Palace of Spies (15 page)

“Oh, not me. I’m never sick. Oh, look, Molly . . .” Mary nudged Molly in the ribs, but I was no longer attending to either of them. I was watching Sophy Howe.

In addition to the huntsmen, a goodly crowd of servants milled about. Maids of all degrees handed their ladies baskets, shawls, and gloves. Footmen passed between the horses, carrying trays laden with steaming mugs. The mulled wine added the scents of spices and oranges to those of horse, perfume, and approaching rain. I was not surprised to see Robert among this red-clad cohort, nor to have him walk by me without any sign of recognition. I don’t believe I was surprised either to see him stop by the carriage that held Sophy and raise up a tray so she could take the cup from it.

“Oh, thank you, Robert,” said Sophy, loudly. “Do you know, this hat is impossible. Where is my maid? You must go fetch her.” Sophy settled back as Robert bowed. She smiled and raised her cup to me before taking a delicate sip.

“Someone’s satisfied with herself this morning,” said Mary cheerfully as she continued her favorite occupation of casting her eyes at each and every man on horseback, as if sizing them up for a meal. “I wonder who she’s thrown over this time? Was it you, Fran?”

“You can ask her yourself, Mary,” said Molly before I could muster any reply. “I’m sure we’ll all profit from the knowledge.”

“Oh, there you are, Fran!” cried Sophy as if she’d just seen us. “Where did you find that treasure of a lady’s maid? She made me up the most wonderful cream for my hands. You must take very good care of her; otherwise, someone will steal her from you.”

“My maid?” I said before thought could catch up with my tongue. I had been ready for her to make some remark about Robert. There was no possibility that this flaunting of her ability to command him was accidental. “Mrs. Abbott?”

Sophy smiled and showed all her pretty teeth in doing it. “Yes, Abbott. Clearly, you don’t appreciate what you have.”

“Look, Fran,” said Molly, just as loudly, turning me forcibly away. “Her Royal Highness wants you.”

Our mistress was indeed waving to me from her carriage.

“You’ll join us, Lady Francesca,” said Her Royal Highness as we approached and curtsied. “I’m sure Molly and Mary will do very well keeping Sophy company.”

I was less certain on this point. Nor did I particularly relish the honor my royal mistress did me, so taken up was I with wondering what Sophy meant when she threatened to steal Mrs. Abbott. But lacking any choice in this matter, I let the nearest footman help me into the carriage as Lady Cowper drew aside her skirts to make room for mine. I was not sure I liked Lady Cowper. She was tall and proud, and always seemed to be talking up some business of her husband’s, who was the Lord Treasurer. She was also a demon for cards, and when play grew deep, she went in all the way. Despite all this, if I’d had my guess, I would have said she genuinely cared for Her Royal Highness.

“Oh, Robert, there you are,” Sophy was saying from her carriage as I settled in with the lady and the princess. “Help Molly in beside me. Oh and, poor Mary, you’re quite blue with cold. Fetch her a rug, Robert.”

“Mr. Russell and Lord Blakeney were quite full of your praises last night,” said Her Royal Highness to me. “You are going to have the ladies in jealous fits if you keep stealing all their gentlemen in this way.” Did the royal gaze flicker toward Sophy, who was fussing over how Robert arranged the rug on Mary’s lap, or was it just my eyes that could not help turning in that direction?

“Some young ladies need to learn to be satisfied with what they have,” remarked Lady Cowper. “Or they’ll be chasing swains like our gentlemen chase the deer, and no one comes out the better for it.”

“Except for those who would rather feast upon gossip than good venison,” agreed the princess. Lady Cowper laughed at this royal quip, but Her Royal Highness was regarding me too steadily for my own laugh to be anything but forced. Fortunately, I was saved from further bon mots by one of the host of liveried footmen approaching the carriage and bowing deeply. It was Robert, and he held a silver tray bearing a single cup and a single letter.

“I was instructed to bring this to you, Your Highness.” He handed across the letter. “And a cup for my lady.”

He held out the tray and the cup, and as I took it, he was joggled, it seemed, and caught my hand to steady himself.

