The Countess and the King: A Novel of the Countess of Dorchester and King James II

by Holloway Scott, Susan

  My first inclination was to surprise him there, a notion which Father quickly denounced as foolish, as well as a rude imposition upon Sir Richard’s wife. Sadly I agreed, and was tormented by James’s single letter recounting how much he’d enjoyed Cumberland, and the company of Lady Grahme’s numerous family, she being a Howard and daughter to the Earl of Carlisle. I suppose I was to be impressed by this mention of the Howards, that ancient stew of schemers, but I would much rather have heard that James had had a day to spare for me instead.

  To distract me (and likely keep me from more rashness), Father obtained an excuse from Court for me from the duchess, and took me with him on a leisurely inspection of his own holdings in Southfleet, near Gravesend in Kent. He was deep in writing another play based on the ancient story of Anthony and Queen Cleopatra, and claimed he needed the solace of the country to collect his muse; a pretty excuse to hide his concern for me. It was pleasant enough to walk beside the sea with Father, who remained the best company in the world, especially given that Lady Sedley was left behind in London. But what pleased me even more was the letter that was awaiting me when Father and I returned in early September.

  At last James had completed his tour with the French army, and was returning to England for a lengthy stay. Best of all, he wished to see me on the very day he arrived.

  “BUT YOU CANNOT HAVE HEARD THE latest tale of the Lady Portsmouth!” I said, taking another drink of my claret as I made wide, knowing eyes at James over my goblet. “It involves her sister’s husband, the Earl of Pembroke, and since it only occurred this week past, I’m sure it will be new to you.”

  “The Duchess of Portsmouth!” James exclaimed, his eyes bright with anticipation as he settled back in his chair, his own goblet in his hand. “S’blood, what has she done now? One would believe she’d be content in her place in His Majesty’s bed without causing more vexation for him.”

  “Oh, it’s not what she has done, but rather what the earl threatened to do to her.” I grinned wickedly. This truly was like the old times. I’d not seen James in over a year, yet we’d fallen into our usual ways as if it had been hours, not days, since last we’d met. He’d brought me here to dine at Chatelin’s in Covent Garden, for after having spent so much time among Frenchmen, he’d developed a taste for their food as well. While Chatelin’s was the only London tavern of quality with a French cook (and the outrageous bill would show it, too), I was pleased to come here on account of the private dining rooms. We’d a handsome small chamber to ourselves, with our own fireplace and a potboy to bring us the supper that James had bespoken for us, a fine, snug place for our reunion. I’d dressed myself in the French fashion as well, in a rich green silk sack gown with point lace at my cuffs, pearls at my ears and around my throat, and a bright garnet drop to add a bit more color to the paleness of my skin.

  “Pembroke is a madman,” James said with more relish than disapproval, “and rages so when he drinks that no sane gentleman will keep his company. I can’t fathom why Portsmouth was so quick to wed her sister to him.”

  “They say the lady herself desired him above all others,” I said, “though faith, one vows she must be mad herself to choose such a husband.”

  James held his glass for the potboy to refill. “I doubt he would’ve chosen her, either, were it not for the dowry the king gave her. Unless she’s improved with time, I recall her as being as unlovely as her sister the duchess is beautiful.”

  I shrugged, making no judgment on the younger de Keroualle. Even with James, I remained uneasy discussing any other lady’s lack of beauty; it was a poisonous dart that could too easily be turned back against me.

  “Then considering how that royal largesse comes by way of Lady Portsmouth, one would think His Lordship would show more kindness toward her,” I said instead, and leaned forward to confide the most luscious facts of the tale. “Pembroke has forbidden her to enter his house, saying he wished no whores consorting with his wife, despite the whore in question being his wife’s sister. On discovering her beneath his roof—for so the two women did disobey him, from natural fondness for each other—Pembroke fell into a great rage and, brandishing his sheathed sword, chased the shrieking Lady Portsmouth from the house in view of savants and others passing in the street.”

