‘Your Ladyship?’
Caroline, awakening very late, looked up at Helene, efficient, devoted and still single at thirty, although Mr Harris, the forty-year-old butler, had a firm and affectionate eye turned her way.
‘Helene? What is the time, pray?’
‘Gone ten thirty, milady. Shall I bring—’
‘No breakfast, please. Just coffee. And have my bath filled.’
She sat back in the large hip bath that had been carried into her dressing room and filled from pots of hot water. The pink soapflakes, melting, created a foam that danced around her, for the bath was deep. She relaxed, but she frowned. She had fallen asleep at the card table and woken up in her dressing room. Even then she had been almost too sleepy to undress herself, and had finally left her clothes in the most untidy heap.
Captain Burnside. Such an idiotic man in his preference for the dubious when he could have established himself in good, honest work. If he applied himself industriously, he would make an excellent steward for someone’s country estate, and be remote from the temptations of town.
She must, she supposed, allow him to continue his role with Annabelle, for Annabelle must be turned aside from Cumberland. The unacceptable factor, of course, was that which might bring Annabelle amorously into the arms of the captain, whose morals were as casual as they could be. He might not extract money from Annabelle, or lay his hands on any of her jewellery, but he might take his pleasure of her.
She discovered him in the library later. He was seated on the little stepladder, reading a volume he had taken from a shelf. He looked as if the book was earnestly engaging him. It was a history of Ireland.
‘Captain Burnside?’
He glanced up. ‘Good morning, marm.’
‘I must apologize for falling asleep last night.’
‘Not at all,’ he said pleasantly, ‘you were game to the end, and it was no effort to deposit you safely in your suite.’
‘Deposit me?’
‘Ah,’ he said, and put the book away and studied the ceiling.
‘What do you mean, sir, deposit me?’
‘Well, there you were, marm, claimed by the rosy goddess of slumber and fast in her arms. Since I had to climb the stairs to my own room, I – ah – took you with me.’
‘Took me?’
‘Carried you, marm. You were sweetly dreaming, d’you see, and it seemed a pity to wake you.’
‘I am incredulous, Captain Burnside,’ said Caroline, although she had wondered how she arrived in her suite. ‘Do you seriously say you carried me?’
‘I ain’t given to the crime of dragging a lady up a staircase, marm. If I’m going to be hanged, it don’t signify I’ll risk being hanged for that.’
Caroline stared at him. He asked her indulgence with a smile. She shook her head at him.
She laughed. ‘Captain Burnside, you are lamentable, sir. You carried me up and placed me in the chair?’
‘I did, marm, and as gently as I could.’
‘You did not find me too heavy?’
‘Lord, marm, you were as light as a feather.’
She laughed again. ‘Light as a feather?’ she said. ‘I think not. Am I to thank you for your gallantry? I am not sure. However, to another matter. I have just dispatched my young coachman to Lady Chesterfield’s house with a note, requesting she will permit you to accompany Annabelle to her ball next week. I shall be accompanied myself by Mr Gerald Wingrove. Cumberland will be there and, if you are there too, I will rely on you to prevent him bestowing his attentions on Annabelle. My sister is bound to take on a giddy mood, for a London ball is of all things exhilarating to her. In such a mood she is likely to disappear with Cumberland.’
‘Well, he has a way with him,’ said the captain, ‘but you have my word that if she should disappear, it’ll be with me.’
‘No, I won’t have that,’ said Caroline, ‘for I can no more trust your inclinations than Annabelle’s dangerous giddiness. You understand my frankness, I think.’
‘It’s true she’s sweetly tempting …’
‘Sir?’
‘Assure you, marm, I’d not take advantage.’
‘You are not to disappear with her, Captain Burnside. You are to be a model of chivalry.’
‘Chivalry,’ he murmured, ‘ah, yes.’
‘Now, sir, the cribbage,’ she said. ‘Do I owe you, or do you owe me?’
‘You owe me five and a half guineas, marm. And – um – I’m a little short of funds. Expenses, d’you see. There’s little left of the advance. I paid the girl Betsy ten guineas for her help—’
‘A small amount of silver would have been enough for any other trollop.’
