The Perfect Royal Mistress (47 page)

Nell was on her knees beside the small bed. She sat on her heels, then ran the back of her hand across her brow. For the first time since she had come home, she actually looked at Helena. “I’d like to say I’ve been proud of you at some point in my life, Ma, but I really can’t think of a single moment.”

“I suppose I deserved that.”

“You did ’orrid things to Rose ’n me.”

“I was alone. We ’ad to survive. ’Tis the unvarnished truth of it.”

“And is it the truth about my father you’ve always told?”

“You know I don’t talk about that.”

“Rose and I never believed ’e was a captain in the king’s army, killed in the war to save our own king’s father.”

“Whatever the truth, Nelly, ’e’s gone just the same.” She paused for a moment, looking at her daughter, before she said, “And once ’e was gone, I was left to survive with the two of you, the best I could. ’Tis not an excuse, because there ain’t one.”

“I want the truth about ’im. I deserve that much.”

“And I want those years back! Look, my girl, in the low life we lived, things ’appen. I made choices, bad ones. But I kept you girls with me. At least I did that much.”

“And with my whole ’eart, Ma, I wish you’d left us behind. Bein’ alone could not ’ave been worse than the life you gave us!”

The eyes of mother and daughter met. There was pain reflected back at each of them. When she finally spoke again, Helena’s voice was low and fragile in a way Nell had never heard before. “And will you put me out now as you wish I’d done to you, Nelly? Is that what you want to do?”

She meant to say she had no idea what she would do, when she heard Mrs. Long, her housekeeper, come to the small door leading in from the kitchen. “The king, Mrs. Gwynne, has come, and he’s brought his own physician with him.”

Nell stood and smoothed down her skirt. The bodice of her dress was soiled, her hair was falling free of its tight arrangement, and her eyes burned with fatigue. He would not find the blithe, gamine actress who provided him with carefree pleasure. But tonight there was something she cared about more. In the midst of that thought, Charles was at the door. Only the elderly court physician, gray-haired and stooped-shouldered, was with him. As he moved forward, his face was spiked with concern. “How is the girl?” the king asked.

“She is resting, at least.”

Charles nodded to his physician to personally examine Jeddy, then led Nell from the small, unbearably warm room and out into the kitchen. There, he embraced her. Exhausted, she melted against him, grateful for the reassuring strength of his tall, strong body.

“I came the moment I heard.”

“You needn’t ’ave.”

Charles pressed a kiss gently onto her lips, then looked at her. “Oh, but I did. You should have called on me from the first.”

So many responses moved through her mind, light and clever retorts, about the teetering focus of his attentions. But so near dawn, she had not the energy or inclination to speak any of them. She was happy he had come out in the middle of the night, happy that she was still a priority in his glittering, powerful world.

He sat her down gently at the kitchen table with its two long, rough-hewn benches, and poured her a glass of wine from a jug beside a wooden bowl full of potatoes. Then he smoothed the hair back from her forehead as she took a swallow. “Now, I’ll check on the girl if you will stay here and catch your breath.”

As he turned away, Nell called out, “It may be the pox, Charlie. You shouldn’t go in there.”

But the king only paused to turn and give her a gentle smile. “Drink that. It will do you good,” he said, before going back into the little room with Helena and the physician.

A few moments later, Rose came down the back stairs with the baby, who was fussing in her arms. “
Now
can we hire a wet nurse?” Rose asked, as she tiredly handed the baby to Nell.

Perhaps if she were more like Lady Castlemaine or Louise, or even Moll Davies, she could.

But he was the dearest thing in the world to her, and Nell simply could not force herself to give him over like that, in such an intimate way. Nell put her son to her breast and then for a moment wearily closed her eyes. She was determined to be a better mother than her own had been. This child already was helping to heal the wounds of her past, especially when she pressed him so close to her wounded heart. She felt the king’s hand on her shoulder, and realized that for a moment she had actually nodded off. He was smiling down at her as his physician packed up his instruments and bottles of potions on the table before her, then tapped his hat back onto his head.

“It’s not the pox or the plague, thankfully,” Charles announced. “Whatever it is, she’s already better.”

“Pray God!”

“She’s resting now,” the old physician announced. “But it’s a good, sound sleep, and there is no longer any sign of the fever.”

Nell felt herself go limp as she handed the drowsy baby back to Rose. “So it’s off to bed with you,” the king declared, helping her to her feet as a fiery orange sunrise began to peek through the window.

“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls,” she wearily quipped, and he bit back a smile in response. Then she let him lead her upstairs.

In her bedchamber, the bedcovers were pulled back and the draperies were drawn across the windows, barring the swiftly coming daylight. She let Charles help her onto the feathery mattress and then cover her over with only a light summer wrap. Her eyelids were heavy and sleep beckoned her as he settled her on the pillows. He sank into the wing chair beside her bed. “Will you not lay with me?” she asked him with stifled yawn.

“I shall be here when you wake, but despite my rather notorious reputation, I am not quite so low as to take advantage of a lady who cannot meet me fully.”

“I’ve always been able to do that,” she smiled, her eyes heavy and closing.

“Indeed you have. And better than anyone else.” He chuckled, then, for a moment, there was silence between them. “She’s going to be all right, you know.”

“I believe that now. I’m glad you came.”

“It was simple enough. I love you, Nell,” he said, but she did not hear it. She was already asleep.

