Royal Harlot (29 page)

“Thank you, sir,” I said softly and sighed. “Now if the queen will only relent and take me among her ladies—”

“I’m tending to that as well, Barbara,” he said without looking away from his sleeping son. “Her Majesty will be made to understand. She should be grateful I’m not like my grandfather and asking her to accept my entire Turk’s harem of lovers into her fold.”

“Your grandfather might not have been a Turk, sir, but he was French.” I’d heard this argument from him, and from his brother James, a good many times when the two of them were in their cups and longing for the unabashed indulgences of Henri IV’s court. “You’d shock a good many Englishmen along with the queen if you tried that.”

“But you’re not some French slattern, Barbara,” he said almost wistfully. “You’re English, and a peeress. We made certain of that earlier exactly so there’d be no trouble now.”

I rested my hand over his in a sweet show of understanding. “There is no trouble, sir,” I said. “Not with me.”

“Nor will there be with the queen, dearest,” he said, turning his hand so our fingers were intertwined. “I expect everything to be resolved as soon as you’re ready to rejoin us at court.”

“You please me, sir,” I said, in a voice that made him look away from my son to me. “I miss you.”

His smile was full of warmth. “I miss you as well, Barbara. I always do.”

“Will you be returning with us to King Street later?”

He looked puzzled, yet intrigued. “Are you certain, Barbara? You’ve only just risen from childbed.”

I smiled wickedly, heedless of the nursemaid. “Oh, sir,” I teased. “You’re not such a greenhorn as that. There are so, so many other ways for us to amuse ourselves.”

“And you know them all, my dear.” He grinned, his hand sliding from my knee along my thigh. “I suppose I could stop for a short while before I go back to Hampton Court.”

Our ride was not far, the carriage stopping at the porch of St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Drawn by the sight of the royal coach, a small crowd gathered to cheer the king, and he waved back to them with joy and good humor, unashamed of the errand that had brought him here. At his side, I proudly held his son, the costly embroidery of his long gown spilling over my arm. This was the first time I’d ventured out since his birth, and I’d taken care that both I and the babe looked as fine as possible to honor the king.

Inside the church, we were met by two friends who had come down from Hampton Court with Charles: my namesake, Aunt Barbara, Countess of Suffolk, my closest relation and the one who would stand as godmother, and another old friend, Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, for my son’s godfather. Together this little party gathered around the stone font with the church’s minister, and witnessed my son being baptized into the Anglican church, with Charles himself responding as his father. His new son slept through it all, only wrinkling his nose when the holy water touched his face, and my heart swelled to watch them together.

Afterward, the ceremony was duly marked into the church’s registry: Charles Palmer, Lord Limerick, son to ye right honorable Roger, Earl of Castlemaine, by Barbara his wife.

That was what was written, in the cleric’s spidery hand. But now everyone in London knew the truth.

 
“I cannot believe that you would do such a thing, Barbara!” Roger struck his fist on the tea table between us. “To countermand my wish, my desire—”

“I can scarcely be blamed, Roger, if you’ve gone to the incense and priests.” At the door, he’d pushed past the footmen to find me here in my parlor, giving me little choice but to receive him. “You’re a grown man. That was your decision to make. But I’ve no reason to see my children traipse after you to Rome.”

“Yet you see nothing wrong with humiliating me by giving them my name!”

I looked at him as levelly as I could. “You are my husband.”

“But not the father of your son?”

I glanced back down at my cup. “I never said you were, Roger, or that you weren’t.”

“But you’d tell
him
!” With his arm he swept my tea table clean, sending the pot, the creamer, the sugar bowl, and my cup crashing to the floor.

“Blast you, Roger.” I rose swiftly, the spilled tea splashing my silk skirts and staining my petticoats as I kicked aside the shattered porcelain. “
He
is His Majesty the king!”

“Oh, aye, to the rest of England, but to you
he’s
only another willing stiff cock!”

My temper growing, I used both my hands to shove hard at his chest. “What do you know of cocks willing or stiff? I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen either from you!”

