The French Mistress (16 page)

Though I’d known Madame to be most generous, I’d never expected her to do that, a rare gift indeed. She’d never said anything to fault my dress, humble though it was in comparison to all her other attendants, and while she had on occasion made me small gifts of gloves or scarves or gilt drops for my ears, there’d never been any munificence on this scale. I’d been able to have a half dozen new gowns made in the latest fashion and of the costliest cloth, with slippers and stockings and ribbons to match. For the first time, I shone among the other ladies, and I proudly knew I’d be noticed.

“I’m glad the things made you happy,” she said. “You deserved them, too.”

“They do,” I admitted shyly, and with my arms outstretched, I spun lightly on my toes on the deck to make the skirts of my new traveling gown flare out around my legs. Not so much that I’d draw undue attention from the sloop’s crew, but enough to show Madame my pleasure in my new wardrobe, and my gratitude, too.

But instead of delighting along with me, as the giver usually is with a gift, she only sighed, her smile faint.

“Oh, Louise,” she said, “I wasn’t supposed to tell this to you, but because I believe in my heart that it’s better you know than not, I am going to share a secret with you. The gold for your clothes did not come from me, but from His Majesty.”

“His Majesty?” Abruptly I stopped my dancing steps. “Not you?”

“No.” She smiled, but sadly, or perhaps it was only a trick of the lantern’s shifting light. “His Majesty was pleased with how you’ve served me, and wished you to be rewarded.”

“That is most kind of him,” I said, the answer I was expected to give. But the awkward silence that now fell between Madame and me betrayed expectations of a different kind entirely. We’d spent too much time in each other’s company not to know the difference, and likewise we were too familiar with His Majesty not to recognize this as atypical of him. Louis was not a man given to act on kind impulse alone. With him, every action and word had a purpose and a reason.

But what reason could Louis have had for giving rich clothes to a lowly maid of honor like me?

“Charles has always preferred fair women with dark hair, and thus has set the fashion for them. You’ll be regarded as a great beauty.” She wasn’t teasing me about sailors as she had before, but offering a warning that she expected me to heed. “There are a good many rogues among my brother’s Court who will regard you as a delicious sweet-meat, to be gobbled up in one bite.”

I nodded, and she reached out to cradle my chin with her gloved hand. “I am as serious as I can be, Louise. I would never forgive myself if any harm befell you.”

“Yes, Madame,” I said, so touched by her concern that tears stung my eyes. “I thank you, Madame, for everything.”

“Everything,” she said wistfully. “Oh, my sweet Louise, you don’t begin to know what that means.”

Yet even as she spoke, a flash of white in the watery distance caught my eye, and I gasped with excitement just as the lookout in the crosstrees over our heads called out the landfall.

“Forgive me, Madame,” I said, “but look there! Boats, Madame, a flock of little boats coming toward us!”

“And land!” She made a wordless cry of purest joy. “Oh, Louise, that’s England, there, that dark shadow on the horizon. England, my England at last!”

With land sighted, it felt as if the very vessel beneath us jumped to fresh life. The crew bustled at their stations, while Madame’s servants and attendants recovered sufficiently to join her on the deck so that they would be in evidence when we made Dover. This last bit of water seemed to take forever to cross, with the changing winds making us cross back and forth as the captain strived to reach our destination. Slowly the sun broke clear of the horizon, a fresh dawn and a new day that made Dover’s famous chalky cliffs glow with promise.

I feared my poor frail lady would expire from anticipation before we could arrive, she was in such a fever of excitement, and as the smaller boats from the port drew close to us in welcome, tears streamed down her pale cheeks. I remained close at her side, supporting her as best I could and blotting her face with her lace-edged handkerchief so she wouldn’t look forlorn, but not once would she look away, so intent was she on that first glimpse of her brother.

At last a barque, sleekly elegant and flying an English lion on its royal pennant, drew alongside us. This vessel’s deck was likewise as crowded as our own, but even among so many, one man seemed to make all others around him disappear.

