Royal Harlot (38 page)

“Temptation incarnate,” whispered Charles hoarsely. “She is willing, then?”

I looked down at Frances, my thoughts as tumbled and disordered as her smock. This
was
temptation, the kind of temptation of the flesh that I seldom resisted, nor wished to. The girl was the worst kind of fool to have let herself be drawn into this court, let alone this bed, and fiercely I told myself that she deserved whatever now came her way. There was also an unsavory small part of me, fed by vengeful jealousy and regret, that did wish somehow to punish her for her unthinking sin of being younger and fresher than I was myself.

And yet, though few would believe it, I was not so hardened as that. I would not condone a rape. The little goose had trusted me, and besides, she built endless card castles for my children to topple.

“No,” I whispered. “She remains intent on preserving her cursed maidenhead.”

“You are certain?” he said, lust making his voice sharp. “You cannot persuade her?”

I shook my head. “She is a fool, yes, but that’s not reason enough to ravish her against her will.”

Roused by our whispers, Frances stirred and woke. It took but an instant for her to realize her situation, and with a small cry she started upright, frantically grabbing for the coverlet to hide her nakedness.

“Hush, Frances, be calm,” I said swiftly. “You’re safe, and unharmed.”

“That’s true, my dear,” the king said with undisguised regret. He reached out to stroke her cheek, and instinctively she turned toward his caress. He had that power with women; I’d seen it far too often. “Though I warrant you’re wondrous fair to look upon.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, her tremulous smile proof again that flattery is the surest path to a woman’s ruin. “That is, thank you, sir.”

I sat on the edge of the bed beside her and took her hand in mine, the way I’d done scores of times before.

“Your beauty is rare, Frances,” I said, my voice coaxing velvet as I gently stroked little circles into her palm with the tips of my fingers. “So rare that you tempt the king, just as you’ve tempted me.”

“But I cannot—”

“Hush, hush, we know of your vow,” I said, soothing, coaxing, wooing her to follow my lead. “But just as you and I have discovered ways to . . . amuse one another, so it could be with His Majesty, too, the three of us together.”

Now she was the one who was tempted, drawn by the same wicked novelty of it. I caught her glancing toward the king, standing there with his arms folded over his chest, so very great and manly, and I knew she’d agree.

“That is all, my lady?” she asked, her fingers twining restlessly into mine. “The same . . . amusements?”

“The same, dear Frances,” I whispered, smoothing her tangled hair back from her face, her shoulders, her breasts. “Except with two of us, the pleasure will be twice as great.”

Twice as great, aye, twice as great. The next morning the court spoke of nothing else but how the king had awakened between his two favorite beauties, and that the young maid of honor was a maid no more. By the next nightfall, every tavern and coffeehouse in London was full of the king’s prowess, and my lubricity. By the end of the week, the French ambassadors had made sure to report the shocking tale of our latest debauchery to Louis, and the French court as well.

Yet only we three knew the truth: That though Frances Stuart left the king’s bedchamber with both her vow and her maidenhead still intact, her innocence had been reduced to a tattered memory. While I would not condone him lying with her, I did it not from respect for her sacred pledge but from knowing I could never watch him love another woman in my presence. And, finally, that though I could not bear to watch him with her, I’d no such qualms about her watching me with him.

Let them talk, I thought, and with my usual brave insolence I walked beside the king through St. James’s Park the next day. I wore the jewels he’d given me for all to see, a curling plume in the crown of my hat, as he kept my hand tucked fondly in the crook of his arm. Let them talk, for it would matter not to me.

But to my bitter sorrow, how soon—too soon!—I’d learn that even talk could come with a price, and a steep one at that.

 
By strange coincidence, that summer of 1664 the three of us ladies— the queen, Frances Stuart, and I—each sat for our portraits.

Her Majesty chose as her painter the Dutchman Jacob Huysmans, a favorite of the queen’s dour Catholic circle, and with little patronage among us courtiers who aspired to a likeness with fashion and wit. As he did with so many of his ladies’ portraits, Master Huysmans decided to depict the queen as a shepherdess dressed preposterously in pink-and-white satin whilst guarding her flock: a most insipid depiction, dark and ill drawn, much like the queen herself.

