A Royal Likeness

by Christine Trent

Genres: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

As heiress to the famous Laurent Fashion Dolls business, Marguerite Ashby's future seems secure. But France still seethes with violence in the wake of the Revolution. And when Marguerite's husband is killed during a riot, the young widow travels to Edinburgh and becomes apprentice to her old friend, Marie Tussaud, who has established a wax exhibition. When Prime Minister William Pitt commissions a wax figure of Admiral Nelson, Marguerite becomes immersed in a dangerous adventure - and earns the admiration of two very different men. And as Britain battles to overthrow Napoleon, Marguerite will find her loyalties under fire from all sides. With a masterful eye for details, Christine Trent brings one of history's most fascinating eras to life in of a story of desire, ambition, treachery, and courage.

A Royal Likeness is the second book in the Royal Trades series.

Release date: January 1, 2011

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 480

Sample

Paris, October 1802. “For what reason do you wish to leave France?” Fouché looked at her with the hooded eyes she remembered painfully well.

“My business partner, M. Philipsthal, wishes for me to join his Phantasmagoria show in London.” Marie kept her voice steady and tried not to break her gaze from his, fearing he would see it as a sign of weakness and deny her a passport.

“When do you plan to return?”

“When my purse is full.” She inwardly chastised herself for her sharp tongue, but calmly kept her hands clasped loosely before her as the minister of police continued his review of her application across his desk.

“And at what point will you be overflowing with riches? Have you set a date for this, or shall I simply indicate your return date as ‘when Madame Tussaud achieves victory’?”

“No, monsieur, I believe I will be gone about a year. With your kind permission, of course.”

“Of course. What does it mean here that you intend on taking ‘thirty character figures’ out of France? Are you moving your entire salon? You said you were just joining Philipsthal’s show temporarily.”

Marie drew in her breath as she tried to think how to best answer. Her future depended on her next words to this man she both feared and detested, but it was not the first time she had encountered him. How had a forty-one-year-old wife and mother of two young boys ended up in the company of the frightening and pitiless Fouché, again?

She resisted the urge to rub her eyes.

Born Anne Marie Grosholtz, Marie had grown up in the household of Philippe Curtius, a Swiss physician for whom her mother was a housekeeper. He was skilled in wax modeling, which he used to illustrate anatomy. His work was admired by the Prince de Conti, who became his patron and encouraged him to move to Paris and set up a wax figure cabinet. His first exhibition was held in 1770 and Marie quickly became a studious and talented apprentice.

In addition to learning wax modeling, she also trained in political savvy. She watched as Curtius hosted elegant salons for French aristocrats such as the prince. These stylish members of society were invited to the exhibition’s location in the fashionable Palais Royal. Over wine and fine music, they could stroll about looking at his life-sized wax figures of their friends and other notable famous people. It soon became a fashion to hire Dr. Curtius to have a personal replica of onesself made.

But when the political winds began shifting and revolution became the maxim, Curtius speedily altered his exhibition. The watchman at the front door was no longer a prim man dressed in white livery, but was instead replaced by a lout dressed sansculotte style. Gone were the elegant, fussy, bewigged aristocrats talking about fashion and love affairs. Curtius invited the more disreputable figures of society to his salon—now more politically termed a wax cabinet—such as Robespierre, Marat, Danton, and the loathsome man before her now, Joseph Fouché.

Curtius ensured that wine flowed liberally and that he displayed only wax figures that would not be offensive to the revolutionaries. Any figure remotely aristocratic was rolled up in protective sheets and stored out of sight. Marie took note that although Curtius was heartily welcoming of his new clients, he made sure that he never expressed any opinion whatsoever about their activities. For this reason he managed to avoid any irrational indictments on their part, while remaining completely informed on the ever-changing political climate in Paris. His show flourished.

Despite her adoption of Curtius’s methods, Marie was not so fortunate in avoiding calamity during the 1794–5 year of terror. While Curtius was away on a trip to the Rhineland in July 1794, Marie was denounced by a dancer at a nearby theatre, who was supplementing his income by serving as the local executioner’s assistant.

Despite his knowledge of her innocence, Fouché did nothing to help her and she remained in prison for about a week awaiting execution, until a friend of Curtius’s heard about her plight and intervened on her behalf.

