by Karleen Koen
“Your legs will remained chained.”
Ange bared teeth. “Arrange it! I’m growing into a madman, some creature of the dark. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. What month is it?”
“It’s March. I’m doing everything in my power to get you freed. It is most unfortunate that Alice Verney testified that she suspects you of poisoning Madame.”
“Conjecture. I’ve done nothing more than duel with a queen’s guardsman. How long must I remain in the Tower for that? The price for my silence rises with every week I remain here. Can you afford me, Your Grace?”
“I have to, don’t I.”
“I want out.”
“I have done everything I can. The French ambassador requests your release every time he sees King Charles. King Louis demands that you be returned to France.”
“Returned to France. Why would I trade this for the dungeons of the Bastille? I think not. Where are my letters?”
Buckingham reached into a pocket, laid down letters. Ange snatched them up, ripped past worthless seals. He knew the letters had been read and then resealed. If Buckingham hadn’t done so, he was a fool, which he was not.
“Good news?”
“The money you promised is in Miguel’s hands. Excellent. We understand each other, Your Grace.” Ange added, almost as an afterthought, except that it wasn’t, “If I die in prison, letters will be delivered to Balmoral, Lord Arlington, and His Majesty, detailing the scheme about the queen. Miguel has most specific instructions. They were conceived before I journeyed here. I prefer to plan ahead whenever possible.”
“You are offensive, sir. Such a thought has not crossed my mind. Though hanging you has been discussed between His Majesty and Balmoral.”
“And you, of course, do all you can to stop it.”
“I continue to, yes.”
The threat in that lay neatly beside Ange’s threat.
“Tell me what’s happening outside of this place.”
“There’s been a death in the royal family.”
“Of which I, at least, cannot be accused.”
“Our Parliament is quarreling. His Majesty is toying with proroguing it—”
“What is that?”
“It is his prerogative to terminate a session, which must remain terminated until he calls it together again. He courts your countrywoman La Keroualle, but as yet, she has not yielded. She has, however, moved into her own set of apartments.”
“Where is His Grace Balmoral? I’ve missed his growling threats this week.”
“Arranging his nuptials.”
“You jest.”
“He is marrying your dear friend Mistress Alice Verney. It’s the news of court, I do vow.”
“My little accuser to marry. I’ll dance at her wedding. And Saylor? How does he?”
Buckingham lifted his hands in a gesture of not knowing, not caring.
“His mother?”
“Oh, long back to her cave.”
“She is a witch.”
“So it was believed in her younger days.”
“No, I tell you she is one. I would know.”
“Is that how she saved her son’s life, bewitching the antidote from you?”
Ange didn’t answer. Buckingham allowed the silence, while his mind worked in its feverish, leaping frog of a manner. How to kill this man without implicating himself?
“I want a better cell,” Ange repeated.
“Yes, we’ll see to it.”
FROM THE TOWER, Buckingham took himself straight back to Whitehall Palace, to the Duke of Balmoral.
“His Grace is not receiving guests.” Balmoral’s majordomo was regretful but firm.
Beginning a binge, thought Buckingham. He didn’t care. “You are to tell him I’m here.”
Riggs didn’t dare disobey.
Returning after a short time, he bowed and led Buckingham up to the bedchamber and to the door of Balmoral’s closet. Balmoral wasn’t one to flaunt his wealth, but this chamber, with the porcelains and figurines, the elaborate cabinet, the suit of foreign armor, the tusks and horns of strange animals, showed hundreds of guineas expended. Balmoral sat at a table, a crystal decanter before him, open, a goblet in one hand. He gestured Buckingham to enter. “Sherry. It’s Portuguese, one of the rare ones. I’m quite fond of it.”
As we well know, thought Buckingham. “I never refuse.”
“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” Balmoral was still enunciating clearly.
How the gods do look after me, thought Buckingham, who truly believed they did—to catch Balmoral before he was ranting and slopping sherry was proof. “I’ve just returned from a visit to Henri Ange.”
“Who ought to be hanged.”
