Dark Angels (64 page)

He’d heard her.

She’d prayed he hadn’t. She’d hoped he hadn’t. She’d convinced herself he hadn’t. But he had. As evening approached, watching the royal brothers, the queen, Rupert, the Monmouths at their public dinner, she felt still the pressure of Richard’s mouth on her hand. Mourning for Her Grace. No dancing. No public performances of plays for weeks. What would they all do with themselves?

T
HE NEXT DAY
dawned. King Charles, a page bringing his spaniels, went for an evening walk, Renée at his side, Alice and the others following, except the queen, who refused to join them. Lord Rochester made stupid, half-bawdy, tasteless comments, as if the maids of honor were actresses, who didn’t care what was said to them. Mulgrave, walking beside her, wanted to speak seriously, she could see, so she linked her arm in Renée’s. The king and Renée were talking of La Grande Mademoiselle, the most important princess in the French court. King Charles was mocking the French princess’s disdainful manner, telling Renée of how he’d tried to court her in his vagabond days and how she would have little to do with him. “And thus she missed wearing the crown of England,” he said.

Where was Balmoral? It was day two; her stomach hurt, her head. Barbara looked so big with child. The sight of her yesterday at York’s had shocked her. Barbara and Caro huddled in talk. Did they talk about her? Say mean things of her? John Sidney had approached, wanting to speak with her. She must not like him. She wouldn’t. He was lucky she did not disclose him to her father as a Papist. Alice had watched Caro, thinking, What if I just went over and began talking; we could repair ourselves. But she didn’t. Richard had looked so thin, not quite well, as he entered York’s chamber. All the maids watched Renée, who could not keep color from rushing to her face.

But Richard didn’t walk over to speak to her.

He made his obediences to King Charles, whose face expressed nothing, whose eyes missed nothing, either. Richard talked for a long time with the queen, as if she were not in disfavor. He seemed to notice none of the mood around him, and he finally settled in between John and Barbara. Not once did he glance at Renée that Alice could see. A muscle showed itself now and then at his jaw. Alice could only guess at what the visit had cost him. He didn’t stay to watch royalty dine. And Monmouth and Louisa Saylor. What was going on there? Monmouth had only to look her way for her to smile. Hers was as blazing as her brother’s, and Alice felt guilty to see it.

She glanced up. First stars. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. She was glad to be walking briskly, His Majesty’s only way of walking. She wanted her bed. Wanted to pull covers up over her head and have this day done with. But there was to be no early to bed for her. Back in the queen’s antechamber, Rochester amused them for an hour with card tricks. Dryden passed out sheets of his latest play, and they took parts and read them. Strictures of mourning were going to be allowed liberal interpretation, it was clear.

Alice went to sit with Dorothy.

“What further news have you from Lord Knollys?” she asked.

But Dorothy didn’t answer, and Alice left the question alone.

She went to stand near the king, who was laughing at Dryden’s dialogue as spoken by Rochester and Luce. Dryden recited a poem, then Rochester. King Charles teased Renée to read a poem and show off her English. Alice yawned, found a fat French armchair, pulled up her legs, and, before she knew it, dozed.

She woke to the sound of music. Renée was playing the lute for His Majesty, and the chamber was empty of people. The king’s face showed sadness, tiredness, but his eyes gleamed as he watched Renée.

“Another,” he said when she’d ended.

“‘Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, Lady, were no crime,’” sang Renée.

The king’s heavy-lidded eyes were suddenly upon Alice. “Our duenna wakes.”

“Hello, Alice,” said Renée, strumming without self-consciousness. The king’s attention no longer embarrassed her. “Look how tired she is. I think we can dismiss her.”

And when Alice was gone, he said, “What about your reputation?” He spoke in French.

“I weary of duennas. I’m not a child.”

“I weary of losing those I love.” He sighed, and Renée put down the lute, stood behind his chair, put her arms around him. He pulled off his hat and then his heavy periwig, and she kissed his head, the hair shorn short. He put his hands on her arms and closed his eyes.

“Memory plays its games tonight, Renée, and I am remembering my sister-in-law when Jemmy married her. She was a maid of honor at my sister’s court at The Hague. I am remembering how Jemmy would rather be beaten than go and face her when she was angry with him, how we laughed at him. I am remembering her father, who was my savior in those years when I had no place to put my head. He never abandoned me. He was steadfast when I was not. I’ve a letter from him, asking to return for the funeral, a reasonable request.”

Renée, listening, rubbed her chin against his head and said nothing. It was exciting for this man, this majesty, to tell her his thoughts.

“No, is my answer, though I don’t say that yet to my council. Let Buck and the others that urged his exile squirm a bit. So many people I loved are gone, one after another. Come here and sit in my lap. My beauty, my little treasure. If I didn’t have you…” He closed his eyes a moment, and the melancholia that he dreaded descended, a black cloak smothering hope.

Sensing it, Renée kissed his brows, his closed eyes, and, finally, his mouth.

He responded hungrily, a drowning man thrown a rope, his hands caressing her hair, pulling out ribbons, caressing her bare, white shoulders, her covered breasts, her narrow waist. They kissed until they were reeling from it, until they were lying on the floor pressed together. He pulled himself away and stared down at her. “You have the king of England tumbling about the floor like a boy at a country fair.”

She traced his full lips with a finger. “I don’t like you to be sad.”

