The Perfect Royal Mistress, Page 3

  “Not dreadful,” Barbara sighed. Apparently, in this past month, she had taught him nothing. It all seemed pathetically comical. “Just a dreadful bore, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, thank you very much indeed for that!” he said as he bolted from the bed and bent to retrieve his silk pants.

  “Oh, now, my dear Jamie,” she began, trying hard to stifle what she knew was a cruel-sounding laugh. “To succeed in this world, one must be as realistic about one’s strengths as one’s weaknesses. Did the king never teach you that?”

  “My father has taught me nothing about how to be a king because he does not believe his bastard son will ever be one.”

  She went to him then, her hands moved tautly down along his hips as she pressed her moist lips to his ear. “But do you believe it? You are his only heir!”

  “His bastard son. Only Catherine’s children can be heirs.”

  “Well, the little Portuguese does not have any children, does she?”

  “You know my father wishes his brother to be king if Catherine remains barren.”

  “James is a Catholic. Protestant England will never stand for that.”

  Monmouth turned around and embraced his father’s principal mistress, their bare bodies still warm and wet. “I appreciate your wanting to help me, my Lady Castlemaine, but—”

  “Oh, for the love of God! Since we have rutted like this more than a few times, can you not see your way clear to address me informally? Or am I too old and motherly for such consideration?”

  “You are a goddess! There is nothing old about you!” he reassured her enthusiastically, enough to make her smile.

  “Then heed my advice. As the Duke of Buckingham dares to scheme against me, so do I scheme against the king’s brother with you for your place. It is what we at this court do.”

  In the prison between Newgate and Ludgate, just beside the river, a cell door opened with a low squeal. It was past two in the morning and the tormented sounds, the cries and pleadings, were quieted. The lone sound echoed down the long, stone corridor as a guardsman in a soiled uniform, holding a flickering lantern, along with a tall man in an expensive black cloak, entered the cell.

  “Rose Gwynne?”

  “Who wants to know?” came a weak but defiant voice from a straw mat on the stained and refuse-strewn floor.

  “Are ye she or no’?” the guard gruffly pressed, holding the lantern higher.

  Rose looked from one face to the next, dream soaked and defensive. She feared a trick. It was not uncommon for guards to steal into a woman’s cell in the wee hours, to do with her things she would have no power against which to defend herself. But the presence of the other man, well dressed, recoiling from the odors, as he placed a silver pomander to his nose, told her clearly he was not of this foul, hopeless plate.

  “I am,” she finally replied.

  Rose saw the well-dressed man nod. “You’re to come with me,” the guard announced.

  “I’ll not, ’til I know why!”

  The two men exchanged a glance.

  “You’re being released,” the guard declared.

  “Released? I’m ’ere for the rest of my life, and you well know it!”

  “I haven’t the inclination to tarry with you, girl. I say you’re free to go. Unless, of course, ye’re inclined to remain as you fancy the accommodations,” he cackled, and then began to bark out a rheumy cough.

  As Rose staggered to standing, he spat, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Come on, then! Be quick about it. I fancy a bit of a lie-down meself before dawn sometime.”

  Rose lingered near the door with the small opening covered by a rusty iron grate. “But I don’t understand…why?”

  It was then that the well-dressed man spoke. “Consider it a gift, young woman, and make the most of what you do from here on out.”

  Ten minutes later, Nell Gwynne’s older sister, in a soiled shift and cloth shoes, was shown the street. As the great iron door closed mysteriously behind her, her hand was heavy with a shockingly large number of coins. She looked down a long, cobbled street that was silent and full of shadows. It was the middle of the night and a thick fog rolled around her ankles and made her shiver. She coughed, then drew in a trembling breath, the first fresh air she had breathed in over a year.

  Chapter 2

  THEN ENTER NELLY ONTO THE PUBLIC STAGE.

