Victoria's hand was unclasped with the last note of the opera and, as the thunderous applause consumed, almost drowning out Victoria's voice, she took the opportunity to speak, hoping that she wouldn't be heard. She spoke with great urgency and great passion,
"Please, Lord Melbourne, come back with me to the palace. We shall have dinner together. There is so much I wish to talk to you about."
Lord Melbourne, taking a sharp intake of breath, looked about himself, as if checking if the coast was clear, and then leant in before speaking to the Queen as the sensible politician again. His voice was low and it caught Victoria's breath. What a beautiful sound – one she heard at night, but did not think she would hear in her waking hours again. What a beautiful sound making the most awful meaning.
"I'm afraid you must excuse me, Ma'am, but it is already late and I have matters to attend to."
Victoria could have screamed! How could he hold her hand like that, and then immediately act like nothing had happened? Had he no mercy? No kindness? Had he learnt nothing?
"It is hardly past eight o'clock!" she implored, "And what matters could be more pressing? We needn't have anything large prepared for us, just something small. I have not yet eaten, and I would very much like your company tonight." She resisted the urge to beg. She knew it would not be dignified, though she wished to get on her knees and plead with him. William knew that it would not be wise for him to get in the carriage with the Queen and go with her back to the palace: people would see and what they saw would lead them to talk and that talk would catch on the wind and spit back in their faces. Hot ash and smoke. He still nursed the burns of scandal. The exposed scalds were sensitive, and wary of being burnt again. He did not wish Victoria's skin – ivory, soft – to receive the scorches. "Lord Melbourne… now that we have… we have shared something, an understanding… touches… I cannot go back to the way things used to be. It would be like losing someone I love all over again."
He wanted to tell her to lower her voice. What she said was suicide. But the most beautiful suicide he had ever dreamt of. He, too, treasured the affinity they now shared. He still felt her hands on his face, wiping away his tears, her breath on his skin, the sweet smell of her. And, in his mind, clear above all the sense screaming at him to stop this, he could hear Emma: a happy epilogue, William. What an epilogue it could read. And so, his voice remained quiet and gentle, and his hand burned to clasp hers again. His voice almost faltered under unshed tears, the weight of a million pressures all ignored in the hold of those crystal blue eyes.
"If you wish for me to come with you, Ma'am, I cannot refuse."
Robert Peel returned from the theatre when the sun had gone down. He had taken to the club with a few Tory gentlemen (by 'taken' he meant 'persuaded to go') but had left earlier than them, not wishing Julia to worry about him. The carriage ride back to his residence was undisturbed, the air quiet save the chirping of crickets and the soft cooing of a bird in a tree, and the sky a deep purple, settling into the twilight, reeling from the loss of the sun, mottled with starlight, tracing constellations through the clouds. He made it back inside with little fuss and a lot of calm. That was, until he was inside.
"So," cried Lady Peel, rushing to her husband as if he had the most riveting news that any ear could ever hear, pouncing on him before he could even rid himself of his overcoat. Robert Peel expected her to be asleep at this time. "Was it Lord Melbourne? Has she spoken to him?" Sir Robert Peel took a few more seconds to collect himself, allowing his brain to keep up with his hears, before he simply sighed.
"She said he was welcome but, whether she had seen him already, she would not say." Suddenly, and much to Robert Peel's surprise, Lady Peel released a squealing laugh, giddy – much like an excited schoolgirl – backing away from her husband, half-dreamy, clapping her hand across her mouth. "What? Julia, whatever's the matter?"
"Don't you understand, Robert?" she cried, a silly grin spread across her face that frightened her husband. She could hardly talk for the giggles that continued to rack her. "When a woman doesn't tell you something, it means she has done something you wouldn't like!"
Robert Peel's heart sank in his chest. It would not come to that, he thought.
"What do you mean?" he pressed.
"That means, Sir Robert, that not only has the Queen met with Lord Melbourne but that the exchange between them was… well, by her terms, satisfactory, by yours, far from it!"
What did she mean? Sir Robert's mind began to whirr, like millwheels, old millwheels that hadn't been used in far too long and scratched and squealed.
