by Diane Haeger
Afterward, he moved away from her and reached toward his bedside table, where, among the stack of leather-bound books, there was a small silver chest studded with pearls. He handed it to her, still smiling. “Open it.”
She pressed back the lid a little warily, and saw a single key lying on a bed of red velvet. “The key to your ’eart?” she quipped.
“Better than that, I hope, at least for now. The key unlocks the front door to a house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It is your new home.”
She could not quite believe what she had just heard. She knew that it was the largest square in London. Lord Buckhurst had once told her that the lords of Coventry lived there, as well as the Earl of Sandwich. Nell kissed each of his cheeks, his nose, and then his mouth. “’Ow will I ever be able to thank you, Charlie?”
“I do hope you’ll think of a way. In fact”—he grinned—“I am counting on it.”
“My own ’ouse?” she asked, still incredulous.
“With furniture and all the particulars. Most important, with only a single key—yours.”
She could see by his smile how enormously pleased he was with himself.
A small side door, partially hidden, opened, and a tall man entered the bedchamber wearing starched black and a tall, white cravat. “Does Your Majesty wish me to escort the lady away now?”
An awkward silence followed. Nell’s world felt wrapped up in this moment because what the man said had made her suddenly feel tawdry.
“No, thank you, Chiffinch,” said the king. “Mrs. Gwynne will be staying the night, and as many, from now on, as she likes. In the morning, see that my coach is readied. We shall be going together to Lincoln’s Inn Fields once we have broken our fast.”
Chapter 17
NEXT TO COMING TO A GOOD UNDERSTANDING WITH A NEW MISTRESS, I LOVE A QUARREL WITH AN OLD ONE.
—George Etheridge
THE king was still in his dressing gown, Nell in her chemise, and their feet were bare. Charles sat with her in a tall armchair covered in Spanish leather. They were in the elegantly paneled, high-ceilinged drawing room of the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, not far beyond the Strand. Coaches clattered along the cobblestones beyond the velvet-draped windows as Nell sat on the king’s lap, hands linked behind his neck. Her hair was only partially bound by the ivory clip he had given her; the rest of her unruly curls lay on her silk covered shoulders. Across from them, seated on two matching straight-backed chairs upholstered in needlepoint and a red-velvet-covered divan, sat the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Arlington, Thomas Clifford, and the Duke of Lauderdale.
“This is all rather unorthodox, if I may say, Your Majesty,” Clifford said with obvious discomfort as Rose Gwynne trod carefully, laying a tray of marzipan and peeled oranges onto a small pearl-inlaid table between them. The air was made instantly sweet. Rose was healthier now, and it showed in the color that had risen back into her cheeks; her cough had at last disappeared. With a hint of pride, Nell glanced at her sister, smiled, and nodded a thanks. There were other servants, naturally, to perform such functions, but it gave Rose a purpose, now that she had recovered, to move about and do things for Nell and the king.
“Quite a change,” Buckingham agreed with a cautious smile.
Charles kissed Nell’s cheek. “Well, gentlemen, it seems a great many things are changing these days. At present, I do not wish to be parted from Nell here. So you take your king as you find him, and happily, I presume.”
“Indeed, Your Majesty,” Arlington flattered, with an overly solicitous smile.
Buckingham, his great rival, shot him a nasty stare.
Since they had first set foot together inside the impressive three-story house, with its great bow window, ivy-covered brick facade, and neatly trimmed hedge to the street, Charles had brought the court here. It was better, he said, than to be forced to leave the little world he was building with Nell. He did not wish to take her to his palace by the river. Too many interests competed with the old ghosts there, and he wanted to focus only on this new and wonderful world between them. As if life were all fresh and interesting to him again, Charles had personally helped Nell organize the household; he even advised her on hiring a proper maid to teach Rose how to comport herself. A spindly woman named Bridget Long was selected, even though Nell found her dour. He also helped her with a few court dance steps, and advised her on the proper tone with which to speak to her servants so that they would abide by her wishes. He seemed perfectly content to remain in this constant state of semiundress, in and out of bed with Nell. But now the business of being sovereign was at hand.
