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

by Holloway Scott, Susan

  I opened my fan, the air in the carriage already too still. “I’d likely be waiting still if Father had not wished it so.”

  “He was wise to insist,” he said with more seriousness than I felt the subject deserved. “Every father would wish his daughter’s beauty preserved and recorded, especially by the same artist who paints His Majesty.”

  I glanced at him sideways, not sure whether he was teasing me or not. He’d never been among those who’d lavished me with false-hearted praise for beauty I knew I did not possess, or at least he hadn’t before this.

  “ ‘Preserving’ sounds as if you mean to put me up in an earthen pot with oil and sweet herbs, to hold against next winter,” I said. “What I rather believe is that Father hopes some hapless bachelor gentleman will see my portrait and fall rapturously in love with the image that Master Lely will create, and then make Father an offer for my hand before my unlovely self appears to fox the proposal.”

  He laughed as I’d hoped he would, tipping his head back so I could see how the soft flesh beneath his chin shook with his amusement. “I cannot say whether you or your father fares worse from that duplicitous little prediction.”

  I laughed with him over the top of my fan. “And what of Master Lely, my lord? You must include him in your judgment. His picture will be the cause of the entire deceit.”

  “Indeed!” he exclaimed, his face filled with approval. “You have always been of a forthright wit, Katherine, even as a child. I’m glad of it, too.”

  “You are, my lord?” I asked, surprised again.

  “Yes,” he said, his laughter subsiding as his gaze remained uncomfortably intent upon me. “Yes.”

  “Yes,” I repeated warily, for I’d no notion of what else to say.

  He nodded firmly, as if to signify some momentous decision. “Your father says you’ve no wish to wed,” he said. “Is that true?”

  I’d not expected that at all. “What is true, my lord,” I said carefully, “is that I’ve yet to find a gentleman worth my love and freedom.”

  “Or your money,” he added, ever the cynic. “You don’t follow after Lady Hobart, do you?”

  “Lady Hobart?” I repeated, incredulous, and snapped my fan shut. Lady Frances Hobart was known to be a disciple of Sappho, and worse, to have preyed upon the younger maids of honor in her care when she oversaw their lodgings in Whitehall. “Faith, my lord, of all the slanders that have been hurled at me, surely that is the most outrageous!”

  He smiled slowly, a wolfish smile that did little to reassure me. “Then you prefer to trust your pleasure to a gentleman’s cock?”

  “You amaze me, my lord,” I said as evenly as I could. “My father would have your head if he heard you speak so to me.”

  “This does not concern your father, Katherine.” He leaned close to me, and covered my knee with one thick-fingered hand. “I believe in being direct, my dear. My wife has grown wearisome and dull to me. You would be quite the opposite. You are not encumbered with an inconvenient husband or foolish dreams of love, and I suspect we would amuse each other quite thoroughly for a time.”

  “If you are direct, my lord, then I shall be so as well!” I cried, aghast. The old image of him with Nell rose again unbidden in my thoughts, how he’d grabbed at her and tore at her shift, his face contorted with lust, his hips bucking to drive into her. “For you to suggest this—this misalliance between us—”

  “Don’t refuse me.” He turned on the carriage seat to face me, his hand tightly grasping my knee. “I can give you all you desire.”

  I tried to wriggle free, but he’d trapped me against the corner of the carriage seat.

  “No, my lord,” I said, turning my head away from him. “No.”

  “And I say yes.” He caught my jaw in his hand and held it fast to kiss me, his mouth laboring hard across mine. My stomach churned with revulsion at the wrongness of it, and though I thrashed mightily beneath him, I could not escape, pinned beneath his far greater weight and size. When at last he released me, I scrambled as far away from him as I could.

  “There,” he said, breathing hard. “Hah, I cannot wait to tame you! I knew you’d be full of fire.”

  “Full of disgust is more true, my lord,” I said furiously, wiping my hand across my mouth as if I could wipe away the indignity of what he’d done to me. “How could you treat me so, knowing me and my father as you do? How could you?”

  “Pray recall who I am, Katherine,” he said with an ominous smile, as if my wishes were nothing, which they likely were to him. “I want you. You’d please me.”