‘So it might, marm, so it might. But not for a wholehearted commitment and a tight mouth. Most trollops gab—’
‘Gab?’
‘Talk, marm. Chatter. You must pick one you can be certain of.’
‘Oh, never mind,’ said Caroline. She went to the desk, unlocked the central drawer and took out some money. ‘What did you say my cribbage losses were?’
‘Oh, say ten guineas, marm.’
‘I shall say nothing of the kind, since it was, yes, five and a half, I think. Well, I shall give you fifteen, the balance being to augment your expenses fund.’ And she gave him that amount.
‘H’m,’ he said, but nodded and smiled.
‘There,’ she said, ‘now perhaps we can contrive our more friendly relationship.’
‘With pleasure, my dear Caroline,’ he said, at which she gave him a firm look.
‘It means, Captain Burnside, that I wish to encourage you to turn over a new leaf. It does not mean you may indulge in familiarities. What is your programme for today?’
‘I’m driving Annabelle to Vauxhall Gardens, which you’ll know are greatly favoured by romantic couples. There we shall stroll and promenade, and take lunch, and I shall have the sweet girl sighing and languishing in the seclusion of arbours and shrubberies.’
‘Your conceits take my breath,’ said Caroline. She thought of the secluded arbours and shrubberies of Vauxhall Gardens, and of Annabelle’s obvious liking for Captain Burnside, and it gave her no happiness at all. ‘I shall come with you,’ she said.
‘How very friendly of you, marm.’
‘I do not wish to discourage you in the part you are playing, but I do wish to protect my sister to some extent.’
‘Very right and proper,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘for I own I can be carried away by an excess of enthusiasm on behalf of a patron.’
‘Captain Burnside, you are a wretch,’ said Caroline. ‘I wonder, do you think Cumberland might have discovered the letter is missing?’
‘Not unless he makes a daily check, dear lady, which I doubt.’
‘Move him,’ said Cumberland through grating teeth.
‘Yes, Your Royal Highness, I think that advisable now,’ said Erzburger. ‘And in the long term, silence is also advisable.’
‘On more than one tongue,’ said Cumberland, ‘I fancy I must talk to Captain Heywood.’ Captain Heywood was the duke’s dedicated familiar, the medium through whom he achieved his darkest objectives. ‘Advise him to be available this afternoon. I’ll take no chances that ears didn’t hear and a tongue didn’t wag in curiosity.’
‘We spoke only in a guarded way, Your Highness, so that whatever she overheard had no great substance. Yet it would have aroused her curiosity. So although commoners might take chances, princes cannot.’
‘This prince don’t intend to,’ said Cumberland.
Vauxhall Gardens, patronized by the elite, boasted a summer blaze of colour. Although the most spectacular of the shrubs, such as the azaleas and the rhododendrons, had shed their blooms, magnificent flower beds were a sunlit radiance. Shady walks and leafy promenades drew the strollers, and the elegant refreshments pavilion was an irresistible temptation to those desiring to quench their thirst or pleasure their palates.
Annabelle and Caroline glided arm-in-arm with Captain Burnside. Ladies needed to demonstrate they were under the guardianship of an escort, for the Gardens were among the more favoured haunts of young and dashing Corinthian bucks, ever ready to catch the eye of sweet things seemingly unattached and to pick up a handkerchief apparently dropped. ‘No, no, sir, it is not mine.’ ‘Egad, then, whose can it be?’ ‘Perhaps, sir, it’s your sister’s.’ It was all done in the politest and most civilized way, for the Gardens clung jealously to their reputation for respectability, and patrons who breached the conventions were requested to leave. Nevertheless, the young bucks were a ubiquitous element, and sweet things knew it and played the game in their own demure way, under the eyes of their chaperones or their parents.
