Dark Angels (24 page)

“Later, after you’ve seen His Majesty.”

Her father opened a door and more or less pushed her through it. She found herself inside a small chamber in this rambling great house the king used as his palace when he was in the village for the races. Some of his ministers sat around a table with him, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Arlington, and Thomas Clifford, as well as others of the court, Bab May, Thomas Killigrew, the Earl of St. Albans. A slim sprite of a woman perched on the arm of the king’s chair. It had to be Nellie Gwynn, the actress the king was keeping, thought Alice. Fair haired, sharply pretty, she wore a magnificent gown and good jewels and far too many patches. She patches the way a whore would, thought Alice. King Charles laid down a card, and Nellie pinched his ear.

“You’ll never win if you play like that, sir. It should have been this one,” she said.

A servant stepped forward and whispered in her ear, and the actress looked up and saw Alice, who had remained in the shadow of the door, a bit overwhelmed by the scene before her, like a tavern, with men and smoke and intimate laughter. Nell came forward and curtsied. “Nellie Gywnn, Mistress Verney.”

Her accent was as common as a fishmonger’s or weederwoman’s. She can mimic anyone, said Fletcher, and sings like an angel, dances as well as you. Alice didn’t acknowledge her.

“Nell, take my place,” called King Charles.

“Thank God for that.” Nell settled in his chair, small in it, and smiled at the men, completely at her ease. “Call me a highwayman, for you may as well give me your coins now.” Everyone laughed.

King Charles led Alice to a chair at a far corner of the chamber, motioned for her to sit, then sat beside her, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat, the charming, caressing, easy manner that got him his way, except with his House of Commons, in play. “I want you to go to France.”

She was so surprised, she didn’t answer.

“Be part of Buckingham’s party. He’s goes as my emissary for Madame’s funeral, a few others also, Lord Sandwich, Lord St. Albans. It’s fitting that you be included, as her former maid of honor, and there’s something very special that is coming back from France, something that needs a woman’s kindness. I’m going to want you to cosset it carefully. Your father will explain.”

What was he talking about? A dog? Was she to escort Madame’s dogs back? She opened her mouth to question, and he put a finger to his lips.

“No questions from you, Verney. You’ll know all when you need to, and trust me, you’ll be rewarded. That position you want in Her Majesty’s household is yours, once you’ve done this.”

She smiled.

King Charles’s eyes swept over her. He liked to say he could tell everything about a man from his face. People said he was lazy. He was, and he wasn’t. Whatever he saw in Alice’s face seemed to satisfy him. He stood. Alice saw she was dismissed. He walked back to the game. “Nellie, have you lost my fortune?”

“On the contrary, I’ve won fifty pounds from these here cheats you call councillors and friends.”

Alice slipped out the door a servant opened for her. Her father waited. “Well, gal?”

“I’m off to France, part of Buckingham’s entourage.” She saw even as she spoke that her father already knew. “What am I to take care of, Father? Her dogs? He didn’t say.” She rushed on, not giving him a chance to answer, seeing instead an opening for what she wanted. “I thought to bring this up later, but now is perfect. I want to bring Mademoiselle de Keroualle back with me. She is my friend, you know, and she’s written that she’s unhappy in France, and I thought we might find her a place in someone’s household here. I’ve had such a sad letter from her, and I know it’s sudden, but I didn’t expect to be going to France like this, and it would be so easy to bring her back with me when I return. Please, say yes. Please.”

Her father stepped back, staring at her for a long moment with narrowed eyes. “What a kindhearted girl you are, Alice,” he finally said. “Yes, you write to your friend and tell her to pack her bags. We’ll take care of her.” Only later would she suspect his quick agreement. “Now, you’ll need a chaperone.”

“I thought of Aunt Brey.”

Her father laughed as if she’d said something witty. “Aunt Brey.”

“What am I to take care of, Father? You haven’t told me.”

“It’s as you say, the little dogs, some jewels of state belonging to the king’s mother, and now, little Mistress Keroualle.” And then he was gone, disappearing down the corridor, and she followed him slowly, limping to the main chamber, but he was across the room near the musicians, beaming down at Louisa Saylor, who gave him a saucy smile.

Alice watched the dancing, her eyes darting over different ladies present. The Duchess of York, the Duchess of Monmouth, the Duchess of Richmond, Lady Suffolk…what household might Renée be placed in? She might have to settle for being companion to someone. Until she married Lieutenant Saylor, of course. Fletcher appeared before her, bowed smartly, everything about him crisp, as always, and perfectly done. He wore a huge, curling wig that cascaded past his shoulders.

“I’ve seen the actress at last,” she told him.

He sat down at once beside her. “A tidbit, don’t you think? Not the main course.”

“Who has the king’s regard, then?”

“La belle Stewart.”

Alice wrinkled her nose. The woman he spoke of had married a duke. There was a long, involved story between her and the king. “He isn’t courting her.”

“We don’t know that, do we? She was always more discreet than people gave her credit for—Cow!” Someone among the dancing couples caught his eye. “It doesn’t matter how many lessons I give Luce Wells, she dances like a country clod. Look how her elbows stick out. Now, Gracen is perfection.”

“Too leggy,” said Alice.

“He dances well. Look at the way he holds those shoulders, that head. Like a young god. And his legs. Divine, simply divine. I love it when he and Monmouth stand together, the light and the dark angels of court.” He spoke of Richard, dancing with zest and grace in the middle of the floor. “They do say Her Grace of Monmouth is on a tear, determined to have him dismissed from the king’s service, but Monmouth won’t do it. He’s racing tomorrow—Saylor, I mean. I hear he has a magnificent horse.”

