Read Online Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series) by Jean Plaidy - Free Book Online Page A

designed a neckcloth which would completely hide it. Hence neckcloths in exquisite designs and colourings were the height of fashion now. The Prince’s physicians had suggested that sea bathing might be good for his throat; he had not taken the idea very seriously, but Essex’s remarks reminded him of it.
    ‘I confess it would be amusing to see how my aunt Cumberland amuses herself in a fishing village.’
    ‘I am sure, sir, that where the Duchess found herself there would she find amusement.’
    The Prince laughed aloud. He was fond of the lady who had inveigled his uncle most unsuitably into marrying her, and being banished from the Court because of her. She was a fascinator – a woman of wide experience; the very manner in which she fluttered her eyelashes, which had become a legend since Horace Walpole had referred to them as being a yard long, was in itself a promise. The Prince delighted to call her by what seemed to him such an incongruous title as ‘Aunt’, and as she was constantly urging him to honour Cumberland House with his presence he had seen her and his uncle often since he had been free to do so – much to the chagrin of His Majesty, of course, who believed it was just another trick of his son’s to plague him, which in a way perhaps it was.
    At least his uncle had had the courage to marry the woman of his choice, thought the Prince, whereas his father, the King, by all accounts had meekly given up Lady Sarah Lennox for the sake of that plain German Princess, Charlotte, who was the mother of that large family of whom he, the Prince, was the eldest son.
    Yes, he would go to Brighthelmstone or whatever they called it. Perhaps Essex should be one of those who accompanied him. They were good friends, he and Essex. The Earl had served him faithfully as go-between in the affair of Perdita Robinson – Lord Maiden he had been at that time, having recently inherited his earldom. Maiden it was who had carried those letters between them, arranged those assignations on Eel Pie Island and persuaded the lady to do what she had intended from the first – surrender.
    The Prince smiled cynically. He would never again be caught in that way. But it was no fault of Essex that Perdita after promising to be the love of his life had turned out to be nothing but a sentimental bore – and a scheming one too. The Prince flushed with anger even now, remembering the humiliating scene with his father when he had had to confess that his ex-mistress was threatening to publish letters which she had in her possession and which had been written by the flowery but very indiscreet pen of the Prince of Wales.
    This was yet another reason for his friendship with his uncle. Cumberland had written indiscreet letters to Lady Grosvenor and Lord Grosvenor had brought an action against him which had cost £13,000. The Prince’s had cost £500 a year for as long as Perdita should live and after that £250 for her daughter’s lifetime.
    To the devil with Perdita! She was ancient history and she had had many successors. No … not quite. There had never really been another like Perdita, for he genuinely had believed in the early days of their liaison that he would be faithful until death; and he had never seriously believed that of any of the others. But then he had been so young … only seventeen when he had gone with the Royal party to Drury Lane and seen Mrs Robinson as Perdita in The Winter’s Tale .
    But what had Perdita to do with this fishing village with the ridiculous name?
    ‘I shall drive myself down,’ he said. ‘It will be good exercise for the horses.’
    So on a September morning when the countryside was touched with golden sunshine and the weather was as warm as mid-summer, the Prince of Wales rode down to Brighthelmstone. He drove his own phaeton with three horses after the manner of a wagon team; and riding with him were only an equerry and one postilion. The rest of his suite would follow.
    The phaeton rattled along at