‘Indeed he is. I have often read of the colonel’s exploits with great patriotic pride. He sounds to be a fine soldier.’
‘His sabre-wielding force was fearsome to behold. I faced him with some trepidation. I heard my advance guard firing their pistols and advanced at a gallop to find a terrain upon which I could open battle. I saw as I approached that the English cavalry outnumbered mine by three to one; I charged them without drawing rein. Tarleton came towards me with raised pistol. We were about to fight a duel between our lines, when his horse was overthrown by one of his dragoons pursued by one of my lancers. I dashed upon him, to take him prisoner; a troop of English dragoons thrust themselves between us, and covered his retreat: his horse remained in my hands.’
Gripped by his tale, I asked in awe, ‘Did you kill him?’
‘Indeed not. He obtained another horse and charged me a second time without breaking my line. I charged him a third time, routed part of his cavalry, and pursued him as far as the earthworks of Gloucester.’
I sighed. ‘A brave man. I’m glad he survived, and you too, Lauzun.’
‘He was a worthy opponent, and will return home to great acclaim, I am sure. I arrived in France at the height of the celebrations surrounding the birth of the Dauphin to learn that the representative I had appointed to care for my estate in my absence has near bankrupted me.’
‘I know how that feels,’ I sympathised.
Fascinated as I was by these new acquaintances, I felt my time in France was drawing to a close. I was anxious to return to London, to see Mama and my dear friends. Lauzun escorted me to the boat where we made a fond farewell. Then Maria and I journeyed home, our luggage bulging with Paris fashions. And perhaps at the back of my mind was a desire to meet this hero in person.
It felt good to be back in London even if I was obliged to move in with Lord Malden in his house on the west side of Berkeley Square, since Maria and I had nowhere else to go. Having inherited his grandmother’s money, he generously offered to act as my protector.
‘I will stay only until I find a house of my own to rent,’ I sternly warned him.
‘Dearest Perdita, you are more than welcome to stay with me as long as you wish.’ Capturing my face between his gentle palms he kissed me most tenderly. ‘There is no need for you to leave when we can live together most contentedly here. You know that I have ever loved you, and to prove my sincerity I shall settle an annuity of £200 upon you to secure your independence. I do not ask you to love me in return, only grant me your affection and friendship. I adore you, and cannot imagine a life without you. It is as simple as that.’
I was not so naïve as to fail to understand that favours in the business of the bedroom would also be required. But it was true that I was fond of him, popinjay that he was, and dear Malden was the truest of men, more faithful than any other I had known. How could I refuse? Whenever a man declares his undying love for me, my generous heart simply melts with pity. I let out a little sigh. ‘You are far too good to me, dear George. Perhaps I could stay for a little while, see how we go on.’
He beamed with delight. ‘Excellent! Then the matter is settled.’
I cannot think what possessed me. A momentary weakness perhaps. Admittedly, the £200 a year was tempting, even though it would not cover my expenses any more than the prince’s £5,000 had settled my debts. But it was better than nothing, as was a rent-free house in Berkeley Square. Sometimes, I told myself firmly, one had to be mercenary to survive.
And bedding dear Malden was no great hardship. He surely deserved some reward for his devotion and labours on my behalf over the years. Oh, but there was little sensual joy or excitement in our relationship, at least so far as I was concerned. His love making was as tender and bland as dear Tommy’s in the early days of our marriage, and I as indifferent. Would I never find another love to consume me?
The arrangement did, however, allow me to slip back into society as if I had never been away. I was able to attend the opera early in the new year where I wore the white satin gown with purple breast-bows. My headdress was naturally in the French style, a cap compounded of matching feathers entwined with flowers fastened with diamond pins. I vow the audience were more entranced by my appearance than whatever was happening on stage, and many lingered at the end of the performance to watch me select a box to rent. According to the Herald, I looked ‘supremely beautiful’. Such comments were balm to my soul. At a second appearance I wore the Rose Bertin gown, which brought gasps of admiration.
The fashionable world seemed agog to view the gowns I had brought with me from Paris, and I stepped easily back into the role of fashion icon.