  The coach was slowing, and from the calls of the driver and the footmen I realized we’d reached St. James’s. Lord Middlesex must have realized it, too, to have stopped his assault when he had. God only knew how far he would have pressed his advantage if he hadn’t feared the door opening on him with his breeches around his knees.

  But then, perhaps it wouldn’t matter to a peer, as His Lordship had just so kindly reminded me that he was, and I wasn’t. It was likely just as well that he’d reminded me, too, because in my fury, my one thought was that he was a low, despicable man who wished me to become his whore.

  “I can be generous,” he continued, reaching for me again. “I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.”

  “I won’t be disappointed, my lord, not as you shall be,” I said, each word sharp on my tongue. “Pray forgive me if I decline the honor of being your whore.”

  He scowled, his outstretched hand halted in the air between us. “Consider this well, Katherine. With your face, you can ill afford to be haughty, and I don’t like to be denied.”

  I knew I was no beauty, but to have it flung back at me like any other base insult stung me even through my anger. Fleetingly I thought again of how Lord Middlesex had treated Nell, and how vituperative he’d been after she’d left his bed for the king’s. Everyone in London had heard his slanders about her; they’d been impossible to ignore. Since my last exchange with Sir Carr, I’d tried to follow Father’s counsel against making enemies, and Lord Middlesex would be a formidable enemy to make. But that was not reason enough to lie with a man I did not desire, or even like, especially given the pain it would bring my father.

  Beside me the carriage door abruptly swung open, unlatched by an unwitting, startled footman, and I barely caught myself from tumbling out.

  “Katherine, here,” Lord Middlesex said, brusquely beckoning for me to rejoin him as if I were some wayward hunting dog. “Refuse me, and I’ll make certain you’ll suffer for it.”

  “And if I accepted, my lord,” I said, “I would forever loathe myself. Good day, my lord.”

  With my skirts bunched in my hands, I clambered down from the carriage, ignoring the footman’s offered assistance. With my back straight and my head high, I walked swiftly through the familiar brick arch of St. James’s. I am sure the guards at the gate had witnessed my ungainly departure from Lord Middlesex’s carriage, including our last exchange, and I was just as convinced they’d be describing it to their fellows as soon as they could. It couldn’t be helped. At least Lord Middlesex had brought me here to the duke’s household as he’d promised. Considering the circumstances, he could well have abandoned me unceremoniously somewhere in the middle of the park, or worse.

  I hurried through the palace’s old-fashioned halls, praying my gown didn’t look as obviously crumpled and crushed as it felt to me. There was no time for repairs; I’d been expected to join Her Highness and her ladies for card play, and I was already late. I made myself think only of that, shoving aside the memory of what had happened to me with Lord Middlesex. At least St. James’s, being used only by the Yorks in the summer, wasn’t crowded the way that Whitehall was, and there was no one to see how I was nearly running, my petticoats flying about my ankles.

  But by the time I’d climbed the last staircase, my anger had faded and my earlier bravado had begun to crumble. Like a leaf tumbled and tossed by the wind across the grasses, I’d no say at all in what
Lord Middlesex had done to me. I had never encouraged his attentions in any fashion, or even so much as smiled at him flirtatiously, yet now I’d be the one who would be made to suffer. People would listen to him, and whatever tattle he said of me would be believed.

  Even worse was knowing he’d believed I would fair leap at his offer because I was too ill endowed to expect better for myself. What woman wishes to hear that any man thinks her so woefully desperate? He’d wanted to possess me and tame me, as if I were no more than some dumb creature, as if my cleverness was something to be destroyed for his pleasure, rather than relished. And this, too, from a gentleman I’d known most of my life.

  Yet what could I say in defense? I was plain. He was already married to a beautiful wife, with no need for a lady such as me. No one would believe it if I announced he’d tried to force his attentions on me, but they would happily accept that I’d been the attempted seducer.

  With your face, you can ill afford to be haughty.

