“Your Majesty,” Buckingham began, but as he spoke, the tall clock began to tell the hour with a series of deep bongs. Another clock sounded, and then, as if they had been caught napping and were guiltily snapping to their work, the others chimed in one by one on their own notes and rhythms, creating a cacophonous jangle.
“George.” The king stood and came smiling toward them, embraced Buckingham, and turned to Nell as the last of the bells faded to silence, pulling her up from her curtsy.
“Mistress Nelly. May I call you Nelly? I always think of you like that, you know, and calling you anything else would seem amiss.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Nell dimpled at him, pleased beyond measure that he “always” thought of her in any way at all.
“I’ve just been looking at Wren’s plans for some of the new churches-come see.” The king led them toward the desk, where a large drawing was unfurled.
“St. Paul’s,” he said. “Is it not splendid?”
“Magnificent,” Buckingham agreed. “But what about some wine?”
Charles laughed. “Of course. Forgive me, Nelly, for being such a poor host. Faith, you grow more beautiful each time I see you.”
“If it be so, Your Majesty, then I hope that you shall see me frequently, so that both of us may benefit,” Nell laughed.
“And witty as well,” Charles said over Nell’s head to Buckingham. “Pretty, witty Nell.”
SAVE FOR THE SERVANT WHO BROUGHT IN THE FOOD AND POURED THE wine, and the dogs, the three of them were alone. Charles and Buckingham were in jovial spirits, and chaffed with each other like the brothers they almost were.
They lingered over wine and sweetmeats, but as the clocks set up their clamor on the hour of ten, Buckingham declared that it was time for him to be gone.
“And you, Nelly?” asked Charles. “Must you run away? Or will you stay to keep me company a little while yet?”
“Gladly, sir,” Nell said, “if it will give you pleasure.”
Buckingham’s footsteps faded, and Nell felt momentarily awkward- what should she do or say? But Charles poured more wine, silently raised his glass to her with a smile, and she felt at ease.
He pulled a morsel of meat from the pullet carcass on the table and held it out to one of his spaniels, who wolfed it down. Nell laughed as the dog licked its chops and cocked its head expectantly, clearly hoping for more. Charles gently pulled one of the dog’s ears and scratched it under the chin.
“I had one of these beasts with me in France,” he said. “Sometimes I thought he was my only true friend in the world.”
“I have never had a dog, Your Majesty, but have often wondered if I had a true friend. He must have been a comfort to you.”
Charles leaned forward and brushed a tendril of hair from Nell’s cheek, letting his hand trail down her face, her throat, her breast. Nell felt a twinge in her belly-the involuntary contraction of arousal. She had fully expected the king to bed her. She had not expected to desire him as intensely as she suddenly found she did.
He stood and drew her to her feet, took her head in his hands as he bent and kissed her deeply. Her arms went around him and her mouth welcomed his, her body responding with a wave of fire as his tongue caressed and probed. He moved his mouth to her throat, his mustache tickling as his lips moved down her skin. Nell gasped, and she arched to meet him as he reached within her stays, lifting one of her breasts free. His tongue flicked across her nipple as he suckled her and she felt she had never wanted anything more urgently in the world than she wanted him inside her.
He placed her on the bed, lifting her skirts as his knees coaxed her legs apart. He thrust against her, and through his breeches she felt the hardness of him-and his size. Rochester’s witticism that “his scepter and his prick are of a length” flashed into her mind.
He knelt upright to remove his waistcoat and open his breeches. He shuddered as Nell grasped his cock with firm but delicate fingers. She looked up at him as she extended her tongue to delicately caress him-soft, so soft, warm, teasing-just enough to set him on fire for more. She paused, reaching down to lift her breasts toward him. Seizing her with both hands, he plunged himself into the valley of her cleavage, so that the length of him slid between her breasts as she sucked.
His breeches were hindering her from giving him all the pleasure she knew she could and she worked them down and slid one hand between his thighs so she could caress his bollocks and move a butterfly-light finger over the cleft of his arse. She grasped him tightly now, sliding her hand over the silky skin, her fingers meeting her lips as her mouth settled into a steady and insistent rhythm.
