Trapped at the Altar (9 page)

She bit her lip. “I didn't mean to make light of what you're doing for me, Ivor. But you must see a little of the absurdity.”

“You'll have to forgive my lack of humor, but at the moment, I don't,” he responded curtly. “Right now, I am holding out my vein for you to cut so that we can produce a bloodstained sheet that will satisfy your uncles that family honor has been preserved. Now, will you please get on with it?”

Ariadne nodded. He was right. There was no ghoulish humor to be milked from this situation. With a sinuous movement, she slid from the bed, wrapping her nakedness in the coverlet as she did so. She knotted the coverlet between her breasts and picked up the knife from the bed. “Tilly told me that one of the village women will never cut flesh without putting the knife through a candle flame.” She took the weapon to the candles on the sill and passed the blade through the flames several times. “It can do no harm, even if it does no good.”

She came back to the bed where Ivor stood. “Perhaps you should hold your arm over the sheet so that the blood falls where it should.” She gestured to a spot on the immaculate sheet. She was totally in possession of herself, even though she felt as if she were moving through a dream world. This had to be done, and she would do it competently.

Ivor held his arm over the sheet and Ariadne perched on the edge of the bed, taking a firm grip of his forearm with one hand. The red kerchief lay on the bed beside them. She lifted her knife, put her free hand against the blue vein in Ivor's arm, and, without a tremor, placed the tip of her knife against it and cut. Just once, just below the surface, but the blood bubbled up, dark red.

Ivor turned his arm instantly, and blood dripped onto the white sheet. They both watched it for a moment, transfixed, and then Ariadne moved swiftly, bending his elbow, pushing his forearm up, his hand onto his shoulder. “Hold still.” She got off the bed and fetched the brandy bottle.

“Another one of Tilly's words of wisdom.” She took his hand and opened his arm. The blood welled from the cut. “Forgive me. This will hurt, but I believe it will do no other harm and maybe some good.” She poured brandy over the wound, and Ivor gave a gasp at the sharp sting. Ari closed his arm again, pressing his hand into his shoulder. “A minute or two, and then I will bind it.”

“Tilly has something of the physician about her, clearly,” Ivor observed, flexing his hand against his shoulder.

“There are women in the valley, the midwives and others, who have such knowledge.” Ari twisted the kerchief into a band. She took his hand and opened his arm. The blood still welled but more sluggishly. She bound the red band around it, tying it tightly. “I believe that will do.”

Ivor nodded and stood up. He regarded the bloodstained sheet. “Tilly will vouch for your purity in the morning.”

Ari tried to ignore the sardonic edge to his voice. She felt an overwhelming need to sleep and suddenly sat on the edge of the bed, her legs seeming unwilling to hold her another minute. The coverlet was still wrapped around her, but with a twist and a turn, she could be in bed, the cover over her and her head on the pillow. She felt herself sway.

“You can't keep your head off the pillow, and I have no intention of sleeping on the floor. Neither will I sleep downstairs,” Ivor declared briskly. He leaned over the bed and jerked the heavy bolster from behind the pillows. “Unwind yourself and lie down. The bloody spot is yours, if you remember.” He thrust the bolster down the
middle of the feather mattress and turned away to take off his clothes.

It was a small enough price to pay, Ari thought. This entire pantomime had been for her benefit. She untwisted herself from the coverlet and lifted it in a shake that dropped it securely over the entire mattress. Gingerly, she maneuvered herself a space around the small bloodstain on her side of the bolster and lay down, her head sinking into the pillow. Her eyes, however, would not close.

Ivor was kicking off his shoes, throwing off his clothes, unrolling his stockings. If he was aware that she was watching him, he gave no indication. He snuffed the candles on the sill between finger and thumb and then walked around the bed to the other side of the bolster. Ari watched him through half-closed eyes in the light of the single bedside candle. He was the first fully naked man she had ever seen. There had been no opportunity in her lovemaking with Gabriel for either of them to undress properly. She had no idea how Gabriel would look naked. But Ivor was a revelation.

There seemed so much of him. So much length and rippling muscle, so much ease of movement, such smoothness, and such a luxuriant trail of chestnut hair down his belly, forming a thick forest at the apex of his thighs. She caught a glimpse of his penis as he lifted a knee onto the bed before inserting himself beneath the coverlet. She had glimpsed Gabriel's penis just once, after they had made love, a small, flaccid piece of flesh curled damply into his pubic hair. Ivor's penis was by no means
erect, but it seemed, to her drowsily sensual examination, to be a full and powerful organ merely at rest against his thigh. And then he tucked himself into his side of the bolster, blew out the night candle, and the chamber was lit only by the dying flicker of torchlight through the window.

T
he liveried manservant moved efficiently around the antechamber to the King's privy chambers at the Palace of Whitehall. He adjusted cushions and straightened the rug before the fireplace in which, despite the warmth of the September morning, a massive log blazed. The Duchess of Portsmouth was always complaining of the cold, and when she was in residence with the King, every fireplace in the royal residence was kept alight.

The man paused to mop his brow before sticking the poker into the fire to adjust the log. The mullioned casements were open onto the river, and the sounds of river traffic drifted from below, the shouts of oarsmen in their skiffs touting for customers to row across the mighty Thames, which was thronged with the barges of the rich and noble dwarfing the bobbing watercraft of humble tradesfolk and the even humbler river rats who plied their trade in the flotsam they hauled up from the riverbed and scavenged from its slimy banks at low tide. The strains of
music rose above the cacophony as an elegant barge sailed past, the musicians in the bow playing for their noble employer sprawled at his ease in the richly upholstered cabin.

