The Long Shadow

Book 6: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Romance

Synopsis

1670: King Charles II's reign has brought peace and prosperity to the Morland family, but James II's ascent to the throne will shatter their restored fortunes.

In Yorkshire, Morland Place has flourished during the Restoration, and in London the beautiful and sprited Annunciata, is now Countess of Chelmsford, a wealthy and well-connected woman, intimate with the Royal Family.

But storm clouds gather over them all when the reign of James II brings rebellion and discord. Trouble is never far from Annunciata in these turbulent times. Jealousy, betrayal and violent death threaten her children, and for Annunciata herself comes the anguish of love lived in the long shadow of secrecy, a love that can only lead to tragedy.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 384

Sample

Ballincrea House was an old and, of recent years, much altered building which stood on the narrow and muddy King Street, opposite
the Palace of Whitehall, and in September 1670 it was the scene of a brilliant gathering: Annunciata Morland, Countess Dowager
of Chelmsford, was giving a Christening party for her newest-arrived baby.


The circumstances surrounding the birth of the baby were not entirely to the credit of the hostess, who had travelled down
to London from Yorkshire shockingly late in her pregnancy and brought on the birth early, but none of the dazzling company
who alighted from their coaches before the door worried about that. Everyone had been eager to get an invitation: the countess’s
close friendship with the leading members of the Royal Family would have been enough to ensure she got no refusals but, in
addition, she was a lavish hostess, and this was not only the first party of the Season but also the first since the Court
had come out of mourning. The King’s youngest sister, Princess Henrietta d’Orleans, had died tragically in May, and this party
would be everyone’s first opportunity to display the new season’s colours and styles.


Heavy late-August rains had turned King Street into a black mire, and a bed of wheat straw two feet thick had had to be spread
across the entrance to the house, but despite that there was an enormous crowd waiting outside to see the guests arrive. Some
of them had been there almost since dawn. Even after the principal people had arrived and gone in, the crowd stayed, though
there was nothing to look at but the garlands of flowers and ribbons that decorated the house front, and the footmen in their
black and white Morland livery. All the same, the King and the Duke of York were within, and might appear at a window; and
it was rumoured that there would be fireworks after dark; and besides, there were always a great many broken meats given away
at the Morlands’ door, and many people in the crowd had brought baskets with them for that very purpose.


The long saloon on the first floor was a beautiful room, light and airy and decorated in the modern style with panels of green
and gold silk, and filled with those dainty treasures collected so lovingly by the countess’ first husband, Hugo Viscount
Ballincrea. It was a fit setting for Annunciata Morland who, though she was now twenty-five and had borne six children, was
still accounted one of the most beautiful women in the country. Tall, slender, with her mass of black Stuart hair and her
dark Stuart eyes, she was the centre of attention as she stood chatting and laughing with the King. She was dressed today
in emerald green silk, deeply decolleté, the sleeves opened down the front and clasped with jewels to shew the white taffeta
of her undersleeves. Her hair was dressed with pearls, and round her neck hung a magnificent emerald necklace, one of the
Morland heirlooms and generally known as the Queen’s Emeralds, for the story was that they had been a gift to Queen Katherine
Parr from King Henry, and had been given by that Queen to her friend Nanette Morland. If the countess was a little pale and
drawn from the birth ordeal, only those who knew her well would have noticed it behind the animation of her face.


‘And where is my newest godson?’ the King was asking her, smiling down into her upturned face. ‘Is he not to make an appearance
at his own party?’


‘Later, sir, when all the guests have arrived,’ Annunciata said. ‘Though if it were not for the musicians playing, I think
you would hear him expressing his impatience from the nursery.’


The King laughed. ‘Born to take a leading part, that young man,’ he said. ‘He struck me such a blow this morning my chin is
still tender.’ The Christening itself had taken place that morning in the Queen’s closet at Whitehall, with the King and Queen,
the Duke of York, Prince Rupert and Lord Craven as Sponsors. The King drooped his head nearer to Annunciata’s to murmur quietly,
‘And of course his entry into the world was somewhat more precipitate than usual, was it not? My dear, what could bring you
to risk your health not to say your life, riding by coach to London when the roads were so bad? I am sure your husband must have been very angry
with you.’


