The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  He sipped his coffee, while she remained silent, simply staring at him. For the first time since her early childhood, she was utterly lost for words. They remained looking at each other for many long moments, until she inclined her head with a slight nod. She had no other choice, both for herself and for her babe and because what Milius wanted her to do was tell the truth. Her nod was the acknowledgment, the agreement that Lord Milius knew for certain she’d give.

  He stood to leave, shaking her hand with a studied formality. As he walked to the door, he said as an afterthought, “On the assumption you would agree with our little masquerade, I have sent a purse of gold to your parents and your fiancé with a letter explaining what has happened to you and where you are. The letter assures them that you are well and comfortable. The purse is to defray their traveling expenses to London. I assume that they’ll all be here with you within the month.”

  “And if I had said ‘no’?”

  He smiled and said softly, “They would still have joined you. But none of you would have been nearly as comfortable.”

  He left. Flora continued to look at the door for half an hour, trying to come to terms with the wondrous enormity of what had befallen her. And the danger!

  LE CHTEAU DE VERSAILLES, PARIS

  OCTOBER 22, 1746

  The previous month, there had been eight invitations every day, begging His Royal Highness the Prince Charles to grace the host with his glorious presence and attend luncheon or dinner or supper or a hunt. They were all delivered by white-gloved servants with respectful bows. Today, there was only one invitation, delivered in person by Madame de Pompadour’s private secretary, M. Chamblaine, who placed it into the prince’s anesthetized hand, saying without any formality or respect, “Young man. If you deign to accept Madame’s particularly generous invitation, bearing in mind your recent activities, might I suggest that you shave and bathe and powder your wig. It will embarrass Madame greatly if appear as you are.”

  With that, the secretary walked away, and Prince Charles Edward grunted, closed his eyes, rolled over, and went back to sleep. He remained asleep for the entire day, while King Louis XV received petitioners and ministers and clerics and ambassadors. He snored when the court retired for luncheon at tables set up in the Salon de la Paix, as the weather was inclement and there was an October breeze that was judged too cold for the ladies. He slept when the court resumed for the afternoon and was presented with a one-act performance of a new play by M. Pierre Claude de la Chaussée that caused many of the ladies in the court to cry, and many of the men to burst into hysterical laughter. And he fell out of his bed and onto a rug on the floor while at that moment, in the Hall of Mirrors, a young man of great passion and intelligence called Denis Diderot, who wanted the king to subscribe to and support an encyclopedia that he was in the process of writing, gave a presentation of his views of the new Enlightenment. The king was less impressed with the concept of the Encyclopedia than was Madame de Pompadour, for he said that its assumption that the aristocracy must consider the welfare of the common classes as their greatest cause, would undermine the good order of France. But Madame de Pompadour had privately invited the philosopher to her chamber for dinner that night and particularly wanted the young Prince Charles to attend. Having most recently been in Scotland, which was the epicenter of the new Enlightenment movement, she thought that the prince and the philosopher might enjoy each other’s company.

  When they heard the thump, the prince’s servants cautiously entered his bedchamber and lifted their prostrate master back into his bed. They reckoned that by the look and smell of him, he’d be sleeping for at least another four or five hours.

  The heir to the Stuart throne awoke with a grunt and a snore, coughed, squinted at a clock on the mantle, and tried to determine the time of day. From the look of the dull light beyond the shutters, it was approaching evening, and in his addled state of mind, he tried to remember whether it was the evening of the day he had drunk to excess, or the following evening, meaning that he’d slept through another entire night and day, and his absence from the court would be cruelly discussed.

  He sighed, and tried to stand up from his bed, but his legs were weak and his head felt as though it was full of liquid, and all he could do was to sit on the edge and hold his aching head in his hands.

  “Pierre,” he shouted. There was no response. He screamed for his servant again and heard the door to his chamber opening cautiously. The little man walked in.

  “Majesty,” he said. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Have I been sick?” asked the prince.

