The Countess and the King: A Novel of the Countess of Dorchester and King James II

by Holloway Scott, Susan

  Thus in Her Highness’s lodgings, I wagered at cards, danced new dances, and read poems aloud that weren’t by my father. I attended plays presented by the Duke’s Company, and balls and other entertainments given by His Majesty. I walked in a veritable pack of ladies through St. James’s Park to watch the sliders on the frozen canal, and I threw snowballs at gentlemen we knew on our way. I learned to sweeten my humor to Her Highness’s convent-bred sensibilities when I made jests before her, and to laugh when she made jests in turn, whether they were truly amusing or not. It was often much more tedious than it sounds in the telling, but I’d quickly come to understand that such is the life of a courtier.

  Yet there were also times when Her Highness wished no company at all beyond those closest to her, and then I was free to amuse only myself. I’d found several acquaintances among the duchess’s ladies, but no firm friends; if they seemed callow and tedious to me, then I am certain they judged me vulgar and outspoken. I did not care. I’d always preferred the company of gentlemen to ladies, and so it was now.

  Or rather, one specific gentleman. I saw much of Captain Grahme that winter. While I had aligned myself with Mary Beatrice, he had finally followed his father’s advice and become attached to the duke’s circle. In a way, he’d no choice. In February, both Houses of Parliament had voted for ending the war with the Dutch, and likewise ending England’s uneasy role as an ally of France. The Peace of Westminster was signed soon after, to much relief in the country, if to no celebration. There was little reason for rejoicing, for England had as much as conceded that the Dutch, led by Prince William of Orange, were stronger and more wily at war than the immense combined forces of Charles II and Louis XIV. At Court, the Peace was discussed only in the quietest conversations, as one does with topics that are difficult or shameful. We all knew that if England swung back toward the Protestant Dutch and away from Catholic France, then the tide would likely swing that way at Court, too, and more pressure would be brought to bear upon the duke to turn his back on Rome, and instead return to the Anglican Church of his birth.

  For soldiers like Captain Grahme, the Peace brought more immediate changes. There was now no war to anticipate returning to with the warmer months (for war, like farming, was an endeavor ruled by the seasons), and without it, no hope of advancement. Worse, Parliament had decided that without a war, England had no real need for a costly army, and already Lord Danby, the minister of the exchequer, was busily planning ways to disband entire regiments. Whitehall was filled with officers desperate to plead their cause and save not only their regiments, but their very careers. It was a pleasing time for us ladies, to have so many handsome uniformed gentlemen underfoot, but it was sadly taxing for the officers.

  I commiserated freely with James (for so I’d swiftly come to think of him), who was often gloomy at the prospect of life without a war to fight. He still hoped to attach himself to another of Louis’s French regiments, as he’d done in the past, but even that seemed a distant hope. Lord Monmouth, the king’s eldest baseborn son, had for many years led the English officers fighting courageously with the French, but now even he had decided to embrace the new peace and remain home this summer. James was not in as perilous waters as some officers—he’d a serviceable income of his own from his family—but still he worried, and did his best to please the duke in the hope of securing his future.

  Because James and I were in much the same situation, we shared what we learned and overheard, and what we glimpsed of those above us that might someday prove useful to our betterment. I know it must seem curious to those unfamiliar with the pattern of our Court, that the newly wed duke and duchess would lead such diverse lives, yet so it was. They’d each their own apartments, attendants, and servants, and while the duke would dutifully visit the duchess’s bedchamber, he seldom remained in her bed for the entire night. The duke was also deeply embroiled in trying to preserve his own position against those in Parliament who wished him altogether removed from the succession, and he spent most of his waking hours rallying supporters rather than dancing attendance on his bride. Father had been wise in his prediction: His Highness had little time to squander on Her Highness, let alone on noticing me.

