“A sister and a mistress are as different things as lust and love.”
“But if I could, one day, actually find them both in one woman—”
“Like a needle in a proverbial stack of hay, Your Majesty.”
Chapter 21
HER WIT WAS MORE THAN A MAN, HER INNOCENCE A CHILD’S.
—John Dryden
IN late November, the court returned to Whitehall so that Charles could resume the negotiations with France. The situation with the Dutch was increasingly tense. In addition, the king was forced to wrestle with an angry Parliament over his increasing alliance with Catholic France, and his just issued Declaration of Indulgence, meant to protect his Catholic friends and family from persecution. Parliament was withholding money from him because of it.
Meanwhile, Nell had agreed to work again with Charles Hart in her friend Charles Sedley’s first play, The Mulberry Garden. The king was in his box every afternoon to watch her delight the masses, but his own existence gave him very little about which to laugh. When he was not watching Nell, he was consumed by the complexities of making himself a significant player on the world stage. If England meant to become a force with which to be reckoned, he knew that he must maintain a delicate political balance. After the devastating losses to the Dutch, England’s national honor was at stake in it. I will make you proud. Every day he made that promise to the small painting of his father he kept in his private closet, making it a prayer. I will see to it, Father, that what you wanted for England will happen, that your death will not be in vain. But he knew he must also cultivate France. Catholic France.
It all played across his mind, distracting him, in the royal box, chin propped by his hand, as he watched Nell easily seduce an entire theater. She pranced across the stage and smiled to the crowd. She winked and skipped and delivered her lines so charmingly that men called out during the acts declaring their love for her, even while knowing her powerful lover loomed above them.
When it was over, he did not wait for her in the theater, but rather inside his coach, preferring to give her the moment with an adoring public, which she had earned. Buckingham, Lady Shrewsbury, and Thomas Clifford, who had also attended the play that day, had gone ahead back to Whitehall to await the king to play pall-mall. The game was all the rage now, and Charles could not get enough of hitting the wooden ball with a long mallet farther and more directly than anyone else.
A quarter of an hour later, the door of the great gilded royal coach was opened by a footman. Nell was helped up the steps, then inside, heady with triumph. Her smile was broad and infectious as she pressed a happy kiss onto his cheek. Jeddy, who went everywhere with her, pushed the train of her dress inside, then hopped up onto the seat across from her as the door was closed.
“Thanks for waitin’, love,” Nell said with a soft giggle.
“I have already waited a lifetime for you; what’s another quarter of an hour? You were brilliant today.”
“I dropped a line in the third act.”
“Not so anyone would notice. Everyone was far too busy cheering you on,” he said, taking her hand as the coach lurched forward merging onto bustling Drury Lane.
Charles reached across to pat Jeddy’s head, then smiled over at Nell. He liked the little girl because he loved all children, but mainly because the girl was dear to Nell. “If you’re not too tired, I told George and a couple of others we would join them for a round of pall-mall.”
“I’m never too tired for anythin’ with you.”
“And that is one of your attributes I most admire.”
The coach rattled and rocked over the cobbles on Drury Lane, then down the busy, paved Strand, and through Charing Cross, heading toward Pall Mall, where it was the custom for a great parade of coaches to ride slowly in order to be seen. The king drew a small blue-velvet pouch from his surcoat, and Nell giggled delightedly. No matter how many tokens he gave her, it was still a surprise when another arrived; it was a confirmation that he still cared for her. Inside the pouch were two perfect emerald earrings. Each the size of a fingernail, they were exquisitely teardrop shaped.
“To make you sparkle,” Charles said, taking one of the earrings from her hand to insert it into the tiny hole in her earlobe.
There was a round mirror sewn into the tufted fabric of the carriage wall behind Jeddy. Nell lurched across to regard herself with the earrings, even as they swayed. Jeddy smiled, seeing her pleasure. “You’re too good to me, Charlie,” she said, settling back beside him and wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I treat you only as you have always deserved to be treated, sweetheart. And you, my girl…” He glanced across at Jeddy, who was always careful never to look directly at the king unless, as now, she was addressed. “You deserve something as well for making your mistress so content as you do, and watching out for her when I cannot be there.”
