Lady Merry's Dashing Champion (12 page)

"I owe her the loyalty of a good maid to a mistress, my lord," Agnes replied, eyes downcast, all demure.

"Yes, yes." An expected answer. "But you have no especial liking for her as yet."

"My lord, she is a demanding mistress, but she has a sweet nature at times."

Giles frowned with surprise. Perhaps this maid would not be so easily brought to his side. Yet often gold sovereigns bought more loyalty than the sweetest nature. And the woman's praise was most probably the lie of a wary servant anxious in her new position.

He picked up a bag of coins from a nearby table and rattled them near her face so that she could sniff the scent of gold. "Here are five sovereigns if you tell me who my wife entertains. And one more each time you report the times and the names of those who come and go from her apartments." He was paying an outrageous price, and he knew it was to salve his conscience. Swallowing hard, he thought to end this business, not liking to play the spymaster. Dam'all, but Felice had given him no choice if he was to plead his case for divorce or annulment. "And I want to know where she goes and whom she sees—and beds—especially if my lords Buckingham or Rochester." He took a deep breath. "Or the king. Do you understand these requirements?"

The maid smiled.

Giles stepped closer to her, on the edge of fury, grinding the words between his teeth. "Have I amused you, Agnes'?"

"No, my lord, nothing of the kind. I take my commission seriously. Most seriously. I but smile to think of the new gown I may buy."

He dropped the bag of coins, and they clinked into her hand. "Then go to your duties for Lady Felice, but keep your duty to me in the vanguard." He spoke softly, unable to really threaten the woman. It would be even more dishonorable than what he was now bringing upon himself.

Agnes curtsied and let herself out quietly. She went hastily to Chiffinch's office and found him at his desk.

"A complication," Chiffinch muttered after hearing her tale. "Will he interfere with our plans for her, or do we merely see a jealous husband seeking to rid himself of a faithless wife once and for all time?" He stood and paced to the door and back. "The Lady Felice has been ever open in her dalliances. Why make this move now?"

"I think this new Lady Felice does bother him greatly, sir, and he knows not why." Agnes waited for a reply, while Chiffinch mused silently.

Finally, Chiffinch said, "I fancy it makes no difference to our plans. We will learn what we need either way. Keep your eyes open when you are with him, as you do with the counterfeit."

Agnes clasped the bag of coins to her bosom. "I may keep these, sir?"

Chiffinch shrugged. "You will better serve me since better paid, though not from my pocket."

Agnes curtsied, but didn't leave.

"Yes?" Chiffinch said, and the maid smiled.

"Sir, I am now a double agent of which I have never heard."

"Eh?"

"A double agent for the same side."

Chiffinch squinted. "That jest is worthy of your current mistress. Beware you do not grow too like her, or you'll share her fate. You would not want it, I assure you. You don't think that I can allow her to live, mayhap to blackmail me with all she knows. She has already asked for more than our bargain."

He watched Agnes leave with a hasty look back over her shoulder. He had always known fear to be the last and best coin, and thus it was proved again.

A thought struck him and he pounded the desk before he rushed to the door and called Agnes back.

Worried, she reassured him, " Ton my word, I will do my duty to you, sir."

"Yes, yes. But I think we can stir this pot and rid us of one earl." He squinted at Agnes, pleased with himself. "Report to Lord Giles that you saw the Lady Felice enter this office. He will think it proved that his countess is sleeping with the king, and withdraw from this renewed fascination with her. I will ask the king to send him to inspect the river forts or some such. I don't want his interference with my plans."

Giles arrived that night at Felice's apartments as the clocks in Whitehall chimed nine. Mischance had made Mm late: a missing silver button on his embroidered waistcoat.

Agnes opened the door, whispering one word, "Chiffinch," by way of report.

The name stopped him. The king's royal procurer. He clenched his fists. So it was true that the king desired Felice, and his wife, ever practical, bargained her price. Cock's life! Not again! Not if he had to kidnap her and lock her in Har-ringdon Hall for the rest of her days or until she produced a son. It passed his mind that she was behaving just as he had known she would, but this time not giving him a way to sue in the House of Lords for annulment. An earl did not sue a king. Felice must be secretly laughing at him despite that untamed behavior in her bed this very day. Briefly, he remembered her curving lips, swollen from his kisses, and how she had opened her passion to him as he neared its door. What a fool he had been, thinking ... what? He couldn't remember and didn't want to remember, then wondered that such knowledge did not anger him to more rage as it always had, or sent him rushing to a woman, any woman. This time he shook off the question, determined to stop Felice.

