Fortune's Son (30 page)

Lady Messingham never made it to Leicester House. Instead she thoughtfully composed a most humble and diffident letter to the princess, regretfully declining the position and expressing her heartfelt condolences for the prince's passing.

Although shadows clung to her eyes, she couldn't sleep. In helpless agitation, she tossed and turned, overcome by restless nerves. She barely ate, her appetite having waned to nothing between bouts of nausea.

While Philip's actions had injured her to the very quick, she still couldn't bear the thought of his imprisonment for what was only the thoughtless act of a man in desperate straits.

If only he could have had access to the trust, none of this would have happened. If only there was a way… But no heir, no trust. It always came back to what she could never give him—the heir, a legitimate male heir.

In her wistfulness, she could almost feel spasms in her empty womb. She unconsciously laid her hand upon her abdomen, only to be struck by the unthinkable. How long had it been since her last courses? Three months? More?

Given her age, she had paid little heed to the recent unpredictability of her cycle, but now she considered the undeniable signs; the tenderness and recent swelling of her breasts, the cramping in her lower belly, the lethargy and frequent bouts of vomiting. No. She must be deluding herself to think such a thing of a woman of forty.

Nevertheless, though her brain denied the possibility her heart secretly harbored hope, and as the days passed that hope sprouted and bloomed into conviction. Now, with much more to consider than just her injured pride, she deliberated her next move.

If only she was more knowledgeable of legal proceedings or had connections with the higher courts, but most of Nigel's former cronies had long passed on. She racked her brain for anyone in either the judicial or political spheres who might look upon her with a modicum of favor, anyone she might enlist to help Philip. One such name came to mind.

Taking to her desk, she feverishly wrote, grasping desperately at that solitary straw.

***

The slender gentleman with arresting blue eyes entered her salon with an elegant bow. When she extended her hand, he raised it, kissing the air inches above her fingers. “My lady, I am truly your humble and obedient servant.”

“Mr. Pitt,” she said with her most disarming smile, “I cannot express my gratitude. I thought you might not remember me, given the brevity of our erstwhile acquaintance.”

“On the contrary.” He smiled. “You are a woman not easily forgotten. As I recall, it was only your timely and tactful intervention that saved a certain political dinner years ago. It's not often one meets a stateswoman of your caliber, let alone such a handsome one.”

She laughed with true delight. “You are too kind, and soon to be disillusioned regarding my virtues. You will think me bold and importunate when you hear my purpose.”

“Will I indeed?” he asked. “Perhaps you should let me be the judge?”

“Then pray take a dish of Hyson with me?” She rang for the tea cart, and then gestured for him to sit beside her on the settle.

“I confess I was mystified by your entreaty after all this time.”

She appealed to him with a modestly averted gaze. “I find myself in rather dire straits, sir. And as a woman, I have few resources to call upon at such a time.”

“Yet you thought of me? I am charmed to have entered your thoughts at all, but this begs another question altogether, if you will pardon my impertinence. Are you not under another gentleman's… protection?”

“I was,” she answered vaguely. “Do you recall Philip, Lord Hastings?”

“Only remotely. Am I to presume he is…?”

“He was much more than that, sir.” She turned her head with a sniff.

Mr. Pitt produced his handkerchief. “But no more? Is this the source of your distress?” He looked perplexed. “Is the gentleman disobliging to you?”

“Not at all, sir. It is actually on his behalf that I act.”

“He has not proven worthy of you, and no man is worth your tears,” he said quietly.

She looked up into the vibrant blue of his gaze, taken aback at what she suddenly perceived. “Whatever do you mean, Mr. Pitt?”

“You may think me rash, but I am a politician, dear madam. In my vocation, a man must recognize and grasp advantage whenever it presents.”

Her eyes grew wider with every word.

“I made mention of our first meeting, Lady Messingham, one in which you made an impression I have never forgotten. While at that time I was in no position to think of anything beyond my career, many things since have changed. I am now a man of three-and-forty, and an established politician. I maintain a seat in the House of Commons, the appointment of Paymaster-General, as well a position on the king's Privy Council. I have reasonable expectation of further promotion within the Ministry. As to my pecuniary state, you may have heard of a certain bequest from the late Duchess of Marlborough?”

