Dark Angels (40 page)

She looked out the glass window in the door; they were passing Charing Cross, where once there’d been a statue of Charles I, pulled down by the Parliament. Years later, those who’d had him executed were hanged, drawn, and quartered on the very spot, their gamble failed. The statue was found, placed again at this crossroads where London ended and Whitehall began.

Everything was a gamble, wasn’t it?

She’d have to think hard on this, very, very hard.

W
HITEHALL HAD BEEN
preparing itself for All Hallows’ Eve for days. Torches dipped in tar were placed in the privy garden to be lighted once darkness fell. Wood for the big bonfire on the hill in Hyde Park was piled high. The Duke of Monmouth was giving a masquerade to begin on the hour of midnight, when spirits were known to walk about. The astrologer Elias Ashmole was to be there, as well as a magician. Ashmole was going to tell fortunes. The maids of honor had been talking of nothing else for weeks. The cooks in the kitchen were even now blending flour and sugar and butter into the light and tiny soul cakes Queen Catherine would distribute after an All Hallows’ mass. Apples had been kept in the darkest and coolest of cellars so there should be some not withered and pie-bound for the bobbing that would take place in the public courtyards. And nuts, everyone had hoarded autumn nuts like squirrels, for all the divining they’d be doing later, crowded around their fireplaces. Alice walked into the bedchamber, flung off her cloak, and Poll took it from her.

“You’ve mixed the gum and wine?” she asked her servant.

“Don’t I always?”

She’d put herself behind by going to see her father. She had to place the queen’s patches and help with the curling of her hair, she had to put the tincture of gum and wine on all their cheeks so they’d be blooming—none of them were allowed rouge yet; only married women or harlots rouged—and she had to find Renée and speak with her. That was first and foremost.

“Where are you going?” cried Poll, Alice’s costume in her hand. There was a final bit of fitting and sewing yet to be done, but Alice was gone, running down the corridors of Whitehall.

Renée was in the queen’s withdrawing chamber. Everyone was sewing colored beads to their masks. The floor was a welter of colored ribbon, mulberry and grape, citron and beryl, canary and cadmium, primrose and peach. Edward sat in the corner, playing the lute and singing for them. They must look handsomer than the Duchess of York’s maids of honor, better than the Duchess of Monmouth’s. It was, as the French said, de rigueur, necessary. They had their reputation to uphold, now more than ever—or so Alice had convinced them. Alice whispered to Renée, who put down her mask.

“Oh, Luce, do finish mine for me,” Alice begged. “I’m…what flower am I?”

“Primrose,” said Barbara. “I’ll do it, Luce.”

Alice led Renée away. Gracen raised an eyebrow. “Do finish mine,” she mocked.

Alice led Renée through a back chamber where the king’s seamstresses worked. They barely glanced up from their sewing. Yards of glittering fabric lay in pieces on the floor. A great artificial papiermâché head made to resemble a sultan stood perched on a table. The chamber led to a waterside gallery with large, old-fashioned mullioned windows overlooking the Thames. It was for the king’s private pleasure, but the guards posted at the king’s door knew Alice and nodded to her as she hurried to one end of its long length, pulled two chairs together where they might whisper and not be heard. Just beyond, through another door, were the many chambers that made the apartments of His Highness the Duke of York, but he and his wife and her maids of honor were across the park at St. James’s Palace. They’d not yet moved into Whitehall for the winter.

“We haven’t seen you all of today. I asked Gracen where you were, and she said you were out ‘scheming.’” Renée said the last word in English, as Gracen must have done. “What does it mean, this ‘scheming’?” The way Renée pronounced it, it sounded like “sky-ming.”

“Plotting and planning, like you. You’ve not been honest with me.”

Renée’s smile faded.

“Am I your friend?”

Renée nodded.

“Do you trust me?”

“The only one,” said Renée. “Others, they want—” She stopped.

