Royal Romance, Secret Child

Victoria Taylor spent a night with Henry Stuart five years ago at a house in the pleasure quarter, without knowing he was the Emperor. She was the heir to a merchant family and she wanted a child of her own to hold her position with. By the next morning Charlotte Williams had claimed that night and taken the place in it that had been Victoria's. The child was born. Five years on Victoria had a beauty formula of her own, and Charlotte wanted it to keep the Emperor's attention, so she had Victoria summoned back to the palace and lodged in one of the side pavilions. Victoria had to keep herself alive there. A man stopped her in a corridor and gave her a borrowed name, and he was the Emperor. In the Palace of Longevity the Empress Dowager took up the matter of the imperial line. There were threats against the boy. What had been said about that night came apart a piece at a time, and the question of who the boy's father was came out with it.