The Perfect Royal Mistress

  “Will you allow him to paint you?” the king asked, as the barge swayed upon the water, moved ever so slightly by the sudden breeze.

  “You are the king, after all. Now ’ow would I dare deny you anythin’?”

  “I want him to paint you nude, so that I might remember all of you.”

  “So you are king and a right lecherous one, you are at that!” laughed Nell.

  Rose lingered in the corner of the large dressing room, fingering the tassel on a blue damask curtain, and watching as Nell tried again. Dressed only in a high, crushingly tight corset laced in back, and tall heeled shoes, in which she wobbled slightly, Nell bobbed a graceful curtsy. The effect was much better this time, as her ability to mimic was great, and her desire to improve was strong. But it was a tenuous balancing act: she must improve enough so she would not embarrass herself at court and yet still remain the real Nell, for whom the king so dearly cared.

  “Say it again, then,” Mary Chiffinch directed from a stool at the dressing table. William stood beside her.

  “Good evening, Your Ladyship. ’Ow did you enjoy the consort today?”

  Mary nodded. “And?”

  “And is it not a grand day?”

  “Much improved.” William beamed. “Not an ‘ain’t’ lingering anywhere.”

  Behind her, Rose had bobbed the same curtsy, then moved her lips as she whispered the words her sister had spoken aloud. They still felt foreign and awkward in her mind. She had enviously yet proudly watched her younger sister’s amazing transformation all of these months, and it should have been enough. She was at the king’s court! To exist even in the shadow of such fortune at first had been enough. But now she wanted more. For the first time in her life, Rose wanted something for herself enough to believe that she, too, might, with a bit of effort, actually win it.

  Again she moved her lips, listening critically to herself. It was not so far off from how Nell now sounded. Rose counted slowly to five as she bobbed a small curtsy of her own. With all of the attention on Nell, no one noticed. She glanced down at her dress, costly topaz satin with ivory lace, then touched the fabric with the tips of her fingers to reassure herself that it was real. She looked up at Nell again, who was biting her lower lip in concentration as she tried to recall the first few steps of the branle. Nell began to smile and, just as suddenly, looked over at her sister.

  “Come dance with me, Rose Gwynne!” she said, and held out her hand. “You probably know this better than I do. You’ve always ’ad a way with dances!”

  Rose felt her face flush. “I couldn’t.”

  “Like when we were girls. Remember?” Nell was smiling. “Come on! I need you!”

  Three days later, the king stood across the bedchamber in a white shirt, open at the chest, and black knee-length breeches, as he stared out the window down into the gardens below. Nell woke slowly and, as she did, she saw him there, tall, slim, and graceful. She smiled to herself, her body sore from the night of lovemaking, and her eyelids still heavy. But she had never felt so content.

  For a fortnight, he had escorted her to his banquets, dinners, card parties, everywhere. She had new gowns with which he had surprised her, made especially for her gamine shape. A dresser was brought to her from Paris, who made certain her petticoats were crisp and new, the strings of her busk were properly tight, and her shoes were à la mode française. A French stylist came to arrange her hair into the latest fashion, and ornament it with tiny flowers and ribbons to match her gowns. Rose and Jeddy, who were with her everywhere as companions, had new clothes as well. The latter had a sweet little dress of shiny blue serge. “Forever” was becoming a fantasy she had nearly begun to allow herself to believe.

  The king turned and saw her lying on her side, with three of his favorite spaniels lounging at the foot of the bed from where he had only just risen. Instead of coming back to her, he rested his hands behind him on the window sash and exhaled. She could see his intense expression, even across the room. “The queen is arriving today,” he said bluntly.

  Nell sat up, pulling a sheet across her bare breasts, feeling suddenly as if she had been dropped from a great height. It took a moment to catch her breath so that he would not notice the change. “Here at Windsor?”

  “I only received word last night that she desired to speak with me about something particular, and then to remain here for a few days afterward, if I would consent.”

