The Perfect Royal Mistress (11 page)

“They’re calling for you, Nell!” Richard charged excitedly into the tiring-rooms after her third performance that week. “They’re absolutely mad for you!”

Exhilarated, and feeling triumphant, Nell sank back into the chair at her dressing table. She liked the stage, the command, the attention. As she gained some ease before the crowds, she watched what it was she did: the inflection on a line, the tilt of her head, whatever brought a laugh, and what did not. Each performance was an education. “Thanks, Richard.” She stretched her arms over her head.

“You know,” he said in a lowered tone, “the other ladies are none too happy. They say you are sleeping your way into the best roles.”

“Well, they’re right, I am. Just as all of them did before me,” she replied. She had accepted Hart as her lover, and was determined to enjoy the rewards, rather than regret what she had done. “But I’m also a better actress, and that’s what really bothers them.”

“That you are.”

Charles Hart was at the door, his smile broad and proud. “Come, Nell. They’re calling for you! The crowd is a hungry beast you’ve got to feed if you want it to keep a taste for you!”

Nell, with calculated seduction, pressed a kiss onto his cheek. “You’re the boss, Charlie.”

Around her, actresses whirled in their costumes of tired velvets and frayed silks, gleaned from some countess or duchess who had donated her castoffs. As she brushed past him to return to the stage, Nell pressed a finger to his crotch, giving him the promise for later she knew she must in order to keep her place. Lying with him was no longer the horror it had been at first, nor was it pleasant. Fortunately, he had not made her his only mistress. There were other actresses, and Nell would not lose the security she had gained from Charles Hart, no matter what it took.

She went back out onto the stage with the other actors, bobbed a curtsy with a quirky smile. The catcalls and applause rose up. She felt the sly grin on her face begin to grow, but she held it back. Wild laughter was the result, deep, rich laughter, far bigger than before. As her hands went onto her hips, and she leaned into it, a man from the pit called out, “Toss us a kiss, Nelly!”

“Yeah!” chimed another. “Somethin’ to hold us till we see ya tomorrow!”

She thought of what she had done in the tavern to get a laugh, and to have Patrick Gound go easy with her on the month’s rent when she did not have it to give. Then she lifted the hem of her skirt, just enough to show her calves, did a little shuffle step, and blew a large, exaggerated kiss. Just as the prop manager began to close the heavy velvet draperies, the still nearly packed house erupted in more laughter and more applause. At that same moment, Nell felt a broad hand clamp onto her arm and pull her from the stage.

“Always leave ’em wanting more,” said Richard Bell. “Besides, Mr. Hart is calling for you again.”

“Thanks for the warnin’! I’ll get out while I still can. Meet me at the Cock & Pye in ten minutes time?” she whispered. “I owe you an ale or two in thanks.”

“I’ll be there.”

The tavern beneath where Nell lived was crowded to capacity with drinkers and a few, in the back behind the frayed curtain, eating meat pies and lamb stew.

“If it isn’t our own prettiest little success story, Nelly Gwynne come home to us!” called out Patrick Gound from behind the bottle-strewn bar.

Nell made him a theatrical little curtsy, and was immediately surrounded.

“Did ye give ’em what they asked for, Nelly?”

“And then some, I did!”

“I’d fancy seein’ such a fine lady grace the stage,” swooned an older woman, missing a front tooth, her hair graying and frazzled.

Nell slapped the bar. “Then you’d best not be comin’ to see
me
! Fancy isn’t what they pay for with Nell Gwynne before them!”

Patrick Gound raised his own tankard, ale sloshing over the side.” Well, ye’re finer than this lot by half.”

“Which ain’t sayin’ much,” volleyed Nell.

Richard Bell came through the door, entering in a shaft of silvery light that was swallowed up quickly as the hinges squealed and the door closed with a deep thud. Everyone looked up. The laughter fell away. Nell looked as well. “It’s all right. ’E’s my guest,” she said.

“A fine-lookin’ gent!” a man called out.

“Bell’s no gentleman,” Nell corrected with a burst of deep, bawdy laughter. “He’s an actor, like me!”

After they had both had a tankard of ale, then two, Nell felt herself begin to breathe more deeply. “Does it ever grow tiresome, hearing that applause?” she asked Richard as they sat together. She leaned forward, elbows balanced on the tabletop. Her eyes were glittering in the lamplight, and her long, coppery hair lay in ribbons across her shoulders.

“Only if you grow weary of being adored.”

Nell took another long swallow of the comforting ale at the very moment that a woman approached them from the crowd near the bar. Her dark hair was done up into a fussy black hat with a little red plume that did not suit her face. Her dress was sewn of red silk, and she wore a little black jacket that reached her waist, and a huge ruby glittered at her throat. The voice was unmistakable, but Nell would have known her anyway.

“Evenin’ to you, Mrs. Davies,” she said.

“Smart you are, if not so terribly pretty,” Moll Davies replied.

“
I
happen to think Mrs. Gwynne is divine,” Richard defended. “And so does London. She’s already a sensation!”

