Shall We Dance? (33 page)

“I
can't
leave her, Perry. That doesn't mean I condone what she's doing now. But, please, I want to talk to you about this absurd dancing party. Mrs. Bateman is delighted, but even Georgiana wishes there wasn't going to be such a fuss.” Amelia cocked her head as she looked at Perry. “Nate tells me you don't dance. Is that true? Don't you know how?”

“Yes, that's it, I don't know how,” Perry said, pulling a face at her. “It's one of my great regrets. Of course I know how. I simply don't, that's all.”

“Because it lends you some sort of cachet? Makes you seem more mysterious and unattainable to the ladies?”

Perry collapsed against the pillows once more. “Poodle Byng and his dogs. Brummell and his neck cloths. Byron and his famous sulks. Sherwood refusing to
dance. It seemed a harmless enough prank to tweak Society when I began it…” he muttered, frowning.

“Yes, many things do. You and Her Majesty might wish to someday have a small talk about the folly of decisions that could, in time, prove difficult. But, please, go on. Is that really why you don't dance? In order to titillate the ladies?”

“Consider me as being thoroughly abashed and ashamed,” he said, then grinned at her. “I warned you, pet, from the beginning. I was, until meeting you and realizing the total folly of my existence, a wretched, shallow and entirely worthless individual.”

“And incorrigible,” she told him. “You forgot incorrigible. Will you dance with me?”

“We'd turn the whole social world on its head if I do, pet, much as that makes me immodest by saying so. And, yes, I would be delighted to dance with you. I'll dance with you now, if you wish.”

“Oh, don't be silly. You would not.”

Perry leaned in against her neck and whispered, “There are many ways to dance, sweet Amelia…”

 

“A
ND THEN
, after Nate sings, the queen has said we shall dance,” Georgiana told her mother as the two walked through the large, now empty room in the mansion in Hammersmith. “We've been practicing the waltz, but poor Nate is dreading taking the floor when it's just the two of us.”

Mrs. Bateman, still wearing the rather dazed expression that had been her only expression for weeks now,
simply nodded, then wandered off when Mrs. Pidgeon stood in the doorway, her hands folded in front of her, and politely
harrumphed
her presence.

“Yes, Mrs. Pidgeon?” Georgiana asked, approaching the woman, whose curtsy was less than that of a menial, not that Georgiana could know that, as she'd rarely been curtsied to in the past. “I'm sure Miss Fredericks and the queen will be returning from the city in an hour or so. Is there something you need?”

“No, miss. But I was wondering…exactly where will the queen be seated during the entertainments?”

“Oh! You know, I don't really know. I'd ask Miss Fredericks, but they've all been so busy, what with the trial. What do you suggest?”

“Well, miss, I should think we might arrange suitable seating over there, in front of the draperies that so cleverly hide the door leading to the serving area. For Her Majesty and Miss Fredericks and the most important guests, such as your mother, Miss Penrose. That way the servants can, er, nip in and out without being seen, then first serve anything to Her Majesty that she may desire.”

Georgiana looked at the two-story-high wall of rose-colored velvet draperies, already knowing that there was about ten feet of space behind them, as well as several doors. She imagined a row of chairs in front of the draperies and thought it a rather dull arrangement. But then, as long as she was free to move about with Nate, did it really matter? “I suppose that would be most convenient. Thank you, Mrs. Pidgeon.”

The woman curtsied again. “Oh, no, Miss, thank
you.
”

 

“I
WILL THANK YOU
not to read any more of that to me, Nevvie. I was there, you know,” Sir Willard said as Perry paced the carpet of his private study, reading aloud the events of the previous day's testimony at Westminster. Sir Willard rarely visited, but he had shown up unannounced only a few minutes earlier.

“Oh, but Uncle, surely we can not hear too often about the damning evidence. I particularly liked the way it was pointed out by one of your fellow shocked and horrified Tories that the supposed wine receptacle found in Her Majesty's coach—with particular mention to the dried bits crusted to its inside bottom—has an opening of the exact same dimensions as the man's own private receptacle in
his
traveling coach. Thus, of course, proving that Pergami used the one put in evidence as a urine receptacle, and in sight of the queen.”

