Royal Harlot

by Susan Holloway Scott

  I shook my head. “Forgive me, sir,” I said, resting my hand upon his forearm. “I spoke without thought, a grievous error.”

  “And I should not have taken offense where none was offered.” He glanced at my hand on his sleeve, and with an obvious effort smiled. “With such supporters as you to cheer me, Mistress Palmer, I should find only comfort, not fault.”

  “Then pray let me cheer you more properly.” I spread my fan again, and fluttered it before my face. He was the King of England, true, but beneath his crown he was only a mortal man, and how fortunate for me! “What amusements does your court enjoy here in Brussels, sir? What diversions?”

  “Amusements?” He raised his brows, as if pondering a difficult question. “We are much as you see us, Mistress Palmer. We compose letters to those dear to us. We read new books from Paris or Rome. We listen to music and converse with friends. We walk, we ride, we hunt. And if a suitable partner of beauty and grace can be found for us, why, then . . .”

  He paused, his dark eyes hinting at such great lascivious promise that I couldn’t help but smile knowingly in return.

  “And if such a partner is found, sir?” I asked. “How then will you amuse yourself, and her?”

  “Why, with a game of whist, madam,” he said with studied bland-ness. “Why else would one wish such a rare partner?”

  I tipped back my head and laughed aloud. He laughed with me, his teeth white and even beneath his black mustache. I do not know if it was the shared strain between his Stuart blood and my Villiers, but there was a rare understanding between us two already. I can explain it no better than that, except to venture that whatever their station in life, whether by moonlight or sun, true rogues will always know one another.

  I walked to the small table that had been set for card play and took my place beside the farther chair. I reached down and with one hand fanned the deck of cards into a neat half circle across the cloth.

  “Will it please you to play now, sir?” I asked, still leaning forward to offer him a splendid view of my breasts, if he so chose to take it. “That is, if I am suitable to serve as your partner.”

  “Oh, most suitable,” he said, coming to take the other chair. “But I prefer piquet to whist for its quickness and suitability for wagers. Piquet being a game best played by two hands, I’ll choose to be your opponent, not your partner.”

  “Piquet it shall be.” I sat gracefully, sweeping my skirts to one side, while he took the other chair, his long-eared dogs settling around his feet. Although gaming with cards had long been outlawed by Parliament as an idle, wasteful pastime, it had proved an impossible prohibition to enforce, and my friends and I were all devoted gamesters. I was blessed with an apt head for ciphering points and stakes, and I loved the whim of fate, the heady joy that came when the cards fell right. I, too, liked piquet best, for it pitted one player against the other directly, without the tedium of waiting for a turn.

  I gathered up the cards—already sorted and prepared for piquet, with only the sixes through aces and the other cards drawn—shuffled them into a stack and set them in the center of the table. “Shall you deal, sir, or shall I?”

  “I’ll be the younger,” he said, using the name for a dealer in piquet. He claimed the stack of cards, shuffled them again, and began counting out our separate hands.

  “Then I shall be the elder, to your younger,” I said playfully, for of course I was nineteen years to his twenty-nine.

  “I will master you regardless, Madame Elder,” he said, studying his own cards. “Shall we set a wager?”

  I looked at him over the cards in my hand, wondering if he’d set my honor at stake. Even now I could feel his knee pressing against mine as if by accident beneath the shield of the table.

  I ran my fingertip lightly over the edge of the cards, the flat-faced queens and jacks staring up at me like doleful flounders. “But I’ve no money for wagering, sir.”

  “Neither do I,” he said. “But there are other sorts of wagers.”

  “A wager for the sake of amusement?”

  “Amusement, yes, and sport,” he said, resting his elbows on the table to lean closer to me. “A stake gives urgency to the game. A purpose.”

  Oh, I’d already guessed his purpose, just as I’d already decided I’d not grant it tonight. Even kings would do better to show a modicum of patience and realize how anticipation only served to heighten pleasure.

  “A purpose, sir?” I asked, feigning innocence. “I thought that winning was purpose enough.”

