It is hot for early summer and I am tired of standing. Ladies of higher rank are allowed to sit on stools while Mary Beatrice, the French king and Madame de Maintenon have chairs. Our fans, so often used to beckon or tease are frantically worked for their original purpose but they only rearrange the stifling smell of powder and sweat. Mary Beatrice and Louis are flirting and I wonder when the interminable game being played out in front of us will end, so that we can go outside and play some real games. I rock on my toes, as I have been taught, to ease the pain in my back.
Mary Beatrice has brought us here to Marly to build bridges with Louis as yet another attempt to invade England has failed and James is in disgrace again. I have never spoken to her about her relationship with Louis or with James. To raise such a personal matter would cost me my position. But I have eyes and ears and I know there are times when Mary Beatrice and Louis are alone together. I watch Madame de Maintenon but she shows nothing beyond her perfectly mannered façade. The sunlight etches the lines around her eyes and the fine down on her cheeks and I wonder what she must feel watching her husband court a younger woman. I hope this never happens to me.
I shift again from foot to foot. My bodice is itching. Tonight there is to be a ball and Grace is laying out my gown and petticoats. She will be placing my combs and ribbons on my dressing table and choosing a scent for my bath. There will be wine and candied fruits on the table by my bed. I will let Grace peel my damp clothes from me and I will lie down, quite naked and feel the cool breeze drift across my skin from the open window.
I lower my fan so that I can wipe away the moisture from between my breasts. My eyes scan the room in case this breach of etiquette is noticed. It has been, but not by one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber. A young man from the French court, like me not expected to move or take his gaze away from the royals, has glanced at me and his lips twitch at the corners. I lower my eyes and flick my fan at him. In the language of courtship, this means I have seen him and the answer is, ‘I am willing to meet you alone.’
As I prepared for the ball, I had asked Grace to lace my bodice tightly so that my breasts were pushed high. Without being asked, she left my hair in its natural state and pinned it so that strands fell across my shoulders. During dinner I was gracious and attentive to those who sat near me, asking them about their lives and interests even if these were few. He sat at the end of my table, his role to entertain an elderly duchess, and he never failed in his dazzling attention to her charms. His mannered flirtation made her flush and giggle, like a young girl. But when she shifted to speak to the man on her left he looked for me and I had to turn away in case the anticipation in my smile confused the men around me.
When we danced the Rigaudon, our backs brushed against each other as we spun around our partners and once, his hand stroked mine. Like most of the younger French men, he no longer wore a wig but his long hair was swept back and tied with a loose, velvet bow. His legs were solid in their breeches and the cut of his coat, longer than was the fashion at St Germain, showed off his firm stomach.
It is almost dark but the air is warm and still. The garden is lit with flares that create secret corners and draw long shadows across the grass. The evening’s entertainment continues with fire eaters who juggle blazing batons and fireworks crackle into the sky. Servants row couples around the lake in boats that are decorated like the French fleet. The lamps on the prows could be fireflies from this distance, darting and crossing in front of my eyes. We had eaten dinner outdoors, in an arbour draped with ropes strung with spring flowers, but the tables are abandoned now apart from those guests too drunk to stand and those who sleep where they sat. The white tablecloths shine in the moonlight but I can see the stains of spilt food and wine from where I wait. The ground around the tables is littered with linen napkins and broken glass. Cats snake amongst the folds of the tablecloths searching for scraps and are chased away by servants who flit amongst the shadows. The royal party has now disappeared inside to watch the fireworks from a balcony and I am alone. I wait for him, leaning against one of the posts of the arbour.
Couples drift across the grass and into the shadows. I lift one of the loose tendrils from my hair and stroke it across my lips, my eyes straining through the dusk to see my lover. At last, I watch him cross the grass, my pleasure growing as he hurries through the mingling guests, talking briefly to those he knows, while his eyes continue to search for me.
