Seven

Princely Company

Upon Lady Messingham’s final fitting in the French sacque gown bedecked with sprays of silver stars, Madam Guilane had fondly called her “la Grande Dame de Minuit,” or the Lady of Midnight. Now that she had donned the completed ensemble, ordered especially for tonight’s occasion, she confessed that it was ravishing.

When the coach arrived, she descended the staircase with regal satisfaction knowing she had never looked better, but when the footman opened the door of the emblazoned carriage, her ebullient smile froze.

“Your Highness? I was not anticipating… er… I understood Lord and Lady Hamilton were to escort me this evening.”

The prince assumed a wounded look that with his bulging eyes reminded her of nothing more than a Pug. “I am disconsolate, indeed cut to the quick, with your seeming dismay at my humble escort,” he said.

Overcoming her distaste, she quickly recovered. “But Your Highness, I am only overset by the unexpected honor.”

“Lady Messingham.” He inclined his head with a smug smile. “May I avail myself of your Christian name?” He proceeded to do so without awaiting her consent. “My dear Susannah, why do you not enter the carriage, where I assure you all will be made clear.”

Laying aside both reservations and jangled nerves, she stepped inside. Although the prince moved to make room for her, she assumed the opposing seat.

“Come now, my tear.” The prince’s occasional lapses in pronunciation betrayed his Germanic origins. “I do not bite; vell,” he chuckled, “perhaps I take a nibble now and again, but only when tempted by a dish so delectable I cannot resist.” The lascivious gleam in his bug-like eyes revealed precisely those intentions.

She responded nervously, hopefully. “Is the Princess Augusta to join us? Or the Hamiltons? I was under the impression…”

His lips curved in false regret. “Sadly, Lord Archibald had some business at the Admiralty that keeps him well into the night, and the princess is abed with a megrim that I assured her only her Lady of the Bedchamber could soothe. Thus it is just the two of us until we arrive.”

She shifted nervously in her seat, her anticipation of the evening already blighted by the prospect of spending an entire night fending off his advances. After all, he had just made it abundantly clear that this entire solo outing was his contrivance. His mistress was keeping company with his wife, at his behest, and Lord Archibald, to whom she might have turned for aid, was occupied as well.

The prince chidingly patted the cushioned space at his side. “Now, my tear, would you not be more comfortable by my side? It is cold in de carriage, is it not?”

She forced her lips to curve into a semblance of a smile. “You are all consideration, Your Highness, but I am quite comfortable.”

“Ah, but it is precisely your comfort that I wish to discuss. Your circumstances, they greatly concern me.” His voice oozed false sympathy. “Such a beautiful woman.” His eyes swept her with unveiled appreciation. “With no husband. No protection. Moreover, no money. You haf debts, my lady.” He awaited her reaction, not displeased to see her eyes widen in trepidation.

Only the artificially enhanced pallor of her cheeks disguised the draining color. How did he know? Did the whole world know that she was dipped in debt?

He raised a hand to silence her forthcoming protest. “There is no denying it, liebling, but I am moved by compassion to help you. I can arrange to pay your debts, quietly, through your man of business. Allendale, is it not?”

“Who told you? Jane!” she realized belatedly. “But why?”

“She was seeking my advice on a match for you. But now I make no secret of my own admiration, my pretty vidow, and I am a generous man.” His lips curled meaningfully. “In many ways. My mistresses, they are well satisfied.”

His double entendre was not lost on her. Although he boasted of his manhood, rumor held him to be an unimaginative and clumsy lover. She turned away, parting the curtain and gazing out the window as if thoughtfully deliberating the offer. If not for the desperation of her circumstances, she might have laughed.

Lady Hamilton’s favors to the prince had merited her positions in the Royal Household amounting to an astounding income of nine hundred pounds per annum, as well as an offer to her husband as Lord of the Admiralty. Although a similar position in the royal household would be the end to her own problems, she could not debase herself to such a private whoredom, even to a prince. Other women would be tempted to close their eyes and endure his attentions for far less, but she was not among them.

She shuddered at the thought of another loveless, passionless coupling, remembering poor Nigel’s breathless rutting before the gout had left him completely impotent. Although she’d endured it for his sake, she’d never become insensate to the distastefulness of the act.

Nevertheless, she could not afford to fall afoul of a prince. Given her dire circumstances, the heir to a throne might one day be a useful ally. She posed her response carefully to avoid hubristic injury. After all, what man with a prince’s pride would mind the challenge of a rival?

“I am flattered by your interest, Your Highness, but you see… I have already taken a lover.”

***

Belsize House, with its extensive park, wilderness, and garden, was once a grande dame of Elizabethan mansions, until a Welshman named Howell had purchased the private residence to transform it into a place of public amusement. In its heyday, the house was used for many a gala affair, attended by all persons of rank, with music and dancing into the wee hours, but unbeknownst to Lady Messingham it was now a mere shadow of its former self, its reputation for low gaming and intrigues having become as degenerate as its habitués.

