Royal Harlot

by Susan Holloway Scott

  “We’re as good as two hundred to me.” I gave his arm a little shove. “If you won’t tell me now, Roger, then you must let me stay when you gentlemen begin to speak in earnest. You must let me hear and judge for myself.”

  He frowned and shook his head. “I do not know, Barbara. My mother will expect you to retire with her. It’s not customary for ladies to remain at the table with the gentlemen and be present for such serious discussions.”

  “Once you wished me to know of such things, the things that mattered to you.” I touched the cypher heart I still wore around my throat, then idly trailed my fingers lower, over the plump curves of my breasts, to remind him of other things as well. Though my gown was at least six months behind the French fashion, it still became me: pale pink satin that made me look like a glowing, tender blossom waiting to be plucked. The bodice was cut low and snug, with a falling lace collar that somehow revealed more of both my breasts and creamy shoulders by veiling them than displaying them outright.

  “You recall, Roger,” I coaxed gently. “Before we were wed—when you claimed I was more . . . ardent—you kept nothing from me.”

  “That’s Sir Alan’s decision to make, Barbara.” His gaze followed my hand, and I knew I’d have my way from the manner in which he swallowed, his lips pressing together as if to keep his lust from bubbling from his mouth. “I cannot promise anything.”

  But in his way he already had.

  “I see you wear the cypher of our martyred king, Mistress Palmer.” Across the table, Sir Alan raised his wine toward me with approval. “An admirable ornament.”

  “Thank you, Sir Alan,” I murmured, smiling in return at this distant kinsman. “It was a gift from my husband.”

  Sir Alan nodded, and held his goblet up for the servant to refill. He’d no share of the Villiers beauty, that was certain, being short and stout, with a sandy mustache draped over his mouth. I’d already learned he was a man full of unseen prickles, quick to take offense where no slights were intended: an unfortunate quality, I thought, for a leader of so delicate and important an organization. “It’s always wise for a gentleman to brand what belongs to him, eh, Palmer?”

  Roger and Lord Thomas laughed, yet while a dozen quick retorts came to mind, I said nothing. Honey-sweet words always fared better with men than tart ones, no matter how much that sticky sweetness would sometimes choke and clog my throat. It was worth it. At least now at the beginning, the price of being permitted to remain here among the gentlemen was that I present myself as a beautiful, obliging decoration, and nothing more taxing—a role I could play to perfection even while I slept.

  Now I leaned forward, turned a bit in my chair, just enough to prettily display both my arms and bosom, and slowly drew through my fingers one of the long, glossy curls clustered by my cheek.

  “I’ll gladly wear my husband’s mark, Sir Alan, just as I wear his ring,” I said, “but my loyal heart and duty must always bow first to my sovereign lord, His Majesty King Charles.”

  “Well said, Mistress Palmer.” Sir Alan shoved back his chair and raised his goblet, forcing the others to join him. “To His Sacred Majesty, and his return to his rightful throne.”

  “To the king,” all echoed, but only Sir Alan emptied his goblet again, holding it out impatiently for another filling. I’d heard King Charles detested drunkenness, and could not tolerate company that toppled headfirst into the grape. Clearly he’d never dined with Sir Alan, else there’d be another leader for the Sealed Knot.

  “There now, Sir Alan, I told you my wife was to be trusted,” Roger said with unbecoming eagerness. “No questioning her loyalty, eh?”

  “No, indeed.” Sir Alan’s face was flushed as he studied me, and I knew it wasn’t from wine alone. “His Majesty can always count on the beautiful women to support him.”

  “Have you met His Majesty, Sir Alan?” I asked.

  “Oh, scores of times,” he answered, likely expanding those times for my benefit. “Every inch the monarch, and a good many inches at that. He’s half a head taller than most men, you know.”

  “How fascinating,” I said, and I meant it. I’d not realized the king stood so far above his subjects, and I wondered wickedly if the rest of him were to a royal scale as well. How else could he truly be the first gentleman of his kingdom?