Finally we meet and he lifts my hand to a brief touch of his lips. We link arms and stroll down to the lake, watching the colours explode above us, then slip into the woods under cover of heavy darkness. We stop at a wide tree just off the path and I lean into its rough bark as he kisses my lips, my hair, my earlobes. His skin smells of almonds. We breath into each other’s necks, panting like dogs and my pleasure rises with his until he pauses and shudders. He bends his head into my shoulder and swears in French. We kiss again, listening to the applause of the crowd as the fireworks reach their finale, then fumble with our clothes. As the crowds ebb away from the lakeside, we leave the shadows and cross the grass with other couples, our arms linked in acceptable informality. We reach the entrance to the chateau where we have to part and he takes my hand again, kisses it and bows low before he turns away. I don’t know his name and he hasn’t asked for mine.
The royal party left Marly the next day. Mary Beatrice asked me to ride with her in her carriage and, sitting opposite her, I knew that although her unfocused gaze travelled across the villages and farms, she was not watching the scenery. Like me, she was reliving a private moment. She watched me too and must have seen the same secret smile flicker across my lips.
‘He was handsome was he not, Lady Winifred?’
‘He was indeed your majesty.’
‘And you were careful?’
I had learned everything I knew about sex and how to avoid babies from the queen. She had delighted in my lack of experience and enjoyed playing at being an older sister, whispering amazing secrets to me, some of which she had learned from my mother.
I tilted my head in deference to her concern. ‘I was careful, just as you advised, your majesty.’
Mary Beatrice was pleased with this. ‘You must enjoy yourself, Winifred. This time will never come again. Too soon you will be like me, with a husband and babies. I take you with me so that you can be free, away from the busybodies of St Germain.’
This was true. My mother’s friends took too great an interest in me, inviting me to evenings in their apartments and worrying about my lack of a husband. Even if a suitable man could be found, I wouldn’t risk an informal liaison at St Germain, but on these trips with the queen, as long as I was discreet, I was free to do as I pleased.
I bowed my head. ‘I am grateful, your majesty.’ I looked at her for longer than was perhaps acceptable, wishing to ask her the same question she had asked me.
Mary Beatrice returned my stare with her cool grey eyes, her fine brows arched in amusement. ‘If a king wants to have a woman, the woman must respond. The king is directed by God. She is simply following God’s will.’
‘And if the woman is married?’
‘Her husband must agree, since he too must follow God’s will. Wise husbands know that they will benefit from such a liaison.’
We smiled at each other. We had reached an understanding. It was never spoken of again.
My father was injured in a riding accident in June and it was rumoured that, at seventy, he had been trying to impress an unknown woman with his horsemanship. But during his final weeks, no woman came forward to offer comfort or regrets. Dutifully, I sat by his bed whenever I could be spared by Mary Beatrice but was always glad to hurry back to her warm apartments, scented by fresh flowers, rather than delay in the rank odour of a broken old man. In his few wakeful moments, my father seemed to recognise me and although much of what he muttered made little sense, there was a moment when he clutched my hand and begged my forgiveness, whispering that he must change his will to leave me some money.
Since it seemed without any doubt that my father was dying, I had already spoken with Grace about our precarious situation at St Germain after his death. If we had to leave and were given some choice about our future, I hoped we might be welcome to live with my brother, since he was settled and had a wife and young children. But I knew that he would not look kindly on me if it seemed that in my father’s last moments, I had persuaded him to change his will. Father had always been clear that my brother would inherit everything after his death and, as head of the family, would be responsible for his sisters. So I spoke to the priest who visited my father and instructed him that Lord Powis must not be allowed to change his will, no matter how much he pleaded.
Father’s funeral was a more formal state occasion than my mother’s and the king, along with many of the more important men at St Germain, were present. Crushed between my sisters Mary and Anne, in my hot, tight mourning dress, I listened to the eulogy for this man I hardly knew and struggled to find some feelings of loss. My greatest concern was for myself and my status at St Germain. I knew there were women in the queen’s household who would question whether I should be allowed to remain and that they would waste no chance to remind Mary and Anne about my unorthodox position, without income or family.
