The Perfect Royal Mistress (7 page)

He was propped by a spray of tasseled velvet pillows, in his tall poster bed, with a massive tester behind it. At his feet, and near the fire, was a collection of his beloved spaniels, dozing. The girl would be quietly brought to him, like all of the others, by William Chiffinch, the keeper of His Majesty’s privy closet. Afterward, she would be led away. Like the same tune played too many times, the melody now was gratingly predictable. There was no love in the act, nor any longer even the wild excitement of anticipation. Other than what he felt for his children, and he loved them all deeply, there was no love in his life, no passionate love, any longer. Though he had all of the richness and grandeur that had eluded him in his poverty-ridden exile, his heart was a more difficult void to fill. The harder he searched for someone he could love, the more he found women seduced by the trappings of royalty. Hortense Mancini was first to make an impression on his heart, Lucy Walter was first to make an impression in his life; she was Monmouth’s mother. Then Barbara. Moll Davies. It had become a game to him, to see how long it might take to uncover an honest heart. Catherine loved him. Why, the Portuguese ambassador queried, did a lonely king not pay greater heed to that? Charles did care for her. He enjoyed her company. He even trusted her judgment. But to Catherine, duty
was
love—he was her duty, not a great passion. They had married, sight unseen. Yet still, even after four years, she was rigid with him. Beyond the necessary encounters to, God willing, produce an heir, there was no playfulness, scant show of affection, and unrelenting prayers every time immediately afterward.

The decision about war with the Dutch plagued him almost as much as his private life. Continuing on with aggression could prove a dangerous mistake. Like infidelity. Charles remembered well what had happened the last time. Common sense gave way to English avarice. Hundreds slaughtered at sea. A devastating cost. A humiliating defeat. There was a soft rap at the door, and thoughts of war vanished into a light swirl of juniper perfume.

An hour after she had gone, Charles could remember nothing about the girl.

Unable to sleep, he rose, and drew on a brocade dressing gown. He went toward a ring of moonlight cast through the grand Elizabethan oriel window, which looked onto his own formal gardens. Here, protected on all sides by Whitehall Palace, he could almost make believe he lived a quiet life in the country where everything beyond the palace walls was clean and safe. Yet, in spite of the danger, Charles was often drawn beyond his protective cocoon. He loved to be anonymous, to slip in and out of the world of which he could never truly be a part. The ordinary world. It was why he went into London so often without his wig and his finery. While there had been hunger and fear in his impoverished exile years, Charles had found a kinship with common people that had changed him forever. He opened the window and a cool rush of night air washed over him, reviving him. Ghosts…so many ghosts at night…

“Stop! No, I’ll not listen!”

“You will listen, Charles! They’ve cut off his head, and you are king of England now! You will survive, and one day you will return to England to rule!”

Charles squeezed his eyes and let the cool night air dry the sheen of perspiration on his face and chest. The ghosts faded. He shivered. Though she had remained exiled in France for nine years, the sound of his mother’s determined voice was as clear in his mind now as it had been that day. That moment would forever haunt him, knowing the savagery of Cromwell’s men. God, the images that came when he lay his head on the pillow! He squeezed his eyes against the image of a river of blood. He could almost hear the thump of his father’s severed head landing in the wicker basket beside the stump. The place it happened was here, outside these very castle walls. Now, as he often did, when he could not drink enough to find a bit of peace, he drew on a long leather coat, trousers, soft boots, and a wide-brimmed hat, and went alone down the same back stairs on which the girl had been brought to him. Alone, he walked into the freedom of morning’s earliest hour, when the fog rolled and swirled at his ankles, obscuring him. He lowered his hat and passed a guard sleeping on duty, slumped in a chair, lightly snoring. Charles knew the soldier should be punished, but, in this case, the boy had done him a favor. He moved quietly through a narrow corridor, lit by candles in wall sconces, then down a flight of stairs to the outer courtyard that faced the Thames. There, by Charles’s order, the block remained, still starkly stained with his father’s blood. “So I might never forget,” he once told his brother.

Charles knelt beside the block and lowered his cheek onto the flat surface. Barbara had found him here once and berated him for his foolishness. But no one understood. Not even his own brother. James called it God’s will, and refused to speak of it again.

Help me be a better king, Father…and help me be a better man than I have been…

Footsteps were crunching the gravel behind him. The moment, the image, snapped. Charles pivoted around. William Chiffinch, in dressing gown and crimson velvet robe, his salt-gray hair wild, approached flanked by two royal guards. “It is the queen, Your Majesty, you must come quickly!” said Chiffinch, the only royal servant who knew precisely where the sovereign would be.

