Belami’s memory of the lady was more recent. She was a tall, portly dame with a hooked nose and an overly elaborate manner of dressing. Gossip had it the prince had actually married her, but he later denied it. A twice-widowed Roman Catholic of undistinguished birth, she was quickly sloughed off when his official wedding was performed.
“I’ve heard her cried up as a great beauty,” Belami said vaguely.
“And a good woman, Belami. A good woman. She is my wife, you know,” he added with a sudden change of intonation. He looked sharp now, alert, ready to defend this outrageous statement with all the royal prerogative at his command.
Belami was too astonished to reply. The whole world knew his wife was Princess Caroline of Brunswick. “Oh” was the only sound to come from his lips.
“You are surprised,” the prince said, in perhaps one of the understatements of the year. “Definitely, Maria is my true wife. Oh, they foisted that German princess on me when I was too young to stand up for my rights. There was coercion brought to bear, Belami. I was in debt at the time, due to the miserly bit of an allowance I was allowed. Yes, Maria Fitzherbert and I were married by the Reverend R. Burt, an Anglican curate, on December 15, 1785. The happiest day of my life,” he said simply.
“Where did this take place?” was the only question that occurred to Belami.
“It was in Maria’s drawing room. Certainly the marriage is valid,” he answered confidently.
“But she’s a Roman Catholic,” Belami reminded him. “According to the Act of Settlement, you and your heirs would forfeit the right to succession if you married a Roman Catholic.”
“Some things in life mean more than a crown,” the prince said calmly, though his next speech showed he had no intention of giving up his much-maligned crown. “Actually, there exists some doubt in
my
mind that Maria remains a Catholic after being married in front of an Anglican minister. It is possible she became a
de facto
non-Catholic when she married me, in which case the Act of Settlement would be irrelevant.”
“There’s still the Royal Marriage Act,” Belami reminded him. “You were under twenty-five at the time and hadn’t the consent of the king. Without that consent, no legal marriage was possible.”
“My dear father is, unfortunately, so confused in his mind that he no doubt has only the vaguest memory of those days, if he has any memory at all,” the prince answered with a very sly smile. Was he planning to claim a spoken agreement by the king?
“Surely the consent must be formal and written,” Belami said, but he had, in fact, no idea if this was the case.
“We are wallowing in details,” the prince said impatiently. “The fact is, Maria and I married in good faith before God and the wedding is morally valid and binding. Are we to put man’s laws before God’s? These ‘acts’ can be managed as King Henry VIII was obliged to do. Not that I mean to say I want a divorce. Nothing could be further from my mind. I want only the right to call my true wife my wife,” he said with a noble attitude.
“What about Princess Caroline?” Belami inquired, carefully avoiding the words “your real wife.”
The prince lifted his hands and hunched his shoulders.
“That is another detail to be worked out. Some honorary title and a settlement must be made.”
“What has brought you to this decision?” Belami asked, guessing he had only seen the tip of the iceberg.
“It is not for myself,” the prince assured him. “No, it is for England and for my son.”
“But you don’t have a son; you have a daughter,” Belami said, almost beyond rational thought. He felt as if he had fallen into a nightmare.
“I do have a son, Belami!” the prince declared, wearing the reckless smile of a gambler. “I have, and I have found him. Maria had him shipped off to America, never telling me of his existence, the naughty girl. You must know there were periods of regrettable disagreement in our marriage. For long periods I didn’t see Maria, and it was during one of these that our son was born and shipped off to America.”
Belami held his face under tight control. One did not laugh or scream at a prince. “What is your son’s name?” he asked, but he already had a good notion of the reply.
“He goes by the name of Mr. Smythe—George Smythe. You understand the significance of this?” he asked, staring hard at Belami.
“Is it that George is your own name?” Belami asked in confusion.
“Just so, and Maria’s maiden name was Smythe. Fitzherbert was her second husband’s name. It proves, in my mind, that George Smythe is my son. But you must see him and judge for yourself. He has Maria’s eyes, I think, with something of his father’s hair and physique.”
