The Countess and the King: A Novel of the Countess of Dorchester and King James II

by Holloway Scott, Susan

  “You have my leave to test it, pet,” Father said with a beneficent nod. He’d settled comfortably in the armchair beside Lord Rochester’s, and had already half emptied his own glass of the same wine. “It’s better you learn the flavor and effect of wine here, among friends, than later with those who’ll take advantage of your befuddlement. Nelly’ll attest to that.”

  Nell nodded vigorously. “There’s more women ruined by strong waters than false lovers, and that’s God’s honest truth. This glass and no more for a little mite like you.”

  I took the glass from her, holding the bowl cupped in my hands, and sipped it tentatively. Though I knew this was another lesson for me, I couldn’t keep from puckering my face and sputtering at the unfamiliar taste, sending the gentlemen to roar with laughter.

  “Pay them no heed,” Nell said kindly. “They’d swim in the stuff if they could, the sots. Have a nibble of that chicken, then try it again.”

  I did as she bid, and the second swallow was tolerable, and the third more agreeable still. By the time I’d finished my supper and the wine with it, I’d decided there was no pleasanter place in Creation than this garden, and no pleasanter people than my father’s friends. The afternoon faded into dusk, and servants came to light the lanterns hanging from the branches of the trees. To my delight, glowworms appeared along the edges of the garden, tiny, festive specks of light. Nell offered to teach me the newest dances, and I happily shed my shoes and stockings like the others and giggled and hopped through every jig she knew there on the grass as the new moon rose over the hedgerows.

  “Will you be staying here, too, Nelly?” I asked when we paused between jigs and ate strawberries in cream, sitting cross-legged on large cushions like heathen sultanas. “Or must you go back to your own lodgings?”

  She laughed, and licked her tongue across the curving bowl of the silver spoon. “Course I’ll be here. I’m to stay the whole of the summer, or so long as His Lordship wishes my company.”

  If I’d not drunk the wine, I doubt I would’ve had the courage to ask what I next did—though that in itself was another lesson learned of the power of spirits, and a most valuable one at that.

  “Are you Lord Buckhurst’s mistress?” My voice had dropped to a fearful whisper. “Does he keep you?”

  Unashamed, Nell grinned and coyly tapped her cheek with the spoon. “His Lordship and I are friends, good friends. I amuse him, and he rewards me for the amusement. Is that answer enough?”

  “You called my father a friend, too.”

  “Your father?” she repeated, and her smile softened. “Nay, Katherine, your father’s safe from me, and so’s your mother.”

  I flushed, shamed that she’d read me with such ease.

  “Don’t ever pity me or my kind, Katherine,” she continued gently. “Where is Lady Buckhurst on this fine summer eve, I ask you? Where is Lady Rochester? Yet here am I, jolly as can be, eating strawberries and dancing in the moonlight. I choose the gentlemen I love, for so long or so short as I wish. I’m as free as those stars in the sky. What proper lady-wife can say the same?”

  There was much in this blithe little speech for me to ponder, countering as it did everything I’d been taught in my own short life. My confusion must have shown, for Nell kissed me lightly on the cheek by way of commiseration, and looped her arm familiarly into mine.

  “What would you wish to do now, love?” she asked. “Perhaps it’s time to see you put to bed.”

  Swiftly I shook my head, for what child ever longs for bed? “I’m not weary,” I said, willfully stifling the yawn inspired by her query. “I should much rather pet the dogs.”

  She laughed and led me back to the table and the dogs beneath it. Before long I was in much the same state as they, curled on a cushion upon the grass to doze contentedly while the conversations of my elders rolled over my head.

  “So tell us true, Sid,” Lord Buckhurst asked. “Are you already trolling for a worthy husband for your little kid? Is that why you’re priming her for Court?”

  “Sweet God, no,” Father said with comforting haste. “There’s no hurry for that.”

  “No matter, no matter,” Lord Rochester said. “She’ll have her share of suitors, that’s for certain.”