“I do beg your pardon, my lady!” Robert let go almost instantly. Almost, for he took time enough to press a scrap of paper into my hand.

I drew back sharply and wrapped my hands around the warming cup.

“Who gave this to you?” demanded the princess suddenly, clutching the open letter in her gloved hands. A flush of anger glowed underneath her face powder. “Where are they?”

Robert fell back, bowing hastily. “I . . . Carter passed it to me, madame, since I was coming with the cup. I didn’t see who gave it to him—”

“Is there a problem, my sweet?” called a voice in German. The prince brought his great roan gelding alongside Her Highness’s carriage. He looked down on her with grave concern.

By dint of heroic and visible effort, the princess swallowed her anger all in a lump. She then answered her husband easily, and in French, so all listeners might more readily comprehend. “No, no. I wanted another shawl, that is the only matter. But we’ve already delayed enough, do you not think? Is it my husband’s pleasure to sound the horn?”

The prince saw the missive clenched in her fist, and their eyes met. Whatever they shared between them in that moment, it surely included the understanding that at times silence is best, because His Royal Highness bowed his head.

“Of course.” He signaled to his men, and the first among them blew three long, looping notes from his curved brass horn. The courtyard gates were opened by a team of men to allow the hounds and their masters, the prince and his huntsmen, and finally our carriages, to pass out into the lane through the gardens that led to the hunting field. I took advantage of the general distraction to stuff the scrap Robert had given me into my sleeve.

“Burn this.” The princess shoved her letter at Lady Cowper, but snatched it back at the last moment. “No. I reconsider. Lady Francesca, you shall take care of this for me.”

Slowly, and with the feeling of entering into a new trap, I took this new paper from the royal fingertips.

“You may as well read it,” she said. “You have become such a quick study of late, I will be most interested to hear your opinion.”

I opened the paper and read.

Dear Madame
,

It is well known that you are a God-fearing and Christian woman. As such, I do urge that for the benefit of your immortal soul you shall consider the great error and falsity of the position of your husband, George Augustus, called Prince of Wales. For it is well known to all that the prince is no legitimate son of the house of Hanover, but rather the bastard child of Sophia Dorothea of Celle, and her lover, Philipp von Königsmark, who was most foully and unnaturally murdered to silence him before he could confess the paternity of their child
.

It is for you to consult God and your conscience and proclaim that the only right and true heir to the throne of Britain is James Edward Stuart, called by some the Pretender. For he is as surely the legitimate son of James II of England as your husband is the bastard of Königsmark
.

God Save the True King!

The letter was, not surprisingly, entirely lacking in the matter of a signature.

“So? What do you think of it, Lady Francesca? Have I not charming correspondents?”

I swallowed and looked up at my royal mistress. Her clear eyes had gone hard as sapphires. “I have heard this story before.” In fact, I’d read it in the papers, around about the time last autumn when I read of the men and arms being amassed in the North. “I also heard that the baby who grew into James Edward Stuart was carried to his mother’s bed in a warming pan to substitute for her stillborn child. The one seems to me as likely as the other.”

The corner of the princess’s mouth twitched. “Promptly spoken.”

“It is not worth dwelling upon, Your Highness,” said Lady Cowper stoutly. “It is malice and madness. Let it be destroyed and forgotten.”

“Such malice and madness have already cost hundreds of lives, not to mention thousands of pounds the treasury can ill afford,” said the princess. She was still speaking to me. “And there are too many ready to spread slander if it might persuade others to their cause. Is that not so, Francesca?”

I folded the letter back up and took my time about it.

“I think there are those who would dare anything for gain,” I said. In the other carriage, Sophy was leaning forward, tapping Mary on the knee and laughing about something. “And they cannot see how small that gain will truly be or how much pain it causes.”

“Our Lady Francesca has turned quite the philosopher,” said Lady Cowper. “I advise you to send her to Herr Liebniz to study, Your Highness. Who knows what heights she could reach?”

“Who knows?” replied the princess thoughtfully as our carriage rattled down the lane. “Who knows indeed?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My own little missive, when I was finally able to pull it gingerly from my soaking sleeve, was only moderately less distressing than that handed to Her Royal Highness. The running ink read
I will find us a place
.

