by Deryn Lake
“Well today is come to nothing, for we were so near your namesake and her mistress (Ly Susan Stewart and Princess Augusta) that nothing could be said, and they wacht us as a cat does a mouse, but looks and smiles very very gracious; however I go with the Duchess Thursday, I’ll put a postscript in this of it. I beg you won’t shew this to anybody, so pray burn it, for I can tell you things that I can’t other people you know. Adieu, Dear Suke. Yrs, S. Lennox.
P.S. My love (if I may say so) to Ld and Ly Ilchester, and compliments to the rest. Pray desire Lord Ilchester to send my mare immediately, if he don’t want it, for I must ride once at least immediately in Richmond Park. Much depends on it.
P.S. I went Thursday but nothing was said; I won’t go jiggitting for ever if I hear nothing, I can tell him.”
‘Umm,’ thought Sidonie, laying the book of letters down. ‘Now why did she want her horse returned so urgently? And what, I wonder, did she mean by much depends on it?’
And thinking that nobody would ever know the answer to that, she started to read on.
Chapter Thirteen
It was a blazing summer, fine and gold, a summer during which a King fell in love with another King’s descendant, and neither of them was ever to be quite the same again because of it. The richness of these halcyon days was particularly noticeable in the morning when the sun, escaping the drenching pink lake in which it had been born, swiftly ascended the heavens, transforming everything it touched. Flowers smiled and opened beneath its rays, trees cast bowers of emerald shade and every bird in the forest swelled its breast in rapturous song.
On this particular morning a mischievous shower was chasing the sun, occasionally tipping down delicate veils of lawn, so that particles of sky, bright as cornflowers, appeared, then vanished, then appeared once more in a gleam of brilliance. Earlier, there had been a haze which had hung over the hills, hiding them in shrouds of mother-of-pearl. And later, when the sun finally gave way and evening came, the rivers and streams would turn to glass, disturbed only by the leap of a silver-scaled fish or a moorhen’s sudden plunge.
Riders were out in this sharp bright time, pounding through the rain, lifting their faces to it and laughing, glad of the cold fine drops, hurrying through the cavernous forest, afraid of being late, of missing a lover, of ruining a life. The colour of both of them was up, healthily so, and when they arrived together beneath a great oak tree standing where the tracks crossed and recrossed, they flung out of their saddles and embraced, warm cheek on warm cheek, firm lips desperately seeking those of the other.
“The last two weeks have been a nightmare,” said the King.
“Indeed they have,” answered Sarah with much feeling, and clung to him as if at any moment someone would appear to separate them.
“I thought that I would never be alone with you again.”
“It was clever of you to pass me that note.”
He had done it at the last Drawing Room, a Drawing Room at which the young Princess Augusta had stared rudely at Sarah, and the girl had found herself surrounded by a circle of beady-eyed women whose one purpose it had been to prevent her and the King from talking to one another. But he had been prepared for something of this nature and had come forearmed. Momentarily brushing against Lady Sarah Lennox, His Majesty had covertly slipped a piece of paper within her glove. Reading it later in Holland House, her eyes had shone; the lovers were to meet secretly in Richmond Park. She had immediately added a postscript to her letter to Susan requesting the return of her fast mare, though Sarah had concealed the fact of His Majesty’s note by stating truthfully that he had still said nothing to her and she would not go jiggitting for ever if she heard no more.
But now they were alone and the King of England stood gazing at her, smiling and besotted, his expression so loving that Sarah could have wept.
“My sweetheart,” he said, and caught her to him, kissing her as if there wasn’t a moment to lose. Tight in his arms, Sarah sensed his pleasure and strength, his warmth, his pure and unashamed happiness in the love that only she could give him.
“Speak to me simply,” she said.
He stared, holding her at arm’s length. “What do you mean?”
“No, Sir, what did you mean when you told me to remember what you said to Susan? What is it you want of me?”
“Marriage,” he answered quietly. “I want nothing more in life than to marry you.”
“Then I accept. Spoken to in straight language like that, I shall deal with you likewise. I agree to your offer. I will indeed become your wife.”
The china-blue eyes stared into Sarah’s incredulously. “Did you say yes?”
She hugged him, forgetting who he was and thinking only of how much she loved him. “Of course I did, ninny. I’ve been waiting for you to put it in plain English, that is all.”
“Then the matter is settled. When I return to Court this very night, I shall instruct Lord Bute to make the announcement to the Council.”
Sarah suddenly looked serious. “But what of the Princess of Wales, Sir? Everyone knows she will object to the match.”
The King frowned gloomily. “It is going to be very hard to persuade her. Both she and the Earl are set on me marrying Charlotte of Mecklenburg. But I have no wish to. I don’t know the damned girl and besides I am in love with you.”
“But how can you get out of it?”
“I don’t know,” George answered honestly. “I simply don’t know. But somehow it must be done. I shall be lost without you, Sarah. I must marry you. You hold my future happiness in your hands.”
The day seemed suddenly cold as the shower caught up with them and crossed the sun, soaking the two young people through their riding coats.