“Indeed, sir. It is said she so admired your actions for the opposition in Parliament that she left you a considerable fortune.”

“Ten thousand pounds, madam. Though it may have been as much an act of animadversion against Minister Walpole as approbation for me. Nevertheless, the gift has ensured my ability to provide reasonable comfort and security.”

Her delicate brows drew together. “Why do you tell me this?”

He reached for her hand. “You and I are no longer young and naïve, but have both tasted the fruits of the world—the bitter and the sweet. As I stated, perceiving opportunity in plain sight, I am moved to act.”

She snatched her hand away, the color high in her cheeks. “I have been one man's mistress. I do not seek another such post.”

“My dear, dear lady! You assuredly misapprehend my purpose. I am proposing a partnership of like minds and abilities. I am asking that you consider my suit to become my wife.”

Stunned by his declaration, she opened and closed her mouth soundlessly. When she replied her voice was a breathless whisper. “Mr. Pitt, you know so little of me…”

“What I do know sufficiently compelled me to speak.”

“Then there is something I must tell you, something that will surely make you wish you had not declared yourself.” She averted her face. “I believe I am carrying his child.”

Silence stretched awkwardly between them.

“Does he know this?” he asked.

“No.”

“Does anyone?”

“Not yet. I have not been certain myself and have not dared confess it aloud until this very moment.”

“He will not wed you?” Mr. Pitt asked.

“He cannot. He is both imprisoned and still legally bound to another. So you see my predicament? If he is not freed in both events, I will be forced to pay the consequences, shunned from polite society with my bastard child.”

Mr. Pitt once more offered his handkerchief, and this time she accepted.

“'Tis the reason I wrote you, sir, to enlist your aid. You have influence with the very men who could make his release possible. He has committed no crime. Privilege should have protected him from this wretched indignity! I humbly entreat you to exert your powers of persuasion to secure his freedom.”

He knelt by her side as she dabbed her eyes. “My lady, your distress wounds me, but you may be overestimating my power of persuasion.”

“Am I?” She looked up plaintively. “Somehow I doubt that, Mr. Pitt.”

Their gazes locked for a brief, intense moment.

“Nevertheless, I have offered an alternative I pray you will consider.”

Her reply was arrested by the arrival of the footman with the tea cart.

“I shan't tarry any longer,” Pitt said.

Her features crumpled when Pitt rose briskly to his feet. Realizing her mistaken impression, he quickly amended, “I depart in haste as I am moved to request a meeting with Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.”

A tremulous smile broke over her face. “I don't know how I can ever thank you.”

He took her hand once more in his, speaking earnestly. “As a man, you would have made a formidable politician… but as a woman,
you
could
yet
be
a matchless mate for one.”

King's Bench Debtors' Prison

“They indeed went the full nineteen miles?” Philip asked.

“I never would have believed it had I not been a witness!” George replied. “I tell you, thousands turned out, lining the course in a frenzy, to see history made.”

“One would expect so, given how long it took him to get around to it,” Philip remarked.

“Ten months,” said George. “According to March, six months just to engineer the contraption and another four spent in trials and training. It was like no driving vehicle you've ever seen, but more like a great long-legged spider on wheels.”

When unveiled, March's racing chaise was indeed remarked upon as an object of singular fascination and universal awe.

“The strangest contraption I ever saw,” George confessed. “Little more than an undercarriage, and the driver perched on nothing more substantial than a leather sling covered in velvet.”

“He said it would be light as a feather when he finished with it,” Philip said.

“They even installed oil tins in the wheel boxes to continuously lubricate the axle tree to prevent it taking fire.”

“I can see how friction might be a concern, considering no vehicle has ever achieved a velocity nearing nineteen miles in an hour.”

George continued his tale, “When I arrived at Newmarket they were mapping out the course with stakes and cord. They began at the Six-mile House, via the Warren and past the Rubbing House, and continued through the Devil's Ditch. In all, a four-mile loop. They had to run it three times and return back to the start, to get the total distance.”

“So he did it? And under an hour's time?”

“In fifty-three minutes twenty-seven seconds!”

“The devil you say!”