Louis XIV had gone to war against Spain. If England did not take a definitive stand, it would be seen as weak and indecisive, and they would be vulnerable abroad. Charles was ready to listen to his advisers on which way to proceed.
“We still cannot openly ally ourselves with France, of course, because of the religious question,” Arlington began with his usual note of caution. “But your sister, the Princess Henrietta Anne, is well ensconced by her marriage to the king’s brother at that court. Perhaps it is time to ask her to remind the French king that he is free to buy your neutrality.”
“The good Lord knows England could use the capital,” said Lauderdale.
“Support such as England’s is clearly worth a strong price,” Clifford pointed out.
“We certainly do not want to go up again against the united strength of the Dutch and French,” Arlington chimed in. “Deals simply must be made. A stand taken.”
Charles glanced at Buckingham as Nell toyed absently with the lace sleeve of her dressing gown. The king rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger, considering. “George, what have you to say of this?”
“I say, for our loyalty, we should ask of Louis a share of the Spanish conquests and commercial privileges once France wins. But do it through your sister, so it is not made known to our own people. Have the princess tell him covertly the price for our neutrality.”
“Interesting,” Charles contemplated.
“And if Your Majesty would not mind my saying,” Arlington gently interjected, “if we ally with Holland, pressuring Spain into concessions toward France, that can only increase Louis’s loyalty. Thus, we win on two fronts.”
“Nell?” Charles suddenly turned to ask. His dark eyes were wide, and the expression in them absolutely serious as he stroked her hair. “What do you think of all this?”
In response, Nell tipped back her head and laughed. It was a deep, earthy sound that made the others around her smile. “What I think, sire, is that I’m well out of my league!”
“Never. Sharp as a tack, you are,” Charles said with a bemused chuckle. Obligingly, his Privy Council laughed with him.
Nell was filled with pride that he thought enough of her to ask. She could have enormous power, Buckhurst once had told her, if she was ambitious and wise enough.
Before they adjourned, it was agreed by all but Buckingham that Lord Arlington, the most cautious and experienced diplomat among them, would be dispatched to Holland to solidify an alliance. Meanwhile, Princess Henrietta Anne, the favorite sister Charles called Minette, who was married to the French king’s brother, would be called upon to privately make certain Louis understood it was an alliance entered into only to help France succeed with Spain.
When the others had begun to thank Nell for her hospitality, and to make their way back out onto the square, coaches and sedan chairs bustling past, Buckingham hung back from the rest. “Since you are having Minette privately reassure Louis as to your intentions, sire, might I advise something similar with the Dutch, just to keep England on firm footing all around?”
“What have you in mind?” Charles asked, his arm around Nell’s waist, his mind already in her bed.
“Have Arlington, if he must be the one to go to them, indicate a secret clause in the arrangement, so they do not fear double-dealing against them. It would be my suggestion that we make clear that we know that Louis has a power lust, and
if he has any intention of reneging on his promises to either England or Holland, that we will turn on France. I believe it would go a long way to mending old fences with our Dutch enemy.”
“Former enemy,” Charles corrected.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“Double-dealing with them both, is it then?”
“You must behave as a force to be respected and feared, one who has the foresight to make powerful alliances. As your father before you did.”
“George, I would not presume to be as my father was.”
Buckingham leaned closer to his childhood friend. “It is a height to which you can aspire. And in that, Charles, he would be proud of you.”
Barbara Palmer waited impatiently in the dressing rooms of His Majesty’s privy apartments at Whitehall, commanded there by the king, then left alone. With a bobbed curtsy, the maid told her that the king was preparing to leave for Windsor but would be with her presently. In the next room, just beyond the closed, heavily carved doors, she could hear Buckingham, Clifford, and the king whispering and then laughing. Her new shoes were too tight, her feet hurt, and she was angry that Charles would dare to keep her waiting like this. Two guards were posted on her side of the door to see that she did not burst through them. There was a time, not so long ago, when he could not bear to be separated from her, nor would he bar her from any place in any of his palaces. He sought her counsel, as well as her body. They were partners in all things.
