This Towering Passion

by Valerie Sherwood

  “I am sorry,” she said with decision, “but I must not be late for my appointment.” She did not say with whom, but she stopped and studied the mercer, who might be suffering more than she thought. “On my way home, would you like me to ask the barber-surgeon to call?”

  “No need,” replied her employer testily, adjusting his leg with a groan. “I’ll probably have lost the leg afore that!” Lenore gave him a look of mild amusement. He’d been irritable when she went anywhere of late; it occurred to her that his sisters might be inventing tales about where she went—and with whom. No matter, that could not be helped —she must be at the theatre well before the opening hour.

  “Anyone could tell she has a lover, Father,” she heard one of the mercer’s daughters whisper as she left.

  Lenore paused, wondering if she should take the time to refute that, decided against it, and hurried out into a strong citing wind. She wrapped her heavy shawl around her and hoped she would not break her neck on her high wooden pattens on the icy streets. Her breath frosted the air as she made her way to the Red Bull in St. John’s Street where the newly organized King’s Company was giving a play. There she waited, standing in the cold outside the theatre.

  When the King’s coach arrived, Lenore tensed. Courtiers and great ladies brushed by her, carelessly shunting her aside. But when the King—tall and wearing his preferred black, with a sable-lined cloak—stepped from his coach, Lenore stepped forward, too. As he approached the entrance, she darted swiftly between the courtiers to reach him, tripped over a dress sword worn by a courtier in silver-embroidered velvets, and sprawled at the surprised monarch’s feet.

  “Here, wench! What are you doing?” Rough hands assisted her to her feet.

  “Your Majesty,” panted Lenore, her shawl at her feet, her bright hair tumbled from her fall, and one shoulder of her dress pulled down even further by the jerk to her feet one of the courtiers had given her. “I have been trying for months to gain an audience with you!”

  The King paused and his cynical dark gaze studied that impudently bare white shoulder, the sheer lovely skin of her pulsing throat, the large pleading violet eyes under their fringe of dark lashes, the saucy figure and general look of dishabille. “Such diligence should be rewarded,” he murmured flippantly, and turned to the courtier in silver-embroidered velvets over whose sword Lenore had tripped. Tomorrow at two. See to it, Ramsay.”

  Lenore curtsied deeply and managed to retrieve her shawl. Beside the King a richly gowned woman gave Lenore an irritable look and then swept on beside His Majesty. The courtier, Ramsay, remained. “Your name, girl,” he demanded curtly.

  “Lenore Frankford.”

  “Be at Whitehall tomorrow at one o’clock. You will be admitted.”

  “But the King said two,” pointed out Lenore.

  Ramsay gave her an angry look. His great periwig trembled with disdain. “Do you think His Majesty will wait for you? ’Tis you must wait for him! One o’clock, I say— and mind you be not late!” he finished testily and hurried on in an attempt to catch up with the King’s party.

  "I’ll not keep ye waiting, pretty wench!” cried a drunken voice, and Lenore turned to see a beaming young apprentice, reeling from too much beer and carrying a shilling for a cheap seat. “Ye can sit on my knee and watch the play!” She laughed and shook her head. Jubilant, with her shawl clutched around her against the cold, she hurried back to the mercer’s through a lightly falling snow. He looked up sourly as she entered. “And what tale will we have now?” he demanded in a vinegary voice.

  Lenore was too happy to be upset by his heckling tone—or by his daughters, giving her malicious looks from their chairs beside him.

  “I am to have an audience with the King,” she announced. “At Whitehall. Tomorrow at two.”

  The mercer’s jaw dropped. One of his daughters dropped her embroidery, and the other stuck her finger with her needle and cried out sharply.

  Lenore would have turned to go, but the mercer’s stern voice called her back. “I have been too lenient with you, mistress,” he declared, and Lenore thought bitterly that his daughters must have rehearsed him in this speech. “And these wild tales must cease.”

  “But it is true,” she explained patiently. “I do indeed have an audience with the King.”

  One of the taffety-clad girls laughed contemptuously. “Audience with the King, indeed! More like a stroll in the park with some likely apprentice with a strong back and a soft head!” she scoffed.

