Banished to Brighton by Sydney Jane Baily

Chapter Nineteen

In a few hours, withtwo footmen accompanying them, Glynnis and Hargrove arrived at the Pavilion in the viscount’s spacious traveling carriage with what they could haul in one trip.

The Regent was out when they arrived, but expected back momentarily.

“Just like him,” Hargrove muttered to the back of the retreating servant. Meanwhile, they set up the pieces in the main salon under the domed roof.

“Stop pacing,” Glynnis advised him, and he came to a stop by the window overlooking the west side with the stables in the distance.

“I see him now,” he said. “He’s coming from the stables. Not quickly, either. He’s ambling and talking to some other gentlemen.” Then he glanced back at her.

“You shouldn’t stand so close to that painting,” he griped, gesturing at the dark Spanish landscape.

“Whyever not?” she asked.

“Because frankly, you outshine it, and he’ll want you here instead of it.”

She tried not to smirk, but Hargrove was still free with his compliments despite saying he ought to consider his words more carefully. If she didn’t know better, he would turn her head and she would be in love with him within the hour.

If she wasn’t already, and she sadly suspected she was.

In any case, she was about to do something that would make him distinctly angry, yet she couldn’t imagine how else she could keep him in Brighton and keep a roof over her head. For despite having lost a measure of enthusiasm for husband-hunting, she still needed a wealthy one as her only way to survive. Or return to Wales and live her life as a spinster daughter.

With that bleak future, she shored up her resolve.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Nothing at all,” Glynnis said. Nothing she could tell him, at any rate.

“Poppycock,” he declared. “Women are always thinking something, and you have a definite thought in your head. I can practically see it.”

She shrugged. She didn’t feel like lying to him. Instead, she took a turn around the room, admiring the decorations the prince already had in there, a leather-topped round table upon which sat a crystal vase of flowers, and a round mirror framed in gold. Hargrove went back to staring out the window giving commentary upon how slowly Prince George was moving.

“Blast it all! He has stopped completely to talk with that fellow with the garish waistcoat. I think the man even has a feather attached to his hatband.”

She ignored him. Nothing could hurry the prince. Hargrove had said that himself. Better they should have requested tea and looked calm and confident.

“Why don’t we ask for—?”

“He’s coming now. Thank God. I’m sure he’ll find everything plummy with you here to praise it, and I’ll be heading home to all that’s good in my life before you can hop the twig.”

She nodded and waited. In a few minutes, Prince George entered, not with a stride, but with a shuffle, breathing hard.

“I say, what a morning! I’m exhausted. Yet here you two are. Maybe I’m too tired to deal with this art nonsense.”

She would swear she heard Hargrove growl, a low rumble in his throat.

“Good day, Your Highness.” She curtsied low. “Please, why don’t you take a seat. I recall how comfortable that sofa is from the day I fainted. Such good taste you have in furnishings. And we can show you what we have while you remain in utter ease.”

“Very good. You’re a sensible female. Hargrove, have you greeted me?”

Looking a tad insolent, he moved away from the window a few feet and bowed.

“Good day, Your Highness. I’m glad to see you looking so well.”

“I do, don’t I?” And then the prince did as Glynnis suggested and sat heavily upon the red velvet sofa. “Miss Talbot, you may present.”

“This is not the entire collection, sir. But these are certainly among the best.” She approached a painting Hargrove had propped against a chair. “See the columns behind the winged cherubs. Don’t they remind you of the columns around the front of the rotunda right here at your seaside home?”

She made a point of peering closely because the columns were barely visible and did little to make the painting look like the prince’s preferred styles of oriental or classical.

As expected, the Regent leaned forward and narrowed his eyes.

“Perhaps,” he said doubtfully. Then he glanced at Hargrove. “Why didn’t you get Veronese’s Wedding at Cana?”

“I tried, sir.”

The prince made a face. “And yet all your trying led to fiddlestick’s end.”

“But the colors, Your Highness,” Glynnis hoped to seem helpful, at least as far as Hargrove was concerned. “Don’t you think they well match those already here? You favor the dark reds and golds, do you not?”

He sighed. “I do, but those are muted. I like rich bright colors.”

Glynnis nodded and went to the very opposite of rich and bright.

