The Perfect Royal Mistress (20 page)

M
Y MERRY, MERRY ROUNDELAY
C
ONCLUDES WITH
C
UPID’S CURSE
: T
HEY THAT DO CHANGE OLD LOVE FOR NEW
, P
RAY GODS, THEY CHANGE FOR WORSE!

—George Peele

T
HE
vast tent, striped of blue-and-green silk and topped by a gold crown, swayed in the warm spring breeze on the vast lawns behind the king’s palace. The royal musicians were playing a sprightly, “My Lovely Lady Mary,” and glittering candles everywhere gave the tent a magical glow. In her new gown, Nell stood between Buckhurst and his companions. She looked lovely by the candlelight, and tonight she truly believed it.

“Where is the king?” Buckhurst murmured beneath his breath.

“I’d rather have a drink than give another bow,” quipped Sedley. “Groveling can be so tiring.”

“Now that you mention it,” Buckhurst chuckled, raising a hand to his mouth, “I believe I saw champagne. You know our good king does love all things French.”

Nell frowned at them. “We’ve only just arrived. Try to behave yourselves. Hmm?”

“Now, Nell,” Sedley smiled sheepishly at her. “What fun would that be?”

A liveried servant, bearing a silver tray of glasses filled with champagne, passed them; Nell saw Buckhurst and Sedley exchange a glance.

“After you,” Sedley said, and he and Buckhurst burst out laughing.

Buckhurst chucked Nell’s chin, as if she were a child. “Do
you
behave
yourself,
” he said, then pressed an absent kiss to her cheek. “Unless, of course, it involves the king!”

Before she could respond, Buckhurst, Ogle, and Sedley were gone, moving together toward the servant with the tray. He had never remarked about her gown, her hair, nor made any comment at all about wanting to dance with her, in spite of the lively music and the collection of guests already doing a branle near them.

“You are a vision this evening. Well recovered, I trust, from the events of our last meeting?”

The deep, well-schooled voice came from behind her. Nell turned, then curtsied to the Duke of Buckingham. She had softened toward him since his generous assistance with Buckhurst. Still, something about him made her want to be careful.

“May I call you Nell?”

She nodded, cautiously.

Buckingham smiled, “A dance later, perhaps?”

“Perhaps, is it? ’Ave you not made up your mind to ask me?”

“If His Majesty fancies your company as much as I believe he does, then I should be cautious asking anything of you. So we shall have to see as the evening progresses.”

“Surely Your Grace knows that the king already ’as a mistress and a wife.”

“He has several mistresses,” Buckingham corrected her.

“And Your Grace? What do
you
’ave?”

“More greed than sense, and more ambition than lust, truthfully.” She lifted a brow, openly scrutinizing him. He was smiling broadly. “I know we got off to a poor beginning. But, as it happens, I would like to be your friend, Nell.”

“And why would a duke of the king’s court want to befriend a lowly, retired actress?”

“Because I am a prudent man, and I happen to believe that you will have great power with the king one day. If the king does select you,” he continued. “I would like to help you, once you have reached his bed, to learn how to keep yourself there.”

“If he
selects
me? You make me sound like one of his ’orses.”

“Knowing His Majesty, as I have had the privilege of doing lo these many years, I do not believe there is any doubt of his interest in you, Nell. But when he does proposition you, you should be wise enough to accept. I do not know yet if you are as wise as you are witty. I have had the misfortune, after all, of seeing you with Lord Buckhurst.”

“Does any girl ever reject the king?”

“Only those who are not clever or wise,” he said. “But I am going out on a limb and wagering that you are both, with a healthy dose of ambition thrown in.”

“And I can see that Your Grace is a crafty man.”

“So long as you are not afraid of the king, then we shall get on splendidly. He simply must have challenge in a woman, one who can meet him fully, or, to be blunt, she shall be gone after the first tumble.”

King Charles stepped behind Buckingham then and put a firm hand on his shoulder, stopping their conversation instantly. “Open flirtation with a special guest of the king, is it, George?” he asked with a wry smile.

“Never, Your Majesty.”

“Good to hear, old friend. Mrs. Gwynne,” the king said deeply, gathering her hand in his and pressing it to his lips in the French manner. “I must say that tonight, you are a vision.”

She smiled up at him, reminded how much taller he was, how much more commanding in stature alone from the other men around him, and thinking how magnificent he looked in claret-colored velvet, trimmed in gold braid. “And
you
are as smooth as a sow’s ear. Every other woman ’ere makes me look a country cousin to ’er.”

“I happen to like the country,” the king said. Then he glanced at a group of guests in the middle of a lively branle danced to his favorite tune, “Come Kiss Me Now.” “Shall we, then?”

“I’m afraid proper dancin’ is not somethin’ Lord Buckhurst’s ’ad the time to teach me.”

“You might wait a very long time if it is Buckhurst you intend as a teacher.”

“Unless, perhaps,” said Buckingham, “you held a drink to his nose and led him away from Charles Sedley.”

The king laughed at that. Then he looked at Nell. “Forgive me. We were thoughtless. It is only knowing Buckhurst as we do, and his penchant for personal enjoyment above all other things, that sometimes makes ridicule simply too tempting.”

