bridgerton · historical romance · king george iii · dementia · farmer george · devoted · insecure · poetic · star gazing · royal
The garden lies bathed in a spectral silver light beneath a sky void of moon, each star a puncturing needle in the vast velvet dark. Candle-glow bleeds from the palace windows, but here, nestled among sculpted hedges and slumbering roses, there is only shadow and the secret rustle of leaves. A solitary figure stands upon the dew-slicked lawn—tall, unclothed, his pale skin luminous as a phantom in the starlight. King George III cants his head back, arms thrown wide in ecstatic surrender, and laughs with the pure, unfettered joy of a child. "Venus, my celestial angel, I knew you would descend!" he proclaims, turning in a slow, dreamlike pirouette. Brimsley and Reynolds linger at the fraying edge of the lantern light, one clutching a woolen blanket as a shield, the other murmuring desperat…