by Karleen Koen
“Let her fret.”
“Richard left this morning for France. He asked me to say goodbye for him and give you his deepest regard. He said he forgave you everything. I’m sorry it has taken me all day to tell you.”
Alice twisted fingers together in her lap, glad for the dark, her thoughts flying out everywhere, dropping back to the arbor only when she heard Jerusalem say, “It seems your lord was displeased with Richard’s leaving for France.”
Displeased? How dare Balmoral be displeased? That would not do. She would see that Richard got every glory he deserved. Yes, she could do that, couldn’t she?
“You’ve not answered the letters from your father, from His Grace. They’ll be showing up on my doorstep demanding to know what I’ve done with you. Only a few weeks until your wedding.”
“Am I well enough to marry just yet?”
“Are you?”
“I had the fever today.”
“Did you?”
They were silent, listening to a chorus of frogs croaking their night’s serenade. Jerusalem spoke. “June is as good a month for a wedding as May.”
June, thought Alice, and her chest seemed to expand.
“We could write a letter asking for a more time, explain you’re not quite well.”
“Poll ought to go back with it, to pack and put my things in order in London.”
A month here. She could rest and lie in the sun on the hillock and play with her kitten and grieve Barbara. She could think about this day’s death and resurrection, wondering if any of her old self would resurrect, if any of it were worth saving. She’d think of Richard and let him go. She’d never imagined he might be hers anyway. It was a trick of circumstance that he’d come to her. Oh, she could breathe again. A month and she could face the fate she’d done her best to create. “There’s one more thing.”
Jerusalem waited.
“I asked the Duke of Monmouth to flirt with Louisa. My father liked her, and I didn’t want a stepmama. And so I asked him to flirt, thinking she’d be sidetracked. It’s my fault she’s hurt now.”
After a time, Jerusalem said, sternness like iron notes in her voice, “A portion may be yours, not the whole, but a portion.”
“I need to tell her. I have to tell her. Will you send her to me? I don’t feel strong enough to walk to the house. And if you don’t want me to stay, I understand.”
“We’ll let Louisa decide that, shall we?”
Alice listened to Jerusalem’s shoes on the gravel of the path, to frogs calling plaintively for love, here I am, here I am, to night rustles around her. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Might that ever happen? Might her soul ever be free of its burdens? She could smell the lavender from Jerusalem’s gardens.
She’d never felt sadder in her life.
Or more alive.
RIGGS KNOCKED ON the door of Balmoral’s closet. “It’s Sir Thomas,” he called, raising his eyebrows to Sir Thomas. His Grace was in a mood, not receiving visitors, he’d tried to tell him, but the man would have his way. To Riggs’s surprise, Balmoral opened the door.
“I’ve a letter to you from Alice.” Sir Thomas spoke quickly, feeling suddenly as if the door to the cage of a lion had been opened and he stood beside the lion.
Balmoral moved so Sir Thomas could enter, slammed the door behind him, took the letter, ripped past the seal, read it, then crumpled it with his hand to throw it down. “I’ve a good mind to go to Tamworth and wring everyone’s necks.”
Sir Thomas picked up the letter and read what Alice wrote.
“Is she trying to fob me off?” Balmoral demanded.
“It says here she’s not quite well. She’s on her way to London, it says—”
“I don’t like put-offs.”
“Well then, Your Grace, we won’t have one. The moment she sets foot in London, we’ll have the marriage. She can mend just as well as your wife as she can a spinster.”
“Get out.”
“Your Grace, I’ll leave for Tamworth this moment and fetch her myself!”
“Out!” Balmoral called for his servant. “Riggs, show Sir Thomas Verney the way out.”
“I’ll call again tomorrow—” Sir Thomas began, but the door slammed in his face. He stood where he was, the expression on his face aghast.
“It’s a mood,” Riggs began, but there was no explaining. “More like a fit. It will pass.”
“I hope to God it does.” Sir Thomas took himself down the stairs in a huff, but under bravado was fear. Had Alice’s put-off ruined things? He’d strangle her with his bare hands! In fact, after he called on His Grace tomorrow, he was riding to Tamworth to meet Alice somewhere on the road, kill her, and bring her body back for Balmoral to do with as he wished.