Frances likewise sat for Master Huysmans, but instead of a simpering shepherdess—which would, in truth, be much to her character—she chose to dress herself as a gallant gentleman gone riding. Her fair hair was loose and fluffed like a periwig, and her woman’s form covered completely by a buff leather waistcoat and breeches. One hand rested on the hilt of a sword, while the other held a military baton.

No one knew what to make of this strange ambiguity, nor did either the artist or the sitter offer any explanation for its conceit. When I first saw it, I wondered myself if it meant in some way to refer to our mock “wedding.” Suffice to say that it did not serve Miss Stuart’s beauty in any way, nor did even the king wish to add such a picture to his collection, which was, perhaps, given her continued reluctance with him, exactly what she’d planned all along.

As for me, I returned once again to the studio of Master Lely. I know he often protested that he could never capture my beauty, no matter how he labored, yet still I found his brush the most flattering of any, and surely the number of prints that the master’s studio sold of me afterward was testimony to his talents.

This time I decided not to hide behind any role but to be shown as myself. Though I was close to my time for my fourth child, I asked Master Lely to narrow my waist for this picture as if I’d already given birth. My gaze was confident, my smile slight, as if pondering a rare secret. I wore gold silk satin, and all my favorite pearls, gifts from Charles. It was Master Lely’s notion to have my hair arranged in the style of Venetian ladies of a hundred years before, in their portraits by the Italians Titian and Tintoretto. My hair was drawn up on the back of my head in a kind of coronet, then cascaded loosely down my back, and was threaded throughout with more of my pearls. I looked more regal than any queen, more an elegant consort than a concubine.

Yet most who saw this picture first noticed not my hair but the jewel at my breast: a heavy gold cross set with cabochon stones such as was worn only by French ladies and Roman Catholics.

In early September, I was brought to bed of another daughter, a pretty babe with a profusion of black curly hair like her father’s. For her father, too, I named her Charlotte. She was styled with the surname Fitzroy, the traditional heraldic way of signifying her sire. (My sons Charles and Henry were likewise Fitzroys, with only my first daughter called Lady Anne Palmer, after my husband.) The birth was an easy one, and within two weeks I was entertaining once again at King Street, staging a supper for the French ambassador and his wife. Though it was my house, Charles sat at the head of my table and played the host, a distinction that was much noted.

One evening soon after that, I went to call upon the Duchess of York and her ladies at St. James’s Palace. Though I’d had little use for Her Grace when she’d been lowly Anne Hyde, now that she’d been raised to Duchess of York, I’d found her more to my liking, and we’d become friends, swiving the royal brothers as we did. We’d played basset and whist for small wagers—perhaps because she was Clarendon’s daughter, the duchess was tight with her funds and refused ever to play deep. Over our cards, we exchanged our share of gossip and talk of children, the way all women will do. But my lying-in with Charlotte was still sufficiently recent that I tired early, and I made my farewells before midnight.

St. James’s Palace, the home of the Duke of York, lies diagonally across the park from Whitehall Palace. The way between the two is clear and pleasant, with walks and a scattering of trees for shade and beauty, as well as the new canal. Because the night was still warm as summer and the distance so short, I decided not to bother sending for my carriage, but to walk and clear my head in the evening air. For company I had Wilson, and as our linkboy my page Pompey, a young African boy whom I dressed amusingly in a jeweled satin turban to match his saffron livery.

“So tell me what you heard below, Wilson,” I said as we walked, eager as always to learn how differently the servants spoke from their mistresses of the same events or persons. “What news from the House of York?”

“Little that is new, my lady,” Wilson said, her regret as deep as my own that she’d been unable to gather any fresh snippets of scandal in St. James’s servants’ quarters. “For all that Her Grace the duchess tries to bring His Grace to heel, his nose is still up the petticoats of her newest maid of honor, the sweet-faced Miss Arabella Churchill.”

“Arabella Churchill,” I repeated to make sure I’d remember the name so I could in turn tell it to Charles, to amuse him with his brother’s misdeeds. “Hah, the duchess could sooner rein the moon from the sky than stop her husband’s cock from wandering.”

