A Royal Likeness Read online

  Books by Christine Trent

  A Royal Likeness

  The Queen’s Dollmaker

  A

  ROYAL

  LIKENESS

  CHRISTINE TRENT

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2011 by Christine M. Trent

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-6821-1

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-6821-1

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: January 2011

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Books by Christine Trent

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE London

  1

  2

  3

  4

  PART TWO Edinburgh

  5

  6

  7

  8

  PART THREE Glasgow

  9

  10

  11

  PART FOUR Dublin

  12

  13

  PART FIVE London

  14

  15

  PART SIX Trafalgar

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  PART SEVEN London

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  PART EIGHT Dublin

  32

  33

  34

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  A READING GROUP GUIDE A ROYAL LIKENESS Christine Trent

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  For Jon, who was, is, and always will be the love of my life

  PROLOGUE

  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 answer
ing 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?

  PART ONE

  London

  1

  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 hi
s 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.