He pushed her onto her back and straddled her, thrusting deep into her throat, filling her, possessing her utterly. Nell breathed on his out-strokes and opened her gullet to receive him as he spent.
He collapsed beside her on the bed, and she rolled to her side to look at him, trailing a finger down the dark line of hair on his belly. What fantasy this seemed, and yet it was true. It was the king’s bed in which she lay, and his mettle that tasted yet in her throat. The king-and yet a man like any other.
Charles looked at her and laughed softly, caressing her hair.
“I must thank George when next I see him.”
She laughed, too, and gently touched his now-soft cock. “And I as well.”
“You’ve not had much yet to thank him for,” he said. “But wait but a bit. The lad will be back, and able to last longer the second time.”
LONG AFTER CHARLES HAD FALLEN ASLEEP, NELL LAY AWAKE. SHE was tired, but her mind would not be still. She was kept awake by the snuffling and restless movement of the spaniels that sprawled on the floor near the bed. And every time she was near to drifting off, the clocks would fall to striking the hour, each in its own time. But at last she slept, curled in the secure warmth of the royal bed.
Charles sent for Nell twice more in quick succession, and she began to feel at home as old William Chiffinch, the keeper of the privy closet, lantern in hand, ushered her up the shadowy staircase to the king’s bedchamber and later helped her into the waiting boat in the gray light of dawn. Each time he sent her homeward with a gift of money, offered matter-of-factly as His Majesty’s thanks for her company. Nell was well pleased, but Buckingham wanted more.
“A night here and there keeps you in the place of a common drab. He likes you, I know, and God knows he’s crowing about your talents. We must strike while the iron is hot. Ask him for five hundred pounds a year.”
So Nell did. But like a horse brought to the edge of a river to board a ferry, the king balked.
“This is Buckingham at work, I can smell it,” he said. “You can tell George from me that I’ll manage my own affairs.”
“He’ll come around,” Buckingham said. “He’s stubborn as a mule when he thinks a thing is not his own idea. You should see him with his mother. Wait a bit and he’ll change his tune.”
But weeks passed, and no summons came. The old year went and the new arrived. Nell played in The Maid’s Tragedy, hating its grandiose turgidity. And worried. Once more she had seemed on the brink of something wonderful. And once more her dreams had receded even as she tried to touch them. Backstage, she fretted to Betsy.
“I’ve heard nothing even from Buckingham. Perhaps he’s forgotten me, too.”
“He has more on his mind than you just now, Nell,” Betsy said. “Or have you not heard about Lord Shrewsbury?”
“Of course,” Nell said. “That was weeks ago.” There couldn’t be anyone in London who had not heard that Lord Shrewsbury, the husband of Buckingham’s mistress, had challenged him. They had met, with two seconds each, and fought three on a side at Barn Elms. One of Buckingham’s seconds was killed outright, and Buckingham had run Shrewsbury through the breast. But he was recovering, and the king had pardoned everyone involved.
“Shrewsbury died yesterday,” Betsy said. “That changes everything. Buckingham’s in no position to help you now.”
NELL SOUGHT T
O LOSE HERSELF IN WORK AND WAS PLEASED TO PLAY once more in The English Monsieur. It was like old times, working opposite Hart again. He seemed to have forgiven her for Dorset, and they played to packed houses that braved a bitter cold snap to see them.
Sam Pepys came backstage one day, no wife in sight, and he responded readily when Nell artlessly asked him what was the news at court.
“There was a rare scene a couple of evenings ago,” he laughed. “Some of the players from the Duke’s gave a show at the palace. The high point of the evening was Moll Davis’s dance. You’ve seen it?”
“No,” said Nell, forcing a smile, “do tell.”
“It’ll get a man’s attention, I’ll just say that. And it got the king’s. Of course you know he’s been bedding her?”
Nell’s stomach heaved, and she managed a nod.
“Well, Moll was wiggling and flinging away, those bold eyes of hers right on the king’s, with the queen to one side of him and Lady Castlemaine on the other, the queen near tears and Barbara breathing fire. Comes the end of the dance, and Moll curtsies low before the king, looking up at him, and he looking down at her as though he would devour her. And just as he starts to clap, the queen springs to her feet and stalks for the door. And damn me if Castlemaine don’t rise with icy majesty and sweep out after her, leaving the room agog.”
