The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  He laughed, and I thought there could be no finer nor more agreeable sound in all the world. “What is your name, poppet? ”

  “Nell Gwyn, sir.” I tipped my head to one side, my throat arched and vulnerable. “Honored, I am, that you’d ask it.”

  “Nor will I forget it, Nell,” he said. “Where has Killigrew been hiding you, eh?”

  “Over and under, sir, within and without.” Deftly I tossed the orange to him.

  He caught it with ease, with one hand. “Here and there? ”

  “Here and there, sir, everywhere and nowhere,” I said eagerly, “and wherever I needed to be to wait for you.”

  “Everywhere being the nursery, apparently,” said Lady Castlemaine, sitting beside the king. Unable to keep silent any longer, she’d leaned forward, too, though the way she was regarding me had not a drop of the king’s warmth or pleasure. “I didn’t realize your tastes ran to tipping cradles, sir.”

  “They don’t,” the king said, still studying me with unabashed enjoyment. “But beauty can be admired in any age.”

  “A pretty child, yes, though a child nonetheless.” Though she smiled indulgently, I realized to my surprise that she regarded me as a rival. It was writ plain across her face. Even dazzled as I was, I couldn’t miss it.

  The notion that I’d inspire Lady Castlemaine to jealousy awed yet delighted me, too. Though the countess was hugely swollen with her third bastard by the king, she remained one of the most beautiful ladies I’d ever seen. As the poets at the court wrote, her skin was flawless cream and rose, her hair a rival for the most lustrous chestnut, her eyes the same unfathomable blue as eastern sapphires. In stature she was tall for a woman, her carriage gracefully regal, and she wore her blue Genoa velvet gown, laced with silver thread, with the easy assurance of one who had always dressed so.

  Yet while her ladyship looked every inch the elegant, highborn consort for the king, she was also reputed to be as wickedly amorous as an inflamed she-stoat, and as knowledgeable in cunning positions and clever skills as the most costly Venetian courtesan. Like every trade, high and low, whores speak among themselves, so I knew the truth in these particular stories of her ladyship.

  It was also said (and openly, too) that the lady had bewitched the king with her ability to give him a healthy child a year, something the barren queen had failed to do. That huge belly of hers wasn’t a sign of disgrace or shame: it was a mark and a benefit of the king’s favor, and a blatant display of the power she held over him.

  So was it any wonder that I marveled at the jealousy I now saw in her famously seductive eyes? Or was it unexpected that I felt no small swell of pride in myself, that I’d inspire such an intense response from her?

  I was nearly ten years younger than she. I was merry and nimble, and beautiful enough to hold unrivaled sway within my own little circle. My waist was still slender as a reed, unbowed by childbearing. I’d made the king laugh and notice me with favor. But mostly I was young enough to believe that all this mattered, and young enough also to believe that I was fit to challenge her.

  I was only thirteen, and a fool as only a thirteen-year-old lass can be.

  “I’m not a child, my lady,” I said, even as my voice squeaked upward to give unwilling lie to my protest. “I’m as grown as likely I’ll ever be.”

  She laughed softly, slipping her hand into the crook of the king’s arm. “Pretty little fledgling,” she said. “So eager to fly, isn’t she?”

  The king chuckled with her, but my orange remained in his dark fingers and his gaze still rested intently upon me. “How old are you, Miss Nelly Fledgling?”

  “I’ll be fourteen in the spring, sir,” I said swiftly, holding my breath to make my breasts seem larger above my simple bodice. “And I swear to you my feathers are full flighted.”

  That made him laugh again, and I saw the countess’s fingers tighten into his arm. She leaned closer, lifting his hair from his ear to whisper to him, so I could not hear. Then, as a final indignity to me, she ran the tip of her tongue, red and glistening wet, along the rim of the king’s ear.

  I’ll grant she knew what pleased him, the cunning slut. My orange dropped from his fingers, forgotten. At once he turned toward her and seized her jaw in his hand. He kissed her hard, his mouth working fiercely over hers, and I saw her hand slip from his sleeve to his lap.

