The French Mistress (33 page)

I suppose I could have turned petulant at this, or been vexed by having the king so close to me, yet wishing to speak exclusively of another lady instead of directing his attentions toward me. I wasn’t, not at all. Madame would always be far too dear to me, and in fact I took my own comfort from speaking of her, just as he did in listening. It was as if I were once again with Madame in the confidence of her bedchamber, though instead of hearing her speak of her brother, now I was speaking to him of her. If such a thing were possible, his devotion to his sister only made him glow more brightly in my esteem, for it is a rare man indeed who will be so open about those he loves.

Was it any wonder that I treasured the intimacy of our conversations, or that I valued this time alone with the king to experience his intelligence, his loyalty, and his wit without having to share him with others? I’d no doubt that he was in fact the first gentleman of his realm. No other could come close. I might have been sent to him as a sort of gift (and certainly an agent) by my king, yet it was as a woman I sat beside him on the settle, eager to be dazzled by his person and company.

Thus we conversed, and held each other’s hands as good friends will, and when the hour came for him to take his leave, we would kiss in parting, again as friends, not lovers. The presence of Madame’s spirit was too strong between us to permit anything more, nor at that time did we wish it. In his eyes, I’d become an extension of Madame herself, representing not only those last happy days at Dover, but also embodying many of the same qualities that had made her so dear to him.

I suppose the rest of the Court would have roared with laughter to see us so restrained, the great libertine prince and the virgin he’d brought clear from France to deflower. I’ll grant, too, that shared grief and solemn mourning must seem a most curious foundation for the lasting love that grew between the king and me.

Yet so it was. For when those two weeks were done and the first stage of mourning with it, the king had come to know me not as a wanton or one more maidenhead that he’d victoriously claimed, but as a lady and a friend. Away from the public rooms of the Court, he had seen me at my best. He’d relished my beauty, yes, but he’d also been pleased by my loyalty to his sister and thus to his family. Alone together, where he’d not be judged by his intolerant English subjects, he’d delighted in my very foreignness, in the thousand small ways a French lady knows of making life more enjoyable.

I’d learned my lessons well at Madame’s side, and already I was putting them to most excellent use here in London. To him I was now Louise, not mademoiselle, and while I still called him by his title and always would, in my thoughts he had become only Charles.

Too soon this time was done, and reluctantly the king decided I must be presented to the queen, and assume my duties as a maid of honor. With the end of September, the first stage of our mourning for Madame was officially done, and there could be no further excuses made for keeping me apart from the rest of the Court.

I was eager to join the others, too. In these weeks, I’d come to a significant decision regarding my future: not to yield to the king for as long as I could hold him at bay. Resistance and denial were difficult gambits to maintain, infinitely more complicated than the simple bliss of surrender. But I’d learned that saying no to a gentleman who always heard yes was a powerful lure, and the longer I could refuse him, the more secure my place would ultimately be.

I could tell His Majesty’s desire for me had increased at least a hundredfold since I’d come to Whitehall, and maybe more. I was the same jewel he’d coveted in Dover, but because I remained beyond his possession, my value had only grown. I’d become the greater prize in his eyes, to be pursued no matter the cost or risk.

And as for me: what did I desire? Why, that was answered easily enough.

I wanted it all.

Chapter Fifteen

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON
October 1670

 

 

 

“I
s there anything I might fetch for you, ma’am?” I asked, leaning down closer to the queen so I might hear her reply over the musicians. “More sherry, or another orange?”

“Thank you, no, mademoiselle, I am sated,” she said, shyly patting my sleeve as if that would compensate for her heavy Portuguese accent. “What makes me best happy is you here.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, and once again took my place behind her armchair. She twisted around to make sure that I was there, then smiled and fluttered her fingers, heavy with rubies and diamonds, to me before she turned back to watch the dancers.

Best happy, indeed, I thought. I’d only served in Her Majesty’s household for three weeks, yet already I’d become one of her favorite ladies. I’d not planned it to happen, especially when I considered the growing attachment I bore toward her husband (and now my Charles). I’d merely treated her with the respect and deference that was due her rank and person, and performed whatever small tasks she’d required, the same as I’d done for Madame.