After that, she retreated back to the shadows of the exhibition, which she had inherited upon Curtius’s death in late 1794 and had worked tirelessly on ever since. Even a late marriage at age thirty-four to a civil engineer named François Tussaud and subsequent children had not slowed down her pace nor her ambition for success with the exhibition, still called Curtius’s Cabinet of Wonders.

But the show was not without its financial difficulties after years of national strife and the death of its original owner. When Paul de Philipsthal, an old family friend and fellow showman, returned from a booking of his Phantasmagoria show in London, he raved about the English audiences, who were fresh and eager for entertainments. Taking Marie aside, he suggested that she slip over with a collection of Curtius’s wax figures to add a new dimension to his own show. They would form a partnership, and with his experience of the London theatre and her talent for wax sculpting, their show could not fail to draw enthusiastic spectators.

So here she was now, seeking a passport from Joseph Fouché, who had somehow managed to separate himself from the devastation of the Terror and become Napoleon’s minister of police. She focused back to answering his question.

“Exporting my wax portraits will give the English an opportunity to see the cultural and artistic preeminence of the French. They will either come to admire us, or fear our natural superiority.”

Fouché hesitated. “But we want to keep talent in France, and you have talent.”

“Most of the figures I will take were made by M. Curtius. He had talent, as well you know.”

“Mmm, yes, he was a good fellow. Served an excellent burgundy. I remember you skulking about in the corners while we talked of world events.” Still he vacillated. What effect would the effigies of revolutionaries who had died on the guillotine have abroad? Would it intensify hatred between the two countries? Would he be blamed for the escalation of bad feelings while Napoleon worked toward the subjugation of the English?

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Fouché had managed to assert himself into the highest levels of both the revolutionary government and then that of Napoleon Bonaparte. This he did with an acutely developed sense of pragmatism and a considerable streak of cruelty that he employed without hesitation in order to maintain his political power. His years of switching allegiances and staying ahead of his opponents had given him the capacity for simply being able to smell when something in the air was not quite right, much as a dog uses this sense to avoid poisoned meat.

The supplicant before him must have understood his indecision, for she suggested to him with just a hint of artificial helpfulness, “As you know, I have modeled both the first consul and his wife, and they will be part of the exhibition in London.”

And that was what was so irritating, wasn’t it? This petite but energetic woman before him was in favor with Napoleon and Josephine, having modeled them both to their utter delight. Did he dare do anything that might offend them now, despite what repercussions it might have upon him later?

The moments ticked away as he struggled with a verdict. He could not quite assess what Madame Tussaud’s real motivations might be, but neither could he feel that she would do any harm.

With a resigned sigh, he picked up a pen, dipped it into his silver inkwell, and signed his name to her documents, giving her permission to travel to England for an indefinite period. He hoped he would not regret it.

Even as she witnessed the crates filled with wax figures being loaded onto the ship, Marie could hardly believe her good fortune. She looked one more time at Fouché’s signature on her papers before folding them up and tucking them into the pouch she had sewn into her dress for traveling. Her four-year-old son, Joseph, danced excitedly by her side, ecstatic over the thought of his first great adventure.

She had had little thought for the sea voyage until now, so busy was she with preparations. It had not been easy to pack up the fragile wax figures to be transported by caravan over bumpy roads and then carefully—she hoped—stored in the ship’s hold for the brief journey across the Channel. Marie deliberately avoided tearful farewells with her husband and her mother, instead spending her last hours leaving them with dozens of little instructions for care of the Salon de Cire in her absence.

Her real emotions were focused on two-year-old Francis, who was too young to make such a journey with his mother. She clutched him tightly, and whispered in his ear that when she returned to France it would be with a full purse and dozens of playthings for him. Unaware of the import of the moment, her son chirped and giggled and gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

With eyes full of tears threatening to spill forth, she was glad enough to turn away and board the carriage that would take her and Joseph to their ship.

The Channel was choppy and unkind, and most of the passengers were simply relieved to finally see the white cliffs of England. Marie, though, was ecstatic. She had done it. She had survived the Revolution, slipped past Fouché, avoided her husband’s reproaches for leaving him, and was now determined to remake her wax salon into a breathtaking attraction like no other.

What matter that she now had to face a customs official who was sure to faint dead away after opening one of her vast packing cases to find a glass eye peering up inquisitively at him?

