Ladies in Waiting (2 page)

Eliza looked at her hands and bit her lip. It was all she could do to keep from screaming with joy.

“Do not fret, my child. A heart as pure as yours is incorruptible. You have nothing to fear from the court.”

Her voice trembling with emotion, she said, “I will do as you wish, sir.”

Within her breast, her heart exulted.

“Now you may take off that silken frippery I know you despise, and put on your good sober grays again. At court I suppose you must dress like the rest, but here at home you can be your own self.”

She ran upstairs and Hortense changed her into her customary charcoal wool. The high neck itched, and she tugged at it in irritation as she told her maid the news.

“No matter, ma’am. Once you get to court he’s lost his hold over you. You’ll be your own mistress.”

Eliza smiled at her somber reflection.
My own, or someone else’s,
she thought.

She caught herself up sharply.
No, that’s a good line for a play, but not for me. I don’t want to be kept in check by anyone—not my father, not a husband, not even a lover. I want to be free.

Chapter 2

The Queen’s Pet

Q
UEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA
, married a bare two moths, sat amid her Portuguese attendants and rubbed each of her fingertips with her thumb in slow succession, counting the prayers of the rosary she was too timid to show in this gaudy, profane aviary that was her husband’s court. Bright, winsome creatures moved with a flutter of silks and feathers near the outskirts of the room. It was an honor to be admitted to the queen’s presence, but none of them took the trouble to speak with her after the initial ceremonial greeting. At first Catherine excused them, thinking they might be shy. She was almost shy of herself, now that she had transformed from convent girl to this great thing, a queen. She soon realized the ladies and gallants of the court held her not in awe, but in contempt.

Her shoulders ached from holding herself unnaturally straight within the confines of her boned gown. “I’ll take a turn,” she murmured to her ladies, and as one they rose after her, bobbing their respect and making up a train.

Catherine heard titters and words she only half understood—
fright, monster, olivaster-skinned bat.
She had very little English, but she did not need to speak the language to be aware of the court’s disapproval. They mocked her farthingale, the stiffly buttressed hoop skirt that was a Portuguese lady’s best defense against the male sex, for no one could approach her within arm’s reach. They shook their own tight fair curls in derision at Catherine’s soft black waves. They were all so beautiful! She had once been proud of the wardrobe prepared for her union with Charles. This dress was a particular favorite, deep midnight and silver, with yards of black lace. At the convent it had glinted in the firelight as her maids packed it. Now, beside the roses and robin’s eggs and spring greens, she felt the way she looked in their eyes—somber, sallow, foreign.

“I think tomorrow I’ll wear the blue silk His Majesty gave me,” she said with forced calm to her chief Portuguese attendant, the Countess of Penalva. “The one over cloth-of-gold, with seed-pearl slippers.”

“Nonsense,” Penalva said, like a governess to a child, not a noble attendant to a queen. “You must never succumb to their loose morals and indecent dress. You are their sovereign. It is for you to set an example of modesty and decorum. The farthingale is your national dress. You are still Portuguese. Let them imitate you.”

I am English now,
she longed to say, but she was a little intimidated by Penalva, and all of the other older, more experienced women sent from her home court. She knew Penalva meant well, but all the same she longed to feel the caress of silk against her legs, to know that every breath revealed a scandalous swell of bosom from a very low neckline.

This is my home now. I should fit in. Charles will like me better for it.

She did not walk long. She could not bear the eyes upon her.
At least when I sit they forget about me,
she thought.
Oh, I wish Charles would return.
He had departed without explanation on an endeavor he said was of vital importance to England, and she’d accepted it. Only later did she think he might be having a liaison. He’d been gone two weeks with no word.

She loved Charles to distraction, first in gratitude for elevating her to the highest feminine seat in the world, and later, when after a year of courtship by proxy they met face to face, she loved him for his handsome, manly courtesy and his convincing show of affection. She thought it was for her alone. Now she understood that he was gracious to every lady, though as queen she was entitled to an even grander show of seemingly sincere gazes and fond caresses. Why, the king doffed his hat to the milkmaids. He was a paragon of masculine respect for the feminine sex.