  Standing below as I was, I could not see where her hand traveled next or how exactly she worked upon him, but I could guess. I wasn’t some country-bred innocent. I’d been raised in a brothel and toiled in a playhouse, and had witnessed more than my share of debauchery and misbehavior.

  What did shock me, however, was the freedom with which the countess treated the royal person in so public a place, where all were watching, and how in turn the king appeared to take no offense, only delight, in her boldness. When at last he released her, she looked over his shoulder to smile down at me with smug triumph.

  The king was smiling, too, but from what she’d done, and not at me. He settled back in his chair with his hand resting possessively upon her knee, and returned his attention to the players on the stage.

  One of his gentlemen stepped to the front of the box to toss me my fee for the orange. I caught it, still hoping for another word or two from the king. But none came, and none would. With my heart weighted by humiliation, I tucked the coin into my pocket, turned away, and began once again to cry my oranges in the pit.

  “It’s nothing to do with you, Nell,” said Rose, who’d seen the whole sorry show. “His Majesty likes his women older than you, and with experience. Everyone knows that. He doesn’t favor young girls. He never has.”

  But his indifference had stung me too sharply for me to find any comfort in her logic. The king had spoken to me, had smiled at me and asked my name and laughed with me, but then, in the end, he’d found me lacking. That was what I remembered, and could not forget.

  “To the devil with experience,” I muttered miserably. “To the devil with them all.”

  Chapter Six

  THEATRE ROYAL, LONDON September 1664

  The next year passed, as all years do. There were the usual scandals in Whitehall Palace, and the usual rumors of a new war with the Dutch, the French, the heathen Chinamen across the sea, for what it mattered to me. The lopped-off heads of the traitors who’d murdered the king’s father rotted further on their pikes on London Bridge, a gruesome reminder (as if we’d needed it) that England was a better place under this King Charles than Cromwell. The queen’s womb remained empty of the king’s get, while Lady Castlemaine’s seemed always to be full. The enormous serpent—nigh twenty feet long, and as full around as a trooper’s brawny thigh!—on show at India House was considered much the greater marvel of the time.

  I passed my fourteenth birthday, in growing awareness of my measure as a woman. I continued to be employed by the King’s Company, selling oranges and bantering merrily with the play-goers, and carrying messages between gentlemen and actresses. Whenever the king came to the royal box, he’d buy his oranges from me alone, and smile with favor at my jests, regardless of whether he came with the queen or Lady Castlemaine or only his brother the duke. Yet to my secret disappointment, in his eyes I remained the fledging orange girl, and nothing more.

  Just as I had when I’d been younger, I still hoped in secret for more regard from him, more signs of his especial favor. Kings could be charmed, even seduced, but never hurried. I understood that, and though I might sigh and pine within, I made certain my smile stayed bright to the world.

  And truly, why shouldn’t it? The king’s disaffection was the only dark shadow to besmirch my sunny life. Being an orange girl was a most excellent place for a chit like me, and I knew my good fortune to have it. I’d only to look about the playhouse to see the grim lessons of those women who didn’t. Every lordling wished an actress in his bed, and every actress became moon-eyed at the prospect of being a rich man’s mistress. But too many of the actresses had traded Master Killigrew’s generos
ity for the keeping of some rascally gentleman, only to find themselves promptly abandoned with no more than a big belly to show for it. So common had this poaching become that only one of the new actresses who’d joined the company since the playhouse’s opening remained, scarce more than a year later.

  While the actresses aspired to be the playthings of noblemen, the orange girls weren’t as particular, choosing to believe the palaver of any pit gallant in a velvet coat as they tumbled to their ruin. Then their fate was sealed. As soon as their bellies began to swell, they’d be cursed and tossed back to the streets around Drury Lane by Mrs. Meggs. The sad tale didn’t change. Bastards and the faithless whoremongers who father them were never good for trade, nor for womanhood, either—unless, of course, the womanhood belonged to Lady Castlemaine.

  Which is to say (finally, for I know I do ramble in the telling) that all the tattle and rubbish that has since been said and written of me during that time is exactly that: tattle and rubbish and out-and-out lies. I’ll lay my hand upon the Holy Writ and vow that after I left Mr. Duncan’s keeping, I’d not dallied once with another.

