Royal Harlot (50 page)

And for all Charles had said he didn’t care, with this particular peccadillo he was not amused. He could count the days and weeks as well as I, and likewise knew how seldom he’d been to visit my bed, or I his. Oh, he didn’t scold or rant—that wasn’t his way—but he made sure I knew that he was spending more and more time with the French Louise. He still came daily to Berkshire House, but it was to visit the children, not me. He took no notice of my swelling belly, nor did he once enquire after my health in that regard. As far as he was concerned, this child that was not his did not exist.

I’d misstepped, misstepped badly. I was thirty-one years old, and for the sake of my other children, I knew I could ill afford to falter again.

EUSTON HALL, SUFFOLK
August 1 6 7 2

 
“How handsome they look together,” I said, my eyes hazy with tears of joy, like every mother at her child’s wedding. “Aren’t they a perfect couple, my lord?”

Beside me Lord Arlington sighed, and to my surprise I saw the tears in those steely eyes, too. “To see my little Isabella a bride—ah, Your Grace, it both swells my heart and breaks it.”

I nodded, understanding entirely. I’d spent the most ungainly months of my confinement arranging suitable matches for my children, a most satisfying task. Being a natural child of the king was a considerable attribute, especially since Charles had always treated our children with love and regard. They’d each been granted titles and livings commensurate with their royal blood, too, and I’d had my pick of the noblest families eager to blend their bloodlines and their fortunes with the king’s. The fact that my sons and daughters were still too young to be true brides or grooms—my oldest daughter, Anne, was only eleven—deterred no one. Royal families did these things differently, and once a marriage was blessed by the church and the lawyers, then the happy pair would be returned to their respective nurseries until they were old enough to consummate their unions.

Today Charles and I had come to Euston Hall to see our son Henry wed to Lord Arlington’s daughter Isabella. Though mothers are not supposed to have favorites, Henry was mine, the most handsome and charming of my brood, and at eight a most precocious small nobleman, too. As part of his wedding present, Charles had made him Baron Sudbury, Viscount Ipswich, and Earl of Euston, with a promise of the Garter and a dukedom to come. His five-year-old bride was Arlington’s sole child, and through the settlement my Henry would now become his heir, to inherit not only his estate but his titles with it. Our lives had already been interwoven through politics and power, and now the bonds of money and family had been braided into the mix, too. Was there any wonder I wept with joy?

“I congratulate you, Arlington,” Charles said, joining us. It had been seven years since Monmouth’s wedding, and he enjoyed playing the role of the jovial father of the groom to the hilt. This elegant new house at Euston Hall, full of paintings and fine furniture, with gardens in the latest French style, reflected all the prosperity that Arlington had been able to reap from the king’s reign, so it was a fine thing for Charles to see some of that largesse come shining back his way. “We’ve done well with our sprouts, eh?”

“A splendid match, sir,” Arlington said, repeating what we’d all been saying over and over again. With such a couple too young for love, there wasn’t much else that could be said, truly. “I thought the archbishop maintained precisely the proper manner.”

“He did,” Charles said. “Considering how unpleasant the bishops have been of late, I trust they’ll duly report that my son and your daughter were wed with the full blessings of the Anglican church.”

“Oh, come, sir, none of that, not today,” I said, taking his arm. “Walk with me, and I promise I’ll sweeten your humor.”

“You see how it is, Arlington,” he said as he winked at me with the old spirit. “I’m helpless before her.”

In companionable silence, we walked away from the house and the party, across the raked gravel paths of the garden toward the fields beyond. The day was summer in her fullest glory, and I prayed it was another augur for my son’s happiness.

“You look well, Barbara,” he said at last. “I’m thankful for your safe delivery.”

I glanced up at him from beneath the curled brim of my hat, surprised he’d finally alluded to the birth of John Churchill’s daughter. She’d been late arriving, like all my other babes, so late that we’d had to delay this wedding a month to permit me more time to recover.

“So am I,” I said, trying to decide how much information he really wished to learn. “The babe’s name is Barbara, Barbara Palmer.”

