‘Punish him! I care not enough to wish for that. I’m satisfied with the way everything turned out.’

‘A pretty compliment, my dear.’

She came and stood before him – unseductive yet inviting.

‘We will have a large family,’ she said. ‘Two sons is not enough.’

There was excitement in the Olbreuse lodgings when the letter arrived from Osnabrück.

Eléonore hastened to show it to her father.

‘It can mean one thing,’ said the Marquis. ‘You are accepted by his family. This is the Duchess herself; and she is a Princess. It is couched in a very welcoming manner. This means that all is well.’

‘It means a marriage that will not be accepted as one.’

‘My dear, many morganatic marriages have been made before.’

‘My children would have no rights.’

‘You are clever enough to see that they do, I am sure.’

Eléonore looked at her old father. What it would mean to him if she accepted this invitation and married George William, she well knew. The first thing George William would do would be to settle a pension on the Marquis. He had said as much; and she trusted him to keep his promises.

She looked at Angelique – so gay and pretty. What chance had she of making a good marriage as the daughter of an impoverished Frenchman – aristocratic though he might be, even though the French nobility was of as high a social standing as a German Prince, and often more cultivated and civilized! Not that she would criticize her German Prince; his absence had taught her how wretched she was going to be without him.

Her family was urging her – but more insistent than anything else were her own inclinations.

‘I will go to the Princess,’ she said. ‘She has been so good to us and her advice will help me make up my mind.’

The Princess received her with pleasure; she read Sophia’s letter.

‘My dear Eléonore,’ she cried, ‘of course you must go to Osnabrück. This letter means that Duchess Sophia accepts you – and if she does so will every German. This is telling you that although you cannot be his legal wife because of contracts he has made preventing his marrying, in every other way you will be treated as such.’

‘You … you almost persuade me.’

The Princess laughed. ‘My dear demoiselle d’honneur. You know you have made up your mind. You love this man. Don’t be afraid of love, my child.’

Eléonore went solemnly back to her father’s lodgings. The Marquis and Angelique looked at her expectantly.

‘I shall write to the Duchess Sophia at once,’ she said. ‘And now … I am going to prepare for the journey to Osnabrück.’

The Marquis’s expression relaxed. Angelique flew at her sister.

‘Oh, Eléonore … how we are going to miss you!’

‘You, Angelique, will not. I am to be treated with all honour. Therefore I need my own demoiselle d’honneur. Who better to fill the rôle than my own sister?’

Angelique burst into tears of joy and when Eléonore glanced at her father she saw that he too was weeping.

Tears of joy! Tears of relief! Eléonore herself could have joined in. The decision was made. I will never be parted from him again as long as I shall live, she thought.

George William stood beside the Duchess Sophia at the foot of the great staircase in the Castle of Iburg, his eyes bright with pleasure and emotion. She seemed more beautiful than she had in Breda; there was a serenity in the lovely dark eyes and when they met his he knew without a doubt that she truly loved him.

This is the happiest moment of my life, he thought; and then immediately: It would have been happier if I had been receiving her at Celle, if I could have offered her a true marriage.

But she had come to him at last – and he was thankful. He vowed to himself that he would spend the rest of his life making her so happy that she would not notice what she lacked.

Sophia’s pleasant smile hid her rancour. Oh yes, she thought, she is beautiful. I don’t believe I have ever seen a woman more so. If she had been offered to him in the first place he would never have handed her over to his brother.

‘Welcome to Osnabrück, Mademoiselle d’Olbreuse,’ said Sophia in good French.

Eléonore made a graceful curtsey. Everything she does she does perfectly, thought George William. A haughty piece for all her good manners, Sophia was thinking. Well, Mademoiselle, now you are here, you will have to learn your place. Fancy French manners won’t have the same effect on me as they do on my besotted brother-in-law.

George William had taken Eléonore’s hands and embraced her before them all and Sophia was aware that those watching were softened by the scene. All the world loved lovers – except Sophia and Ernest Augustus. And beauty and charm such as this French woman possessed could always arouse interest and sympathy – unless of course they had the opposite effect and stirred up envy.