  I swallowed back a small sob of frustration at my powerlessness. Who would question the word of a peer? He could invent whatever he pleased about me for the amusement of the Court, and be praised as a wit for it. I’d no real recourse at all. Father might urge me to be meek and accepting, but that was not my temper, and never had been.

  Alas, my choices were few. I could leave Court entirely, and live a quiet, dull, tedious life in the country. Or I could persevere and be strong, and try my best to ignore what was said of me, no matter how hurtful it might be. But I wouldn’t forget, and if fate ever offered me the ripe chance to pay Lord Middlesex back in kind, I would take it.

  At last I reached the door to the duchess’s quarters and announced myself to the guard. The door opened. I shook away my unhappiness and smiled, and entered to make my curtsy before Her Highness.

  And I would be strong.

  TO MY CONSIDERABLE RELIEF, LORD MIDDLESEX was soon after called away from London to Essex, where his father, Lord Dorset, had been taken grievous ill. Though I was sorry that this venerable gentleman was unwell, I was not at all unhappy that Lord Middlesex was now far removed from Court and unable to cause me mischief. It was not quite the avenging act that I’d longed for, but it would suffice for now.

  I was heartened enough to tell Father, too, once Lord Middlesex was safely away. Though I know it may seem strange that I’d not confided the earl’s unseemly proposal to my father at once, I’d guessed what his reaction would be, and as soon as I finally did tell him, I learned my guess had been right.

  “What would you have me do, Katherine?” he said, more exasperated than sympathetic. I’d followed him into his library after supper, where he’d shed his heavy coat and waistcoat in favor of a light silk dressing gown, and traded his wig for an embroidered cap over his shaven head. “Rise before dawn to defend your honor on some damp and foggy field? Demand blood be spilled from one of my oldest friends because you behaved like an impudent little chit?”

  “What of him?” I cried defensively. “Have you no fault to lay upon him for asking your daughter to be his whore?”

  He looked at me as if I were daft, and impatiently shoved his cap back on his head. “What else do you expect, Katherine? If Middlesex weren’t at fault, then there’d surely be some other rogue in his place. You’re nearly twenty years of age, with seemingly no interest in marriage.”

  “Because I’ve yet to find a gentleman worthy of my interest!”

  “If ever such a paragon exists in this world,” he said. “Husbands are flesh-and-blood creatures, Katherine. Even the immortal gods on Olympus had their flaws.”

  “Oh, yes, the same lustful, cuntstruck flaws as His Lordship,” I retorted, “though at least Jupiter had the decency to transform himself into a more pleasing creature than Lord Middlesex—a swan, perhaps, or a bull—before he fell upon his hapless lady.”

  Father flung his hands heavenward in despair, a despair surely born of the arid years he’d spent with only Lady Sedley to warm his bed.

  “There now, there is your answer,” he declared. “ ‘Cuntstruck’! So long as you insist on speaking as if you were born in a brothel, Katherine, you’ll have gentlemen believing you reside in one.”

  Now I was the one who threw my hands up with sorrowful dismay. “Who taught me to speak so, Father, not in a brothel, but in this very house? Who took me to the playhouse and bid me keep to the tiring room whilst you were in the back hall, serving some actress or another against the wall? Who amused his friends by teaching me as a girl to speak lewd rhymes and songs?”

  He frowned and looked down, shaking his head with a stony solemnity at odds with the gay pink carnations stitched into his hat, and now sitting on his grim-cast brow. I waited for his answer, and waited more, for it was a question that I’d always longed to have explained to me, though until now I hadn’t dared to ask it.

  “Please, Father,” I asked, more gently. “Why did you make me what I am if I am not now to your liking?”

  But if I’d long wished his answer, I was sadly bound to wish longer still. As grieved as he was—and I knew him well enough to see and recognize the genuine unhappiness that marked his face—he could not bring himself to reply to my question, not with the truth I sought.

  “You’ve always been strong-willed, Katherine,” he said finally, without daring to raise his gaze to mine. “The only way you’ll ever change is to find a man who is your match.”

  Bitter tears stung my eyes. “Am I such a disappointment to you as I am, Father?” I asked forlornly. “You, too, would wish me tamed, the same as Lord Middlesex?”