But Catherine of Braganza was nothing like my first mistress. Small, squat, and dark, she had the misfortune to be wed to a man who adored ladies who were tall, graceful, and fair, and if they were clever and amusing, all the better. The poor queen possessed none of these attributes, and though she’d been the Queen of England for nearly a decade, she still struggled with the English language and a lisp caused by her protruding front teeth. She suffered from severe headaches and a wealth of other ailments that limited her time abroad from her bedchamber. Worst of all, she’d not done what as a royal princess she’d been born to do, which was to provide an heir to her king.

Though Charles did not appear to fault her for what was so obviously her shortcoming in this area and not his, the rest of the Court was not so kind. She reminded me of a certain girl who’d attended convent school with me: a plain, unlovesome girl who was tolerated only because her father was a wealthy wine merchant and she an heiress. Behind her back, however, she’d been the butt of all our cruelest jests and most mocking imitations, and so it was now with the pitiable queen.

In a rare moment of supreme unfeeling several years before, Charles had even insisted that Catherine accept the then Countess of Castlemaine as a lady-in-waiting, with the predictable results. Lady Castlemaine had done nothing in her post except to claim her income and scorn Her Majesty at every opportunity, while the poor queen had been thoroughly humiliated by that lady, and her own husband’s lack of regard.

Yet I had liked Catherine as soon as I’d been presented to her, and pitied her, too. Though I was not so shy as she, I could sympathize with her, and since I’d also come from another Court much like her native Portugal where ritual and protocol were rigidly obeyed, we could commiserate with one another about the lack of manners and politesse at Whitehall. Our conversations could take peculiar turns, for I spoke no Portuguese and she no French, leaving us to muddle about in our differently accented English, but even that drew us closer, foreigners in a strange land. Further, we shared the same faith in the Roman Church, and she soon invited me to take mass with her in her private chapel, and make confession to her priests, a lovely, welcoming offer in that den of untrammeled Protestantism.

As a result of all this, she now claimed me as one of her dearest companions, and wished me always at her side for the Court’s entertainments, such as this one tonight. Surely she must have known of Charles’s interest in me and mine in him, however wrongful and adulterous it might be. He made no secret of it, and besides, she’d seen enough of his predilections to guess what would come next. But though she was queen, this poor lady was so desperate for trust and friendship that she overlooked this flaw in me, and embraced me as if I were her dearest friend from girlhood.

Now she beckoned to me, and obediently I stepped forward to listen.

“I am chill, Louise,” she said, touching her shoulders to demonstrate. “Pray fetch my shawl to me. The red one of silk.”

“Yes, ma’am, as you please,” I said, though I could not fathom how she could be cold. The company around us was very close, with far more people squeezed into the palace’s Banqueting Hall tonight than was comfortable for dancing. I liked this room above all others I’d thus far seen in Charles’s palace: a large, double-cube room built fifty years before by his grandfather King James I, for the purposes of dining, masques, and other entertainments. It was elegantly proportioned and beautifully decorated, with artfully carved columns and volutes and much gold leaf on the carvings and a glorious painted ceiling overhead, and by my reckoning, it was the only chamber in the entire rambling warren of Whitehall that was worthy of any palace.

The tall arched windows that lined the walls beneath the galleries should have offered breezy relief, but because the queen was often cold like this, the king had ordered the windows to remain shut for her sake. To the rest of us, the room was now a-swelter, an unseasonably warm evening made warmer still by the heat from the scores of candles and the exertions of the dancers as well as the close-packed guests.

Still at the queen’s side, I waited for the musicians to finish their tune and the dancers to leave the floor so I could cross to Her Majesty’s quarters. Some of those in the great room before me I already recognized—Lord and Lady Arlington, Lord Monmouth, Lady Cleveland, the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Sir Thomas Clifford, Lord Buckingham (that vile, neglectful rogue!), Lord and Lady de Croissy—but many more I did not, and in a way I was grateful that my duties placed me squarely at Her Majesty’s side, and apart from the vigorous activity on the floor, well fueled as it was by wine.

