Jean Plaidy - The Regent’s Daughter

Miss Knight came with much apprehension. Charlotte’s behaviour had been no credit to her lady companions and because Charlotte ignored the Duchess of Leeds and had made Cornelia her friend, she, Cornelia, would be the one who must take the blame for that indecorous conduct.

The Regent received her as soon as she arrived and his cool manner alarmed her. She who was usually calm and in full possession of her wits very frequently came near to losing them in his presence. He could be so regal and change so quickly; at one moment he made her feel that he regarded her as a wise friend and in the next that he despised her for a bungling fool. It was all done by the lift of an eyebrow, a gesture of the hand, the intonation of that very musical voice. He was a great actor who always played the part he intended to without giving anyone any doubt of his intentions.

‘Miss Knight,’ (not ‘my dear Chevalier’ which would have meant he felt kindly towards her), ‘I am disturbed.’ He looked at her reproachfully to set the scene. She was responsible for his disturbed feelings.

‘I am indeed sorry, Sir.’

‘Yes, yes. But this will not do. The Princess Charlotte has been placed in your care … and that of the Duchess; and it grieves me that she should behave in the way she does. This last escapade … this invitation to a most insignificant member of the Tsar’s entourage … Really, Miss Knight, how could she have come to be so lacking in what is required of her? She meets him on the stairs of an hotel … like … like a chambermaid. How came she to be on the stairs of an hotel? How could she in the company … unattended … of any young men who might care to accost her? It is beyond my understanding. But perhaps, Miss Knight, not beyond yours?’

He paused and she said nervously: ‘Sir, she was visiting the Duchess of Oldenburg …’

He interrupted pettishly: ‘There have been too many visits to the Duchess of Oldenburg. I do not wish these visits to continue.’

‘Does Your Highness wish them to be stopped completely?’

‘Not completely. We do not want an incident. You will agree with that, I hope, Miss Knight. But the visits are too frequent. I hear that the Princess sees the Duchess every day. That is most unseemly. They should not meet more than once a week. Soon our visitors will be leaving us but until they do I wish that the Princess Charlotte does not spend all her time in the company of the Duchess of Oldenburg. You will see to that, Miss Knight.’

‘Indeed yes, Sir. And if the Prince of Saxe-Coburg should call at Warwick House … what are your instructions?’

‘The Prince of Saxe-Coburg will not call at Warwick House. I have made my wishes clear to him. He had the grace to write to tell me what had happened. He will be preparing to leave the country at this very time.’

‘I see, Your Highness.’

He began to pace up and down. ‘And so, Miss Knight, I ask you to carry out my wishes and by so doing ensure that I am not further disturbed by these upheavals which to a father …’ he paused as though considering whether a tear was necessary and decided that a husky note in the voice was more suited to the occasion … ‘can be most upsetting. You may go now.’

‘Well,’ said Charlotte, ‘what was that about?’

‘Your father is very displeased. He knows that you invited the Prince of Saxe-Coburg here and he thinks that reprehensible.’

‘How did he know? Someone must have told him. I am spied on. I tell you I won’t be spied on!’

‘It was Leopold himself who told the Prince.’

‘Leopold!’

‘Oh, yes, he thought he should ask permission to call before doing so.’

Hot colour flooded into Charlotte’s cheeks.

‘He didn’t!’

‘The Prince Regent told me that he did. He said he had a letter from him to the effect that he had met you at the Pulteney and handed you into your carriage and that you then invited him to call at Warwick House.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

Miss Knight shrugged her shoulders.

‘It’s not true, is it?’ begged Charlotte.

‘Why should your father say so if it were not? How should he know of it?’

‘I shall ask Leopold when he comes.’

‘He won’t come. He is leaving the country.’

‘No!’

‘On the Regent’s request. And your visits to the Duchess are to be considerably curtailed.’

‘I won’t have it,’ declared Charlotte. And then: ‘So he wrote to my father. He asked permission to call. The man’s an idiot.’

Miss Knight was smiling complacently and Charlotte could have slapped her. She wanted to burst into tears; she wanted to sob out her misery; but she wasn’t going to show Cornelia how deeply she felt.

So she railed against Leopold.