He was a head taller than the rest, dressed in rich but somber dark colors that made him appear taller still. His skin was dark, too, nearly as dark as the sailors who weathered their lives in the sun, his features strong and manly beneath his long black hair. Even across the water I could sense the intensity of his presence and the power that lay behind the easy way he stood the deck, as if he’d been born at sea and not in a palace.

Because this, I knew, I
knew
, was the English king, Charles Stuart, and never for a moment did I doubt it.

He didn’t wait until we’d moored to come aboard, or even for the sailors to throw a gangplank between the two vessels. Instead he jumped over the gap without hesitation, and bounded across the deck to Madame. He seized her in his arms, brother and sister reunited after so long apart. They laughed and cried and spoke over one another’s words, then laughed and cried again, and their happiness was so complete that all of us who witnessed it wept with them. Another man, not so tall nor so dark that I guessed he must be her other surviving brother, James, Duke of York, stepped forward to embrace her. He was followed by a rough-faced older gentleman, who was her cousin Prince Rupert, and finally the young Duke of Monmouth, and all of it making for as fine a reunion of a family, royal or otherwise, as can be imagined. It was such a pretty sight that I watched with tears of my own, not just for Madame’s joy, but for my own lost brother, Sebastien, knowing our only reunion would now be in heaven.

But even in the English Channel, the protocol of Court ruled all. At last Madame began to present her people to the king, one by one, each bowing or curtsying before him on the wet deck in order of rank and importance, as was proper.

My place would come next, near the end. For luck I touched my grandmother’s small gold crucifix at my throat, and whispered a quick prayer for guidance. I was determined to put aside my usual shyness and be brave. I would
not
falter. I pushed my hood back so my face would show, and licked my lips one last time. I stepped forward and sank into the most graceful curtsy I could manage on the unsteady deck, my head bowed so deeply that all the king could see were my glossy black curls and the white nape of my neck.

“Mademoiselle Louise de Keroualle,” Madame was saying. “You must be kind to her, Charles. She is my favorite maid of honor.”

“Mademoiselle.” His voice far over my head was deep and rich, ripe with amusement. To my shock, he took my hand in his and raised me to my feet, a gesture of favor far beyond my station, and one that scattered all my bold resolutions into disarray. Though I now stood as tall as I ever would, he held my hand still, as if he’d no wish to let it go, as if he’d every right in the world to claim my hand and me as his prize.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, addressing me in French, “if you are one of my sister’s favorites, then I am sure you must be one of mine as well.”

Daring greatly, I lifted my gaze to meet his. He was smiling, smiling at me.

And oh, may the Blessed Mother preserve me, my fate with him was cast.

Chapter Eight

DOVER CASTLE, DOVER
May 1670

 

 

 

B
ecause Madame’s visit to England was to be only a month long, Charles had decided not to squander any of their time together in traveling, and to remain in Dover. Our lodgings were in the royal keep of Dover Castle, on the heights overlooking the harbor. We were told the castle was so vastly old that parts of its walls and towers had been erected by the conquering Romans of ancient times, and when I saw the worn stone walls and bluff square towers, I could well believe it.

Madame’s bedchamber was in the corner of one of these towers, with the room I’d share with her other ladies nearby. Though the rough stones had been whitewashed in advance of our visit, I’d still the feeling of being inside a cave, carved and clawed from the rocky cliffs outside, and every bit as damp, too, with the rain that had plagued us in France following us to Dover. The ceilings were low, a series of vaulted arches, and the windows narrow slits that had been designed for defending the fortress with bows and arrows, rather than for admitting sunlight to a lady’s chamber.

There could, in short, be no place less like the lavish and modern palaces where I’d spent my last eighteen months. And yet, because everything about this journey was an adventure, the castle seemed exactly right, like the magical keep of some fairy princess awaiting the return of her knight—or, as I thought with giddy anticipation, perhaps her king.

“Let me see you properly, Louise,” Madame said as I joined her while she was having her hair dressed. She shifted her gaze without moving her head as the coiffeur in his black satin apron pinned a looped bow of red ribbons and pearls in the curls over her ear. “Come, stand here, directly before me.”