Annunciata made a moue. ‘He was,’ she said succinctly. ‘But I was so bored, sir, and when I heard that the Court was back
I could not stay away any longer. And so I came – and so the baby came. Now, sir, do not be angry with me – you would not have
wanted to miss this party, would you?’


The King laughed aloud at that, making those standing nearby stretch their ears to try to discover how the countess amused
the King so much. ‘I could not be angry with you for long, my dear,’ he said, and took her hand to add, ‘but seriously, you
must take care of yourself. I have lost too many of those dear to me to want to risk you.’


Annunciata’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears. ‘We shall all miss her highness sir, though none, I’m sure, as much as you.’
Annunciata had been a friend and correspondent of the Princess Henrietta, and had spent some time with her and the King during
her visit to England that spring. The King nodded.


‘Now there is only Jamie left,’ he said, casting a glance towards his brother, who stood chatting with Annunciata’s third
husband, Ralph Morland, a little way off. ‘And frankly, my dear, he is as much worry to me as joy.’


Annunciata cast a startled glance towards the prince and said, ‘Surely, sir, you do not fear for his health?’ The Duke of
York had rarely known a day’s indisposition. The King smiled grimly.


‘Not his health, no, but for his state of mind. You know that I have once again failed to persuade Parliament to the justice
of Toleration?’


‘I heard, of course, that they had renewed the Conventicle Act,’ Annunicata said softly. ‘Naturally, as it affects me personally
–’ The King nodded.


‘Here at Whitehall you are safe enough,’ he said. ‘As long as we practise our Catholicism discreetly, the country is willing
to allow us our little toy. But outside Whitehall–’ He shook his head. ‘There is such an implacable hatred of it amongst the
people, such an unreasoning fear, and James, I am afraid, knows no discretion. He feels it ignoble to hide his religion.’


‘They do say, sir,’ Annunciata said with a glimmer of a smile, ‘that the convert is always the most vehement. But, sir, my
husband tells me that it is time to call a new Parliament. Would not a new Parliament perhaps grant what the old one refuses?’


The King shook his head. ‘I am afraid not. The mood of the people sways this way and that, and I am afraid that a new Parliament
would be far more Roundhead in sympathy, and even more against Catholicism. No, I must make do with what I have, and continue
to wear gently away at them, like water on a stone. But you, my dear, you will take care when you go back home? The Conventicles
Act –’


‘Do not fear,’ Annunciata said comfortably. ‘I shall be safe enough in Yorkshire. The North is far more tolerant than the
South, and their Anglican service close enough to our Anglo-Catholic Mass for them to blink at the difference. Besides, Ralph
is the law in our own small world.’ They were silent a moment, and then she changed the subject. ‘Tell me, sir, how fares the
Queen? I was sorry that she did not feel well enough to come this afternoon. She looked cold at the service this morning.’


A little way off, Ralph Morland listened with only half his attention fixed on the Duke of York, though the duke had a sweet
and musical voice, and though he was more interesting on the subject of ships than on any other. But Ralph’s eyes were drawn
continually past the duke to the lovely form of his wife, and the sight of her, beautiful and animated, gave him pain as well
as pleasure. When he had married her, four years ago, he had felt as if he had at last arrived at the place to which he had
been travelling all his life. His life had been a thing of such contrasts: the war had cast its sad and confusing shadow over
his childhood, robbing him of both father and mother, and finally of one who was dearer than a mother – Mary Esther Morland,
who had brought him up. But then young manhood had brought him happiness: he had become master of Morland Place, and had married
and fallen in love with his first wife, Mary Moubray, his Catholic bride from the Borderlands.


