Lady Merry's Dashing Champion (3 page)

Damn and twice damn Felice! Giles clenched his fists, forgetting that he held the stem of a Venetian crystal wine glass. It broke and sprayed his coat with fine Portuguese Madeira.

The king came to him as Giles shook off his coat. "M'lord, you need exercise. You're like one of our pendulum clocks wound very much too tight."

Giles smiled and bowed his head, appreciating the friendly gesture. Perhaps he would be able to broach the subject of leaving Whitehall for an extended stay at Harring-don Hall, for the peace of his gardens—although the last time he'd asked, the king had said no. The reason had been flattering: "Giles, you are our one gentleman who does not want to get closer to us for some higher office. Therefore we want you ever closer."

Giles had stopped asking the king for a squadron of ships to take against the Hollanders, since it was His Majesty's duty to protect him, the only heir to an ancient earldom.

This morning Charles II put his arm about Giles's shoulder, and as comrades they walked into the Presence Chamber, down the Stone Gallery and through the king's privy garden, past the scent garden to the covered tennis court, meeting only sleepy servants at this early hour.

Attendants had prepared blunted practice rapiers and a sword master stood near to count the points as they were scored.

Giles shed his wine-stained coat and in his loose shirt open to the waist took a few practice parries, lunges and diagonal swipes from left to right, high to low, just to hear the familiar hiss of a blade and to loosen his taut leg and shoulder muscles. The king was right; he was wound too tight. He assumed the
en garde
position in salute.

The king returned the salute. "Do you know why we like to practice at the sword with you, m'lord of Warborough?"

"I would hope Your Majesty enjoys the exercise."

"Aye, that is part of it, but we most like it that you do not allow us to win easily."

Giles lowered his rapier across his heart. "That would be disrespectful, sir."

"Just so," the king said, and made a diagonal swipe from high to low with a step forward.

"Point to His Majesty," called the sword master quickly.

But Giles had seen the move coming and evaded to his left, stepping back. Shouting, "Ha!" to add momentum to his lunge, and staying low, he thrust to center, while the king's blade passed harmlessly over his shoulder.

The king shouted, "Point to you, m'lord earl," but he recovered and briskly extended his sword arm to meet Giles's onslaught.

Giles saw that the king was overextended and performed a perfect glissade, sliding bis sword along the king's blade, immobilizing the hilt.

The king fell back and saluted. "Ah, Giles, you are masterful at the
pris-de-fer.
No man attacks the blade as well as you."

"Majesty, you are too generous," Giles answered,
en garde.

"No, we are not, as you will see," said the king, attacking with renewed energy.

They fought round and round the tennis court, which rang with the sound of sword on sword until time was called.

Giles dipped his perspiring face in a bowl of cool water held by a servant, rising to swing his dripping dark curls about his shoulders to shed excess water.

The king pointed to Giles, laughing. "M'lord, you look just like one of our lions at the Tower, and perhaps as hungry"

Hearty applause and trilling feminine laughter came from several court ladies on seats opposite, all furiously waving fans about bosoms spilling out of their gowns, though the day was not yet warm. Both the king and Giles, who was taller even than the tall king, bowed formally, Giles making an elegant leg in the ladies' direction. He was answered with a shrill, "Oh, la, m'lord," from a young lady who covered her face with a feathered fan.

"It would seem," said Charles II, "that the ladies do also think you a hungry lion and have it in mind to feed you."

"The applause was for you, sir."

"Partially, we must agree, but we do see a bed rival in you," the king said, laughing.

Giles laughed, as well, which brought another flurry of whispers and sighs from the ladies, who quickly formed two lines at the door, through which Giles and the king marched. When Giles reached the door, he turned back toward them and very slowly winked an invitation.

The king grinned as they strolled away. "Is it your intent, m'lord, to drive all of these ladies to your bed?"

"Well, sir," Giles said, pulling a serious face, "I try always to give them what they want."

The king rolled his eyes toward heaven. "M'lord Giles, we urge you to have a care, for we have discovered that there is no end to their wanting."

