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

by Holloway Scott, Susan

  Instead, on the second night of Charles’s illness, Lord Sunderland, the most trusted of the Privy Councilors, sent a messenger racing to Brussels to recall the Duke of York.

  In the privacy of my rooms, I wildly rejoiced. Even in such somber circumstances, to be reunited with James so soon was beyond my most wistful dreams. Though I fervently prayed with the others for Charles’s swift recovery, I still thought of little beyond seeing James again.

  I was not alone in my imaginings, either. On the morning following the messenger’s departure, I was surprised by a visit from Louise herself, come to call on me alone in my rooms. There are some women that rise to display their most noble qualities in a crisis such as was now facing Charles, who display such rare strength and fortitude as to give comfort not only to the afflicted, but to others who are likewise gathered at the sickbed.

  I am sorry to say that Louise was not one of these women. As soon as the severity of Charles’s illness had been recognized, she had panicked, weeping and wailing and throwing herself about, and making such a thorough nuisance of herself that Charles himself, though racked with fever, was forced to reassure her. After that, the king’s physicians had decided they were in their rights to limit her access to his bedchamber, which was likely why she was now able to visit me in mine.

  She was dressed simply, without her usual eye for fashionable excess: an unadorned dark silk gown, no lace or jewels, no paint on her face. The poor king must have taken one look at her and believed she was already mourning him.

  I curtsied before her, as I would for any duchess, and waited until she motioned for me to sit.

  “His Majesty has grown no worse,” she announced, hardly a fortuitous beginning. “Nor has he ever lost consciousness, despite the seriousness of the fever, thanks be to God for that.”

  “Thanks be to God,” I repeated in a murmuring echo that seemed safe enough for an Anglican to embrace. “I trust there is still hope, Your Grace?”

  She sighed mightily, twisting her handkerchief into an anxious knot in her lap. “There is always hope, Mrs. Sedley. Charles himself has implored Dr. Lower to procure a certain remedy of which he has knowledge, an effusion made of powdered bark from the colonies. Dr. Lower is in such despair of a proper remedy that he is considering its use. His Majesty is not a man to be lightly denied, even in this.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. Charles was seldom denied in anything, as was the privilege of kings; I couldn’t imagine a mere physician beginning to do so now. Besides, Charles was known to delight in new discoveries in science and philosophy, and study them himself in his privy closet at Whitehall. What a ripe irony it would be if he could cure himself where the illustrious royal physicians failed!

  Louise sighed again, her plump red lips trembling as she fought her tears. “The order for His Highness’s recall remains in place. Lord Sunderland believes it for the best, and predicts that, with favorable seas and wind, His Highness should be able to join us within the next se’nnight.”

  I nodded, having already calculated myself that the journey from Brussels shouldn’t take more than a week, especially given the urgency of the circumstances. “It is a mild season for travel, Your Grace, and I’m certain His Highness will make every haste.”

  But somewhere in my agreement, she’d stopped listening. She sat before me lost in her own fears, her shoulders huddled and quaking, her hands clasped together tightly around the sodden knot she’d made of her lace-edged handkerchief. A single tear slid down her cheek, hanging there for an instant before it dropped and spread on her wrist; she even wept with elegance, and rare poignancy, too.

  “He cannot die,” she whispered forlornly. “Not like this. He cannot leave me, not when I love him so well.” She turned her lovely face toward me, her eyes swollen from weeping.

  “You will recall the kindness I have shown to you, Mrs. Sedley?” she begged with pitiful eagerness. “You will make certain that His Highness will not forget me, or my little son His Grace the Duke of Richmond?”

  “Faith, Your Grace, there is no need of this!” I exclaimed, taken completely by surprise. “His Majesty is not in his grave yet, nor is His Highness made king in his stead.”

  Louise only shook her head. “But if—if the worst occurs, you will have my place,” she said with uncharacteristic (and unsettling) humility. “You will be as I am now, and I will be as nothing.”

