By then, I hope to have seen off Madam Gwynne. That is something I would rather my parents didn’t see: their daughter being called a whore by an English play-actress.
Politically, the intrigues just now revqlve around who the king’s brother will marry. The English have given up hope of him accepting a Protestant bride. Louis XIV still favours the fecund but ugly Duchess de Guise, but James himself, the king tells me, is holding out for a beautiful virgin.
‘Does he have one in mind.^’ I ask.
Charles throws up his hands. ‘That is the whole trouble. He says it is beneath his dignity to choose his own wife - but then he rejects every one who is chosen for him. So far he has turned down the Archduchess of Innsbruck on account of her figure, the Princess of Wiirttemberg on account of her mother. Princess Maire of Alsace on account of her red hair, and two German princesses on account of their being German. My ministers are at their wits’ end. I have told him it is a nonsense to marry for beauty. One gets so accustomed to a face that in a week it neither pleases nor displeases in any case.’ He hesitates. ‘Not yours, of course.’
I smile to show that I know he meant no insult. ‘I have a very beautiful young cousin.’
The king raises his eyebrows. ‘Of good family?
‘Francoise Marie is the daughter of the Duchess d’Elboeuf, and a princess of the house of Lorraine.’ , '
‘Of course,’ he murmurs. ‘I sometimes forget that you are related to all the best families in France.’
Is he teasing me? ‘I have her portrait in my apartments. Perhaps if your brother could be persuaded to come and see his new nephew, it might happen to catch his eye . . .?’
Charles laughs and pats my knee. ‘Oh, how I have missed you, dearest Fubs. We are so very alike.’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘It is our breeding.’
*
»N.s
James visits, and professes himself intrigued by the portrait of Francoise Marie. Within hours, a furious Colbert has stormed into my apartments.
His Most Christian Majesty has expressly ordered me to work for the betroth^ of de Guise,’ he almost shrieks.
I am sure he has,’ I say calmly. ‘But James is both a lecher, and newly religious; as a result he wants to marry a girl the same age as his own daughters. Only a fool would think that he is going to marry an ugly widow.’
Are you calling Louis XfV a fool.^’ Colbert splutters.
‘Of course not. I was referring to those who have advised him. Who, when the de Guise plan fails to happen, he will almost certainly blame.’
I can see Colbert considering this. If he can use me to switch Louis’s aim to a more achievable target, he can take the credit if it works, and blame me if it does not.
‘Let Louis find another Catholic girl,’ I say. ‘But let her be young, attractive and unmarried. Then you and I will work together to secure the marriage.’
‘There is another candidate, as it happens,’ he says hesitandy.
‘Who.>’
‘Princess Mary of Modena. Thirteen years old, and going to be a great beauty, they say. But she has expressed a desire to enter a convent rather than marry someone so much older than herself’
‘A pious young beauty?’ I say. ‘She sounds perfect. Have someone send over her portrait at once.’
Within a month it is all arranged. They will marry next year, as soon as she turns fourteen. In return, James has agreed to have two wedding ceremonies - a private. Catholic one, and a public one according to the Anglican rites.
‘How do you do it?’ Charles wants to know. ‘For me he is as stubborn as a mule. But you, it seems, can get him to do anything.’
‘Perhaps he is jealous of you.’
‘Jealous?’ Charles seems surprised.
‘He is still a'little in love with me, you know.’ I shrug modestly. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Charles stares at me, and I can tell that he is seeing me through his brother’s eyes; desirable, marriageable, but above all unattainable. ‘Will you dine with me this evening, madam?’ he says abruptly.
I smile. ‘I would be pleased to, Charles.’
That night he takes me as if I were a virgin again, and he an eager young blood.
Afterwards he says, ‘My God, but you were keen.’
I kiss his chest. ‘You’re so delicious. I can’t keep my mouth off you.’
He lies back, content. I carry on kissing him: the hard chest, the ribs that stand under the skin like the hull of a ship. Whether it is the baby, or relief at being back in his favour, or something else, I don’t know, but I feel a kind of tenderness for him, a yearning, that I have never felt before. I twist myself over him, kissing his nipples, exclaiming at the taste of him, the feel, the strength of the hands that lace themselves around my head.
And so everything is in alignment again. I am in Charles’s bed and Louis’s favour. Colbert has been made to look ineffectual, and my apartments are once again the real parliament of England.
Charles wants to give me a necklace. There is one that Nell has been angling for, my spies tell me - literally: she has been teaching the king to fish in the hope of snagging it. The necklace costs over eight thousand pounds. How sweet it would be to snatch it from her grasp!
But I am playing a longer game than that.
I say, ‘My love?’
‘Hmm?’
We are lying in bed after a bout of lovemaking.
‘I don’t want expensive presents.’
‘Really.>’ He seems surprised.
‘To be loved by you is all the recompense I need. But if you really wish to s^ow me favour . . .’
Yes.^ he says, and I can tell he is steeling himself for some outrageous demand: a pension, perhaps, or a gambling debt that must be setded.
‘As you know, I come from an old and noble family’
‘Indeed.’
‘My maternal grandfather was a marquis. The de Keroualles have been Seigneurs of Brest for over seven hundred years. Yet I don’t think some of your court are really aware of my background. They see only that I am your mistress, and because I don’t have an English tide, they think I am hardly better than a common orange girl.’
He nods thoughtfully. ‘You want an English titie.>’
‘If that would please you.’
He considers. It is, on the face of it, a cheap gift, but he knows as well as I do that titles usually come with pensions or other revenues.
‘I could be minded to give you something of that nature,’ he says slowly.
‘Thank you.’ I kiss his cheek, the rough end-of-day stubble. ‘Of course, you will have to make me an English citizen as well. Otherwise I could not be a duchess. Or whatever it is you decide to make me. Really, it is completely up to you.’
I think I am beginning to understand the mistress’s role a little better now. It is not merely to listen, but to reflect; not merely to be available, but to act as a proxy for all the other, unavailable women - the women he would have too, if he had opportunity and time. To be the woman whom every man desires but only one can have.
I understand, now, why Nell Gwynne has her bed set up in a Hall of Mirrors.
I was wrong when I told Carlo that I did not know any bedroom tricks. The subdest tricks are not played with the body; nor can they be drawn in a book of postures.
Louise
He wa.nts to have me painted. ^Now that your figure has returned, he says casually. ‘And before you are pregnant again.’
‘My figure hasn’t returned. I am like an elephant.’
‘My dearest Pubs,’ he murmurs. ‘I like you like that.’
From the reference to my figure I understand that it is not my face alone that he wants painted. ‘You wish me unclothed?’
‘Why not?’ He looks at me sideways. ‘I was thinking of Sir Peter Lely. A most discreet gentleman, and an excellent painter. Besides, hardly anyone will see it.’