A Mystery at Carlton House

by Jennifer Ashley

  Soon after I’d married, Grenville had dragged me to his tailor to have a wardrobe made for me, with Donata supplying the funds. I conceded to have suits made that would not embarrass Donata with their plainness but also would not embarrass me with extravagance. No quilted waistcoats or puffed pantaloons or other such nonsense. What I’d come away with were several suits of black superfine and several of wool, silk waistcoats in muted colors, trousers that balanced between the extreme of skin tight and excessively baggy, two redingotes that complemented the suits, and crisp cravats.

  Bartholomew might mutter that his talents were wasted on me, but I was firm. I’d dress respectably—not like a Puritan but also not as a wastrel and a fop.

  I finally agreed to climb into my best suit, if only to silence Bartholomew. When he’d finished with me, I had on one of the superfine coats and cashmere trousers, an ivory moiré waistcoat, and a cravat tied with a fairly plain knot. I thought I looked well and ignored the pained expression on Bartholomew’s face over the cravat.

  Donata, on the other hand, when I met her at the top of the stairs, outshone me in every way. Her ensemble was a study of elegance in velvet mixed with silk—a dark green bodice with contrasting sleeves of ivory silk buttoned over a green velvet skirt, the skirt’s hem decorated with two rows of light green rosettes with ivory centers.

  While women’s costumes this year seemed to have gained more froufrou decorations than ever, Donata carried off the gown with aplomb. Her regal neck lifted from the low scooped décolletage, and her dark brown hair was pulled up off her face and gathered in a subdued knot of curls on top of her head. Rather than the garish items replete with feathers she’d worn in previous seasons, tonight she had a simple circlet of diamonds around her topknot. Diamond earrings that had been in her mother’s family for generations adorned her ears—since her husband’s death Donata had refused to wear any of the Breckenridge jewels or anything her husband had given her.

  When she made certain the gown’s skirt swirled back to reveal her ankle, I saw that she’d put on the thin gold chain with the tiny bell I’d once bought her.

  I tugged Donata back into the shadows of the upper hall before she could start down the stairs. I said not a word, only leaned down and pressed my lips to the warm curve between her neck and shoulder that the dress bared to me. I straightened up again, taking her hand to lead her forth.

  Donata flushed at my attentions, but sent me a pleased look.

  Donata’s first husband had never paid her any attention at all, preferring his paramours without bothering to hide his infidelity. Many husbands of the haut ton took mistresses, but it was understood that they were to be discreet. Lord Breckenridge had not been, and Donata had borne the brunt of that humiliation.

  My wife squeezed my hand a little more than strictly necessary when I assisted her into Grenville’s carriage, and her smile was warm.

  Grenville waited in the carriage, vacating the forward-facing seat so Donata could take it. I heaved myself in with Bartholomew’s help and landed on the seat next to Grenville, watching Donata spread her cloak across the empty cushions to either side of her so it wouldn’t be wrinkled.

  Donata and I had agreed not to spring Marianne’s news on Grenville until after our meeting with the Regent. Grenville would be furious, and he’d want to rush off on the moment to find Marianne or Dunmarron. Donata had been of the opinion that Marianne would be in no physical danger from the Duke of Dunces; he had the reputation of being rather cowed by his mistresses even as he complained about their demands on his purse. The game he was playing, or attempting to play, likely had to do with debts owed or the duke wanting to embarrass Grenville for his own reasons.

  Even if Donata could persuade Grenville to keep the meeting with the Regent once he knew about Dunmarron, he would be most agitated, and when Grenville lost his sangfroid—a rare thing—the world suffered. His anger manifested in either viciously cutting remarks or cold silence, and the prince was already put out with us for moving the appointment. I disliked to think how the Regent would take out his wrath on Grenville if Grenville told the Regent exactly what he thought of him and his petty difficulties. Thus, we’d keep Marianne’s note to ourselves until later.