I did as she bid, eager to show my new gown. I’d resolved not to consider too closely why His Majesty had chosen to make a gift to Madame for my clothes. Most likely it was because he wanted our party to outrival his cousin’s Court in beauty and grace, and he’d deemed my humble wardrobe to be a sooty spot on so much French magnificence and style. No matter; what I said or thought would never have an impact on His Majesty, and thus I might as well accept this unexpected largess with grace.

Besides, I’d never worn a gown of such quality before, one fashioned precisely to my form by the Court’s favorite seamstress in Paris. Sewn of satin the exact color of new leaves in spring with trimming of rosy pink, the close-fitting gown had exuberant slashed poufs for sleeves and deep cuffs and a collar of
point de Venise
patterned with lilies. My stomacher glittered with silver embroidery, and was clasped with glistening glass pearls set in more lilies. In fact, as I’d stood before the glass with a maid to dress me, I’d thought I resembled a spring flower myself, my beauty enhanced to glow with a delicate vibrancy that was enticing, and yet suitable for a maid of honor. If Louis had in fact wished me to be an admirable reflection of France, then tonight even he would have been satisfied.

Madame, it seemed, would likewise agree.

“Oh, my dear Louise,” she said, her eyes widening with amazement. “Look at you!”

I grinned, and curtsied grandly, delighting in the feel of the shimmering silk flowing around me as prettily as the water in the fountains at Saint-Cloud. “You approve, Madame?”

“What a foolish question,” Madame said, raising her hands upward to appeal to the heavens. “If you are not aware of your beauty now, why, then I am quite through with you, and I shall order you tossed over the walls and back into the sea.”

I laughed, and curtsied again. “If you please, Madame, I am ready to dance with the sailors.”

“Sailors!” The coiffeur clucked his tongue with disapproval, not being party to our jest. “Take care with this one, Your Highness, if she means to squander herself on sailors in the port.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that’s what she meant.” She smiled warmly, taking nearly as much pleasure in my appearance as I did myself. “I cannot speak for the sailors, Louise, but I am certain you’ll capture the eye of every gentleman tonight.”

“Thank you, Madame,” I murmured. There was only one gentleman whose eyes I wished to capture, only one that mattered to me. I was in a fever to go below and test my new confidence, and see how I measured against the beauties of the English Court.

The coiffeur stepped forward to give a critical tweak to the twin lovelocks trailing over my shoulder. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but I believe she’d be much improved with a jewel or two.”

“I think not,” Madame said, frowning a bit as she decided. “Innocence like hers is better left without ornament.”

I nodded with relief, for I’d no jewels of my own beyond my small gold crucifix. Madame could make up for both of us: she was richly dressed, as befit a royal princess, and bedecked with pearls and jewels that I recognized as gifts from both Charles and Louis, and pointedly not so much as a ring from her husband.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the coiffeur said. “Though likely the young lady will have gentlemen enough offering to fill that void.”

“Wicked rascal,” Madame said, laughing, while I, as was predictable, blushed furiously at his sly double meaning. “That’s exactly what I fear.”

Several other of Madame’s attendants had joined us now, and she rose from her dressing table, taking her fan from one of her maids as she readied herself to lead us downstairs. I slipped back among the older ladies of higher rank, as was my place, but Madame called me back.

“Here, Louise, stay with me,” she said, taking my arm. I was startled by how she seemed to need my support, and looked to her with concern. I’d been so absorbed by my own excitement that I hadn’t noticed how pale she was, or how shadows ringed her eyes beneath her powder.

“Madame,” I said softly, so the others wouldn’t hear, “are you too weary for this night?”

Swiftly she smiled with determination that belied her pallor. “No worries, not tonight,” she said, patting my arm. “It’s been a long day, that is all, yet I would not miss my brother’s first grand meal for anything.”

Nor would I. I matched my pace to Madame’s, but if it had been left to me, I would have fair flown downstairs, I was that eager and excited. We made our way through the castle’s narrow arched passages and down a long, dark staircase, and already we could hear the sounds of fiddles playing and people laughing and being merry. I’ll grant, too, that Charles had ordered his people to make the gloomy old place as cheerful as was possible. Bright tapestries and hangings masked gray stone and huge bowls and vases of spring flowers were everywhere, for both color and fragrance.