Mistress Masquerade

‘You what?’ he had snarled at her as she returned to their lodgings. ‘What d’ye mean, couldn’t get at it? Why not? It’s yours, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you told me?’

Lady Benistone sighed. This was going to be difficult. They had been together less than a week, uncomfortable days during which she had used all her sexual allure to keep him sweet without actually letting him have what he thought would be his with very little effort. Now, she would have to bring her plan forwards. She was many years his senior and was not used to being snarled at. ‘Lower your voice, if you please,’ she said, coldly, removing her hat and pelisse. ‘I told you we could use my funds, yes, but I was mistaken. We can’t. Mr Treen at the bank was quite adamant that, without Lord Benistone’s written permission, he cannot release the money. Somehow, we shall have to manage without it.’ Even as she spoke the empty words, she knew the impossibility of managing, her intention from the very beginning having been to pay him off, then return to her family with what to her was a convincing reason for her uncharacteristic behaviour. And if Elmer had made time to listen to her concerns, none of this would have been necessary. He would have sent the deceitful creature packing as any father would and Annemarie could have begun again to rebuild her life with someone more worthy of her.

‘Manage?’ he yelled. ‘How are we supposed to manage, your ladyship? I’ve been relying on you for this and now you tell me... God’s truth, woman! If I’d known...’

‘Don’t use such oaths to me, Sir Lionel. I’ll not hear it. You have no idea how foolish you look when you’re in a childish temper. I’ve put up with you in this dreadful little place for almost a week now and I think that’s probably as much as I can take. And, yes, if you’d known my funds were tied up, you’d not have been interested, would you? You’d have kept to safer ground with my daughter. You have sold my jewellery and chosen to gamble with the proceeds when we might have been safely in France by now. Well, your luck runs out rather too fast for my comfort.’

Anyone could have understood the ease with which Annemarie had fallen for Mytchett’s suave good looks, his perfect manners and easy charm, his stylish dress, his talk of possessions and connections. Lord Benistone had been too preoccupied to make thorough investigations that would have verified, or not, his claims. In a rage, however, Sir Lionel was frighteningly unattractive, noisy and threatening, and Esme Benistone realised too late that she had just revealed her intentions as she had not meant to do. She could have slipped away while he was out. But not now.

She saw the understanding dawn behind his eyes, at first a blankness like an abacus before the beads start to count, before the payment takes shape, before the final reckoning. Even then, she did not guess what form this would take. Not once had she anticipated the danger in which she had placed herself. As Lady Benistone, an aristocrat, she was due every respect. This time, she had miscalculated.

She had tried many times since then to forget what happened during the next half-hour, but without success. Physical violence was quite outside her experience and, although fear lent her an extra strength, it was not enough to prevent his determined and brutal assault from reaching its appalling conclusion. With a hand clamped over her mouth she could make no one hear her and she was forced into a helplessness so painful that, when he released her, her stomach revolted too. Before he left, his words were intended to be as wounding and as insulting as his attack, hurled at her as revenge for misfired plans, unlined pockets and the exposure of his baseness. He would make sure, he told her, that she paid the full price for finding him out, if not with money, then with shame.

Left alone at last, it took her some time to gather herself together sufficiently to stand, in a daze of pain, and to look for some way of washing herself. To go upstairs was impossible and she must get away quickly before his return so, still trembling and sobbing, she covered her torn clothing with her pelisse, tucked her hair inside her hat and pulled down the veil. With painful slowness, she left the house unnoticed and staggered to the end of the street from where, eventually, she was able to summon a hansom cab. ‘Manchester Square,’ she called up to the cabbie.

‘You alright, ma’am?’ he said, kindly. ‘Nasty headache?’

‘No,’ she whispered, ‘but drive carefully.’

‘Right-ho, ma’am. Just leave it to me. Climb inside.’