“Did he go after her-them-the queen, I mean?” Nell asked, dreading the answer.
“No, by God, that’s the best of it,” Samuel chortled. “He never turned a hair. Just clapped, which got the crowd applauding, then went straight to Mistress Moll, picked her up out of her curtsy, kissed her most freely, and led her straight off to his chamber for a private dance that went on all the night, or so I’m told.”
“THE KING HAS BOUGHT MOLL A HOUSE IN SUFFOLK STREET!” BETSY Knepp cried to Nell in the tiring room the next afternoon. “And a ring worth six hundred pounds. And she’s sent her parts back to the theater and says she’ll act no more!”
Over the next few days, it was all Nell could do to keep from screaming. It seemed everyone she met wanted to tell the news. There were numerous variations of the tale. Sometimes the ring was worth seven hundred pounds. Sometimes the king had sworn his love to Moll. Sometimes it was said that Mr. Betterton had begged Moll not to leave the Duke’s, had offered to double her wages. But whatever embroidery the story gained, the essentials remained the same.
There was nothing for it but to get on with life, Nell realized. Candlemas came, and she celebrated her eighteenth birthday with Rose and her new husband, their mother awkwardly joining them. She slogged her way through another of the tragedies she hated so much, The Duke of Lerma. Only the humorous prologue she spoke with Betsy made the show tolerable.
Even that equanimity was shattered when she overheard a group of the scenekeepers sharing a raucous laugh one cold dark afternoon.
“What d’ye say to that, Nell?” Richard Baxter called out.
“To what?”
“To the news that my Lady Castlemaine has taken our very own Charles Hart to her bed. Can’t get enough of him, apparently, and heaps him with gewgaws and gifts.”
Nell turned away, tears stinging her eyes. Not only did the king prefer Moll Davis’s company to hers, but Hart had taken up with the woman who all England considered to be the epitome of beauty and glamour. She had never felt more defeated.
THE FURIOUS WINTER COLD OF FEBRUARY SEEPED INTO NELL’S BONES, and her heart felt as frozen as the river. With the first days of March came a thaw. Each day brought a few more minutes of sunshine, and Nell gradually felt her spirits begin to lift. By late March there were the first hints of spring. Delicate green shoots braved their way through patches of bare earth, and tight blossoms clung to the tree branches, holding their breath until it should be safe to open.
As always, Nell’s mood lifted as the days began to lengthen and the weather grew warmer. By April, with a promising slate of roles ahead of her, she had almost convinced herself that it was just as well she had not heard from the king. But when Buckingham appeared at the door of the tiring room, her hopes soared.
“Aye, His Majesty was angry about the duel,” Buckingham agreed over dinner. “But a prince’s anger is like the thunder-it clears the air a great while after. I hear that Moll Davis has lost some of her charm for him. I think he’d welcome your company, if we do but remind him he misses you. He and the Duke of York will be at the Duke’s Playhouse tomorrow for She Would if She Could. And so will you be.”
“And then what?” Nell asked in exasperation. “Am I to throw an orange at him to get his attention?”
“Nothing so obvious. Though it might work, at that. I’ve a cousin who’ll accompany you, and ensure that you’re seated conveniently near to the king.”
“I’d rather it was you.”
“Not this time. He must not know he’s being led. And he’ll bridle if he gets any whiff that I’m involved.”
THE SCHEME SEEMED SO FAR-FETCHED THAT NELL COULD SCARCE believe it when the king and the Duke of York took their places in the royal box next to where she sat with Buckingham’s cousin. And she found it still more astonishing when a royal page bowed before her a moment later with the king’s request that they join him and the duke at supper after the show.
“ ‘If this were played upon a stage now,’ ” she muttered, “ ‘I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.’ ” Mr. Villiers, a rabbit-faced gentleman whose innocuous personality was ideally suited to the evening’s plot, gave her a quizzical look but did not question her.
