"His Grace is correct, my lady. And that being so, I must hold his offer of employment in the deepest gratitude." A faint tightening of the lips at this speech seemed to indicate that the gratitude felt might not perhaps go so deep as all that, pleasant words notwithstanding. I glanced at the Duke, to find his small blue eyes creased against the sun, his expression blandly impenetrable.
This little tableau was broken by a clap of the King's hands summoning two footmen, who, at Louis's direction, grasped me by both arms and lifted me forcibly into a sedan chair, despite my protests.
"Certainly not, Madame," he said, graciously dismissing both protests and thanks. "Go home and rest; we do not wish you to be indisposed for the ball tomorrow, non?" His large brown eyes twinkled at me as he raised my hand to his lips. Not taking his eyes from my face, he bowed formally toward Jamie, who had gathered his wits sufficiently to be making a gracious speech of thanks, and said, "I shall perhaps accept your thanks, my lord, in the form of your permission to request a dance from your lovely wife."
Jamie's lips tightened at this, but he bowed in return and said, "My wife shares my honor at your attention, Your Majesty." He glanced in my direction. "If she is well enough to attend the ball tomorrow evening, I am sure she will look forward to dancing with Your Majesty." He turned without waiting for formal dismissal, and jerked his head toward the chair-bearers.
"Home," he said.
Home at last after a hot, jolting ride through streets that smelled of flowers and open sewers, I shed my heavy dress and its uncomfortable frame in favor of a silk dressing gown.
I found Jamie sitting by the empty hearth, eyes closed, hands on his knees as though thinking. He was pale as his linen shirt, glimmering in the shadow of the mantelpiece like a ghost.
"Holy Mother," he muttered, shaking his head. "Dear God and saints, so close. I came within a hairsbreadth of murdering that man. Do ye realize, Claire, if ye hadna fainted…Jesus, I meant to kill him, with every last morsel of will I had." He broke off, shuddering again with reaction.
"Here, you'd better put your feet up," I urged, tugging at a heavy carved footstool.
"No, I'm all right now," he said, waving it away. "He's…Jack Randall's brother, then?"
"I should think it likely in the extreme," I said dryly. "He could scarcely be anyone else, after all."
"Mm. Did ye know he worked for Sandringham?"
I shook my head. "I didn't—don't—know anything about him other than his name and the fact that he's a curate. F-Frank wasn't particularly interested in him, as he wasn't a direct ancestor of his." The slight quaver of my voice as I spoke Frank's name gave me away.
Jamie put down the flask and came toward me. Stooping purposefully, he picked me up and cradled me against his chest. The smell of the gardens of Versailles rose sharp and fresh from the folds of his shirt. He kissed the top of my head and turned toward the bed.
"Come lay your head, Claire," he said quietly. "It's been a long day for us both."
I had been afraid that the encounter with Alexander Randall would set Jamie dreaming again. It did not happen often, but now and again, I would feel him wake beside me, body tensed in sudden battle. He would lurch out of bed then, and spend the night by the window as though it offered escape, refusing any form of solace or interference. And by the morning, Jack Randall and the other demons of the dark hours had been forced back into their box, battened down and held fast by the steel bands of Jamie's will, and all was well again.
But Jamie fell asleep quickly, and the stresses of the day had already fled from his face, leaving it peaceful and smooth by the time I put out the candle.
It was bliss to lie unmoving, with the warmth growing about my cold limbs, the myriad small aches of back and neck and knees fading into the softness of oncoming sleep. But my mind, released from watchfulness, replayed a thousand times that scene outside the palace—a quick glimpse of a dark head and a high brow, close-set ears and a fine-edged jaw—that first harsh flash of mistaken recognition, which struck my heart with a blow of joy and anguish. Frank, I had thought. Frank. And it was Frank's face I saw as I sank into sleep.
The lecture room was one of those at London University; ancient timbered ceiling and modern floors, lino scuffed by restless feet. The seats were the old smooth benches; new desks were saved for the science lectures. History could make do with sixty-year-old scarred wood; after all, the subject was fixed and would not change—why should its accommodation?