  He shrugged, but his knee against mine was more insistent. “For some, perhaps.”

  “But not for you?”

  “Oh, Mistress Palmer,” he said softly, “how can I say otherwise, when my entire life is a gamble?”

  As he spoke, his smile turned charmingly rapacious, like a great dark wolf. I knew then he would indeed play to win, just as I realized in that moment that he would return to his throne and rule England as he’d been born to do. No one would keep him from seizing what was his by right and by blood. Nothing would stop him, except for his own death.

  A great dark Stuart wolf, then, to my small fair Villiers vixen. I could sense the power that came not only from his royal title but from the man himself. Was it any wonder, then, that as he pressed his knee into mine under the table, I did not move away, but let my legs slip suggestively apart for him beneath my skirts?

  “Very well, sir,” I said, making my voice low and velvety. “Then let us play not for points or money, but for a kiss.”

  He glanced up, newly intrigued. “Your kiss, freely given?”

  “Your kiss against mine, sir,” I said. “With such stakes, we both win.”

  He laughed. “Then play away, madam, play away.”

  Play we did, through blanks and discards, ruffs, and sequences, sets and tricks, pique and repique—all the pretty steps of the game, over and over. The king was as quick at the tallies as I, and I had to concentrate to keep my pace ahead of his, anticipating his next plays so I could plot my own.

  The footmen came to stoke the fire with a fresh log, and when the candles burned low and guttered in the twin-armed sconces, other servants came to replace those as well. I’d lost any sense of time, or of how long the king and I sat there at our play, and I was nigh feverish from the heat of the play and the proximity of the king, with the flush of competition and excitement in his company upon my cheeks and bosom. So intent was I that I scarce noticed when the others gathered around the table to watch, praising a particular trick or groaning in unison when the cards fell amiss.

  I did glance up once to see Sir Edward standing behind the king’s broad shoulder, his droopy-cheeked face glowering with disapproval for the sake of his royal charge. Likely what old Hyde saw he judged wicked enough, but if he’d only known what was happening beneath the table’s cloth, why, he might have perished from an apoplexy on the spot, and spared me much trouble later.

  For while our hands were occupied with our cards above the table, below we blindly pursued another kind of sport. Before the king as the younger could deal the hands a second time, I’d already slipped my foot from my shoe, and dared to trail it across the king’s foot. He’d smiled at me, letting the others believe it was the cards that pleased him, though I’d known otherwise. As the evening progressed, my foot in its scarlet stocking had grown bolder, teasing against his shin, his calf, his knee, and thigh.

  Yet unlike most men, the king believed that sauce for the goose served the gander as well, and before long his own stocking’d foot had worked its way beneath my skirts and smock, high above my garters to the bare, blushing skin atop my legs. Over our cards, we laughed and chuckled merrily, sharing the extent of our secret dallying between ourselves.

  “There,” the king said as at last he tossed his final cards to the center of the table. “I’ve over a thousand points by now. If that doesn’t mark me as the winner, then by God, I don’t know what else will.”

  “You are clearly the winner, sir,�
� a tall, ginger-haired gentleman beside me said with annoying eagerness. “I’ve counted every point myself, and yours far outnumber the lady’s.”

  “Now, now, Conwell, you know better than to shame a lady like that,” the king scolded mildly, his gaze never leaving me. “Especially a lady as fair and generous as Mistress Palmer.”

  Nodding my acknowledgment of his compliment, I sat back in my chair, taking surreptitious care to tuck my errant toes back into my shoe. By my own reckoning, I was certain I’d won the game, but I’d freely concede that to claim the far greater prize.

  But the king, being a king, wished for more from me. He thumped the table with his open palm to claim my attention—as though he’d lost it, even for a moment.

  “Come, madam,” he said. “You know a gamester’s duty. Surrender your forfeit.”

  Around us the other gentlemen whooped and hooted like wild savages in a forest. The other two women had long ago vanished, doubtless from either boredom or indignant propriety. True, if I’d been the proper Mistress Palmer my husband wished, I would have been offended as well, even scandalized. But because I was my own self, I only smiled, and stood, shaking down my skirts so none would be the wiser.