Giles saw her waiting by the fire, her lovely face in quiet repose, showing no hint of the treachery she planned. Felice, who had ever been openly wanton and uncaring, had grown cunning. Why?

He saw she was gowned in a shimmering green satin with matching satin slippers, silver laced and ribboned, a coronet of large gray pearls to match her eyes across her shining black curls, a large ruby pendant at her throat. The ruby he had given her the first night of their marriage. He pulled back from that memory as he moved toward her. Closer, she looked like a spring morning, her dewy face turned up to him. With what? Delight, apprehension? Both?

Meriel had never seen Lord Giles look so magnificent, not that first night when he had danced with Lady Felice, not earlier this day—was it just hours ago?—when he had kissed her so hurtfully, with a desperate hunger ... and ... and nearly committed his husbandly duty upon her. His kisses yet heated her mouth, kisses that she had repeated in memory all the day until she was half-crazed with remembrance of the rich sense of them.

Crazed enough to wish for work to do.
Hey, well, at least as a maid, I was busy every minute.

All the hours since dining with the king, she studied and practiced writing the Dutch music code when alone. The Dutch would expect her to read and write it, especially if they had messages for her to deliver back to their agents. And she had no book to pass more time. Felice read only the
London Gazette.
Gossip was the air she breathed, not learning for its own sake. The idleness of a countess would drive Meriel to Bedlam! Yet when she left this idle world, she'd be leaving Giles behind. The thought was unbearable now that she had felt what she had never known with a man.

Giles bowed. "My lady," he said quite formally, attempting to look bored.

She curtsied. So that was the way it was to be. Nobles could pounce on a woman in her bed of an afternoon and forget it by evening. "My lord Giles," Meriel replied. "I hope I find you rested ... from your labors."

"Quite," Giles said, refusing to allow any guilt for his behavior to reach his face, and alarmed that he would feel any at all. He must gain back his control and soon.

"I can readily see that you are rested ... as well as late."

Giles laughed, a little too loudly. "Felice, we have never accounted for our time as do other husbands and wives. It surprises me that you would suddenly want or need such knowledge."

Meriel could not bear to argue with Giles. Perhaps she played Felice a little too well. She went to meet him, putting her beringed hand on his bent arm, and following brief formalities with servants, they walked out the door and down long corridors, not speaking again, toward the sound of a grand trumpet voluntary—the king and queen's ceremonial entrance music, with every man bowing and every woman sunk to the floor, their legs probably shaking under them. It was a sight that few commoners had witnessed. And she'd missed it.

Still, Meriel faced the king's ball with misgivings, though she couldn't confide them to Giles. She knew country dances. Common dances. She had watched the sarabande and knew the steps, but executing the intricate dance would surely give away her inexperience. And dancing all the court dances was a thing that Lady Felice would know expertly. Chiffinch had forgotten to supply her a dancing master.

The high doors were opened wide to the king's glittering Presence Chamber, chandeliers alit and jeweled tiaras sending sparks as heads turned, all double reflected in the huge gilt framed mirrors at either end. Meriel took a deep breath, or as deep as her corset would allow, and stepped forward. Giles did not move, and she was pulled back by the strength in his unmoving body.

"Felice." His voice was thick with her name, and Meriel was frightened by the overwhelming anger she heard.

She did the only thing she could do. She became Lady Felice. "Giles, don't be so wearisome. The ill-tempered husband is fit only for the Theater Royal, and then is the butt of all humor."

Meriel scarcely dared look up at him as he towered beside her. Still, her eyes went to his face on their own order, as if she had no real command of them.

The line of his jaw straightened and she saw his heart pulse in his throat. "I know what you scheme," he said, and the words cut through her like winter wind through a cheap knit shawl.

