Dark Angels (34 page)

King Charles stood, bowed to her. “You always have the most honor, my dear.” He took her hand to lead her out of the stall and was pleased enough with her invitation for the evening to walk her out of the theater. The maids spread out behind them like ducklings.

“Wait,” Alice whispered to Renée. “Lieutenant Saylor’s just there. Talk with him about your fears. I’ll tell the queen we’ve lost your earring and we’re looking for it. Go on. Hurry.”

The stagehands hoisted the heavy ropes that held the chandeliers high. They were eased to the stage, and the men began to blow out the candles in them. Richard stepped easily over the railing of the stall. They were almost in the dark.

“What’s the trouble, my heart?” he asked. “Did Nellie’s song offend you? I won’t sleep tonight if you don’t tell me what troubles you.”

“Nothing. Everything. The king flirts.”

“So would I if I were king. He likes pretty women. There’s no harm in that.”

“Are you certain?”

“Of course.”

There was no one in the theater now except Alice. “Hurry,” she hissed, and waited while they kissed, no longer shy with each other now, their bodies melding the way lovers did, the sweetness between them more and more unfolding.

Q
UEEN
C
ATHERINE’S APARTMENTS
were filled to the bursting because King Charles was there. Near midnight, Sir Thomas walked in, did not see his daughter in the main apartments but found her sneaking a pipe of tobacco with Prince Rupert in what was called the Shield Gallery. Its walls displayed huge shields from the yearly birthday tournaments of the great queen Elizabeth. The memory of Queen Bess was revered by all; the Roundheads had not destroyed her legacies in this palace.

At the sight of him, Alice inhaled too strongly, choked, and the pipe with its very long and slender stem dropped from her mouth. Prince Rupert caught it deftly.

“And where did you learn this nasty habit?”

In between coughing, Alice answered. “Everyone smoked at Madame’s court.”

“You are not at Madame’s court.”

“I’ll take my leave of you, Verney.” Prince Rupert tapped out the burning tobacco against a tile of the fireplace, opened the top of a glazed box, and put the pipe inside. He nodded to her father and walked away down the long length of the chamber.

“I’ve just left the Duchess of Cleveland’s apartments. What a harridan she’s turned into. She had some ugly things to say of you, Alice, tricks being played on her, this one last week especially ugly. I told her her suspicions were lies, and damned lies at that. Now precisely what have I perjured myself about, missy?”

“You’ll have to help me.”

“Cleveland wants your head served on a platter. Fortunate for you it isn’t three years ago, or that’s precisely what would happen. She’s furious.”

“You have to help me play a trick on her, only we must do it in such a way that no one can possibly think I could be involved. That will throw her off.”

“I am not playing schoolboy tricks on the most dangerous woman at this court!”

“She isn’t the most dangerous anymore. You have to, Father, or I’m ruined.”

“You’ll go to her, and you’ll apologize.”

“I will do no such thing. Besides, it wouldn’t be enough. You know how she is.”

“I am not—Where are you going?”

“The queen is playing the lute. Can’t you hear it? I want to see. Come along, Father.”

“We aren’t finished speaking of the Duchess of Cleveland.”

“We certainly aren’t. Barbara agrees with me—”

“Barbara? Barbara isn’t—she wouldn’t—”

Alice spoke over him. “A trick of which I cannot be accused is the only way. We just have to think of something.”

Protesting, he was led into the main apartment. The queen was indeed playing the lute her brother, the king of Portugal, had sent her. Her master of the horse, Lord Knollys, was there, playing cards with Dorothy Brownwell, Gracen, and the queen’s ancient, half-blind Portuguese nurse. Courtiers were there, Lord and Lady Arlington, the Earl of St. Albans, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Killigrew, others. But no Duke of Balmoral. He never came, in spite of the invitations Queen Catherine sent him on Alice’s behalf. He’d sent Alice flowers, the loveliest bouquet she’d ever seen, but when she’d gone to thank him, his majordomo said he wasn’t receiving visitors.

Fires in the fireplaces were roaring. Unlike the Louvre, with its vast rooms and stone floors, so cold in winter that one had to almost sit in the fire, Whitehall had chambers that were smaller, less unpretentious. When filled with a crowd, they were almost cozy. The queen sang a song composed during the first Dutch war. It had been enormously popular for a time:

To all you ladies now at land,

We men at sea do write,

But first I hope you’ll understand

How hard ’tis to indite:

The muses now and Neptune, too

We must implore to write to you.

Fletcher, his voice lilting and soft, joined her on the next line. “With a fa, la, la, la, la.”

“Just one last little trick, Father,” said Alice, under cover of the singing, squeezing her father’s arm. “That’s all I ask.”

C
HAPTER 19

T
hat same night, a few hours before dawn. Alice threw down her cards. “You best me.”

Smiling, King Charles folded his cards into a neat stack without showing what they were. Alice began to unscrew an earring. The third player, Buckingham, back in favor with the king again, yawned, stood just as a servant entered and added more wood to the fire. Sparks flew up the chimney and bounced against the fire screen.

“I won’t take your jewelry, Verney. Keep the earring in your pretty ear.” The king looked around him. “Ye gods, are we the only ones awake?”

“It’s a dull lot here. I’ll be glad when your courting is done,” said Buckingham. His shirt was undone at the neck, the laces and ribbons there bedraggled. He’d been drinking steadily, but it didn’t show except in the boredom now expressed, the disdain behind it. Nothing would please him in the next hours except something outrageous, unexpected, different. Restlessly he paced around the table at which they’d been playing cards.

