The small book fell heavily into my hand. She had never spoken so baldly before. I could hardly believe she meant her own words.
“He will not heed his mother, but he will listen to a mistress if he loves her.”She narrowed her stare. “You must make him Catholic.”
I longed to throw the book down and run. “To be a mistress is to live in sin.”
She reached out, took my hands, and wrapped them around the book. “You good, simple girl. Not a mistress. A king’s mistress. You must pray for absolution. And you shall have it, for your sins are committed for the sake of saving England from eternal damnation. God will understand, child. You are doing it for Him.”
Slowly, blankly, I nodded. “I—I would like to bid farewell to my family.”
“There is no need,” she said. “They are going with you.”
I nodded. I’d feared they’d stay behind. Mother would not be easy about it, but I was relieved, for the closer they were to me, the easier they’d be to protect.
“I shall follow you to England come summer, after the birth of Madame’s child. You will report your status to me then.” She stood and actually smiled at me. “I have high hopes for you. God could not have made you so beautiful for nothing.”
After she left and the door had closed, Madame sat up and finally looked at me. “First you steal my lover, then the love of a mother who rarely shows it.”
I tossed the prayer book to the chair. “Please, Madame, forgive me.”
Resentment clouded her eyes. “I don’t know about forgiveness. Though knowing you face Lady Castlemaine satisfies my need for vengeance.” She stretched her legs to the edge of her bed. “That woman will roast you for supper if you are not cautious.”
“Do you think your brother could—love me?”
“My brother loves any female who opens her legs to him. They do not call him an enemy to virginity and chastity for nothing.” Madame took a few steps to her cabinet. Her small, rounded belly pressed a curve against her mantua gown. “He is a whore of a man.” With a quick flick, she tossed a small purse to me.
Coins jingled as my hand closed around the soft leather. “I cannot accept—”
“The purse is from the Earl of St. Albans. You shall have to fight to get maid of honor. Here.” She extended a letter closed with her large black wax seal. “Have your mother present this to Charles. My recommendation.”
I took the letter. Tears burned my eyes. “I wish you could have—”
She climbed back onto her ornamented bed. “There is no sense for a princess to wish. Politics determines our fate, not fancy. I shall take my happiness where I can.”
I clutched the letter and the leather purse, the need to be forgiven sweeping through me. “Madame … I…”
She held up her hand. “Go. I cannot stand to look at you any longer.”
CHAPTER 12
The English Channel
End of January
No royals had emerged for farewells. We’d simply climbed into the Queen Mother’s carriage and rolled out of Paris. Mother seemed reluctant to fuss at me in Mary’s presence, and the children chatted excitedly as we set out. “Why must we go to England?” asked my sister.
“We are Stuarts, and they have England’s throne again.” I scooted close to her and tucked both of our cloaks around us. “It’s where we belong.”
Walter tugged our mother’s arm. “Have you ever been to England?”
“Yes,” she said as I watched her carefully. “Of course I have.” She snuggled Walter under her arm and revealed nothing more.
We’d slept at the inn in Rouen, and now my family convalesced in the cabin of the ship commissioned at the port of Le Havre-de-Grâce to carry us across the Channel. But I had sea legs, so the captain said, and I didn’t mind the icy winds on deck. It blew my hair around my face as I looked back toward France: the coast had long since receded under heavy gray, along with everything I thought I was. Cold air filled my lungs, and I tried not to think about the future. Just for a moment.
I closed my eyes and turned so my ribs pressed the railing. The wood was thick, and I gripped its smooth curve as the waves tossed the ship. The icy blast now lifted my hair off my back and sent it swirling in the air behind me. It pierced through my bodice and lifted the edges of my velvet cloak so it whipped around me like a black flag. I raised my arms just a little to feel the wind push them up and imagined I was flying. Up and up went my arms, until I didn’t have to hold them up anymore. This must be how it felt to fly. To be free.
Then I opened my eyes, squinting against the wind, and saw it.
England. A thin, distant line on the hazy expanse.
