Melbourne

"Lord Melbourne!" Lady Hastings' voice was alive with relief as soon as she saw me walking up the hall. She and the other ladies were gathered outside the Queen's bedchamber, hovering. The term ladies-in-waiting had never been more appropriately applied. Lady Hastings' ran up to me, "She won't come out. She won't talk to us. The silence is somehow worse than the last time. I'm worried she's done something foolish."

Lady Hastings was confident that my sudden appearance would right everything. I felt it in her posture and general demeanor. But she was as foolish as her Queen.

My presence here was wrong. The fact that this scene, already played out over a year ago, should be repeated, with the Queen locking herself in her room like a child…her stubbornness rivalled that seen in the Grecian gods and their mythical exploits.

But Emma had insisted that my presence was required. At Dover House, she had said it plainly. Edward had begrudgingly agreed, though his customary frown begged me to find a different way.

"William, she won't come out for anyone but you," Emma stated bluntly. "You can deny it all you want. We've done this once before and you remember how that turned out. I don't see that anything has changed in the meantime."

"I don't require a reminder," I muttered my answer and Emma pursed her lips, suppressing a smirk. In the war of convention and good sense, Emma was an enemy informant and she enjoyed her provocative role immensely.

I wished I could smile with her. I wished I could laugh. And not the cynic's laugh I mastered so skillfully decades ago, after being served life's sour fruit too many times. No, true laughter, the kind that bubbles up like a spring of fresh water from the land of underground palaces and old earth. I hadn't tasted its rich flavor in my mouth since I was a young man. However long ago that was.

There was no happiness on the horizon, despite Emma's best wishes. There was only scandal and heartbreak and tragic truths. And here's the worst of it. Knowing what I know now, I would do it all exactly the same. Not one change in the playwright's script, lest I lose the parts that I have loved best. There is madness in this.

Love is all madness. If only I could make the Queen understand that. I had taught her many things but that particular lesson didn't take…now to the ruin of us both.

So I groaned at Emma's manner but rose from where I was slouched in my tall-backed chair. I dressed and I went to the palace, despite the screaming practicality in my head that repeated over and over again: You fool, you fool, you old fool!

All she had to do was dance with the German prince. Just one dance. Smile at him once or twice and let herself be swept up in the sugared spell of young romance. Any two attractive young people can manage it easily enough. Why couldn't she just do what was expected? I had released her, with every blessing. All she had to do was dance.

My torment would, of course, continue but hers would have ended, and I would have been satisfied with that. Nearly satisfied. I would have retired and gone away with as much grace as I could muster, taking with me a few choice memories that I would keep safe and hold fast while they faded, hopefully, quickly and with no regrets, from my dear girl's mind.

But she didn't dance with him. Damn her, she didn't dance. She chose the road never travelled. I could not be her guide there, as no person can guide another down a path that neither has gone down before…but she knew that. She knew I couldn't abandon her there and so must join her. She wanted me to join her.

She had grown up as an orphan, with a puppet mother and a cruel, scheming guardian in Sir John. I had been orphaned too, by faithlessness and death, leaving me to my darkest thoughts, counting the hours to the end of my life in grim contemplation. It was foolish of me to think that this might play out any different. Two orphans cannot help but cling to each other.

When I realized my error, I pushed her away. Her soul had cried out to mine once in the dark of night, just before she came to me at Brocket Hall. I had felt it, as if a knife blade cut into my palm, and ignored it, hoping this proved me wise and worthy of redemption. I had refused her at Brocket Hall, though those pale fingers in mine pulsed with something more than passing inclination.

I couldn't trust her feelings to last. I still couldn't. And yet, she didn't dance with Albert.

Now standing in the hall beside her quavering ladies, I knocked on her bedroom door, "Ma'am?"

No answer. Icy fingers of fear clutched around my heart. She wasn't a child, for all her bright eyes and eager nature. She must know what her actions meant. And what if her regret had turned sour? Lady Hastings' words echoed in my head, I'm worried she's done something foolish.

I set my jaw, not giving those thoughts more than a moment's notice. I couldn't. I wouldn't. Instead, I knocked on the door a bit more insistently.

I heard footsteps on the other side, small and careful, moving towards the door. She approached the gate between us but didn't unlock it. I could imagine her plainly on the other side, waiting, refusing. Stubborn to the last, she didn't want to hear what I had to say.

Damn her. Damn her for being this way.

All her ladies, save Emma, still hovered nearby. But lines had already been crossed, so I only hesitated a moment before speaking words that I knew would be answered.

"Victoria," I used her given name as a command, the syllables breaking so strong and familiar across my lips, in pure contravention of all the laws of men and good sense. I repeated her name, "Victoria, open this damn door and let me in."

Within seconds, the lock clicked over.