Royal Harlot (7 page)

“How do you mean, Mr. Palmer?” I asked, intrigued, for this was not the sort of talk I was accustomed to hearing from gentlemen. “Are you party to planning another uprising?”

“What, those ill-conceived ventures?” he asked, clearly offended I’d suggest such a thing of him. “No, no, there’s other, quieter ways to work to greater effect.”

“Indeed,” I said. “And how precisely do you prepare for these ways?”

“I feel first what is in my heart, and be guided by that,” he said, answering my question in perfect seriousness. “But I also read much of history and political government while at Eton College, and at King’s, Cambridge, and I’m at present a student of the law in the Inner Temple.”

“You are a clever fellow, aren’t you?” Yet I was impressed. For most gentlemen of our generation, education had become but one more casualty of the war, and I couldn’t recall meeting another who could claim such scholarly achievement.

“The king needs educated men as well as soldiers,” he said. “Support must be cultivated with care and diplomacy among the greater populace as well as across the Continent in other courts, not just with a few hotheaded malcontents.”

“You have done this, Mr. Palmer?” I thought of how when Philip traveled through France, all he’d accomplished was to bring back more wicked books and pictures for his own pleasure. “You’ve sought support for the cause abroad?”

He tipped his head to one side with becoming modesty. “I do not work alone, of course. I’m but a link in a greater chain.”

I looked at him in a new light. His earlier shyness had dissipated as surely as those mists upon the water. Instead he seemed decisive, a man of action and importance, bravely risking everything for his monarch. I took a step closer to him, lowering my voice so others—if there’d been others—couldn’t hear.

“Who are these other links?” I asked with excitement, eager to learn more. “Does this courageous chain of yours have a name?”

“To tell the others’ names would be to break a most solemn oath,” he said with genuine regret. “Even though I would do whatever I could to earn your favor, Miss Villiers, I cannot do that. There are too many others who would wish to stop us to make that possible.”

I nodded, intrigued by his loyalty and reticence. “Have you ever met His Majesty? Surely you can tell me that.”

“I’ve had that considerable honor, yes,” he said. “I’ve brought him both assurances from his country and the funds necessary to help him maintain his household and his hopes. My father remains His Majesty’s Chancellor of the Order of the Garter, and as his son, I am welcomed in the royal presence. Charles Stuart is truly the first gentleman of his realm, a thorough king no matter how reduced his circumstances.”

“How pleased His Majesty must be to have such a loyal servant in you, Mr. Palmer,” I said softly, smiling as I did. I was surprised that he’d yet to attempt a kiss; by now most other gentlemen would have done so, and the fact that Mr. Palmer hadn’t was another way he set himself apart in my mind.

He bowed again, a courtly man without a court. “I know of no other way to behave,” he confessed. “Loyalty to my king has been bred into my very blood and bone, and nothing Cromwell or his minions can do will change that.”

In the chamber behind us, the last strains of music had faded away, replaced by applause.

“You’ll want to return to the others, Miss Villiers,” he said, glancing wistfully over his shoulder. “I thank you for your company.”

“Perhaps I’m not ready to return to the others,” I said, slipping my hand into his arm. “Perhaps I should like to walk along the lawn to the river instead.”

He cleared his throat, and I vow that if there’d been more light, I should have seen a blush to his cheeks. “Miss Villiers, I must tell you,” he blurted, “you must be the most beautiful lady I’ve ever seen.”

“I know,” I said, smiling as I curled my arm more closely into his. “Everyone tells me that. Now come, walk with me, and tell me instead more of what you do for King Charles.”

 
“Is it true you’ve been keeping company with that dull ass Roger Palmer?” Philip asked. He lay sprawled across his bed with his hands linked behind his head, splendidly naked, while he watched me dress. Once again he’d been freed from the Tower, spared of further prosecution by the earnest pleas of his friends. “Or is that only more ridiculous gossip meant to destroy your reputation?”

“I’ve kept Mr. Palmer’s company, yes,” I said, seeing no reason to deny it. “He is a gentleman of great intelligence.”

“Oh, aye, a scholar,” he scoffed. “How long has he been tutoring you, sweet?”

