After a while he pulled away. “Temptress!” he said, laughing. “Get up.”
A tired-looking Prudence entered with my bodice and skirts. Between the three of us, we had me dressed in no time. I donned slippers at the door and wrapped a shawl about my shoulders on our way out. He led me to the Privy Gallery through one chamber after another.
“Where are we going?” I asked, as he opened a final door.
The wainscoted walls and tiled floor were like any chamber at Whitehall, but this was unique in its function. Glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls, housing vials of substances, bottles of liquids, and preserved creatures floating in jars. Books lined regular shelves. Number charts and diagrams of the human body hung from the walls. Tables held strangely shaped glasses and warming equipment.
“My laboratory,” said the king.
“Is all of this safe?”
He shrugged and gestured to the door to the Privy Garden, where men from the Royal Society, mathematicians, architects, and physicians stood around the queen. They held spyglasses to the sky while she leaned over a tubular-shaped object. “Go see Isaac Newton’s new invention.”
A man with short-cropped hair looked up from the notebook where he was scribbling. “It isn’t finished yet.”
The queen showed me how to look into the tube.
“It’s the night sky!”
“Do you see that star with the shimmering tail?” asked the king.
“The comet everyone’s been talking about.” It was beautiful, strange, like a piece of heaven falling. I felt it had to mean something.
“You think this be a good omen or a bad?” asked Queen Catherine.
I glanced up when King Charles chuckled. “Neither. It’s just a star.”
CHAPTER 36
Whitehall Palace
February 1665
The Candlemas Masque in the Great Hall portrayed England subduing her enemies, with court ladies dressed to represent the different nations. I peered through a sequined mask and watched Lady Castlemaine and Frances Jennings, a new maid at court, prance on the stage in pantaloons and stockings.
“I’d rather they stepped down, let you get back up and dance again.”
I turned from the stage to find the Duke of Richmond beside me. “Where have you been?”
“France. For a time. But was needed back in Dorchester to review the militia at Blanford, Portland Castle, Sandsfoot Castle. Armed and ready. If we go to war.”
“You think it will happen, then.”
“Imagine so. Best to be ready in any case. Not that I’m eager for it with the new Commission of Prizes.”
“Commission?”
“King ordered us all to prey on Dutch shipping. To compensate the English for Dutch greed. I’ve fitted out small fighting vessels myself and hired captains to move on the order.”
“So you’re … pirating.”
“Sounds nicer to call it privateering, don’t you think? Fine time for such a thing. They swept out our garrisons off Guinea. The Royal African Adventurers are ruined. They’re raving mad with us in the Dutch states. Demanding New York back and building up their battle fleet. Wouldn’t mind seeing some action myself. York promised I could command some of his ships, but the king ordered me to stay at Parliament.”
Louis would be furious.
“I’ve upset you?” Richmond draped one arm across my shoulders. I felt the dragging need to tell him the truth. He steered me through a back door into another chamber.
I pulled off my mask. “It’s complicated.”
The sconces flickered as he sat me on a bench, and a look of genuine concern lined his face. Longing to tell my cousin something, I knew not where to start. “You deduced that, when I was in France, King Louis made me promise to befriend King Charles.”
He gave a half smile. “Been most successful, I’d say.”
“If we go to war with the Dutch, Louis is bound by an alliance to support them against us. I failed to unite them in the beginning, when I was—struggling against Lady Castlemaine for…”
He raised a teasing brow. “The king’s heart?”
“Yes,” I said, thankful for his tact. “I’m afraid this turn will cause Louis to be angry with me. I … don’t want him to speak ill of me to Madame.” Or reveal my mother’s secret.
“Ah … there were rumors about Madame and him. His attentions would have pricked her pride.”
“Did you see her when you were in France? How are her children?”
“She was well. Her daughter is the prettiest thing, just three years old. Her son not yet a year.”
“I miss her so.”