  “Oh, you shall never be as nothing, Your Grace,” I assured her. In addition to Charles’s boundless indulgence toward her, she was also a peeress in France as well as in England, and wealthy, beautiful duchesses in either country were very rarely forgotten, nor were their sons if sired by kings.

  It was the rest of what she’d said that startled me. I won’t lie and claim I’d never thought of what it would be like to be mistress not to a prince, but to a king. How could I not, when the royal succession was the unending topic of the day? But those idle imaginings had always been centered on James himself, of openly belonging to him, of being at his side at balls at Court, of our daughter receiving the same honors as other royal bastards, and (perhaps selfishly) of how in time I’d come to replace Mary Beatrice in most things, just as Louise had replaced Her Majesty. I’d even let myself consider inheriting Louise’s lavish Whitehall apartments. But it all had been in relation to myself and James. I’d never considered being a woman with power at the Court and beyond, wielding influence through the king to determine who found favor and success at Court, and who would drop away forgotten.

  Louise had such power, and a gift for intrigue of the highest sort. I’d heard whispers that she’d even helped negotiate treaties between the French and English kings. Clearly she believed I might soon have this power, too, through James—a serious, sobering, unsettling possibility. It remained in my thoughts after Louise had left me to return to the king’s side, and it followed me to bed, to plague me all the night through, waiting to greet me the moment I finally woke.

  But when Thomson appeared with my chocolate the next morning, she also brought the welcome news that Charles was much improved. The remedy that he’d insisted be tried had proven its efficacy, and not only was the fever much diminished, but his genial humor had returned as well. By the time that James and two attendants finally arrived at the castle on the second of September, expecting the worst and with mourning clothes in their traveling chests, the danger was well past. Charles greeted them merrily as he sat in his bed, dining on a great dish of savory partridges with Louise beside him and complaining impatiently about how Dr. Lower and the others had forbidden him his usual trip to Newmarket for the autumn meets. But Charles had saved the best jest of all for his brother: the true name of the miraculous powder that had preserved him, he explained with uproarious irony, was Jesuit’s Bark.

  In the end, the real irony had belonged to James himself. The lords who had brought him back had worried endlessly about whether their action would cause an uproar, or even another rebellion. Instead James had appeared at once as a veritable pillar of strength, quietly confident amidst the chattering disorder of an uneasy Court. He possessed a soldier’s gift for order and the ability to act efficiently under pressure. True, the concerns surrounding Charles’s health were not exactly the same as a battle with gunfire and explosions. But the hysteria that had plagued the Court over the last twelve months could indeed be likened to a war, and like the best of generals, James’s very presence seemed at once to calm and reassure the entire Court, especially when compared to the vain, empty ambitions of Lord Monmouth. James had been painted as a monster for so long that people seemed most agreeably surprised when the actual, honorable gentleman appeared before them.

  I could have told them that long before. I was among the throng that gathered along the castle’s walls, above the gate, to welcome him to Windsor. From a distance, he appeared thinner than when he’d left, with a certain melancholy air that was sadly new. His smile was quick, almost shy, as if he seemed startled by so much attention, and who could fault him if he w
ere? But his handsome face and quiet, steady demeanor were exactly as I remembered, and my heart ached at the very sight of him.

  I’d written him while he was still in Brussels that I would be here at Windsor for the month, and as he glanced up at us on the parapets to wave in salute, I dared to believe he sought me among so many others. But no matter how much I ached to join him, I knew I must wait until a more proper, more private time. Even a lady as bold as I knew that there were few things more inconvenient and unseemly than a mistress in the middle of such a sober, serious crisis. Louise had already proven that, and she was a mistress of nearly ten years’ standing.

  But James hadn’t forgotten me. Three days later, when the king was declared out of danger, a note in his familiar hand was brought to me, naming a room in one of the castle’s towers. With touching humility, he invited me to meet him there.

