by Diane Haeger
A floor above them, as they spoke, Nell lay curled beneath a mound of heavy bedding, the sleeping infant tucked into the crook of her arm. At first, it had frightened her to look at him. A royal child. The king’s son. Better just by his birth than she could ever be. But it had been nine hours now. The servants had gone back downstairs. Rose had gone, as well. The weighted draperies had been pulled back, and the excruciating pain of his birth was like a nightmare gone into the light of day, diminished now by pure joy. She glanced down at him again. Foolishly, she had thought he would look like the king. He had a little crown of dark hair, but other than that, he looked to her like a tiny old man, wrinkled and foreign. Would he be ashamed of her one day? She could wear the most expensive fashions, learn all of the proper things to say, yet, in the end, she would always be Nelly Gwynne, daughter of a whore, from the rough slums of London.
For a moment, she dared to miss Charles. She had not allowed herself this weakness during the entire ordeal. His sister would always be first in his heart. He had gone to her at Dover, and Nell was glad of it. Almost glad. The little face beneath her puckered, then let out a tiny gasp. To her surprise, Nell felt her heart squeeze in response, and she pulled the infant just a little bit closer to her breast so that he could feel her heart beating.
He would be secure, she thought. Charles did his duty to all of his offspring. And, no matter how casual the affair with the women that created them, he cared financially for their mothers for the rest of their lives. A knock sounded at the door then, bringing her from her thoughts. Perhaps the king had come to—
“We simply could not wait a moment longer!” Buckhurst happily exclaimed, his arm laden with boxes, as he strode through the door into the bedchamber. He was followed by Sedley, Rochester, and the Duke of Buckingham, each of them bearing an equally weighty haul of gifts wrapped up in silk ribbons. Nell felt a smile turn up the corners of her mouth as they clumsily approached her.
“I’m no lady,” said Nell. “But this cannot be proper, all of you tumbling into anyone’s bedchamber.”
“It is decidedly not.” Rochester affably grinned. “But your little man there simply could not be made to wait to meet his three most-earnest uncles!”
“Uncles, are you?”
“That is what we shall call ourselves to him. If, of course, you’ll let us,” Sedley announced with a smile of his own.
“We all adore his mother enough to be her brothers.”
“Since being her lover is long out of the question!” Buckhurst quipped. “Unless, of course, you’ve taken to your senses and changed your mind!”
In response, Nell tossed one of the packages at him playfully, and they all laughed. She was surprised, with the king so far away, how much she needed their company just now, and the reassurance of their interest in her.
Sedley plumped the spray of beaded-silk bed pillows for her, and Buckhurst helped her sit up, while Rochester unlatched the window and let in a welcoming burst of fresh air.
“You all really should not ’ave come,” she said as Buckhurst sat at the foot of her bed. Sedley and Rochester leaned on the wall near the window, and Buckingham, regal in black velvet with white slashing, brought a carved oak chair nearest the bedside for himself. “But I find I’m quite glad that you ’ave, my dear, merry band.”
“Have you heard from him yet?” Rochester asked, sending an awkward shard of tension into the happy moment. Everyone knew he had meant the king. And whatever was said in response, he was likely to make a poem out of it.
“’Is sister has only just arrived at Dover. I would expect no message for a few days at least.”
“Of course, that’s right,” they stoically concurred with nodding and grumbles of agreement. But they all knew the reality. This was simply another of the king’s illegitimate offspring lying before them in an ivory silk gown and bonnet. Nell could not expect more than he felt inclined to offer.
“A game of basset, perhaps?” Buckhurst cautiously offered.
“I’m a bit tired, actually,” she said. “But thank all of you, truly. And next week, you’d best bring a loaded purse, or I’ll take the shirts right off your back!”
After they had each pressed a kiss onto Nell’s forehead, and were headed toward the door, Buckhurst lingered, taking the baby from her and placing him in the cradle beside her. After the others had gone downstairs, he returned to her, sank onto the edge of her bed, and they embraced.