  He came to her then, across the parquet flooring that creaked with each step before he settled onto the edge of the bed beside her. “I want you to remain. We will only need to show a bit of care in…” His words fell away. “She’s a good woman, Nell, a kind woman, and I have no wish to flaunt anything before her that might bring her more pain than she has already suffered.”

  “Of course.” Nell swung her legs to the side of the bed and drew on the dressing gown of ivory-colored Spanish lace that she had left atop the bedcovers. Then she stood and shook out her long hair. The movements were disjointed and too purposeful, designed only to buy her a moment to press back her disappointment, and to give him what he wanted from her now, the freedom to see his wife. “I ’ad no chance to tell you, but Mr. Dryden ’as sent me another play. As it ’appens, right from the first that this one was read to me I could tell ’twill be uproariously funny.”

  Charles cupped a hand beneath her jaw and kissed her tenderly. “I do not wish you to return to the theater. I need you here with me.”

  She gave him her best carefree smile. “Oh, now,” she said, taking his palm from her face, where it stilled for a moment, and pressing a kiss onto it in return. “Once an actress, always an actress. You know that. I miss it, I really do: the crowds, the applause.”

  “Will they do Dryden’s play next?” he asked as two of the dogs suddenly bounded from the bed and scampered across the room.

  “They’ll do anythin’ to have me back troddin’ the boards. Mr. Killigrew as much as told me so. Whenever I was ready, ’e said. After all, I am Nell Gwynne. I fill the King’s Theater! And it doesn’t ’urt a bit that I’ve been mistress to that same sovereign!”

  “You are mistress to that sovereign king for as long as you desire it.” He kissed her more deeply then, and she could see the conflict on his face, his brow furrowing with guilt and regret.

  “Then I desire it and you.” She was smiling as determination alone pressed back the tears fighting to fall. “Besides, Lely’s portrait of me is not yet finished, nor adornin’ your wall. I’ll ’ave to return to see to that!”

  “I do not wish you to remain in London during the summer. There is too much risk there.”

  “Then if Mr. Dryden ’asn’t another brilliant play for me to act in, you’ve but to send for me, after the run is over.”

  “I’m sorry about this, Nell. I truly am.”

  “No regrets, Charlie,” she said, working hard to smile endearingly. “I’ve got none. Nor should you.”

  Out along the private corridor, Nell sank against the oak paneled wall, arms wrapped around her waist. Silent tears fell in long ribbons onto her cheeks. She had closed her eyes so she did not see Mary Chiffinch approach. Nor did she see William linger in the next doorway just beyond them. There was only the shadow of his long face, etched with concern, before he slipped back inside.

  “Come, child. ’Twill do you no good. You’ve got to be stronger than the others, and smarter by half.” Mary’s voice was soothing, her arm across Nell’s shoulder a gentle balm. Like a mother’s love. A thing Nell had forgotten how to long for. “Come with me. We’ll practice your curtsy again, and then I’ll feed you a nice bowl of porridge with a bit of honey. Nothing like honey to set you to rights,” she said, as if that alone could stop all of the uncertainty.

  Chapter 18

  A CROWN GOLDEN IN SHOW IS BUT A WREATH OF THORNS.

  —John Milton

  CHARLES sat alone in his small, private writing cabinet, beside his bedchamber, where the light filtered in across diamond-shaped red-and-blue windo
wpanes. He thought of it as Minette’s room, because it was here, in a space arranged precisely the same in each of his homes, that he wrote to his dearest sister, who he had consigned to a loveless marriage in France. She had done it in order to keep the door open wide enough with Louis XIV. He had heard back from Arlington that the French king was not at all pleased by his proposition of money for loyalty against the Dutch. Buckhurst had written the same as well. Although that fool Buckhurst, he thought, could be trusted no further than he could be thrown. The echo of an ink dipped pen scratching paper filled the silence.

