Royal Harlot (20 page)

“Very well, madam.” The equerry bowed, hesitating as he sought the proper words. It had been so long since a king had lived within these walls that we’d all forgotten the correct rules for court ceremony, if we’d ever known them in the first place. “You will, ah, be joined shortly.”

“Thank you,” I said again, though I knew my eyes betrayed my amusement at his inadvertent choice of words. He flushed, realizing too late what he’d said, and scuttled away.

I went to stand by the window, relishing the coolness of the evening breeze from the water. After today, I’d guessed the king would be feeling a surfeit of gold thread and luxury, and thus had dressed myself simply, in a jacket of green embroidered silk and a darker green petticoat beneath. The primrose tossed to me still lay tucked between my breasts. My hair was loosely knotted high on my head, with shorter pieces in front cropped to curl about my cheeks, and I wore neither paint nor powder on my face, and only tiny garnets in my ears.

I leaned from the window, listening. Even now the sounds of revelry and high spirits could be heard—a new beginning for us all. I wondered wryly how many women would wake tomorrow with an aching head and a new-filled belly as a result of this celebration. For how many babes would this night truly be a new beginning?

“Barbara.”

I turned swiftly, for I’d not heard the door open or shut. He was exactly as I’d remembered, or perhaps as I’d not let myself forget: dark and regal, the most charming man I’d ever met, and without doubt the one I most desired. With him were the same two small dogs I remembered from Brussels, plus two more, trotting importantly after him like flop-eared attendants.

He’d come directly to me, without pause, and without changing. While the others around him had strived to outdo themselves in tinseled splendor, he’d chosen to dress in black twilled woolen stuff—though of the highest quality—as a way to let his own innate glory shine through. As he came toward me, I could see the exhaustion carved into his face after so many hours in the adoring gaze of his subjects. Yet the care fell away as he smiled at me, and almost too late I remembered to curtsey.

“Your Majesty,” I said. “What a magnificent day!”

“Barbara, Barbara,” he said as he raised me up. “A glorious day indeed. And after such a day, what good it does me to have you here.”

“You honor me,” I said simply, and it was no empty praise. Although I was no innocent, I was in many ways still very young. As much as I saw and knew him as a man, he was now indisputably the
king,
and I couldn’t help but be a little awed.

Not that he’d let me remain so for long. How much he must have smiled today, yet still he could smile so warmly for me! “You honor me as well, sweet, by being here.”

“I am only another loyal subject, sir, and your servant,” I said, remembering Brussels. “Your most
obedient
servant.”

He laughed, deep and rich, and as he plucked the primrose from between my breasts, his fingers trailed as if by accident across the warm valley between. “I doubt you’d obey any man, Barbara, not even me.”

“Then for now, sir, I’ll remain simply your servant and no more.” I looked up into his face so far above mine, keeping my eyes heavy-lidded and full of promise. “We’ll leave the pleasure of testing my obedience for another night.”

“Oh, I’ll test you, Barbara,” Charles said, laughing at my flippancy. He tucked the flower into my hair and slipped his arms around my waist. “Just as I did on that other night, I’ll test you and try you, and mark it, I’ll win.”

“Then come, rest yourself,” I urged, leading him to sit on the enormous bed. I crouched down and unlaced his shoes, easing them from his feet.

He groaned aloud from the simple pleasure, and let himself topple backward across the bed. The dogs jumped up beside him, settling there as if they’d every right.

“I’ve been fifteen hours in the saddle this day, Barbara, fair worshipped like some pagan’s gilded idol,” he said, lying flat on his back as he idly ruffled the fur of the nearest dog. “I’ve had every last member of Parliament kiss my hand and the most venerable lords of the land kneel before me.”

I tried not to think of Roger, unwittingly bending with reverence to kiss the hand of the man who’d cheerfully lain with his wife.

“I’ve heard more praise than is wise for any man,” he continued, “so much that I feared I’d shame myself and tumble face-first to the ground, like a boy who gluttonously eats too many sweets. I had to make my apologies for the service at the abbey. I’d reached my fill, and could bear no more.”

“You left early?” I asked, surprised and gladdened. Hah, he’d traded the service of the abbey with scores of clerics and bishops to come here to me. To
me
.