“You know,” he said leaning back. “Lady Castlemaine has bedded King Charles often enough, but he wouldn’t change his policy for her.”
“Exactly! The men around her may talk him into appointing cabinet members, granting titles, lands. But King Charles will never waver on matters he considers important.” The words rushed out as I waved my hands, excited to know someone understood.
“Religion, for example. He knows his people wouldn’t trust a Catholic king.”
“He’s determined to keep his kingdom intact.” I thought of Prudence. “Do you worry about England?”
“You mean will the Restoration hold?” he asked. “It will, I think. Because the king feels strongly about so few issues. He’ll sit calm on his throne and not stir things worse.”
I must have looked forlorn because Richmond grabbed my hand. “Cousin.” His expression was soft, comforting. “No matter the troubles, I have position now, which counts for something. I will protect you if you have need.”
It was the first time anyone had offered hospitality to me without self-seeking motives.
* * *
“You were the most beautiful player, Frances,” King Charles said in my apartments that night.
“An honor to you, I hope.”
“Mmm.” He didn’t look at my face but twiddled with the fruit in Sir Ment’s dish. “You were gone for some time.” His tone froze me. “With Richmond, was it?”
I knew I mustn’t hesitate in my response. “He’s our distant cousin, you know. He was telling me more about the nations we’d portrayed in the masque. Explaining it all.”
“I see,” he said, seeming relieved. “And what did you learn?”
“It made me appreciate your task, Your Majesty. I cannot think what I would do with the troubles abroad and at home pressing on me as they must you.”
He caught my hands in his. “As long as I do nothing drastic, everything should settle.”
I took a chance: “King Louis will be cross if we go to war with the Dutch.”
“Truly, Frances. The more you press his cause, the more I wonder.” The lines beside his lips deepened. “It is decided, my love. We will declare war within a month.”
The news was like cannon fire. “I speak with you about these matters because of your kinship with Louis—”
“As if I don’t have enough to worry about with the war itself, I have to fret over your esteem for Louis! How friendly were you with him?”
I bit the insides of my cheeks hard. Everything depended on my answer. I walked away to compose my thoughts. “Forgive me for interfering. It is … King Louis asked me to. It is his priority to form an alliance with you.”
“I deduced that.” His insight shouldn’t have shocked me as much as it did. “What I am asking is why you press it? You bring it up constantly. Why do you cling to his expectations so loyally?”
Could I tell him that rejecting King Louis had gotten me banished to England? I looked at Sir Ment, eating quietly, and I had to sit down. I couldn’t tell King Charles that capturing his heart was my punishment. He would see my lies, see my schemes, see me for what I really was.
I buried my face in my hands. I was an inspiration to this king, and for me, he was trying to be honorable. I could not tell the truth now and risk losing him. Wetness smeared my cheeks. I loved King Charles. Even if I had to pretend to be somethin
g I wasn’t, I would do it to keep him.
“Frances,” the king said softly. “Stop now.” He knelt. “Do stop, I can’t bear this.” He rubbed my cheeks, grasped my hands, and kissed each wrist. “I do not think war can be avoided now, but I sent a special ambassador to France to show my goodwill toward Louis.” He looked weary. “Don’t give up on an alliance yet. I will find a way to make everyone happy.”
CHAPTER 37
Early April
Life Guards helped me alight from the king’s unmarked carriage two months later, and I sailed through the front arches and sentries of Somerset House. My mother, the Queen Mother, and my siblings greeted me in the courtyard, and I stopped to curtsy. My sister ran to me, embraced me, and asked, “Can I go with you?”
Mother and I were going to the Tower of London to visit the Duke of Richmond, whom King Charles had imprisoned for dueling with another lord. “Of course not,” I replied. “The Tower is no place for a young girl.” Nor is court. Nor is anywhere in London. I wished I could send all three of them to a manor in the country to keep them safe.
The Queen Mother studied me as I chatted with my brother. I wondered what plots she might be hatching now, or had the recent uprisings tempered her ambition?
