The play itself was better, at least there was that, written once again particularly for her by Mr. Dryden. And the part fit her like a glove. This one at last, she had breathed a sigh of relief, was a comedy.
“I can hardly believe my eyes,” Rose said in a low voice as they made their way through an inner courtyard, then past a small chapel where Henry VIII had married his notorious second queen, Anne Boleyn. The echo of shoe heels and whispers were the only sounds as each of the actors was shown to their own apartments; Nell’s room was left for last. She held Jeddy’s small hand protectively, as a palace guard opened the final carved, rounded door. It made a low squeal as it moved back on its hinges. Nell entered first, and Rose followed, gasping and gawking at the grandeur like a street vendor in Pudding Lane. The fragrance of roses and lilacs in large crystal vases overwhelmed them, as a warm summer breeze through an open oriel window ruffled the gold silk draperies on their heavy iron pole.
The room was dominated by a massive poster bed and two intricately carved chests on which the flowers had been placed. The walls were adorned with three Flemish tapestries, each depicting hunting scenes. There were lacquered cabinets and silver on all of the tabletops, and a trundle bed for a small servant. There was also an adjoining room with a smaller bed, dressing table, and French folding screen.
“The performance will be at three, and His Majesty wishes you to join him for dinner at one.”
“You may tell the king I never eat before a performance.”
“Nelly!” Rose gasped. “You’re not serious! ’E is the king, after all!”
“And I am an independent woman. Never again will I make the mistake of forgettin’ it.”
The guard bit back a smile. “His Majesty anticipated your response, Mrs. Gwynne,” he said. “I am to tell you if that is the case, His Majesty has left you something on the night table that he hopes will help you find inspiration in wearing it as you perform today.” Dutifully, he made a bow and was gone.
“Well, you can’t very well say no to that and keep your head, can you?” Rose pressed her sister excitedly.
Nell moved slowly toward the bed as Rose and Jeddy stood in stunned silence. There, on a small carved walnut table beside a candle lamp and a book of prayer, was a glittering pear-shaped diamond suspended from a thick gold chain.
“’Oly mother of…,” Rose sputtered as they all inched closer to it. Her fingers trembled as they splayed across her mouth. “Look at that, will you, Nelly!”
“’Ow could I look at anythin’ else!”
“I fancy ’e is serious about you, after all.”
Nell picked up the necklace and touched the diamond with one careful fingertip. “Now don’t go readin’ more into it than there is, Rose. ’E is a very rich man with power enough to get what ’e wants without thinkin’ much of it.”
“Well, ’e certainly ’as gone to a lot of trouble to get you out to ’Ampton Court if ’e’s not serious!”
Nell frowned, looking at her sister. “The king of England could ’ave any woman in the world, Rose, ladies, countesses, and duchesses alike, and, if the stories are right, ’e ’as done just that, many times over.”
“Maybe all that is not what gives ’im a shiver any longer. Maybe ’tis a low sort with the power to give ’im more simple pleasures ’e favors?”
“A girl like me doesn’t flatter ’erself. ’Tis a tumble ’e wants with a popular, young actress, as ’e did with Moll Davies, nothin’ more.” She set the necklace back on the night table and looked at Rose and Jeddy, still standing there before her, both with stunned expressions. “Don’t look at me like that, the two of you. I know what I am. What we are. I’m ’ere now, by ’is command, so I’ll take what ’e offers. But don’t ’ave me go lookin’ for more than that!”
The vast chamber in which they performed, with its vaulted ceiling, was done up so well it looked like the theater back in London, Nell thought, as she lingered behind the curtain of the stage that had been erected there. It certainly had the feel of the King’s Theater, with a broad wooden platform, heavy velvet draperies, and all of the same lushly painted scenery. Costumed as a boy, with huge bell sleeves and knee-length pants, Nell came onto the stage to uproarious applause from the king’s courtiers and friends.
