Royal Harlot (23 page)

Bitterly I recalled what Charles had said to his brother James: this was a mistake of my own making, and now it was up to me to make it right as well. Yet how, truly, was I to do so?

It was Charles’s habit to move freely among his people. Unlike his cousin, the French king Louis, Charles did not keep himself locked away in his palace but was often to be seen throughout London, whether at the theatre, at services, or on the river. Most famously, he walked through St. James’s Park, the greenway behind the palace, and walking with him was as good a way as any to win his favor or simply his ear.

But those walks could likewise become a trap for the unwary: with his long legs and lean body, the king set a breakneck pace that left many of his courtiers huffing and puffing in his wake, and open to ridicule. While his small dogs had no problem trotting alongside him, older courtiers, or those who’d drunk too freely the night before, found the challenge not worth the gain.

Being young and long-limbed myself, I was one of the few ladies who’d dared to join the king and his brothers on these walks. Feeling ill, I’d not gone lately as often as before, but now, fortified by Mistress Quinn’s potions, I decided there’d be no better way to reinforce my place at Charles’s side.

Dressed in blue as bright as the summer sky, with a wide-brimmed plumed hat and a parasol to keep my fair skin from the sun, I bravely stepped up as he began from the palace on a warm August morning.

“Mistress Palmer, good day,” he said, surprised, but obviously pleased as well. “How handsome you look this morning. It’s been a long while since you’ve joined us, but how happy we are that you have.”

Around him the others welcomed me, too, for it is the role of a courtier always to echo and agree with the king. I tipped my head winsomely to one side, twirling the handle of my parasol against my shoulder. “We are happy to be here, Your Majesty, indeed,
most
happy.”

He smiled in return, a heavy-lidded smile that lingered so upon me that I knew he was thinking of last evening, when I’d gleefully played the wanton for his amusement. The trick now would be to make the world know it, too.

Yet though I’d sallied forth full of bravado, we’d not walked far before I began to wilt. A walk that earlier in the summer I’d completed with breezy ease was now making my heart quicken. I felt flushed and heated, and my smile seemed tacked upon my face. Though I willed my feet to keep pace with the others, the effort was becoming more and more difficult. Charles recognized my distress, too, for though at his elbow walked some gentleman droning earnestly about a scheme for saving the souls of the red savages in New England, he kept glancing to me.

“Mistress Palmer,” he called at last, interrupting the droning gentleman. “Is the morning too warm for you?”

“Not at all, sir,” I answered with grim determination. “I am well enough.”

But I wasn’t well enough for much, and as we climbed toward the crest of a small rise in the path, I seemed to hear naught but the rise and fall of my own blood within my veins, a roaring sound that clouded everything else before my eyes. I felt myself swaying unsteadily, my legs wobbling beneath me as if I were at sea, and before I could steady myself I began to topple, sinking down with my skirts puffing around me.

Strong arms caught me and guided me to a nearby bench in the shade of a small copse of trees.

“Put your head down low, my dear,” Charles ordered. “Breathe as deep as you can.”

Obediently I leaned forward, though in truth I doubted I could have done much else. My hat slid from my head to the grass, and I left it. The little dogs snuffled around my feet, excited by my fallen hat, until Charles shooed them away. I closed my eyes and tried to regain my composure. Around me I could hear others murmuring with a show of concern, like the fluttering wings of pigeons.

“Shall I call for a surgeon?” some gentleman asked, eager to appear helpful before the king.

“Should we send for the lady’s husband?” asked another. “If she’s ill, he should be informed.”

“I know the lady’s constitution,” Charles said, “and she’ll be set to rights soon enough. Likely it’s only the heat. Clear away, now, so she might feel the breeze. We’ll rejoin you when the lady’s better.”

I heard them dutifully withdraw. My head was clearing now, and I dared to sit upright, discovering the king on the bench beside me.

“Forgive me, sir,” I whispered miserably. “I didn’t mean to be so weak.”

“Drink this, Barbara,” he said kindly, handing me a tumbler of the cider sold by peddlers in the park. “You grew too warm, that was all.”