“They want you to be the king’s mistress,” Alice finished for her, and waited.

Renée didn’t say anything.

How could I have ever thought her a fool? thought Alice. “Is that what you want?”

“No. Yes—I don’t know!”

“How can you not know? Explain that to me.”

“They tell me I must do this, for the sake of my family, for the sake of my country. They tell me I will have so much—jewels, and homes, and honors. They tell me I am so fortunate to have attracted his attention. I’m alone in Paris. Perhaps they’re right, I think. And the king, the king is very kind, Alice. He makes me smile…. I know I have promised Richard my heart, my hand in marriage. I can’t bring myself to tell them that, yet. You mustn’t tell them. They will be so angry with me.”

“But if you told them, it would put a stop to everything!”

And when Renée didn’t answer, Alice said, “You don’t want it stopped, do you.”

“It is pleasant to be admired, more than I imagined. I like His Majesty. Am I bad?”

“Do you love Lieutenant Saylor?”

Renée nodded, and Alice saw it was so.

“Do you still wish to marry him?”

“When I am with him, I am certain, my head and heart are clear, but then, when the king compliments me and shows me with his eyes all he is feeling, I am not longer so certain.”

“I feel the fool in this.”

Renée took her hands, looking up at her with the dignity that was always under the beauty. “Oh, no. You have been the dearest of friends. I could not have made the journey over without you, without knowing that Richard was on the other side, and that you, the pair of you, would watch over me. I thought I would simply tell them I had changed my mind. But now I don’t know my mind. I am not strong like you, Alice. My mind goes every which way, and I feel lost and confused. I want everybody to be happy, to be happy with me. I don’t like anger. I don’t like displeasing. They frighten me, and I cannot think.”

Alice’s mind, resilient, scheming, restless, went every which way, too. “It’s been done,” she said slowly. “The king was mad for Frances Stewart, crazy for her, and yet she married another right under his nose, and he forgave her, and they became best of friends.”

“Who is Frances Stewart?”

“The Duchess of Richmond.”

Surprise showed on Renée’s face. “The queen’s lady-in-waiting, the one who is not quite lovely anymore, yet is. He admires many, doesn’t he?”

“He does indeed. That’s something you need to think on—if you want to be one of many.”

“He might be faithful.”

“If he promises that, he lies, Renée. Look at me. I do not think he can be faithful. So you must consider this carefully. And I think you must tell Lieutenant Saylor.”

“No, he will hate me, think me weak and wretched, think me lying and deceitful. I love Richard. I don’t want him to think such awful things of me.”

“It is his right to know where things stand.”

“Please, oh, please. Promise me you’ll say nothing! Promise! There’s nothing to tell him. I’ve done nothing!”

It was hard to withstand her. “I promise for now.”

“Not for now, forever. It is my place to tell him this, Alice, not yours.”

Alice was silent. Renée was correct, but what a mess they were weaving.

“Alice!”

“All right, I’ll say nothing. I hope I dance at your wedding.”

What a tightrope Renée walked. It would be so easy to fall. And the truth was, whichever side she fell upon, Alice intended to stay in the king’s graces, to reap the reward of Balmoral. Dislike it though she might, it was the ugly truth.

“Just be my friend, Alice. Don’t abandon me.”

“I won’t.”

“Forever and ever.”

“Forever and ever.”

Renée smiled. Alice leaned forward and they touched lips once, lightly, sweetly, chastely, in its own way a new seal on friendship.

O
FF
W
YCH
S
TREET,
which was near the square of Covent Garden, Richard finally found the alley called Wych Court. There it was, the house with the red door. A burly man opened it at his knock, looked him up and down, and, at the coin offered, allowed him entrance. Richard walked down a long hall, small chambers to each side, sheer curtains drawn shut if there was a customer, open if not, so that the passerby might view the wares: boys, young men—some dressed as women, made up with paint and patches and curling hair, some not. And the closed curtains were sheer enough to allow a view of various acts of coupling. Sounds of groans and panting, of cursing and crying, followed him into the main chamber, a handsome room with ornate furniture, every piece French and gilded silver. Men—merchants and goldsmiths, ship’s captains and noblemen—stood in groups, sipping wine, talking. Boys and young men Richard’s age mingled with them. A footman, his cheeks and lips highly rouged, patches on his face like a woman, approached.