Each time she delivered a line, the crowd broke into fits of laughter. Nell was back on her game. There was a rhythm to the entire play. She was at ease, and, for the first time in a long time, she did not want it to end. And as the last lines were spoken, as Nell looked out over the glittering lamplight and the grand crystal chandeliers dripping their ivory-colored wax, the king’s smile was brightest among the others. She bobbed a whimsical little curtsy in response, holding her wide knee pants out to the sides, and tilting her head comically as the king’s diamond glittered prominently against her throat. Everyone laughed. Lord, but she loved that sound! She fed on it. It meant their approval. Audiences gave her a kind of acceptance she never had in any aspect of her life. Now, here, before nobles and royalty, she was a success.
Exhilarated by the heady triumph, and full of renewed pride, Nell skipped off the stage at the play’s end, and dashed back behind the heavy curtain. As she knew he would be, the king was there a moment later, his strong, dark eyes shining, arms crossed over his chest. He was dressed elegantly, in a claret-colored coat, with gleaming gold buttons down the length of it. He wore a white-lace jabot, and a dark, curled periwig that matched his mustache. She did not want it to matter. She did not want to crave his touch. She did not want to feel the excitement flipping over and over inside of her as he looked at her. Yet she did.
“I don’t believe anyone has ever refused me,” he said with a twisted smile.
“I don’t believe I would be said to have altered that fact.”
His smile lengthened. “What would you call your reply, then?”
“I said only that I could not eat before the performance.”
He took her hand in his own and raised it to his lips.
“Your Majesty could have done with makin’ your intentions a trifle more clear, since it ’as been such a long time since I ’ave seen you.”
“Very well.” Charles tipped up her chin then and kissed her, his lips lingering on hers as his arms went around her. To be kissed by him was unlike anything she had ever felt. The connection was different. The moment. His touch. The way he looked at her, as if she were the most magnificent creature in the world. Her desire for him in return was powerful. How easy it would be, she thought, to submit more to this man, with not just her body but her heart.
Feeling her yield, he drew away and raised a brow. “And how did you find that?”
“Much more clear.” She tried to smile.
He fingered the jewel at her throat. “You do look glorious in diamonds.”
“If only it ’ad not taken you so long to realize it, sire.”
“You do say just what comes to your mind, don’t you?”
“Nearly always, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, Nelly, how you make me laugh! And I do so need humor in my life.”
“The weight of England must be a heavy burden for one man.”
“You know not the half of it.”
“Laughter then should be a potent tonic.”
He ran the back of his finger along her cheek. “You do not eat before a performance, and I cannot think for want of you now after it.”
“I warn Your Majesty, I’ll not come to you cheaply, nor go quietly this time.”
“Duly warned,” he teased her in a husky voice, linking her hand with his own, and leading her through a small paneled side door that gave way to a concealed staircase with direct access to his private apartments.
“So, I’ve not put you off entirely?” she asked with a little laugh as they climbed the steep stone steps.
“I look forward to every fascinating moment. You inspire me, Nelly. You truly do.”
His vaulted bedchamber, hung with three massive Gobelin tapestries, and draper
ies of heavy green silk, was littered with spaniels. A few lifted their sleepy heads from his bed, a chair, and the carpet near the fire, grunted, and then fell back to sleep. Others scuttled toward the door, tumbled over one another, and growled. The scent of their fur, and a hint of urine, mingled with old fabric and candle wax.
“Don’t mind them,” he said of his spaniels. “They really are everywhere.”
“Why do you ’ave so many?”
“You know how it is: Two make four, then one day it’s six. I can’t bear to give any of them up. It’s a bad habit I have with a great many things. They’ll not bite you, however. That, you will be leaving up to me!”
They moved to his bed, a grand old canopied thing, curtained in heavy tapestry fabric of green, blue, and gold. He lifted her on top of the rich tapestried silk bedcover, and met her upon his knees. He kissed her again and again, and her heart began to hammer. The king took his time showing her the things they might do together, the ways of pleasuring each other he liked the best. It was a secret world nothing had prepared her for, but she did not blush nor shrink away. Nell felt her body respond to everything, and she was changed by it. The world she knew with Hart and Buckhurst was gone, ages old. Forgotten.
