Royal Harlot (2 page)

As if to prove it, Roger’s lecture was continuing still. “I expect you to present my family’s case to His Majesty, how much we’ve sacrificed by supporting him, and how we hope to be rewarded for our loyalty. Be agreeable to the king, Barbara, and make good use of every minute you have in his company.”

“But I will, Roger,” I said, and I meant it far more than my husband, so full of smug conceit, would realize. Even in impoverished exile, Charles Stuart was reputed to be everything a monarch should: tall, virile, intelligent, and charming. How could I not wish to break free of my husband’s overbearing shadow to meet such a man?

“Obey me in this, Barbara,” Roger warned, his misguided idea of a farewell between husband and wife. “I’ll hear of it if you don’t.”

“Perhaps you’ll hear of it sooner if I do.” I opened the carriage door, my cloak whipping around me, driven as if from my own anticipation as by the wind. “Good-bye, Roger.”

 
Four days of hard travel later, first by sea to Antwerp and then by poor Dutch roads, I was in Brussels, in the Spanish Netherlands. I recall little of this city beyond that the stone houses had strange false fronts and jagged roofs and that there were many Romish churches and statues, with golden crosses glinting high into the sky.

I sent my maidservant ahead, and repaired at once to His Majesty’s lodgings. These were my orders, true, but I’d imagined our meeting so often, and in so many ways, that I was all afever to see him at last. Because I’d neither time nor opportunity to change my gown or dress my hair, as I would have wished, I prayed the king would interpret my disarray as proof of my urgency and loyalty to the crown. Besides, I was still of the winsome age where beauty needs little artifice or improvement, and I counted on the brisk glow that the sea air had given to my cheeks and how my dark chestnut hair had been whipped into curl.

And when I saw the meanness of the royal exile, I realized, too, how wrong it would have been to present myself in finery. I’d heard His Majesty was poor, but I’d no notion of how sadly reduced and impecunious his situation truly was. I was greeted by Sir Edward Hyde, the king’s closest advisor and his lord chancellor, an older gentleman with a ruddy, veined face and watery pale eyes. While Hyde went to fetch the king, he put me to wait in a tiny chamber too humble for a country post inn in England.

Behind my hidden cache of letters, my heart thumped with anticipation. I’d scarce time to bite my lips to make them redder and to untie my cloak before I heard the door open behind me. I turned, and there, at last, was His Majesty.

His Majesty
. Those two words couldn’t begin to convey the impression he made upon me. He was standing before the fireplace, the tallest man I’d ever met, dark and handsome as a gypsy, with thick black hair to his shoulders and a curling mustache to match. Hardship and suffering made him look older than his twenty-nine years, as did his somber dress of a plain black doublet and breeches, worn and frayed along the hems. Yet there was a regal presence to him that withstood mere clothes or poverty, and if I’d seen him among ten score of other men, I would have known him at once as their king.

“Your Majesty, Mistress Palmer,” Sir Edward was saying, though I scarce heard him, I was so dazzled by his sovereign master. “Mistress Palmer has come as an agent from your friends at home, sir.”

I bowed my head and swept my curtsey, low and elegant. I had been born a Villiers, after all, and knew how such things were done.

“I trust you will be my friend, too, Mistress Palmer, as well as my agent,” the king said, his smile warm and welcoming. “How generous of Palmer to share his wife with me!”

I smiled up at him, delighted that he’d say such a wicked, teasing thing to me. He was still a bachelor king, and it showed. “I am your friend and your agent, Your Majesty, and whatever else it pleases you for me to be.”

“Whatever, Mistress Palmer?” he asked, chuckling at my boldness. He glanced down from my face to my tight-laced bodice as I rose, and his open interest made his black eyes bright as jet. “Would that all my subjects were so obliging.”

“Forgive me, sir,” Sir Edward interrupted with doleful resignation. “But might the lady be asked to present the letters?”

“Of course, Sir Edward,” I murmured. “Of course.”

I raised my chin and tipped my head to one side, so my eyes would be shaded by my lashes. If the king would wish to play the teasing game, then I would as well. “They’ve not left my person since clearing England, nor have the gold pieces.”