“I ’ear she’s makin’ quite a name for ’erself on the stage, and I’ll warrant she ’as you to thank for it, Richard. You always was the quiet, resourceful type.” She took his hand, forcing him to stand and face her. Her smile, gap-toothed and yellow, revealed her commonness, as her voice did. “So, Richard Bell. Whatever brings you to a place like this?”

“I was going to ask the same of you.”

“And so you ’ave. As it were, I’m stayin’ nearby while my new ’ouse is being readied. The ’ouse the king has bought for me.”

Richard glanced over at Nell. “The king of England has bought
you
a house?”

“And don’t you believe I ’aven’t earned every floorboard! ’Tis a grand place, too! Right in St. James’s Square, where only the finest people reside!”

“I thought His Majesty had just fathered another child by Lady Castlemaine?”

“Times change. A king’s head turns.” She leaned forward, balancing her hands on the table so that her ample breasts plunged over her tight bodice. “Lady Castlemaine’ll not be the only one to benefit this year from royal progeny.”

“You?”

“As pregnant as a Cornwall sow, I am!” She sank into the empty chair behind them, her tone going low and gossipy. “Apparently ’e can make anyone pregnant ’e likes, except the queen!”

“Does he acknowledge your child as his own?”

“Why else would ’Is Majesty buy me a proper ’ouse? If you don’t mind my boastin’, the king is absolutely besotted by me. Apparently, the charms of elegant court ladies ’ave their limit.”

“Are you still onstage at the Duke’s Theater, then?” asked Richard, his eyes sliding to Nell, and then back to Moll Davies.

“For the moment, I am,” she replied with a shrug. Then she patted her still flat belly. “But that won’t be for long. I know we’re meant to be rivals, actresses at opposin’ theaters, Mrs. Gwynne—”

“Call me Nell, if you please.”

“Very well then, Nell.” Moll smiled condescendingly. “You make it easier to offer a friendly word of advice.”

“I don’t know she should be taking advice from an old jade like you,” Richard warned.

Moll slapped his arm playfully and smiled at him in a way Nell had seen her mother do too many times with new men. “’ow better is there to do in this life than be mistress to a king? Trust me, Nell, an actress’s life onstage is like ’er beauty: fleetin’ at best. The crowds are a fickle lot. They’ll always demand the newest thing. The prettiest fare. You’ve got to make plans for yourself. You’ve got to find yourself a well-placed man, then make ’im fall in love with you.”

“Child’s play for Nell,” said Richard. “I mean, it would be, if she wanted it, that is.”

“You’ll pardon me for tellin’ you what to do, but take it from me: You’ve got to learn to look like you want it, Nelly. And if you could convince a man you fancy the experience, in the same way you draw ’em in onstage, so much’ll be the better for those rapidly declinin’ years.”

Moll Davies was bawdy, crude, and obnoxious, but what she said did make sense. The thought of being at the beck and call of a self-centered man like Charles Hart for the rest of her life was a chilling prospect. And how different from her own mother’s life would hers truly be? That could not be her future. Not when she had come so far. “Well, there is only one king of England,” said Nell on a laugh, “and I don’t suppose I’d fight you for ’im.”

“Can you imagine that?” cackled Moll, slamming her fist on the table, a movement completely unbefitting the dress, the hat, and the sparkling jewels. “’Is Majesty is well beyond the likes of you, naturally. But the theater’s filled with lords and dukes aplenty, lookin’ to add a bit of glitter to their dull lives. Ain’t no better route.”

“You’d be better off listening to your heart,” offered Richard Bell.

“And where ’as
that
ever gotten any woman without a dowry, I ask you?” Moll challenged. “Broken’earted, or locked up in the Newgate gaol. No. Mark me. You might not know it to look at me now, but I come from a place like you did, not far from ’ere, as it ’appens. I tell you, security’s the route. Look out for yourself, Nelly. In the end, that’s all girls like us really ’ave anyway.”

It made sense. Every day now brought something, and someone, new into the King’s Theater and into her life. The question was merely who she would see sitting out over those glittering lamplights next and how she might use them to her own advantage.

Chapter 7

G
LORY IS LIKE A CIRCLE IN THE WATER, WHICH NEVER CEASETH TO ENLARGE ITSELF, ’TIL BY BROAD SPREADING IT DISPERSES TO NAUGHT.

—William Shakespeare

O
VER
the winter of 1667, and into the spring of the following year, as Nell’s star rose at the King’s Theater, hostilities with the Dutch continued. The English fleet had taken heavy losses during a surprise attack it had launched on the Dutch. Money to press on toward victory remained in short supply as rumors of a retaliatory attack swirled throughout London, setting nerves on end. The Earl of Clarendon, the sage and seniormost privy councillor, had gained the ire of the others by continuing to push not only for a truce, but also to force the English fleet to remain at anchor, and therefore in a vulnerable position. By summer, the worst fear of the English, and the younger members of the king’s Privy Council, came true as King Charles sat presiding over a summer ball at his grand palace of Hampton Court.