I, on the other hand, have many ambitions and I told her of them. “Someday,” I confided, “we’ll restore the House of Stuart to the English throne. The Jacobite movement has never entirely died out, you know. There are men in the Scottish Highlands who would rise at any moment to throw out those Hanoverian interlopers.”

“You’re putting me on-”

“Oh, no,” I said, wagging a finger at her. “The last reigning Stuart was Anne. She died in 1714 and they brought over a Hanoverian, a German. George I. And ever since that day the Germans have sat upon the English throne. If you think about it, it’s an outrage.”

“But the House of Stuart-”

“There have been attempts,” I said. “Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745. All of Scotland rose to support him, but the French didn’t do all they were supposed to do, and nothing came of it. The English won the Battle of Culloden Moor and thought that was the end of it.” I paused significantly. “But they were wrong.”

“They were?”

“The House of Stuart has not died out, Kitty. There has always been a Stuart Pretender to the English throne, although some of them have worked harder at it than others. The current Pretender is Rupert. Someday he’ll reign as Rupert I, after Betty Saxe-Coburg and her German court have been routed.”

“Betty Saxe-Coburg…oh, Elizabeth, of course. And who is Rupert?”

“He’s a Bavarian crown prince.”

She looked at me for a long moment and then began to laugh. “Oh, that’s beautiful! That’s priceless, Evan. I love it!”

“Do you?”

“Replacing the…the German usurpers with…oh, it’s great…with the crown prince of Bavaria-”

“The true English claimant.”