On 14 of October in the year 1838, the night was colder than usual. The lit candles and the fireplace warmed the Duchess' room to make it pleasant enough for one to freely unleash one's rage, without the restraints of bothersome discomforts. After the dinner, Lady Flora, the 32 year old lady in waiting to the Duchess and Sir John were summoned to the Duchess' room.

"She says no! She denied my simple request." The Duchess said in chagrin.

Lady Flora and Sir John understood it all at once, when the Duchess turned. In her hand, was a letter. A few days ago, the Duchess had corresponded with the Queen, her daughter asking to grant her the permission to attend the next dinner at the Buckingham in the company of Sir John and Lady Flora. The permission had been denied. Sir John was a man with no wrinkles of wit but those which come from hours of pondering on schemes of manipulation. His desire to procure a place in the Queen's household was a dream, without the fulfillment of which he couldn't sleep. Lady Flora was a pawn who had been controlled for so long that she seemed to have lost the voice of her own. The Duchess was in love with her favourite, Sir John. She had turned a blind eye towards all his wrong doings, all the money she'd lost because of his greed, she saw as the humane inability to excel at everything.

"I know whose hand is in this........ It's that Lehzen." Sir John said. "Some acquaintances of mine informed me of how she talked to the Prime Minister, referring to us as the treacherous three- a trio which deserved no benevolence; while trespassing on a luncheon. "

The trio sat down and relentlessly intoxicated themselves, seeking to booze their insecurities into oblivion. Sir John drafted elaborate schemes for reconciling with the Queen for financial benefits. It was difficult to deem his behaviour as an effect of the booze for he'd have done the same if he were sober. All the while Flora looked out the window, disinterested in the clamour of the man in the background. Her eyes were fixated on a moth, the booze made the black in the moth pop against the rushing black sky. The reflection of the candles on the window seemed to show the moth a gleaming path to consider while dancing for her. She'd always been an eccentric girl, since childhood; she'd resort to her imagination for escapism, at times imagining ants below her feet as she walked towards a place, she'd never want to go to. 

"Flora, what do you say?" Asked the only one who considered her to be a person of importance, the Duchess. Flora being week from the alcohol, couldn't even ask as to what topic the question pertained to.

Sir John, considering indulgence in conversation with Flora to be a waste of time did something that'd not require her active participation. He refilled their glasses and raised a toast, which ended in a crapulous oath.

"From now on we make sure that Victoria believes that there were always good intentions behind all we ever did for her; even if such justifications felt fundamentally invalid." He finished smiling. This strategy had failed terribly in the past but there weren't any recollections of failure in the minds of those, who become gods after a few drinks.

On that note, the Duchess of Kent dismissed the congregation. Lady Flora being a little too drunk to function, was carried to her room by Sir John, on his back. Midway on the stairs, a lady's maid after being startled by the situation, asked if she should wake up a footman. To which Sir John in a gentlemanly tone said "I don't think there's a need for such an excursion."

The Duchess of Kent, Lady Flora and Sir John indeed constituted the trio which Lehzen had referred to as the treacherous three. 

Lehzen's disapproval of the three was in line with the sentiments of the Queen about them. Her Majesty the Queen, Lehzen and Prime Minister Melbourne constituted another trio that shared their loathing towards the treacherous three. The reason behind their loathing was in the childhood of the Queen's. Queen Victoria's childhood had been a fluttery leaf, which endured soft wafts and blustering gales.

The first gale manifested itself in the form of betrayal by her mother, when she grew up to detest the Kensington System. The second was when she was being forced to sign an order appointing her mother as the regent and through her, rendering all the powers to control England in the hands of Sir John. It was in such times that Lehzen had helped Victoria in finding the courage to hold onto the meek twig of autonomy and not giving in to her mother's favourite: Sir John's ambitious endeavours. Lehzen was the reason Victoria as a princess didn't let go of the branch of her fate, becoming the monarch that she did.

As a consequence of her majesty's disapproval of the treacherous three, she was always keen to believe in any rumour surrounding their shenanigans.