The French Mistress

by Susan Holloway Scott

  It was wickedly done, and though I should have expected no more from such a slatternly snip, I did expect the king to defend me.

  I expected, yet he did nothing or, rather, nothing by way of punishing the woman. Instead he merely frowned at her—a black scowl, to be sure, but not enough to affect one of her coarse sensibilities—and drew me past the others and from the hall.

  I was too wounded to speak as he led me through the halls of the palace, too unhappy so much as to notice where we were amidst the many halls and staircases until, at last, we’d stepped into the privy garden. This was a large square garden enclosed on all sides by the palace walls and galleries, expressly for the use of the royal household. The garden itself was insignificant compared to what I’d been accustomed to in France—white stone paths that crossed in the center of the green beds, punctuated by a handful of white marble statues on pedestals. Yet by moonlight the garden’s plainness was much improved, and given the unseasonable warmth of the evening and how Charles and I were alone together within it, I should have been most content.

  “Here’s your moonlight, my fair Diana,” Charles said with a proud and sweeping gesture of his arm meant to encompass both the garden and the moon-swept night. His smile gleamed white in the shadows, the very picture to me of a romantic hero. “With you in it, there’s no prettier sight to be found.”

  “Pretty words, too, sir,” I said, and tried to smile. Yet to my sorrow the memory of Nell Gwyn’s insult rose again like sudden bile in my throat, and I turned away quickly, hoping he’d not see my distress.

  “Oh, sweet,” he said gently, coming to stand behind me. He rested his hands on my shoulders, warm and comforting, and yet somehow so tender that I felt tears in my eyes. “You must not heed Nelly. I’ll grant she went too far, but she cannot help herself. Like a drunkard craves his ale, she must make others laugh, and she never does consider the consequences.”

  “But she insulted you, too, sir,” I protested. “For her to imitate—”

  “It’s done, Louise,” he said firmly. “I don’t know how such things were treated in my cousin’s Court, but here it’s not worth troubling over.”

  Indignantly I turned to face him, not hiding the tears on my cheeks any longer. “If such a person as Mrs. Gwyn were to mock a lady of the queen’s household at the Louvre, let alone His Most Christian Majesty, why, sir, that person would be hauled away in chains.”

  “Truly?” he asked. “Then it’s well for Nell she’s never left England.”

  “Perhaps, sir, it would have been well for me if I’d never left Paris.”

  “But not for me.” Gently he brushed away my tears. “I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that you are here with me.”

  I heaved a small, shuddering sigh, wanting very much to believe him. “I’ve never so much as met her. Why would she do such a thing to me?”

  “I told you, Louise,” he said, “because she cannot help it. But also because she may fear that you are a lady, and more beautiful than she.”

  I sniffed again, resting my open palms on his chest as I gazed up at him. “Do you believe I am, sir?”

  “I do,” he said, and smiled. “When you danced with me, I judged you the most beautiful lady in the room.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I murmured, slipping my hands along the front of his coat and looping them around his shoulders. “Thank you.”

  He eased his arm around my back, drawing me close into the crook of his arm, a warm and cheering place to be. Yet as he gazed down at me, his expression was more serious than seductive, and so was his voice.

  “You cannot let such little things vex you, my dear,” he said. “If Nelly’s drolleries are the worst you have to bear, then your life here will be charmed indeed.”

  “I’ll try, sir,” I whispered, running my tongue lightly over my lips. I would most likely have agreed to anything then, with his arms linked about me and his body pressed close to mine. “That is, if you wish me to stay.”

  “Ah, my dear goddess,” he said, his gaze intent upon my mouth, “I’ve never wished for anything more.”

