Silence And Shadows Collection

Chapter 1-5

The large plate before me looked daunting. Though it was but the first of them. Quail with garlic and prunes. ‘He won’t serve more to you tomorrow?’

‘He has rather too high standards for that, which is unfortunate when Papa is used to food onboard ship, of course, and Winchester prepares one for anything, however rancid. What are school fees for, after all. This could feed me for a week.’

I moved the contents around my plate a little, but none had, as yet, found its way to my mouth.

He watched me. ‘Susannah. What do you eat at home?’

I blinked. ‘Well, I generally eat with Penny in the kitchen parlour. I have what she has.’

He blinked, too. ‘But Penny is an eight-year-old child.’

I was suddenly madly enraged by him. ‘God’s blood I know how old she is, Sam. Damn you. You–’ I clenched my jaw so I would say nothing further … particularly something I might regret of which there was plenty to choose from. He meant it well. I knew he did. I took a long breath, my nostrils flaring. ‘Forgive me.’ I reached out to place my hand over his. ‘I’m so grateful to you for this. I don’t know what is wrong with me.’ Just to be there with him. I had prayed for it for so long.

He took my hand and squeezed it, before bringing it up to his lips. ‘You’re unhappy, which is perfectly understandable under the circumstances. But, my Sukie, we’re going to do something about it now. Together. So please eat. If only a few mouthfuls from each plate.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Will you at least try?’

I nodded. How many wretched plates could there be?

In the end it was a perfect evening. After I had eaten enough to satisfy him, we returned to the drawing room with more wine. Later, he walked me across the street to my door with Connor acting as our linkman, carrying a lantern now all the exterior household ones had been extinguished. He stood with me for a moment, holding me in his arms. ‘I’m back now, Sukie, and we will overcome it all, you have my word.’

How had I ever endured without him? And it was so wonderful to talk. I hope because I have after so long, it might ease me back to do so with Papa. I still wish he had never brought the Villiers into our home, but I rather suspect he might have some regrets of his own now.

Raphael

RaphaelI came to court on the first day of December hoping for another sight of Susannah Gresham. Sadly, she did not attend. That those I asked confirmed they had seen her but once in recent memory, did not fill me with much hope of making her acquaintance. Perhaps I could arrange for her to paint my miniature, but I doubted that would pass my father as an expense of trade. I smiled, picturing his outrage. James Villiers was there though, with his entourage of young men all in his own image. I stood with Tom Monkton just inside the entrance to the Banqueting House, watching.

‘Who do you seek?’

‘No one in particular,’ I lied.

He laughed, knowing it. ‘Well, you’re not impressed with Villiers, that’s plain to see. You should learn to guard your expression more, Raph. He has many friends here.’

My eyes had narrowed involuntarily at his mannered strutting. ‘Then they’ve little taste, so explaining their choice of friend.’ At that moment, I became aware of a small resplendent figure approaching in an indigo gown encrusted with some of my finest pearls. As yet unpaid for. Tom left through the doors behind us to take up his designated position outside.

I bowed low. ‘Your Grace.’

‘Raphael, my dearest.’ She touched the ruby necklace at her throat. ‘This is very fine. Your best yet, I think.’

Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond. Her beauty clear in the ghost of her former face beneath cruel ravages of smallpox. Yet she did nothing to conceal the change. Her eyes still sparkled, and the King still favoured her it seemed. I had never heard her complain about her disfigurement, once telling me she was simply glad to live when so many did not. I thought then of Gianna. ‘Thank you, Your Grace. I’m glad it pleases you.’

‘I had hoped to see you here tonight. A little bird tells me a certain gentleman is alarmed by his wife’s indiscreet dallying.’ She tapped my arm with her fan. ‘I think a short sojourn to the country might be prudent, my dear.’

I felt heat on my face, glad my dark skin would make it difficult to detect. ‘I fear I’m unfamiliar with anywhere outside of the capital, Your Grace. Perhaps I might lie low in Cheapside for a while?’

She tilted her head. ‘I fancy it will take a little more than that this time, Raphael.’ She tilted her head the other way, now tapping her lips with her fan. ‘I have some old jewellery at Kew Palace. You may accompany me there on the morrow. Perhaps you might inspect it with a view to resetting?’

I bowed again. ‘Your Grace, it would be my pleasure. You have my gratitude.’ Once again, her patronage came to my rescue. Had she not brought my pieces to court displayed upon her person, my business here would not have prospered quite so quickly or so well. She had been delighted, as had I … and Papà, of course, when the Duchess of Portsmouth and the Countess of Castlemaine – themselves mistresses to the King – vied with her to secure my most valuable pieces, though they did not condescend to deal with me in person, much to my relief.

