Royal Harlot (52 page)

When I began to write this book, I’d no intention of becoming Barbara Villiers’s apologist. It’s impossible to gloss over some of her less appealing attributes—she
was
self-centered, vain, and avaricious. But she was also witty, passionate, and generous to those she loved, and to me she was clearly the one woman among all of Charles’s mistresses who was his equal in every way except royal blood. If theirs was not one of the great traditional love stories of history, then it was certainly a great friendship between two people in complete sympathy.

Firsthand accounts of Charles’s reign are surprisingly plentiful. Living as we do today in a security-conscious society, it’s hard to imagine how freely Charles and Barbara moved through London. Together they walked with his dogs in the park, fed the ducks on the canal, and attended the same churches and theatres that his subjects did. They also didn’t mind fighting (and reconciling) before an audience, either. Unlike his autocratic father, Charles believed in being accessible to his people, high and low, and his personal involvement in fighting the Great Fire is a testament to his rare empathy with his fellow Londoners. Everyone in the city recognized Charles, and they recognized Barbara with him.

James II, Lord Clarendon, and Bishop Burnet each wrote personal histories of the times, heavily based on their own experiences. The memoirs of the French Comte de Grammont, a visitor to the English court, make wonderfully gossipy reading. Two of the greatest English diarists of all time—John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys—were witnesses to much of Charles’s daily life, and dutifully noted the details. While Evelyn despised Barbara (to him she was “that great Imperial Whore”) and the hedonistic lifestyle she represented, Pepys was unabashedly obsessed with her, buying engravings of her portraits and carefully noting each time he saw her. He had many opportunities, too; in his position in the Admiralty Office, he was often at Whitehall on business or at the house of Lord Sandwich, which happened to be next door to Barbara’s house in King Street.

For example, this entry in Pepys’s diary for July 13, 1660, inspired the scene of Barbara’s musical party for the king and his two brothers:

 
I’ve tried hard to keep to historical fact, and when historical fact was wanting, to the spirit of the times and people. I’m not a historian; I’m a novelist. Yet as challenging as Barbara could be, I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent in her company. I hope she’d approve of the result.

No book comes into being without a slew of beneficent fairy godmothers (and a few godfathers, too) to guide it on its way. Heartfelt thanks are in order to those whose patience, wisdom, and combined senses of humor helped keep
Royal Harlot
on track.

First, of course, is my editor, Claire Zion, for her constant support and enthusiasm for these books, and for understanding that a final delivery day can sometimes be as ever-changing and elusive as the morning mists.

Next in line is Meg Ruley, the unquestionable Queen of Agents; Annelise Robey, surely the Princess; and everyone else at the Jane Rotrosen palace. Long may you reign!

For giving me a long-neglected presence on the Internet, and dragging me from the seventeenth century into the twenty-first, special appreciation must go to my webmistress, Mollie Smith, and to her mother (and my good friend), Jenny Crusie, for pushing me there, too, when I needed pushing.

I’d also like to thank my fellow blogging-wenches at
www.Word-Wenches.com
: Jo Beverly, Loretta Chase, Susan King, Edith Layton, Mary Jo Putney, and Patricia Rice. There’s none better at understanding both the joys and the challenges of writing.

It’s impossible to write historical fiction without research, and equally impossible to conduct research without libraries. I’ve been most fortunate to have had access to some of the best. Many thanks to the following libraries, and their staffs: the Mariam Coffin Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College; the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg; the Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William & Mary; and the Pattee Library, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

Susan Holloway Scott
is the author of more than thirty historical novels. A graduate of Brown University, she lives with her family in Pennsylvania. Visit her Web site at
www.susan-hollowayscott.com
.

READERS GUIDE

A NOVEL OF THE COUNTESS OF CASTLEMAINE AND KING CHARLES II

 
 
 
 
SUSAN HOLLOWAY SCOTT

Read on for a preview of Susan Holloway Scott’s next novel of Restoration England 

The King
’
s Favorite

A NOVEL OF NELL GWYN AND KING CHARLES II

 
Coming from New American Library in 2008

 
 
I never claimed to be a lady.