“Is it the child?”

“I’m afraid it is, sire.”

Chapter 3

A
S
E
NGLAND’S
M
ONARCH IN HIS CLOSET LAY
C
HIFFINCH STEPPED TO FETCH THE FEMALE PREY.

—Poems on Affairs of State

S
PRING, 1667

“T
HE
selection for last evening met with Your Majesty’s approval, I trust?” Chiffinch asked casually as he held out two large plumed hats for the king’s consideration.

Charles stood before a full-length French mirror, framed in gold, a gift from Louis XIV. “It would have, if I could remember a thing about her.”

“She was quite comely, sire.”

Charles glanced over at the man he knew was as faithful as he was discreet. “Love would be better, Chiffinch.”

“So the poets do claim. I am told that the queen is still very hopeful. Perhaps—”

“I am dearly fond of the queen. But fondness is a far-off thing from passion.”

Chiffinch did not propose Lady Castlemaine because he found her deceitful and vain. “Perhaps Mrs. Davies then?”

Charles chuckled as the chosen hat was placed on his head, then tilted properly. “She is only a dalliance, Thomas. Nowhere near to touching my heart, or anything higher up than my prick, I’m afraid.”

Chiffinch nodded but did not respond.

“Fun and games to press away the darker images that would haunt me. Until the unlikely moment when I discover a real passion, I must settle for as much of the former two commodities as you are able to procure for me.”

He and Chiffinch were followed silently then down the long corridor by a collection of his aides as he approached the queen’s apartments. It had been two days since her miscarriage, and Catherine was still confined to her bed by the doctors. But her ladies played a game of basset beside her, and beneath the window a young boy played his harp to entertain her. When Charles entered the private bedchamber, all motion ceased. Catherine’s ladies all stood and dropped into deep curtsies. Rustling skirts was the only sound.

“You’re looking much better today,” he said kindly. “The color is back in your cheeks.”

The waiting women slowly rose and moved away from the royal couple, affording them privacy. Charles motioned to the boy to begin playing his harp again as he sank into one of the chairs beside her bed. Charles held out his hand to his wife. She took it to her cheek and closed her eyes. She was still horribly pale, he thought, nowhere near the picture of health he had married. In his own way, Charles loved his wife, much as a brother cares for a sister.

“I am so very sorry, Charles,” Catherine whispered, tears filling her eyes. “I truly believed this time—”

“There is still time,” he soothed her, even though they both knew it was unlikely. They had been married for five years, and in that time he had fathered four of Barbara’s children, and two others by ladies of the court.

Buckingham whispered to him about divorce. But she did not deserve that injustice, certainly not yet.

Charles Hart’s private tiring-room behind the stage was lit by three small lamps with shining pewter bases. Delicate etched glass covered the dancing flames. An elegant tapestry chair was positioned at a dressing table littered with bottles and jars, and in the corner was a daybed of blue velvet fringed in gold. It was the dominant feature of the small, private room. Nell glanced at the boy who showed her inside, then she watched as the door was closed, leaving her alone. She felt an odd mix of anticipation and dread. She waited, listening to the sounds of laughter and footsteps of people going past, beyond the closed door. Finally, from behind a folding screen, Charles Hart emerged and stood before her. His eyes were devilishly wide and green, and there was something unmistakably dangerous about them.

“So you are the new orange girl.”

“And
you
are the famous actor I’ve been warned about.”

He was smiling, charmingly. “As principal actor and part manager, I like to have my hand on all things concerning this theater.”

“And are you satisfied with what you see?” she asked.

“Satisfaction has many layers. I reserve judgment until I know a bit more of you.”

He was saying suggestive things intentionally. He was, after all, a famous actor who certainly did not need to entertain common orange girls. With beautiful actresses everywhere, and wealthy women waiting for him by the theater curtain, she could not imagine what he wanted with her. He poured a glass of wine, then two. He handed one to her. Nell had never seen glassware so fine, beautifully beveled and cut. She took a grateful swallow.

“So tell me,” he said, and his cultivated voice was a rich, catlike purr. “Have you seen any of my plays?”

“I watched you play Mr. Wellbred in
The English Monsieur
yesterday.”

He straightened his back. “And how did you find it?”

“What an orange girl thinks can ’ardly interest the likes of you, Mister ’Art.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“All right, then. I thought you were too serious in the first scene. There was a grand opportunity for a laugh you missed.”

His confident smile fell swiftly. “You thought so, did you?”

“Well, sir, you did ask.”

“You sound as if you believe you might have done better than a grandnephew of the vaunted William Shakespeare.”