Dark Angels (25 page)

“In my day, we didn’t talk in the street for all the world to hear us,” said Aunt Brey in the carriage, acting as Renée’s chaperone. “Let us go into the salon, if you please, Alice.” And then, as she walked arm in arm with Alice, Aunt Brey whispered, “It was very odd.”

In the salon, Renée began to tell Alice of her visit to the Louvre Palace while Aunt Brey stood before a pier glass, examining herself. “The king, I was commanded to see the king, if you can believe it, Alice. I thought my appointment was with Monsieur Colbert only, but His Majesty was there. His Majesty knew that I was returning to England with you, and he said that I was very fortunate and that it was my duty to do as I was told and be agreeable.” She smiled a lovely smile. “As if I would do anything else.”

“A very odd thing to say, I thought,” Aunt Brey said into the silvered glass that reflected her face. “I really must have some gowns made while we’re here. I looked the dowd today. Yes, it was very odd, Alice. Why on earth would King Louis himself bother with any of it, I want to know? And there’s more. Go on, tell her, Renée.”

“I am going to be maid of honor to Queen Catherine.”

Alice met Aunt Brey’s eyes as Renée impulsively hugged Alice.

“I owe your father a debt I cannot repay. I never expected this, never. I’m going to write him a letter of thanks. Oh, I must go and change my gown, Alice. Madame Colbert has asked me to call on her this afternoon.” At the door, she turned to face the two women. “This is like a fairy tale.” Then she was gone in a rushing sound of skirts.

“There’s still more.” Aunt Brey pulled a letter from her sleeve. “I received this from your father yesterday.”

Alice took the letter. Renée was to buy whatever she needed to make her appearance in England. Her father would pay. Alice walked out into the garden. Bright summer sun shimmered off the high whitewashed walls, but there was a bench in the shade. Sounds from the street rumbled over the garden wall, carriage wheels creaking as they lurched into muddy pits, coachmen’s curses, the snap of a whip, a horse’s whinny. The streets of Paris were a torment to walk along, messy, narrow, muddy, but this garden was an oasis, ivies growing thick against the stone of the house and walls, trees grown high and sheltering, flowers blooming, birds singing. Her aunt followed her out and sat on the bench beside her.

“My father is paying for her gowns?” Alice said. “Maid of honor to the queen?”

“Yes. It’s most unusual. Alice, I think you’d best prepare yourself.”

“For what?”

“Forgive me for speaking against your father, but I’m not at all certain that his intentions toward Mademoiselle de Keroualle are honorable.”

Alice opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again as her aunt continued. “He’s of an age where men lose their heads over something younger, and she is, if I do say so myself, startlingly lovely. My mother used to say young women of a certain age have a bewitching time, their maiden time when no man can resist them, when youth and high spirits carry the day. And to her credit, I think she has no notion of it whatsoever, is, quite frankly, simply bowled over by her good fortune, as so she should be,” Aunt Brey finished dryly.

Alice could feel her mind spinning, going back over details, clues she might have missed. Could it be that her father had designs on Renée? The thought made her physically ill and completely furious, and yet it might be true. Only look at his determined flirting with Louisa Saylor. He was susceptible. This kind of generosity—let her buy what she needed in Paris—was not his style. Did he think he was going to seduce Renée? That Alice would sit by and allow it to happen? She thought back to Dover, to her father and his cronies clucking over Renée’s dramatic beauty like uncles. Renée was without powerful family to protect her. Uncles be damned. She twisted the letter furiously.

“It may be worse than you imagine,” said Aunt Brey with a sniff. “What if he marries her? It’s the kind of thing men do at his age, marry someone half their years and imagine themselves young again. One may sup with the devil as long as there’s a long spoon.”

Coldness replaced incredulity and fury. There would be no marriage except the one Renée and Lieutenant Saylor contracted. Alice had every intention of championing it with all her heart. “I’ll handle it.”

“I’ve gossip for you. The French court was buzzing with it. Arabella Churchill is in Paris, has been delivered of a son.” Arabella was mistress to the Duke of York. The son was his. Aunt Brey swelled with the pleasure of having more scandal to repeat. “And the little actress Nellie Gywnn suddenly has a town house in Pall Mall. His Majesty strolls across St. James’s Park and visits with her over her garden wall. If he thinks to set her up among us, he is sadly mistaken. I will not make a curtsy to an actress. And guess who is no longer in Whitehall. You’ll never believe it. The Duchess of Cleveland has moved out of the palace into another lodging.”

“The great cow falls at last,” breathed Alice.

“What did you say? There are no cows in Whitehall. They’re in St. James’s Park, as you well know. What are you talking about?”

Renée walked out into the garden, bright sunlight making her shade her eyes. Alice considered her. You’ll return with me, Alice had said to her. I’ll see you placed properly, thinking she’d find something for her as companion to one of the ladies-in-waiting. Ha. We’ll have fun, you and I, she’d said. You’ll be my little cousin. Little cousin seemed to be doing very well on her own.

“I wanted to say good-bye before I left.” She leaned down and touched her cheek to Alice’s. “Are you cross?”

“No,” Alice lied.

Her aunt sniffed.