Belami heard a strange ringing in his ears. Had poor old Prinney finally gone completely mad like his father? What could be in his head to be rooting about in the past, unearthing such mischief? What did he plan to do with his real wife, the king’s cousin, and with his daughter, Princess Charlotte, the most popular woman in the kingdom? Did he actually think his subjects would sit still to see her consigned to illegitimacy?
“I speak of my youthful physique, of course,” the prince was saying when the ringing in Belami’s ears stopped.
“Is he here now?” Belami asked.
“Ah, no, McMahon and some of my advisers thought it wiser to leave him in Brighton till I get these few details ironed out.” Ridding himself of a wife and daughter and repealing two acts of Parliament were sunk to “details.” Certainly the man was mad.
“Might I see Mr. Smythe when I go to Brighton to take care of the other business?” Belami asked. He was eager to get away now and talk to Colonel McMahon.
“I hope you will look him up. He isn’t well connected with the right sort of chaps because of being raised in America. I would take it as a personal favor if you would befriend George. Show him his way around society. You will be a very proper model for him, Belami. We admire your style,” the prince said with a smile and a bow of his head.
“I’m eager to meet him.”
“It will be best if you not tell him you act on my request. He will be more at ease if he thinks you just a friend and not an emissary.”
“Yes, that might be best,” Belami agreed. “I’ll go and find Colonel McMahon now,” he said, then began bowing himself out.
“You’re a fine fellow,” the prince proclaimed, chatting amiably from his chair as Belami inched away. “A dashed well-cut jacket you have got on. We must take George to meet Weston, what?” A glass of wine teetered in his fat pink fingers.
Belami got out the door and closed it behind him. It was not only the infernal heat of the chamber that caused him to wipe a film of perspiration from his brow as he went in search of McMahon.
The colonel was awaiting him around the first corner. “I judge by the blank look on your face that His Highness has let you in on it,” McMahon said in a sardonic way. He was a tall man with a military bearing and a down-to-earth manner.
Belami shook his head, dazed. “Where can we go to talk in private?” he asked.
McMahon led him to his office and poured him a glass of wine. McMahon leaned his shoulders back against his chair and propped his feet up on the desk. “The cat sits poised to swoop amongst the pigeons,” he said in an ominous voice. “You’re an intelligent man, Belami. I’m sure the consequences of such rashness as we anticipate are clear to you. The prince is barely able to hang on to his position by the skin of his teeth as it is. If he takes it into his head to inflict Mrs. Fitzherbert’s bastard on the populace as their ruler, there will certainly be a revolution.”
“Is it true then? Is Smythe her son?”
McMahon sat silently for a moment. When he spoke, he said, “I don’t honestly know. There’s a superficial resemblance. Fitzherbert could have had a son and had him shipped off to America.”
“Hasn’t anyone asked her?” Belami inquired in astonishment.
“This is entirely a new turn. Smythe only fell into favor during the New Year’s festivities at Brighton. The prince has written to Mrs. Fitzherbert, but she hasn’t answered his letters in years. She sends them back unopened. Actually, she wouldn’t have received the latest yet. It was sent to London from Brighton, and when we arrived here we learned that she had gone out of town for the holiday. She had her house closed up. We haven’t been able to find out where she has gone. She lives quite out of society nowadays. But it makes little difference whether Smythe is her son or not. He’s illegitimate in any case.”
“True, but if he’s not even her son, it will be easier to turn the prince away from this folly,” Belami pointed out. “It sounds like a ruse to me.”
“If you’re fingering Smythe as a rogue, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. He was more surprised than any of us. He makes no claim to being of royal blood. It’s all Prinney’s idea.”
“Does he not have a set of parents?”
“No such luck. He’s an orphan. A nice, simple lad, good-natured. It’s the coincidence of his name being George Augustus Smythe that did the damage—along with a certain physical resemblance.”
“Half the male population of England bears the name of the royal princes. That’s pretty flimsy,” Belami said doubtfully.
“Their last name isn’t Smythe,” McMahon pointed out. “I feel partly responsible myself. I am the one who brought them together, quite by chance.”
“How did you happen to meet Smythe?” Belami asked with quick interest.
