Queen Charlotte


 
 
 
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Disclaimer
 
 Contents
 Dearest Gentle Reader
 Fifty-Six Years Earlier . . .
 Charlotte
 George
 Agatha
 Brimsley
 Charlotte
 George
 Charlotte
 Brimsley
 George
 Agatha
 George
 Charlotte
 George
 Charlotte
 George
 Brimsley
 Agatha
 Charlotte
 Agatha
 George
 Charlotte
 Agatha
 Brimsley
 Charlotte
 Agatha
 Charlotte
 Brimsley
 Agatha
 Charlotte
 George
 Charlotte
 Agatha
 George
 Agatha
 
 
 Fifty-Six Years Later . . .
 Charlotte
 
 
 About the Authors
 Also by Julia Quinn and Shonda Rhimes
 Copyright
 About the Publisher
 
 
 
 
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 iii
 vi
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Contents
 Fifty-Six Years Earlier . . .
 
 
 
 
 Dedication
 
 
 For Lyssa Keusch.
 I’m not going to miss you because we’ll always be friends.
 
 
 
 And also for Paul. I’m saying it right here: IT WAS ALL YOUR IDEA.
 —J. Q.
 
 
 
 To my daughters. Each of you is a queen.
 —S. R.
 
 
 
 
 
 Disclaimer
 
 
 Dearest Gentle Reader,
 This is the story of Queen Charlotte from Bridgerton.
 
 It is not a history lesson.
 It is fiction inspired by fact.
 All liberties taken by the authors are quite intentional.
 Enjoy.
 
 
 
 
 
 Dearest Gentle Reader
 
 
 Dearest Gentle Reader,
 This coldest time of year has become that much colder with the sad news of the death of the Princess Royal. The granddaughter
 of our dear King George III and Queen Charlotte died in childbirth along with her baby.
 
 And while our hearts grieve for the loss of the Princess Royal, our heads grieve more for the future of the monarchy itself.
 For the Crown now has a crisis on its hands. A crisis one can only imagine that Queen Charlotte must find galling after ruling
 over the matchmaking efforts of the ton and the marriage mart with such an iron fist.
 
 This Author and all of England can only hope Queen Charlotte finally turns her matchmaking energies onto her own family. After
 all, Her Majesty has thirteen children, and now not a royal heir from any of them. At least not a legitimate one.
 
 It causes one to wonder: Is the Queen’s knowledge of how to make a good marriage nothing but talk?
 Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers, 10 November 1817
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Fifty-Six Years Earlier . . .
 
 
 
 
 
 Charlotte
 
 
 Essex, England
 The London Road
 8 September 1761
 
 Like all members of the German aristocracy, Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was in possession of a great
 many names. Sophia for her maternal grandmother, Sophia Albertine of Erbach-Erbach, a countess by birth and a duchess by marriage.
 Charlotte for her father, Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was born a second son and had died before he
 could assume the position of head of the family. Then there were the many and sundry double-barreled lands and properties
 that made up her heritage. Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Erbach-Erbach, of course, but also Saxe-Hildburghausen, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen,
 and, if one wanted to go back far enough, Waldeck-Eisenberg.
 
 
 She enjoyed all of her names, and she was proud of every last one, but the one she liked best was Lottie.
 
 Lottie. It was the simplest of the bunch, but that wasn’t why she liked it. Her tastes rarely ran to the simple, after all.
 She liked her wigs tall and her dresses grand and she was quite certain no one in her household appreciated the complexities
 of music or art as keenly as she did.
 
 
 She was not a simple creature.
 
 She was not.
 
 But she liked being called Lottie. She liked it because hardly anyone ever used it. You had to know her to call her Lottie.
 
 
 You had to know, for example, that in spring her favorite dessert was raspberry-apricot torte and in winter it was apple strudel, but