by Karleen Koen
What was he talking about? A dog? Was she to escort Madame’s dogs back? She opened her mouth to question, and he put a finger to his lips.
“No questions from you, Verney. You’ll know all when you need to, and trust me, you’ll be rewarded. That position you want in Her Majesty’s household is yours, once you’ve done this.”
She smiled.
King Charles’s eyes swept over her. He liked to say he could tell everything about a man from his face. People said he was lazy. He was, and he wasn’t. Whatever he saw in Alice’s face seemed to satisfy him. He stood. Alice saw she was dismissed. He walked back to the game. “Nellie, have you lost my fortune?”
“On the contrary, I’ve won fifty pounds from these here cheats you call councillors and friends.”
Alice slipped out the door a servant opened for her. Her father waited. “Well, gal?”
“I’m off to France, part of Buckingham’s entourage.” She saw even as she spoke that her father already knew. “What am I to take care of, Father? Her dogs? He didn’t say.” She rushed on, not giving him a chance to answer, seeing instead an opening for what she wanted. “I thought to bring this up later, but now is perfect. I want to bring Mademoiselle de Keroualle back with me. She is my friend, you know, and she’s written that she’s unhappy in France, and I thought we might find her a place in someone’s household here. I’ve had such a sad letter from her, and I know it’s sudden, but I didn’t expect to be going to France like this, and it would be so easy to bring her back with me when I return. Please, say yes. Please.”
Her father stepped back, staring at her for a long moment with narrowed eyes. “What a kindhearted girl you are, Alice,” he finally said. “Yes, you write to your friend and tell her to pack her bags. We’ll take care of her.” Only later would she suspect his quick agreement. “Now, you’ll need a chaperone.”
“I thought of Aunt Brey.”
Her father laughed as if she’d said something witty. “Aunt Brey.”
“What am I to take care of, Father? You haven’t told me.”
“It’s as you say, the little dogs, some jewels of state belonging to the king’s mother, and now, little Mistress Keroualle.” And then he was gone, disappearing down the corridor, and she followed him slowly, limping to the main chamber, but he was across the room near the musicians, beaming down at Louisa Saylor, who gave him a saucy smile.
Alice watched the dancing, her eyes darting over different ladies present. The Duchess of York, the Duchess of Monmouth, the Duchess of Richmond, Lady Suffolk…what household might Renée be placed in? She might have to settle for being companion to someone. Until she married Lieutenant Saylor, of course. Fletcher appeared before her, bowed smartly, everything about him crisp, as always, and perfectly done. He wore a huge, curling wig that cascaded past his shoulders.
“I’ve seen the actress at last,” she told him.
He sat down at once beside her. “A tidbit, don’t you think? Not the main course.”
“Who has the king’s regard, then?”
“La belle Stewart.”
Alice wrinkled her nose. The woman he spoke of had married a duke. There was a long, involved story between her and the king. “He isn’t courting her.”
“We don’t know that, do we? She was always more discreet than people gave her credit for—Cow!” Someone among the dancing couples caught his eye. “It doesn’t matter how many lessons I give Luce Wells, she dances like a country clod. Look how her elbows stick out. Now, Gracen is perfection.”
“Too leggy,” said Alice.
“He dances well. Look at the way he holds those shoulders, that head. Like a young god. And his legs. Divine, simply divine. I love it when he and Monmouth stand together, the light and the dark angels of court.” He spoke of Richard, dancing with zest and grace in the middle of the floor. “They do say Her Grace of Monmouth is on a tear, determined to have him dismissed from the king’s service, but Monmouth won’t do it. He’s racing tomorrow—Saylor, I mean. I hear he has a magnificent horse.”
Alice watched. Her time in France had made her more demanding of the art. There was nothing the French royal family loved more than dance; everyone had a dancing master. She sniffed. His partner did not do him justice. I could, she thought. They’d adored her dancing in France, calling her fairy, feather light. “I’m going to France with the funeral entourage,” she told Fletcher.
“Are you? You have all the good fortune. I want to go. Pack me in your truck. Hire me as a groom.”