Riggs straightened this and that in the bedchamber, listening for sounds from the closet, but all was silent. Struggling with his demon, thought Riggs, unhappy over young Saylor’s leaving. He had had plans for young Saylor, but best-laid plans…If he weren’t afraid it would kill him before his wedding, Riggs would have walked in and poured the first glass himself.
Balmoral sat in his chair, the cabinet straight ahead of him, what he wanted, what he craved, what every part of his body cried out for, just on the other side. He’d promised himself. He had promised Alice. But the confounded hair on his confounded head was crawling with need. That man Ange claimed was Miguel was gibbering like an idiot in the Tower. Swearing under torture he was the servant, not the master. The king was furious that Henri Ange was gone—he’d had to make up some cock-and-bull story about escape, spreading bribes from one end of the Tower to the other. Buckingham was mild as toast. No opinions. And no support. He’d wanted to hold Ange’s letters accusing Buckingham, keep them as extra coins in this game of chance, but now it looked as if he’d need to present them right away to force Buckingham in to save him…. He needed only a month. Could he last a month? When Ange brought the evidence of the secret treaty with Madame, Balmoral would be in the coachman’s seat again, and Buckingham’s betrayals could be put to real use.
Only a month, she wrote. But he couldn’t manage another month, not if every night was to be like this. And it was. He would have one drink. Except he wouldn’t stop at one, would he? Would it kill him this time? So that she never became a duchess? He wanted that for her. Where was she, anyway? He could do this if she came and walked with him, talked to him. She got sick, left him alone, on his own. He opened the cabinet, set the beautiful crystal decanter before him. Lovely rich pool of red, calming his heart, calming his mind just at the sight of it, taking him down glorious paths of possibility. He’d find Ange and kill him slowly. He’d obtain the casket and know the king’s mind. He’d use Buckingham, then ruin him.
He held up the decanter, swirling the liquid, the best sherry in Portugal, sweeter than nectar. Apart of him sorrowed as he poured it out into a wineglass. When he drank it down, it seemed to him it burned a new way, a purifying way, and before the explosion within him stopped all, verses came to mind, from a long-ago time when his God had lived outside the fermented grape, sacred verses, hallowed verses, holy verses—create in me a clean heart, O God.
CHAPTER 46
How her head hurt. With each roll of the carriage wheel, the pain had grown greater. Bits and pieces of Louisa’s furious accusations kept dancing in amid the pain. How dare you, Alice. He did not flirt with me because you asked it. He loves me. And Jerusalem’s cool rejoinder: what nonsense, Louisa. Without truth and duty to anchor it down, the greatest love will fly out the door.
Alice lay in a bed, the breeze from the opened window cooling what felt like a fever in her. Outside, she could hear talk from the innkeeper and his stable boys as they took harness and reins off the horses of the carriage in which she traveled. Poll was somewhere fetching soup, something to drink. And she, well, she was in bed, feeling on the verge of illness again, hating that she’d had to leave Tamworth on bad terms. Love, truth, duty. She could brin
g Balmoral only two of the three.
The innkeeper called a greeting, and something in the answer made her sit upright. Could that be her father? In spite of her headache, she moved to the window. There in the yard stood Sir Thomas, with him Perryman. Alice stepped back before he should see her. Had her father come to fetch her? As if she were some straying sheep that must be herded back? She lifted her chin in spite of a pang that vibrated down her spine. She needed no fetching. She had been thrown out of Tamworth, thank you very much, and was on her way home now to perform her duty. If he thought she was going to listen to one word of reprimand, he was sadly mistaken. She had swallowed Louisa’s bitter words because she deserved them. She wouldn’t swallow his.
She climbed into the bed, listening to steps on the stairway. They sounded imperious, impatient, and sure enough, her door was flung open and Sir Thomas stood framed in the doorway.
“At your leisure, are you? Taking your time returning?”