  He kissed me and I welcomed him, my arms around the back of his neck to steady myself. I’d expected him to kiss me as he had in Dover, and after a fashion, I suppose he did. But perhaps because of how well we’d danced together, or the lover’s spell of the moonlight, or because we’d spent so much time of late in frustrated flirtation, there was a heated urgency to this kiss that startled me. I kissed him in return, yes, for I doubt I’d the will not to. But soon his hand shifted away from my waist, and I felt him spread his fingers across the curve of my bottom to push our hips more intimately together. There was no mistaking his ardor, or the demanding need of his cock.

  “Enough of this teasing, sweet,” he urged in a gruff whisper, his breath harsh against my ear. “Come with me to my rooms, where I can fuck you properly in a bed, as you deserve.”

  “Oh, sir, please,” I said, deftly disentangling myself from his embrace and turning around him, just as I had when we’d danced. “Forgive me, but I can’t, not yet.”

  “Yes, sweet, you can,” he insisted. “We can together.”

  He caught me and pulled me close, my bottom snug against the front of his breeches. Even with all the layers of linen, silk, and wool between us, I could still feel the heat of those certain parts in such close proximity, yearning for connection as if there were no barriers between. With one arm like a band around my waist to keep me close, his other hand was free to dip beneath my fine linen kerchief to fondle and play with my breasts. I gasped, more with pleasure than with outrage, and I felt my traitorous body sway to his power, my breasts swelling beneath his clever touch and the sweet honey of desire gathering low in my belly. My battle now was as much with my own desires as with his, and only the sternest resolve made me break free again, this time to stand more at a distance.

  “Forgive me, sir, please,” I said breathlessly, for lustful desire had shortened my wind as much as his. “I am sure that it would be most pleasurable, and that you would be a most excellent tutor in the arts of love, but I—we—cannot yet, sir. It is what everyone in your Court expects of me, that I am only one more harlot imported to your Court for you to—to ravish for sport. And I won’t be that harlot, sir. Your dear sister would not wish that for me, or for you.”

  “My sister has nothing to do with this, Louise,” he said curtly, but still I heard the hesitation in his bold declaration.

  “But she does, sir,” I insisted, pressing home my point, “and neither of us can deny it. Her Highness wished better for me, sir. She wished for me to remain true to the honor of my ancient family, an honor that reflected on her as my mistress as well as myself. For me to put aside all her care and teaching and play the wanton with you while I still am dressed in mourning for her—”

  “Then when, mademoiselle?” he demanded. “Damnation, when?”

  I looked at him there before me in the moonlight, his face taut with frustration and denial, every muscle in his body tense. I knew because I felt much the same, miserable and unfulfilled and all a-quiver with half-roused longing. It was a dangerous gambit to play, twisting lovers’ ways about to bind him more closely to me.

  And to France: I must never forget that.

  “When?” he asked again, more curtly. “Tell me, mademoiselle.”

  If I resisted him for too many nights, he could decide I was not worth the trouble, and send me back to France. If I denied him beyond his endurance, then he could take me by angry force, and no man would fault him for it. He was a large man, and strong, too, and I was but a lady. Most likely by his rights as king, Charles could ravish me now, here, in any manner he chose, and it would not be considered a rape. The sweet specter of Madame could protect me only so long.

  “Soon, sir,” I said, my voice trembling with emotion. “We’ll both know when it is right.”

  He came and kissed me again. This time, however, he took care to kiss me without touching or embracing me in any way
, so that only our lips bound us together. Two, it seemed, could play the same game, and he’d done this purposefully to prove it. I understood, and though it was torture, I kept my own hands to myself exactly as he had, my fingers knotted into tight fists at my sides; yet even that was sufficient to leave me feeling nigh sick with longing.

  “I will wait, because I believe you are better,” he said at last. “For you, Louise, I will wait.”

  Each week I wrote my dutiful letters to Louis’s agents, and reported to them on my progress with the English king. I employed the code that had been given me, wherein each notable person was called by another name in case the letters were intercepted by the Dutch, at that time our most hated enemy. I didn’t believe this was very likely. I gave my letters directly to Lord de Croissy, the French ambassador, who included them with his own diplomatic correspondence to be sent by a courier with an armed escort. The packets were weighted to sink, too, the way Madame’s letters once had been, in the event the courier’s boat was attacked whilst crossing the Channel. It all seemed a great deal of fuss for my little missives, and the even littler news they contained.

