Royal Revels Read Free Page B

sort, I thought. Smythe was invited back again and again, each time the party shrinking in size, till, the last night before we left, it was only Prinney and Smythe. It was after that meeting that we were hit with this misbegotten theory. I dragged the prince back to London at once, hoping the thing would die a natural death, but it’s taken such a hold on his imagination that it’s become an obsession.”
    “It’s a pity,” Belami said, shaking his head.
    “Yes, but a perfectly understandable one. The people hate the prince. He’s hissed and jeered at when he goes about in public. His wife has left him to traipse through Europe with a ragtag and bobtail caravan of foreign ruffians, and his daughter seems unable to produce an heir. She’s miscarried twice since her marriage. The prince is ill and worries about the succession. Securing that would bolster his popularity. He longs for a stout-bodied son to carry on and has convinced himself he’s found one,” he explained.
    “How did he convince himself the son is legitimate?”
    “Power and folly are old friends. We’re all quoting Benjamin Franklin these days. He’s Mr. Smythe’s favorite author, you know. The prince did undergo some sort of wedding ceremony with Mrs. Fitzherbert. He knows in his mind the marriage is invalid.”
    “He’s beginning to worm his way around the various acts of Parliament that forbid it. He’ll never convince Parliament, but if he convinces himself, he’ll be hard to hold back,” Belami said, frowning into his glass.
    “He’s convinced himself, all right. He forgets the divine right of kings is history. He believes that if he brings Smythe forward and the lad becomes incredibly popular, Parliament will go along with him to avoid an uprising. If Fitzherbert doesn’t deny it and claims herself a non-Catholic, he might just pull it off. And furthermore, she just might abet him. She’s ambitious,” McMahon said, shaking his head.
    “We don’t even know if he is Fitzherbert’s son. If she’s as ambitious as you think, she wouldn’t have sent him off into anonymity all those years ago,” Belami pointed out.
    “They had tiffs, then would get together again. She might have feared a son would prevent a reconciliation,” McMahon said thoughtfully.
    “The likeliest spoke to stick in the wheel is to find out who Smythe is, and I mean to tackle it,” Belami said with an air of resolution.
    “You’re welcome to it, but it won’t be easy to trace down a twenty-five-year-old orphan from America. This is really why I urged the prince to call you in, Belami. Lady Gilham was only a pretext to get you off to Brighton without alerting the prince that you were involving yourself in his affairs, the Smythe affair, I mean.
    “I confess it’s the Smythe affair that interests me more,” Belami replied with a smile.
    “It’s extremely urgent. Prinney is champing at the bit to bring his son forward. I’d say you have about a week before all hell breaks loose.”
    “Then I’d better get to Brighton,” Belami said and arose. “Ah... Lady Gilham’s address and the money to buy her silence. What’s the real story on her?” he asked with mild interest.
    “Nothing very interesting there. She’s just a clever, pretty hussy who set her cap at Prinney and managed to attract his interest for a few weeks.”
    “Does she, ah, pass for a woman of virtue or is she the other sort?”
    “She passes for respectable in Brighton. Pure as the driven snow to hear her tell it, but I believe the snow has a few paw marks in it. She was cunning enough to get him to write her billets-doux and knew enough to hang on to them. It shouldn’t be necessary to pay her sort anything, but the mood the papers are in, it might be best to keep her quiet if we can,” McMahon replied.
    He drew open a drawer and handed Belami a bag of gold coins. “There’s something in there to cover your expenses as well. His Highness won’t be ungenerous in his