The Stuart Sapphire (4 page)

The prince tut-tutted a great deal and shook his head but looked constantly towards the door and much to his relief, Tam realised that the improbability of what he was saying was fortunately not getting the prince’s full
attention. He was listening with only half an ear, his mind clearly on more important issues.

At that moment the door opened and the servant reappeared. A murmured conversation of which Tam heard only a few of the words. Brummell, it appeared, was not on the premises, could not be found. None knew where he had gone or when he would return.

The prince’s face flushed scarlet. Brummell’s arrogance was beyond belief. He was a personal attendant, sartorial advisor and boon companion of his youth, but, as the prince tended to tire of even his closest friends, so had Brummell – the acclaimed dandy adored by men and women alike – fallen from grace, with one more score to settle in a growing list.

Now the prince looked in imminent danger of apoplexy as he shouted: ‘Then you are to find him, dig him out wherever he is, tell him he is commanded – aye, commanded to our presence immediately – and that we will not tolerate the slightest delay or excuse.’

The servant bowed, scuttled off. The prince’s attention returned to Tam once again. ‘It would please us to have you remain here for a short while – before continuing your journey – to fully recover from your recent ordeal. We have ordered a room to be prepared for you.’

Tam had expected at most to be dismissed and left to his own devices. But a room? He was expected to stay. What on earth for? He had fully expected the prince’s gesture of hospitality to end with a royal breakfast, certainly not to be extended to a room in the Pavilion.

He could hardly refuse a royal invitation as, with a brief nod to Tam’s bewildered thanks, the prince stood up indicating that the audience was over.

Tam bowed and, in the look they exchanged, the prince,
with a flash of insight he was to remember later, decided that this was a man who was to be trusted, a loyal friend – or a deadly foe. And watching him follow the servant out of the room, he noticed how lightly he walked, almost as if his feet glided across the floor, his borrowed shoes leaving no echo of footsteps on the polished floor.

The prince frowned, shrugging aside the thought that before Mr Eildor continued his journey and his own purse was the richer by 200 guineas, during what promised to be a very short acquaintance he would have little chance of finding out more about this peculiarly enigmatic young man.

The room seemed suddenly very empty and with a sigh he realised that he could now return to his bedroom and commence his daily toilette, happy in the knowledge that royal whores were strictly reserved for the night’s entertainment only.

Tam’s exit was also witnessed by Princess Charlotte. He bowed politely, her unprepossessing appearance suggesting an upper servant or lady-in-waiting. He was quite unaware of the turmoil his presence had raised in the fifteen-
year-old’s
bosom.

Unloved by either parent and passed from one to the other, a pawn to be manipulated in the royal separation, a chance to score points, Charlotte was extremely sensitive to the reactions of her mother Princess Caroline in Carlton House, where a grown daughter was an embarrassment among her many lovers. As for her father, he had never liked her from the day she was born and had made that clear by never forgiving her for not being the male heir he craved.

Not particularly pretty, a little top-heavy and cumbersome, Charlotte’s already over-ripe body poised on
rather too-small feet, she was acutely aware that every man with a title who paid her lavish compliments, which her appearance did nothing to justify, was looking at a point beyond her to the English throne which she would eventually inherit.

No one, it seemed, could ever love her for herself alone, except perhaps an ordinary young man, handsome but hopelessly ineligible, whose ambitions must fall short of advancement.

Her eyes followed this intriguing stranger briefly set down in Brighton by a shipwreck – and wasn’t that romantic! – with nothing to gain.

There was something in his bearing, different from any of the titled lords and princes, something indefinite, mysterious and appealing that put him in the frame of the lover she yearned for.

And so poor Charlotte fell in love with Tam Eildor, romantically shipwrecked, at first sight.

As Tam was led along a corridor, guarded at frequent intervals by soldiers in the uniform of the prince’s own Hussars, he realised these were the king’s private apartments. The servant ushered him into a handsome room overlooking the Pavilion Gardens, and with a bow, since he had had no further instructions regarding this unusual guest, left him to his own devices.

