I ordered the book that night — The Girlhood of Queen Victoria. A few clicks, a second-hand copy from a dealer in Kent. Delivery in two days. That gave me time to keep working the circuit — sales, auctions, charity shops. The rhythm of my life.
The next morning, I drove out to a village hall sale. The usual mix: chipped china, hymnals, boxes of paper gone soft at the edges. I was halfway through a stack of ledgers when I felt it — that prickle at the back of the neck. I looked up. Through the window, across the car park, an Audi idled in the shade of a sycamore. Same car. Same man.
By the time the book arrived, I was ready for something solid. The parcel was on the mat when I got home — brown paper, string, the dealer's label in a spidery hand. I slit it open and held the volume like a relic. Esher's name on the spine. The man who decided what the world was allowed to read.
I turned to the section Ashcombe had circled in his mind — the summer of 1837, the first weeks of a reign. In Esher's edition, they were polished to glass: “about my household, and various other confidential affairs.” That was it. No lists of names. No candid lines about Melbourne's hand in the appointments. No pledge of silence. Just a phrase so bland it could have been written by a clerk.
I closed the book and opened my laptop. Typed the name I'd written in my notebook: Esher. His papers — journals, correspondence, drafts — are at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. Appointment required.
I booked one for the following week.
When I shut the laptop, the room was quiet. Too quiet. I crossed to the window and looked down at the street. Empty, except for a dark Audi parked two doors down. Engine off this time. Waiting.