The French Mistress (18 page)

“That tall lady, there, on the other side of my father,” he was saying. “The one that outshines all the others. That’s the Countess of Castlemaine.”

At once I craned my neck to see this infamous lady. Even in Paris, her name was well-known as not only the most beautiful woman in the English Court, perhaps even in all of England, but also as the most notorious, a lady who kept her hold on the wandering king’s heart (and, it was whispered, other, more private parts of his person as well) by her eagerness to try any act in the libertine’s carnal repertoire. Even while she’d been the official royal mistress with her own suite of rooms in the palace, she’d taken other men as lovers as freely as the king in turn took other women, and somehow managed to make him laugh at her infidelities. Her behavior quite scandalized Madame, who denounced her as an avaricious Messalina, and begged her brother to cast her off. But now that I’d finally seen her for myself, I understood.

She was no longer in her prime, of course, being nearly thirty years in age, and half of that lived hard from chasing pleasure. She’d born a slew of bastards to the king, too, and childbearing will leave its mark on even the strongest of women. But it mattered not: the Countess of Castlemaine remained as voluptuous as any pagan goddess. She was as tall for a woman as the king was for a man, with thick dark hair, pale skin, and heavy-lidded blue eyes that betrayed her wanton’s soul. Her dress was sumptuous, more fit for a queen than for a mistress, with a true ransom of jewels scattered over her hair and person. Yet even if she’d been garbed in penitent sackcloth, she would still have drawn the lustful gaze of every man in the room by the sheer potency of her beauty, and I doubted even Madame du Montespan could rival her.

“She’s very beautiful, my lord,” I said, unable to keep the wistfulness from my voice. A king as rare as this one would naturally have such a glorious woman as his mistress.

“She’s also in a righteous stew,” Monmouth said. “After worrying my father for a month, he’d finally granted her the honor to be among the party to go fetch my aunt from France. But my aunt didn’t wait, and sailed on her own, and so deprived Lady Castlemaine of being the first to welcome her.”

I frowned. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but I do not believe that would have pleased Madame.”

“But it would have pleased Lady Castlemaine, and that’s all that matters to her,” he said. “And to those around her, too. When she’s in one of her furies, she’s as shrill as any harpy. No one dares cross her.”

“Surely His Majesty does,” I protested, thinking how no one challenged Louis’s will.

“My father prefers peace to war, mademoiselle, particularly in his bed,” he said wryly. “Mark that ring on her little finger. That’s new. I heard it cost him over three hundred guineas to quell that particular tantrum last month.”

With considerable interest I studied the ring in question, an enormous table diamond cut wide and flat to display its size. I remembered how Madame had said I’d no need of jewels, but I’d have been quite willing to accept a ring such as this one.

“He may dawdle with other women like Nelly Gwyn, but Lady Castlemaine always remains,” he continued. “Yet who could fault my father? There’s no other lady like her.”

“Nelly Gwyn’s the actress, isn’t she?” I asked, recalling her name from Madame’s mention. It was the first time I’d heard Mrs. Gwyn’s name here in England, though unfortunately far from the last. “Is she here, too?”

“Nelly here?” He laughed, I suppose at the unwitting absurdity of what I’d asked. “Unlikely, mademoiselle. Nell Gwyn’s a common, lowborn player, an amusing little creature who cheers my father with her antics, but she has no place among us here.”

I smiled politely. I chose not to venture that, according to Madame, the duke’s own mother had likewise been common and lowborn, a Welsh tavern wench named Lucy Walter, and that only the king’s kindness had raised James Croft from bastardy to his present lofty peerage as the Duke of Monmouth: for I’d learned early that certain observations, however pertinent, are better kept to one’s self.

