Talk of the Town (13 page)

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Authors: Joan Smith

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BOOK: Talk of the Town
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“She mentioned the moon."

Bess rolled her eyes in despair, and then sent Richard home while she jotted a note off to her two sisters, requesting them to curtail their expenses, for they must each come up with a thousand pounds to save the family’s name.

 

Chapter 9

 

The rout at Lady Melbourne’s turned out to be one of the more interesting occasions of the Season. In one of the long saloons there was the Prince of Wales holding court, presided over by two princesses, but not his two wives. Lady Hertford sat on his right hand, wearing the mask of tragedy, and Mrs. Pealing on his left, wearing no mask at all but her usual smiling face. It was to the princess on his left that most of His Highness’s remarks were addressed, and it was her glass that was kept full of wine. The Prince was a famous jilt. His casting aside of Perdita in his youth had been the forerunner of the long list of similar rude castings-off. His first wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert, had lasted longer than most of his women, certainly much longer than his formal wife.

Princess Caroline had been really only a ship passing in the night, leaving in her wake the necessary heir. But both his wives had been replaced long since by a series of plump matrons, and it was obvious to the world that Lady Hertford’s turn had come. Her repudiation was more public and shameful than some, but, on the other hand, no worse than plenty of others.

Titters erupted behind fans and raised fingers, and bets were beginning to be taken on which duo would emerge from the trio, with odds running long in the newcomer’s favour.

When one tired of laughing at the Prince, one could always nip into the next saloon to hear Beau Brummell exchange quips with his new protégé.

“You will forgive my not offering to rise and procure you a glass of wine, Miss Ingleside, but I have a touch of gout in my leg, and it is my favourite leg, too.”

“I wouldn’t dream of. disturbing you, Mr. Brummell, for I know very well you require all your time to think up clever things to say to make us all look like fools. But not quite such a fool as you look yourself. That must be my little consolation.”

“Watch your manners, young lady. I have had better people than you put out of Society for less impertinence.”

“You have had so many put out that there is a rumour the rejects are setting up their own club and calling it the Ten Thousand.”

“No, they are calling it the Court,” he returned in a drawling voice.

“You will find yourself ruling over an empty roost if you keep up with that sort of comment,” she warned.

“No roost can be said to be empty when
I
am ruling it.”

“Very true. It would be full of hot wind, and good for that gouty knee your old age has brought you.”

“Do they not teach good manners in Wiltshire, Miss Ingleside?”

“Indeed they do, and unlike London, they also practice them in Wiltshire. I was quite at a loss how to go on when first I came to London; but I was advised to take yourself as a model and have made such advances that I am nearly a perfect savage now.”

“Observe myself and practice a little more, and if you are a fast learner, you may yet achieve some small degree of perfection. I find you to be tolerably conversable,” he said, struggling to keep pace with her sharp tongue but on the whole satisfied to have a chance to show off.

“And not yet so
intolerably
conceited as my instructor, I hope.”

“Conceit has no part in the bearing of a lady or gentleman.”

“I am happy to see you don’t preach what you practice, Mr. Brummell.”

A little crowd hovered around to examine the curious sight of a young lady who gave back to the great Brummell blow for blow.

When it was time for refreshments, Mr. Brummell waited till he saw the Prince Regent, in an unusual fit of gallantry, approach the table; then he arose and offered Miss Ingleside his arm to confront the Prince.

“Some lobster patties, Miss Ingleside?” Beau offered, and she accepted.

“None for me. I am on a diet,” he added in a loud voice. “I do not intend to go to fat in my old age as some unfortunate gentlemen do. There is nothing so vulgar as a stomach. No tailoring can conceal it. In the very worst cases, a fellow may even sink to wearing a corset to brace himself.” He just barely glanced at the Prince’s creaking bulk as he spoke.

Miss Ingleside, aware of the feud between the two, wanted no part of it. She scowled at Brummell, for the Prince, though pretending not to hear, was becoming red about the ears.