I drew my blackthorn comb through my hair, pulling apart the knots that our passion had tangled into it, and conscious, too, of how my raised arms would flatter my still-bared breasts to his eye. It was warm here in his bedchamber, the afternoon sun heating the shingled roof overhead, and I was in no hurry to dress.

“I met Roger last autumn,” I said. “I’ve seen him since then, here and there.”

“That’s eight months,” he calculated shrewdly. “And a considerable amount of here and there.”

I looked at him from beneath the arc of my raised arm. It was true, I had seen much of Roger this last year. I was seventeen now, and eager for different amusements, and Roger had been one of them. “Are you jealous, my darling?”

“What, of Palmer?” He tipped his head back against the pillow-bier, his rich auburn curls falling over the white linen, and laughed derisively. “We’re well beyond jealousy, Barbara, you and I.”

That stung: not so much that he denied being jealous of me, but that he so readily expected me to feel the same of him, and let him graze wherever he pleased without risk of reprobation.

“I like his company.” I glanced back at my reflection in Philip’s looking-glass, putting from my mind the thought of how many other women had gazed into that same glass. “Roger shares his thoughts with me.”

“His
thoughts,
Barbara?” asked Philip with mocking emphasis, stretching his muscular, unclad body across the bed in case I somehow missed his meaning, or the sight of his cock against his thigh. “Is that all the sustenance he offers you? And here I’d always believed you’d more a taste for meat.”

A year before, and I would have blushed, but he’d so thoroughly broken me to his ways that I felt more regret for honest Roger to be so abused than for myself.

“Roger sees me as a fit companion for his conversation,” I said, testy. “It is a pleasant change.”

“Oh, Barbara, Barbara,” he said, reaching for more wine from the table beside the bed. “Let him whisper whatever he will into your pretty ear, but his goal’s the same as any other man’s, to lecture his way between your legs and up your cunt.”

“Don’t judge every man by yourself, my lord,” I said tartly. “Roger speaks to me of important matters. He tells me of the growing efforts to overthrow Cromwell and his part in the plans to return King Charles to the throne.”

Philip groaned with mock dismay. “There you are, sweet, exactly as I said. He paints himself to be a glorious hero in your eyes, the better to dazzle you onto your back.”

“If that were true, then why has he told me of your doings as well?” I snapped, resentment making me use the secrets that Roger had sworn me not to share. “He’s informed me of the time you’ve spent in the Derby gaol for Royalist plotting, and how you’re likewise with him a member of the Sealed Knot, a group sworn to restore the king.”

Philip went very still with the goblet before his lips. “He speaks to you of that?”

“He does,” I said, realizing my sudden advantage. “Because he trusts me, and regards me as clever enough to understand such important matters. He has not only confided to me many of the activities of the Knot, but the names of members.”

His eyes narrowed. “What makes you believe him?”

“Because of his loyalty to his sovereign,” I answered. “And because unlike you, Roger has no reason to lie to me.”

“Or to lie with you, either? Is that where all these confidences are made? In Palmer’s bed?”

“You know none of that.” I pulled my smock over my head, determined to leave. In truth Roger was either so shy or so respectful that he’d yet to press his suit beyond a handful of dutiful kisses. It was pleasing to be treated with such reverence, yes, but also puzzling, and I did wonder what it was about me that could make all other men desire me in an instant, yet seemingly failed to inspire the same in Roger. “Nor is it any of your affair.”

“It is when Palmer tells tales of me.” He lunged across the bed and caught the hem of my smock, holding me fast. “He’d no right to do that, Barbara.”

“Why not?” I demanded, looking down at him. “Do you fear I’ll carry your name to Cromwell himself? Do you have so little use for my loyalty as that?”

“Because you’re a woman, Barbara,” he said, as if needing no further explanation. “It’s against your nature to be loyal, or to keep a sworn secret. As a lot, you’re not to be trusted, especially not with secrets of such importance to the well-being of the country.”

I tried to pull my hem free of his grasp without tearing the linen. “And I say that with a woman, a man will spill his secrets with his seed, and betray his dearest friend in the process.”

