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

by Holloway Scott, Susan

  From my place in the circle around Her Highness, the duke did not appear the Romish fanatic that the broadsides painted him to be. Instead I saw a man who had chosen to follow his conscience to worship as he felt best for him, and who would risk even a crown for it. I couldn’t agree with his choice, but I did admire the way he stood fast in his convictions, an admirable trait indeed considering how most other gentlemen at Court (including the king) concerned themselves with their own idle pleasures and little more.

  This is not to say that the duke abstained from dalliance; though he showed respect and regard for the duchess, he also was still visiting Arabella Churchill and several other ladies in passing. Of course, he’d far too many concerns of his own to take more notice of me, but that didn’t stop me from imagining all the amusing things I might say or do to ease his burden and raise his spirits. Long ago he’d said he liked clever women; if he’d but notice me, he’d soon discover I was exactly that.

  Thus by the fall of 1676, our little world around the duke and duchess felt curiously unsteady. It was like walking on ice: around us everything might seem bright and full of beauty, yet the surface beneath us was slippery, and threatened further by the occasional ominous crack to remind us that nothing was as secure as it seemed. For me, too, there was even more to unsettle me. Two gentlemen who’d been away from Court came back, each to disturb my peace in very different ways.

  The first to return was Lord Middlesex, his father having sufficiently recovered. At first he paid scant attention to me, acknowledging me with a brusque nod and no more. I suspected Father had spoken to His Lordship to be kind to me, though he’d never admit it. Inwardly I rejoiced to have been spared; but my celebration was premature, as I later was sadly to learn.

  But as for the other gentleman—ah, that was an entirely different matter.

  On a bright morning in November, I sat in a carriage with several other ladies of the Court on the edge of the parade ground in Hyde Park, there to watch the muster of the Guards. The day was chill, with a sharp breeze to steal away the last golden leaves from the trees and swirl them across the dulling grass. Clouds burdened the sky overhead, yet still from above streamed that rare, silvery, clear light of late autumn. Many of the ladies had decided not to venture out at so early an hour, preferring their own hearths or downy beds to a chilly parade, but I never could resist the spectacle of gentlemen in scarlet coats. Besides, though England was not at war at present, many of our officers continued to serve in foreign regiments, and as I watched the well-executed exercises before us now, I thought wistfully of James Grahme. Despite his marriage, he’d soon returned to fight with the French against the Dutch, and I still prayed for his safety in battle.

  “Such a brave show,” Lady Orton said beside me, leaning from the window to watch. “I vow there are few things finer than a martial display.”

  “I should like it a good deal better without the gunfire and shouting,” said her friend Mrs. Boynton with a sigh. “Gentlemen do enjoy their racketing, don’t they?”

  But something else had caught Lady Orton’s eye. “Mark you, there’s Lieutenant-Colonel Churchill, there on horse. I’d not seen him since he’s returned from France. What a pretty fellow he is!”

  I looked, and smiled, too. John Churchill was a pretty fellow, and an ambitious one as well. He’d not only succeeded in his military career—to be made lieutenant-colonel at twenty-six was a rare accomplishment—but equally at Court. Part of this came from being Arabella Churchill’s younger brother (for surely she’d asked for favors on his behalf), and more from his own natural gifts and good fortune. He was one of His Highness’s gentlemen of the bedchamber and had been sent on several diplomatic missions to France. Yet what we ladies noted more was his manly grace in the saddle with his golden hair ruffling over his shoulders, and how well his red coat fit across his shoulders, and how, to our joyful surprise, he was riding to our coach.

  “My lady,” he said, raising his laced hat. “Mrs. Boynton, Mrs. Sedley. Your servant, ladies. His Highness sends his compliments, and his appreciation for such a showing by you this morning. If there is anything I might explain about the muster, I pray you shall ask me.”

  “You are most generous, sir,” Lady Orton said, giving him a mighty lascivious look. “I’m sure you’ll be most obliging.”

  Because the colonel had been one of Lady Castlemaine’s lovers (and likely the father of her last bastard) and had shown himself to appreciate ladies of an age greater than his own, the older ladies like Lady Orton were in turn quick to show their appreciation of him.