  We moved down South Audley Street to Curzon Street, past Chesterfield House and the austere facade of James Denis’s abode then turned on Half Moon Street to Piccadilly. The carriage rolled along Piccadilly almost to Egyptian Hall before we turned off to St. James’s Street and made our way south, the pile of St. James’s Palace just visible at the end of it.

  St. James’s Street was the demesne of gentlemen’s clubs—first White’s on the left, then Brook’s and Boodle’s on the right and left respectively, nearly opposite each other. Ladies never walked down St. James’s Street without a mar to their reputation, and Donata leaned to the window to blatantly look her fill.

  We hadn’t quite reached St. James’s palace before Grenville’s coachman turned onto Pall Mall and took us to the gates of Carlton House.

  The residence had begun modestly, so I’d heard, before it was given to the Prince of Wales upon his twenty-first birthday, more than thirty-five years ago. Since then the house had been remodeled, expanded, redesigned, and rebuilt, with thousands and thousands of guineas lavished upon it. Fortunately, the prince had chosen architects of taste in later years to take the place in hand: Henry Holland, Mr. Wyatt, Mr. Hopper, and John Nash, who had turned their skills to make the house a thing of beauty.

  I’d learned all this from Grenville and from books he lent me—much of the controversy and construction of Carlton House had occurred when I was far away, fighting wars on the king’s behalf.

  The carriage went through an arched opening in the long line of Greek-looking columns that separated the house from the road. Grenville, who had been a guest at Carlton House many times, didn’t pay the building much attention, but I stared like a tourist. What I’d seen of it had only been what I could glimpse as I’d trundled down Pall Mall in a hackney, but then only through a crush of vehicles and the grease-stained windows of the coach.

  The house’s exterior was not as ostentatious as I’d expected, but instead had been designed with classical symmetry. Two identical wings jutted out from either side of the main house, which was built to pleasing proportions. Columns supported a pediment over the front door, and the windows were evenly spaced along the façade—full-length windows on the ground floor, smaller ones on the upper stories.

  As we descended at the entrance, I could see how a thief might easily get into and out of this house—it was a showplace rather than a fortress. The window nearest the coach was at least eight feet high, the latch visible from the outside. The many-paned windows were framed with heavy wood and set into stone, but any thief could break the glass—quietly even—and swing open the window to admit himself.

  There were plenty of footmen about the place, beefy young men who could double as guards, but a clever thief would know how to bypass them. Brewster had not accompanied us tonight, saying he wanted to go home to his wife, and I let him, assuming a jaunt to visit the Prince Regent would be safe enough, especially with Grenville’s coachman, Jackson, and Grenville’s footmen to protect us. When I spoke to Brewster again I would share my speculations with him about how a thief could go about robbing the place. No doubt he’d come up with many more methods.

  The famed ostentation of Carlton House began as soon as we were inside. A footman in a blue coat and satin knee breeches led us from the courtyard into a wide hall whose upper walls were lined with friezes of gold against a ceiling painted to resemble a summer sky brushed with clouds. The ceiling was exquisitely done, filling what could have been a dark chamber with light. Green marble pillars divided the hall from the rooms on either side, continuing the feel of airiness. Huge marble urns stood here and there atop gold-leafed tables whose supports were in the form of standing golden birds—phoenixes, I thought.

  The footman took us around another set of pillars and
into an octagonal hall with walls of cream and green, the room accented with long red and gold upholstered divans against four of the walls. Red draperies had been pulled back from arched openings on the other four walls, which led to the staircase and other rooms. A gallery encircled this vestibule from the next floor, the banister made of beautifully gilded wrought iron. A fantastic, Turkish-looking chandelier hung from the ceiling three stories above us.

  Squares of marble tile covered the floor, and busts of men in Roman togas—one of them the Prince Regent himself—rested on bracket shelves above the divans. Long, horizontal paintings of classical gods and goddesses framed the walls under the gallery.

  Donata glanced about with sharp-eyed assessment. She, like Grenville, had a keen interest in architecture and the design of interior spaces. Her own house was a model of taste—she’d had a free rein on the decoration of the South Audley Street house and had employed the best of the modern masters to redo it exactly as she wished.

