The French Mistress (40 page)

“There’s my token for the day, Louise,” he said, his face close to mine, and filled with ardent desire. “I promise to pledge you another soon, eh?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” I said breathlessly, leaning forward to kiss him warmly. When our lips parted, he grunted with male satisfaction, doubtless thinking of what (or who) lay before him at Euston.

“Until tonight, Louise,” he whispered roughly. “Until you’re mine.”

He touched his hand to his breast over his heart, a tender salute I’d not expected, and smiled crookedly as if to remind me he was still my Charles. Then he nodded to Lady Arlington and steered his horse away and back to the others.

“My dear, my dear,” Lady Arlington mused beside, “surely this day you must be the most fortunate lady in the kingdom. Old Rowley, indeed. I told you earlier, didn’t I? In all things, it’s the finish that matters most.”

Indeed, I thought, as I stroked the ribbon sash lightly over my cheek and breathed his scent upon the silk. I watched him ride away and smiled happily.

Indeed.

 

 

“There you are now, Louise.” Lady Arlington took me by the shoulders and began turning me around so I could see myself reflected in the glass. “Come now, miss. Don’t wax shy with us.”

The other ladies crowded close, eager to see my reaction to their ministrations. Some of them I recognized from Court, and others I didn’t, but from their lavish dress and jewels, even here in the country, and the titled addresses that were tossed among them, I knew they were all great ladies, wed to gentlemen of wealth, power, and esteem. Yet to see their behavior now, in this bedchamber, I would have guessed them more familiar with the brothels in Drury Lane than the halls of Whitehall Palace. All had been drinking wine since we’d returned from the races, and most had crossed from drinking to drunkenness, their faces flushed and mottled beneath their paint, their laughter unseasonably loud, and their gestures exaggerated. I’d witnessed my share of gentlemen in this lamentable state at Court, but never so many ladies together, and it shocked me to see it now.

“Gaze upon yourself, Louise,” Lady Arlington commanded, as full of wine as the others. “Behold the pretty face you bring to your groom!”

I looked, and gasped with dismay. The diversion that had been planned was a mock country wedding, with Charles and me to play the roles of the simple rural couple. We were to submit to the raillery of such a ceremony, and then at last be put to bed. It had sounded foolish and embarrassing to my natural modesty, but of little lasting harm, the sort of nonsensical prank that was endlessly popular among Charles’s friends. Some of these in the past had gone horribly wrong when the leaders had included notorious rascals like Lord Buckingham and Lord Rochester, with the watch summoned and participants arrested, property destroyed, and common folk injured or even killed. By comparison, a mock wedding seemed tame, and besides, I was counting upon Charles as my “groom” to keep a measure of decorum to the sport.

At least I had until I saw myself in Lady Arlington’s long dressing mirror.

Like any bride, my clothes had been carried away, and I’d been dressed instead in a white linen smock, with only my garters and stockings beneath, and my feet tucked into white silk slippers with high green heels. But unlike the sturdy linen smock that would have adorned a true village bride, these ladies had dressed me in one of finest cambric, with deep bandings of lace at the hems. As beautiful a garment as this was, it was also of so sheer a linen as to be nearly transparent, and as I stood before them all, I was as much as naked. All of my most secret charms were shamelessly revealed behind this slight haze of linen, my breasts full and rose-tipped, my waist small and my hips swelling in invitation, and the dark thatch of my maiden’s hair a beckoning shadow at the top of my thighs.

Instinctively I moved to cover myself with my open hands, but Lady Arlington quickly pulled them aside. “No false modesty, now, else you’ll disappoint the gentlemen.”

I gasped again with dismay. “Oh, my lady, you cannot expect me to go before the gentlemen dressed in such a fashion!”

“Why ever not?” asked the Countess of Sunderland, a dear friend of Lady Arlington’s. She swayed languidly and leered at me from the other side of the glass, a glass of golden canary in her hand. “When you appear among them, every last rogue will spring a cock stand in your honor. That’s power, my dear, and be grateful you have it.”

The others laughed as if this were the greatest wit imaginable, but I could only blush in misery.

“Oh, please, mademoiselle, do not
cry
,” Lady Sunderland said with such droll disgust that the others laughed once again. “Everyone at Court already knows you could fill the very ocean with your tears once you begin.”

That only made me flush deeper still and, worse, made me indeed wish to weep. It was bad enough to be mocked by the likes of Mrs. Gwyn, but I hadn’t realized I’d been unwittingly entertaining the rest of the Court as well. Didn’t they know that I cried because I could not help it, and not at will?

“I’ll grant you a lock or two of hair, my dear,” Lady Arlington said. They’d already unpinned and brushed my hair, letting the thick waves fall down my back, for this, too, was traditional for a bride. To help ease the untying of my virgin knot, there could be no bows or twists or braids anywhere on my person, and along with my unbound hair, all the little bows that trimmed the smock had been untied as well, the narrow ribbons kinked but hanging free. Lady Arlington drew two thick locks of my hair forward over my shoulders, twirled them round her fingers into curls, and carefully draped them over my breasts.

“There,” she said, contented with her work. “A modicum of modesty entices the whole.”

I could scarcely agree. If anything, the long dark curls seemed to enhance my shamelessness rather than cover it.

“Forgive me, my lady,” I began again. “But I do not believe I can—”

“Ah, the bells!” exclaimed Lady Sunderland with gay abandon, raising her glass high over her head. “The bells are calling the bride below!”