“A word with Mrs. Neddie,” said Richard. He handed the footman the note Balmoral had given him, then stood awkwardly. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He was aware of the gaze of men falling on him in a way he wasn’t used to. A boy, twelve or so, walked over. Richard shook his head. “I’m not here to buy anything.”

“Not even a glass of wine?”

“No.”

“One glass of wine. I’ll be beaten otherwise. We have to make money for her in whatever way we can. One glass of wine and you’re rid of me for the evening, I swear it.”

Richard considered the boy, measuring the truth in his eyes. They were clear, his face smooth, open. He was lying. He said to a servant, “A glass of wine for…”

“Etienne.”

“Etienne and myself.”

“I’ve not seen you before,” Etienne said.

“Nor are you likely to again. Etienne?” He mocked the French name.

The boy grinned. “It’s fashionable to be French these days. Sometimes I pretend I don’t speak English, and they pay more.”

“Go away, Etienne.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

The footman had appeared, was beckoning Richard. He followed him up a flight of stairs and into a handsome chamber done in the best style, French furniture, large, elaborately framed Italian landscape paintings on the wall, shimmering draperies of fine silk. Lounging on a sumptuous daybed was a beautiful woman dressed in a gown the color of midnight, ebony shot through with threads of blue. Diamonds glittered around her neck and at her ears. She smiled at Richard, who blinked. She might be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Do sit down, Lieutenant Saylor. How is my very dear Duke of Balmoral?” Her voice was low, with a provocative rasp to it.

“Well, thank you.”

“How is it that I may aid you? I know it isn’t a boy for the duke. Have you come on his behalf for someone? I can give you tough boys, ruffians, or soft, sweet ones. I am the soul of discretion, I assure you.” She smiled. “Or perhaps it is you? Do you desire a boy? A young man? Handsome like you?”

Richard flushed, feeling color stain his neck, his face, like fire.

Neddie snapped open a fan, flowers painted on its panels, and began moving it back and forth near her face. “No. I didn’t think so, but it’s always so amusing to ask.”

“I’ve come for information. We’re looking for a Frenchman, whose…taste…er…”

“Runs to the wares I carry?”

“Yes, thank you. His name is Henri Ange, though he may be using another. He speaks English well, so he might pose as an Englishman.”

“And this Frenchman who might pose as an Englishman, what does he look like?”

“Medium height, very slender, light eyes.”

“Any one of the men downstairs answers to that.”

Richard pulled a small bag from his pocket, held it out. She took it from him, weighed it in one hand. “He understands me so well, always,” she murmured. “What do you want with this gentleman, should I see or hear of him?”

“Simply to talk to him, to ask a few questions.”

“All these coins for that? The questions must be very interesting.”

“They are.” Richard bowed. “We wouldn’t want him to know we were looking for him. We’d just like to know if you see him and where we might find him. Thank you for receiving me, Mrs. Neddie.”

“The pleasure was all mine, I do assure you, Lieutenant. Give His Grace my sincere regards and tell him I am, as always, his humble servant, that I love him like a daughter.”

The moment the door closed behind Richard, she rose and opened one of several concealed doors in the chamber. Her bedchamber was as ornate as her receiving chamber. The bed was huge, framed by twisting columns that ended in wooden putti—fat cupids carved in Italy and given her once upon a time by an admirer. The bed hangings were expensive, crushed velvet, trimmed in silver braid. A man lay on the bed, medium height, slender. He turned his head to watch her. She sat on the bed in a graceful movement. “I was just thinking of you.”