Alice watched. Her time in France had made her more demanding of the art. There was nothing the French royal family loved more than dance; everyone had a dancing master. She sniffed. His partner did not do him justice. I could, she thought. They’d adored her dancing in France, calling her fairy, feather light. “I’m going to France with the funeral entourage,” she told Fletcher.

“Are you? You have all the good fortune. I want to go. Pack me in your truck. Hire me as a groom.”

“And I’m to be maid of honor again.”

“But that’s wonderful. When?”

“When I return.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Thank God for that. I will tell Her Majesty tonight. That will make her smile.”

“She is smiling, Fletcher. Look at her.”

“My dear girl, that is for the jackals of court. None of us who serve her have smiled in months. Ugly rumors about….” He shuddered, flicked at his coat sleeve as if an ugly rumor had landed there. “Disheartening, hurtful. I talked of it in Dover.”

“When I’m back, we’ll put our heads together and hatch a plot to put her in the king’s good graces again.”

“Only one thing will do that, Alice, and I fear it’s impossible. It’s been eight years.”

“She is still queen. She deserves the respect of that.”

“Yes, we’ve just turned up on our bellies like whipped dogs, is all. We need your backbone, Alice. Barbara is too good, and Gracen…well, if it doesn’t serve our Gracen, it doesn’t happen, does it? Caro’s gone and preoccupied with family. And I doubt Kit and Luce have a full brain between them. The ladies-in-waiting, they were always Cleveland’s creatures, never the queen’s. It’s been terrifying. Your Fletcher has thought of leaving her household like the coward he truly is. But I take fresh heart, I do. Oh, there’s Lord Rochester! He wishes me to create the dances in the intervals of a play he’s penning. They say Buckingham is writing something new, too, something that pokes fun at our august poet laureate. I cannot wait. A duel between the Duke of Buckingham and John Dryden. Inkblots at forty paces! He’s taken on an actress, you know, Dryden. I may have to support one myself, it is becoming so the fashion. I leave you, my pet, to your crippled self. What was this humor of falling off a horse? Really, Alice. I was most upset. If I haven’t you to teach, I might as well herd cows. You must allow your leg to heal properly.”

He was gone in a snap of fingers, stopping here and there, visiting, collecting, exchanging gossip, a bee with court’s pollen.

Alice limped outside to stand on the terrace, to look up at the silver moon, thinking of the queen in disfavor, of Dryden’s wife, who now had an actress as a rival. Was constancy simply a poet’s dream? We must marry you off to a grand man; you’re made for it, Princesse Henriette had said. And in that moment, she’d hatched revenge on Cole and safety for herself. She sighed. It was all harder than she’d thought it would be. She turned at a sound. Richard had stepped out to catch his breath. He pulled his long hair up and off his neck, shaking his head the way a horse would, and she was struck dumb at some spark that crackled out of him. Monday’s child is fair of face. Tuesday’s child is full of grace. So it was said about Monmouth, but to her, so it might be said of Richard.

“They’re saying you fell off a horse,” Richard said to her, at his ease, coming to stand beside her, looking up at the full moon. “‘Methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon.’ I heard that in a play the other afternoon, and it caught my fancy.”

“I’m going to France, to Madame’s funeral.”

“A signal of honor, Verney.”

“Have you any messages you wish me to take to Mademoiselle de Keroualle?”

“God’s eyes, yes! You’ll be seeing her, then?”

“Of course I’ll see her.” For some reason, she didn’t tell him Renée was returning.

“When do you leave?”

“Soon, I think.”

He smiled at her. “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” And then he left her. At the wide doors that opened into the night, he leaped up and touched the ornate carved stone above the doors in triumph.

My second good deed for the day, thought Alice. She frowned up at the pale-faced moon.

C
HAPTER 13

August

A
ll noble and devout persons pray for the soul of the most high, powerful, virtuous, and excellent Princesse Henriette-Anne of England, daughter of Charles the First, king of Great Britain, and of Henriette-Marie, daughter of France, and wife of Philippe of France, only brother of the king.” So chanted a high official of the king’s as he marched in a procession through the streets of Paris, preparing the world for her funeral.

It was the spectacle of state expected, flambeaux and wax candles burning, incense rising, the coffin covered in cloth of gold edged with ermine, everyone in satiny, shimmering yards of midnight black, pearls in ropes around women’s necks and hanging in drops from ears. Monsieur with a cloak that trailed twenty feet behind him if it trailed an inch, the greatest, longest black feathers encircling the crown of his hat, the king’s mistresses ethereal angels in mourning, the funeral sermon given by the most popular bishop in Paris, the ring Madame had willed him glittering on one thumb. “Madame is dead. Oh, help us, Madame is dead,” he began, and sobs broke out under the soaring arches of the cathedral.

“My word,” said Aunt Brey afterward as she and Alice stood in the milling crowd of people, waiting for their carriage.

“Yes,” said Alice. The funeral was grand, the manner of her dying swept under a table. It was taken for granted she was poisoned. It was taken for granted all was forgiven. Life, as they say, had moved on.

A
FEW DAYS
later, still in Paris, at the house of the English ambassador, Alice waited by a window that overlooked his courtyard, and when she saw a carriage pull in, she ran down the stairs and out onto the cobblestones. Renée was barely able to step from the carriage before Alice pounced on her.

“Tell me everything!”