“Here,” said George, and led Sarah into the shelter of the trees where they sat down side by side on the damp ferns.
Close to her as he was, the King could see every line of Sarah’s beauty. He studied her intently like a painter, starting with her eyes, a delicate deep sea shade, both blue and green, full of flickering lights and shadows reflecting all her girlish emotions. Around those eyes he saw the thickness of her lashes, night dark, long as the stamens of a flower. Every aspect of her face was perfect and lovely, the good bones, the creamy Irish skin, the sweeping eyebrows. In a moment of intense melancholy, the sweet and kindly young man absorbed every detail as if he would never be alone with their owner again.
Sarah, undaunted by his staring, returned George’s scrutiny, admiring the healthiness of his skin, his beautiful teeth, the sensual mouth created for love, the piercing blue eyes the colour of flowers.
“Is this real?” she said eventually.
“What do you mean?”
“Am I really sitting like this with the King of all Britain, and has he truly just asked me to be his wife?”
“He has. And you are his wife already because of what has taken place between us. In the sight of God we have been joined together.”
He took her left hand in his and mimed putting on a wedding ring. Sarah leant forward and kissed him on the lips. “I love you,” she said.
“And I love you and always will.”
“Do you promise me?”
“I give you my word.”
“And I give mine.”
And the two lovers clung together as if they knew that no matter how truly they pledged, insurmountable forces were already massing against them.
*
As dawn broke Finnan lay close to Sidonie and studied her like a painter in that soft light. She was a combination of gems, he thought, the amber hair spreading over the pillow, gold at the ends where the sun had bleached it, ruby red at the roots. Her eyelids were closed, serene, half-moon-shaped, the skin as fine and delicate as pearl and, even while she slept, Finnan saw that Sidonie’s lips curled into her lovely humorous smile. In a wondering kind of way he put out a gentle finger and lifted a lock of hair which, as he put it back again, spread itself web-like where he had laid it. She was the most stunning woman he had ev
er met or, indeed, was likely to, he knew that. Yet because of her enormous talent the doctor felt inhibited, wary of the future, unable to proceed as he would have done with a less exceptional woman.
Finnan had by now come to accept the fact that his love for Sidonie was frighteningly different from that which he had felt for Rosie. His wife had been an uncomplicated Irish girl, a nurse into whose company he had been constantly thrown as a medical student. That they would eventually get married had more or less been taken for granted by both of them, and visions of a comfortable family life had opened up when they had come over to England to further the doctor’s career. For a while Rosie had done some part-time nursing with a London agency but had longed for a child and been bitterly disappointed when she had found it hard to conceive.
Something Finnan had told no one, not even Sidonie, had been the fact that his wife was finally pregnant when she died. In that one grim and ghastly accident he had lost everything. For even though the child had been unborn and unknown, he had mourned its loss as deeply as that of his poor little partner who had never known the happiness of holding her baby in her arms.
And now, lying beside this spectacular girl, loving her for her talent, for the pleasure she gave to audiences all over the world as well as for everything else about her, Finnan faced the fact that Sidonie’s musical career was hardly compatible with motherhood. Nor, knowing the pressures that Nigel had put on her to give up all that she had worked hard for, would he consider asking her to do so. In the Irishman’s mind the position was clear; he could either have a relationship with a woman whose career must come before everything else or settle for family life with someone less ambitious. And yet he loved Sidonie so much that he found it almost impossible to imagine meeting anybody else.
“Why does it have to be like this?” he whispered, and she woke and smiled at him.
“Am I dreaming or is this real?”
“It’s real and I’m suffused with guilt.”
“Why?”
“I used the key you gave me and came in late while you were asleep.”
“Did you take advantage of me, as they say?”
“For shame! I have one or two gentlemanly characteristics left. Anyway I was too tired.”
Sidonie propped herself up on one elbow. “What a pity.”
He tweaked her nose. “Now who’s being naughty?” and Finnan kissed her, wondering how he could live without her when he was in Canada, wondering how he could face any kind of future which didn’t include Sidonie.
“I shall miss you when I’m in Montreal,” he said quietly.
“So it’s definite? It’s been confirmed?”
“Yesterday morning. And just as if it happened to show me I had to go, one of my leukaemia patients died last night. He was fourteen and I thought he was the best lad in the world.”
“God, how terrible.” Sidonie looked away. “So it’s marvellous really that you’ve got this chance. How long did you say you’d be gone?”
“At least six months.”
“I see. What will you do with your flat?”
“I don’t think I’ll let it. I never quite trust that kind of arrangement. I’ll probably just write to my friends and relations and tell them to use it when they’re in London. Don’t worry, you’ll love them, particularly my brothers.”
“I’m sure.”
Finnan smiled. “I hope my mother comes over so that you can meet her. She’s formidable but I think you’ll get on.”
“How old is she?”
“Seventy-three, though you’d never think it. She still helps to run the stud farm she owned with my father. My elder brother is a partner now.”
“Did she take that up when you’d all left home?”
“God, no. She organised the whole house with only a couple of servants, worked alongside Father with the horses, and still had time to give individual attention to five children. She was quite amazing.”