Ralph was a simple man, with simple desires. A comfortable home, a loving wife, a large family of healthy children, the respect
of his peers, and some simple pleasure in the way of good hunting, musk and merry-making: that was all he wanted, and for
some time he had seemed to have it. That was in the years when Annunciata was growing up, and Ralph, fifteen years her senior,
had watched her with affectionate amusement and rescued her from the worst of the troubles her impetuosity brought on her.


But his happiness had once again crumbled. He had been forced to become aware that his wife was deeply unhappy; then had come
the horror of her lingering illness and death; and then, as if fate were punishing him for his unthinking happiness before,
one by one his children had died. He had seemed to wander in darkness, bereft of his God, mourning his dead, purposeless.


Then Annunciata had come home – beautiful, desirable, wealthy, the child of fortune, fresh from the glittering triumphs of
her London life, sparkling with life even though she, too, had suffered bereavement and grief. He realized then that he had
loved her all his life and she, strangely, marvellously, had said she loved him, too. He had married her, as enraptured and
bemused as Endymion abducted by the Goddess Diana, and thought that his life was now settled for ever. He had all he wanted.


Yet he could not help being aware that Annunciata had been growing restless of late. He had thought it was because of the
children – three times she had borne him a son, and three times suffered the grief of bereavement. Little Ralph, little Edward,
little Charles, all had lived no more than a few weeks; she had conceived again early that year, and Ralph had urged her to
be very careful, remain quietly at home, not excite herself. Yet from the beginning she had seemed to do everything against
his advice, almost as if she were daring fate to attack her again. Her latest whim had been the sudden decision to come to
Court as soon as she heard the King was back from Windsor. He had argued and pleaded with her, but she had merely laughed
– a strange, wild laugh – and in the end all he could do was to go with her and try to mitigate the worst effects of the journey.


He thought sometimes that she had not anticipated just how bad it would be, travelling at snail’s pace through the teeming
August rain, the coach lurching and jolting, its wheels at times hub-deep in mud, the horses floundering and crying. How could
she? She was one of the country’s finest horsewomen, and had barely spent ten hours of her life in a coach before. Many a
time he saw her, on that journey, grit her teeth, bite her lip, turn her greenish and sweating face from him rather than admit
her discomfort. Many an evening he had procured hot water for her from an unwilling innkeeper, bathed her like a child, and
put her shivering and silent to bed with hot bricks at her feet. Small wonder then, that she had gone into labour almost as
soon as she reached Ballincrea House. The wonder was that the child, another boy, seemed so well-formed and healthy.


And now she looked so alive and so happy, Ralph thought, as she stood chattering to the King, not in the least shy or overwhelmed,
not even displaying a female modesty, but talking to His Majesty as if she were his younger brother instead of his female
subject. Ralph still felt faintly ill-at-ease in these brilliant surroundings, amongst all these distinguished and titled
members of the London beau monde. The long saloon with its modern furnishings and fabulous treasures did not suit him as a background as did the solid dark
panelling of Morland Place; he was aware he looked out of place, and that the rest of the guests thought him merely an up-country
farmer, a clod. He knew it from their looks, from the way they referred to his wife as The Countess, from the fragments of
gossip that he overheard.


And in some ways they were right – he was out of place. He didn’t Like London, with its closeness, its smells, its artificial glamour. He loved the open skies, the
sweet fresh wind, the fields and moors, and he came up to London each year with Annunciata only because he did not wish to
be separated from her. He wished Yorkshire could be enough for her. He knew that she loved it, as he did, and that she needed
to spend part of every year there, to refresh and renew herself; but she also needed the more exotic excitements of London,
and it saddened him to see her so at home here, where he felt a stranger.


Ralph suddenly realized that the duke had asked him a question and was waiting for an answer, and he became aware of how rudely
he had been ignoring his royal guest.