‘The only benefit of the frigid winters we have had of late is the greater ease of travel with the absence of mud through the winter months. Nothing slows a carriage quite like mud.’

A cold journey together then, though one which might prove useful in prompting payment for all that now adorned her. I smiled and bowed, a final time. ‘Your Grace.’ I watched her walk away, lambent with my pearls.

Kew proved rather bewildering from my perspective as a Florentine with a somewhat different notion of what a palazzo should be. An old red-brick royal residence too small and decrepit for the King’s use – he had a surfeit of the large and decrepit, I imagined – put at her disposal should she wish country air without traveling as far as her house in Kent. While not in the same league as his gift of Nonsuch Palace to Castlemaine five years earlier, it was generous enough to a former favourite he had once thought to marry when the Queen seemed near death years before, later even contemplating divorce for Frances Stuart. Could it be true she had not been his mistress then? She had no children off him, which was unusual considering how many he had acquired elsewhere bar from his wife, of course. Poor lady. The duchess, too, was childless and a widow, living on the King’s generosity and as a Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen. My father’s research had been nothing if not thorough.

palazzoThough we arrived at dusk, the journey through the park was well lit for us with braziers along the gravel drive, and lanterns aplenty around the great iron-studded oak entrance doors. Inside was a Tudor Great Hall, with a mighty hearth and a blazing fire. Chairs were pulled up close and we soon shed our travel chill and were ready to dine. The duchess retired early, and I thought it best to follow her lead, signalling Giuseppe to wait upon me in my bed chamber.

After our barge with its gold fringed crimson canopy and its thirty liveried oarsmen, conveyed us from the Privy Stairs at Whitehall up to the Friarsgate Stairs, he had travelled in a second carriage to Kew with three of the duchess’s ladies whom he told me later, always accompanied her on her journeys. Though they were all well passed the first bloom of youth, his expression as he climbed in to join them suggested he found this nothing to concern him. Knowing him as I did, I suspected he felt he could charm them with greater ease than younger and more discerning companions. Frances Stuart was close to my own age at twenty-eight or nine. Did these older ladies now make her feel her disfigurement less?

The next day, Giuseppe and I rode out on a pair of fine bay horses from Kew’s stables into the old hunting park, soon relaxing back to our easy companionship once away from others’ nosy eyes. I felt sure the English would disapprove of friendship between master and servant. Or at least would claim so. Yet I had noticed a distinct lack of reserve between the duchess and her eldest lady, Mary Warnock, which I raised with him.

‘Frances is fond of her old Mary. She was her most beloved nursemaid at the old Queen’s court in Paris, and she’s stayed by her side ever since.’

‘Then she must feel like a kind of mamma to her, no?’ The thought pleased me. Her duke had died some years before, and I imagined she must be lonely for affection, especially when the King’s favours were generously shared amongst so many.

We cantered on along a frost-hardened track through ancient trees. The December morning was bright but frigid and we wore fur-lined riding cloaks over our Brandenburg coats, with our mounts’ breath blooming around us in billowing clouds. The track led to an open glade which, to my startled surprise, was already occupied by the duchess and her lady, Anne Hyde. I bowed, doffing my hat, hoping Giuseppe had done the same behind me. Florentine servants do not often do this without direct instruction. Or was that just mine?

I halted my horse alongside them. ‘Your Grace.’ I bowed again and turned. ‘My Lady Anne.’ Both were dressed in dark riding habits and wore periwigs, a peculiar English custom for ladies when out riding. The duchess’s slight build and comely figure stood out against her companion’s bulk. That lady’s expression on registering Giuseppe’s presence, showed it was by no means an unwelcome one.

‘Raphael. It seems we have all felt the need of outside air this morning. The palace chimneys need sweeping, which accounts for the acrid quality of the air. Ride with me.’

‘Your Grace.’

Her horse, an elegant dappled grey, moved away at a canter and I followed, admiring her horsemanship riding side-saddle with her cloak streaming behind her over the horse’s rump. When we had left the others far enough behind, she reined-in and we walked our horses side-by-side along a wide frosted avenue between beech trees, their bare, white-rimed branches arching over us like a soaring, glittering ecclesiastical ceiling. The horses’ hoofbeats and the jangle of their bridles echoed in the still air.

‘I wonder what you find quite so enticing about Charlotte Canford?’ She gave me a hard stare. ‘You could do so much better.’ She must have read something in my expression for she threw back her head, laughing with some abandon. ‘No, Raphael, I do not mean me.’

Heat flamed upon my face because that was just what I had thought … and how much the prospect pleased me. ‘Of course not, Your Grace … not that …’ I delved desperately for something to say to draw her attention away from my embarrassment. ‘There is a young lady at court who has caught my eye, Your Gra–’ In my confusion, I spoke my own language rather than the French we had conversed in until then.