by Diane Haeger
Nell wanted to return to London. But one thought alone had stopped her. To what would she return? She had not allowed herself to see truth for fantasy; she had come to Newmarket with a nobleman who had never actually offered to marry her. But the reality she could no longer ignore was that Charles Sackville was a drunkard. Life with him, no matter how richly decorated, would not be far from the one she had escaped in childhood with her sodden mother. Nell was sitting beside his bed when he finally opened his eyes the next afternoon.
“Pray, tell me what time is it?”
“Past one,” she replied flatly.
He squinted and tried to sit up. The stale odor of wine lingered. “Oh, dear. There you are, lovely as a picture, and I am quite dissolute.”
“You retched all the way home from the king’s banquet.”
He lay against the spray of pillows behind his head as Nell stood up and pressed back the heavy velvet draperies on their thick iron rod, revealing the great bare window.
“Oh! Show a bit of mercy! The light is blinding, and my gut feels like the site of the Battle of Hastings!”
“You really shouldn’t drink like that.”
“It was no grand drama, Nell, just a bit of frivolity with friends.”
“Frivolity for you, perhaps. But if I’d wanted to go on cleanin’ vomit off my dress, I’d ’ave stayed above the Cock & Pye and faced my own ma!”
He squinted at her again and put a hand at his brow to shield the blaze of silvery white daylight streaming in through the large picture window beside his bed. “At least move away from there if you mean to go on chastising me. I cannot see a bloody thing with you as you are!”
“’Twould serve you right to feel a bit more pain. It might ’elp you to knock your good judgment back into place.”
“Speaking of mothers,” he groaned, trying to sit up. “If I’d have wanted to hear harping, I would have invited my own.” For a moment, they were at an impasse. Then he turned his lip out in a charming little pout. “Tell me you had some fun on your own last night.”
“The king tarried with me. And aye, ’twas good fun indeed. In fact, ’e wishes me to come and see ’is ’orse in the race today.”
Charles’s smile was sudden and broad. “Oh, splendid!”
She lifted a brow suspiciously, uncertain of how to gauge his response. She had hoped to make him jealous with the revelation. “You’re not angry, then?”
“Hitching myself to that star, if it’s going somewhere, would be a good bit of work for the Sackville family.”
“Hitched, as in you want a position in the king’s court?”
“A position, as in work?” he gasped, then chuckled. “Oh, good Lord, no! But being in the king’s company a bit more often would be a splendid accomplishment for my family, and achieving that would bring me great reward! Nell, you are an amazing creature. With all of the women there, how did you manage it?”
She was still wary of his response. “’E found me, actually.”
“Extraordinary.”
“So, shall we go to the races today then?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Will you be drinkin’ less?”
“Not at all likely.”
“Then we’re not likely to remain as we are,” she warned him, “if every evening ends as the last one did.”
Buckhurst shrugged, then smiled sheepishly at her. “That’s the beauty of Newmarket. You never can tell just what might happen here.”
A warm sun beat down on the full stands that were arranged before the large tree-lined racing lane. Women held up fans or silk parasols. The edges fluttered in the summer breeze as clouds scudded across a bright blue sky. Men wore their periwigs and large plumed hats to shade their skin and eyes. The elite of London sat in their open coaches, opposite the stands. Buckhurst’s midnight-blue coach was decorated with gold scrollwork, highlighted with the family crest on each of the two doors. Nell sat beside him on plush leather, wearing an exquisite dress of butter-yellow striped silk with a fitted bodice, a lace-edged collar, and a fashionable blue underskirt, which he had had made for her. It was still a foreign world, but one she had begun to enjoy.