  Because of this, James and I had much to exchange when the royal couple had their first public quarrel in February. From my place, I had heard of how the duchess had received an unsigned letter revealing not only the existence of Arabella Churchill as the duke’s mistress, but of how she’d recently given birth to their fourth child. I’d witnessed myself how furious this unwelcome news had made the duchess, and how in her rage she’d hurled crockery and had called down endless imprecations upon her husband in Italian that must have been very bad indeed. I’d seen, too, how when her anger was spent, she’d wept bitterly with the pain of his betrayal, and shut herself away from the rest of us for most of a week.

  James, however, saw only the duke’s side. His Highness had rejoiced over this newest bastard, and he’d no intention of abandoning Mrs. Churchill, either. Like nearly every other gentleman, he believed there were wives and then there were mistresses, and he could see no reason in the world that he shouldn’t have both. His Highness damned the anonymous informer as a wrongful meddler, and crossly wished his young wife would be less outraged and more understanding.

  It all gave James and me (and everyone else at Court, from the lowest maidservant to the French ambassador) a great deal to discuss, and it also provided one more reason for us to arrange to meet. In truth, we did not need excuses; we were fast enough friends without them. We met to walk in the park where we’d not be overheard, and found each other at the evening entertainments as well. In many ways, James and I were cut from the same piece. Our families were of the same rank (though to be sure, mine was far the more wealthy), we laughed easily, and we both were quick-witted with little patience with those who weren’t. He enjoyed my boldness and my bawdy jests, and with him I’d no need to pretend to be anything that I wasn’t. I was silently awed that so handsome a gentleman would wish to be with me, while to my even greater wonder, he called me fair, and claimed my face and slender form pleased him above all others.

  Before long what had begun as a useful acquaintance soon grew into far more, which was likely to be expected considering that I was sixteen and he twenty-three in a palace feverish with affaires du coeur. It wasn’t exactly an intrigue, for James and I liked each other too well for the callousness of that, but it wasn’t merely a friendship, either, not with so much a-simmering between us. I suppose it was a friendly dalliance, or a dallying friendship.

  No matter. I was happier that spring than I ever could recall in my young life, and James Grahme was the reason.

  “SO TELL ME TRUE, KATHERINE,” Father asked with genteel indifference. “Should I be ordering my first letter to Netherby?”

  “Netherby?” I repeated, even as a guilty flush stained my cheeks. I was traveling with Father in his coach to Windsor Castle, to join the Court in residence there for the late summer months. This was the first time I’d been included in the shifting of the Court from one palace to another, and I was beside myself with anticipation. My lodgings would be in the town of Windsor and not in the castle proper, but I’d still be included in all the sundry festivities and amusements.

  James was already at Windsor, being involved with some sort of military spectacle planned by Lord Monmouth. The duke and duchess had also gone ahead to the castle with His Majesty, gliding up the river from London on the royal barge, but I’d remained a few days longer in town to have Father’s company. Though we were both now at Whitehall, I seldom saw Father as often as I wished, and I’d looked forward to this journey with him now as much as when I’d been a child and too often left behind at home. What I’d expected was our usual bantering conversation and a merry exchange of tattle. I never imagined he’d begin like this.

  “Yes, Netherby,” he repeated, his smile deceptively benign. “In Cumberland? I believe that is where Sir George Grahme resides.”
r />   “Yes, Father,” I said faintly. “That is where Captain Grahme was born, and where his father lives still.”

  “I was sure of it,” he said, swatting away a stray bee that had flown in the coach’s open window. “But you’ve still not given me your answer. Should I be making overtures to Sir George to arrange a match?”

  “There’s no match to be made, Father,” I said quickly. “Captain Grahme and I are friends, nothing further.”

  He laughed softly. “I know you better than that, Daughter. The pair of you are the most lovesick young creatures to be found at Court this season. Even His Majesty has remarked upon it. You can deny it all you wish, but if you don’t realize it for yourself, then you’ve suddenly lost the considerable intellect that I know you possess.”

  Still I did not answer, mired in confusion. James and I were friends, and no more. There’d never been any lover-ish talk between us, and certainly no talk of a match. We’d discussed the reasons often enough between us. I’d no wish to wed any man at my age, and James had likewise vowed that he’d never risk leaving a wife a widow so long as he remained bound to the battlefield. How could either of us think of marriage?