He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back. “Why should any decent gentleman wish to go to that poisonous cunt of yours?”

“You
wish
you could have me!” I shouted. “Ha, you wish you could raise a cockstand long enough to please me, or any other woman!”

“No man can ever please a whore with a gaping maw like yours, nor would he risk the pox to try.”

“Go!” I shouted furiously. “I don’t need to hear such vile slanders from you. Leave my house at once.”

“
Your
house, madam?” he snarled. “You forget that this is
my
house by law, just as those children upstairs are
my
children, and you, may God protect me, remain
my
wife.”

“My lady?” My two largest footmen stood in the doorway, summoned by Wilson, who stood behind them. “My lady, do you need—”

“My Lady Whore needs nothing,” Roger said bitterly. “Not from you, or me, or even the king himself.”

He shoved his way past the servants. I stood surrounded by shards of flower-painted porcelain and puddled tea, so angry I was shaking from it. I listened to his boots on the stairs and how he slammed the door as he left the house.

My
house, yes, but still his by English law.

And my mind was set. “Wilson, have my belongings packed. All my clothes, my jewels, my plate, my china, and my paintings. And pray have the servants and the children readied for a journey.”

Wilson’s eyes widened, and the two footmen exchanged startled glances. “A journey, my lady?”

“To my uncle Lord Grandison’s house in Richmond,” I said. “I’ll not stay another night of
my
life here beneath Lord Castlemaine’s roof.”

 
There are those who believed my retreat to Richmond was no more than a calculation to place myself and my children closer to the king, who continued on his newlywed stay with Queen Catherine at the palace at Hampton Court. Considering how often the king had left his new wife to come to me in King Street, I found these whispers ridiculous, with little basis in fact. I was far more secure in my friendship with Charles than that, and besides, I’d gone to Richmond largely to escape Roger. But I will grant that the proximity of my uncle Lord Grandison’s house did make Charles’s visits to me and my children less arduous and more frequent, and likely more vexing to the queen as well.

Besides, I could not fathom why the king had chosen Hampton Court for his bride’s idyll. True, it was a lovely place in the summer, with long walks through fine gardens full of flowers. But the palace itself would, I think, hold many grievous memories for him. When Charles I had been removed from his throne by Parliament, he’d been imprisoned at Hampton Court before his last attempt at escape, the one that had led to his execution. Then Cromwell himself had chosen the place for his personal palace, home to the Lord Protectorate. Though it had come back to royal hands with Charles’s restoration, I’d heard from other courtiers that many of the smaller chambers had fallen into sad disrepair, and that the glorious days of the reign of King Henry VIII were unlikely to be repeated amidst such broken-down remnants of lost splendor.

Though perhaps in truth Hampton Court
was
an appropriate place to begin this unfortunate marriage twixt English king and Portuguese queen. For wasn’t it full of the old ghosts of King Henry’s doomed queens, condemned to their deaths for never bearing him the son and heir every king needed?

Certainly that summer Charles was reminded often enough of how the womb of his new queen remained empty, despite his dutiful efforts to fill it. Clearly the trouble didn’t lie with the royal seed, either. For irrefutable proof, he’d only to look at my brave, lusty babies, tumbling across a coverlet on the grass in the sunshine whenever he visited me at Richmond. Though he was too gallant a bridegroom to confide overmuch to me, he did confess his near-constant quarrels with his new queen. He even sorrowfully complained of how often she tried to resist him, in ways that ranged from her insistence on maintaining her discordant Portuguese musicians to her continuing refusal to accept and include me in her household.

I never learned exactly what she’d done to goad the king into final, furious action on my behalf, but during one of his visits he abruptly told me to come with him, that it was past time for the madness to stop.

He was taking me to Hampton Court to meet the queen.

I dressed quickly, thankful that by now I had recovered enough of my shape to wear a certain dark blue open gown of silk velvet, dressed with furbelows of pale yellow silk, that I knew was vastly becoming. I added a splendid leghorn hat, for we were in the country, with a curling ostrich plume, and with my pearl earrings and necklace that had been earlier gifts from the king, I added the sapphire necklace that he’d sent in honor of little Charles’s birth. I dared anyone to guess I was only six weeks removed from the ordeal of childbed, or say that I’d not regained every drop of the beauty I’d possessed before my pregnancy, and perhaps even more with the joy of bearing the king’s natural son.

