Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [93]
What if one day I should be in Sarah’s position?
Samuel Masham noticed the change in Abigail.
“Something has happened,” he said when she joined him in the ante-room after the Queen and her husband had retired for the night. “You are different.”
Did she then betray her feelings, Abigail wondered, she who had always prided herself on so successfully hiding them. She studied Samuel shrewdly. They were very close friends; he sought her company whenever possible and she trusted him as she did few people.
“Nothing has happened,” she told him. “I have, though, discovered a new cousin.”
“Who is that?” asked Samuel sharply.
“Mr. Harley.”
“The Secretary of State?”
“Yes, he asked to speak to me and then told me he had discovered the relationship. He seemed very pleased about it. I have been wondering why.”
“People are beginning to appreciate you, Abigail. I was afraid …”
“Yes, of what were you afraid?”
“That perhaps … someone was paying court to you … and you were rather pleased about it.”
“No, no one is paying court to me, Samuel.”
“You are wrong, Abigail,” he told her vehemently. “It is what I have been doing for a long time.”
She lifted her green eyes to his. “But, Samuel …”
“I think we could be very happy together, Abigail.”
“You mean …”
“I mean in marriage.”
Marriage! She considered it. The Prince’s page and the Queen’s chambermaid. Their children growing up at Court. She remembered the marriages of the Churchill girls and how Anne had presented them all with handsome dowries. They would make good marriages … if their parents were important at Court. No, not their parents. It would be their mother, for Samuel would never be important. Perhaps he knew it. Perhaps that was why he admired her. If she married Samuel—and if she were to have a husband it would have to be Samuel, for who else would want to marry her?—she would guide his destiny as well as her own, as well as their children.
And the Queen was fond of her. Not as fond as she was of Sarah Churchill, of course; but the Queen was capable of great fondness for her female friends. People were noticing.… That was what she kept coming back to. Robert Harley was anxious to claim her as cousin because people were noticing her, Abigail Hill.
“Well, Abigail,” he said. “You don’t hate me, do you?”
“No, Samuel. You know I’m very fond of you.”
“Fond enough for marriage?”
“I’d like to think about it.”
He was contented. Samuel would be easily contented.
What an exciting life was opening out for Abigail Hill! She was asked in marriage—which was something she had once thought would never happen to her. More than that, ambitious men sought her friendship—because of the influence they believed her to hold with the Queen.
“Good day to you, cousin.”
She was in the garden and she could have sworn he had waylaid her.
“Good day to you … cousin.”
“You hesitate.”
“It is a somewhat distant relationship. You were my father’s cousin.”
“Well, that makes me yours of a sort, and as I told you once before I am as nearly related to you as the Duchess of Marlborough. Though I promise you I shall not attempt to treat you with the scorn I have seen her give you.”
Abigail said: “I was a poor relation.”
“My lady was not always so rich; but she knew how to feather the nest, eh?”
“She is, I am sure, very clever.”
“At feathering nests? But there are times when I think the lady is but one half as clever as she believes herself to be, and do you know, little cousin, it is a very dangerous thing to do to overestimate one’s brilliance.”
“I am convinced of it.”
“There may come the day when the Queen of Bedchamber loses her crown.”
“That is scarcely likely to be permitted.”
“The improbability often becomes the possible. You would be surprised how often!”
“And you would be pleased to see it.”
“I did not say so, cousin. But I should always be pleased to see merit rewarded. Pray tell me, will the Queen be receiving in the green closet today?”
“I believe she will.”
“And who is to be there?”
“The Queen will be alone with the Prince. She did not sleep