“It was an embarrassing few minutes, yes, as you well know,” Sir Willard agreed, sipping his port.

“Not half as embarrassing as conjuring up images of you all racing to your coaches in order to measure openings on traveling chamber pots. And all the time, there sits the queen, her feet perched on the footstool so graciously provided to her while this gravid, portentous evidence is submitted. I tell you, Uncle, the mind boggles.”

“Yes, and the stomach turns in revolt. Why do you think I'm not there today? I had to plead illness to be excused, but I could not abide more of this nonsense about stains on bedclothes and reports that a carriage
door was opened only to discover the queen with her hand down Pergami's smallclothes.”

“And his hand on a nefarious mission of its own. Yes, I had all of that yesterday, while I was in attendance, which is why I, too, cried illness today so that I didn't have to hear more. It would appear half of the House of Lords has all come down with the same mysterious ailment.”

“Who wouldn't be sick, being forced to listen to such nonsense?”

“But we've heard from over thirty Italian servants now, and they've all been discredited. Brougham and the queen's solicitor haven't even mounted their defense yet, and it's obvious the king has lost. How does it look, Uncle, seeing you, such a staunch Tory, leave just as the king's ship begins to sink?”

“Yes, yes, now I'm a rat, deserting the royal sinking ship while proceedings adjourn later today for a few weeks to allow Brougham time to mount a defense. Not that he has to bother. I hear you, Perry. Now, do you want to know why I'm here, or are you so glued to that newspaper that I shall simply take myself off again?”

Perry threw down the newspaper. “In truth, Uncle, I'm delaying the inevitable, coward that I am. May I assume you've heard from the archivist?”

“You may. And I've burned his letter to me and have been thanking God all morning that the fellow is creeping into his eighties and cannot remain aboveground for long. Surely not long enough to wonder overmuch at the reason behind my questions.”

Perry sat down, said nothing.

“Prinney—he was Prinney then, remember—did on three separate occasions visit the then Princess Caroline in Blackheath during the second and third month of the year in question.”

“I see,” Perry said, his rather numb mouth having difficulty forming just those two words.

“Yes, I think we both see. It's possible, Nevvie. But provable? I really don't see how, not if either of them denies it. Even if either of them declares Miss Fredericks to be the rightful heir, that declaration would be impossible to prove unless they both agreed, and Lord knows those two couldn't agree on anything, not even if their very lives depended on that agreement. No, I'm out of it, Nevvie. I never should have been in it, save that Liverpool kept pushing me to find something, and that idiot Nestor fellow had me running about, chasing his pipe dream. My true regret is having involved you, although as usual, you seem to have landed on your feet.”

“So you don't think anything will come of it, one way or the other?” Perry asked, trying not to be too optimistic even as he hoped his uncle was right. “Even if Amelia could be the rightful heir.”

“I could be the King of Spain if my mother had played my father false, what of it?” Sir Willard said, leaning heavily on his cane. “Take the girl and run with her, Nevvie, if that's what you want. Get her away before someone lacking my recently discovered scruples thinks to take a second look at her.”

“And you, Uncle?”

“I told you, I cried off from the circus due to my delicate health. About damn time this gout served me. I'll be leaving for my estate from here, to rethink my life.”

“At your age, Uncle?”

Sir Willard put his hand on Perry's shoulder. “If not now, Nevvie, when? This is going to end badly, you know, with neither the king nor his unwanted queen wholly satisfied. What is transpiring here is ugly and vicious, and this is only the beginning. The man won't be crowned until next June, remember. I want no part of anything else that takes place from now until then.”

 

“G
EORGIE
, I
CAN'T
. I thought I could, when you first told me, but I can't. I won't. I— Did the queen really say she liked my voice? Don't tease, Georgie, that wouldn't be nice.”

Georgiana squeezed Nate's hand. “I'm deadly serious, silly. Amelia tells me that the queen was quite impressed when you sang for her in the garden last week. Not that you knew you were singing for her.”

