Chapter Two
At first, Flynnhad believed Lady Brookwood would welcome his advances. But it now seemed there was little hope of her doing so. He hadn’t yet found the reception warm enough for him to broach the matter of a liaison. If she refused him, manners would require him to desist. He wondered why her indifference bothered him as he nodded to Miss Rutherford, who cast him an arch, come-hither smile. Wise to move on to where the reception was warmer, but he found it difficult to do. Althea’s crisp wit and beautiful violet-blue eyes both intrigued and aroused him. He roamed the length of the ballroom and pushed his way through the crowd gathered around King George. The king beckoned from where he slouched on a high-backed gilt chair. He dressed in the color of mourning while at the same time upholding his aesthetic sensibilities with the liberal addition of gold braid and buttons.
“Your Majesty.” Flynn sank into a low bow.
The rotund king nodded impatiently. “We had little time to speak at my father’s funeral, Montsimon. Did your visit to Ireland go well?”
“It did, thank you.” Flynn had failed to find a tenant for the house but saw no point in mentioning it.
“Excellent. Then you have no need to visit again for some time.” He beckoned Flynn closer. “Alterations to the Pavilion go splendidly. John Nash’s stables are a tour de force.”
Flynn steeled his mouth where a smile threatened. He had just read Hazlitt’s comment in his Travel Notes:The King’s horses (if they were horses of taste) would petition against such irrational a lodging.
King George wiped his cheeks, then employed the monogrammed silk handkerchief to shoo his lackeys away. He said in a low voice, “Come to Carlton House tomorrow at two. We would have words with you.”
“Certainly, Your Majesty. Might I enquire as to the reason?”
“Tomorrow,” the king snapped.
Patently aware of the king’s ability to abandon political principles and forget friends with barely a backward glance as he had Beau Brummell, Flynn bowed. “Your Majesty.”
Flynn made his way over to Guy, Baron Fortescue where he stood within a circle of men. They turned to greet him. “Montsimon, you might wish to take up Alvanley’s bet at White’s,” Guy said. “It concerns who among the dandies’ latest fashion disasters would Brummel most condemn. Petersham’s trousers or Mildmay’s coat?”
Montsimon chuckled. “Of equal fortune, I fear.”
Seated nearby were three lovely ladies. Guy’s wife, Horatia, chatted with Althea Brookwood and John’s wife, Lady Sibella. It was Althea that drew his eye. With her fair hair swept up in the latest fashion, she had the most graceful neck he had ever seen. He studied the widow’s shapely form with regret as he wondered what King George wished to discuss with him. George had looked unhealthy for some time, but in the hot ballroom, he was perspiring heavily, his sweat-drenched hair curling around a pallid forehead, his fleshy cheeks flushed. Worse than that, he appeared to have developed a nervous tic. It might be the result of criticism for the huge debts he incurred while lavishing money on the Brighton Pavilion. But more likely, it was fear that his wife, Caroline, who he refused to acknowledge as queen, planned to return to England and insist on attending his coronation as his consort. Whatever it was, Flynn felt sure George expected him to solve it. Did he think Flynn had the wisdom of Solomon?
*
Slough, Buckinghamshire
Alone again afterspending Christmas with her Aunt Catherine, Althea breathed in the fresh country air with the hope that a spell away from London would revitalize her senses.
The hackney coach entered the busy market town of Slough. She enjoyed Aunt Catherine’s company, but of late, she seemed determined to see Althea married. “I don’t wish you to spend your life alone,” she said more than once. “With no children to brighten your old age.”
Her aunt’s marriage had been happy, but no children had resulted from it. Althea sympathized with her, which made it impossible to dissuade her aunt from her view. And she wasn’t about to reveal the appalling truth of her marriage to Brookwood.
Althea gazed out the window and winced fearing she’d made a poor companion. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a good laugh; her melancholy was like a steel weight she seemed unable to shrug off. Owltree Cottage would make her feel better. It always did.
Ahead, a stagecoach sounded its horn, blasting its arrival through the air, before halting outside the Crown Inn. Travelers from Bath alighted. While fresh horses were led from the stables, passengers traveling to London hurried from the porch of the inn to take their seats clutching bundles and bandboxes.
Althea’s carriage continued past the butcher’s shop on the corner and, passing the gray-stone church, climbed the hill, leaving the melee behind, entering a peaceful country lane edged on one side by forest. A mile farther on, the hackney slowed and turned into the circular driveway at Owltree Cottage.
As her tense limbs unwound, Althea viewed the country house she had inherited years ago which had become the secure, quiet bay she needed. It was too modest a dwelling to interest her late husband, who had ignored its existence for years. In the month before Brookwood died, however, he’d struck fear into Althea when he’d come there twice in the space of a few weeks.
Owltree Cottage had been built four hundred years ago. A thatched-roofed stone cottage, with cream painted shutters, it nestled in an old garden, surrounded on three sides by her neighbor, Sir Horace Crowthorne’s woodland.
Althea alighted from the carriage. She stretched her legs and breathed deeply of the cold fresh air while her trunk was heaved inside. Brought up in the country, the daughter of a Dorset farmer, she had found it difficult to adjust to London Society’s habit of staying up most of the night and sleeping half the day. During the season, she was constantly tired.
After she paid the driver, he climbed onto the box, seized the reins, and the hackney trundled off again. Althea turned to her maid waiting in the entry. Sally, a fresh-faced, reliable young woman who hailed from the village, greeted her with a bob. “Did you have a good trip, milady?”
“We were fortunate the rain held off, thank you, Sally. Has Mrs. Peebles returned from visiting her sister?”
“Friday, milady. But everything’s been made shipshape for you.”
Althea smiled. “Shipshape, Sally? Has Ned Thomas returned to port?”
The maid grinned. “He’s been on leave.” Her normally cheerful face drooped. “But he returns to duty again tomorrow.”