Managing the steps into the cab was almost beyond her, but the kind man waited before clucking to his horse and, on arrival at Manchester Square, was concerned enough to climb down from his perch and help her out. It was then that Esme fainted in his arms, attracting the attention of a primly dressed lady’s maid who was about to turn into the basement gate of the nearest mansion. ‘Why, that’s Lady Benistone, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Dunno, miss. She said to bring her here. But this looks like the Marquess of Hertford’s place, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘It is,’ said the young lady. ‘Be so good as to carry her ladyship in, will you?’

* * *

Annemarie told herself that Verne’s kiss had meant nothing, really, except the annoyance of a thwarted man. Yes, that was what it was about. Annoyance and to pay her back for her rudeness as a hostess when she ought to have shown more courtesy to her father’s guest. As for that nonsense of pursuing what he wanted...well...that was soldier’s talk. Too many years in the army and too little opposition from women. That was the problem with his sort. Hardly worth getting upset about.

She threw her slippers into one of the leather trunks, but Evie gave a sigh and patiently took them out again. ‘You’ll be wearing these, m’lady, not packing them,’ she said. ‘Why not just leave the packing to me? Shall I bring you a nice warm drink?’

Regarding the piles of linens and silks, the shoes and chemisettes, the velvet pelisses and muslin day-dresses, Annemarie was unable to assemble any of the outfits while her mind still seethed with indignation. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s getting late and I’m not helping, am I?’ Throwing herself on to the chaise-longue, she made use of Evie’s absence to hear again his crisp, ‘No. This’, and to feel his hard demanding fingers pressing into her arm and neck, taking her too much by surprise to escape as fast as she could have done. As she ought to have done. Words like ‘churl’ and ‘lout’ faded against the sensation of the kiss and once again she was making comparisons like a silly untutored schoolgirl while pressing a cushion against her breast.

* * *

During the six hours it took to reach Brighton, it would be less than the truth to say that she had banished the incident from her mind, having little else to occupy her. But her father need not have feared her being alone when she had her maid, two coachmen, grooms and footmen with her, some of whom would take the coaches back to London. A few stops to change horses, to take a light luncheon, and by evening they were amongst the wheeling, yelping seagulls, by which time she had examined the incident from every angle and at every tollgate and inn. Knowing how her father was quite capable of arranging an escort whether she wanted one or not, her eyes had surreptitiously searched for a physique that might resemble Lord Verne’s, but thankfully, she need not have bothered.

The sight of her own pretty house lifted her spirits even more than the blustering wind and the grey-blue expanse of sea. This was the place bought for her and Richard by Lord Benistone to use as a retreat, which she had decided to keep as a useful second home. Too close to the Steyne for her taste, it had been perfect for Richard who liked to be in the centre of things and, situated on the corner of South Parade, there were good views from the large windows.

Annemarie was right about Brighton being deserted during the London celebrations—the area of open lawn between the house and the Marine Pavilion was only thinly scattered with the summer colours of muslin gowns and bright uniforms. A few doors away, Raggett’s Men’s Club seemed strangely quiet, and Donaldson’s Library across the road was almost forsaken. It suited her well enough. She decided to pay a visit there tomorrow.

The cook, housekeeper and maids had been at the house for three days already to remove dust covers, make beds and prepare food, so the rooms were welcoming and well aired, flowers in bowls, hot water, the lingering scent of polish and scrubbed floors. After the heavy clutter of Montague Street, the pale prettiness of her patterned walls, the delicacy of the furniture and the fabrics reflecting sunshine and sea were like a breath of fresh air filling her lungs with a new freedom. She went from room to room to greet all the familiar feminine things that her father would certainly not have looked at twice. Nor would Richard, had he ever seen them.

She realised at once that the new bureau would be too large to fit comfortably in her cosy bedroom, but after some rearrangement, a space was made for it in an alcove by the chimney-breast as she experienced an unaccountable wave of possessiveness that recalled Lord Benistone’s blunder about Lord Verne having to get to her first. Until the bureau arrived, there would be plenty to keep her occupied, things she had stopped doing in London in case she met someone who knew her. It was their sympathy she could not bear. Revenge was what she wanted, not pity. Any kind of revenge would do as long as it hurt.