When Philip saw her, a vision in midnight blue surrounded by a coterie of admiring swains, she looked uncomfortable and out of place amongst the coarse revelers. She was devoid of a domino on this occasion, Philip remarked, with only a filmy veil obscuring the upper half of her face. Nevertheless, even in costume, the tilt of her head, the rich chestnut of her unpowdered hair, and the lush curves of her silhouette in the form-fitting confection gave her away. Her presence also proved his earlier efforts at dissuasion had all been in vain.

She stood in the company of an openly roistering party from Leicester House, with the prince and his chief sycophant, Bubb Doddington, foremost among them. The few ladies within the mix comprising the company of gamesters might not have been called ladies at all if not for their lofty titles or dubious attachment to a man of rank.

“What the hell is she doing here?”

“Who?” George asked.

“The Lady Messingham, damn her.”

She was fixated on the spinning E-O wheel, an object of universal fascination invented by a Frenchman in an endeavor to create a perpetual motion machine, as if determined to unravel its secrets.

Within the wheel itself were forty pockets, twenty labeled E for even and twenty labeled O for odd, and two unlabeled pockets designated for the bank. The table itself was marked all around with the two letters, offering spaces for each adventurer to place his wager before a ball set in motion around the gallery of the wheel commenced the play.

It was a simple enough game, giving the punter twenty out of forty-two chances of winning, but while others drank, laughed, and carelessly threw out their coins, Lady Messingham’s expression revealed her ill luck.

Serves her bloody well right for dismissing his warnings.

“What should you care, Drake? She lacks not for company, surrounded by swains, and by the look of it, the prince himself fawns over her. Seems you’ve developed quite an unhealthy interest in the widow Messingham.”

At first, Philip intended to leave her to her own devices, but while she contrived to humor her companions’ drink-inspired vulgar jests and bon mots, her gaze shifted about the room as if seeking escape. Philip once more remarked the prurient looks of the prince and something vastly unpleasant churned in his gut. He unconsciously moved toward her.

“Leave her be, Drake, she’s trouble,” George advised, not for the first time. “There’s faro and hazard to better occupy your time.”

Unlike those paying particular court to the prince, who appeared quite bedeviled by drink, Philip found his head still remarkably clear. He turned back to George. “Go on without me, Bosky. I’ve another game in mind.”

***

In addition to his lavish and impulsive spending, Prince Frederick was best distinguished among the royal family for his preference for low company. Yet, among his numerous so-called friends, the Prince of Wales had as many enemies, as nobody was too great or too good for him to betray.

Lady Susannah’s brief time in his escort lent truth to what even his own family said of him: that he was singularly loutish and insincere. When he aimed to be merry, the manner of Frederick’s mirth was to genuine cheer what wet wood is to fire, damping the flame it is meant to feed. The prince desired without love, could laugh without pleasure, and weep without true grief, for which Susannah knew even his mistresses were not truly fond of him.

For what regard was it possible to have for a man who had no truth in his words, no justice in his inclinations, no integrity in his commerce, no sincerity in his professions, no stability in his attachments, no sense in his conversation, no dignity in his behavior, and no judgment in his conduct?

Nevertheless, this man, whom so many despised, was surrounded by parasites who anticipated the day he would wear the crown.

Trapped in this company of drunkards and louts, Lady Messingham wore a doleful expression that transformed the moment she remarked Philip’s familiar swagger. She made little effort to disguise her gratitude at his approach.

“Your Highness.” Philip swept a courtly bow to acknowledge the prince before extending his hand to the lady. “I have come to claim a partner, for there is dancing in the next chamber. Madam, would you do me the inestimable honor?”

The inebriated prince turned to Bubb Doddington. “Who is this jackanapes who would poach on royal preserves? Is there not a penalty for such a trespass?”

“Hmm…” Doddington replied thoughtfully. “The Game Law may apply. It clearly states any creature to which no man can claim ownership belongs by prerogative to the crown. Would not this same law then also apply to widows?” He observed the prince and knew the moment his mind grasped the nuance.

The prince stared and then erupted in drunken laughter. “A brilliant interpretation of the law, my good Doddington! Remind me to consider you as my lord high chancellor.”

Lady Messingham’s cheeks now flamed in affront.

Philip rose to her defense. “Surely Your Highness does not mean to classify the lady with the beasts of the field?”

Philip’s rebuke caused the prince to regret at once his ill-chosen words. He reached for Susannah’s hand with a suitably contrite expression. “My dear lady, ’twas all but a poor effort at jest and meant only to repel this interloper.” He eyed Philip with haughty contempt.

She slanted a meaningful look to encompass the prince and his sycophant before taking Philip’s proffered arm. “A very mean effort indeed, expressed at my expense,” she answered and turned to Philip. “Come, sir, let us go and walk the minuet. I am thankful to escape such boorish company.” With this retort, Lady Messingham tripped away, leaving the royal heir gaping after her.

“Just who is that contemptuous, poaching whoreson?” the prince asked.

“Hastings’s stripling, I believe.”

“Hastings? The Jacobite?” The prince’s lips twisted on his words.

“By conjecture only, Your Highness. He was acquitted after the ’15.”

“You are an invaluable asset, Doddington.”

Having provided the heir to the throne with countless thousands in loans, never repaid, Doddington knew the remark to be true as literally as it was figuratively.