Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [178]
But she had a powerful friend.
He bowed over her hand. How different from Lord Oxford. He was younger and so much more handsome. Henry St. John was a rake; he had had countless mistresses and would doubtless have countless more and could never contemplate a relationship with a woman which was not a sexual one. In his youth he had run naked through the park for a wager; and not long ago when he had become Secretary of State and had rode through the town in his carriage, the madam of one of those establishments to which he was a frequent visitor, had amused the crowd by shouting to her girls, “Five thousand a year, my beauties, and all for us!”
Now Henry St. John had become Viscount Bolingbroke but he was the same elegant, aristocratic man of pleasure who had delighted the madams of London by his extravagant patronage of their establishments.
He came to confer with Lady Masham.
He was disgruntled and made no effort to hide such an obvious fact, and as he bowed over Abigail’s hand and lifted his eyes to her small pale face; he fully understood how they might work together; Abigail was pregnant yet even at such a time he was wondering when she would become his mistress—such a consideration being automatic with him.
“So, I greet Viscount Bolingbroke,” said Abigail.
“A Viscountcy! No Earldom! Our friend—should I say our one-time friend—wants no rivals. An Earldom for him, so therefore I must be a mere Viscount.”
“I think we have been somewhat mistaken in our one-time friend.”
“He sees himself as the mighty dragon breathing fire to destroy all his enemies.”
“Rather should they be overcome by the fumes of alcohol.”
They laughed together. “Harley is a fool,” said Bolingbroke.
Abigail nodded.
“He has used us and now believes he has no need of us.”
“He will be shown his mistake,” added Abigail.
“I see,” replied Bolingbroke, “that you and I are of one mind.”
“On certain matters.”
He laid his hand on her arm. “I hope we soon may be in unison in every way.”
“That we shall take time to discover.”
Bolingbroke was a rash man. He wanted to pursue politics and women at the same time, and he was excited by Abigail because she was different from any woman he had ever known. Many would call her plain, but a woman who had gone into the arena and beaten Sarah Churchill at her own game could not be insignificant. Abigail had worked for Harley; but for her, Harley would never have been able to worm his way into the Queen’s good graces. What had she wanted from Harley? Something which he had failed to give? What a fool Harley was! He had warned him, Bolingbroke, against philandering with women; how much more dangerous to philander with the bottle. If Harley had not been such a virtuous husband, such a family man, if he had taken off a little time from virtue to understand Abigail Hill, he might not now be in the danger in which he stood. For in peril he certainly was, since his one-time friend whom he still believed to stand beside him, and the woman who had helped to bring him to power and had grown dissatisfied with him, now stood together, to teach him a lesson—a grim lesson which would bring him tottering down from greatness.
Bolingbroke would make no such mistake. He would not underestimate the powers of the Queen’s favourite woman. The Queen’s support was necessary and Abigail could bring him that.
Well, he was always ready to take on a new mistress.
Abigail was watching him covertly, reading his thoughts. Did he imagine that he only had to beckon to her? What did he think he had to offer her? His charm, his elegance, his experience? None of these she wanted.
She knew now what she longed for: devotion, adoration, fidelity, that relationship which she had seen idealized in