  —James Shirley, The Lady of Pleasure

  FIVE weeks after London’s fire, the King’s Theater reopened amid a sudden autumn cold so frigid that it froze the Thames. Notices were posted, and handbills were given out announcing that the king’s players would be performing Thomas Killigrew’s own play Siege of Urban. Admittance to the pit would be free of charge by His Majesty’s command. It was said the sovereign hoped to bring a bit of joy to his beleaguered subjects with a rousing comedy.

  Nell stood outside the theater in the cool gray air, a basket of plump oranges at her elbow. She was wearing an olive-green dress. It was almost new, even a bit stylish, with an attached, ruched, pannier skirt made of pink floral cotton to the middle of her calves, and puffed half sleeves. It had been offered to her by one of the other orange girls for ten pence. It had been almost a month, yet Nell still could not quite believe her sudden and mysterious good fortune.

  The dress was only the smallest part of that.

  The memory of waking with a great start, hearing the door handle click. Casting off her blanket, she had fumbled for the long wooden stick she kept beneath the mattress for the nights when Helena Gwynne brought home more than a hangover. But it was not Helena. It was Rose. Rose! Standing in the pale light cast from the corridor, looking like a ghost and an angel at the same time. Rose, who was meant to die in the Newgate gaol. It had been a miracle. But her sister had come back changed, weakened by the ordeal. She had a stubborn cough now, and her face was no longer that of a girl, but of a hardened young woman. Nell was committed to caring for Rose forever now that she was back, and helping her recover her health, no matter what it took.

  “Well, don’t you look fine today,” Orange Moll proclaimed.

  The declaration brought Nell back to the front of the theater, where a throng of people was pushing past her to get in. Orange Moll stood before her in the cold, gray noonday, a blue shawl closed over her swelling bosom, and a large basket brimming with fruit slung over her own arm and resting against her ample hip.

  “I’ve a new dress,” Nell smiled.

  “So I see. And ’tis a stroke of good fortune, too. I’ve lost one of my best inside girls. Just this mornin’, in fact. Ran off to marry a linkboy, a pox on ’em both!” She shook her head. Her hair was dark and frizzled, hanging onto her shoulders. Her eyes were shrewd, her face wrinkled and painted. “She needs replacin’, and in your new dress you ’appen to fit the part. If you’d fancy a turn at it, that is.”

  An inside girl. Their baskets were full, not just with oranges, but a bounty of delectable lemons, apples, and sweetmeats. They were the clever ones who bantered with the theatergoers, the girls who made the real tips, the girls who glimpsed the other side of London life. Money. Dresses. Jewelry.

  “Oh, yes! Yes, if you please!”

  Nell’s open smile made Moll flinch. Her expression was suddenly full of warning. “Now, ye’ll ’ave to learn quick if you mean to make a proper livin’ at it. Banter with the patrons, and a little flirtation comes to no ’arm. The more they fancy you, the more they buy, and the better they tip. Just never let me see ye cross the line. Not at least in a public way. What ye do on your own time’s your own business, but ’ere at the king’s house I’ve a reputation to maintain.”

  Nell caught her breath. “I understand.”

  Since Rose had found her way out of the Newgate gaol, they had been achingly careful with their precious windfall. Now, perhaps they could think of a larger room, something with a bed big enough for both of them.

  Orange Moll, whose real name was Mary Meggs, took Nell’s basket of oranges and replaced it
with her own full, lush basket. “Ye’ll be workin’ the pit. ’Tis no fine walk in the park, I’ll warn ye. The lot of ’em can be loud and boorish, and the fops won’t want to give ye the time o’ day for the attention it takes from them. Those pretty little boys, with their noses in the air, can be a mean lot. But I’ve heard ye, Nell, and I believe ye’ll hold your own.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Meggs!” Nell was beaming.

  “Eh, don’t be too quick to thank me. ’Tis a chance only, Nell. If ye don’t sell the fruit, I’ll toss ye out as quick as ye were ushered in, understand?”

  “I’ll not let you down. I might not even ’ave enough fruit for all I mean to sell!”