“WE’LL SLIP IN SOMEWHERE FOR A BITE AND I CAN LEAVE THE WATCH-DOGS behind,” the king said after the play was over. So servants and carriage waited near the playhouse, and Nell found herself entering the White Hart behind Mr. Villiers, with the king and the Duke of York in tow, their hats pulled low over their brows.
Soon the party was laughing as they tucked into a fricassee of rabbit and chicken, and when the king squeezed Nell’s leg under the table, she had no doubts about the success of the evening.
An hour later, after a plentiful feast, the landlord, innocent of the identity of his patrons, presented the bill. The king felt his pockets.
“By God,” he said. “But I’ve forgotten-I have no money. Jimmy, I’d be obliged if you’d help me out.”
Now it was the duke’s turn to clap his hands to the skirts of his coat, looking sheepish.
“I would if I could,” he said, “but I’ve nothing either.”
“’Od’s fish!” cried Nell, in a creditable imitation of the king. “But this is the poorest company I ever was in!” The red-faced landlord exhaled in irritation and turned to poor Mr. Villiers, who gamely drew out his purse.
In the street outside, Nell whooped with amusement.
“I thought the man would have an apoplexy,” she crowed. “And poor bastard, if he’d only known who he was about to take to task.”
“BY GOD, BUT I’VE MISSED YOU, NELLY,” THE KING SAID AN HOUR LATER, smiling down as he moved on top of her. “Don’t let it happen again, will you, that you deprive me of your company for so long?”
MAY DAY DAWNED CLEAR AND FINE. NELL AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF music in the street below, and, from her window, watched milkmaids dance their way down Drury Lane to a fiddler’s tune. What changes in her life a twelvemonth had wrought. Last year at this time she had been debating the wisdom of leaving the stage for Dorset’s bed. This year, she had spent more nights in the past fortnight in the king’s bed than in her own. She had no thoughts of giving up the playhouse this time, though. She could go to the king as often as he called her, and the experience with Dorset had made her cautious about casting off her only source of steady income.
Besides, such an array of roles stretched before her that she had no mind to leave. Charles Sedley’s comedy The Mulberry Garden would be followed by Philaster, another breeches role that put her legs on display and once more paired her and Hart as battling lovers. Then would come The Virgin Martyr and further performances of t
he perennial favorite The Humorous Lieutenant.
Buckingham was, miraculously, back in favor with the king and, having dispatched Lord Shrewsbury, was now unrestrained in enjoying the company of his widow, the beautiful Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury. Perhaps conscious of having overplayed his hand in advising Nell to ask Charles for an allowance so soon, and relieved at having succeeded in getting her back into the royal bed again, he was cautious in his counsel to Nell.
“It’s more than just a matter of keeping him happy in bed, Nelly. Never be a burden. There’s a never-ending queue of people making demands upon the king. You must be a welcome respite from all that. Make him laugh. Make him forget his cares. Make him believe you care for him.”
Buckingham’s advice was given in cynicism, but Nell found that she could follow it without dissembling. She did care for Charles. Behind the laughter there lay a deep sadness that touched her heart.
“I’M SORRY I’VE NOT SEEN YOU THESE LAST DAYS,” THE KING APOLOGIZED, as Nell lay in his bed for the first time in more than a week. “The queen has miscarried again.”
“Oh, Charles, what a grief for you!” Nell passed her hand over his brow, the lines there seeming more deep-set than usual. “I wish that I could ease your pain.”
“You do, sweetheart. You do.”
Nell put her arms around him and held him to her, rocking. Though he was twenty years older than she, she could see in him the vestiges of the boy scarred by war and years in exile, the losses of his father and his crown, and now this new loss, and she felt as tenderly toward him as she might toward a child.
NELL FELT ODDLY PRIVATE ABOUT HER FEELINGS FOR CHARLES. BUT it was impossible to ignore the fact that the liaison was widely known. She received more callers than ever after performances, but there was a deference now that had been lacking before. “Meat for my master, she cries.” The line from The Humorous Lieutenant sprang into her mind as the Earl of Mulgrave bowed over her hand. He was one of a dozen gentlemen who were crowding the tiring room, and they were not seeking to bed her now, but to keep her good opinion.
The Darling Strumpet Page 20