I laughed again as I hopped from the bed. “Very well, sir. That’s an easy enough task, even for this obedient servant.”
“Obey, then,” he said, chuckling with me. “Go on.”
I stood before him, making sure the candlestick’s light would wash across my flesh in the most flattering fashion, while he rolled to his side, supporting his head with his bent arm the better to watch me.
It is no easy trick for a lady to disrobe without another’s assistance, but Wilson had cleverly anticipated this dilemma for me and suggested not only the jacket, which tied before with bows of ribbons, but my easier pair of stays, the lighter ones I wore for summer. Covered in cherry pink linen, these likewise unlaced down the front, without the busk or extra boning that a more formal bodice would require. Yet still I took my time with each ribbon and lace, knowing how to keep and build the king’s interest until at last I wore only green thread stockings with striped garters, red silk mules with high yellow heels, and a fine Holland smock so sheer as to hide nothing beneath.
“The smock, too,” he ordered. “But keep the stockings.”
“As you wish, sir.” I whisked away the last veil of my smock. I had no false shame or modesty about my body, for I knew it was as perfectly made as my face, and I found as much pleasure in revealing it to him as he so clearly took in viewing it. “You see, I can be most obedient.”
“Yes, you can,” he said, his gaze devouring me with undisguised intent. “Now come, you must tend to me as well.”
“What, and play your manservant?” Laughing afresh, I clambered onto the bed without further beseeching. I pushed aside the dogs and began to unbutton and unlace his clothes, too.
But quickly I learned he’d not the patience I’d demonstrated, and before I’d stripped him fairly, he’d tumbled me backward onto the bed. For a man who’d claimed to be so exhausted, he made a fine, lusty accounting of himself that left us both blest and sated.
“Now that was at least another ten thousand sermons in the balance,” he said as we lay together afterward, my limbs white and round against his. “Likely my very soul, too.”
I laughed wickedly. “Only to the sternest of those Presbyterians. Though if you wish it, I can venture a different pleasure with my lips and tongue that will earn you their ire more thoroughly.”
“You would, too,” he said, laughing with me. “But let me relish what you’ve just granted me before we begin again.”
“Well enough,” I said, and lifted my head so our faces were close. Gently I traced his mustache with my fingertip, smoothing the bristling hairs. “You know as much as I wish it, I cannot stay the night, or be found here.”
“I know it as well as you do, sweet, no matter how it would please me,” he said, running his hand along my spine. “Though it’s no real sin for a bachelor king to have a lady in his bed, I should let my people grow more accustomed to me before they must realize it.”
“What they would see first is that I am another man’s wife,” I said carefully. I knew he’d well earned his cynicism, having been born to an overbearing French Catholic mother, raised as an Anglican by a raft of conscientious bishops, and made fatherless by an army of self-righteous Puritans. But though I was no more rigorous than he in my faith, I did know that with his restored crown he’d also accepted his role as the defender of the Anglican church. “They won’t like that.”
“They wouldn’t like it if I roamed the countryside pillaging virgins, either,” he scoffed.
“You must be serious in this, sir,” I urged. “To most folk, adultery is a sin, whether among Presbyterians, Romans, or Anglicans. It was my mistake to marry Roger, not yours. I’ve made peace with myself in this matter, yes, but I won’t have your subjects cry out against you because of me. You need their loyalty, else you’ll never accomplish all you wish to do as their king.”
He grunted, that catchall utterance that men employ when they’ve no wish to face a hard truth.
“Very well, then,” he said. “Wake in your own bed in the morning, beside that dry stick of a husband. My days will belong to Sir Edward and the others for a good while to come, but once they’ve folded their letter-books for the night, I want you at my side, to grace my court. Come to me each evening, Barbara, however you needs contrive it.”
“However I can, however I shall,” I agreed softly. “No matter how Roger tries to keep me back, I will come to you.”
