Dark Angels (79 page)

“Mistress Verney.”

Here was Colefax, in black, properly somber, but a triumphant light in his eyes. Well, why not? He was the new Duke of Balmoral. She swept into a curtsy, suddenly dizzy in the movement. The walls of the hall whirled around her. She fainted. When she came to, she had been carried to a small chamber adjoining the hall, and her father leaned over her.

“Poppet, you’re worse—”

She put a finger to his lips to hush him, as Colefax leaned in over her father’s shoulder. “Let me have a moment alone, please, Father.”

Reluctantly, he stepped back. Brows drawn, he warned Colefax, “I’ll be just there,” pointing toward a corner.

Colefax knelt beside her, his expression anxious. “Are you still ill, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can scarcely believe this, Alice, any of it. Have you need of anything?” He took her hand, and in her weakness, she allowed it. “Please let me know.”

Would he be so gracious when he learned that she would be given one of Balmoral’s estates? “You haven’t given me your condolences, Cole.”

“My deepest condolences, Alice.”

“I loved him.” Weren’t friendship and regard some pieces of love?

His face twisted. “Alice, don’t play the martyr with me, of all people—”

But you of all people will be the most amusing to play the martyr with, she thought, some of her old spirit reviving. “I wish to go to his house, to pay a call upon his servants to see how they do.”

“If you feel you must. My wife is seeing to the house.”

“I don’t need your permission, Cole. I am still his affianced.”

“Yes, your little faint reminded one and all of that. Well done, Alice.” He was no longer holding her hand.

“You imagine I did it for effect?”

He shrugged, stood, looking down at her. “You’ll need to call me ‘Your Grace’ now, Alice. Or will it choke you to do so?”

“It will choke me.”

A
T THE HOUSE,
she asked for Riggs, waited in a small salon, her eyes flicking over paintings, vases, silver candlesticks. She didn’t really see them. She saw instead times past, fragments of a song in her head: Old time is still a-flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.

Caro, the new Duchess of Balmoral, entered the chamber. Sir Thomas rose hurriedly from the chair in which he sat. “Your Grace.”

“W-will you excuse u-us a m-moment, Sir Thomas?”

When they were alone, Caro stared at Alice until Alice blushed and dropped into a curtsy, feeling her dizziness again. “Your Grace,” Alice said, and found that she wasn’t angry that Caro was the duchess.

“D-did your t-tongue curl on t-that?”

Alice straightened. “No, Your Grace.”

“Oh, d-don’t call me t-that! W-what is it you n-need?”

“I came simply to see about His Grace’s personal servant, Will Riggs. May I sit down? I feel very weak. If it doesn’t please you to allow me to see Riggs, perhaps you might tell him for me that Mistress Verney called to see how he did? I haven’t come to plunder the house, Your Grace.”

“D-do you h-hate me so that y-you cannot say m-my name?”

“It’s you who hates now, Caro.”

“Y-you h-hated first. I simply r-return the favor.”

So I did, thought Alice. She stood, even though her legs did not feel strong enough to bear her. In her throat were the words Caro, forgive me, I was wrong, but she couldn’t say them. Outside the house, she could feel how ill she was, how much her pride, once again, was costing her.

“Father,” she whispered, before falling.

W
HEN SHE WOKE,
she was in a litter being carried home. Will Riggs was walking to one side of her. She said his name.

“Oh, ma’am,” he said. “I’m that sorry he’s died.”

“Are you well, Riggs? Have you what you need?”

“Well enough. The new duke has his own manservant. It’s to be expected. But I’m assured of a place in the household.”

“Come to me if you should need anything. Come to me if you and he should not suit.”

“Here’s your house now, ma’am.” Riggs bowed his head and was lost to sight in Perryman picking her up, her father calling out orders, the settling of her once more in bed, where, once done, Sir Thomas stood solid, anxious, beleaguered at its foot. “If you die––”

“Send to Tamworth for Lady Saylor’s fever powders. They cured me once. They’ll do so again.” She had a part to play in the next days, until the coffin was on its way. And she would play it if it killed her.

“The queen sent word to ask how you do. She says she holds a position for you.”

As maid of honor? To romp once more with Kit and Luce and whatever mindless four and tens they’d added to the mix? No. Her time as a maid of honor was over.

“Call upon her to thank her, Father, but I cannot be maid of honor again. Tell her as soon as I am well, I will make my obedience to her.”

He sat on the bed. “You are everything to me. Don’t die, Alice.”

Did he think he could command death? Poor fool. Ah, her head ached, and her body. She wasn’t afraid to die. She hadn’t been afraid when she walked into the river. If death desired her, he could have her. But until he took her, she had things to do. “Ask John Sidney to call, please, Father.”

“Sidney? Why?”

She had to sleep, had to close her eyes to the flame that was flickering somewhere deep and low inside her. The coming month was her birth month. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. A girl needed to wash her face with May’s hawthorn dew to make herself beautiful for her beloved. The court would dance around the Maypole, and she was the best dancer. And then there was Richard. That was something to live for, wasn’t it?

“I
T’S
J
OHN
S
IDNEY,
Mistress Verney,” Poll announced.

Alice sat in her bed, a Portuguese shawl about her shoulders. She considered Sidney as he approached. His face was pinched, far too thin. He was as thin these days as she was. Mourning Barbara. Someone that fine, that rare, needed a long time getting over.

“How kind of you to call on me. I feared you might not.”

“You were her dearest friend, and at the end you showed it. She would have wished me to see to you.”

“I have a favor to ask of you. Will you write Captain Saylor of the duke’s death?”

She had surprised him. “Yes. Of course.”

