The Shadow of Albion (19 page)

Lady Roxbury found voice to enlighten her.

„Do sit down, Wessex, and I shall ring for Langley to bring us tea.!“ The

Dowager smiled.

Sarah could not refrain from glancing toward Dame Alecto, the Dowager’s

companion, as Dame Alecto sat inconspicuously in the corner of the Dowager’s

parlor. But Dame Alecto was as skilled at effacing herself as she was at being

formidable, and Sarah was forced, willy-nilly, back into the conversation.

„I’m sure we shall all be looking forward to quite the glittering Season,“ the

Dowager was saying with determined obliviousness. „Especially with a Royal

wedding to cap it at Christmastide.“

„Princess Stephanie should sail in a month or so,“ Wessex agreed blandly. „I

believe she lands in Scotland and heads to London by way of York.“

In the half-hour since he had arrived, Sarah had come to dislike Wessex

immensely for the easy facility with which he fielded each of the Dowager’s

conversational sallies; the man never seemed at a loss for words. „Everyone will

wish to entertain her,“ the Dowager said. „Even if Prince Jamie is not reconciled to

the marriage, King Henry is much 61 favor of it, which will carry all. Naturally we

shall invite her to your wedding ball; her attendance will set the seal on the King’s

approval of the match.“

The rhythm of the conversation faltered and stopped dead as the

for-once-nonplussed Duke of Wessex groped for a reply. Sarah, lulled by the

cadence of a conversation she had not been participating in, was slightly slower to

react and when she realized what the Dowager had said, words failed her as well.

„I beg your pardon, Grandanne?“ Wessex finally responded.

„Oh come now!“ the Dowager answered imperturbably. „Nine years’ engagement

should be enough for any man – and you are three-and-thirty; it is high time that you

married. There is just enough time to cry the banns and have you wed in June so that

the celebration may not look too pointedly as if it is given for the Princess.“

Wessex cast an expressionless look toward Sarah, who, oddly enough, found

herself interpreting it as a desperate appeal for aid. But Sarah could not imagine what

assistance she could be to him. Gardner and Knoyle had both spoken of Roxbury’s

betrothal to Wessex as something that was common knowledge, and what weight

could the fact that Sarah found him a cold, unfeeling, hatchet-faced harlequin have in

the face of Society’s expectation?

„I do not choose to marry his grace,“ Sarah heard herself saying, as if from a

great distance.

The remark ought to have pleased him – ungrateful man, he no more wished to

marry than she did – but inexplicably Wessex cast a nettled glance in her direction

and rose to his feet.

„It will not do, Grandanne,“ he said. „A childhood betrothal – who cares for that

these days? Everyone knows that I have not been at pains to fix my interest with the

Marchioness – “

„You were formally betrothed when the girl was sixteen; she was hardly a child

then, or you either,“ hi& grandmother interrupted, adding ironically, „And everyone

knows that you were very much in sight at Mooncoign this past week. I never

thought you would be so behindhand, Wessex – stand up with the girl at Almack’s;

squire her about. There can be no lack of invitations once it is known that you are

willing to accept them.“

She might as well not have been in the room, Sarah realized. It was his

grandmother with whom Wessex argued, not her.

„But I am not willing to accept them, Grandanne. A man in my station – leading

my sort of life – has many things to think about besides becoming leg-shackled – “

„Yes,“ the Dowager riposted. „The getting of an heir to the dukedom, for one.“

Wessex actually blushed, and stared fixedly at a point above Sarah’s head. Sarah

felt her heart beating faster: the two of them were about to carve up her future

between them as if she were no one at all!

„I am not getting married,“ Sarah said again, louder. „To the Duke of Wessex –

or to anyone else.“

„But whyever not, child?“ the Dowager asked mildly, able to hear Sarah when it

suited her purpose to do so.

Such a speciously-reasonable question seemed to turn Sarah’s brain to jelly. She

stared at the Dowager, barely able to keep from goggling.

„Because it would seem most peculiar for a wedding to take place without the

bridegroom in attendance,“ Wessex said brittlely.

„Or the bride,“ Sarah retorted hotly.

„But my dears, I have the guest list for the wedding breakfast already made up,“

the Dowager said, still in those same mild uninvolved tones. This time Wessex did

not answer her, instead sweeping up his gloves and stick from the side table.

„Grandanne, Your Ladyship. I bid both of you a very good day.“ He bowed with

formidable correctness, turning and striding from the room before either of them

could respond.

„Ah,“ said the Dowager, obviously pleased. „I think that went rather well, don’t

you, my dear? Men are like colts; they must be shown the harness and allowed to

bolt from it a time or two before one can safely buckle them.“

Chapter 9

The Prince Commands

The Palace of St. James was located between St. James Park and Green Park, just

south of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, with Buckingham House to its

east and me sprawling buildings of the Horse Guards on its western side. Its parks

and lakes had been the resort of three centuries of England’s royal house, ever since

King Henry VIII had taken over the site of St. James Hospital to build his new palace

here. St. James’s red brick walls had watched over the martyred Charles I on his last

night on earth, and ever after, the Stuart line had defiantly held court within those

same red walls.

Though time had seen the erection of grander edifices to house the peripatetic

Stuart line, nothing had supplanted St. James’s splendor in the hearts of England’s

monarchs. Swans and peacocks strutted through its grounds, fashionable ladies

paraded, and farmers still drove their catde through its square to the shambles in

London’s West End. The madness upon the Continent did not penetrate here; within

these precincts, it seemed a grave insanity to believe that the people could ever –

again – rise up and butcher their rightful rulers in a senseless self-willed iconoclasm.

