Chapter Three
Around the beauteous lawn, gay buildings rise,
There the Pavilion wooes admiring eyes;
Within, the lovely edifice is grac’d
With every beauty of inventive taste.
–Brighton. A Poemby Mary Lloyd, 1809
THAT NIGHT, JAMES STROLLEDalong the Steyne where fishermen had recently been told to stop drying their nets as it wasn’t the view the Prince Regent wished to see when he looked out of his Pavilion’s eastern windows. Prinny’s other guests were also mostly on foot. James liked how people went around Brighton by foot since it was so compact. Carriages were hardly necessary. He certainly wouldn’t bother until he was climbing in his own to head north to London.
The exterior of the Marine Pavilion’s cream-glazed Hampshire tiles were glowing delicately in the light of lanterns. From a simple classical exterior of stately columns and symmetry, it was well-known the entire structure was going to be made over with a Far East influence to match the exotic stables built seven years earlier in the northwest corner of the property.
The famed architect John Nash had begun the project early in the year, and from what James heard the new Chinese-inspired gallery where the west corridor used to be was already completed and would be the highlight of the evening’s open house. Naturally gainsayers were already declaring the entire plan — using the Orient, India, and Arabia as the main influences — to be a “mad-house” and in extremely poor taste before it was even built.
And then there was the dreadful cost!
James walked past the south wing where Prinny’s private apartments were and along the narrow-edged portico of columns, to enter through the salon’s grand dome. He was greeted by vases of fresh flowers, the heady aroma filling his head and lifting his mood. The cheerful chinoiserie style of decoration that the Prince Regent so admired was in evidence everywhere, and thus, the predominant colors were rich red and glittering gold.
James could only hope the pieces of art he’d brought with him, packed in straw and carefully crated, would tickle Prinny’s fancy enough to soothe his prickly royal temper. Then he would be released from this infernal banishment. Even if Payton thought Brighton was all the crack and more, James wanted to go home.
As usual at any princely party, it was overly crowded and loud. Servants were milling about carrying trays of glasses filled to the brim. James took one, wondering how long it would be before Prinny started telling his infamous off-color jokes. Scanning the room, he noted the usual flatterers who offered an abundance of palaver and flummery to the eldest royal son, awaiting the day he became their king.
And then he sawher. Not Prinny’s former mistressandformer wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert. Nor was it his latest mistress, Lady Hertford, who may or may not be bold enough to come to Brighton and risk Mrs. Fitzherbert’s considerable wrath. No, neither of them. It was Miss Talbot who caught his eye.
Her appearance stopped him in his tracks and checked the breath in his lungs. Perfectly coiffed and downright desirable, she was a jewel clad in shimmering ruby satin with cream-colored gloves and a matching feathery thing in her hair. Her breasts were magnificent, and he knew if he got close enough, she would have a distinctly floral scent he recalled from London.
If she wasn’t so dangerously willing to be compromised, he would consider her a welcome diversion until he could return to his London mistress.
Then he recalled she was engaged and smiled to himself. With someone else on the hook for her future security, she was far safer to play with. He couldn’t stop staring.
The feathers in her hair moved as people came and went in the main salon. When a single cream quill disobediently flopped in front of her face, she made an adorable moue with her lips and blew the feather upward. Dutifully, it returned to its place. Meanwhile, his shaft had stiffened at the sight of her puckered mouth, and he found himself walking toward her, helplessly drawn.
“We meet again, Miss Talbot. And you look positively ravishing.”
Her cheeks pinkened under his compliment. She, too, held a glass of wine and raised it toward him. “Thank you, Lord Hargrove. And you have quite the dash-fire about you tonight.”
Sincere or not, her words cheered him. “May I have a dance?”
“Certainly, my lord. Let’s hope the sea air hasn’t put all the instruments out of tune.”
He frowned. “Is that a possibility?”
“Very much so,” she said, looking serious. Then she smiled. “I have no idea, but it sounded plausible, didn’t it?”
His mouth opened before he snapped it closed. “You made that up for amusement?”
“Gracious, don’t look so nettled. I was teasing. I’m sure the musicians and their violins and whatnot will be as good as when they play in the smoky air of London.”
She was an odd fish. “I shall find you for the first dance.” He bowed and took his leave of her.
Strange chit!And then his glance landed on Prinny, glass in hand, a questionable female on either side of him, hanging on his every word. One laughed wholeheartedly at something he said until her low décolletage nearly slipped and delivered a show. If not his famed vulgar jokes, then Prince George was amusing them with stories of leading battalions of soldiers despite having never gone to war. It was a strange game he played, fooling no one but himself.