Caroline, right hand on Captain Burnside’s left arm, parasol executing animated little twirls on her left shoulder, was clad in white muslin delicately patterned with green and pink. Its long skirt swayed lightly around her limbs. Annabelle, on the captain’s other arm, a new parasol shading her, was in pale blue silk. It was her first visit to the Gardens, and she was enchanted. She felt herself in romantic Arcadia. The ladies were so elegant in their summer finery, the young men had so much ton. And Captain Burnside was all of debonair. Why Caroline did not set her cap at him she could not think. But perhaps it was Mr Wingrove who had recently brought her to life. She was almost vivacious in her enjoyment of this outing. If Mr Wingrove was a little dull in his conversation, one could not say he was disagreeable, and had he been here he would have supplied a most informative dissertation on every plant, flower, shrub and tree. Caroline, perhaps, had come to favour informative dissertations. Annabelle herself much preferred Captain Burnside’s whimsical qualities.
Caroline detached herself to gaze in admiration at a huge bed of geraniums. After only a few seconds, a voice murmured in her ear.
‘Why, it’s Charmian Merryweather. How very delightful.’
Caroline, turning, found a gentleman in an exquisite silver-blue coat, smiling at her with a great deal of pleasure. Courteously, he lifted his top hat.
At her coolest, she said, ‘I regret having to disappoint you, sir, but I am not the lady in question.’
The gentleman looked convincingly startled, surprised and taken aback. ‘But we met, did we not, at Marlborough’s place no less than a month ago?’ he said, gazing at her admiringly.
Caroline knew precisely what he was about. A week or so ago she would have dealt with him by giving him an icy look and turning her back on him. Now, for some reason, the sweeter aspects of life had been rediscovered, and to have a Corinthian of impeccable dress and appearance attempt to win her favour aroused an impulse to make a different kind of play. ‘Do you mean Blenheim, sir?’ she said.
‘There, I knew it, b’gad I did.’ The gentleman’s smile returned. ‘Blenheim, of course. I’m not making a mistake, am I?’
‘No, you are not making a mistake,’ said Caroline, suspecting Captain Burnside and Annabelle had stopped to turn and look back. ‘You are proceeding correctly to plan.’
‘Dashed if I’ve any plans at the moment, except to suggest a walk to the pavilion for some refreshing sherbert.’ The gentleman executed a light, inviting bow. ‘You’re from Devon?’ he enquired, attempting to place her accent.
‘I am not, sir.’
‘Ah, I’ve got your home and name wrong?’
‘I am sure you have everything quite right,’ said Caroline, ‘except that in meeting a lady called Charmian Merryweather at Blenheim a month ago, you did not meet me. It is three years since I was at Blenheim in company with my husband.’
‘Then I was out of luck a month ago,’ said the gentleman, not at all put out at the mention of a husband.
‘You are also out of luck now, sir,’ said Caroline. She turned and went on her way, leaving the gentleman sighing that so rare a beauty should have shown so little interest in him.
Annabelle and Captain Burnside were not in sight. They had strolled unconcernedly on, it seemed. Caroline was at once offended. For a gentleman to leave a lady unescorted was a social sin in the Gardens. It was not even permissible. But the captain, of course, was no gentleman. She quickened her steps, glancing left and right. Other paths and leafy walks intersected this path. Really, what was Annabelle thinking about to go off like this with the captain?
She searched the walks without success. She turned to retrace her steps. Before her, a path between verdant shrubs was bright with sunlight. The chatter of visitors was fading. In their twos and threes, they were stepping aside to the very edges of the path, nervously leaving it clear for a man approaching at a leisurely stride. Tall, powerful-looking, the sun at his back, he brought a darkness with his advance. His coat was dark, his boots were black, his top hat the colour of charcoal. Only his tight, light grey knee breeches were a concession to the bright day. His massive, muscular shoulders cleaved the air unhurriedly. He carried a walking stick of black ebony with a silver handle, and in his natural arrogance he was entirely indifferent to the people stepping aside for him. He neither looked at them nor acknowledged them.
A whisper broke the silence. ‘Yes, it’s Cumberland.’
