Chapter 2
When the Honorable Miss Clara Vetry’s fourth Season came to an abrupt and ignominious end at a garden party thrown by the Countess of Jersey, everyone in the beau monde agreed that she had no one to blame but herself.
She could have headed off disgrace in any number of ways—by jumping into the Thames, for example, or by throwing herself over a hedge into a neighboring garden. By dropping into a dead faint . . . or even dying on the spot.
But assaulting a future king?
Not recommended.
“Leave the room the moment Prince George enters,”
her mother, Lady Vetry, had ordered at the beginning of the Season. “His attentions are disastrous.”
Clara was already in the habit of running from His Majesty; ever since she caught the Prince of Wales’s eye at her debut ball, the man never stopped hunting her. Every Season he’d grown bolder in his pursuit, more avid in his attentions, wetting his fat little lips in a manner that he apparently considered provocative. One of the lowest points of the previous Season had occurred at Carlton House, when His Majesty drew her aside to admire a Roman vase featuring men with extremely large (and erect) private parts.
She was cautiously dancing a quadrille while trying not to topple off the raised dance floor onto the grass when a butler emerged from the house.
“Attend! His Royal Highness, Prince George Augustus Frederick of Wales,”
the butler bawled. He cleared his throat. “Accompanied by Caroline, Princess of Wales.”
Excited chatter replaced the music, but Clara didn’t care why Her Majesty was accompanying her estranged husband to an event hosted by his mistress, Lady Jersey.
Her heart plummeted, and panic fluttered in her stomach as she and the other guests stepped down from the wooden dance floor. No sanctuary could be seen, since the garden was enclosed by tall flowering hedges running down to the Thames. And her mother, Lady Vetry, had retreated indoors to chat with other chaperones.
Horrifyingly, His Majesty caught sight of her and began waving, his red face and unsteady gait suggesting he was already drunk. When His Majesty was sober, he gawked at Clara’s bosom and paid her lavish compliments, but when he was drunk, he was insufferable.
Arguably, at this point Clara should have turned about, run to the bottom of the garden, and thrown herself into the Thames. Instead she froze like a fictional heroine encountering a ghoul.
Lady Jersey hastened toward His Majesty, arms outstretched, uttering little squeals of joy, but the prince tottered down the short flight of steps from the terrace, walking straight past his mistress as if he didn’t see her. All the guests sank into bows and curtsies as His Majesty skirted the dance floor, ignoring them and beaming at Clara.
Despair gripped her, and bollocks, bollocks, bollocks! went through her mind—that being the rudest word that she knew.
“Miss Cherry Vetry!”
His Majesty boomed, as he bowed with a wobbly flourish. “My favorite cherub.”
A compliment that was only marginally better than his usual assertion that if she were an actress, he would have bought her a circlet of diamonds by now. Along with her virtue, presumably.
“Where have you been hiding? I find you more ravishing than ever.”
Prince George’s eyes fastened on her cleavage. “I approve of this gown.” His voice fell to a throaty whisper. “I would venture to say that I am enthralled by its . . . elegance.”
Elegance? He was enthralled by her scanty French bodice.
“Miss Clara Vetry, Your Highness,”
she murmured, dropping into a curtsy that unfortunately lured him to step closer and gawp at breasts no cherub possessed.
“I know, but you remind me of cherry brandy,”
His Majesty replied, slurring. “It’s m’favorite.”
She could have guessed, since the odor was not merely floating from his breath but emanating from his entire body.
“Don’t say another Season began and”—he cast a furtive glance at his wife—“you are still unmarried? The men of this country are fools. A Frenchman would have jumped to it, though of course most of the good ones were beheaded a decade ago.”
Clara had paled from anxiety, but now she felt herself turning a sweaty puce.
“Who wouldn’t want to marry you? You’ve the figure of a pocket Venus. A most delightful arse.”
He hiccupped. “If you were an actress—or at the least, married—I’d buy you a house.”
Despair pooled in her gut like acid. There went her fourth Season the way of her first three. A man would have to be daft to court a woman so obviously heralded as a prince’s next mistress.
Clara cleared her throat. “Your Majesty, please—”
He bent close to her ear and whispered, “You need a moment in the limelight, since you’re having trouble popping off the market. My good deed for the day.”
“Please don’t,”
Clara gasped.
To her utter horror, he snatched her hand and stepped up to the dance floor, dragging her with him.
“Silence!”
he bellowed. “I’ve a mind to entertain.”
A Mozart sonata halted mid-note as the musicians put down their instruments. Out of the corner of her eye, Clara saw Princess Caroline coming down the steps from the terrace. Her heart pounded in her throat, and blood rushed to her head so quickly that she felt dizzy. “I—I—”
“I give you . . . a ballad!”
Without further introduction, Prince George opened his mouth and sang, “‘Cherry ripe, cherry ripe.’”
Clara flinched, thinking that he couldn’t possibly be referring to her breasts? Or worse, her nipples?
He sucked in a breath and continued with surprising tunefulness, “‘Cherry ripe! Ripe I cry. Full and fair ones, come and buy.’”
In case anyone was confused by the implication of “full and fair ones,”
he waved his free hand in the general area of Clara’s bosom. Guests, musicians, and waiters turned speculative eyes to her cleavage. The princess, who was herself quite buxom, squinted before her brows drew together into a scowl.
Clara was seized by panic. Sweat broke out all over her body, including on her upper lip, where everyone would see it. She stared at the prince, unable to believe that this was truly happening. He had put her up for sale.
