The French Mistress (22 page)

As was usual with these walks, our party began to separate as some chose to dally on purpose, finding lovers’ amusements among the stony crenellations once reserved for soldiers alone. Before long I found myself alone with the king, though whether by accident or his design, I could not say. Gentlemen (and ladies, too, to be fair) can be most ingenious when giving chase. This had happened with us before, and each time I’d contrived a way to rejoin the others before the king had found a chance to make much use of our solitude.

But now, given that it was our final day, and likely the last I’d ever see of him, I did not rush to escape. Of a sudden, I’d made a decision, a decision that I would now act upon. I slowed my pace and he did likewise, until at last we stopped altogether inside a little niche in the wall. He understood, I think, or so I judged by his smile.

“How it grieves me to know you’re all to leave England tomorrow,” he said softly. “I’ve never liked partings.”

He looked down at me from beneath his wide-brimmed black beaver hat, pulled low on his brow to keep it from blowing away in the wind. His bark brown coat was trimmed with loops of black velvet, such as any country gentleman of rank would choose, except for the badge of the Order of St. George and the Garter sewn on the breast. The gold and silver threads gleamed dully in the gray afternoon light, a most muted reminder of his royal majesty.

“I will be sorry to leave, sir.” With a wistful sigh, I wrapped my hands more tightly into my cloak, for it was chill for June. I leaned over the stone wall, the better to gaze out at the sea, and when my hood blew back over my shoulders, I left it, enjoying the feel of the breeze playing over my face and through my hair. “I am most grateful to Madame for bringing me here with her.”

“I am as well.” Under pretext of likewise admiring the view, he came to stand closer beside me.

“Pray the sea won’t be as choppy tomorrow, to ease our crossing,” I said. His arm brushed mine, and I shivered from his touch, or leastways the very thought of it. “Madame’s household has few born sailors among them.”

He chuckled, not because there was any humor to be found in what I’d said, but simply because I’d said it, a pleasing realization to me.

“But Minette tells me you’re one of them, mademoiselle,” he said. “She claims that you two were the only ladies who did not puke.”

“We were.” I grinned, and brushed away a mist-dampened tendril of my hair from my eyes. “She was so eager to see Dover that we spent near the entire night on the deck.”

“Ah, Dover.” He leaned a little farther over the wall, looking down at the unassuming small town huddled between the castle’s walls and the harbor. “When I first returned to England, I landed at Dover. My two brothers and I ate a seaman’s breakfast of salt pork and peas on board the ship, and then were rowed ashore. I’d never seen so many folk in one place as were gathered to welcome us, here on this same beach.”

“It must have gladdened you no end, sir.”

“Oh, it did, it did.” He smiled, the deep lines on either side of his mouth curving upwards. “But likely that’s all as ancient history to a young lass like you.”

“Ten years ago, sir,” I said. He must have guessed me younger from my round face, the way so many folk did, but I saw no reason to correct him. If he thought me younger, then so be it; most gentlemen preferred innocence in ladies, anyway. “Not so long past.”

“No,” he said, turning thoughtful. “Though some days it seems longer ago than others. I wonder how large the crowds would be to welcome me now.”

“Larger than before, sir,” I answered eagerly. “When they greeted you then, they’d only the promise of the future. Now that they know how you will do most anything for them, how could they not love you more?”

He turned away from the sea and toward me, his face with the bemused expression that I’d come to associate with him. By now I understood it was not because he had a wry or cynical nature. Rather, I believed he often employed that pleasant guise to hold the world at a distance, and to mask his true feelings and thoughts. It seemed a very French way of doing things (even for an English king), and made perfect sense to me. Yet it also made me long to earn the favor of his confidence, to see behind this genial defense to the man he was working so hard to protect.

“How could my people not love me more?” he asked, repeating my question with a practiced incredulity. “You’ve been trusted with certain knowledge of me, mademoiselle, that very few people in my kingdom possess. You know this, and the perils such knowledge entails, and yet you still would speak of how much my people would love me?”