He handed Jeddy a shiny silver crown. It was the first the child had ever held. “Won’t someone believe she’s stolen it?” Nell asked as soon as it occurred to her.
“If they do ask, she shall tip up her head and say proudly that it was a gift from her king.” He looked at Jeddy again, whose black eyes were as big as saucers. “Keep it. Money is power, and power is freedom. This can be the beginning of both of those for you.”
Suddenly, a coach slowed beside them and Nell looked across, just as the king did. His smile fell as they both looked over and through the window saw the queen.
Nell felt hot color creep up her neck and onto her face at the awkward moment. The woman with slick ebony hair and expressive dark eyes sat surrounded by her ladies and was unwilling to break her proud gaze from Nell’s. For a moment, the two women were connected. The queen’s huge, dark-brown eyes shimmered. Pride mixed with great heartbreak was what Nell saw.
Nell’s gaze slid away from the window, back to the king. His face had tensed.
The king’s coach moved ahead of the queen’s then and the moment was over, but it had an impact on Nell. As they emerged from the coach minutes later, with a swish of Nell’s skirts and a flash of the king’s jeweled fingers, Charles was engulfed by a crowd of his courtiers. The incident was replaced in Nell’s mind by the overbearing solicitations of the Duke of Buckingham as he led her toward Pall Mall. Nell stood beside him, smiling wisely, yet saying nothing. Always attentive. Always learning, paying careful heed to how people spoke, and the sort of things they said. She knew now that the best tutor she could ever have was her own desire to improve.
She was joined by Lady Shrewsbury, the Duchess of Lauderdale, and Lady Arlington, all of whom had shown a drastic softening toward Nell since that first horrid afternoon in the Hampton Court gardens. Such was the power of her growing importance to the king.
Smiling and conversing, they followed the men, and their collection of pages and aides, as well as several of the king’s guard. It became a great crowd of perfumed, finely dressed courtiers, all bows, beads, wigs, hats, and plumes. It was a warm afternoon, and the wind was dry and soothing beneath the protective canopy of trees in a sentinel row down the length of the park. Charles had only just taken up his mallet, the others collecting in a ring beside him, when a diminutive man of middle age, with a wildly angry expression, approached with two of his own servants. One of them Nell recognized as John Cassells, Rose’s lover, who was in service to the king’s eldest son. The men did not stop beside the king. Rather, they drew up directly before the Duke of Buckingham, to the shock and whispers of the crowd.
“Who is that?” Nell leaned over to Lady Shrewsbury to ask in a whisper.
“That, Mrs. Gwynne, is my husband.”
“I didn’t know he had it in him,” the Duchess of Lauderdale said dryly.
“Sadly, nor did I,” Lady Shrewsbury countered.
“Sir,” the Earl of Shrewsbury said to the Duke of Buckingham in a stilted tone, “this theft of my honor must come to an end here and now. It would be one thing for you simply to go on bedding my wife. But I can no longer tolerate
your open mocking of me with her to the entire court.”
George bit back an amused smile at the formality. “Do stop before you say something we all know you will regret.”
Shrewsbury was rigid as a corpse, fingering the dagger sheathed at his hip. “The only thing I regret, sir, is allowing this to go on for as long as it has. That, and marrying her.”
The ladies let out a collective gasp at the slight, delighted in the drama of it all.
“Oh, Shrewsbury, do have a heart and leave us before this gets out of hand.”
“I no longer have a heart. And all that is left to me are the shreds of my honor!”
“Good Lord, but you’re drunk!” said his wife.
“I may be drunk, but I believe this is the wisest thing I have ever done!”
