Dark Angels (57 page)

“I haven’t, er…the best of—but, er…she, er—I mean Mistress, er—”

“Verney,” Alice said impatiently.

“Verney, er…is your partner. She’ll carry, er…you.”

“I’m experienced at getting out of scrapes on my own.”

“Shall we reshuffle and start again?” Frances smiled up at the king, looking charming and sophisticated with ringlets beribboned and hanging over her ears.

“I wish to go for a walk in the gallery. I’m bored with my gentlemen and crave the company of ladies. Mademoiselle de Keroualle, it would please me if you would accompany me, and Mistress Verney, and Her Grace.”

All movement at the other tables ceased as the king left the chamber, Renée on his arm, Alice and Frances following, spaniels prancing ahead. Eyes moved to the queen, who played a card and did not betray by so much as a blink that she’d noticed whom he’d walked out with and that he had not acknowledged her.

“Always lovely to see His Majesty,” she said, her eyes on the cards in her hand.

“Was that sarcasm from our little Portuguese?” one lady-in-waiting whispered to another, and they laughed.

In the Stone Gallery, King Charles and Renée sat in one of the deep window seats while Alice and Frances were seated in chairs farther away, near the fire. Alice glanced toward them. King Charles was talking to Renée most seriously. The fact he had not singled out Renée since she and Richard had been reprimanded by Dorothy Brownwell had been missed by no one, least of all Renée. Will she go belly up, like one of his spaniels? wondered Alice.

“She’s begun weeping,” Frances said.

“He means to have her, doesn’t he? Would you be willing to aid in an elopement?” Elopements were scandalous, infuriating families, but Frances had eloped.

“Whose?”

“Captain Saylor would marry her in a heartbeat. We could help them elope.”

Frances touched at dolphins carved in the wooden arm of her chair. “I think I’ll keep my distance. He’s really never forgiven me for mine. And if you value your position at court, you’d best leave her precisely where she is.”

“So,” said King Charles, watching tears glide down Renée’s face but not making a move to stop them, “it does not seem fair I am not at least allowed the privileges of Captain Saylor.” There was no softness in his face or his tone. “You were partially unclothed. It would please me very much to see you partially unclothed.”

“He earned it.”

“What did you just say?”

“He has been my dearest friend since we met; he has never offered me anything but honor. He has asked me to be his wife, offered me the protection of his name and estate. When I am with him, I feel at ease, and what is more, I feel treasured.”

She’d surprised him. “I want that ease, that sweetness.” He spoke ruefully.

My point, thought Renée.

“Why didn’t you become his mistress?” Alice asked Frances. A log in the fire near them made a crumbling sound as it fell apart in a red glow.

“I wanted to be a wife, no more, no less,” Frances answered.

“Would you talk with Renée?”

An expression passed over Frances’s face that Alice couldn’t read. “I’m certain she has enough advisers.”

“But they want the king’s pleasure, not what is best for her.”

“What is best for her, Alice?”

“To be someone’s wife. You understand.”

“I understand?”

“You married, and for love.”

Frances smiled an odd smile. “My passion was not, and is not, for His Grace my husband. I could not marry for love. There’s only one man I have ever loved, and he is already married.”

Alice looked toward the window seat. King Charles held Renée in his arms, was stroking her hair, his face grave. His dogs were snuggled in her skirts.

“If I’d become what he so desired—what I myself was so very much tempted to—the only difference would be that today I wouldn’t be watching him court Mademoiselle de Keroualle not three feet from me, because he wouldn’t want me to know. Because he cannot stand to quarrel. But it would still be happening. I comfort myself on long nights with that. I comfort myself at this very moment, as he courts her using words I very much imagine he used with me. It was a most lovely courtship. Oh, look. Here’s our Mrs. Sidney, up from her bridal bed, come to call upon the queen.”

Frances rose as Barbara walked into the gallery, and they touched cheeks. It was the first time Alice had seen Barbara since her wedding some two weeks ago. Barbara walked swiftly to Alice to hug her, but Alice sat limply, her heart turned to stone. So, she was thinking, this is what I’m going to do. She hadn’t known precisely.

Frances watched them for a moment, then said, “Come. I’ll take you to the queen. Mistress Verney has to stay and play duenna.”

Frances linked her arm in Barbara’s, and after a moment, Barbara walked away with her.

“She acted as if I didn’t exist,” Barbara said to Frances.

“It will pass.”

“She doesn’t forgive.”

“What a shame. One loses so much when one can’t forgive. Let’s give her time to enjoy her anger, and then, when she tires of it, as she will, and misses you too much, as she will, she’ll come your direction. And it will be your turn to decide if you can forgive. A treacherous game, forgiveness, full of shoals. You look blooming, my dear. I’m going to hazard a guess that Mr. Sidney is showing his affection in every way possible. Alice and I were just talking about this new fashion of marrying for love. Tell me your opinion.”