  “You know I’d rather you didn’t wed a soldier,” Father continued. “But I’ve asked after him, and this Captain Grahme is no ordinary sword shaker, but an Oxford scholar.”

  I groaned at that. Father, too, could claim to be an Oxford scholar, having attended Wadham College, and there was no more certain way to win his favor than through that gloomy, ancient university.

  “Do you know that after your captain matriculated from Christ’s College, he was entered at the Inner Temple to learn the law?” Father continued, his enthusiasm growing by the second. “That’s an intelligent gentleman, Katherine. An excellent gentleman! He possesses other qualities that will recommend him to a less bellicose career, and I’ve heard his agreeable manner and cleverness have drawn the approval of both the duke and the king.”

  “Father, please—”

  “He’s only the second son of a baronet,” Father continued, as eagerly as if I’d not spoken, “but his mother’s father is a Scottish peer, the Earl of Hartfell. Your captain has a respectable income for all that, and combined with your portion, you wouldn’t want. If the fellow pleases you, and will make you happy, then I don’t see why I cannot send a letter to his father and—”

  “No, Father, don’t, I beg you!” I cried. “If you do this, you’ll spoil everything!”

  He drew back with surprise. “Since when does a lady protest that marriage will spoil everything?”

  “Since—since I am the lady, and James is the gentleman.” I reached in my pocket for my handkerchief, my tears spilling down my cheeks. My reasons were too shameful to confess, even to Father. They showed me as miserably unsure of my own merits as I was of James’s fidelity to me. The sorry truth was that I feared that if James were pressed to claim my hand, he would retreat from me entirely, and I’d be left with nothing. Behind my brave and brazen facade, I dreaded his abandonment more than anything, and that he would come to realize how much more handsome and worthy he was than I. As friends, I felt a happy security, and I could put my fear aside, but I’d not the courage to test myself as true lovers might.

  “If you were to address James’s father,” I said, struggling to explain at least part of this wretched mess to satisfy Father, “then he would feel as if I were obligating him, and I would not wish that.”

  “But it wouldn’t be you,” Father said, mystified. “It wouldn’t even be me. The first letters would come from my secretary, as is proper for any contract.”

  I’d no doubt that Father was acting from purest love for me, which made me cry all the more. “That’s not what I want, Father, and neither does James.”

  “My poor Kattypillar.” Lurching from one side of the coach to the other, he sat beside me, putting his arm over my shoulder to draw me close. “You know I’ve never denied you anything. What is it you wish me to do regarding Captain Grahme? What will give you happiness?”

  “Nothing,” I said. His coat smelled familiarly of tobacco and wine and silk and wool, scents I associated with my childhood, when my life truly had seemed so much less complicated. “I want you to leave everything as it is, so that we—we may continue as friends.”

  “As friends.” He sighed with resignation, if not comprehension. “Very well. Friends it shall be, and I’ll keep my spoon from stirring your kettle. If friendship is what you want with Grahme, then you shall have it.”

  “I do,” I said with a last little sob. “I—I am content.”

  Yet my misery remained as our tired horses drew us up Castle Hill, and when I walked up the steps and through the old stone gateways, I felt as exhausted and spent as the tower flags that hung limp in the still summer-afternoon sun. By the time I finally met James in the lower cloisters, soon before we were all to gather for supper, I was so distraught that instead of greeting him with a sweet and cheery face, I promptly burst into more tears.

  “What is wrong, Katherine?” James asked with concern. “What has happened?”

  He looked so handsome to me, standing there framed by the cloister’s stone arch with the fading light of evening spilling around him, his laced hat in his hand, that I could scarcely bear it.

  “I do not know, I do not know!” I cried, scattering tears even as I fumbled for my handkerchief. “I should be—be happy!”

  “Of course you should,” he said, and folded me into his arms. “You are here with me, and I am here with you. What more could you wish?”

  I thought of how Father had asked me much the same question, and to my shame and frustration my tears welled up again.

  “I—I will be happy,” I declared, angry with myself for weeping. “I will, and—and, oh, a pox on these stupid, stupid tears! What is wrong with me?”