  My dearest Minette…

  Thoughts of Buckhurst brought his mind back to Nell. She had been gone from Windsor for four days, and he could do nothing but think of her, long for her. He closed his eyes for a moment, the pen poised over the paper. Ah, the things they had done together! Her naked body stretched out before him, her raucous laughter, her quick, bawdy tongue…images moved across his mind as he tried to write to his sister.

  I am at Windsor where memories of you and I hiding as children together in the maze, the sound of your laughter, always bring me such a spark of happiness when I allow myself thoughts of those carefree days. But life is no longer carefree for you and I, and the images of our childhood have begun to fade into all the layers of duty…

  Buckingham was pressuring him again to consider divorcing Catherine, and she had come to Windsor to say she would not contest an annulment due to the shame of her barrenness. She knew what a laughingstock she was in the taverns and the fine salons of London—the only woman in the world, it seemed, upon whom the king could not get a child. They did not speak of that painful detail, but Charles knew it was there in the depth of those wide brown eyes, always just on the brink of tears, eyes he could not quite look into for the guilt he felt. Even as he had gone one more time to her bed, the night before last, and tried to get her with a child who would survive, and end all of the speculation about divorce, it all lay between them.

  He wanted to be free of her, of all of it, but in the end, he still simply could not divorce her or annul their marriage. He had told her that she was his wife in the eyes of God Almighty, and there she would remain until death parted them.

  Your husband, I hear, has been ill and that you have been as kind a nurse to him as he could ever hope for, and I wait for word of your own health. You must tell him to allow you a visit home so that you may tend to your own heart as you have done so well for him. There is such a great deal I want to tell you, so much has happened, that only a sister who knew of the fields behind Greenwich, and who shares with me the memory of our father’s caress, and his loss, could ever understand…

  He wrote the last with a determined flourish, knowing how true it was, and how much he missed her counsel, not just their recollections. Minette would chide him about his obsession with yet another actress. But in the end, she would ask all about Nell, and she would even wish to meet her if she made her brother happy. There was no one else in the world he could trust with the truth of an honest answer as Minette would give him in all things.

  I think of you always, and pray for you daily.

  Darling sister, you possess my love as no other.

  Your devoted brother always,

  CHARLES

  After he had signed it, Charles pressed the chair back and stood. A long, elaborate supper in the queen’s honor awaited him, as well as a puppet show afterward. Following that, there would be an endless evening of cards with Rochester, Buckingham, and Catherine, who loved nothing so much as a game of basset, and the poetic wit of Rochester, who today would be tamed mightily to recite for the queen. Then he would spend the night with his wife, hoping against hope that it would make him long even a little less for Nell.

  He knocked on the cabinet wall, and a moment later the paneled door swung back on its hinges. William Chiffinch stood straight spined and ready to take the letter and affix the royal seal. “Did you send the string of pearls to Mrs. Gwynne?” Charles asked as his closest servant moved toward the writing table.

  “Indeed, sire. It was done immediately.”

  “And what of the play? Has she been a success in London?”

  “Indeed, she has. A rousing success. The theater is packed, they say, every afternoon. Killigrew and Hart are planning to hold the production over for another week.”

  “Splendid, then,” he said. But his voice lacked enthusiasm.

  “Is Your Majesty all right?”

  “Alas, boredom is not a malady, or by now I would likely be buried in Westminster Abbey,” the king sighed.

  “If you would permit the impertinent thought, sire,” Chiffinch ventured calmly. “My wife has met the loveliest young girl, daughter of a tailor here in Windsor, most eager to meet Your Majesty, and—”

  “I will accompany the queen this evening, William, and only the queen.”

  Chiffinch nodded deeply. “Of course, sire.”

  Charles turned, and the two men stood facing each other in the small room, although Chiffinch busied himself with ensuring the seal on the letter was dry.

  “Yet I am reminded, sire, that the queen does so like to retire early with this country air.”

  “Does the girl’s family approve of her visit here?”

  “They consider the prospect to be the greatest honor, as would any family, Your Majesty.”

