Death and the Courtesan (18 page)

“Yes, I might have done,” he said, “but I was certain that you would have a much better time at this one. I know
I
shall!” He tucked her hand beneath his arm and began to stroll with her about the room. “Some people find holding two parties on the same night excessive, but I do not think it is. Brummel assures me that I am just as entitled to two fetes as I am to two hands. Haw! Deucedly clever fellow, Brummel.”

The other guests had begun to arrive, for the regent had wished to celebrate his ascendancy with the people he wanted to have, as well as with those whom he’d been obliged to invite, but as far as the ladies were concerned, he could scarcely have mixed the two groups. Besides, this arrangement gave him an excuse to wear
two
gorgeous outfits, rather than just the one. The regent loved to dress up. He loved to gratify every whim, in fact, and the spending of large sums of money was as necessary to his well-being as air itself.

“When I was younger,” he had once observed to the Earl of Yarmouth, “I used to deny myself very little in the way of indulgences. Then I graduated to denying myself nothing whatever. But now that I’ve matured, I regret the folly of my undisciplined youth. These days I deny myself everything but the best.”

Nobody liked him, really. He was greedy, unkind, and morbidly self-absorbed. But Prinny could always count on full attendance at his balls and parties, offering, as he did, the best food and spirits. Arabella couldn’t begrudge him his tastes. They were not quite
au fait
with her own, perhaps, but they at least reflected an appreciation for the exceptional, and had resulted in a number of strange-looking public works which would be left as a legacy to the nation. Arabella had only been invited to the “left fete” but was keen to go, for she had never met the sovereign-in-waiting and was looking forward to lording this fact over Lady Ribbonhat, who hadn’t met him, either.

 

“Naturally, La Ribbonhat is acquainted with the mad
king,
” Arabella chattered to Belinda as Doyle affixed ostrich plumes to her coiffure.

“Naturally,” Belinda echoed, attempting to be supportive.

“But, well, I
mean
. . . that’s the old king, isn’t it?” Arabella asked, fastening the clasps on her blue topaz bracelets. “And after tonight, when I shall be able to say that
I’ve
met the
new
one, Lady Ribbonhat will be absolutely devoured by envy. She wasn’t invited at all, you know, because of her late husband’s allegiance to . . .” Her voice died as she caught sight of her sister’s sad face in the mirror. “Oh, Bunny, dearest! I
am
a pig! Can you ever forgive me?”

Belinda had not been invited, either. For the regent so loathed his wife, Caroline, that no crony of hers was allowed within spitting distance of his royal person.

“Of course, Bell; after all, I’m not the one who’s about to go to gaol. And you know, this might actually save you—if you make a favorable impression on the regent, he might decide to grant you a royal pardon.”

“That is precisely what I am thinking.” Arabella stood up and turned around for her sister—a vision in pale-orange satin. “How do I look?”

“Like an apricot tart,” said Belinda approvingly.

“Good enough to eat?”

“Yes, amongst other things.”

It may seem strange to the reader that Arabella would pause in her efforts to save her own life just to attend a party, but bear in mind that she had long desired an invitation to Carlton House. This would not be an official acknowledgment, of course; the occasion was a gathering of sinister persons and she was herself a woman of ill repute, but it was as close as Arabella would ever come to an official presentation, and she was not about to let a little thing like a murder interfere with one of the most important moments of her career.

Carlton House, the regent’s official residence, was a horrifying hodgepodge of architectural styles, something like a cross between a Roman villa and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Horses. Behind its massive columns and ridiculously gigantic pediments, the structure meandered off in all directions, as though portions of it were seeking a means of escape from the rest of it.

Arabella was met on the steps by Scrope Davies, one of her particular friends, and escorted by that worthy gentleman through an immense hexastyle portico with Corinthian columns, through a scarlet foyer, to a two-story entrance hall ringed with Doric columns of yellow marble. She shuddered with unexpected nausea at the clashing colors and hideous immensity of it all, for Carlton House was truly a monument to bad taste. They passed through an octagonal room and various ugly spaces, until at last they reached the Great Conservatory.