Now, apparently, she was to consider it great fortune to be summoned like a servant.
After more than half an hour, the heavy carved-oak doors were pulled open, the laughter beyond them faded, and the king strode through, hands linked behind his back. She was reminded in that instant, as the sun gleamed through the wall of windows, the bright light hitting his face, what a gloriously masculine man he still was. He radiated confidence, sensuality oozed from him. It seemed a very long time since they had lain together, and a lifetime ago that he had loved her.
She stood regally, every bit the noblewoman, in a dress of emerald brocade, as the doors were closed by two liveried guards, and Charles approached her, shoe heels echoing across parquet flooring. The dogs were not at his heels, which was a poor sign. She knew there was another girl—another pathetic actress, of all things—and that he had bought her a house, as he had Moll Davies.
Charles held both of her arms above the elbow in a play of sincerity, then kissed her cheek. “It is good to see you,” he said, the strain between them now a palpable thing.
“Is it?”
“Of course, it is. But I shall come straight to the point.”
“Please do.”
“I’m leaving for Windsor within the hour—”
“So I’ve heard.”
“While I am gone, I wish you to vacate your apartments here at Whitehall.”
For the first time in many years, something of the real Barbara Palmer bled though, and her face and voice filled with panic. “Leave? This is my home! Our children’s home!”
“Please do not make this any more difficult than it must be.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Did you honestly believe that I would make this moment easy on you? That after all of these years together, I would simply pack up and walk away? Good Lord, Charles, tell me, please, this is not about that two-penny bottom-feeding actress—”
His eyes were angry now, his expression closed to her. “Stop it, Barbara.”
“Stop what? Reminding you of our years together? Of our children?” She put her hands on his face to make him look at her, to see her as he once had. “Will you feel less guilt if you are not reminded of them here running about the gallery?”
“They will all be well cared for. You know that.”
“And me? What of me, Charles? Now that you have a shiny new jade to chase and woo, am I to be tossed out like a used-up old tavern whore?”
“Your mouth is as foul and tiresome as the rest of you has become!”
“Now there is a great irony! The king with the open bedchamber door, and his own personal procurer, telling me what is foul!”
He slapped her hard across the face—harder, she saw by his expression, than he had meant to. Her hand went up to strike him in return, but he caught her by the wrist until she jerked her hand free. “How can you possibly look at me in surprise for where we’ve gotten to? All the time you were professing your love to me,” Charles said in a seething tone, “you were bedding my best friend, and then my own son!”
“That was pure survival, Charles! The only way any woman can survive a lover with more ballocks than heart is to give him back as good as she’s gotten!”
“You knew how I was, right from the start! I never lied to you about the others!”
“I knew! And I was fool enough then to think I could change you!”
His face was mottled red now, and a vein above his brow pulsed as he closed his fists and held them up to her. “I am king of England, by God, and I shall do as I please!”
“How well I know it! But does your precious Nell know it?” Barbara’s expression was as full of anger as his. “Ah, well. If not now, she will soon enough. It’s unavoidable, really.”
A moment passed. There was a muscle still twitching in his jaw. “I’ve bought you a grand new house on Pall Mall,” he flatly announced.
She studied him for a moment and then smiled, slyly. “For me to go quietly, to leave Whitehall without a fuss, I will go there a duchess.”
“Impossible.”
“Oh, now. We both know nothing is impossible. You’ve only just reminded me that you do precisely as you please. So let it please you, Charles.” Her voice was cold and low. “Make me Duchess of Cleveland, just as we’ve spoken of for years, as you have taunted me with. I won’t go quietly for less.”
“I do despise you!”
