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

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Whitehall Palace, London
January, 1678

I began as a maid of honor to the Duchess of York soon after Twelfth Night, and soon, too, after my twenty-first birthday. Unlike most other ladies new to the post, who arrive in London for the first time from distant counties, it was not so great a change for me, nor was there much to dazzle or amaze me about my new station. Because of my father’s position at Court and his friendship with the king, I’d been free about Whitehall Palace for more than half my life, and I was as familiar with its twisting halls and galleries, chambers and closets, as any courtier three times my years. Likewise where most newcomers to court were faced with the dizzying task of learning scores of new faces, names, and titles, I already knew most every personage who frequented the palace, and those few who I might not know well enough to greet, I did recognize with ease. I knew who among the peers and other grand folk never to counter, and who could be counted on to oblige for a favor, who would laugh at a sly jest and who would take instant and lasting offense.

In my dreams and imaginings, the duke would finally take notice of me in the grandest possible manner. I’d be dressed in a fantastically lavish gown with jewels to match, and at the beginning of a royal ball, he’d take my hand and choose me to begin the dancing over scores of pouting beauties. A pretty fancy, I know, but I was still young, and though jaded to the world, I remained tender in my heart.

What truly happened was much more prosaic.

I had played cards in Her Highness’s rooms until close to midnight. I was happy; luck had smiled on me, and I’d won handsomely, including a pair of fine-wrought pearl and amethyst earrings that the lady who’d rashly wagered them was very sorry to lose. Knowing well that this was the best time to leave the table, I’d retired, and now sat in my own rooms at my dressing table while my maid Thomson brushed out my hair. Born on one of Father’s holdings in Kent, Thomson had been my lady’s maid for years, and looked after me exactly to my tastes. My hair was thick and long, nearly to my waist, requiring much of her artistry and many jabbing pins as well as sugar-water to coax it into the elaborate styles then in fashion, and I looked forward to this time at the end of the day when I was released from its heavy thrall. I closed my eyes, drowsing and relishing the simple pleasure of the brush drawing through the full length of my hair.

Thus the rapping at my door took both me and Thomson by surprise. Given the hour, I feared the worst, a mishap with Father or some other disaster. Swiftly I stood and tied my dressing gown more modestly over my smock, and nodded for her to answer.

But the messenger at the door hadn’t come from my father’s house in Bloomsbury Square. Instead I recognized him as one of the older and most trusted of the duke’s servants, dressed in the York livery. His weathered face was carefully impassive as he placed the letter on the small silver salver that Thomson offered. She in turn curtsied and presented it to me: a silly bit of protocol, I know, given that we all were within a dozen paces of one another, but then where would we in the palace be without ceremony?

I didn’t recognize the hand that had written my name so boldly across the front, but the seal with its lion and unicorn was one I saw every day: the House of Stuart. My hands shook with excitement as I slipped my finger beneath the seal and opened the single sheet to read.

As I did, Thomson began to close the door, but the man put his hand up to block it. “I’m to wait for Mrs. Sedley’s reply.”

I read, and understood. The letter wasn’t long—it was scarce more than a note, really—but in those several lines lay my future.

My dear,

I would be honored by yr. Company. Come to me now with the bearer if you please.

York

“I will come,” I said to the man. “A moment to compose myself, and I’ll join you.”

He nodded, turning away and folding his hands to wait, while Thomson closed the door. Given the tiny size of my lodgings, he’d no choice but to wait outside, where his presence before my door would be as easily read as a tavern sign to anyone who passed in the hall. I’d have to accustom myself to such scrutiny. After this night, my most private life would become public and common in scandalous tattle, and faith, I was ready.

“Your hair, ma’am,” Thomson said, her little face with its pointed chin wreathed with worry. “It will take more than a moment to dress it again, ma’am, as well as to lace you into your gown.”

“Neither is necessary, Thomson,” I said. “I’ll go as I am.”

“As you are, ma’am?” Her eyes widened, her distress on my behalf increasing. “Forgive me, ma’am, but surely you cannot intend that!”

