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

by Holloway Scott, Susan

  That was how Charles found us. He entered quietly, through one of the hidden passages that riddled Whitehall, and when I drowsily looked up over the rim of my glass, there he stood, laughing at us.

  At once I set down my glass and stumbled to my stockinged feet to curtsy, but Charles motioned for me to stop.

  “No ceremony, Katherine, I beg you,” he said, joining Louise on her settee. At once she curled against him and draped her legs familiarly over his as she offered him one of the little cakes from her plate. He smiled, and let her feed him, slowly licking the sugary icing from her fingers.

  Uncomfortable, I looked away. Though she had been his mistress for nearly fifteen years, she still possessed the power to beguile him, and I’d no doubt that if I weren’t there, they would have been on each other in an instant.

  Truth be told, seeing them together made me almost unbearably lonely. But no matter how I longed to leave, I could not retreat without their permission, and so I stood, my gaze lowered in misery.

  “You must be tired, madame, and wish for your bed,” Louise said softly, understanding. “Might you give her leave, sir?”

  “After a moment,” he said easily. “I will not keep you beyond that, Mrs. Sedley.”

  “As you wish, sir.” I looked to Charles. With his dark, melancholy eyes balanced by an ever-wry smile, he bore only a passing resemblance to his brother, and yet there was still something to his face that reminded me of James.

  “I should think it’s rather your wish, Mrs. Sedley, not mine,” he said. “I will be leaving for the winter meetings at Newmarket in a fortnight. I know you ladies don’t favor the cold, but I recommend that you join us. Your former lodgings have been taken for you again, and you will find the company to your taste.”

  I gasped; I could not help it. “Forgive me, sir, but—but you startle me, sir.”

  He laughed, clearly pleased beyond measure with himself. “Hah, that is what I wanted. You won’t disappoint my brother now, Mrs. Sedley, will you?”

  “No, sir—that is, not at all, sir,” I managed to stammer, for once without words. “I would not disappoint him, not for all the world.”

  “I am glad of that,” Charles said. “He needs wise counsel wherever he can find it.”

  But Louise only smiled. “I told you to have courage, madame,” she said. “You listened, and now—now you shall have your reward, and so, too, shall His Highness.”

  Chapter Twenty

  NEWMARKET, SUFFOLK

  February 1682

  In the long months that James and I had been apart, I’d often worried that he’d forget me, or worse, that when we met again, he’d wonder that he’d ever found me pleasing in the first place. It was no idle fear, either. We had been separated far longer than we’d been together, and though the ancient poet might claim that “always toward absent lovers does love’s tide grow stronger,” he had never known the fickleness of royal favor.

  Yet as soon as James and I met again at Palace House, the king’s lodgings in Newmarket, it was as if only a few hours had separated us instead of years. He had changed little: his expression more resolute, perhaps, his fair-eyed gaze more fiercely determined, but that was all. Lord Dorset and others who did not like me might claim I’d grown old and withered before my time, but James declared I’d only become more lovesome in his eyes. Thus it should be with lovers: that so long as we each pleased the other, then the rest of the world might be damned to the devil.

  “There are those who will always dislike me, Katherine,” he said, soon after his return to England. We’d gone out riding one sharp frosty morning before the rest of the Court was awake, crossing the fields outside of town. With no one to overhear us, he spoke plainly, our horses drawn close for conversation and his attendants and guards keeping their distance. “Halifax, for one. I could tell it as soon as I met him the other night.”

  “Lord Halifax?” I asked with surprise. “Faith, His Lordship was the one who defended you so strongly in the Lords!”

  “He defended my brother, and he spoke against exclusion. He has never defended me.” He nodded solemnly. “That’s a world of difference, you know. Halifax believes Charles risked too much for me, and so resents me for it. I could see it in his eyes. If you want to know the truth of a man, mark his eyes.”

  “I could not tell you so much as the color of His Lordship’s eyes, let alone what truth they betray.”

