Banished to Brighton by Sydney Jane Baily
Chapter Five
To his relief, he spottedher standing quite innocently in the domed salon, apparently doing nothing more than admiring the room, especially the impressive ceiling.
Good, he thought, turning heel before Miss Talbot spotted him spying on her. He didn’t want her to think he had designs upon her personally. Returning the way he’d come, this time he took a few moments to admire the exotic grandeur of the Chinese gallery as many were already calling it.
Natural light flooded in through clerestory windows and skylights. Thus, even at that time of evening, the last rays of the sun were augmenting the bright, oriental-style lanterns hanging from fierce red and black metal stands lining the pinkish-hued walls and towering overhead.
Setting one knee upon a bamboo chair, or so he supposed it to be, James leaned closer to the wall to examine the detail of painted trees, rocks, and birds, which he at first took to be wallpaper.
“Hm!” That must have taken some time.
Glancing back, still no Miss Talbot reemerged from the far room, so he continued past the cast iron “bamboo” and carefully placed mirrors to rejoin the party. If he had to guess what Nash and Prinny were aiming for, James would say the effect reminded him of a bamboo grove. Frankly, odd though it was at the English seaside, it made him smile.
But would an entire palace decorated thusly be a good idea? It wasn’t for him to say. And then his smile died. He couldn’t imagine the items he’d brought from Paris being welcome, at least not if the entire Pavilion was to resemble the Chinese gallery.
Spying an acquaintance, Lord Staunton emerging from the music room, they nodded at one another.
“You look fierce,” the man said. “Is Nash’s gallery so very ugly?”
“No, it’s not that. See for yourself,” James invited the man, gesturing behind him while not bothering to stay and chat. They weren’t friends, and Staunton notoriously voted in Parliament for his own interests over the good of anyone, either the country or even his own county.
James hoped he could still claim the exquisite Cyprian’s attention. She had a witty remark for nearly every topic and every person he mentioned. In fact, he had started to gain the impression she’d actually been tupped by everyone they were discussing, too, but that only indicated an extremely proficient level of skill.
Alas, the woman in question had already entranced someone else, no doubt with the intent of making a tidy profit that night, so James approached a group of men over whom Payton was holding court. Since Napoleon boarded the HMS Bellerophon off the southern French coastal port of Rochefort earlier in the month, the topic of war had given way to that of grain tariffs.
For a few minutes, he listened while men spouted off irrespective of how ill-informed they seemed about Lord Liverpool’s Corn Laws. Payton appeared to take each one’s opinion seriously before disabusing them of their belief with his good-natured mild manner. His friend ought to be a foreign diplomat instead of one of the prince’s councilors, buried in Brighton.
“We need Staunton’s voice on this,” one of the others said. “After all, his estate in Norfolk was practically under siege last time Parliament brought up the issue, so angry were the farmers.”
Staunton?At once, it occurred to James how the man had brushed past him minutes ago. And then he thought of Miss Talbot, touring the Pavilion. Staunton was married but had a wandering eye, not to mention hands.
With a sinking sensation that he’d allowed a baby duck to swim into the deepest lake, he excused himself and dashed back the way he’d come. When he reached the domed salon where he’d last seen her, there was no one there. The house was one long structure with a wing at either end sticking out to the west, so she could not have circled through rooms and come past him. Although, they could have gone outside. He pressed on in his quest.
The sight that met his eyes in the dining room made his blood boil instantly. Staunton’s back was to him blocking the female, but he recognized Miss Talbot’s gown and the feathers rising above Staunton’s bowed head. The cad had her backed against the gold and red wall and was kissing her mercilessly. If she’d already screamed for help, no one had heard her.
“Hoy!”James called out, as this situation was beyond the polite interruption of mere whistling. “Let her alone.”
Not as fast as James would have liked, Staunton turned around wearing a sappy pleased expression that needed to be wiped off his face. Realizing he’d clenched his fists to do exactly that with a punch to the man’s nose, James slowed his steps. And then he saw Miss Talbot’s face.
She peeked around from behind her assaulter, looking flushed. But she didn’t appear upset or as if she had been taken off-guard.
What was she playing at?
“We’re a little busy, Hargrove,” Staunton said.
