VII #3
“Does she truly encourage rattles?” Huntley asked as if he were truly interested.
“She encourages anything in pants, my lord, particularly if they are uniform pants!”
“My poor Nell.” She looked at him in astonishment, but he was not attending to her.
Instead, his eyes were focused upon a point behind her, and they narrowed as he got to his feet and held out his hand as if to assist her to hers.
“I am sorry for this,” he said quietly. “Good evening, your highness. May I have the honor to present Miss Lindale.”
Nell turned quickly and dropped a curtsy to the prince, who hung on the arm of his friend the Duke of Norfolk. “Your highness.”
The Prince of Wales extended a hand and drew her to her feet. He seemed to look her over, she thought, much as if she had been a filly presented for his inspection. “Pleasure, Miss Lindale. D’ya know Norfolk?” His words were greatly slurred.
She curtsied again, and Norfolk nodded, then clapped Huntley on the shoulder. “This the one, man?”
“No, sir. Lady Aurora is dancing. Miss Lindale is her aunt.”
“Wish I had an aunt looked like that,” muttered an unidentified voice behind the prince.
He laughed loudly. “Damme, so do I! Mine are all Friday-faced shrews, damme if they aren’t.”
“His highness,” said Norfolk to Huntley, “was just telling us one of his tales, my lord. Do continue, sir. Huntley’s lass will be here by the time you have done.”
“But I already began,” the prince protested, “and now I shall have to begin again, for Huntley and Miss Lindale do not know the beginning.”
“I should like to hear your tale, sir,” Nell said before Huntley could speak. “I have heard that you are a fine storyteller.”
He looked pleased, but she heard Huntley let out a small sigh beside her and wondered if she had somehow managed to incur his displeasure.
“Fact is, Miss Lindale, no one tells a better tale,” stated the prince, not one for false modesty.
“As I told Norfolk here, I was out one day with my harriers, and we found a hare, but the scent was catching and uncertain, so we could go no continuous pace at all. There was a butcher out, damme, if there wasn’t, a great huge fellow, fifteen stone, six-feet-two-inches without his shoes—the bully of all Brighton.
He overrode my hounds several times, though I spoke to him to hold hard.
At last, damme, ma’am, he rode slap over my favorite bitch, Ruby.
I could stand it no longer, but jumping off my horse, said, ‘Get down, you damned rascal, and pull off your coat. None shall interfere with us, but you or I shall go back to Brighton more dead than alive.’ Damme, ma’am, I threw off my coat, and the big ruffian, nothing loth, did the same by his.
By God, ma’am, we fought for an hour and twenty minutes!
My hunting field formed a ring around us, no one interfering, and at the end of it the big bully butcher of Brighton was carried away senseless, while I had hardly a scratch.
” Having brought his tale to its triumphant conclusion, the prince turned to Norfolk. “Damme, man, you remember it!”
Norfolk nodded obligingly, then gestured toward the dance floor. “And as I predicted, sir, I believe this must be Huntley’s lady approaching us now. A diamond of the first water, my lord. I congratulate you.”
“Thank you, your grace.” Huntley turned as Rory approached with her partner. “My lady, here is a treat for you. Highness, may I have the honor to present the Lady Aurora Crossways.”
Nell was glad she had not had to comment on the prince’s tale.
She watched as the introductions were made, noting that the prince seemed to go out of his way to be charming.
She might wish that his language were a little more circumspect, but she could not fault his manners otherwise.
Nonetheless, the tale had puzzled her, and when the royal party had melted back into the throng and Rory’s next partner had come to claim her, she turned to Huntley, a small frown wrinkling the space between her straight, narrow brows.
He smiled down at her. “That was not so bad as it might have been. Why the frown, Nell?”
“’Tis the bully butcher of Brighton, sir. Surely, such an incident could not long have remained secret, but I never heard so much as a whisper about it.”
“Not all of Prinny’s tales have much foundation in fact, I’m afraid.”
“Do you meant to say he tells lies?” Nell was shocked. It was a side of the prince she had been unaware of, if indeed it was a side of him at all.
Huntley paused, giving the matter serious consideration.
