"There are no accusations in the letter, if that is what concerns you," Albrecht answered, surprised. "Only the memories of a daughter."

"I meant that she might have suffered," Adelheid said quickly. "It must have been distressing to live without knowledge of her family."

"Of course she suffered. But she was loved." He folded the page with care. "I shall go, Adelheid. I will not lose the chance to know her through another year of hesitation."

Adelheid crossed the room and took his hand. "Then I shall accompany you."

"The journey will be unpleasant, perhaps unsafe. You need not."

"You must not face this alone," she said.