Amethyst (51 page)

Was His Majesty hinting that he wished to dance the minuet with
her
?

She looked up at Colin, and he nodded circumspectly.

"Would—would you care to dance the minuet with me, Your Majesty?" she stammered out.

King Charles proved a superb dancer. As he gazed into her eyes, Amy realized with a start that although his looks were far from the classic English standard, he was the most blatantly sexual man she'd ever met. It was no wonder he'd already sired eight acknowledged royal bastards, plus, most assumed, an undetermined number of unacknowledged children as well.

Charles possessed many talents, not the least of which was an uncanny ability to put his companions at ease. By the time he returned Amy to Colin, she was laughing along with him as though they'd been the best of friends for years.

"Don't tell me you've fallen in love with him, too?" Colin teased. Turning her so they were both facing Charles, he wrapped his arms around her from behind. "You won't be the first, and you certainly won't be the last," he warned with the easy grace of a man unconcerned with offending a fast friend, no matter his rank.

Bright color flooded Amy's cheeks, for he spoke a partial truth: She was halfway in love with King Charles already, and there was nothing for it. His charm was too powerful to resist, and the prospect of a friendship with the King of England, albeit platonic, was too delicious to pass up.

Charles laughed in response. "Don't worry on that account, Greystone. Your prowess with a sword is legendary, and something tells me you wouldn't wear a cuckold's horns gracefully."

Colin dropped a kiss on the top of Amy's head. "Neither," he said pointedly, "would Lady Castlemaine."

Charles threw back his head, and a rumble of laughter poured forth. "You're quite right about that. And I've no wish to be skewered by either of you!"

Though no one would dare challenge the king for any slight either real or imagined, they shared a laugh at the absurd scenario. Then the king sobered, took Colin by the arm, and pulled him aside. "Will you come into my laboratory with me? I've something important to show you."

"Of course. Amy?"

"I'll be fine, Colin." In fact, the Duke of Buckingham was already making his way toward her. It seemed Barbara was right.

The courtiers were dying for a diversion, and having danced with Charles, her popularity was a
fait accompli
.

HANDS BEHIND HIS
back, the king paced determinedly through the Long Gallery, a dozen of his beloved spaniels yapping at his and Colin's heels.

"I need to beg a favor from you, Greystone."

"Anything, Charles. You know you need only to ask. What is it?"

His Majesty eyed the busy passage. "Wait till we're in the laboratory; it's the only chamber in all of Whitehall where I'm afforded privacy." Frowning, he paused on the threshold to the Royal Bedchamber. "Od's fish, how did they get here before me?"

With a sigh, he shouldered his way through the cluster of courtiers who gathered there day and night, competing shamelessly to do him the smallest personal favors.

"Would you like your slippers, sire?"

"A warming brick for your bed?"

"A cup of chocolate?"

"No. No, thank you. No." He beckoned Colin after him, the spaniels darting in their wake. "Quick, into the laboratory before someone offers to hold my chamber pot for me."

Colin laughed as they shut the door behind them, the clamoring courtiers and barking dogs safely on the other side. "And why not? I hear tell the French court obliges Louis so."

"Louis the Fourteenth I'm not," Charles said dryly. "I can wipe my own arse, thank you."

After the confusion of the public areas, the laboratory seemed eerily quiet. Colin's gaze swept over the profusion of paraphernalia. "Ford would have the time of his life in here," he said, making a mental note to secure him an invitation.

King Charles only nodded distractedly. The ill-synchronized chiming of his clock collection accentuated the expectant silence. Colin leaned back against a counter, nearly knocking over a telescope in the process. As he whirled to right it, Charles drew a deep breath.

"I'm certain you've heard about our embarrassment at the hands of the Dutch."

"I've been out
in
the country, not out
of
the country," Colin replied in an attempt at wry humor.

The king seemed so very serious.

Just two days earlier, the Dutch War had escalated, with disastrous results. Aided by a lack of defense funding and interest from the English government, the Dutch had cruised right up the River Thames, burned three of the largest vessels of the Royal Navy, and sailed back out to sea with the pride of the English fleet, the flagship the
Royal Charles
, towed behind them as a prize. It was, so far, the most humiliating moment of Charles's reign.

Yesterday, Charles and his brother James had been on the scene, supervising the sinking of ships in the Thames and its creeks to block a second attack. But it had been too little, too late.

Nobody commented upon Charles's hard work in defense of the Thames. To the contrary, the talk in London was about how he'd spent the night of the catastrophe dining with his son Monmouth, in the company of his mistress Castlemaine, where they all passed a merry evening hunting a moth around the chamber. He was suffering mightily for his exaggerated reputation of pursuing pleasure over responsibility. The Dutch War must come to a conclusion, and soon.

"The first step toward peace is to detach Louis from the Dutch," Charles explained, revealing his plan. "With the French as our ally, the Dutch will be forced to negotiate a treaty."

"Why should Louis want to side with us?" Colin asked. "Because he's your cousin?"

"One cannot rely on family relationships in foreign policy. At present, Louis covets their territory more than he desires our colonies." Charles picked at some lint on his velvet surcoat. "He has no real quarrel with England. Indeed, my reign has seen only one battle between us, and Louis emerged such a clear victor that he must be inclined toward cooperation now."

