I had learned my lesson with Lord Lyttelton about the dangers of receiving calls from gentlemen, however titled, when I was home alone. And yet I could not turn away the prince’s companion; it would have made for a most awkward situation. As it stood, things were already awkward enough. I stammered a welcome to the viscount, noticing that he seemed younger in the natural light of my drawing room. The lamps backstage, masked with lengths of colored fabric so that they would cast a subtly hued glow upon the players, often lent a harsh glare to the physiognomy of one standing in the wings.
“I—I am sorry to intrude upon you so,” said Lord Malden, glancing about with evident discomfort. “I have—I have come on a particular errand, you see.” He bowed politely. “I am most embarrassed.” He saw little Maria playing at my feet with a pull toy on a string, a little lamb I had given her in honor of my command performance as Perdita. I scooped her onto my lap and introduced her to his lordship. “I—I am afraid I have come at rather a bad time.”
Endeavoring to put him at ease, I assured him that on any morning a visitor would encounter me at play with my daughter. “It is our special time together, for the life of an actress can often be quite pell-mell.”
“Nonetheless, I am truly sorry to have incommoded you, Mrs. Robinson.” Lord Malden’s countenance reddened to the rosy shade I had noticed the night before. “I come on a most discreet mission—you must pardon me—and—and I must ask of you never to mention it to anyone.”
How intriguing! “On my honor, then, I shan’t.” I gave my little girl a sweet kiss upon the lips, promised that Mama would play “shepherdess” with her very soon again, and rang for Dorcas, who came to take her from the room.
“It’s something of a delicate situation.” His lordship dabbed at the moisture on his powdered brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. “Please do me the honor of hearing me out, and then do as you think most proper.”
“It’s all something of a mystery then, isn’t it?” Receiving no answer, I pressed on. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t comprehend your meaning, sir. You will not offend me if you speak explicitly.”
Lord Malden hesitated, reached into his pocket, drew his hand out empty, then blotted his brow again. After some moments of evident rumination, he tremblingly withdrew a small letter from his pocket. The paper shook like a bough of quivering aspen as he handed it to me. I took it, and upon reading the name on the fold, knew not what to say. It was addressed to “Perdita.”
Turning away from his lordship, I opened the billet. It contained but a few words, which went quite beyond the bounds of common civility: “My Perdita, you have enchanted my heart and bewitched my soul.” The note was signed merely “Florizel.”
I smiled a bit sarcastically. No wonder he had quizzed me so assiduously the night before as we conversed in the wings—it had been an overture in preparation for this morning’s symphony! “Well, my lord, and what does this mean?” I confess I was half angry at such boldness.
The viscount appeared somewhat taken aback. “Can you not guess the writer?”
“Perhaps yourself, my lord,” I said gravely, believing full well that he was the author of the billet-doux.
“Upon my honor, no!” exclaimed Lord Malden, clapping his hand to his peacock-blue bosom. “I should not have dared to address you on so short an acquaintance.”
“I am sorry then, if I have offended you. But if you are not the progenitor of these words, I must beg you to tell me who penned them.”
The viscount rocked back and forth on his powder-blue heels. “I—I am…egad, this is most awkward…I should not have come here today, ma’am. I regret now my acquiescence in undertaking to deliver this epistle. I hope I shall not forfeit your good opinion, but—”
“But what, my lord?”
“I could not refuse my commission—for the letter is from the Prince of Wales.”
You could have knocked me over with the tip of an aigrette. If this was true…. How my heart began to beat! And yet, I could not take Lord Malden’s confession on faith. He had himself acknowledged that we scarcely were acquainted. How could I know that this was not an elaborate ruse to entrap and seduce me by using the name of another? I resolved therefore to consider the love note as an experiment made by his lordship, either on my vanity or on my propriety of conduct.
The viscount called on me again the following evening, whilst I was hosting a small card party of six or seven. I had not spoken to my colleagues, even to Mr. Sheridan, about the lovelorn billet; and even before Lord Malden’s nocturnal visit, the talk was of nothing but the prince—his manners, his appearance, and another blow-by-blow recitation of his comportment toward me both during and after the performance of Florizel and Perdita.
Malden then joined my other guests in their unbounded panegyric of His Royal Highness—expounding, from his firsthand knowledge of the princely mien, on how the youth’s nature was remarkably unaffected for one so highborn, his temper mild, his conversation engaging—even his gentleness toward animals was touched upon by his lordship. I heard these praises and my bosom throbbed with conscious pride, while my memory turned to the partial but delicately respectful letter I had received the previous morning.
The next day, Lord Malden arrived with a second letter purportedly from the heir apparent. I accepted it tentatively. With equal anxiety, the viscount assured me that His Royal Highness would be most unhappy indeed if I had taken offense at his conduct.
“The prince desires me to tell you that if you will attend the Oratorio this evening,