  For that autumn, what truly did I have to write? I was accepted as a maid of honor to the queen, and shared lodgings with the other attendants at Whitehall Palace. I’d continued my acquaintance with certain prominent English ministers, like Lord Arlington and Sir Thomas Clifford, and broken with others, like Lord Buckingham. Most important, my friendship with His Majesty continued to grow, with him seeking my company twice a day and also often in the evening. The early hope that he would regard me as a connection to his sister had been fulfilled, and all remarked at the fondness and favor he showed to me.

  I wrote nothing of being Charles’s mistress, for there was nothing to write. I continued as much a virgin as when I had arrived, and though I was sorely and repeatedly tested by the king, I had remained steadfast. In return his attention to me had only increased, and to the dismay of both the duchess of Cleveland and Mrs. Gwyn, Charles now spent more time in my company than in theirs combined. This made for a pretty complement to my beauty, my grace, my conversation, and, to be sure, to the king’s endless fascination with me as the one lady who dared refuse him.

  There was, however, one peculiar aspect to this situation. Charles and I were among the very few in all of Whitehall (and doubtless far beyond those walls as well) who believed that I was not already his mistress. Oh, the usual share of lubricious jests was still made about my maidenhead, but without much conviction, and any protests I offered were met with winks and smirks. The handful of those who believed me were in their way far worse, damning me as cold-natured, calculating, and without passion.

  One day in October, I’d bought a custard tart from a sweet-monger in the park. Though it had tasted well enough when I’d eaten it, I later supposed it had been too long in the sun and had spoiled, for later that afternoon I began to feel the first pangs of distress. I had been invited to dine in the evening at the French embassy along with several others of the Court. Just as the Palais-Royal under Madame had been a sanctuary and meeting place for all English gentlemen in Paris, so the embassy was to French visiting London, and I looked forward to seeing amicable faces such as the Comte de Grammont and Charles de Saint-Denis, Seigneur de Saint-Évremond, an elderly soldier turned author whom Madame had long ago befriended. Though I felt increasingly ill, I joined the other ladies in dressing and having my hair arranged, and rode with them in the carriage to the embassy.

  But as soon as the first dish was brought to the table before me—a pickled sturgeon—I could no longer contain myself. Without asking for leave, I clasped my hand over my mouth and bolted from the table to find relief over a slops bucket left by servants in the hall. I was taken back to Whitehall and retreated weakly to my bed, and though I retched throughout the night, by morning I was much improved, if empty to my very bowels. I entertained Charles, and went about my other duties as usual, and thought no more of my little misadventure, except to vow never to buy another sweet from a basket.

  There is no place like a Court for swift-footed scandal, and no such thing as a little misadventure. Unbeknownst to me, word soon traveled of my illness. The following afternoon, I sat among the queen’s ladies in her rooms while she rested, with each of us at our sundry occupations. To our surprise, the French ambassador and his wife were announced, and at once Lady de Croissy hurried to embrace me and kiss me, and congratulate me on my good fortune.

  “I thank you for your wishes, madame,” I said with bewilderment, “but if I have received good fortune, I should wish to know it.”

  The other ladies around me tittered knowingly behind their fans, while the ambassador’s good wife had only smiled, her several chins quivering with happiness.

  “You needn’t pretend with us, mademoiselle,” she said. “We all witnessed your indisposition last evening, and know perfectly well the joyful reason for it. My husband has already written to His Most Christian Majesty so he might share in the celebration. Now tell us, pray: have you a notion of the day of conception, so we might know when to expect the happy arrival of the royal infant?”