‘I beg your pardon, Your Grace,’ be stammered in deep confusion. ‘I fear – I regret I did not quite catch –’

If Prince James was offended, his handsome, impassive face did not shew it. He raised one eyebrow and said patiently, ‘Quite
all right, Morland. It is very noisy in here. God in His wisdom must have had some reason for giving women such shrill voices,
but –’ He trailed away, and then recollected himself. ‘I asked if you and your wife would dine with me tomorrow. The duchess
is not well enough to dine out these days, but she would greatly like to see you both. It will only be a quiet dinner, en famille, with a few guests. I have asked your brother too.’


‘I should be honoured, Your Grace. Thank you very much,’ Ralph said, and hoped fervently that Annunciata had not, in the meantime,
accepted another invitation to dine elsewhere with the King. Then a footman came in to announce the last of the important
guests.


‘His Highness Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland.’ Ralph excused himself to the Duke of York, and hurried over
to join Annunciata at the door to receive the prince. Annunciata curtseyed deeply, Ralph bowed, the prince bowed in return,
the welcome was spoken and replied to. And then the prince took Annunciata’s hands, his grave face softened to a smile, and
he stooped to exchange a kiss with her. It was perfectly permissible for women in society to kiss even guests with whom they
were barely acquainted, but Ralph could not help a small twinge of jealousy, for it was well known that Annunciata had been
romantically attached to the prince some years ago; and though he did not believe the rumours that she had been his mistress,
it was true that she possessed a gold locket containing a lock of his hair. Annunciata cast Ralph a glance of mingled entreaty
and apology as she led the prince away towards the group round the King, and Ralph, with a small inward sigh, allowed himself to become detached and instead devoted himself to the comfort of Lady Arlington, who had little conversation and was
always something of an outsider at these gatherings.


‘Please forgive me for being so late,’ the prince was saying to Annunciata. ‘I had to call in at the Navy Office, and there
was so much business to be attended to that I had much trouble to get away.’


Annunciata stopped to smile up at him.

‘I knew it could only be important business that kept you away. Do you never rest? You will make yourself ill.’

The prince’s expression was tender as he gazed down into her face. The love between them was deep and unspoken – had to be
unspoken, for it existed on so many and such complex levels. ‘You know that I do,’ he said. ‘In fact, I have grown quite frivolous
of late,’ Annunciata smiled at the idea of the grave and stately prince being thought frivolous. ‘My man tells me he has heard
it spoken in the streets that I have been seen to laugh in the theatre.’


Annunciata laughed at that. Two years ago, the prince had been at Tunbridge Wells with the Court, and had witnessed an entertainment
given before the Queen by some actors from the Duke of York’s theatre. Amongst the players had been a young actress by the
name of Madam Hughes, Margaret Hughes, and Prince Rupert – the grave, stately, dignified Rupert – had fallen quite madly in
love with her.


Annunciata had watched anxiously as in his old-fashioned and courtly way he pursued the young woman, who allowed his attentions.
He did nothing in haste, and he had taken a year to come to the point, but last summer he had finally made terms with Mrs
Peg, and had installed her in fine style in a house in Hammersmith. Since then he had seemed to be so rapturously happy that
Annunciata had, with relief, concluded that the actress was keeping her part of the bargain. Now she wished to shew the prince
that she approved of his arrangements, and was anxious to pay appropriate attention to the woman he so evidently loved.


‘I am glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘And I hear that Hammersmith is lovely at this time of year, when the leaves begin to turn.
You must invite me to your house there, so that I may judge for myself.’


He pressed her hand. ‘You would come? It would make me so happy, but I hesitated to ask you.’

Annunciata thought how like him that was. In the Court of Charles II, only Prince Rupert would hesitate to invite a lady to
meet his mistress.


‘I should be happy to come,’ she said. ‘When shall it be? Tomorrow?’ She wanted to be sure he knew she meant it.

‘I cannot tomorrow – but the day after? Would you come early, and spend the day? And would you – would you think of bringing
the children? I should love to have the chance of spending some time with them.’


‘The day after tomorrow. We shall all come,’ Annunciata said low and quickly as the King turned round and it was necessary
to end their private conversation.