  Lenore swung about to give her a crushing response, but the old man was trying to struggle up. His eyes were flashing with rage and suspicion. “ ’Tis easy to see ye’re deceiving me, taking advantage of my good nature!” he rasped. “So now ’tis an audience with the King, is it? I think not, mistress. And I think that ye will be at your duties tomorrow at two—yes and after, at your duties till well after sundown!”

  Lenore sighed. She had really liked the old man and was saddened that his daughters had managed to place this wedge between them.

  “Then I will be leaving you tomorrow,” she said soberly. For the King I must see.”

  His face suffused with color and he fell back into his chair looking so disconsolate that she felt real pity for him.

  “Please try to understand,” she cried, moving forward. But one of his daughters blocked her way.

  “You have said enough to upset my father,” shouted the young girl, her face almost as empurpled as his. “Have the goodness to pack your things and get out!”

  Lenore turned to the mercer for a stay of execution, but saw his jawline harden. He refused to look at her.

  “Is it your desire that I leave at once, or in the morning?” she asked coldly.

  “In the morning will be sufficient time,” he said in a strangled voice, and Lenore stalked up the stairs to pack her few belongings.

  No one saw her leave the next day. The door of the mercer’s study, where he sat by a warm fire at this time of day, was firmly closed. Lenore guessed his daughters had closed it, and doubtless were patrolling it, as well, to keep their father from weakening and asking her to stay. But. . . even if he did, it would be but for a short time, for they would soon be leaving school and coming home for good, and then life would become impossible for the pretty housekeeper.

  Lenore went to the George and left her few possessions with Mistress Potts, who clucked over Lenore’s being dismissed. But Mistress Potts’s eyes grew round when Lenore told her she was to have an audience at Whitehall, and she insisted on taking Lenore there in a hackney coach.

  “After all, ye cannot arrive there looking winded or blue with cold!” she cried as they bounced and skidded over the icy cobbles.

  “I looked blue with cold yesterday when I tripped and tumbled to his feet,” Lenore said ruefully.

  “Ah, but you’ll not trip today! Today you’ll be graceful as a gazelle,” Mistress Potts said romantically, snuggling into her fur muff.

  Lenore laughed, but she was becoming edgy as they approached Whitehall. The royal palace had never looked so imposing to Lenore as it looked this day.

  “Driver, we will wait,” ordered Mistress Potts, leaning back in the coach with a languid wave of her muff as if she were herself royalty.

  Very nervous now, Lenore alighted and gave her name to the first lackey who looked her way. He was a liveried footman with a fresh country face and merry eyes, who escorted her into a large handsome room alive with bustling courtiers. There she was handed from one bewigged and satin-clad personage to another, always in an ascending scale of importance. Some of these fine gentlemen regarded her thoughtfully, some were merely contemptuous, and one kept her waiting for a long time, then took snuff and looked down his nose at her in an insulting fashion. Lenore was sure they thought her a new doxie brought in for the King’s entertainment and—from her threadbare garb—wondered at his low tastes. Though her color rose at this condescending treatment, she kept her head high. At last she was ushered into a small private antechambe
r and the door closed discreetly behind her. Obviously the King would see her . . . alone.

  She saw that the room was devoid of furniture, though the walls and ceiling were sumptuously decorated. Lenore stared at them, twisting her gloved hands together—Mistress Potts had lent her a pair of hers and they did not fit. Her gaze wandered across the polished floor to the several pairs of double doors—all shut—which led she knew not where. There were two tall windows, both heavily draped, and impulsively she stepped behind those drapes and looked out into sumptuous gardens glittering with ice. It was cold here but her blood racing in her veins kept her feverishly warm.

  She heard a small sound as the door opened, and turned to see through a slit in the heavy damask drapes that the King had entered the room. She had a good view of him from where she stood. He was of an athletic build and exceptionally tall—a height accentuated by the rather narrow effect of his rich black velvet clothing, and he seemed quite oblivious of the cold. A single gold chain accented by a huge ruby hung around his neck and his whole stance was that of a man born to command—and enjoying it.

