The Perfect Royal Mistress (39 page)

There was one great caveat to his complete satisfaction at the impending reunion.

Minette’s husband insisted that the visit be not only brief, but also extend no further than Dover; Charles could not bring his sister home to London. So he could not introduce her to Nell, who had begun her lying-in at the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He had not seen her for several weeks, at her insistence. “Wait till I can be gorgeous for you again, and I’ll warrant you, I will be!” she had insisted. He had done his best to understand. But he had wanted Nell there. Her honest, easygoing style would have won Minette’s fondness immediately. Even though his sister loved Catherine, he knew she loved her brother more.

He stood on the dock with his brother, James, and watched the ship sail slowly nearer, bobbing on the whitecapped waves as a huge French flag fluttered in the wind. Salt spray and a spring mist peppered their faces. His heart raced like a child’s from the anticipation. Minette was the one person in the world he loved completely. When she stepped down the gangway, wrapped in forest-green velvet, Charles wiped the tears from his cheek. They were the first he had dared shed since the day of their father’s murder. He and James encircled her, standing like that for a very long time, silently shocked at how drastically poor Minette had changed. She had always been petite, but now the girl they embraced was hauntingly thin, and there were feather-gray shadows embedded deeply beneath her pale, hazel eyes. Nevertheless, she smiled up at her brothers, Charles most particularly, and then embraced them each again with all of her strength. “We are all that’s left of Father now,” she whispered to them as they stood huddled together against the buffeting winds.

“I believe we have all three made him proud,” Charles said in reply, and his smile reflected everything—their history, their losses, and their abiding love for one another. As he glanced up, his gaze caught on the collection of ladies who were following Minette from the ship. All of them wore French fashions, lacy and more intricate than the English designs. And at the head of the little delegation, intentionally setting herself a few steps apart, strode a girl with smooth, corn-yellow hair, her back regally straight, her nose tipped up as she came toward them. Charles was instantly captivated by her face. It was smooth and oddly full, with wide, impossibly blue eyes, and a little rosebud mouth. The silk fabric at her bell sleeves and ankles ruffled in the breeze, and he watched her proudly attempt to keep everything in its proper place. Her look was so childlike, her manner so full of pride, that she reminded him of a very small girl playing dress-up. Only when Minette and James began to chuckle at him did he even realize they had been speaking.

“I can see you have not changed,” Minette said, taking his arm.

“Truthfully, our brother has only added more trophies to his cabinet in your absence.”

Realizing the implications suddenly, Minette’s smile fell. “Well, you are not to add Louise de Kéroualle to your conquests. I promised her parents myself I would protect her, and return her to them the chaste girl she is now, and I mean to do just that.”

Charles embraced his sister again, and held her tightly as they all began to shiver from the cold breeze. “I’m here to see
you
. That is all I wish to do these next preciously few days that James and I have you,” he said sincerely. But his mind skipped onto other things.
Louise,
he thought as they strolled arm in arm together back toward shore, the little group of his sister’s ladies close at their heels.
What a simply exquisite name for so luscious a child-woman
…Everything else at that moment, especially his life back in London, seemed very far away.

Chapter 23

B
UT THESE THINGS ARE PAST AND GONE.

—Catullus

R
OSE
waited down in the walled back garden of Nell’s house, amid a neat little orangery planted by the king. John had said that he would come as soon as she sent word, and she believed him. But it was a cold early morning, and she had slept little these past two nights. Finally, he came through the wooden side gate that the groundskeeper used. He was flushed and out of breath from having run, he said, half the way, because he could find a hackney coach to take him only so far from Whitehall as Covent Garden.

“Has she had the child, then?” he asked.

“She was safely delivered of a boy late last night.”

“Another son for the king’s growing collection.”

“As long as my sister is made secure by it, I’ll rejoice in their ’avin’ a dozen more.”

A floor above them, as they spoke, Nell lay curled beneath a mound of heavy bedding, the sleeping infant tucked into the crook of her arm. At first, it had frightened her to look at him. A royal child. The king’s son. Better just by his birth than she could ever be. But it had been nine hours now. The servants had gone back downstairs. Rose had gone, as well. The weighted draperies had been pulled back, and the excruciating pain of his birth was like a nightmare gone into the light of day, diminished now by pure joy. She glanced down at him again. Foolishly, she had thought he would look like the king. He had a little crown of dark hair, but other than that, he looked to her like a tiny old man, wrinkled and foreign. Would he be ashamed of her one day? She could wear the most expensive fashions, learn all of the proper things to say, yet, in the end, she would always be Nelly Gwynne, daughter of a whore, from the rough slums of London.