  “I can assure you, Mistress Palmer,” Sir Alan continued, warming to his subject, “that there’s never been another English monarch like him. Intelligent, virile, thoughtful, benevolent, even in his current reduced circumstances. He’s very dark, on account of that foreign Italian blood from his Medici grandmother, but still the ladies do sigh and judge him most handsome.”

  “The ladies should not be discounted, Sir Alan,” Roger said cheerfully. “They will constitute a sizable part of his kingdom, and if my wife is any indication, their loyalty will never be questioned.”

  I smiled. Ah, Roger had no notion of what I thought when I imagined our tall, handsome king in exile, and it had nothing to do with loyal duty, either.

  “Your wife, Palmer, and your sister as well,” Sir Alan said. “Or more properly, your sister’s husband, and his brother beyond that. What a fortuitous connection that has proven to be for us!”

  I turned to Roger, my smile now not quite as charming. I’d yet to meet his sister Catherine, nor had I much desire to do so, yet it irritated me that she might know more of my husband’s activities than did I. “What connection is this, Roger?”

  “Through the Darrells, my dear,” he said, his smile sickly with an earnestness that pleaded wordlessly for my cooperation before these other gentlemen. “You recall that Catherine is wed to Marmaduke Darrell. His brother Henry has recently secured the place of principal clerk to the Council of State and is privy to their most secret debates and correspondence—all of which he is now copying, and forwarding to Sir Alan. We’ve never before had such access to the most privileged information.”

  I cared not a fig for either Marmaduke or Henry themselves, but this connection between the Darrells and the Palmers could prove most profitable to Roger in the future, and to me as well. No wonder he’d not wanted his mother to overhear such a conversation, considering how he’d led his sister’s husband into this treasonous activity.

  “This is your doing, Roger?” I asked, pleasingly surprised he’d show such daring. “To arrange such service to the king?”

  “Don’t let your husband be modest, Mistress Palmer,” Sir Alan said heartily. “This must all be held in the greatest secrecy, of course, but I’ve made sure His Majesty is aware of every one of your husband’s contributions. And with this last gift of a thousand pounds—”

  “A thousand pounds!” There was nothing feigned about my astonishment. I’d been forced to follow endless grating economies while he’d been keeping a secret worth a thousand pounds?

  “Such generosity is sure to be rewarded when the king returns to London, my dear,” Roger said hurriedly. “I consider it not only an investment for the crown but for ourselves in the future.”

  Sir Alan leaned back in his chair, his smile showing how thoroughly pleased he was with himself, and with our wine, too. “Make no mistake, His Sacred Majesty will recognize his true friends and glean the gold from the base pretenders like Mordaunt.”

  “Mordaunt?” I asked, still painfully focused on that lost thousand pounds. “Pray, who might be Mordaunt?”

  “A rogue and a rascal, Mistress Palmer,” Sir Alan said disdainfully. “A dissembling fellow quite unworthy of your notice.”

  I looked to Roger for more explanation. The name niggled at my memory, something I couldn’t quite grasp.

  “John Mordaunt, Barbara,” he said with that now-familiar pained look to his face. “A low sort of man who has beguiled the king into granting permission to form another group of supporters, a group with the audacity to call themselves the Trust.”

  “Your rivals, you mean,” I said, rapping my knuckles lightly on the table before me for emphasis. I did this partly to make my
words ring with truth, but also to distract Roger’s attention from whatever guilt might have flashed across my own face. For now I recalled where I’d heard of Mordaunt, and of the Trust: my own dear Chesterfield had been one of the group’s earliest members, and a close associate of John Mordaunt’s.

  “To call Mordaunt a rival is to make him our equal for the king’s attention,” Sir Alan said peevishly. “Let me assure you, Mistress Palmer, that he is far from that.”

  Lord Thomas leaned across the table, his mouth an earnest pucker. “I’ve heard that Mordaunt is in Brussels even now with His Majesty. I’ve heard he sailed last week, and was well received. I’ve heard—”

  “Mordaunt means nothing,” Sir Alan said curtly. “We must act as if he does not exist.”