I turned away for only a moment to pull the letters from beneath my stays, a show of modesty for Roger’s sake. But it was the king who was smiling when I placed the letters into his hand, and I remembered with droll amusement how my husband had ordered me to be agreeable to His Majesty.

“They carry your heat,” he observed, then passed the letters beneath his nose to discover my scent, too, upon them. “What fortunate letters.”

Sir Edward cleared his throat. “You’ve brought gold for the cause as well, Mistress Palmer?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered, not looking away from the king. “I’ve great sums sewn into my skirts.”

That made the king laugh aloud. “We’ve never had such a resourceful agent, Sir Edward, have we?”

But Sir Edward looked more pained than amused. Clearly he’d been down this path with his royal charge before. For all that the king was reputed to be a man of sober habits, not given to excesses of drink or intemperate speech, he had a great fondness for beautiful women—a vice that seemed no vice at all for such a well-made, manly sovereign.

“I must urge caution, sir,” he warned. “Pray be mindful of your precious health, and the risk of the smallpox so much in the city.”

“But I’ve had the smallpox, Sir Edward,” I said cheerfully, never so pleased to have survived that oft-fatal disease. “His Majesty won’t take it from me.”

“And so, Sir Edward, have I, as you must recall, and so there’s no danger at all.” The king handed the older gentleman the letters, as much as dismissing him. “Perhaps you should begin reading these, while I tend to the gold.”

Yet once we were alone, the king’s mood turned more serious.

“I thank you, Mistress Palmer,” he said softly as he came to stand closer before me. “By coming here, you’ve risked much danger for my cause.”

I smiled up at him. “You’ve risked more for England.”

“For England.” His dark eyes filled with melancholy pride. “Did your family follow mine?”

I should have spoken of the Palmers then, as Roger had bidden, but instead it seemed more natural to speak of my own family’s sorrows.

“My father was Lord Grandison, sir,” I said, “and in your father’s service he was killed during the assault on General Prior’s fort at Bristol. I was not two years old, and never knew him. My mother’s fortune was soon after confiscated, and she and I together were left paupers, to manage as we could.”

“I am sorry,” he said, sharing my sadness. There was no need to mention his own losses to Cromwell’s evil war. The awful litany was well known to his followers: his father, Charles I, tried and beheaded, his mother in penniless exile in France, his brothers and sisters scattered throughout the courts of Europe, his home and property destroyed, his rightful kingdom torn from him.

Strange to think how much alike we were, this king and I, each of us without fathers or homes or anything of value beyond what we carried inside ourselves. Strange to think, too, how such suffering could be shared, just as desire could become a remedy for easing that same pain.

Even for a gambler born.

He cradled my face in his hand, his fingers warm against my cheek and jaw. “So you’re a Villiers. That makes us distant relations, doesn’t it?”

“Cousins, sir,” I whispered, and dared to touch my hand to the royal person. In every way, so great a prize would be worth every risk. “Though far removed, cousins still.”

“Then kiss me, sweet cousin,” he said, his dark face coming close over mine. “Kiss me now.”

Chapter One

LUDGATE HILL, LONDON
June 1656

 
“This is the house, miss,” called the driver of the hackney carriage as he climbed from his box. “Was they expecting you?”

“Oh, yes.” Eager as only a fifteen-year-old can be, I didn’t wait for his help but hopped down boldly to the dusty street on my own, still clutching the crumpled paper with my mother’s address.

Here was London, London at last! I gazed about at the close-packed houses and the tall square tower of St. Paul’s, my eyes as wide as tea dishes and my mouth gaping like a fish’s. What else could I do, truly? I’d spent all of my short life tucked away in Suffolk for safekeeping, first with a nursemaid, then with a country woman my mother had paid to keep me from trouble, and little else. I was plump and sleek as a young wood-pigeon, and with as little cleverness as that bird, too. Though most who knew me later would never credit it, I came to London as innocent as any other country lass who’s plucked up from the tavern stage by a cunning bawd to break and school for brothel work.

But on Ludgate Hill that sunny afternoon, there was no waiting bawd to sell me into the fleshly trade for profit. My own mother would do well enough for that.