Still,
she thought,
I am his wife, and I will make him love me beyond all others.

The only weapons in her arsenal were gentle love, enduring courage, and faith. She looked out at the billowing sails of the gaudy ships gliding around her audience hall. They carried a veritable battery of charms—bare skin, paint, bold eyes, and lively tongues.

What do I have to offer His Majesty? Only a dowry, half of which my country has not paid. And maybe, someday, an heir.

Barbara Howard, Countess of Suffolk, parted the tossing fleet of ladies with her own bright galleon and strode languidly toward the queen, her heavy-lidded cat eyes sparkling with mirth or malice, or most likely both.

She made a deep, ballooning bow and handed Catherine a sheet of heavy parchment. “The list of ladies in waiting, Your Majesty. Five ladies of the bedchamber, four dressers of the bedchamber, and as of now, six pretty little maids of honor, though they get married so fast, you’ll be picking a new one every month.”

Catherine caught some of it, and her translator supplied the rest.

“Thank you,” she murmured, one of the few English phrases she was comfortable with, and the one that fit the most occasions.

Suffolk lingered near. “Please sign your approval, Your Majesty, and I will make all the necessary arrangements. If it please Your Majesty, my humble self has been nominated for mistress of the robes.”

“Certainly, I quite approve,” Catherine said. She couldn’t pin Suffolk down. She was unfailingly polite and attentive and smoothed the queen’s many flubs of etiquette. At first Catherine was sure she had found a friend. And yet at times she thought Suffolk was like Charles himself, superficially affectionate because she was expected to maintain an act. Still, she was competent and not overtly hostile. Better have her as chief of her ladies than one of the tittering court butterflies who openly despised her.

Catherine scanned the names, with Penalva looking over her shoulder, her stale breath reeking, though Catherine had given her cloves to chew, saying, diplomatically, that they were good for toothache.

“Let’s see,” Penalva said. “Mary Villiers. A relation of that wicked Buckingham, I presume, though I know no evil of her personally. Katherine Stanhope, hmm . . . she was Princess Mary’s governess and dear friend, but there was bad business with some jewels after the princess died. I’ll look into the right of it. Jane Granville, a pleasant lady. Oh! Not her! Never her!”

Catherine’s eyes lit on the hated name the same instant as Penalva’s. She gripped the parchment so hard that it crinkled, and that tiny rustle made the entire room fall still. They had evidently been waiting for the queen’s reaction.

Her face burning, her hand trembling, Catherine called out, “Fetch me a pen!”

She dipped at the ink violently and scratched stroke after stroke until the name Barbara Palmer was utterly obliterated.

Catherine knew almost nothing of the court, but she knew the name Barbara Palmer. All England, all Europe, knew the name of the king’s reigning mistress.

She handed the document back to Suffolk.

“I have pricked out one name,” she said, hardly waiting for her attendant to translate. “I think you know who.”

“But Your Majesty, the king himself has approved this list. Whomsoever he may choose, it is no doubt for the best.” Her voice and movements were languorous, but her eyes sharp for the drama that would unfold. As Barbara was Suffolk’s niece, she had a vested interest in her success. Would Catherine be a queen or a mouse?

Catherine’s nostrils flared as she struggled for composure. “I would rather have the lowest, meanest, poorest, most despised but honest lady at this court wait upon me than the king’s . . . the king’s . . .” Her lips could not form the word
whore.

“But, Your Majesty!”

Suddenly resolute (and, Suffolk thought, almost beautiful, for all her yellow skin and ghastly fashion), Catherine stood and said to her audience, “Who is the lowest and poorest among those admitted to the court? Scorned, ridiculed, yet a lady still? I can tell a lady, however low, from a devil, however high. Bring me the worst of your lot, and I warrant she’ll be better than Barbara Palmer!”

The translator wisely voiced only about half of the speech, but it was enough. Excited murmurs and titters ran through the ladies and foppish gentlemen, and at last they reached a consensus that apparently amused them. They sent a maid off to fetch someone. Catherine, furious, and frightened at her own temerity, sat down and vigorously fanned herself.