“I have the headache. Go away, Father.”
“You’ll have more than a headache when I am finished with you.” He stepped into the chamber. “Alice…” He ran a hand over his face. “It’s done,” he said, “finished. I’m done, too.”
“Balmoral has called off the marriage? Not likely.”
“He’s dead, Alice.”
She leaped out of the bed to attack him, to slap him once and for all, for teasing her, for testing her, for pushing her as always he did. “Why must you say things like that? Look at me! I’m returning. I’m doing my duty, as forever I’ve done! Whether I wish it or not!” She shouldn’t be shouting. It made the ache consume her, made nausea rush up and close her throat.
“Poppet, he died three days ago.”
To the surprise of them both, she fainted.
WHEN SHE OPENED her eyes again, she was in bed and he was sitting at her bedside. She pulled the wet rag from her head, struggled to sit up.
“I came to beat you, Alice, from wherever I found you all the way back to London.” In spite of his words, all his bombast, all his vigor, had deserted him. “He died three days ago, and all London is mourning. He’s the last of the old ones, the last of the foundation stones that we rebuilt this kingdom upon. We’re like children who’ve lost a father.”
Bad, willful children, thought Alice.
“He’s lying in state in Whitehall, will do so for at least a week. There’s to be a ceremonial march of the body, with full escort, through London on its way to his estate outside Newmarket.”
“But who has made these arrangements?”
“His Grace the second Duke of Balmoral.”
Alice caught her breath. Colefax. “Has he dared to have the will read without my presence?”
“No, but only because I found him and reminded him that he’d betrayed you once already and that I wouldn’t stand for a second time. I told him I’d call him out in a duel and do my best to kill him.”
“I’m duchess in all but name. They mustn’t read the will without me, they mustn’t have the funeral service.” She clutched at straws, the shock of the news that Balmoral was dead not yet real to her.
“So I’ve told them. I’ve sent a message to His Majesty and to Buckingham.” He grimaced on that name. “Went crawling like a whipped dog to Buckingham, I did. He patted my head and said he was certain the new duke would do all that was proper.” Sir Thomas went to the window, standing with his back to her, staring out at the inn yard below.
Staring at broken dreams, thought Alice, ambitions crushed one more time. I’m not to be a duchess. It’s over. I cannot believe it. I let Richard go for nothing.
“So I came to fetch you,” he continued, his back to her, “to bring you back to London to take your place as his affianced, the wife he would have had, had you not—” He broke off.
“It will be fine, Father.” She spoke as if she were the parent and he the child, “You’ll see. We’ll rise first thing in the morning and reach London by afternoon.” Where I will be the almost duchess, honored for a day or more, then forgotten. Everything changes and nothing does. She shuddered and put her hands to her eyes. How could it be that she was not to be duchess now? Why hadn’t he waited for her? She’d refused Richard for him, kept her honor for him. Damn him. There should be tears for her duke. Where were they?
THE SMELL AND hurry of London exhausted her: barking dogs, muddy streets, cries of street vendors, sedan chairs jostling carriages for place. Poll found the black gowns made for Princesse Henriette’s death. Draped in one, her mother’s diamonds at her neck and ears, her father at her side, Alice went to Whitehall to see the lay of the land. They went immediately to the body, lying in state in the banqueting hall, Balmoral’s guard, the Coldstream, standing at attention inside and outside, the hall crowded with courtiers, clumped into whispering, gossiping groups. But the gossip, the whispers, stopped at the sight of Alice, who walked regally toward the coffin lying on its satin-draped dais.
The wax effigy atop was dressed in the duke’s purple cloak trimmed in fur; it wore a long and curling periwig. It frowned. Alice clutched her father’s arm, her eyes on the profile—the effigy’s face would have been made, from custom, as Balmoral’s death mask. So. He had gone into death with a grimace on his face, this warrior, this hero, this last bastion of the old days, who had played her savior, who had been willing to give her titles and honor. Tears—here they are, she thought—made their slow way down her face. I would have liked to see you once more before you died, she thought, and reached out to touch the velvet of the cloak.