“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Davies. “What a truly princely show! My eyes are fairly dazzled by this surfeit of glamour! How do you find it, Miss Beaumont?”

“Well, it is truly, as you have indicated, too much to take in all at once. It is also not original, being a copy of the Rural Masquerade given at Carlisle House in 1776.”

Arabella knew she was waxing pedantic, but others had begun to gather round her and she could never resist the temptation to show off.

“The redoubtable Mrs. Cornelys had the idea first and, to my mind, realized her vision much better.
She
didn’t find it necessary to display her silver and gilt plate—one never sees those things in a forest glade, after all. And her guests did not sit at a formal dining table, but upon the ‘ground,’ where they ate picnic-style, out of hampers on the ‘grass.’ ”

“Now, how would you know that?” asked Lord Allen. “You could scarcely have been out of swaddling clothes in 1776.”

Having stabbed her interlocutor with an icy glare, Arabella now proceeded to slash and cut him with it:

“As a matter of fact, Lord Allen, that was some years before I was
born
. No doubt, because you yourself have adopted the use of wigs, corsets, and makeup in an effort to preserve the appearance of youth, you assume that everyone else has, also. But if you were not too proud to wear your spectacles, you would see that I do not affect youth’s outward shew, because I possess it naturally. As I was saying, Mrs. Cornelys did not go in for elaborate dishes. The hampers contained simple foods: asparagus, strawberries, crayfish, and hot roast chickens. Simple, yes, but elegant. How do I know this, you ask? I read about it, in Casanova’s memoirs. Apparently the regent did, too.”

“Well, perhaps it is not possible to be truly original in the matter of grand celebrations, with so many centuries of royal pomp having preceded this one,” said Lord Worcester. “Nevertheless, you must concede that His Highness is an innovator architecturally; look at the Brighton Pavilion.”

“The Brighton Pavilion is modeled on Sezincote,” said Arabella, “and I am on that account disobliged to entertain your assessment of His Highness’s originality.”

At that point, she was claimed by the dashing Lord Alvanley, to the evident relief of her listeners and consternation of all the men who had hoped to partner her first. Alvanley, who had also been present at the earlier party, took advantage of the intervals when they actually danced side by side or faced each other with hands clasped high over the heads of other couples to entertain Arabella with gossip about the “great ladies” he had observed there earlier in the evening.

The regent didn’t dance very much, preferring to stand on the sidelines with a crony or two and look on while his guests galloped past him. During one of their turns about the room, Arabella overheard the Earl of Yarmouth, a famous roué and the son of Prinny’s current mistress, murmur her name.

“A damned fine woman, Yarmouth!” the regent replied. “Too young, though.”

The prince regent had always preferred his women fat, old, and relatively unattractive. Now that he, too, was all three of those things, for he had always been two of them, his tastes seemed more appropriate. But that was no comfort to Arabella, who had hoped to charm him.

After the first set had finished, Alvanley brought his partner forward.

“Your Highness. May I present Miss Arabella Beaumont?”

She curtsied, well aware that the regent was looking down her décolletage.

“But there are so many Arabellas these days!” he protested. “It seems every second or third woman I meet is an Arabella! It dates you, my dear, such a common name. And from what I hear, you’re quite an
un
common woman.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “What would you have me called then, Your Majesty?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Something timeless and wild, perhaps, smelling of the out-of-doors and hillsides. Something entirely rare and original, like . . . ‘Heather.’ ”

“ ‘Heather’? But do you really think that name suits
me,
sir?”

“How should I know? I’ve only just met you. It’s sure to suit somebody. I’ll have to think about it.” He wandered away, whereupon another gentleman immediately appeared to whisk her back to the dance floor.

