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“But you are queen, and should be seen,” Livia told her.
“You’re bored of these four walls,” Mary Beatrice said, looking around at her beautiful bedroom. She was seated before her mirror as the lady-in-waiting inserted false ringlets of hair into the queen’s rich tresses and secured them with diamond pins.
“I want to see you at the heart of your court enjoying yourself.”
She managed a smile. “I can’t enjoy myself.”
“You might,” Livia encouraged her. “And the king might visit.”
Mary Beatrice picked up a hand mirror and looked closely at her powdered face and then turned to see the back of her hair. “Very pretty,” she said indifferently, to the lady-in-waiting, who held a comb for any last-minute changes. “I’ll go like this.”
She stood; a maid of honor threw a fur-trimmed stole around the queen’s bare shoulders and adjusted it so that it framed her shoulders, her neck, and her beautiful face. Livia felt a pang of envy for the silk-embroidered stole, the flawless beauty of the skin. She stepped forward and put a kiss on the rouged lips. “You’re irresistible,” she told her. “I want to keep you all to myself.”
Mary Beatrice laughed and led the way through her privy chamber to the drawing room. They could hear the musicians playing as the doubledoors opened and everyone turned. All the women dropped into deep curtseys, and the men bowed. Livia, following the Queen of England, the most favored of all the ladies-in-waiting, smiled this way and that, sometimes nodding to total strangers, to demonstrate her wide acquaintance. “How do you do?” she said to a slightly familiar face. “Good day,” she said to another. She drew the gaze from the pale queen, who settled herself on her throne without a word to anyone, as Livia, beautifully at ease, took her place standing beside the queen and looked around with all the confidence of a woman who knows that she is the favorite.
Livia nodded to the footmen at the doors to admit anyone who was dressed elegantly enough to indicate wealth. English nobility, ambassadors and their ladies, visiting lords and royalty were admitted without question and came up to the queen, seated on her blue silk chair, to be greeted with her sweet smile. City gentlemen who had made a fortune might be admitted if their jackets were richly embroidered and their shoes studded with stones that passed for diamonds. Only ladies of known good family could waft in past the equerries, who knew one carriage from another and would turn away anyone of inferior status.
“May I present Lady Winterton and her daughters, Miss Sarah Winterton and Miss Winterton?” One of the courtiers stood forward and three ladies, the girls walking with studied care, curtseyed without mishap and stood, mute, before the queen. Livia smiled graciously, the queen asked them a question each about the weather, and if the streets were crowded, and the three curtseyed again and drifted off to one side to whisper to one another and look around.
The next to come forward to curtsey was a young lady from the Sugar Islands, her gown the finest that would be seen that day, her face thickly powdered to whiten her skin, darkened from the constant sunshine. The queen inquired of her mother if their journey had been long and arduous and was assured that it had been easy, they would do it again, they intended to visit England regularly, it was their home after all… Livia feigned interest, gently gestured when they should step aside and, glancing up to see who was coming next, was stunned to see the doors opening on Catherine Sedley.
There was a gasp of amazement. Catherine did not bother to hide her amusement.
“You didn’t expect to see me so soon?” she demanded of the room and sashayed forward to curtsey to the queen. She dipped down as low as courtesy demanded, but came up beaming.
“Lady Sedley? We thought you were in Dublin,” Livia said sharply as the queen froze.
“I couldn’t stay there forever,” Catherine said frankly. “I couldn’t abide it. I missed you all too much.” She laughed loudly at her own joke. “Why should I not come home? I’ve got a beautiful house in London standing empty, and all my friends are here. And people missed me. I can name one who did!”
“Was your journey an easy one?” the queen whispered, overwhelmed by the cheerful defiance.
“Just as easy as it was going,” Catherine declared. “The king sent his own carriages for me. I traveled like royalty, with outriders all the way.”
Mary Beatrice went white and leaned back into the throne as if she were fainting. Livia stepped before her to shield her from the court. “I’m sure we’re very blessed in your return,” she said acidly. “We are all very happy to see you again even for a short stay.”
“Oh no—” Catherine began.
“I am sure it will be a short stay,” Livia repeated, making the woman laugh out loud.
“I’ll come and go as I please,” she said. “I’m a free-born Englishwoman, and I shall do as I please. I have Magna Carta to defend my rights, I am not an Italian with no law to defend me.” Her bright gaze raked the room, spotted a few priests. “Or a poor papist who has to do as the priests say.”
Livia stepped down from the dais and took Catherine firmly by the elbow. “How completely fascinating,” she breathed. “You must tell me more. Over here. In the window embrasure. Out of the way. So we’re not center of the stage.Allora!What a surprise you are!”
The thunderclap that broke over the king’s head at the triumphant return of his mistress was delivered by his confessor, his chaplain, and thepapal nuncio himself. It was enough to send Catherine Sedley to a discreet country house outside London—Ham House on the river bank at Weybridge—but not enough to drive her from court. Instead, the king’s hunting trips often took that direction, and he did not come back for the rest of the day. It was an open secret that she returned his visits, coming to court in the afternoons, entering the palace by the back stairs, spending half the day with him in the rooms belonging to Mr. William Chiffinch, the page of the back stairs whose entire life was devoted to hiding secret visitors: priests, spies, and the king’s mistresses.
Livia held the deserted young queen while she cried, rocked her as if she were a child. “Silenziosa,” she said. “Hush. Your heart will mend, you’re young. You are the queen. She is nothing to you.”
“She is everything to him! He wouldn’t have had her back if he could have been happy without her. He has been wanting her and missing her for all this time. I wish I was dead, and then he could marry her!”
“If you were dead, he wouldn’t marry her,” Livia said, knowing full well that princesses were being lined up all around Europe for the king’s next wife; the daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany was buying furs for the cold English winters. If this frail young woman died of a broken heart, then her place would be taken within a year. “She’s a mistress, she’ll never be queen.”
“Why does he want her so much, and not me?” Mary Beatrice’s face was tragic, her dark eyes brimming with tears, her mouth trembling. “What is wrong with me, that he cannot love me?”
Livia, overwhelmed with pity and tenderness, drew the young woman into her arms again, kissed the tears on her wet eyelashes, her soft mouth, kissed her hot cheeks, her perfumed neck, pulled down the ribboned neck of the gown to kiss the tops of her rounded breasts. “He’s mad,” she said, caressing with her lips. “He must be mad not to prefer you to every woman in the world.”
“Do you really love me?” the queen asked pitiably.
“I do,” Livia swore. “I will be more faithful than any husband. I am yours till death.”