“I can see that, but Payton mentioned you in passing and others are starting to wonder where you are.”
“I won’t be long,” the man said, sounding profoundly smug not to mention entirely insensitive to the fact that Miss Talbot’s reputation was at stake.
“You’ve discovered us!” she proclaimed loudly, and James noticed Staunton’s head whirl around to gape at her rather swiftly.
“Discovered us?” he echoed. “It’s only Hargrove. He won’t say anything.” Staunton turned back to him. “Will you?”
James ignored him. “Will you come with me, Miss Talbot?”
She hesitated, glancing uncertainly between him and Staunton.
“Is Lord Staunton correct?” she demanded. “You won’t say anything, not even to defend my honor?”
Defend her honor? What on earth did she mean?She sounded as if she wanted him to make a hullaballoo over this blatant indiscretion.
“Surely you don’t wish anyone to know you allowed a married man to kiss you.”
“Married?” she exclaimed, and then her eyes narrowed at Staunton. “Where is your wife? Is she here?”
“Of course not. I always leave her in London.”
She pushed way from the wall and skirted her lascivious admirer, striding toward James, her expression furious.
“Are you all scoundrels?” she muttered, gliding past him.
She must be a lunatic!She seemed angry to have been taken in by a married man, yet her own fiancé was on his way to claim her.
Turning, he caught up with her. “You are a puzzle, Miss Talbot.”
Shaking her head, she wouldn’t look at him. “You all stick together, don’t you? Even if he had been tumbling me upon the carpet, you would have hushed it up, probably helped him to his feet and dusted him off, rather than call him out to do his duty.”
“His duty?” James considered her words. “Whatever can you mean? He’s married and his only duty is to his wife, poor sap of a woman.”
“But if he hadn’t been married, which I didn’t know, by the way—”
“Did you ask him?” he interrupted her.
“Not exactly, but he was very ready with the ‘I’ do this and ‘I’ do that, and not a single ‘we,’ just like Lord Cumberry.”
“Lord Cumberry is not married.”
She turned an interested look upon him, and James felt his stomach plummet. Was she still husband hunting despite having a man on the hook? It was beyond the pale.
“Cumberry is practically impoverished,” he told her in case she hadn’t understood his earlier message. “Mostly from hanging around with the Prince Regent and trying to keep up with his royal excesses. I suggest you keep Cumberry at a distance unless you wish to be parted from your own inheritance.”
She looked away before he could read what was behind her deep brown eyes.
“I ask again,” she began, “if Lord Staunton hadn’t been married, then would you have decried his behavior and told him to do the honorable thing?”
James halted his steps and laid a hand on her arm to stop her, too.
“Tell me truthfully, are you trying to free yourself from an untenable situation? Were you forced into an engagement? Is your fiancé a brute?”
She hesitated, and in that moment, he doubted she was going to tell him the whole story.
“I was not forced,” she admitted, “and he is not a brute.”
And with that, she turned away.
He considered how she’d left the party and went off alone. Again.
“Had you arranged with Staunton to meet? Or was it by chance?”
He heard her sigh before she said, “I am certain that is none of your business.”
She’d probably made the arrangement while out in the garden. James wanted to grab her and shake sense into her. Moreover, he didn’t like the unfamiliar proprietary sensations he was experiencing. If he were honest, it was jealousy that had coursed through him while seeing Staunton kissing her. Moreover, he would gladly kiss her again himself, if he didn’t think her more than half mad.
“Is the cello music starting soon?” she asked.
If she was truly eager to hear Prinny play the cello, then she was entirely light in the noodle indeed.
***
THE EVENING WAS INTERMINABLE, but Glynnis realized it was the price she must pay while husband hunting. She had chosen poorly twice that night — thrice if she counted talking with the lecherous Leilton who purportedly left bastard children in his wake. Then there was the profligate pauper, Cumberry, who was barking up the wrong tree if he thought she had money. And worse, she’d arranged while in the garden to meet a married man who’d done all but lie about his status before kissing her. Not that it had been a bad kiss, simply a pointless one.
Hargrove had come along, which she’d hoped, but instead of declaiming what he saw, he’d shrugged it off and agreed to say nothing. Since Staunton was married, she was relieved there would be no gossip. However, if he hadn’t been, she would have wanted Hargrove to scream it from the rooftop, not hide the indiscretion.