  Having lived with her for nearly a year now, I could appreciate what Donata and her architects had done, which helped me see the clever touches in this house. In spite of the overabundance of velvet and gilding, the lines of Carlton House’s rooms had a pleasant symmetry, the use of light filtering into enclosed spaces ingenious. In this room, which must be in the center of the building, a lead glass octagonal skylight right at the top of the house would let in a flood of sunshine during the day.

  The footman, without speaking, led us through one of the red-draped arches to the staircase. We descended, which was a pity, because I would have liked to climb to the very top and look back down through the octagon. With a silent reminder that I was not there to indulge myself I walked obediently down the stairs, my walking stick and Donata’s hand on my arm keeping me steady.

  At the bottom of the stairs, we were taken through another equally lavish vestibule to the rear of the house. Here the huge rooms stretched the long distance from one end of the house to the other, the doors in a line. I could stand in the exact center of one doorway and look all the way down to what Grenville told me was the Gothic dining room, and then turn in place and gaze the other way to the equally Gothic arches of the conservatory.

  The footman gestured for us to follow him toward the conservatory. I marveled as we went how casual the house was. Not in decoration—each chamber we passed through was more ornamented than the last. I mean it was casual in that it encouraged the visitor to move, unrestricted, from room to room and, here on the ground floor, from house to garden. Every chamber was lined with long French doors that gave directly out to the park beyond, which was dark now but would be sunny and inviting on a summer’s day.

  I stopped to peer out one of the doors. It wasn’t latched, allowing me to swing it open.

  Just outside was a paved walk that led around the house itself; the moon shining through a rent in the clouds illuminated the path like lamplight. One could stroll from room to room along this walk if one wished.

  Beyond the path was a lawn. No stairs, no veranda, no impediments to block the garden. A guest might simply step from the splendor of the house to the cool outdoors, to enjoy a vast park studded with trees. There were no stylized gardens here as at Versailles, just a rolling green, an oasis in the middle of the city. This could be a country house of some wealthy squire, rather than a prince’s city retreat.

  I would have enjoyed walking along the outside path, no matter the night’s chill, but I was recalled to my errand by the footman’s voice. “It is this way, sir.”

  He was polite yet firm, so I stepped back inside and closed the door, but not before I spied a shadow under the trees in the park. I stared at the shadow for a time before I turned around and followed the others.

  Grenville walked directly behind the footman as we moved through a huge dining room done in gold and red velvets to the conservatory. We seemed to be the only guests. Indeed, I wondered where the horde of servants, which would be needed to tend this house, were hiding. Aside from the footmen guarding the front door and this footman who was our guide, I’d seen no one.

  The footman took us into the conservatory, and I halted in astonishment.

  The place was a wonder to behold. For a moment, I wasn’t certain whether I was in a private house or a cathedral, or perhaps a Turkish mosque in Constantinople.

  The floor was pale marble, black tiles accenting the corners of each larger white one. Pointed arches lined the walls, and fan vaulting supported the ceiling. Plaster ornaments reached down like ornate stalactites from circular decorations that marched down the middle of the high room. Between the curved spokes of the fan vaulting was glass, which would let in sunshine during the daylight hours—what there was of it in a cloudy London February.

  Square red and gold Turkish-looking lamps hung from between each arch, casting a soft light over the glittering room. At the far end, a glass door led out to the park, conservatory and outdoors blending into each other. The lamps sparkled on all the glass above us, making it seem as though we stood inside a jewel.

  “I have not been here since the year of Waterloo,” Donata stated as she craned her head to take in the ceiling. “There were celebrations all year, one after the next, lasting for days. All the world seemed to be crammed into this house.”

  “They certainly did,” Grenville answered. “Some fellows were in mourning that Emperor Napoleon had lost—wore black bands on their arms. They regarded him as the embodiment of liberty, which had now been crushed by the despots of Russia, Prussia, and Britain.”

  I regarded him in amazement. “The embodiment of liberty? He had a bloody odd way of showing it, then. Taking over the world is more what Napoleon had in mind.”