He nodded, though I’m sure he already knew the name, or more specifically that I hadn’t tried to claim her as a Fitzroy. There wasn’t any question of her being his, anyway; she was clearly the little cuckoo in my nest.

“It’s high time you named one for yourself,” he said. “You’ve seen to the labor of raising them. You might as well claim the credit.”

I smiled wryly. “How vastly generous of you, sir.”

“No, Barbara, I mean that,” he said, stopping to look me full in the face, there beneath a stand of oak trees so that the sun and leafy shadows played in equal pattern across us. “Has Churchill owned little Barbara yet?”

I shrugged. “He is young,” I said, excusing him when he’d no right to be excused. “He has other matters to concern him, nor has he the means to support a child.”

“That’s no excuse,” he said gruffly. “She deserves a father. Call her Fitzroy if you please.”

I caught my breath with surprise, for I’d not expected that.

“You’ve done well for my other children, Barbara,” he said, watching my reaction closely. “What’s one more, eh?”

My smile faded beneath his scrutiny. I do not know what he saw, or what he’d hoped to find. He was the king, and he needed no reasons.

“Have you ever imagined what our lives might have been like if we’d been born ordinary folk?” I asked softly. “If we’d been only Charles and Barbara, instead of Stuart and Villiers?”

“Ah, Barbara,” he said sadly. “I long ago learned the peril of longing for what might have been.”

I thought of all that that simple declaration could include: his father’s execution, his own exile, the deaths of every one of his siblings but James, his barren wife and empty marriage, the endless promise of a reign that was never so glorious as it should have been.

And me.

As if he could hear my unspoken thoughts, he raised my hand to his lips to kiss, and smiled wearily.

“No, sweet, it’s better, far better, to accept the fate we’ve been given, and content ourselves with that. Now, come, let’s back to the others, and pray that those naughty children of ours have kept from mischief.”

 
Like the last Dutch War, this new one did not go as quickly or as well as everyone had believed it should with the French as England’s allies. By the spring of 1673, Charles was forced to ask Parliament for more money, else his fleet could not go back to sea against William of Orange. Parliament would agree only if Charles would withdraw his last Declaration of Indulgence, that act of great tolerance so long dear to him. He resisted as long as he could, until finally he’d no choice but to do it if he wished his sailors fed. In return for seventy thousand pounds a year, he withdrew his declaration with considerable anger and mortification.

But Parliament decided that the revocation hadn’t gone far enough. The fact that the widowed Duke of York now planned to marry the Italian Maria Beatrice, the sister of the Duke of Modena, and, of course, a staunch Roman Catholic, did nothing to allay their fears. If the king insisted on consorting with papists among his friends, ministers, and mistresses, then it was left to the government to prove England was no place for the papist menace.

Thus the Commons passed a most odious Test Act, calculated to winnow us Catholics like so much chaff from any sort of power. All holders of public office, high and low, must be Anglican, and take public Holy Communion in the Church of England. There were also sundry oaths of allegiance that must be pledged that were calculated to be impossible for any Catholics sincere in their faith to make. If the officeholder refused, then they must resign their place immediately.

The effect of such a hateful, prejudicial act was felt immediately. No matter that the Duke of York had served both his country and his brother with loyalty and distinction in war and in peace: because he was not seen to take Communion at Easter, he was forced to resign as Lord High Admiral, and watched as other lesser officers through the ranks of the military were compelled to follow for the sin of not being Anglicans. From Lord Clifford resigning from his place as Lord Treasurer to the lowest of His Majesty’s fiddlers, the purge was thorough.

I’d not tended the queen in any real capacity for several years, not since she’d pleaded ill health and retired from court to live in seclusion at Somerset House. I’d kept the post as Lady of the Bedchamber, however, with the honor and income that came with it, and no one had thought the worse of me for it. But because I refused to toss up my faith for public consideration, I was asked to relinquish my post, and nothing Charles could do or say would change it.