At least I think it did. Despite my best efforts, it tore in two between my cold fingers.

The rain had begun before we were a half hour out the gate, and it proved to be a heavy, soaking downpour that left us with our dresses clinging to our skin, as Mary had predicted, and our noses swollen and streaming, as I had predicted. For once I was grateful for Mrs. Abbott’s brusque efficiency as she stripped me down to my skin, wrestled me into dry clothing and a warm wrapper, and stuffed me into the armchair in front of the fire with my feet in a mustard bath. The result of this was that my nose and eyes dried up in time for the evening’s gathering, although I felt my feet, having been so thoroughly stewed in hot mustard, were now good for nothing but to be served up with a boat of gravy and furnishings of boiled greens.

While I steamed, however, I could not but wonder about the letter the princess had received. Perhaps when Robert found a place for a tête-à-tête, I could question him more closely about who gave it to him and where it came from. I could then make sure that information got to Lady Cowper or Lady Montague—quietly, of course. The idea pleased me and did much to alleviate my overstewed feelings.

But either Robert was not in as much of a hurry to see his lady again as might be thought, or the weather thwarted him. It certainly thwarted the rest of us. The rain continued through that night and into the next morning. We played so many hands of cards that my letters to Mr. Peele about the games and the players filled multiple sheets, and I actually began to wish he would write me back, just once, so I would have something new to read.

The princess was unable to indulge in her habit of an early walk on these dreary mornings, and the conversation in her salon grew listless. The gentlemen in attendance that day were of the political breed, and although I tried to follow their reasoning regarding the virtue of reforming the banking system to more fully acquire for the Crown the benefits and profits to be brought in by easier investment in the ships of the merchant navy, I was in grave danger of fidgeting. Even Molly Lepell, that paragon of maids, had shifted her weight from foot to foot twice in the last half hour, causing the Howe to roll her eyes, ever so delicately, which in turn caused Mary to snort, and the princess to frown, although Mary, being Mary, immediately put on an elaborate show of insouciance.

The princess turned to her guests. “My Lord Owens, my Lord Dalton, I don’t believe you have yet had a chance to view the Great Work.”

Lord Owens, a tall, austere gentleman in an impeccable green coat, looked taken aback, as if he could not understand why anyone would introduce a new topic when he had barely begun to warm to his financial theme. He and my uncle Pierpont would have gotten on extremely well. Lord Dalton, however, looked relieved.

“And how does Mr. Thornhill, madame?” Lord Dalton was the older of the two, dressed in blue and black. His face was as wrinkled as last year’s apple, but he possessed a surprisingly cheerful eye for a banker.

“You shall ask him directly.” The princess got to her feet, which required the gentlemen to do the same and bow as she passed. They fell into step behind her, and we maids formed ourselves into a train behind them.

“Well, well,” murmured Sophy. “This should be most amusing.”

“Oh, why?” fussed Mary. “We’ve seen the wretched ceiling a hundred times.”

“You’d know if you paid any attention at all.”

I looked to Molly, who tipped me a sly nod. Everybody knew what was so interesting, except me—a phenomenon I was growing both used to and increasingly tired of.

But I knew what they were on about as soon as we walked into the new rooms. This grand apartment was constructed on noble lines. Despite that, it appeared more closely related to a lumber room than a royal chamber. There were no curtains on the windows, and the watery daylight filled the room. There were also dozens of candles lit, and the air was heavy with the scents of fresh paint, plaster, and strong oil. The reason for this was clearly the partially completed mural decorating the high ceiling. It appeared to be another arrangement of ancient gods and modern cherubs. Doubtlessly, it was some new and significant allegory to join the others that graced the walls and ceilings of the palace. But I scarcely noticed the painting. The first thing I saw among the drapings of canvas drop cloth and the forest of scaffolding was Matthew Reade. He was bowing too deeply to the princess for me to see his face, but I knew him by the dark copper of his hair and also by his form and motion, even though it had been weeks since I last glimpsed him. This was not a realization that made for calm reflection.