Lady Merry's Dashing Champion (34 page)

"Aye," he said, his head in his hands, unable to watch her walk away. "Dam-me, aye! It was you. But you see, don't you, that you would be a constant reminder of Felice, all that was wrong and terrible before ..."

When he looked, she was lost from his sight, but he heard her answer come sure and sweet on the night breeze, sweeping up the river.... My God, he would hear it forever. "I doubt Cervantes said it, but he should have. With love, Giles, good can always follow bad."

The brambles grabbed for her as if to force her to stay, but she walked on away from love into the beginning of nothing.

Meriel stepped down the broad stairs leading to her back garden, which ran down to the Thames not far from Spring Gardens where Giles had kidnapped her and taken her aboard his ship... . Where, in truth, her life had begun. She shielded her eyes from the early August sunlight sending flashes of light from the polished cuirasses of the king's royal guard waiting in a barge at her dock to escort her to Whitehall.

"Careful of your court dress, m'lady," Agnes warned, holding it higher to escape the dew-drenched grass.

Meriel yanked the long train from Agnes's hands. "I would have you cease that m'lady nonsense or ... or I shall have you whipped!"

"I tremble in my slippers, Mistress Meriel," Agnes said, a little faked fear in her voice to amuse herself.

"Well, you should," Meriel said, all but smiling.
Hey, well, now that I have been awarded my own establishment and two hundred pounds a year, thanks to the king, I have a right to be unreasonable.... Maybe more than one right!

"Is your belly settled? Would you like some fresh bread and butter new from the country?"

Meriel gagged.

"Some ale, then, to settle you."

"Leave be with eating! The oysters last night have quite taken my appetite."

"Oysters did not put you off breaking your fast, and well you know it."

Meriel snatched away her train, folded it over her arm and gave Agnes a sharp look. Meriel knew well the warning to forward servants, having received it often enough herself. After which, since Agnes seemed unimpressed, Meriel marched down the crushed gravel path to board the barge, tossing a last order over her shoulder. "And tend the onion beds. If I have a garden, I must have onion flowers."

Downriver at the palace water stairs, the officer in charge bowed and handed her a loaf of bread wrapped in linen. "His Majesty is in St. James Park, feeding his ducks and geese."

She walked toward the pond where she and Giles had strolled just a little past two months gone, but she did not look about for him. Gossip, that Agnes seemed to know almost before it was said, had Giles departing the palace and his duties as gentleman of the bedchamber for some unknown place. He had not been part in the downfall of the king's chief minister, Lord Clarendon, who had taken the brunt of blame for the dishonor of the Dutch attack up the Thames. Someone must be the scapegoat. Who better than a minister Parliament had long wanted to overthrow?

Though Meriel knew that Clarendon had been Charles Stuart's teacher when the king was a boy, she also knew that the elderly man had continued to treat the king at thirty-seven years as if he were yet his student, with near daily lectures on governance and deportment. She stored that knowledge away. When her son was grown, she would treat him as a man with a mind and will of his own, and thus keep him close.

She stopped and clutched the loaf of bread tighter, her in-sides heaving, then hurried on down the path into the park, breaking a corner of the loaf and swallowing it to quiet her belly.

His Majesty was surrounded by petitioners as usual, and as usual was fending them off with tales of his ducks and a loud greeting to his favorite one-legged crane, for which the royal doctor Josiah Wyndham had fitted a cunning peg-leg. The crane loped awkwardly toward the king every morning, to his continual delight.

Charles II espied Meriel and motioned for her to come forward. "Ah, Mistress St. Thomas, will you not walk with us for some private discourse?"

She made a low curtsy, holding her gown a little high since the ducks, chased by the king's little dogs, were losing feathers and the contents of their bowels to an extreme degree.

They moved away from the courtiers, who looked and whispered behind their fans, since everyone thought they knew her strange story, which strange enough in truth had been embellished with every telling. As they whispered, they kicked the dogs and ducks away from their velvets and satins.

Meriel handed the loaf to the king, who examined it. "Do we not provide enough for your sustenance that you should rob our poor ducks'? We would not be thought so ungrateful for your services to the crown of which, we must add, Babs is most jealous." He was jesting in his way, but curious, as well, and a king's curiosity must be satisfied.