  “No, Katherine, no,” he said softly, drawing me gently into his arms. “Not tamed, but loved. Only loved as you deserve.”

  I FOLLOWED THE COURT TO WINDSOR when it retreated there, as the king chose to do every summer to avoid the London heat. From afar, it seemed as if everything was much as it had always been, with the usual rounds of country amusements and scandals. The queen kept her distance from the rest of the Court, and the Duchess of York was brought to bed of another frail, disappointing daughter. The king had made gossip more interesting by taking yet another new mistress, Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin. This outrageous older lady (she was nearly thirty years in age) affected men’s dress and swordplay, and had come from Italy to escape a mad husband by way of visiting her cousin Mary Beatrice. In addition to enjoying His Majesty’s favors, Lady Mazarin was also whispered to be engaged in tribadism with Lady Sussex, the king’s illegitimate daughter by Lady Castlemaine. It was all deliciously entertaining, and having Lady Portsmouth pouting over being neglected only added to the sport for the rest of us.

  But to anyone with wit enough to look, things were not always as they’d once been for the Court, not even to me who was so young. That the duke now was a complete and practicing Papist was widely known, and the pretense of masking it from the rest of the world dropped. He and Her Highness and their Catholic attendants worshiped openly in the little chapel in St. James’s, and their separate trains were now filled with priests and others of Romish orders. Further, the duke was now viewed by the French as an avid supporter of their causes, and the French ambassador was often seen in close and cunning discussions with him, without a breath of subterfuge.

  So much popery did not sit well with most Englishmen. The duke remained the king’s heir, and the king steadfastly refused either to set aside his barren queen for a fertile replacement, or to remove the duke from the succession in favor of one of his Protestant princesses, or even to send His Highness with his priests and incense away from England. As a result, the fear and suspicion of Papists rose everywhere, and the blind hatred I’d witnessed on Guy Fawkes Night grew into rampant violence. Anyone so much as rumored to be Romish dared not walk about London for fear of being attacked and beaten, or even killed. Even Lady Portsmouth’s carriage was besieged, and there were cat-calling riots in the playhouse when she attended with her friends. For their own safety, the duke and duchess themselves were seldom seen as publicly
as they’d once been, and even the king was no longer cheered with the same enthusiasm on account of his tolerance.

  Because my mother and her family had worshiped as Catholics, I had no fear of Rome or priests, and though I believed that many of their rites and rituals were overwrought and foolish, I didn’t feel myself in any danger from them. But even I became uneasy when I read the pamphlets and newssheets that were so popular. Full of lurid hysteria, the anonymous writers warned of Jesuit plots to seize London and the English throne for the Pope, of invading armies of French and Italian Papists determined to destroy everything the common Englishman held most dear. Churches would be burned, and all Protestants would be forced to convert, and any who resisted would be tortured, raped, and murdered in the most gruesome ways possible. At the helm of all this villainous mayhem was perceived to be the Duke of York, lurking in wait behind his brother’s throne. Was it any wonder that the prayers for the continued health of His Majesty were read with enthusiastic fervor each Sunday in Protestant churches across his kingdom?

  Some of this discontent had risen up in the few years whilst England and Catholic France had briefly been allies against the Protestant Dutch led by their stadtholder (and yet another relative to the English royal family as the king’s nephew), William of Orange, an alliance that had found few supporters beyond the palace. It was one thing for the king and his brother to have kind feelings for the French King Louis, seeing as how they were cousins with shared blood, but the rest of us English had been born regarding the French as our mortal enemies, and so it had been for more generations than I could count.

  But gradually, Parliament had prevailed, and forced the king and his ministers to back away from supporting Catholic France and return to a Protestant alliance with the Dutch, beginning with the signing of the Peace of Westminster. England now sat in the unfamiliar situation of peacemaker between the other two countries, with the duke pressing for the French interests and the king inclining toward the Dutch and his nephew William. And that, truly, was how it stood, a choice between the two royal brothers: the Protestant king and the Catholic duke who would succeed him. For most Englishmen, it would have been an easy enough choice to make.