  “Drunk,” said his servant. “Dead drunk. You’ve been asleep the entire day. I tried to wake you this morning, but you told me to go away. So I did. I brought you some meats and bread for luncheon, but I still couldn’t rouse you. Dear God, Master, but you must have put some away last night. It took three of us to carry you back from the duchess’ salon.”

  The prince tried to stop his head from spinning as he sought desperately to remember where he had been the previous night, and in whose salon he had become drunk. But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember a single thing, and his pride wouldn’t allow him to ask his servant, for such a question would be another tidbit of gossip that would get back to those ears that were aching to participate in his downfall because of his special relationship with the king’s mistress.

  “Get me a drink,” he ordered.

  “Coffee? Water?”

  “Wine, you fool.”

  The servant walked over to the buffet and poured a glass of wine from the carafe. Charles drank it in one gulp. It made him feel better almost straight away. With restored strength, he stood, and ordered Pierre to fill the washtub with water so he could wash his face and the foul taste from his mouth.

  As he walked unsteadily from his bed, he saw an invitation on the floor. Normally he’d have left it there, but he noticed that this invitation bore the crest of Madame de Pompadour. As he bent to pick it up, Pierre said, “Monsieur Chamblaine brought it after lunch. I tried to stop him coming into your bedchamber, but he brushed me aside. He’s very rude and presumptuous, isn’t he! Anyway, as he left, he ordered me to ensure that when you returned from the dead, you were to read it so that a reply could be sent before the evening.”

  Prince Charles squinted to try to read the words that floated on the card. He was invited to supper after ten o’clock to be entertained by some man called Diderot. But the important thing wasn’t who was coming to the salon but that he had received the invitation from the king’s mistress. His mood quickly brightened. Memory of the previous night was beginning to return to his addled brain. It had been a gathering in the chambers of the Duc de Vérone, one of the minor dignitaries of the court, a man who didn’t even rank as worthy of the king’s eyesight. He and his young and attractive wife were positioned in the ranks of the audience chamber furthest from the Crown. The prince normally wouldn’t have noticed one such as him, except that his wife, the duchess, had approached him when he was sitting in the gardens beside a fountain, trying to clear his head from the previous night’s spectacular drinking session. She had inveigled him to attend a gathering that night in her husband’s apartments and as she bent over his prostrate form, one of her breasts had accidentally slipped out of her bodice. It was a beautiful breast, round and ripe, and when the prince had stared hard enough at it, she had giggled, placed his hand upon her nipple, and assured him that there would be much more if he were to grace their presence that night.

  The evening had begun boisterously, with a dozen or more very minor couples invited especially to meet and entertain His Highness the Prince of the House of Stuart, knowing full well that the prince was the special friend of the king’s particular friend, Madame de Pompadour. And as the night progressed, the other couples were ushered away by the duc until there was only the three of them in his chamber. By then the prince had consumed two liters of wine, half a flask of brandy, and eaten six courses of food. The
duc, apologizing sincerely and profusely for having to retire early, citing urgent court business the following morning, had left the prince alone with his wife, the duchess.

  He blanched as he tried to remember what had happened next. He clearly remembered her feeding him grapes, then exposing her breasts and using one of them as a napkin to wipe his mouth. Then he remembered her skillful hands and how they had removed his trousers and coat and exposed him to the flickering candles. He remembered her delicate body, full yet lithe. And he remembered exploding and crying and something else. And then he recalled that he’d mistaken her name. She told him that it was Clodine, not Flora. And he had burst into paroxysms of tears, forcing her to dress quickly and call for his servants. The rest of the evening, if there was a rest, was a blur of corridors and struggles and assurances from his manservant Pierre that everything would be all right.

  The prince splashed water over his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He was gray with exhaustion, his eyes were red-rimmed with frustration, and he bore the unkempt uniform of a wastrel. He sat down hard on a chair and wondered how it had all come to this. In only a month, he had returned to France a failed hero; he had been feted by the king; he had been taken up as a favorite by the king’s mistress giving him access to the king’s private ear; yet despite his entreaties, the king continued to refuse to finance another army and expedition to England to enable him to attempt again to take the throne back from the Hanoverians.

