Lady of the Butterflies (33 page)

“That man who cured the King swears he does not use it, that he has seen most dangerous effects follow the taking of it.”

“But he has to say that, Edmund, doesn’t he?”

Bess had been in to light the candles in the wall sconces but I felt a sudden, powerful need to light some more. I went and stuck a candle into the fire and went round lighting all the others in the candelabra on the table and the buffet, one by one, until the shadows retreated and the room was shimmering with light.

“You are an extravagant little wench.” Edmund smiled.

But still it did not seem enough to hold the darkness at bay.

Winter

1679

I
studied Richard’s pensive profile as he leaned against the parlor doorway, watching Edmund capering with Forest and a puppy in front of the fire. It was well past the time that Forest should have been in his cot, but Edmund, so bent on routine in all other matters, constantly chose to forgo this one, in order to enjoy a few extra minutes of play with our little boy.

The sound of sleet slapping the windows made the room seem cozy and warm, and the supper we had all just eaten, finished off with frumenty and baked apple tart, had left me feeling pleasantly drowsy as I took up a botany book and sat in the chair beside my little family.

But the feeling of content vanished when I happened to glance up from my reading and saw Richard lingering by the threshold, as if he felt unable or unwilling to intrude on our little scene of happy domesticity. As Edmund held the pup for Forest to fondle its floppy brown ears, there was envy and jealousy plain to see in Richard’s eyes. What I could not tell was whom he most envied, of what he was most jealous. Edmund, for having a son and a wife? Or Forest, for robbing him almost totally of Edmund’s attention, for enjoying a privileged childhood and having a happy and hearty young father, when, according to Edmund, Richard had seen his own father embittered and demoralized in exile. Either way, I could not bear to watch any longer.

I put down my book, went to my husband and quietly held out my hands for him to give Forest to me. “Time for sleep,” I said.

“Since when has your mother ever been governed by time?” Edmund smiled, picking Forest up and handing him over to me, thereby eliciting a squeal of protest. “I think the puppy needs its bed too,” he said firmly. Doting as Edmund was, he never gave in to Forest’s tantrums. Forest knew it and the squawks soon turned to mewling.

“Why don’t you ride into Bristol tonight with Richard?” I suggested to Edmund.

He stood, stroked Forest’s sleek little head. “What for?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Go to a tavern or the coffeehouse,” I suggested rather exasperatedly. “Whatever the pair of you used to do together in London.”

Edmund looked as abashed as a mischievous lad caught under a table, trying to sneak a look up ladies’ skirts. “That’d not do at all.” He blushed. “Not now that I have a wife.”

Edmund had never spoken of women he had known before me, but I had the impression there had not been a great many. I did know that now he was wed, there would be no more. I trusted him in this, as in all things, trusted him absolutely, and so I let the comment pass. “Go to Bath, then.” I sought to persuade him. “There’s time if you leave now. Give Richard a taste of the waters to refresh him, before he goes back to the city.”

“Why are you so keen to be rid of me all of a sudden?” my husband asked.

“Oh, you know it’s not that. I think it would do you good. You used to enjoy gallivanting together, did you not?”

“That was before,” Edmund said affectionately. “Before I had a wife and a family. Now I’ve no wish to seek entertainment elsewhere. Now everything I need and want is right here in this house. And here,” he added gently, laying his palm against the small curve of my three-months-pregnant belly.

I gave him a grateful smile, glanced at Richard and saw his disappointment as he turned and absently picked up my lute. He slouched down into a chair, one long booted leg hooked over the carved arm, and started idly plucking a remarkably pretty and competent melody. For a moment I watched his fingers on the lute strings, the wistful expressions that crossed his face as he played, but I tore my gaze back to Edmund, leaned in closer to him over our son’s little head. “I think Richard would like you to go to Bristol with him.”

“Aye, he’s restless as a tomcat.” Edmund smirked. “The lad needs to find himself a wife.”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “But for now he does not have one. And you are his friend.”

Edmund deposited a kiss on my forehead. “You would be friend and mother to all waifs and strays. And I do treasure you for that.”

I squeezed his arm affectionately. “Good. Then listen to what I am saying, why don’t you?”

“All right, but I’ll settle Forest in the nursery first.”

Forest went very willingly back into his father’s arms and Edmund hoisted him up onto his shoulders and away.

I drew up a chair opposite Richard. He tilted his head slightly, looked back at me out of the corners of his eyes as he continued to play.

“It is very pretty,” I said. “What’s it called?”

“L’Amour Médecin,”
he replied, perfectly accented.

I laughed.
“The Love Doctor?”
I was glad that my French studies had proven useful at last.

“It is a comedy by Molière.”

“What’s it about?” I thought, even as I spoke, that I might well regret asking.

Richard kept his head lowered over the lute, raised his eyes to look at me in a way that made them seem darker, smoldering. I’d always thought blue was either a cold color, of ice and of water, or at most only as gently warm as a summer sky. I’d never have imagined that blue eyes could burn with the slow, gentle heat that his did now. Yet his voice was strangely flat. “Lucinde is depressed,” he related tonelessly. “Desperate to cheer her, Sganarelle offers her whatever she wishes. When she declares that she wants to be married to Clitandre, Sganarelle becomes angry, refuses to grant her desire.” The music stopped. His fingers were still. “He admits that his reason for refusing her request is that he cannot stand the thought of her with another man.”

I was out of the chair in an instant, on my way straight out of that room.

He cast the lute aside with a discordant clang, swung his legs to the floor and sprang to his feet. He caught my hand, the momentum of my flight swinging me back round so I was flung against him.

“That was unfair of me,” he said.

Our bodies were touching down the entire length of them. “Yes,” I breathed, standing back from him. “It was.”