Eagerly I presented myself at the doorway, shaking the dust of the road from my best stuff petticoat. My mother’s infrequent letters always lamented her constant lack of funds, and how far down in the world she had tumbled since the poor king had been beheaded by Oliver Cromwell’s followers and the Protectorate had taken to persecuting all good Royalists like us.

I’d understood, or thought I had. No extra money for ribbons or sweets ever came with those letters. I was assured of her distant love, but never felt or saw the proof. Even deep in Suffolk, I’d spent my childhood alone beneath the pall of Cromwell’s Eastern Association, those misguided dour folk who had first raised the parliamentary army against the crown. England had been torn by civil war for most of my short life; I knew no other way. I’d been taught to loathe this parliamentary army, the ones who’d killed my father when I’d been scarce more than a babe, and caused my mother to leave me behind when she’d wed again.

Yet while I’d heard how the bulk of my mother’s great wealth and lands had long since been seized by the government, she and my stepfather—who was also by blood my uncle, having been my father’s cousin—were still the second Earl and Countess of Anglesea. To my wide country eyes, their London home seemed large and handsome, with white stone steps and more window glass than I’d ever seen in any house. The maidservant who finally opened their glossy painted door was dressed far better than I, her skirts smartly pinned back from her petticoat to display green thread stockings.

“Please tell Lady Anglesea that I am arrived,” I said, smiling wide and squinting in the sun.

The maid kept the door half-closed, looking down her nose at my untrimmed kerchief and flat chip hat. “What name?”

“Miss Barbara Villiers,” I said proudly. “Her Ladyship’s only daughter.”

With reluctance the maidservant finally opened the door wide enough to admit me and the driver with my traveling trunk. I paid him with my last shillings and tucked my empty purse away into my pocket while the maidservant went to fetch my mother. I was left alone in the hall, my heart thumping with anticipation. I’d not seen my mother in four years, the last time she’d come to visit me in Suffolk, and this lack of welcome worried me.

“This way, miss,” the maidservant said as she returned and bid me follow her up the stairs. “The footman shall see to your trunk.”

Uncertainly I stood in the doorway to my mother’s chamber. Though it was afternoon, she was still abed, sitting up against the bolsters with a peeled orange in a blue-and-white porcelain dish in her hand and a small black spaniel curled asleep on the coverlet beside her. The bed’s embroidered hangings had been turned up into swags for the day, and the two tall-backed chairs beside the bed showed that my mother was in the habit of receiving guests in this fashion. Her fair hair was arranged in stiffened curls, spilling from a small lace cap, and her blue satin jacket, fastened before with three pink bows, was banded at the sleeves and throat with rich brown fur. Even here in bed, pearls like fat dewdrops glistened at her ears, with more pearls around her pale throat.

“Come, Barbara, and greet me properly,” she said, setting the dish beside her on the coverlet as she offered her cheek for me to kiss. “There’s nothing to be gained by being shy, especially with your own mother.”

“Good day, madam,” I said as I curtseyed prettily, the way I’d been taught. I then stepped forward to the bed to kiss her dutifully, noticing how she smelled of the orange, and how the pink of her cheek seemed to sit on the surface of her skin.

“You’re much larger than I recall,” she said, taking my hand to hold me near so she could study me. “Like a dairymaid. I suppose that comes of so much cream and eggs. At least you’ve all your teeth.”

I pulled my hand away. “I’d always judged it better to have them than not.”

“Now, miss, don’t be pert,” she warned. “You’re strong and lusty in the country manner, true, but gentlemen will see that as a promising sign for breeding. We must put more boning and a wider busk into your corsets to narrow you, and then I’ll have my maid lace you more tightly to give you a suitable waist. Take down your hair, so I might see it.”

I loosened the ribbons of my hat, unpinned the high knot of my braid, and with my fingers pulled the plait apart and shook my hair over my shoulders and to my waist. Surely she’d find no fault here: my hair was deep shining chestnut, thick and curling.

“It was much lighter when you were a babe.” She reached out and captured a lock, rubbing it gently between her fingers. Her father—my grandfather—had been a famous merchant in the City of London, trading silks and spices to great profit, and surely the method of my mother’s considered appraisal of my hair must have come from his mercer’s touch. “This is Villiers hair, like your father’s, and your eyes—turn toward the window, child, so I might judge the color.”