  “Oh, the poor lady-whore!” James said, jeering at the mistress’s plight. Any other lady would have earned his sympathy for such rough treatment, but because Lady Portsmouth believed she was the highest bred creature at the Court except the queen, it somehow seemed almost merited. “She fancies herself to be so surpassing genteel, that his frank talk must have vexed her no end.”

  “I heard she was less vexed than terrified, fearing for her very life,” I said, gesturing to give the story the dramatic ending it deserved. “You know how Pembroke bellows, roaring so all of London might hear him. As he chased her down the street, he threatened to hang her by her ankles from a nearby tree and bind her skirts over her head, so that the world might view all her secrets, and know exactly what ruled our king.”

  “Hah, how fast she must have scurried away at that!” James exclaimed, roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of the haughty French mistress. “Oh, Katherine, I vow that no one tells the newest bawdy story as well as you.”

  “More like the latest bawdy scandals,” I said, laughing heartily with him. How good it felt to share this with him again! “Faith, I’d wager our Whitehall can conjure more scandal in a fortnight than you heard in France in the entire time you were away.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if there’d been French scandal or not, considering it would have meant nothing to me without you to tell it.” His amusement faded, and he reached across the table to take my hand. “I cannot begin to tell you how much I’ve missed you, Katherine.”

  “Nor I you, James,” I said softly. In his Coldstream uniform, he surely must have been the most handsome gentleman I’d ever seen, and the warmth in his gaze as he regarded me was better than a thousand kisses from other men. In that moment, every too-short letter was forgiven, and every absent endearment forgotten.

  “Without question you are my dearest friend in London.” He raised my hand to his lips in tender salute. “I do not believe I would have survived being at Court last year without you. You showed me kindness when no one else would see me, and you made me laugh at every folly, and for that I shall always hold you in the dearest and highest regard, a friend among friends.”

  “And I you, James,” I whispered, overcome with the sweetness of his words. “And I you.”

  “Dear Katherine,” he said softly. “You understand why I was determined to see you first when I returned. I’ve something to tell you, a confidence that you above all others will understand, and share in my joy.”

  My heart fluttered with hope, squeezing so tightly in my breast I scarce could breathe. Here at last would be the declaration of love that I’d so longed to hear!

  He took a deep breath, and grinned. “I’m to be married.”

  “Married?” I repeated, so stunned I wondered that I could speak the word. “Married?”

  “Yes, married,” he said, and chuckled as if he’d just told me the best jest imaginable. “There, I knew I’d surprise you!”

  “Married,” I said again, the word now like a well-honed dagger through my heart and my hopes. I drew my hand away from his, folding it tightly into its mate before me. “What lady?”

  “Dorothy Howard,” he said, so enraptured by his own thoughts that he’d not noticed I’d taken away my hand. “She’s a distant cousin of my brother’s wife, and she was with them this summer when I was there. Her grandfather’s Lord Berkshire. She’s a most excellent lady, virtuous and quiet in her manner, and yet of the rarest beauty, too.”

  Virtuous and quiet in her manner, and of the rarest beauty; in short, my opposite in every possible way, and with the Earl of Berkshire for her grandfather.

  “Likely you have seen her at Court, though I had not,” he continued happily. “She serves as
maid of honor to Her Majesty.”

  Oh, yes, I knew her, by sight if not by reputation, for as far as I knew, she had none. Dorothy Howard was enchantingly plump and as fair as a porcelain shepherdess, her hair golden blond, her eyes pale blue, and her mouth the tiniest of pink rosebuds. If she’d any cleverness, I wouldn’t know it, for I do not believe I’d ever heard her speak so much as a single word beyond those required to answer the queen.

  He smiled his contentment, clearly envisioning her before him. “Mrs. Howard is everything any gentleman could wish in a wife. I knew that from the instant we met. I first asked for her hand before I left my brother’s house, but because her parents thought my prospects were beneath her, they refused to give their consent. But now she has told me that, after prayer and reflection, she had decided to accept me, whether with her father’s consent or without. The courage of a lion in the shape of the sweetest lamb!”

