‘I designed it with help from Brummell.’

‘Oh, it is soft!’ She buried her face in it. Maria watched them affectionately. If only Minney were their own child; if only there did not have to be this fearful battle, this tragic uncertainty.

He put Minney down and she brought his chair forward and when he sat, placed herself between him and Maria. She took his hand and examined the rings.

‘Such lovely things he always has, does he not, Mamma? I could look at him for ever even if he were not my dear Prinney.’

He sat back in his chair, eyes glazed with sentiment. ‘Dearest Minney, so you are a little fond of your old Prinney then?’

‘Old?’ said Minney. ‘I had never thought that you could be old … or young … or anything.’

‘So you see, Maria, Minney has placed me among the immortals. I cannot grow old although it seems I have never been young.’

‘Are you going to sing for us?’ asked Minney.

‘Here on your Mamma’s balcony? Do you want to collect a crowd?’

‘Yes, I do. No, I don’t, because then you will have to be on duty and bowing and smiling to them, instead of talking to me. We’ll sing when we are in the drawing room.’

‘Minney has spoken,’ said the Prince.

Why, Maria asked herself, could he not be on those easy terms with his own daughter? Poor Charlotte! She was sorry for the child; and she was a charming creature, too. Perhaps in the presence of the Prince she was gauche and uncertain. Who could wonder at that, considering the state of affairs between their parents?

What ironic problems life presented! Charlotte – an heiress to the throne – separated from her mother and with a father who could not love her because she reminded him of her mother. And her own sad problem – dear Minney who was her child and not her child.

Minney left them after a while as she always did, knowing that the Prince had come to see Maria and would no doubt wish to talk to her.

‘Minney grows more enchanting every day,’ he said when the child had gone.

‘Which makes it all the harder if …’

‘We are going to win, never fear,’ he replied lightheartedly.

‘Oh, if only I could believe that.’

‘My dearest, I have sworn we shall have Minney. Do you think that I would not keep my word?’

She smiled at him fondly, but his words scarcely comforted her. How many times had he betrayed her trust in him. She thought of the infidelities; it was not marriage with Charlotte’s mother which had brought about their painful separation but his infatuation for Lady Jersey. He had once been completely under the spell of that woman whom he now could not bear, sufficiently involved with her to desert Maria. True, he had come back to her, but after such a shock, how could one help wondering when the next would come? So she could only smile at him when he asked her if she could not trust his word.

‘Lord Henry seems so determined. And I know Lady Waldegrave has never been a friend of mine. They are going to do everything they can to take Minney away from me.’

‘Don’t despair. I shall think of something.’

‘I have thought of something,’ said Maria. ‘Lord Henry gives himself airs, but he is not the head of the family. Lord Hertford is that, and he has so far kept out of the affair. I wonder if I called on Lady Hertford and asked her to speak to her husband, it would help.’

‘An excellent idea. And I will let them know my wishes. I fancy you have hit on the solution, Maria, my love. We’ll go over that insolent fellow’s head and speak to Hertford.’

Maria’s spirits rose at the prospect; she wondered why she had not thought of it before.

‘I shall call on her tomorrow,’ she said.

‘And when you have called, I will send for Hertford to come and see me. I am sure of success now, my love.’

He was smiling, wishing to talk of pleasant things. How well she knew him. He never wanted to discuss that which was unpleasant. He began to tell her about Brummell’s new invention to the trouser leg.

‘It is cut at the sides, Maria, and closed by the most exquisite buttons and buttonholes you ever saw. As Brummell says, this gives great scope and he has many ideas for buttons.’

Maria had never liked Brummell; she considered him arrogant and he presumed on the Prince’s friendship she believed; and what had the fellow ever done but become the dandy to outdo all other dandies? But the Prince’s interest in clothes had drawn them together and he was often in Brummell’s company.

He went on to talk of the way in which Brooks’s Club had deteriorated.

‘It’s since Fox went.’ His eyes filled with tears. Fox had had more influence on him than any other man. He had died only recently and since his death the Prince had become even more devoted to him. ‘The wit is not there … how could it be without the incomparable Fox? Sherry is getting old, too. Stab me, that son of his, Tom Sheridan, has the most lovely wife I ever saw – apart from you, Maria. I said when I saw her: “By God, there’s only one woman who excels Tom Sheridan’s wife and that’s my own Fitzherbert.”’

