The Perfect Royal Mistress (45 page)

Chapter 27

W
ITH HOW MUCH EASE BELIEVE WE WHAT WE WISH!

—John Dryden

N
ELL
stood center stage, in a crested helmet, belted tunic, and buskins, costumed as Queen Almahide. Her hands were on her hips, and a bow and quiver hung from her left shoulder. She had taken the stage in the empty King’s Theater, summer sun streaming in through the glass roof above them. It was late in the morning, and the players were doing a last run-through of
The Conquest of Granada.
Hart was her exotic lover, Beck Marshall was the seductress, and Richard Bell was to play Nell’s jealous husband.

The theater manager, Thomas Killigrew, sat with Dryden watching from the pit, and Nell saw them there, studying her. It was good to be back, caught up in the easy camaraderie of the other players, the jesting, and the laughter. Here, being herself took no thought, and for it she paid no price. Yet, even so, she still felt tension. It came with a name:
Carwell.
Nell could not bring herself to say it properly. Gossip about Carwell had grown like wildfire at the theater. Louise continued, they said, to entice the king by refusing him. It was said that the tactic had led to a predictable result. The king was now so obsessed with winning her that she was with him at Hampton Court at this very moment, joining him for his nephew’s remaining few days in England. Forcefully, Nell pressed back her jealousy. She was accustomed now to rejecting it. She knew the king would send for her again. And when he did, unlike Carwell, she would not play with his heart.

“Shall we go over that last scene again?”

“Oh, come on, Nell. We’ve all got it down! I’m hungry,” Hart moaned.

“We
have
been at it for hours, Nelly,” Beck carefully agreed.

Everyone at the King’s Theater understood that work was the best distraction for Nell. Glances were exchanged amid the silence. “Come on, all of you,” Richard finally said, then turned to wink at Nell, in a show of solidarity. “Let’s give the scene one last go-round, shall we? A bit of hard work won’t kill any of us.”

Afterward, Nell and Richard walked together out onto Drury Lane. Several mud-splashed hacks sat lined against the curb, their horses pawing at the cobbled stones as they waited for the actors, who were all just now emerging with somewhere to go.

“God, but it is good to have you back,” Richard said, taking up her hand, then pressing a kiss onto her cheek. The freckles slashed across his nose seemed brighter in the sun, and so did his affectionate smile. “It really hasn’t been the same without you.”

“So I hear.”

“You know Hart is bedding Lady Castlemaine?”

“So apparently is half of London. Everyone, that is, but the king.” She chuckled. “I’ve ’eard tales of a tightrope walker, as well.”

“I think they are both trying to get back at you.”

“And I’ve ’eard that you are seeing Beck.”

Richard’s easy smile fell. He raked his limp hair back from his forehead as Nell felt his hand tense in hers. “How’d you know?”

“You don’t think I keep those old connections for nothin’, do you?” She touched his face then, more serious. “But I’m glad for you.”

“You know it’s always been you, Nelly.”

“Beck’s lovely.”

“I know she’ll break my heart one day, just as you did. I’m certainly no lord fit to keep her. But for now, I’m happy.”

The king’s coach at her disposal, drawn by six horses, their silver harnesses jangling, pulled up before them then, just as a light breeze caught the hem of her dress. Nell descended the last step away from the theater, then turned back to Richard. “See you tomorrow, then?”

“You couldn’t keep me away. This is the biggest part I’ve ever had, and I’m planning to get a laugh if it kills me!” Richard smiled. “That is, after you do, of course!”

The house on the square, when she returned to it after the rehearsal, was hot for midday. Only the kitchen window at the back was open, so the rest of the house had the feeling of a tomb when the square-shouldered Bridget Long closed the door behind her. As she removed her gloves, Nell saw that Rose and John Cassells were together on the divan in her drawing room. Cassells was not wearing his uniform, but rather a plain nut-colored surcoat with dull brass buttons down the length. Their hands were linked, and they were whispering.