For a moment, she dared to miss Charles. She had not allowed herself this weakness during the entire ordeal. His sister would always be first in his heart. He had gone to her at Dover, and Nell was glad of it. Almost glad. The little face beneath her puckered, then let out a tiny gasp. To her surprise, Nell felt her heart squeeze in response, and she pulled the infant just a little bit closer to her breast so that he could feel her heart beating.

He would be secure, she thought. Charles did his duty to all of his offspring. And, no matter how casual the affair with the women that created them, he cared financially for their mothers for the rest of their lives. A knock sounded at the door then, bringing her from her thoughts. Perhaps the king had come to—

“We simply could not wait a moment longer!” Buckhurst happily exclaimed, his arm laden with boxes, as he strode through the door into the bedchamber. He was followed by Sedley, Rochester, and the Duke of Buckingham, each of them bearing an equally weighty haul of gifts wrapped up in silk ribbons. Nell felt a smile turn up the corners of her mouth as they clumsily approached her.

“I’m no lady,” said Nell. “But this cannot be proper, all of you tumbling into anyone’s bedchamber.”

“It is decidedly not.” Rochester affably grinned. “But your little man there simply could not be made to wait to meet his three most-earnest uncles!”

“Uncles, are you?”

“That is what we shall call ourselves to him. If, of course, you’ll let us,” Sedley announced with a smile of his own.

“We all adore his mother enough to be her brothers.”

“Since being her lover is long out of the question!” Buckhurst quipped. “Unless, of course, you’ve taken to your senses and changed your mind!”

In response, Nell tossed one of the packages at him playfully, and they all laughed. She was surprised, with the king so far away, how much she needed their company just now, and the reassurance of their interest in her.

Sedley plumped the spray of beaded-silk bed pillows for her, and Buckhurst helped her sit up, while Rochester unlatched the window and let in a welcoming burst of fresh air.

“You all really should not ’ave come,” she said as Buckhurst sat at the foot of her bed. Sedley and Rochester leaned on the wall near the window, and Buckingham, regal in black velvet with white slashing, brought a carved oak chair nearest the bedside for himself. “But I find I’m quite glad that you ’ave, my dear, merry band.”

“Have you heard from him yet?” Rochester asked, sending an awkward shard of tension into the happy moment. Everyone knew he had meant the king. And whatever was said in response, he was likely to make a poem out of it.

“’Is sister has only just arrived at Dover. I would expect no message for a few days at least.”

“Of course, that’s right,” they stoically concurred with nodding and grumbles of agreement. But they all knew the reality. This was simply another of the king’s illegitimate offspring lying before them in an ivory silk gown and bonnet. Nell could not expect more than he felt inclined to offer.

“A game of basset, perhaps?” Buckhurst cautiously offered.

“I’m a bit tired, actually,” she said. “But thank all of you, truly. And next week, you’d best bring a loaded purse, or I’ll take the shirts right off your back!”

After they had each pressed a kiss onto Nell’s forehead, and were headed toward the door, Buckhurst lingered, taking the baby from her and placing him in the cradle beside her. After the others had gone downstairs, he returned to her, sank onto the edge of her bed, and they embraced.

“Thanks for knowin’,” she whispered, weeping softly into his collar as he held her.

“Careful of that, or you’ll have even me believing I’ve a redeeming quality or two.”

Nell laughed in spite of herself, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You’ll not be tellin’ anyone about this, will you?”

“About what?” he asked with a deliberate smile. Then he grew serious and put his hand gently on top of hers. “Some moments are just between friends, Nell. And I’m awfully glad to have been admitted back into your good graces. Now, tell your old friend, Buckhurst, what troubles you.”

“’Tis only I ’aven’t any idea the way I’m to keep ’is fancy now, with a child.”

“You’re not pretty, witty Nell any longer? Is that it?”

“’Ave a good look at me, Charles,” She pointed to her middle, then rolled her eyes. “I may still be Nell Gwynne, but I’m surely not the girl I was.”

“Then you’ll work hard to bring her back better than ever. He won’t be in Dover all that long, after all. And he’ll expect to see you upon his return.”

“His little tart with a crying babe at her breast? That doesn’t work so well for kings and actresses.”

“Is it Moll you’re thinking of?”

“He told me ’imself ’twas never the same between them after the child came.”

“Ah, but then
she
wanted security.
You
want his heart.”

“And who am I to think I could ever keep it?”

“Because you challenge a man, Nell. And the whole sorry lot of us adore that. You must admit, I speak from experience in that respect.”

Nell shook her head, then reached over to press a finger along the cheek of her son, asleep in his cradle. “They’re all out for blood, you know. All of ’em waitin’ for me to trip up.”

“Ah, but they don’t know about your secret weapon.”

She looked at him, her tears dry now. “What on earth could that be?”

“Why, the great and clever Lord Buckhurst, of course!” he slyly smiled.