Royal Harlot (46 page)

There was, however, one place where Buckingham was of peculiar use to Charles, and, in a way, to me as well. From the instant that Charles had reopened the theatres after his return to London, Buckingham had been thick in the world of actors and playhouses. He knew all the playwrights, managers, and players and all the titillating scandals backstage, and he was quite willing to act as a liaison between the stage and the palace.

Charles had always enjoyed the theatre, largely for all the pretty women on display in the audience and on the stage—he’d always had such a lickerish eye for beauty, he’d journey to a Welsh pigsty if he’d heard of a pretty woman there—but he’d previously been content until now to have the occasional actress or orange-girl brought to him by way of Chiffinch’s back stairs. But now Buckingham was opening the entire box of jewels for his choosing, and God preserve him, Charles could not refuse.

Nor, to my own delight, could I.

 
Eagerly Charles leaned over the edge of the box, watching the girl who danced and sang on the stage before him. She was supposed to be some fairy or another—I’d long ago lost track of the muddled, foolish plot—but Buckingham had told us that this girl was the reason that every seat in the playhouse was taken. Seeing the grace and lightness with which she danced and how much of her nimble body was shown as she spun on her toes in her gossamer fairy costume, I could well believe it.

“What a sweet little sprite,” Charles whispered to Buckingham, sitting on his other side. “Her name is Moll, you say?”

“Moll Davies,” Buckingham whispered back. “She’s either the bastard daughter of Colonel James Howard or of a Wiltshire blacksmith employed near the Howard lands. You can choose whatever story pleases you, I suppose.”

“She’s what pleases me,” Charles said. “Mark her voice in this song! What a joy it is to hear a voice like that.”

“Huh,” I said, unimpressed as I sipped my wine. We were all three of us a little drunk by then, the best way, really, to enjoy the playhouse. “She’ll sound the same as any other lowbred woman in the cold light of dawn. All screech and scold, and guard your purse.”

“Don’t be so harsh, Barbara,” Charles chided. “Ah, now that’s a line to bring tears to any tender heart: ‘My lodging it is on the cold, cold ground.’ I’d take her from the cold ground and into a warm bed, if she’s a mind to it.”

“Of course she’s a mind to it, sir,” I said succinctly. “You’re the king, and she’s a whore.”

Buckingham laughed. “Mind where you toss that particular turd, cousin, lest it fall across your own skirts.”

“If it does, Your Grace,” I replied graciously, “I’ll be sure to catch it first, and hurl the stinking thing back to you as the rightful owner.”

Now Charles laughed, too. “You can’t play games like that with Barbara, Buckingham, she’ll always win,” he said. “So what of Mistress Davies? Can I meet her after this is done?”

“Meet her, sir, and anything else you’d like, I’d vow,” Buckingham said with his usual expansive generosity, so necessary to pimps of any degree. “I’ll take you to the tiring rooms myself. Will you join us, Barbara, or will the company of so many fair rivals put you to spleen?”

I smiled at him, serene in my confidence. “I promise no spleenishness, Your Grace, for I don’t consider such tawdry baggage as any rival to me. I’ll join you, yes. I’ve a mind to inquire after that handsome Mr. Hart myself.”

“Hart, is it?” Charles said curiously, glancing back at the stage to see if the actor still stood by while Moll Davies finished her song. “Well, Barbara, I’ll grant he’s of a rank higher than your usual low rascals.”

“A prince among players,” Buckingham said, obviously quoting something, though I’d no notion exactly what. “Did you know he’s reputed to be the great-grandson of that most venerable bard William Shakespeare?”

“I do not know, Your Grace, nor do I care,” I said solemnly, refilling my goblet from the bottle I’d tucked in the basket beneath my seat. “All that will matter to me about Mr. Hart will be the caliber of his performance.”

The performances on all accounts proved high indeed, or at least high enough for the dull days of February. Soon after, Moll Davies was flaunting a diamond ring given her by the king, the price of which—six hundred pounds—she vulgarly announced to all who’d listen. After that she boasted of being put in keeping by His Majesty, with a furnished house and a coach of her own. But as I’d predicted, her keeping was short-lived, and Charles was quite willing to drop her back to that “cold, cold ground” whence he’d found her.

