Grace watched the courtyard below as I finished dressing my hair. Her voice was listless. ‘A carriage has just pulled in. It must be the young earl from Scotland. I can’t quite remember his name.’
I studied my face in the glass, wiping powder from the corners of my mouth with the tip of my finger and turning my head from side to side to examine my profile. I smoothed the skin under my chin. ‘Grace, do you think I’m getting thick around the neck?’
‘I remember now,’ Grace continued. ‘It’s William Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale. He’s from a very old Scottish family, or so the gossip goes. He’s here to pay his respects to our king.’ The news that Louis XIV had recognised William of Orange as the King of England and Scotland had shocked our isolated community and visitors loyal to our cause had become rare.
I joined Grace at the window and we looked down on the head of a young man, supervising his servants as they lifted boxes from the carriage. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and sensing that he was being watched, looked up at my window. We jerked back, covering our faces with the drapes and laughing until we fell on the bed hiccupping and choking like schoolgirls.
In the afternoon, I joined the queen for her walk around the grounds. The other members of her household maintained a discreet distance, knowing Mary Beatrice liked to talk to me in private. Princess Louise Marie skipped ahead of us, followed by at least six of her servants who hovered in case she fell over, drowned in the fountains or suffered any other unimaginable accident.
‘The young man, Nithsdale, who joined us today, he is yours.’
I was used to the queen’s assumptions but this was more blunt than usual. ‘What do you mean, your majesty?’
‘He isn’t married and he’s looking for a Catholic wife. I believe he has a good estate in Scotland. If you want him, he’s yours.’
‘I appreciate your majesty’s concern but how do you know he isn’t betrothed to an heiress at home?’
Mary Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. ‘I have made enquiries on your behalf. You are almost twenty-seven. When I was your age I had been married for twelve years.’
My age and unmarried state seemed to have become a general topic of conversation amongst the women and not always well meant. I didn’t welcome their prying but the pleasures of being a single, unchaperoned woman were fading and I worried in private that I might never have the chance to be married. It might be a relief to no longer rely on the arbitrary favours of the queen or the support of my mother’s few remaining elderly friends.
The queen interrupted my thoughts. ‘Tonight at the ball, I will introduce you to William Maxwell. You have had much practice with young men, so you know how to capture his heart. But, Winifred,’ she stared at me with her cool grey eyes, ‘remember that this one is for marriage.’
The moment I saw William, I knew she was right. He was mine. The queen escorted him across the room, his hand held high in hers and when she reached me she took my hand and joined it to his, saying, ‘And now you two will dance.’ She turned from us, cutting a swathe through the guests. He lifted my hand and kissed it. I noticed amused, brown eyes and a full face like a spaniel puppy. Best of all, he was taller than me.
He held out his arm to lead me into the dancing, ‘Lady Winifred Herbert, I am honoured to make your acquaintance.’ His generous smile contradicted the formality of his tone. I caught his irony and took his arm, covering my grinning mouth with my fan and inclined my head in a small bow. ‘The pleasure is mine, Lord Nithsdale.’
The queen’s advice had been clear and she was right. This felt different. As we turned and spun in giddying spirals, the dance reached its climax. There will be no fumbling in stairwells or lying on my back in the grass under the stars, I thought. Here is the man I will marry.
We sought no other partners, reluctantly releasing hands as etiquette demanded. When we grew breathless, we walked onto the terrace. It was early spring and still cold. I leaned against him for warmth and he placed his coat across my shoulders. We stood side by side, facing the gardens, our elbows resting on the stone balustrade and talked as if there was no end to words.
‘I am told you are on your own, Lady Winifred.’
‘My parents were here but my father died trying to impress some ladies of the court who hunt. He took a jump that was too difficult for him. My mother died just after I arrived, so he’d been alone for five years. I think he must have been planning to take another wife, despite his age. I hardly knew him as a child and we did not meet a great deal here, so my grief was short-lived I’m afraid.’
‘I hardly knew my father either, since he died when I was a small child. You must be lonely here, without your family.’
‘I have Grace Evans, my companion and lady’s maid. She’s been with my family for as long as I can remember. We’re the same age. I’m also lucky to have special attention from the queen.’
‘I heard you were a favourite. What about the rest of your family?’
‘We lost our title and estates after my parents fled to France with the king and queen. My brother, who shares your name, married four years ago. I was estranged from him as people here feared he was a traitor but we have tried to be reconciled since my father died.’