“I couldn’t bear it any longer,” he said. “Yet it
was
glorious, Barbara, beyond all dreams. I cannot tell it any other way.”

I climbed onto the bed to sit beside him, my skirts rustling around me. “It was only what you deserved. You’d been away too long.”

“Would that I’d never had to leave.” He sighed, linking his hands behind his head as he stared upward, unseeing, at the velvet-covered canopy. “My greatest wish was that my sainted father could have felt the same true love and gratitude of the people.”

“I’m sure he did, watching down upon you from his place in heaven,” I said gently. I understood how he could feel melancholy today, even amidst so much splendor and acclaim. Anyone who’d lost and suffered as he had must have no heart to feel otherwise. “Can I bring you wine, a biscuit or an apple?”

He shook his head back and forth, his long hair tousled across the coverlet.

“No, my dear, you’re everything I need.” He smiled at me, and reached his hand up to cradle my cheek against his palm. “Ten thousand men in procession for me today, Barbara. Ten thousand men, and not a single woman.”

“That hardly seems fair.” I turned my face to press my lips against his palm, giving it a languid swipe of my tongue for good measure.

“Oh, but it is,” he said, pulling my face down so he could kiss me, “since the single woman waiting for me here is you.”

He kissed me with leisure, as if he’d the whole night to enjoy me, which, of course, he did.

“Ah,” he said, his smile happy and his face already beginning to lose its earlier sorrow. “That kiss alone was worth a thousand sermons from a thousand preachers. There we are, wise as Solomon.”

“You are wicked.” I laughed, tucking my forward curls behind my ears as I still leaned over him. “You can’t let the canting Presbyterians hear you speak such scandal.”

The Presbyterians were the strictest of any British sect, near as close-minded as the Puritans had been, but much easier to mock, being largely Scots.

“The Presbyterians will never know,” he said, “unless you tell them. Now I’ll play the papist, my dear lady, and make my confession to you. I’m so confounded weary from this day that I can scarce move my limbs. You must toil for us both. Go now, undress yourself, and I’ll watch to make certain you tend to the task properly.”

I laughed again as I hopped from the bed. “Very well, sir. That’s an easy enough task, even for this obedient servant.”

“Obey, then,” he said, chuckling with me. “Go on.”

I stood before him, making sure the candlestick’s light would wash across my flesh in the most flattering fashion, while he rolled to his side, supporting his head with his bent arm the better to watch me.

It is no easy trick for a lady to disrobe without another’s assistance, but Wilson had cleverly anticipated this dilemma for me and suggested not only the jacket, which tied before with bows of ribbons, but my easier pair of stays, the lighter ones I wore for summer. Covered in cherry pink linen, these likewise unlaced down the front, without the busk or extra boning that a more formal bodice would require. Yet still I took my time with each ribbon and lace, knowing how to keep and build the king’s interest until at last I wore only green thread stockings with striped garters, red silk mules with high yellow heels, and a fine Holland smock so sheer as to hide nothing beneath.

“The smock, too,” he ordered. “But keep the stockings.”

“As you wish, sir.” I whisked away the last veil of my smock. I had no false shame or modesty about my body, for I knew it was as perfectly made as my face, and I found as much pleasure in revealing it to him as he so clearly took in viewing it. “You see, I can be most obedient.”

“Yes, you can,” he said, his gaze devouring me with undisguised intent. “Now come, you must tend to me as well.”

“What, and play your manservant?” Laughing afresh, I clambered onto the bed without further beseeching. I pushed aside the dogs and began to unbutton and unlace his clothes, too.

But quickly I learned he’d not the patience I’d demonstrated, and before I’d stripped him fairly, he’d tumbled me backward onto the bed. For a man who’d claimed to be so exhausted, he made a fine, lusty accounting of himself that left us both blest and sated.

“Now that was at least another ten thousand sermons in the balance,” he said as we lay together afterward, my limbs white and round against his. “Likely my very soul, too.”

I laughed wickedly. “Only to the sternest of those Presbyterians. Though if you wish it, I can venture a different pleasure with my lips and tongue that will earn you their ire more thoroughly.”

“You would, too,” he said, laughing with me. “But let me relish what you’ve just granted me before we begin again.”

