The King's Courtesan

by Judith James

  You’l climb higher than I ever dreamed or dared.” There must have been something—a flash in her eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin that hinted at rebel ion—because when her mother left she locked the door behind her and positioned a doorman in the corridor.

  They bathed and perfumed her, and then tamed and combed her unruly hair so it fel like a dark silken river to her waist. They ushered her into a paneled room where her mother and two of her “ladies” sat in attendance, as if she were a bride. There were at least five gentlemen present, though al she could see were their boots. She kept her eyes on the floor, wil ing them al to disappear, imagining if she but closed her eyes and opened them again the day would start anew.

  But it didn’t, and she stood red-faced and mute as they joked and murmured, waiting for the bidding to begin.

  There was no doubt as to the outcome. Sir Charles Edgemont would have her. ’Twas he who’d provided the dress. Nevertheless, her mother knew an auction would raise the price he paid for her “dowry” and had refused to spare her the humiliation when several hundred pounds might be at stake. Two of the ladies stripped her of her bodice and overskirt as the bidding heated up, leaving her tearstained and trembling, standing in her shift.

  Inflamed by the sight of her and determined no other man should see naked what was meant to be his, Edgemont rose and bid two thousand pounds, raising howls of protest from the other gentlemen but effectively quel ing the game.

  She looked at him then, from under her lashes. His hair was dark and close-cropped, interspersed here and there with flecks of grey. His eyes were cold, his face harsh, his jaw square.

  Furious at being duped when he’d expected a private negotiation, but too proud to back out in front of his friends, Sir Charles took her wrist in a cruel grip and jerked her toward the door, stopping before he left to toss a heavy purse on the table. “This wil have to do for now, madam. I had not expected the price to soar so high. My man wil bring you the rest tomorrow.”

  “But of course, my lord. You are known throughout London as a man who pays his debts. I shal await your pleasure. In the meantime, take the girl and enjoy her.” It was clear the auction had raised far more than even she had anticipated, and the poorly concealed smirk on her face and hard-edged gleam of avarice in her eyes almost made Hope retch. Instead, she placed a delicate hand on Sir Charles’s chest and leaned into him, shivering, tucking her head against his shoulder. His lips twisted in annoyance, but he released his grip on her wrist and removed his coat, wrapping it around her. She spoke for the first time since entering the room.

  “You must only give her one half of it, my lord. For the rest was promised to me.”

  “You’re as greedy and canny as your mother, girl,” he growled. “If you’re a virgin stil , I’m Archbishop of Canterbury. But I’l have my money’s worth from you nonetheless.”

  “Of course, Your Grace,” she said with a curtsy. Amidst her mother’s furious squawking and the laughter of the other men, a grim-faced Sir Charles bit back a reluctant chuckle and bundled her out the door and into his waiting coach.

  The day she met her own true love was the day her mother sold her. It was the day she lost al hope of him. The day her childhood ended. She never saw him again. She never spoke to her mother again, and she stopped believing in happy ever after. Her mother had named her Hope. It seemed a cruel jest, but she did the only thing she could do.

  She took the name and made it a talisman. She did what she needed to keep her own hopes alive. The day she left her mother’s doorstep she stopped dreaming about what couldn’t be, and started planning for what might. The only thing she couldn’t stop was asking herself one question.

  What kind of parent puts a price on innocence and sells their child like a slave? It stil had the power to steal her breath.

  Nevertheless, what started as a cruel betrayal and felt like the end of the world was the start of a journey that transformed her into a wel -spoken, smartly dressed, wel -

  educated young woman. An accomplished dancer with a smattering of French and the attention of a monarch. How dramatic and shortsighted we are as children. Along the way she let go of her fantasies of true love and imaginary princes, and found herself a real one, with al his flaws and imperfections. If from time to time her heart ached for something more, for someone else, no one knew it but her.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cressly Manor, Nottinghamshire, 1662

  HE DARTED AROUNDa corner, his pursuers snarling at his heels. It was dark, the sky an impenetrable blanket smothering a ruined town blackened and seared by fire.