It was clear she was going to need a better witness to her reputation-shredding recklessness when she did finally find a suitable bachelor of means and got him to compromise her.
And she had no doubt she would succeed. After all, she’d already had three interested men on the first night, and she’d hardly tried.
Since Hargrove was now chatting with a rouged female and she had grown weary of speaking with strangers, Glynnis decided to spend a little more time with the prince. After all, it wasn’t every day one was in the company of the man who would someday rule over a nation.
The party continued with a sumptuous meal, smaller than the actual birthday feast coming up in a few days, or at least that’s what the Prince Regent promised. Still, it included an astounding fifty courses. Glynnis hadn’t had to keep track because an update on the number was announced by one of the servants every time more courses were brought in from the nearby kitchen. This was occasionally repeated with undisguised glee by Prince George himself.
She had learned in London to take only a mouthful of each dish offered if she didn’t want to be ill before the dinner was over, and those Mayfair meals had usually been a paltry twelve or so dishes. Yet with the Prince Regent, the dinner was the main attraction of the evening, and thus, he fully intended them to remain around his table for hours upon hours.
Over the course of the evening, the Regent became louder and began to pick out individuals near him for ribald jests or less-than gentle teasing. Glynnis feared by the third dessert she would still be seated there for dinner the following evening. Hargrove, who was seated across from her and farther up the table closer to the Prince Regent, looked as wary of such an outcome by the way he was openly drumming his fingers upon the tablecloth.
The dining room’s door opened and in swept Mrs. Fitzherbert.
Prince George jumped up. “You missed dinner,” he said by way of greeting.
“And gladly,” his former wife declared, as all the other men rose quickly to their feet. She surveyed the packed room, basking in the frank stares of the guests.
Glynnis had never seen her before, but the woman lived up to her description of fair hair, hazel eyes, a very straight, almost sharp nose, and a good complexion although wrinkled with age. She and the prince had shared a ten-year marriage before he’d been forced to give her up.
“I came to hear you play the cello.”
By then, Prince George had taken her hand in his and kissed it. “And I shall do so now. The weather is fine this evening. Did you walk?”
“Perish the thought,” she said. “My carriage brought me through the south gate.”
The prince laughed at such indulgence. Everyone knew she lived a stone’s throw to the south — about one thousand feet, if that far. And since arriving in Brighton, Glynnis had heard there might be a secret tunnel under their very feet linking Mrs. Fitzherbert’s year-round home to the Pavilion.
She sighed, thinking of the romantic relationship of the pair, even though they were reportedly not currently a couple. Moreover, she was glad the woman had chosen that moment to come and release them from their gustatory prison. Joining the rest of the guests as they strolled back to the music room, some waddling with discomfort, Glynnis could only hope the cello-playing was a good deal shorter in duration than the meal.
Hargrove was escorting the woman with whom he’d dined, someone without enough money apparently to pay for decent quality fabric, for her gown seemed made of scandalously sheer tissue. Glynnis tilted her chin and looked away. If that was the type of woman the viscount enjoyed, no wonder he was still a single man.
For her part, her dining companions had been old men on either side of her. Notwithstanding, they’d flirted and looked down the neckline of her gown, and she’d tried to enjoy the conversation despite finding it all an utter waste of time.
In fact, any minute when she wasn’t actively engaged in appropriating a husband was a nuisance. And while one of her dining companions might have been willing, she wasn’t so desperate yet that she would give herself to a man who would need to go through an ox house on his way to bed, as the saying regarding older husbands went — and maybe bring the ox with him.
She shuddered. Glynnis wanted a real marriage with at least a chance at companionship and children. Her gaze drifted again to Hargrove as they all found places to stand in the cramped room, most of them unwilling to sit again until they’d had a chance to stretch their legs. The Prince Regent, however, seemed perfectly happy to take a seat and when his cello was brought to him, a gift from the King of Spain, he tucked it between his legs and began to play.
To Glynnis’s surprise, he was exceedingly good. She’d feared he would play the way some debutantes savaged a song or attacked the piano when pressed by eager mothers to perform at a private ball hosted in their homes. Usually, it made one’s ears throb. However, she found herself entranced by Prince George’s earnest and skilled style. He closed his eyes and appeared lost in the music by Haydn, of whom the Regent was a significant patron.