The room grew quiet again, and Catherine wondered how it was that silence could speak so many different things. This was not a reverential hush but the forced, deliberate silence of laughter held in check, a silence that was full of tension, about to erupt at any moment into a cacophony of mockery.

A girl came through the door. For a terrible moment Catherine was sure it was Barbara Palmer, for the newcomer was dressed in the most scandalously low-cut bodice Catherine had ever seen. The pink of her nipples just peeked over the ruffled suggestion of an undersmock, a thing permissible in one of Lely’s portraits but not in the flesh. Her skirt was gathered up in front to show trim ankles. Only laboring peasants and professed harlots showed their legs.

She was lovely, too, with an endearing sort of beauty that Catherine, in her limited experience, believed would draw a man better than any other.
If I were a man I would love her,
the queen thought, but because she was a woman she began to hate her instead, at least until she looked more closely.

The girl did not match her lewd clothes. She gave an impression of absolute softness, from the light brown curls twining along her temples with no stiffness of glue or sugar water to hold them in place, to the childish plumpness of her dimpled cheeks, her trembling pillow mouth. Her face was garishly painted: carmine lips, cochineal cheeks, hennaed eyelids, and an etching of blue crayon to deepen the natural veins on her chest. Under all that, though, was something small and timid. She was an alluring creature, but she was no whore; Catherine could see that now. She was nervous, almost terrified. One thing was certain—Catherine would have nothing to fear from this beautiful child. But who was she?

“Come closer, my dear,” she said, beckoning so that it didn’t have to be translated.

The girl tottered forward, almost tripping on her high-heeled slippers, and the courtiers laughed outright.

“What is your name?”

The girl curtsied a mite too deeply, and her breasts escaped that last crucial half inch. Gasping, she clutched her smock and jerked it up, covering her breasts but exposing several mended rents in the worn fabric. Catherine, peering more closely, saw that the girl’s dress, once fine, was worn at the edges, that the metallic braid had lost its luster and the silk was stained with sweat and watermarks.

“Beth, Your Majesty. Oh! I mean Lady Elizabeth Foljambe.” She bowed her head and looked as if she would weep.

She wanted to ask Beth more, but Suffolk stepped up and said, “Her mother’s Countess of Enfield. The earl, her father, is dead these last several years. The family were staunch Royalists, but he left them here to Cromwell’s tender mercies and went to the continent. He claimed he gave His Majesty every penny, but the truth is, he and his friend, that notorious rake Ransley, squandered it on gambling and women. Sold the estate out from under them. One of Old Noll’s generals, the new owner, came knocking one day, gave them an hour to pack and leave. For the past two years the old bawd’s been trying to pimp the girl’s noble blood to regain their fortune, but there’ve been no takers. She’s a pretty creature, but beauty’s a hard sell without a dower, particularly when a demon mother comes along.”

If there hadn’t been a lag of translation Catherine would have stopped Suffolk’s cruel words. But by the time it was rendered into Portuguese, the damage was done and two great tears rose, trembled, and spilled from Beth’s gentle gray eyes.

Catherine shot Suffolk an angry look, but it could not touch Suffolk’s composure. Her place at court was assured, and it would take the wrath of a greater queen than Catherine to shake it.

The queen instead favored Beth with her kindest expression. She felt sorry for the child, but more than that, she liked her—instantly, passionately, protectively. On a more calculating level, she knew it would be good to have someone near her, even a lowly maid of honor, less experienced in the ways of the world. Her timidity would make Catherine feel more queenly.

“Would you like to be one of my maids of honor?” she asked gently.

Beth looked up fearfully.

“Best wait till you meet the other half of the bargain,” Suffolk drawled in her sleepy voice. “As every gallant at court knows, you can’t have the girl without the mother.”

Another hush fell, and Catherine in her newly understood natural history of silence recognized the superstitious fear and awe in this one. A woman limped into the hall . . . at least, it must have been a woman once. Revulsion rose like a live squirming thing in the queen’s belly, and she half stood, ready to run.