  “Not one blessed thing,” he said, and turning my face up toward his, he kissed me.

  Now, if this had been one of the French novels I did so love to read, our kiss would have been a gentle pledge of devotion. Perhaps it began that way; I cannot recall for certain. What I do remember is that instead of taking tender solace in his embrace, I hungrily poured all my own longing and uncertainty into kissing him in return. If my response surprised him, he did not show it, though sweet faith, what man would?

  Instead within moments we were kissing with such mindless fervor that I fell back against the stone wall behind me, needing its support as I reeled from a surfeit of passion and emotion. As many times as I’d been kissed—and I had more times than I could recall—I’d never felt what James was inspiring in me now. His scabbard bumped awkwardly against my thigh while the brass buttons on his uniform tangled in the lace of my kerchief, and behind me the rough stone snagged at the silk and crushed the elaborate pleats of my mantua’s skirts, and I did not care. Why should I? Here was the proof that James wanted me, desired me, just as I did him, and that my earlier misgivings with my father were unwarranted. Perhaps I was ready to test love’s waters in earnest, and offer my heart. Perhaps even more important, James could be ready as well.

  When at last we parted, we were both flushed and as short of breath as if we’d run all the steps to the top of the castle. I heard a woman’s laugh at the far end of the cloister, and a man’s rumbling deep reply. Doubtless we’d been seen, or maybe we’d only shared this place with another couple. If there were no secrets at Court, then there was even less discretion.

  James grinned, I think more from his pleasurable bewilderment over what had just occurred than from any real amusement. He rested his arm against the wall over my head, leaning over me in a possessive manner that I found wildly exciting.

  “Katherine,” he said. “You are happy now?”

  I smiled, so giddy I vow I could have floated into the sky with the rising new moon.

  “I am happy,” I whispered, and reached up to kiss him quickly once again. “I am.”

  And truly, by every oath I could swear, I was
.

  Chapter Nine

  WINDSOR CASTLE, BERKSHIRE

  August 1674

  “The little war should begin soon, shouldn’t it?” asked the duchess, her voice vibrating with excitement. “His Highness said at nightfall. Oh, I cannot wait!”

  She was not alone. Our six weeks here at Windsor had been one amusement after another: walking in the Great Forest, dining informally in the meadow, watching the racecourse at the nearby village of Datchet and the troupe of players from Oxford, hawking and riding and fishing and dancing and drinking, and even a lavish wedding between the king’s bastard daughter by Lady Cleveland to the Earl of Sussex. The ancient castle itself offered us further entertainment, having been newly refurbished to make it fit for royalty with rich paintings by the master painter Verrio, lavish rooms of state resplendent with gilt, carvings, looking glasses, and fanciful plasterwork, and staircases that were a builder’s marvel. Much to His Majesty’s delight, Father pronounced Windsor to be a rival of Versailles itself, and he was able to judge, too, having been a guest at Louis’s great country estate.

  But now all this would be made to pale before the greatest royal diversion in anyone’s memory, for tonight the Court was to be treated to a complete re-creation of the siege of the Dutch fortress at Maastricht.

  We’d watched the preparations for weeks. Under the supervision of the Duke of Monmouth, who had fought in the actual siege last summer as a part of Louis XIV’s French forces (as had my James, too), an elaborate false fortress had slowly risen on the meadows between the river and the north side of the castle. Everything had been arranged with as much accuracy as was possible. Thanks to the Peace of Westminster, England now regarded the Dutch again as allies rather than enemies, but that was no reason for His Majesty and the rest of us not to watch and cheer at a reenactment of the worst Dutch loss of the last war.

  Walking with me this last week, James had proudly pointed out every detail of the preparations, from the earthworks to bastions and bulwarks and a score of other things I didn’t understand. Dozens of soldiers would be employed in staging the siege, with every aspect of a real battle replicated, including cannons and gunfire. Spectators had been arriving from London and the surrounding countryside all day, and we could see them by their lanterns as they gathered over the meadows, like another invading force.