“Does your aunt care for lobster, Miss Ingleside?” the Prince enquired, ignoring completely Mr. Brummell while making clear the food was not for himself.

“Yes, very much, Your Majesty,” Daphne answered in a humble voice.

“That aunt of yours has questionable taste,” Beau said loudly. He looked at the lobster, but the sting in the tail of the speech was felt by the Regent, and he longed to retaliate.

“I wonder if anyone thought to fill a plate for Lady Hertford,” Beau went on. “I see her escort has only one and it, I believe, is for Mrs. Eglinton— er, Pealing.”

The Prince could take no more. He set down the plate and returned to his seat, to let footboys serve him and his party as was his usual custom.

Lady Melbourne took Mr. Brummell severely to task, and he felt himself that he had gone far enough for one night. Miss Ingleside was vexed at having been used by Beau. The Prince did not care to exchange public jibes with the rapier-tongued fellow, but he felt he knew the cause of the anger and smiled to himself to think he had captured the charming Mrs. Pealing out from under his arch rival’s nose. He was determined to attach her after that evening, and went alone the next morning to call on her. He had not foreseen that Miss Ingleside would be present (“have to get rid of the girl”) but at least she didn’t have Brummell at her feet, as was only too possible. She soon had a caller of her own in the person of St. Felix.

For a short five minutes the four mismated persons sat trying to think of innocuous subjects of conversations, then St. Felix turned aside to Miss Ingleside. “I came to talk about that book with you, Ma’am. Shall we go to the library and have a look at it?”

While he sat in the saloon, his eyes had been trained on Mrs. Pealing. That this squat, pudgy female had ensnared his father was almost impossible for him to believe, and that she had ever borne the slightest resemblance to Miss Ingleside completely impossible. He couldn’t see a feature in common.

Miss Ingleside went with him. There was no library in the apartment, but she was grateful to get out of the Prince’s presence. He was markedly cool to her after last night’s rout. They went to the little study where the memoirs were kept and occasionally worked upon.

“I seem to be tripping over a prince every time I come here,” St. Felix said.

“I don’t hear the Prince complaining,” she replied, taking the seat behind the desk and indicating the only other chair for her caller.

“You will hear it if you persist in making him look a fool, with Brummell’s contrivance.”

“What busy little bee has been running to you with stories of last night’s party?”

“My sister was there. She said you were the centre of attention, and behaving perfectly outrageously.”

“What would you expect of a parvenue whose family can only be traced with credit for two hundred years?”

“A
modicum
of behaviour, when it is her aim to pass herself off with credit in Society.”

“Now here is a new twist,” Daphne said, smiling ironically. Yet she was far from happy with her own performance. “Are you setting out to reform me, Your Grace?”

“I am not so quixotic. I am merely warning you. God knows why I should bother. It would serve you well to be cast out of Society, as you should be, but I must confess to a grudging admiration for your brass. One does tend to side with the hero of a picaresque story.”

“So now I am a knave and a rogue, am I?”

“You always were, but when you clash horns with the Prince Regent, you take on a good deal more than you can handle. You may have won a battle last night, but you will lose the war. Brummell is on his way out. It is only a matter of time, and a very little time, till he is finished.”

“Everyone defers to him.”

“He’s in debt to his neck—gambling—and he lives on a very small income. If you are wise, you will switch sides while there is still time.”

“Why do you bother to tell me this? You have wanted to see me beaten since the first day you came to this place.”

She found him to be without an answer. He didn’t know himself. He despised mushrooms, but somehow Miss Ingleside had become more than an upstart trouble-maker. He would fight to the death to prevent her revealing anything to cast aspersions on his family. His whole aim was to best her, but he would dislike to see her disgraced and humiliated, as she would be if she got the Prince turned against her.

“Is this what you are offering me in lieu of a moon?” she asked. “The benefit of your advice in payment for our silence regarding your father? You must know I have found your reading of Society’s whims somewhat inaccurate in the past. You have a definite tendency to overrate any misdeeds on
my
part.”

“You are in need of an adviser, my girl. It was foolish of your family to send you here alone.”