“I begin to be in agreement with you. I could arrange that someone strangle him. The man unnerves me. He is better off dead.”
“I quite agree.”
“Do you wish to handle it, or shall I?”
“Oh, I’ll handle it.”
Buckingham smiled. “The Duchess of York’s death has quite improved my mood. Leave the queen be, I say. Let bygones be bygones. We’ll get our prince through the Duke of York. I’ve made a list of Protestant princesses, which I shall present at the appropriate time.”
“You do that, Georgie. Go away now.”
“Bally, old man, we’ve only just begun our scheming—”
“Riggs,” Balmoral called, and when his majordomo appeared, “Riggs, do show His Grace out.”
Balmoral waved fingers at Buckingham, thinking all the while, Foolish of Ange to have baited George. One did not threaten His Grace the Duke of Buckingham. It was fatal. Protestant princesses, was it now? He had given it long thought, and he was almost certain he now knew what was in that elusive, was-there-was-there-not treaty. Some concession—some promise about faith—that neither he nor George would agree to, or else they would have been a part of the negotiation. It could be nothing else. Flirting with the Church of Rome! There’d been a war over that once—did His Majesty not remember? What game did King Charles play?
A dangerous game.
One that Balmoral fully intended to join.
This kingdom was Protestant, and it would remain Protestant. Only a confounded, deuce take it, thickheaded fool would try to change it! George might present all the Protestant princesses he wished, but if York was Catholic, it was for naught. Had King Charles allowed York’s conversion? Why? The need for cunning sharpened him, enlivened his wait for death. A man with a new bride-to-be ought not to feel so. The marriage was for Alice, not for him. He would give her the honor of his name, all the protection and property that came with that, a last, rare, openhearted gesture from a heart all but dead in him. I ought not drink anymore, he thought. But the sherry had warmed him when little else could, was already offering its familiar harbors. It was too late.
IT WAS MOTHERING Sunday. Kitchens filled with fragrance: sugar and eggs and butter beaten with dried fruit of orange and its juice and peel, covered with almond paste and baked in ovens to make mothering cakes, simnel cakes. Barbara and John Sidney strolled along the stalls of the New Exchange, a stone building in which shopkeepers set up in stall after stall on a ground floor, while above there was a surrounding gallery with yet more shops. One could find hats, toys, toothbrushes with ebony and silver handles, clothes, books, toys. John tried to buy gloves and fans and combs for her hair, but Barbara wouldn’t let him. “‘I’ll to them a simnel bring against thou goes a-mothering. So that when she blesseth thee, half that blessing thou will give to me,’” he quoted an old rhyme to her. “Next year, we’ll make you accept all those things.”
“Who is ‘we’?” she teased.
“My son and I.”
“What if it’s a daughter?”
“My daughter and I.” Before the passersby, those strolling, those shopping, he kissed her swollen belly. “May she be half the beloved angel her mother is.”
“Buy me a cake now, John.”
A bake shop was
across the street. They walked in, the smell delicious. John selected a cake in the shape of a heart, and they walked outside, eating it together.
“You have the whole of my heart,” he said to her. The sun was shining. Flower sellers had bouquets of violets and fennel, crocuses and gooseberry. “I’m wild for you. If I ever lost you, I’d—”
She put her hand over his mouth. “You’d go on, that’s what you’d do. Go and buy some crocuses, my dear. We’ll fall asleep tonight with their fragrance in our bedchamber.”
“‘Thou are fair, my beloved; our bed is green,’” he quoted to her from the Song of Solomon. “‘Thy love is better than wine.’”
“Hush, John.”
“I won’t. I can’t. I’m besotted.”
THAT EVENING, ALICE’S groom, Poppy, leaped onto wet stairs and held out his hand to her, and she stepped from the boat onto Whitehall Stairs. She’d spent the day at her aunt’s, gifting her with mothering cakes and soft leather gloves, hearing her congratulations, being shown old books, filled with recipes for food, for healing, from mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, that would be hers as a wedding gift, seeing the bed hangings her grandmother’s hand had helped embroider, hangings that would be hers, that would grace her marriage bed.
