Margaret Moore (25 page)

The king’s brow lowered ominously. “Not that we have the greatest of respect for the legal profession, given that their whining and chastising gives us more headaches than we care to experience, but it strikes us that you and your lover are hardly in a position to be so high-minded. It is not the finest of professional conduct for Robert Harding to be seducing his client’s intended bride.”

“He didn’t seduce me, and the only people who believed I was Sir Philip’s intended bride were Sir Philip and my uncle. I never did.”

“Very bravely and boldly said, my dear.” The king’s gaze intensified as he put down his glass and sauntered toward her. “Yet we fear you have lost your good name in this business.”

“Yes, sire.”

“Quite a price to pay, and for a solicitor, too. We noticed his honor is not suffering.”

“Robert Harding is a kind, generous man who has suffered much and strived and worked and endured more rumor and gossip in his life than I can imagine. My moral reputation is a small sacrifice compared to the price he has paid to rise in the world.”

“We judged you an unusual woman,” Charles noted with another smile, and another look in his eyes that made her shiver.

“Majesty, I love Rob, and he loves me. We are, of course, very grateful for your help.”

“Philip is bringing a lawsuit, we hear, for breach of promise.”

Was there anything in London this man didn’t know? “Yes.”

“Your lover still represents him?”

“No.”

“Ah. How very convenient. It would not do, of course, for him to represent the man whose bride he covets.”

“Majesty, I have explained. I did not want Philip.” She doubted King Charles understood love at all.

The king got a speculative look in his eyes. “Since you seem to care so much for this lawyer, you might do well to remember that you are in the presence of your king. We have influence and power that can be used for good. Or ill.”

“Majesty?”

“You think that we are not really attracted to you? That we kissed you
merely
to aid another man? You underestimate your charms, Mistress Burroughs.”

“Your Majesty, please!” she said, backing away.

“Please what?” he replied, coming closer as if she were his prey. “Kiss you again?”

“No!” She glanced anxiously at the door. Was it locked? Could she run? Did she dare?

He smiled. “Did you not enjoy it before? Come, think of all that we could offer you. A place at court. A house. A title or two. Would you not be well compensated for giving up a mere solicitor?”

He could not have said anything else that would have emboldened her as much as this. She straightened her shoulders defiantly and said, “When you offered to help us, I believed you were doing so because of my uncle’s pursuit of Lady Castlemaine, and because we had no choice. You are, after all, the king. Now I discover you are indeed seeking to assuage your lust. You may be my sovereign, but at this moment you are acting no better than any knave in the worst part of this city.”

A scowl darkened his features. “Have a care to whom you speak, Mistress Burroughs. There is a charge that has been leveled at your lover which we have overlooked, because we assumed his accusers were jealous of his success.”

“What charge?”

“That he is a disgrace to the courts.”

“Because of his low birth?”

The king shook his head.

“Because of some of the things he may have done?”

“Yes.”

“He stole out of ignorance and desperation.”

“It is not of theft we speak. It is something else entirely, of a particularly disgusting nature, concerning the man for whom he clerked.”

She met Charles’s gaze boldly. “He is innocent of such behavior.”

“You would have us believe you, and not these other legal men?”

“Yes.”

Charles strolled around her. She could feel him surveying her body, which trembled now not with fear, but righteous indignation. “You sound quite fierce.”

“Because those men don’t know the truth.”

“We have a certain influence in the courts, Mistress Burroughs. We wonder what you would do to raise your lover even higher in the world. After all, you are not noble, or titled, or rich. You are but the niece of a merchant.”

Her eyes narrowed, for she knew this tone of voice, this contemplative expression. She had seen it when her uncle’s customers and suppliers were in a mood to bargain.

“What are you suggesting, sire?” she asked, although she knew full well.

“We are suggesting, my dear, that you should not be too hasty to dismiss royal favor. People already assume we are lovers. We fail to see why it should not be so.”

“Because, Your Majesty, I love another, and because such an immoral bargain should be beneath a king.”

Charles’s face turned as red as the velvet upholstery on one of his ornate chairs. Then he marched to the door and threw it open. “Chaffinch!”