  “That is because you’ve no need to know, being a lady. A lady’s eyes are an entirely different matter.” He smiled crookedly, studying me from beneath the cocked brim of his hat, pulled low against the chill. “Your eyes are very beautiful, Katherine, and I could stare into them by the hour. I’ve always thought so, you know.”

  “Why, sir,” I said, touched as I always was by his compliments. They were never very original, and often a little clumsy, as was this, but they were always so heartfelt in a way that a more practiced gallant would never be. “That is kind of you to say.”

  “It’s not being kind,” he said. “It’s the truth. Just as it’s the truth that Halifax doesn’t like me.”

  I sighed, wishing there weren’t such a fine line between being stalwart and stubborn. “Don’t make an enemy of him, sir.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” he said. “But while I can’t make him like me, I can make him respect me. You’ll see, Katherine. I’m determined in this. I will keep myself clear of my brother’s affairs here in England, and hold Scotland as my only purpose.”

  “You don’t mean to return to Edinburgh, do you?” I asked with dismay.

  “Not if it’s in my power to remain,” he said. “But I must earn my place here. Charles has made that plain. I must make myself agreeable, and be quiet in my worship, and then he will reconsider my future.”

  “You can convince him, sir,” I said. “You will, so long as your priests stay tethered to their prie-dieus in your lodgings to keep them from appearing on the street and frightening the populace.”

  I’d meant that as a jest, but he’d taken it as an actual suggestion, the sort of misunderstanding that occasionally occurred between us.

  “That’s easily done,” he said seriously. “Those good fathers have no desire to mingle with the jockeys and whores in this place.”

  Tempted though I was, I let it pass from affection for him, and also kept to myself all other observations that would have freely jumbled those same good fathers with the jockeys and whores. I could only hope that, for the sake of those poor priests, he wasn’t really tethering them to anything.

  “That will please your brother, sir,” I said instead.

  “I hope it does,” he said, but there was a gloomy fatalism in his manner that showed he didn’t believe it. “My brother will do what he wishes, as he always has, and tell no one of it until it’s done.”

  “What he wishes is what is best for you, sir,” I said, and so it was, at least by what Louise had told me. “Why else would he have sent for you now?”

  “I can but pray that it’s so,” he said, his expression still dark. “Above all things, I know I must demonstrate that England would be better served by having me here than in godforsaken Edinburgh.”

  “I am certain I would be better served by having you here, sir.” I drew my mare to a halt and grinned, determined to tease him into a better humor. “I believe I’ve made that plain, too.”

  “Have you now, madam?” He stopped, and guided his horse to stand beside me. He might not always be the gentleman with the quickest wit, but by his smile he’d understood perfectly what I was suggesting now. “Must I demonstrate myself to you as well?”

  “Only if you can catch me first,” I called over my shoulder, and led him a merry chase back to the stable. He did indeed demonstrate himself after that, and quite handsomely, too, not even pausing to remove his boots.

  OVER THE NEXT WEEKS, JAMES MANAGED to prove himself so thoroughly to his brother that, after the races were done, he invited him to return to London with the rest of the Court. As James
had predicted, Lord Halifax was the only one to protest this invitation, worrying that the time was still not right for the Duke of York to show himself in the city. But instead of inciting rebellion and mayhem, as the marquess had warned, James’s return to Whitehall was marked only by cheering welcomes for “Our Jemmy.” The tide had indeed turned back in favor of the Stuart brothers.

  The spring of 1682 was a halcyon time for James and me as well. With no real responsibilities as yet—Charles was rightly cautious of that—he was free to indulge in my company and with as much amorous play as we pleased. From how he described the grimness of Scotland, I believed he well deserved whatever happy respite I could grant him. Not only had he been forced to deal with the violent madmen and religious fanatics to be found there, but he’d also suffered more personal trials: Mary Beatrice had been delivered of yet another stillborn son, and sadder still, the only surviving child of their marriage, the five-year-old Lady Isabella, had also perished. This was, I think, another piece of why people had become more tolerant of James, and a sorrowful piece it was, too: although Mary Beatrice had conceived at least one child a year, not one had survived to prosper. The threat of a Catholic heir beyond James seemed increasingly unlikely, even though the duchess was with child again, the reason she’d remained behind in Edinburgh.

