Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [344]
The circling of the dancers brought Kilmarnock and myself close to the place where Charles and Don Francisco stood, warming their coattails before the huge, tile-lined fireplace. To my surprise, Charles scowled at me over Don Francisco’s shoulder, motioning me away with a surreptitious movement of one hand. Seeing it as we turned, Kilmarnock gave a short laugh.
“So His Highness is afraid to have you introduced to the Spaniard!” he said.
“Really?” I looked back over my shoulder as we whirled away, but Charles had returned to his conversation, waving his hands with expressive Italian gestures as he talked.
“I expect so.” Lord Kilmarnock danced skillfully, and I was beginning to relax enough to be able to speak, without worrying incessantly about tripping over my skirts.
“Did you see that silly broadsheet Balmerino was showing everyone?” he asked, and when I nodded, went on, “I imagine His Highness saw it, too. And the Spanish are sufficiently superstitious to be ridiculously sensitive to idiocies of that sort. No person of sense or breeding could take such a thing seriously,” he assured me, “but no doubt His Highness thinks it best to be safe. Spanish gold is worth a considerable sacrifice, after all,” he added. Apparently including the sacrifice of his own pride; Charles still treated the Scottish earls and the Highland chieftains like beggars at his table, though they had at least been invited to the festivities tonight—no doubt to impress Don Francisco.
“Have you noticed the pictures?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. There were more than a hundred of them lining the walls of the Great Gallery, all portraits, all of kings and queens. And all with a most striking similarity.
“Oh, the nose?” he said, an amused smile replacing the grim expression that had taken possession of his face at sight of Charles and the Spaniard. “Yes, of course. Do you know the story behind it?”
The portraits, it seemed, were all the work of a single painter, one Jacob DeWitt, who had been commissioned by Charles II, upon that worthy’s restoration, to produce portraits of all the King’s ancestors, from the time of Robert the Bruce onward.
“To assure everyone of the ancientness of his lineage, and the entire appropriateness of his restoration,” Kilmarnock explained, a wry twist to his mouth. “I wonder if King James will undertake a similar project when he regains the throne?”
In any case, he continued, DeWitt had painted furiously, completing one portrait every two weeks in order to comply with the monarch’s demand. The difficulty, of course, was that DeWitt had no way of knowing what Charles’s ancestors had actually looked like, and had therefore used as sitters anyone he could drag into his studio, merely equipping each portrait with the same prominent nose, by way of ensuring a family resemblance.
“That’s King Charles himself,” Kilmarnock said, nodding at a full-length portrait, resplendent in red velvet and plumed hat. He cast a critical glance at the younger Charles, whose flushed face gave evidence that he had been hospitably keeping his guest company in his potations.
“A better nose, anyway,” the Earl murmured, as though to himself. “His mother was Polish.”
It was growing late, and the candles in the silver candelabra were beginning to gutter and go out before the gentlefolk of Edinburgh had had their fill of wine and dancing. Don Francisco, possibly not as accustomed as Charles to unrestrained drinking, was nodding into his ruff.
Jamie, having with an obvious expression of relief restored the last Miss Williams to her father for the journey home, came to join me in the corner where I had found a seat that enabled me to slip off my shoes under cover of my spreading skirts. I hoped I wouldn’t have to put them on again in a hurry.
Jamie sat down on a vacant