"Objects of vertu," Frank's voice said, "and objects of use." His long fingers touched the rim of a silver candlestick, and the sun from the window sparked from the metal, as though his touch were electric.
The objects, all borrowed from the collections of the British Museum, were lined up along the edge of the table, close enough for the students in the front row to see the tiny cracks in the yellowed ivory of the French counterbox, and the stains of tobacco smoked long ago that browned the edges of the white clay pipe. An English gold-mounted scent bottle, a gilt-bronze inkstand with gadrooned lid, a cracked horn spoon, and a small marble clock topped with two swans drinking.
And behind the row of objects, a row of painted miniatures, laid flat on the table, features obscured by the light reflecting off their surfaces.
Frank's dark head bent over the objects, absorbed. The afternoon sun picked up a stray reddish gleam in his hair. He lifted the clay pipe, cupped onehanded like an eggshell.
"For some periods of history," he said, "we have history itself; the written testimony of the people who lived then. For others, we have only the objects of the period, to show us how men lived."
He put the pipe to his mouth and pursed his lips around the stem, puffing out his cheeks, brows raised comically. There was a muffled giggle from the audience, and he smiled and laid the pipe down.
"The art, and the objects of vertu"—he waved a hand over the glittering array—"these are what we most often see, the decorations of a society. And why not?" He picked an intelligent-looking brown-haired boy to address. An accomplished lecturer's trick; pick one member of the audience to talk to as though you were alone with him. A moment later, shift to another. And everyone in the room will feel the focus of your remarks.
"These are pretty things, after all." A finger's touch set the swans on the clock revolving, curved necks stately in twofold procession. "Worth preserving. But who'd bother keeping an old, patched tea cozy, or a worn-out automobile-tire?" A pretty blonde in glasses this time, who smiled and tittered briefly in response.
"But it's the useful objects, the things that aren't noted in documents, which are used and broken and discarded without a second thought, that tell you how the common man lived. The numbers of these pipes, for example, tell us something about the frequency and types of tobacco use among the classes of society, from high"—a finger tap on the lid of the enameled snuffbox—"to low." The finger moved to stroke the long, straight pipestem with affectionate familiarity.
Now a middle-aged woman, scribbling frantically to catch every word, hardly aware of the singular regard upon her. The lines creased beside smiling hazel eyes.
"You needn't take down everything, Miss Smith," he chided. "It's an hour's lecture, after all—your pencil will never last."
The woman blushed and dropped her pencil, but smiled shyly in answer to the friendly grin on Frank's lean, dark face. He had them now, everyone warmed by the glow of good humor, attention attracted by the small flashes of gilt and glitter. Now they would follow him without flagging or complaint, along the path of logic and into the thickets of discussion. A certain tenseness left his neck as he felt the students' attention settle and fix on him.
"The best witness to history is the man—or woman"—a nod to the pretty blonde—"who's lived it, right?" He smiled and picked up the cracked horn spoon. "Well, perhaps. After all, it's human nature to put the best face on things when you know someone will read what you've written. People tend to concentrate on the things they think important, and often enough, they tidy it up a bit for public consumption. It's rare to find a Pepys who records with equal interest the details of a Royal procession, and the number of times each night that he's obliged to use his chamber pot."
The laugh this time was general, and he relaxed, leaning casually back against the table, gesturing with the spoon.
"Similarly, the lovely objects, the artful artifacts, are the ones most often preserved. But the chamber pots and the spoons and the cheap clay pipes can tell us as much or more about the people who used them.
"And what about those people? We think of historical persons as something different than ourselves, sometimes halfway mythological. But someone played games with this"—the slender index finger stroked the counter-box—"a lady used this"—nudged the scent bottle—"dabbing scent behind her ears, on her wrists…where else do you ladies dab scent?" Lifting his head suddenly, he smiled at the plump blond girl in the front row, who blushed, giggled, and touched herself demurely just above the V of her blouse.
"Ah, yes. Just there. Well, so did the lady who owned this."