As I lowered my arms, my thoughts fell to what I must do. Somehow I would win a place in the new Queen Catherine’s household. Ingratiate myself with King Charles without becoming his mistress. As long as the Queen Mother thought I was cooperating … I must handle each task delicately for my brother’s and sister’s sake. If I incurred too much scrutiny, someone might uncover our mother’s secret. If I could do all these things, I might even find a way to be happy. I balanced on my toes, trying to reclaim that soaring sensation, to greet my new home.
* * *
We entered the mouth of the river Thames and disembarked at Greenwich, the Queen Mother’s palace. All along the riverbank, crumbling red brick walls and towers gaped hollow while workers pounded them with chisel and hammers. “Why is it being torn down?” asked Walter as an arched window tumbled in on itself.
“This is the old Tudor palace,” said Mary wistfully. “These walls saw royalty’s most glorious days. The wars and the Commonwealth let it crumble beyond repair, but King Charles is rebuilding it to match the Queen’s House.” She pointed toward a long, white house built in what the French would have called the Italian style. “Begun for the first Stuart queen, it was completed for our mistress. But she didn’t enjoy it long before the wars broke out.”
She ushered us through the rubble and up the walk, then arranged our dinner, and saw us to bed. If Mother had ever served the Queen Mother here, she gave no indication that she recognized the place.
* * *
Next morning, we took a carriage up Old Dover Road to the Southwark side of the city, and the heavy London air filled my nose. The children propped themselves at the windows when Mary announced we were approaching London Bridge. I peeped around the leather curtain for a better view.
Royal arms marked the opening of the Great Stone Gate, but my eyes drew upward to a dozen spikes pointing to the sky. Each topped with a human head. My brothers and sisters fell back, eyes wide with fear.
Mary saw my shock. “Those would be members of Venner’s rising.”
“What was their crime?” I asked.
“They were Protestant Dissenters rebelling against the newly restored monarchy. Traitors’ heads are preserved in a mixture of spices so they must show their faces in shame for years.”
I’d never seen England’s religious conflict firsthand, and its brutality shocked me. If this was their reaction to a Protestant rebellion, how might they respond to a Catholic plot? I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself.
A convergence of men herding cows, sheep, and geese, farmers with their wagons, and peddlers with their carts all jostled for passage through the gate, and our progress slowed. Once we lumbered through, I realized the bridge was lined most of the way with an array of buildings. Houses topped shops and joined overhead, making it feel as though we passed through a tunnel, and the chorus of common life echoed.
Mary said periodic fires had destroyed some sections of shops, and when we came to these openings, I could see the river Thames. Dozens of ships and small vessels dotted the blue. Men aboard sang or called to one another, pulling up nets, throwing out fishing lines, or struggling to maneuver through the arches of the bridge. Walter pointed downriver to a huge fortress on the north bank. “Is that the castle where we’re going?”
But Mary shook her head. “That’s the Tower of Lon
don, for prisoners, executions, and for punishing anyone who displeases the king.”
As we emerged through the final gate of the bridge, into the city, a thunderous noise made me cover my ears.
“A waterwheel,” said Mary. “To supply nearby homes and for putting out those fires.”
Mother seemed surprised at Mary’s explanations, as if she knew nothing of London. It made me wonder, quietly, if she’d truly ever been here, but I didn’t dare ask in present company.
I once thought Paris smelled foul in the hot summers, especially compared to the sweet country air of Fontainebleau. But this was mid-winter and still a grimy cloud, mixed with fog from the river, hovered over the whole of London. I could smell the fumes of lime factories, dyers, butchers, and tanners. Walter covered his face with his sleeve.
The street was a seething river of mud, dung, and kitchen refuse. It coated every woman’s hem in filth. The carriage wheels bumped along the rutted road and jostled us in our seats. Muckrakers jerked out of our path, then returned to scraping, stirring the sludge around and scattering muddy rats. The poverty overwhelmed me more than the stench, and I felt a flash of relief that I carried St. Albans’s purse and the ruby necklace. A fresh whiff of animal entrails decaying outside a butcher’s shop made me cover my nose.