‘Has the reconciliation been successful?’
‘In part – we do communicate but it’s hard to stay close to family when the whole world seems to be at war and we are so isolated here. I have a sister, Lucy, who is in a convent in Bruges and two older sisters in London. My eldest sister Frances lives in Scotland. We write to each other, more so now our parents are dead, but still not often.’
He looked at me and frowned. ‘So you wouldn’t want to leave?’
I appeared to give the question thoughtful consideration, rather than betray that I had already decided to leave St Germain and with him. ‘I’m ready to go. Eight years is a long time and the queen needs me less. Tell me about your family and your home?’
I just wanted to hear him talk. His accent was different from the other Scots at St Germain; gentler, yet more precise. He had a way of moving his hands to make a point, turning his palms out then bringing his fingers together at the tips. His hands had never seen physical work, yet they were large and the fingers blunt. William told me that he had inherited the title from his father and he and his sister had been brought up by their widowed mother at Terregles House in Dumfries. His mother still lived there but his sister had married Charles Stewart, the 4th Earl of Traquair. How exotic these names sounded. My imagination was already spinning a Scotland of sophistication, beauty and wealth, quite different from the tales recounted by my sisters of painted clansmen, no better than savages but useful in a fight.
William saw me watching him and stopped talking. He looked at me for longer than was comfortable, then leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. ‘I think we’d better go inside or people might notice how long we’ve been gone. But there is one thing I need to tell you. You are very beautiful.’
When William was not with the young men at court, hunting or fencing, he was with me. The queen excused me from most of my duties provided I attended her evening toilette so that she could hear every detail of the courtship. I resented this because my bond with William felt private but I depended on her to protect me from the gossip at court and I had to trust that she would release me when the time came. So I fed her little bits of information, some true, some exaggerated and others total fabrication. Her eyes glistened with excitement and she would stop her servant’s hand and turn from the mirror to face me, so I might repeat a detail that fascinated her.
Every morning I woke to the joy and amazement that William was part of my life and that he seemed not to tire of me. Despite our freedom from family, our courtship continued to be chaste and decorous, although we were able to exchange small kisses and hold hands when we walked, without a chaperone, through the forests around the chateau. Just as the trees were beginning to flower, we walked down to the River Seine through the terraces of the hanging gardens. It had been raining and the earth smelled of fungus and decay. Rain dripped from the bare branches of the trees and I trembled as a remnant of old fears touched the back of my neck. What if I lost William too?
William stopped walking and turned to face me. ‘Are you unwell, Winifred? Do you want to go back?’
I felt the heat and prickle of tears at the corner of my eyes. ‘These terraces remind me of the garden at Powis Castle. I miss my mother sometimes. Grace and I used to walk here after she died. It was just a bad memory, that’s all.’ But I began to shiver and William pulled my cloak tight around me and bent to kiss me with the unmistakable passion of a lover. I heard the song of birds through the long, searching kiss and felt a familiar ache. It was time.
I had never taken a man to my room at St Germain and my brief conquests at Marly or Fontainebleau had been furtive and secretive. It was believed that Jacobite support in England could be undermined if our court gained a reputation for failing to uphold Catholic teaching on moral behaviour. I was closely watched by the women of the exiled community; my mother’s friends too interested in my well-being alongside resentment and jealousy from those who had not known my parents and envied my position.
We parted in the woods, planning that William would follow me half an hour later. If anyone saw him using my staircase, there were respectable reasons why he might be visiting a resident on the third floor. As I crossed the courtyard, Lady Strickland waved to me and I hurried over to speak to her. She peered at me with small grey eyes, made more piercing by a generous use of face powder.
‘My dear, how are you? It must be so difficult for you without your mother and father.’ She clutched my arm.
I glanced towards the entrance to my staircase. ‘I’m well, thank you.’
‘Ah well, they miss you in the nursery – and your mother of course.’
I made myself look straight into her eyes. ‘I’m lucky to have the love of William Maxwell and the companionship of Grace Evans.’
Lady Strickland leaned towards me, as if to share a confidence. ‘There has been some talk about you walking out with him without a chaperone,’ she whispered. ‘I can arrange someone for you.’
‘Oh, I’m sure Grace can do that, but thank you for warning me.’ I tried to release my arm from her grip.