London, January 1803. “Ow! Nicholas, I need another bandage.”

Marguerite’s husband rushed into the workroom with a bundle of muslin strips.

“You’ve hurt yourself again? I’m going to send those new carving tools into the Thames. This is the third time this week a knife has slipped in your hands.”

“I know. And look what happened.” Marguerite held up her latest creation, a fashion doll commissioned by a local dressmaker who intended to show off a new ball-gown design on it for several of her select clients. But the doll’s head would have to be redone, as there was now a deep gash across the left side of its face.

“Why don’t you let Roger handle the carving?” Nicholas asked.

“I probably should, but I’m so frustrated with trying to perfect wax heads that I wanted to retreat back to the familiarity of working with wood. I’m good at that. At least, I used to be.” She held up her left thumb, the muslin hastily wrapped around it now beginning to seep blood.

Nicholas put his arms around his young wife and lifted her up onto the large worktable, which was littered with scraps of fabric, bundles of straw, blocks of wood, and other materials of the trade.

“Sweetheart, you are the best dollmaker in London. Wax is still a new medium. I’ve no doubt you will eventually be the best wax dollmaker in all of Europe.”

“I’ll never be as good as Aunt Claudette.”

“No, you’ll never be your aunt Claudette.” He wrapped his arms around his wife and kissed the tip of her nose. “Much to my great relief. I couldn’t bear to be married to a woman of lesser talent than you.”

“Mr. Ashby, you’re very fortunate that I am of such a forgiving nature that I can overlook your insult to my beloved aunt and mentor. Otherwise, I might be forced to employ my shrewish tone of voice.”

“Is that so? And what does a lady shrew look like in her natural state?” He scooped her off the worktable and cupped one hand around the back of her neck while using the other to pull her thick auburn hair out of the knot she employed to keep it out of her face while working. It slid down her back like the flow of warm brandy from a decanter.

“Now I remember the fair young maiden I fell in love with at Hevington a decade ago. She was covered in wood shavings even back then.”

Bells jangled as someone entered the front door. Marguerite disengaged from her husband’s embrace and went from the back workroom out to the front of the shop.

It was Agnes Smoot, returning from an errand.

“Letter just come for you, Mrs. Ashby.”

Marguerite took the proffered folded square from the shop’s seamstress with her unhurt hand. “Thank you, Agnes. Has Roger returned yet from making deliveries?”

“No, mum, not yet. D’you want to see him when he gets back?”

“No, I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear of my epic battle with a carving knife.” She held up her bandaged thumb.

“Again, mum?”

“Yes, again, unfortunately.” Marguerite returned to the workroom where Nicholas was busy arranging some scraps of wood according to size, while whistling softly under his breath. She held up the sealed correspondence.

“Speaking of Aunt Claudette, I have a letter from her. Would you like to read it with me?”

Nicholas stopped what he was doing and lit a small lamp to better illuminate the letter. Claudette Greycliffe’s writing tended to be faint and spidery, and it could take them an entire evening to decipher her longer missives.

January 15, 1803 Hevington, Kent

My dearest Marguerite,

I trust all is well with you and that you are capably managing the recent influx of orders for the Season.

Are the troubles with France affecting your ability to obtain supplies? I expect old Boney won’t be letting any French brocades leave his shores.

Forgive my intrusion, dear. Sometimes I get lonely for the excitement of the shop. Send along a project for me, will you? I should love to wield a knife again. It feels like an eternity since I held a block of wood in my hand.

William and I send our love to both you and Nicholas. Will you be coming to visit soon? Little Bitty is dying to show you her new cat that she found hiding under some shrubbery. It’s a mangy thing—one eye missing, an ear clipped, and its tail bent horribly out of shape—but Little Bitty carries the thing with her everywhere. I believe this new addition to the family makes the animal-to-child ratio at Hevington nearly two to one.

William says the family estate is being turned into a wildlife menagerie. I haven’t the heart to tell him yet that I have my eye on one of those new bullmastiffs that are becoming popular. They are supposed to be very good guard dogs, but I suppose that like every other creature that migrates onto Hevington, he will become spoilt and lazy.

