The long-awaited prequel to Koen’s beloved Through a Glass Darkly, DARK ANGELS is a feast of a novel that sparkles with all the passion, extravagance, danger, and scandal of seventeenth-century England.

Alice Verney is a young woman intent on achieving her dreams. Having left Restoration England in the midst of a messy scandal, she has been living in Louis XIV’s Baroque, mannered France for two years. Now she is returning home to England and anxious to re-establish herself quickly. First, she will regain her former position as a maid of honor to Charles II’s queen. Then she will marry the most celebrated duke of the Restoration, putting herself in a position to attain power she’s only dreamed of. But all is not as it seems in the rowdy, merry court of Charles II. Secret plots are at play, and war is on the horizon—but will it be with the Dutch or the French? And has King Charles himself betrayed his country for greed?

Chapter 1

May 1670

Facing white cliffs in a strait of ocean separating two kingdoms, a fleet of ships lay at anchor. It was the fleet of the kingdom of England, sent to escort precious cargo: a princess of England and France, the most famous princess in Christendom, in fact. A yacht with a rakish bow slashed through the water toward the best and greatest of these anchored ships; the king on board liked fast yachts, fast horses, fast women. The princess was his sister, and he and those with him could not wait to see her.

"Monmouth's on the yacht!" said a young woman leaning over the side of the princess's ship. She had stepped atop a huge coil of rope for this view, and a sailor, eyeing her satins and the single strand of fat pearls at her neck, had warned her to be careful, but she'd sent him off with a withering comment to mind his own business. She wasn't one to suffer fools--or even those who weren't fools--telling her what to do. The sight of King Charles's yacht racing toward them was thrilling. She could see the crowd waiting on shore. The queen and her father and her best friend were among them. She was so glad to see England again, she wasn't certain she'd be able to keep herself from kneeling on the beach and kissing the sand of it when she landed.

"And who else is there?" asked the friend with her, like her a maid of honor to the princess, and like her, excited to be witnesses to this, King Charles and his sister meeting again after so many years--ten if it was a day. Flags were flying from all the topmasts, whipping smartly in the breeze. The day was bright and clear. Everyone was dressed in their finest, felt high-spirited, mettlesome as horses, stirred and thrilled by this reunion.

"Climb up here and see for yourself!" Alice said.

"Don't tease, Alice, and don't fall--" Her friend, Louise Renee, grabbed Alice's gown, for by now Alice was leaning over the edge at a dangerous angle, the feet in her dainty satin shoes on tiptoe.

"The Duke of York is with His Majesty and Prince Rupert--oh, they're close enough to hear me--Rupert! Prince Rupert! Monmouth!" Shrieking the names, Alice waved a gauzy scarf back and forth with wild abandon and was rewarded with a hearty wave from the king's cousin, a smile from the king's son, and a startled glance and then a grin from King Charles himself. Loud cheers had come up from hundreds of throats, the throats of the sailors manning the ships, the throats of the crowd on shore. They, too, were waving and clapping, cheering the king. Gulls, who'd idly settled among the rigging, rose like winged blessings into the sky.

"He hasn't changed a whit," Alice said.

"Who?"

"The king. I wonder who he'll be flirting with by midnight--"

"Mademoiselle Verney, get down from there at once! Mademoiselle de Keroualle! You will join the other maids immediately! The king is boarding--"

It was the keeper of the maids, Madame Dragon, Alice called her.

Alice and Renee ran across the deck to join the elite circle of young women around the princess, all in satin gowns, in dainty shoes with stiff gauze bows, their hair coaxed by servants into curling orderly disorder, fat strands of pearls around their slender necks, drops at their delectable ears. As young women, unmarried, their very youth was beautiful. As part of the household of the foremost princess in France, they were everything that was fashionable. There wasn't a woman on shore who wouldn't be biting her lip with vexation and determining to buy new gowns once theirs...

"A delicious and dark adventure set within the magnificent sweep of the seventeenth-century courts of Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France. Koen's excellent research and fully drawn characters bring to life the lavish wealth and glamour, the scheming, and the deeply human emotions of a fascinating era."