"How has he been: Lord Melbourne? Have you seen him?" Julia asked, her excitement getting the better of her. The difference between attitudes of man and wife was almost comical. Sir Robert was practically grey with gloom.
"Yes. At the theatre." Her eyes were so wide. It was troubling.
"And how did he seem?"
Robert Peel was rooted to the spot by what his wife was saying. He had not thought of it when he had seen Lord Melbourne that day, walking through the foyer of the theatre, a few steps behind the Queen, but now – whilst being interrogated by Julia Peel – he realised something horrible. Lord Melbourne, firstly, was following the Queen. After the incident at the funeral, such a situation was strange and frightening. Secondly, Lord Melbourne looked so peaceful, so amiable, filled with such potent happiness that it almost radiated off him. For a man that was so often seen with a stern expression, or one of sarcastic humour, such happiness should have struck Sir Robert with confusion, but it did not. He had hardly noticed it. What a fool he was! Lord Melbourne's eyes were practically flashing, green and gold, creased in the corners. His walk was fast. Whatever had happened? Only one thing. His pursuit of the Queen's step in the foyer of the theatre only meant one thing: there was something for Robert Peel to worry about.
"He seemed quite… happy."
Julia laughed once again, louder this time. Her cheeks were a pretty pink, and her eyes were full and shining.
"Oh, I am so glad! Do you think they are quite in love?"
"Julia!" Sir Robert snapped, as if her words had wounded him.
"What?"
"He was a Whig Prime Minister! She is the Queen! And not only the Queen, but a newly widowed Queen! She is in her second stage of mourning! It has only been three months!"
"One must publicly mourn on the passing of one's love, yes, but everyone knows that the Queen did not love Prince Albert. Respected him, perhaps. Liked him, even. But, loved? What need is there to mourn a husband that was never a husband? If she conducts herself carefully, not publicly, not yet, then-"
"It is not proper!"
"Do you really think she's proper? If you do, as the Prime Minister, you have a lot to learn! She took a name which does not exist, she has stood firm ground again you time and time again, she invents fashions and orders battalions! If she is in love with Lord Melbourne, she will not deny herself that. Not after all she has suffered. And neither will he, I should hope. They deserve this! You are the only one who is afraid!"
"The constitution will face ruin!" Sir Robert cried, face red, throwing his hands up, a plea to the Gods, defeat.
"Don't be so wicked, Robert!" Julia scolded, her gaze as hard as the cutting edge of her voice. Sir Robert fell silence, scorched. And then, and only then, did Lady Peel soften. "Do you remember when you first courted me? I do not believe our match was entirely popular. But you persisted. Because we were in love."
"You are not the Queen!" he replied, his anger still simmering.
"I beg your pardon?" she gasped, mock-offended. It made Robert Peel laugh, though he was not at all in a laughing mood. "We were in love, weren't we?" Sir Robert did not reply. But his eyes spoke. Yes, I believe we were. "I ask you, Robert, as a wife to her husband, if it ever comes to you to make a decision regarding the couple, please, remember what we have, what we had."
Lady Peel's dark eyes caught the light, and melted him. It seemed like only minutes ago, an hour at most, that those same eyes gazed at him in the gardens of Drayton Manor – though, he knew, it was twenty-two years ago, now. It had rained that day, in the garden, but they did not heed it. He remembered it exactly, minutely, every little cold raindrop on his face, making crystals in her hair. She was wearing white that day and it made her almost gleam, like something angelic, and she had left her shawl in the library, across the back of the armchair. Her arms were pimpling in the cold, matching her red cheeks and purple lips. He remembered wanting to hold he arms and warm them up. She did not fear catching a chill, for she had words of love to tell him, gazes to share with him, and they must do it all away from his father.
The gardens were bright green, more vivid against the mottled grey of churning clouds in the sky, and there were great bushes spreading back, back until they met the grey. Hardly a flower, hardly a tree, just grass and foliage, gleaming and catching raindrops. Drayton Manor's brick expanse seemed inappropriate amongst the green – a jarring stab of red, orange, in the landscape. But what a backdrop it made for her: her, his Julia, uttering her affections, gazing at him, and melting him.