Nell went back to the theater the next afternoon, the play proving a great success. In spite of it having been meant as a serious production, audiences adored Nell, and pealed with laughter at her being cast as a virtuous queen wrongly accused of adultery. Once again, Nell chose to win them over with her comedic skills. She had decided humor was the only way so notorious an actress as herself could ever hope to deliver the impassioned plea for purity, which was a part of her character’s lines.

Afterward, she went to Hart’s private tiring-room and closed the door behind herself. “When the run is over, it will ’ave been my final performance,” she announced as he sat at his dressing table. His hand paused in midair as he looked up at her reflection behind him. “I’ve already spoken to Mr. Dryden, before ’e comes up with another role for me.”

“You’re not serious?”

“I am entirely.”

“But the play is a rousing success, and
you
are the toast of London again!”

“Better to go out on my own accord than be chased from my pedestal by tossed rotten fruit, or a prettier actress,” she said, twisting one of her coppery curls.

“That could never happen.”

“We’re all replaceable, Charles. Just ask Lady Castlemaine next time you see ’er.”

He turned around and stood. “Don’t do this, Nell. The theater needs you.”

“The king needs me more.”

Richard Bell was at the door then with Beck Marshall and Thomas Killigrew. “I, for one, think it’s brilliant,” Richard said with a smile. “Why trod around with the lot of us when you can sip sweet French champagne on the royal barge?”

“I second that,” said Beck, smiling. Nell looked back at Charles Hart, who stood there, entirely bereft. She was surprised that she felt no joy now, as she once would have, in seeing him like this. “Look Charles, ’tis really quite simple. ’Is Majesty will grow tired of me one day, and doubtless I’ll be back ’ere when ’e is. But for now, I need to nurture the king’s investment in me.”

“I hope that means fighting the French chit for your place, tooth and nail,” said Richard.

“Tooth, nail, or seduction. Whatever works,” Nell quipped.

Beck chuckled. Hart rolled his eyes. Louise de Kéroualle’s reputation in London had grown notorious. Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion, not only of her, but of why she was in England, and what she really desired from the king. The predominant rumor still flying rampant was that she was a spy for France.

That evening, Nell felt pleased enough with herself, and confident enough, to host a small, informal birthday party for the king and those at court who had aligned themselves publicly with her, the Duke of York, Buckingham, Rochester, Lord Buckhurst, and Charles Sedley among them. Now that Arlington and his wife had chosen Louise de Kéroualle, Nell knew that alliances were more important than ever. And she was glad to have cultivated her own camp.

Fortunately, the king now spent most of his evenings with her, and their intimate circle.

“It is a lovely evening you’ve planned, sweetheart. But I would have hoped you would have seen your way to inviting the Countess of Shrewsbury tonight,” the king said. “If not for me, at least as a favor to your friend, Buckingham, who is so fond of her company.”

Nell sank onto his lap, then kissed him seductively as the others gathered in her increasingly elegant drawing room. “Ah, one whore at a time is quite enough for you, sire,” Nell said wryly. The king laughed, and then so did everyone else, even the increasingly endangered Duke of Buckingham.

“I, for one, think Nell is a wise woman,” Buckingham said with a smile. “We men are always better off focusing on one luscious beauty at a time.”

“You mortal men, perhaps,” the king returned with a pompous chuckle.

Glances were exchanged, and in the awkward silence that followed, Nell looked at Charles. They had not been speaking of herself and Louise de Kéroualle directly, but the comparison was impossible not to make. Everyone knew of His Majesty’s growing obsession with her. But Nell meant to make light of it. She had fought too hard, and come too far, to play this particular scene in her life any other way. “Then two at the utmost, Your Majesty, for even royalty has its limits,” she declared with a raucous, carefree laugh, until the others began to laugh along with her.

Later, as Charles sat trading indecent poems with Rochester, Nell joined Buckingham outside in her garden. He had gone there alone with a glass of champagne and stood among her rosebushes, all full of fat pink and white blossoms. He turned when he heard her footsteps. She was smiling, and they embraced.

“Thanks for bein’ ’ere, Lord Buck.”

“Would I have missed the king’s birthday?”

“Perhaps for Lady Shrewsbury’s sake you might ’ave.”

“We understand each other, you and I, and we have learned from each other. One must always consider
all
of one’s alliances, not only the amorous ones. And, adore her though I do, my darling can be a bit, shall we say,
abrasive.
As for you, it is imperative that you save your strength for the most critical battles ahead of you.”

Nell smiled charmingly. “Carwell does appear to be a worthy opponent. Although I’ve only the king’s divided attentions, and a couple of distant glimpses, to tell me that. We’ve not met.”

“Yet.”

“And shall we?”

“My dear girl, knowing the king, I believe you can safely count upon it.”

She wound her arm through his, and they strolled a little way along the brick pathway lined with orange trees, and their deeply sweet scent.

“Did I ever tell you how I forgot Mademoiselle de Kéroualle in Dieppe on my way to escort her here from France?”

Nell giggled, put a finger to her lips, and looked over at him. “You didn’t!”

“I did indeed. Or so His Majesty shall always believe. It seems that I was greatly taken up with business in Paris, you see, and so, after instructing the lady to wait for me there to make the crossing, I entirely forgot her, and made my way back to England by Calais.”