“He came to England last autumn, hung around London for a while, then went to Brighton, probably because living was cheap off season. He met an old army acquaintance of mine at the Old Ship Hotel, where Smythe is staying. They played cards there at night. I dropped in and invited the army man—Captain Stack is his name—to the Pavilion to join us for faro there. Just as an afterthought I asked young Smythe to join us. Company was thin at the time and Prinney likes to see a new face. I could see right away that Smythe was a success. It seemed harmless, another friend of the Beau Brummell sort, I thought. Smythe was invited back again and again, each time the party shrinking in size, till, the last night before we left, it was only Prinney and Smythe. It was after that meeting that we were hit with this misbegotten theory. I dragged the prince back to London at once, hoping the thing would die a natural death, but it’s taken such a hold on his imagination that it’s become an obsession.”
“It’s a pity,” Belami said, shaking his head.
“Yes, but a perfectly understandable one. The people hate the prince. He’s hissed and jeered at when he goes about in public. His wife has left him to traipse through Europe with a ragtag and bobtail caravan of foreign ruffians, and his daughter seems unable to produce an heir. She’s miscarried twice since her marriage. The prince is ill and worries about the succession. Securing that would bolster his popularity. He longs for a stout-bodied son to carry on and has convinced himself he’s found one,” he explained.
“How did he convince himself the son is legitimate?”
“Power and folly are old friends. We’re all quoting Benjamin Franklin these days. He’s Mr. Smythe’s favorite author, you know. The prince did undergo some sort of wedding ceremony with Mrs. Fitzherbert. He knows in his mind the marriage is invalid.”
“He’s beginning to worm his way around the various acts of Parliament that forbid it. He’ll never convince Parliament, but if he convinces himself, he’ll be hard to hold back,” Belami said, frowning into his glass.
“He’s convinced himself, all right. He forgets the divine right of kings is history. He believes that if he brings Smythe forward and the lad becomes incredibly popular, Parliament will go along with him to avoid an uprising. If Fitzherbert doesn’t deny it and claims herself a non-Catholic, he might just pull it off. And furthermore, she just might abet him. She’s ambitious,” McMahon said, shaking his head.
“We don’t even know if he is Fitzherbert’s son. If she’s as ambitious as you think, she wouldn’t have sent him off into anonymity all those years ago,” Belami pointed out.
“They had tiffs, then would get together again. She might have feared a son would prevent a reconciliation,” McMahon said thoughtfully.
“The likeliest spoke to stick in the wheel is to find out who Smythe is, and I mean to tackle it,” Belami said with an air of resolution.
“You’re welcome to it, but it won’t be easy to trace down a twenty-five-year-old orphan from America. This is really why I urged the prince to call you in, Belami. Lady Gilham was only a pretext to get you off to Brighton without alerting the prince that you were involving yourself in his affairs, the Smythe affair, I mean.
“I confess it’s the Smythe affair that interests me more,” Belami replied with a smile.
“It’s extremely urgent. Prinney is champing at the bit to bring his son forward. I’d say you have about a week before all hell breaks loose.”
“Then I’d better get to Brighton,” Belami said and arose. “Ah... Lady Gilham’s address and the money to buy her silence. What’s the real story on her?” he asked with mild interest.
“Nothing very interesting there. She’s just a clever, pretty hussy who set her cap at Prinney and managed to attract his interest for a few weeks.”
“Does she, ah,
pass
for a woman of virtue or is she the other sort?”
“She passes for respectable in Brighton. Pure as the driven snow to hear her tell it, but I believe the snow has a few paw marks in it. She was cunning enough to get him to write her billets-doux and knew enough to hang on to them. It shouldn’t be necessary to pay her sort anything, but the mood the papers are in, it might be best to keep her quiet if we can,” McMahon replied.
He drew open a drawer and handed Belami a bag of gold coins. “There’s something in there to cover your expenses as well. His Highness won’t be ungenerous in his non-monetary rewards,” he added vaguely. He was hinting at some court sinecure, Belami supposed, but didn’t press the matter.
“As to the more important affair, Belami, I don’t know if you are an ambitious man, but the government would be extremely grateful if you could circumvent a new scandal. You could name your own price if you bring off this one. Lord chamberlain, an earldom, relatives on the Civil List— anything within reason.”