  Pockets of angry flames licked the sky and bodies littered the street. Those who’d survived the inferno and escaped the sword huddled in cellars, wells and ditches, hushed and trembling, waiting for the storming of booted feet to pass them by.

  He sprinted toward the town center and ducked down a secluded street that was little more than an alley. There was no moon and no illumination other than the reddish glow of torchlight. The path he’d chosen led nowhere but a wall too high to climb. He’d reached a dead end.

  Straightening, he turned to face his pursuers. They slowed and stopped, suddenly wary, something in his face, his stance, turning anticipation into confusion and fear. He growled low in his throat. Ferocious. Triumphant. This was the moment he’d been training for, waiting for, living for.

  They stumbled over each other, slowly backing away; all but their leader, who seemed oddly bemused. They’d understood too late. They were the prey.

  He might have got off two shots with his pistols in those first moments of stunned surprise, but this wasn’t an act of war. This required intimacy. This was personal. His eyes flashed and metal sparked as he drew a gleaming sword, attacking with a lightning-quick savagery fueled by hatred, fanned by a lust for vengeance and nursed over the course of several years. One man took the blade to the throat before he could ready his weapon. Another fumbled with a pistol only to stagger backward, ashen-faced with shock, before falling.

  Their leader hadn’t moved. A handsome man with graying hair, he stood waiting, sword at the ready, curiosity rather than fear in his eyes. “We have met before. How do I know you?”

  “Cressly,” he hissed, leaping forward, slamming him hard against the wall. He pinioned him by the throat with one arm as the longsword drove under his guard between breast and back plate and thick buff coat, cutting through leather, skin and bone. The man’s eyes showed shock and bewilderment but it wasn’t enough. He leaned into him, turning and twisting the hilt of his sword with sadistic force, not bothering to stifle the man’s shrill scream of agony.

  “’Twas Cressly in Nottinghamshire we met, Lord Stanley,” he growled against his cheek. “My name is Robert Nichols and this is how I want to be remembered. Her name was Caroline…and this,” he said as he twisted again, “is for her.” He saw it then, the startled flash of recognition. He gave one final thrust, jerking the earl’s body up and nearly off the ground before pulling out his sword and stepping back, letting the lifeless corpse slide down the wall to join the refuse that littered the blood-slick pavement. He felt strangely empty. There was no satisfaction. No thrill of righteous retribution or sense of justice done. But Stanley was just the first. There were three more yet to go. Perhaps then she’d let him be.

  He regarded his handiwork, face impassive, before turning to look at a huddled form, mewling in the corner.

  Off in the distance, Prince Rupert’s forces were still hard at work, fanning through the town, routing out those who had run too late, stayed too long, or hadn’t found a place deep enough to hide. The night echoed with sporadic musket fire, shrill screams, drunken laughter and desperate cries of “sauve qui peut.” The rumble of cannon fire reverberated through the city. Strange now the walls were breeched and the battle done but for the looting. He cocked his head to one side, assessing, and then he spoke. “Run!” Somewhere, impossibly far away, a young girl cried….

  Robert Nichols jerked awake, hear
t pounding, his body bathed in a cold sweat. Thunder growled in the distance. A steady rain tapped on the windows and pattered against the roof. He groaned. Another damned storm. They’d been rol ing across the county for weeks. Soon the river would flood its banks.

  Vestiges of his dream stil lingered. No surprise there. He’d had the same one over and over through the years. It clung to him like a burr. Bolton. The first massacre of the civil war and he al of seventeen years old. Over three quarters of the town murdered, perpetrated by Price Rupert and the Earl of Derby in the royalist cause. He’d witnessed atrocities aplenty on both sides since then. The Lord Protector had been a pitiless man, too.

  He rol ed out of bed and pul ed on his boots and a robe, his nerves frayed. The girl’s sobbing stil resonated, wrapped within the wail and sigh of the wind. Caroline. She wouldn’t leave him alone. And why should she? Wasn’t this her home, too? Didn’t she have the right to demand retribution?