* * *

On the next day, sooner than expected, the bureau arrived and, after hours of tipping and tilting, trapped fingers, muffled oaths and doubts, the heavy piece was fitted into the space she had made for it. Lady Hamilton’s rooms at Merton Place, she thought, must have been vast to accommodate two of these easily. But that evening, all alone, she took the brass key from her toilette case and inserted it into the beautifully decorated keyhole on the long drawer above the knee-space, imagining how Lady Hamilton and her lover, Lord Nelson, would have stood to look at themselves in the mirror under the lid that now stood upright. At each side of the mirror were the sections that had intrigued her most in Christie’s saleroom, a maze of polished compartments holding ceramic pots and cut-glass bottles with silver tops, ivory-and-tortoiseshell brushes and combs, hand mirrors and silver scissors, ornately inlaid trinket boxes, slender perfume bottles with the fragrances still clinging to the glass. The Prince Regent had its twin and, in most respects, the two were identical except that this was the one made for a lady, which is why she had chosen it.

The mania for Lord Nelson memorabilia had gripped the country in the years since his death at Trafalgar in 1805, and even after nine years there were collectors who would pay well for any of his personal possessions, even a shaving brush. Perhaps, she wondered, that was why the Prince Regent was so keen to acquire his furniture. Or was it more to do with Lady Hamilton, with whom he’d once been infatuated, even while her husband and her lover both lived? Neither of the men had approved of the royal obsession, although since their deaths, Lady Hamilton had found it necessary to keep well in with the royal family in the hope of financial help that never came. The Prince’s disloyalty to his friends was as notorious as his appalling fashion sense.

In the fading light, Annemarie sat before her newest acquisition to unscrew tops and guess at the contents and marvel at the craftsmanship, the details, the coloured inlays, swags and festoons, gilded handles and key-plates. At one side of the centre was a neat hole where a long brass pin could be inserted to hold the lower drawer in place when the lid was locked. Having taken a cursory look into the drawer only to find an odd glove and a few empty silk reels for mending, she tried to close it before replacing the pin in its hole. Obviously she had disturbed some other fragment, for it refused to close.

Bending to look inside, she slid her fingers deep into the recess at the back of the drawer, easing it out further and discovering that the back panel was hinged to lie flat, concealing an extra compartment. Then, lowering her head to the same level, she caught sight of shadowy bundles tied with ribbon like miniature piles of laundered sheets in the linen cupboard, so flat and uniform that she knew they must be letters. She pressed one pile, releasing the one that had snagged on the woodwork above.

Her first instinct was to leave them where they were, for she had no right to read what Lord Nelson had written to the woman he loved. No one had. But curiosity lured her hand reluctantly inside to draw out first one bundle, then the next, until there were eight of them balancing on top of the silver stoppers, releasing an aroma of old paper and the acrid smell of attar of roses. Instantly, she was reminded of a visit to Carlton House with Richard to meet the Prince of Wales at his inauguration as Regent, where the cloying perfume had made her head reel. Richard had told her later that it was the prince’s snuff. ‘No taste,’ he had remarked. ‘Not even in snuff.’

Even then, she failed to connect him with these letters, being so certain of Lord Nelson’s involvement, especially after the furor of a few weeks ago, in April to be exact, when his personal letters to Lady Hamilton had been published in book form by the Herald, causing the most embarrassing scandal. Few people would have missed the storm that followed, the mass gorging upon every salacious detail of their passion and the inevitable condemnation of the woman who, it was assumed, had sold them to pay off her enormous debts. Few believed her insistence that they had been stolen from her by a so-called friend who was writing a life of Nelson, at her request. Those who knew her better were sure of her innocence, although few had rushed to her defence, and certainly not the influential Prince Regent who professed to adore her and regularly took advantage of her generous hospitality. If these letters were more of the same, Lady Hamilton had kept them well away from ill-intentioned servants and had then forgotten about them in one of her removals to temporary addresses and the sale rooms. Poor unfortunate woman indeed, she thought, turning over one of the bundles to look at the back. It was sealed with a coronet, as aristocrats did. Delivered by hand. No postmark or address. Only the name, Lady Emma Hamilton.