Colin frowned, confused. "I've heard of no fighting with France," he ventured cautiously. He walked around the chamber, skimming a hand over microscopes, magnets, and air pumps.

"It was a social battle," Charles conceded with a sigh. He began pacing. "Since the fire, I've grown weary of the complicated fripperies we adorn ourselves with here at court. Plumes, periwigs, lace, ruffles, ribbons, chains…it's all quite ridiculous, don't you agree?"

Colin couldn't have agreed more, as evidenced by his pared-down version of court apparel. Still, as Charles himself had brought the dandified fashions from the Continent, a prudent man wouldn't be too quick to assent. "One could look at it that way," he said guardedly.

"Last October, I designed for myself a more reserved costume. A long black coat, slashed here and there to show a white shirt, with a close-fitting waistcoat to match. Quite practical, I thought."

"And?" Colin failed to see what this had to do with the Dutch War, or a supposed French War, or any war at all.

"Well, Louis heard about it and promptly dressed all his footmen in my new uniform. I'm afraid the new style was blown out of existence by a gale of laughter," Charles lamented. He stopped pacing and turned to Colin. "A surprise attack, and a clean victory."

Colin had to choke back laughter. Louis XIV, the so-called "Sun King," had pulled off a practical joke of such unmitigated virtuosity, it turned Colin green with envy.

What a coup!

"I suppose it's just as well," Charles said mournfully. "Even though the court, naturally, followed my lead, I heard later that they all felt like damned penguins."

They both shared a laugh over that, which was a relief to Colin, since he was about to explode anyway.

When the last chuckles had died away and the king's face had settled back into worried lines, Colin asked carefully, "And what is it that I can do for you?"

Charles took a step closer. "I need you to carry a letter to my mother in Paris. I cannot correspond with Louis directly; it would raise suspicion."

The last thing Colin wanted to do was leave Amy, pregnant and vulnerable, to travel to France, a place full of sad childhood memories. He hated France. And there was the debt—what would happen to the estate's productivity without him there to oversee it?

He took a slow, deep breath and looked up from the pendulum he was playing with. "Why me? Why not Buckingham, or Arlington or Lauderdale? Such missions are part of their positions. I'm not involved in royal intelligence."

"Exactly. If I sent any of them to the Continent, they'd be followed. It's imperative these negotiations remain secret—if the Dutch suspect my designs, they'll present counterarguments to Louis before he even considers my plan."

"But there must be someone else. Someone with a lower government appointment, whom no one would notice."

"Why so reluctant?" Charles flashed a teasing grin. "The Chases have never hesitated to do my bidding before." Serious now, he put a hand on Colin's arm. "I'm sorry, but I've considered this carefully, and you're the perfect candidate. No one will question your visit to my mother; you were always close to Henrietta Maria, almost like a foster son. And no one will question when she visits Louis, her favorite nephew, afterward."

The plan was flawless, except that Colin wanted no part of it. He swallowed hard and moved away, rearranging some bottles of chemicals. "This is a bad time to leave Amy."

She'd seemed so melancholy of late, but she always claimed everything was fine.

"Ah, I see," Charles responded with the sort of genuine sympathy that was an integral part of his charm. "You needn't stay long; no one would expect it, with a child due soon. Just across the Channel, a short visit, and back. Three weeks—a month at the most."

Colin lifted a bottle of cloudy green fluid. A month. A month of the precious time he had left before he'd be forced to fail Amy…before everything would fall apart.

"Amy will be fine," Charles said. "I'll send her to Greystone with a royal escort. I want you to leave tomorrow."

The bottle clinked to the counter as Colin's head shot up. "Tomorrow?"

"This is very important," Charles said gravely.

"What about Jason?" Colin asked wildly, casting about for any possible replacement.

"Jason would never holiday in France without taking the twins. Everyone knows he takes them everywhere—trying to be the father they never had, I suppose. To leave them home would be out of character, and to bring them along, too visible."

"Ford, then."

"Ford was a child at the Restoration. My mother wouldn't even recognize him after all these years."

"Don't you think people will find my leaving Amy at this time a mite suspicious?"

"No one who'd be watching knows you well. You must admit: for a courtier, you keep a low profile. Your reluctance surely took me by surprise. A happy marriage is the exception these days, after all."

Colin was silent. Defeated. His family had always been there when the Stuarts had needed them, and vice versa. When Colin had asked him, King Charles had granted Lord Hobbs's license without so much as a blink of his royal eye.

But he was torn apart inside. He couldn't take Amy on a sea journey, seven months pregnant, and he couldn't leave her home…he just couldn't…

Charles put a hand on his shoulder and said quietly, "I'm asking you, Colin, as your monarch and
as your friend
, to do this thing for me."

He had no choice.

BENCHLEY LOOKED DOWN
his beak nose at Amy standing at the edge of Greystone's quarry.

"My lady, do you not think you've seen enough?"

She scanned the site once more, smiling at the view of the quarrymen dotting the stepped-down ledges. The blows of their hammers rang through the air as they toiled in the hot sun. She watched a huge slab of dimension stone begin to crack away from the face, mentally adding its value to Greystone's ledgers.