"A slight indisposition, Your Majesty."

"Ah," he said, and inquired no more, since his multiple bastards gave him full knowledge of a woman's morning indisposition.

At that moment, the king lifted his head to the sound of bells from everywhere in the city, the nearest bells at the Abbey of Westminster sounding over all. "The Treaty of Breda has been signed."

"My congratulations on your successful diplomacy with the Hollanders, sir," Meriel said, though she knew little had been gained except for the New York port and some minor concessions of trade.

The king acknowledged the empty compliment with a lift of his mustache. "But, my dear, we did not call you to us to talk of policy, though we hear the Dutch now fear our women e'en more than our men."

He shook with laughter, and Meriel blushed at such praise.

"And do not the people take their hats off to you when you pass in the street?" He took his hat off to her.

"If Your Majesty pleases—"

"Your modesty is quite refreshing, m'dear." He replaced his hat after smoothing the long flamingo feather. "We have set our good spymaster the task of looking into the matter of your birth, mistress," he said, picking up a squirming little dog, kissing it and nesting it against his chest, its golden hairs clinging about his dark blue velvet coat.

"There is nothing to learn, sir. Sir Edward tried when he took me from the orphanage—"

"Sir Edward did not have Chiffinch."

Meriel couldn't argue with that.

"Let us continue our walk, for we would fully discharge our debt to you," the king said, and offered her his arm as courtiers began to crowd closer.

"It is discharged, Your Majesty, in service to England."

"Ha! You would have made a fine courtier, m'dear, yet we know you speak the truth of your heart, not particularly a courtly quality."

Meriel looked up at the king's dark face and lid-hooded eyes as he towered above her, the shadows of leaves and flashes of sun flickering across his skin as he moved down the curving path. She saw compassion occasionally slip through caution.

"It seems, m'dear, that Chiffinch has discovered your family in Kent near where you were a foundling."

Meriel stopped, her legs suddenly weak.

The king tugged her ahead since the petitioners were hard after them. "We think you must have guessed some of this story, but we will tell you all we know. Chiffinch is certain that your mother was the Countess Elizabeth, wife of the Earl of Basford and mother of Felice."

"But, Your Majesty—"

"Sssh, all will be made clear as ever can be, though we think the question might be already in your mind." They walked on for a moment and Meriel kept her silence, although it near choked her.

"The Lady Elizabeth was brought to bed of another girl child when Felice was but three years old."

"Me?"

The king didn't answer, but walked on at his usual pace, with Meriel half running to keep hold of his arm and at his side. "Earl William took the child from the birthing chamber and gave it to the midwife to dispose of."

"Kill? Why would he do such a thing to his own child?"

"It was not his, m'dear. He'd been at sea with the fleet for better than a year. Shortly, Lady Elizabeth committed suicide and the earl died of wounds, or an ill conscience."

"And my father, sir?"

"Unknown. The lady died with her secret."

Meriel was near out of breath and stopped, unable to move her legs. "Do I have any living family, sir?"

Gently, the king said, "The Countess Felice was the last known except for the earl's cousin, who has taken the title. Felice was probably your half sister, according to Chiffmch, who is never wrong unless he intends it." Charles II put his arm about Meriel's shoulders to give her strength. "There is no proof of any of this. The midwife was transported to Jamaica shortly after being questioned. Chiffmch keeps a close eye on my purse, if the woman should try future blackmail. He is thorough." He sighed. "You could be noble born or half-base born, if you are thinking of m'lord Giles."

Meriel stopped, unable to walk on.

His Majesty stopped, as well, and smiled down at her. "You should know that Giles was there enquiring shortly after Chiffmch, but found nothing. Of course, he would have a question.... The resemblance is too close."

"Your Majesty, I beg you, he is never to know what Chiffmch discovered. Please, sir."

"Why, m'dear? 'Od's fish! He loves you. We who know something of love, having felt it many times, can attest to another man's too obvious feelings."

"He is not to know, Your Majesty, and I will consider my service to the crown fully paid."