“Thanks for knowin’,” she whispered, weeping softly into his collar as he held her.
“Careful of that, or you’ll have even me believing I’ve a redeeming quality or two.”
Nell laughed in spite of herself, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You’ll not be tellin’ anyone about this, will you?”
“About what?” he asked with a deliberate smile. Then he grew serious and put his hand gently on top of hers. “Some moments are just between friends, Nell. And I’m awfully glad to have been admitted back into your good graces. Now, tell your old friend, Buckhurst, what troubles you.”
“’Tis only I ’aven’t any idea the way I’m to keep ’is fancy now, with a child.”
“You’re not pretty, witty Nell any longer? Is that it?”
“’Ave a good look at me, Charles,” She pointed to her middle, then rolled her eyes. “I may still be Nell Gwynne, but I’m surely not the girl I was.”
“Then you’ll work hard to bring her back better than ever. He won’t be in Dover all that long, after all. And he’ll expect to see you upon his return.”
“His little tart with a crying babe at her breast? That doesn’t work so well for kings and actresses.”
“Is it Moll you’re thinking of?”
“He told me ’imself ’twas never the same between them after the child came.”
“Ah, but then she wanted security. You want his heart.”
“And who am I to think I could ever keep it?”
“Because you challenge a man, Nell. And the whole sorry lot of us adore that. You must admit, I speak from experience in that respect.”
Nell shook her head, then reached over to press a finger along the cheek of her son, asleep in his cradle. “They’re all out for blood, you know. All of ’em waitin’ for me to trip up.”
“Ah, but they don’t know about your secret weapon.”
She looked at him, her tears dry now. “What on earth could that be?”
“Why, the great and clever Lord Buckhurst, of course!” he slyly smiled.
Nell realized that evening that she had not seen Jeddy since her labor had begun, and it was unlike her not to be lurking around a corner watching. After dark fell, Nell became concerned, sending Rose, as well as her maid, Bridget Long, and her steward, Jimmy Burnett, to hunt for the little girl.
“She doesn’t want to come in,” Rose finally announced, a hint of exasperation tingeing her voice, an hour later when they had located the child. “She believes you’re dead.”
Nell sat up. “Well, let ’er come and see for ’erself that I’m not!”
“She’s afraid.”
“Gracious, of what? I’m perfectly fine! I’ve just ’ad a baby, is all.”
“’Tis somethin’, I think, to do with where she came from. Somethin’ to do with ’er own ma, perhaps.”
“Oh, pox take it!” she exclaimed with a sigh. Nell’s thoughts wound back over the past weeks, to little moments with the girl that should have been clues, but she had been so taken up with her own fears, and with impending childbirth, that she had not seen them. “Well, if she’ll not come in ’ere, you tell ’er I’ll just ’ave to come out there.”
“Nelly, you can’t! You’re not to get up yet!”
“Well, I’ll not ’ave my girl thinkin’ I’m dead or dyin’.”
And she did think of her in that way, as her girl. Jeddy had been the first child to bring out maternal feeling in her. The first to make her believe she might make an acceptable mother. The first to make her believe that history did not
always bear repeating.
When Jeddy was brought into the room a few minutes later, it was reluctantly. She clung to the doorjamb, wide eyes full of fear and hesitation, even as Nell smiled over at her. “I’m sorry I worried you with all the wailin’ and such. But I wanted you to see that I really am perfectly fine.” Jeddy’s eyes began to glisten with tears. Nell’s encouraging smile fell. “Now you listen; I’ve always been plain with you, and I’ve been good to you, too. ’Twill not change now. ’Twas painful bearin’ my son, and you might’ve ’eard sounds to that effect. But I didn’t die, and I’m not goin’ to anytime soon! Now close that door and come closer to me.”
Nell waited for the little girl to comply. Timid though she was, in all the past months Nell had never seen her like this. Once Jeddy was beside the bed, in her little blue silk dress and bare feet, Nell took her hand. “’Twas your own ma, wasn’t it?”
