The French Mistress (19 page)

“Madame is kind to watch over me, sir.”

“By your choice, mademoiselle, or hers?”

“Mine,” I said, my whisper scarce more than a sigh. “Sir.”

He released me then, letting me step backward as the dance required. Within my breast my heart raced like a frightened rabbit as I struggled to recall my wits. For nearly two years, I’d lived in a place that was overrun with lust and love, longing and desire, but this was the first time I’d felt any of it for myself, and like a novice tippler’s first sip of wine, it had gone directly to my head.

Three steps to the left, slide, turn, three steps to the right.
I ordered myself to concentrate on who I was, not what I felt. My cheeks might still be girlishly round, but I was a woman grown of twenty years, and it was time I presented myself like one.

“ ‘Such is our good pleasure that it be done,’ ” I said, bringing the conversation back to the safer topic of the French king when the dance returned me once again to the king. “That’s what His Majesty your cousin says, and at once he is obeyed. ‘Such is our good pleasure that it be done.’ ”

But the king was the king, and as such not so easily directed as I’d presumed.

“Good pleasure, ha,” he said as the dance ended. “That may suit for my cousin, but for me, mademoiselle, my good pleasure will come from being with you.”

Still holding both my hands firmly in his, he drew me closer and kissed me on each cheek, the whiskers of his mustache grazing over my skin. I started with surprise, my eyes wide and my mouth gaping, but he only smiled, and as he bowed, I realized that the other gentlemen on the floor were saluting their partners in the same fashion, and that the twin kisses were no more than the accepted conclusion of the dance. Belatedly I made him my own curtsy, and when I rose, the king was smiling still, though no longer at me.

“I’ve come to claim my dance, sir,” Lady Castlemaine said, “and you with it.”

Now I saw the flaws that age and sin had brought to her beauty, how the paint settled in the lines on her face and how her famous blue-violet eyes were at their core as hard as glass. She smiled wantonly at the king, and slipped her hand inside his coat to fondle him with shocking familiarity, while he only laughed.

“You’ve left me quite alone,” she said, pouting slyly. “I’ve had no company at all.”

“You’re never alone, Barbara.” The king pulled her roving hand from beneath his clothes and brought it briefly to his lips. As if to remind him of the price of her loneliness, she cocked her little finger, making the new diamond ring quicken and spark from the light of a score of candles.

“Pray, who is this pretty, sulky child?” she asked, sufficiently confident in his attentions that she could now deign to notice me. “I wonder that her mama lets her keep so late from her cot.”

“This is Mademoiselle de Keroualle, Barbara,” the King said, and this time his smile was for me, not her. “She is one of my Minette’s attendants from France. Mademoiselle, the Countess of Castlemaine.”

“My lady, I am honored,” I murmured, showing her the respect her rank demanded, if not her history.

She studied me with rare frankness, the way one woman will to measure the worth of a potential rival. Then she smiled, slowly, as if to say she’d judged me no competition worth her bother.

“Sweet,” she said, a single dismissive word. She looped her arm into the king’s to lead him away, but also to make her possession clear. “Come, sir. Your rightful place is at the head of the set, not here.”

She could not have been more obvious in her disdain for me had she spat at my feet. Yet the king did not notice, or leastwise pretended not to, and I recalled what Lord Monmouth had told me of His Majesty’s preference for peace where Lady Castlemaine was concerned. Certainly he chose the easier (and more seductive) course now, curling his arm around her waist so that she might sway her full voluptuary’s hip into his as they left me. Or perhaps he’d decided to honor his sister’s request, and not toy with me further.

Nor was I left alone. I’d been noticed and admired by His Majesty, and my place here was secured. In ten minutes’ time, my value had risen immeasurably. Now a flock of the same gentlemen who’d ignored my presence in their midst earlier was clustered about me, begging the honor of a dance.

Yet still I gazed after the king, and the long black curls that flowed over his broad velvet-covered shoulders. He was every bit the perfect gentleman I’d conceived him to be, and if I’d not been surrounded by so many others, I might well have sighed aloud, so deep was my pining for what I could not possess.