Eléonore presented Angelique to Sophia who gave the young girl a smile and told her that she was pleased she had accompanied her sister to Osnabrück. And now she would take Eléonore to her own apartments that they might talk together for a short while before she conducted her guest to those which had been prepared for her.

In Sophia’s private chamber coffee and salt biscuits were served. This intimate tête-à-tête was an honour Sophia reserved for her friends. It was a sign, George William was able to tell Eléonore afterwards, that Sophia had taken a fancy to her and wanted everyone in the castle to know it.

Afterwards Eléonore was conducted to her own apartments where Angelique was already waiting for her. When they were alone Angelique sat on the bed laughing.

‘Oh, Eléonore,’ she cried, ‘I’m so glad we came. These Germans … so plump … so slow. George William is not like one of them. He is different. But I like them, sister. I am so glad that we are here.’

Eléonore smiled at her sister’s exuberance. She too was glad they had come.

Those were happy days. George William rode with her in the countryside, walked with her in the gardens of the palace, and they talked incessantly of the future.

There was to be no delay in the ceremony, which, George William declared, should be like an ordinary marriage. He had documents drafted and redrafted until they pleased him, then he showed them to Eléonore.

‘I want all the world to know that the only reason this is not in every sense a true marriage is because I have given my oath not to marry.’

She was gratified, but she was also deeply in love, and there were occasions when she wanted to have done with documents and ceremonies and go away with her lover.

Sophia helped a great deal during those days, often inviting Eléonore to her chamber for coffee and salt biscuits when she made her talk of France and her childhood and she herself talked of England … the country which she had never visited but to which, she assured Eléonore, she belonged more than to any other. She spoke fluent English. Her French was good but her English better. ‘My mother was English … an English Princess before she became Queen of Bohemia. It is in my blood … this affinity with England. And when the blood is royal …’ There were times when Eléonore suspected that Sophia was trying to underline the difference between them. Then she thought she was mistaken and George William’s devotion would make her forget everything else.

Ernest Augustus insisted on studying the marriage documents with his lawyer.

‘No loopholes mind,’ he cried. ‘His renunciation stands.’

‘There is no intention to evade it, your Highness,’ he was told.

‘Make sure there is none … make doubly sure. My brother has always kept his word, but he was never before devoted to a woman as he is to that one. He’s capable of anything for her sake.’

Sophia joined him. She was of his opinion. Carefully she studied the papers.

‘Well, my dear,’ she confided to Ernest Augustus, ‘I would call this in the language of the lady herself an anti-contract de mariage!’

Ernest Augustus laughed with her. They saw eye to eye over this matter as naturally they should. George William was not going to be allowed to evade his agreement by one line; and George Lewis was destined to be the heir of Brunswick-Lüneberg.

And so the morganatic marriage took place and the married pair continued at Osnabrück.

‘It is as well,’ said George William, ‘to do so for a while. It will stabilize your position.’

Eléonore agreed.

‘Madame von Harburg!’ said Sophia. ‘Well, it is as good a name as any for a woman who, call herself what she will, is still not his wife.’

‘He wants her to have a title and he has an estate of that name,’ pointed out Ernest Augustus.

‘I am aware of that. But it makes no difference to me. She is Mademoiselle d’Olbreuse.’

‘I hope you will not call her by that name. It would cause trouble with George William if you did.’

‘My dear husband, I have no wish to let George William know my true feelings. That would indeed put him on his guard. We have to be careful.’

‘And he is as much in love with her as he ever was.’

‘Give him time to fall out of love!’ said Sophia with a snort of laughter.

‘Sometimes I wonder whether he ever will. He is not the man he once was. I scarcely recognize him as the carefree fellow who used to accompany me on my journeyings.’

‘You’ve both changed,’ Sophia reminded him.

It was true. George William had once been the leader, now he was proving himself a man with a soft and sentimental streak in his nature. Ernest Augustus had changed too. The young man who had adored his brother and was eager to follow him in every way was learning to despise the one-time hero. Ernest Augustus would never love anyone to such an extent that he was ready to sacrifice everything. Sophia suspected that George William would do just that for his Eléonore and, illogically, while she applauded the growing shrewdness of Ernest Augustus, she longed for the devotion of which George William was capable.