  Charles closed his eyes. This was not the answer, he knew that. But it was a diversion. Yes, at least it was that. “Arrange it, then,” he said flatly. “But see to it she uses the privy stairwell. And I will want her out before dawn.”

  Chapter 19

  FATE NOW FOR HER DID ITS WHOLE FORCE ENGAGE, AND FROM THE PIT SHE MOUNTED THE STAGE. THERE IN FULL LUSTRE DID HER GLORIES SHINE, AND LONG ECLIPS’D SPREAD THEIR LIGHT DIVINE.

  —The Earl of Rochester

  “FIVE MINUTES, Nelly!”

  It had been almost a month since she had heard the queen was pregnant. At last, the country chanted, there would be an heir. Nell stood and adjusted her skirts. The costume, a gown once belonging to the Duchess of Argyll, too big by half, was bound by a belt. The sleeves as well were too long, but Nell was accustomed to making do, and thriving.

  “Are you ready?” asked Richard Bell. The revival of The Sisters was a smashing success; he was finally playing the second lead. He stood now in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, wearing a gray wig and the costume of an old country squire. Nell turned and smiled at her old friend, happy to be with him again, old admissions and disappointments forgotten.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “You were divine yesterday,” he smiled. “Let’s give it to ’em again today just like that!”

  “Agreed. Only better!” she laughed, the first time in days.

  The theater was a solace to Nell, the place where she was happy to be herself. Bold. Funny. Flirtatious. A place where everyone encouraged her, where they accepted her. She was so accustomed to the process of acting before hundreds of people now that she could speak her lines with total believability, yet look out among the audience, see theatergoers she knew, and enjoy bringing out their each and every response to her lines.

  In the theater, like nowhere else in the world, Nell was in control.

  As the performance came to an end, and flowers were tossed onto the stage, from the pit and from the boxes, and as Nell tossed kisses to the crowd, she saw Lord Rochester and his friend Henry Savile. They sat three rows back, on a bench in the pit that was thick with old orange rinds. Both of them were leading the ovation with hoots and whistles as Nell took her curtsies, which had become a performance itself, with her lifting the hem of her dress, demurely pressing her fingers to her chin, and bobbing comically. It was not at all like the one she had been taught to perform by Mary Chiffinch. It was good, Nell thought, looking at Rochester and Savile, not to be forgotten by those who knew the king. They were a small tie back to that other world she had left, but which she was not entirely ready to abandon.

  After she h
ad gone backstage, as the wardrobe mistress was removing her costume, and Nell was daubing the perspiration from her chest, a young stagehand came to her with a stiff white calling card. Beck Marshall, now in her petticoats, with a celery-green shawl tossed across her shoulders, glanced over at her from her own dressing table. “That didn’t take long,” she laughed.

  “What didn’t?”

  “Why, replacing the king with a new string of suitors, of course.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Nell said, tossing the card onto her dressing table with the collection of jars, bottles, and boxes there. “These are friends who wish to come back and congratulate us.”

  “I would doubt they care a whit about me, Nell.”

  “Nonsense. Like every other man in London, they’re taken by all pretty actresses.”

  As she stood, John Wilmot, who was Lord Rochester, and Henry Savile, his baby-faced, blond friend, arrived. “Mrs. Gwynne, you were absolutely brilliant just now!” Rochester flattered.

  “I’ve never laughed so much in my life,” Savile concurred, then he glanced at Beck.

  “My Lord Rochester, Mr. Savile,” said Nell properly, as she had learned to do at court. “May I present my friend, and fellow actress, Mrs. Marshall.”

  Henry Savile took her hands in his own. “I am beyond charmed, Mrs. Marshall.”

  Beck’s smile, as she looked at him, was as silly as a child’s, her wide eyes and long lashes fluttering at him. Nell bit back a smile. “And Mrs. Gwynne,” said Rochester. “I shall forever be charmed by you. No one has ever set those women on their ears at court quite as you did. I do believe they are still as perplexed by your allure as we were the day we met.”