Though the wisest dons and philosophers will deny it, I believe that there are certain times when an unspoken wish can be made real by the sheer fervency of the wisher, and answered as if it had been said aloud. So it was now: for as I looked after the king with the most ardent longing in my heart, he suddenly turned back to meet my gaze over the unknowing countess’s shoulder, as if I’d called his name and this was his reply. He smiled and winked at me, a small, delicious secret between us and no one else. Then he turned back to Lady Castlemaine, and the spell of the moment was broken.

That moment, yes. But what had begun between us that night would change our lives and many others, and even the fortunes of our mutual countries, for good, for ill, forever.

Chapter Nine

DOVER CASTLE, DOVER
May 1670

 

 

 

“A
waken, Mademoiselle de Keroualle, if you please,” the maidservant whispered, her hand on my shoulder. “Come, you must rouse yourself, mademoiselle.”

Fuddled with sleep, I rolled over to face the voice that summoned me, squinting at the candlestick the maid shielded with her cupped hand. It was either very late or very early, with the single window in the stone wall still dark. All around me the other maids of honor slept, bundled and burrowed beneath their pillows and coverlets. Our chamber was cold and damp, and since none of us had left the dancing until well past midnight, I saw no useful reason for me to leave the snug and comforting warmth of my bed just yet.

“It’s too early,” I muttered, shaking her hand away. “Leave me.”

“You must come, mademoiselle,” the woman insisted. “Madame wishes you to join her in her lodgings as soon as you can dress.”

That was different. Against my weary body’s protest, I forced myself from my bed and, shivering, put a simple gown on. The maidservant helped me dress my hair in the hall, where the candlelight wouldn’t disturb the others.

“What is Madame’s reason?” I asked as she brushed and pinned my heavy hair into some semblance of respectability. “Is she unwell? Has anything happened?”

“She did not confide in me, mademoiselle,” the maidservant said, even more grumpy than I, for she’d been wakened even earlier. “All I know is that she asked me to fetch only you, and that you were to be dressed for day and brought to her.”

It seemed odd to dress for day at this hour when night remained, but I did as I’d been bidden, and followed the maidservant to Madame’s rooms. There were times when I believed that Madame had made some unholy pact against sleep, for truly she seemed to need only half the rest that others did. Her attendants soon learned this, much to their regret. We could be called to come to her at any hour of the night, and though we might struggle to keep our heavy-lidded eyes open, she would be as cheerful and alert as any morning robin, even daring to tease us as lay-abeds or laggards.

Thus it was when I joined Madame now. A dozen candlesticks and a large fire made her room bright, while she sat at a small table serving as a makeshift desk. She was already dressed as if it were mid-morning, with a heavy woolen shawl wrapped over her silk gown and black knitted fingerless gloves. From the leavings on the tray at her side, it was clear she was likewise done with her breakfast save for the porcelain dish of tea in her hand.

“Good morning, Louise,” she said briskly, looking up from the papers and letters before her. “I trust you slept well?”

“Yes, Madame,” I said, even as I tried to swallow back another yawn.

“That was a deal of excitement last night, wasn’t it?” she said, picking up her pen to make a note along the edge of one page. “There will be more. I can promise you that, so long as my brother’s making the arrangements. I’ve never known another gentleman who so thrives on variety.”

“Yes, Madame.” I was glad I wasn’t expected to say more. I’d wondered how much she’d seen of my dance with her brother last night, and further, if he’d spoken of me afterward. The two had spent much of the evening together (far more, in truth, than the king had spent with Lady Castlemaine, likely to that lady’s peevish disappointment). But as much as I wished it, I’d no real reason to believe he would have raised my name or remarked me in any special way, especially if, as he’d told me, Madame had warned him away from me. I could hope, of course, even pray for his favor, but the unfortunate truth was that I was likely only one of the dozens of fair young women who crossed this king’s path each day of his life. His amorous nature was widely known; for such a man, temptation must be everywhere.

“I was most happy to see you enjoy yourself, Louise,” Madame said, as if reading my thoughts. “What did you make of the company?”

