‘Well?’ she asked.

‘He’s charming,’ agreed Hester. ‘I couldn’t believe we were entertaining the King’s own son.’

‘He makes you forget it, doesn’t he?’

‘Oh, Dorothy, the things that happen to you! Everyone is talking about it.’

‘Let them. They must talk about something.’

‘What about the children? You won’t want them with you.’

‘But I do want them with me.’

‘You can’t embark on a love-affair with a royal Duke and a ready-made family.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘It is not fair to him. No, Dorothy, you want this to last, don’t you? It would be awful if you’ve given up Richard just for an affair of a few months.’

‘Hester! You think it will be like that?’

‘Not if you’re wise. He doesn’t believe it possible. Nor must you. You must keep it like that. But he will want your full attention. You have your work. Are you going to have the family at your heels, too? No. I have a suggestion to make. I’ll stay here and look after the children. You go with him to Petersham Lodge or wherever he wants you to. Start afresh. It’s the best way. And then if you have children… his children… they’ll naturally be with you both; but you can’t expect him to take on Fan, Dodee and Lucy. It’s too big a strain. Believe me, Dorothy.’

‘Richard might claim them.’

‘Not Richard. He’ll be glad to be rid of the responsibility.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said bitterly, ‘Richard is always glad to be rid of responsibility.’

‘Think about it. Leave the children with me.’

‘I know you’ve looked after them so much in the past, but you have played occasionally.’

‘I was never much of an actress. I’ll give that up to look after the children. You can pay me for it. He’s going to treat you very handsomely, I suppose.’

‘I’ll talk it over… with him. I’m sure he will do what I wish.’

‘He’s different from Richard,’ said Hester with a smile.

Dorothy’s lips tightened for a while, then she smiled.

‘Very different,’ she said. ‘I think I am going to be very fond of him.’

William agreed that it was an excellent idea for Hester to have charge of the children.

‘And I know you won’t object to my seeing them very often.’

‘We will see them together.’

‘You are so good to me,’ she said earnestly.

Hanoverian eyes filled with ever-ready Hanoverian tears. She was to learn that almost all the royal brothers were excessively sentimental. While they were in love they loved whole-heartedly and were not afraid to say so; it was the great secret of their charm and they were loved for it almost as much as for their royalty.

She was to have an allowance of a thousand pounds a year from him.

‘It is too much,’ she declared.

‘Good God,’ he cried. ‘It should be more.’

Then she would sign over six hundred pounds of her own for the present support of the girls under Hester’s care, and she would immediately transfer every penny she owned into a trust for their future.

‘It shall be as you say. I’ll get my lawyer William Adam to look into these things. Then it will all be signed and sealed and you’ll have not the slightest cause for anxiety.’

‘I only hope,’ she said, ‘that I shall be worthy of you.’

He was so happy, he told her, and all that happiness was centred in her.

It was perfect bliss for him; and for her? She had never in her life felt so secure before. She had never been treated with such generosity and courtesy; she had never been so loved; Richard had said he loved her; but Richard was not a demonstrative man. To be loved by a Prince was exhilarating, exciting and filled her with joy. For the first time in her life she did not have to worry about money; she felt free, without responsibilities; it was astonishing how light-hearted she could be.

For a while at any rate she would give herself up to romantic love, for that was what the Duke was leading her to believe this was.

‘I’m happy,’ she told Hester, ‘really happy… for the first time in my life.’

The press was delighted. The royal brothers gave them constant cause for pleasure. If it was not one knee deep in scandal, it was one of the others. The liaison of the Prince of Wales with Mrs Fitzherbert would always be a cause célèbre for the all-important question ‘Did he or did he not marry her?’ had never been satisfactorily answered. But that did not mean there was not a good deal of attention to spare for Clarence and his actress.

‘The comic syren of Old Drury has abandoned her quondam mate for the superior attractions of a Royal Lodge to which Little Pickle was long invited.’

was one comment. Another was:

‘A favourite comic actress, if old Goody Rumour can be trusted, had thought proper to put herself under the protection of a distinguished sailor who dropped anchor before her last summer at Richmond.’

