I continued to despair of funds. But I still retained the prince’s bond, considering it a form of security against a rainy day. I wrote to His Highness, but my letters went unanswered.
“You know he’ll never cash it,” Fox bluntly told me. “For one thing, the youth spends more than you do, and wouldn’t have the funds, even if you could call it in. For another, the king would never stand for it.”
“But he gave me his word as well as his bond,” I insisted. “And I do believe it wasn’t airy persiflage intended to bring me to his bed. He was ardent—too green for cynicism—and I believe he always intended to honor the bond.”
“It would not sit well with the royal family to have it spread about that the heir apparent was not a man of honor; that’s for certain.” Fox pressed my hands in his. “Let me see what I can do.”
And so he became my advocate, convincing His Royal Highness to agree to pay a five-hundred-pound annuity for myself, the moiety of which was to descend to Maria Elizabeth at my decease, in return for the surrender of the prince’s bond, thus settling the balance of my claim. To many persons, the assurance of an independence would have operated as a consolation for the sufferings and difficulties by which it had been procured, but my spirit bent not to that view. I considered my having to grovel for that which was bestowed by custom from time immemorial naught but a degradation.
There were evenings when I entertained both Tarleton and Malden during the time that Malden and I were intimates. And it was abundantly clear, when the conversation turned competitive and tense, that the war hero was desirous of entering his name in the lists as a competitor for my affections. His bravado, though at times I own it could be wearing, made such a marked contrast to Mr. Robinson’s congenital indolence that I found the dragoon all the more attractive; for here was a man of undeniable action!
Malden was confident of my fidelity to him, yet I did not feel on romantic terra firma when I’d look upon the lieutenant colonel, who, but of average height, dressed every inch the military hero in a uniform that left one to wonder little how well made he was. Compared with the stout little popinjay Malden, there was no contest for who looked the finer man. Yet the viscount and I had an unspoken understanding between us: he won the right to parade about the Pantheon with a beautiful and celebrated actress on his arm, and I was granted entrée into entertainments I might have otherwise been barred from, had I not been the consort of a titled lord. Such mutually beneficial arrangements were the rule rather than the exception. Well-bred people thought it impolite to speak of love.
But I believe it was love—or something very much like it, something more than common lust—that drove me headlong into the arms of Banastre Tarleton. It was as if every atomy of my being craved his attentions, his voice, his wicked grin, his laughing eyes. I was adrift at sea in a little oarless boat bounding helplessly upon the billowing waves. How could I thus have refused his invitation to accompany him down to Epsom?
There, in a little cottage Ban had let at Barrow Hedges, we enjoyed our first and most delicious assignation. For a solid fortnight I daresay I stepped out of bed only to make the most necessary ablutions. We dined on larks and pheasants, on roasted meats and sugared plums—and on each other.
With the prince, so unlettered in matters of the boudoir, I had taken the lead—an older woman tutoring him in the arts of love; and his puppyish passion for me, his exuberance, and of course his rank and title were, I confess, a powerful aphrodisiac.
But Ban Tarleton! Most decidedly, Ban Tarleton with one hand was indeed better than any other man with two. His touch engendered within me the most exquisite sensations. The more he filled me, the more I yearned to feel him deep inside me once again. There was no such thing as satiety. I was lost in his arms, utterly, utterly lost, no longer the mistress of my body or my passions.
“You own me completely now,” I murmured to him after one of our Olympic tangles amid the sheets. “When you are rough, I crave your tenderness; and when you are tender with me, I yearn for ravishment.”
His scent became imprinted on my body, his taste embedded in my lips.
Yet after we returned to London two weeks later, and Tarleton deposited me at my doorstep, I heard not a word from him.
What had happened? I could not fathom the reason for his distant behavior. Not content to wait upon a reply to my many missives, I took myself to the Cocoa Tree, where I caused a stir by sweeping down upon my new paramour, his head bent over a betting book while Lord Malden stood by, sucking on a clay pipe.
“Where have you been these last six days?” I demanded of the war hero. “You promised you would come to me.”
“Oh, did I?” he replied laconically. “Are you sure you’re not confusing me with another?”
“I don’t understand the meaning of your cruelty!”
Tarleton grinned and my knees fairly buckled beneath my skirts. “Congratulate me, Mrs. R., for I’ve just made a bundle off old Malden here!” To my uncomprehending stare, Tarleton added, “The viscount and I made a
