Now Face to Face (29 page)

“Listen to this!” He began to read aloud without so much as greeting her. “‘The duel is yet another example of the immorality and impiety which flourish like foul weeds under this set of His Majesty’s ministers, men who would give succor to dissenters and atheists—’”

On and on he went, reading aloud the points the broadsheet so cleverly made, with its reference to various acts passed during these last years that had been unpopular. In this quarrelsome country, there was no act that did not displease someone.

You comprehend, the King had once said, that we rule here by a thread of English law, the law that he who rules must be Protestant. This law, which makes us the rightful King, can be unmade as well. Cousin James has as much claim to this throne as we, save that he is Catholic. They tried to remake the law the last year of Queen Anne’s reign. If she had lived months longer, they would have. The English.

“‘A man who cannot command his gentlemen cannot command a kingdom,’ he will say!” The Prince was still ranting. It was one of his faults: He could not control his temper. “‘Your gentlemen drink too much,’ my father will say! ‘They gamble! They whore! They plot and intrigue! You are not fit to follow in my footsteps. I ought to send you back to Hanover instead of allowing you to intrigue against me here!’ Intrigue against him! I do nothing! My gentlemen do nothing! To duel over a woman is commonplace!”

He was making his way around to Barbara. The Princess sensed it. He wished to say her name. He wished the Princess to hear him say it, and to allow him to weep and bewail her absence.

The Prince laid his head in the Princess’s lap, and she stroked his high, square forehead, knowing the workings of his mind far better than he did himself. He longed for those delicious, lazy, golden days of the summer before last, for the blossoming time of lust for Barbara, which had fooled him into thinking that with a young and lovely enough mistress—after all, Mrs. Howard was now in her third decade; the Princess and the Prince in their fourth—time would stand still for him. He saw that the King might live for years, and he, as Prince, be obliged to play the role of court second for an endless time. And he and his father did not agree; they quarreled often enough to have the English laughing over it. Mooning after Barbara gave him new worlds to conquer; it disguised the truth.

But they could none of them go back to that time, and Barbara was, after all, in Virginia.

“I regret the absence of the Mollies,” he said.

The Mollies had been her two loveliest maids of honor, Molly Lepell and Molly Belenden. They had married and gone away from court. Like Harriet Holles, leaving quietly tonight with the Princess’s permission, so that she didn’t have to face the whispers and gossip about her fiancé and the duel.

And the huntress’s whelp Barbara, thought the Princess. You regret her absence also. But you may not say so; your pride will not allow it. Her manner of leaving has hurt that pride.

I had thought the whelp might become mistress in spite of her disinclination, for who ever knows all of what is in the heart of another? Dear God, I thought, not such a young, beautiful woman with what under all that flirting may well be wit. The combination did truly frighten me, allied as it was to the huntress her mother, who has no heart.

I thought your loving pity for Barbara after her husband’s death and the dismantling of his handsome house would finally play out the game. I saw how beautiful, how drooping she was at her husband’s memorial service, saw how affected you were by it. Defeat and humiliation looked to be my supper. I could not sleep at night. Walpole, I said, confiding in him, as never I have before, because he caught me in a moment of despair, what am I to do?

Patience, he counseled. See what Fate provides. And then word came that Barbara had gone to Virginia. The whelp just slipped away, like a thief in the night. Too amusing, too delicious. And so very, very foolish. It was good to know Barbara could be foolish. The Princess never was.

“And Lady Devane,” said the Princess now, lingering over the name deliberately. “She was an ornament to our court, like the Mollies. But she was far more dangerous. First, the Landsdowne duel. And now this one of Tamworth’s. Our young men will do better without her provocative presence. I must tell you I have always felt it thoughtless of her, hurtful, discourteous, to leave us the way she did, with no farewell. It showed a lack of regard for our position. For you. My dear little Harriet Holles has already left the court. It may be the marriage to Tamworth will not go through—a pity, for it was a handsome alliance. The Tamworths have not always been steady in their loyalty, my love. This marriage would have assured it.”

“Well, then, Lady Devane is bad.”

Very bad to still be so much in your thoughts, thought the Princess. The huntress knew, didn’t she, that once her whelp became a habit to you, you would never stray. What luck I’ve had, for the whelp ran away, but I am here. I will be, always, the first and oldest and wisest of your habits. And one day, I will be Queen. And then, Barbara, beware. Beware, in fact, even now.

The Prince put his hand on the Princess’s breast, visible through the sheer gown and the opened nightrobe; she put her hand over his.

He was lord and master, wasn’t he? Prince of this kingdom, wasn’t he? Without him, she would not be all she must be, all she was, wiser, more politic, more cunning than any man braying and striding on two legs through the court. He who hath patience may compass anything. Walpole knew that, which made him a far more clever man than people suspected.

There was no one but her whom this prince could completely trust. That condition came with being a prince. In his very deepest of hearts, in spite of his tantrums, his rudeness, his sulks, his anger with his father, he knew that whatever his foolishness, she would aid him past it; that she was, in truth, though neither of them ever admitted it, the more clever of the two. By far the more clever, almost as clever as her father-in-law, the foreigner, the “bumptious Hanoverian,” as the English styled him, who had kept this querulous little island for himself a full seven years, more than had been prophesied. The Prince knew he had not his father’s cleverness, but he knew that his wife had. A little knowledge was a dangerous thing, wasn’t it?

“She is bad,” the Princess agreed, leaning back, letting her white, plump legs go slack. “She needs punishment. We must think of a way to punish her.”

