“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 thoughtshehad 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.