Perversely, one Friday evening at the King’s Theatre where everyone attending was in fancy dress, I wore my black domino but did not unmask, thus maintaining an intriguing air of mystery. We danced for the entire evening illuminated by a myriad of coloured lamps, the upper tiers of boxes draped with garlands and bows. It was utterly magical. And it was good to be back among old friends.
Dear old Sheridan, Fox and Georgiana, and Malden of course, were fascinated to hear my tales of the Duc de Chartes and how he had pursued me to no avail. They loved the story of Queen Marie Antoinette at the Grand Couvert. I made a passing mention to Lauzun, repeating his tales of the battles he had fought in the American War of Independence, and his encounter with ‘Butcher’ Tarleton.
‘Ah yes, the fellow rode into London on horseback only last week, very much receiving the hero’s welcome,’ Fox put in. ‘What more can a dashing young soldier ask than to be presented to the king and queen, fêted with parties and balls, and admired by young princes who envy him his adventures in America.’
‘Did you see him? How did he look? What is he like?’
Fox pretended to consider. ‘As if he had fought in a war, but then I am not a young woman, merely a politician, so cannot judge.’
‘You are certainly no judge of fashion or style,’ the duchess quipped, brushing crumbs from the plump politician’s dusty waistcoat and adjusting his neck cloth which was ever askew.
Fox’s own style was charmingly eccentric, a fabricated slovenliness that gave him an honest and simple appearance, which served only to increase his popularity with the general populace. He generally wore a frock-coat and breeches in buff and Washington blue, an outfit that had seen better days but clearly demonstrated his support for the colonists. More often than not he went without either hat or wig, his greying curls uncombed, his plump chin bearing several days growth, and a pair of downward sloping bushy eyebrows shielding kind and gentle eyes.
‘I may be no dandy now, dear lady, preferring to be seen as an ordinary sort of fellow, but I’ll have you know I did once appear in red heeled shoes and blue cascading curls.’
Laughing off this quip, the duchess turned to me. ‘Ban Tarleton, as I believe he is called by his friends, seemed affable enough, Mary, and not unhandsome.’
‘Oh my! Lauzun told me so much about him that I would love to meet such a hero in the flesh.’
Sheridan said, ‘I believe he is to have his portrait painted.’
I leaned forward, eager to hear more. ‘When? By whom?’
‘Sir Joshua Reynolds. I fear I cannot give you details of the artist’s diary, Mary, although I’m sure a few questions in the right quarters would tell you all you need to know,’ he finished, a wry smile on my old friend’s face.
I wasted no time in visiting Reynolds’s studio in Leicester Fields, an octagonal room attached to his home which included an exhibition gallery and a spacious and elegant room for his sitters. Having sat for him on a previous occasion, I artlessly suggested he might like to repeat the experience.
‘I do not have the money to pay you, Sir Joshua, but I feel sure you would profit from the prints and engravings you could sell of such a portrait.’
‘Indeed I would, dear Mrs Robinson, since posters and prints of your beauteous person are ever in demand.’
He was more than willing to agree mutual
ly beneficial terms, and as he consulted his diary to set dates for my sittings, I easily discovered details of the colonel’s visits, and arranged that a couple of my sittings coincided, taking place just before his own. Sir Joshua was only too happy to oblige, proud to be the chosen artist to capture this great British hero on canvas.
I could hardly wait to meet him.
Reynolds began with numerous small sketches, swiftly drawing the shape of my face and figure, making separate sketches of individual features such as my nose and hands. Once the actual painting began he would peer into my face then rush to his easel to paint what he saw, constantly on the move back and forth, dashing his brush upon the canvas, painting furiously, almost in a frenzy. Occasionally he would stand back to consider the effect from a distance, eyes pensively narrowed. Often there were other people present to watch the artist at work.
My sittings always took place at two o’clock, so that the light was the same. I would be seated before a red velvet curtain upon a chair mounted with casters and raised on a dais in a room lit by a window set high in the wall.