  Surprised at seeing no one in the room, his swarthy face swung round irritably—and Lenore stepped forth from the damask curtains and made him a deep curtsy with a rustle of amber silk.

  He stepped forward gracefully and took her hand. “You may rise, mistress,” he said imperturbably and Lenore looked up into a pair of smiling dark eyes above a wide sensuous mouth. “What do they call you?”

  “Lenore Frankford, Your Majesty.”

  He gave her a keen look that took in the too-daring cut of her gown, the ripe beautiful figure beneath it. “And why d’ye seek this audience with me?”

  Lenore lifted her head. “Your Majesty,” she said, taking a deep breath, “although you are doubtless unaware of it, I too had a small part in your return to your rightful throne.”

  King Charles regarded her cynically. He was used to false claims and over-inflated “services” rendered in the past in his cause. But. . . this wench was very pretty. “And how is that?” he murmured, studying her rapidly rising and falling breasts.

  Lenore hesitated, fearful of appearing ridiculous. “Men called me for a while the Angel of Worcester,” she blurted.

  As she had feared, a smile curved that wide sensuous mouth, and his dark eyes glinted with amusement. “The naked wench on the white horse who rode with a flaming sword toward the town? And I had thought it all lies! But now you’re telling me you were this Godiva?”

  Lenore flushed. “There was no flaming sword, and I was certainly fully clothed. But I did ride my white horse into Worcester on the day of the battle. ’Twas to find my handfast husband who had ridden out of the Cotswolds with his claymore in hand to enlist in your cause.”

  The lively interest in that dark face continued. She could almost feel those cynical dark eyes stripping the clothes from her body, feel a lazy royal hand pushing down her chemise to caress her naked back, her naked breasts.

  ... “And did you find him?”

  She nodded.

  “What was his name? I trust he seeks some reward from me?”

  “He seeks no reward,” Lenore replied shortly. “And find him I did—his body lay cold and dead by Barbour’s Bridge after the battle.”

  King Charles had seen many men die—in his cause and others’, but a wench was a wench. He took a step closer. “But surely you seek something?” he challenged.

  Lenore drew a long, ragged breath. This tall, dark man who leaned so close was dangerously attractive. “I was falsely accused of murdering a student named Michael Maltby whom I knew in Oxford. He was giving me his protection upon the road north to Banbury in the summer of 1652 when robbers attacked us, killed him, and—and fled.” No need to mention that she might have killed one! “His mother refused to believe I did not kill Michael for the money in his pockets and brought charges against me. I—I am a fugitive, Sire.”

  He reached out and carelessly toyed with a shining red-gold curl that fell silkily down beside her ear. Involuntarily, as his hand brushed her neck, she flinched. “And are these all the charges against you?” he asked gravely.

  “There—there is also a charge of assault against the person of one Gilbert Marnock in Oxford in that same month and year,” she said hurriedly.

  Was that laughter she saw glimmering behind those dark worldly eyes in the dark face that bent over her own? His voice was sober enough. “And how did you assault this Gilbert Marnock?”

  “With a hot poker. I marked his face because—because he had raped me and then tried to blackmail me into becoming his doxie!”

  His dark brows lifted, but he nodded thoughtfully. “A just punishment surely. Have you any more crimes against you?”

  She thought he looked fascinated and mumbled, “No, Sire,” with her face crimson.

  His dark face came closer, closer.

  “Ye’ll have my pardon,” he murmured thickly. “No matter who ye’ve killed!”

  For a feverish moment their eyes met, locked. His brown eyes had lost their cynicism, they were fierce, intense, brown liquid pools, too deep, too dark—a woman could drown there. Lenore was trembling. And yet . . . his lips brushed hers and involuntarily she turned her head away, she did not know why.

  He stepped back, chilled of his ardor.

  “As the Angel of Worcester, I may owe ye a debt,” he said dryly, “for your name was a rallying point for the people . . . they believed in you, as a legend, something to hold onto when hope was gone. So for both these offenses, I will give ye a royal pardon. Mistress Lenore. Through that door on your way out, stop and tell that huge booted man at the desk about it. ’Twill be done, I promise you.”