The page appeared instantly, as if he had been waiting beside the door the entire time.

“Take her back to her uncle and tell him to take her home,” Charles commanded. “We shall not be seeing them at Whitehall again.” He glared at her. “Farewell, Mistress Burroughs, and consider yourself fortunate that you are not being escorted to the Tower. Go!”

She hurried out of the door, then hesitated, forcing herself to turn back to the king. “Your Majesty, what do you intend to do to Mr. Harding?”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you treated your king like dung beneath your heel,” Charles snapped. “Go away, Mistress Burroughs. We do not care to look at you, and if you do not leave, we shall call the guards.”

Chaffinch grabbed her arm. “Come away,” he muttered harshly as he tugged her out of the room. “Can’t you see you’ve upset him?”

“But—”

“You stupid wench,” the page growled as he pulled her along the corridor. “You have no notion of what the king has to deal with every day. The Dutch, the Spanish, the French, his queen, Lady Castlemaine.”

“You are right, I don’t,” she replied, yanking her arm from the page’s grasp. “But that doesn’t give him the right to treat me like a harlot.”

Chaffinch halted and regarded her sternly. “Look you, mistress, everybody he meets wants something of him. Given all he’s endured before finally being restored to his rightful place, did he ask so much from you, his subject?”

“I would gladly give him the duty a subject owes a king. He wanted more than that.”

“He’ll likely gamble or dance all night after this,” Chaffinch concluded in an annoyed mutter, ignoring her comment as he once again pulled her along. Vivienne tried to tell herself that perhaps the worst was over. Charles was not reputed to be a vindictive man. Maybe once his first burst of anger ended, he would not trouble himself with them at all, for as Chaffinch had said, he had other, surely much more important, things to consider.

With such optimistic thoughts trying to overcome her fear, she followed Chaffinch through the maze of hallways. Soon enough she heard the buzz of a number of voices and recognized the way into the Banqueting House.

Chaffinch opened the door and gestured for her to enter.

She did—and the room fell silent as every head turned to look at her.

Blushing to be the center of speculative attention, she surveyed the room, searching for her uncle. After what seemed an eternity, while more brows rose questioningly and people exchanged significant glances, she spotted him with a group of courtiers.

Ignoring everybody, she made her way toward her uncle, whose expression grew more aggravated as she approached. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, regardless of his company.

“We have to leave.”

“Why? What have you done?”

“It is what I would not do,” she replied. “If you are not willing to leave, Uncle, I will depart without you.”

He must have seen the determination in her eyes, or heard it in her voice, because he nodded his head, took hold of her arm and led her from the room.

A
s the coach rumbled away from Whitehall, Uncle Elias glared at Vivienne as if she had single-handedly ruined him. “You little fool! How could you refuse him? He’s the king, by God!”

He continued to berate her, but Vivienne kept her gaze on the buildings they passed and ignored him. Fog had come up from the river, making everything gray and damp. She thought of Rob, waiting barefoot on the stable roof to be with her.

How she hoped he would come to her tonight! She had to tell him what had happened. More importantly, she had to be with him, to feel his love surround and strengthen her.

To remind herself that whatever came, she still had him.

“It may not be too late. We could go back—”

“No!” She turned toward her uncle. “You didn’t see his face, Uncle. I assure you, it is too late. He will not have me now.”

“You cannot be certain—”

“I am.”

He cursed harshly. “To be so close, to have an entry into the court itself …”

“Yes, Uncle, I fear there has been a business opportunity lost,” she said flatly.

“Not just that. You’ve lost a chance for a title, estates, a noble husband after—”

“After the king is done with me?”

“Yes, by God. It’s happened before. I don’t see why it should be any different for you.”

“Take heart, Uncle,” she said, determined to silence him. “Perhaps all may yet turn out well. As a woman who refused the king of England, have I not increased my worth in some circles?”

His eyes widened and a smile dawned on his plump face. “Gad, I had not thought of that.”

“No,” she murmured, going back to watching the damp buildings pass by and worrying about the consequences of her refusal, “I did not think you had.”

“’Allo, Rob, nice night for a walk, ain’t it?”