‘What a ninny! He asks permission. So he has gone away, has he? He won’t come to Warwick House? Well, I’m glad, I tell you. Let him stay away. I never want to see him again.’

IT WAS RIDICULOUS to feel so wretched over a man to whom she had scarcely spoken and who should be so timid that he must ask her father’s permission before calling; but she did. She was however, not going to allow anyone to know it.

She pretended to be excited about the banquet which her father was giving to the foreign visitors at Carlton House.

‘Come,’ she said to Louisa, ‘make me beautiful – if that’s possible.’

‘It’s the easiest thing in the world,’ declared the fond Louisa.

Had he thought her beautiful? Attractive? Evidently not attractive enough to risk her father’s displeasure for her sake!

‘Feathers, Louisa. Yes, feathers. They are so becoming. And what dignity they give. I need it. I think I am lacking more in dignity than in beauty. Don’t deny it, Louisa. And my silver tissue dress … the one trimmed with silver lace and embroidered in lamé. You know the one.’

Louisa knew it and she exclaimed with delight as she dressed her volatile young mistress in it. ‘If Your Highness could stand a little more still it would be easier. Feathers take such fixing.’

And the result – enchanting! But Master Leopold would not be there to see it. ‘Coward!’ murmured Charlotte.

Her father behaved as though there had been no conflict between them. The perfect host, receiving his guests, charming them, accepting their compliments on the exquisite taste of Carlton House and implying that all his effort in gathering together these artistic treasures was not in vain since it gave them such pleasure. She would never be like him, she thought wistfully.

The Duchess of Oldenburg was present. The Regent could not exclude her as he would have liked to do; and since the Tsar had arrived it was necessary for him to be constantly in her company for where her brother went so did she.

The Duchess approached Charlotte with a handsome man beside her. Not very young, this one, thought Charlotte. In his thirties perhaps. Not as handsome as Leopold, but far more worldly. Not the sort of young man who would run to her father if she gave him an invitation.

‘Dearest Charlotte, may I present Prince Augustus of Prussia to you.’

His bow was eloquent but not more so than his expression. He was quite clearly charmed by the vision in silver tissue and feathers.

‘F has seen you on several occasions, haven’t you, F? He’s really Friedrich, Wilhelm, Heinrich, Augustus – but F to me. Ever since, he’s been badgering me to present him to you.’

F! thought Charlotte. What delightful familiarity.

‘Well,’ said Charlotte awkwardly, ‘and now you have.’

‘It is an ambition realized,’ said F.

‘I am sure it does not stop there,’ laughed the Duchess. ‘I do believe you will find this young man a most entertaining creature, as I do.’

‘I shall hope to do so,’ said Charlotte.

‘You might begin by allowing him to dance with you.’

With that he took Charlotte’s hand and bowing to the Duchess – and somehow he managed to convey a great deal of gratitude in that bow – he led Charlotte away.

It was bold, of course. She looked anxiously towards the mass of people who were circulating about her father. He was hidden from view and since she could not see him presumably he could not see her.

They danced. F performed with grace and led her through the steps so that she felt she had never danced so well. He treated her as though she were a desirable woman rather than a princess on whom it was a duty to dance attendance. He reminded her of Captain Hesse and in a sudden panic she remembered that those letters were still unreturned … but she refused to spoil an occasion like this by thinking of them.

He told her that his father was Prince Augustus of Prussia and that he had fought against Napoleon and had been taken prisoner.

Was he married? Should she be presented to his wife?

He had no wife in actual fact, although he had been married de la main gauche as the saying went.

Charlotte’s eyes were wide; she giggled with mingled pleasure and confusion. No man had ever spoken to her in this way before.

‘For a man of my age and experience,’ he said, ‘you must admit that it would be surprising if it were not the case.’

Charlotte supposed it was and believed that if her father could hear this conversation he would be far more perturbed than at the prospect of a visit from Leopold.

But F – she was already thinking of him as that – would be the last man to run away for fear of her father’s wrath; she had a notion that he might be attracted by it.

He told her about his adventures in the Army and his conversation was racy and amusing. She was very sorry when it was necessary to do her duty to others of her father’s guests, but she found an opportunity to talk to F again.