With my greatest affection, Claudette

P.S. Why don’t you come for a week or so next month? William wants to teach the children blindman’s bluff, and you certainly don’t want to miss that spectacle.

“Aunt Claudette sounds a little lonely, Nicholas.”

“Lonely! How could she have time to be lonely? She manages a careful and virtuous household, contains three noisy and active children, and hosts numerous fashionable parties, yet the woman is still inexplicably graceful. No wonder Uncle William adores her.”

“Why, you foolish man! Not ten minutes ago you were glad I wasn’t Aunt Claudette.”

Claudette Laurent, the daughter of a great French dollmaker, had been orphaned in France at the age of sixteen, but found ship’s passage to England and worked as a domestic servant for several years under a harsh mistress before finally risking all to start her own doll shop. Marguerite’s widowed mother, Béatrice du Georges, had become friends with Claudette aboard the ship bound for England and so, along with five-year-old Marguerite, the three had lived, worked, and survived together. Although her mother had been involved in the shop, it was the young Marguerite who had shown a talent for dollmaking. Claudette encouraged her interest and the two became close, with Marguerite referring to the older woman as “Aunt” Claudette.

William Greycliffe was a man of minor aristocratic connections who had pursued Claudette relentlessly despite her initial disdain of him. Even now Marguerite loved to hear stories of their courtship told for the thousandth time.

When Béatrice died suddenly, Claudette and William brought the teenaged Marguerite to live with them at their Kentish estate of Hevington and Claudette made Marguerite her de facto heir in the doll shop. As time passed, Claudette turned more and more of the responsibility for the shop over to Marguerite as she became involved in raising her three children and managing the estate with William.

Nicholas was one of a set of twin boys born to James and Maude Ashby, Claudette’s and Béatrice’s domestic employers upon their arrival in England. Nicholas’s heart burned with youthful passion for Béatrice, who gently refused him. He avidly followed the women’s progress after they left the Ashby home and even visited on occasion. Following Béatrice’s death, Nicholas finally took note of Marguerite and promptly fell in love with her saucy temperament. For Marguerite, Nicholas filled the need for gentle sweetness that her mother’s death had yanked away from her, and the two had been inseparable during the intervening ten years.

“Oh, Nicholas, let’s go for Shrovetide as Aunt Claudette suggests. We haven’t been to Hevington in months. We even missed the lighting of the Yule log this past year. Besides, Rebecca is probably old enough now for a baby house and we could take one to her as a gift.” In the coziness of the warmly lit workshop, full of the smell of freshly shaved wood, she reached her arms around her husband’s neck and pressed her lips to his.

He responded in his familiar way, sliding both arms around her waist and burying his face in her neck.

“Very well, Mrs. Ashby. We’ll leave the shop in the care of Roger and Agnes, and plan for a long visit to Hevington. But before you begin packing trunks, I believe there is some more immediate business that requires your attention,” he said, gently dropping kisses along her exposed neckline.

“Is that so, Mr. Ashby? Pray, what business could be of such consequence that it calls for my immediate attention?”

“It’s a very private matter. Come home now, woman, so we can, er, discuss it before it loses the strength of its importance.” He playfully smacked his wife’s bottom and ushered her out of the shop, humming a happy but aimless tune.

February 21, 1803. The evening before their scheduled departure for Hevington, Marguerite and Nicholas returned to the closed doll shop so she could put together a small box of miniature furniture and other accoutrements for the baby house they had already packed to take to Claudette’s daughter, Rebecca.

Miniature dolls’ houses, called baby houses, were becoming increasingly popular in England. Claudette had once spoken wistfully about the houses her father carried in his doll shop back in France, which led to an expansion in her own shop’s trade in these diminutive pieces. In addition to offering miniature replicas of tables, chairs, beds, carpets, paintings, and dishes, Marguerite had started designing tiny scale-sized families to inhabit them.

She rummaged patiently through a box of petite tissue-wrapped dolls, searching for one painted with Rebecca’s cobalt eyes, eyes that defined her as her mother’s child.

“Marguerite, the hackney will not wait all night for us. Isn’t the house and its furnishings enough for one child?”

“I suppose so, but I know I painted a baby-house doll that resembles her. I want her to have it. Maybe in this drawer? No, not here. I should look on the fabric shelves. Nicholas, would you go back to the workroom and see if you can find any more boxes of baby-house dolls?”

