The Prince and the Quakeress - Plaidy Jean (читать книги онлайн бесплатно регистрация TXT) 📗

She was watching him obliquely.

‘I believe that your lordship will wish to help me in this little matter of the Prince’s entertainment. I know how fond you are of the Prince...and the Princess. And His Majesty is so difficult. Oh, not with me...in fact, the old gentleman is rather fond of me...If His Majesty heard certain facts…on which he could rely...Oh, what an unhappy time for the Prince and, as you and the Princess are so devoted to him, for you also. In view of all that I felt a little entertainment to cheer him up would be welcome...and I was certain that would agree with me.’

‘How much do you owe?’

‘Your lordship really wants to know? Oh, how generous of you.’

‘I should warn you, Miss Chudleigh, that in future before you engage yourself in such expense you should first decide whether you can meet it.’

‘Oh, Lord Bute. You are an angel! This is a lesson to me, I do assure you.’

Lord Bute was very uneasy. He could not get the memory of that beautiful sly face out of his head.

Visit from a Blindfolded Doctor

The Prince of Wales was unrecognizable as he slipped out of Leicester House. To some young men adventure like this would have been the spice of life. George hated it. Intrigue, subterfuge, romance that lacked the blessing of the clergy were abhorrent. He believed passionately in love and marriage. One of the things he hoped to do – he had said it to Edward and Elizabeth and to Lord Bute – when he was King was to restore morality to the Court. His grandfather and his great-grandfather had been a disgrace to the family. A King, he knew, set the morals of his Court. That was what he intended to do. And yet here he was, living in sin with his beautiful Quakeress. Of course we are married in the sight of God, he had told her. But those were empty words. God would demand the certificate, the signature, the written evidence that two people had decided to live together in holy matrimony.

Hannah was the wife of Isaac Axford; there was a certificate to proclaim this to the world. If only I had been a linen-draper! sighed the Prince. Or a grocer, like Isaac Axford, how happy we might have been.

And yet his future was beginning to excite him. As the carriage jolted on its way to Tottenham he was thinking of conversations with Lord Bute and his mother. They were making him see what an important destiny lay before him. There was great work for him to do, work which no linen-draper or grocer could hope to achieve.

Oh no, how much better if Hannah were a Princess—a German Princess preferably because that would please his mother and he loved her so dearly that he wanted to please her—then he and Hannah could be married and live happily ever after.

The carriage turned in at the private drive. Hannah would be waiting for him as she always was, peeping out from behind the curtains watching as the carriage drove up. Poor Hannah, she never knew when a carriage would turn in this drive or the main one—or perhaps not a carriage...but some sinister figure would come creeping in...Isaac Axford, her husband, who had discovered her at last.

It was a life of subterfuge for poor Hannah, shut away from the world, never sure from one moment to another what the day would bring.

He strode into the house. She was standing on the stairs waiting for him. He always felt in those first moments of reunion that everything—all the fears and alarms, all the subterfuge, even the sin of all this—was worthwhile.

She threw herself into his arms.

‘Hannah, my little Quakeress...’

She smiled. Quakeress had become a word of endearment between them. She did not look like a Quakeress now. Gone were the sombre grey garments. Her seamstress was constantly engaged on devising new gowns for her. Today she wore one of rich claret-coloured velvet and looked regal, for she had a natural grace.

She is fit to be a Queen, thought George angrily. Why could they not accept her? Why should everyone make life so complicated when it could be simple. If they could marry now they could be completely happy, completely at peace. They could repent their sin in forestalling their marriage vows and live in respectable bliss for the rest of their lives.

What of Mr. Axford? George had temporarily forgotten him. But perhaps he would die. People did die. They caught the smallpox. Almost everyone caught the smallpox. One of Hannah’s greatest charms was her clear unblemished skin – so very rare when almost every other woman was pockmarked. If God saw fit to remove Mr. Axford from the scene...if Hannah were a Princess...how happy they could be.

‘It seems long since we were together,’ said George.

‘I have waited long for thee.’

George was always moved by the Quaker form of address. It was part of her charm for him; it set her apart from Court beauties like Elizabeth Chudleigh.

‘And I have waited too. I have thought of you constantly. My grandfather sent for me because of my birthday.’

‘Yes, your birthday...’ She smiled secretly. She had a gift for him. It would be something wrought with her own hands, something he would treasure for always. An embroidered waistcoat perhaps; she was so clever with her needle, but always careful not to prick her fingers. ‘Thou wouldst not wish me to be as a sewing-woman in thy mother’s palace.’ He had laughed and told her that he would not care how she pricked her fingers. When she talked of his mother’s palace he was always tenderly amused, for she had no notion of what a Court household was like, and George was not fluent enough to describe it so vividly as to make the picture clear. She doubtless had visions of a Sultan’s Palace of the utmost magnificence and the King walking about in a golden crown.

Sometimes he wished he could show her his grandfather in one of his rages, his wig awry, his face scarlet, spitting as he roared and shouted at this ninny or that puppy. A very different picture from Hannah’s King, he was sure.

He linked his arm in hers and they went to her rooms on the ground floor. The heavy curtains obscured the windows...it was a luxurious prison, thought George.

When he kissed her, when they made love, he thought there was something changed about her. He was not sure, for he was neither very sensitive nor observant. But she seemed remote, more ethereal than usual.

It was later that she told him.

‘George, we are to have a child.’

His emotions were great but mixed. He would be a father. It was a matter over which any man must rejoice. A child...his child. How strange! How wonderful! He wanted to tell everyone—his mother, Lord Bute, his brothers and sisters...even his grandfather. Oh yes, he even wanted to tell his old grandfather. ‘You call me a ninny, a baby tied to his mother’s apron strings, a puppy—but I’m man enough to be a father.’ But how could he tell anyone. This was another secret. No one must know. The birth of the child would have to be kept secret forever...Now he was aghast. What had they done? It was all very well to sin oneself and be prepared to take the consequences. But this was involving others...This was involving a child.

‘I see thou art disturbed,’ said Hannah.

‘It...it is wonderful...We are to have a child! But...I think...’

‘I know. I think, too. This child will be without a name. It will be a bastard.’

‘Oh, don’t call our child that, Hannah.’

‘But it is what the child will be. We must face the truth, George. We cannot hide from truth.’

‘We will love this child, we will cherish it...we will plan for its happiness. It shall be happy as no child ever was before.’

‘But in time it will know the truth, George, that we brought it into this world when we had no right to do so. I am a sinful woman and I fear for this child.’ She turned to him and her face was radiant. ‘Yet I rejoice. I cry "My spirit doth rejoice in God my saviour." I do not know what has happened to me, George. I am steeped in sin and yet I am so happy.’