  But to my surprise, he smiled not at her, but at me. “Mrs. Sedley,” he said, his gaze warm. “While I was last in Paris, I had the honor of speaking with Captain Grahme, who asked to be remembered to you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. It was a fine thing to be remembered by James, but also a bittersweet one, and I realized I’d much rather smile at John Churchill than to think overmuch about James Grahme. “What news do you have of Paris?”

  “Oh, a thousand things, Mrs. Sedley, great and small,” he said lightly, his manner most charming. When he smiled, he’d dimples, quite unexpected in a warrior of his reputation. “Do you like Paris?”

  “I cannot say, sir, having never visited it myself,” I admitted. “But I’ve heard so much praise of the city from others that I long to see it.”

  “If you’d but grant me to sit by you tonight at the palace, Miss Sedley,” he said, “then I promise I’ll tell you even more.”

  “I should like nothing better, sir.” I smiled, pleased beyond measure by his attention.

  “I shall count the minutes,” he said with such burning gallantry that, after he’d bid us farewell and left us for the next coach on his errand, the other two ladies regarded me with new (and grudging) regard.

  “It would seem the colonel has an interest not in Paris, but in you, Mrs. Sedley,” said Lady Orton archly.

  I blushed. “I venture the colonel is interested in many things, my lady.”

  “Many things, but only one other lady,” Mrs. Boynton said. “I’ve heard he’s a powerful interest in little Mrs. Jennings.”

  I’d heard rumor of that, too. Three years younger than I, Sarah Jennings was one of the duchess’s maids of honor and close friends to the Lady Anne. She was fair enough, but she had a righteous fine opinion of herself coupled with such a lack of humor that I found her company tedious.

  Lady Orton must have felt the same. “Oh, Sarah Jennings,” she said with a disdainful sniff of dismissal. “A foolish snip, that one. I’ve heard that though the colonel pressed his attentions, she would not oblige, putting marriage as the price on her maidenhead, and told all who would listen of it, too.”

  “Mrs. Jennings did that to a gentleman like the colonel?” asked Mrs. Boynton, titillated. “She dared refuse him, a gentleman so amorous that he could satisfy Lady Castlemaine?”

  “It doesn’t matter whether Mrs. Jennings did or she didn’t,” Lady Orton said severely. “Her father is nothing, and she hasn’t a farthing to her name.”

  I listened, and inwardly I rejoiced. Everyone knew my father, and I’d a good deal more than a farthing to my name. That, and my ability to make most any gentleman laugh at will, could go far to overcome Mrs. Jennings’s golden ringlets.

  “Colonel Churchill is well rid of the Jennings girl,” Lady Orton continued, “and if he now desires to speak of Paris with Mrs. Sedley, then that is his perfect right.”

  Whether it was his right or not, John Churchill did speak to me of Paris that night, and a thousand other things besides. He’d so much to say, in fact, that he sought my company the next evening when we were all gathered in the Banqueting House at Whitehall to hear a singer visiting from Venice, and he found me again the following night, and the night after that. He was an ambitious gentleman with heady plans for his future, and the sizable gifts to make those plans possible. But John was no dry, dull soldier. He was also intelligent, with a dry wit, and so pleasing
that when at last he kissed me, I welcomed it.

  Still and all, I had learned the pain of loving too swiftly with James Grahme, and as much as I enjoyed John’s company, I was determined to give my mended heart away again with only the greatest care.

  Yet when, in December, Father told me with great excitement that John’s parents, Sir Winston and Lady Churchill, had written to make overtures for a match, I dared to consider my future with John in it. Finally I gave Father my consent to begin negotiations, with his old friend Henry Savile acting as the intermediary between Father and Sir Winston. I knew they’d be arduous, since Father would insist on the terms being as favorable to me as possible, while the Churchills, being impoverished gentry, would do their best to wrestle the most they could from Father for their son. I agreed with John not to announce our betrothal until this dry work was done. I wasn’t offended; this was how matches were arranged, and it was time. I’d pass my nineteenth birthday before the year ended, more than of a marriageable age.