Jeddy nodded her head; the unshed tears that glistened so brightly in her eyes fell slowly now onto her cheeks. Then, in a soft, almost imperceptible voice, she said, “On da boat. She sick. No water. No food. Dey toss her into da water, and I don’t cry. I don’t say nothin’ ’cause we jes’ keeps goin’.”
“God’s death…,” Nell murmured. She had never believed the horror of anyone’s childhood could exceed her own. She had no idea at all what to say, how to help heal a wound in a little girl’s heart that had been bleeding for as long as she probably could remember.
“I’m sorrier, Jeddy, than I can say. I know I can’t change the past, not what they did to your family. But what I can do is be your family now, and you can be a part of mine.”
“I’s a blackamoor, ma’am,” she said, her child’s voice made brittle as an old woman’s by the life she already had lived.
“I know perfectly well what you are. And I was raised in a bawdy house. But it doesn’t change who we are now with each other.”
When the child could not answer that, Nell instructed her to fetch the small silver jewelry casket she kept on her dressing table and to bring it to her directly. Jeddy complied, and stood at the side of the bed watching as Nell withdrew a short, slim rope of pearls that Lord Buckhurst had given her in Newmarket. She placed them behind the little girl’s neck, clasped the hook, then smiled. It seemed important to do this.
“The king gave you money, and now I’ve given you something as well. These are very fine pearls, Jeddy, as fine as you are. Your life’ll never be what it was with your ma. But I want you to ’ave them, and wear them, to ’elp remind you that you’ve a good life now with us.”
Jeddy nodded to her in response but did not speak. Nell watched her tentatively finger the fine strand of pearls at her neck with just the smallest hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. And that would have to do, for now. It had taken her a lifetime to heal the raw wound of her own childhood, and, while she was not there yet, Nell knew this was a beginning.
Two weeks later, Nell lay awake in her bed late in the afternoon. Physically, she felt invigorated now, her body healing, but her mind was a torrent of fears and worries when Rose came personally to tell her that she had guests. They were collected in the drawing room beside the entrance hall. She sat up and raked her loose hair back from her face.
“I knew you’d not be asleep.”
“Sleep seems impossible just now.”
“I suspect they knew that.”
“Lord Buckhurst again?”
“Along with his new shadows, Buckingham, Hyde, Rochester, and Savile, come to help you, they say.”
Nell came into the room in a dressing gown of Burgundian lace, silk ties at her wrists and neck where the collar folded out beneath her chin like a flower. Her hair was long down her back, and pulled from her face with a little silver comb. She looked angelic, but she felt quite terrified. It had been one thing in the beginning to seduce the king and hold him in the bedchamber with her bawdy humor and slim girl’s body. But between the Chiffinches’ lessons and now a child, it all was becoming quite another thing.
“If we’re goin’ to work together, I can’t think of you all as lords and dukes, or I’ll not learn a thing. From now on, in my merry band,” she pronounced, looking first at Rochester, “you shall be Roddy. Buckhurst, you must be Sackville from now on, as there can only be one Charles. Hyde, I shall call ‘Lory,’ since Lawrence is so conventional…but you, great duke, to me shall always be Lord Buck.”
It was a secret society, away from the contrivances of court, and they all were seemingly pleased with the new monikers. Buckhurst rocked back on his heels then nodded to each the others. “Are you ready to go to work?” Buckhurst asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Nell replied.
All afternoon, they sat together conducting her education in the things that were quite beyond the Chiffinches’ ability to teach. These four alone could help her in perfecting the art of courtly conversation. While Buckingham and Savile spoke to her of politics and familiarized her with events of the day so that she would make no great gaffe, the fine art of clever banter was left to Rochester and Buckhurst. Since she was such an incredibly fast study, they would help refine her comedic retorts from what she could freely use in the theater to what even the queen might find amusing. Although the afternoon was long and the lessons tedious, in the end Nell was able to mimic each of them for inflection, as well as create short, clever replies that would keep her from danger in conversation.
“You are indeed a marvelous student,” Rochester said at last.
“I would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself,” Savile concurred.