‘You see me with the eyes of affection.’

He was delighted with the remark, his comfort restored.

‘Well, I admit to it, but you are still the most beautiful woman in London to me.’ He sighed. ‘You still look the same as when I first saw you along the river bank. Do you remember, Maria? That was long ago. There have been changes since. Poor Fox gone. Brooks’s is not the same without him. The conversation is dull and so is the food. Beefsteaks and leg of lamb, boiled fowls with oyster sauce. I’ve asked my chef Watier to found a new club and that is exactly what he is going to do.’

‘You think the ton will let it take the place of Brooks’s?’

‘By all means, when they know that it is under the management of my chef. Brummell and my brother Fred will give it their support and in a week or so there won’t be a vacant place at any of the tables.’

He was beaming with joy at the certain success of the venture and Maria thought it was the moment to introduce a subject which might not please him so much but of which she was determined to speak.

‘How devoted Minney is to you. She speaks of you continually. I can tell you that nothing is done in the right manner unless it is done as Prinney does it.’

He smiled indulgently.

‘It is Prinney this and Prinney that, all the day through. And Pig is the same. In this house you are not so much His Royal as His Holy Highness.’

‘They are a dear pair and I am devoted to them both.’

‘Dearest, I wish that you could show the same affection for Charlotte that you show to Minney.’

‘Charlotte!’ The mention of his daughter had jerked him out of his pleasant reverie. ‘How lacking in grace that girl is.’ He shuddered. ‘She is so gauche.’

‘She is overawed in your presence. Believe me, she can be so charming.’

‘To others, but not to her father?’

‘It is because she is so much in awe of you … so anxious to please.’

‘My dearest Maria is apt to believe the best of everyone. I always feel that the child is proclaiming her indifference to me, her desire to flout me.’

‘Oh, no no. That’s not so.’

He was mildly astonished. He was not used to being contradicted, although Maria did it now and then.

‘So I do not know my own daughter?’

‘Please understand me. Charlotte is so anxious to win your approval that she becomes over-anxious. She admires you greatly.’

‘How can you be sure of that?’

‘It would be impossible for her not to.’

His good humour was momentarily restored and she hurried on: ‘If to please me …’

‘Anything in the world to please my dear love.’ His hand was on his heart as it was when he bowed to the people’s cheers – a not very frequent blessing these days except in Brighton.

‘If you would smile at her, show her a little affection, indicate that you are pleased to see her, I think you would make her very happy.’

He sighed. ‘Every time I look at her, Maria, I think of that creature.’

‘Why should you? Charlotte is very like you.’

‘She may have my family’s looks but her manners … that awkwardness …’ He shivered. ‘That is her mother and anything that reminds me of that woman puts me into an ill temper. By God, Maria, this affair at Montague House! This child she has! If it can be proved that it is her own then I can surely be rid of her. She can be sent back to Brunswick. I should feel a great deal more at ease if she were out of the country.’

‘And you think it is possible to prove this?’

‘These matters are difficult to prove, but I am sure. And If only I could get the help I need, I would divorce her. You cannot imagine what peace of mind that would bring. The most unfortunate day of my life was when I allowed myself to go through that ceremony with her.’

Maria was silent and he was unhappy, for he was deep in a subject which he would have preferred to forget. There were tears in his eyes, tears of self-pity. That he, the most elegant of princes, the First Gentleman of Europe, should have been married to that coarsest and most vulgar of German princesses! Now he was on the subject he could not stop talking of it.

‘To think of her there … living that degraded life at Blackheath, receiving those men and living on intimate terms with them … as I am convinced she did. The sailors, Smith and Manby, the artist Lawrence … any one of them might be the father of that boy, and do you realize, Maria, that that boy could have been presented to the nation as a future King of England? She has actually said that she would foist him on me if need be. She has said that before he was born she had spent a night or two at Carlton House and that as I was under the influence of brandy most of the time I could not deny it. It’s treason. Oh, God, Maria, do I deserve this?’