I raised the cup to my lips. The oversweet scent of the pressed apples assailed my nose, and my stomach leapt in such swift rebellion that I lowered it at once, gulping for air. If there were anything worse than fainting before the king, then it would surely be to spew upon the grass at his feet, in full sight of all those idling, curious spectators.

“Perhaps not, eh?” Gently he took the cup back from my hand.

Tears of frustration stung my eyes, and I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep them from spilling out. Was this part of breeding, too, tears and fainting and behaving as poorly as the babe I was doomed to bear?

“So tell me, Barbara,” he said quietly. “Is the child mine or your husband’s?”

That was enough to make me sob, the tears now flowing unchecked. “How—how could you know?”

“You forget that I’ve been down this path before,” he said wryly and handed me his own royal handkerchief. “Likely I knew before you did yourself.”

“Oh, I am so shamed, sir,” I cried softly, my voice breaking. “How could this have happened to me?”

“I should expect in the usual way,” he said. “Given how often— and how well—you’ve entertained me, madam, I’d be more surprised if I hadn’t filled your belly. I suppose you’ll swear that it
is
mine?”

“Of course it’s yours,” I said through my tears, stunned he’d even suggest otherwise. “I’ve been with Roger for over a year now with no result, yet with you—ah, I’m certain it’s yours.”

“As certain as any lady can be in such circumstances. Amazing how often ladies are always certain it’s mine.”

“But this one
is,
” I cried, stunned he’d even suggest otherwise. “The night of the procession, sir, when you first returned to London, and to me—I’m sure it was then.”

“That night?” He smiled with male pride at the memory. “I suppose I must believe it. Ah, well, a child will be a more lasting memento than all those bouquets tossed my way.”

I bowed my head, wounded that he’d not understand more of how I was suffering. I forgot the curious bystanders, forgot my promises to be discreet.

“You—you won’t want me any longer,” I wailed. “I’ll be fat and clumsy and—and
hideous,
and you’ll—you’ll put me aside, and forget me and—and our babe.”

“Hush, now, Barbara, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” he said. “Hush, please, don’t cry. Why should you believe I’d abandon you now?”

My snuffle was full of bitterness. “Why should I believe otherwise? What assurance have you given me of any lasting affection, or honorable proof that you would provide for me if such a misfortune as this befell me?”

“Ah.” He looked down at the front of my bodice, as if imagining the tiny babe that must already be curled deep within me. “I haven’t, have I?”

“No, sir, you have not.” I blew my nose noisily, not caring if my nose or eyes were red. Likely it was too late for that, anyway, just as it was likely too late for the protests I was making now. “The only plum that’s come my way was the lease upon the King Street house, and Roger must still pay the rent.”

He nodded, though I doubted my words had left their mark. “Does Mr. Palmer know of the child?”

“He knows,” I said. “He’s strutting about like the biggest cockerel in the barnyard, too.”

“So he believes it’s his?”

“I told him it was,” I said bluntly. “If he believed otherwise, then he would have turned me out of our house into the streets, and I could not have trusted in you to save me.”

“Oh, Barbara, Barbara.” He looked at me with genuine sadness, so much so that I knew my arrows had at last struck home. “You’ve become far too dear to me ever to scorn you like that.”

I raised my chin to keep it from trembling. “Am I?”

“You are,” he said with unquestionable conviction. “I won’t fail you, Barbara, you or our child. You have my word.”

This was far more than I’d dared to hope to gain. He was a careless Stuart, true, but now that he’d given his word I believed I could count on him to uphold it.

And if he didn’t, why, I now knew I’d the right to demand that he did, the way any good Villiers would.

He reached down and plucked my hat from where it had fallen on the grass and settled it back on my head. A small gesture, but a tender one, and I understood how much it symbolized for us both. In return, I longed to kiss him, but instead contented myself with merely covering his hand with my own. There’d be time enough now for the world to speculate that this child was his.

“Thank you, sir,” I said softly. “Thank you with all my heart.”

“Yes.” That was all, no more nor less. His black eyes glittered like jet in the sun. “Are you better now?”