“Surely I can.” I bent before the glass to make a quick survey of my face. “I’m certain His Highness will not take the least offense.”

“His Highness? The duke?” she asked, then of a sudden understood all. She blushed for me, and dropped her gaze in confusion. “Forgive me, ma’am, I misspoke.”

“There’s naught to forgive,” I said, my spirits almost giddy. “Leastwise not by you. Fetch my black cloak, the one with the deep hood. I’ll wear that, and no one will be the wiser as to what’s beneath.”

As she ran to fetch it, I bent closer to the glass. I’d yet to wash my face for the night, and my paint still looked well enough. My long, loose hair fell forward about my face and shoulders like a shining silken curtain, a sight whose intimacy would beguile most men. My smock was fine Holland linen, and trimmed deep with more (and more costly) lace than most ladies wore on their person even during the day. That, too, would do, as would the dressing gown I wore over it, peach-colored silk that gave a glow to my pale skin and was edged with soft golden sable along the neckline and deep cuffs. As a final flourish, I dabbed scent on my throat and behind my ears.

At last I smiled, trying to see myself as the duke would, and was satisfied. On an impulse, I took up the amethyst earrings I’d won earlier and hooked them into my ears, the large pendant stones swinging gently against my cheeks. Purple had always been the color of royalty, and that, coupled with the luck that had already brought the earrings my way, should bode most excellently for the rest of the evening.

“Your cloak, ma’am,” Thomson said, draping it over my shoulders. I tied the ribbons at the neck and pulled the hood over my head to shadow my face. If I wished infallible anonymity, I would wear a vizard-mask, too, but it was so very late that I doubted I’d meet anyone else in this part of the palace. Even if I did, they’d be bound on some illicit purpose as well, and we’d each be trying so hard to avoid the other that no harm could come from it. I stepped into my heeled slippers, took a deep breath, and nodded for Thomson to open the door.

“You needn’t wait for me,” I said. “I’ll wake you when I return.”

“Very well, ma’am,” she said, and curtsied as I passed her. “Good night, ma’am, and may God watch over you.”

As I followed the manservant down the hall, I thought of how I was not so much commending myself to God, as to the duke: a blasphemous notion, yes, but nonetheless one that made me smile, and I was smiling still as the manservant ushered me past the guards and into His Highness’s suite of apartments. At the last door, he knocked in a way that was clearly a signal, and at once came the muffled reply from within. The manservant opened the door for me himself, and I slipped inside.

Of all the places I’d visited in Whitehall, I’d never before been here, in His Highness’s bedchamber, yet surely it must have been one of the most appealing rooms in the entire palace. While it was most handsomely appointed, with dark paneling and carvings on the walls, elaborate plasterwork overhead, carved marble chimneypieces, and paintings by Master Lely and others, what was most striking were the windows that ran the length of the room, offering a splendid wide view of the Thames and the hills of Richmond beyond. White ice had narrowed the river to a single crooked channel, with only a few hardy boatmen plying their trade by moonlight. Snow on the banks and over the ice glittered more brightly than the stars overhead, magical and unreal. But just as stunning in the room was the Romish pris-dieu with its small triptych showing the Virgin Mary and several lesser saints and candles before it, the kind of shrine for personal devotions that I remembered from my mother’s rooms.

Yet all that I noticed later. What I saw first was His Highness himself, sitting at a long table strewn with books and charts and papers. His pen was in his hand, a half-written letter beneath it. He wore a quilted silk banyan over his shirt and breeches and fur-lined slippers on his stockinged feet, with his wig carelessly tossed onto the back of another chair to bare his close-cropped hair.

It was a scene of surprising, tempting intimacy for any man to reveal, even more so for a royal prince. But the best part was the smile that lit his weary face as soon as he saw me, warm and welcoming, and the obvious pleasure that filled his blue eyes as he set down his pen to greet me.

I was so taken with seeing him that I’d forgotten the obsequious I owed him, and belatedly I shoved my hood back from my face and curtsied deeply. The inky black of my cloak billowed around me, and my unbound hair spilled forward.