As Mother and I left, St. Albans appeared and began a promenade in the garden with the Queen Mother, the children following behind them. My mother would never leave the Queen Mother’s service. This was a sort of family to her. Indeed, St. Albans might be real family.
“You look healthy,” she said as the carriage jostled us through town.
“Sophia and Walter seem well. How go their lessons?”
“Sophia is a beautiful dancer. Walter adores fencing.”
She smiled warmly at me and we held hands. “I miss you,” I said.
“It’s been some time since your maid Mary reported to the Queen Mother. She seems not to press you about King Charles as she once did,” she said carefully. “You could leave court.”
“You know King Louis wants me here. And we might go to war with his ally. I can’t leave now.”
“There is less risk to your family if you do.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to anger St. Albans.”
We didn’t say anything further.
When our carriage reached the end of Tower Street, we found we had to walk. We passed through Lion’s Gate and followed the narrow drawbridge. To our right, a small crowd of Londoners had gathered to look at the lions, growling and pacing in the enclosure below. The keeper threw in a shank of meat, and I had to look the other way. The outer ward rose straight up from the moat, and the White Tower within stretched high and imposing. We came to the Middle Tower, where guards searched our baskets of peas and spring greens. One led us down another bridge over the moat to the Byward Tower, and finally to the Bell Tower. Up flights of stairs, he unlocked a heavy wooden door and threw it open.
Richmond, with doublet thrown aside and shirtsleeves rolled up, glanced from his writing table and groaned. “What are you doing here?”
We entered the vaulted chamber, curtsied, and Mother extended her basket. “To reassure ourselves that you are well, Your Grace, that you hadn’t been harmed.”
Judging by the plush Turkish carpets, the canopied bed, and the remnants of a fine dinner at the table, he was certainly fine. Prisoners had to pay for their keep at the Tower. Richmond had obviously paid a tidy sum.
He rose. “You came through London for that? Have you no sense of safety?”
I stepped forward. “You are the one who was dueling. Besides, I must ask if you know anything of my friend. Elizabeth Mallet left my apartments the other night after supper. Her grandfather was conveying her home, but a carriage stopped them at Charing Cross. The drivers seized her! No one knows who’s responsible or where she is, but King Charles suspects the Earl of Rochester and sent him here to the Tower.”
He saw my anger. “I haven’t seen him. They don’t let me out much.”
“If you do, you must press him for information. Beat it out of him if you have to!”
“Go back now. King Charles will be angry when he learns of this.”
I handed him my basket and turned to go. “When he sees you’re important enough to me that I’d visit you here, he’ll soften and release you.”
“I incurred his disfavor once before, on a botched mission to Scotland. Don’t sacrifice your favor for mine.”
CHAPTER 38
Yesterday I saw one of his mistresses, whom I should not have recognized, she has grown so much taller and more beautiful since she left the Palais Royal; it is of Mademoiselle Stuart I would speak, who is assuredly the prettiest girl at this court and would pass for a very great beauty in any country.
—HONORÉ DE COURTIN
to King Louis XIV, April 1665
King Charles never stayed angry for long, and Richmond was released within the week. My friend was returned to her grandfather unharmed. Rochester was released, too, and the only punishment he incurred for abducting her was not being allowed to marry her right away as he’d hoped. But standing beneath a long row of orange trees that shaded one side of the pall-mall court at St. James’s Park, I didn’t care about any of it.
King Charles had never spoken about the night I’d cried into his hands. I was left to wonder: Did he think I’d shed tears for a lost lover in King Louis? When he’d returned to my apartments three anxious days later with trepidation in his eyes, I tried not to ponder where he had been when he wasn’t with me. Pretended not to worry when Queen Catherine confided he had not been to her bed recently. Now I watched King Charles on the pall-mall court as he wrapped his arm around petite, blond Frances Jennings, the Duchess of York’s new maid of honor. The man I loved was holding a pretty girl’s waist with one hand, and guiding her playing arm with the other.