  “That girl?” Lord Buckhurst asked with a scornful incredulity that wounded me to the quick. “Forgive me, Sid, but she bears such an unfortunate likeness to you that unless the graces themselves conspire to work a miracle—”

  “The miracle is her papa’s money,” Lord Rochester said. “She’s Sid’s lone heir, you know. How much will the little darling be worth?”

  Father sighed. “Twenty thousand a year by last reckoning.”

  Forgotten on my cushion, I pressed both my hands across my mouth to stifle my amazement. Father was famously fortunate, and had prospered well during the late wars while other gentlemen had lost their entire estates, but I’d given no thought to the extent of his wealth, nor its relationship to me beyond my own daily security. Twenty thousand a year was a sum exceeding my comprehension. My maidservant Danvers was paid five pounds per annum, and she considered that a fair wage, much above the cook maids in the kitchen who received but three. To learn that I’d receive four thousand times that for no more than the luck of being my father’s daughter was so bewildering that I wondered if I were in fact dreaming a fancy.

  Lord Buckhurst echoed my own amazement and whistled low in appreciation. “Twenty thousand! What’s beauty to that, eh? She’ll have swains hovering about her like bees to the sweetest blossom.”

  “It means freedom for her,” Father said firmly, with such conviction that I felt a rush of pride that he’d speak so on my behalf. “Katherine won’t be required to take whichever rogue offers the most for her hand, but instead may choose her spouse with care. No one, man or woman, should be forced to wed where there’s no love.”

  Lord Rochester made a derisive snort. “No one should be forced to send his spouse clear to Ghent to be rid of her, either.”

  “I recall you were in such a fever to wed your lady, Rochester, that you stole her away like a thief in the night,” Lord Buckhurst said, “yet now you abandon her at Adderbury as completely as if she were in China.”

  Curled up with a snoring dog in my lap, I’d no interest at all in Lady Rochester at Adderbury. Why didn’t Father defend himself to his friends? Why didn’t he explain to them, as he had to me, that it was Mama’s own desire to go to Ghent?

  Yet what Father did say next pleased me even more, for he defended neither himself nor Mama, but me.

  “I’ve faith in my little Katherine,” he said with such tender fondness that tears filled my sleepy eyes. “You’ll see. My Katherine will make a great mark in the world, as grand as any lady can be.”

  As grand as any lady can be. How I did relish the sound of that! A fine prediction, yes, but the finest part was how it proved Father’s love for and confidence in me. With that to warm me, I must soon after have finally fallen asleep and later been carried to rest in my chamber, for I recall nothing more until I awoke in an unfamiliar bed.

  It was still night, with the same moonlight that I’d shared with Nell and the glowworms now lighting my small bedchamber almost as bright as day. I found Cassandra on the pillow beside me, and with her in my arm, I slipped from the bed and went to gaze from the window. The garden was quiet now, the lanterns doused and the table cleared by the servants, and my elders and the dogs alike gone off to their own beds.

  From boredom, I leaned farther from the window, my long plait falling forward over my shoulder. The house was shaped like a lopsided L, and idly I wondered which of the other darkened rooms belonged to Father, and which to Lord Rochester and Lord Buckhurst and Nell. As if my wondering was answered, I heard Nell’s unmistakable laughter ripple from the window across the yard from mine.

  If she were awake, then likely she was as in need of company as I. I abandoned Cassandra on my bed and eagerly scurried into the shadowy hall, my bare feet padding over the f
loorboards.

  As I’d already observed, this was a house of considerable freedom and little formality. Some of the chamber doors had been left ajar, and as I made my way, I passed the bedchamber where I glimpsed my father’s ample silhouette sprawled on his back beneath the sheet, rising and falling with his snores. I hurried on past, toward the door that I guessed was Nell’s. This, too, stood open, and I slipped inside, my heart beating with anticipation at meeting my new friend again. But the chamber was only a kind of parlor or dressing room, empty except for the ghostly pale petticoats and stockings carelessly strewn about. Disappointed, I’d begun to retreat when Nell laughed again, the sound coming from the chamber adjoining the one in which I stood. Eagerly I hurried to this door, and stopped.