I’d more satisfaction with Charles Hart. He was a man most splendidly made, tall and well muscled, and while others might call him a prince of players, I’d say he had the carriage of a king, and a cock to match, too. There was a certain rare dignity and nobility to him that many true gentlemen could never achieve by birth alone, and I did enjoy his company for a time. My special delight was for him to keep in costume and play that role for me as well, so that I might swive mighty Alexander one night, and the next a red Indian king.

And in this grim time of wars and plague and fires, I could not see the harm in diverting ourselves with such play-actors, or a bit of playacting ourselves.

Shortly before the solemn season of Lent, we highborn amateurs acted in a special production at Whitehall before the rest of the court. Corneille’s
Horace
was stripped of its French taint through a new English translation by the clever lady scholar Katherine Philips, and extra dances were added between acts so every little new maid of honor could have her part. As was fit for my beauty and height, I was given the leading role of Camilla, and under—and over, on occasion—the private tutorage of Mr. Hart, I performed my role to perfection, and acclaim, completely outshining all other ladies.

If I were to be entirely honest, I should add that it wasn’t entirely my talent alone that was busily outshining my fellows, but my costume and jewels. As a special favor to me and to show how high I still stood in his favor, Charles had borrowed pieces—diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires—from the Crown Jewels in the Tower for me to wear, to add more splendor to my royal role. I’d heard the value of the whole array set at two hundred thousand pounds, a handsome, glittering figure indeed.

“You are most beautiful tonight, my lady.” The Marquis de Ruvigny smiled beside me as we all waited for the supper to be announced. After that, there would be more dancing, and more opportunities for all of us in costume to preen and strut like the peacocks we were. “I’ve never seen Camilla acted with more fire.”

“
Merci,
my lord.” The marquis and I had a thorough understanding of one another, and an appreciation, too. I knew he was in London with another draft of a proposed alliance between our two countries, just as he knew that because I was Catholic I’d speak favorably of France to Charles. “Though I should think you must have seen your share of French actresses with more sympathy to your great playwright Corneille than I could ever have.”

He shrugged, his shoulders eloquent like all Frenchmen’s. “Sympathy is not everything, my lady. There is much to be said for possessing the necessary beauty for the role.”

“Also the jewels.” I held my hand out before him, waggling my third finger to show him the ring with the large pigeon’s blood ruby. This was the single piece not from Charles but from his cousin King Louis, as a little reward to me for some piddling service or another, and I’d worn it on purpose tonight so that the ambassador might see it. “Pray be sure to convey my gratitude to His Majesty your king. He has most excellent taste in baubles.”

The marquis bowed and covered the ring and my hand with his. “His Majesty knows the value of both your pleasure, my lady, and of your knowledge. He delights in rewarding you thusly.”

“Monsieur le Marquis,”
Charles said, joining us. He glanced pointedly at the other man’s hand on mine, and de Ruvigny immediately withdrew it. “I trust you’ve enjoyed yourself this evening?”

“Your Majesty,” the marquis replied, making a most elegant bow over his bent leg. “The performance was beyond all my greatest expectations, as I was just telling Her Ladyship. How ravishing she looks this night.”

“Yes, yes,” the king said, and took my hand, or rather claimed it, more precisely. “You’ll excuse me, my lord, but I’ve a matter of some urgency to discuss with Lady Castlemaine myself.”

He hurried me off and through the crowd, courtiers melting from our path like the Red Sea before Moses. On Charles’s arm, I smiled like the benevolent goddess I was supposed to be, while he waited until we were well away from the Frenchman before he spoke.

“So what was de Ruvigny babbling about tonight?” he asked as soon as we’d reached a hallway with a modicum of privacy.

“Babbling is a de Ruvigny specialty, sir,” I said. “You know that as well as I. Mostly he wished me to grovel and thank him yet again for the ring.”

“Ring?” Charles frowned. “What ring is that?”

“Here.” I held my hand out for him to see. “It was part of the last round of gifts from Louis. In return I’m to sway you toward the latest wording of the alliance.”

He bent over my hand, critically studying the ring. “I am endlessly amazed by the amounts my cousin Louis is willing to shower on you, and for what gain?”