How would he have felt, if his father had not shown them mercy?
He thought that, perhaps, William saw that same gaze – blue, not dark – but filled with the purest and gentlest love imaginable, and he wondered whether he, too, melted under the gaze.
How would they feel, if he did not show them mercy?
It could come to that, Sir Robert thought. And then what would he do?
The carriage came to a stop in the pool of light, soft and yellow, pouring sweet like honey from the many windows of Buckingham Palace. The carriage had rolled along past St James' Park in almost complete darkness and, so, when they were allowed a little light, the pair studied the other's face, prettier in the soft light, softer. The lines which so often looked brooding and harsh on Lord M's face were smoothed down, as if by the tides of the sea pulled upon by the moon, and the honey light made the gold in his eyes spark and gleam, turning molten and calling upon her. When looking at her, he noticed how her cheeks burned – not pink, like they used to, but bronze. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, he thought, but it made her look ethereal, powerful, like some deity or bust of an Egyptian Queen, burning with the light of her reign: a thousand suns and the moonlight in their wake. It was beauty, he thought.
Victoria exited the carriage first, and Lord Melbourne followed. He almost laughed: it was unheard of for them to exit a carriage in that order. Many, many times he had stood outside a carriage as the door clicked, felt his pulse skip in anticipation of her arrival, and witness it, feeling every time that he was witnessing something truly historical, and thanking God that he had been allowed to witness it. A young Queen, with her reign stretching ahead of her into a glorious sunlight, a million decisions and a million cries of 'God Save the Queen' and a million stars to light her and a million stars on her crown: and he was the one to guide her from the carriage. He was the one to take her hand, lead her into the eyes of the crowds, and hear their cheers for her, and join in them, silently.
But now, she watched him as he climbed from the carriage. And she thought of him, now. She thought of the stars, millions of them, that lay behind him.
Victoria and William walked through the palace in silence. The servants had grown used to the dormant evenings of the Queen's grief, and had developed a routine of early nights, leaving the halls and corridors and rooms of the palace, that would once have been jostling and stifling, utterly empty. It was almost strange, a little surreal, to have the palace rooms - decked out in the finest cloths and patterns and artistry simply for the amusement of guests - void of all guests, or even servants. It was a ritual for no one. A display for display's sake. An unheard cry. The rooms displayed their lacklustre splendour, deflating in the realisation that only two persons were there to see, and the two persons were too absorbed within themselves to pay attention to the cloths or patterns or artistry. The artistry, Melbourne thought, was merely a backdrop to her.
They enjoyed the silence. Victoria leading the way, her feet light as air on the floor, her skirts ruffling like a slight breeze across a petal, sweeping at her ankles and making beautiful fabric ruffles like the lapping of the sea; William following behind, keeping his footfall as light as he could, as not to disturb hers, and watching the fabric wafting at her feet, her braids brushing at her neck, her hands, delicate and pale. Victoria caught a glance of William in the mirrors on the wall, and saw that he was looking at her, and she blushed. He looked so handsome. The silence suited them perfectly.
In the empty silence of the palace, they felt bound, in a nutshell, and Victoria was the Queen of infinite space; Melbourne, her companion.
Victoria kept her word that they would not have anything grand, for she asked a slightly sleepy Lehzen (night-capped and lamp-wielding like a character from a children's fairy tale) for something small and sweet for her to eat. Lord Melbourne stayed out of Lehzen's sight, upon Victoria's instructions. She did not wish to explain to her governess why she had a man at the palace at this time of night. Lehzen brought biscuits, and they were perfect.
The pair sat in the sitting room where they often met, but Melbourne found that it was a very different place in the dark. There was something undeniably intimate about it (though that could have simply been a result of the intimacy of his company). A room that, in the daylight, seemed grand and open and airy, became close and quiet and private simply with the addition of moonlight and candles. He could not see the corners of the rooms for they were cloaked in shadows, the windows reflected the interior of the room, rather than offering a view of the outside. Only the moon broke the reflection, a pearly sphere, like a silver fruit hanging from a tree that one could simply reach for, pick down, suck the juice from and throw away the rinds. It would taste clearer than water, fresher than rain and cucumber.