  I frowned, too irritated by their sniping not to speak my mind. “Wouldn’t it serve the king better, Sir Alan, if you ceased bickering among yourselves and presented a common unity?”

  “Barbara, please,” Roger cautioned. “In time, in time.”

  “Pray, Roger, what time will that be?” I scoffed. “His Sacred Majesty has become no more than a mirage on a hot summer’s day, his promise glittering bright in the distance, only to dissolve and vanish and reform again with his return ever farther away.”

  “Oh, he’s real enough, Mistress Palmer,” Lord Thomas promised. “There are plans being made even now for a concerted uprising that could bring him here as soon as this summer. I’ve heard that this time His Majesty has twenty-five hundred troops ready to help carry him to victory. I’ve heard that—”

  “No more of that, now,” Sir Alan said, tapping his forefinger to his nose—a foolish gesture that I always associated with drunkards who believed they were being cunning and sly, and were neither. “We needn’t overburden Mistress Palmer’s pretty head with our machinations.”

  “True, true, Barbara,” Roger said, striving to soothe me, I knew. “You can be sure that the king’s interests are being addressed in the best manner, and with the greatest alacrity. It’s no easy thing to send word to him or to Hyde in Brussels.”

  With my chin tucked low, I slanted my eyes at him, an expression that generally succeeded in my having my own way. “If it’s so very difficult, then perhaps a different messenger should be sent.”

  Roger swung back as sharply as if I’d struck him with the flat of my hand. He knew full well what I was suggesting—that I’d happily serve as a courier—and his response proved to me he’d never so much as suggested the notion to the others, no matter what he’d vowed to me.

  Not that Sir Alan noticed anything amiss between Roger and me. “With so much at stake, we’re always cautious with our messengers, Mistress Palmer, relying upon only the most trustworthy of—”

  “What of me?” I asked swiftly. “Would I be sufficiently trustworthy for your purpose?”

  Sir Alan glanced at Roger with anxious surprise. Why is it all men are conspirators with one another against our sex?

  “It’s not so much a matter of trust, Mistress Palmer, as, ah, as the ability to evade enemies, and—”

  “Who is better at evasion than a pretty woman?” I smiled, and the way his ruddy cheeks turned redder still only served my argument. “I doubt there’s an enemy from here to Brussels who wouldn’t let me pass.”

  “That is true, Barbara,” Roger said slowly. I couldn’t tell if he were trying to make up for being caught in falsehoods by agreeing with me, or if he actually believed I could serve the king’s cause in this way. “But there would be risks. Your life and freedom could be in peril.”

  “The parliamentary men are not the only danger, Mistress Palmer,” Sir Alan said. “Why, this summer there’s been such an outbreak of the smallpox in the Hague and in Belgium, we’ve been loath to send anyone.”

  I smiled again. Everyone in the room knew that the real danger was not so much smallpox but the king himself. Our bachelor monarch was reputed to be an infamous gallant with the ladies, a man who’d sired his first bastard while scarce more than a boy himself. Many would argue that no reasonable husband would even dream of sending his beautiful young wife on such an errand, to such a monarch, that to do so was the same as touching flame to pitch.

  Not, of course, that I chose to remind the gentlemen of this now.

  “There again I can be of use to you, Sir Alan,” I said cheerfully, “for I have only this summer had the same pox, and now shall never fear it again.”

  “Nothing frightens my dear wife,” Roger said, looking down into his goblet. “She’s unlike any other lady you’ll ever know.”

  Everyone at the table realized that was no compliment, yet still I smiled.

  “The Palmers have a long and honorable history of service to the crown, Roger,” I said, putting a silver edge to my own words. “If these gentlemen choose to send me on an errand to His Majesty, then I’ll only be adding more glory to your family’s name.”

  “I should hope so, my dear.” Roger set his goblet down, squaring it to the edge of the table with one finger against the stem. “I expect you to use the opportunity to remind His Majesty of exactly how much the Palmers have already sacrificed for his cause, and recommend our loyalty to his favor in the future.”

  “Of course, Roger.” I motioned for the servant to refill my husband’s goblet. “That thousand pounds is a debt that should be repaid, and with interest, yes?”