When he finished the piece, his eyelids popped open, his face split into a smile, and his gaze darted around the room, eagerly awaiting the praise that came from every corner.
Glynnis clapped along with the rest, genuinely impressed.
And then the Prince Regent wondered aloud if he should play another or perhaps move to the pianoforte. She thought she heard a collective sigh. After all, even though he was good, the evening had already been a long one. Luckily, Mrs. Fitzherbert took control where no one else would dare to gainsay the eldest royal son.
“Let your friends go to their beds,” she advised. “Tomorrow, you shall see them all again in the daylight for a picnic and a delightful bath in the sea.”
“True enough,” he agreed. “The party is over.”
And just like that, they were released to grab their wraps and coats, top hats and canes, and disappear into the night.
As Glynnis passed under the arch of the south gate, a man was suddenly at her side. Smiling to herself, she turned to see ... Lord Cumberry.
Why had she expected and even hopped for Hargrove?
“May I escort you back to your house?” he asked.
Pausing her steps as others flowed around them, she supposed walking with him wouldn’t cause any harm, seeing as how there were so many people out on the street. But she no longer had any interest in kissing him, knowing he needed money as much as she did.
“Yes, thank you.” She would let him accompany her to the Old Ship and then leave him in the lobby. It was probably safer and more acceptable than strolling along by herself, perhaps even being mistaken for a lightskirt.
They walked down the Steyne toward the water, passing by Mrs. Fitzherbert’s grand house.
“The Prince Regent used his own architect to design his wife’s house,” Cumberry offered.
Glynnis startled. No one called Maria Fitzherbert his wife out loud since their marriage in her drawing room in London had never been considered legitimate by the king nor the church. Moreover, Prince George was now most unhappily yet officially married to his cousin, Princess Caroline.
She wondered if Lord Cumberry was trying to be inflammatory by styling Mrs. Fitzherbert thusly.
“Come, don’t look surprised,” he said. “Prinny only agreed to give up his precious Mrs. Fitzherbert and marry our Prussian queen-in-waiting so Parliament would pay his debts. Some say they were as great as £650,000.”
“Gracious!” Glynnis couldn’t even conceive of so much money.
“Who would not happily let a woman go for that type of coin?” Cumberry asked, chuckling to himself, and Glynnis knew Hargrove had spoken the truth about him being a petticoat pensioner. He would undoubtedly give up a woman or take up with one for a great deal less than the prince’s debt.
Regardless, this odious man might be correct. She would have to scour her own feelings deeply to come up with the answer.
Would she give up the person she loved for such an enormous sum, especially if it were a debt taken off her shoulders?
Would she take up with a man for the same reason?
It made her sad to think money was worth more than love. And then Lord Cumberry asked, “Where is your oceanside residence, dear lady?”
She squared her shoulders and chose honesty for she couldn’t brook his company a moment longer.
“I have a room at the Old Ship, and it doesn’t even face the sea.”
He stopped so quickly the soles of his leather shoes made a screeching noise upon the modern pavement the prince had ordered Brighton officials to install to keep “his favorite place” up to snuff.
Glynnis turned.
“Is something wrong?” As if she didn’t know.
“I just remembered a prior engagement,” he said.
“At this hour?” She nearly smiled, wondering if Lord Cumberry would have the graciousness to at least look apologetic or ashamed of being such a base mercenary.
He appeared to be neither. He offered her a smile and a wink.
“Good evening, Miss Talbot.” He headed in the other direction without even the courteousness to finish escorting her to the hotel door.
With a shrug, Glynnis clutched her lightweight shawl around her and resumed her stroll. She was only minutes from the Old Ship anyway, although the streets had become noticeably emptier as most of those from the party were in lodgings there on the Steyne and had reached their doors or had taken carriages along the Marine Parade to the eastern most part of Brighton, the Royal Crescent.
She hesitated, wondering whether to turn right and weave her way across Great East Street to Black Lion Street, as it would surely be shorter, when the unthinkable happened. Someone slammed into her from behind and tugged hard upon her reticule, as she flailed — and failed — to stay on her feet.