Barbara laughed, and there was such joy in the laugh that Frances stopped her and kissed her cheeks, then allowed herself one last peep at the king and Renée, which was foolish, because it hurt so to see. To see and remember. Once he’d commandeered a skiff, oaring it himself, to visit her at midnight and rail at her for marrying Richmond and breaking his heart. She’d adored his heartbreak and anger. It was all she could do to withstand it. When she’d had the smallpox, she’d thought, If I survive this, I will become his mistress, because as she lay on the brink of death, she knew finally what was most important to her, to show all the love she felt for him. But her moment was past. He would still bed her now and, knowing him, with great zest. But she’d lost his heart, that precious, greedy, inquiring, naughty, lively heart of his. Time and chance stand still for no man, or woman.

My dearest, my beloved one, I kiss this paper a thousand times knowing your hands will touch it. I wait for you, dear one, and remain your faithful Dorothy.

Dorothy sighed, then went about the business of making the letter ready to send. It was for Lord Knollys, who’d left court a week ago to go home to his wife. She was gravely ill. Again. She sprinkled some sand over the page to dry up the blots, blew it off gently, waved the paper about, folded it until it was small, then took her sealing wax stick and held it to the candle.

“Brownie, they haven’t sent my trunk here yet.”

Dorothy dribbled wax along the last fold, then took a signet ring and pressed it various places in the wax. That done, she turned to face a pouting Gracen.

“Find Edward and have him see to it.”

She scratched a name on the other side of the letter.

“Lord Knollys’s place is near my father’s.” Gracen had stepped forward to see exactly what Dorothy was doing. “Give me the letter, and I’ll see it delivered. In fact, I’ll pay a call and see how his wife does.”

“That would be most kind,” said Dorothy, not wanting to give her the letter.

Gracen took the letter and kissed Dorothy’s cheek.

“Come and help me choose which gowns to take back with me. Why must my mother choose this moment to be ill? I don’t want to go. There’s the Christmas revel, and everyone is having beautiful costumes made for it, and I want to stay and look beautiful with everyone else. More beautiful. I would. Only Renée is more beautiful than me.”

Dorothy kissed her on the brow, wondering if she’d been this selfish when she’d been this young, and they walked to the maids’ apartment to help Gracen choose her gowns.

C
HAPTER 33

Second Week of Advent

N
ear an Advent wreath in which two candles glimmered, Richard sat scowling at the letter from his mother. She asked if he would come home to Tamworth for Christmas. Last night in his dreams he stared down at a bloody, beautiful body, and the face had been Renée’s. He had waked with his heart pounding; he didn’t dare leave her. She was so weepy and irritable and changeable, one day loving him, the next cold. Words from this week’s sermon pounded in his head: “Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me….” He felt despair. It would be stupid to leave her on her own, and a part of him despised himself for that. A part of him also despised her.

“Captain, meet us later for supper?”

“Do we drill tomorrow?”

“Are you going to the play this afternoon? A group of us will be in the pit.”

He shook his head at the three men crowding his door, the lieutenants of his bodyguard. More and more they had become friends, in the loose, companionable style of soldiers who must live and work together in close quarters. They kept few secrets from one another, a man’s flaws and gifts were there for all the troop to view. They were proud they had been the ones to put out the fire on Guy Fawkes Day, proud their captain had discovered the murder of a notorious he-madam and thus shut down the brothel. They were proud Richard had been asked by Balmoral himself to copy Balmoral’s memoirs. They were even proud he stubbornly courted the king’s new love.

He rose, put out the burning candles with his fingers. Two weeks left in Advent, the holy preparation for the celebration of the birth of Christ. What would happen with Renée by their end?

H
E WALKED OVER
to Prince Rupert’s apartments, joining the others who gathered to watch the prince dress, to see and be seen. This was a levee, the rising, from the French court, who made this morning parade fashionable. Prince Rupert, his shirt half on, half off, was laughing with a man who someone whispered to Richard was Sir Robert Holmes, a onetime pirate, an admiral in the last Dutch war, a crack soldier, and an adventurer.

“Do you remember when we were off the coast of Guinea and you got captured by natives?” Prince Rupert was saying to this Robert Holmes.

“Never has my life been so close to ending.”

“I saved your life that time. Have you paid me back for that?”

“A hundred times over.”

“Then we were caught in a hurricane off the Bermudas.” Prince Rupert launched into that story, beginning to talk about his brother, whose ship had been lost in that storm, of the rumors that his brother was in one colonial island prison or another. “He was never there when I’d send a messenger. It was never him.”

Holmes saw Richard. “Saylor, isn’t it? I had the honor to know your father. You were in Tangier two years ago. I’ve been wanting to know more of Tangier. Tell me of that.” And Holmes pulled Richard off to one side and asked him a soldier’s questions, how staffed the garrison was, how the Moors were as fighters. “I can use a good man on the Isle of Wight,” said Holmes, who was governor of the island. “If you ever want to leave London, call on me. I’ll find a place for you on my staff.”