“I envy women like that,” answered Sidonie. “I just wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“You have a much more demanding career than she had,” Finnan answered lightly, but he wished that Sidonie had said something else, something that could have been interpreted as meaning she would at least have been prepared to
“Yes, I suppose so,” the musician answered, and once again didn’t look at him.
For Sidonie could not trust herself to speak, wanting to be with him always, dreading the thought of his going away. To cover her feelings, she kissed Finnan, snuggling close to him. At that he kissed her in return and the inevitable explosion of passion took place between them. Yet even when their lovemaking was over, Finnan continued to hold Sidonie tightly against him, as if in some way he could prevent the fact that very soon now they must part for a considerable length of time.
*
The sun was high over Richmond Park, so high that shortly it must begin its journey towards evening, and still the King held Sarah close to him, clinging to her as if they were the sole survivors of a shipwreck and only had each other left in the whole wide world.
“I must be resolute,” George said eventually. “I must inform my mother that I wish to marry you so that the news of our betrothal can soon be publicly announced.”
Sarah pulled a face. “I think such an announcement will cause a complete sensation.”
The King shook his head. “There are many who already expect it.”
“Well, Lady Barrington does for sure. Do you know what she said to me when last I met her?”
His Majesty grinned, looking young and relaxed. “No, what?”
“You have heard have you not, my dear, that she is famous for having a beautifully shaped back of which she is intensely proud?”
“I have seen it. It is the second best in London.”
Sarah attempted to look demure. “Oh really? Then who owns the best, pray?”
“I have forgot,” answered the King, smiling.
“Well, sweet tease, when entering the Drawing Room on my last visit, she met me in the doorway and said, ‘Do, my dear Lady Sarah, let me take the lead and go in before you this once, for you will never have another opportunity of seeing my beautiful back’.”
His Majesty laughed. “There you are! What did I tell you? There will be little surprise.”
“But a great deal of opposition.”
“Which I shall overcome.”
And with that he got up, pulling his beloved to her feet, and lifted her onto the fast dark mare which Lord Ilchester had recently returned to Holland House. Sarah Lennox leaned down in the saddle and kissed George, where he stood tall by the horse’s flank, then watched him mount his own beast and canter away into the deepening day, the shadows of which were just beginning to grow longer. She shivered as a cold breeze blew from nowhere at all and was glad to turn her horse and head for home and safety.
The King went at speed, longing to get the most difficult interview of his life over and done. As he galloped, phrases ran through his thoughts, answers to his mentor’s arguments which the young man started to practise out loud as he rode. Yet deep within himself, ruled by the sign of Gemini as he was, His Majesty was capable of separating his mind from his emotions and knew that there would be much in what the Earl of Bute would have to say. Behind Sarah there indeed stood a political activist in Henry Fox and this fact could not be discounted.
“But I love her,” said one of the twins that dwelled in His Majesty’s soul. “Think of the nation,” replied the other.
Thus, by the time he arrived at Kensington Palace, the King of England felt himself to be in a state dissociated from reason, not knowing which way to turn. It was the legacy of his birth sign, and he could have broken down and wept because of it.
“There he is,” said Princess Augusta of Wales, standing close to the shutters and peeping down through a window that overlooked the stable courtyard. “He’s been out nearly all day, obviously with that slut. This must stop tonight, my Lord Bute. I cannot countenance such reckle
ss behaviour one day more.”
“Madam,” the Earl replied gravely, “there is just the possibility — and I must earnestly enjoin you to consider it — that His Majesty will not be moved. I have no doubt at all that he sincerely loves the wretched girl. There is a chance that your son might yet dig in his heels.”
Augusta groaned. “Since when has England had an English Queen? Whatever next! I have decided on Charlotte of Mecklenburg, who is as docile as a mouse and will do as she is told, and there’s an end to it. If George will not be moved then neither will I.”
If it hadn’t been for the fact that without her he would still be a nobody, a penniless Scottish nobleman scrabbling to make his way, Bute would have exploded, asking his long-nosed mistress if her son’s wishes meant nothing to her, stating that England might do very well with a queen born on English soil. But he was not his own man and enjoyed his position and all that it brought him far too much to jeopardise it by speaking his mind.
“I will do all that I can,” he answered, bowing and contriving to look both handsome and noble as he did so.
“You must,” replied Augusta, sounding Germanic, “Bute, you must. The future of the realm depends upon it.”
As the Earl braced himself for the enormous task ahead with a good-sized brandy, the door to his suite was thrown open and to his amazement he saw that the King stood there, unannounced and with the dust of travel still upon him.
“My Lord, I must speak to you,” he said, without preamble.
“But of course, Sir. I am at your command.”
His Majesty strode into the room, closing the door behind him. “Be seated, please,” he said, and himself took a chair near the fire which the Earl always had lit in the evenings whatever the temperature outside.
“I presume, Sir,” said Bute, deciding to seize the initiative, “that the subject you wish to discuss is Lady Sarah Lennox.”
George went bright red, then completely white. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.
“How may I help you in this matter?”