  “Am I to surrender my forfeit, sir?” I asked, holding my head high. “Or are you to claim it?”

  Now he rose, too, coming to stand before me, while the other gentlemen around us continued their raucous encouragement.

  “In the Christian spirit of compromise and diplomacy, Mistress Palmer,” he announced, “we shall meet in the middle.”

  Before I could answer, he’d taken the last step necessary to close the space between us, circled his arm around my waist, and pulled me close to kiss me. He meant to startle me, I know, and to demonstrate that he was still my king and master no matter how I’d amused him beneath the table’s cloth. Doubtless he expected me to sputter and squirm, and try to shove him away, for the entertainment of his friends. Men were always alike in such matters, wanting to make a great show of their manhood whether highborn or low.

  But among ladies, I was different. Instead of fighting him like a half-drowned cat—and losing, too, for he was vastly larger and stronger—I slipped my arms about his neck and kissed him as boldly as he was kissing me. Perhaps more boldly, truth to tell, for female passion is sorely undervalued.

  And he was surprised. I could taste it in his mouth. Surprise, yet excitement, too, as his grasp upon me tightened. So he’d not been left unaffected by our play, nor by me. Oh, most delicious thought! He wanted me, and because he was king he now expected me to remain with him this night, and warm his bachelor bed.

  How unfortunate for His Majesty that he’d not get his wish!

  I was at last the one to break the kiss, and slip free. While the gentlemen applauded, I curtseyed, and bowed my head in a pretty gesture of acquiescence. “Your winner’s spoils, sir.”

  He smiled down upon me with anticipation. “A fair beginning, yes,” he said. “But surely not all. I won far more games than that, Mistress Palmer.”

  “I am sorry, sir,” I said with a sigh, “but our wager was for a single kiss, and no more.”

  He frowned, the black brows drawing sharply over blacker eyes. “Surely not, madam.”

  “Surely yes, mon sire,” I said, adding the melting softness of French regret to my voice. “As loyal a subject as I am to you, I fear I must remain more loyal still to my absent husband, and beg leave to retreat to my lodgings for this night.”

  With that one sentence, I doused the jollity from the room. Nothing will spoil rollicking male pleasure faster than the protestations of a faithful wife, or at least the pretense of one.

  “I mean no insult to Mr. Palmer, of course,” the king murmured, watching me closely and hoping, I suppose, for a change of heart. “But can you not be persuaded to linger in our company?”

  I shook my head and demurely lowered my gaze to the floor.

  The king grunted with disappointment. As much as he wanted me, I knew he wouldn’t toss me over his shoulder and carry me off, like the pagan kings of old, or at least he wouldn’t before so many witnesses.

  “You are certain in your decision, madam?” he asked gruffly. “You will not change?”

  “A thousand apologies, sir, but my refusal must stand,” I said softly, my head still bowed, my tender white nape displayed before him. I’d only a view of his large square-toed shoes with the worn red heels and the trailing ribbon lace that he’d neglected to retie in his earlier haste. “I must remember my husband.”

  “Your husband is a most fortunate man,” he said and sighed. “As you wish, Mistress Palmer. You have my leave to go.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I rose gracefully and began to back from his presence and from the room, as was proper. At the last moment, I looked at him once again, to offer him one final glimpse of my longing and regret.

  Surrounded by the others, his face was composed, his expression even and regally distant. Yet in his eyes I discovered such rare merriment that I nearly laughed in return, surprising proof that he’d seen through my demure protests as easily as if they’d been fashioned from the clearest water. And further: he was not angered by my ruse, but entertained no end.

  “Sleep well, madam,” he said softly, his eyes bright with amusement and fresh regard. “We shall want you refreshed for tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow: ah, I could not wait, nor, I suspected, could the king.