  Grenville shrugged. “Apparently, he was to bring enlightenment to benighted Britain, which was under the sway of tyrants.”

  A rather thin, overly cultured voice broke in above the faint rattle of a wheeled vehicle. “I believe I was one of those tyrants in question.”

  A man rose from the Bath chair another footman pushed to a halt before us. The gentleman’s fleshy face and red nose beneath graying dark hair held a rather foolish expression, but his eyes were wary.

  “Or a despot, if you prefer,” he went on. “Good evening, Lady Donata. How splendid to see you. Grenville.” The Prince Regent of Britain, Ireland, and Hanover, turned the full force of his watery gaze on me. “Is this your captain? Good heavens, I had no idea he was lame.”

  Chapter 7

  The Regent looked up at me, not realizing I was tall, either. His irritation turned to glee as he observed the heavy way I leaned on my walking stick.

  Donata curtseyed with a formality that would make any governess proud. She knew exactly how deeply to go, how to gracefully sweep her skirt to one side so it would skim the carpet.

  The movement took the Regent’s attention from me, delight entering his eyes as he beheld my wife. “As I say, it is a fine thing to see you, Lady Donata.”

  She returned the greeting with a polite nod. “You appear to be well, Highness.”

  The prince looked more as though he was recovering from a bad cold, but I held my tongue.

  The Regent stepped shakily forward and took Donata’s hand, raising it to his rather effeminate mouth. “You appear more than well.” He lowered her hand but kept it clasped loosely in his fingers. “My felicitations.”

  He did not make clear what he congratulated her for—her marriage, the birth of our daughter, looking well, or all three. I strove to remain still and silent. The Regent had the reputation of taking up with strong-willed women, making mistresses of them for years. His current paramour was Lady Hertford, who was a few years his senior—the Regent had always preferred older women. Donata, if anything, was too young for his taste.

  All the same, I did not like the way the man gazed so fondly at my wife. The Regent was reputed to be growing tired of Lady Hertford and looking for her replacement.

  Grenville spoke into the awkward silence. “Can you tell us, High
ness, what sorts of things have gone missing? The captain is most curious.”

  “Better still, I will show you.” The prince turned to his Bath chair, wincing as he put weight on a gouty foot. “Walk with me, my dear.”

  He did not release Donata’s hand. She, who could freeze a man cold at ten paces, only smiled and helped the prince back into his chair.

  Grenville shot me a warning look, as though waiting for me to explode into one of my famous rages. But I could hardly call out the Prince Regent in his Bath chair or shoot the heir to the throne of Britain dead. I only gave Grenville a weary nod and followed him as the Regent waved a hand in front of him, indicating the direction he wanted to go.

  He insisted Donata push his chair. She did so without argument and without a glance at me. She gave the footman who had brought the prince in a serene look, took hold of the back of the chair, and guided it onward.

  The prince weighed much, but Donata was strong. My only worry was her recent ordeal, only eight weeks ago now—I remembered the surgeon’s warning that she must not lift or push heavy things. He’d indicated she’d be well at six weeks, but I watched her with concern, ready to rush in and pull her away at the first sign of fatigue.

  Donata hooked her shawl more firmly around her arms and rolled the chair over the marble floor. It went easily on the smooth tile, and then I began to fear she’d give it too hard a shove. I imagined it skittering down the vaulted room with the prince waving his arms in alarm.

  Such a vision comforted me, and my lips twitched. Grenville shot me a puzzled glance.

  We emerged from the conservatory then journeyed along the lower floor—to the Bow Room with its large bay window, through the anteroom we’d arrived in via the staircase, and finally into a library.

  Five French windows lined this long room, which held a vaulted ceiling painted with a cloud-strewn sky—all the rooms I’d seen so far except the conservatory had this feature. Bookcases lined the three windowless walls, filled with books reaching to the ceiling. The vast floor of the library contained two desks and several tables, and a soft chair rested near one of the windows as though put there so a reader could sit in the sunshine of an afternoon.