“And I’m to be maid of honor again.”
“But that’s wonderful. When?”
“When I return.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Thank God for that. I will tell Her Majesty tonight. That will make her smile.”
“She is smiling, Fletcher. Look at her.”
“My dear girl, that is for the jackals of court. None of us who serve her have smiled in months. Ugly rumors about….” He shuddered, flicked at his coat sleeve as if an ugly rumor had landed there. “Disheartening, hurtful. I talked of it in Dover.”
“When I’m back, we’ll put our heads together and hatch a plot to put her in the king’s good graces again.”
“Only one thing will do that, Alice, and I fear it’s impossible. It’s been eight years.”
“She is still queen. She deserves the respect of that.”
“Yes, we’ve just turned up on our bellies like whipped dogs, is all. We need your backbone, Alice. Barbara is too good, and Gracen…well, if it doesn’t serve our Gracen, it doesn’t happen, does it? Caro’s gone and preoccupied with family. And I doubt Kit and Luce have a full brain between them. The ladies-in-waiting, they were always Cleveland’s creatures, never the queen’s. It’s been terrifying. Your Fletcher has thought of leaving her household like the coward he truly is. But I take fresh heart, I do. Oh, there’s Lord Rochester! He wishes me to create the dances in the intervals of a play he’s penning. They say Buckingham is writing something new, too, something that pokes fun at our august poet laureate. I cannot wait. A duel between the Duke of Buckingham and John Dryden. Inkblots at forty paces! He’s taken on an actress, you know, Dryden. I may have to support one myself, it is becoming so the fashion. I leave you, my pet, to your crippled self. What was this humor of falling off a horse? Really, Alice. I was most upset. If I haven’t you to teach, I might as well herd cows. You must allow your leg to heal properly.”
He was gone in a snap of fingers, stopping here and there, visiting, collecting, exchanging gossip, a bee with court’s pollen.
Alice limped outside to stand on the terrace, to look up at the silver moon, thinking of the queen in disfavor, of Dryden’s wife, who now had an actress as a rival. Was constancy simply a poet’s dream? We must marry you off to a grand man; you’re made for it, Princesse Henriette had said. And in that moment, she’d hatched revenge on Cole and safety for herself. She sighed. It was all harder than she’d thought it would be. She turned at a sound. Richard had stepped out to catch his breath. He pulled his long hair up and off his neck, shaking his head the way a horse would, and she was struck dumb at some spark that crackled out of him. Monday’s child is fair of face. Tuesday’s child is full of grace. So it was said about Monmouth, but to her, so it might be said of Richard.
“They’re saying you fell off a horse,” Richard said to her, at his ease, coming to stand beside her, looking up at the full moon. “‘Methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon.’ I heard that in a play the other afternoon, and it caught my fancy.”
“I’m going to France, to Madame’s funeral.”
“A signal of honor, Verney.”
“Have you any messages you wish me to take to Mademoiselle de Keroualle?”
“God’s eyes, yes! You’ll be seeing her, then?”
“Of course I’ll see her.” For some reason, she didn’t tell him Renée was returning.
“When do you leave?”
“Soon, I think.”
He smiled at her. “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” And then he left her. At the wide doors that opened into the night, he leaped up and touched the ornate carved stone above the doors in triumph.
My second good deed for the day, thought Alice. She frowned up at the pale-faced moon.
CHAPTER 13
August
All noble and devout persons pray for the soul of the most high, powerful, virtuous, and excellent Princesse Henriette-Anne of England, daughter of Charles the First, king of Great Britain, and of Henriette-Marie, daughter of France, and wife of Philippe of France, only brother of the king.” So chanted a high official of the king’s as he marched in a procession through the streets of Paris, preparing the world for her funeral.