‘No, no my dear, she’s too close to the situation.’ Lady Strickland patted my arm and let me go. ‘I’ll arrange it for you. Come to my rooms tomorrow, I can see you’re in a hurry.’
‘Yes indeed, some business for the queen!’
I felt her eyes on my back as I crossed the courtyard and was relieved to reach the staircase without William having made an incriminating appearance. There was already a fire in the hearth, so my room was warm and I lit one candle, placing it on the table by the bed. In a fumbling panic I stripped to my stays, checking myself for unpleasant smells and cursed Grace, for there was no scented water. I put my dress back on, as well as I could without help, changed my mind, pulled it off and unpinned my hair. I slipped into the bed, shivering between the ice-cold sheets and spread my hair across the pillow. I couldn’t find a place to arrange my arms and got out of the bed to put more logs on the fire. I checked myself again for odours and waited for him on the edge of the bed. I felt too naked, so took my chemise from the cupboard and wrapped it around me, then moved the candle to a table under the window. I had chosen to sit by the fire when William tapped at the door.
I closed the door behind him and we kissed again. William slid his hands inside my chemise and pulled me close. My skin tingled as he ran his hands across my back. He pulled away and looked at my body, lifting the chemise away from my shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. Without taking his eyes from mine, he removed all of his clothes. I felt the full length of his warm body against mine as we kissed again. Without a break in the kiss, we were on the bed and I was lost inside our love.
When I woke, the candle had burned low, the flame spitting and guttering. Wax had flowed and spread across the table. It was dark and I could see a single star through my small window. William was still beside me, making noises in his sleep like whistling sighs. My eyes adjusted to the dim light and I lay down again, my face next to his, so that I could trace his full lips with my finger. I stroked his cropped hair and round head with my hands. He stirred and rolled onto his back as slowly, gently, I woke him with my touch.
Two weeks later, when my bleeding failed to come, I spoke to the queen.
‘Your majesty, I think I am with child. I beg for your leave to marry the Earl of Nithsdale as soon as possible.’
The queen’s eyes narrowed and her skin flushed but she spoke with a measured formality that was more worrying than her anger. ‘You have let me down, Lady Winifred. We had plans for a wedding, one that would have included the French royal family. It would not have gone unnoticed in Jacobite circles in both England and Scotland.’
I knew that relations with Louis remained cool and it was rumoured that our presence in France was becoming an embarrassment but I hadn’t realised that she had hoped I would play a small part in changing our fortunes. Mary Beatrice must be desperate if she believed that a wedding would allow her to regain something of her old relationship with Fontainebleau.
‘You should have been more careful,’ she snapped. ‘I showed you how.’ My disregard of her advice seemed to annoy her as much as her disappointed plans.
‘I am sorry, your majesty. I didn’t choose to be careful. I wanted to be with child.’
‘So you’ve trapped him? That might not lead to a successful marriage, Lady Winifred, although I am sure he will do his duty by you.’
‘I am sure of him in every respect. It’s true that he did not expect a child but he is pleased. We would have married regardless but perhaps not so soon. It suits me that it has happened now. Your majesty, I am in love with the Earl of Nithsdale and he loves me in return. We want to be in Scotland, together.’
Something dark flickered across Mary Beatrice’s face. James was ill, probably dying, and she had not seen Louis for some months. She was used to being loved, not just adored in the abstract as she was by many, but loved physically by men. She was jealous.
‘Is he aware that you are four years older than him?’
‘Of course he is.’ I did not lower my gaze. ‘It makes no difference to him or to me. I am my mother’s daughter, young and healthy, and likely to remain so for many years.’
Mary Beatrice knew there was nothing more she could do. We both understood that I had to be married within days, so that the birth of the child would be credible within marriage. I spent three days in a convent, where I was expected to repent my sins. Instead I lay in bed until late, already nauseous and listened to the singing of the nuns. I walked in the gardens, excusing myself from any tasks on the grounds of my poor health. The nuns, who had not been told why I was there, saw my pale face and left me alone. At night, in my dark cell, I tossed on my hard straw mattress in a fever of desire for William.
We were married at night in the queen’s private chapel, the ceremony attended only by the Duke and Duchess of Perth who knew both our families. Although we were in disgrace, in the flickering candlelight, with William by my side and the familiar words of the nuptial mass spoken by the priest, I felt only joy and a peace that promised to hold me in his love for ever.