“That knowledge, sir, tells me that you place the welfare of your people above all things,” I said, and I believed it, too. “If they would look past their initial intolerance, they would see that this alliance has made England stronger than she was before. The two greatest countries in the world pledged to work together: how can that not be a fine achievement?”

“A wise speech for one so young, mademoiselle, and proof that you not only listened, but comprehended.” He smiled, yet watched my face shrewdly for my reaction. “Is that what you believe for yourself, or what Louis has primed you to say?”

I blushed, yes, for when did I not with him? Yet in that instant, I also realized that he believed me to be Louis’s pawn, which, to my sorrow, I suppose I was.

“Ah, sir,” I said softly, my own smile tinged by sadness. “You would seem to have certain knowledge of me and my own perils as well.”

He smiled wryly. “It would seem we have much in common, mademoiselle.”

“Perhaps, sir.” I sighed, and leaned my head back against the wall behind me with a show of weary resignation. If I also displayed the pale vulnerability of my throat and my plump, small chin for his delectation, then so be it. “Perhaps.”

“You’re an enigmatic beauty, mademoiselle.” Lightly he ran his fingertips up the side of my now-exposed throat to stroke my cheek. “A rare creature, that.”

I smiled, wondering if he could feel the excitement rising in my blood beneath his fingers. I’d imagined this so many times before, and now that I was faced with the luscious reality, I could scarce control my passions. I shifted against the wall, unable to keep still with him so close. I’d nowhere to retreat now, even if I’d wished it.

“Not rare, sir,” I whispered. “French.”

“That must be it,” he murmured, his eyes nearly black beneath the brim of his hat. “My people would have difficulty understanding you, too.”

“But, sir,” I protested slyly, for being with him was making me feel sly indeed, “we’ve done nothing that needs explaining.”

“Then I vow it’s past time we did.” He turned my face up to his to kiss me, and for the first time, I let him. It was no hardship, nor great sacrifice, for at that point my blood likely ran with the same heat as did his, or maybe even more. He kissed me slowly, richly, exactly as a king should. He tasted salty, from the sea, and the tiny bristles of his mustache tickled and prickled at my lips. He made me forget all the frantic, fumbling kisses that had been stolen from me by gallants my own age, and instead he kissed me for my pleasure as well as his own. He kissed me not as a king, but as a man in his glory, and with a sigh of joy I gave myself over to his embrace.

Sensing my imminent surrender, he slipped his hands inside my cloak and around my waist, pulling me close against his chest. I swayed into him with giddy delight, letting his mouth take possession of my own. The scores of tiny gilt buttons that edged his coat and the waistcoat beneath pressed into me as he held me more tightly, and further, I felt the length of his eager scepter hard against me, ready for employment as soon as his master chose.

Yet like every maid who wishes to avoid ruin, that was also a warning I knew well to heed. To be taken for the first time on the parapets of Dover Castle was not truly what I wished, nor what I deserved, either. I was not meant to be some casual conquest. I was meant for . . . more. I wasn’t precisely sure what that more would be, not yet, but I’d become convinced my future might lie here in England rather than in France. To this end, I’d wanted to be certain the king would remember me, but in a way that could be useful to me in the future, and not merely titillating to the rest of the Court for a single afternoon.

Before my will weakened, I slipped free, taking care to turn with grace as I did. “Forgive me, sir, but I must go. The others are waiting.”

He frowned, surprised, but didn’t try to press his advantage by force. “Then let them wait. They will, you know.”

Such is the perfect confidence of kings! “I dare not linger, sir,” I said, my regret genuine. “I do not trust my own passions in your company.”

I’d hoped that would please him, and it did. He smiled warmly to coax me, taking my hand lightly in his own. “You’ve only to trust me instead, sweet.”

“But I cannot, sir,” I said sorrowfully, bowing my head. “I cannot. As much as I might wish such a confidence, it would not be right, not like this, on the eve of our departure.”

“Then stay,” he said, and it was to his great credit that he made it sound a natural appeal, one friend to another, and not a royal command. “You’d like London.”

“If you were there, sir, I’m sure I would,” I said, smiling sadly. “But forgive me. I cannot oblige.”