  I called my maidservant Wilson to my room as soon as I returned to my lodgings, to learn what she’d culled from the servants who waited on the king. Wilson was good that way, most useful to me. She was a clever-witted woman, the spinster daughter of a Chester squire who’d lost both his life and his estates to the war. Roger paid Wilson’s wages, but she’d been quick to realize that the wind would blow in my favor long before it graced Roger, and she trusted me to carry her with me. I trusted her, too, because she was so plain of face: and thus are the best alliances made between women.

  “So come, come, tell me all,” I said eagerly, sitting before her so she could tend to my hair while she spoke. Though it was close to dawn, I was not weary. How could I be? I was far too enraptured with the memory of what had occurred between the king and me, and the anticipation of seeing him again. “What are the secrets of His Majesty’s household?”

  “His Majesty’s household, madam?” Wilson dug her fingers into the thick tangle of my hair, searching for the few last pins that might be buried within the chestnut waves. “Or the secrets of his bedchamber?”

  “Don’t be pert, Wilson,” I said sharply, in no humor to be teased. “Tell me what you heard from his footmen or the others in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, madam.” Carefully she began to comb out the knots and curls, beginning at the ends where she wouldn’t pull. “They say that though His Majesty enjoys the company of ladies, and they him, he is not nearly the libertine that the gossips say.”

  “Parliamentary tattle, that’s what that is,” I said with a contemptuous sniff. “Cromwell’s men would link Saint Andrew himself to the queen bawd of a Moorfields brothel if they thought their masters would profit from it.”

  “Yes, madam, too true,” Wilson said. “Which is not to say His Majesty has abstained from sowing the royal seed while in his exile. He has acknowledged several bastards, as well as their mothers.”

  “Tell me of the mothers, not the bastards,” I demanded, wincing as the tortoiseshell comb caught my hair. I needed to hear these facts now, like a bucket of deep well water tossed in my face, to keep my thoughts clear and sharp. “What are their names, their ranks? Has he kept to Englishwomen, or taken these whey-faced Dutch creatures to his bed?”

  “Mostly His Majesty has preferred English ladies, madam,” Wilson said, “those who have followed him into exile for one reason or another. He chooses ladies who have experience in worldly matters, whether with husbands or not. They say his tastes for pleasure were honed here on the Continent, madam, and that he relishes a spirited lady who w
ill not be shocked, and likewise enjoys exploring the French and Italian manners.”

  I nodded, my anticipation quickening to hear my intuitions about the king thus confirmed, and I thought too of the size and strength and imagination that he’d surely bring to any bout of lovemaking. It had been many months now since I’d last been with Philip, and I’d sorely missed his adventurous inventions whilst in bed with my tediously straightforward Roger. I was, in short, as ready for diversion as I was to advance my future.

  “They say the king has no interest in callow virgins,” Wilson continued, “and will scarce remark a too-young lass, no matter how fair. He’s not like some gentlemen for whom chasing maidenhead’s the greatest sport imaginable.”

  “Not like some, indeed,” I said, trying not to think of Philip and his unfortunate taste for ever-younger maids. Better to think of what my future could bring than the hard lessons that had come with past pleasures.

  “No, madam,” Wilson said, pointedly saying nothing to echo my own thoughts any further. “The first lady in his exile was quite some time ago, an older woman named Betty Killigrew, and sister to the chaplain of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. She gave him a daughter for his efforts.”

  “Hah, sing a psalm to that,” I said, amused by the image of a gentleman in orders struggling to reconcile his loyalty to his king with his holy teachings. “Who else, then?”

  “In Bruges, there was a Derbyshire lady named Catharine who bore him two more children,” Wilson continued, beginning to draw the brush through my hair in long, sweeping strokes, “and in Paris, the twice-widowed daughter of Viscount Kilmorey. They say she was too old, beautiful but past fecundity, else she would have borne His Majesty a bastard, too.”

  I tipped the mirror in my hand so I could see Wilson’s face over my shoulder, as plain as a common pudding wrapped round with her white linen coif. “Why should I care for his nameless brats?”

  “Because if you lie with him, madam,” Wilson said, “then you must consider the possibility of bearing a nameless brat of your own.”