The king and the Earl of Warborough had passed the sundial in the privy garden, their feet crunching on the graveled path, before Giles realized that for an hour by the dial he had not once thought of Felice and had even felt a brief happiness without that burden.

Meriel returned to Lady Judith with a royal physician, one Josiah Wyndham by name, a funny little man with a soaring periwig, who took many small steps at a run but knew his way about the endless palace. They found her ladyship in a near-hysteric state.

The doctor checked her for the fever of ague, murmuring that there were three degrees. "Quotidian, tertian and quartan," he pronounced as to himself.

"You are most learned," Lady Judith whispered, while he bent to listen at her chest, and lifted her eyelids, which had been clamped against the light.

"My lady," he began, and got her attention with his deep, rumbling voice, "you have no ague, but severe megrims. I like not that you are over-pale and lack strength."

"That is exactly what I have been telling Sir Edward, my husband, but he has no more time for my pain." Her voice was petulant. "He is gone already to his work for the Admiralty, and this worthless girl, Meriel, dawdles about the palace."

The doctor glanced at Meriel and smiled. "Nay, my lady, she is excessively dutiful for one so young and fair, hurrying me almost off my legs."

"Well, perhaps. But I do need a stronger physic, good physician, as you can see." Her arm flopped limply over the bedside.

"My lady," he said most gravely, lifting the green glass bottle at her bedside and sniffing it, "you are the victim of a grievous distemper, true, but made worse
by this very physic.
I have observed such results many times in my practice in London and during my student days at the University of Padua, Bologna, et cetera."

Her ladyship's eyes opened a little wider for a better look at the small doctor who, nonetheless, spoke with the impressive authority of a large acquaintance with knowledge.

"Sir, the best physicians of Canterbury have tended me and prescribed—"

"Indeed, I have no doubt of it, my lady. It is a common cure for humors of the fragile female organs and to still the pains brought by the monthly flux.... Or pain of any kind. But I think this physic is vastly overpraised except for very brief use against pain"—he sucked in his cheeks—
"in extremis."

Her ladyship sputtered to a seated position in her bed, impressed yet alarmed. "But, good doctor, I have had this physic for more than two years and I must have it, or I will surely die."

"My lady, may I be forthright? Indeed, it is that very character that brought me to the king's attention, along with my specialty for women's complaints, of which there are ... er, many such in the palace. My lady Castlemaine, the king's high friend, is great with child at this moment."

He raised a perspective glass and looked through it at her face. "What I see before me, madame, is a woman of squandered beauty in great pain, and no doubt no longer esteemed by Sir Edward to the loving degree...." He raised his brows.

She raised hers in mutual understanding, nodding eagerly at such an agreeable diagnosis. "Exactly so, sir!"

Meriel could see why the little doctor was an expert on female distempers, for his patient was vastly improved by a single moment of true male understanding. She determined to learn the secret of his insinuating manner, for he was an obvious master.

"My lady, you must follow my prescribed cure, or I cannot promise release from pain and restoration to health and youth," he said, his voice rumbling lower so that Lady Judith bent forward to better hear him.

"Yes! Anything," she said, entreating with feeble fingers.

Meriel, too, leaned closer to hear, for the doctor was obviously thinking deep thoughts, perhaps in Latin. And she divined his secret physic: understanding followed by absolute demands. But was that all?

The doctor continued. "If you are faithful, dear Lady Judith, I promise a complete cure and your girlish bloom returned."

Lady Judith extended a reinvigorated but still supplicating hand.

The physician grasped her hand and held her gaze. "You are to take nothing to stomach but watered wine, mutton broth and honey-dipped bread for three days, while I cast your horoscope. I do not doubt, my lady, that yours is dominated by Venus and the Moon in conflict. Since Mercury is also now in retrograde, I will leave with your maid my Oil of Privet to take away the megrims, and my famous red Counteracting pills, which she will give you to purge your body of the harmful effects of your physic and stars."

Meriel curtsied to acknowledge her part and to hide a pleased smile. She thought the little man could probably talk those same stars from the sky.

