The Loves of Charles II Read Online Free

for bold deeds, madam. But you may trust me. I wish you Godspeed and a safe trip across the water.”
    “Across the water?”
    “You go to Dover, madam. You will cross the water with the child and join the Queen.”
    “I have said nothing that should make you think this.”
    “They say the Queen is the cause of the King’s troubles, madam. That may be so, but the Queen is devoted to the King’s cause. Poor lady! It must be two years since she fled from England. It was a few weeks after the birth of her youngest, the little Princess Henrietta.”
    “This makes uneasy talk,” said the hunchback.
    “You may trust me, madam. And if there is anything I can do to serve you …”
    “Thank you, but I am only a poor woman who, with her husband and fellow-servants, goes to join her master’s household.”
    He bowed and went from the room; and when he had gone she was still unable to move, for a numbness had seized her limbs. On the road, passing the soldiers of the King’s enemies, she had been less frightened than now. The walls of the attic became to her like prison walls.
    When the others joined her, they found her sitting on the straw holding the child in her arms.
    She said: “I am afraid. One of the grooms came to bring straw, and I am sure he knows who we are. And I … I cannot be sure whether or not we can trust him.”

    The night was full of terrors. She shifted from side to side on her straw. The hump of linen hurt her back, but she dared not unstrap it. What if the hunchback were surprised without her hump! Had she been foolish in attempting this great adventure? What if she failed now? That virago, Queen Henrietta Maria, would never forgive her for exposing her youngest child to such dangers of the road. And yet there were times when it was necessary to take a bold action. The Queen herself had acted boldly, and because of that was at this moment in her native country where she might work for the King, her husband, instead of being—as she most certainly would have been, had she been less bold—the prisoner of the King’s enemies.
    Anne Douglas, Lady Dalkeith, had had to find some way of disguising her tall and graceful figure, and the hump had seemed as good a way as any; and to assume French nationality had seemed imperative since the little Princess could prattle and her lisping “Princess” sounded more like Pierre than any other name. If it had only been possible to make the child understand the danger she was in, how much easier would this task have been! But she was too young to realize why she must be hurried from her comfortable palace, why she must be dressed as a beggar’s child, and that she must be called Pierre. If she had been younger—or older—the journey might have been less dangerous.
    Anne Douglas had scarcely slept since she had left the Palace of Oat-lands; she was exhausted now, but even with the others at hand, she dared not sleep. The groom had made her very uneasy. He had said she could trust him, but whom could one trust in a country engaged in a great civil war?
    It would have seemed incredible a few years ago that she, Anne Villiers,wife of Robert Douglas who was the heir of the Earl of Morton, should be lying in such a place as this. But times had changed; and it occurred to her to wonder where the King slept this night or where the Prince of Wales had his lodging.
    She had made the decision suddenly.
    It was two years since the little Princess had been born. The Queen had been very weak at the time, and before she had risen from her bed news had come that Lord Essex—who was on the side of the Parliament—was marching to Exeter with the intention of besieging the city. Henrietta Maria had written to him asking for permission to leave for Bath with her child; Essex’s reply had been that if the Queen went anywhere with his consent it would be to London, where she would be called before the Parliament to answer a charge of making civil war in England.
    There had been