Before She Ruled (Before Series, Book 1)

The King

England, 1834

His brother was going to kill them.

William glanced around the carriage they rode in as the certainty sank in. His beautiful wife, Queen Adelaide, leaned back into the cushioned velvet seat and proudly gleamed at their children as they laughed together. His son, Prince Charles, was lightly teasing his sister, and his keen, blue eyes shone with happiness.

And then there was Addie—his sweet, soft-spoken daughter. The princess shook her golden head with a smile, denying her brother's words that she was falling in love with a Prussian prince.

William should be smiling too, but he couldn't stop replaying the conversation where the Duke of Cumberland, otherwise known as his younger brother, had started a sentence with the words, "When I am king..."

William hadn't initially been concerned upon hearing it. His brother was always spouting ways that he felt could improve the monarchy if he were king. The Duke of Cumberland had always longed for the power of his kingdom. He'd hated that William was King.

But this evening, before they had left Bushy House, his brother had replaced if with when.

The words hadn't sunk into William's thick brain until now, when his family was sequestered in the middle of the English countryside. The snow was falling thick around the carriage as it jostled through the frozen fields. He'd hoped they would make it to London without needing to stop, but now William wondered if stopping would actually be in their best interests.

The cold of the night reached into the carriage, into every nerve in William's body. He grew rigid with fear. Clenching his hands together, William stared out the window into the abyss. Luckily, his family didn't notice his despondency.

He shouldn't have been king. He shouldn't have, since he was born third in line for the throne. But his elder brothers had sadly passed, and they had not borne any heirs, leaving him as the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Damn them, all of them, for dying and leaving him here. For even his younger brothers had died without any offspring to add to the royal line. Meaning that after William and his children, Ernest, the Duke of Cumberland, was next in line for the throne.

Christ save them.

Because his brother was going to kill them—all of them.

"Stop the carriage!"