"But, good doctor, are you not going to bleed me? Where are your leeches?"

"Bleeding is a sovereign cure.... As is a purge, but your stars are not propitious for such. Listen carefully now." Dr. Wyndham put two fingers to his temple, signing a deep thought. "On the fourth day, you will rise and dress yourself in your finest gown and walk each morning in St. James Park when many in the palace walk with His Majesty. You have great need of fresh air, sun and charming company."

"But.. . but—" her ladyship sputtered. "It is said the king walks so fast that many must run to stay in his company."

"Exactly so. His Majesty is of a vigorous constitution and very fond of exercise. I would advise, therefore, that for some days you stay back with the slower courtiers until you begin to show roses in your cheeks."

Her ladyship's face had already grown rosy from his close attention, but not so much that she forgot her desire. "My old physic, sir? Indeed, I need it most urgently."

The little doctor bowed low, nearly disappearing under the high bedstead. "My lady, you will need it no longer in a very short time." His voice brooked no challenge to his authority. "I will instruct your maid here, who looks to be a well-minded girl, though such a pretty person will not escape the notice of the lads in the palace." He sighed. "Ah, yes, well—but I will show her what your doses are to be. For now, I want your mirror to be brought."

He nodded to Meriel, who retrieved her ladyship's ivory-handled mirror.
Ah,
she thought,
the final piece of the cure. .. vanity.

"From this time forward, your looking glass must not leave your side. I have here"—he pulled a black lacquered box from the large carrying case he had over his shoulder— "Wyndham's Infallible Miracle Salve, used exclusively by Lady Anne Gilbert, formerly of Her Majesty's bedchamber, and Lady Katherne, one of the brightest comic stars of the Theater Royal and a great favorite in the court. My salve will quicken that beauty which lies hidden beneath the laudanum and hurry Sir Edward to your side." He bent closer to whisper. "And if Sir Edward has lost a vital part of his nature, then"—he dropped his whisper even lower, although Meriel, stifling laughter, could not understand why, since it carried to all corners of the room—"its use will quicken that noble part, as well."

Standing very upright, he bowed, smiling at his quite revived patient. He closed his case, and firmly taking Meriel's arm, walked her to the adjoining sitting room. "Now, young maid, where have we met afore?"

"Never before today, sir." Was she again being mistaken for a countess?

He frowned in concentration. "Your face is very familiar and I do not forget faces, especially a beauty such as you."

She curtsied because it was a compliment and not an invitation. She knew the difference.

"Well me, I will think of it," he said, puzzled, but came back to business. "Now," he announced, taking a paper packet from his case, "these are my red emetic pills to give her ladyship after each dose of laudanum, which you are to make weaker by the day. The lure of the laudanum—"

"Sir," Meriel said, refusing the packet, "these will give her ladyship vomitus."

"Aye, girl, but will save her life. I have treated those who have an overfondness for poppy syrup with my little red pills. They soon blame the poppy for their retching stomachs." His face was stern. "Otherwise they waste away and die. And keep her mirror close to her and my salve upon her face, and you will assist nature in the discharge of her duty. Your lady is suffering from a pernicious disease of long marriages called
Inattention."

"And the stars, sir," Meriel asked slyly, "won't you wait for their answers?"

He grinned, taking her meaning, and giving her another close look. "My pills are faster than the planets, I vow."

And with a shift of his bag on his shoulder and another quick study of her face, Dr. Wyndham left Meriel to wonder whether the man was a mountebank or a true physician. She inclined more to the latter since it was obvious that he believed in experiment and observation. A modern doctor, indeed, though a strange one. Yet for the rest of the day, she smiled whenever she thought of him.

That night Sir Edward found his wife somewhat improved and praising a court physician to the heavens. Sir Edward was so pleased that he allowed Meriel to take young Edward and Elizabeth to walk about the palace.

"Remember to give way and to bow and curtsy if the king or other high lord should pass," he instructed his children, and then they were off.

The richly paneled halls, with all sconces alit, were filled with people: lords, ladies, mere gentlemen and common servants, hurrying in one direction toward the sound of music.