The couples were assembling in a circle and joining hands. They would step forward, meeting with a slight pause, then step back. The music was light and happy. The dance, he told her, was a great court favorite, easy enough to learn. Nell was listening to the sound of the flute and the low rhythm of the drum, trying to make out the steps. Hart had taught her to do a wonderfully comic jig for the stage, but this was altogether different. She tried to hide her studied frown with a carefree smile. “I ’aven’t a clue ’ow to begin!”

“Then I shall teach you.”

Nell considered it. If the king of England wished to teach her to dance in Buckhurst’s stead, who was she to object? This was a height to which a girl like her had no right to rise. Nell took the hand that the king had extended to her. His skin was warm and smooth; his grip, powerful. There was an energy between them as they touched. She smiled up at him then, doing her best to resemble the most carefree girl in the world. What the stage had not taught her, life had. She would be what he wished, the clever, carefree Nell from the King’s Theater, the one men desired. She could not compete with noblewomen on their level, but she could use what she had.

As they advanced together, the other dancers fell into deep bows and curtsies, some of them whispering. If there was such a thing as magic, this certainly felt like it to Nell.

Amid candles and lamps that flickered like diamonds, and lively music that carried Nell along on the arm of a nearly mythic figure, she danced to two songs as his partner. Then a servant approached. Coming into the dancing area, he whispered something imperceptible to the king. Charles glanced at her in response.

“You must follow Chiffinch, my dear,” he said. “It is to do with Lord Buckhurst.”

Nell followed the tall stately man, and two guards, knowing that whatever she was being led to, it could not be good. Her gown trailing on the walkway, she walked silently behind the two guards, who smelled heavily of musk and sweat. They moved along a winding path through the garden in silence, the only sound the clicking of their shoe heels and the scratching of crickets in the shrubbery. They passed a tiny caretaker’s cottage, heading for High Street, and a row of thatched houses beyond.

“It is just as they did in Covent Garden!” A man looking up was saying in disbelief. “A year has passed, and people still speak of that!”

Charles and his friends Sedley and Ogle were standing on a second-story ironwork balcony. Buckhurst, who stood behind Sedley appearing to take him sexually from behind, although both were still dressed enough to make the jest clear, was laughing hysterically. Ogle had urinated into a bottle, and had just flung it into the gasping crowd. Horrified and nervous laughter flared as Buckhurst began to strip off his clothes, and the three began to climb down a vine-covered trellis against the house. Cold reality hit Nell. For this man, she had left a public who adored her. She had abandoned a sound life she had been building all on her own for
this.
Suddenly, she hated herself for it.

“His Majesty has authorized me to offer you a coach back to London, madam, should you decide to go,” the servant called Chiffinch said evenly. He did not look at her as he spoke.

“The king knew about Lord Buckhurst?”

“His behavior has gained its own status, Mrs. Gwynne. His Majesty merely anticipated the possibility, and authorized me to act accordingly should the need arise.”

Tears pressed at the back of her eyes. Fighting them, Nell felt her mouth tremble. She bit her bottom lip to stop it. “I’d no idea the extent—” The words fell away.

There was no point. It was done.

She had given up on her own wits and gambled on something, and someone, who was not real. Nell met Chiffinch’s gaze. “Thank you, sir, for the offer. But I found my own way ’ere. It’ll do me good to find my own way back.”

She left Newmarket at dawn, before Buckhurst was awake—before he could object, if he meant to at all. She was riding through the undulating, mist-shrouded countryside, in a coach she had insisted on hiring for herself. As the Buckhurst manor grew ever smaller in the rear window, then disappeared beneath an emerald-green rise, Nell at last put her head in her hands, and for the first time in a very long time, safe in her solitude, let herself weep. Until she heard the rustling…

She heard the rustling before she saw the movement.

As the hired coach swayed and clattered over the winding dirt road leading back toward London, Nell gasped when she saw her. Her little ebony face shown smooth, and her teary eyes were wide as she pressed back the corner of a blanket to look up at Nell.

“How in blazes did you manage to hide yourself in here?”

Jeddy sat up huddled in the blanket, a bare foot poking out.

“Oh, never mind. You’ll not answer me anyway, I suppose. The thing is, I ’aven’t any proper place for you to stay.”

Still the girl said nothing, only stared, eyes wide.

“I wonder if you
can
speak. But you must be hungry. I’ll tell the coachman to stop at the next inn.”

The little girl lunged, shaking her head in a pleading gesture that they not stop.

“I’m not sendin’ you back. I’m only fetchin’ us a proper meal!”

The child gripped Nell’s forearm with surprising strength, still shaking her head. Nell reached out and put her hand on Jeddy’s head. “It’ll be all right,” she said in a much softer voice. “I’ve no idea what the devil I will do with a little girl, but I’ll not send you back to Newmarket. All right, then?” Nell moved her hand to touch the curve of the girl’s chin in a gentle, motherly gesture. She thought how young the girl was, and how alone she must feel. Thinking of that made her heart squeeze. It was good, she thought, to feel something today besides regret.

Before she had left the King’s Theater, Nell had paid for the room over the Cock & Pye for the two months’ time she would be gone, so that her sister could have a roof over her head. It had been a great deal of money, but she had paid happily, not only because of her concern for Rose’s health, but to honor the promise she had made to care for her always, no matter what.