Trapped at the Altar

Instinctively, she flicked her fan, smiled at him, then flicked it back to cover all but her eyes. His majesty laughed and turned his attention to the stage, where the actors were beginning to assemble.





TWENTY-TWO





The actors on the stage began to speak, but to Ariadne’s astonished indignation, the hubbub in the audience didn’t diminish. She leaned forward in an attempt to hear what was happening on the stage below her. In the pit, the mostly male audience continued to chatter, to move around, to hail acquaintances and orange girls as if the stage were empty.

“Why won’t they be quiet?” Ari demanded. “Some of us want to hear. Why doesn’t the King tell them to be quiet?”

“He’s not exactly riveted by the play himself,” Ivor observed, turning his head as a knock sounded at the door to the box. “That’ll be the wine . . . Enter.”

Instead of the usher with the wine and tartlets, however, it was a flunky in the King’s livery. He bowed. “His majesty requests madam’s presence in the royal box in the interval,” he stated in a monotone. “And that of her escort.” The last was a perfunctory addition, and he departed as suddenly as he’d come. Clearly, an answer was not expected.

“So, let the games begin,” Ivor murmured, and Ari felt a shiver of apprehension not unmixed with excitement. She glanced towards the King’s box. Ivor was right. His majesty was chatting with his companions, taking scant notice of the action on the stage.

The noise in the pit was subsiding now, and the actors could at last be heard, but Ari’s pleasure in the stage was diminished by the prospect of the upcoming royal audience. It seemed almost fanciful to imagine that she, of all people, the unruly daughter of an outlawed earl, ill schooled in the finer things of life, let alone the conduct and expectations of a royal audience, was about to be presented to King Charles himself. At least, she thought, she looked the part, which was some comfort, and after a while, the novelty of the play itself took over, and she lost herself in the witty dialogue and absurdity of the situation being played out before her.

When the intermission began, the audience instantly started its conversational rounds once more, and the noise of voices rose from the pit. “So what do we do?” she asked Ivor in a whisper as she saw the King turn towards their box. His majesty raised a beringed hand and beckoned. As he did so, the door to their own box opened, and the flunky from before stood expectantly in the opening.

“Sir, madam.” He bowed. “How are you to be introduced to his majesty?”

“Sir Ivor and Lady Chalfont,” Ivor said smoothly, offering Ari his arm. He laid a hand lightly over hers in a gesture of encouraging reassurance as they followed the flunky along the corridor to the royal box. Doors to the other boxes stood open now, and gentlemen were moving between them, paying social calls. Ari noticed that the women were not on the move. Only the gentlemen, it seemed, paid calls at the theatre. Except, of course, for a summons to the royal box.

The royal box had double doors, and these stood open, flunkies on either side. King Charles was standing with his back to the theatre, a chased silver goblet in his hand, the other resting on the head of a spaniel sitting in the royal chair. He was laughing at something one of the ladies had said, but as soon as Ari and her escort appeared, he turned the full force of his attention upon them.

“Sir Ivor and Lady Chalfont, your majesty.” The flunky announced them without expression.

“So, a beautiful newcomer to our theatre,” Charles declared, extending a hand. “Lady Chalfont, where have you sprung from?”

Ariadne curtsied as low as she dared without falling over, her lips brushing the royal hand in homage. “From Somerset, sire. My husband and I are but newly arrived in London.”

“Indeed . . . indeed.” He made a gesture to her to rise and turned to Ivor. “Sir, I bid you welcome to our fair city.”

Ivor bowed over the royal hand. “Your majesty is most gracious.”

Charles indicated his companions. “Her grace of Portsmouth and Mistress Gwyn are pleased to receive you. We enjoy the company of newcomers, is that not so, ladies?” He smiled benignly at his companions.

Ariadne curtsied low to both ladies, who responded with sketched curtsies of their own. Ivor bowed and received smiles in his turn.

“So, what brings you all the way from Somerset, Sir Ivor?” Mistress Gwyn inquired from behind her fan. “Is it not a wilderness of a place?”

“Some parts, perhaps, madam.”

The King frowned. “ ’Tis damned lawless in parts. I hear little good about the people of the West Country.”

“I trust, sire, that you hear only good of my husband’s family,” Ariadne murmured, mentally crossing her fingers. She could only hope that his majesty didn’t inquire too closely into her own lawless antecedents. She took her example from Mistress Gwyn and peeped at him over her fan. “They are loyal subjects of your Protestant majesty.”

“Glad to hear it,” Charles said with a vague dismissive gesture. “And we are always delighted to see new faces at our court. I trust you will attend my lady wife, madam, when she holds audience. I will ensure you receive a particular summons.”

“You do me too much honor, sire.” Ari curtsied again. The spaniel on the King’s chair lifted its head and jumped down, coming to Ariadne, sniffing at her skirts. Ari automatically bent to stroke the animal’s head, lifting the heavy, silken ears with a practiced touch. The dog pushed her nose into Ari’s palm, and the King chuckled.

“By God, she likes you, my lady. Miss Sarah here is very particular in whom she takes to. You have a liking for dogs?”

“Indeed, sir. I grew up with them. Hunting dogs for the most part, but I have hand-reared several puppies.”

“Have you, now?” The king beamed. He bent to pick up the spaniel, handing her to Ariadne. The dog instantly licked her face, and the King’s beam grew wider. “Tell me more of yourself, my lady.”

? ? ?

Gabriel sat dazed amid the hurly-burly raucous crowd in the pit, his eyes riveted on the King’s box above him. The disturbance in the royal box in the interval had drawn many curious eyes, and he was not the only one assessing the newcomer. But he was the only member of the audience in the pit who knew who she was. She was here. Ariadne, his Ariadne, was here, and she was talking to the King.

He had known he would see her eventually. Their paths had to cross in the few square miles of the city inhabited by fashionable London, and yet, despite telling himself this, he had sometimes despaired of ever finding her. He hadn’t known how to begin to search for her, except to visit the places where she might be found. And tonight he had found her.

But she didn’t look like his Ariadne. She was a radiant lady of the court, alight with jewels, the lithe, slender body he could still sometimes in his dreams feel between his hands now encased in turquoise and black, a dramatic counterpoint to the dusky pearl-threaded curls framing her face. But the face was the same. He couldn’t see her eyes clearly at this distance—the brilliance of the many candles in the royal box blurred her image—but he knew their gray clarity as if it were embossed on his mind’s eye.

And the man beside her, the man whose hand rested lightly but without undoubted possession on her arm? Her husband. And Gabriel felt strangely diminished by the man’s sheer physical presence. He was dressed richly but without ostentation, and Gabriel felt instantly that the heavy, gold-embossed fob he wore in the lacy fall of his own cravat was almost vulgar.