Duchess by Susan Holloway Scott

Author:Susan Holloway Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

Chapter Eighteen

WINDSOR PALACE, WINDSOR, BERKSHIRE

JULY, 1686

I closed the playing cards in my hand and tossed them onto the table. “I’ve enough play for today, Your Highness. This afternoon’s so warm, that with the wine we drank at dinner, my head’s too muddled for anything taxing.”

In truth it was the sorry level of Anne’s play that made me wish to quit, not the summer day. She loved every sort of card game with a passion, but though she’d played since childhood, she had no more luck or skill than a gnat. She almost always lost, and just as predictably was surprised and wounded to see that one more game had gone against her. At my insistence we played for the tiniest of sums, but the others at court were not so kind. The Prince and Princess of Denmark were reputed to have lost nearly all of the princess’s income of thirty thousand pounds, forcing Anne to dip deep into the pocket of her father the king to make up the difference. This was a time when an English family of the middling sort could live with comfort on forty-five pounds a year; Anne could wager and lose ten times that on a single hand.

“One more game, Lady Churchill?” Anne pleaded. “Just one?”

I shook my head, covering my mouth as I yawned. “If I should try, Your Highness, I’m certain I’ll fall asleep right here with my head on the table.”

“It’s the new babe in your belly,” she said sagely. “I know I’m always so weary in the first months I can scarce move.”

The princess would know, I thought, for in the five years since she’d wed, she’d suffered through five confinements, having last been brought to bed of a girl in May. At least now fate seemed to be treating her with more kindness: unlike the unhappy results of Anne’s earlier pregnancies, Lady Mary was nearly one and learning to walk, and Lady Anne Sophia, though no more than a frail wisp born before her time, was doing better than any expected. For myself, I was simply thankful to be with child again, and willing to endure the discomforts that came with that happy state. It was past time I bore another child, anyway: Henrietta was nearly five, and Anne three.

“I know it’s so, Your Highness,” I admitted. “I’m always thus before the child quickens, though I’ve never had the toothache as wickedly as I’ve had this time.”

“Toothache’s a sure sign it’s a boy.” Next to cards, there was nothing Anne liked more than to discuss breeding.

“I pray you’re right.” I stifled another yawn. “Forgive me, Your Highness, for being such poor company.”

“You never are to me, Lady Churchill.” She came around the table and took my hand to raise me. “If not cards, then, what would it please you to do?”

If she truly wished to please me, I’d be in a carriage bound for home at Holywell. But this question, though asked by the princess, was more for her pleasure than mine, and so I tried to consider a proper reply.

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