Children screamed or played, dogs fought, and people bartered, cursed, or laughed. Peddlers roamed everywhere, dodging chamber-pot waste hurled from windows and shouting out their advertisements. They carried baskets of produce, boards of fresh bread, cases of fish, even barrels of ink for sale. One woman balanced piles of soiled clothes on her head for trade. Building was constructed upon building, and the crowded line of taverns and coffeehouses seemed never ending. I spotted a man urinating against a timber shop, and I shrank back from the window, stunned. Finally we rolled past the towering St. Paul’s Cathedral and through Ludgate, part of the Roman wall that had surrounded the city in ancient times. We covered Fleet Hill, Fleet Bridge, and went through the timber arches of a gate Mary called Temple Bar.
“London is huge! We’ll be lost here,” said Sophia.
“No,” Walter replied. “Frances will be a maid of honor. She’ll take care of us.”
Mother glanced at me and I saw the worry in her eyes. I clasped her hand and squeezed.
Mary nudged me as our driver maneuvered around a massive pole jutting up like a ship’s mast in the middle of the road. “It’s the great maypole King Charles brought in at the Restoration. But look there.” She nodded toward a distant curve and break in the road. “Whitehall Palace is down the Strand beyond Charing Cross. Farther still, through Holbein Gate and King Street Gate, is Westminster.”
I looked at the street again, relieved to see this section of the city seemed cleaner and quieter. The carriage halted before a long arcade of stone pillars and arches on our left.
“Welcome to Somerset House,” said Mary.
CHAPTER 13
Somerset House, London
Through the gatehouse arches, Somerset opened to a three-sided courtyard. The gardens within lay in a winter sleep, its huge fountains and grottoes empty. They stretched clear to the river landing where workers hauled stone to construct an arched gallery. Inside, years of neglect underwent slow repair. Drapers hung red velvet in the new presence and privy chambers, and joiners constructed furniture on-site. Painters had just applied the finishing touches to our apartment, and it lent the feel of a fresh start as we settled in. Mother didn’t know her way around. She didn’t seem familiar with any of the chambers, even in the older wings. It seemed apparent that she’d lied to me—she’d never been here before.
So it surprised me the next day when she ordered the Queen Mother’s carriage to take us to Whitehall Palace. “Put on your best day clothes and bring Madame’s letter,” she said. “We shall see it into King Charles’s hands and hope he’ll be generous.”
She made Mary go with us. A King’s Guard approached as we turned off the Strand into the red brick archway of Court Gate. Mother introduced herself and flashed the black seal of Madame’s letter. “We’ve come to present ourselves to His Majesty.”
“His Majesty isn’t like to receive in his regular rooms today. The privy gallery is under repairs.”
“We will return at a more suitable time.”
He nodded. “Try yer luck at St. James’s Park, as His Majesty is like to take his daily walk.”
Mother smiled patiently. “Just instruct our driver to enter the court and turn about.”
He looked quizzically at us. “Ye can this once, but you’re supposed to turn yer carriage out here in the street.”
We rumbled through the gate, Mother looked embarrassed, and I fought my disappointment. Mary pointed out the many structures. Some tall, some wide, all were tumbled together in contrasting styles of differing generations. There was no center point, no main entry, but doorways, gates, and alleys leading in every direction. If Mother hadn’t been here before, she would need Mary to guide us. Before the carriage turned in front of the Great Hall, it stopped. Mother gasped, and pointed to the long wooden terrace that stretched the length of the Great Court. Through the arched doorway walked King Charles, short cloak whipping around him, trailed by several gentlemen and a rowdy pack of spaniels. She pushed open the door and slipped gracefully toward him.
Mary pushed me. “Go, girl. Now is your chance.”
King Charles caught sight of my mother. “Sophia Stuart?”
She dipped, right there in the middle of the Great Court, to a deep curtsy.