  “Yes.” That was all, and that was enough. My husband’s expression when he finally looked up was so composed that it shocked me for its levelness. So that thousand pounds was of far more value to him than his wife, I thought with no small bitterness. The best role I could serve him in was to shepherd his gold.

  And he believed a child would solve all the trials of our marriage!

  Sir Alan leaned forward, his eagerness so unmistakable that I realized to my delight how welcome my offer was.

  “So if I were to employ your wife on an errand to Brussels, you would consent?” he asked. “You would not try to stop her, no matter the risk?”

  “I would only ask that she not be put into unreasonable danger,” Roger said, and gave a small humorless laugh. “She is my wife, you understand. Like all my property, I’d want her returned to me undamaged. But as for her wishing to serve the Royalist cause with the same fervor and courage as the others in my family—why, I can hardly forbid her such a brave show of loyalty to both the Stuarts and the Palmers, can I?”

  No, he could not. And if my smile mingled triumph with that much-vaunted fervor and courage, then so be it. Once again I’d gotten my way, and I meant to make the most of it however I could.

  Not for Roger, or the rest of his loathsome clan, or for that poisoned thousand pounds. Instead I meant to strive for the betterment of the one person I could truly trust in the entirety of England: Barbara Villiers Palmer.

  Chapter Five

  LONDON

  January 1 6 6 0

  It is the peculiar way of this life that whenever we mortals prepare some fine scheme for ourselves, an event or occurrence we could never have foreseen suddenly pops up to twist and toss our tidy plans to the winds. That was what became of my great hope to become a courier to the king, in that last summer we were ruled by Parliament.

  First of all, the Sealed Knot itself began to unravel, with ugly accusations of deceit everywhere. On the very eve that His Majesty was set to sail back to England, a fresh scandal broke in London that made him cancel his embarkation, and likely save his royal life. One of the founders of the Knot, Sir Richard Willys, was publicly accused of being a double agent and feeding news from the king’s supporters to the army and back again. Willys and several of his nearest conspirators were imprisoned in the Tower for treason. Such betrayal shook the faith of Sir Alan, and my husband as well. Like nervous mice they raced for cover in the wainscoting, forgetting their loyalties to the king in their haste to save themselves and sulk afterward.

  Worse followed in August. The uprising organized by Mordaunt was set for the first of the month,
and was rumored to feature not only a military show of strength but also a concerted demonstration by the common people for His Majesty. The king had even gone to Calais, certain that at last he’d be able to cross the Channel to reclaim his kingdom.

  But like every other uprising, this one collapsed as well beneath the weight of expectations and confusion. Disappointed, the king left Calais and returned to Brussels once again. Only the forces led by Sir George Booth at Chester made any sort of showing, but even that was soon put down by the army, the leaders marched to the Tower.

  Among them, to my sorrow but not my surprise, was the Earl of Chesterfield. Although Philip had been in and out of the Tower so many times that he jested about how it should be his permanent lodgings in London, this time the accusations would not be so easily dismissed. He was charged with high treason, and all his estates were confiscated.

  This I learned from others, from friends we had in common in the old days before my marriage. I’d no letter from Philip himself, nor had I tried to write to him. I hadn’t received any word from him since I’d been at Dorney Court. Still, I made excuses for Philip’s silence, telling myself that Roger would have intercepted any letters that had come for me, which was, in truth, possible enough. I was as much a prisoner there in the country as Philip himself was within those bleak stone walls over the Thames.

  Yet when at last I heard of Philip’s release, the news came from the most unlikely of sources: my husband.

  He came rushing into our bedchamber one morning in January, bringing with him a great gust of chilly wind from the hall that made me burrow deeper beneath the coverlets. Dorney Court was such an old and rickety place that the fireplaces had little effect no matter how much wood was piled in the hearth, and I was almost always cold there. Though it was nearly noon, I was still abed and keeping warm with a new French novel, for really, what reason had I to rise?

  “Barbara, have you heard this?” he declared, waving a newssheet in the air. “What have you to say of it?”