Read Online Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series) by Jean Plaidy - Free Book Online
Authors: Jean Plaidy
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this was not due to them.
Maria said quietly but firmly, ‘I shall leave at once, Isabella. My chair will be waiting.’
Isabella was amused. She wondered how deeply the Prince was affected. After all, Maria must be about six years older that he was. Mary Robinson, it was true, had been about three but she was only twenty-one at the time of that liaison and Maria must be about twenty-seven or eight – the Prince twenty-one.
‘Very well, my dear,’ she said. ‘But you will certainly meet him at someone’s house sooner or later.’
‘Not if I return to Richmond,’ said Maria.
Her servant was waiting with the chair and she gave instructions that she was to be carried with all speed to her house in Park Street.
As her chair was carried through the streets she was more disturbed than the occasion warranted, she told herself. Perhaps he had not been looking at her. Perhaps it had been a mistake. That paragraph in the paper had made her imagine that she really was as fatally attractive as the writer had made her out to be. He had been bored with the Opera and had merely diverted himself.
They had arrived at the house and thankfully she alighted, but as she did so she saw another chair entering the street.
She hurried into the house, her heart beating fast. The door was shut. She felt … safe.
But she could not resist going to the window.
She saw the chair stop; someone alighted.
Oh no, she thought. It is not possible!
But it was. He was standing there in his spangles and diamonds.
The Prince of Wales, like some lovesick country swain, had followed Maria Fitzherbert home.
Adventures of a Prince
DURING THE SUMMER of 1783 when the Prince of Wales was approaching his twenty-first birthday he believed that he was the most fortunate man in England, and he was surrounded by men and women who confirmed him in this belief. He was at last escaping from the restraint which his puritanical parents had put on him, and was free to be the companion of the most brilliant men in the country; he could indulge his passion for architecture in Carlton House, that old ruin which his father had flung to him and which he was fast converting into the most elegant residence in Town; he could run his own horses at Newmarket; he could take his place in the House of Lords; and he could, without any attempt at secrecy, pursue the greatest diversion of all – women.
Let the King splutter his threats and warnings; let the Queen alternately scold and declare her sentimental fondness for her first born; they could not deter him. He was the idol of the people, the quarry of every fashionable hostess – for no ball was of any significance without him – and almost every woman longed to be his mistress. There were a few exceptions; Georgiana, his dearest Duchess of Devonshire, among them, but this only made this most delightful of all occupations the more piquant, and while he could sigh for the unattainable he could always soothe himself with the eagerly accommodating.
Life was very good that summer for the Prince of Wales.
Some months before he first set eyes on Maria Fitzherbert his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, had suggested he come down to visit him at a house he had rented from a certain Dr Russell and which was situated in a little fishing village called Brighthelmstone.
‘What,’ demanded the Prince of Wales of his equerry, the Earl of Essex, ‘should I want of a little fishing village called by such a name as Brighthelmstone?’
‘I have heard of the place, Your Highness,’ answered Essex. ‘It is also known as Bredhemsdon.’
‘Which is no more pleasant to my ear than the other,’ retorted the Prince.
‘No, sir, but they say the sea bathing there is very beneficial to the health – and it is not so far from London to make the journey tiresome.’
Sea bathing! thought the Prince, and touched his silken neckcloth. Recently he had been affected by a slight swelling of the throat and he and Lord Petersham had together
Maria said quietly but firmly, ‘I shall leave at once, Isabella. My chair will be waiting.’
Isabella was amused. She wondered how deeply the Prince was affected. After all, Maria must be about six years older that he was. Mary Robinson, it was true, had been about three but she was only twenty-one at the time of that liaison and Maria must be about twenty-seven or eight – the Prince twenty-one.
‘Very well, my dear,’ she said. ‘But you will certainly meet him at someone’s house sooner or later.’
‘Not if I return to Richmond,’ said Maria.
Her servant was waiting with the chair and she gave instructions that she was to be carried with all speed to her house in Park Street.
As her chair was carried through the streets she was more disturbed than the occasion warranted, she told herself. Perhaps he had not been looking at her. Perhaps it had been a mistake. That paragraph in the paper had made her imagine that she really was as fatally attractive as the writer had made her out to be. He had been bored with the Opera and had merely diverted himself.
They had arrived at the house and thankfully she alighted, but as she did so she saw another chair entering the street.
She hurried into the house, her heart beating fast. The door was shut. She felt … safe.
But she could not resist going to the window.
She saw the chair stop; someone alighted.
Oh no, she thought. It is not possible!
But it was. He was standing there in his spangles and diamonds.
The Prince of Wales, like some lovesick country swain, had followed Maria Fitzherbert home.
Adventures of a Prince
DURING THE SUMMER of 1783 when the Prince of Wales was approaching his twenty-first birthday he believed that he was the most fortunate man in England, and he was surrounded by men and women who confirmed him in this belief. He was at last escaping from the restraint which his puritanical parents had put on him, and was free to be the companion of the most brilliant men in the country; he could indulge his passion for architecture in Carlton House, that old ruin which his father had flung to him and which he was fast converting into the most elegant residence in Town; he could run his own horses at Newmarket; he could take his place in the House of Lords; and he could, without any attempt at secrecy, pursue the greatest diversion of all – women.
Let the King splutter his threats and warnings; let the Queen alternately scold and declare her sentimental fondness for her first born; they could not deter him. He was the idol of the people, the quarry of every fashionable hostess – for no ball was of any significance without him – and almost every woman longed to be his mistress. There were a few exceptions; Georgiana, his dearest Duchess of Devonshire, among them, but this only made this most delightful of all occupations the more piquant, and while he could sigh for the unattainable he could always soothe himself with the eagerly accommodating.
Life was very good that summer for the Prince of Wales.
Some months before he first set eyes on Maria Fitzherbert his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, had suggested he come down to visit him at a house he had rented from a certain Dr Russell and which was situated in a little fishing village called Brighthelmstone.
‘What,’ demanded the Prince of Wales of his equerry, the Earl of Essex, ‘should I want of a little fishing village called by such a name as Brighthelmstone?’
‘I have heard of the place, Your Highness,’ answered Essex. ‘It is also known as Bredhemsdon.’
‘Which is no more pleasant to my ear than the other,’ retorted the Prince.
‘No, sir, but they say the sea bathing there is very beneficial to the health – and it is not so far from London to make the journey tiresome.’
Sea bathing! thought the Prince, and touched his silken neckcloth. Recently he had been affected by a slight swelling of the throat and he and Lord Petersham had together
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