Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [68]
Lifting one foot at a time, he stripped off his stockings one handed and tossed them onto the bedroom stool.
“James got some money from Spain thirty years ago,” he observed. “A small fleet of ships, and some men as well. That was the Rising in 1715. But he had ill luck, and James’s forces were defeated at Sheriffsmuir—before James himself even arrived. So I’d say the Spanish are maybe none too eager to finance a second try at the Stuart restoration—not without a verra good idea that it might succeed.”
“So Charles has come to France to work on Louis and the bankers,” I mused. “And according to what I know of history, he’ll succeed. Which leaves us where?”
Jamie’s arm left my shoulders as he stretched, the shift of his weight tilting the mattress under me.
“It leaves me selling wine to bankers, Sassenach,” he said, yawning. “And you talking to parlormaids. And if we blow enough smoke, perhaps we’ll stun the bees.”
* * *
Just before Jared’s departure, he took Jamie to the small house in Montmartre where His Highness, Prince Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir, etc. Stuart was residing, biding his time while waiting to see what Louis would or would not do for an impecunious cousin with aspirations to a throne.
I had seen them off, both dressed in their best, and spent the time while they were gone picturing the encounter in my mind, wondering how it had gone.
“How did it go?” I asked Jamie, the moment I got him alone upon his return. “What was he like?”
He scratched his head, thinking.
“Well,” he said at last, “he had a toothache.”
“What?”
“He said so. And it looked verra painful; he kept his face screwed up to one side with his jaw puffed a bit. I canna say whether he’s stiff in his manner usually, or if it was only that it hurt him to talk, but he didna say much.”
After the formal introductions, in fact, the older men, Jared, the Earl Marischal, and a rather seedy-looking specimen referred to casually as “Balhaldy,” had gravitated together and begun talking Scottish politics, leaving Jamie and His Highness more or less to themselves.
“We had a cup of brandywine each,” Jamie obediently reported, under my goading. “And I asked him how he found Paris, and he said he was finding it rather tiresomely confining, as he couldna get any hunting. And so then we talked of hunting. He prefers hunting wi’ dogs to hunting with beaters, and I said I did, too. Then he told me how many pheasants he’d shot on one hunting trip in Italy. He talked about Italy until he said the cold air coming in through the window was hurting his tooth—it’s no a verra well-built house; just a small villa. Then he drank some more brandywine for his tooth, and I told him about stag-hunting in the Highlands, and he said he’d like to try that sometime, and was I a good shot with a bow? And I said I was, and he said he hoped he would have the opportunity to invite me to hunt with him in Scotland. And then Jared said he needed to stop at the warehouse on the way back, so His Highness gave me his hand and I kissed it and we left.”
“Hmm,” I said. While reason asserted that naturally the famous—or about-to-be-famous, or possibly-famous, at any rate—were bound to be much like everyone else in their daily behavior, I had to admit that I found this report of the Bonnie Prince a bit of a letdown. Still, Jamie had been invited back. The important thing, as he pointed out, was to become acquainted with His Highness, in order to keep an eye on his plans as any developed. I wondered whether the King of France would be a trifle more impressive in person.
* * *
We were not long in finding out. A week later, Jamie rose in the cold, black dark and dressed himself for the long ride to Versailles, to attend the King’s lever. Louis awoke punctually at six o’clock every morning. At this hour, the favored few chosen to attend the King’s toilette should be assembled in the antechamber, ready to join the procession of nobles and attendants who were necessary to assist the monarch in greeting the new