The Perfect Royal Mistress (23 page)

The ovation and whistles of welcome were raucous and sustained, and Nell fought a smile. This was, she remembered, a serious moment in the play. “My father is dead,” she declared, trying to force dramatic tears to her eyes.

Four dandies in the front of the pit began to laugh.

“Did he die of boredom with this play?” a man called out amid growing laughter, though in the bright lamplight she could not see him.

She delivered another line, her dread growing.

“Aw, give us a laugh, Nelly!” someone called out from the back of the pit.

She heard the splat of an orange onstage, and was relieved to be joined by Hart’s mistress, Mary Knepp, who was to play her nurse. But it did not matter. It was nothing like the other times she had been onstage, cheered and adored. This, the papers would say, was a disaster.

Nell made it through the play by sheer will. As she moved to her place behind the curtain for the final time, her body was awash in perspiration. Half the pit had cleared out during the final scene, and they had not gone quietly. There was more tossed fruit. More jeers. And when she had looked up, the king, as well, was gone from his box. She sank onto her stool in the tiring-room, wanting to sink into the core of the earth, when Richard Bell gently touched her shoulder. “Come now,” he said with a half smile. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“No, it was much worse.”

He waited for a moment as she looked up at his reflection behind hers in the mirror. He would not lie to her further. Their friendship was too strong for that. “All right, it was not good. But there’s always the next play. You must think ahead to that.”

“After today, I’ll be lucky if anyone in London will give me another chance.”

She took her time walking back to the Cock & Pye, meandering from Drury Lane to Maypole Alley, where she bought a leg of mutton and some cheese for dinner. She wanted desperately to avoid the expectation she knew she would see on Rose’s face when she returned.

Just as she turned to go into the tavern, a painted sign on iron swinging above, two men emerged toward her from the shadows cast by the jutting roof of the house next door. Nell turned with a start, feeling a jolt of panic, until she recognized one of them. The Duke of Buckingham.

He was dressed like a common butcher or tailor, someone who actually belonged, like her, in this low place. He wore no periwig or fine buckle shoes, but rather a brown linen hat pulled low, a buff-colored shirt and plain buttoned doublet, and buskins, as the other man did.

“There is someone who would like a word with you,” Buckingham said as the king himself, equally disguised, emerged from the same shadows.

She felt herself smile at the absurdity of the entire scene. But the three men seemed to be taking enormous pleasure in their charade.

“Say you will have supper with me.”

“Oh, I don’t think dinin’ with a king is a very good idea. Too much attention I don’t need just now when I’m tryin’ to get back to work.”

“And if, by a rather clever disguise, I were not a king, and were to bring along a friend, would it be a good idea then?”

“No less than three friends would do.”

“I am not usually required to bargain with the fairer sex. But I find that
you
are a force with which to be reckoned.”

“I’ll not be taken lightly by Your Majesty just because I ’aven’t come from anythin’, if you’ve got that in mind,” she warned, trying to be serious, but still utterly charmed by him.

He gathered up both of her hands and pressed a lingering kiss gently onto them. “Who in their right mind would take you lightly?”

“It would be nice to be appreciated. But only just for supper.” She was thinking of Moll Davies. And survival. Moll may have a king’s house, and a royal child, but if he was not fully tired of her, he soon would be, and then she would be alone. That much was clear enough as he looked at Nell with his best rakish smile.

“Two, these two, and it’s agreed.” He pressed her hands against the length his chest with a humorously dramatic flourish.

The king of England, his brother, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Buckingham led Nell to Bridges Street, and into the back of the Rose Tavern. The savory aroma of roasting meat was very strong inside the warm place. They took a large plank table behind a red swagged curtain. The click of snuffboxes and the roar of raucous laughter and continuous conversation was loud, making the little party all but invisible.

Buckingham sat across from her, the king beside her, the Duke of York on her other side. She had only met the king’s brother this evening, but she liked him. James was not so tall or handsome, and he was more round at the middle than Charles, but he had an honest face.