Behind him two men followed, one in a military uniform, the other in sober dress. Caroline, standing in the middle of the path, and with the sun on her, was a vision. Cumberland, seeing her, did not quicken his pace. His advance remained slow and deliberate. Reaching her, his blind eye peered unseeingly, and his sound eye gleamed. Erzburger and Captain Heywood came to a halt at a discreet distance from him. Erzburger had a parasol tucked under his arm.
Cumberland bowed to Caroline, and his strong mouth twitched in a faint smile. ‘So, there ye are,’ he said, ‘but have ye no companions?’
Out of the rules of etiquette, Caroline curtseyed. ‘Yes, I have companions, Your Royal Highness.’
‘I’ll take ye up if ye ain’t,’ he said.
‘They will appear any moment, sir,’ said Caroline, straight of back and politely proud, though very vexed indeed with Captain Burnside for so discomfiting her.
‘Your sister Annabelle and your friend Captain – ah – something or other?’ enquired Cumberland. ‘I dropped in on your house, y’see, and was informed the three of ye were here. A pretty place for canaries, parrots and peacocks. Ye’re worthy of grandeur, and a few shrubs and flowers don’t do ye justice.’
‘I am happy, Your Highness, in so pretty a place, and don’t demand a vista of mountains,’ said Caroline, aware that the people who had made way for Cumberland had halted in their promenading. Every eye was on herself and the duke. If she was sensitive to this, he was not. He cared not a fig for what people said or what people thought. The Prince of Wales courted popularity. Cumberland had no use for such nonsense. ‘Have you come from my house, sir, in pursuit of me here?’ asked Caroline.
‘God’s life, would ye make such pursuit worthwhile, Caroline?’ he said, his henchmen standing off in impassive silence. ‘Have ye more liking for me?’
‘My feelings for you are as they have always been,’ she said.
The cloudy eye expressed nothing. The sound eye mocked her. ‘Ye discovered a faultiness in Percival,’ he said, ‘ye’ll discover a man in me. However, since I was coming this way I thought to look for ye.’
‘To advise me you’ll not be coming tomorrow evening for the card game?’ she said in swift impulse, for she immediately thought Captain Burnside had amused himself by spinning a fairy tale, and that he had indeed surrendered the IOU for the letter.
Cumberland laughed. ‘I don’t intend to forgo my revenge, my sweet beauty,’ he said, ‘for I’ve a keen desire to reduce Annabelle’s pretty captain to tatters.’
‘I would not call him pretty, sir, nor would I say he is Annabelle’s.’
‘Come, I’ve heard they’re seen together everywhere, and that her smiles for him ain’t less loving than they are for me.’
‘I cannot enjoy this kind of conversation, Your Highness. May I know why you’ve come looking for me?’
‘To ask if I’ll be seeing ye at Lady Chesterfield’s ball, for I swear it’ll have no spice for me if ye ain’t there.’
‘I shall be there, sir.’
‘And your sister and the pretty captain?’
‘Lady Chesterfield has invited them both.’ Caroline had received an immediate affirmative from Lady Chesterfield.
‘Ah.’ Cumberland looked satisfied. ‘Ye’re sure I can’t favour ye?’
‘How favour me, sir?’
‘By escorting ye to a flowery alcove and convincing ye of my unchanging affections, for I see no sign of your companions, who I fancy have found their own alcove.’
‘You will allow me to decline, Your Highness?’
‘Not without a sigh for your own lack of affection,’ said Cumberland. ‘But I ain’t impatient where you’re concerned, and though ye may see some imperfections ye’ll come to admire in me that which will tell ye I’m a man above all else.’ And his dark eye searched her, as if looking for a revealing flash of distrust. But he saw only her inveterate coolness.
‘I cannot respond to that,’ she said.
‘Ye might, ye might in time. Ah, yes, something else.’ His smile was that of the devil in jest. He made a gesture, and Erzburger came forward. He handed the parasol to the duke, and retreated. The duke proffered the parasol to Caroline. ‘Your sister’s,’ he said. ‘She forgot to take it with her when she left my house yesterday afternoon. Good day to ye, Lady Clarence.’ He lifted his top hat and walked leisurely away. His henchmen followed. Caroline, the folded parasol in her hand, quivered, and her mouth set in an angry line.
