Elisabeth Fairchild (31 page)

A gun carriage provided by the Royal Horse carried the body of George the third, in state to Windsor that evening. The coffin’s final escort, into St. George’s Chapel, was composed of a company of the king’s own Grenadier guards, a procession led by standard bearers carrying banners of the lion and dragon. The garter king of arms, white stave in hand, white ostrich feathers and velvet tabard distinguishing him from the heralds, followed the riderless royal horse. The heralds, in satin, emblazoned with coats of arms, black-feathered hats bobbing, moved through a line of footguards, every seventh man bearing a flickering torch to hold back the night.

The horseguard lined the outside of the chapel, crepe-sashed, officers displaying drawn sabers. Drums muffled, fifes high and thin, bells tolled to the chorus of a blare of trumpets from the park below.

The resplendent spectacle of official respect stirred Dulcie to tears. Life seemed suddenly finite, brief. A twist of Fate, luck or chance, might bend one’s mind, as the King’s mind had been bent, or prove one mortal, as even kings were mortal. The string of her own continued existence seemed in some way shortened.

In sunset’s dying golden glow, delicately pinnacled, the airy, St. George’s cut a lacy silhouette against the squat, drum-shaped bulk of Windsor’s Round Tower. Above the crowd, against an indigo sky, stone lions gave silent roar. Monkey-faced gargoyles stuck out their tongues, thumbing noses and pulling faces at the melancholy crowd.

Dulcie thought of Roger, wondered where he perched, what face he wore this day of mourning. Would the Gargolyle thumb his nose at her sadness and longing?

Up the vast flight of steps, the chapel blazed orange-gold. The air hung redolent with candle wax, cologne and damp wool, thick with the all too recent memories of the death of Princess Charlotte. She and her stillborn babe were immortalized in the enormous marble monument just inside the doorway. Much grief the royal family had recently bourne.

Veiled marble figures mourned the abrupt end of royal promise, and direct heirs. Dulcie had once seen promise of her own motherhood in Roger Ramsay’s eyes, had visualized their future potential. Eight years she had trusted in that vision. Eight years flown with little more than the glimmer of hope that wishes might come true.

Were they eight years wasted?

Purple velvet draped the coffin solemnly carried in by robed choir and almsmen. The dead king was received by the Dean and Chapter, and watched over by a crush of royal bodyguards. The Honorable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, the Yeoman of the Guard and the regiments of the soon to be changed household division made a richly colorful spectacle beneath the lacy, star-patterned, vaulted ceiling that drew eyes and thoughts upward. Two hundred carved angels looked down on them, reminding all that the king’s troubled spirit had at last escaped its unhappy mortal shell.

Radicals meant to put an end to this beautiful pomp and worthy circumstance, these years of tradition in honoring king, in governance by ministers. The idea saddened her, adding to the day’s general down-heartedness, thickening the grey fog of sorrow that clouded her perception of the chapel.

Dulcie stood in the midst of history, walked atop the carved stone grave markers of those long buried beneath the chapel floors. Ghostly images fluttered like moth wings against the blurred glass of her memory.

The service dragged on, tediously read by the dean of Windsor, accompanied by the muffled sound of weeping and waves of dark grey melancholy that rose like smoke from the assembled mourners. She had time to think, too much time.

What did she want of the brief bubble her life encompassed? To be useful. For her life and talents to have purpose. To serve king and country.

Love? She could not do without, could not continue to make of it an occasional indulgence. She wanted to share that important human connection daily in a lasting lifelong commitment. She wanted to be married.

The service ended with the camp colors of the King’s company of grenadier guards ceremoniously handed over, by the lieutenant in command, their final honor to be placed upon the coffin. With the transfer of a piece of cloth, the reign of one king ended and another began.

She had offered up her colors--her love and allegiance--freely, in the most obvious and profound way she could imagine. Roger could not question her feelings, her commitment, and yet she questioned his. Was she not worthy of commitment? Was she not deserving of promises and permanence, as permanent as life’s impermanence allowed? A ceremony to bind them, a piece of paper, his name become hers--was it so much to ask?