But in France, the people had. And the repercussions of that carnage extended

even here, to this stately palace under an English heaven.

In a very grand apartment in the east wing of the Palace of St. James, the heir to

the conjoined kingdoms of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales was dressing for

an audience with his father.

„Oh, not that one, Brummell – Papa does not care for it by half!“

James Charles Henry David Robert Stuart, Prince of Wales and Duke of

Gloucester – Prince Jamie to his friends, who were many – was nineteen years old,

with the chestnut hair and flashing eyes that were evidence of his Stuart and

Plantagenet ancestors. He was the youngest of five children, the heir and only boy,

and the hopes of more than England reposed in him.

Though his father, King Henry, was hale and hardy, and might be expected to

reign for many decades yet, Prince Jamie had ambitions to take his own place upon

the world stage, and make his mark upon the new century. He had the devil’s – or

the Stuarts’ – own charm when he chose to use it, though so far his father had

managed to remain deaf to the pleas and blandishments of his Army-mad son.

„Oh, Brummell – have done,“ Jamie said excitedly to his valet. „The coat is well

enough - I am nearly late for my interview with Papa!“ He seized the coat – which a

moment before had been so excoriated – and began dragging it over his shoulders

willy-nilly. His valet winced, as if in personal pain, and moved to assist him.

„ ‘Well enough’ will not do, Your Highness, especially upon an occasion in

which you wish to persuade His Majesty of something he does not wish to do,“

Jamie’s valet said severely.

His name was George Bryan Brummell, and at six-and-twenty, he was barely

older than the prince he served. Brummell had a florid complexion, curly light brown

hair, and grey eyes, and even at such a young age had garnered a reputation as

autocrat and arbiter elegantarum that was impressive enough to have brought him

into Royal service.

„He will wish it,“ Jamie said, all-but-grumbling. „I do not see why I should be the

only man in the realm not permitted to attend the fighting upon the Peninsula, when

anyone else may go and be given a shilling into the bargain!“

„The price of a coronetcy in a Hussar regiment is more than two thousand

pounds, Your Highness – as I have good reason to know,“ Brummell said austerely.

The valet’s past was something of a mystery – it was rumored that he’d been in the

Army, but had gambled away his commission and had been forced to return to the

family trade. „And Your Highness is far too intelligent not to discern what truly lies

behind His Majesty’s reluctance.“

But Prince Jamie was not to be drawn with appeals to his common sense upon

this particular occasion. Pulling himself free of his valet’s hands and shrugging his

coat rudlessly into place, he strode over to the mantelpiece and caught up a

gold-framed miniature portrait of a young blonde woman in ermine and pearls.

„Oh, bother me creature,“ Jamie said under his bream, glaring at the inoffensive

Court image of Princess Stephanie Julianna, his hopeful betrothed. While he had

known that such a match was proposed – he had been notified, if not precisely

consulted – with the easy confidence of youth Jamie had been certain that Settling

Day was far in the future. But not only had the actual betrothal been put forward, not

two months before his father had informed him that the wedding itself was to be this

September, putting a rude period to Jamie’s carefree bachelor existence. And to

Jamie’s dreams of heroic action against England’s enemies….

He turned back to Brummell, unconsciously brandishing the princess’s portrait

„While a man and a prince must marry, I am not yet twenty – there’s years yet to do

what must be done. Why must Papa insist upon this now? A mere betrothal would

serve Mr. Pitt’s policies just as well and me far better.“

„And should Your Highness stop a bullet upon the battlefield?“ Brummell

inquired with the silky insolence that was both his trademark and his privilege. „If the

crown should fall to your eldest sister’s lot…“

„Oh, bother Maria!“ Jamie said roundly, dismissing his eldest sister (who was

married to a much disliked German princeling) out of hand. „What of me? I cannot

be cabin’d, cribbed, confined – denied every man’s birthright of high adventure!“

„No, indeed,“ said Brummell with a sigh. „One sees that Your Highness cannot.“

He crossed the room in the wake of his volatile charge and plucked at the shoulders

of the coat of bottle-green brocade with matching silk facings, attempting once more

to get it to hang straight upon the Prince’s shoulders.

„You will be late, Your Highness,“ Brummell said quietly. „You had best go and

lay your case before your father once more.“

Jamie strode from the room, every inch a prince. A prince, but still a young one,

and reckless as any of his hard-living ancestors. Unfortunately, this was an age in

which the world had grown small, and recklessness of any sort had grave

consequences indeed. Brummell only hoped that Jamie could learn that lesson… in

time.

„But Papa – I“ Jamie protested.

„Enough,“ King Henry snapped.

Henry had become King of England at thirty, when his father Charles V, a

monarch as merry as Charles II and considerably more reckless, died upon a

battlefield in the Low Countries. With his crown Henry had inherited a web of

alliances that shifted with the wind, political ties to a Europe that seemed, in parts,

scarcely to have exited the Dark Ages, and a brilliant, voracious, implacable

enemy… Napoleon Bonaparte, the Great Beast who haunted Europe.

From First Consul to Emperor, the malignant Corsican genius had won every

battie, moving from strength to strength across the chessboard he’d made of

Europe, claiming countries like playing-squares. Bonaparte meant to have England

too, and Henry meant to deny it to the tyrant, even if he must beggar his kingdom

and sell all his children into slavery to do so.

The Danish alliance was a godsend – it would refuse Bonaparte the

staging-ground for his invasion of Scotland, a country historically closer to France