Flipping a thumb across the crisp folded edges, Annemarie reminded herself that, for all she knew, they could be perfectly innocent and not worth returning, though the stale perfume warned her of a different explanation. So she slid off the faded ribbon and unfolded the first letter with a crackle, turning it round to find the greeting, once so personal, then the foot of the page, whispering words never meant to be heard out loud. Your ever devoted and loving....Prinny.

Her hand flew to cover the words on her lips, hardly daring to believe what she was reading. Prinny was what the Prince Regent’s closest friends called him.

These were his letters to Emma Hamilton.

Private. Scandalous. Priceless.

The significance of the discovery was both frightening and exciting as, one by one, Annemarie slipped off the ribbons to release the dozens of intimate love letters, all the same size, paper, ink and handwriting with the flourishing signature of effusive endearments: beloved, eternal friend, adoring servant, always your own, Prinny. The greetings were equally extravagant. Dearest Muse. My Own Persephone. Most Heavenly Spirit, and so on. Repetitive, unoriginal and maudlin, sentiments that roused her fury that here again was a lover whose flowery words failed to match his actions, whose promises were empty and worthless. Lady Hamilton must by now have realised that her letters were lost, that someone somewhere would find and read them, and could use them to blacken her name further, and that if they were indeed made public like the Nelson letters, she could expect to be cut out of the royals’ lives for ever without any hope of help.

She began to refold them, tying them back into bundles. And yet, she thought, surely it would be the Prince Regent himself who would look like the villain if ever these were made public. Despite his protestations of enduring love and friendship, it was common knowledge that he’d refused to offer any help since the death of Lord Nelson, even refusing to petition Parliament to grant her a pension, using the excuse that she had not lawfully been Nelson’s wife. Having abused her friendship and ignored her vulnerability without a protector, he had offered nothing in return. More than likely he would become a laughing-stock to the whole nation just as he was acting host to all the European heads of state, all through the summer. With letters like these in the public domain, what would be his chances of getting Parliament to vote him more funds for his building projects, his banquets and lavish entertainments? Virtually none. No small wonder he’d sent a trusted friend to retrieve the bureau where his letters were kept which, for all he knew, might still be undiscovered by the purchaser. Herself.

It was not difficult to understand how the Prince could know where Lady Hamilton kept her correspondence. The Herald had often reported with some malice how, at her wild parties lasting for days, her guests had access to all her rooms at any time. She and the Prince had not been lovers, by all accounts, but he would have known her bedroom as intimately as all her other friends, to talk, watch her at her toilette, flirt and drink. He would know of her famed carelessness, her disorganisation, her hoarding of gifts and her generosity. Why else would he have dispatched Lord Verne so quickly to find the other bureau and to buy it at any price once he’d discovered that its twin was not the one he wanted? And why else would Lord Verne have attached himself to Lord Benistone like a leech until he could find a way to worm himself into his daughter’s favour? That was the plan. She was sure of it. The only way of saving dear Prinny from utter disgrace. He had already made a start and Annemarie had unobligingly removed herself by some sixty miles. Yet another reason for his annoyance.

The feeling of power that washed over her in those moments of discovery was difficult to convey. The almost sensual realisation that revenge was, literally, in her hands. At any time, she could do enormous damage to that irresponsible, immature fifty-two-year-old heir to the throne without morals or principles, who could turn his back on a woman he professed to adore and refuse to help. Epitomising everything she had learned to despise about men, he would be the perfect target for her retribution. At the same time, she could give what she got for the letters to Lady Hamilton to lend some dignity to her retirement, to help her and her young daughter find a new life away from her predatory family. How ironic would that be, she thought, to refund her in money what the prince had withdrawn in support? She fell back upon her bed, breathless with euphoric laughter and the heady feeling of control, wishing she had made the discovery in London instead of here, for then she could have taken them straight to a publisher to broker a deal without delay.