  “It’s clear enough that we suit each other, Katherine,” John said to me one frosty night. He’d taken me to the privy garden where we’d be alone except for the ghostly stone statues that seemed to shiver above the empty beds. “At least I pray it’s as clear to you as it is to me.”

  I laughed softly. We stood close together with our arms inside each other’s cloaks, warm and snug in our embrace, and when I looked up at John, I saw the heavens full of stars above him.

  “Of course you suit me, you wicked devil,” I said, my words in the icy air showing as little clouds before my face. “Surely you must know that.”

  He chuckled. “I’d be a considerable fool not to, my darling.”

  “Then do you love me, too?” I demanded, daring greatly. “Do you?”

  He smiled, full of tenderness. “How could I not love you?”

  I closed my eyes and pressed my face against his breast, my heart overflowing with joy. To be loved, to be loved; truly, that was all I’d ever wanted.

  “My own dear Katherine,” he said tenderly, and when he turned his face up to kiss me, ah, I believed it. Every word, every kiss, every lie: I believed it all.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON

  January 1677

  As soon as Twelfth Night and the Christmas season was done, the duchess startled everyone by announcing she would host a grand ball in the Banqueting House at Whitehall at the end of the month. I say that we were startled, for the second half of January was usually a time for quiet and recovery from the boisterous celebrations of earlier in the month, and not for further entertainments. Which was not to say the Court faulted Her Highness for her plans; rather, we embraced them with a near-feverish gratitude, relieved that we’d now have one more large festivity to anticipate amidst the long, dark nights of winter.

  In Her Highness’s quarters, there was endless chatter of who would wear what, and who would dance with whom, as was always the case before a ball. Among those helping Mary Beatrice make her plans was her cousin (and the king’s new mistress), the Duchess of Mazarin. Together the two Italian ladies sat as close to the enormous fire as they could, never having accustomed themselves to our English cold. But where our duchess swaddled herself in furs and quilted petticoats to keep warm, Lady Mazarin wore a man’s plush breeches and high flopping boots for riding, even to the thick stockings and spurs. She was a tall, immodest woman, anyway, with a strong Roman beauty, and in these clothes she appeared more manly than a number of gentlemen I could name in our Court. Yet for being so outspoken, she was also very charming, and could coax those around her to laugh even after she’d sworn at them in a half dozen different languages.

  “You will wear a gown to my ball, Hortense, won’t you?” Mary Beatrice asked anxiously, pulling her fur-lined cloak more closely around her shoulders. “You will promise me to dress like a lady?”

  Lady Mazarin laughed, idly tapping her fingers against her goblet of wine. “And what if I do not, Cousin?”

  Her Highness’s eyes widened. “If you don’t, why, then no one will know how to regard you. Should ladies dance with you, or gentlemen?”

  “I should dance with them all,” Lady Mazarin declared, “and enjoy myself twice more than anyone else, for I shall have twice as many partners.”

  As if to demonstrate, she tipped back her head and began to sing some droll little tune; she did have a lovely voice, and often accompanied herself on the Spanish guitar. “Dorinda, ma bellissima Dorinda—but wait, Dorinda is here, is she not?”

  “Dorinda?” asked Mary Beatrice. “There is no lady by that name here.”

  I guessed something was amiss when I heard the smothered, sniggering laugh from one of the maids of honor who were playing cards at a table near the window, though I scarce could have known who they meant.

  “Oh, she is, cara, she is,” Lady Mazarin said with a throaty chuckle. She swung her long legs around, the rowels on her spurs jingling, and turned to face the group of us ladies who sat on low cushioned stools around them. “There she is, there. The most famous Dorinda!”

  To my thorough surprise, she was pointing at me.

  “I, Your Grace?” I said. “Forgive me, but I fear you have confused me with another. My name is not Dorinda, but Katherine. Katherine Sedley.”

  But she only nodded, her mane of unpinned black curls bouncing around her face. “Then you are one and the same with this Dorinda. Lord Middlesex himself told me so, that though he’d employed a classical name as a poetical conceit, it was meant to be you. He said you were the inspiration for his latest little satire.”

