If one day Georgiana could no longer stay in France, where would she go?
What Fawkes had said at the dinner table had vaguely revealed it already: she might not be welcome if she returned to Britain. When Madame du Barry had retired to the countryside, someone had thrown her lover's head through her window.
Joseph Priestley had merely expressed sympathy for the French Revolution, yet people had burned down his home and laboratory. He had been forced to emigrate to the New World and become an American citizen.
If Georgiana hoped to settle in America with the same respectable status as Joseph Priestley, she had to persuade Napoleon not to go too far with America. Otherwise, America would not take her in later either.
The pot-bellied Charles James Fox was hardly a mild and harmless figure. He supported the Prince of Wales living a dissolute life; such an heir was far easier to handle than one who had given up drinking and kept a clear head.
During the American Revolutionary War, Fawkes had fiercely condemned Prime Minister Lord North. He believed Britain had little hope of suppressing the North American colonies again, and that their independence had erupted because the unaccountable British government had imposed harsh policies year after year.
If Napoleon successfully occupied Saint-Domingue, then Louisiana would most likely be his next target. That could spark a territorial conflict.
By then, the British faction advocating the recovery of the colonies would also call for war. Fawkes had fallen out with George III because of North America as well. Georgiana did not know whether Fawkes had thought of those words on the spot or prepared them beforehand. Everyone knew she liked soda water, but who knew she was a witch?
At first, she had not taken it seriously at