  Oh, I’d jest and laugh and tease with every likely fellow in the pit or the gallery, and in the ale shops around the playhouse, too. But never in that time did I lift my petticoats for any of them, for either love or coin. I’d no reason to do so, and plenty to not. Sour old preachers will claim that once a whore, always a whore, and shake their books of damnation in my face. Yet in return I’ll stoutly vow that I had my will and my life, and I’d not spread my legs again for any man unless I wished it. I left the careless assignations and random pleasures to my sister Rose, who could no more set aside whoring than a fish can rise from the waters and walk upon the sands, or to greater harlots like Lady Castlemaine, who, ’twas said, had taken as many extra men to her bed as the king had taken other women. But I—I wished for more from my humble life, and I meant to do whatever I needed to make it so.

  And before another year had passed, I had.

  “Here, Nell, here!” called the gentleman at the end of the row, waving his sixpence in a sweeping circle over his head. Today’s play had been indifferently received and was at last limping through its final act, with the entertainment in the pit of far more interest to the rest of the audience. There had already been a hair-pulling match between two of the vizard-wearing harpies and an outraged husband, sword in hand, scrambling over the baize-covered benches after his wife’s lover. Now this fellow seemed determined to command his share of the attention, and I set my basket down with a thump to answer him.

  “Surely you’ll want more than a single orange, m’lord?” I called across the others, and flashed my most winning smile. “A great gentleman like yourself? Why, I venture you’d be requiring a brace o’ my finest, m’lord, at the very least!”

  “Your finest does come in a pair, doesn’t it, Nell?” The gentleman on the nearest end of the bench before me, a young spark but an old familiar to me, raised his hands and waggled his fingers as if to fondle my breasts.

  I hooted and rolled my gaze toward the heavens, and shoved him away with my palm against his chest, to the boisterous laughter of his companions. If I puffed out my own chest above my stays to make a better showing of what I’d denied him, why, that only served to make them laugh the more. I suppose a lady might have taken offense at his words and actions, but I’d never believed in false niceties, whether for a lady, a saint, or a whore. Besides, he was here to enjoy himself, just as I was here to see that he did.

  “So, what shall it be, m’lord?” I called to the first gentleman, raising my voice to be heard over their laughter and the hapless actors on the stage behind me. “I’d begun expecting you to buy two, but the more you dawdle and haw, I’d say it’s more likely you’ll be taking double that.”

  His eyes bugged from his head. “A pox take your reckoning, you little hussy!”

  “You want a hussy’s reckoning, m’lord?” I twisted my mouth to one side, as if considering. “That makes for six, I’m thinking. Six’s as a good number as any. Aye, m’lord, I’m thinking six oranges would be just and fair. Wouldn’t you agree, my dear, kind sirs?”

  They cheered me, my dear sirs, as did the others around us. With such a racket, the rascal at the end of the row had no choice but to agree. He dug again into his purse, counting the price I’d asked for into his palm. Pointedly, he looked at the five men who sat between us, five pairs of legs and laps and feet as a barrier to be breached.

  “Six, then,” he said, holding the coins out in his open hand. “On condition that you fetch them yourself.”

  The blustering fool. He thought I’d let him wriggle free. I knew I wouldn’t, and the five between us knew it, too. There were times when it was a fine thing to be so small a person, and this was one of them.

  “Come along, Nell,” said the first man on the bench. He held out his arms to cradle me in this jury-rigged bridge, and the others in line quickly followed suit. This was a trick I’d performed before, and chuckling with amsuement, I launched myself headfirst into their open arms.

  It was the work of a moment for them to pass me down the bench to deliver my half-dozen oranges and collect my tariff, and another moment more to be handed back whence I’d come. All the while I whistled merrily, and fluttered my toes as if I were swimming like the boys did in the Thames. Though the five men had every opportunity to abuse my person in such a position, none of them did, proving that in my way, I’d earned their regard as well as their amusement. At the end, I slid back to my feet in the aisle, smoothed my skirts with the practiced air of a duchess, and prettily curtseyed my thanks to more applause than the players on the stage earned that night.