He put his head in between her breasts, not loverlike, but as a child would, and she wrapped her arms around him. She felt wildly protective. He showed her what no one else saw—he needed her. It was as heady as the finest wine. It went to her head like champagne. No one else saw him so. They stayed quiet for a long time, she hugging him, and he not groping, or jesting, or doing anything but lying against her. After a time, a shudder moved through his body, and he sat up. “You have my heart. When are you going to allow me in your bed?”

There was no reproach, no pleading, in his tone. They might have been discussing the weather. Renée loved this about him, his matter-of-factness. They might have been bargaining for bread. It was very French. She laughed, and he pinched her arm. “I think I ought to have my own chamber,” she said.

“Oh?”

Now teasing and more was in his voice. She sat up, too, made him lie down so that she might stroke his forehead, and he sighed again. She kissed that forehead. So much wit there. So much curiosity. So much knowledge. This man who was king. Who loved her above others. “It would be kinder.”

“To me, that’s for certain.”

“To Her Majesty.”

There was a silence while he took her words in, a rebuke. “I’m not kind, am I? Not when I want something. Yes, you’ll have your chamber and servants to serve you on bended knee. Give me your body, sweetheart, and I’ll give you half of Whitehall.”

“Do you think you can buy me?”

“God’s blood, if we’re bargaining, I hope your price is low. My damned House of Commons is like a withered widow courted because coins are under her mattress, and she fears losing a one of them. I bring them my needs, the needs of my navy, of my household. They examine the books, call together committees to question my servants, and still they hesitate to grant what is necessary. Cousin Louis says to his dog Colbert, I’ll build this and I’ll have that, and Colbert says, Yes, sire, and makes a tax, and that’s the end of that. I have to wrangle and lie like a merchant for every pence! And then they complain because the Hollanders are before us in trade, when they won’t give money to buy a plank to make the ships that will protect our trading vessels!”

She smiled, pleased that he was stirred, that her words had somehow moved him away from melancholia.

He sat up. “You’ve managed to chase away the blackness. I’m ready to duel with my Commons.” He kissed her with a smack, then bit her shoulder. “Saylor didn’t speak to you tonight. What have you done to him?”

Now it was her turn to sigh, to turn her face away so he wouldn’t see it.

“Don’t tell me he doesn’t love you anymore. A fool can see he does.”

“I don’t please him.”

“You won’t give me up, and Saylor’s angry?”

Still she didn’t look at him.

He was touched by that, by her feeling for Richard, which she did not hide. When she gave herself to him, it would mean something. There would be genuine feeling behind it, a heart with the body. He was willing to wait. The foreplay of bedding was so beguilingly delicious. She touched at her eyes. Tears. He didn’t feel like staying long to comfort them, if truth be told. Nell had popped into his head, Nell, who wouldn’t hold him off, who would meet him kiss for kiss and touch for touch and then some. Pert breasts, trim legs, slender hips. What had Rochester said the other evening, a whore in the hand is worth a virgin in the bush?

“It’s your heart I have designs on. Never forget that.” The smile she gave him was sparkling. “If you want to keep that maidenhead of yours another moment, you’d best kiss me good night and toddle off to bed.”

Outside, his guard following, knowing better than to ask questions, he whistled in the dark. Andrew Marvell was as obstreperous and obstructive in the House of Commons as Thomas Verney, but nonetheless a fair poet. He whistled a Marvell song Renée had been playing earlier, the words singing in his head: “‘Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport while we may.’”

Just what he intended to do.

A
LICE HAD GONE
not to bed, but rather to Dorothy’s chambers.

“There’s been no letter.” Dorothy poured more wine and added some to Alice’s goblet. “At first, I thought nothing of it. But as the days have passed, I’ve counted back. It’s been over three weeks since he’s written me.”

“The end was likely so difficult that he couldn’t bring himself to write of it.”

“We have always written each other when distance has separated us. Always. The thoughts I’ve begun to have weigh so heavy, Alice. Perhaps he no longer loves me. What will I do?”

There was an edge in her voice that made Alice turn the goblet in her hands nervously. “The first thing you will do is be sensible. You don’t know anything. It’s all your imagination—”

“It’s not. I am connected to him here.” Dorothy touched her heart. “Something’s changed. I feel it.”

“We’ll write Gracen. We’ll write to Gracen and ask her to look around, see if there is some woman sniffing about him. And if there is, we’ll command Gracen to hold her off while we put you in a coach, with one of His Majesty’s hounds, to chase the wench into the woods!”

Her humor failed. “I can’t live without him. He’s my life, he’s my heart. I need him.” Dorothy was collapsing, hysterics close. Alice took away her goblet, and Dorothy grabbed her hands and held on to them, tears spouting.

Appalled, and frightened, too, Alice tried to soothe her. “It’s nothing. It’s your imagination. Oh, Brownie, don’t weep when you don’t know what is happening, when it’s only your thoughts.”

“I can’t help it. I want him here now. I want him in my bed. I want to be his wife. I deserve to be his wife. I’ve waited so long. Why doesn’t he write to me? Is he trying to drive me mad?”

She had her arms around Alice, was crying into Alice’s waist. Alice pulled herself free. “Brownie, you have to stop. You have to get command of yourself.”

“I can’t. Oh, don’t leave me, Alice, don’t go. I can’t be alone. Please. I’ll be good.” And she wiped at her face, took deep, trembling breaths. “Look, I’m stopping. See. I’m going to climb into bed, and you’re going to put away the wine and stay with me until I go to sleep, and then blow out my candle.”

“I’ll sleep beside you, Brownie.” Alice almost couldn’t bear the cry of gratitude that came from her words. “I’m too tired to go to my own bed. Here, help me unpin.”