  To be honest, I had been glad Her Highness was still away, both to have James to myself and to be spared the fury of her jealousy. James came often to my lodgings in the palace and in King Street. He especially enjoyed Lady Katherine, now a busy small person of three years, and played with her as any ordinary father would with his child. We walked and rode in St. James’s Park, took our daughter to feed the ducks on the canal, attended the playhouses, and a score of other simple amusements. This happy time would come to an end, of course, for in June James was traveling back to the north to fetch his wife, his daughter the Lady Anne, and the rest of his household back from Edinburgh to London, but for now we were blissfully content.

  After a supper in James’s honor shortly before he began this journey, I was surprised to find myself approached by my former suitor John Churchill. He was finding much success in his career, and had become one of James’s closest advisers, occupying a position of great trust in the York household as the Master of the Robes. John had been one of the gentlemen to accompany James from Brussels to Windsor when Charles’s life had been in jeopardy, and he had also accompanied James on this visit to Newmarket and London. He and his odious wife, Sarah, were said to be happy, though after their marriage he had ordered her not to serve in either royal household, which seemed passing strange to me.

  For obvious reasons, I had kept from John’s company, but on this night, he came toward me of a purpose, and I could not avoid him. He was still as handsome as when I’d fallen in love with him, though now in plain dress for evening instead of his officer’s uniform. I thought he seemed more ordinary than I’d remembered, and shorter, too, now that I’d grown accustomed to James’s height.

  “Mrs. Sedley,” he said, sweeping his hat in salute. “I trust you are well?”

  “Well enough that you would come seek me out, it seems,” I said wryly. “What makes you take notice of me now, John? Is there a spray of gold coins sprouting from the train of my gown that make me worthy of your attention?”

  He winced, a pained look I confess I remembered all too well with him. “I see no reason why we cannot speak as old friends do.”

  “Very well,” I said. “I shall walk with you once about the Privy Garden gallery, which should offer time for all the speaking we need do.”

  I took his offered arm, and together we began to walk the galleries that overlooked the garden, a square that likely would enclose the limits of what we could possibly have to say to each other. Below us in the moonlight, the statues in the garden looked pale and frozen, and likely no more at ease than I felt in John’s company.

  “What a pace you set, Katherine,” he said. “I forget how swiftly you walk.”

  I didn’t slow. “Forgive me, sir,” I said, “but I forget your wife is short with limbs to match. These days I am more accustomed to the manly stride of His Highness.”

  “I’d venture you are,” he said grudgingly. “Katherine, please. We were friends once, and I wish us to be friends again, serving the same master.”

  I raised my brows with amusement. “Faith, John, I trust you’re not serving His Highness in the same fashion as I!”

  He looked so shocked that I judged him again to be a dreadful prig. Then, to my delight, he laughed, and I laughed with him.

  “I cannot make that claim, no,” he admitted. “Nor do I wish to. But where is the harm in us being friends such as this, Katherine? We share the same loyalties.”

  “My first loyalty is not to my master, but to my country.” This was no empty slogan on my part, but what I believed in perfect earnestness. I should have been a Whig by nature and a Tory by circumstance, but having observed the worst of both parties, I could in conscience choose neither, and instead simply stood by my native country in all her dear imperfection.

  “Such a loyalty should be the same for you, too, John,” I continued, “though I’ll grant one is a good deal more generous than the other.”

  “I’ll not disagree,” he said, “and yes, I have sworn to serve England first above any other masters. His Highness would feel the same.”

  “On most days he does,” I agreed. “But on some, I’m certain he feels that England has not shown him the same regard that it should.”