A king’s desire had become her own.
As they lay sated and chuckling about everything and nothing, as lovers do, Charles said, “I want to know about you, how you survived all of life’s obstacles, how exactly you managed to triumph as you have. I want to know everything.”
“As with most things, the fantasy is far more entertainin’ than the reality.”
“You told me once that your mother was not an enthusiast for reality.”
“Your Majesty remembers.”
“You must call me Charles when we are alone, sweetheart,” he said. “Difficult for us to be on an equal footing when we are like this together, without it.”
“We’re hardly equal.” Nell smiled and wrapped her arms around her knees. “If we were, I’d be callin’ you Charlie.”
“Then do it.”
“You can’t mean it. You’re the king!”
“I already believe you are the one person who would tell me the unvarnished truth if I asked. That is a rare thing. I trust you to call me what you like.”
“You trust me?”
“You cannot imagine how much I would like to entirely trust you, yes.”
“You do talk a sweet game.”
“Truthfully, I’ve had a lifetime of practice at that. And in spite of how trivial this sounds, it is different with you. I’m not certain I can tell you why. Lord, I could scarcely function, knowing you were arriving here at Hampton Court today.”
Nell smiled. “A finer compliment a girl could not ’ave from ’er king.”
Charles pressed her back and arched over her again. “And from her man?”
“Are you my man, sire?”
“I don’t suppose so, no. The king, he belongs to too many people already. His life is forever complicated. No, not the king. But Charles, the man, now there is a soul ripe for the taking.”
She laughed then, a rich, earthy sound that was pure Nell. “Then take it I shall!”
“What the devil are you blathering on about?” Barbara Palmer ranted, hands on her hips as she stood poised outside the door to the king’s private apartments in sunlight that came in like streamers through the long hallway windows. “I am welcome at Hampton Court any time I please!”
“Not this time,” replied Buckingham flatly, barring her way. He met her thread for thread, dressed elegantly in gray silk, brocade shoes, and a plumed hat.
He had promised to keep the other women in the king’s life at bay while he romanced Nell. And so, with William Chiffinch to alert him, the king’s dearest friend would keep his word. It was all part of the duty, he had mused.
Barbara tried to push past him through the door. But Buckingham held firm to his stance.
“Allow me to pass, George!”
“I’m afraid not, milady.”
“It’s that Davies trollop again, isn’t it?”
“I can safely say that he is quite finished with her.”
“Oh, nonsense! You know perfectly well the tart bore his child, assuring he shall never be truly finished with her!”
Knowing of Castlemaine’s growing paranoia and suspicion as her grip on the king loosened more each day made it all the more sporting for the vengeful duke. Buckingham was quite enjoying this. A bit of turnabout was not only fair play, it was absolutely delicious. Everything was working exactly according to plan.
“Tell me who she is, damn you!”
“No one my Lady Castlemaine knows or cares about, I assure you.”
“I know them all sooner or later, and all I care about any of them is that they are gone!”
George leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “That is not entirely true. You quite touted the merits of Frances Stuart, and to her face directly, if memory serves.”
“Your memory is obviously the cesspool your mind is! You know perfectly well I only touted her, as you say, to secure my own place, as His Majesty was angry over my bedding you!”
The absurdity of that hit them at the same moment and they both began to laugh, one spurred on the more by the other, until both slid down together, onto the floor, in a voluminous pile of silk, lace, and stockinged legs.
“We are positively a pair!” Barbara giggled in a way that did not seem totally in touch with sanity.
“On that we at least can agree.”
She grabbed his collar at both sides then suddenly, her expression changed as quickly as her mood. “Tell me who she is, George. He would not have ordered you to bar my way if she weren’t a serious contender.”
“She’s certainly nothing like you.”
“You know her well?”
“We’ve met,” he hedged.
“Will he be showing her off then, making her official?”