“This one, sir, is very pleasant to look at, suitable for a dining room.”

Prince George sighed. “I don’t think it suits my dining room here at all. I suppose it could hang at Carlton House. Do you know I have 453 paintings in my collection at last count?”

Glynnis wasn’t expecting him to agree to placing it in London.

She had to put the nail in that coffin quickly. “I had no idea, sir.” She glanced at the painting again. “Despite the humbleness of the subjects, it would be perfect for the majesty of your London home.”

Out of view of the prince, Hargrove shook his head at her commenting on the painting’s subject, but it was too late.

“What are they doing?” Prince George demanded, no longer looking the least bit favorable as he viewed the scene. “Are those a couple of beggars crouched over crumbs?”

“It was painted by Velázquez!” Hargrove explained.

“I don’t care. It’s all brown! Except for that silly orange. Who would stick an orange in the top of a vase? No, it shall not do at all.”

“Sir,” Hargrove protested, “with that many paintings, what’s a few more? Wouldn’t you like to have 455? And as Miss Talbot said, I have more at the house I’m renting. I believe 460 is a magnificent number befitting your stature.”

“No,” the prince said, and nothing more. He turned his attention back to her.

“This one, then,” Glynnis persisted, crossing to the only statue they could carry. “Only see how it reminds one of your own marvelous physique, Your Highness?”

Made of marble, the naked man with arm raised holding a staff had made both footmen puff and huff while carrying it in, despite it being only four-feet tall. They’d brought in its three-foot pedestal separately. After setting the sculpture upon it, the effect was quite grand.

James nodded and smiled at her words.

Prince George nodded, too. “Yes, especially in my military youth. Not that I cannot still sit a horse when necessary, eh, wot-wot?” And he tugged his jacket around his corpulent belly, although there was no hope of buttoning it closed.

She exchanged glances with Hargrove. Everyone had heard the prince’s stories of his glory days, leading men into battle atop a charger despite having never been part of a military campaign or even once going to war.

“They say this is meant to be Napoleon as the Roman god Mars,” she added, seeing James instantly slap his hand over his eyes. Regardless, she continued, “It is said he modeled for this smaller one before Canova created an even larger one, about eleven feet. Emperor Bonaparte thought it too athletic, if you can believe it.”

The prince’s face darkened, and Hargrove was shaking his head like a fiend. Everyone knew Prince George’s jealousy over Napoleon’s greater reputation for battle sense, not to mention the former emperor’s well-respected courage. He’d earned actual glory while the Regent had received scorn for being a gourmand and a philanderer.

“I hate it,” the prince declared, and he rose to his feet. “None of this is of any interest to me. Hargrove, you’ve disappointed me greatly. Take it away. And unless you have something much better still residing in your squalid rental house on the ocean front, then don’t bring any more of it for me to see.”

With that, the Regent strode out a little more solidly than he’d wobbled in. Glynnis knew he must have been in a tweague for His Highness hadn’t even said good day to her.

***

“WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?” James demanded, trying not to shout.

Miss Talbot had started off so well but managed to put Prinny off each piece. She merely blinked at him.

“Why didn’t you let the art speak for itself?”

“I was only trying to help,” she promised. “I thought he was going to take the paintings to Carlton House and keep the statue here.”

“He would have kept the blasted statue if you hadn’t mentioned Napoleon.”

“Pish! Surely you would have had to tell him eventually.”

“Would I, though?” James muttered. He would have vowed it was a statue of Prinny himself if it had helped matters.

“Now we have to cart this all back to my house, and then what?” he fumed.

Then what, indeed!He would have to take it with him if he was ever allowed to return to London, and then he would offer it up to whichever nobleman wanted it.

Still annoyed at the turn of events, it took him until they arrived back at his rented house to realize Miss Talbot seemed entirely unperturbed. Barely in the door, she asked his butler for a pot of tea and some biscuits, almond or lemon, if he had them. And then she went upstairs to the best drawing room and put her feet up on a tufted ottoman.

Fanning herself, she watched him pace.

“We shall try again with the rest of the pieces,” she promised. “Have some tea. Everything will seem better afterward.”

Stopping before the unlit, cold hearth, he stared at her. “Tea will not make this better. Prinny didn’t even set a firm day or time to view the rest of it. Moreover, you already told him that was the best.”