“'Pon my word, Drake! But he never could have done it without Roderick Random, and he was infernally lucky to have had your Little Dan waiting in the wings. Thirty minutes prior to start, March's head groom appears in a state of agitation. ‘My Lord March,' he says. ‘There be sommat amiss w' Peeper. 'E come up sudden lame this morning.'

“‘Hang you!' says March. ‘Why wasn't I advised sooner? Get me another horse!' March then asks which ones are ready to run. The groom says Jack Slack and Little Dan were both ready to harness. Recalling what you've said of the horse, I suggested Little Dan.”

“An intrepid little fellow with endless bottom,” Philip said.

“Precisely what I conveyed to March, who commanded Little Dan be harnessed as the off-wheeler, and telling the groom to ‘look smart about it!' Tugging a forelock, the groom dashes off to the rubbing house.

“At precisely seven o'clock comes Mr. Tuting, the ‘course clearer,' fabulously well-mounted and garbed in crimson velvet like some self-proclaimed king of the turf. The chaise followed, pulled by the most impressive parade of racehorses in harness you've ever seen.”

“I've never seen
any
racehorses in harness before.”

“Beside the point!” George said. “The lot of 'em were jockeyed by postillions in matching blue satin waistcoats, buckskin breeches, white silk stockings, and black velvet caps.”

“Blue and white? The Hastings racing colors, a nice touch,” Philip remarked.

“The team was escorted on either side by the head grooms, but the horses were nervous. Jostling one another and pulling in their traces, they set the flimsy chaise to shake and rattle, and the odds to shift in one more last-minute wagering frenzy.

“With their ears pricked and nostrils flared in anticipation, they danced and jigged their way to the start, while the three umpires calibrated their watches and positioned themselves along the course. The umpires looked up at March, who gives the nod.

“The flag dropped, and the horses bolted! Taking off at a frenzied pace, the whole herd of 'em tore over the track, wild-eyed and wide-open, as if chased by some equine-savaging monster! As the postillions fought for control, the contraption followed on their frantic heels, bucking and swaying with its passenger holding on for dear life. The wheels veered on and off the course, smashing stakes and hitting ruts along the way.

“March was pacing to and fro, cursing like a sailor and shouting to the grooms. ‘Get hold of them, damn you! Before the bloody thing is rent to pieces!'

“Taafe calls out a new wager of one hundred guineas that the chaise won't make the first four miles, while Lord Portmore counters at two hundred that the horses will become entangled in their harness well before hand.

“I'd placed a hundred pounds on March and stayed the course with trepidation, while others continued to lay odds against his success. Miraculously, the chaise survived the first circuit fully intact, and by the second loop the horses were well in hand, with the vehicle traveling brisk and smooth behind. March consults his timepiece and declares the first four miles in less than nine minutes!

“After the first runaway miles, the pace slackened but March's racing vehicle indeed accomplished the impossible, upsetting the odds to win with six minutes thirty-three seconds to spare! They say two hundred thousand pounds exchanged hands on that wager, Drake!”

“Incredible, Bosky,” Philip remarked. “Damn it all to hell that I couldn't have seen it.”

“If it's any consolation, you came away with two thousand pounds! Surely more than enough to grease every palm needed to move your case along in the Chancery Court.”

“So again, I sit and wait.”

“I fear it's all you can do.”

“But what of Sukey, George? You have not spoken of her. Have you seen her?”

“She is well enough,” George answered evasively.

“Then you
have
seen her,” Philip pressed.

“Aye,” George sighed.

“And?”

“'Tis the very last thing you'll want to hear.”

“What is it?” Philip demanded.

“I suppose you'd rather it come from me than from the infernal broadsheets.” He took a breath, adding in a rush, “There's talk she entertains a marriage proposal.”

“What! To whom? Who the blazes would be my rival? Tell me, George!”

“The Right Honorable William Pitt.”

“That wooden windbag? She can't love him!”

“I'm sorry, old friend, but women are a fickle and faithless lot.” George's attempt to soften the blow only further fed the flames of rage. Philip slammed his fist on the table. When that act failed to sufficiently vent his spleen, he upturned and smashed it against the stone wall.

“Damn her. And damn me to bloody hell!”