Victoria was clearly hungry, for she ate most of the biscuits, talking to him absent-mindedly of the opera that neither had paid particular attention to. Victoria could still feel his hand holding hers. They fell back into silence as Victoria took the last bite of her biscuit and swallowed, looking back into Melbourne's eyes. Every time she did, she felt like she was falling in love with him all over again.
"Thank you for sitting beside me at the opera tonight, Lord M," she uttered, keeping her voice low, just in case a stray servant might overhear. They must still be careful, she understood that. If she did not, she would have loudly declared her love quarter of an hour ago.
"Thank you, Ma'am, for inviting me to sit beside you," Lord M replied, turning a biscuit over in his fingers, taking a nibble of it, not hungry at all but feeling the need to be polite. He was too distracted to be hungry. His stomach was turning. He could still feel her hand resting within his own.
"I believe," began Victoria, hesitantly, not knowing how to phrase the next passage of their book, but knowing that it must be written, or she would go mad, "that, after that day when it rained, something has changed between us. Don't you agree, Lord M?" William was not afraid of the Queen suggesting such a thing, so suddenly, for he knew that she spoke the truth. They had seen the innermost part of each other, and it had led to them sharing something sacred.
"I do, Ma'am." His voice was barely a whisper, barely there, but it made echoes in Victoria's mind.
"I cannot go on pretending, Lord M."
"No, Ma'am."
"You understand what I am trying to say?" she asked, afraid to say it for herself, scouring his eyes for something comforting, something to soothe her nerves which were beginning to shred to tatters. It was so silly – to be so frayed, when she was only speaking to a friend. More than that now, she thought. Lord Melbourne laughed,
"I hope so, Ma'am. It would be awkward to misinterpret such a thing," he smiled. What a smile! What a gaze! Victoria thought she would burst. She thought she must be glowing. She laughed with him,
"Yes, I suppose it would."
"Just for the sake of clarity, Ma'am, will you permit me to be more frank?" he asked, finding courage, finding fire, again. It burned. Oh, how it burned. He felt the fire, and he was no longer afraid of it. Victoria could not speak, her throat was dry and her lungs collapsed, so she gave him a breathless nod. The nod was hardly perceptible, but Melbourne could not have missed it. When he spoke, he spoke with all the truth and clarity within him. "I love you."
There was no fanfare. No choir of angels. No running into his arms. No heavenly sunlight. But that did not matter. He was enough. His words were enough. Knowing that he loved her, that he cared for her, that he thought her beautiful, that he thought of her often, missed her when she wasn't there, enjoyed her company, felt pain at her pain, felt happiness at her happiness, felt all the things she felt for him, was the most perfect thing.
"I love you, too."
Melbourne gave a great sigh – relief? Love? The weight of the world rising from him or the weight of heaven falling upon him? He began to laugh, again, with the folly of it all. The once Prime Minister confessing his love to the Queen, and her returning the affection. It was ridiculous and it was glorious all at once. He was almost giddy on the sensation of it. Victoria laughed with him, a silvery laugh that twinkled like silver bells and rose from her like birdsong or the swell of a symphony, better than Mozart.
A hand found her braid, and her laugh turned to air, and face falling into a sigh. Or was it a gasp? As his fingers swept down her hair, pulling at it ever so gently, the gasp or sigh was drawn out of her, slowly, releasing into the still air, almost noiseless but not quite. He heard it. He turned his head slightly to the side, as if studying her, as if trying to take every part of her in and lodge it into his memory so he could hold it there forever, as if trying to appreciate her for all she was worth. His eyes brushed across her like a skilled painter brushes his paint across a canvas: the pink paint on her cheeks. He looked fascinated by her, but the glint of tears in his eyes told her that this was so much more than fascination.
"You mean the world to me, Victoria." His hand stopped at her neck, and stroked along her skin, setting fire to her. She shuddered. There was no urgency in the way he spoke, which was different, he spoke as if time meant nothing to them. His words meandered. It was a beautiful languidness. His voice dissolved in the air. His words drummed softly against her ribcage.