He let go of me with obvious reluctance, held on to me only with the intensity of his gaze, a hold more powerful than ever his hand had been on my arm. “You did ask.” He smiled at me then.

I smiled back. “I did, and I knew it to be a bad idea.” I picked up the lute, handed it back to him. “Would you play some more?”

I sat again, as did he, but he looked at the instrument for a moment as if he had forgotten what to do with it, or as if it had entirely lost its appeal for him. Then he turned his eyes to me meditatively. “Being with you is like listening to a Lully ballet,” he said. “It is music that is filled with vitality and stirs the deepest sentiment. That is how you make me feel, Nell, how you have always made me feel. I have tried and tried to understand what it is about you. But look at you. With your golden hair and honey skin, you are a Rubens painting come alive, that’s what you are. All exuberance and emotion and depth of color and sensuality. And, as if you really were a painting, I must content myself with just looking at you.”

Nobody had ever talked to me the way he did. But I could have listened to his voice forever, no matter what he spoke of.

“I cannot disagree with you,” I said, “since I have never seen a Rubens painting or heard a Lully ballet.” I imagined that even in poverty he must have been exposed to all kinds of new experiences during his years of exile in Europe and I felt again that restless desire to see more of the world myself, to make of my life more than it was. “It must be wonderful to compose a piece of music, or paint a picture that will last for all time,” I said. “So that your name is forever linked to something beautiful.”

“Is that what you want to do?” he asked me gently. “To be like Rubens or Lully?”

I smiled. “I have no particular talent for art or music, but since I was a child I have wanted to discover something, to do something of lasting significance. I should like to be remembered.” I realized I had never confided that to anyone before, not even to James Petiver. “That doesn’t sound very humble, does it?”

“I think it is a fine ambition.” He gave me a little meaningful smile. “I too should like to have my name linked to something beautiful.”

I would have loved to ask him about Rubens and Lully, about art and ballet, but Edmund came back into the room and so they went off to Bristol, and whatever they found to do there kept them occupied until the early hours of the next morning.

I WAS TENDING to Forest when I heard them crash and stumble through the door, spurs and swords jangling. Edmund, in particular, was talking and laughing loud enough to rouse the dead.

I settled Forest in his crib and went back to bed. Later, I heard one set of footsteps mount the stairs, the quiet tap of expensive leather-soled boots in the passage. They paused outside my door. And then there was a light touch on the wood.

No, Eleanor. Do not go to him. If you know what’s good for you, ignore it, pretend you are sleeping. If you open that door to him, you are undone.

I threw on a loose gown, padded in bare feet across the cold oak boards.

“I hope that I did not wake you,” Richard said softly.

I shook my head, clutched the neck of my gown and held on to the door, fooling myself that I was entirely capable of closing it at any moment in his beautiful face.

He was still wearing his long cloak but had removed his hat and unbuckled his sword. His eyes were sparkling like a moonlit sea and I could detect the warm scent of brandy on his breath, although he seemed entirely sober.

“I wondered where I might find some spare blankets,” he said.

“Blankets?” I felt mildly annoyed, was in no mood now to bandy innuendo with him. “You were not warm enough last night?”

He gave me a wry smile. “Nell, if that was so, I would have spoken to your maid about it earlier. I would not trouble you with my discomfort in bed, whatever its cause.”

I felt my cheeks flush, not sure if it was from my blunder or the intimate inference.

“I’m afraid poor Edmund can’t hold his drink the way he used to,” Richard explained. “He’s sound asleep in the chair in the parlor, and I’ll never manage to get him up all these stairs to bed. We are in for snow tonight, I think. I don’t want him to catch cold.”

“There are plenty of rugs in the linen cupboard. I’ll fetch some for you.”

He gestured with his hand. “I’ll get them,” he said quietly. “Go back to bed. I am sorry for disturbing you.”

I could have told him that his very presence in this house disturbed me constantly. But I didn’t want him to go now, wanted to keep him with me for as long as I could, just to talk to him again. “Did you have a good evening?”

“We did. Thank you. It was thoughtful of you to suggest it. Edmund will probably not thank either of us for it in the morning, mind.”

I smiled at him, found my eyes were irresistibly drawn to the loose black curl that shaped itself around his ear and lay so softly coiled against his neck, brushing his left shoulder. I wanted to touch it, was ridiculously envious of it. I wanted to rest my head on his shoulder the way it did, wanted to nuzzle into his neck, to put my lips against that tender skin where a little pulse was beating.

I pulled my plait of hair over my shoulder, toyed with the end of it. “Were you very wild, the pair of you, when you were in London?” I asked him.

“Come now, Nell.” He smiled. “You can hardly expect me to answer that.”

“No. I suppose not.” For just a second I had forgotten that his companion in these exploits had been my own husband.

“Well, good night, then.”

“Good night.”

He paused, half turned to go, turned back. “London is a bed of vice and sin,” he said, “as I am sure your father warned you. Bristol is not so different, if you know where to look. It would be very easy for me to sow a seed of doubt that would despoil your contented marriage. For me to tell you that your husband is not nearly so upstanding as you think him. I could easily tell you how you do wrong to trust Edmund so implicitly, as you so clearly do trust him. I could tell you how, under the influence of drink and bad company, he did not deserve your trust, did not behave honorably toward you this night.” His look was reflective. “But none of it would be true. Oh, I don’t deny that Edmund has enjoyed a dalliance from time to time, with society beauties and strumpets alike, as have we all, but not once has he ever behaved with less honor than you would expect of him. And tonight, amidst the myriad temptations of Bristol, all he did was talk and talk about your son and the new baby. And about you. Not that I need him to tell me how wonderful you are and how very fortunate he is to have you. There is not one day goes by that I do not brood upon it.”