Not that she hadn’t been already up for sale—no young lady could fool herself about the nature of the marriage market. But he was auctioning her off like a suspect heifer at a county fair.
She looked around at the circle of avid faces reflecting amusement, shock, and, in some of the debutantes’ faces, gratitude that they weren’t her. Nor would they ever be in her position. Most of them would be scooped up in months.
Her heart plummeted to her feet as shame tightened her throat. She tried to pull away, which merely led to her hand being crushed by the prince’s grip.
“‘Cherry ripe, cherry ripe!’”
His Majesty caroled and then paused, seemingly forgetting the rest of the ballad.
When Clara dared raise her eyes, she was met by Princess Caroline’s furious gaze.
She found herself in the grip of an overwhelming wish to never see any of these people again, which led to the realization that she didn’t give a damn if the prince toppled over. She pulled back again, with all her strength. Prince George kept his balance—and her hand.
“We should have a sing-along,”
he bawled. “Because . . . Because . . .” Along with the words, he had apparently forgotten the reason he began singing. “Ah, I remember! None of you bachelors have looked closely at Cherry.”
Bollocks didn’t cover this humiliation. She didn’t deserve it, not after years of mortification at the hands of this man. Tears stung her eyes as fury replaced shame.
“‘Ripe I cry,’” he sang.
“Darling, why don’t you let Miss Vetry go?”
Lady Jersey stepped up to the dance floor in a flutter of skirts and tapped Prince George’s fat chin with a finger. “The lady appears distressed.”
“She’s distressed because no one will marry her!”
The prince’s voice carried easily through the entire garden, alerting the few guests who weren’t already spellbound. “From the moment I first saw Cherry—was it six or seven years ago?—I realized that I would have happily taken her to the altar myself.”
“Four,”
Clara gasped, as despair swept over her, adding in a whisper, “Only four.”
“Only thing stopping me was that wretched Marriage Act.”
“Schlampe!”
Her Majesty spat, turning away.
Clara had no idea what the word meant . . . but she could guess.
Lady Jersey’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped down from the dance floor. “I have arranged a special entertainment in honor of Their Majesties’ presence at my garden party,”
she announced.
“Come on, all of you,”
the prince said, ignoring his mistress. “Sing with me or go hang!” He started over. “‘Cherry ripe, cherry ripe. Ripe I cry, Full and fair ones, come and buy!’” Thankfully, no one joined in.
Clara felt as if she were outside her body, watching a garish prince auction off a girl who wasn’t enough to attract a spouse. Not slender enough, charming enough, nor rich enough to be a wife.
Merely buxom enough to be a mistress.
She began struggling for breath, which unfortunately made her bosom swell and the prince’s eyes bulge.
“Loose the doves at once!”
Lady Jersey shouted. On the terrace, the butler whisked the cover off a large cage and opened a door, releasing thirty or forty white doves. Diverted, the guests applauded as birds circled the garden like a whirl of snowflakes.
Until a goshawk shot down from the cover of clouds, and the terrified birds scattered. One swooped over Clara’s head, and disgustingly warm white slime splatted on her breasts and slid down her cleavage.
“Bloody hell!”
Prince George squealed, dropping her hand and pulling out a handkerchief. He slapped his hand to her chest, pushing the fabric straight down inside her gathered bodice.
The sound of rending fabric followed . . . and warm fingers curled around her breast. A dark sound of greedy lust, like the snort of a hog, wheezed from his mouth.
Instinctively, Clara jerked away and swung her reticule, hitting the prince as hard as she could, straight in his gut. “Unhand me!”
He fell back a step, taking most of her bodice with him.
Freed of fabric, her breasts jiggled like jellies on a platter. Clara drew the ragged scraps of her bodice together with trembling fingers, but the surviving cloth didn’t even cover her nipples.
Not a single guest stirred to help her. She might have been a butterfly, pinned under glass to be sold at auction. They all stood there staring, their eyes gleaming like brass buttons. Unfeeling, metallic buttons.
Then the silence broke on a raucous laugh; Princess Caroline had finally found something she approved.
Clara pressed her reticule to her chest, but since the small bag was shaped like a mouse’s face, it covered only one nipple. From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother come running from the house into the garden.
“That wasn’t very nice,”
Prince George said petulantly, dropping his stained handkerchief and the tattered remnants of her gown to the dance floor.
Lady Vetry arrived, gasping for air, wrenched off her gauzy wrap, and whipped it at Clara’s head. “My daughter is sorry,”
she managed.
As Clara took in a sobbing breath, an instinctive response came unbidden to her lips.
“She don’t look it,”
the prince retorted. “You said ‘bollocks,’” he told Clara. “Heard it with my own eyes. No, ears. I am shocked to think that a young lady knows the meaning of the word, let alone to hear it from her lips.”
He scowled in a disgusting show of hypocritical displeasure, given that he had used that word when pointing out said appendages on the Roman vase.
Before she could defend herself, he added, “You struck me with that rodent.”
He pointed. “You poked me in the belly with wire whiskers. A lady carrying a rodent! What will we see next in polite society? Gingham aprons worn by duchesses?”
As one, each guest turned to their neighbor and agreed that whiskered reticules would never be in fashion.
Clara’s mother mouthed a sharp command.
Clara’s wobbling knees dipped so low that she almost sank to the wooden floor as she forced herself to murmur, “I apologize, Your Majesty.”
He turned, nose in the air. “Brandy,”
he ordered as Lady Jersey caught his arm and bore him away.
“You’ve done it now!”
Clara’s mother hissed, grabbing her arm.
Indeed.