“Of the largest pieces,” she clarified. “At least when we take the remainder, it will be easier to transport.”

“Even easier because there shall be more room in the carriage as you will not be accompanying me.”

She shrugged. “As you wish.”

He hated to think she’d done it on purpose. Yet she wasn’t arguing to go with him and plead his case. Instead, she sat upright, looking sunnier than Helios when Mr. Sparks brought in the tea and treats.

“We’ll give it a few minutes to steep. Biscuit?” she offered, holding out the plate.

Leaning forward, he snatched one ungraciously and snapped off the edge with his teeth, not caring how the crumbs hit the carpet.

“What are we doing next?” she asked. “The assembly isn’t for many hours.”

“And now my art won’t be displayed,” he griped. “I am not sure I’m even going to bother attending.”

By her expression, his words made her happiness dim a little, which panged him. However, while munching thoughtfully, she rallied.

“I shall go in any case. Every day, there are new people to meet. The queen will come soon, too, don’t you think?”

Would she really go to the party without him? And probably get into all sorts of trouble!

“I have a pamphlet in my room,” she said. “I picked it up at the circulating library—”

“I know how you like libraries,” he interrupted sourly, thinking of the spectacle they’d created in Lady Sullivan’s private library in London.

Unremorseful, Miss Talbot made a face. “Brighton’s lending library, the one on the southwest side of the Steyne, is a gem especially with the dear cost of a novel. But this pamphlet is mine to keep. It tells you all the places of interest hereabouts. There is plenty to do if one has a companion, things I couldn’t really do by myself.”

She poured them both a cup of tea, and James sat opposite her, wondering how they’d so quickly got into this perfect tableau of domesticity.

“Such as?” he asked, unable to entirely banish the testy tone from his voice.

“There’s the spectacle of a windmill in Preston that used to be here.”

He set his cup down. “What do you mean by used to be here? Windmills don’t just get up and walk away.”

“It took eighty-six oxen to drag it two miles according to the guide book,” she told him.

He shrugged. “If the oxen dragged it away, then it mustn’t be worth seeing.”

She laughed softly, and he liked the sound. It cheered him more than anything else had done in the past few hours.

“There is also a tea-room in Preston,” she persisted.

He gestured at the pot and platter between them. “Unnecessary. What else is there to do?” he asked, wanting to humor her.

“There are some Roman ruins somewhere close by. I’ll have to check the book.”

James had been to Rome and didn’t need to traipse around the coast of England to see their one-time conqueror’s ruins on his home soil.

“I would rather go to Italy,” he said.

“There’s the remains of a Norman castle overlooking the River Adur. It was called Brambley or Bramber, something like that. Shall I go get the guide book?”

“No. We can overlook the entire ocean from upstairs. Why traipse over to a Norman castle. They call them castles when there’s nothing to see but a pile of old stones.”

“Are you always so amusing?” she asked.

It took him a second to catch her smile.

“No, I’m usually gloomy, can’t you tell?”

He really must snap out of it. He was becoming a tedious boor, even to himself.

She tried again. “I suppose you also wouldn’t care to view a partly demolished medieval priory?”

“That sounds the worst of the lot, but I promise, if you come up with something interesting, I’ll accompany you.”

Sighing, she said, “I haven’t yet seen inside the prince’s stables, and believe it or not, they made it into the tour book.”

“Of course they did,” he said. “They’re truly magnificent.”

“I think Lord Cumberry said something similar.”

“Kissing Cumberry,” James remarked.

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“He has earned the name,” he told her.

“Not with me,” she vowed.

“Because I whistled him down the wind.”

“And I thank you. So, a stroll to the stables? You can be my tour guide.”

James could see no harm in it.

“Very well. But pass me another biscuit first. Your hunger is catching, I fear. And then we’ll retrieve your new parasol and take a walk.”

Thus, James found himself again strolling the streets of Brighton with the brown-eyed minx whom he wasn’t sure about. Was she friend or foe?

“Tomorrow, we can go to the boat races,” she said, giving his arm a squeeze.

They were for all intents and purposes a couple, and it didn’t bother him the way any other similar circumstance ever had before in London.