“I do not know that I would call it anything so serious as that,” he said at last. “It only occurs—that I know of, at least—when he is telling his stories. And it does not happen so much, I am told, when Maria is present. She is able to curb his tongue. But it is more as if he loses himself in his imagination. I think he honestly believes the things he talks about actually occurred.”
Nell’s eyes widened. “You speak as though the man is mad, sir. He is Prince of Wales!”
He smiled. “That factor does not preclude madness, my dear. Indeed, as everyone knows, the family is riddled with insanity. It would be no odd thing for him to follow the example set by his father, though Prinny’s is not an extreme case at the moment.
Maria Fitzherbert exerts an excellent influence. We must hope for the best.”
“Indeed, sir, we must,” Nell said slowly, turning over the astonishing information in her mind.
“There is another set forming,” he said. “Will you do me the honor, ma’am?”
“I do not dance, sir,” she replied absently, still thinking of the prince.
“Nonsense. You are not an invalid. Come.” His hand at her elbow brought her out of her brown study. She looked at him in confusion.
“I am here as a chaperon, sir. ’Tis not seemly.”
“Fiddle. Do you think for one moment that Lady Crossways would sit idle had she brought Aurora to this affair?”
The question was unanswerable, but still Nell hesitated. “It has been eight years, my lord. I shall not even know the steps.”
“Don’t give that another thought. Just follow my lead and watch the other ladies.
I’ll see you through. Besides, if you’re worried about presenting a scene for gawkers, you needn’t be.
No one will give you a glance with such a spectacle to amuse them as that quaking obesity in green stripes yonder.
” Nell glanced toward the set he indicated and saw Lady Pomfret, in all her undulating glory, throwing heart and soul into the patterns.
“With such an example of courage as that to guide you, my dear,” Huntley said provocatively, “surely you will not be so timid as to refuse my humble invitation.”
Her eyes twinkled. “As you say, my lord. If you dare to risk it, who am I to quibble?”
Half an hour later Huntley suggested and, much to Rory’s patent disgust, Nell concurred that it would be as well not to wait until after the late supper had been served to take their departure since the morrow, being the prince’s birthday, would be an exceptionally busy day.
“But I am promised for the supper,” Rory protested.
“Then you must excuse yourself to your partner,” Huntley replied evenly. “In fact, I shall endeavor to perform that office for you, if you will be so good as to point him out to me.
“I-I don’t see him just at the moment,” Rory said falteringly. The color in her cheeks had heightened, too, and Nell thought for a moment that she might have prevaricated in order to remain at the assembly. Huntley’s quick frown returned.
“Perhaps I know him. What is his name?”
Rory looked more uncomfortable than ever, but she took a deep breath and, managing a look that was half defiant, half fearful, said, “’Tis Major Talcott. And it is of no use to look like that, Huntley, because I promised him before ever you spoke to me. And I keep my promises,” she added rashly.
“Then I wish that you will promise me that you will contrive to behave more in the manner expected of a lady of quality,” Huntley retorted.
He chose to ignore the glare directed at him from the golden eyes, and turned to Nell.
“Take her to collect her wrap, if you please, while I endeavor to find the good major. Will your coach be waiting?”
“Yes, although I expect I shall have to send a linkboy to wake up my driver. Poor Trilby is getting on in years and does not stay awake so easily as he did in his younger days. Do you come with us?”
“I do. ’Tis only a short stroll from your house to mine, after all.”
“Well, you needn’t walk, sir, for Trilby will have to drive round to the stable, and in order to reach it, he can as easily go by way of the Marine Parade as by Edward Street, you know.
” He nodded, then left to discover the whereabouts of Major Talcott, and Nell turned to her niece.
“Come along, dear. Sulking will accomplish nothing, you know.”
“Well, I think Huntley is by far the greatest beast in nature,” Rory said roundly. “I cannot think what it will be like to be married to such a man as that. Very likely I shall suffer untold brutality, and no one will care a jot, either!”
Instead of replying to this outpouring as it deserved, Nell merely muttered in vague agreement, thus causing her offended niece to stare at her in bewilderment. But Nell felt none of the irritation one might have expected her to feel. In its place she felt a stirring of sadness.