  “A satire by Lord Middlesex, Your Grace?” I said warily, already dreading the very worst. “He said I was his inspiration?”

  “Yes, yes, I know it was your name that he said,” she insisted. “Katherine Sedley. All who were there recognized it at once. Oh, how His Majesty did laugh and laugh to hear it last night, when His Lordship recited it for our amusement!”

  Mary Beatrice sighed with disappointment. “I wish I had been there to hear it as well. Lord Middlesex is a very clever, witty gentleman.”

  “His Lordship can also be a very malicious gentleman, ma’am,” I said, unable to help myself as my cheeks grew hot in woeful anticipation. “His words can be sharp as piercing barbs.”

  “But that is the nature of a good satire, Mrs. Sedley, isn’t it?” Lady Mazarin said, searching through the pockets of her gentleman’s waistcoat. “I’m sure I have a copy of it somewhere about my person, writ out for me by Middlesex. I know you are a lady of some wit yourself, and thus able to recognize the genius in another’s work. Ah, here it is.”

  Triumphantly she unfolded the small crumpled sheet, and behind me another lady giggled. Had the entire Court already heard this “little satire”? Was I the last?

  Lady Mazarin cleared her throat and began to read aloud.

  Dorinda’s sparkling Wit and Eyes,

  United, cast too fierce a light,

  Which blazes high but quickly dies,

  Warms not the heart but hurts the sight.

  Love is a calmer, gentler Joy,

  Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace;

  Her Cupid is a Black-Guard boy

  That runs his Link full in your face.

  To no surprise, every lady in the room laughed at the poem, and at my expense, too. How could I have believed Lord Middlesex would not avenge himself toward me? I was too perfect a target for him to let pass. For His Lordship to discredit the brightness of my dark eyes, to say I was so ugly that he couldn’t bear to gaze at me, to claim I was too harsh to be favored with love—oh, yes, he was determined to make me suffer for refusing him. Lord Rochester had once described Lord Middlesex as having the worst-natured muse in England, and here surely was the proof. He must have spent all the time he was in the country with his father polishing these few withering lines so that every one of them would draw blood.

  Yet somehow I found the strength to smile. To do otherwise would be exactly
what Lord Middlesex wished, and to spite him I’d keep far more pain than this my secret. And if my wit were my one defense here at Court, then, as Father had warned me, I must be prepared to accept my battle-scars in return.

  Besides, I’d find no allies here. I wasn’t exactly scorned by Her Highness—she was too generous and well bred to give slights—but I’d never won her full favor as I’d hoped, either. In truth, it shouldn’t have surprised me. The company of my own sex was seldom as pleasing to me as that of gentlemen, and in turn most other ladies often found my wit too sharp for their tender sensibilities. By way of snide retaliation, they’d try to wound me first, and clumsily fault my lack of womanly beauty as a lack of worth. There would be plenty in this room who would see my plainness as a fit reason enough for Lord Middlesex to mock me, and enjoy each poisonous word.

  “You must agree that it’s as pretty a satire as ever you’ve heard, Mrs. Sedley,” Lady Mazarin said, amusement still ruffling through her voice. “Or should I call you Dorinda?”

  “I believe I’ll continue with my own name, ma’am,” I said quickly. Once before His Lordship had inflicted a nickname upon me (the loathsome “Little Sid’s Kid”), and I prayed desperately that this one would not stick to haunt me, too. “Surely it’s better to be named for a blessed saint than by a satirical poet.”

  “I should think it rather an honor to have a poetic name, like Phyllis or Silvia,” Mary Beatrice said almost wistfully. “Or Dorinda. But tell me, Mrs. Sedley. Have you scorned Lord Middlesex, to inspire him so, or is it only another conceit?”

  “Oh, I would venture it’s only a conceit,” Lady Mazarin said before I could answer for myself. “Another lady asked that question last evening, which only made His Lordship sigh so hugely that we laughed again. But as His Majesty reminded us, Lady Middlesex is such a rapturous beauty that he’d never have reason to wander. It is clear that the poem is only a satire on a true lover’s poem.”