“Why, if we both wish it?”

“Oh, sir,” I said, “my place is with Madame.”

“Minette.” He sighed mightily, his handsome dark face full of love for his sister and melancholy that she was leaving. “That is true. My sister trusts you as few others.”

“I’m honored to serve her however I can, sir,” I said, in perfect truth and without calculation. I glanced back to where she could just be seen in the distance, with Lord Monmouth and several others. “She’s been so kind to me, yet all I have to repay her with is my loyalty.”

“You have, mademoiselle.” He raised my hand to his lips, his gaze not leaving my face as he kissed my fingers. He looked at me as with hungry desire, true, but also with such admiration that I knew I’d won in the way I’d hoped. “I will not forget you, Louise.”

“Nor I you, sir,” I said softly. “Nor I you.”

I expected this to be the end of the king’s pursuit of me, leastways for this visit. With no real reason than that I wished it so, I believed that our paths would cross again, in some other fashion, and with a more lasting result as well. After that single kiss, our parting on the wall had been genial, and there’d been a sweet note of concession and farewell to it. But I’d underestimated the depth of the desire I’d inspired within him, and how much, like all men, he hated being denied a prize he wanted.

Later that evening, we gathered in the great hall for the final meal and the amusements that followed. The coming farewells weighed heavily on everyone’s thoughts, and our gaiety had an empty, forced ring to it. Madame sat as close as she could to her brother, and throughout the meal, she would freely weep, leaving her tears to course unchecked down her cheeks.

As was usual among royal folk (excepting, of course, the heartless Monsieur, who never offered his wife any tokens or remembrances), there had already been many exchanges of costly gifts between them—pictures, jewels, and gold—as tangible proof of the enormous love shared between brother and sister. Most generous had been the king’s special present of two thousand gold crowns for Madame to build a chapel to their mother’s memory at Chaillot, the place where that pious lady’s heart rested. As the meal continued, Madame began fondly to list all her brother’s gifts yet again, and overwhelmed anew by his largesse, she announced that she needed to offer him another in return. She beckoned to me across the table, and at once I went to her side.

“Louise,” she said, motioning for me to crouch down so I might hear her whisper, “you know where my jewels are kept. Go to my chamber as swiftly as you can and bring back the green casket.”

I did as she bid, returning with the leather-covered box. All her most precious jewels were contained within, and I couldn’t imagine the value of what I held tightly in my hands. By then everyone else had learned what Madame intended, and when I entered they all turned toward me with anticipation. There was interest in me as well as the jewels, for of course by then there was likely not a soul left in the castle unaware of how I’d been alone in the king’s company that day.

I came forward between Madame and the king, sinking gracefully into a kind of half curtsy as I offered the leather-covered casket up in my hands. I knew I must have presented a pretty sight, the rose-colored silk of my gown falling around me on the stone floor as I made my obeisance, and the murmur of admiration that rippled through the room agreed.

“You must decide, Charles,” Madame said. She didn’t take the box from me, but left it in my hands as she unlatched the lid and pushed it open. “A small token, for remembrance’s sake.”

She held up each piece in turn for his choosing, displaying each to best advantage in the candlelight, almost as if she were the keeper’s assistant in a goldsmith’s shop instead of a princess. She showed him a hexagon brooch of black onyx surrounded by pearls, an oversized ring with a cluster of pearls set in a swirl of pale blue enamel like a swirling wave, a pair of clips with twinkling sapphires and diamonds in the shape of roses, a cunning golden cupid offering a bouquet of rubies and pearls. They were all beautiful, precious things of the rarest artistry, and around us people excitedly craned their necks to see. Even at Court, there were few privy to the contents of a royal princess’s jewel box.

I was, and often, too, and so as I held the box, my thoughts were elsewhere. With my head still bowed, I dared to glance up at the king through my lashes. He wasn’t looking at his sister or the jewels, or listening to her, either.

He was looking only at me.

“Whatever you wish is yours, Charles,” Madame was saying. “Choose whatever will remind you of this time we’ve had together.”