She couldn't stop the sharp intake of her breath. Satan's breeches! What did he know? Had she been betrayed? Who could— She had no time to think more before the door porter announced in a loud voice: "The Earl and Countess of Warborough!"

As they stepped into the Presence Chamber, to lights, music and a buzz of voices, Giles bent to her ear and said words that chilled her more. "Believe me a fool at your hazard, wife."

Before she could offer any answer, which she certainly didn't have ready on her tongue, a very handsome man approached, took her hand and kissed it with a smack of his lips, as if eating a sweet. Meriel sensed Giles go rigid. "My lord Buckingham," she said, recognizing him from the miniatures she had studied in the Tower. He was already showing a small second chin that would grow with time, but as yet he was quite good to look upon, and from his smirk, knew it well.

She showed him the half-lazy sensual smile of Lady Felice, the smile that seemed to say /
know what you want and I've got it. Hey, well, I cannot help but feel some small chagrin: I have never been so all the rage, and now I don't want it.
Meriel had always amused herself with her own unspoken wit. But now she was far too unhappy even for silent amusement.

"My lady Felice, Lord Giles," Buckingham said, bowing extravagantly. "My lord earl, I look forward to jousting with your great wit this very hour."

Giles inclined his head.

Meriel tried hard not to look aghast. Wit? Giles a great wit. She'd seen none of it.

Buckingham inclined his head, not taking his gaze from her. "My lord earl, you will surely grant me this first dance with your wife, since she returns more beautiful than when she left us," Buckingham said, not needing permission to strip her naked with his eyes.

"No, your grace, I will not grant your wish," Giles said, matching Buckingham's easy tone. "I have a sudden need for this particular partner tonight. For the entire night."

Buckingham's hand reached for a rapier that wasn't there, since he was dressed for dancing. Indeed his arm was so beribboned that he would have made a poor parry and an exceedingly awkward long thrust.

Giles grinned. "You are indeed a fortunate man, Buck," he said, not having to explain his meaning.

"And so I have always thought myself, Giles, though I have bested a husband or two who came against me. Still, would I challenge one of the best swords in England without extreme cause, since I but needs wait for another night?" He smiled, but the smile was more a twist of his lips than an expression of genuine mirth. "Yet what occasions this heartfelt desire to dance with a wife ... a desire to amuse the assemblage, indeed all London, when the word gets out... which it will?" Buckingham waved a heavily perfumed handkerchief under his nose as if encountering a noxious odor.

Giles smiled without care at the harmless insult. "A sudden whim, Buck, that I would exercise fully. I fancy a man needs no better reason to dance with his wife, not even in this court."

Buckingham was not taking Giles's refusal well. Meriel could see red creeping up his neck to his cheeks. A high noble of the realm, cousin to Barbara Castlemaine, a member of the king's merry gang of favorites, he was not often refused any expressed request.

The duke bowed abruptly and walked away.

"I have made an enemy in your name, Felice," Giles said, bowing to a promenading man, who bowed to him.

Meriel curtsied, beginning to weary of it. "There was no reason to do so."

"It depends on what you mean by reason," Giles said, continuing to bow to all who greeted him.

Was he toying with her? She made another curtsy to a handsome couple. There seemed to be no one without some claim to beauty in this court. "Reason means many things, as I'm sure you know, my lord husband. Do you refer to logic or to justification?"

Giles continued to bow, but she saw a startled change of expression. "Where comes this new and more learned Felice? Or have you been sitting at the knee of that great philosopher, John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester?"

Meriel decided to fall back on Felice's indifference, since she had gone very much too far in this debate. All the while, she was trying with great difficulty to keep her mouth from dropping open in utter amazement, since she had never been so close to so many richly dressed aristocrats, each adorned with a king's ransom in jewels. She couldn't help but think that the whole navy could be paid and outfitted if the wealth were stripped from these bodies, although she thought better than to say so or even allow the thought to reach her face.

The door porter tapped his standard upon the floor and called the country dance: cuckolds-all-a-row. The dancers applauded with delight as Meriel sighed with relief. Giles led her to the center of the floor, where dancers were forming into fours. This was a dance she knew well. The Earl of Rochester, as handsome as his portrait, and his petite partner, the comic red-haired actress Nell Gwyn, made their foursome.