“Because that is your magic, Barbara, your lure,” he said. He slipped his hand inside my smock to reach my bare knee, his fingers teasing along my thigh. “I acknowledge your power, sweet, just as I swear my complete allegiance to it.”

I stopped my struggles, intent instead upon his caress. Such a fool from love, I think now, such a fool, and yet I could not refuse him.

“You should trust me, my lord,” I said, even as I realized my point would be lost. “I would never betray you, or the king.”

“Then forget whatever Palmer has told you of me.” His cunning fingers crept higher along my thigh, and with unthinking obedience I shifted my legs apart to ease his path. “Forget plotting and the king and any other dangerous notions that may have found their way into your head.”

“But I don’t wish to forget the king, or the plans to bring him back to England,” I whispered, swaying toward him. “I wish to—to be of use to the cause, and to—to be a part of it.”

“Better to wish for this, Barbara,” he said, his voice as seductive as the serpent in the Garden. “Better to take pleasure in what you have than to crave what will never be yours. Better to be my Barbara, and love me as no other woman can.”

I was still too young to see the hollow core to such reasoning, or to look beyond the giddy pleasures he was even then stirring within me. He’d said he loved me as none other, and because I wanted so much to believe him, I did. Instead of rebuffing him as I would have been wisest to do, I accepted both his argument and his caresses, and let him tumble and swive and delight me yet again on his wide pillowed bed.

Chapter Three

LONDON
September 1 6 5 8

 
I stood beside the gate to James’s Park—which the low creatures of the Commonwealth, ever vigilant against Anglicans and popery, had deprived of the appellation of St. James, and given over to the honor of every ordinary Jemmy instead—shielding my eyes against the slanting sun of late afternoon while I waited for Roger. I wondered at his delay. Roger was never late to our meetings, and more often was kept waiting by me.

It was the first week of September, still more summer than autumn, with the Spanish broom in riotous flower behind me. The night before, a great wind had blown through London, almost a
hurricano,
as the Spaniards call it, tearing trees up by their roots and bricks from the chimney tops. The streets and lawns were still littered with leaves and papers and other rubbish, and I wondered at how few persons were to be seen about. My mother’s servants, a superstitious lot, had whispered darkly this morning that such a wind could only bring misfortune and death, but I’d paid their prattle little heed, glad only that the sun had returned so that I could come to the park.

Just enough breeze remained to toss my artful side curls against my cheeks and into my eyes in a most annoying fashion, so that while I looked for Roger I was compelled again and again to brush them back from my face until, finally, I lost all patience, and stuffed them unbecomingly inside the crown of my wide-brimmed hat. Wrapped in a handkerchief inside my white satin muff, I’d hidden a pair of ruddy apples as a special treat for Roger.

It sounds odd, I know, to recall so much in such detail, but because of the great news to be heard that day—September 3, 1658— every petty detail of the morning became gilded and crystallized, preserved along with that single event.

When Roger finally came, his long face was somber, though his eyes seemed bright with excitement. He seized my hand and drew me close so no others would overhear.

“Have you heard the news, Barbara?” he demanded, with no apology for his tardiness. “Most awful news. Most wondrous, blessed news!”

I looked at him askance, unsure what could have disordered him from his customary composure. “What news is this, Roger? I’ve heard none of it.”

“Cromwell is dead!” he whispered. “Think of it, Barbara! The Lord Protector is dead. Can his unlawful Commonwealth not follow soon after?”

“Dead?” I repeated, stunned. I couldn’t recall a time when that grim, wart-covered general had not ruled over England. “How? When?”

“This very day,” he answered, his voice fair trembling with emotion. “You know he had been ill this past fortnight, and we’ve all been ordered to say our prayers for him, but there was no hint nor suspicion of impending death. And now—now he is gone.”

“But what will happen now?” I asked, his excitement contagious. “Surely His Majesty can—”

“Not so soon, not so soon,” Roger cautioned. “They say the Council of State has already confirmed the son’s appointment to the Protectorate, and as his father’s dying wish.”

“Fah,” I scoffed with a little sweep of my hand. “As if we’re to believe that! The old man himself turned down the crown, fearing what would happen if his weakling of a son came to power.”