  Nell was there, yes, but not alone. Instead she sat astride Lord Buckhurst in the center of his bed, her smock billowing over them both and his bare shins and long feet poking out awkwardly beyond the end of the sheets. His head was supported by a small mountain of pillows, and he held his hands outward to grasp Nell around the waist, as if to make certain she’d not topple from his lap. I thought this was rather nice of His Lordship to secure her that way, as if she were riding a horse instead of him.

  Now I know better, of course, and realize that the only animal being emulated was that of a lascivious two-backed beast. But at that time, in my childish innocence, I took their posture as no more than a convenience for conversation—a conversation that I, standing in the dressing room, could not help but overhear.

  “Sedley told me the king was asking after you to Hart,” Lord Buckhurst said, his gaze intent upon Nell before him. “He wondered aloud when little Nelly would return to his playhouse. All there in the tiring room heard him, and by now likely a good many beyond it, too.”

  Nell shrugged extravagantly, one round, pearly shoulder slipping free of her lace-edged smock. “Hah, I’d wager Hart had a sour enough answer for him. Poor man, you and I must have quite broken his heart between us.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Hart or the sourness of his reply,” His Lordship said, sounding rather sour himself. “Your past is no concern to me, Nelly. What I wish to know from you now is whether you have designs on the king.”

  “ ‘Designs’!” Nell tossed her unpinned hair back over her shoulders and laughed raucously. “Hey, ho, that’s a pretty fancy! That Nelly Gwyn should have designs upon His Majesty!”

  But Lord Buckhurst did not share her amusement. “I don’t care where you love, Nell, so long as you don’t play me for a fool. And if you’re already scheming to jump like a flea from me to the king—”

  “Oh, my lord, you know I’d never do that to you.” Gently Nell rocked forward, just enough to make His Lordship groan. She smiled, and languidly pressed her hand across his lips to keep him quiet. “I’ve told you before, my darling. Hart was my Charles the first, and you’re my Charles the second. What need do I have for a Charles the third?”

  “You’ve reasons beyond counting when your Charles the third is already Charles the Second, King of England.” He seized her little hand and nipped roughly at her fingers, more like a large and unruly dog than a lover true.

  But Nell only laughed again, albeit more softly. “The summer and no more beyond,” she said. “That was what we agreed between us, wasn’t it?”

  “Damn you, Nelly, why won’t you answer?”

  “Because I have,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him. “It’s only your pride that makes you unable to hear me. But be easy, my wicked, jealous lord. It’s never been my way to dandle two men at the same time, and I’ll not begin now. Whilst we’re here, I belong only to you. Could ever I dare ask the same of you? I wonder. Could I be enough to keep you happy?”

  “You know you are,” he did not say so much as growl, again like that ill-mannered dog. To my shock, he reached up and ripped the front of her smock, rending the Holland linen so that her breasts spilled forward, to his obvious delight. “You know you rule me, Nell, my heart and my soul.”

  “More like your cods and your cock,” she said with a teasing low chuckle, unperturbed at having her clothing torn away. Instead she grinned, and guided his greedy hand to her now-naked breasts. “But I’ll happily be your queen, my lord, so long as you’ll share your scepter.”

  Chuckling still, she lowered herself more fully into his embrace, and I shrank back farther into the shadows. Nell would have no use for my company now, that was certain. With my heart strangely racing from all that I’d witnessed, I withdrew as silently as I’d come.

  Back again in my own little bed, I stared at the top of my bedstead with Cassandra in my arms, my thoughts too busy for sleep. In one short day, I’d learned that my mother preferred her priests and a foreign convent to me and London and that my father didn’t care that she did. I’d likewise learned I was an heiress to a considerable fortune and that I’d not be pressed to share it with any husband. I’d observed that much of what I’d been taught by my governesses seemed to bear no kinship to the world beyond my nursery; that a good woman such as my mother suffered and lost her wits even as she said her prayers, whilst a bad woman such as Nell prospered and laughed and enjoyed herself as she chose. I’d my first true glimpse of Father’s friends, known infamously to the rest of London as the Merry Gang. Most of all, I’d learned that Father himself was a cheerful inhabitant of this giddy world of pleasure and amusement and debauchery, and that he was happy, even eager, to guide me to my own place in it, too.