“It is you! Have you just returned from France?”
Mother presented Madame’s letter. “To bring word from your sister and to introduce my daughter at court.”
He glanced at me just as I stepped out of the carriage. I hardly knew whether to curtsy on the spot or approach. “Ah, the girl who was not my sister at Colombes those years ago!”
I went to them, disguising my fluster with a curtsy and a smile.
He took the precious letter and said, “Carry this for me, Bennet.” A gentleman, with a narrow black strip pasted across the bridge of his nose, snatched it and tucked it into his doublet. The king grinned at us. His eyes—I’d forgotten how golden brown they were—crinkled at the edges, lighting his dark face with joy. “Thank you mightily and welcome to Whitehall. We’re off to the park for a walk.” He leaned close and whispered. “One can always tell which of my courtiers needs the most favor by noting who keeps up with me the longest. It’s most amusing. Would you care to join us?”
Speechless, Mother and I glanced at each other before she replied, “Thank you, Majesty, not today.”
He walked toward Court Gate and called over his shoulder. “I expect to see you at court whenever you have an excuse.”
The band of men and pack of yipping spaniels followed close behind him. One man stopped to catch my eye. Buckingham! He flashed a wildly satisfied grin, pointed at me, and then followed the king out.
Mother noticed. But Buckingham couldn’t dampen my delight. It had been unusual, but we’d gotten our welcome to court. A warm welcome at that. Now I needed an excuse to return to the palace and pursue my goal.
* * *
The sight of Buckingham made Mother so nervous, we didn’t leave Somerset for a fortnight. She evaluated improvements at the house, and I secretly sewed St. Albans’s silver coins into the hems of my sister’s petticoats.
“It’s so much,” she said when I showed her. “We’ll never be hungry as we were during the Fronde.”
If I didn’t get my appointment, we’d need this money to sustain us until the Queen Mother’s arrival. But I wouldn’t explain to Mother why St. Albans had given it to me any sooner than I had to. I didn’t even know the reason myself.
The excitement I’d felt initially soon faded, as we received no invitations to engagements. Mother wouldn’t even take me to Whitehall’s presence chamber to meet the English courtiers. Our only glimpses of London were of watercraft navigating the frosty river be
yond Somerset’s garden walls. Until a letter finally arrived.
“An invitation to a ball at Whitehall.” I held my breath. “The king is sure to be there.”
Mother pressed her lips together and said nothing.
That evening, when I’d tied gauzy lace around the shoulders of my green velvet bodice, slipped the matching petticoat over the waist tabs, donned black and gold mules, and curled black and gold ribbon into my hair, I pulled King Louis’ velvet box out of our old wooden chest. If I wanted to impress them, set myself apart, I had to stand out. I took a deep breath and opened the box. I extended it to Mother.
Her voice was a tight, slow whisper. “How did you get that?”
“King Louis gave it to me as a farewell gift.”
She closed the box so hard it fell and clattered against the floor. “I wouldn’t dare let you go to court if the Queen Mother didn’t command me.” Hot fury lit her eyes and I realized too late I should have lied. Her fingers reached into my curls and ripped a black ribbon out, pulling strands of hair with it. “No man, much less a king, lavishes such trinkets on a woman for nothing. Whatever you did with him, whatever he wanted you to do in exchange for that gaudy thing, you best never speak of.” She looped the black ribbon around my neck and tied it at my nape. Hard.
I choked and reached up, slipping a finger underneath to take a breath. “Mother, I’ve done nothing—”
“Don’t speak if you are going to tell lies.” She took a shaky breath. “If people discover—your brother will be shunned.”
“Mother, please tell me your father’s name.”
“That is a name no one can ever know,” she whispered, resigned.
* * *
Afterward, our short journey down the Strand to Whitehall Palace in the Queen Mother’s cavernous carriage was dark and somber. We alighted in the Great Court and passed through the arch of the long wooden terrace. Mother spied some old friends, Royalists who had been in France, and anxiously struck up conversation.
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