Swiftly, she made her way towards the pavilion, for there she and Annabelle were to have lunch with Captain Burnside. Turning into another walk, she saw them. They had come to a halt on their approach to the pavilion, and were facing each other. Annabelle was laughing up at him, and her closeness to him was positively unseemly. Caroline swept up to them.
‘You have had an excessively long tête-à-tête,’ smiled Annabelle.
‘Go aside,’ said Caroline.
‘Caroline?’ Annabelle looked perplexed.
‘Go aside. I wish to speak to Captain Burnside before I speak to you. And take this. It is yours.’
Annabelle flushed as Caroline thrust the parasol at her. Captain Burnside looked rueful.
‘But, Caroline,’ said Annabelle, taking the parasol, ‘it is so unfair to treat me as if I were a child—’
‘You are a child. Go aside, do you hear?’
Annabelle flushed again, but found the spirit to draw herself up and walk until she was out of earshot, when she stopped and began her enforced wait.
Caroline confronted Captain Burnside, her eyes on fire. ‘Trickster, villain, deceiver, I vow you wholly contemptible,’ she hissed.
‘H’m,’ said Captain Burnside, and allowed a lady and gentleman to pass before he said more. ‘Cumberland has scored a paltry victory at the expense of sweetness.’
‘He is in the Gardens, sir. He spoke to me, returned the parasol to me and scored his victory at my expense too.’ Caroline was so angry that she could have struck her traitorous hireling. His utter lack of principles and his unholy deception created within her the kind of emotional turmoil worse than any she had suffered during the years of her disastrous marriage. ‘I cannot believe such treachery. You swore, sir, to keep Annabelle apart from Cumberland, to do all you could to turn her aside from him. But yesterday you drove her to his house, you contrived behind my back to help her keep an assignation with him! Do you deny it?’
‘Faith, I might to another patron, marm, but not to one as magnificent as you—’
‘Speak me no honey, sir. If there is any kind of a man in you at all, confess your betrayal!’ There was the fury of almost uncontrollable anger in her expression, and fiery contempt in her eyes. ‘Oh, in South Carolina, sir, make no mistake, I would have you whipped for such unforgivable duplicity.’
‘Understandable, I fancy,’ said the rueful captain, ‘and you’ll not believe, I dare say, that it was all to do with policy.’
‘Policy? Policy?’
‘If one brings the lamb to look into the face of the wolf often enough, the lamb will begin to question the sharpness of the wolf’s teeth.’
‘But once too often, sir, and the lamb will be devoured. You have driven out with Annabelle several times. Have there been other betrayals?’
‘Only in pursuance of the policy, marm. Be assured Annabelle is coming to suspect Cumberland is interested only in her appeal as a virgin, and I fancy she ain’t now as disposed as she might have been to surrender herself on account of excitement and pleasure alone.’
‘I declare, sir,’ she breathed, her parasol itself quivering, ‘that the familiarity and indelicacy with which you speak of my sister and her virginity make you no more endearing to me than your general infamy.’
‘Well, marm,’ said Captain Burnside placatingly, ‘I spoke in the frankest terms, d’you see, to Annabelle herself concerning the possibility that it was her sweet innocence that makes Cumberland keen to bed her. Perceptibly, marm, it raised her guard.’
Caroline felt the frustration of a woman who knew there were a thousand fiery words she could fling at him, but could not lay her tongue to any of them. For all his air of apology, there was not the slightest sign that he was truly perturbed or truly ashamed. He even smiled at her.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘were it not for your acquisition of the letter, I would send you packing here and now. I trusted you. You assured me that, as your patron, I could rely on you to act only as I wished you to. Why did you not confide your tactics to me?’
‘A reasonable question, marm, very reasonable,’ he said, while Annabelle waited and watched. ‘The fact is, I’ve a lamentable tendency to do things my own way, and it don’t always make for harmony to let a patron know precisely what I’m about. Moreover, most patrons are only concerned with results. Beg to point out, marm, that poor Annabelle don’t look too blissful at being out in the cold, as it were. Beg to suggest, marm, you forgive us both and bring her back to the comfort of your merciful bosom.’