As soon as we entered the palace, I was made aware that Charles had brought me here on impulse, without any forethought or plan. Of course I was recognized by everyone, from the lowest maidservant sweeping ashes from a grate to the highest dukes waiting in attendance on the king. But though they all bowed and curtseyed to the king and nodded in acknowledgment to me, none of them could keep their true emotions from their faces: surprise, shock, outrage, or bemusement.

We found Her Majesty in a far parlor, stitching at some sort of grimy handwork in wools on linen. She was framed by two diamond-paned windows, the sunlight that streamed around her full of dancing dust and motes. Other members of the court stood about the room, amusing themselves and one another. From the corner of my eyes I glimpsed my old friend the Earl of Chesterfield, and Sir Edward, now made Earl of Clarendon, his fat face mottled with fury at what the king was doing.

As Charles and I came closer to the queen, I could see that she was every bit as plain as her portrait, a sallow small creature with hollowed eyes and teeth protruding so far that I marveled Charles could kiss her without having his lips nipped. Her ladies clustered around her on low stools, each one more sour and unpleasant-looking than the other, their peculiar farthingale skirts thrust out around them like barriers thrown up to protect their queen.

On a stool to one side sat my aunt, the lone English lady in this party of harridans, her pink gown like a flower growing cheerfully in a heap of cinders. She looked up first and saw me before the others, her cheeks flushing with dismay at the scene she knew would come next.

“Catherine,” the king said, pleasantly enough to draw his wife’s attention, “I’ve a lady I’d like to present to you.”

She gazed up at him with childish eagerness. It was clear enough that she loved him, loved him deeply. I could see it written large across her plain, round face. Though I was confident I was the one he preferred, this open joy from my rival at seeing her husband cut me as surely as a blade, and likewise cut away any guilt or remorse I might have felt for what happened next.

“I am honored, Your Majesty,” I murmured, kneeling gracefully before her, my velvet skirts crushing gently around my legs. I was so much taller than she that I felt as if I were worshipping a child, not a queen, and a small, dark, unappealing, foreign child at that. She held out her small, stubby hand with too many rings for me to kiss in loyalty. I did, noting how she’d bitten her nails to the quick like an anxious schoolboy.

Around us in the parlor, every conversation stopped and every head turned toward us. This was better than anything a playwright could have crafted, more entertaining than anything shown on the stage.

“You are a very beautiful English lady,” the queen said to me in a thick Iberian accent. “You are welcome. What is her name, Charles?”

Charles smiled. “My Lady Castlemaine.”

At once Catherine realized who I was. I was the adulteress, the unclean interloper, the great whore who’d corrupted her husband, the calculating demon-bitch who’d taken his seed and born the bastard children that should have been hers, and God only knew what other rubbish her mother and advisors had told her of me.

I smiled too. I’d nothing to fear.

She wailed, a loud, keening howl torn from deep within her tiny body. Her head jerked back as if pulled by an unseen cord, and tears of ostentatious shame seemed to explode from her eyes. Blood began to stream from her nose and across her chin, falling and staining her bodice. She swayed in her chair, her one hand clawing at the other that I’d kissed, and abruptly she toppled to the floor at my feet in a dead faint.

At once her attendants came to life, crying out strange exclamations in Portuguese as they rushed to her aid like a flock of chattering crows. Charles took my arm and pulled me back. He kept his hand there, too, linking us together, and making it abundantly clear to everyone which lady he’d champion. His face was taut with fury, the corners of his mouth pale from the force with which he compressed his lips.

The attendants gathered up their fallen queen and carried her from the room to another chamber, leaving behind fallen stools, forgotten prayer books, a broken strand of jet rosary beads, and Her Majesty’s handwork, the threaded needle jutting from the tight-stretched cloth.