It was a small house, compared with Carlton House, but Charlotte loved it. On the first floor, french windows opened on to a balcony and from this one could look out on Park Lane, for the house was on a corner. Charlotte loved to open those french windows, stand on the balcony and pretend that there were crowds below cheering her because she was to be their queen. She often thought as the carriage rolled along and people took little notice: Oh, you do not know that in this carriage is one who will one day be your queen.

Mrs Fitzherbert received her as though she were really pleased she had come, and she whispered to her that she had a promise from the Prince of Wales that he would look in that day.

Charlotte returned the pressure of Mrs Fitzherbert’s hand and it was as though they shared a secret.

‘Do you think he will be pleased to see me here?’ whispered Charlotte so that neither George nor Minney could hear.

‘He will be delighted. He has told me so.’

That was wonderful news. Now when he came she would not be nervous; perhaps she would not stutter and be able to seem as bright as she did in her own schoolroom.

She would feel safe while the plump figure of Mrs Fitzherbert presided over the scene like a benevolent fairy.

The Prince of Wales left Carlton House for Tilney Street with mingled feelings. He had to face the fact that since the Seymour case, during which his friendship with the Hertfords had become a very close one, he had fallen in love.

Falling in love had, of course, been the major preoccupation of his life, but when he had returned to Maria he had believed that as long as he had Maria he would never seriously hanker after another woman.

How wrong he had been! But then how could he have guessed there would have been such perfection in the world as that possessed by Isabella Hertford?

He had already confessed his devotion to her, but she remained aloof.

‘Your Highness’s kindness is appreciated, and I trust that my husband and I will always remain your very good friends.’

‘It is more than friendship I need.’

She smiled at him. ‘Your Highness will remember that I am a married woman and you are a married man … some say doubly so.’

Her fresh coolness delighted him; in his heart he wondered whether he really wanted her to surrender. When he thought of the sexuality of Lady Jersey he was nauseated. How different was Isabella. She would not surrender, she implied, on any terms. And what could he do? There was nothing he could offer her that she should possibly want. She was as rich as he was – richer possibly – and her great passion was politics – Tory politics at that. When the Prince considered all that lay between them – his politics, her frigidity, virtue she called it – it seemed a hopeless case. And yet it was the hopelessness which he had always found so attractive; and while she held no hope of surrender, she implied that she was not displeased by his attempts to seduce her.

At the same time she made certain demands; she wanted assurances that he really was as infatuated as he declared himself to be.

Could she doubt it? he demanded.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘You are so frequently in the company of that very virtuous lady who – rumour has it – would never so compromise herself if she did not consider you to be her husband.’

‘Maria Fitzherbert has been my very good friend for many years.’

‘Then, Sir, since you are so satisfied with that friendship, why do you seek mine?’

Because, he told her, she was the most beautiful, elegant and fascinating creature he had ever met, and he could only be truly happy in her company. He wished to give a banquet for her at Carlton House. Would she allow him to do this?

She was thoughtful for a while. She was not very anxious to appear in public with him. She cherished her reputation which had never been touched by scandal, and she had no intention of becoming one of the women with whom it would be said he was having a light love affair. She had no doubt that while these were progressing he made ardent protestations to the ladies concerned, as he was doing to her now. He was merely the Prince of Wales; he had very little political power, nor would he have while the King ruled; but as she pointed out to her husband, the King was a very sick man and at any moment there could be a new sovereign – or at least a Regent. Then the Hertfords should have that King or Regent at their command. They had to remember that. But in the meantime she must keep him dangling. Even so neither of them must forget that while he believed himself to be Maria Fitzherbert’s husband no one was going to get very far with him. That woman had a very firm hold; and if the Prince was to be of any use to the Hertfords it had to be broken. It had been broken before by Frances Jersey; and what Lady Jersey could do Lady Hertford was certain that she could do better.