* * *

Later, in the peace of the night when she had listened to the distant swish of the incoming tide, she rose and, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders, sat before the bureau where the stacks of letters made a shockingly silent threat until she could choose a moment to let the cat among the pigeons. The full moon washed across the silk damask-covered walls, its white stillness somehow commending a safer and less contentious option that would place the responsibility where by rights it ought to be, with Lady Hamilton herself. Annemarie ought to take them to her, as the owner, and explain. Let her do with them whatever she pleased, for if the blame from the previous scandal could be heaped on Lady Hamilton, as it had been, then surely this could be, too, if the letters were published. Some of the blame would certainly damage his Royal Highness, but there would be others only too ready to ruin Lady Hamilton even further, and to what purpose? The likelihood of her ever being freed from scandal would be small. Annemarie’s own selfish motives must be put aside. The choice could not be hers.

Pulling out her old leather portmanteau, only recently emptied, she stashed the bundles inside and fastened the catch, deciding to take them back to London as soon she could. Mr Parke at Christie’s would know of Lady Hamilton’s whereabouts. She climbed back into bed, shaking her head in amusement at her father’s absurdly unthinking gaffe about having to get at Annemarie first, and wondering how long it would be before she could expect to see Lord Verne here in Brighton about his master’s sordid business. For some reason, the challenge disturbed her rest and the first crying of the seagulls had begun before her imaginings were laid to rest.

* * *

Annemarie’s last visit to Brighton had been in the preceding autumn, since when spring had struggled out of a protracted winter worse than most people could remember. Even in June, the gardens surrounding the Steyne were only just recovering and the continuing alterations to the Prince’s Marine Pavilion were nowhere near complete, mainly through lack of funds and because he changed his mind every time he saw it. Sprouting the same scaffolding and heaps of building materials, it was attended by the same unhurried workmen with time to stare at every passable female who came close enough. Behind the Pavilion, the Indian-style dome that had received her sharp criticism sat like a glittering half-onion on top of the Prince’s stables, the palatial building designed to house his riding, carriage and race horses at a cost that would have fed London’s starving and homeless for the rest of their lives. Not to mention his disgruntled unpaid workforce.

Strolling past toiling gardeners and arguing foremen, Annemarie explored new pathways across the grass towards the great dome set behind pinnacles and fancy fretwork, torn between admiration for its perfect proportions and the fantastic mixture of Gothic with Oriental. Such was the extravagance of the man, she thought, who would one day be king, the same man whose extravagant sentiments had poured into letters to a woman he now ignored. Like a wound still aching, the need to inflict a similar hurt welled up again before she could hold it back and force herself to be rational. She had never knowingly hurt anyone. Could she begin now and truly enjoy the experience?

Yes, I can. All I need is half a chance. Just show me how.

A speckled thrush hauled at a worm only a few feet away from her red kid shoes, flapping away in alarm at a deep shout from behind her. ‘Hey! No right of way here, my lady. Private property, this.’ A burly man waving a plan from one hand approached her so fast that it looked as if he might pick her up and carry her off over his shoulder.

‘It was not private property last September,’ Annemarie replied, standing her ground. ‘So how is anyone to know? Who’s bought it?’

‘Prince o’ Wales,’ the man said. ‘That’s who. Fer ’is gardens. An’ you’ll ’ave ter go back the way you came.’ He pointed, belligerently.

‘I shall do no such thing. I’ll go out that way.’ Annemarie turned back towards the stable block. But she was no longer making a lone stand against authority, for hastening towards her with long strides was a tall figure she instantly recognised. He was emerging from the central arch of the building, as though her impulsive plea was about to show her the half-chance she had requested. By his tan breeches and looped-up whip, she saw that he had been riding and, even though his eyes were shaded by the rim of his beaver, they glared like cold pewter at the officious foreman.