“Well enough,” I said, and lifted my head so our faces were close. Gently I traced his mustache with my fingertip, smoothing the bristling hairs. “You know as much as I wish it, I cannot stay the night, or be found here.”

“I know it as well as you do, sweet, no matter how it would please me,” he said, running his hand along my spine. “Though it’s no real sin for a bachelor king to have a lady in his bed, I should let my people grow more accustomed to me before they must realize it.”

“What they would see first is that I am another man’s wife,” I said carefully. I knew he’d well earned his cynicism, having been born to an overbearing French Catholic mother, raised as an Anglican by a raft of conscientious bishops, and made fatherless by an army of self-righteous Puritans. But though I was no more rigorous than he in my faith, I did know that with his restored crown he’d also accepted his role as the defender of the Anglican church. “They won’t like that.”

“They wouldn’t like it if I roamed the countryside pillaging virgins, either,” he scoffed.

“You must be serious in this, sir,” I urged. “To most folk, adultery
is
a sin, whether among Presbyterians, Romans, or Anglicans. It was my mistake to marry Roger, not yours. I’ve made peace with myself in this matter, yes, but I won’t have your subjects cry out against you because of me. You need their loyalty, else you’ll never accomplish all you wish to do as their king.”

He grunted, that catchall utterance that men employ when they’ve no wish to face a hard truth.

“Very well, then,” he said. “Wake in your own bed in the morning, beside that dry stick of a husband. My days will belong to Sir Edward and the others for a good while to come, but once they’ve folded their letter-books for the night, I want you at my side, to grace my court. Come to me each evening, Barbara, however you needs contrive it.”

“However I can, however I shall,” I agreed softly. “No matter how Roger tries to keep me back, I will come to you.”

“Your husband likes his new house and his new place in the government, doesn’t he?” he asked. “We’ll see that he’s persuaded to be accommodating. What would he wish?”

“From you?” I paused, wondering exactly how greedy Roger might become for the sake of soothing his pride. Of course, in time, as my acquaintance with His Majesty deepened, I’d expected such gifts and honors would come my way. Hadn’t I volunteered to go to Brussels with exactly that chance of betterment in mind? The king was known to be a most giving gentleman. Even when his pockets had held nothing but holes and darns, he’d managed to be generous to his mistresses and support his bastards. But this offer came far sooner than I’d any right to expect.

“Come now, Barbara,” he urged me. “I needn’t tell you how this game will be played. All of England will come begging to me in the next weeks, all believing themselves completely entitled to have whatever they wish that I can grant. At least Roger will have a better reason than most.”

“That is true,” I admitted. “A government post or office, fit for the new member from Windsor. A title, of course.”

“A title,” he said. “I’ll speak to Sir Edward tomorrow.”

“That’s a great deal of trouble for you, sir,” I said, strangely touched by his generosity. “You scarce know me at all.”

“I know enough,” he said. “You please me vastly more than other women, Barbara.”

“Hah,” I said bluntly. “You like my quim, not me.”

“A good thing, too, because you like my cock.” He grinned. “We’re much alike, you see, two apples dropped from the same gnarled tree.”

I raised my hands over his chest, plopping them down twice to mimic the effect of those two apples falling side by side.

“Stuart and Villiers,” I announced gleefully. “Not so very far apart at all.”

Yet when I looked back at him, I was startled by the depth of the expression in his eyes.

“I missed you, Barbara,” he said, his voice rough, as if the words were hard for him to admit. “I want you to stay close to me, so I won’t have to miss you again.”

I leaned forward and kissed him: a kind of thanks, yes, but a pledge as well, such as I’d never made to any other man.

“As you wish, sir,” I whispered. “Exactly as you wish.”

Chapter Nine

KING STREET, LONDON
July 1 6 6 0

 
If any had asked me, I would have said that I’d more than my share of happiness in my young life, especially once I’d traded the tedium of the country for the amusements of London. But that first summer of King Charles’s reign—ah, there never could be a more magical time than that! It seemed the sun always shone and the air was always sweet and warm those months. In the near-constant company of England’s brave new king, my life was full of gaiety and merriness. We danced and played, dined and drank and laughed. We watched the fireworks over the city, we glided along the river in a gilded barge, and we loved—oh, how we loved!
That
is what I remember the most, and what I shall never forget.