It was, as Buckingham said, a dull scene. The queen had retired several hours ago. Barbara and Renée sat slumped and sleeping over the great cushioned stools Alice had brought from France as gifts for Queen Catherine. Gracen was awake, tucked into a window seat, talking with Lord Knollys, whose lap cradled the head of a sleeping Dorothy Brownwell. Kit and Luce were drunk and sat in the shadows on the knees of one of the king’s favorites, a young courtier, the Earl of Rochester, who was kissing first one, then the other.

And that was the reason Alice was careful in whose company she drank.

She’d waked one morning before dawn when she was fifteen in this very chamber, a snoring courtier beside her—a man she didn’t even like—with her gown undone to her waist. She was weeping by the time she found Barbara, fast asleep in her bed, and the two of them had gone over every detail, Alice having to remember that at a certain point she’d liked the kissing, the fondling, but she remembered nothing else. For the next month, she’d waited to see if she might be with child. She wasn’t. But the fear around that had kept her sleepless for weeks. She’d been twelve the evening a newborn babe appeared, mewing like a kitten, during the midst of a dance the king gave. She’d seen the baby in its birth blood on the floor amidst the dancing, and then she’d seen it scooped up, she knew not by whom. It had happened so fast she believed she’d dreamed it. Except that one of her favorite friends, another maid of honor, stayed the next day in her bed sick to death, and whispers about her filled every hall and corner of the queen’s apartments. And then her friend left court, so ill with fever that she had to be put upon a litter and carried out. Who was its father? Some said the king. Some said the king’s brother.

“Wake the mother of the maids.” King Charles stood. “See that our little sleeping French flower is escorted safely to her bed.” Then he was striding out the door, Buckingham with him.

“Where do we go?” Buckingham said.

“I can’t speak for you,” said King Charles, “but I go to see Nellie.”

“I’ll wait in her hall.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not? You won’t be long, will you?” Their laughter followed them out.

Renée, her head in her arms on the cushioned stool, opened her eyes and stared into the fire. Its light flickered over her face; it was clear she’d heard his words.

Rochester stood to follow the king, and the young women on his lap fell to the floor. He stepped around them. Kit began crying. Luce began to retch. Rochester never looked back. Gracen left Lord Knollys, went to Barbara, and shook her awake. She and Barbara helped Kit and Luce to stand up.

“I’m going to be sick,” wailed Luce.

“Not here,” said Gracen. “You wait until I find a bucket.”

Alice touched Dorothy’s arm. She sat up, blinking rapidly, looking like a confused, plump child. “I drank too much wine. I fell asleep,” she said to no one in particular. Her hair was falling out of its pins on one side.

“So you did,” said Alice. “You need to see to Kit and Luce. They’re sick and, like you, have had too much wine.”

Dorothy looked around herself, bewildered. Kit was still crying, and Renée had taken off her heeled shoes and was walking in her stockings toward the door that led downstairs to the maids of honor’s chambers. Barbara and Gracen held Luce between them, urging her not to be sick, to wait just a few moments more.

“The king asked most particularly that you see Mademoiselle de Keroualle to bed,” Alice told Dorothy, who immediately got up and followed her maids down the stairs.

Alice sat in the place on the window seat where Dorothy had been, her eyes narrowed on Lord Knollys. Who was this man Brownie favored? Was he good enough for Brownie? He was certainly one of Queen Catherine’s favorites. He did not mingle with the king’s men, join in their gambling and whoring and writing of wicked verses, but served the queen quietly and well. There was little respect given to that by the young courtiers who had the king’s ear. They called him the queen’s gelding, but King Charles didn’t join in the mockery. It seemed to Alice as if the king appreciated the loyalty and courtesy shown, as if Lord Knollys acted toward the queen in a way King Charles might wish to do but did not.

“How is your lady wife?” asked Alice. The question was not innocent.

“Not well. Never well.”

“So Mrs. Brownwell tells me. Mrs. Brownwell has been my friend since she came to court. I have such a deep regard for her.”

“She has my deep regard, also. If I may be so bold, what age are you, Mistress Verney?”

Alice lifted her chin and lied. “Nineteen.”

“Mrs. Brownwell told me you’d seen us. And it’s evident you have your judgments, of me in particular. When you are forty and one, as I am, or thirty as Mrs. Brownwell is, we three will talk of life and its vagaries, of loneliness and duty, of sickness and health, easy to vow but hard to keep when it stretches on and on and on.” Lord Knollys spoke patiently, but only just.

“I know something of heartache.”

“You know nothing, and you presume much. Good night, Mistress Verney.” He stood.

“I don’t want her hurt.”

“I trust I have brought no hurt to Mrs. Brownwell, but rather kindness, more than kindness. Mrs. Brownwell has been a source of great comfort to me, and I, I pray, to her. Do you always meddle in what is not yours? It’s a bad habit, if you’ll forgive my saying so. Good night.”

Alice leaned back against the corner of the window seat, thinking about what he had said. What concern of hers was it if Brownie bedded the Earl of Knollys and seven other men besides? She was a widow and could do as she pleased. Alice went to the fire to stretch out her hands to it. It was going to be one of those nights when she fretted about everything and couldn’t sleep—and then she remembered the letter.

Slipping it out of her pocket, she sat before the fireplace screen and opened it. Beuvron wrote only a few lines. Henri Ange was coming to England. He wrote to tell her because she had always been a friend to him, because he knew her love for Queen Catherine. She was to burn this letter.