While Nicholas retreated to the back of the shop, she continued her search, the sound of her husband’s gentle whistling floating high over the tops of shelves loaded with every manner of elegantly dressed doll. Marguerite’s stock ranged from the little baby-house dolls all the way up to the grandes Pandores, life-sized dolls built on metal frames, which Aunt Claudette had made popular among the aristocratic English. The grandes Pandores were Claudette’s favorite dolls, but Marguerite preferred the nimble skill involved in the tiniest of her creations. Besides, the grandes Pandores required the wax heads that were so dratted difficult to create as flawless pieces.

A distant shouting from outside overtook the comforting sound of Nicholas’s whistling. She paused from what she was doing to listen, but the noise abated and she returned to her task.

Nicholas returned to the display room at the front of the shop. “Sweetheart, there are no baby-house dolls in the workroom. I’ll go up to the attic and see if Roger may have stored some up there.”

“And I’ll continue looking down here. I’m just certain that we have more of these dolls in the shop.”

Nicholas Ashby’s tall but lanky frame disappeared from view again. He had grown in height as he became an adult, but had never filled out in an obviously muscular sort of way. Still he had the strength of two men, and Marguerite loved watching him haul large planks of wood from delivery wagons into the shed behind the shop. Even Roger, as enormous and barrel-chested as he was, could not out-lift Nicholas Ashby.

But Nicholas’s interest in the shop stopped with physical duties. He was content to let Marguerite deal with customers and manage the financial affairs of the shop, much as her mother had been happy to let Aunt Claudette do years ago.

So engrossed was she with her thoughts and her search that when the projectile came through the window on the other side of the shop she was at first confused as to whether the sound had come from outside or the attic. The growing clamor outside on the street settled her confusion.

“Nicholas? Nicholas! Come quickly!” Marguerite called up toward the attic entrance, but he did not answer. He must have gone into the far reaches of the attic, which spanned the forty-foot length of the shop. She stood up, brushing dust from the sturdy, brown woolen skirt she wore most days when working.

Ever brash as a child and no less so as a woman, Marguerite marched to the front door of the shop and flung it open. The hackney was gone, and she was stunned to see a group of about twenty men, mostly drunk and on the brink of irrationality. They carried torches and clubs and the occasional pitchfork, and were gabbing loudly about a hanging at Southwark.

Why were these drunkards marching on respectable Oxford Street, and why in heaven’s name were they congregating outside her shop with obvious ill will?

“That’s her, Mr. Emmett. She’s the doll lady we told you about, Marguerite Ashby.” Through the smoky haze of the torches Marguerite could not see individual faces well, but the voice was coming from the back of the assembly.

“Yes, I have that figured out, Reggie. Your assistance is appreciated.” A man who could have been one of any number of different merchants stepped forward so that Marguerite could see him. He was as short as Nicholas was tall but built like a bull. He swept an exaggerated bow.

“Mr. Emmett at your service, mistress.”

“Yes, I have that figured out, Mr. Emmett.” Hoots of laughter were interspersed with calls for Mr. Emmett to “get to it.”

“Well now, mistress, we’ve just heard some disturbing news. News that might have a serious impact on your little trade here.”

“News? What news?”

Reggie’s voice rang out again. “She’s a liar, Mr. Emmett. She knows all about it!”

The other men grumbled their agreement.

Marguerite stared steadily at Mr. Emmett with her arms crossed in front of her. “Hurry up with what you have to say so I can be about my business. I’m a law-abiding woman running an honorable shop with her husband.”

“Is that right?” Mr. Emmett stepped closer and his frame filled the doorway. Up close, Marguerite could see that his eyes were bloodshot from drink and hidden rage, and he stank of a laborer’s sweat. She calculated whether or not to scream for Nicholas but was unsure whether he would hear her, and as of yet she was not sure what might infuriate these men further.

“So is your husband here right now, mistress?” Mr. Emmett’s gaze was thoughtful.

“He is. Shall I get him for you?”

“She’s still lying, Mr. Emmett! Ain’t no one else here except probably some spies hiding out.”

Mr. Emmett’s darting eyes spoke his indecision over whom to believe.

“C’mon, Mr. Emmett, are we going to do what we came here for? We’re almost out of ale and I’ve a powerful thirst.”

