The Perfect Royal Mistress (46 page)

“It was a servant who addressed me. I’m sorry, Nell, I didn’t see.”

Nell forced herself to smile. “He’s the king of England and can do precisely as he wishes. Especially with me.” She stood, glanced at her own reflection, forced an even more carefree smile, then prepared to receive him. Perhaps he believed she did not know about Carwell’s presence. That was how she intended to proceed.
“You are an actress; now act!”

The tiring-room door opened.

“Your Majesty, it is an ’onor,” Nell said, curtsying low along with Beck and the other actresses around her, then rising with her usual smile.

“You were right to take the role. I do believe it was your best performance yet.”

“My greatest desire is to please you.”

“And your second-greatest desire?”

“
That,
Charlie, I can only tell you privately.”

Everyone watched the exchange, knowing who lingered just beyond the door, all of them anxious to see if it might erupt into anything about which they could gossip.

He took her hand and gently, seductively, kissed it. “Then I shall call on you privately again very soon.”

“And
I
shall look forward to that with the greatest anticipation.”

In the next moment, he was gone in a flash of silver and a swirl of his blue velvet.

The others crowded around her so excitedly that she did not see John Cassells coming toward her, his handsome face drawn with a grave expression. “Rose has sent me to fetch you,” he said. “Your girl has taken a turn for the worse.”

There was silence between her and John as the musty-smelling hired hack jostled up Drury Lane to Maypole Alley and toward Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The moment the coach pulled to a stop, Nell sprang from inside, leaving John to settle the fare. She was through the kitchen a moment later, to find her mother on a small stool beside Jeddy’s bed, pressing a cloth onto her forehead.

“Where’s Rose?”

“Upstairs with your son. I figured you’d rather ’ave it that way than me with ’im.”

That was accurate enough, but Nell chose not to say anything. As her mother glanced up at her, Nell realized that she was not drunk and swaying, cursing, or begging for money. It startled her into silence, until she could think again of the little girl who had no family now but Nell’s.

“I know what the doctor said, but I’ve seen it myself, and it really might be the pox after all, so you really shouldn’t be in ’ere yourself, Nelly. You’re a right proper lady now.”

“Jeddy is my responsibility.”

“As are a lot of people.”

“Including you, Ma?”

“You mustn’t jeopardize your own ’ealth for the sake of a blackamoor, little girl or not. ’Tis all I’m sayin’.”

“Because, on occasion, the king wishes to bed me? Not so long ago, Ma, ’er lot in life was better than my own. She ’ad little silk dresses, and she slept in a clean bed, while I was fightin’ off your lovers!” Nell hadn’t realized she was yelling until Jeddy opened her eyes and looked at her. “I die?” she asked Nell in a weak voice that pulled at Nell’s heart.

“You most certainly will not! You just need to rest, and I’m goin’ to see to that,” Nell said soothingly. “Did the physician do nothin’ for ’er, then?”

“The girl was bled, but ’twas all ’e felt he should do when there’s yet no sign of the sores.”

“Bugger that! Worthless sorts, doctors!” Nell looked at John Cassells, who was now leaning awkwardly against the doorjamb. “Pray, tell me you know an apothecary, Captain?”

“Aye. One over on Butcher’s Row.”

“Take me?”

“But I’ve only just sent the hack away.”

“Then we’ll walk!”

“I’ll stay with the girl,” said Helena Gwynne.

“You do that, Ma. But don’t believe I’ve forgiven you.”

“I wouldn’t think anythin’ of the sort, Nelly.”

Once again, Louise had refused him, retiring with a headache suspiciously akin to the ones the queen often professed when she did not desire his company. Now that Her Majesty had suffered yet another miscarriage, that seemed a newly consistent state between them.

For solace, the king had gone off with a group of his best companions. On horseback, they thundered through Hounslow Heath, the breeze cooling them as it tossed their hair, cooled their skin, and pulled back the rich fabric of their capes. They darted through a thick stand of trees, shading them from the blazing sun. It occurred to him then, as he led the way, upright in his saddle, that Louise could be punishing him for escorting her to Nell’s performance. Perhaps, in light of that, he deserved her refusal. But on the other hand, Nell had become a priority in his life, pure and simple, and Louise must come to accept that, if she meant to remain at his court. For now, he wished her to remain, if only to see where it all might lead. It was not only Louise’s elegant beauty that drew him, nor the excitement of the challenge she posed. Her heritage made her at ease in his world, in a way Nell never would be. Lord, how he hated to admit that, even to himself, for how he adored her. He was not above contemplating the criticisms of his sweet Nell, who had been elevated to the status of
favorite
after the birth of their son. Nell…dear uncomplicated Nell. Accompanying him, loving him, sharing his life as she did with such an open and tender heart. Yet she was still so achingly out of place at the rituals of royal life, rituals from which he could never entirely be free. His own earliest memories were of the great dignity his father brought to his role as monarch, and Charles felt the weight of his obligation to England in it.