  “When will you wed?” My voice sounded distant and hollow, as if I stood at the far end of an echoing cave.

  “Next week,” he said proudly. “Now that she has agreed, there is no reason for delay. I’ll be called back to France soon enough.”

  “Oh, no.” I looked down at my clasped hands, afraid my eyes would betray too much. The choice before me was at once impossibly easy, yet painfully hard. He regarded me not as the lover I’d hoped, but as a friend. I could fall into a wounded rage born of my pain, hurl the bitterest curses upon him and his bride, and storm away from the eating-house, never to speak to him again. Yet if I were to do that here in Chatelin’s, the entire Court would hear of it with their morning chocolate. I wasn’t the Duchess of Portsmouth, entitled by my beauty and rank to tempestuous displays. Instead I’d be mocked for having aspired to such a handsome man, ridiculed for believing I could claim him as my own, and greeted by knowing smirks wherever I went. I’d long ago learned from Father and his friends that at Court it was far better to be spoken of for scandal than to be ignored in virtuous silence. But not like this; not like this.

  And what, truly, would it gain me?

  But if instead I could make myself mask my hurt behind a happy smile and good wishes, my secret would forever be buried. I might never have possessed James as my lover, not really, but I could at least keep him as a friend. I still loved him too well for it to be otherwise.

  “Katherine?” He was waiting, unsure.

  Slowly I looked up. I held my goblet up toward him, and forced myself to smile.

  “To you, James,” I said softly. “To you, and Mistress Howard, and much joy to you both.”

  But that night in my bedchamber, I sat before my fire and carefully untied the ribbons from his letters. One by one by one, I dropped the pages into the flames, watching them burst bright before they curled and blackened and fell to bits.

  If a part of my heart did the same, then no one but I would ever know.

  Chapter Ten

  THE DUKE’S THEATRE, DORSET GARDEN, LONDON

  March 1676

  It should come as no surprise that after the debacle with James Grahme, I once again threw myself into life at the Court. For a brief time, he had anchored me and kept me from drifting into deeper, more perilous waters, but no more. I was again on my own. Not only did I hope that the feverish pace of palace life would make me forget the sorrow of my misbegotten first love, but the cynicism of this king’s Court held a fresh appeal to me now that it hadn’t before.

  Five days before Christmas, I had passed my eighteenth birthday. The first tender flower of my youth had passed now, lost forever along with my innocence. I no longer saw the boundless hope in life that I once had, nor did I dream of love as an achievable ideal. Instead I resolved to keep what was left of my lonely heart locked away against further pain, and guard it close with the sharpness of my tongue. This wasn’t difficult, for I’d always spoken freely. I was my father’s daughter, and could not be otherwise.

  Yet in the strange manner of men, what I had conceived to keep them away seemed only to draw them closer. In our palace-world where ladies were either easily breeched playthings or distant saints, I’d become an unpredictable challenge, and all the more desirable among the jaded gentlemen at Court because of it. I seldom longed for male company, and it seemed I’d always some gentleman or other hovering like a buzzing dragonfly at my side.

  Of course, there was more virulent talk about me, too, doubtless spread by those who found me too acerbic for their tastes. I simply shrugged, and paid it no heed.

  With that in mind, it seemed fitting that the most anticipated play of the winter season was Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter, by Mr. George Etherege. Mr. Etherege was another of Father’s circle, though of such a quiet and unobtrusive nature that he was fondly called “Gentle George” by the others. What Mr. Etherege was rumored to have done, however, was to have taken his friends piecemeal and stitched them entire into his play.

  Little wonder, then, that on this March afternoon, every seat was taken in the playhouse, and little wonder, too, that Her Highness had made space for me to sit beside her in the royal box. This was as crowded as the rest of the playhouse, with the king and the duke together in the center, as was usual, and the duchess among her train.