‘Ah, there you are,’ the King said heartily to his cousin. ‘Come straight from the Navy Office, I warrant, and went there
straight from the Christening this morning. I’ll wager you have neither eaten nor drunk since dawn today!’


‘Well, sir –’ Rupert began apologetically.

Dinner was laid out in the daringly informal French ‘buffet’ style which had become the fashion for the private supper parties
that the King so loved. It was typical of Annunciata that she thus made a virtue of a necessity, for Ballincrea House had
no room large enough to seat all her guests at one table for a formal dinner. As she led the party towards the tables, she
heard the interested murmur of comment, and, listening carefully, judged that it held no note of disapproval or ridicule,
and was able at last to relax. The food she had provided was almost spectacularly lavish, in order to make it evident to everyone
that there was nothing makeshift about the arrangement, and while she was still smiling and talking her way forward with the
King, her eyes under her drooped eyelids flickered sternly back and forth across the tables and the row of waiting, liveried
servants to see that there was no crumb nor hair out of place.


At home in Yorkshire Annunciata liked to supervise every aspect of the running of the household in person, partly because
she could not endure anything to be done less than perfectly, and partly because it helped to pass the long country days. But in town she was kept so busy visiting and being
visited, attending plays and parties, walking and riding in the parks, arranging entertainments and ordering and buying new
clothes, that she allowed the everyday running of the household to pass out of her hands. When she had married Ralph, her
cousin Elizabeth Hobart had been installed at Morland Place as governess to his remaining children, Martin and Daisy. Poor
female relations were a boon and a blessing to any large household, for they made very useful unpaid upper servants, and were
generally permanent attachments, having little chance to wed and thus leave the establishment. Annunciata saw all the usefulness
of cousin Elizabeth, a modest, intelligent, amenable young woman with all the innate taste of a gentlewoman, and also saw
that she was wasted in the role of governess, especially when there was a chaplain-tutor attached to the house, and so she
set about reorganizing matters.


She found a sturdy, decent young woman named Dorcas, the widow of a weaver who had lived locally, to take the place of nurse-governess,
and trained Elizabeth under her own stern eye to the role of housekeeper, to fulfil all those supervisory functions of Annunciata’s
when she either did not wish or could not find time to perform them. Both Elizabeth and Dorcas were under the unofficial but
very effective supervision of Annunciata’s personal maid, a sharp-tongued, sharp-eyed Londoner named Jane Birch, who had an
air of having witnessed all the folly of the world at some time or another, and not thinking much of it.


So it was that, armed with Annunciata’s instructions and Annunciata’s recipe books, braced up by Birch’s steely glances and
the foreknowledge of the tongue-lashing she would receive from Annunciata should anything go wrong, Elizabeth had chivvied
the servants and the cooks into a ferment of activity which had culminated in this spread board and the rank of impassive,
perfect servants. There was poached salmon with fennel sauce, pike with caper sauce, a whole Morland Place ham smoked to Annunciata’s
secret recipe; there was spiced tongue, a glazed saddle of mutton decorated with candied oranges, whole lobsters with picquant sauce, a hale pie containing tiny onions, boiled eggs, and asparagus;
there were venison pasties, and pastry castles filled with crab meat in a cream sauce with cloves and cinnamon; there was
a peacock with its tail still on and displayed with a frame of thin wire, and a turkey dressed the same way. There were oysters
in sherry with nutmeg, roasted woodcocks, quails in aspic-jelly, partridges stuffed with chestnuts, kid boiled in milk, and
a dish of delicately stewed eels, of which the King was said to be particularly fond. There were candied fruits and fresh
fruits, brandied wild strawberries, blackcurrant junkets, sweet jellies, and the puddings for which Annunciata kept the recipes
secret from everyone but her chief cook. And as a final triumph there were ices and sherbets, for which she had had to obtain
the King’s co-operation, for his ice-house in St James’s was the only one nearby. To drink there was Rhenish and sack and
the French champagne which was becoming the rage in London society.


