The Perfect Royal Mistress (15 page)

“Long as I’m still queen of your old jaded ’earts in this place, I’m quite the real success,” she joked. She could read little, but Nell wanted to see the words for herself. As the laughter faded, Patrick pointed to her name, and Nell touched the black letters gently with her fingertips. Thinking of herself in print made everything that had happened to her more real. She was celebrated. Loved. She felt tears prick her eyes. How very far life had brought her! She and Rose exchanged a glance. Only Rose would ever really know.

“You’ve done well, Nelly,” she said softly.

“I’ve done it for us,” Nell smiled. “So let’s go up then. I fancy seein’ you try your new shoes on again!”

“I told you Clarendon would lose. I
always
win. It really was only a matter of time.”

“Stupid old fool,” Barbara said as George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, newly released from the Tower, stroked her feet. He was rubbing the little area behind her toes as she lay naked on a daybed at a bank of open windows that faced onto the barge-filled Thames. The king had gone into London to see Moll Davies’s newborn daughter and so, for a time, they were free to behave as wantonly as Barbara directed them.

“We are close to being rid of Clarendon altogether. I can smell his vanquishment.”

“
If
we work together.” Her hand was snaking down her own body, softly stroking.

“We have always been a splendid team. I owe you my life for interceding with the king to get me out of the Tower and back in favor.”

“I have my ways with him, even after all these years. He is still such a sentimental man. He didn’t really want you in there. He just wanted you to apologize.”

“And so I did. Rather theatrically, too, I must say. I learned everything I know from the best partner a court could ever provide.” He moved to kiss her mouth, but she opened her eyes. There was enough censure in them to press him back.

“In the biblical sense, I am no longer your partner. I believe I have made that perfectly clear.”

“Young blood is still trumping experience?” he moaned, collapsing on the pillows. He meant the king’s eldest son, the Duke of Monmouth. “What on God’s earth is there still beyond that in it for you?”

“Besides stamina, youthful determination,
and
the chance of seeing such a moldable vassal made heir?”

“Charles will never legitimize Monmouth. He’s a king’s bastard, nothing more.”

“Perhaps. And then again, perhaps the stories that in his own youthful zeal and loneliness abroad he secretly married Lucy Walter are true. They certainly do persist, as does the evidence.”

“Just because you are losing one king does not mean you can fabricate another out of whole cloth!”

“Now, George,” she said. “You, of all people, know perfectly well that I can do virtually anything to which I set my mind. Is that not why you came to me about Clarendon in the first place? My relationship with the king may have changed, but you can clearly see, by your current taste of freedom, that it has not ended.”

“The king still fancies you a confidante, I’ll grant you that.”

“There’s more power in that than being his lover. Now, you leave my ambitions for Monmouth to me, and let us concentrate on driving that last nail into Clarendon’s coffin, shall we? You do still want to be lord chancellor, I presume?”

“I only wish to claim the post that should have been mine all along.”

“As
I
should wish to claim my place as rightful queen.”

“Ah, you
are
evil!”

“In that I am in proper company,” she laughed.

Unfulfilled, George Villiers left Lady Castlemaine and strolled out along the private pathway that fronted the Thames within the compound of Whitehall Palace. The worst of his resentment toward her was gone now. And he was tasting every aspect of his freedom. The wind was in his hair, the sun warmed his upturned face, and a new ruby on his finger pinched his flesh, just ever so slightly. If they were no longer lovers, he knew he could no longer trust her. Finally, Lady Castlemaine had truly outlived her usefulness to him, just as she was doing with the king. It was time for both of them to be rid of her. She knew too much. She needed to be replaced. Charles’s full attention on another mistress was the only way to achieve that. Moll Davies was irritating and low, not a viable candidate. Lady Stuart was now married and away from court.

It would take some cunning, and bold manipulation. But he would find Lady Castlemaine’s replacement himself. Then he alone would control the king.

In two days’ time, the court left for Newmarket. Dozens of eligible and willing young lovelies could be found there. And, after all, Barbara had brought this all upon herself. One of the most important things about court life was knowing how to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Lady Castlemaine had forgotten that, and it was just about to cost her, dearly.

Chapter 10

…THEY CALLED US ALL IN AND BROUGHT US TO
N
ELLY, A MOST PRETTY WOMAN, WHO ACTED THE GREAT PART OF
C
ELIA TODAY, AND DID IT PRETTY WELL
; I
KISSED HER AND SO DID MY WIFE, A MIGHTY PRETTY SOUL SHE IS.