A group of soldiers approached, one of them calling to hail the boat she’d just left, and she stopped when she saw that Richard was among them. He walked forward to her. “I’ve heard the news. He is to be congratulated, Alice.”
“Thank you.”
He leaned down to kiss her cheek, but they moved into a hug, and she buried her face in the fabric of his soldier’s coat, standing on her tiptoes, longing welling up in her.
“Richard!” His friends, already in the boat, called him. Still he held her.
“I wish you every happiness.”
She couldn’t force her arms to move from about his neck. But he could and gently did. From the boat, he smiled at her, his expression strained and kind.
I love him with all my heart, she thought, and would have stumbled in her walk to the public courtyard, but Poppy was there and took her elbow and didn’t say a word as she brushed quickly at her face, removing tears. Kit ran to her in a hallway as she took off her cloak and gloves.
“Her Majesty is asking for you.” Kit was excited, impressed by her again. “We heard the news, Alice! Everyone is talking of it. I’ll have to curtsy and call you ‘Your Grace,’ Brownie says.”
“You certainly will.”
She washed her face in cool water that Poll poured into a bowl, dried her hands, and stared at her duchess-to-be self in a pier glass, while Poll, standing behind her, fiddled with curls, filled to the brim with talk, Alice could see, and sure enough, it came pouring out.
“Everyone knows…” Poll twisted a curl or two of Alice’s hair tightly around her fingers, unwound them again in satisfaction. Alice’s rise was her rise. “I walked over to His Grace’s today, to have a look, you might say.”
“I thought you went to see your mother today.”
“I did. She came with me. He’s got a grand set of apartments, he does.”
“Yes, and there’s more. There’s his property near Newmarket, other places.”
“His servants, they’re a mixed lot, some good, some bad; old soldiers who served under him, their doxies, is what I hear. You’ll need to bring a firm hand there. It’s gotten loose in the last years, what with his illness and all. They’ll be thinking to take advantage of your youth.” Poll frowned at the very idea.
“Are they pleased?”
“I’d say shocked is more like. Curious. Of course, I talked with no one other than an underhousekeeper and His Grace’s groom. If I may be so bold, have you and His Grace—oh, ma’am, I’ll have to call you ‘Your Grace,’ won’t I?” Poll laughed, a mix of joy and pride. “Is there a date for the wedding?”
“May.”
“Oh, my. Well, then, we’re to be busy, aren’t we?”
“Indeed we are. We may need your mother and your sister to help us.”
“That can be arranged, Your Grace.”
“You oughtn’t to laugh when you say ‘Your Grace.’”
“No, to be sure. That’s why I’m practicing it now.”
QUEEN CATHERINE WAS in her closet, her confessor, Father Huddleston, with her. The sight of him checked Alice for a moment, that and the stillness of the queen’s face. She curtsied and stayed down a long moment in the gesture.
“There’s been a letter from Lord Knollys,” said Father Huddleston. “He sends a letter for Mrs. Brownwell, asks that the queen give it to her, that she not be alone when she reads it.”
Foreboding filled Alice. “May I ask why?”
“He’s taken a wife.”
“Gracen Howard,” said Queen Catherine. “Mrs. Brownwell is at the Duke of Monmouth’s. Bring her. Say nothing.”
ALICE CROSSED the privy garden to Monmouth’s. The sound of a guitar being strummed met her as she walked up the stairs behind his majordomo. Courtiers played cards, Prince Rupert the guitar.
“Your Grace,” Monmouth greeted her, made an exaggerated bow, kissed her cheek. Over his shoulder, she saw Louisa Saylor. “I’m happy for you, Alice. Everyone is.”
There was Dorothy. What am I going to say? Alice thought.
Prince Rupert signaled for her to come to him. “What’s this I hear?” He strummed and talked at the same time. “You’ve captured Balmoral. Well done, girl.” A crowd was gathering. Alice was too well-known for the news to go unnoticed, and Balmoral was too important.