I did not wonder that Lady Castlemaine was here, while Charles Stuart’s wife, Her Majesty Queen Catherine of Braganza, a most neglected lady, was not. Nor was I surprised to learn that the king seemed to dip and dally with as many other women as he pleased, as free as a honeybee who visits every lovely flower in the garden. The modes and mores of the Court were not the same as for common folk, who must obey their consciences and make their confessions. I’d spent my last two years in a household where my mistress was wed to a man who pined for his male lover, while she in turn sighed after her husband’s brother, even as both the brother and the male lover plundered her own circle of ladies as if it were their private brothel, and my mistress accepted the gallant attentions of her brother’s baseborn son. How, indeed, could the mistresses of Charles Stuart compare to that nest of writhing, duplicitous serpents?

“Ah, at last we’re to have the dancing,” Lord Monmouth said, thumping his fist enthusiastically on the table along with the other gentlemen around us, a heathenish, drumming din. They drank deeply, these Englishmen, and without regard for how swiftly their manners deteriorated as the wine seized their wits.

The guests who’d been standing were shuffled farther to the sides of the hall to make space, and the fiddlers put aside the softer tunes they’d been playing during the meal and began to play their instruments in earnest with a more vigorous fare. The king led his sister to the floor to applause and cheers, and together they took their place at the head of a set that included the Duke and duchess of York, Lord Arlington and Lady Castlemaine (an unholy alliance, as I soon learned), and several other couples whose names I did not know.

In Paris we always danced in the stately, graceful manner that Louis himself preferred: a
bourée
, a
sarabande
, a
loure grave
, where every step and gesture was rehearsed and refined to perfection. In England, however, such formality did not appear to be the fashion. This first dance was as shockingly wild and untrammeled as those to be found among French peasants at harvesttime, and so exuberant that I feared for my frail lady. How she kept pace with her long-legged brother, I cannot say, what with the pair of them laughing and ruddy and jubilant in each other’s company.

But before I could consider this overmuch, the duke seized my hand without any preamble, and pulled me to my feet.

“We’ve sat here long enough, mademoiselle,” he declared, his face mottled with too much cheer, “and
Jack Pudding
’s my favorite. Come dance with me, if you please.”

Truly, there was no permission to be granted, for His Grace was already hauling me through the crowd toward the floor to join the next set.

“Please, Your Grace,” I said breathlessly, “what is Jack Pudding?”

“Why, this tune, of course,” he said, squaring himself opposite me with his chin raised high. “Named for the kind of rascals who swallow prodigious amounts of black puddings for wagers. Here now, ready yourself.”

He took my hands in his and bent low as the music—his favorite tune—signaled the proper beginning of the dance.

“But, Your Grace,” I protested, “I do not know this dance!”

“You’ll learn,” he said. “Follow me.”

I followed as he bid with the most miserable results, stumbling this way and lurching that, and trying to mimic the steps of the other dancers as best I could. This, then, was destined to be the first unfortunate sight the English Court would have of me, jerked about like a puppet on strings, and I would have wept if I hadn’t been laboring so desperately to show some scrap of grace.

At last the dance ended and my suffering with it, and as I bowed my head and made my final curtsy before the duke, my only thought was of how quickly I could retreat back to my chair and shamefaced obscurity. Yet I was shocked to find Lord Monmouth had vanished, and in his place stood His Majesty himself.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, offering his hand as elegantly as his son had not, “would you dance?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, as breathless from the honor as from my recent exertion. I rose, and as if this scene was all by some greater design, the musicians now began to play a dance I knew, and knew well, a French piece with less of this English huffing and galloping and more opportunity for light conversation between partners. The first few bars we danced in silence, which gave me a chance to recover my senses and my wind so that I could concentrate on making a pretty show of my limbs for His Majesty’s appreciation. Likewise, I was all too aware that every eye in the hall had turned toward us to watch. Kings were like that: every motion they made or word they spoke was studied, discussed, remembered, and recalled, and so, too, were any others honored by their notice.

So it now was with me. By the end of this dance, everyone in Dover would know my face and my name, and how I’d come to be here in Madame’s party. I was grateful that His Majesty danced well, too, and made my own performance the easier. He moved with a manly grace and confidence, deftly marking his steps in perfect time and using his tall, well-made body to reflect my own, as the best partners will: doubtless a result of his French blood.

