The empress of ice cream

Louise

The king, back from Newmarket, calls on me solicitously. But only in the afternoons. At night, he is elsewhere.

One afternoon we attend a concert by some visiting musicians. They invite the king to choose a song.

‘Ask Fubs,’ he says. ‘She knows these French ballads better than me.’

‘Sing the one that begins, “Let me die of grief, but not of jealousy,”’ I say. He smiles wryly, acknowledging the joke.

Later, the musicians strum their guitars. ‘Are we to dance?’ he asks.

‘I could not dance to this tune, sir,’ I answer. ‘It is too rough and wild for dancing.’

He turns to those behind us. ‘Is there anyone who will dance?’

‘I will,’ calls a voice, and Hortense Mancini steps forward, into the space between the musicians and our chairs. Without a trace of self-consciousness she adopts a position: one leg cocked, her arms above her head.

I am reminded of the way she crouched en ^cirde: supple, poised, waiting.

Then the music starts - fast and giddy. She spins and stamps and snaps her fingers - there is a part of me that wants to say. Oh look, Charles, she dances like a 'Neapolitangypsy, but the words stick in my throat. The dance is nakedly sensual, pagan. But she does not dance for him alone: it is me, too, at whom she directs her flashing gaze, her glittering eyes. I can hardly breathe. I glance sideways at the king. He is staring at her, fixated.

When she has finished, bowing insouciandy to the applauding court, it is us, not her, who are short of breath.