Mistress by Marriage by Maggie Robinson Page A

into his mouth. “Who says I’m being cavalier? I find her very fetching. She’s wasted as your maid.”
    “She can’t go back to being a whore. Pope made sure of that.”
    “Who said anything about her being a whore?”
    Caroline put her fork down. “Garrett,” she said carefully, “what are your intentions toward my maid?”
    Garrett speared a chunk of chicken and waved it across the table. “My intentions? Are you the girl’s mother?”
    “She was brutally beaten. Her back is a mess and her spirits worse. Don’t toy with her.”
    “Caroline, I don’t know if I ever told you. My mother was a Jane. Lived in Number Ten under my father’s protection. I have no objection to her former profession. I’m that rare thing—a true son of a whore. And I remember when your Lizzie was Eliza Reynolds, one of the most beautiful girls on the stage. Couldn’t dance well, but didn’t need to.”
    “That was years ago. There were men before Pope, you know.”
    Garrett shook his head. “You must decide whether you’re championing Lizzie or championing me. Leave it, Caroline.”
    Caroline took a sip of wine. Could it be she was jealous? No, not at all. She didn’t want Garrett for herself, like some sort of trained lapdog who danced for his treat. He was her best friend at present, not a potential lover. But Garrett and Lizzie? She took another sip and choked. My word, it all sounded like a possible plot for a book— The Bastard’s Battered Beauty . It was too perfect for words. She might be able to get her digs in again against the wretched Randolph Pope. But no. Garrett wouldn’t publish such a thing, although perhaps he could live it.
    “What do you think of Queen Caroline coming home?” she asked, changing the subject as requested. If anyone knew the latest on dit , it would be the man at her luncheon table. As Garrett ate and gestured, Caroline drifted off, plotting the next romance, one she had every intention of orchestrating from the ground up.
     
    “Hell and damnation!” Edward tossed the missive into the farthest corner of his study and set his eyeglasses on their tray. According to a friend in high places who knew the secret machinations of their monarch, it seemed he would be condemned to stay in town all summer to haggle over the marital situation of his king and his unlucky wife. A Bill of Pain and Penalties was being prepared, a completely apt name as far as Edward was concerned. There would be untold pain and penalties for him. He could, of course, send the children to the country for their planned holiday with his sister, but he was doomed to sit in the heat and misery to discuss the cold and miserable state of George IV’s marriage. Queen Caroline was already parading all over London, and every peer, bishop, and judge would be required to attend the trial, which could go on indefinitely. Interminably.
    Odd that two Carolines were the key to his discomfort. In the few days he’d returned to Caro’s bed, he had been unable to wean himself from wanting her with an intensity that was somewhat frightening. He’d looked forward to escaping to Christie Park to contemplate his newly single state. Now his days would be tied up in the stuffy confines of an annex to the House of Lords, and his nights—
    Caro would know his plans had changed. The whole of England was privy to the Queen Consort’s and George’s difficulty, and this latest step of the king’s to remove the boil that was his wife from his backside was sure to attract the interest of all his subjects. Everyone knew they had been mismatched and unfaithful to each other for years, yet even after the ‘Delicate Investigation’ fourteen years ago, George had been unsuccessful in untethering himself from his German cousin.
    A new movement was afoot to be rid of Caroline of Brunswick once and for all. When she returned from abroad, the fragile deal that had been forged splintered apart. Edward supposed he should consider himself lucky. His