“Your Grace,” said Louisa Saylor, curtsying to her with a saucy look.
“Kit and I want to be bridesmaids,” said Luce.
“It’s going to be a small wedding,” Alice answered.
“Yes, he’s very old, isn’t he?”
“Very.” King Charles walked forward. “You are going to lead Balmoral a merry chase.”
Renée slipped in to kiss her cheek. “My duchess,” she said in English, rolling out the word like a flag.
“Where is the duke?” King Charles asked.
“Resting, sir.”
“He’d best. He needs to stay in bed until the wedding night. I may command that. I’d hate to have you disappointed, Alice.”
Amid the general laughter, Alice said to Dorothy, “Can you come with me back to Her Majesty?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s leave quietly. She asked that we be as discreet as possible.”
“I’ve taken your advice,” Dorothy said as they walked across the privy garden, gravel crunching under their feet. “I’m not allowing myself to imagine the worst. And I’ve stopped eating cake. And I spent too much on a new gown, but it’s his favorite shade.”
“I’m glad, Dorothy.”
Dorothy breathed in the night air. “I can’t wait for the first rose to open. The queen might be in Portugal for all she missed. She must make peace with His Majesty.”
“Yes, that’s what is wise, isn’t it, to make peace with what is.”
Dorothy took her arm and began to hum the music Prince Rupert had been playing. She was still humming it when Edward opened the door to the queen’s closet. Alice stayed outside, stood by a covered birdcage. After a time, she heard sounds of desperate weeping. Edward, who was hitting dice against the wall, raised eyes to Alice. The door to the closet stayed closed. How brave Queen Catherine is, thought Alice.
When the door finally opened, Father Huddleston walked out with Dorothy leaning on his arm, sobbing. “The queen wishes a word with you,” he told Alice.
Queen Catherine stood at her windows, looking out into the night. “Alone she cannot have. You stay with her.”
“Of course.”
“Cut through the heart. I send sleeping draft.”
“I’ll see she takes it.”
“Coins he send. For her debts, he write. Guilt money. Take it. He ask for it to be his Gracen a lady of my household. Stupid man.” Alice picked up the letter, t
he bag of coins, curtsied to the queen, who had still not turned to face her. “I forget. Blessings on your good fortune, Verney.”
Dorothy lay on the bed, her maidservant trying to talk her into putting on her nightgown. Somehow, between the two of them, Alice and the maidservant managed to make Dorothy stand, managed to strip gown and skirt and stockings. All the while, Dorothy wept, a high, keening sound that made Alice’s hands shake. How can this many tears be in someone? she thought. Are they in me? Will I sob like this someday over something? She’d wept over Cole’s betrayal, but not like this. She could imagine it now because of Richard. It frightened her, the depth and breadth and pain that might be the cost of loving.
Dorothy was still keening when the physician arrived with the sleeping draft.
Silence fell only when she slept.
Alice let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The maidservant had pulled out her own little trundle bed for Alice to sleep upon, and here was Poll, and she was fussing, helping Alice out of her gown, and there was a bowl of clean water in which to wash her face, and then Poll was brushing out her hair, familiar and soothing, and Alice felt something inside her let go, loosen. She gave a little hiccup of a sigh, and Poll, folding her gown, put it down to reach over and give her a quick pat on the arm. “You’re that tired, Mistress Alice. Into bed with you.”
“Leave the candle, Poll.”
“Don’t you go to sleep with it burning. The last thing we need is for Whitehall to burn down.”
“I won’t.”
With Poll and the maidservant gone, she went to Knollys’s letter, unfolded it, but found that she—Alice the curious, Alice the sneak—couldn’t bring herself to read it. So she refolded it and blew out the candle. She climbed into her bed and said prayers, for once with feeling, asking God to bless this muddle.
The next morning, when she woke, Dorothy was out of bed, sitting at the table, the letter unfolded before her, the coins spread out neatly on the table. “You didn’t have to stay the night, Alice.” Her voice was a croak, her face puffy.
“We were worried for you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Her maidservant entered with a tray.