“Rise, my dear, rise,” he said, coming to lift me up himself. He’d done this before for me, and I understood what a sizable honor it was. As soon as I’d stood, he bent to close the rest of the distance between us and kissed me lightly, more a kiss such as exchanged between friends than one of passion.

Anxiously I wondered if he’d changed his mind. Had I already disappointed him somehow?

With fresh determination, I shook my hair back from my face and smiled up at him as winningly as I could. By the light of the fire and the moon outside, I must have been nothing but contrasts: the black cloak over the soft peach dressing gown, my dark hair against my pale skin.

My smile widened with relief when I saw in his eyes how much he approved.

“Did I rouse you from your bed?” he asked, an idea that he clearly found pleasing. “Were you asleep?”

“Not quite, Your Highness,” I said, equally aware of his own bed looming nearby. “I came as soon as I received your message.”

“You weren’t a quarter hour,” he said, again with approval. “Most ladies would have taken far longer than that.”

“I’d no wish to loiter, sir,” I said, my voice low and breathless. “I’ve waited long enough.”

He tipped his head, surprised. “You’ve been waiting?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” I said, smoothing my hair behind one ear, the hanging amethyst bumping my hand. “Fifteen days and twelve hours.”

He frowned, curious but not understanding, and I went on to explain.

“Fifteen days, sir, twelve hours, and a handful of minutes,” I said. “That’s how long I’ve been longing for you, tucked away in the clucking henhouse with the other maids of honor.”

I’d just granted him the perfect opportunity to display his wit, as fine a gift as any to a man who worried he wasn’t as clever with a jest as others about him. No other gentleman I knew would have been able to resist proceeding from hens to roosters to cocks, or miss the chance to speak such teasing bawdry to me.

Yet the duke did. His face relaxed, and he laughed at what I’d said, but that was all.

“Those ladies do cluck,” he agreed. “I’ve remarked it myself. But I marvel that you know the days so precisely.”

“What, sir, do you marvel that a lady would know my numbers, and have a passable skill at reckoning?” I laughed, too, though more from uncertainty than from humor. Skittishly I walked from him towards the fire, shrugging away my cloak and tossing it over a nearby chair. The light brocade of my dressing gown drifted about me as I walked, doubtless revealing enough to show that I’d no gown, petticoats, or stays beneath.

“I shouldn’t wonder that you’d marvel, sir,” I continued, holding my palms over the fire. “Some of my fellows are remarkably ignorant, save in how to simper and dance. Most marvelous, indeed.”

“That’s not what I intended,” he said, his voice gruff. “I meant that I marvel that you would judge it worth your efforts to count your days so closely.”

“I could not help it, sir,” I said softly. “If that in itself is a marvel, then so be it.”

It was also the truth, a truth that was so raw that it seemed to hang in the air between us with unbecoming awkwardness. He said nothing, nor did I.

I flushed, realizing I’d overspoken, and stared down into the fire. Too late I now realized I shouldn’t have come. Despite my reputation for boldness and speaking clever nonsense, I lacked the worldly experience to play this role. I wasn’t Lady Castlemaine or Lady Portsmouth, grand infamous mistresses who could sail forward born on the cresting wave of their unquestionable beauty. All I had to offer was my wit, and even that seemed to have deserted me. What else, truly, could I have to offer a duke?

I cannot say exactly how long I stood there, before the fire, wallowing in this impasse of doubt like a small vessel in heavy seas. All I know is that enough time passed for me to fair toast my palms, and to realize an instant too late for comfort how close I’d come to burning them outright.

“Hah, a pox on my luck,” I said ruefully, holding my overwarmed hands up for him to see. “Here I’m caught red-handed like some low Scotsman, without any sin to show for it.”

But as he watched me, the duke either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. “You are everything I expected and more, Katherine.”

“If you expected to bed a scarecrow, sir,” I said with a little shrug, unable not to deprecate myself, “then doubtless you are pleased beyond measure.”

“Don’t speak so of yourself,” he said gently, coming forward to join me. “You please me as you are. You’re different from the others, and I like you for it. If I don’t wish you otherwise, then you should be pleased as well.”

And so, like that, it began between us …