“The feeling at this moment, I assure you, is more than mutual.”
She spun away from him then, her emerald skirts swishing across the cold floor. “Duchess of Cleveland, and the house. That is my price.”
Later that same afternoon, Nell sat beside the king in His Majesty’s black coach, with six pure-white horses out in front, as they neared Windsor Castle. Gilded and emblazoned with the royal crest, and outfitted in red velvet within, it was a luxurious conveyance, and Nell sank against the seat, still not quite able to fathom her good fortune. She had asked to have her sister come along for support, and the king, who had yet to deny Nell anything, happily obliged, giving Rose and Jeddy a place in the coach directly behind his own.
Like Newmarket, Windsor was one of the king’s favorite places to pass the warm months of summer, those too dangerous to remain in London for the constant risk of plague. His gaze out the coach window was distant as she took his arm and leaned against his shoulder.
“What troubles you?” she asked, pressing two fingertips onto his furrowed brow.
“I don’t believe you’d want to know that.”
“Then you’d be wrong. I’ve an interest in everythin’ about you.”
“Even if it concerns another of my mistresses?”
“So long as you’ve no idea of me lyin’ with her, I’ll gladly ’ear.”
A smile played at the corners of his mouth as the coach jarred and swayed. “My Nelly. You do lighten my burden, you truly do.”
“Then from now on, I’ll consider it my official job. When I’m not troddin’ the boards at Your Majesty’s theater, that is.”
“I’ve broken my ties with Lady Castlemaine. I asked her to leave Whitehall.”
“Did you now?” She paused for a moment as the coach turned, and swayed, onto a more narrow, shadowy tree-lined lane. “Did you do that because of me?”
Charles looked over at her again, then took up both of her hands in his. “It was time. That is all. I do not love her.”
“Did you once?”
“I believed I did.”
“For years, they say.”
“Aye, and other loves as well, e
ven so. Several others.” He lowered his eyes and was silent for a moment. “This is not an excuse, knowing what your own life has been, because there isn’t one. But rather, it is an explanation. My youth was a miserable one, full of far too much sacrifice for anyone’s liking.” He closed his eyes then; images that pushed forward from the back of his mind were there now. But he would not let them forward. He could not. “The world of a king is responsibility and decisions.”
“A fair bit of privilege, as well, I’d say.”
“My goal since the day of my father’s murder has been to sample every possible pleasure that I can, and, yes, with as many others as I can. It is the variety that wins me, and it is a fearsome, relentless draw. That is the cold truth of it.” He looked at her then, his dark eyes distant and a little wary of her feelings. “Does knowing it make you care for me less?”
“I’m no one’s innocent, Charlie. I know your ’eart and your prick are very different parts of you, indeed.”
“If you really do understand, you would be the first.”
“I rather fancy bein’ the first at somethin’.”
“Nell Gwynne, you are truly one in a million.”
“And you are one in three, all of you named Charles!”
He ran a hand up beneath her skirt and along the length of her thigh. “Have you ever made love in a moving carriage?”
“Another new adventure with the king of England?”
“And another new one tomorrow, I hope. And to answer your question, I find I’m rather more pleased than ever to be your Charles the Third!”
Evenings at Windsor were a continuing cycle of banquets, dancing, card parties, cockfights, and debauched games. But the comparisons to any world Nell had ever known abruptly ended there. There were also daylong hunting trips from which the women at court were excluded. Nell began to spend much of the day in the company of the wives, mistresses, and ladies of the king’s court. They were well-trained women who had a far better mastery of things, even down to how to wear their clothes. Nell was certain that the sheer weight of her petticoats, hidden beneath her new and complex fussy dresses and cagelike bodices, would be her undoing. It was so different from wearing a costume she thought, where movements were exaggerated intentionally. These women could glide in their petticoat armor, they smoothly dipped into curtsies, whereas she collapsed beneath the weight of the movement, the dress, and the underclothes contrivances.