“I should rather think you could depend upon it.”
Barbara struggled to stand again, holding up the skirts of her dress. “You simply must tell me her name!”
“Oh, now. Surprises are so much more fun, don’t you agree?”
“He’ll not cast me over for her, if that’s what you are counting on, with your twinkling eyes and clever grin. You who I rescued myself from the Tower. And now I am coming to rue that particular day!”
He stood then as well and pressed down the rumpled parts of her gown in a way a father might do to a child. “You know perfectly well that I have always counted on you.” Especially when you are your own worst enemy, he thought. But he did not speak the words, for what that much honesty would cost him with her. He wished to be rid of her at court, of course. But he knew only too well that she was not gone yet.
There was to be a banquet once the king’s players had returned to London. Nell was meant to remain at Hampton Court and attend it as the king’s personal guest. Rose Gwynne sat on the edge of her sister’s bed in astonishment as a league of royal dressers, a seamstress, and a Frenchman to style her hair began the intricate process of covering Nell in rich fabrics and elegant shoes, transforming her into a proper court lady.
The two leaded-glass windows with tinted crests near the bed were open, ushering in sweet, warm air. The sun began to set on the horizon, just beyond the formal rose gardens and pond dotted with white swans. The sound of the splashing fountains that had lulled them to sleep at night, along with the music of the crickets in the hedgerows, was now all but drowned out by the chattering and dashing about of the king’s personal staff.
“If mother could see us now,” Rose mused, while Jeddy sat at her heels rolling a small blue ball back and forth in her hands, as if she were any other little child of a royal household.
“She’d take every bit of this away, too. Just like always.” Nell glanced over at Jeddy. This odd, silent little girl had been the best thing to come out of her disastrous summer liaison with Lord Buckhurst. In so brief
a time, she had come to care for the child with the huge eyes so full of mystery and fear.
“You really must hold still, mistress!” the dresser exclaimed, a stout, middle-aged woman with gray, deep-set eyes and turned-up nose, as she wrestled with the corset stays at Nell’s already tiny waist.
Nell regarded her reflection in the full-length mirror. She had never felt so pushed or poured into anything, yet never in her life had she looked so elegant. Her hair was swept back into a twist with long side ringlets; and beneath the diamond choker given her by the king, she had been pinched and pressed into a sapphire blue gown pulled back at the knee with silk ribbons to show a blue-and-yellow striped satin skirt underneath. The bodice was fitted tightly, the square neckline cut so low that her bosom was forced up and forward seductively. Behind her mirrored reflection, she was surprised to see Jeddy’s upturned face and her open, approving smile.
“I don’t look an absolute fool in this?” she asked Rose, who alone could be trusted to tell her the truth.
“You look like a princess, Nelly,” Rose said as she gripped a fringed velvet pillow and drew it against her chest. “I’m envious down to my toes!”
Nell took a step back, then spun around. The beaded hem of her dress whispered along the floor, sounding like little bells. Jeddy let out a joyful little huff, almost a giggle, and Nell felt her own heart give way for her even further. “And what do you think, Jeddy? A jade dressed up like a proper lady, am I?”
The little girl smiled keenly, but still she did not answer. In her months with Nell, she had yet to utter a word, though Nell knew by her face and expression-filled eyes that she understood everything. It was likely she had been beaten in her past; certainly, she was still very frightened. To the world, Jeddy was supposed to be a charming little token, a pet. But to Nell, she was someone dear. Trust took time, Nell knew.
“All right, then. I suppose I’m ready as I’ll ever be!”
She entered the glittering banqueting hall that evening half a pace behind the king. For most of their parade through the crowd of guests, both foreign dignitaries and courtiers, she could not quite catch her breath. Images played across her mind: of an earlier time, one in which it seemed she was another girl entirely, one who had begged for scraps, fought off foul-smelling men as her own mother lured them upstairs in a bawdy house. And later, as she sold oranges for a few shillings in a soiled linen dress, and never had quite enough herself to eat.