The Perfect Royal Mistress (22 page)

Watching the rehearsal, they sat in the back of the theater, beneath the upper tier, in an overhang of seats in which the noble class viewed performances. Both Ogle and Buckhurst were dressed for an evening out, wearing long, curled periwigs, feather-trimmed hats, coats decorated with looped ribbon, and breeches to the knee. The actors were running through their lines before them on the stage as two men hung a large curtain in preparation for one of the scenes.

“I was such a fool!” Buckhurst murmured as Nell entered and spoke her first line.

“On that much we agree,” said Ogle.

“I haven’t a clue what I was thinking, treating her that way, as if she would be around forever.” It was the same sentiment he had muttered all the way from Newmarket, and Thomas Ogle knew what he was expected to say next.

“You weren’t thinking. You were drinking. A bit of fun cost you the most celebrated girl in London.”

“I am an utter, daft fool!”

“You did rather make a mess of things.”

“I must apologize. I want her back, and she has got to know it.”

“She looks awfully content up there.”

“What’s that life compared to the one I can give her?”

“Dependable, I should say, to begin with. You don’t mean to marry the girl after all, do you?”

“I don’t know that I wouldn’t,” Buckhurst hedged, opening a small silver snuffbox and pressing a bit into his left nostril. “I haven’t actually thought that far ahead.”

“We don’t, our kind, do we—”

Buckhurst glanced at him sharply.

“—think well ahead of the moment, or marry girls like that,” Ogle amended.

“I don’t know that I mightn’t.” Buckhurst was now looking dead ahead again, watching Nell’s every move on the stage. “You said yourself she was different.”

“Different certainly does not mean suitable as the wife of a Sackville.”

“Probably not. But I want her all the same, and you know perfectly well I’ve had a lifetime of getting what I want. I am not prepared to lose now.”

He flicked his friend’s shoulder in a false show of bravado, but as he stood and prepared to move toward the stage, he felt a hand clamp tightly onto his shoulder to stop him. A tall, broad-shouldered man with a square jaw and intense dark eyes said, “There is someone outside who wishes a word with you, my lord.”

“Not now, my good man,” Buckhurst responded, trying to break free of the man’s iron grip.

The bigger man would not let go. “The Duke of Buckingham, sir, is desirous of your company.”

“I don’t care if it’s the ruddy king of England himself! I am engaged just now.”

The man led Buckhurst then, quite against his will, and very forcefully, from the theater, and out into the street, where a large black coach with six horses on silver harnesses waited.

The coach door was pulled back by a stone-faced liveried footman, and Buckhurst was pressed with a single short thrust up the steps and inside the large and luxurious coach. Tucked inside, on the far end of the studded black-leather seat, the Duke of Buckingham sat, his hand on the ivory knob of a walking stick, and he stared straight ahead. Charles Sackville had always found George Villiers cold-blooded. Whatever this summons was about, he knew it could not be good. He sank onto the edge of the seat facing Buckingham, and waited, determined not to speak first for what it might cost him if he did.

“The king wishes to bestow a great honor upon you, Buckhurst,” Buckingham announced without ceremony, and without changing the direction of his gaze. There was a slight pause before he added, “You are to leave for Paris as His Majesty’s personal emissary.”

“Paris? Good Lord, why me?”

“Because your sovereign wishes it. In light of that, you would be wise to see it as the honor it is, complying swiftly and quietly.”

Buckhurst leaned forward, surprise still on his face. “I do appreciate the honor, but it is simply not the best time—”

The duke, resplendent in his gleaming blond periwig and jeweled hands, looked fully at Lord Buckhurst for the first time. His expression was cold. “I do believe, my lord, that you do not quite take my meaning. This is not a request.”

“Am I being exiled, then? Punished for something?”

The duke rolled his eyes and let out an irritated sigh. “Leave it to a wastrel to see the king’s largesse as punishment. The situation with the French is a delicate one after the Dutch wars, as I am sure you are aware. You shall be in France to express the king’s regrets to King Louis over the illness of his son, the dauphin. Also, while there, you shall collect from His Majesty’s sister a covert report on the state of relations, and see it brought back to England.”

“But I am not a spy!” Buckhurst was on the edge of the seat now, hands curled around the edges of the plush black leather. “Or a diplomat, for that matter. I am, as you said, a wastrel!”

“Apparently, His Majesty sees something more in you. It is an opportunity to better yourself, boy, and your rapidly declining reputation. You would be wise to seize your bit of good fortune in this and be grateful.”

Buckhurst glanced through the fogged coach window, back to the wide stone steps leading up to the King’s Theater, and Nell. It was a crossroads, yet there was only one road open for him to take. “Very well, then. But I’ve someone back inside to speak with first.”

“There isn’t time for that. The king’s barge is waiting to take you to Dover tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“You leave at once.”