“Your husband likes his new house and his new place in the government, doesn’t he?” he asked. “We’ll see that he’s persuaded to be accommodating. What would he wish?”
“From you?” I paused, wondering exactly how greedy Roger might become for the sake of soothing his pride. Of course, in time, as my acquaintance with His Majesty deepened, I’d expected such gifts and honors would come my way. Hadn’t I volunteered to go to Brussels with exactly that chance of betterment in mind? The king was known to be a most giving gentleman. Even when his pockets had held nothing but holes and darns, he’d managed to be generous to his mistresses and support his bastards. But this offer came far sooner than I’d any right to expect.
“Come now, Barbara,” he urged me. “I needn’t tell you how this game will be played. All of England will come begging to me in the next weeks, all believing themselves completely entitled to have whatever they wish that I can grant. At least Roger will have a better reason than most.”
“That is true,” I admitted. “A government post or office, fit for the new member from Windsor. A title, of course.”
“A title,” he said. “I’ll speak to Sir Edward tomorrow.”
“That’s a great deal of trouble for you, sir,” I said, strangely touched by his generosity. “You scarce know me at all.”
“I know enough,” he said. “You please me vastly more than other women, Barbara.”
“Hah,” I said bluntly. “You like my quim, not me.”
“A good thing, too, because you like my cock.” He grinned. “We’re much alike, you see, two apples dropped from the same gnarled tree.”
I raised my hands over his chest, plopping them down twice to mimic the effect of those two apples falling side by side.
“Stuart and Villiers,” I announced gleefully. “Not so very far apart at all.”
Yet when I looked back at him, I was startled by the depth of the expression in his eyes.
“I missed you, Barbara,” he said, his voice rough, as if the words were hard for him to admit. “I want you to stay close to me, so I won’t have to miss you again.”
I leaned forward and kissed him: a kind of thanks, yes, but a pledge as well, such as I’d never made to any other man.
“As you wish, sir,” I whispered. “Exactly as you wish.”
Chapter Nine
KING STREET, LONDON
July 1 6 6 0
If any had asked me, I would have said that I’d more than my share of happiness in my young life, especially once I’d traded the tedium of the country for the amusements of London. But that first summer of King Charles’s reign—ah, there never could be a more magical time than that! It seemed the sun always shone and the air was always sweet and warm those months. In the near-constant company of England’s brave new king, my life was full of gaiety and merriness. We danced and played, dined and drank and laughed. We watched the fireworks over the city, we glided along the river in a gilded barge, and we loved—oh, how we loved! That is what I remember the most, and what I shall never forget.
“Set those flowers there, by the wall,” I said one night early in July, pointing the way as the two hired men trooped down the alley with buckets of roses and daisies from the market. Roger and I had moved into this house too late in the planting season for a gardener to have much effect, so I was forced to rely on potted flowers to make our small yard sufficiently engaging for guests. “Higher, if you please, to give us privacy. I don’t want strangers peeping at us, you know.”
“Mistress Palmer!” Tom, our household’s single footman, came trotting t
oward me. “The boy from th’ cookshop’s come with the venison pies.”
“Already?” I sighed, perplexed. Though our house was equipped with the luxury of its own bake oven, neither I nor our kitchen maid had the experience necessary to utilize it for more than warming food purchased elsewhere. Besides, the evening was already warm enough without adding more heat from the oven, jutting out from the kitchen as it did. To my joy, I’d found a nearby baker who made most excellent pies of fowl, venison, and eels, when he could get them fresh from the river, and I’d placed a large order with him for tonight. They’d be the centerpiece of my small collation—gentlemen always do love a savory pie—though I hadn’t counted on the pasties arriving so soon.
“Very well, then,” I said, striving to sound as if I was hostess to such gatherings every day. “Have the pies set on the long table in the kitchen, and mind that Deborah covers them with fresh cloths to keep the flies away.”