  The doors to the King’s Theater were drawn back at noon, as they were every day, and the crowd that had gathered scrambled for a place on the backless pit benches. Orange peels from the day before were scattered over the seats, covered in green felt, and strewn into the aisles. Foul-smelling men and women surged forward like a great tidal wave and, for a moment, Nell could not quite catch her breath. For the first time, she was in the very midst of all the glorious pushing and struggling for place. The theater was more magnificent inside than her mind had ever conjured, with its three-tiered interior, a middle gallery, and, above it, private boxes gilded and draped with velvet. Crowning it all, to let in light, was a glass cupola above the great apron stage protruding into the audience framed with heavy draperies and painted pictorial scenery behind.

  I am ’ere among them all! I am actually inside the King’s Theater! It was a heartbeat after the thought, a moment only, when two men wearing lace sleeves and long silk coats, one of eggshell blue, the other an opalescent ivory, clearly the fops about whom she had heard so much, bumped into her. “Watch yourself, girl!” one of them said tautly. He was gaunt faced, his lips were red and wet, and Nell could see pale powder and a small black patch on his cheek. Just as she moved to apologize, she felt the power of another man’s hand on her back.

  “Two oranges, love, and be quick about it!”

  She quickly plucked two of the prettiest pieces of fruit, then looked down into the face of a stout little man with protruding teeth and deep pox scars. In spite of how repugnant he was, Nell gave him her sweetest smile. “Best I ’ave, sir!”

  He leaned nearer, his breath smelling of gin, as he handed her the coins to pay for it. “I’ll wager those are nowhere near the best that a pretty thing like you has on offer!” His voice was lecherous, and she felt her stomach constrict as his hand, tight on her back, plummeted to the rise of her buttocks.

  “True enough! But they are the best I’ll be sellin’ to anyone ’ere!” she declared. Her charmingly wicked laugh made him smile and the little man was disarmed.

  He reached into his pocket for extra coins to tip her. “I see that is indeed my loss.”

  “Now, if all of my customers are as generous as you, sir, I fancy I’ll be a duchess before I’m a right proper lady!”

  A woman called out then, breaking the moment. “Here girl! Your sweetmeats. Let me see what you have. The offerings from the girl over there were paltry.”

  Nell fished inside the basket and pulled out one of the small pastries filled with honey and nuts. She handed it to the woman as the din of laughter and yelling around her reached a crescendo. And the play, she knew, would not begin for another hour.

  “This looks quite dreadful!” the woman sniffed. “How long ago was this made, girl?”

  “I ain’t certain, ma’am. I’ll warrant you, it tastes delicious, though!”

  “And I am going to trust an opinion from the likes of you?”

  “Pomegranate then, perhaps?” Nell held it up. “Ripe and lovely as they come, these are.”

  “Better,” the woman declared, handing sixpence to Nell. There was no tip included.

  “I shall take the sweetmeats.”

  The declaration had come from a young man standing behind the woman in the still-growing crush of bodies. He was handsome, Nell saw, with wavy auburn hair and kind, blue eyes. He moved forward, coins in hand. “And I would absolutely trust the opinion of this lovely girl, Lady Russell.”

  “Bah! That is only because you are a lecherous young jackdaw!”

  “Lady Russell,” he smiled, showing mock indignation, and with it, surprisingly boyish charm. “I really would have expected better from you.”

  “And I would have expected precisely the same as what I saw from you, Lord Buckhurst!” she declared, turning on her heel as others clambered forward.

  As Lord Buckhurst handed her the money for the sweetmeats, along with an astoundingly generous tip, Nell felt herself being pushed and prodded, but she managed to keep her smile, and her attention, on him. “I thank you indeed, sir.”

  “Ah, if only they were pearls instead of coins, I would cast them willingly before you,” he sighed with enough overaffected drama that Nell could not quell a loud burst of laughter that erupted in a very unladylike fashion. “And when you say that sort of thing to proper ladies, does it actually work?”

  “Nearly always,” he laughed charmingly.

  “’Ow fortunate for me that I’m not the least bit proper!”

  A more sincere smile crossed his face. She saw that he was surprised by her clever tongue. “If you are here tomorrow, I shall be delighted to buy your sweetmeats once again.”