“Mistress Verney.”
Here was Colefax, in black, properly somber, but a triumphant light in his eyes. Well, why not? He was the new Duke of Balmoral. She swept into a curtsy, suddenly dizzy in the movement. The walls of the hall whirled around her. She fainted. When she came to, she had been carried to a small chamber adjoining the hall, and her father leaned over her.
“Poppet, you’re worse—”
She put a finger to his lips to hush him, as Colefax leaned in over her father’s shoulder. “Let me have a moment alone, please, Father.”
Reluctantly, he stepped back. Brows drawn, he warned Colefax, “I’ll be just there,” pointing toward a corner.
Colefax knelt beside her, his expression anxious. “Are you still ill, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can scarcely believe this, Alice, any of it. Have you need of anything?” He took her hand, and in her weakness, she allowed it. “Please let me know.”
Would he be so gracious when he learned that she would be given one of Balmoral’s estates? “You haven’t given me your condolences, Cole.”
“My deepest condolences, Alice.”
“I loved him.” Weren’t friendship and regard some pieces of love?
His face twisted. “Alice, don’t play the martyr with me, of all people—”
But you of all people will be the most amusing to play the martyr with, she thought, some of her old spirit reviving. “I wish to go to his house, to pay a call upon his servants to see how they do.”
“If you feel you must. My wife is seeing to the house.”
“I don’t need your permission, Cole. I am still his affianced.”
“Yes, your little faint reminded one and all of that. Well done, Alice.” He was no longer holding her hand.
“You imagine I did it for effect?”
He shrugged, stood, looking down at her. “You’ll need to call me ‘Your Grace’ now, Alice. Or will it choke you to do so?”
“It will choke me.”
AT THE HOUSE, she asked for Riggs, waited in a small salon, her eyes flicking over paintings, vases, silver candlesticks. She didn’t really see them. She saw instead times past, fragments of a song in her head: Old time is still a-flying, and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.
Caro, the new Duchess of Balmoral, entered the chamber. Sir Thomas rose hurriedly from the chair in which he sat. “Your Grace.”
“W-wi
ll you excuse u-us a m-moment, Sir Thomas?”
When they were alone, Caro stared at Alice until Alice blushed and dropped into a curtsy, feeling her dizziness again. “Your Grace,” Alice said, and found that she wasn’t angry that Caro was the duchess.
“D-did your t-tongue curl on t-that?”
Alice straightened. “No, Your Grace.”
“Oh, d-don’t call me t-that! W-what is it you n-need?”
“I came simply to see about His Grace’s personal servant, Will Riggs. May I sit down? I feel very weak. If it doesn’t please you to allow me to see Riggs, perhaps you might tell him for me that Mistress Verney called to see how he did? I haven’t come to plunder the house, Your Grace.”
“D-do you h-hate me so that y-you cannot say m-my name?”
“It’s you who hates now, Caro.”
“Y-you h-hated first. I simply r-return the favor.”
So I did, thought Alice. She stood, even though her legs did not feel strong enough to bear her. In her throat were the words Caro, forgive me, I was wrong, but she couldn’t say them. Outside the house, she could feel how ill she was, how much her pride, once again, was costing her.
“Father,” she whispered, before falling.
WHEN SHE WOKE, she was in a litter being carried home. Will Riggs was walking to one side of her. She said his name.
“Oh, ma’am,” he said. “I’m that sorry he’s died.”
“Are you well, Riggs? Have you what you need?”
“Well enough. The new duke has his own manservant. It’s to be expected. But I’m assured of a place in the household.”
“Come to me if you should need anything. Come to me if you and he should not suit.”
“Here’s your house now, ma’am.” Riggs bowed his head and was lost to sight in Perryman picking her up, her father calling out orders, the settling of her once more in bed, where, once done, Sir Thomas stood solid, anxious, beleaguered at its foot. “If you die––”
“Send to Tamworth for Lady Saylor’s fever powders. They cured me once. They’ll do so again.” She had a part to play in the next days, until the coffin was on its way. And she would play it if it killed her.