Every dish was laid out and decorated to perfection; the cloth was almost dazzlingly white, every piece of plate was burnished,
every piece of crystal glittering like diamond; the flowers and wafers and comfits were laid out as they should be; the servants
were as clean and neat and property attired as if they were painted figures and not imperfect human beings. Annunciata was
satisfied. Her eye caught that of Birch, hovering inconspicuously in the background, and she gave the slightest of nods. Birch
in her turn passed a look and faint nod to Elizabeth, hovering even further back from the guests, and Elizabeth relaxed with
such sudden relief that her knees almost gave way and she had to put her hands against the wall behind her to support her.


Annunciata also relaxed, as she watched her guests go forward to the table to be served and then move away with full plates
and glasses, eating, drinking, and chattering approvingly. It had worked, it was all right, the occasion was a success. This
was what she had planned and hoped for when she had made her wild dash for London – to have her baby at Whitehall, to celebrate
its arrival with a glittering party. One half of her despised the fashionable mob with its empty-headed gossip and slavish aping of style, and laughed at herself for
wishing to compete; but the other half was a restless, hungry thing, an outsider. She was, though an heiress of fortune, and
though three times wed to highly respectable men, still born a bastard, a fatherless child of an eccentric mother, and there
was some part of her, deeply hidden and angrily denied, for which it was not just an amusement to take on the fashionable
world and beat it at its own game, to outfashion fashion, but a deadly necessity. She was ambitious for her children. This
new baby, if he survived, would have every advantage, would be well-connected from the very beginning. He should have a title,
too – she must begin to work on that problem as soon as she could, for she knew there was great competition to squeeze titles
out of the King, and it might take years…


She realized abruptly that she was frowning with fierce determination, and that the King was looking at her with faint, quizzical
amusement. She cleared her brow and laughed apologetically, and asked his opinion of the wine. As she listened to his reply
she saw out of the corner of her eye that Ralph was looking at her, trying to catch her attention. Dear Ralph! He looked so
handsome in his new clothes of peacock-blue velvet and silver-grey silk which she had chosen for him – but she hadn’t time
for him at the moment, with His Majesty to amuse and the rest of the entertainment to come. She was glad he had come to Town
with her, but she hoped he would not get too bored, would find something to do to keep him occupied while she was engaged.


When the eating and drinking was almost over, Birch and Dorcas went upstairs to fetch the children, and brought them down
to the long saloon to be ready when the company came back in from the dining-room. The baby had quietened at last, and though
he was not asleep, he lay silent in Birch’s arms in his heavy, elaborate Christening clothes, his face as red as a boiled
lobster from his recent crying. The rich, lacetrimmed gown had been a present from His Majesty to Annunciata for her first
baby, and the silk shawl had been sent from France by Princess Henrietta for her second confinement.


The fruits of those confinements were ushered into the saloon by Dorcas, who smoothed already smooth hair and straightened
immaculate clothes and exhorted them to stand still and be a credit to her. Hugo and Arabella, the twins, were nine years
old. Hugo, who had become Viscount Ballincrea on his father’s death when he was but one year old, had been told many times
that he was very like his father in looks and because he had spent so much of his short life being reprimanded for one thing
or another he had come to think of that also as a reproof. He was short for his age and stockily built, with a naturally dark
skin, tight curly dark hair and blue eyes. ‘A veritable little Frenchman,’ Birch sometimes called him when he was being naughty.
His father had been half Irish and half French, and his darkness was due to the French blood in him. Hugo gathered that this
was not to his advantage, although he also knew that the King’s darkness was due to his being half French too, and in the King’s case it was quite permissible.


In his stormy life Hugo had one staunch ally, his twin sister Arabella. She was taller then he and stronger, and though she
was also accounted no beauty by the servants, since she had freckles on her white skin, and a mane of stiff red hair which
would not curl by any means, and an uncompromising, unsmiling face, she did not seem to feel their disap