Page 56 of The Heir
A possibility to be considered: JC used Dr. to spread rumors and paid to keep him complacent.
Victoria read the note again and a third time. Her breath quickened, and she had to swallow several times to get herself under control. She glanced up. Mama was absorbed in reading her own letters. She met Lehzen’s gaze, and Lehzen nodded. Victoria sucked in a deep breath.
It would make perfect sense. A doctor, a member of the medical household who had attended to her for years, would be listened to. He could tell anyone anything, and he’d be trusted. Sir John could take him to a dinner, to a board meeting, to a club where members of Parliament gathered....
Why would he do such a thing?
Gossip was a fact of life. It could not be silenced. But it was also a fact that those who were caught talking out of bounds were dismissed. If Dr. Maton had been talking where he should not, he had taken an enormous risk. Sir John and Mama might run her life, but theirs were not the only voices when it came to the sprawling staff in and around the household.
Did Mama even know?Victoria’s breath hitched.That he used the doctor to spread his lies about me?The doctor she’d sent for, the doctor who had attended her through her fevers and her hurts large and small.
Did she go along with the plan?
“Victoria, stop frowning. You’ll wrinkle.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Victoria’s quick, clever fingers shredded the paper into bits. She spent the rest of her hour’s punishment slowly dropping those bits out the open window one by one for the breeze to carry away.
Chapter 25
“Jane?”
Jane froze. The voice was Mother’s, coming from the blue salon.
Her head was full of everything that had happened today—seeing Susan, being quizzed by Lehzen, passing the note to the princess. The possibility that Dr. Maton had been used to spread not just rumors but rumors selected by Father and maybe the duchess.
That she had actually sat with Lehzen and aired her ideas and been heard as if she was a rational being.
“Goodness!” Mama raised her head from her silk pillow as Jane walked into the salon. “You look like I caught you sneaking in from meeting a sweetheart! Where’s your father?”
“He’s needed at the palace tonight. He said you should not wait dinner.”
“And here I had Cook make his favorite. Ah well. I suppose it does not matter.” Especially as Jane very much doubted Mother had done any such thing. Jane found herself wondering if her mother even knew what Father’s favorite meal was.
I certainly don’t. Is that odd?
Mother gestured to the stool beside her. “Sit and talk to me, Jane.”
Jane sat down and clenched her hands tightly together in her lap. Mama was indolent, but she was not a fool. Had she heard something? Did Liza let something slip?
“Now then, miss,” Mother said with mock sternness. “You didn’t go to the palace with your father this morning. No, don’t bother to deny it. Where were you off to?”
How did she know?Jane thought. This was followed quickly by,Why does she care?
“I’m waiting, Jane.”
Jane swallowed and prayed that her voice could remain steady. “The princess asked me to fetch her some of Mrs. Oslow’s lemon and verbena cordial for the Princess Sophia. She has been . . . agitated lately.”
Mother regarded her from under her fluttering eyelids. “Your father says you’re finally making headway with our little princess. In a rather . . . unexpected fashion.”
“I’m just . . . She wants someone to talk to. I’m there.”
“You’ve been there for years, and she’s never wanted someone to talk to that badly.” Mother tilted her head. “I do wonder what’s changed.”
Jane twisted her hands. Mother smiled.
“Cat got your tongue?”