There was another collective gasp of disbelief as Buckingham turned very slowly and asked, “You are not seriously challenging me to a duel, are you? And without a formal written declaration? Good Lord, no wonder your wife finds you so great a coward!”
“If you decline, sir, to meet my challenge, tomorrow at dawn in the close near Barne Elmes, it is you who shall be thought a coward!”
“I’ll not decline, and you’ll not survive,” George said coldly.
“You’re going to let them fight?” Nell asked the king, clinging to his arm as they walked back to the royal coach, the easy afternoon for which he had hoped now at an end.
“There is little I can do about it.”
“You’re the king of England! Can you not make a law or somethin’?”
In fact, there were many rules and customs that governed such a challenge. There were weapons to be decided—pistols or swords; the location—most often an open field; and seconds to be decided upon for each opponent. But, as to stopping the process, he calmly told her, it was an agreement between gentlemen that not even royalty could upend.
“But what if someone should get ’urt?”
“That is more than likely.”
“But these are your friends, your subjects!”
“And, more precisely, George has been a friend to you.”
“’E ’as been, indeed!”
“If he has helped you understand anything about life at court, then you must know he would not want this stopped.”
“Even if it means his own death?”
He turned to her then, but his face was expressionless. “Even if.”
Lending a modicum of propriety to what was already a scandalous affair, Lady Shrewsbury left England to visit France the next morning.
Or so the court was told, though there was no one who had actually seen her depart.
As the sun rose, Nell sat in her dressing gown in the little alcove beside her bed. Charles had left at dawn to return to Whitehall to have breakfast with his eldest son, Monmouth, and so Nell waited alone for Rose to return. She had been out with John Cassells, who, presumably, had told her everything that had occurred. Perhaps her sister understood things more clearly and could explain them to her. Yet Rose had not seen the expression of anger on Shrewsbury’s face, or the look of confident resignation the Duke of Buckingham presented. Worst of all was the evil glee with which Lady Shrewsbury observed it all unfolding. It did not seem to Nell, based on her response, that the lady cared who won or who lost the duel, so long as they fought over her.
Nell gazed out her large bedroom window facing the square. The glass panes were covered with an early morning autumnal frost. Jeddy was still asleep in the little low bed beside her own, warmed by the fire. Her face was softened by the full belly, and sugary marchpane, with which she had gone to sleep. She smiled to herself thinking how content she would feel, if not for the battle that was likely to cost someone his life.
When Rose came in finally, Nell heard the front-door latch click. She descended the wide staircase alone, her dressing gown sweeping over the polished oak steps, and stood facing her in the still-shadowy entrance hall. Then, without a word, they embraced, each knowing what the other knew. A moment later, Rose followed Nell into the grand drawing room, where the servants had already lit a fire.
“John is to be present at the duel today,” Rose quietly announced, warming her back at the hearth. “And I’ve told ’im I must be with ’im somehow.”
“’E’s not in danger, is ’e?”
“’E’s not one of the seconds, so not directly in danger. Yet still, I’ve got to be there. If somethin’ were accidentally to ’appen, I’d never forgive myself.”
“You’re a woman, and ’Is Majesty wouldn’t want you to be there. You know that,” said Nell.
“’E wouldn’t want you to be there. But I suspect you’re comin’ with me anyway, aren’t you?”
“’Ow ever could we do it?”
“As it ’appens, John ’as offered to dress us up like page boys.” She smiled as the foolish image circled in both their minds. “We can ’ide in the shrubbery there, surroundin’ everything, yet be close enough to see.”
“An ingenious fellow, your Captain Cassells,” said Nell. Then she laughed. “Lord above, Rose, I would never even attempt such a thing without you beside me!” Nell’s expression changed again, mirroring the worry she felt. “’Is Grace ’as been so good to me, Rose. I ’ate that ’e’s gotten ’imself into this.”
“You can’t afford to think like that now. John’s reminded me, as you once did, that court is a very different world, and we’ve got to learn to fit in with them, not the other way round.”