“I did not give you your due. She loved you so. I ought to have loved you, too. It would be my happiest wish if you might—someday—forgive me.” She saw in his face that he couldn’t do that, but the dreaded words, forgive me, were out, and her heart felt easier for it. Perhaps now she’d be able to say them other places, to other people. Sidney bowed stiffly to her and left the chamber.

“Who else is waiting?”

“Some of the maids of honor,” answered Poll.

“Go and fetch them.”

But it was her father who appeared. “That’s enough for this day. You need to rest, Alice.”

“I go tomorrow to the banqueting hall. I don’t care if you have to carry me on a litter, Father. Carry me in even if I’m raving, and make certain I wear Mother’s diamonds.”

“You’ll thwart Colefax to the end, will you?”

“Yes.”

He kissed her forehead. “I always wished you were more like your mother.”

“But I’m not.”

“No.”

Neither of them minded anymore.

T
HE NEWS OF
the death reached Richard in Paris before John’s letter did. The English duke had been too well-known. Richard walked into the cathedral of Notre Dame, sat in a pew, all around him the vast dark cavern of the nave, hundreds of candles glimmering for souls, stone statues waiting for supplicants’ prayers, arches above him soaring to their privet’s point, priests and nuns in dark robes gliding over the cold stone floors. Walter was on his mind. And Henri Ange. Richard roamed the streets of Paris half expecting to see him. He composed the letter to Alice in his mind, but later, when he went to write it, he ended penning only three words—folding parchment and dripping hot wax, red as heart’s blood, to seal it. There was news, too, of Renée. Her climb continued, and the French crowed; she was their invaluable link to the king of England, a replacement for Princesse Henriette. They saw Richard’s retreat as a practical thing. King Louis’s minister Colbert had called upon Richard personally, thanking him in the name of the king, assuring him his sacrifice would be rewarded, telling him that the position of colonel in the French army was his. My honor does not require rewarding, Richard had replied. Colbert had smiled the cold smile he was known for. To refuse would insult my king. Never let it be said that I am impolite, Richard had answered.

T
HE CEREMONY FOR
Balmoral was spectacular. Everyone who was anyone in the kingdom was there, as well as the people of London, who crowded outside the cathedral in silent respect. Alice had to be carried in on a litter, and her bearers were Lord Mulgrave, the Duke of Monmouth, Prince Rupert, and her father. The sight was impressive and set off a wave of whispers from one courtier to another. Boys whose voices rivaled angels sang hymns. The Archbishop of Canterbury preached a sermon. Various other bishops read prayers. Afterward, as many courtiers came to speak to her as they did the new duke. She would have laughed aloud if it hadn’t hurt so much to laugh. But the fever powders from Tamworth had arrived, and one was inside her now, making its miracles, and while she would not accompany Balmoral to his final destination, she had done what she could, grieving over him publicly as if he were her beloved husband and her lord. Now she went home to rest. To wait for word from Richard. There must be word, or she would die.

But when it came, it enraged her. She ripped past the heart-red seal, her eagerness making her hands shake as much as her illness. “Wait for me,” she read, incredulous at his brevity. That was all? He did not write love or devotion? Did not ask for her hand in marriage? She crushed the letter into a wad and threw it away, and her kitten flew off the bed to pounce on it.

T
HE FIRST DAY
of May arrived. The court danced around a Maypole erected in the privy garden until lanterns had to be summoned to light the darkness, and then they danced some more. But Alice took fever powders and refused visitors, which was so unlike her that the rumor grew that she was truly ill unto dying, and it was said to be because of her devotion to Balmoral; what a pity she’d not been the duchess. It made Colefax clench his teeth, which were already shut tight at the reading of the will. Alice stayed in her chamber or had herself carried into her father’s garden to sit in the sun. She took Jerusalem’s powders and dreamed feverish dreams and wondered what next to do.

The days passed slowly. She was in her bedchamber with Poll and Fletcher, who talked himself past the servants and brought a violin and gossip. Courtiers were taking bets that Renée had finally yielded. The bet was not upon that, but rather upon what position the event might have been consummated. York had not walked forward to receive Communion at Easter. The court buzzed that the heir to the throne had turned Catholic. The actress Nellie Gwynn was again with child. The newly married Knollys and his bride quarreled. All the time Fletcher talked, he watched Alice’s face.

“It’s said you’re dying from devotion to the duke. The queen is most distraught.”

“Then I’ll call upon her someday soon and quarrel with Kit and Luce and show I am my old self.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“John Sidney looks wretched.”

“Yes. He mourns with every breath he takes.”

“And you?”

“I’ll never forgive myself, Fletcher.”

“Never is a long time.”

“Don’t be flip.”

“Oh, I’m a believer in the adage ‘The less one lives, the less one sins.’ Why don’t you come to court?”

“As almost widow of the duke? As the oldest maid of honor?”

“As an eligible young woman any man with sense would snatch up in a moment. I’m told Mulgrave calls every day to see how you do. Does the wind blow in that direction?”

“The wind doesn’t blow at all. I’m going to match him with Louisa Saylor.”

“Why?”

“It amuses me.”

“To fling away suitors? That will make three.”

“I did not fling away Colefax, and Balmoral’s death can hardly count as my doing.”

“Is it true His Grace left you an estate and all the furnishings in his Whitehall apartments? They say the new duke was overcome with a nosebleed when he heard it.”

“If he had the nosebleed, it’s because he’s climbed too high. You’re making my head hurt. Play some music.”

“Do you remember how to dance?”

“Play something, and let us see.”

The music soon had her feet tapping, and then she was up, turning and tiptoeing at first carefully, then losing herself in the thing she loved. She pulled Poll out into the middle of her bedchamber and danced around her. She saw Perryman in the doorway and beckoned him forward as a partner. When he moved, Richard stood behind him.