“You dance with exquisite grace, mademoiselle, as is only to be expected,” he said as we came together in the dance. “You possess much charm to match your beauty. I can understand entirely why you are such a favorite of my sister’s.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, recalling how in England that was how the king was properly addressed, and I silently thanked Madame for teaching me that nicety. “I am honored by your notice.”

“The honor, my dear, is mine.” He smiled, ever ready to charm. To my surprise, he shifted to speaking French, both to make himself more agreeable to me and, I suspect, to render our conversation less easy to overhear. “I like a lady who’s not so jaded that she’s forgotten how to blush.”

Needless to say, his notice only made my blush deepen, until to my misery I could feel the heat not only on my cheeks, but along my throat and across the pale expanse of my breasts revealed by my deeply cut bodice.

“Forgive me, sir, but I cannot help it,” I said mournfully. “If I could forget, I would.”

“Don’t,” he said, and as we turned to face each other again, I saw from the blatant interest in his dark eyes that he meant this not as flattery, but as truth. He did indeed like my blushes, though the reason was not quite so mystifying as I believed. In my innocence, I was as yet unaware that what to me was only a symbol of my embarrassment or shyness could also be perceived as a banner of amorous arousal, a banner that the worldly king was quick to read, and approve. “I wonder that my cousin Louis would part with you at all, even for so short a time.”

I smiled ruefully. “I doubt that His Majesty has so much as noticed my absence, sir. I am not to his taste.”

“Not to his taste?” he repeated. With his black brows raised with proper incredulity, he appraised me from my face to my toes and back again, and clearly found much to admire. “If that is so, mademoiselle, then I fear my cousin’s taste is sadly misinformed.”

I smiled as I turned away, as part of the dance. I saw that Lord Monmouth had left me for Madame, who seemed equally enchanted with the trade, so much so that I wondered if it had been arranged between them.

Nor would I find fault, either, and I was smiling still as I turned back toward the king. “His Majesty believes his taste—which is to say French taste—is without peer in the Christian world. I fear he would not agree with you, sir.”

He chuckled. “My cousin and I often do not agree.”

I drew my lips together in a moue of concern. “But I fear your cousin will not endure contradiction, sir. He expects to be obeyed in everything.”

“So do I, mademoiselle,” the king said easily. “But given the nature of my subjects and my country, I also understand the impossibility inherent in such complete obedience, and thus content myself with obedience in most things, rather than all.”

I smiled, not believing a word of this amusing foolishness. He was a king, and without question he was obeyed. “You would prefer a concession, then, sir, to a conquest?”

“A conquest implies force, mademoiselle,” he replied. “I prefer the possibilities to be found in a concession freely given.”

I blushed again, and held my gaze steady with his. I was a virgin, yes, but I was also French, and from birth even virtuous French ladies understand the language of flirtation. I was well aware of the other meaning to our conversation, running like a dangerous undercurrent beneath the placid surface of a river, just as I understood the significance of such banter with the King of England.

This charming foolishness, with this man, excited and pleased me to a rare degree. How could it not? With his sister’s encouragement, I’d let myself dream of him carelessly, for my own idle pleasure, for so long that I’d almost ceased to think of him as real. Yet here he was now before me, clearly made of very real flesh and blood and desire, too, and likewise I knew that if I ventured too far and risked too much, I’d be as irrevocably sucked beyond my depth as if in fact I’d plunged into that river hazard.

“You toy with your words, sir,” I said, striving to keep my tone as light as any confection. “Do you prefer a concession freely given, or fairly won?”

The music brought us together, so close that our joined hands rose and my bare wrist did press against his where the ruffled cuff of his shirt fell back. I was startled by the unexpected intimacy of it, the warmth of his skin and the blood that beat at his pulse pressed so close against mine, and startled more that he purposefully held the pose longer than the dance required, so I’d not miss that he, too, had felt the sudden rush of heat between us.

“My sister warned me away from you, mademoiselle,” he said in a rough whisper as our faces drew closer, only inches apart. “She claimed you were too young and gently bred for me, and too near to the convent for my Court.”