While he was too tall and sturdy to be a serious rider, it was said that King Charles would be racing his own horse this afternoon. But then she already knew about Old Rowley. Nell sat straight on her seat, determined not to miss a moment. His brief kiss last night had been nothing more than flirtation from a devilish man whose wife and mistress were nowhere about. Men really were nothing more than errant little boys, she and Rose always laughed. The king was no exception. Yet still she smiled to herself, thinking how commanding he was. King Charles was not classically handsome, but he was so tall and elegant that when he faced her, he made her forget to breathe. Buckhurst did not do that to her, no matter how much she had hoped he would. Even after the events of last night, she still hoped to rescue him, and thus be rescued by him. She could, and would, forgive him his drunkenness, as he had forgiven the inelegance of her low birth. He was not the golden treasure Moll Davies had managed to find. But he was a lord, with lineage and money to share, and he would be quite magnificent enough for a girl like her.
Nell glanced out across the track as the riders were led on horseback to the starting positions. King Charles stood out for how high above the others he sat in his saddle. Yet even if he had not, she would have known him for the way he held himself, the long, dark curls of his periwig, beneath a tightly fitted tall crown hat, and the gold thread and rich silk of his quilted waistcoat. “There is the king,” Buckhurst said offhandedly as he drew out a flask from his pocket and began to open it.
“Oh? Where?” asked Nell, feigning boredom herself, using the acting skills that had taken her to this unbelievable zenith.
“Just there. In azure and gold. He actually looks quite ridiculous on horseback, tall as he is. But he is such a vigorous sportsman; they say he cannot help himself, the competition of it all.”
“One could do worse,” she observed, feeling a sudden jolt of irritation.
“I, for one, cannot imagine all of that walking about for miles on end, the swimming, hunting, and, at night, the endless dancing. Then feeling the next morning as if you simply must be astride a horse, racing somewhere.”
She felt a shiver of admiration. “’Is Majesty does all of that?”
“Daily, they say. And his poor collection of courtiers and servants are left to try to keep the pace. At the rate he goes along, I should think he will be dead before he’s forty and without a proper heir to see to the succession.”
“I thought ’Is Majesty ’ad nearly a dozen children.”
“Bastards, all. And those are not much good for anything but a man’s pride.” He glanced over at her then, the flask hovering near his mouth. “Really, darling, how could you not have known the difference? Even a girl from…” His words trailed off.
“Even a girl from Coal Yard Alley?”
“You are what you are, Nell. We both are. Yet I love you quite desperately all the same.” He took a long swallow from the flask, then kissed her cheek.
“You love me?”
He thought for a moment, considering the declaration. “Well, you are as close as I have ever come to caring about what someone thought of me. So, I expect I love you, yes.”
A ringing romantic endorsement it was not. But the admission offered Nell the hope that, with patience and time, she might one day actually become Lady Buckhurst. If only she could continue to tolerate the drinking, the constant presence of his equally dissipated friends, and his falling asleep before he got anywhere close to a romantic show of affection, it might well be a sound and comfortable life. Nell settled back against the seat, ignoring the next large swallow of liquor he took, and the noxious odor of it as it permeated the warm air around them.
Charles sprang from his mount in a small gravel arena into which he had been led by his royal equerries at the race’s end. He never knew whether they allowed him the win, bu
t it was always more about the thrill of the contest than the hope of victory anyway.
A young towheaded page in royal livery offered him a goblet of cider as he was quickly surrounded by courtiers, servants, ambassadors, and a bevy of smiling women. It was then, at that precise moment, that he saw her again. On his other side, the Duke of Buckingham, that persistent fly begging to be swatted, was already chattering in his ear. But Charles did not listen. He felt like a boy, anxious, tentative. She was between Buckhurst and Sedley, and they paid her absolutely no attention, talking instead to each other in spite of how she seemed to glow in a dress of butter-yellow silk, her hair fanned out on her shoulders beneath a small, smart matching hat, trimmed with feathers, and shimmering against the light of the sun. Suddenly, he despised Buckhurst.
“Your Majesty.”
“Your Majesty was brilliant just now,” Sedley flattered.
They bowed and spoke in unison as Nell bobbed a curtsy.