  Such, then, were my days at the English Court in the last days of 1670: thwarted passion, idle foolishness, and ill-founded scandal. But in the new year, much in our world would change, enough to make me long for the times when the whispers of others were the most grave of my worries.

  Chapter Sixteen

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON

  January 1671

  When I had sat at Madame’s side and listened to her speak so glowingly of a treaty between France and England, I had seen this alliance through her eyes. I’d imagined a union that would mark a new respect and fellowship between the two most powerful Christian countries, and an opportunity for them to work side by side for common gain and glory. I thought the alliance would bring Frenchmen and English together in new fellowship and tolerance.

  That I believed any of this sadly proves how much I trusted Madame, and how little I knew of the ways of great countries and even less of their people. It takes far more than a parchment, a seal, and the signatures of highborn ministers to change the beliefs of a nation. The hatred and distrust that the French and the English bore one another had lasted for so many generations and through so many centuries that this newest treaty was bound to meet with little support, nor did it.

  The second, public treaty that had been so proudly negotiated by Lord Buckingham was finally signed with much fanfare four days before Christmas in 1670. Five lords put their names to it—Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale—as did the king.

  These lords were the most trusted members of the privy council, and it was a curious (some would say devious) coincidence that the first letters of their surnames spelled out the word “cabal.” Lord Arlington himself once jovially explained to me the amusement of this, for while the word had come to mean a group of plotters, he claimed it originated from the ancient Latin word cabbala, or secret teaching. Surely there was much that was secret about this group, not the least of which was how many self-important gentlemen did contrive to keep their knowledge of the earlier treaty hidden from their unwitting peers. Not one broke his trust, and to this day, I believe it remains a secret still.

  Except for the difficult clause regarding Charles’s eventual conversion to the True Church, the second treaty was much the same as the one first negotiated at Dover Castle. The English and the French would unite their forces in a campaign against the Dutch. Louis wished to conquer as much of the Continent as he could, while Charles wanted the seas safe for English merchants and their ships. The English share of this venture would be fifty ships and six thousand soldiers, while the French were to contribute thirty ships and the rest of the necessary army. The English would oversee the naval encounters, and the French all operations on land. The arrangements were all tidy enough, and I thought again of boys dividing toy soldiers for a mock combat on the counterpane. The less organized realities of warfa
re would come all too soon.

  But while Charles and Louis and their legions of ministers congratulated themselves on their new alliance (and even spared a few grateful thoughts for Madame, whose hard work and perseverance deserved far more credit than the rest of them), their bellicose optimism was not shared by the average Englishman. Two earlier wars had been waged against the Dutch during Charles’s reign, and neither of them had brought rewards or glory. They had been costly in numbers of men and ships lost and money spent, and their memory was still uncomfortably fresh among those who would be expected to provide the soldiers, the sailors, and the money that the new treaty promised. While another such war was unwelcome, the notion that England now required the assistance of the French army to fight the Dutch was especially rankling.

  Nor did most Englishmen trust the French as allies. The French were sly, conniving, superior, and confusing. They were difficult to understand, and ate peculiar foods. They were Romish, and prayed in Latin, and heeded the Pope. By some gross unfairness, they seemed vastly more wealthy, too, and when word crept into England of the great warships that Louis was having built, the countless cannons cast and munitions assembled and troops drilled and trained, it was impossible for the common Englishman in his alehouse or rum shop not to worry that all that French military power could too soon be directed toward England, treaty or no treaty.

  It also seemed impossible for these same common Englishmen to look at the king who’d led them to this treaty and not see more French sympathy to him than they wished. He could not be blamed for being one-half French himself—that was his mother’s misfortune—but the fact that Charles employed a French chef to oversee his kitchens, a French tailor to stitch his clothes, a French barber to tend his many wigs, and a French architect to oversee the renovations at Windsor Castle was widely known, and not appreciated. Why must their king drink French wines and dine on French-made dishes instead of sturdy English ale and roast beef ? Why did he insist on following French tastes rather than those of his own people?