did not drop.
“I am a widow, sir,” she said, leaning forward. “I live independently and have no husband to object to such an arrangement. How can the prince possibly imagine I would wish to acquire one now?”
“But you must acquire one, madam, or relations with the prince cannot proceed.” The baron looked scandalized by the prospect. “The prince has made it his firm—and most wise—practice to spend time only with ladies whose husbands can provide comfort for them once his time with them is done.” The baron produced a handkerchief and dabbed his moist lip.
“This is absurd,” she said, looking at St. Lawrence, who took up the argument.
“If I may be blunt.” He clenched his jaw, looking as if he’d just sucked a lemon. “There is always the possibility of consequences from such relations. The prince has left no ‘consequences’ in his path to date, and is determined to see that any born to his special friends will have fathers of their own. As heir to our good queen’s throne and the future head of the Church of England, to do otherwise would be unthinkable to him.”
Mariah felt the flush of color she had just experienced now drain from her face. Consequences: a polite way of saying children. The prince intended to leave no royal bastards in his wake. Fastidious of him, she thought furiously, to take his future roles as seriously as he took his pleasures. He bedded women thither and yon but insisted, whether from fear of public opinion or his own moral quirk, that the natural consequences of those liaisons never be laid at his doorstep.
“Why on earth would I wish to exchange vows with a man, only to betray them with the prince?” she demanded, gripping the edge of the table.
“Because,” St. Lawrence said tightly, “it is necessary. And if you are anything, Mrs. Eller, you are a woman who recognizes the necessary and turns it to her advantage.”
She felt struck physically by that assessment. Rising abruptly from the table, she went to the long windows that overlooked the side yard. Anger roiled in her as she gripped the sash. So that was what they thought of her. Clever. Contriving. Conveniently amoral.
The full weight of the situation bore down on her. She was a woman whose behavior had left room for assumption. A woman with no man to “protect” her. A woman who could be acquired, used and discarded like a pair of outmoded trousers. Her insignificant life could be turned upside-down without a second thought should she fail to cooperate. To accept such conditions would mean that she would be the one to pay for the prince’s pleasures… with a lifetime of marital servitude.
All because the prince fancied her.
Eyes burning, she turned to look at them. The baron sat with his arms crossed and St. Lawrence toyed with a teacup from the tray. Neither seemed at all chagrined by the demands they placed on her.
Then it occurred to her in a stroke: if she couldn’t find a husband, the prince might be forced to call off the notion of bedding her.
“I fear, gentlemen, we are at an impasse. I know of no man willing to marry me and then loan me out for a spell to the Prince of Wales.”
“I expect that is true.” The baron’s composure bordered on the smug. “We, on the other hand, know quite a few.”
She was stunned. In the silence that followed, she realized that there was still more to come. With each new requirement they had slowly painted her into a corner.
“As we have said, the prince is generous,” the baron continued. “There are numerous men of his acquaintance who would be willing to do him just such a favor.”
“And what sort of men would they be? Barking madmen? Wastrels? Misers who would sell their grandmothers for a profit?”
“I assure you, madam—” the baron rose, looking as sincere as a weasel can look “—the men on St. Lawrence’s list are gentlemen, one and all.”
She looked to Nimble Jack, who pulled an envelope from his inner breast pocket