The hand on her neck became a hand on her jaw, sculpting around her ear, and drawing her in. Or was she falling? Falling in. Or being caught up? She could not be sure. Not be sure of anything. Was she moving or was the world moving around her? All she could be sure of was the scent of him, the touch of him, the sound of his mind and his heart which tolled like a bell, calling her to arms for a war she did not know how to fight, and then his lips, which met hers, and kissed. Whether he kissed first, or she did, neither were sure, but they kissed. A kiss. All they had desired. A meeting of the affinity. Meshed in the candlelight, bound together in the nutshell, and drowsy with desire, they gave and received. Offering every part of themselves – all the grief and all the years, all the desire, all the love, the companionship, the laughter and the tears – all of it. Her lips tasted sugary – was that from the biscuits she had eaten? Or were they always so sweet? Lord Melbourne's hand on her jaw trembled, and his other hand reached around her back, grasping at her waist, holding her captive. The gasp she gave at the contact, so intimate, drew breath from Melbourne's mouth. He was breathless. Heartless, for his heart lay in her bosom. Victoria's hand met with Melbourne's lapel, his chest, pulsing with a heartbeat and a shuddering breath, and now reeling from her contact, hot. She leant closer to him, leaning into his lips, desperately. Seeking more contact. Seeking more. More.
It was William who broke off, laughing. Victoria despaired at the loss of him. She felt like an empty shell, tossing and turning and churning on the tides, and was about to protest, heeding the twisting at the base of her stomach, until she saw his laughter and she joined with him in it.
"You make me so happy, William," she smiled, tears pricking her eyes, her heart full and aching in her chest. It was all he had desired – her happiness – and so those words were gospel to him. She made him happy, too. Happier than anyone. "I would very much like to visit Brocket Hall again. It still feels so stifling in the palace."
"I would be more than happy to receive you, Ma'am." The word 'Ma'am' felt alien on his tongue since he had uttered 'Victoria', and felt Victoria's lips.
"I could bring the children. I do not think that London is a good place for them. You spent your childhood at Brocket Hall, didn't you? I believe this is much healthier," she spoke quickly, excitedly, still dizzy from their kiss. Her lips tingled.
"I did, Ma'am. The countryside is such a good place for children. They will like Brocket, and I will be delighted to receive them."
"I must come soon. I must be with you." Her urgency humoured William, but he did not give in to her. He had a better plan. Delayed gratification, of sorts.
"It is so cold at Brocket this time of year. Perhaps, Ma'am, when the springtime comes around, and it is a little warmer, I will have the pleasure of receiving you and your children."
"But that is such a long time!"
"It is a few months, Ma'am, yes. But patience is a virtue. And you are sure to be rewarded for it. Brocket is so beautiful in the spring. We can take a ride in the grounds together. Take in the lake. It will be too cold to do that now!"
"I suppose you are right, though it grieves me, Lord M!"
Lord M chuckled. She had that power over him: to make him laugh. Not many did, or ever had, to truly make him laugh. But Victoria could. Since their first meeting, her comment about – what was it? – pumpkins? It had brought a light into him that he had become stranger to. That light had never left him. Even in the deepest pits of his despair, he harboured that light. Clearer than water, fresher than rain and cucumber.
"I will look forward to it, Ma'am," he said. He was telling the truth. Less than the truth. He would wait for it, and the waiting would grieve him as much as it would her. He would wait to feel her lips again. He would wait.
The remaining winter months harboured a warm and consistent correspondence between the two. Lord Melbourne flickered, like bird on branch, between Brocket and London, and visited the palace as often as he could. Lady Emma was one of the two who saw how Victoria's cheeks made rose whenever he entered a room, how her demeanour changed, how her grief became a little more bearable, how his jokes were the only ones she truly laughed at, how she dressed more finely when she knew he was coming for dinner; her mourning dress was paired with pearls, or little details, fringes of delicate colour. Lady Emma also noticed a change in William: he tried to make her laugh, and delighted when she did, he played cards with her, and he danced with her, he smiled more often and no longer seemed afraid. The other to notice these details was Sir Robert Peel - who did not receive them with Lady Emma's smirks but, instead, with hot flushes and snuff-taking.