“I was singing for you, only because you dared me, and only because no one else was there. I
thought
no one else was there,” Nate said, pouting. “That will teach me to show off, most especially here.”

“But you were wonderful,” Georgiana told him, leading him into the now completely decorated ballroom, to be greeted by the smell of all the flowers placed around its perimeter. Nate immediately began to sneeze, loudly and repeatedly. “Oh, you poor dear. It's the flowers, isn't it?”

Nate pulled out a large white linen square and blew his nose. “No, I'm sick, most probably dying. I can't sing tonight, Georgie. Deuced sorry, and all of that, but I just can't.”

“Oh, very well. I can see you're going to make my life a horror, pouting and twisting me around your little finger. Now tell me again how beautiful I look in my new gown. I adore when you lie to me.”

 

“Y
ES
, M
AJESTY
, all is in readiness for this evening,” Esther Pidgeon said, rising from her curtsy to answer the queen's question. “All that awaits is Your Royal Highness's approval.”

The queen signaled for Nestor to assist her to her feet, and chairs all around the long table were scraped back as everyone else hastened to rise.

Georgiana's parents, struck nearly dumb throughout the entire dinner due to their awe of Her Majesty, stood huddled together, Mrs. Bateman alternately gaping and giggling.

Nate and Georgiana, lost in each other as usual, wandered off in quite the opposite direction, leaving Perry to watch as Amelia hastened to her queen's side, surreptitiously flicking at the crumbs that littered Her Majesty's broad expanse of bare bosom above the most outlandish gown it had ever been Perry's misfortune to see.

“I suppose no one could dissuade her from wearing that?” Henry Brougham said as he stood beside Perry. “I'd heard of it, of course. She wore it several times in
Italy. Nothing quite so off-putting, is there, Brentwood, than the sight of an old woman's knees.”

Perry, long past any surprise at his sympathy for the queen, answered through clenched teeth. “It was, as I recall, your idea to strut the poor creature about like some prize hen. I believe you have a lot to answer for in this entire debacle.”

“And what do you know of politics, sir? I should keep to my tailor and my horseflesh, were I you.” Brougham drew himself up smartly, turned and, along with his brother, followed after the queen.

Perry winked at Clive, who was making himself as obvious as possible in trying to remain unnoticed. “You see, Clive? Nobody takes me in the least seriously. It's a curse of my extraordinary good taste and, I say with all modesty, my exemplary good looks.”

“A curse for them, most like, what don't take the time to get ta know yer for the slippery piece o'goods yer are,” Clive said, winking.

“Thank you, Clive, I'll take that as a compliment.”

“Take it any which way you like, sir. There's somethin' I think I should be tellin' yer, sir. Not that we wanted to bother yer overmuch, seein' as how yer've been busy sniffin' around—that is, courtin' Miss Fredericks and watchin' the queen and all.”

Amelia had lingered in the dining room, allowing the queen's attendants—Lord, but they seemed to increase in number every day—to escort her to the ballroom. She turned and smiled at Perry. “Yes, yes, tomorrow, Clive. Now, if you'll excuse me?”

“Yes, sir,” Clive said, shaking his head. “Not like yer was goin' to listen with more'n half an ear anyways.”

Perry smiled at Amelia as he offered her his arm and they began the walk to the ballroom. “I've missed you these past two hours. When we're married, pet, we will not sit at opposite ends of the table.”

Amelia's smile was faintly wicked, and he silently marveled at how beautiful she was to him. Had he ever thought her ordinary?

“Really, My Lord? And where will we sit?”

Perry pretended to consider the question. “I believe, if you don't mind, you shall sit on my lap and I will feed you grapes.”

“Grapes, of course. Peeled grapes. And soup, dearest. How will you manage that?”

“I won't. We'll foreswear soup and live on grapes. Peeled, of course.”

Amelia laughed. “Oh, thank you. I think I need some silliness. It's good to have these first weeks of testimony behind us, although being seated beside Henry Brougham is a constant reminder that when the Lords reconvene, everything will turn nasty again.”

“Yes, I was sorry to see where he was seated. Has he no other dinner conversation?”