  And who to avenge her but him? Bolton had given him the opportunity to dispatch James Stanley, the first of her murderers. George Stanhope fol owed soon after, cut down in another bloody engagement, though he’d almost lost him to a Yorkshire pikeman during the melee.

  Chisholm had been harder. He was a superior officer, an ex-cavalier who’d switched al egiance with the bloody-minded zeal of the newly converted. Now there was just the one remaining. But she must be getting impatient. After al , she had been waiting for over ten years.

  He poured himself a tumbler of whiskey, something he’d developed a taste for while on campaign in Ireland. Sleep had deserted him and he was as wound and ready as if he’d only just stepped from the field of battle. He supposed in a way he had.

  In his youth life had been simple. He’d believed in family, king and country. He’d believed in himself. A thing was right, or it was wrong. A man honored his word, protected the weak and defended his sovereign and his homeland, but Caro’s death changed everything. When politics and religion tore his homeland in two, it gave him an outlet for the grief and fury he had no other way to express. The civil war became his private one, and he’d used the field of battle to exact his vengeance and focus his rage.

  General Walters, his commander and mentor in matters of politics and war, replaced the father who blamed him for his sister’s death, and the idea of an English Republic, with no man above the law, al owed him to pretend he fought for a greater good, easing his guilt and pain. In a strange way, the war, at first at least, had brought him peace. But ten years of fierce fighting had taught him the horrors men justified in the name of some greater good. He had witnessed unspeakable cruelties and been powerless to stop them. He had done things he had once thought unthinkable. Surrounded by cold-blooded men and ideologues, he’d realized he was neither, and the only things he could control were his own actions and his own smal company of men.

  By the time he’d walked in on some of them assaulting Elizabeth Walters, he’d begun to doubt if even that were true. They’d been hot on the trail of Wil iam de Veres, a royalist cavalier who played at highwayman and spy for the exiled Stuart king. The Irish campaigns had left his precious honor so sul ied that al that mattered was protecting an old friend’s daughter. He made it his duty to help her, and for a while he’d felt clean again. Those who knew him thought him cold, capable and straight as an arrow. None of them had any idea of the dark forces tearing him apart inside.

  He’d learned long ago to guard his secrets and keep his true thoughts to himself.

  Now the wars were over and the king restored. Al was forgiven. Men no longer proclaimed themselves for crown or parliament. They were al Englishmen now. He was ready to retire at the ripe old age of thirty-five and settle down to the quiet life of a country gentleman, hoping for some semblance of a normal life and perhaps a little peace.

  Yet things were left undone, and he hadn’t earned the right.

  There is one who remains. Passion had deserted him but duty had not. But to find and kil a man on the field of battle or during a campaign was one thing. To find and kil a man who’d fled the country and spent the past ten years in exile was difficult indeed. He wasn’t even sure he had the stomach for it anymore.

  For Caroline you do. You must.

  He paced the hal s, his footsteps echoing behind him like some damn ghost. Cressly. Once it rang with children’s laughter. He had raced her through these hal s. At times he imagined he could hear her stil . Her merry laughter and the patter of running feet. That was before a group of drunken cavaliers had come and woken something savage. Al that chased him now were the far distant sounds of hoarse shouting, artil ery fire and the stomping of booted feet; the hol ow remnants of troubling dreams. Cressly was al he had left to hold on to, though, even if it was as bare and haunted as he was. I failed you then, Caroline. But I won’t fail you again. I haven’t forgotten. I promise you he’ll pay.

  He tossed back what remained of his drink, surprised to note he’d wandered al the way to the library. Flashes of lightning il uminated the room in flickers of silvery light, painting the furniture, fireplace and rows of books in hues of bluish grey and black. They jumped out in stark relief, transforming what was once familiar into a harsh and alien landscape. His image flickered before him, reflected in the window. His sandy hair looked white, his eyes bruised and hol ow, like one of the unseen things his staff believed walked Cressly late at night. Christ, I even scare myself!

  Tossing a log into the fire, he kicked it with a booted foot, waiting for the coals to spark and flame before pouring another tot of whisky and settling into an overstuffed chair.