A voice interrupted them. “She’s right, you know, Nell.”
It was a man’s easy tenor that came from behind them, beneath the archway into the drawing room. Both Rose and Nell pivoted around to see the last person they ever expected. Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was standing there, handsome and carefree as ever, in a suit of sea-green silk, with a matching cloak and shoes with shining silver buckles. His hat was plumed with an ostrich feather, and his mouth, as always, wore the same slightly twisted smile that once had won her for a time when she was still one of Mary Meggs’s orange girls.
“But you’re in France!” Nell cried out in surprise.
“I was indeed. But apparently I was drinking the ambassador dry, and testing his hospitality in it. He sent me back without incident.”
“Clever way to get home.” Rose smiled at him.
“Your girl let me in,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind. I’d no idea you’d kept her.”
“She’s not my girl, and her name is Jeddy,” Nell replied.
After an awkward silence, considering what was proper, and what was her deeper wish, Nell dashed across the room and embraced him. She knew that she should be angry with him for how he had let it end, yet she wasn’t. “Oh, ’tis good to see you!” she said, laughing as they embraced.
“And it is a feast for the eyes to see you.” He held her out at arm’s length. “My, but the royal purse has made you into a remarkably elegant lady in my absence.”
“My sister worked right ’ard to become proper, all on her own,” Rose defended, as the two continued to embrace.
“I wouldn’t doubt that for a moment.” He kissed each of her cheeks as Rose left the room by a small arched doorway beside the fireplace. “Yet I can see that wonderful, refreshing Nell is still there just beneath the surface, for anyone who truly cares to look.”
“A great deal’s ’appened while you’ve been gone.”
“To begin with, I hear you’ve quite captivated the king. That is certainly a change from the girl I chased through a certain meadow in Newmarket not so awfully long ago.”
She sank onto a small settee covered in blue Florentine silk, fanning out her dressing gown. A moment later, he sat beside her, and took up her hand. The feel of it was so different from the king’s. There was no great command in the way he gripped her fingers, yet there still was a potent history there.
“I’m sorry I left like that, Charles.”
A smile played at the corners of his mouth in response. “You really did
break my heart, you know.”
“Your ’eart is meant for revelry, not love. When I discovered that, ’twas time to leave.”
“And His Majesty’s is different?”
“’E says ’e loves me.”
“Well, now. That does put a crimp in the notion of a reconciliation between us.” He lifted her hand to his lips and gently kissed it, in spite of his cavalier tone. “So, then. There’s no chance at all, I don’t suppose, of us having, at the least, an assignation on the side when His Majesty is otherwise engaged?”
“None at all, I’m afraid.”
“Seems a waste of such a lovely home, so suspiciously far from court. Have you ever asked yourself why he put you so far from the center of everything—and everyone else—with whom he lives, if it is genuine love between the two of you?”
Nell stood then and smoothed out her dressing gown, feeling a hint of defensiveness overtake her genuine regard for him. “I told him once, in passing, that this particular square had always seemed the most elegant in the world.”
“Convenient wish to grant to keep you and Lady Castlemaine from one another’s throats.”
“You have been gone a while, Charles. Lady Castlemaine was asked to leave court last summer.”
“Is that a fact?”
“It is.”
“Do yourself a favor, in any case, and do not go making the inference that it means you have him exclusively, no matter what he tells you in order to keep a place in your bed. Their romance had been winding down for years, and he had been on the march to replace her. Needless to say, you are not the first woman for whom His Majesty bought a house. Nor are you likely to be the last.”
“You’ve no idea what you’re talkin’ about! ’Is Majesty adores me!”
“He adores all pretty things, Nell, and in abundance.”
“At least for now ’e’s chosen me over a bottle of gin!”
“Dearest Nell.” He sighed, feeling the sting. “Now I’ve angered you, and my greatest wish was only to come here and apologize for my behavior in Newmarket. You really did break my heart when you left me. You know, that is absolutely the truth.”