“The company?” I hesitated, wondering if she was using that vague phrase to inquire about my impressions of her brother. “To speak true, Madame, while I found the company most charming and delightsome, it was to me much like the French Court. There were many gallants, to be sure, but few bachelors, and fewer still of those were interested in securing a wife rather than engaging in another mere dalliance.”

“Alas, that is the rule in most places,” Madame said with a sigh. She slipped the papers into a leather folder, tied it closed, and tucked it under her arm as she rose from the table. “But at least I can promise you a fresh adventure this morning.”

Mystified, I followed her to the door, and with two guards as an escort, we made our way through the sleeping castle. I’d still no notion of the hour, and the wind and rain that beat against the walls and windows masked any signs of a coming dawn. At last we reached one of the squared towers, and a suite of rooms so well-guarded with soldiers that I was sure they must belong to His Majesty. I followed Madame into the last chamber, a narrow room with an enormous fireplace and a roaring fire and a sideboard laid for a lavish breakfast. Down the center of the room was a long table, surrounded by heavy, dark armchairs with tall caned backs. The four gentlemen in these chairs rose as one when Madame joined them, their faces long and solemn, and not a hint of a yawn, despite the early hour.

At once I recognized them—the French ambassador, Charles Colbert, Marquis de Croissy; the two privy councilors I’d first seen last night, Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, and Sir Thomas Clifford; and, of course, His Majesty the King—and at once, too, I recognized the solemn purpose to their gathering at this hour. The countless letters that Madame had written to Louis and Charles, the plans tor tuously made and unmade and refined for a new alliance between England and France, would finally come to fruition in this room, far away from the frivolous celebrations in the rest of the castle. It was clear that these four gentlemen and one small lady were determined to alter the futures of their two countries at this table, and that they meant to do it in secret.

But why, I wondered, had I been included?

“Good day, Minette,” the king said, coming forward to embrace his sister. “Did your feet keep dancing as you slept?”

She laughed, and reached up to tap her forefinger on the end of his long nose, a familiarity dared only by younger sisters to older brothers. “My poor feet could scarce climb the stairs, they were so weary, while yours, Charles—likely yours would be dancing still, if they weren’t here.”

“Ah, my dear sister, what you think of me!” He sighed, but his smile took away any hint of melancholy. “You are to sit here, at my side. You know these others, I believe?”

She nodded eagerly, her delicate head tipped to one side, and she smiled at the gentlemen in turn, winning each with a charm every bit equal to the king’s. It was, I suppose, a gift to the Stuarts, that rare charm that won them so much with such ease: a small compensation for what they so grievously suffered and lost at the hands of that same charmed world.

But Sir Thomas was looking not at Madame, but at me, his expression decidedly disapproving. “Madame, might I ask who this young lady—”

“This is Mademoiselle de Keroualle,” she said, linking her fingers lightly into mine as she drew me forward. “She is here by my invitation, Sir Thomas, and with my trust.”

He shook his head, quick little bobs of disagreement. “The mademoiselle appears very young for such grave responsibility, Madame.”

“Mademoiselle de Keroualle has the purity of youth to recommend her, Sir Thomas,” Madame replied, the slightest edge of reproach in her voice. “She shall serve as my witness here, as she has served me before.”

It was entirely true, yes, yet still I was honored and a bit awed that she’d chosen me from her vast number of attendants to be with her.

“The lady stays, Clifford,” the king said. “It is my wish, as well as my sister’s.”

Swiftly I looked to him, surprised by his defense. He smiled, clearly delighted by my unguarded reaction. “You may take that seat by the window, mademoiselle.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said softly, and slipped into the chair he’d indicated. There I sat in silence, watching and listening and bearing witness to everything as Madame had wished.

It was not an easy process, this diplomacy, and vastly more tedious than I’d imagined. Though Madame fondly referred to the treaty as the “Grand Design,” it was in fact far from grand, and there seemed precious little design to any of it. The French ambassador and the two counselors squabbled over every word and idea like mongrels with a mutton bone, raging back and forth to the very point of incivility. Only then would the king or Madame suddenly interject a new idea and calm the discussion.