“Juniper ale all ’round,” Buckingham called to the innkeeper. Turning to Nell, he added, “It’s famous for curing whatever might ail you, from rheumatism to palsy, and even your digestion.”

“But can it quench your thirst?”

Everyone laughed. She knew the king liked her clever tongue, and so she had decided to say whatever came into her mind.

As platter after platter of roast lamb, rich oysters, and the king’s favorite, pigeon pie, arrived, Nell’s cup was continuously filled, until everything seemed particularly humorous. Amid the laughter and rapid banter, Nell felt herself begin to relax. She enjoyed the elevated company; Charles had an easygoing manner, a wicked sense of humor, and a bold zest for life.

“So, Nell,” James said. “How did you find our little town of Newmarket?”

“I found it quite by accident, Your Grace, and paid dearly for my lack of direction. Sadly, I suspect I’ll go on payin’, so long as Mr. ’Art ’as any control at ’Is Majesty’s theater.”

Glances darted nervously back and forth as the men tried to discern how serious she was.

“Ah, splendid!” Buckingham announced, pointing across the room. “A game of dice!”

At another table, around which both men and women were crowded, some of them were beginning to toss down coins for betting.

“Shall we?” he said to York, clearly wanting to give the king time alone with Nell. As they began to stand and brush crumbs from their waistcoats, the innkeeper returned, asking payment for the enormous and costly meal.

For Nell’s sake, they had carried the ruse fully forward, wearing costumes with no pockets or satchels. In the shadow of a request for money, the king glanced at Buckingham. “Well, pay the man, George.”

“I haven’t a penny with me,” he said in a flustered tone. “James?”

The Duke of York’s face went ashen. “I don’t carry money with me. I never have.”

The men exchanged cautious, darting glances with one another as the king leaned back exploding with a burst of amused laughter. “Oddsfish!” the king said. “How do you men expect me to charm the girl when I cannot even buy her a plate of mutton?”

Nell bit back a smile as the innkeeper hovered over them, a frown creasing his sweaty brow. “This is surely the poorest company that I ever kept in a tavern!” she said, laughing the wonderful laugh that the theater patrons loved so well, deep and up from her soul. “It’s all right,
Charles.
I believe I’ve enough of my wages to settle the debt. Although, after today, it could well be the last I have for a while.”

“Oh, nonsense, Nelly. You’re brilliant onstage,” James earnestly proclaimed. “Everyone knows it was a miserable play, even if it was written by Dryden.”

“George here will, of course, reimburse you before you lay your head on a pillow this evening,” said the king. Then he leaned over to whisper, “And if I have my way, as king of England, that pillow shall be mine.”

George and James left the table then.

Charles took up Nell’s hand, turned it over, and ran the tip of his tongue along the inside of her wrist, as he had done at Newmarket. Then, without warning, he leaned across, pulled her to him, and kissed her deeply.

“You’ll not be havin’ your way with me as king of England,” Nell said. “But for the man I saw here tonight, I could be very complyin’ indeed.”

“Then he is the man you shall have.”

The innkeeper showed them up a creaking set of back stairs to a room overlooking the street, paid for by one of the king’s coachmen, from whom the Duke of York had gone out to fetch coins. Charles closed the door, and pressed Nell against it. She could feel the warmth of his strong fingers through the thin fabric of her bodice. She looked into his eyes as he carefully peeled the fabric of her corset back from her breasts. He touched each with the tip of his tongue, as his arms encircled her again, exploring the contours of her back. It was the first time a man had touched her in that way, with lips, tongue, teeth. The sensation was pure pleasure, and Nell heard herself moan.

“Shall I stop, Nelly? If so, you’ve got to tell me now, as I’m one man who’ll never force himself on you,” the king declared on a ragged breath.

“Then I’ll never tell you to stop.”