—The Diary of Samuel Pepys

T
HE
oversized coach, with its black lacquered paint, gilding, rich velvet cushions, and six sleek black horses pulling it, swayed along the paving on the Strand. They passed the coffeehouses, the taverns, the hat maker, and the glove shop there, and then clattered onto the cobblestones of Drury Lane. Nell could not stop herself from looking out the window, taking it all in: the press of the other coaches nearly up against one another, the painted sedan chairs, couples strolling in extravagant ornamentation. Gold and silver passementerie. Lace and ribbons adorned silk. Buckles shone on heeled shoes. Men were in their plumed hats and carrying walking sticks, ladies in velvet capes and shawls, their hair dressed in fashionable ringlets, some in silk hoods.

It had been a fabulous day already. She had played Celia to capacity crowds, and they had kept her onstage for ten minutes longer than the others to cheer her afterward. Lord Buckhurst stole her from the throng then and drove her past the elegant houses on the fashionable square called Lincoln’s Inn Fields, down the most fashionable strip of St. James’s Park, and out to Mulberry Garden. His driver was careful to avoid the areas of London she normally saw, those ravaged by the fire, because he wanted the experience to be grand. He said he wished for nothing that might make her sad.

The coach slowed in traffic at Charing Cross, where there were mansions, shops, and stables, and they were buffeted by the strong, pungent odor of horse dung. But that did not matter. Buckhurst sat on the opposing coach seat, holding the silver tip of his walking stick with gloved hands, and he looked to Nell like the most elegant man in the world. When he turned to her with his dimpled smile, she felt a little giddy. In spite of his standing, he did not put on airs, and he made her laugh. He was very clever, too, which was a good match for her own quick wit.

“Have you enjoyed this afternoon?” he asked when the ride was over, his voice rich and sweet, like honey.

“Very much. You’ve given me a lot to consider.”

“As I meant to do,” he replied, enormously pleased with himself.

The coach came to a stop and a footman opened the door. Nell thought they could not possibly be back at the theater so soon. Lord Buckhurst got out first and waited for the footman to help her down. Standing before the wide stone steps of the theater, he made a sweeping bow to her. “May I call on you tomorrow?”

“I’ve got another performance.”

“Then I should be no other place in the world than right there on the very front bench to cheer you on, my face full of encouragement for you, and for all the world to see.”

“What a way you ’ave with words.”

“I leave all of that to poets like Lord Rochester. I only say what is in my heart.”

A hint of a crooked smile turned her lips. “Then I’ll look forward to what else you’ll ’ave to say.”

She let him press a very light kiss onto her cheek, then dashed up the wide steps, holding the hem of her skirt, and went back inside the theater. Richard Bell was there when she returned to the tiring-room. He sat at her dressing table waiting for her. His expression was more grave than she had ever seen it.

“Are you certain you know what you’re doing with him, Nell?”

“I can only ’ope.”

“You must at least promise to be careful.”

“You’ve misunderstood ’im. ’E’s a right perfect gentleman.”

“Buckhurst is a libertine and a reprobate. His name is constantly linked with Lord Rochester, who is the worst of them all! At least don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Do stop worryin’, will you? For once in my life, I’m ’appy and I know what I’m doin’.”

“It’s not
you
I’m worried about,” Richard Bell said, shaking his head.

“Well? Tell me everything!” Rose bid her sister amid the thunderous noise and music that filtered up from the tavern below, through the very walls and the warped floorboards, rocking their little room.

Nell’s sister was sitting on top of their bed, arms wrapped around her legs, her eyes wide, as Nell moved forward, floorboards creaking.

“’E wants me to go to Newmarket with him for the summer! ’Tis where the wealthy go to watch the races and drink French champagne! Where they visit with the king!”

“And what else?”

Nell giggled and flopped onto her back on the bed. “I suppose that’ll be a part of it, but ’e’s a nobleman, by my ’eaven! And ’e fancies
me,
if you can imagine.”

“So does ’alf of London, but there’re not many among ’em who watch you on the stage who’ll make you an ’onest woman. Don’t do this, Nelly! Don’t give up what you ’ave—somethin’ of your own makin’, your own talent—for a man’s black ’eart and empty words!”