It was the spectacle of state expected, flambeaux and wax candles burning, incense rising, the coffin covered in cloth of gold edged with ermine, everyone in satiny, shimmering yards of midnight black, pearls in ropes around women’s necks and hanging in drops from ears. Monsieur with a cloak that trailed twenty feet behind him if it trailed an inch, the greatest, longest black feathers encircling the crown of his hat, the king’s mistresses ethereal angels in mourning, the funeral sermon given by the most popular bishop in Paris, the ring Madame had willed him glittering on one thumb. “Madame is dead. Oh, help us, Madame is dead,” he began, and sobs broke out under the soaring arches of the cathedral.
“My word,” said Aunt Brey afterward as she and Alice stood in the milling crowd of people, waiting for their carriage.
“Yes,” said Alice. The funeral was grand, the manner of her dying swept under a table. It was taken for granted she was poisoned. It was taken for granted all was forgiven. Life, as they say, had moved on.
A FEW DAYS later, still in Paris, at the house of the English ambassador, Alice waited by a window that overlooked his courtyard, and when she saw a carriage pull in, she ran down the stairs and out onto the cobblestones. Renée was barely able to step from the carriage before Alice pounced on her.
“Tell me everything!”
“In my day, we didn’t talk in the street for all the world to hear us,” said Aunt Brey in the carriage, acting as Renée’s chaperone. “Let us go into the salon, if you please, Alice.” And then, as she walked arm in arm with Alice, Aunt Brey whispered, “It was very odd.”
In the salon, Renée began to tell Alice of her visit to the Louvre Palace while Aunt Brey stood before a pier glass, examining herself. “The king, I was commanded to see the king, if you can believe it, Alice. I thought my appointment was with Monsieur Colbert only, but His Majesty was there. His Majesty knew that I was returning to England with you, and he said that I was very fortunate and that it was my duty to do as I was told and be agreeable.” She smiled a lovely smile. “As if I would do anything else.”
“A very odd thing to say, I thought,” Aunt Brey said into the silvered glass that reflected her face. “I really must have some gowns made while we’re here. I looked the dowd today. Yes, it was very odd, Alice. Why on earth would King Louis himself bother with any of it, I want to know? And there’s more. Go on, tell her, Renée.”
“I am going to be maid of honor to Queen Catherine.”
Alice met Aunt Brey’s eyes as Renée impulsively hugged Alice.
“I owe your father a debt I cannot repay. I never expected this, never. I’m going to write him a letter of thanks. Oh, I must go and change my gown, Alice. Madame Colbert has asked me to call on her this afternoon.” At the door, she turned to face the two women. “This is like a fairy tale.” Then she was gone in a rushing sound of skirts.
“There’s still more.” Aunt Brey pulled a letter from her sleeve. “I received this from your father yesterday.”
Alice took the letter. Renée was to buy whatever she needed to make her appearance in England. Her father would pay. Alice walked out into the garden. Bright summer sun shimmered off the high whitewashed walls, but there was a bench in the shade. Sounds from the street rumbled over the garden wall, carriage wheels creaking as they lurched into muddy pits, coachmen’s curses, the snap of a whip, a horse’s whinny. The streets of Paris were a torment to walk along, messy, narrow, muddy, but this garden was an oasis, ivies growing thick against the stone of the house and walls, trees grown high and sheltering, flowers blooming, birds singing. Her aunt followed her out and sat on the bench beside her.
“My father is paying for her gowns?” Alice said. “Maid of honor to the queen?”
“Yes. It’s most unusual. Alice, I think you’d best prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
“Forgive me for speaking against your father, but I’m not at all certain that his intentions toward Mademoiselle de Keroualle are honorable.”
Alice opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again as her aunt continued. “He’s of an age where men lose their heads over something younger, and she is, if I do say so myself, startlingly lovely. My mother used to say young women of a certain age have a bewitching time, their maiden time when no man can resist them, when youth and high spirits carry the day. And to her credit, I think she has no notion of it whatsoever, is, quite frankly, simply bowled over by her good fortune, as so she should be,” Aunt Brey finished dryly.