Tam sat down on the four-postered bed which was exceedingly comfortable and regarded his opulent surroundings. To his delight there was even a tiny dressing room with a basin of warm water, towels, even a razor for shaving had been remembered, plus a rather ornate hip bath and that rarest of all luxuries, a water closet.

What a blessed relief. But what was he doing here, receiving such treatment? What was the purpose of this extended invitation, more or less under the royal eye, when surely even more illustrious visitors than himself would have been shown to the guest apartments somewhere in the rear of the Pavilion?

With a sigh he decided he might as well make the most
of what was currently on offer, while thinking about what was to be his next move, and where in Regency Brighton lay his time-quest.

As he regarded his unshaven face in the mirror and considered the razor with some trepidation, he thought about the boy he had rescued, the boy whose name was Jem, sentenced to transportation for stealing a loaf of bread.

Where had the smugglers taken him? He avoided thinking of how such a pretty young lad might fare at their hands. Wherever he was now, Tam hoped he would be safe and far from Brighton, their paths unlikely to cross ever again. Doubtless the lad’s poor abilities as a thief would be extended dramatically and directed into bigger and better crimes.

His thoughts returned to that moment on the hulks when he had opened his eyes in the year of Our Lord 1811 and had seen the boy crouching nearby.

A prisoner like himself. Tam frowned. There was something odd about that, something he should have recognised.

He took a deep breath and was contemplating the razor poised above his chin when suddenly the silence around him was broken by a shout and the sounds of running footsteps in the corridor outside his room.

The prince had climbed the stairs a short while after Tam, hopeful at least that the insatiable Sarah, Marchioness of Creeve, no longer occupied his bed. He had given her plenty of time to realise that he had been unavoidably delayed after the drama of the sinking ship.

The chiming of some very handsome French clocks that were his pride and joy signalled the time as eight o’clock, time for her to have tactfully withdrawn by what looked
like a continuation of the decorated walls, but in fact hid a secret staircase leading directly from the royal bedroom to an unobtrusive exit from the Pavilion. A step across the garden to a door where a carriage waited to carry her back the few miles to Creeve House and her own domestic problems.

Some bore a bond-making similarity to the prince’s own. The thankless defiant young stepdaughter who had left Creeve House a month ago after a bitter disagreement with Lady Sarah. One of many, but sufficient for her to run off to her grandmother’s London house.

It seemed, however, that the girl had failed to appear. She had never arrived, and a few half-hearted attempts by her father, the Marquis, to track her down were abandoned. Her stepmother, singularly lacking in maternal feelings, especially for the girl she declared ‘a mere annoyance’, had long since done her duty and produced the required son to inherit the title.

And that she decided was all that any decent husband could demand, considering herself free to live her own life. Which she did – to the full and brimming over.

In London at the opera, she had caught the eye of Frederick, Duke of York, George’s younger brother. This mutual eye-catching had swiftly led to his bed and six months later, to the Marine Pavilion and one step higher into the bed of the Prince Regent.

As he approached the bedroom door, such were the Prince’s thoughts. From their earliest days Frederick had been his rival, marked down as the declared favourite son of their father King George. To Frederick went all the love and affection their father was capable of, and so there had been a certain piquancy in secretly sharing the favours of Sarah with the blissfully unaware Frederick.

Now that the novelty was wearing thin, as was the case with all George’s many amours, he had to admit he was finding Sarah somewhat trying in her passionate embraces and her addiction to jewellery. Giving jewels was the regular expected payment for favours, and in this too the marchioness was proving insatiable. Her addiction to wearing diamonds, rubies and sapphires during their lovemaking had at first seemed stimulating, but now seemed dashed tawdry. Odd how the most precious jewels in the kingdom could turn to glass worn on a woman’s naked body in the cold light of dawn.