  Lenore’s face was flushed, for she was still shaken. She had been sorely tempted there for a moment. “Thank you. Your Majesty.” She made him a deep curtsy that bared her décolletage for his interested gaze and turned to go.

  His sharp eyes, watching her retreat, noted the hole in her stocking as her skirts swung round. His rich voice arrested her; it sounded speculative. “Could it be that ye seek employment, Mistress Lenore?”

  She turned, saw the direction of his gaze at her ankles, and winced. He had seen that hole in her stocking! She lifted her dainty chin and gave him back a challenging look. “Employment—yes, Sire.”

  A ghost of a smile trembled on his cynical mouth at her slight emphasis on the word “employment.” Lenore’s color deepened. Tempted or not, she would not be a doxie, she thought rebelliously—no, not even a royal one! Her heart was hers for the giving, but it was neither for sale nor for rent!

  “I’ve a thought where ye might find employment that would please ye. Ye have a certain flair. Have ye thought of the theatre?”

  “I—I thought men played all the women’s roles.”

  “No longer. Now, as on the Continent, we shall have beauty in the theatre. Half the singing and dancing students of London have already been recruited!” he said jokingly. “The theatre will soon be bursting with young ladies of . . . virtue that will perhaps not equal your own.” His voice was whimsical. “Your face is fair. I could well imagine you in a breeches part—if ye’ve the legs for it. Could one see your legs, Mistress Lenore?”

  At this impudent royal request, Lenore, as if hypnotized, lifted her skirts just above her pretty knees.

  “Turn around,” he said, bemused.

  A breeches part—and not in some barn or forest glade, but here in the London theatre! She would be part of the theatre again! Enthusiasm made her whirl about too fast so that her amber skirts and russet satin petticoat whipped up about her lissome hips and her lovely long legs were appealingly bared to the royal view.

  “Do that again,” he said, stepping toward her, his dark eyes becoming intense again.

  Lenore stared at him, her breath coming fast, her violet gaze beneath her sweeping dark lashes defiant, wild. If she raised her skirts for him again, she knew what would happen. A long arm would snake out and grasp her. He would lea
d her swiftly through one of those tall double doors to a handsomely appointed chamber dominated by a great soft canopied bed, perhaps with the royal arms emblazoned in gold. There he would seize her and crush her naked body in his arms and discover all her secrets. She would move luxuriantly beneath him, moaning as she responded to his masculinity and . . . and she would become a royal mistress. She would compete with all the other women he slept with casually—and with his premiere mistress, the beauteous Barbara Villiers. She had heard as she moved through the crowd in that large room outside today that the King had made Barbara’s husband, Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine —just to send him off to Ireland so he could have his wife. ’Twas said the lovely willful Barbara held the King in the palm of her hand, that he feared to cross her, that she held him in thrall. But . . . something silky and devious in her mind murmured as she basked in that hard, hot royal stare . . . she could take the King away from Barbara— if she tried.

  She felt mesmerized by his gaze—a rabbit paralyzed before the owl. Their eyes locked and held, and an unspoken challenge passed between them. So intent were they that they heard nothing, saw nothing but each other.

  “I said ... do that again, Mistress Lenore.” He smiled lazily but she could feel the tension building up in him— just as it was building up in her.

  He was a King ... he had commanded her. Yet when his lips were brushing her own, she had turned away. Why? Why had she done that? For a man who had left her? For a man who was dead? A wild revulsion of feeling came over her. This was the life she wanted! She would make up to him for her coldness—the life of a King’s mistress must indeed be eventful and wonderful!

  She gave him her flashing magical smile and swirled her skirts alluringly again—and ended with a shriek as a whip flicked over her legs, and a voice at once husky and exciting and vividly angry cried, “Strumpet! Out! Out!”

  Lenore whirled to see a beautiful woman attired in a green satin riding habit and a hat atremble with green plumes advancing upon her, whip upraised for another slash. With the quick grace of the athlete he was, the King leaped forward and clenched a bronzed hand down upon the dainty wrist that bore the whip. The woman’s beautiful eyes flashed, and she tried angrily to twist away from him, to strike with her other hand at the royal countenance.