  Flushed with success, I was smiling still as I pocketed my new-earned coins. I settled my basket back on my hip, and felt a man’s hand on my shoulder. From long habit, I began to shake him away, before I realized the hand belonged to Master Killigrew, his expression carefully impassive.

  “Nell,” he said, leaning close so the others wouldn’t hear. “A word with you alone in my chamber when we’ve shut for the day.”

  “Aye, sir,” I swiftly agreed, adding another curtsey for good measure, but he’d already turned away from me. All joy in my little performance vanished. Master Killigrew seldom spoke to us orange girls, except to shoo us mildly away like the stray cats in Drury Lane if we clustered too long at the front of his stage. Instead he preferred to leave us to Mrs. Meggs for ordering, an arrangement that suited us all.

  Thus the fact that he’d now addressed me like this in the pit, in such a manner, could only mean I’d somehow erred so foully that even he could not let it pass unrebuked. I feared that this day would surely be my last in the playhouse, and I was so distraught that I could scarce continue my duties for the rest of the play. As soon as it was done and the audience emptied into the street, I left my basket with my sister, tucked my unruly curls behind my ears, and reported to Master Killigrew’s chamber backstage.

  I tapped at the door, and entered when he bid me. To my surprise, he wasn’t alone. Crowded into the small chamber with him were two of the company’s most prominent men. Charles Hart was not only an original shareholder, but also one of the house’s leading actors and a hugely handsome fellow that made the vizards sigh with desire. Though I’d met him on that first day I’d called, before the playhouse was opened, he’d not noticed me overmuch since then. But now he was regarding me with such intensity that my uneasiness grew great indeed.

  The other was John Lacy, an older actor from Yorkshire of great repute and kindliness. His once manly chest having fallen with age and his cheeks withered, he had claimed characters such as Shakespeare’s Falstaff for his own. He was also the one who realized my distress, and waved his hand for me to take the last seat in the room, a tabouret borrowed from the stage properties.

  “Here, Nell, here, be easy among us,” he said, his smile warm and genial. “We’re all friends here.”

  “Thank’ee, sirs.” I bobbed a
quick curtsey, and perched my bum on the edge of the stool. “I’ll be as easy as I can, sirs, which is to say little more than not at all, given the grandness of your company.”

  “But that’s just it, my dear, isn’t it?” Now Master Killigrew was smiling as well, watching me closely down his crooked nose. “Make me that little speech again, exactly so.”

  “ ‘Little speech’?” I frowned, turning suspicious. “Forgive me, Master Killigrew, but if you mean to turn me out, then I’ll ask you to play Jack Ketch, and be merciful quick about my execution, without tormenting me for your sport.”

  “You’re done hauling oranges in this playhouse, Nell,” Mr. Hart said, laughing in a way that did nothing comfort me. “I’d call that being merciful, wouldn’t you?”

  “Nay, I would not.” I hopped back to my feet, determined not to remain the target of their cruelty any longer. “I’ll quit you first, sirs, and bid you all straight to hell for—”

  “Hush, Nell, there’s no need for that,” Master Killigrew said quickly. “You misread our intents. I don’t wish to turn you out. I wish to take you on for trial as a member of the company, and see if we can make a player out of you.”

  “Me, sir?” Stunned, I dropped back down onto the stool with a thump. “You would wish such a thing for me? ”

  “I do.” He nodded with that self-pleased satisfaction that men seem to feel whenever they bestow some rare, unexpected boon upon a woman. “I’ve been watching you, Nell, watching how you tame those wild creatures in the pit. You don’t let them better you, but stroke and coax them until they’re as gentle as tabbies on your lap. Best of all, they don’t realize they’ve been tamed.”

  “I don’t tame them, not exactly,” I protested. “I only make ’em laugh, so they forget their mischief.”

  “Whatever you call it, Nelly, it’s a gift from the gods,” Mr. Lacy declared, “and it’s a gift that many players would give their eyeteeth to possess.”