Let them write of her. What did it matter? They had always applauded her or ridiculed her. An actress had to accept this. The famous were out in the arena to be shot at. She had long ago learned that.

In response to his brother’s request the Prince of Wales called at Petersham Lodge on his way to Windsor. Dorothy was nervous. It was one thing to play on the stage before this gorgeous personage; to receive him as a guest in the house of which she had recently become the mistress was quite another matter.

But she was soon put at ease.

‘George, I want to present my dearest Dora to you.’

He bowed – the famous bow which was said to be the most elegant in the world; his eyes were alight with admiration.

‘You are even more beautiful than William has been telling me,’ he said.

‘Your Highness…’

‘Oh, come, we are brother and sister now. William would wish it. Is that not so, brother?’

William, beaming love and good nature, was, he said, the happiest man in the world to see that the two whom he loved beyond any others had taken to each other on sight.

‘Not,’ he declared, ‘that I conceived it possible to be otherwise. Two such good and charming people! It was George who put me on the right lines, you know, Dora. But for him I should not have won you yet.’

‘Then we must both be grateful to His Highness.’

‘You flatter me… both of you,’ said the Prince lightly. ‘But I forgive you because it does me so much good to see two people as much in love as you two are. It is exactly so with my own dear Maria, whom you shall meet.’

The Prince’s eyes filled with sentimental tears and Dorothy was surprised because she had heard that he kept Mrs Crouch whom she knew slightly, for the woman was an actress who had played at Drury Lane and she had boasted of having a place in Berkeley Square and some £5,000 of jewellery which he had given her. Rumour had it that Mrs Fitzherbert was furious because of the liaison and it was only when she threatened to leave him that he had broken it off. There were even now rumours about Lady Jersey who seemed to attract him in the oddest way. She fascinated yet repelled; she was an extremely sensuous woman, wicked, some say, and as different from Maria Fitzherbert as it was possible for two women to be. It was true that the Prince wanted to keep Mrs Fitzherbert; but he was by no means faithful to her as he was implying now. But he did so with such a show of sincerity that it seemed he must believe it to be true.

Considering all she had heard of him Dorothy felt uneasy, fearful that William who seemed to have such a high opinion of his brother might take his cue from him.

But now the Prince was determined to be charming; he was completely at ease; he talked to Dorothy of the theatre and plays and playwrights of which he was very knowledgeable.

He told her how he admired her voice and begged her to sing for him; and she amused them both by singing the song which she often sang after playing The Spoiled Child with its line:

‘What girl but loves the merry Tar?’

The Prince sang it with her. His voice was good, quite strong and very pleasant. He was rather proud of it and said that as she had sung for him he would sing his favourite sentimental ballad for her.

It was Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill – a tribute to the absent Maria.

Then they all sang together and Dorothy forgot the high rank of her visitor, for indeed he behaved like an affectionate brother-in-law.

When he rose to go he expressed his regrets that he must do so.

‘I have to go to Windsor,’ he explained to Dorothy. ‘You can imagine nothing more dull.’

And he spoke as though she were indeed a member of the family.

When he had gone, William seized her hands and cried: ‘Well, what do you think of him?’

‘He is charming… even more so than I had expected.’

‘He is the best brother in the world. And he is fond of you already. I told him he must be or I should never forgive him.’

‘It is good to see such affection between brothers,’ she said; and she thought: he is affectionate by nature. I believe I am a very lucky woman.

But the lampoonists and the cartoonists were not going to allow Dorothy to enjoy her happiness if they could prevent her doing so. There was scarcely a day when some piece about her did not appear in the papers. Behind her back her fellow-actors and actresses called her ‘The Duchess’.

There was veiled criticism of her desertion of her children. One of the morning papers came out with the statement:

‘To be mistress of the King’s son Little Pickle thinks respectable, and so away go all tender ties to children.’