The footman went to the window to take a deep, cooling breath of fresh air, except that it wasn't fresh. The air was putrid with the river stench. The carcass of a cow bobbed gently downstream as the tide took it towards Greenwich, a rat scurried through the thick mud at the river's edge, and the royal barge, pennants flying, rode high on the water at the Whitehall Palace landing, having just disembarked its royal passenger and his friends after a morning's hunt in the park at Hampton Court.

Voices, booted feet, the bark of a dog, a woman's laugh came from the corridor outside, and the footman jumped back into the antechamber, casting one last glance around before diving for a small door behind an ornate screen in the far corner. Only the loftiest of servants were permitted in his majesty's presence, and he didn't qualify. The door took him down long, narrow stone corridors winding through the vast backstage of the massive palace, the biggest in Europe, it was said. These were the corridors inhabited by the faceless multitude who kept the palace working, its royal inhabitants warm, fed, secure, and in total ignorance of the mechanics that ensured their comfort and safety.

The double doors that opened into the antechamber from the richly decorated corridor beyond were flung wide by two flunkies, and the King, booted and spurred and in great good humor, swept into the chamber. A plump lady
in riding dress clung to his arm, a pack of deer hounds surged around the couple, and in their wake came a chattering pack of courtiers, all booted and spurred.

“By God, that was a goodly chase,” his majesty declared, flinging his plumed hat onto a low chair, following it with his whip and heavy gauntlets. His wig fell in luxuriant dark curls to his silk-clad shoulders. He bent to kiss the plump lady's cheek as she smiled up at him. “You rode like an angel, my little Fubbs.” He seized her around her waist, lifting her for another kiss. “Ah, isn't she magnificent, gentlemen?”

A chorus of agreement met this statement, and the lady, Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, acknowledged it with a light laugh. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, you flatter me. And you know what they say about flatterers?” Her eyebrows rose as she graced the company with an arch smile. “Just because his majesty is pleased to compliment me is no reason for the rest of you to fawn.”

“Louise, Louise, so harsh, my darling. Of course they find you perfection. And you must not blame them for finding perfection where their king finds it.” Charles laughed and drew her to the fire. “We must have wine . . . and I dare swear, my love, that you are frozen to the bone. Sunderland, dear fellow, ring for wine.” He gestured with a beringed hand to one of the courtiers. “And a bumper or two of sack . . . indeed, I've a mind for a bumper or two of sack.”

He deposited himself in a gilt armchair and drew his mistress onto his knee. “And what of you, Fubbs, what will tempt you?”

“Just these, sire.” Louise pressed her full red lips against his. “That is all I desire.” She stroked his cheek with a fingertip, nothing in the adoring sensuality of her expression revealing how she hated the nickname. It was an ugly sound, for all that it celebrated her plump and luscious figure, and not even the knowledge that the King had named one of his yachts HMS
Fubbs
in her honor could resign her to it. Irrationally, she always felt as if he were poking fun. But she leaned against him, moved her hips in an infinitesimal and invisible rhythm, and felt him grow hard beneath her.

Servants came in with jugs of wine and sack, trays of pasties and sweetmeats and tiny songbirds in aspic. The dogs howled at the smell of food, and Charles, with a languid wave of his hand, instructed, “Bring them bones, and make sure there's much meat on them. They've been running hard since dawn.”

The servants came back with thick, meaty, marrow-filled bones and, without expression, tossed them into the pack of circling dogs. The hounds fell on them, snapping and snarling in competition. The King smiled with benign satisfaction and patted Fubbs's rounded bottom as he eased her off his knee. He bit deep into a meat pasty and followed it with a draught of sack.

“His grace the Duke of York,” a footman announced from the double doors, bowing as the heir to the throne stepped into the room.

James looked around the noisy room, at the greasy-mouthed courtiers, now hastily bowing, the rapidly emptying tankards, the pieces of flesh and bone scattered on
the rich Turkey carpets, the snapping dogs. Louise was perched on the arm of the King's chair, delicately gnawing the flesh of a tiny thrush, but she rose instantly to curtsy. A flicker of disdain touched the corners of the Duke's mouth.

Charles saw his brother's expression and felt a familiar surge of irritation. His brother's pious asceticism annoyed him. “Greetings, brother.” He spoke through a mouthful of pasty and took a deep gulp from his tankard. “We missed you at the hunt this morning.”

“I was attending early mass in the chapel with my wife,” James responded with a dour smile. “I trust you enjoyed the chase, sir.”

“Immensely . . . immensely.” Charles flung out a hand in an exuberant gesture and rose to his feet. “You wish private speech with me, brother?”

The Duke of York merely bowed his assent, glancing pointedly once again at the crowd of sweat-rank huntsmen, the pack of slavering dogs. His gaze flicked across the King's mistress, a woman he wouldn't trust any farther than he could throw her. It was well-known that Louise had her own political purposes, not necessarily in her royal lover's best interest.

“Come to my privy chamber, James.” The King strode to a far door. “I bid you good day, gentlemen. Portsmouth, come to me in two hours.”

The Duchess of Portsmouth curtsied and flicked the tiny bones onto a footman's passing tray. With the King retired to his bedchamber, she had no reason to stay in the antechamber, and with a stately rustle of her rich
damask skirts, she moved to the double doors. The courtiers bowed as she passed, and she inclined her head in acknowledgment. She was the King's favorite, at present even surpassing her rival, Nell Gwyn, in his favors, although she was far too clever to imagine that Nell would ever fade from the picture. The actor's hold over the King was far too strong. But Louise knew that she herself had much more power over the King than his Queen Consort, Catherine of Braganza, and she possessed a fortune to match. Her coffers were enriched not only by her lover's generosity but also by gifts from her own king to whom she owed fealty. Louis XIV bought her loyalty, and she repaid him in kind, her spies and her own ears supplying vital pieces of information to the French court.