A/N: Okay, I've finally caught up on both AO3 and this site so all current chapters are posted. Apologies for future delays in updates (with this fic, I'm never sure when I'll be updating next)…in the meantime, #TeamVicbourne :)
As always, your faves/comments make me smile. The Vicbourne fandom is absolutely spectacular #mwah
Duke of Wellington
In the throne room, the ministers gathered before a vacant chair. I watched them all scamper around, frantic, helpless, looking for precedent, of which there was none, and guidance, of which there was less.
The little Queen was certainly leaving her mark on the Empire, though perhaps not in the way any of us might have expected. Her grandfather, with all those voices in his head, had been less troublesome.
And he, at least, had kept to the palace grounds.
Opinions and speculation could be found in every corner of Buckingham Palace, new schemes hatching between the Duke of Cumberland and that weasel, John Conroy, Robert Peel and other members of our party attempting to reconcile the Queen's actions and plan a way forward, the Whigs noticeably absent—floundering to find their footing, with Melbourne not yet returned from his sudden and ill-timed holiday.
No matter what happened next, the news would not stay within the palace walls for long. The servants had heard enough. And this was not something that could be hushed up, even if we all, Whigs, Tories and weasels alike, agreed to it. All of London would be buzzing in a day or two. It would be whispered first, then spoken freely, finally shouted in the streets by newspaper boys and gossiping women.
The Queen has fled the palace! The Queen has abandoned her throne!
"But how can we spin this?" Peel wondered aloud, looking at me with a little too much optimism in his hang-dog features. He was grasping at straws, as if an appropriate resolution might present itself through the mere act of asking the air for answers.
But there were no answers here. This was unprecedented. This was untried. I'm an old man. I've seen many things. But never this.
I'll be honest. A part of me admired the little queen. She showed a strength of will and brazen nerve that no monarch I've ever met could rival. And the older one gets, the more one recognizes the sheer absurdity of life and all our rules and contradictions, fencing ourselves in to prisons of our own making.
The fact that the Queen had staged a prison break amused me, despite my better judgment.
John Conroy would have us believe her actions stemmed from a feebleness of mind that had infected her actions from the day of her coronation forward. His battle-cry had become predictable and monotonous over the last few years. The horrid man nearly drives himself mad with it.
After the events of last week, I'd been told that he was finally taking action, having whispered and planned and plotted for long enough. Peel and some of the others had been informed that Conroy was calling in physicians to formally examine the queen. And the queen's reckless actions left enough doubt that the party was inclined to allow it. Lady Flora Hastings' brother led the noise in the house, to the surprise of absolutely no one.
The examination had been scheduled for this very day, though the Queen was not aware of it. Providence granted her a reprieve—Victoria had missed her appointment by hours only.
They needed the bold, confident signatures of two impartial physicians to give them the regency they so desired. Those physicians were present in the room with the rest—mulling about, speaking to each other in hushed tones. Dr. Rose, an Englishmen who had roomed with Charles Clarke, the Hastings' family doctor, at university and Dr. Josef Von Karlsson, a grey-haired German with a pronounced limp and solid ties to the Queen's Uncle Leopold. I understand politics well enough but these were hardly the impartial sort.
If and when she returned, they would be waiting for her at the gate of the palace, ready to sign any order John Conroy put under their pens.
Perhaps with reason—but I was unconvinced. The young woman who sought my assistance forming a government, honestly and hopefully, with duty placed squarely ahead of bitter, bitter disappointment, was no more mad than the rest of us.
Stubborn, of course. That Bedchamber Crisis had been something to behold. The exasperation I felt with the little queen had rivalled the rest of them. I'll admit that my initial impression was prejudiced by her youth and inexperience. I thought she was a spoiled child, throwing a tantrum over not getting her way. But then she surprised me, speaking so forcefully that day I came to speak with her,
You were a soldier, Duke?
I didn't realize you were fighting a war, ma'am.
Because you are not a young woman, sir, and I expect no one tells you what to do.
Impulsive, passionate and certainly unwilling to be John Conroy's marionette, or anyone else's for that matter—these were her only crimes. I could not judge her for any of them.
I'll admit it freely. I was growing soft in the late winter of my life and a creature of early summer could enchant me with little effort. The Queen, haloed in golden strands of sunshine and the vernal fragrance of orchids and gardenias, was just such a creature.
It was no wonder that Melbourne was utterly bewitched by the girl.
The romantic fancy of my addled, old mind had briefly entertained the idea that the Queen had convinced Melbourne to run away with her, but seeing him enter the throne room finally, world-weary expression firmly affixed on his pained face, those fancies vanished quickly.
I met the man's wandering gaze across the room and realized that he was more at a lost than the rest of us, for reasons that went far beyond politics, scandal and the fate of the English throne. I pity him…even if he is a Whig.
I took a long, deep breath, watching the chaos she had left behind in silent introspection.