The Astrologer's Daughter. Paula Marshall

      Celia looked up at him.

      Her eyes were as gray as clear water before a storm, Kit thought. Her face as calm as that of one of the many statues of the goddess Diana he had seen in Italy. It was not a holy, but a classic calm. If he touched her damask cheek, would he feel flesh or marble?

      Kit’s hand rose. He checked himself. To win his bet would be far more difficult than he had thought. To go too fast would be to lose her.

      The Astrologer’s Daughter

      Paula Marshall

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      AUTHOR NOTE

      In the seventeenth century, when the action of this novel takes place, the English language was undergoing a period of great change. Until then all women, whether married or single, were called mistress. But early in the century it often became shortened to miss when used to address a very young unmarried woman—but not always!

       This confusion persisted until late in the following century. Thus Celia is always named as mistress, although she was unmarried, because she was over twenty and the mistress of her father’s house. The Queen’s maids of honour were, however, always called miss, and so I have named them in The Astrologer’s Daughter.

      Similarly, you, your, thee, thou, and thy were interchangeable and often mixed up in the same sentence.

       Again it was the eighteenth century before the present usage of you and your at all times became customary. I have followed the fashion of 1665/66 to make the dialogue more authentic sounding.

      Kit’s song on pages 10 and 11 was written by the author and is copyright to her.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter One

       K it Carlyon was pleasuring a woman against a wall in an ante-room in the Court of Whitehall. She was one of the maids of honour of Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II, and the enjoyment of both parties was heightened because they might be found by anyone at any moment.

      Kit Carlyon’s pleasure was even greater than his partner’s because he was winning a bet with George Buckingham that he would swive this particular maid before anyone else would be able to do so, and that the act would be performed in the precincts of the court itself.

      Consummation achieved, there was no further time for enjoyment. Voices and footsteps could be heard and, laughing and cursing, Kit tied up his black velvet petticoat breeches. The maid, who had certainly lost the right to that title long before she reached King Charles’s court, was pulling her skirts down and frantically doing up the bodice which Kit had undone in the early states of their encounter.

      By the time the door had opened and George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, the handsome son of an even more handsome father, had entered with a group of his cronies, Kit was sitting down again. He had picked up his discarded guitar and was playing ‘Greensleeves’ while Dorothy Lowther, the maid, was looking out of the window so that sharp eyes should not see her swollen, scarlet face.

      Kit’s eyes met Buckingham’s as he began to sing and a silent message passed between them. At a pause in the song Buckingham said, a trifle ruefully, ‘You have been entertaining the lady, Kit?’

      Kit said, head bent over his guitar, ‘Oh, I hope so, George, I do hope so.’

      Dorothy Lowther’s head swung round at the sardonic note in Kit’s voice. She was a plump girl with an emptily pretty face and had been fortunate to achieve a place at Court. Kit Carlyon was not the first man whom she had favoured, as he had rapidly discovered, nor was he, he thought, the first man she had favoured at Court, but so far she had always been discreet. She looked from him to Buckingham who was pulling a silk purse from the heavy skirts of his splendid scarlet coat, and was proffering several guineas to the singer.

      Kit raised his head to stare at his friend and said briefly, ‘Twice that, George. I was right on both counts.’

      Buckingham began to laugh. Dorothy Lowther went first pale and then scarlet as she watched Buckingham toss the guineas into Kit’s lap, remarking through his laughter, ‘I have to accept that you are not cheating me, Kit—on either count.’

      Before Kit could answer, Dorothy Lowther was between him and Buckingham. ‘You whore-son rogue, Kit Carlyon, you bet upon me with him!’ And she swung her right hand with such force as to leave a bright red mark on Kit’s left cheek.

      He put down his guitar, caught at her hand and kissed it as she swung it to strike him again, announcing in a voice of such calm reason that he left her aghast at his coldness, ‘Since, my sweeting, you have chosen to broadcast to all the world what we have so recently been doing, you may as well tell George, here, that I was not the first man to plough your particular field—he might not believe my unsupported word. I bet upon your lack of virginity as well as your complaisance.’

      Dorothy Lowther had gone bright red but his last words left her ashen. She stood away from Kit, looked from his mocking saturnine face, framed in chestnut curls—he wore his own hair—to Buckingham and his laughing friends, and said slowly, ‘They warned me what you were, Kit Carlyon, and I chose not to believe them. I thought that you were different from the rest, that you liked me a little, but I see that I was wrong. I hope that one day you will know what it means to love—and to be betrayed.’

      ‘Love,’ sang Kit to the music he was playing. ‘And what the devil’s that? You enjoyed yourself and so did I. Isn’t that enough? Must you have more? Seize the day, as the Ancients said, and, by God, we have just seized it together. As for the money, it’s yours; you’ve earned it.’ And he rose and stuffed the guineas into her hand.

      As rapidly as he had bestowed them on her, she raised her hand and threw the guineas at him. They rolled and clattered beyond him upon the polished floor. She turned on her heel and prepared to run from the room.

      Kit was not a whit abashed. He raised his guitar to salute her and said over the top of it. ‘My pretty dear, I have a song for you. Only stay, and you shall hear it.’

      ‘A song!’ cried Buckingham, no mean performer on the guitar himself and, like most of King Charles’s court, given to writing poetry—and even, on occasion, a play. ‘A new one, Kit? Say it is a new song. I am weary of the old. We lack invention these days.’

      ‘New, quite new. But the theme is old—all the best themes are old.’ And he began to sing in his pleasant baritone. Even Dorothy Lowther stayed to hear, caught by the melancholy beauty of both the music and the words. Kit was so intent on his performance that room, courtiers and maids of honour alike vanished. He was alone with his creation; the harsh realities of life had disappeared. For a brief moment he was a boy again, joying in his newly found power to create, the world lying all before him…

      In the middle of his song the King himself, drawn by the sound of music, came into the room followed by yet more courtiers. He placed his finger on his lips, mutely asking Kit’s audience not to acknowledge him so that the music should not be disturbed.