Ceremoniously, the Lord Chamberlain broke the wand of office. The two halves of the wooden rod clattered to the marble floor--a brittle, bonelike rattle marking the end of an era, the unseating of one ruler for another, the beginning of new direction, new purpose.

In that instant, Dulcie’s patience snapped. She was ready to begin her own new direction and purpose.

“Come my dear. It is finished,” her father patted her hand.

It was finished, all but the delivery of Roger’s note to Sidmouth.

“Shall we make our way out by way of the choir?” she suggested. “The woodwork is said to be well worth a look.” She neglected to mention that it lay in the direction where she might best encounter Lord Sidmouth.

They met him in the crowded aisle before the altar. Blood and temper simmering, she deliberately bumped into him, her hand, the note, brushing his. He looked up, startled, saw nothing more than one more black-veiled mourner, had sense enough to grab the paper twist.

It felt strange to let her last obligation to Roger Ramsay slip her grasp.

“So sorry,” she said, voice faint.

The nave, despite high-flown ceilings, seemed suddenly too confining. She clutched her father’s hand, depending upon him to lead her through the press of people, through the haze of emotion that hung before her face like gray mist.

From behind one of the thick, stone columns lining the chapel a herald fell into step between them. It seemed an accident, no more than a matter of the crowd that brought them together, slowed them, forced her father to relinquish her hand.

Pushed, for the moment, against the wall, she studied the palm frond vaulting of the ceiling rather than panic. Her father continued up the stone steps leading from altar to choir.

The herald turned, blocking her way, an impression of blond hair, brilliant color, the Royal Crest emblazoned on the archaic flaps of his garment. He wore the black velvet feathered hat of a bygone era. He took her elbow. Satin slid beneath her fingertips.

Blue! She saw blue at his touch, and with it a wash of imagery: riot, death and explosions. It almost sank her to her knees.

“This way,” Roger murmured, steering her through an arched doorway. He closed the heavy wooden chancery door in their wake.

Her father walked on, unaware, carried from her by the press of the crowd. She could see him through the traceried stone screen that bounded one wall of this permanent resting place of a 16th Century lord and his lady.

Roger’s whisper stirred her hair, “And so you delivered my message after all?”

His message? He cared only for his message? Dulcie pushed away from the wall, mouth prepared for kisses, nether parts wet for his touch, and yet her mind and emotions were closed to him.

Through and above the carved stone screen the voice of the crowd penetrated--light, too. In flickering waves it washed the walls golden, painting the reclining alabaster effigies of Lord and Lady Roos with harsh extremes of light and shadow.

“I had to be sure,” he muttered, voice guarded, gaze busy. Hundreds passed within hearing distance. They might be seen by any who cared to peer through the lacelike openings in the screen. His eyes seemed intent on examining everything, everyone, except her.

He looked a stranger in sleek, fair-haired wig. Brows, too, false and fair.

She remembered the outline of his profile from another whisper-filled darkness. His cloud, cobalt and golden, was not to be mistaken. Yet, he was different, distant--his expression as unbending as the sculpted angel peering from the wall.

“The house in Grosvenor Square?” At last, briefly, his eyes locked with hers. “Tell me everything you know. Every impression.”

No intimacy touched his whisper, other than that of secrets shared. She listened for it assiduously, heart and soul longing for acknowledgement, by look, touch or gesture some proof that he loved her. She saw no sign. He did not touch her, seemed in point of fact to avoid all physical contact. No softness lurked in his gaze, no hint of affection in the cast of his glances, only hard-edged wariness, as if he expected at any moment to be discovered, unmasked and declared a fraud.

Lord and Lady Roos stiffly ignored them, sculpted hands steepled, placid in permanent prayer. The crowd of mourners moved on. The walls no longer flickered with torchlight. The confines of the chancel ceased to echo with the noise of footsteps and voices.

She sighed, stepped beyond the Roos Tomb to stare through diamond-paned windows. The darkness bobbed with torchlight, reminding her of Spa Field, now history, like so many of their moments. How fitting they should conduct this conversation at a funeral, in a crypt, as she mourned the death of his affections.

Theirs was to be a businesslike exchange. She could hide her heartache--focus on the job at hand. She closed her eyes on his reflection, on the dark past they shared, opened her mind to a greater darkness, conjuring up the images he desired.