The entire court was changing, and not for the better. I felt as if I were standing on the edge of the ocean with the tide pulling the very sand from under my feet, and no matter how I chose to thrash and fight to save myself, I’d no hope, and would soon be lost forever beneath the waves.

 
“No one dances like you, Your Grace.” John bowed to me at the end of the set and took my hand to lead me from the floor. “You honor me.”

“It’s not often I have a true hero as my partner,” I said, smiling my favor. He’d returned from the war heaped with glory and honors, and for his valor he’d been promoted to captain. He’d become boon companions with Monmouth, too, who credited John with saving his life in battle, almost as certain a path to success at court as having me as his patroness.

To be sure, I had welcomed him back to my bed when he’d returned from the Continent, and marveled at the lurid new battle scars that crisscrossed his splendid body. They were nothing, he’d demurred, mere scratches, yet how proudly he’d paraded them around my bedchamber for me to admire!

He’d shown far less interest in his new daughter, even daring to question if in fact she was truly to be laid upon his doorstep. I realized that he was an ambitious young man, with his way to make in the world; still, I could not help but sadly compare his disinterest in his small baby with Charles’s constant delight in his own natural children.

“Ah, there’s Monmouth,” John said, smiling as he caught sight of his friend and fellow soldier across the room. “I must be sure to pay my respects later.”

“Go now, if you wish,” I said, giving him a gentle prod with my furled fan. There was little use in keeping him chained to my side if he wished to be elsewhere, and besides, the Banqueting House was full of other acquaintances of mine. I could let the bounding puppy run free, knowing he’d come back to me later at Berkshire House, where he proved his real merit, anyway. “I know how Monmouth needs to be amused.”

“You are certain, Your Grace?” he asked, all tender solicitude.

“I am,” I said, doting in return. “Now go, away with you!”

He grinned, so like an eager boy it could make me melt, and bowed quickly, before he slipped into the crowd. I turned to the front of the room, where Charles was sitting. Behind him stood the Duchess of Mazarin, a wild, black-haired Italian creature who had arrived at court dressed in men’s clothes with a menagerie of wild animals and African servants. Rumor said that Charles was infatuated with her, though knowing his tastes, I could hardly credit it.

But it was Louise, the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was perched on a low stool beside his chair to rest her head against his arm like one of his infernal spaniels, and with as much wit in her round, empty head. Absently he stroked his hand up and down her back; he looked worn and weary to me, and disinterested, too. There’d been a time when he’d desired a woman to have the gift for raillery as well as rare beauty, and to me this insipid young creature was more a dull sheep than a fit mistress to such a king. It made me sad to see, and so instead I looked back across the room to spy someone else of interest less disheartening.

I found John again, standing with Monmouth as he’d promised. But there was another with him, too, one of the newest maids of honor. A pert, lively girl named Sarah Jennings, she had golden hair and bright blue eyes, and was said to be very clever. She wore no paint or jewels, nor did she need them. When she laughed at something he’d said, she touched her fingers lightly to his forearm, and I could see by the happy glow in his eyes that he was completely enchanted.

He’d never once looked at me like that.

Unable to turn away, I watched as he bent to whisper in her ear. She laughed again and took his hand, and let him lead her away from the room and into the hall.

I knew what they would do in those shadowy halls and staircases at Whitehall. This girl was fifteen, less than half my thirty-two years, yet the same age I’d been when I’d first dallied with the Earl of Chesterfield.

God in heaven, where had those years gone?

 
The day the letter came, I was sitting in the parlor at Cleveland House, the newer, smaller home overlooking the park that I’d bought when I’d sold Berkshire House for a great profit soon after Barbara had been born the summer before. I was listening to my daughter Charlotte plunk away at her practice on the virginals, and when they announced Bab May I smiled with pleasure for the past times.

“Let me send for tea, or something stronger,” I said, my hand on the bell. “You can tell me all the news straightway.”

But he shook his head, his unhappiness ripe upon his long face. “Thank you, no, not today. I’ve only come to bring you this letter, and no more.”