  And for the past month, he had drunk, eaten, and cavorted around Versailles like a buffoon, causing offense to the king and his chamberlains and ministers and especially to the cardinal and the other churchmen who had the ear of the pope.

  Yet he seemed to be driven to excess and knew that he was becoming a scandal in the court. Even though he knew he should control his behavior, the drink, and the food and the women were taking control of his life.

  But the invitation from Madame de Pompadour to meet this person Diderot was a lifeline. If he could moderate his drinking, clean himself up, refrain from eating everything presented to him, and speak as a prince and not as an inebriated coxcomb, then perhaps Madame de Pompadour’s largess might grow and he could find his way back into the glittering circle a man of his rank should occupy.

  Determined, he stood and saw that Pierre was cleaning and airing the bed. He fussed around picking up this and putting away that. It was of no concern to the prince, who had to decide what outfit he would wear for the madame’s soiree that evening. He entered his closet and began to choose.

  In the bedroom, Pierre was putting the night’s rubbish into a sack. On the floor, under the bed, was a strangely shaped leaf. No, not a leaf, so much as a frond. He picked it up and smelled it. There was the faintest aroma of a long-departed perfume, a delicate and gentle scent of fields and honey and summertime. It was pleasant. Perhaps it was something that the prince had brought back with him from Scotland.

  He put it into his rubbish sack and left the room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE TOWER OF LONDON

  OCTOBER 17, 1746

  Her maid, who had been loaned to Flora by the wife of Lord Milius, told her that she looked very charming for the coming meeting. But when Flora looked in the mirror and took particular note of the woman staring back at her, well, there was no word for it but stunning. Without the benefit of more than a small and pitted mirror of burnished bronze in the entire household at Armadale in Skye, she was rarely ever able to catch a glimpse of anything other than her face unless she looked down at her reflection in a very still loch. But to have a large mirror standing on a side dresser, and able to see her hair and her bosom and all the way down to her waist, was something she found vicariously shocking and particularly exciting. It was an amazing device, pure glass coated with a silver substance that she’d been told was called Mercury. And in it, she could see her reflection perfectly.

  Had it not been for the growing bulge in her stomach, she would have been presentable at a royal ball. Her hair was immaculately dressed with bows and ribbons of green and gold, her neck was adorned by a sumptuous necklace of rubies and sapphires loaned to her by Milius, her dress, also loaned from Milius’ home, was lilac and white and low cut so that the upper bulge of her breasts became both visible and rounded in the fashion of London society.

  Her mother Anne entered the chamber and looked at her daughter. She beamed a smile and gave a mock curtsy. But when she ascended from her genuflection, she said to Flora, “If Hugh sees you with half your bosom exposed to the world, lass, he’ll have apoplexy. Don’t you think it’s immodest to be seen in that fashion?”

  “Yes,” said Flora, “but all the society ladies dress in this way. Anyway, mother, I’m a prisoner in the Tower of London and hardly likely to step out in style on the streets of Maida Vale or Kensington Green, now am I?”

  “It’s not where you go, Flora darling, but how you think of yourself that matters. Dress like a loose woman and you’ll think and act like a loose woman.”

  Flora smiled. “But in the eyes of the world, mother, I am a loose woman. I’m pregnant and not married.”

  “And does that make you the first unmarried mother since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden? No, lass, so long as you’re pregnant with the child of your beloved, everybody will understand. Even Hugh has accepted that his wonderful stepdaughter won’t be a maid at her wedding.

  “But who is calling on you this afternoon? So many people! And I still don’t understand why they’re all coming to see you and pay you court, when you’re imprisoned for treason against their king. Surely they’d be avoiding one such as you as though you were carrying the plague.”

  “It’s complicated, mother, but suffice to say that those who are visiting me and paying their respects are no friends of the king of England. Rather, they’re friends of his son, the heir to the throne, the Prince of Wales,” she explained. “The Prince of Wales hates his father, and I am being used to promote the prince’s cause. Does that make it clear?”