  The fire gave him just enough light to read by. He picked through the mail listlessly, but his gaze sharpened as he neared the bottom of the pile. There were two letters, both notable for the quality of paper and their ornate seals. One was addressed in a fine cursive script, while the other bore the king’s seal. His hand hovered a moment before picking one up. The letter was from Elizabeth Walters.

  Elizabeth. Hugh’s daughter. Many had been the time he’d watched her from afar when he’d been to visit her father. A solemn-faced, shy little girl, motherless and always alone.

  He had made it his mission to draw her out, engaging her in conversation and bringing her little gifts. Her father had not disapproved and it brought him pleasure to make her smile. She’d even laughed for him the day he’d set her on his horse. He’d offered her marriage after Cromwel took her lands. He’d owed that much to her father. But she’d refused him, choosing the company of a noted rake and libertine instead, even fol owing him when he was banished from England in disgrace.

  He understood why. He was al but hol ow inside. His passion gone. No doubt she had sensed the flaws deep within him; the violence, the coldness, the dark. She had been right to refuse, and he had been wrong to ask.

  He wondered why she wrote him now. Had her lover deserted her? Did she need his aid? Would he help her if she did? Yes. It’s what I promised. Interest sparked, curious to see what she wanted and how she fared, he broke the seal.

  She was happy, healthy and wel , and she wished him the same. She wanted him to be among the first to hear the happy news. Just two months past she’d married Wil iam de Veres in a quiet ceremony in a smal chapel in Maidstone, with only their servants present. They had thought it best to be circumspect, given her new husband’s delicate situation in regards to the king. Things had improved in that regard, however, and she had every reason to expect they’d be free to travel shortly. She thought of her dear friend and rescuer often, and hoped they might visit him at Cressly soon.

  He was surprised she had thought to write him, though she had claimed him as a friend, and surprised most of al at how her news stung. He fingered the remaining packet, tracing his thumb back and forth across the royal seal, at a loss as to what it might contain. He was a country gentleman, a minor baronet, hardly the sort to be cal ed to court. Life as a soldier had taught him to be wary of surprises. They seldom resulted in anything good. He broke the seal. Alth
ough he steeled himself, nothing could have prepared him for what lay within.

  To Captain Sir Robert Nichols, Baronet: Notwithstanding the general amnesty offered by his most gracious Majesty Charles II to those who took up arms against his Father and himself, it has recently come to our attention that the aid and comfort you provided the traitor Oliver Cromwell and other enemies of the Crown were of a more serious nature than originally known. As such, your title and properties, including but not restricted to the estate and manor known as Cressly, are herewith forfeit to the Crown. In the spirit of reconciliation in which the amnesty was first proclaimed, you are hereby allowed to keep your commission and any monies derived thereby, as well as any personal possessions of sentimental value, including horse and weapons, not to exceed in total worth the sum of two thousand pounds. You are herewith given one month to vacate, or be held in contempt of King and Crown.

  Signed this third day of April, 1662, by Chancellor Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, for His Majesty Charles II, King of England, Ireland, Scotland and France.

  It felt as though the earth had just given way beneath him.

  He struggled to contain a dizzying wave of anger and a sickening sense of loss. He knew exactly what had happened. He was on the wrong side of history, and the very things he thought would keep him safe were about to cost him Caroline’s home.

  He tossed the chancel or’s letter into the fire, watching as its edges bent and curled. Rivulets of flame reached melting wax and a moment later the paper burst into a molten flower and was gone. Just like that. Just like Cressly. There is nothing left. The storm continued to rage outside. He sat where he was, cold and stil , til dawn.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Whitehall Palace, London

  MILES TO THE SOUTH, in a luxurious chamber overlooking the mighty Thames, a sharp crack of lightning jolted Hope Mathews from a troubled sleep. She pul ed back the gold-embroidered bedspread and sat upright, heart pounding, and looked toward the open casement window. There was no rain yet, but it was close. The air had a metal ic taste, and a low rumble echoed in the distance, approaching from the east.