The Emperor Read Free

piece of sewing from the poor-basket, or a book of sermons. She only asks me to make a point of her own superiority. There's no bearing it.'
    ‘ Poor Mary. And poor Mrs James, too,' Lucy added thoughtfully.
    ‘ I notice you haven't gone home with Chetwyn, for all your sympathy,' Mary said caustically.
    ‘ As to that, I think Chetwyn prefers it when I don't go with him. And there's nothing much for me to do there, with you out visiting your friends, and Ned and Chetwyn and Mama out around the estate all day, and James – God knows where! Probably in the Maccabbees Club; and that leaves me all alone with Mrs James, and I've nothing in common with her. All the same, I can't help feeling sorry for her. You know and I know, Polly, that James only married her out of duty, and he is not the sort of person to make the best of things.'
    ‘ You mean he only married her out of spite, because he couldn't have Héloïse,' Mary amended, 'and he's not the sort of person to forgive her for not being the woman he loves.’

    *
    Flora and Charles had no children of their marriage, though Flora had two of her first marriage, her daughter Louisa, now married and expecting her first child, and a younger son, Jack, who was serving in the navy aboard her brother William's ship. The heir to Charles's title and estate was therefore his half-brother, Horatio, who was a Captain in the 10th Light Dragoons, a very smart and fashionable regiment, permanently safe from actually having to go abroad and fight, because the King refused to allow the Prince of Wales to risk himself in active service.
    Horatio had married Lady Barbara Rushton, the daughter of the Duke of Watford, and now that she had presented him with a son, Marcus, the line seemed to be secured. Horatio had removed from Chelmsford House after his marriage, and set up his household in Park Lane. It had been something of a relief to Flora, who could never quite convince herself that Horatio was not simply waiting and hoping for Charles to die; though she acknowledged to herself that the feeling was probably unreasonable, and that her dislike of Horace's pale, protruberant eyes and white eyelashes had prejudiced her.
    He was certainly an ideal guest for her dinner party, for he was a personal friend of the Prince himself, and had been present at the wedding ceremony, and so could furnish all the details that everyone would he eager to hear. He brought with him on her request two other Dragoons officers: a Mr Danby Wiske, an extremely fashionable younger son of a Yorkshire family, and a Mr George Brum mell, whose father had been a Treasury official and much valued by the King.
    The small dining parlour, with its sea-green draperies and peacock-blue upholstery, and the handsome mahogany table which just held fourteen to a nicety, was as comfort able as it was elegant. Dinner advanced with the afternoon, and the candles and the dessert were brought in together, the curtains drawn to cut out the grey twilight, and the atmosphere set for a little cosy scandal.
    ‘Is it true that the Princess never washes? And that Lord Melbourne had to tell her to change her linen when they were on the boat coming across?' Lucy wanted to know.
    ‘Who could have told you that?' Charles asked, amused.
    ‘ Chetwyn, of course. And he said that the Princess's father, the Duke of Brunswick, told Melbourne that she was mad and ought to be locked up.'
    ‘ I don't suppose any of those things is true,' Flora said hastily, seeing Lady Tonbridge looking disapproving.
    ‘ At all events, it seems that the Prince does not mean to give up Lady Jersey,' said Lucy.
    ‘ He never did,' Charles said. 'Princess Caroline was told from the beginning that Lady Jersey was to be a Lady of the Bedchamber. What is more surprising is that Lady Jersey should ever have ousted Mrs Fitzherbert. I for one always thought that she was permanent.'
    ‘There's plenty of precedent for it, after all,' Mary said unconcernedly. 'Kings have always