“So that I might influence you, of course,” I said. “Do you feel influenced, sir?”

He grunted with disgust. “He should know better. I’m not about to let an impudent jade like you lead me by the nose.”

“Not the nose, perhaps,” I said, letting my hand drift purposely to the front of his breeches. “Hah, mark where Louis’s ring is now!”

He caught my wrist to still my hand. “Take care with de Ruvigny, Barbara. He plays the silly Frenchman, but he’s much more clever than he seems. Take whatever baubles he offers, if it pleases you, but promise him nothing in return.”

I smiled slyly. “Oh, sir, you of all men should know me better than that. It’s little more than another game to me, sir, and you know full well how I like to play.”

“I am serious, Barbara,” he said, and to my surprise he was. “I don’t want your name linked too closely with the French, not now with Parliament meeting over the new bill.”

I understood. With Clarendon’s restraining hand gone, the king had sought once again to ease the sanctions against Catholics and other dissenters by presenting a Bill for Comprehension and Indulgences to Parliament. It had met with instant and vehement opposition, with seemingly all members uniting against it. Fears of popish plots were never far from the minds of most Englishmen, and the rumors that French Catholics had started the Great Fire refused to go away. Not only was Parliament against any new indulgences; they wanted the old laws more strictly enforced. It was not going to be an easy battle for the king.

“Leave the dirtiest of those games to Arlington and Bristol,” he urged me now. “You’ve already damned yourself by your conversion, Barbara, and if you tumble too deep into Louis’s pockets, I may not be able to pull you back out.”

“I swear to you by all that’s holy,” I said, “you won’t have to rescue me.”

“Would that
that
were always so.” He sighed. “You haven’t shared his bed, have you?”

I wrinkled my nose. “The man stinks like all Frenchmen do.”

“I could wish you’d a better reason than that, but I suppose it must do.” He freed my wrist, letting me continue what I’d started. “He was right about one matter, however. You
are
ravishing tonight.”

I kissed him by way of thanks, leisurely, though he was already hard in my hand, his breathing quickening.

“Later, sweet,” he said. “I must be here to open the dancing.”

“I’ll come to you then,” I said, flicking my tongue against his by way of a promise.

“Wear the jewels, too, before I must send them back to the Tower.” He smiled with anticipation. “Wear all of them. And nothing more.”

 
By March the king had lost his latest battle with Parliament over religious tolerance. Not only were the old fears of Catholic plots raised again, but once again Buckingham demonstrated his innate ability to say the most foolish thing possible, when he proposed that the crown solve its constant money woes by appropriating funds from the well-lined coffers of the Anglican church. That was more than enough to sink the king’s bill, and under more pressure he felt compelled to issue a proclamation enforcing the limits of the Act of Uniformity, a remnant of the hateful old Clarendon Code.

Yet even this concession failed to calm the restlessness in London. On Easter Monday, a day that should have passed in peaceable reflection, bands of apprentices and other wild young men rioted and turned upon the brothels of Moorfields, setting fire to some and pulling down others, and pelting the hapless inmates with filth when they ran out to escape in scandalous undress. From fear that this mayhem might signal something more ominous, alarms were sounded with trumpet and drums, and armed soldiers poured into the streets to quell the confusion.

This should have been no more than a passing wonder, a scrap of inspiration for the libertine pen of my cousin Rochester, and soon forgotten after that. But some other nameless author blew his fetid breath onto the tale, and made it burst into fresh flame, and then dragged my good name unbidden into the middle of the whole reeking mess.

An ill-printed pamphlet,
The Poor Whore’s Petition,
appeared from nowhere, like the ugliest of toadstools sprung up through the grass. Though pretending to have been written by the women abused by the rioting apprentices, it was clearly the work of a person familiar with me and my habits. Calling me one of their fellows and appealing to me by name with coarse flattery as the “most eminent, illustrious, serene, and eminent lady of pleasure,” this so-called petition sought my protection in the name of Venus, “that Great Goddess whom we all adore.”

In the manner of such vulgar publications, it was of course signed by no one, yet read by everyone. Charles and my other friends agreed that it was a most grievous, scurrilous piece of claptrap, but also advised me to let it pass unremarked, and beneath my notice.