He pulled the reins hard then and came to a halt in a grassy clearing through which ran a pebble-strewn stream.

All of them dismounted to rest the horses. Buckingham had not accompanied them, and Charles was glad, since he knew the bond of friendship George had formed with Nell. Lady Shrewsbury was, at this moment, giving birth to Buckingham’s first child, and he was with her. So now Charles strolled across the clearing with Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, a rising star in Parliament, an outspoken supporter of Louise and her elevation in court. Everyone, it seemed, but Buckingham knew that Danby was intent on replacing Nell. For that reason, Danby would be honest, and just now the king needed honesty.

“So tell me, Thomas. What is my court saying of Mrs. Gwynne these days?”

Osborne, a tall, pale man with thin blond hair, looked warily at the king, cautioned by the words and not the tone of nonchalance. “They say she is the finest actress in all of London, sire.”

“Of course that. But tell me, did you speak with her at my banquet for the Prince of Orange?”

“No, sire.”

“And why was that?”

“Well…” He paused. “In part, because she was taken up much of the time by the attentions of Lord Buckhurst and Lord Rochester.”

“And the other part?”

“My wife would not allow it, Your Majesty.”

“I see.”

They paused while the horses grazed on the long blades of grass at their feet.

They took a few steps more together before Charles stopped again. He said, “I am very fond of her, you know.”

“Aye, sire. That is clear.”

“And how do you see her growing role in my court over these next years?”

Thomas grimaced. “Oh, sire. Please do not ask me that.”

The king knew the others, who had drawn near and then loitered beneath the trees, were listening, but he did not care. “I command your opinion, Thomas. What good are you to me at all if you will not give me that?”

“Very well. I believe the quiet insults will escalate. And come to match the slights from not only the ladies of your court who envy her, but from the men who secretly desire her. And you cannot surrender everyone’s head to the block in her defense.”

Charles shrugged. “Harsh, but honest.”

“You did ask me to be, sire.”

“So I did.” He held the bridle of his horse, pausing a moment as an odd sensation overtook him. He knew that he loved Nell. He missed her. That must be it. Acknowledging that, he swung back up into the tooled black saddle studded with Spanish silver. All of the courtiers followed the king’s lead, and once again the group began to gallop farther into the forest, churning earth and the carpet of coppery needles beneath them. A moment later, Charles called out to one of his aides, who was keeping pace with the others behind him. “Return to Whitehall. Have Chiffinch send for Mrs. Gwynne. See that she is waiting in my bedchamber when I return.”

Chapter 28

B
UT WHEN
I
CONSIDER THE TRUTH OF HER HEART
, S
UCH AN INNOCENT PASSION, SO KIND WITHOUT ART
; I
FEAR
I
HAVE WRONGED HER, AND HOPE SHE MAY BE
S
O FULL OF TRUE LOVE TO BE JEALOUS OF ME
A
ND THEN TIS
I
THINK THAT NO JOYS ARE ABOVE THE PLEASURES OF LOVE.

—Choice Ayres,
Charles II

B
Y
midnight, the fever had broken, with the addition of julep and glysters from an apothecary, but Jeddy remained delirious. Nell spent the night, along with Helena Gwynne, in the dark and stifling little room behind the kitchen. Mother and daughter did not speak, yet an uneasy camaraderie seemed to develop through the night as they tended the girl. Bathed in perspiration, and lit in hues of umber and gold from the candlelight, lumbering back and forth to fetch cool water and cloths, Helena spoke no words of complaint, and Nell did not offer any relief. She was happy for the help. It was the least her mother could do for her, she thought, when she had done little for anyone before but cause damage. She was also relieved to have Rose tend to her baby son safely upstairs.

Near dawn, as Jeddy fell into what seemed a less fitful sleep, Helena softly said, “I reckon there ain’t many who’d ’ave done what you ’ave for a servant, Nelly. I’m proud of you.”