“Flies away from what?” Roger asked, appearing in the garden seemingly from nowhere. At this hour, he should have been engaged in his parliamentary affairs, and not here vexing me. “Barbara, who are these persons in our garden?”
“Beg pardon, Mistress Palmer,” Tom said, hurrying back from the kitchen. “But Deborah says the man’s here with th’ sillery, and she would know whether to put it in th’ cellar to keep it cool, or above stairs, for convenience.”
“Sillery!” Roger cried. “Since when do we keep French wines in this house, either in the cellar or otherwise?”
“Hush, Roger, please,” I said. “Tom, have the man put the wine in the cellar for now.”
But Roger refused to be hushed. “Roses in pots, lanterns hung from the trees, new cushions on the benches and chairs! Barbara, what is all this?”
“It’s for tonight, Roger, as you know well, or you would if you did but listen to me,” I said, retying my apron tapes more closely about my waist. “We’re expecting a small group for music, and because the weather’s been so fair I thought to have it here.”
“A small group, Barbara? Here?” He scowled and shook his head, his flat-brimmed gray hat bobbing back and forth. “Forgive me, but I do not recall hearing of this at all. Who are these guests of yours?”
“They’re our guests, Roger.” I took him by the arm to lead him away from the flower-men to the far end of the yard, and lowered my voice, too, so they would not overhear. “His Majesty the King, Their Graces the Duke of York and the Duke of Gloucester, and perhaps several other acquaintances I’ve made at court. I know I’ve told you.”
Roger drew back. “The king and the princes in my house?”
“In our house,” I answered firmly, though an excellent case could be made for the house being more properly mine by rights. “It will be a considerable honor, you know, and if you could make yourself pleasant and agreeable in company, I’m sure it will go far to helping your place in the government.”
“What will help me advance is hard work,” he grumbled, “which is far more than this court seems to do. Every night while I must toil, you’re among them at Whitehall, drinking and gaming and dancing and—”
“Do you deny that His Majesty works as hard as his ministers?” I demanded, defending the king instead of myself. “Does he ever shirk his meetings with them, or excuse himself from the call of a foreign diplomat? Hasn’t he listened to every single petitioner seeking reparation from him, listened with gravity and consideration?”
“That is true,” Roger admitted grudgingly. “His Majesty has demonstrated a most prodigious gift for the work of his position, and is always among the first to begin at Whitehall, no matter how late he retired to his bed the night before.”
“Completely true,” I said, perhaps more frankly than I should have volunteered. I’d seen for myself how little sleep Charles—for so I now thought of him in my head; I’d never dare presume to address him so informally, of course, no matter how intimate our connection, and never would—seemed to require. Not only did he devote long hours to the work of sorting his country’s affairs, but he also continued his regimen of long, fast walks through St. James’s Park, riding as fast as any jockey, swimming in the river, and vigorous games of tennis.
Yet each night he was still ready for a long evening of dancing and gaming, in addition to the frequent retreats to his private quarters with me, sometimes as often as three diverse times in a single evening, if he was in the proper humor. “So why, then, do you begrudge him his diversions at the end of the day?”
“It’s not His Majesty I begrudge his diversions, Barbara, but you,” he said. “There’s no question that His Majesty is the first gentleman of the realm, but the same cannot be said about those he chooses for his courtiers. Why you must spend so much time at the palace among those drunkards and whoremongers—”
“Because that is where preferment begins, Roger,” I said vehemently. “Toiling away with your pen in your hand in a dark closet at the Parliament House will never bring you to favor, but each time I am seen by the king marks another time he recalls your name as well. Were you not among the first to be repaid for what you’d loaned to the royal cause?”
“Yes,” he admitted heavily. “Yes, I was.”
“Well, then, you understand.” Mollified, I drew a small paper fan from my apron’s pocket to fan my face. I’d found this summer deucedly warm, or maybe it was simply the effect of keeping pace with Charles. I was young, of rosy health, but still I found I needed to crawl back to my bed here in King Street to sleep whenever I could. “Now, I must go see if Deborah has—”
“I don’t see why York must be included tonight.” Roger’s face was flushed an angry red. “He has no influence over our station.”