They wrote letters to each other when he was not in London. She wrote to him of her children, and how she felt she was growing closer to them. He wrote to her of his health, Brocket's rooks, and shaded comments that Victoria was sure were tokens of love. She was not imagining them, she was sure of it.
They both resisted talking of the promised visit until the birds began to chirp their songs more loudly, more vividly, singing to the warmer sun, thanking it for the flowers and berries it was harbouring. The greens became more vivid and the soft blush pinks of the flowers brushed up against the sunny daffodils and the carpets of bluebells: almost fluorescently purple. Then, when that sun was gracing the windows of Brocket Hall, making a mirror of the lake which glinted with silver like flecks of precious metal in a rock, sparking, captivating, Lord Melbourne wrote a letter to the Queen – asking her if she would do him the pleasure of meeting with him at Brocket Hall.
"Brocket, Ma'am?" Harriet Sutherland asked. Lady Portman would have asked the question, if she were not stifling an amused giggle. How incorrigible these lovers had become! She had scarcely seen William for months as he was always busy with the Queen! And how it pleased her immensely!
"Yes. I would be grateful if I could take your carriage, Harriet."
"Of course, Ma'am."
"And you two can accompany me, if you wish. I do not wish for Lehzen and Mama to lecture me: they can stay here. I will be taking the children, too."
"Of course, Ma'am. I shall make the preparations."
Harriet Sutherland made the preparations very efficiently, Victoria thought, careering down the country roads, staring dreamily out of the window at the throngs of trees and bright blue sky and rows of daffodils and birds flying free, soaring and diving. Harriet sat in front of the Queen, still a little confused as to the reason behind this sudden trip. Emma Portman sat next to Harriet, looking at the Queen, and hiding her amusement. She was looking forward to seeing William: not simply because she was his friend, but because she enjoyed seeing him so lovesick. Especially after so long. He deserved this. A happy epilogue. Young Victoria sat beside her mother, kicking her legs, and thinking of how fast the world moved outside the window, and wondering where she was going. Young Edward was in Harriet's arms.
They were all Brocket Hall bound.
The carriage arrived at Brocket Hall, and a million untouched memories came flooding back to Victoria. Some painful, some peaceful, and she breathed all of them in, felt them, and exhaled them. The springtime was warm. She was happy. Upon exiting the carriage, she was met immediately by William, standing outside his home, wearing the most beautiful green jacket that Victoria remembered he had worn that autumn's day. It brought out his eyes. William, perhaps in an attempt to be coy or teasing, welcomed both Lady Emma and Lady Harriet before even heeding her. He had offered her a playful glance and a little smirk, confirming to her that he was indeed trying to bait her.
Once he had offered his welcome to the ladies, Victoria began to step forward. It was her turn. However, before she could reach him, her child – little Vicky – had scurried from the carriage and run forward to greet this man. She had never met Lord Melbourne before, and Victoria knew that she was a very shy girl. Her behaviour was puzzling, but it made Victoria laugh. She stood back, and allowed her daughter to make her introductions first.
William squatted down, so he could be on the same level as the little Princess. He was excellent with children. He should have been a father to many children. It would have suited him. Victoria watched on, a smile almost cracking her face. The little girl approached him, suddenly afraid of her own actions, realising that this man was a stranger. She grew bashful, but William held his hand out to her and, softly, not patronisingly, said,
"I don't believe we've met. My name's William." He shook her hand, and the young Vicky giggled because his hands were so big. "Where are my manners?" William gasped. "You are a Princess! And, therefore, I should address you as Your Royal Highness!" And he did a mock-bow to her. She laughed more, running to Lady Emma, who was beckoning her. William smiled as he watched the young Princess bundle away and take Emma's hand.
Victoria watched it all, standing well back. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide. It happened in a moment. A single moment. No longer than any other moment in her life leading up to that point, no shorter either. Just a moment for her to realise.
She wanted to marry him.
Nothing more.
She wanted to be his wife.