  “Sir Charles would have told you, Miss Sedley, being his daughter,” she said to me eagerly over her fluttering fan. “Now you must tell me, if you please. Will what we see in the play today truly represent Mr. Etherege’s friends?”

  “Forgive me, Your Highness, but I know as much, and as little, as do you.” I smiled warmly, happy to share even an empty conspiracy with her. Truly, it was impossible not to like her. She had been married a little more than two years, and had done the best she could to make her way in a country that despised both her and her faithless husband. In that time she had miscarried twice, borne one daughter who had died an infant from convulsions, and was now with child again. She’d earned the sadness that marked her young face, a wealth of burdens for a lady of seventeen.

  Yet Her Highness’s single fault was a grave one, for she viewed the duke’s conversion to her faith as a personal holy crusade, even though it could well ruin him and England, too. Like most Papists, she simply refused to see the peril. Even now she could not have chosen a worse necklace to wear to a public playhouse, a strand of pearls with a large silver crucifix set with sapphires, and I marveled that His Highness had not cautioned her against it.

  Unaware of my thoughts, she puckered her mouth with disappointment. “You are certain you cannot tell me, Miss Sedley?”

  “I vow I would if I could, Your Highness,” I said, “but though I believe Father has seen the rehearsals for the play, he will not tell me a thing, lest I spoil the first effect of Mr. Etherege’s words.”

  “Likely Sir Charles is wise to do so, but I cannot say I care for it.” She sighed her disappointment, and leaned over the rail to look down upon the crowded pit. “That is your father to the front, yes?”

  I leaned forward, too, the thick dark curls over my forehead trembling on their fashionable wire supports. “On the front bench, Your Highness, to the right,” I said, pointing with the ivory blades of my furled fan. “The stoutish gentleman in the dark green brocade coat, between Lord Rochester and Lord Middlesex. I would guess the empty space is being saved for Mr. Etherege, who must still be with the players.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” she murmured, studying the three gentlemen’s backs with such intent that I wondered what she saw in them.

  For me, of course, it was entirely different. The sight of my father between his two dearest friends (Lord Buckhurst having inherited his maternal grandfather’s estates and now styled Earl of Middlesex) was a rare one now. Father devoted more time to Lady Sedley and his son, his writing, and his seat in the House, while Lord Middlesex was often with his own new wife in the country. Lord Rochester, too, frequently repaired to the country, both to be with his growing family and to nurse his faltering health. Yet when I gazed at the three of them together on the first bench, my round,
small father with his lavish neckcloth and large black wig between the two taller earls, I’d only the merriest of memories of sitting on that same bench with them.

  “His Highness the duke says they are the wittiest gentlemen in the realm,” the duchess continued. “He said that any play that employed their conversation would surely be the most amusing we could ever hope to see.”

  “His Highness is quite right, ma’am,” I said proudly. “I’ve spent much time in their company, and I can vouch for their wit. If all that Mr. Etherege did was copy their speech word for word, then he’d have a play that would run until Easter.”

  “Please, please forgive me for interrupting, Your Royal Highness,” said a gentleman on the far side of the duchess, leaning between two other ladies to address her. “But I have read the play in its entirety to have been able to write its prologue, including being consulted upon Mr. Etherege’s most heartfelt dedication to you, Your Highness, and I do believe Miss Sedley is showing a daughter’s devotion to undervalue the poetical genius of Mr. Etherege.”

  “Indeed, Sir Carr,” the duchess said, the weary irritation in her voice unmistakable. “We have already told you how we enjoyed the prologue.”

  “The honor was entirely mine, ma’am,” Sir Carr said, with the horrible grimace that passed for his smile. As unlovely as his name, Sir Carr Scroope was a short, brash, scrabbling baronet of questionable birth from Lincolnshire, with a hunched back and worse manners who pretended to be a wit, a poet, and a gallant, without the qualities or the talent to support any of it. “But if Miss Sedley would only admit that—”