Marguerite maintained her own gaze. “And what did you come here for?”

“We’re here to put a stop to the French intrigues coming in through Ireland, and that would include Colonel Despard and his bunch, plus all the French rabble like you.”

“What French rabble? I’m an Englishwoman. Who is Colonel Despard?” Marguerite was trying desperately to figure out what he was talking about.

“Not with a fancy name like Marguerite you’re not. A good Englishwoman would be Margaret or Margery. Your name has you dead to rights a lady Frog.”

Marguerite drew in a breath in an attempt to be patient. What was taking Nicholas so long in the attic? “My mother was French. I have lived in this country all my life and am married to an Englishman. What is this nonsense about French infiltration through Ireland?”

“Ever since the French peasants started their revolution, the Irish have been hoping for a chance to bring popery back to England. Stinking papists the French and Irish are. They’ve been looking for a way to bring down the right noble house of Hanover so they could bring in French rule and turn us all into foppin’ Frogs. So they found a half-wit in Colonel Despard to do their work. He stole over here from Ireland slippery as an eel and planned to kill our good King George. But the Irish and French are no match for smart Englishmen and he was found out. So today we all went and watched him and his gang swing from the gallows and get their heads chopped off, and now we’re going to help out the Crown by getting rid of the rest of the French influence in England, starting with you, Mrs. Marguerite Ashby. We know all about this shop’s wicked dealings.”

Mr. Emmett’s speech seemed to momentarily exhaust him, but it reenergized his mob with shouts of “fire the store” and “kill the French whore.”

“So you see, mistress, we have two choices here. Either you can leave peaceably while we can look for hidden messages and contraband, since we didn’t ’spect to find you here anyway, or if you want to be bothersome we may have to take further measures. And we’re not opposed to those further measures.” He reached out a hand and roughly caressed her right breast.

Marguerite instinctively slapped his face. A grave mistake. Mr. Emmett’s face was now mottled red to match his eyes over the insult, while his cronies both laughed and urged him on to despoiling her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her close.

“I’ve half a mind to teach you manners right here, mistress, even though you’ll probably give me the pox.”

“What the devil is going on here?” Nicholas came striding into the room with a small crate under his arm. He tossed it to one side to confront the group of men.

“Who are you and what do you want here?”

Mr. Emmett reflexively dropped Marguerite’s arm to face his new adversary.

“We’re doing work on behalf of His Majesty, ridding England of what you might call subversive French influences.”

“I would call it no such thing. And if you’re looking for local French residents to accost, what are you doing here?” Nicholas was cautiously approaching the intruder.

“Your little wife here was born a Frogette, wasn’t she? We think she’s probably helping ol’ Boney infiltrate England. Wasn’t she once arrested for sending good English coin over to France?”

“That was her aunt—”

“No difference. She probably taught your wife how to stuff them dolls, and we mean to inspect them to be sure she isn’t sending money or messages to Bonaparte.”

Nicholas remained calm, although Marguerite could see one small vein throbbing over his left eyebrow, the only sign that his normally benign temper was on the verge of eruption.

“My wife’s aunt was falsely accused of these activities, evidenced by her subsequent marriage to Lord Greycliffe, an honorable man.”

“Maybe that’s so, maybe it’s not, but we’ve walked a long way from the hangin’ and we plan to do what we came to do.”

“Sir, you and your followers will leave these premises with haste. I will not have my wife plagued and threatened.”

“We’ll leave when we’ve a mind to. After our mission is finished.”

“You’ll leave when I’ve a mind for you to do so. Which is now.” Nicholas’s voice was still calm, but his resolve was unmistakable.

The mood began to alter noticeably among the crowd outside. It was amusing when a defenseless little woman sassed back, but it was an entirely different thing when some coxcomb started making threats, now wasn’t it? The men became restless, pacing like jackals back and forth, waiting for their leader to make the kill so they could each have a share.

Mr. Emmett moved imperceptibly forward, just enough that Marguerite stepped back reflexively, allowing him fully into the shop. He put a hand forward to move her out of his way and Nicholas reacted instinctively like a lion protecting his pride. But the jackals were waiting for such a move. He stepped forward to push Mr. Emmett away from Marguerite, eliciting a sharp yelp of surprised outrage from the man. It se