Alice could feel her mind spinning, going back over details, clues she might have missed. Could it be that her father had designs on Renée? The thought made her physically ill and completely furious, and yet it might be true. Only look at his determined flirting with Louisa Saylor. He was susceptible. This kind of generosity—let her buy what she needed in Paris—was not his style. Did he think he was going to seduce Renée? That Alice would sit by and allow it to happen? She thought back to Dover, to her father and his cronies clucking over Renée’s dramatic beauty like uncles. Renée was without powerful family to protect her. Uncles be damned. She twisted the letter furiously.
“It may be worse than you imagine,” said Aunt Brey with a sniff. “What if he marries her? It’s the kind of thing men do at his age, marry someone half their years and imagine themselves young again. One may sup with the devil as long as there’s a long spoon.”
Coldness replaced incredulity and fury. There would be no marriage except the one Renée and Lieutenant Saylor contracted. Alice had every intention of championing it with all her heart. “I’ll handle it.”
“I’ve gossip for you. The French court was buzzing with it. Arabella Churchill is in Paris, has been delivered of a son.” Arabella was mistress to the Duke of York. The son was his. Aunt Brey swelled with the pleasure of having more scandal to repeat. “And the little actress Nellie Gywnn suddenly has a town house in Pall Mall. His Majesty strolls across St. James’s Park and visits with her over her garden wall. If he thinks to set her up among us, he is sadly mistaken. I will not make a curtsy to an actress. And guess who is no longer in Whitehall. You’ll never believe it. The Duchess of Cleveland has moved out of the palace into another lodging.”
“The great cow falls at last,” breathed Alice.
“What did you say? There are no cows in Whitehall. They’re in St. James’s Park, as you well know. What are you talking about?”
Renée walked out into the garden, bright sunlight making her shade her eyes. Alice considered her. You’ll return with me, Alice had said to her. I’ll see you placed properly, thinking she’d find something for her as companion to one of the ladies-in-waiting. Ha. We’ll have fun, you and I, she’d said. You’ll be my little cousin. Little cousin seemed to be doing very well on her own.
“I wanted to say good-bye before I left.” She leaned down and touched her cheek to Alice’s. “Are you cross?”
“No,” Alice lied.
Her aunt sniffed.
THAT EVENING, ALICE tracked down the English ambassador before he left for his evening engagement. Dressed in satin and laces, a full dark periwig hanging down over his shoulders, Lord Montagu looked grand and unapproachable, his pen scratching importantly over the paper in front of him. Alice didn’t leave him
in peace like a good girl but waited coldly before the table at which he sat, willing him to look up.
“I’ll be finished presently.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a few questions I have, such as when might His Grace be leaving for England again?”
“His exact departure is not yet fixed.”
Buckingham was at this moment the toast of Paris, had attended Princesse Henriette’s funeral like a potentate, cutting a swath through court, was being entertained by one and all as if he were the king of England.
“Mademoiselle de Keroualle is confused about what is to happen when we reach England. I fear I am, too.” She watched Lord Montagu purse his lips, put down his pen carefully so that the ink would not make a blot on the letter.
“Your father has graciously offered his protection, as you know, as you so kindly came across to offer. She will reside with him under his full guardianship, until assuming her position in the royal household.” His voice was bland.
“Yes, that’s where I’m unclear. No one told me of such a thing. That position would be?”
“Maid of honor to Queen Catherine, as you are.” Montagu did not betray by so much as a flicker of the eyelid what a surprise these arrangements were, but perhaps, thought Alice icily, they are no surprise to him. “King Charles feels a responsibility to her,” continued Montagu.
“The Queen of France cannot shelter her?”
“Forgive me for my frankness, but you know how the French are about bloodlines. Those who serve their queen must be of the highest families. It would be quite impossible.”
“La Grande Mademoiselle?” La Grande Mademoiselle was a princess of the court, cousin to King Louis.
“Has the same high standards as the queen of France. I cannot tell you how glad Mademoiselle de Keroaulle’s parents are that she goes to a family such as yours, who will care for her. They’ve sent a letter to your father thanking him.” Lord Montagu smiled at Alice. “I am beholden beyond words that you are with her. It makes her crossing over to a foreign land so much less frightening. You are consideration itself, Mistress Verney.”