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merely your childhood friend who seeks your assistance.”
    Her somber tone wrapped a sense of foreboding around Laurel. “Has your cousin threatened you?”
    “Not openly,” Victoria replied, “but in a manner of speaking, yes. Or perhaps he believes that reports of his impertinent remarks and outrageous behavior fail to make their way to my court. Drinking, carousing, consorting with individuals of questionable repute—it’s all quite disgraceful. Not to mention insufferably embarrassing to me personally. I believe he takes great pleasure in humiliating me in the eyes of my subjects with the hope of rendering me an ineffectual ruler.”
    “Surely his antics are beneath your notice.” Willow stood to pass around a platter of tea cakes. “Perhaps if you ignore him, he’ll grow weary of baiting you.”
    “I wish I could believe that.” Victoria plucked a biscuit from the tray and dunked it into her tea before taking a bite. “Two weeks ago I summoned him to court, and do you know how he responded?”
    Laurel and each of her sisters shook their heads.
    “By ignoring me.” Victoria swallowed, flattened a palm to her bosom, and screwed up her features in a show of anger that made Laurel flinch beneath the royal displeasure. “ Me , his queen! Such brazen disobedience is beyond insolent. It is more than I can bear and more than I dare tolerate. Understand, there are many subtleties at work here. Factions exist in this country that wish to do away with the monarchy altogether, and I fear that, ultimately, George hopes to incite them to action.”
    “The Radical Reformers,” Laurel said. Throughout the reigns of Victoria’s uncles and grandfather, distrust of the royal family had mounted in direct correlation to the scandals surrounding them. Unpopular foreign marriages, extravagant spending, adultery, madness . . . all had fueled a growing resentment among certain segments of the population, especially those that wished to institute democratic reforms similar to those in America.
    Victoria nodded. “Precisely. And since I am young and female, such rabble considers my reign a perfect opportunity to press their views on the public.”
    “If indeed your cousin is entangled in some sort of treason,” Laurel said, “should you not inform your prime minister?”
    “Yes,” Ivy put in, “surely Mr. Melbourne can set things to rights.”
    “Goodness, no!” Victoria flashed a startled look. “I need this dealt with quietly. Discreetly. The notion of a member of my own family scheming against me would only fuel sentiments that the Hanovers are a corrupt lot who have been plotting against each other for generations. It’s just the sort of hullabaloo that could turn public opinion against me.”
    Laurel stared down into her own tea, now grown cold, then once more met Victoria’s gaze. “How can we help?”
    “George is presently in Bath. Laurel, I am hoping that you will agree to go there and do a little . . . well . . . spying. I want you to find out what he is up to and with whom. And if you can, dissuade him from whatever tomfoolery he’s involved in and guide him back to me.”
    Before Laurel’s astonishment had fully registered, Ivy sprang to her feet, startling Dash out of his slumber. “What about the rest of us? Surely you can’t mean for us to sit home while our sister—”
    “Yes, we should go along.” Holly’s violet eyes snapped with excitement as she clapped her hands together. “It all sounds so diabolical and dangerous.”
    “Ivy, Holly, please. This is no game.” Laurel knew she had to quell her sisters’ enthusiasm immediately or they would follow her all the way to Bath. “Obviously Victoria cannot send all of us, for how would it look for four unknown sisters to suddenly appear on the social scene?”
    “Laurel is correct,” Victoria said. “One of you can be easily explained. A young widow from the country, recently out of mourning. A squire’s wife, perhaps, who would not be