On the day in question I was beset with a strange attack of nerves, knowing I was at last to meet the man I had heard so much about. Yet dressed for the portrait in a black gown with a white lacy fichu, black hat with a white plume, and my favourite black ribbon about my throat, I surely looked well enough. My auburn curls were not on view but powdered as fashion dictates, and my expression, as others would describe when the portrait was finished, was serious, even sultry.
When Colonel Tarleton walked into the room I felt as if I had encountered a god. Something stirred inside me that had never before been touched, as if cupid’s arrow had indeed pierced my heart. My lungs seemed robbed of all breath, quite unable to draw in air while this deity held sway.
He was not particularly tall, being around five foot six or seven, but fit and tough, with strong muscular thighs. In uniform for the portrait he was wearing tan boots with turnover tops, tight-fitting white doeskin breeches, a short green jacket with black facings and gold lace, and upon his head a shako hat with black swan’s feathers that largely covered his dark hair. His eyes, I could not help but notice, were brown and meltingly soft, and there was a boyish quality to his good looks despite the sabre he wore at his side. He was exceeding handsome with a classically aquiline nose, and a mouth that was enticingly kissable, or so I thought. He was twenty-eight years old, and at the peak of his manhood.
No words were spoken between us until my sitting ended, but as I rose to step down from the dais, he hurried to offer his assistance. ‘Do not be afraid to take my hand, though I have lost two fingers I can use my pen and will draw my sword when I can be of service to my country.’
Smiling, I took the damaged hand without flinching.
‘Mrs Robinson, may I say how honoured I am to meet you.’
‘You know me?’ I teased, casting him a sidelong glance that might have been flirtatious.
‘The whole nation knows of the wondrous Perdita.’
I frowned slightly, not wishing to constantly be associated with that name as it reminded me of the prince. ‘But you have been in the Americas, so how can that be possible? I doubt you ever set foot in Drury Lane while I was there.’
‘Sadly, that is true,’ he admitted as he led me out of the studio to the changing room where my maid waited. ‘Nevertheless, your fame has crossed the ocean. A British army base in Charleston, formerly a bordello, was captured in 1780 and named Perdita’s after you.’
I laughed even as I pretended to be shocked. ‘A bordello?’
‘Formerly a bordello. I assure you that no unseemly connotation was meant by naming the base after you, Mrs Robinson. The men simply adore you, have your posters and prints everywhere and are honest worshippers at the feet of your beauty. Now I can see why.’
I blushed a little, too flustered to find a witty response.
‘Perhaps you could wait so that we might talk later, when Sir Joshua is finished with me?’ he said.
I widened my eyes in disbelief, adopting my loftiest expression. ‘I’m afraid not. I have better things to do with my time than wait upon soldiers who name bordellos after me,’ and walked away, head high, knowing that I had deliberately misunderstood him. But I had certainly caught his attention.
Our paths crossed again on the second of February, and the mere sight of him set my heart racing. He was, as the press had dubbed him, a ‘pocket Adonis’, and certainly very much in vogue, his name on everyone’s lips. But what I wanted, even then, was those enticing lips on mine.
‘I believe we have much in common,’ I said, unashamedly leading the conversation as we waited for his sitting to begin, although we had never formally been introduced.
He gave a wry smile. ‘A former actress and a soldier, I find that hard to credit?’
‘I mean as we were both born in sea ports, you in Liverpool and I in Bristol.’ I’d made it my business to learn some facts about him, and his accent was undeniably Lancastrian. ‘I believe that, like mine, your father was also a businessman, although much more successful.’
‘You are well informed,’ he quipped, a teasing light in those chocolate brown eyes. ‘My mother came from the Chorley area of Lancashire but settled into a large house on Water Street in Liverpool on marriage where she produced six sons and a daughter. My father was a merchant and former mayor of the city, but many would say that making a fortune out of West Indian sugar plantations and the slave trade was exploitation rather than success.’
‘Perhaps so, but I am in a poor position to judge when my own father exploited native Indians in unsuccessful projects in the Arctic. We cannot be blamed for our parents’ actions.’