“Where are the children?” Nell asked as Cassells came to his feet, nervously pressing out his surcoat with his palms. Rose stood beside him a moment later.

“The baby’s asleep, and I sent Jeddy to the little room beyond the kitchen, as she felt feverish and wouldn’t eat.”

“A fever in summer?” Nell came forward. “’ave you called for a doctor?”

“For Jeddy? Well, no, I only thought—”

Nell turned back to the door. “Bridget, go fetch one promptly!”

“I’ll go,” John said, nodding politely to her. Before Nell could object, he was gone, the heavy front door closing with a thud behind him.

“What were you thinkin’, Rose?”

“John’s asked me to marry ’im! And other things’ve ’appened today, as well. I wasn’t thinkin’—”

Nell turned away, not allowing the full explanation, and began to weave through the house toward the snug little room behind the kitchen where Jeddy often slept if the king was present and she was not allowed in Nell’s bedchamber. Rose followed her.

“Nelly, I really think you should let me explain—”

Nell rounded on the small door near the larder, her dress sailing out behind her, but as she burst into the room, she stopped stone still. The last person in the world she had expected to see was sitting before her. On a stool beside a sleeping Jeddy, holding a cloth to her forehead, was Helena Gwynne, the mother Nell had not seen in well over a year.

The doctor John Cassells managed to find did not believe it was the plague, for which Nell felt as much relief as if she had given birth to the little girl herself. She ran the back of her hand across her forehead, sank down at the scarred wooden table, piled with vegetables beneath a rack of copper pots and kettles, in the center of the room, and heaved a heavy sigh. Helena and Rose were seated across from her.

“What the devil are you doin’ in my ’ouse?” Nell asked at last.

Helena and Rose exchanged a glance. “I’ve no place to go, Nelly,” her mother said. “And I’ve changed my ways, I promise you that.”

“Ballocks! You’ve been dreadful your whole life, and
now
you’ve changed your ways, just when there’s a bit of royal favor to be ’ad?”

“Nell!” Rose gasped. “’Twas the drink! And she’s given that up!”

Nell studied her mother, the round face mottled red, the fat, chapped hands, and the layers of rosy flesh. “And you believed ’er!”

“She’s our ma, and she’s come to ask for ’elp, for lord’s sake!”

“Rose, you cannot be serious. ’Ave you forgotten?”

“I’ve forgotten nothin’, Nelly. But it seems that your tolerance extends no further than the king’s bedchamber!”

Nell glanced bitterly at her mother, sitting beside Rose. “I can’t talk about this any longer,” she declared, charging out of the door as fast as her legs could carry her.

Nell waited in the wings for her cue. Beck had told her it was a full house, and for the first time in a long time she felt a nervous anticipation over making her entrance. She drew back the heavy curtain and peered out into the pit. There was the Duke of Buckingham, now her good friend, with his infamous mistress, clearly pregnant; there was Samuel Pepys, certain as always to spread news of her performance to everyone he knew. There was the Duchess of Argyll and Lord Rochester, and a woman in a long black cape, her face covered by a vizard, gesturing like an actor. And, in front of them near the stage, stood an orange girl in a gray linen dress and apron, basket over her arm. In that girl, she saw herself not so very long ago.

The image forced Nell to see how far she had come, and she was grateful for the reminder.

The cue came, and she stepped onto the stage to the deafening roar of applause. She grinned, then curtsied low for the crowd. As she rose, her gaze settled on the royal box above her, half in shadows from all of the lamplight. But the images and the faces were clear to her. The king had come to see her return to the stage. And he had brought Louise de Kéroualle.

As she began to speak her lines, to curtsy and wink at the audience, the nervousness slipped away. Nell was entirely believable, endearing as an innocent, and the more they laughed, the more Nell felt the wound of the king’s action fade, replaced by the open adoration of the crowd.

After the performance, Beck came to her as she was being helped from her costume, to tell her the king wished to pay her his compliments.

“Is the girl with ’im?”