At last the music stopped with a few raucous shouts to mark its conclusion, and I made my parting curtsy to Her Majesty.

“I’ll be back directly, ma’am,” I promised. But I had gone but a few yards when a firm hand closed round my arm.

“Mademoiselle de Keroualle,” the king said, his smile warm and his swarthy face flushed darker still from dancing, “pray come dance this next with me.”

“Oh, sir, please,” I stammered, flushing with confusion. I’d not expected to be recognized in any special way by the king this night, and he’d startled me. I’d seen him from afar, of course—Charles was so much larger than other gentlemen that he always stood tall in any crowd—but he’d been as occupied with other courtiers as I’d been with the queen. Now I glanced back to that lady in her red plush-covered armchair, as guilty a glance as could be. “Forgive me, sir, but Her Majesty has only just sent me on an errand, and I—”

“You may be excused, mademoiselle,” the queen interrupted. I was surprised she had overheard us and her expression showed her to be both wounded to be abandoned, yet sadly resigned, too. “Go to His Majesty, yes.”

“Yes,” he repeated, nodding cheerfully at her before he turned to beam at me. “You must dance now, mademoiselle. It’s been doubly ordered by a king and a queen.”

“But I do not know these English dances yet, sir,” I protested, trying to pull away. “I’ve no wish to seem clumsy before the company. Another time, once I’ve—”

“I’ll have them play a dance you know,” he said, drawing me closer. “A sarabande. Every lady at my cousin’s Court can dance a sarabande.”

He stopped a passing footman, and sent the man off to give the music master his instructions. He slipped his arm around my waist so I’d not escape and drew me through the crowd toward the floor. Nor could I protest any longer in good faith, for he was right: every French lady
was
taught to dance a sarabande, and I was no exception.

But to make this complicated dance my first performance before so many with the king as my partner was surely tempting the worst of fates. With its triple steps, dragging measures, and elegant, practiced gestures, a sarabande was a dance with scores of traps for the unwitting or unwary—or, as in my case, for the very nervous. If I stumbled or tripped now, or turned one way while the king turned another, why, that would be all that anyone here would remember of me: that French maid who was so vastly dull and clumsy when she dared to dance with His Majesty.

“Come now, Louise, don’t play timid,” he teased as we took our places with the other couples on the floor. “Else everyone will believe I’m so poor a partner that you’ve no wish to dance with me.”

“I fear it will be the other way around, sir,” I said unhappily, “and that others will wonder why you bother with me.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” he scoffed, taking each of my hands to begin, yet pointedly studying me at the same time. My gown was still plain, but of a soft gray sacernet with a muted, dull finish that showed my own coloring to excellent advantage, and the lack of trimmings and ribbons displayed both the neatness of my waist and the ripe bounty of my breasts. “Any man here would take you for his partner, my dear. Lucky I am that I claimed you first.”

I opened my mouth to remind him that luck had little to do with the choices of kings, but the music began first, and I’d no choice myself but to pay heed to it. I listened to the rhythm and matched my steps both to it and to the king mirroring me, and before long I’d fallen into the magic of the dance exactly as he’d predicted, even enjoying myself. I’d known from Dover that Charles was an accomplished dancer, full of energy and grace, and no doubt he regarded the sarabande as one more of his sports, like racing horses or tennis, to be mastered and won.

Yet as the dance progressed, however, I realized it wasn’t the pursuit of a stuffed leather ball that Charles was considering, but me. There is a sinuous, suggestive quality to a well-danced sarabande that can make those watching blush. For this reason, we were forbidden to learn it at school, and it wasn’t until I was at Louis’s worldly Court that Madame’s dancing master had taught me the steps and the elaborate gestures that went with it. Two partners can explore more interesting postures than in other dances, more unabashed display to each other, and more opportunities, too, for brief exchanges of flirtatious conversation, which of course Charles employed.