“I merely won the race,” he said with self-deprecation before he turned to Nell. “And Mrs. Gwynne. How did you find it?”
“I confess to knowin’ precious little about ’orses, Your Majesty. But it was entertainin’, it was.”
His smile was sly. “I would have preferred to impress you.”
“Oh, I was certainly that.”
“Splendid to hear.” He went on smiling. Seeing it, Sedley and Buckhurst exchanged a glance. Good, Charles thought. They have noticed something other than themselves, at last. “And shall I see the three of you tonight for the banquet?”
In a well-schooled fashion, Buckhurst bowed deeply to the sovereign. “It would be our great honor to join Your Majesty this evening,” he said, as Nell’s gaze met the king’s.
Buckhurst had accorded Nell a stout maid, named Paulina, who was to lay out her clothes, help select her shoes and accessories, and arrange her hair. She had also been given the little girl she had seen that first afternoon, hiding beneath the staircase. Jeddy, who refused to speak, was there, Buckhurst explained, to amuse her. It was all the fashion, he said, to have a little black child to attend her when she went out.
“I really don’t want ’er, Charles,” Nell said that afternoon as Paulina dressed her hair, carefully stringing a rope of pearls through the upswept copper curls. Jeddy was a little girl without her mother. It was all Nell could think of every time she looked into her beautiful, sad eyes. Nell’s life in Newmarket felt like an audition. She was being tried for the part of Lady Buckhurst with no guarantee of winning the role. “She makes me sad thinkin’ of her servin’ me.”
As she stood before him, Buckhurst reached out and fingered the folds of her petticoat, a delicate thing of lace and ribbons. There was a little charged silence between them then, accentuating the creak of the floorboards as Paulina quietly led Jeddy from the room. As he lay with her, untying her petticoat laces, she closed her eyes, wishing it were the king instead. Buckhurst was drawing apart her legs then, hovering over her. She could feel his warm breath on her face, feel him pressing between her thighs. But his enthusiasm for her once again was a fleeting thing. She wrapped her arms around his neck and felt the perspiration there just as he lifted himself off her, and rolled onto his side.
“I’m sorry, Nell,” he said once again. But that was all.
Nell stood before a full-length mirror, being clothed and ornamented by Paulina in a new sage-green dress looped back in front and held by gold ribbons, which Charles had bought for her. Jeddy lingered shyly near the door. A cool breeze blew in through the open window and scented the room with the fragrance of roses. At her throat was a fine lace collar that matched the fan from France waiting on her dressing table. Even after all these months, she still could not quite believe the reflection gazing back at her. Polished. Elegant. An almost believable lady stood before her. The years of searching for food and safety were masked well by fine fabric and neatly curled hair. Yet she was still Nell. Yes, she would always be that.
“It is the king,” said Paulina, glancing out the open window at the commotion below. “Every time His Majesty passes, he draws a crowd.”
Forgetting herself, Nell drew up her skirt and raced to the window, then balanced her hands on the ledge. She saw him across the street, tall and prominent, surrounded by courtiers, lingering for a moment to speak with one of them. As she stood watching him, something drew his gaze to her. It was too late to hide or even turn away. He had seen her. No, she must be bold. She was not certain what possessed her to do it, but in that moment, rather than be coy and demure, Nell smiled broadly at him and gave him a little wave with the tips of her fingers. Her heart began to race as he tipped back his head and laughed. The way his eyes brightened, then crinkled at the corners, made him seem even more handsome, she thought as their eyes held each other’s until a courtier beside him tapped his shoulder, and he turned away. The moment was quickly extinguished, but not the impact it had made. He knew her. She made him smile. She was still, after all, not a real lady, no matter what she wore, but Nelly Gwynne, and something told her at that moment that it was that about her which he liked best.
Chapter 13
MY MERRY, MERRY ROUNDELAY CONCLUDES WITH CUPID’S CURSE: THEY THAT DO CHANGE OLD LOVE FOR NEW, PRAY GODS, THEY CHANGE FOR WORSE!