“His Highness?” I asked, unsure of what he meant. The Duke of York was the middle Stuart brother, full-lipped and fair where the other two were dark, and stolid to a fault. He was said to have fought valiantly during the wars, but I found him so dull and dogged as to seem slow-witted. “Why shouldn’t the duke be invited? To be sure, I’d hear more conversation from one of those pots of flowers than from him, but that—”
“Don’t dissemble, Barbara,” he said sharply. “I’ve heard what’s being said, how his name is often linked to yours.”
“Mine with the duke’s?” I tipped back my head and laughed, not only with relief but with true merriment. To confound the gossips, Charles would often be sure to have one or the other of his brothers about him when he was with me, but I’d never thought such a ruse would fool anyone, let alone my husband. “Oh, Roger, please.”
“If it’s so ludicrous, then swear to me that you’ve never encouraged him,” Roger ordered. “Will you swear it?”
“I’ll gladly swear on any holy book you please,” I said, laughing still. “I shall never, never, never be tempted by the Duke of York.”
“No?” he asked again, his gaze fair scrubbing my face for the truth. “You are sure?”
“I told you I’d swear, didn’t I?” I rolled my gaze toward the heavens. “Besides, if you’d paid heed to gossip and scandal, then you’d know that His Highness is already so far in the muck with the lord chancellor’s daughter that he’d have no time to squander upon me.”
“The lord chancellor’s daughter? Anne Hyde?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, positively licking my lips to be able to repeat such a juicy tale, bringing shame as it did upon my old nemesis Sir Edward Hyde. “They say she first caught the duke’s eye at the Hague, where Anne was maid of honor to the Princess Mary of Orange—his eye, and his cock, for they say now her belly’s swelled large as a hayrick with the duke’s brat.”
Roger looked pained. “Barbara, please. Such vulgar talk belongs in the mouth of some foul doxy, not a lady of the court.”
“Why not speak plain, when what Anne and the duke have done is plain enough?” I laughed again, unperturbed by his criticism. No one minced or parsed their words at Whitehall; to be overnice in one’s speech was to be a toss-back to the prudish days of the Protectorate.
“No one can fathom why the duke would choose such a woeful, pasty creature as Anne, either. She favors her father the lord chancellor, you know, and is every bit as disagreeable and gouty as he. It’s a marvel anyone’s been able to tell she’s with child, she’s that dreadfully fat. And as for her face, why—”
“You are certain York has no interest in you?”
“Yes.” I smiled with confidence, for this was the truth and easy to face without any bluster. I could not tell if Roger yet knew of my dalliance with the king, or if he’d even suspected it. For all I could tell, he might be perfectly aware of his cuckold’s horns, yet had decided the rewards of compliance were worth the effort of looking away and feigning ignorance. Yet though I much preferred Charles’s attentions to my husband’s—what woman wouldn’t choose a king, I ask you?—I didn’t neglect my duty toward Roger, either, and he had my attention whenever he wished it. By my lights, he’d no reason whatsoever for complaint.
I furled my fan and tapped him lightly on the arm with it. “If you still have your doubts, then be sure to attend this night,” I said, smiling winningly. “You’ll see for yourself you’ve nothing to fear regarding me and His Highness.”
“Perhaps later, Barbara,” he said gruffly and cleared his throat, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’m set to dine with two gentlemen down from Windsor. You can tell me all tomorrow.”
His glance had strayed from my face to my breasts, for I’d left off a kerchief on account of the heat, leaving nearly all exposed to his view. He cleared his throat again, a sound I could read as clearly as mariners read the stars in the sky. Aha, so he’d be expecting to conclude his night carousing about the town with the gentlemen from Windsor, and I’d do well to be there waiting when he finally came home.
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