He glanced at the stairs again. Nell would never forgive him. She would never understand how dear she had become to him, or how, in following her back to London, he had hoped to improve himself because of her. He considered that for a moment. Perhaps it was better this way? Perhaps in France he actually could make a real man of himself? He would lose Nell, of course. But she would not have him as he was now anyway.

He looked back at the duke. It felt like a contrivance, this honor, though for the life of him he could not imagine the benefit to anyone in being rid of him. As the coach pulled forward with a little jerk onto Drury Lane, and away from Nell Gwynne, Charles Sackville wondered for a moment if he would ever know the real reason why he was being so swiftly spirited out of London.

The king was playing tennis when Buckingham returned to Whitehall from Drury Lane. The duke stood to the side, arms crossed over his chest, watching the sovereign volley the ball across the court to his son, Monmouth. Charles’s superior athletic skill still made Buckingham angry. He struggled at everything the king did with ease. Especially the getting of women. Not just the easy marks brought up the back stairs by Chiffinch, but with real, sensual, thinking women, as Castlemaine in the early days had been. Or his early love, Monmouth’s mother, Lucy Walters, before her.

Castlemaine had only ever slept with him to make the king jealous. George knew that. It had not made the competition any less fierce. But what the king wished was always the priority. It was everyone’s priority. And so now, too, this morning at the theater, Buckingham had acted on behalf of his sovereign. Even if he had not yet revealed the scope of his plans for Nell. After all, King Charles may be the superior athlete, but who could argue, he wondered, with his own vastly superior mind? Who else would ever think to replace the powerful Castlemaine with a hungry young actress who could so easily be molded by the person wise enough to install her?

“Ah, George!” the king called out with a friendly wave.

The match was suddenly over in mid volley. He took an embroidered towel from the tray held by a waiting page, daubed the sweat from his face, then tossed it at the servant as he approached his old friend. “So, then? Was he amenable?”

“Of course, Your Majesty. What good servant of the king would not humbly comply with so great an honor?”

“Oh, cease the flattery, George, it doesn’t suit you. He had Nell to himself. That alone would be reason enough to hang on to the cliffs of Dover by his thumbnails.”

“Not every man appreciates a diamond in the rough as Your Majesty does.” Buckingham nodded decorously. “You saw for yourself how he behaved at Newmarket.”

“So she’s back at work at the theater?”

“As it happens, she’s preparing to perform this very afternoon.”

“And Hart. Tell me, George, does he wish her return to his bed?”

“My spies tell me the old fellow does not handle rejection at all well. Hart has told anyone who will listen that he hopes she dies a miserable death in this new play, and he hasn’t said he meant a figurative demise, either.”

Charles smiled and walked in long-legged strides away from the tennis court and back toward the stairway to his private apartments as Buckingham, and everyone else, struggled to keep the same sure pace. “Marvelous.” The king smiled again.

“The road does seem paved, should Your Majesty desire to take it.”

“For now, I suddenly wish to go to the theater. See it arranged, would you, Georgie?”

“Of course, sire. As I see to every wish on your behalf.”

Yes, indeed, thought Buckingham. He may not be named chancellor yet. But thanks to their enduring friendship, he was still the second most powerful man in England, no matter his lack of title. It was he who really had full control of everyone’s destiny, particularly the destiny of Nell Gwynne.

Chapter 14

…TO THE
K
ING’S PLAYHOUSE AND THERE SAW
T
HE
I
NDIAN
E
MPEROR;
WHERE
I
FIND
N
ELL COME AGAIN, WHICH
I
AM GLAD OF, BUT WAS MOST INFINITELY DISPLEASED WITH HER BEING PUT TO ACT THE
E
MPEROR’S DAUGHTER, WHICH IS A GREAT AND SERIOUS PART, WHICH SHE DOTH MOST BASELY.

—The Diary of Samuel Pepys

N
ELL
felt the old familiar butterflies fluttering against the wall of her stomach as she stood waiting behind the curtain for her cue, her hand steadied on the swagged strip of fringed velvet, the candle lamps bright and dancing before her.

The play was dreadful.

It was not a comedy, at which she had so shined, but an overly dramatic tragedy. In a scene suspiciously convenient for him, Hart was killed off in the early part of the first act. Nell was left to soldier on by herself, weeping and hand-wringing. Her costume was scarlet velvet; her hair was tamed back tightly and fitted into a mock crown of rubies. No pratfalls or ribald jokes were possible. The play was tailor-made for Charles Hart to have revenge, and it was the worst possible return to the stage for a comedic star. Nell glanced into the flickering golden glare of the stage lamps, feeling her throat seize up. A full house. She felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter. She drew in a very large breath to calm her racing heart. What was the first line? Then, at what could not have felt a worse moment, she glanced up at the royal box and saw the king. In the next instant, she heard her cue, and was ushered onto the stage.