After another hour or so of rigorous exercise, Arabella was ready to sit down for a while in order to catch her breath and fan herself a little, for the conservatory was most infernally hot. Its glass walls ran with the condensed exhalations of the assemblage, putting her in mind of her own perspiration, which she could feel tickling its way down her back and between her breasts. Everywhere she looked, Arabella saw men and women with red faces and streaked makeup, and the knot of admiring gentlemen which stood close about her did nothing to help keep the temperature down, but Arabella did not really mind, for men were her métier, after all. She was on the point of accepting a glass of warm punch from her latest partner when she glanced to her left and noticed the regent headed purposefully in her direction. And Arabella’s admirers, seeing him too, melted away like the ice that had cooled the punch bowl some hours ago.

His Royal Highness took the chair next her own. He was all affability this time, and Arabella felt reassured. I won’t say a word about my case, she thought. That should impress him with my forbearance and good sense.

Instead, they spoke of the war.

“I could end the whole thing in twenty minutes, you know,” said the regent, “but Parliament won’t let me.”

“How should you proceed, Your Majesty?”

“I’d simply ask Napoleon up to the palace.”

“Of course!” said Arabella, nodding. “How sensible! Then the two of you could discuss matters over dinner, and come to a mutually sustainable agreement!”

“No—I meant I’d have Napoleon up to the palace, and shoot him. Think of all the artworks I could save, all the priceless things they’re butchering over there. Have you heard about the Sphinx’s nose? Shot off, by gad! Shot off, by Napoleon’s soldiers!”

“I
own
the nose, Your Majesty. One day, if I live long enough, I shall go to Egypt and glue it back on.”

Naturally, Arabella didn’t really own the nose, which, before a cannonball smashed it to pieces, probably weighed half again as much as she did. But in her art collection there actually was a nose from an ancient statue of roughly the same color as the Sphinx, and she reasoned that this was close enough, should she ever be asked to produce it.

“What do you think of my little party?” asked the regent presently.

“It is . . . entirely characteristic of its begetter, Your Majesty,” she replied.

“And how would you describe my costume?”

“If a foreigner to these shores were suddenly to come into the room, having no prior knowledge of England, he should nevertheless be able to guess who, out of all this company, was its prince.”

“Should he, madam? Why? Because of the richness of my attire, or because, where he hails from, the ruler is inevitably a ‘fat git’?”

Arabella stared at him, dumbstruck, whilst a blush of deeper hue suffused her previously light-pink countenance.

The regent stood up. “If you’ll excuse me,” said he, with a curt bow, “I must go now, and . . . how did you put it? ‘Get stuffed.’ ”

He turned and left her abruptly, and as she sat there, trying to collect herself, a man whom she did not know took the chair lately vacated by His Majesty.

“Cut you, did he?” asked her sympathizer. “Well, you know, that’s just his way—the regent never forgets a slight. It’s too bad, really: He will soon be the most powerful man in the world. As George IV, he will be in a position to create a truly enlightened society if he wants to, leading his nation toward a glorious new renaissance. But I very much doubt that will happen,” said the man, shaking his head. “Because, as you have just seen for yourself, he has one of the most repulsive personalities ever to shame a royal house.”

Arabella, who was fanning herself vigorously in an effort to extinguish her blush, remained silent.

“Personally, I have no patience with people like that, even though it is my job to,” the fellow continued. “The entire royal family, with the possible exceptions of the mad king and Princess Charlotte, have devious, criminal minds.”

As the newly appointed Danish ambassador to Britain, this man should not have been saying such things at all, much less to a total stranger, but he was a kind person and hearing the regent cut Arabella had outraged his sense of decency. He had only just arrived in the country and as yet had no idea who Arabella was.

“Do you know,” he said, “that someone recently tried to blackmail him? Can you even imagine such a thing? Blackmailing the sovereign? Yes, but that isn’t the worst of it. I’m told that the regent had this person killed, and then arranged to blame his crime on a completely innocent person. In my country, royalty does not behave in this way.” He nodded to himself. “In fact, I like my own country so much better than this one that I think I should go home, and find a profession that allows me to stay there.” He drained his cup, stood up, and offered his hand to Arabella. “May I have this dance?”