  But from the look on her face, it was apparent that it didn’t. It was the third or fourth time she’d held this conversation, but still her mother couldn’t understand why she was living in such luxurious circumstances when she was a prisoner. Nothing in London made sense to Anne, and what she knew she should do was to take her husband back to Skye and return to her life as a farmer’s wife. But with a maid serving her tea and cakes whenever she wanted, with all her meals prepared by the cooks that came early in the morning just to spend all day cooking for whoever entered, with a large four-poster bed with a huge and capacious mattress in which she and Hugh had enjoyed some rare and vicarious moments of pleasures, and now that she was meeting lords and ladies and important people, she had delayed her return several times and was coming to terms with being here for a number of months more.

  Scotland, after all, was not a very pleasant place in the dead and dark of mid-winter, whereas London’s streets were ablaze with lights and the shops were full of dresses and bolts of cloth and bows and ribbons and wondrous things from over the seas in America or on the continent or silk from as far as China, and she could wander along any road and purchase a bag full of delicious hot chestnuts or a bag of warm pork crackling or a roasted potato and just about anything else. And every time her purse was empty, Flora filled it again from her bedside cabinet that seemed to be continually full of money. It was all too mysterious, and she preferred to close her mind. It was enough that Hugh understood.

  Flora’s maid put the finishing touches to painting her mistress’ face from the pot of rouge, ensured that her dress was sufficiently revealing but delicately demur to satisfy all inspection, and retired to her salon to await Mr. Samuel Richardson. She had been told that he was a respectable printer, and had written a very well received book some years earlier called Pamela that had caused a sensation among the intelligent people of London. She had not, of course, read it but was told that it dealt with a serving wench who spent the entire b
ook defending her honor and chastity against an evil employer.

  Lord Milius had told her that the sensation was continuing and that all London was now divided between Pamelists and Anti-Pamelists. The first believed in honor and sanctity and virtue above all else; the second believed in lasciviousness and free-thought and were against religion and felt that Mr. Richardson was a hypocrite and a bigot, and had written a cheap work of lewdness and impiety to scandalize all London. If that was the case, then he was also scandalizing all of Europe, because his book had been translated and published in France and Italy and even Russia.

  Quite why Mr. Richardson wanted to attend her, neither she nor Lord Milius knew, but he assured her that a visit from a writer as famous as Mr. Richardson would quickly become a talking point in London society and would mitigate strongly in her favor. So important was Mr. Richardson’s visit that within moments of it happening, news would spread to the coffee houses. The reporters who worked for The Tattler would hear of the news and report it so that it would be printed in one of the thrice-weekly editions. This would then be further printed in pamphlets and picked up by polite society during their evening soirees. It would take a mere few days before news of the visit reached the royal court, which would place further and intolerable pressure upon the king. Milius had kissed her hand and then embraced her on both cheeks and seemed to be in a genuine state of excitement before leaving her and returning to report the events to the Prince of Wales.

  When they had first connived, and she had become part of his great scheme to embarrass the king, he had treated her as though she were a servant; but he had watched carefully the way she had held court with the many great men and women who had come to see her in her prison chambers and met them with openness, honesty, and wit. He recognized in her an innocence and ingenuousness that he found appealing, and he now treated her both as a co-conspirator and as a genuine friend. Flora was so unlike the many women who graced London society, from the palace down to the humbler households of minor nobility. In her, there was none of a society woman’s artifice that so delighted their men folk; Flora had none of the skill of verbal thrust and parry in which these women were so skilled, but when she spoke, it was always sensible, insightful, intelligent, and precise. She concerned herself more with what her thoughts conveyed than the wit with which they were spoken. She thought what she should say and then said it, telling people who didn’t necessarily want to hear it what she considered the truth. More often than not, the intelligent men and women of London walked away from Flora’s prison apartment with a feeling of refreshment and delight at having been in her company. Milius spoke about this simple Scottish lady so often that his wife had quipped he should perhaps move into her prison cell.