T
HAT EVENING
, A
LICE
tracked down the English ambassador before he left for his evening engagement. Dressed in satin and laces, a full dark periwig hanging down over his shoulders, Lord Montagu looked grand and unapproachable, his pen scratching importantly over the paper in front of him. Alice didn’t leave him in peace like a good girl but waited coldly before the table at which he sat, willing him to look up.

“I’ll be finished presently.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a few questions I have, such as when might His Grace be leaving for England again?”

“His exact departure is not yet fixed.”

Buckingham was at this moment the toast of Paris, had attended Princesse Henriette’s funeral like a potentate, cutting a swath through court, was being entertained by one and all as if he were the king of England.

“Mademoiselle de Keroualle is confused about what is to happen when we reach England. I fear I am, too.” She watched Lord Montagu purse his lips, put down his pen carefully so that the ink would not make a blot on the letter.

“Your father has graciously offered his protection, as you know, as you so kindly came across to offer. She will reside with him under his full guardianship, until assuming her position in the royal household.” His voice was bland.

“Yes, that’s where I’m unclear. No one told me of such a thing. That position would be?”

“Maid of honor to Queen Catherine, as you are.” Montagu did not betray by so much as a flicker of the eyelid what a surprise these arrangements were, but perhaps, thought Alice icily, they are no surprise to him. “King Charles feels a responsibility to her,” continued Montagu.

“The Queen of France cannot shelter her?”

“Forgive me for my frankness, but you know how the French are about bloodlines. Those who serve their queen must be of the highest families. It would be quite impossible.”

“La Grande Mademoiselle?” La Grande Mademoiselle was a princess of the court, cousin to King Louis.

“Has the same high standards as the queen of France. I cannot tell you how glad Mademoiselle de Keroaulle’s parents are that she goes to a family such as yours, who will care for her. They’ve sent a letter to your father thanking him.” Lord Montagu smiled at Alice. “I am beholden beyond words that you are with her. It makes her crossing over to a foreign land so much less frightening. You are consideration itself, Mistress Verney.”

Consideration itself? thought Alice. I’m a fool.

H
IS
G
RACE THE
Duke of Buckingham was taking his own sweet time about returning to England.

Let us make the most of our time in Paris, Alice told her aunt.

She led Renée and her aunt from shop to shop, to exclaim over the selection of fabrics, colored feathers, soft leather for gloves and shoes, fans, ribbons, buttons. She introduced them to her seamstress. She arranged to have the dancing master to the court call and give her aunt lessons. She bit her tongue when, without being asked, he gave Renée lessons, too. She took her aunt to meet Madame de Lafayette, who had been great friends with the princess; they walked in the large gardens of Luxembourg Palace, which belonged to La Grande Mademoiselle, and admired the elaborate fountain built by Catherine de Medici; they went to look at the huge stone triumphal arches King Louis was having built as part of widening the streets in Paris. They drank coffee and hot chocolate at small cafés; the Spanish queen of France had brought with her the habit of drinking chocolate, and the Turkish ambassador had introduced coffee sweetened with sugar. They went to the Palais Royal, Monsieur’s residence in Paris, and called upon the two little motherless princesses, and there, Alice had a note delivered to Beuvron. “Call upon me,” she wrote. “I miss you. Come and gossip. I must look at properties in the Marais. Come and be my guide.” But the days in August glided by, and he did not call. She persisted, sending him a second note, and then, a third. And in the midst of it all, she wrote Balmoral a very long letter describing the funeral.

A
LICE THREW DOWN
her embroidery needle in disgust. She sat before a wooden stand, a large circle of embroidery held in its frame. She was doing beadwork. It was all the fashion to work hundreds of tiny beads into elaborate embroideries. “I’m going blind. Oh, when are we returning to England? Let’s pack our trunks and go, Aunt Brey.”

“There’s no need for that.” Aunt Brey looked up from a letter that had been delivered. “His Grace the Duke of Buckingham has his secretary write that we leave in four days.”

A footman walked into the salon. “Comte Armand Beuvron asks if you are receiving?”

Alice clapped her hands, ran to meet him at the door. He looked his old self, lively, fresh faced, ready to be diverting or diverted.

“I had given up on you, Beuvron! We’re just leaving for the Marais. Nothing could be better. Do say you’ll come with us. Aunt, I want to introduce you to the man who took me under his wing when I first came to Princesse Henriette’s household. I don’t know what I would have done without his good advice and kindness.”

“You’re her Beuvron, are you?”

“But you’re too young to be Mademoiselle Verney’s aunt,” Beuvron said. “There must be some mistake, or your niece lies to me. Surely I speak to no more than an older sister.”

“You’re too kind.” Aunt Brey was frosty, but Alice could see that she was flattered. After an afternoon with Beuvron in his spirits of old, he would have her eating out of his hand.

Outside, she and Beuvron walked a pace or two ahead of her aunt. “Why haven’t you called on me?”

“Shame. I don’t forget how I’ve treated you, even if you are kind enough to do so.”

So what’s driven you now? thought Alice. They strolled around the elegant square called Place Royal, a statue of King Louis’s father at its center, stately town houses offering an even expanse of windows that overlooked the square, talking of Princesse Henriette’s funeral. He had been among the mourners representing Monsieur’s household, and now he shared long-ago gossip about the princess with her.