Why should I? In truth I’m proud of who I am, and what I made myself to be, and that is worth a score of the highborn idle dissemblers that chatter like magpies about Whitehall Palace. I am content to be Nellie Gwyn, no more, no less. That is enough for me, and for my great love the king as well.

To be sure, my life has been a merry path, full of cunning turns and twists. Anything seemed possible in those first early days, when Cromwell’s sour-faced Puritans had at last been turned out and King Charles new returned to the throne. Even as I toiled away my nights at Madam Ross’s, I wasn’t afraid to dream beyond my station, or to vow to do whatever I must to make those dreams become golden truth.

Madam Ross’s house stood off Drury Lane, a slanting, slatternly place whose slipshod front was a match for what went on upstairs. The front room was thick with smoke and grime that never faded, the low beams overhead blackened with it. There were round tables at the back for gaming at cards or dice, and benches at another long table for those who wished victuals with their drink.

But most men who came through the narrow door sought nourishment of a different sort, the saucy company of a willing slut that half a crown would buy. With the one-eyed fiddler to play the jigs, it was a jolly enough house for men. Ale and brandy-water swelled them fat with roaring good humor and boastfulness, as if they were the greatest cocksmen the mortal world had ever seen. With a smile and a sly wink, we women let them believe it, too, and in return neatly emptied their pockets when their backs were turned: the same trade practiced by females of every rank, low and high, and where, I ask, is the sin in it?

Now despite what has been said against me by those who delight in slander, I will vow upon the Scriptures that I never went up those twisting stairs with any man. Unlike most bawds in the town, Madam Ross didn’t believe in breaking a girl to the trade by force, and was content to let me keep below, singing songs and ferrying pots of beer and ale to the tables all the night whilst I teased and danced free of groping hands. Hard work, aye, but far better than my last line of crying herrings barefoot in the street, fresh, fresh herrings, six for a groat. My mother and my sister, Rose, were not so nice, and jeered at how I’d earn so much less than they did upon their backs.

I didn’t listen, or take any heed of them. What did I care for a few more coins in my pocket? Why should I, when I was so sure of the brilliant future Fate meant for me to have?

“Here now, Nell, along wit’ you.” Glowering, Madam Ross switched her clay pipe from one side of her mouth to the other, and gave me a sharp pinch on my arm to inspire me to haste. “The young scholars t’ the back are asking for brandy an’ a song, an’ they wants it from you.”

I nodded, standing on my toes to peer over the others to where she was pointing with the stem of her pipe. For certain they were young gentlemen, down from university for a bit of sport. Because I’d been born among the colleges in Oxford, I could always spot the ones we called “scholars,” and a troublesome lot they often were. With a sigh, I began to go toward them, but Madam Ross pulled me back.

“Mark the dark-haired one—his fellows call him ‘my lord,’” she cautioned. “An earl, for all he’s such a pup. Kindness, Nell. Show him kindness.”

I nodded. We often had noblemen visit us, playing at taking their pleasure like a common Jack; they were good for custom, and to be encouraged. I smoothed the front of my rough wool bodice as I made my way toward the table, and raked my fingers through my auburn curls to make them fall more sweetly over my shoulders.

“Good eve, my handsome lads,” I said with my cheeriest smile. “What’s your pleasure this night?”

The three on the far side of the table grinned at me like the happy young sots that they were, their downy, pimpled cheeks ruddy and their eyes fuddled. The one that Madam Ross had marked as an earl turned in his seat to face me, and lah! How different he was from the others! He was splendidly favored, with even features and a mouth ripe with amusement, his dark, thick hair tumbling down his back. There were gold rings on his fingers, and soft fur on the green velvet cloak that he wore tossed over one shoulder, the very picture, I thought, of a young lordling.

Not that I trusted him the more for it. Young I was, aye, but not so foolish as that.

“Your name is Nell?” he asked, as if this were some new drollery.

“Aye, my lord.” I bobbed a quick curtsey, taking care to keep my back straight and my rump low, the safest posture amongst a crowd of rampant, rascally men. I was the shortest of all the women, yet prettily curved with the sweetness of youth, and I stood before this young buck proudly, with my arms akimbo, the better to display the neatness of my waist. “Nell, or Eleanor, or Nellie, I’ll answer to them all, and a good deal more besides.”