  In short, my second education had begun, and I scarce could wait to prove myself a prize scholar.

  Chapter Three

  THE KING’S HOUSE, DRURY LANE, LONDON

  May 1668

  “Do you wish an orange, Katherine?” Father asked as soon as we’d found our places on the first bench before the stage. He wasn’t looking at me, but at the rest of the playhouse, eager to see who among his acquaintance (and his enemies) might already be there. “Here’s a girl if you do.”

  The orange girl smiled slyly at my father and plucked one of the fruits from the beribboned basket on her hip. As she offered the golden fruit in her hand, she leaned forward to grant him a better glimpse of her ample breasts, tempting him more than me. Everyone in the playhouse knew Father, from the greenest orange girl to the manager, Master Killigrew, and on this day everyone sought to please him, too.

  “For th’ little lady,” the girl said, finally deigning to smile at me with considerable condescension. I was ten, not much younger than she must have been herself, but she was so far below me in station that I could afford to be gracious as I took the orange.

  “Thank you, dear,” I said, and smiled sweetly in return. She might have breasts, which to my impatience I’d yet to sprout, but at least I’d all my teeth, which she did not. “And thank you, Father.”

  “Yes, yes, you’re welcome,” he said, his gaze still busily roaming over the house. “Damnation, the king’s still not here.”

  “He’ll come.” I dug my thumb into the orange’s dimpled peel. “You know His Majesty’s never prompt.”

  “Kings don’t need to be prompt, pet.” He stood, too restless to sit, and anxiously stroked his fingers across the lace on his neckcloth. “Killigrew will just have to keep those infernal fiddles scraping away until the royal party shows itself. We can’t begin until he does.”

  “No, you can’t,” I agreed, slipping the first sweet segment of orange into my mouth. “It would be inexpressibly rude.”

  “Oh, I’m certain His Majesty would find the words for expressing his displeasure.” He sighed, tugging on one of the long curls on his periwig. “Perhaps I should send you to sit up in the boxes with some of the other ladies.”

  “No!” I exclaimed, horrified he’d so much as suggest such a thing. In all the times he’d brought me to the playhouse, this was the first we’d not sat in the boxes, but down here in the pit, close to the stage. Already the pit was far more exciting, filled with Father’s raucous friends and other foppish gentlemen and myste
rious beautiful women who hid their true selves behind black vizard-masks. I liked being the only girl of rank in the pit, bright and proud as an elegant little bird in scarlet silk trimmed with green lacing, and I’d no wish to be banished back to respectability, especially not today.

  “I belong here with you, Father,” I said. “You said yourself I’d bring you luck.”

  “That is true,” he admitted, and at last he smiled wanly at me. “Here, Katherine, give me a kiss for that luck.”

  I clambered up on the bench to reach his offered cheek.

  “There,” I said, granting him a great smack from my orange-sticky lips while around us others laughed and applauded my filial display. “That’s luck for you, not that you shall need it.”

  “Not with you by my side, sweet,” Father said, and kissed my forehead in return, as pretty a show as the one that would soon commence before us. I was so often with Father now about the town that I’d become nearly as known as he himself, and though I was not entirely pleased by being dubbed Little Sid’s Kid (for what lady, however young, wishes to be called after an infant goat?), I’d come to love the attention and my father’s approval with it. Yet this afternoon felt different, with Father too ill at his ease to find joy in the notice of others. Hoping to coax him to better cheer, I pirouetted on my toes as Nell had taught me, balancing on the bench with the half-eaten orange in my hand.

  “You shall see, Father,” I promised. “By nightfall, everyone will be shouting your name with praise.”

  Father made a wry grimace. “So long as they’re not shouting at me, Katherine. What more can a lowly playwright wish?”

  “A full house and a long run, and the devil take the critics,” I answered with rare relish for one my age. “Or hang them till their necks stretch and their breeches fill. I don’t care which, so long as it makes them kind to you.”

  “Hah, that’s a pretty sentiment.” He could not help but smile at that, for there were few things that amused him more than to hear me parrot the style of fine, vulgar wit I heard amongst his friends. “ ‘A full house and a long run.’ Would that it comes true.”