“Yes, my lady,” Wilson said, reaching forward to thump my page with her knuckles between his narrow shoulders. “Take care with the light there, Pompey. If Her Ladyship stumbles, you’ll be the one must answer to His Majesty, you impudent rascal.”

The boy turned to face us with the lantern in his hand, walking backward simply because he could, making the candlelight dance crazily across the lawns on either side of us.

“If His Majesty asks such of me,” he taunted Wilson, “I’ll tell him ’twas you that tripped her, you clumsy old slattern.”

I laughed, no matter that it was wrong to encourage the boy’s sauciness. “Enough of your wicked tongue, you little monkey,” I said. “I’ll thrash you properly, as you deserve, if you don’t change your—”

“My Lady Castlemaine,” a man’s voice said curtly behind me. “A word.”

I turned and found not one man but three. All were dressed in dark clothing to blur the lines between them and the night, their hats pulled low across their brows and black scarves tied across their mouths and noses to further hide their faces to me. Even thus disguised, I knew them as gentlemen: the quality of their boots and the cut of their dark clothes, combined with their costly periwigs and overall demeanor, meant that they were likely gentlemen of my acquaintance.

Nonetheless, I was not reassured.

“Pompey,” I said. “The lantern, if you please.”

For once obedient, the boy stepped forward, heels together as he held the lantern high. His bright turban and livery looked sadly gaudy against so much somber black, and vulnerable, too. The gentlemen did not back away from the lantern’s glow; on the contrary, they crowded closer, blocking our path to either palace.

“Pray state your business, sirs,” I said, making my voice as severe as I dared. I felt Wilson shrink behind me, too terrified to be of any use. “I’m expected at the palace. If I do not return soon, I’ll be missed.”

“No one misses a worn-out whore,” the second man snarled. “Except to toss her poxed carcass on the dunghill.”

The first man nodded vigorously. “Aye, with the likes of Jane Shore and other filthy offal.”

“I’ve no reason to listen to you,” I said, my heart thundering in my breast. “Stand aside, I say, and let me and my servants pass.”

I tried to push my way clear of them, but they came together to stop me, jeering cruelly at my effort.

“You will stand and listen to us, you reeking papist whore,” another ordered. “You’ve bewitched His Majesty long enough. You’ve bled this country for your gaming and your bastards, and you’ve sold English interests to Rome, and to France. You’ve few friends left at court, lady, and fewer still who don’t damn you as the greedy, grasping
whore
that you are.”

“Shall we use her as she deserves?” said the other. Without waiting for an answer, he reached out and tore the front of my cloak open, the velvet rending and the seam cutting into the back of my neck so hard I yelped with surprise and pain.

“Let me pass, I say.” My voice quivered with fear as I stumbled backward, clutching together the edges of my torn cloak. “Let me
go
!”

“We decide that, not you,” the first man answered. “We speak for many, lady. We want you gone, you and your litter of bastards. Leave our country and our king, else next time we won’t be so kind, to you or your brats.”

He stepped aside, leaving a gap for me to make my escape. I grabbed Pompey by the arm and hoped Wilson would follow, and hurried toward Whitehall as fast as I could go. I didn’t dare look back from fear the men would be coming after us, for I’d no notion of what I’d do if they were.

“Go—go to the king,” I told Pompey as soon as we were safely inside the palace. “Tell him what happened, and to—to come to me at once.”

“His Majesty will have their heads, my lady,” Wilson said, her voice returned now that we were inside. “His Majesty will see those three rogues in the stocks for frighting you, see if he doesn’t.”

But I’d no mind of revenge then. All I wanted was to see my children and to know that they were safe. With my tattered cloak fluttering behind me, I ran as fast as I could through the palace halls, speaking to no one and stopping for nothing until at last I reached my rooms over the hither-gate and the nursery beside them.

The room was dark, of course, the nursemaid dozing in her chair near the chimney corner and the embers glowing softly in the grate. The nursemaid rose sleepily as soon as I entered, but I waved her away.