He pulled at the front of her gown, like a demanding child. “Yes.”

“Show me how you would punish her…. Ah…”

Yes, thought the Princess, as the Prince pushed himself against her. And so we will punish her, beginning now. I will remind you of her fickleness and faithlessness, her rudeness and snubs, so that into your love will grow such a fear that a saint—and Barbara is no saint—could not move past it…. Perhaps she will remain in Virginia. Yes, thought the Princess, the King feels guilt for all that Roger suffered unfairly. He has already granted her relief from taxes in Virginia. Perhaps, if more relief is granted, she will stay there forever and ever, amen. Now, there is a prayer. Keep her debt high here, her life good in Virginia. Can I accomplish it? He who hath patience may compass anything. And so may she.

Chapter Fourteen

D
IANA SAT AT HER DRESSING TABLE TRIMMING HER NAILS
with a pair of tiny ivory-and-gold scissors, a task of which Clemmie, her servant, did not approve, for there was a right day and a wrong day to do such tasks, the old country sayings were passed down for just such things, and her mistress had chosen the wrong day.

“‘Cut them on Monday, cut them for health,’” Clemmie muttered as she set out the gown her mistress would wear this day. The sounds coming from her—she resembled nothing so much as a barrel, round and large—were a rumble, but clear enough so that the words “Monday” and “health” emerged.

“You sound like my mother’s familiar, that great crone Annie. Be quiet or I’ll send you to Tamworth to do penance for me.”

“‘Cut them on Friday, cut them for sorrow. Cut them on Saturday, your true love tomorrow—’” came from Clemmie’s direction.

There was a knock on the door, imperious and impatient. Diana and Clemmie looked at each other; there was only one person who would have pursued Diana to Hampton Court.

Robert Walpole, one of the King’s ministers, First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and surely one of the most hated men in England at this moment, opened the door and walked inside, just as if he and Diana had not been quarreling since June.

“By God’s blood! You might have at least let me know you were going to leave London,” he said, pulling off his dark periwig, tossing it upon the bed, running one pudgy hand through cropped hair, taking in the spectacle of Diana at her dressing table, one stocking on, one off. The garter tied round the leg with the stocking on it featured an embroidered motto in bright thread.

“‘My heart is fix’d, I cannot range.’”

He quoted the motto on the garter. He knew it because he had given her the garter, and the stockings, too.

She was in her chemise and stays. The chemise was white lawn, as sheer as nothing, and through it Walpole could see her bare legs, her thighs, the dark hair between. The stays had been embroidered with silver thread, and over her shoulders she wore a Spanish shawl, its garish colors suiting her dark beauty. Her breasts rose out of the stays, almost completely uncovered, lush, full. Walpole was not a man easily discouraged, but the continued quarrel with Diana was telling on him. She had been his mistress for a long time, but since Barbara’s leaving in June, they had been quarreling, and it hurt his heart.

“How dare you leave without telling me where you were going?”

She blamed him for the fact that Roger’s fine was not more reduced, blamed him for Barbara’s leaving. “Diana, I will not abide this treatment. No woman is going to deal with me so. I could wring your neck like a chicken’s and not regret it once—”

Tiny scissors went sailing past his face. Just to the left of him they bounced from the painted paneling and fell like an ivory-and-gold butterfly to the floor. If they’d hit an eye, they would have blinded him. The action seemed to calm him.

“Everyone is talking of the duel,” he said. “I’m told Tom Masham is quite ill.”

The throwing of the scissors had not surprised him, but the immediate weeping that followed these words did. Diana was capable of the most beautiful weeping he had ever seen a woman do, with no reddened eyes, no dripping, red nose, just tears running down that once-matchless face from still-matchless violet eyes. It meant nothing when she did so, except that she had decided tears would obtain whatever it was she wished to have. But he knew her well enough to know that she wept genuinely now.

Some emotion within her was touched, some truth, some need. He was so used to her tricks and lies that it threw him off stride. Walpole felt his own throat tighten with emotion. Diana had had her share of sorrow. Children dead, her daughter widowed, gone away. Damn it, she was the most immoral, selfish, ruthless bitch he had ever had the misfortune to know, the fortune to bed, and the stupidity to care about. He went to her and knelt down at her side and took her in his arms, crushing her against his great belly. She felt as supple as any man’s dream of an odalisque. He desired her, as he always desired her, and he loved her, the more fool he. Her weeping broke his heart.

He held her to him, and she was soon ruining his fine shirt with her powder and rouge and lead eyepaint, spoiling his expensive waistcoat and the lace cravat around his neck. Now, he thought. He half dragged, half carried her to the bed, and lay down there beside her. They had been quarreling for two months. He held her close and stroked her bare back under the Spanish shawl, his hands roaming to the front of her stays, untying the laces, as he murmured to her, determined, concentrated.

Clemmie, seeing which way the wind blew, put the gown away and closed the door to leave them alone.

“Diana…” Walpole’s fingers kneaded the bare flesh of her back, then drifted again to her front; he had finally opened the stays. God, her breasts. He wanted to put his face between them. He wanted to touch them, lick them. It had been too long since they’d lain together.

“Barbara ought to be here. She ought to take advantage of this duel—” she was saying.

He kissed her mouth, kissed her face, and unbuttoned the buttons of his breeches at the same time; he was nothing if not single-minded. Diana had been out of his bed for too long over this quarrel, and while women were easy to find, a woman like Diana was not. He could feel the desire in him like flame, licking at him the way a woman might, tongue hot and pointed. Her tears only made him desire her even more. He found her weeping extraordinarily erotic.