She held out her hand to him, heard the rustle of satin as he stepped closer. Blue engulfed her, speeding her pulse. Gloved hand to gloved hand, he fired her blood. The story of his life fluttered before her inner eye like a book, pages blown by the wind, time and place fitting together like a walking dream, like their hands entwined.

“I see an explosion. Big enough to blow the windows of the front room into the street.” Her words, echoed against stone.

“Night or day?” His fingers fit more tightly to hers.

“Night. A street lamp is glowing.”

“Who is there?”

She lost herself in it. She could feel the blue of him up to her elbow. “Ing, the butcher carries a knife and bags, across his shoulder.”

“What sort of bags?”

“Cloth. Game bags. Empty. Thistlewood has a cutlass, long and bright--longer than the average.”

He went very still beneath her hand. “I have seen it. What else?”

“A box. Red. Like the ministers carry.”

“Do you know what is in the box?”

She frowned, shook her head, images blurring. She could no longer tell where his hand ended and hers began. “No. Wait. A coconut?” She doubted her own perception, mumbled dubiously, “It looks like a coconut.”

“Hmm. Right. What else?”

“Screaming.” Her voice rose hoarsely. “A shot. I hear a shot.” Words tumbled from her lips as quickly as images flashed--too quick for emotion to catch up. Her voice sounded flat, unfeeling. “There is an explosion. Heads.” Doubt altered her tone. “I see heads? Bloody heads.” She coughed, tried to let go of his hand.

“Whose?” His grip tightened.

She made a retching noise, stomach rebelling. This time she shook her hand and mind free of the images. Fumbling for her hankie, tears sprang to her eyes. Exhaustion and a sense of melancholy overtook her.

He offered her his handkerchief, scented of sandalwood and cedar.

“Who?” he repeated gently.

“Sidmouth!” She whispered faintly. “They will kill him. You must not let this happen!”

She lifted her veil, dabbed at her eyes, felt like lowering her head upon his shoulder that she might sob freely. The effort to refrain wearied her. Voice low, she said, “Ridiculous to cry over deaths yet to be enacted--that may never occur.”

“I mean to see they do not.” He grasped her shoulder, gave what was meant to be a comforting squeeze. His touch held traces of that which she had not the strength to hold at bay. She turned away from him, dried her tears, blew her nose. She felt tired, beaten as an old rug.

His eyes shone with sympathy.

She did not want his sympathy, could not accept his concern. It only made their current impasse at commitment harder to bear.

No strength left to hold back the words, she whispered, “Lydia once told me you were the type of man to bed many a woman and commit to none.”

His brows rose in surprise. “Lydia is wise to the ways of the world.”

Disappointed by his response, with the world as she found it, she stared at the stone angel above his head.

He spoke. “Knowing this, yet you allowed me freedoms. Why?” Why? Why? His whisper echoed cruelly. He leaned closer to hear her quiet response.

“I believe there is more to you than Lydia chooses to see.”

Their eyes met. His had never looked so blue.

“Would you tell me I am wrong?” she asked.

He blinked, turned his back on her, paced the length of the sleeping Lord and Lady Roos, side by side for eternity. He swiveled on his heel to reply as if by rote. “The demands of my work preclude my serious involvement with any woman--no matter my feelings.”

She wondered how many times he had used the hollow words before--when other women clung too tightly.

“Why?” she pressed.

He came closer to whisper, but the look in his eyes had never been more distant. “There are few women I would trust with the truth of my identity, fewer still who would allow me the freedom to continue my singular course.”

Exhausted, argumentative, no longer willing to lie at his feet as placidly as the stone pony curled at the foot of Lady Roos, she spat out, “I would not change you.”

“It is a woman’s habit to change a man.”

“Twist my words, if you will, but you cannot twist my feelings.” She laughed, bitterly. “I love you above all other men, and still you push me away. Are you not equally moved by me?”

He could not look her in the eyes and answer. To the window he went, to stare out the diamond panes. “You would do better to look elsewhere.”

“You do not love me?”

He addressed the night. “I care for you . . . deeply.”