So her task at the moment was to keep the Prince at bay while slackening Maria Fitzherbert’s hold on him.

Maria had considered herself a friend of Lady Hertford; it was for this reason that the entire affair had begun, for Maria had sought Isabella Hertford’s help in the Seymour case. Friendship? thought Lady Hertford. That had little place in her life. She loved politics and very little else – except her own person of course; it was a great delight to dress herself and know that she was the most elegant woman present when she entered a ballroom and everyone turned to look at her. The Snow Queen, they called her. Well, why not present a different kind of beauty to the Court? And in any case her cool elegance was the complete opposite of the blowsy appearance presented by the Princess of Wales. The very contrast in them was enough to make the Prince admire her.

But she was not concerned with the Princess of Wales but with Maria Fitzherbert. She was going to amuse herself by the manner in which she ousted Maria. Outwardly they would continue to be friends, while slowly she undermined Maria’s influence.

Her first move was typical of her.

She would be delighted to attend the banquet at Carlton House, but did the Prince know that people were beginning to whisper about them? ‘About myself and Your Highness! That is something which has never happened to me before. My reputation is at stake. I am a married woman; Your Highness is a married man. I could not dream of attending the banquet at Carlton House unless Mrs Fitzherbert was present also.’

She was adamant. Those were her terms. It was not as he had visualized it. He had pictured Isabella beside him while they dined so that he could pay court to her. And how could he with Maria present? The banquet, he explained, was to be given in honour of Lady Hertford. He had not counted on Maria’s being there.

‘Your Highness must see that only if Mrs Fitzherbert is present could I attend.’

So now, driving to Tilney Street the uncomfortable task lay before him of requesting Maria’s presence at a banquet at which Lady Hertford was to be the guest of honour.

Maria should please him in this, he told himself. He had done so much to please her. In fact he was on his way to Tilney Street now, because she had specially requested it.

‘To please me,’ she had pleaded, ‘be as attentive to Charlotte as to Minney. Will you do this … for me?’

He had hesitated. Charlotte was so gauche. God knew he had tried hard with the girl, but she was so like her mother. She reminded him of her all the time and because of this he longed always to get away from her. But since it was his dear Maria’s special wish, he would come.

As he rode through the streets he was recognized, but the crowds were silent. There were no cheers now; he was no longer the darling of the people. They even preferred his mad old father. They were blaming him now because of the Delicate Investigation. They said he persecuted his wife. He had tried to bring a case against her and had failed, although during the course of that case surely everyone had realized the sort of woman Caroline was. Perhaps William Austin was not her own child, but that did not mean that she had not behaved in an extremely immoral fashion with the men who visited her house. He preferred to believe the maid Mary Wilson who had told another servant that she had gone into a room at Montague House and actually found the Princess Caroline and Sir Sydney Smith engaged as she put it ‘in the fact’. This they had heard and yet they still believed Caroline to be the wronged wife. They blamed him for the failure of the marriage; and in addition they suspected that he might have previously married Maria Fitzherbert, which was in a way the truth. Maria was his wife, if not in the eyes of the State, in those of the Church, and for Maria he had risked his crown and sacrificed much. It was because of Maria that he was greeted with sullen silence as he rode through the streets, for it was Maria’s staunch Catholicism that the people would not endure.

What I sacrificed for her! he thought. Is it asking too much that she do this little thing for me?

She was waiting to greet him in the hall; he embraced her fervently.

‘My dearest love!’

‘I am so happy to see you. Charlotte is with Minney and George Keppel.’

‘Oh, yes …’ This was something else he was doing for her.

‘They will have seen your carriage arrive. I’ll swear they were watching from a window. They will be so excited.’

He wasn’t listening. ‘I should like to be with you for a little while first, my dearest.’

Arm in arm they went into her drawing room.

‘And how is dear Minney?’ he asked.

‘In excellent health. In fact since the case has been over she has been in high spirits. Poor lamb, she was far more worried than I realized.’