Rob spun around and peered into the darkness. Above him rose the Burroughses’ living quarters; around him were the smells and small noises of the mews. “Jack? What are you doing here?”

His friend sauntered out of the shadows. He gestured toward Vivienne’s window. “That’s hers, ain’t it?”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, Rob. Perfectly sober,” his friend replied as he came closer.

“What are you doing prowling about here? You’re not …” He dropped his voice. “You’re not up to no good, are you?”

“That’s good, comin’ from you, at this time o’ night and in this place.”

Rob again glanced at the window.

“Oh, yes, mustn’t stand here flappin’ my gums when you’ve got the beautiful Vivienne waitin’ on ya. Except she ain’t there. Spreadin’ her legs for the king, I hear. Gone to Whitehall, the pair o’ them, so the stableboy says. Very talkative chap, he is, especially when somebody else pays for his nip at the tavern ‘round the corner.”

“Jack, you must be drunk. Go home.”

“Why should I, when you ain’t? You’re sliding between the sheets with a woman you ain’t married to, and don’t think you can lie and tell me no. Remember I watch people, old son. That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it? But sometimes I watch without bein’ paid.” He smiled as he continued with unmistakable sarcasm, “Very fine and very noble, I must say, with Martlebury your client, too. O’ course, you’ve lots of experience stealin’. First my sister, now Sir Philip’s intended bride.”

“I never stole your sister.”

“Yes, ya did. You took her away from me.”

Rob stared at his friend, who had given no sign, no hint of his bitterness. “We took you in when we could.”

“Oh, aye, like a stray dog. I was her brother, her family, tied by blood. But she give all that over for you.”

“And she left me, Jack. Are you forgetting that?”

“No,” he growled. “I was glad when she did. And now so are you, I daresay. Left you free to taste that Burroughs wench, and maybe more, eh? Marriage, maybe? You’d be set for life with that old man’s money.”

Struggling to come to terms with what he was hearing, Rob stepped away from Jack. “We’re in love.”

“You was never goin’ to marry Janet, were you?”

“This is hardly the time or place to discuss this—”

“Why not? Why not here in the streets? Many’s the talk we used to have, sittin’ in the gutter. All forgotten now, eh? And the nights we used to count ourselves lucky if we got to sleep in straw, in a place that didn’t stink too much.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“I thought maybe you had, now that you’ve come so high up in the world, high enough to think you can marry Vivienne Burroughs. You always did aim high. You made no bones about that.”

“Jack, we both used to talk about making something of ourselves.”

“But you meant it. Really meant it. Believed you was cut out for better things. That you was better than the rest o’ us, even Janet. Don’t think Janet didn’t know that, neither. She knew you’d succeed, too, somehow, and that you’d leave her. She used to cry about it sometimes.”

“I didn’t know. She never told me.”

“That’s why she left ya, before you left her. She knew you’d never take her back when the man was done with her. She drowned herself rather than be turned away by the high and mighty Rob Harding.”

“Is that … is that really true?” Rob asked, despair and guilt weighing on him like a pile of stones.

“Would I lie about it?”

Rob’s eyes narrowed as he regarded the man he had thought his friend for so long. A man who had kept bitter anger and envy hidden, and hidden well. “I don’t know, Jack. I begin to think I don’t know
you.”

“And here you were so sure you did. Sure you knew all about me—poor, pauper Jack with his whores and his gambling. What are you but poor pauper Rob with his harlot, taking her without vows?” Jack laughed scornfully. “Always so sure, Robbie, always so certain you knew everything.”

“I was your friend—”

“Friend? Oh, yes, your friend you use like an errand boy or spy. Here, Jack, keep an eye on this one. Find out what you can about that one. Oh, by the by, here’s a few coins for yer trouble from your friend the solicitor.”

“Jack, this is ridiculous. If you don’t want to do the jobs I hire you for, don’t.”

“Oh, you
are
the very soul of charity! I could spit!”

Rob watched Jack warily, uncertain what he might do. “I loved Janet, but she didn’t tell me her fears. She broke my heart when she left me. And what was I supposed to do when I was given the opportunity to better my lot? Say no, thank you?”