Jennings swung her mallet, and her ball landed far from her target. King Charles and she tossed their heads back, laughing. He pressed his body behind hers and began his tutorial again.
“Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle Stuart, are you listening?”
Blinking, I turned to the men who stood beside me. Three pairs of French ambassadorial eyes stared me down, expressing a mix of frustration.
King Charles had been true to his word and had sent a special ambassador to France. King Louis responded by sending two additional ambassadors to England. They had gone directly to King Charles to plead with him not to go to war. Then came directly to me.
“I say, Mademoiselle Stuart, are you well?”
I ripped the gloves off my hands and walked past them, heels crunching the cockleshells of the pall-mall court. The gloves were new, one of many gifts the ambassadors had presented to me since their arrival. I wanted to throw them on the ground. If I didn’t need them so badly, I would. Mounting war was expensive. Queen Catherine’s income was cut to make the fleet ready. Which meant everyone’s income was cut. I hadn’t been paid my portion in months. Even meals for the court were reduced to fit a new budget imposed on Whitehall Palace.
The ambassadors scampered after me. “Wait, mademoiselle. Slow down!”
The pleading voice put me in check. I hadn’t realized how quickly I’d fled. It was time to get hold of myself and figure out “a way to make everyone happy,” as King Charles had put it.
I led them to a shaded bench beside the canal. “Sirs, do you mind if I sit?”
Henri de Bourbon, Duc de Verneuil, gestured toward the bench. “But of course, please make yourself comfortable.”
Verneuil, a handsome man, was the illegitimate son of Henri IV of France. Which made him uncle to King Louis and King Charles. His presence signified the importance King Louis attached to this embassy. He had a sad disposition that made him quiet, which didn’t bother me at all. I tried to seem cheerful. Maybe they didn’t notice my frustration. I certainly hoped they didn’t notice the king’s attentions to Frances Jennings. “Who would have thought spring would be so warm already?”
Honoré de Courtin l
ooked relieved. “We shall gift you a supply of fans next.”
Courtin was young, but sharp and studious. He was the one communicating with King Louis by letter. He gestured to his companion. “Shall we supply Mademoiselle Stuart a box of fine fans to preserve her comfort?”
Verneuil only bowed slightly.
“Very well,” added Cominges, who now heeded Courtin’s every command. “We shall bring her the prettiest ones.”
Courtin put a fist on his hip and leaned toward me, scabbard tapping against the bench. “As to what I was saying earlier, mademoiselle, about the king … he is rather slow in his manner of handling business. He would not meet with us the other day simply on the excuse of it being a Sunday. Lord Chancellor Clarendon is impossible to see on account of his gout. The few times we have spoken with King Charles he is amiable but … noncommittal.” He frowned. “I must convince him not to release his ships from their harbors against the Dutch.” Courtin glanced at his cohorts. “King Louis has impressed this upon me.” The three Frenchmen hovered closer over me. “You see, mademoiselle, King Louis mentioned, most confidentially, that you owe him a special favor.”
My insides turned to ice.
Courtin pressed on. “I’d hoped we could conduct our business without requesting your help, but we have made no progress. So we must ask you to intercede on King Louis’ behalf.”
It is finally time. I must obey orders or King Louis will expose my family.
I carefully slipped each glove back on and stood. King Charles’s laughter drifted through the orange trees, and I glanced toward the pall-mall court. If I’d had any right to pray, I would have asked God to make King Charles still love me once his angel fell.
* * *
I sent King Charles an invitation to sup in my apartments that night.
He seemed genuinely at ease, leaning back at my table, empty plate before him, wine goblet in hand. “When I marched my army into Worcester, I thought we could hold out against Cromwell’s forces. But we fell apart in the fighting. I had no choice but to flee, go into hiding, make my way out of England on my wits and a prayer. By the time I climbed into that tree, I was exhausted.”
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