  “’Twill be my pleasure to serve your pleasure, sir,” she flirted openly.

  Her attention was quickly drawn to another customer, but her thoughts eddied a moment longer on Lord Buckhurst. The power she had felt in that brief interlude was a heady sensation.

  Nell began to work the pit with ease after that, smiling and laughing as openly as she did at the Cock & Pye. Drawn by her infectious laugh and her raw beauty, men flocked to her, and Nell reveled in the attention. “Give us an orange, love!” called a stout man with black button eyes. “And there shall be ten pence more in it if you will add a kiss!”

  “For six pence more I’d kiss the orange but not you!” she chuckled. To her surprise, with a wide happy smile, he added the ten pence, pinched her cheek, and was gone.

  It would be easier than she thought to charm her way to a good meal for Rose and herself, she realized even before the next man pushed his way forward. Proper food, at last!

  “Two oranges! I shall take two!”

  “’Old your ’orses!” she called back through the din, reaching into her basket as she leveled her eyes, and her smile, directly upon him.

  “I would hold anything belonging to you!”

  “You’d best settle for the oranges, sir!”

  “Today, perhaps! But I will be back for whatever you have on offer tomorrow!”

  Even at sixpence an orange, half the cost of a seat in the pit, it was not long before Nell sold almost every one. As the performance drew nearer, she held an orange back, hiding it within the folds of her skirt, so that she might have reason to stay inside and glimpse a bit of the play. She wanted to ensure an explanation should she be asked why she had not left along with the other orange girls.

  Selling outside the theater, she had only been able to hear the laughter of the audience and the faint strains of the musicians. Now she greedily drank in all of the atmosphere, the sense of anticipation that was growing in the crowd, until candles were snuffed by young men who worked for the theater company and a young actress came from the wings and onto the stage. In the role of a maidservant dressed as a man, she stood in the center of the boards that jutted out into the musicians, and began the opening monologue.

  “Now good people, listen well, I know in your hearts you hate serious plays, as I hate serious parts, but if you sit now calmly you shall see before you not drama but a world of fops and tarts!”

  The audience responded by erupting in laughter. Standing back near the entrance doors, Nell listened intensely to the dialogue. The audience responded with great fits of laughter as the girl was joined by two men in guard’s costumes. Nell studied each of the actors and made n
ote of the voices they used, how they projected their lines, and used them for what they desired from the audience. As each actor spoke, Nell found herself standing in the anonymous darkness and shadows, mimicking their upper-class accents. Men’s lines, women’s. It did not matter. She quietly repeated them all. As the actors moved across the stage, her lips mirrored what they said. She studied each sound and inflection. On the way home, her body tingled with fatigue and her mind hummed with all that had happened. She had sold the contents of two baskets, and earned five shillings in tips for herself. It had taken an extra hour, and half the tips, but she was returning home with a new dress for Rose. Like her own, the dress was used, bought through a woman whom Mary Meggs knew, the wife of a prosperous tailor whose wealth exceeded her good sense, shown by discarding perfectly suitable dresses after a few wearings. Nell could not imagine the luxury of discarding anything. The dress was the color of dried rose petals, and Nell knew it was meant for her sister.

  Nell was so full of excitement she was not prepared for the sight of her sister huddled against the bed, a bruise swelling on her cheek, and her top lip cut. But she knew what had happened.

  “She took it,” Rose said, weeping. “All of it.”

  Nell sank onto the sagging mattress that dominated the tiny room.

  “Forgive me, Nelly.”

  Music and laughter from the tavern below came through the floor and swelled up around them. “I should never’ve left it ’ere with you, Rose. Ma can smell money, I swear it.” Nell put an arm around her sister, feeling suddenly like the older of the two. She drew out her tip money. Watching the open shock on her sister’s face made her smile. “I suppose we shall simply be forced to use this instead.”

  “Oh, Nelly, you didn’t sell yourself for me—”

  “Not a chance in the world! I’m far too smart for that!”

  Rose touched the coins. “You ain’t stealin’ it then, are you?”