The prince sighed as he passed through the withdrawing room, acknowledging Lord Henry Fitzgeorge, Groom of the Bedchamber, who favoured him strongly in looks and in demeanour. The unacknowledged product – so he claimed – of an early affair with an actress, there were hints also unacknowledged that he was Maria Fitzherbert’s son.

Taking a deep breath he opened the bedroom door. The bed curtains were partly closed but the jewellery hastily piled on the small table indicated that Sarah had tactfully withdrawn. On closer inspection it was with considerable annoyance he saw she had not removed herself after all. She lay there much as he had left her at the conclusion of their rumbustious and exhausting lovemaking.

He looked down on her with distaste, lying in a very indecorous position, naked except for the long string of pearls, which were her own, around her neck.

How extremely disagreeable of her. The agreed arrangement was to tug the bellrope connected to the stables, summoning a carriage which would be waiting in readiness to tactfully remove her before his return.

With the bed curtains still only partially open, he coughed loudly.

Sarah did not move. He approached the bed and reaching out a hand to stroke that fleshy wrist, the next instant he realised why there had been no response to his touch.

Sarah would no longer tempt him again, or his brother, or any other man.

Sarah, Marchioness of Creeve, was dead. Dead in his royal bed.

With a shout of terror, he rushed out, having the presence of mind to slam the door shut behind him as a thousand terrible images went through his mind in rapid succession of the appalling inconvenience of such a frightful discovery.

In the withdrawing room Henry had been joined by Lord Percy Wellsby, the second groom. They sprang to their feet.

‘There’s – there’s been an accident—’ The prince threw open the bedroom door, pointed to the bed. ‘She is – dead!’ he shrieked.

The two grooms followed him warily. Lord Percy, who was squeamish, retired hastily to be sick. Lord Henry who was made of sterner stuff merely averted his eyes and stood firmly by the prince’s side. Percy returned and together they awaited instructions while their royal master, moaning and sweating profusely, stumbled to a chair. He sat down, his eyes rolling wildly.

What to do next? God only knew! He had never in his life, never in his wildest dreams, encountered such a situation as this.

A dead woman in his bed. A corpse who was the wife of the Marquis of Creeve and – perhaps even worse – the current mistress of his younger brother. What a scandal. He was shivering, he had not the slightest idea what to do
in such circumstances. How fortunate that his father, mad King George, would never hear of it. As for his mother – he shuddered, returned to the state of very naughty, misguided and wilful child, his unchanging image in her eyes for almost fifty years.

Lord Henry took the initiative, came forward. Eyes that were identical in colour to the prince’s own stared down at him.

‘Are you ill, Sire, shall we summon Dr Bliss?’ he asked gently.

The prince stared at him. ‘How can he help me? Are you mad?’ How could a physician help?

Except to whisper to all the world the dreadful secret that lay behind his bedroom door. Stumbling to his feet again, he opened the door into the corridor and hastily closed it again on the group of guards who, perhaps aware of a disturbance within, lingered alert and at the ready on the threshold.

‘Get rid of them,’ he said. ‘Tell them – everything is well. Anything, but get rid of them. No one must know,’ he babbled. ‘No one – it must go no further than this room. Do you understand?’

Henry, bewildered, exchanged a glance with Percy and did as he was told. The prince leaned his head against the slightly opened door and moaned, listening to murmurs about a slight accident. His Royal Highness, it appeared, had fallen and hurt his leg. There were shakes of the head, sympathetic nods, knowing that the prince was a martyr already to gout, deuced painful too.

‘What are we to do?’

The grooms, not surprisingly, frowned and tried to look as if they were giving the matter intelligent thought, nervously averting their eyes from the royal bedroom from
which the prince had emerged like a bat out of hell.

Suddenly the prince lost all control, threw up his hands and sobbing, burst out of the royal apartments to the astonishment of the guards, accustomed as they were to the unexplained tantrums and shrieks of their royal master.

At that moment, Brummell chose to make his appearance, his high heels clattering along the polished floor, his attire a little awry. He was in an ill humour, controlling with difficulty his extreme displeasure at this untimely summons from a very satisfying night in one of the flash houses, those brothels disguised as gaming houses in Brighton’s less salubrious areas.