—George Peele
THE vast tent, striped of blue-and-green silk and topped by a gold crown, swayed in the warm spring breeze on the vast lawns behind the king’s palace. The royal musicians were playing a sprightly, “My Lovely Lady Mary,” and glittering candles everywhere gave the tent a magical glow. In her new gown, Nell stood between Buckhurst and his companions. She looked lovely by the candlelight, and tonight she truly believed it.
“Where is the king?” Buckhurst murmured beneath his breath.
“I’d rather have a drink than give another bow,” quipped Sedley. “Groveling can be so tiring.”
“Now that you mention it,” Buckhurst chuckled, raising a hand to his mouth, “I believe I saw champagne. You know our good king does love all things French.”
Nell frowned at them. “We’ve only just arrived. Try to behave yourselves. Hmm?”
“Now, Nell,” Sedley smiled sheepishly at her. “What fun would that be?”
A liveried servant, bearing a silver tray of glasses filled with champagne, passed them; Nell saw Buckhurst and Sedley exchange a glance.
“After you,” Sedley said, and he and Buckhurst burst out laughing.
Buckhurst chucked Nell’s chin, as if she were a child. “Do you behave yourself,” he said, then pressed an absent kiss to her cheek. “Unless, of course, it involves the king!”
Before she could respond, Buckhurst, Ogle, and Sedley were gone, moving together toward the servant with the tray. He had never remarked about her gown, her hair, nor made any comment at all about wanting to dance with her, in spite of the lively music and the collection of guests already doing a branle near them.
“You are a vision this evening. Well recovered, I trust, from the events of our last meeting?”
The deep, well-schooled voice came from behind her. Nell turned, then curtsied to the Duke of Buckingham. She had softened toward him since his generous assistance with Buckhurst. Still, something about him made her want to be careful.
“May I call you Nell?”
She nodded, cautiously.
Buckingham smiled, “A dance later, perhaps?”
“Perhaps, is it? ’Ave you not made up your mind to ask me?”
“If His Majesty fancies your company as much as I believe he does, then I should be cautious asking anything of you. So we shall have to see as the evening progresses.”
“Surely Your Grace knows that the king already ’as a mistress and a wife.”
“He has several mistresses,” Buckingham corrected her.
“And Your Grace? What do you ’ave?”
“More greed than sense, and more ambition than lust, truthfully.” She lifted a brow, openly scrutinizing him. He was smiling broadly. “I know we go
t off to a poor beginning. But, as it happens, I would like to be your friend, Nell.”
“And why would a duke of the king’s court want to befriend a lowly, retired actress?”
“Because I am a prudent man, and I happen to believe that you will have great power with the king one day. If the king does select you,” he continued. “I would like to help you, once you have reached his bed, to learn how to keep yourself there.”
“If he selects me? You make me sound like one of his ’orses.”
“Knowing His Majesty, as I have had the privilege of doing lo these many years, I do not believe there is any doubt of his interest in you, Nell. But when he does proposition you, you should be wise enough to accept. I do not know yet if you are as wise as you are witty. I have had the misfortune, after all, of seeing you with Lord Buckhurst.”
“Does any girl ever reject the king?”
“Only those who are not clever or wise,” he said. “But I am going out on a limb and wagering that you are both, with a healthy dose of ambition thrown in.”
“And I can see that Your Grace is a crafty man.”
“So long as you are not afraid of the king, then we shall get on splendidly. He simply must have challenge in a woman, one who can meet him fully, or, to be blunt, she shall be gone after the first tumble.”
King Charles stepped behind Buckingham then and put a firm hand on his shoulder, stopping their conversation instantly. “Open flirtation with a special guest of the king, is it, George?” he asked with a wry smile.
“Never, Your Majesty.”
“Good to hear, old friend. Mrs. Gwynne,” the king said deeply, gathering her hand in his and pressing it to his lips in the French manner. “I must say that tonight, you are a vision.”