I nodded, wondering if I’d only imagined that rare glimpse of vulnerability from him. Now when he smiled, the curve of his full lips was more suggestive than understanding.

“Are you well enough to return with me?” He glanced down again at my body, this time with more frank appraisal than wonder. “I’ll like to watch you ripen, Barbara, and know it’s my seed that’s done it. Your breasts are already larger in my hands.”

I smiled, too, such talk stirring my desires to match his. I did feel better now, but even if I hadn’t, I knew I’d have to feign that I did, and if my swelling breasts ached when he fondled them, then I’d not complain.
That
would be my part of our bargain.

He threaded his fingers into my hair to hold my head steady, and kissed me then, hard and possessively, so that anyone who saw understood everything.

And may God forgive me, I kissed him back in exactly the same way.

 
The letter on the salver in Wilson’s hand looked innocent enough. The paper was worn and stained from having traveled far to find me, but once I saw the familiar seal my heart jumped within my breast from well-trained habit.

“I thought it best to bring it directly to you, madam,” Wilson said. “I was certain you’d want it kept from Mr. Palmer.”

“Thank you, Wilson, thank you.” I seized the letter and carried it off to my closet to read alone, so there’d be no witnesses to the power that Philip’s words might still have over me. For the letter was in fact from my old lover the Earl of Chesterfield, writ from his exile in Paris. It had been many months since I’d last heard from him, let alone lain in his sweet embrace.

Yet though the hand on the page was achingly familiar, the opinions to be found in the words were new between us. He’d heard of the king’s admiration for me, and even at a distance he’d understood our situation with a clarity that Roger did not possess. But while Philip had always thought nothing of keeping other mistresses besides me, he couldn’t bear to extend the same favor to me.

Instead he claimed the unfamiliar role of a wounded lover. He congratulated me on my good fortune with the king, yes, but at the same time he lamented what he perceived as my unfaithfulness to him, and begged for me to send him a portrait of myself as a memento of past times: “For then I shall love something like you, yet unchangeable.”

I laughed softly at this backhanded request, shaking my head to think of how no other gentleman I’d known could compose such a
billet-doux
quite like Philip. He even concluded his plea with a pretty couplet in French, exactly as he’d ended so many other missives to me:

 
That made me sigh, for love lost and long done. He would always remain my sweetheart love, the one who’d introduced me to so many of life’s greatest joys and pleasures.

But the last lines of Philip’s letter were likewise a product of his character. He informed me that he was at last to wed Lady Elizabeth Butler, the daughter of the Marquess of Ormond, with a fixed dowry of six thousand pounds. As if by accident—though I knew every word was written with intent—he mentioned that this happy match had been contrived with the assistance of that dear gentleman Edward Hyde.

There was an unpleasant edge to this little message, as if to say, well, you might have His Majesty in your bed, but
I
will marry a titled heiress, and I’ll do it with the aid of a man who loathes you.

I remembered Philip well enough to see both the gloating behind this and the malice as well. Neither sat well with me. All my earlier gentle feelings, my tender memories, toward him vanished, and my first impulse was to crumple this odious letter and hurl it into the fire, where its author deserved to be, too.

But as I raised my fist over the grate, I’d second thoughts. With his prize bride on his arm, Philip was sure now to be permitted to return to court. Such a letter might prove useful to me at a later date, perhaps to humiliate his new wife, or cause him some other shame or discomfort. I’d not let Philip hurt me again as he’d wounded me before.

Some would say that the life at court had hardened me since my girlish days. I saw it more as becoming stronger. I was no longer a sighing, lovesick lass, but a woman grown who’d taken her place in a difficult world and meant to keep it.

I smoothed the wrinkles from the crumpled sheet and tucked it into my pocket for safekeeping. The sages claim that revenge is a dish best served cold, and at that moment there was nothing more icy than my heart set against the Earl of Chesterfield.

 
In the end, the golden days of that first summer of Charles’s reign could last no longer than any other season. The days grew shorter and my waist thickened, but there were other, larger events and signs of change to remark in London at that time as well.