Simultaneously, like a scene from a very bad play by Mr Sheridan, Tam Eildor also appeared from his room at the other end of the corridor to see what the disturbance was all about.

There the curtain rightly should have fallen on this particularly dramatic moment, but alas the curtain was about to rise on Act II: Confusion.

With considerable difficulty the prince took control of the situation.

‘Ah, Brummell, there you are,’ he snapped, taking refuge in the obvious.

‘Sire,’ said Brummell, bowing stiffly.

As the prince took Tam’s arm, ushered him forward, Tam realised that he was shaking, his terror communicated itself as he said:

‘This is Mr Eildor, sole survivor of the
Royal Stuart
which sank last night. As you will no doubt recall, now that you see the living evidence before you, we will be pleased to accept the 200 guineas that you now owe us. You have our permission to withdraw.’

But Brummell was in no hurry. Taking up his
quizzing-glass
in leisurely fashion, he examined Tam closely, while Tam realised there was something more to do with the prince’s white-faced anguish than winning or losing a bet.

Curious by nature, eager to find some new topic of gossip, Brummell also was aware of something amiss as he gave this survivor of the shipwreck his full attention. He did not look in the least like a shipwrecked mariner and, suspicious by nature, Brummell’s reaction was that he was being tricked by the prince into parting with 200 guineas.

He bowed to Tam. ‘My congratulations, sir. Perhaps you would be so good as to honour me with your company, in order that I might hear more of your ordeal, over a glass of claret—’

‘We cannot allow that,’ the prince interrupted. And showing remarkable sensitivity, ‘To relive such – such moments.’ And seizing Tam’s arm. ‘Can you not observe how shaken this gentleman is by his experience?’ he demanded.

Tam regarded this outburst with faint amusement seeing that he was by far the calmer of the two and it was the prince himself who might have emerged, sweating and pale, from the ordeal of shipwreck. At the same time he was understanding the reasons for his regal treatment, a splendid repast and a handsome room. He was merely the object of a royal bet.

It was also obvious, since the two men displayed such signs of disagreement, that there were cracks in the once boon companionship, that chilly royal stare the eventual bottom line for those who briefly enjoyed their hour of glory.

And Brummell had lasted longer than most. He had seen numerous men with more claims to nobility than his humble origins, rise and slide back into oblivion, while he
eyed their dismay with slight contempt, secure in the certainty that such would never be his own fate.

But Brummell’s popularity spelt his own downfall. Adored by men and women alike, venerated as a royal dandy, he was viewed by Prince George with increasing jealousy, soured by an incident at Belvoir Castle in which Brummell, out riding in a fur pelisse, was mistaken by the great number of people who had assembled and saluted – this arrogant son of a clerk – as the future King of England.

It was intolerable and worse was to follow. His antipathy towards Mrs Fitzherbert – the feeling was mutual – and his constantly disparaging remarks concerning her dress sense and her ample figure soon found their way back to the prince’s ears, his fate sealed by the public declaration (presumably relating to sartorial matters): ‘I made the Prince of Wales what he is and I can unmake him.’

There were obviously more scores to settle than a gambling debt, Tam decided, as Brummell’s quizzing-glass remained fixed upon him. Regarding him narrowly, and in direct disobedience to the royal command, Brummell said: ‘Perhaps you will join me for a glass of claret, before you resume your journey to – where was it?’

Tam pretended not to hear and bowed. ‘I will be delighted to accept your kind invitation, sir,’ he said, realising that he would be hustled away from the Pavilion at the earliest and have no chance of further encounters with Beau Brummell who, receiving a dismissive wave of the royal hand, glared angrily at his former dearest friend and, turning on his heels, clattered back the way he had come.

‘Thank you for your kindness, Your Royal Highness, but as I am now quite restored to health and strength, have
I your permission to leave,’ asked Tam, ‘to resume my journey?’