“Yet I have managed to make myself acceptable to everyone, except yourself. I have obtained a voucher to Almack’s, and as you find a prince cluttering the apartment every day, I don’t think I need fear reprisals from him.”

“He comes to see your aunt. He was not friendly towards yourself. In fact, if he proceeds in his customary fashion, he will set her up in a love nest where you will definitely be
de trop.
And it is the best thing that could happen to you, too. You would do better to reside with the Wintlocks.”

“Love nest! You are insane. She wouldn’t dream of such a thing. It isn’t that sort of a relationship, though. I might have known you would think so.”

“It is running to long odds at the clubs today.”

“You can’t be serious! He has only called twice, and all they do is talk of the old days.”

“He ain’t exactly a red hot lover, Miss Ingleside. His passionate days are over, but he likes a plump bosom to rest his head on.”

“Oh, what a mind you have!”

“And what a greenhead you are, to have been turned loose in this wicked city without a protector. I don’t know what your family was thinking of.”

“I have my aunt’s protection.”

“Negligible. She permits you to entertain gentlemen callers alone, and that is not done. She sits and smiles while you make a show of yourself in public.”

“You are the only gentleman I have ever entertained alone!”

“But could you have chosen a worse one?”

“No, I couldn’t; but you needn’t try to tell me she would set up house with that—that
Prince
—for she wouldn’t. She laughs at him behind his back.”

“But not to his face, I think. She wanted to make a comeback, and she has apparently succeeded; but it won’t do you any good if he takes you in dislike, and he will most certainly do so if you carry on with Brummell. They have been at daggers drawn this year.”

“And I suppose you think
I
am on the verge of being set up in a love nest with
him!”

“No, he can’t afford it.”

“How fortunate for me. Otherwise, of course, I would hop at the chance and find myself amongst the muslin company, with the Amys of the world.”

“Highly unbecoming talk in a young lady. Who told you about Amy?”

“One may hear it on any street corner, Your Grace. It was, I believe, the corner of Haymarket and Piccadilly where it first came to my ears.”

“It will make dull reading in your epilogue then. As well known as a ballad. But I think it was at Richmond Park that you discovered it. I noticed a particularly enraptured smile alight on your face when you were talking to Mr. Bosworth. I have Bosworth to thank for this favour.”

“Why should you care if I know?”

“I don’t,” he answered very promptly, and felt a pronounced desire to run Mr. Bosworth through with cold steel. “But I really came to discuss with you the business of my father. I know all about it now.”

“You know very little about it!” she said sharply, and would have told him more but for Effie’s injunction.

“I know at least that we are indebted to your aunt. I should like to hear any more you have to tell me in the matter.”


I
can
tell you no more. It is my aunt’s story, and her book, not mine.”

“You are co-authoring it, I believe?”

“Just adding a few semi-colons to give it a literary touch. You overestimate my involvement in the work.”

“I have been led to. You will never let me speak to your aunt. I was beginning to believe she had died and you were availing yourself of her memoirs illicitly.”

“You were not beginning to believe anything of the sort! You are only trying to annoy me. She did not wish to see you. She finds you disconcertingly like your father.”

“How can she, when we met only briefly?”

“She has seen you. There is a physical resemblance, I believe.”

“But that should be to my advantage, at least so far as she is concerned.”

“It doesn’t appear to be, but as she is caught out in the open today, it is an excellent time to approach her.”

“We have nothing to do but wait then. Tell me, Miss Ingleside, why is it you reside with your aunt when it is the Wintlocks who are sponsoring you?”

“I had no notion of being presented when I came to London. It was only supposed to be a family visit.”

“And why were you
not
being presented in the regular way?”

“What a lot of questions! Papa does not hold with London goings-on. Only see how they have made a fallen woman of Aunt Effie! He feels Mama is a good deal better off, and she was married without having a Season.”

“Then he should not have let you come at all. To come and not be presented was worse than anything.”

“More blackmail,” she smiled. “Mama said that if he didn’t let me come when Auntie invited me, she would have Effie to live with us.”

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