  And with unabashed eagerness, I agreed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WINDSOR CASTLE, BERKSHIRE

  September 1679

  Windsor Castle had been built long ago as a fortress, and from its lofty heights it was possible to see many miles over the countryside, across distant towns and farms. Its stout walls had been intended to hold even the most daring attackers at bay, and for many centuries it had done exactly that. Now, in more peaceful times, Charles had made it over into a retreat of pleasure, filled with beautiful pictures, grand staircases, and fountains that jetted fancifully high into the sky, rather than a place of weapons and warhorses.

  But for James and me, the old castle once again served its original purpose of keeping out the rest of the world. He had left behind in Brussels not only his duchess, but also his usual retinue of followers, priests, and other counselors crowding with demands. For two weeks we stole away to our distant room in the tower, with only a pair of guards beyond our door. While courtiers elsewhere in the castle must have speculated that we met, none knew for sure where or how often, our secrecy was that complete. James and I both understood how our assignations could be used by his enemies; to turn from what might have been a brother’s deathbed to a lover’s wanton embrace while his wife languished abroad could have been spun into an unsavory tale indeed for the pamphlets.

  But it wasn’t like that. I will not claim that we were chaste, for we weren’t. We were both by our very natures too passionate for that, and our feverish desire for each other was much of what had first bound us together. To see how well and how often he loved me made me wonder exactly how seldom Mary Beatrice permitted him to her bed, for indeed he came to me like a man close to starving.

  Yet what pleased me even more were our conversations afterward, when we lay curled together and the warm, sweet breezes from the open windows played over our heated bodies. I suppose this is the way of all mistresses and their gentlemen; a lady-wife and husband converse in their parlor over tea, but James and I had our conversations in tumbled beds.

  We spoke freely at Windsor, too, as if we hadn’t been apart at all, and with complete trust in each other. He told me of the tedium of Brussels, of how he’d hated the idleness of his position, and how he longed to be of use to England again. He spoke of how he’d feared for his brother, and how he was loath to become king when the crown would only be his at such a terrible cost. He confided how pleased and relieved he was to see that he’d not been forgotten whilst away, how gratifying he found it that he’d been welcomed so warmly. The much-dreaded Exclusion Act was still a chimera without fire or teeth; the lord mayor of London had been prepared to proclaim James king if his brother had died, and James proudly named to me each of the aldermen who’d knelt to kiss his hand.

  “The lord mayor’s favor is an excellent sign, sir, to be sure,” I said, my head propped on my arm as I lay beside him to listen. “But you must be permitted to return to London so that more people may see you. So long as you’re away from their sight, Shaftesbury and the others will paint you as black as coal.”

  “Including your father,” he said wryly. “Don’t deny it, Katherine. I hear things even in Brussels.”

  I groaned dramatically. “My father is but one voice of many in the Commons, sir,” I said. “He’s not Shaftesbury. You can hardly fault me for what my father says or does.”

  “Yet you say you take my side over his,” he said thoughtfully. “Few daughters would do that.”

  “Few daughters are like me,” I said. “I’m sure my father would say mercifully few. I think for myself, sir, and judge for myself, and at present your cause makes more sense to me than all the Whigs combined. As for my father, I can no more control his actions than he can control mine.”

  “Control you?” he said, teasing. “Is there any mortal man who has such powers, Katherine?”

  “Don’t vex me, sir, or it will go the worse for you.” I shoved him hard, and he laughed, and drew me forward to kiss.

  “But you should come back to London, sir,” I whispered afterward, persisting. “I know His Majesty believes it for the best to have you away, but it’s not. Do you know that in the playhouses, Monmouth is cheered as if he were the true heir?”

  He frowned. “He has even less right to that than before. The boy has vexed my brother even further these last months by what he’s doing in the north, rallying discontented fools around him as if he were another Messiah.”

