He would always think of her as his wife.
Oh, damn these debts. Damn cruel necessity which snatched Maria from him and gave him in her place a German Frau. Yet it was Lady Jersey who had driven him from Maria.
But it was not serious, he told himself. I never meant it seriously. It was Maria who had taken it so. But the Duke of York had comforted him considerably.
His betrothed was not a monster, it seemed; she was not hideous like poor Fred’s wife; she was not marked by the pox like that arrogant creature; and she would not bring an army of animals to perform their disgusting functions on the gilded couches of Carlton House.
Frederick, seeing that his mission had been accomplished and that he had succeeded in bringing some relief to his brother, took his departure.
The Prince sought further comfort from Lady Jersey, but he did not find it.
How different, he was thinking, it would have been with Maria.
Frances was beautiful, there was no doubt of that. She was small, slim almost to girlishness and he was fond of fleshy women; but she was widely experienced for she was nine years older than he was and in that respect she resembled the type he favoured. Maria was six years older; he always found women older than himself so comforting. Not that there was much comfort in Frances, though she was exciting; and he was just a little afraid of her. The softness of Maria was lacking; so was the deep affection Maria had always had for him. But he had said goodbye to Maria and was now devoting himself to Frances.
Frances was a sensual woman; physically she excited him; she always made him feel uncertain; that was her forte. He always believed that she could provide greater satisfaction than any woman ever had before; and her strength was that while she did not, the promise of future eroticism remained.
That was what had attracted him and lured him from comfortable, deeply loving almost motherly Maria. And even as his heart called out for Maria he could not go and beg her to return to him because Frances Jersey stood there between them mocking, sensually alluring and, he feared, irresistible.
She did not try to placate him as so many women did. Now she said to him: ‘I cannot understand why you are so glum. You have nothing to lose by the marriage— and everything to gain.’
‘You are forgetting what marriage may entail.’
Frances laughed aloud. ‘Dearest Highness, I have a husband, as you know. A very complacent husband at this time who is always eager to serve his Prince so we need not concern ourselves with him. I have had two sons and seven daughters. I am even a grandmother. I confess I am a very young grandmother.
But you cannot say that a life so worthily spent in replenishing the earth could possibly be without experience of what marriage entails.’
‘But I am to marry a German woman— I confess I don’t like the Germans.’
‘I obviously cannot share your Highness’s aversion, for someone for whom I entertain the most tender passions has descended from that race.’
‘Germans!’ went on the Prince. ‘My father married one. And consider her.’
‘I have always found Her Majesty most gracious.’
Frances chuckled inwardly. How amusing Prim and proper Charlotte actually approved of her son’s relationship with his mistress.
In fact Frances had received instructions from Lady Harcourt. She was to lure the Prince from Fitzherbert, for only then would he consider marriage— and was high time he was married, he had to provide that heir to the throne, for his brothers were proving themselves strangely backward in doing so.
The Duke of York, estranged from his Duchess, was clearly not going to be of any use. William, Duke of Clarence, the next son, had set up house most respectably— at least as respectably as such arrangements could be— with that enchanting actress Dorothy Jordan but naturally there was nothing to hope from there. Another brother Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, had just emerged from a big scandal, for he had married secretly in defiance of the Marriage Act which decreed that no member of the royal family could marry without the consent of the King until he reached the age of twenty-five (Augustus Frederick had been twenty), and the marriage had been null and void even though the lady in his adventures was about to give birth and was of noble lineage, being the daughter of the Earl of Dunmore and claiming royal blood from her ancestors.
No, there was no hope from his brothers so clearly it was the duty of the Prince of Wales to provide heirs to the throne.
The Queen had known this could not be done while the Prince adhered to Mrs. Fitzherbert; so the relationship had to be broken. Since Frances had a good chance of doing that, the Queen gave her approval to Frances’ activities.
Which showed, thought Frances cynically, how morals could be cast aside for the sake of the State— even by the most virtuous of ladies.
But Madam Charlotte would be very angry with her dear little spy Frances Jersey did she but know how Frances had persuaded him to take this Brunswick woman rather than the Queen’s own candidate from Mecklenburg-Strehtz. For the Queen had a niece from her native land, and how she would have liked to see that young woman Princess of Wales!
Alas, she was charming; she was exceedingly pretty; and she was intelligent, so Frances had heard; and if Frances was going to retain her power over the Prince— which she had every intention of doing— she naturally did not wish him to be provided with a charming and pretty wife.
So the Brunswick offering was Frances’s choice. She had heard that the creature was gauche, wild and, most heinous sin in the eyes of the Prince— not very clean in her habits, washed infrequently, hardly ever bathed and rarely changed her linen. Frances intended that the Prince should be disgusted with his bride, spend enough time with her to provide the heir, and for the rest find his pleasure and recreation in the arms of Lady Jersey, for Lady Jersey loved power and next to power, she loved worldly goods. The mistress of the Prince of Wales, if she were clever, could receive these in plenty; and no one— least of all herself — would deny the fact that Lady Jersey was a clever woman.
The Queen would never know that she had influenced him to take the Brunswicker. Poor Charlotte thought this was just another example of her son’s determination to plague her. Silly Charlotte! thought Lady Jersey, to imagine that she would work for her. Frances never worked for anyone but herself.
‘Now,’ said the Prince, ‘we shall have two German fraus at Court. I think that is two too many.’
‘If you had taken the Queen’s choice, it would have been exactly the same.
And Frederick gave a good account of the woman, I believe.’
‘I wonder whether he was trying to comfort me.’
‘I hope so. It is the duty of us all to do so.’
‘Oh, Frances, I dread this marriage.’
‘Stop thinking of it then. There are more pleasant subjects, you know.’
She was giving him one of those oblique looks of hers, and he was beginning to feel the excitement which had led him to desert Maria ‘Why should you worry?’ Her voice had taken on that deep husky note full of suggestions which he always hoped to understand. ‘I shall be there,’ she added, ‘to take care of you.’ And she thought: And of our little Brunswicker! But the Prince was completely under the spell of Frances Jersey and was, if only temporarily, able to banish the thought of the marriage from his mind.
Which was exactly what he wished to do.
Maria Fitzherbert had arrived back from the Continent with her friend and companion, Miss Pigot, who lived with her and shared all her triumphs and misfortunes. There was no comfort to be found abroad, Maria had decided‚ and so she might as well return to England. She had no desire to take up residence in her house in Pail Mall (which the Prince had given her) nor in her house at Brighton.