‘That is very true. My family have had trade interests in the Chesapeake, New England, and Newfoundland as well as the Caribbean for a century or more. They dealt in many cargoes, only one of which was human slaves. And in cities such as Liverpool and Bristol it is hard to find a balanced view on the subject.’
‘But you did not choose to follow in your father’s footsteps?’ I found this reassuring, assuming him to be as much against slavery as any right-minded individual.
‘I was destined for the law, entered University College in November, 1771, but despite the best efforts of a brilliant professor I was not a diligent student. Nor did I improve when in the Middle Temple, so I persuaded my mother to buy me a commission in the army. She was willing to find £800 to make me a cornet.’
‘And that is how your famous career began, as a cornet?’
‘As inconsequential as it seems, yes. Fortunately, through hard work, daring deeds and the support of Lord Cornwallis and Sir Henry Clinton, I have enjoyed rapid promotion.’
‘I heard about some of these daring deeds of yours from the Duke of Lauzun.’
‘Ah, yes, he thought he had me, but only succeeded in capturing my horse.’
I chuckled. ‘He didn’t seem too concerned, is rather an admirer in fact. Is it true what they say, that you have killed more men and lain with more women than any other man?’
He put back his head and laughed out loud. ‘Let’s say I’m working on it. How about you, Mrs Robinson? Do you have a new conquest now your liaison with the prince is over, or is it not the done thing to ask?’
I was outraged by his presumption, and for the first time felt grateful for Malden’s protection. I would not have him think me easy. ‘I am with Lord Malden now, were it any business of yours.’
He was called in for the sitting at that precise moment, but as he got up to go, leaned close to whisper in my ear. ‘Mayhap I should make it my business.’ And he slipped away, leaving me gasping.
The rest of that month turned into a complete misery as I cracked my shin while out driving, and, fearing it might be broken, was laid up for a while. I didn’t see the colonel for some weeks, learning later that he’d returned to his native city, and to a true hero’s welcome. I read in the papers that as he approached the outskirts of Liverpool, church
bells were rung and thousands gathered. They even unhitched the horses and pulled his carriage themselves into the heart of the city. Bonfires were lit, officials held special events to honour this famous son of Liverpool, while I ached for his return, so that I could spar with him again.
As Lord Malden’s mistress I was now considered to be a leading member of the demi-monde, sometimes named the Cyprian Corps among other epithets, however reluctant I might be to accept that fact. I liked to consider myself above that rabble, being more intelligent than rivals such as Dally the Tall, The Armistead, and Gertrude Mahon, known as the Bird of Paradise for her love of bright colours. They were all jealous of the fame I had achieved in Paris, a triumph that had passed Dally the Tall by when she spent time there, even though she did succumb to an affair with the Duc de Chartes. Her revenge upon me came when she announced she was carrying the prince’s child, which I found disturbingly difficult to grasp. ‘How could Florizel love her more than me?’
‘He doesn’t,’ Malden assured me. ‘The prince denies the child is his, as it could just as easily be that of Cholmondeley.’
I tossed back my curls. ‘It is of no concern to me whose child it is. I have a new life now.’
‘Indeed, my love, and a good one,’ Malden said, kissing me.
If my current lover did not excite me, I certainly enjoyed being the centre of attention where dress and fashion were concerned, and created something of a sensation by using a cataract muff. This had long fluffy hairs that hung down like a waterfall, and as a muff was considered to be a gift from Venus to keep Adonis warm, the Lady’s Magazine made much of it.
A demi-rep is also required to own at least two carriages, as well as live in the most fashionable part of town, the expenses borne by her protector. I was able to do all of that with impeccable taste. Unfortunately, I had never succeeded in finding a man rich enough to afford me. Lord Malden certainly wasn’t, and maintaining the look and requirements of the role was once more rapidly leading me into debt. Credit, of course, was easily achieved in anticipation of them all being settled when the prince came of age. Some people even believed that the gallant Florizel was already financing me, as well as Malden.
Lady of Passion Page 19