  “That, and proclaiming to the world that his whoring mother was wed to His Majesty,” I said. “He goes about with a locked black box that he swears contains the proof of their marriage, but he never opens the damned box for anyone to see inside. Faith, he’s like a bad conjurer.”

  “Fool,” James said with disgust. “A fool leading fools.”

  “But that is why you must come back to London, sir,” I said. “Then everyone could see how strong and steady you are compared to Monmouth, and you could—”

  “I can’t, Katherine,” he said gently. “Not without my brother’s permission. You know that.”

  “But if you came to London, you could see more of me,” I said, placing his hand over my bare breast. “You could see more of Lady Katherine, too.”

  “I should like that above all things,” he said sadly. Not sad on account of my breast—I knew better than that—but because of our daughter. I’d contrived to have her brought to an inn nearby for James to see. She’d bloomed into a fine, sturdy little lass, able to sit on her own and stand on wobbling legs. To my pride and relief, she hadn’t cried at all when James had held her, only staring up at him in perfect seriousness, as if she realized that this stranger was in fact her father. Tears had started in James’s eyes, and though he loved my daughter for herself, I guessed, too, he was thinking of how much stronger Lady Katherine was than the doomed babes that Mary Beatrice had given him. Only one had survived, the impossibly frail Lady Isabella.

  “To see our daughter grow and prosper, Katherine—what father could wish for otherwise?” he asked.

  If it were his decision, then I knew he’d be in London with me. The sadness in his voice told me that, and warned me, too, not to continue to beg for something that was not in his power to do. Instead I only smiled, determined to cheer him as best I could.

  “You say you’ve heard everything from afar, sir,” I said, my words purposefully light. “Has anyone told you of Betty Mackerel’s starling?”

  “Bet Mackerel?” he asked, already intrigued. “That tall, lively wench at the playhouse?”

  “The same, sir,” I said, settling against his chest to tell my tale. “The one who speaks near as plain as I. In honor of His Majesty’s birthday, she gave to him a starling that had been specially trained to talk bawdry. Charles was much pleased, as can be imagined, and kept the bird in his bedchamber for his amusement.”

  Already James was beginning to laugh, though I doubted he’d guess where this story would end. “A talking starling? Why did he not tell me this himself?”

  “I do not know, sir,” I said. “Perhaps he believed the bird would tell it you himself. One day His Majesty received the Arch
bishop of Canterbury in his bedchamber on some solemn business. But before they could begin, the bird did hop onto His Grace’s shoulder, as neat as could be. ‘Thou lecherous dog,’ the bird said, ‘wilt thou have a whore?’ ”

  “The bird said that?” exclaimed James, roaring so with laughter that his chest quaked and bounced beneath me. “To the archbishop? Hah, how I would have liked to have seen that, after all that man has done to torment me!”

  I laughed merrily with him, glad that I’d brought him that little pleasure. “So would I, sir. I do not know which would have been rarer to see: the archbishop’s face or His Majesty’s.”

  That set him to laughing afresh, until at last he drew me close.

  “My own Katherine,” he said with great affection, tangling his fingers in my hair. “How I’ve missed you, and how I’ll miss you again.”

  “Then it is certain, sir?” I asked, striving to keep the crush of disappointment from my voice. “You are to return to Brussels?”

  “Only long enough to conclude my affairs and gather Her Highness,” he said. “Then I am to be sent to Edinburgh. At least I shall have some manner of employment. I’m to sit on the Scottish privy council, to listen and observe, and gain whatever is useful for my brother.”

  “Edinburgh,” I said, unable to go farther beyond that. Edinburgh meant Scotland, cold and remote and primitive, and seemingly even farther from London than Brussels was. “I would not suppose there would be a place for me there as well?”

  “Would that there were,” he said with regret. At least I always knew the truth with James, for there wasn’t a deceitful scrap in his being. “I would find it all far more bearable if you were along to cheer me. But I fear that—”