“I am duly impressed,” said Buckingham.
“But will His Majesty be impressed?” she asked them all, a hint of vulnerability bleeding through the affable tone.
“It is not the king about whom you must worry. He adores you as you are,” Buckhurst replied. “As do the four of us. But now you have a bit of knowledge, which is a weapon against the worst of them at court.”
As Buckhurst, Savile, Hyde, and Rochester, one by one, kissed her on the cheek, and said their good-byes at the open front door, this time it was the Duke of Buckingham who lingered. Nell never quite knew what to expect from any of these men. The sun was setting beyond the brick wall and iron gate, a fiery crimson slashed across the sky. Nell waved to them and watched the coaches pull away. When she turned around, Buckingham placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Is there somethin’ you want?” Startled by his nearness, she regretted the question the moment it left her lips.
“Indeed there is, and I have reason to believe it’s what you wish, as well, since at last we find ourselves alone.” He pulled at a tendril of her hair, fingering it sensually. Nell tensed as he released her hair and ran his fingers down along the slim column of her neck. “Dear girl, the king and I have shared our bad fortunes and good, alike, and since he is not anywhere near here—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Nell slapped him so hard across the face that his head made a little snap back, and his hat tumbled to the floor. “By God, you’ll not share me! I owe Your Grace a great many things, but I’ll never owe you that! I’ve only just ’ad your best friend’s child!”
“That was weeks ago, Nell, a lifetime in this king’s world. You don’t honestly believe he is spending his nights alone in Dover.” He rubbed his cheek for a moment, and then stooped to pick up his fallen hat.
“No matter where ’e is, I know not why I would eat mutton when spring lamb awaits!”
“Depending on what the king finds in Dover, you may well be waiting a long time.”
“I’ll take my chances.” She opened the front door wider to him, and held on to it to stop herself from trembling. “’Is Majesty is the only one who’ll ’ave any part of me, and if you ever try to touch me again, I swear to tell ’im everythin’.”
The Duke of Buckingham swept through the doorway and tapped the hat back onto his head.
“Love really is blind, if that is indeed what you
call it.” He did not wait for her reply.
Chapter 24
SECRET GUILT BY SILENCE IS BETRAYED.
—John Dryden
THE king held Nell to him, feeling an unexpected surge of something very like guilt. In the beginning, he had not expected to love her so much, nor to miss her desperately when they were parted. Beyond the ivy-covered brick wall surrounding the small garden at the house on Lincoln’s Inn Fields, coaches and carts clacked over the cobblestones. Horses whinnied as they passed. The sunset was golden and ruby red above the little collection of orange trees he had planted there for her as a reminder of how it had begun between them.
“He’s a beautiful boy, sweetheart,” Charles murmured as he held her. Having her in his arms again felt like falling very fast into something dark and warmly welcoming. The urge to commit to her alone, and for the rest of his life, was strong—but he could not do that to her. He could not betray her with a lie like that.
“Rose thinks ’e looks like you.”
“Oddsfish, but he is a poor dear child, as I’m an ugly specimen, indeed.”
“I think you’re the ’andsomest man in the world, Charlie.” Her tone was not solicitous; she was simply speaking a fact. “Though you’re not to let that go to your ’ead any more than you absolutely must.”
He stroked the back of her long hair as they moved to a wrought-iron bench and sat together. “I expect you shall keep me in line.”
“As if any woman in the world could actually do that. Would it be too absolutely absurd to name ’im Charles when you’ve other sons by that name already?”
“None are your sons.”
“Because there really is no other name that fits, and I—”
“You honor me, Nell Gwynne. More surely than I deserve.” As she nestled against him, the fragrance of musk, champagne, and orange blossoms was very strong around them. In this reunion, the pain of missing Minette eased, and he felt himself begin to breathe again in a way he had not since leaving Nell in London. “You truly do make me want to be a better man, Nell,” he confessed, and pressed a gentle kiss onto her forehead. “Even if I never achieve it, you are the only one who has ever made me want to attempt it.”