My sisters were housed in my parents’ apartment and in the days following the funeral, I helped them clear away all trace of our father. I listened to them reminisce, reminding each other of summer days at Powis when he taught them to ride and how he had terrified them at bedtime by pretending to be a bear. I watched their grief and helped wipe away their tears but the father they spoke of had not been mine. If I had hoped that we might be reconciled, any prospect was shattered when my father’s will was read. He had left nothing to his daughters except me, and I had been given the last piece of my mother’s jewellery. My sisters could not hide their disappointment at this unexpected favouritism and I guessed that my future at St Germain was lost. My sisters would expect the queen to release me and I would return to Anne’s household.
Before their departure my sisters were invited to meet the queen to discuss my future but when Mary Beatrice insisted that I be present, I dared to hoped that my fears might not be true.
‘Your majesty,’ my eldest sister Mary said, ‘we have agreed that Winifred should return to the household of Lord and Lady Carrington in London, where we might find her a husband.’
Mary Beatrice shook her head and spoke with her usual candour. ‘Not at all. Winifred must stay here. I need her to look after my children and it is essential that she supports me in my meetings with the French. You taught her well, Lady Carrington,’ Mary Beatrice acknowledged Anne with a tilt of her head. ‘Winifred is a fluent French speaker.’
Anne flushed with pleasure and my sisters glanced at each other in unspoken agreement. ‘If that is the situation, your majesty, then of course she will remain here.’
‘And as for a husband,’ the queen continued, ‘leave that to me.’
I felt my cheeks burn with relief and gratitude; I could remain at St Germain-en-Laye, under the protection of the queen. I would be entirely dependent upon her favour and generosity and I knew how unreliable she could be, but for now my future was secure.
That night in my room, now empty of any remnant of Lucy, Grace helped me out of my robes and into my shift and we sat on the edge of my wide bed. I slipped my arm around her and told her that for now, we could stay at St Germain.
Grace rested her head on my shoulder. ‘I’m pleased for you, Win. Your sisters are considerate but I remember how unhappy you were living with Anne and perhaps there wouldn’t have been a place for me.’
‘I think they were relieved. My father’s last act, thoughtless as ever, only deepened the rift between us and perhaps neither of us would have been welcome. Mary and Anne were seventeen and eighteen when he was imprisoned but I was only six. He barely knew me. Listening to them talk reminded me of what I lost when he was taken to the Tower.’
‘Win, you’re the youngest of six and I’m the eldest of four. We had a different childhood from our brothers and sisters. When I went home, I didn’t recognise the life they had after I’d gone. A life I helped to pay for.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A condition of your mother taking me into service was that there would be no more children.’
This shocked me. ‘That was too much of her to ask, surely.’
Grace laughed. ‘She gave my mother advice on how to prevent more children and your father passed mine work. I think my family were one of your mother’s projects.’
‘I knew nothing about this. It feels like my mother took charge of your lives. What right did she have?’
‘But it worked. My mother and father were only fifteen and sixteen when I was born and without your parents what did the future hold for them? Instead they grew in prosperity and earned enough to build their own house and send my sisters and brother to school. Now they can do the same for my sister’s child.’
‘But you learned to read and write, Grace, how did that happen?’
‘Cook taught me and you left your books lying around, so I read those while I was supposed to be tidying your room.’
‘I didn’t know Cook was able read and write.’
Grace pulled away from me and looked into my eyes. ‘Win! How could she have run the kitchens and dealt with tradesmen without being able to write and do accounts?’
I felt ashamed that I had cared so little about people who had once filled every day of my life. ‘So what was it like when you went home?’
‘It was hard. I remembered the poverty we’d lived through but my parents didn’t like me to talk about it and I envied the younger ones. I never felt that I belonged.’
‘That’s it, Grace. That’s exactly how I’ve always felt. I didn’t belong. There was a family once but different from the one I knew, a family that I had been tacked onto. But I was lucky to have my sister Lucy and you, of course.’
‘We had each other, Win, that’s what matters.’