The king nodded. "As you wish, madame. Although we love your sex, we do not claim to understand your minds."

He escorted her back to the pond, where she made her curtsy and he gave her his hand to kiss, which she did, though mortified that a tear should drop upon his long royal fingers.

Later that day, Chiffinch arrived at her house with a signed patent of nobility from the king granting her the title of Lady Basford. "If I did not know you better, I would think the king is planning a
divertimento
with you, though I suspect Nellie Gwyn had a hand in this. You are the people's heroine, madame, and the king but plays to the pit, as Nellie says. She was most taken with your spirit at the Spring Garden—oh yes, I remember that escapade—and is an accomplished intriguer herself, for one so young."

Meriel put the rolled parchment to one side after a single glance. "If it please you, master pimp, you may think what you like of the king's
divertimentos,
though I plan none with him."

"Tut. No need to take on airs with me even though you may be noble born and, as a fact, are noble since the king wills it. Perhaps, if you were more giving with me, I might do more searching and ferret the whole truth. Perhaps I already know more."

Meriel laughed though she was tired and ached for her long chair in the garden. "You may search where you like, know what you like. You may prove me a queen, but you will never make me your
divertimento,
sir."

He frowned. "There is your pension at my—"

"You withhold my pension at your peril because I seem to have the ear of the king. And, sir, you will not take your usual ten percent."

She was delighted to see his ample backside disappear into his sedan chair. What with the living that percentages, preferments and the odd bribe had provided for him, the chair had grown a bit snug and his carmen less willing.

Later, Agnes brought the rolled patent to her garden chair. "M'lady," she said, suggesting she had read it.

Meriel shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun and scanned the parchment, the red waxen seals dangling. "His Majesty has named me—"

"Lady Basford, as is fitting for the younger daughter of an earl, with one-quarter the revenues from that estate—a good thousand a year, most like—and the right to the Basford arms, quartered." Agnes said it all in one breath.

Meriel glanced up and added, "With the bar sinister."

"Aye, m'lady, and well deserved." At Meriel's raised eyebrows, Agnes swiftly added, "No, not the bar sinister, but the honor for one who risked all. If the Earl of Basford knew, mayhap he would have been proud of you."

"Mayhap though I doubt he sounds much a forgiving man." The unspoken words hung in the air, so she spoke them. "Not many men forgive a woman's greatest deception."

"But now that you are the natural daughter of a countess, your station has changed. If Earl Giles knew—"

"No!"

Agnes shrugged. "M'lady, you defy scripture, for it is written in the Old Testament that a man must take his wife's younger sister to wed."

"This is the first I've heard of your interest in biblical commands. What about: 'Servant, obey thy master'?"

"I am not familiar with that one, m'lady," Agnes replied.

"Indeed, I do know it!"

By that time, they were both laughing.

Agnes placed a bowl of sweets near Meriel's hand and made an exaggerated curtsy before she left.

As Agnes turned away Meriel said softly, "I would have him only if he wants Meriel St. Thomas, servant maid. Not because I am a noblewoman's bastard."

Agnes shrugged, rolled her eyes to heaven and did not argue. But she did mutter loud enough to be heard: "Pride is a cold bedfellow."

Meriel placed the patent of nobility carelessly over her face as a sun shield, happy to forgo further talk of Giles. She must forget. She
must.
The future would be a long, cruel time coming.

But it wasn't.

A few days later, during a hot, moist August morning while waiting for her coach to be brought round, Meriel stood on her water stairs looking downriver, seeking a cool breeze, but seeing memories in her head that were too real. Yet they pained her more because they were not. She focused on the pleasure boats crossing to Spring Gardens, laughing people disembarking. But that was little help.

A ketch rounded the bend in midchannel, flying all sails, even the jib on the bowsprit where Giles stood, holding to the rigging, shirt open and wide breeches rolled to his knees, brown as a common sailor.

Meriel passed a hand over her eyes, fearing a cruel vision. But when she looked again, he was gliding closer, growing larger and larger. And there was Tom Barnes hauling the helm over to spill wind from the sails and lose steer-ageway.