He led her to the old creaking bed near the window, as the sounds of clinking glasses and laughter below filled the charged air around them.

The Indian Emperor
played for four days at the King’s Theater, until dwindling ticket sales called an end to Charles Hart’s vendetta. Then a new play was chosen, another drama, called
The Surprisal,
and once again Nell Gwynne was given the dramatic lead.

“A pox on him!” Nell ranted in the tiring-room, her face white with rage. “He’s doin’ this to spite me!”

“At least you’ve got steady work,” offered Richard, not convincingly.

“And for how long?” Nell shot him an angry stare. “At this rate, I’ll be out on my ear with not even oranges to sell to pay for Rose and Jeddy’s supper!”

Richard hesitated a moment, looked around, then said, “Ask the king to intercede.”

“The king?” she said angrily. “What makes you believe I have influence with the king?”

“I saw you leaving here with His Majesty that day.
Everyone’s
talking about it.”

“Well…if it’s gossip you’re after, Mary Knepp told
me
the king is back in bed with Moll Davies, that they were seen yesterday out in His Majesty’s carriage right on the Strand, pretty as you please, and she was so low as to even ’ave brought their bastard, and ’eld ’im up to the window!”

“And you believe Mrs. Knepp, of all people? You know she’s never forgiven you for being in Charles Hart’s bed before she was.”

Nell put her face in her hands for a moment. When she looked up again, her expression had softened. So had her tone. “’E ’asn’t called on me again, Richard, and I don’t
want
to care! ’Twas a moment between us, and ’e took it. ’Twas I who let ’im do it. Foolish, I know, after Buckhurst, but I’ll not be fooled a third time, not even for the king of England.”

She went on playing the role of Samira the next afternoon.

Each performance was a punishment to endure, each line and the response to it was excruciating. But she would not be chased away. She could not. Eventually, the theater would need a success; they would need to return to comedy. The audience was steadily calling for it.

Before the sixth and final performance of
The Surprisal,
Nell sat before a mirror in the bustling tiring-room, having her hair curled into long ringlets by an old woman with heavily veined hands. Other actors dashed back and forth around her chattering, laughing, and in various states of undress, when very suddenly there came a new whirlwind of commotion. Nell glanced in the mirror and saw, behind her, a thin, very elegantly dressed woman with ash blond hair done up with ribbons. She was wearing rich green velvet with white lace ruffles at her collar and cuffs, and Beck Marshall was rising from a chair to greet her. Nell had seen the face once before, fleetingly, as the woman had made her way up to the king’s box to sit beside him.

“’Tis an honor, my Lady Castlemaine, to have you here,” said Beck, her voice dripping with a solicitous, honeyed tone.

Nell slowly turned away from the mirror to face the infamous royal mistress.

She was lovely enough, though a far sight more
mature
than any woman she could imagine retaining the attentions of King Charles for as many years as she had. She was certainly nothing like Moll Davies. Though it was Lady Castlemaine, not an actress, who bore a title and six acknowledged royal children, she reminded herself. Nell felt a sudden spark of envy as she looked into Barbara Palmer’s smooth, delicately carved face, and her sharp, assessing sea-green eyes.

“It has been ages,” Castlemaine said to Beck, who appeared to be a close friend. “We’ve come to invite you to dinner after the performance. You must be pleased this ghastly run is over.”

Nell had heard the gossip that Lady Castlemaine enjoyed the company of actors, and often attended the theater without her royal lover.

Someone drew up a chair for Lady Castlemaine, who took it without acknowledging the gesture. Her chin was high, and the marble-sized pearl at her throat glittered in the candlelight from the long row of dressing-table mirrors.

“Since Mrs. Gwynne has returned, it seems we cannot find a success.”

Suddenly, all eyes were on Nell. In the palpable silence that followed, Lady Castlemaine turned and looked directly at her. Nell was forced to stand and curtsy.