Caroline could hardly believe her ears at such speciousness and such highfalutin tush. Her merciful bosom indeed! She eyed him warningly. He coughed and lifted his gaze to the little galaxy of fluffy white clouds sailing through the blue sky. A quiver took hold of her. It travelled, it reached her mouth. She could not control it. Her lips broke apart. She laughed, almost helplessly. Annabelle heard it, richly ringing.
Her sister looked at her and beckoned. ‘Come, Annabelle, take this impossible man off my hands.’
Annabelle rejoined them, though she looked a little hesitant. ‘Caroline?’
‘Oh, yes, you surely need to cast your eyes down, sister.’
‘But I am not,’ protested Annabelle.
‘More shame on you, then,’ said Caroline. ‘Oh, how difficult it is to protect a sister when she won’t obey London’s first rules, which are that no young lady should place herself alone with a man, that a chaperone must always be present. Nor can I rely on Captain Burnside, despite our friendship, to help me, it seems.’
‘Oh, but Charles has been a dear friend to me,’ said Annabelle, ‘and given me such good advice, oh, he surely has. I cannot help my feelings for the Duke of Cumberland, but I know Charles will let me do nothing that will put you in a truly rageful pet.’ And she slipped her arm through the captain’s to show the affectionate confidence she had in him.
If this signified she was becoming very attached to him, and if this meant the desired result was in the offing, it was not something that seemed to please Caroline. She bit her lip. ‘I do not get into rageful pets,’ she said, ‘but I own myself sensitive enough to feel discomfited when I am left to be accosted by the Corinthian element.’
‘Accosted?’ murmured the captain, looking a stylish Corinthian himself in his dark brown coat and light brown pantaloons. ‘Here, in Vauxhall Gardens?’
‘Yes, here, sir, and I’m sure you saw the person in question.’
‘But we thought him a most elegant and aristocratic gentleman, not a person,’ said Annabelle, ‘and we also thought that perhaps you knew him.’
‘It won’t do,’ said Caroline, remembering the embarrassment of being alone when Cumberland saw her. ‘Captain Burnside, I’m sure, is well aware of the subtle importunities unescorted ladies can suffer here, and I was mortified to find myself deserted by you and by him.’
She did not look mortified, thought Annabelle; she looked full of challenging life.
‘It’s true the atmosphere of the Gardens invites shy glances from unattached ladies,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘and shy glances provoke subtle advances …’
‘Fiddle-de-dee, sir, and tush,’ said Caroline. ‘I am not given to glancing shyly or otherwise at persons I do not know.’
‘True, true,’ said the captain, ‘but then you don’t need to, my dear Caroline. Your beauty alone is enough to provoke a hopeful advance, and I dare say even a blind man might be smitten.’
Again Caroline’s mouth quivered, but she said, straight-faced, ‘Sir, you are above yourself.’
Heavens, this is delicious, thought Annabelle. There is something between these two that has nothing to do with mere friendship.
‘Well, I apologize sincerely, Caroline, for mistaking the situation,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘but we did indeed think you knew the – ah – person. Might I now recommend we go on our way to the pavilion and see what is on offer for lunch? Yes, capital. Now, your hand on my arm, Caroline, and don’t detach it, for there in the distance are two more persons, both already seeming interested in you, and capable, I don’t doubt, of running off with you given only half a chance.’
Annabelle laughed in delight. Caroline gazed at her impossible hireling. He smiled and offered his arm. She took it, worryingly aware of feeling indefinably susceptible. There was no denying he was a thief, an adventurer, a deceiver. He had done with Annabelle what he should not have done. He deserved to be dismissed and sent on his way. He deserved a thousand fiery words, and each should have left the scar of a burning arrow.
Instead, she and Annabelle were walking to have lunch with the unconscionable rogue in the bright pavilion, and both were arm-in-arm with him.