  He grew suddenly serious. “Has His Highness ever tried to persuade you to popery? Has he ever made his favor conditional on your conversion to Rome?”

  “He has not persuaded, nor presumed, either,” I said firmly. “But then, he knows better than to introduce such a notion to me.”

  When he didn’t answer, I glanced to him, curious. “You’re often with His Highness. Has he ever urged you to his faith?”

  “No,” John admitted. “He has never attempted it. But I have heard tales of others in his employ who have felt the weight of his proselytizing for Rome.”

  “He shouldn’t do that, not if he wishes his brother to end his exile,” I said, troubled by this news. “The Whigs already write too many falsehoods in that vein of him. If they could find even one servant who’d swear he’d tried to push them toward his priests, then he’ll never be free of Edinburgh. I was sure His Highness understood that, too.”

  “Perhaps he does,” John admitted, “and perhaps my information was misguided. But for His Highness’s sake, it is good that we can speak like this, Katherine.”

  “I suppose it is.” I stopped, slipping my hand free of his arm. “Here we are, sir, at the end of the gallery.”

  He bowed. “I thank you for the pleasure, Mrs. Sedley, and hope you will honor me with your company again soon.”

  I nodded in vague acknowledgment, and left him. I wondered how much worth there’d been in what he’d said, and how much was his own cunning and speculation. I did not trust him, of course. As a courtier and an officer, he would always vow that his first loyalty was to his country and his master, but I’d always suspected that his first loyalty above all others would be sworn to John Churchill. No matter. It would be safer and more useful to have such a gentleman regard me as a friend rather than otherwise, and perhaps more useful for James as well.

  THE TRIP TO AND FROM SCOTLAND in May proved to be one more wretched example of the ill luck that plagued James through most of his life. Whereas his brother the king seemed able to dodge misfortune or even twist it about to his own use, James seemed doomed to plunge headfirst into it without respite, and often with the worst possible outcome as well.

  So it was with this journey. To avoid the notoriously bad roads in the north during the rains of spring, James had decided to travel by sea. In the midst of a terrifying storm, the ship carrying them ran aground on the shoals off Yarmouth, with the loss of over a hundred lives. Later James told me that he’d expected to
die, dashed by the raging waves against the rocks. He had tried his best to show the bravery of a leader, refusing to abandon the sinking vessel beneath him the way any captain or admiral would. More stubbornness, I thought sadly, even as I applauded his bravery.

  But his fine show of courage ended when his gentlemen forced him not as a captain, but as heir to the throne, into a boat as the last to leave the wreck. Sailors and others who’d earlier been swept into the waves struggled to save themselves by clinging to this boat, threatening to swamp it entirely, and James’s soldiers had been forced to beat them back to save their master. Those men left to drown clearly haunted James; he spoke of them often and prayed for them more, hoping they’d made peace with God before they’d died, even if none of them had been people of quality. Even to me, that had an unpleasant callousness to it, which I hoped was attributed to James’s distress and no more.

  The Whig papers viewed the tragedy through a more calumnious light, however, claiming that numerous witnesses had watched the Duke of York himself using his sword to slash away the hands of the drowning sailors. In the face of disaster, they wrote, James had cared for saving only three things: his priests, his dogs, and his strongbox.

  But the worst version of all was the one I overheard told by John Churchill to another officer of his acquaintance. By John’s reckoning, the grievous loss of life was entirely due to the obstinacy of His Highness, and that even in the fire of battle, he’d never witnessed such cruelty as the duke displayed toward others in peril. As a survivor himself of the wreck, John’s word could not be questioned, but I doubted it still, and wondered at the motives behind it.

  It took another gentleman from the York household to explain this more succinctly. As Keeper of the Duke’s Privy Purse, Colonel Grahme was also close to James; like John Churchill, he was another soldier drawn into the Yorks’ service, and one who’d also scarce escaped the shipwreck.