I heard them, too, an irregular chorus of clattering handbells from downstairs, but near drowning them were the shouts of the gentlemen, clamoring for the bride (meaning me) to be brought out for their admiration. Before I could protest again, the ladies took my arms and swept me away, down the staircase and past the crowd of ogling gentlemen, most of them seeming as deep in their cups as their ladies. I recognized a good many of these gentlemen as well from Court, men whom it would now shame me to meet again in other circumstances, including the Dukes of Monmouth and York, and even the Marquis de Croissy. To my relief the ladies bore me swiftly past the gentlemen, perhaps from kindness, but more likely from not wishing their own husbands to admire or inspect me too closely. The ladies led me into the dining chamber and to my seat at the head of the table, and crowned me with a wreath of white flowers.

Before I sat, however, there were a few more impromptu fanfares, heralding the arrival in the room of the king, and as one we either bowed or curtsied, a perilous exercise for me, clad as I was. Yet I forgot my unhappiness when I saw Charles, entering the room to take his place at the table beside me. He, too, was dressed all in falsely virginal white, a modest presentation for a country bridegroom, and in the simplest of clothes: an open shirt without a neck cloth, a short doublet, and breeches, with a flowered crown much like my own. He looked at once at all I revealed, and was unabashed in his approval. He began to take me in his arms to kiss me, but Lady Arlington dared step between us.

“Not until after you are properly bedded, sir,” she said archly, and guided us to separate chairs. The king laughed, and rolled his eyes heavenward to the roaring amusement of the other gentlemen. But still he’d noticed my distress as well as my near-nakedness, and once he had taken his seat beside me, he leaned his head close to mine.

“Don’t let all this folly trouble you, sweet,” he whispered fondly. “They mean to entertain themselves—that is all. Soon it will be done, and they’ll leave us alone.”

I smiled my gratitude, my eyes welling with tears. Soon, he’d promised. Soon it would be done, and they’d leave us alone. . . .

But the mock wedding feast seemed without end, with one lewd toast following another, and I vow an entire vineyard must have been drunk at that table. It took no effort at all for me to play the part of the quaking bride, and I was too sick with dread to eat any of the rich dishes set before me. Worst of all was realizing that, despite his kind solicitude toward me, Charles was reveling in every lubricious jest and toast to his manhood, and I truly began to fear what might happen next.

I learned soon enough.

He emptied his glass for the final time, and rose to his feet.

“Enough of your good wishes, my friends, and I thank you for them,” he said to renewed laughter. “But the hour is late, and it’s high time you offered honors to me and my delectable bride.”

A band of fiddlers suddenly appeared—where had they been waiting all the evening? I wondered—and to their playing, Charles led me up the stairs with all the others crowding after us. The best bedchamber in the house had been prepared for us, with the fire and candles lit, the brocaded curtains drawn around the bedstead and looped about the posts, the coverlet turned back, and extra pillows piled high at the head.

Once again Lady Arlington took possession of me, and with my other highborn handmaidens, soon divested me of my slippers and my flower crown, and helped me between the sheets. Throughout I kept my eyes downcast and struggled to keep from being ill; the only greater disgrace than this night would have been to have been forced to dive beneath the bed in search of the chamber pot before so many others. Every space in the chamber was taken, making a wall around the bed of grinning faces and gabbling tongues with the fiddlers’ tunes sounding shrilly at an ever-quickening pace.

From the bawdy comments of the gentlemen, I knew that Charles was likewise being prepared for me, his doublet and breeches removed until only his shirt remained. Without raising my eyes, I knew when he joined me as the bedsprings creaked and sank beneath his weight. Before I could catch myself, I tipped down into the valley of the mattress against him, his bare thigh pressing against mine. I jerked away as if I’d been burned but Charles only laughed, and sought my hand, a small reassurance, but not enough.

“The bride’s stocking!” called one of the gentlemen. “We must toss her stocking! Your Grace, you’re a bachelor again. Make her show her leg and claim her stocking!”

I looked up just in time to find the Duke of York, his face flushed with excess, reaching to raise the coverlet from me, ready to pull the stocking from my leg. With visions of being hauled forcibly from the bed, I cried out softly, and at last Charles came to my rescue.

“Leave off, James,” he said mildly, but with a warning to his words. “My bride is too shy and tender for the likes of you. Draw your own stocking, my dear, and give it to him for tossing.”

The duke scowled. “Where’s the sport in that, brother? We wish to judge the lady’s leg.”

“That’s mine to judge, not yours.” Charles smiled, the warning now so strong not even the thickheaded Duke could ignore it. “Louise, your stocking, if you please.”

I reached beneath the sheets and swiftly peeled off my stockings to hand to the duke. His disappointment clear, he still went through the ritual of sitting on the foot of the bed and tossing the ball of my stocking back over his shoulder, where it landed on Charles’s lap: a sure omen of another wedding before year’s end, or so it would be if this were a true wedding to begin with.

“There you are, Your Grace, a fresh princess for you by Christmas!” called a gentleman from the back. “Wed her fast and fill her belly faster, eh?”

“Don’t forget our own little bride,” Lady Sunderland said, carrying a twin-handled posset cup in her hands that she handed first to me. “Drink up, mademoiselle, drink up. You’ll need every drop to fortify you for your ride with Old Rowley!”

Bravely I held the posset cup to my lips and sipped with care. It was well I did, for the posset itself was so thick with sugar, beaten eggs, and sack—the white Spanish wine the English gentry so favored—that I felt its potency at once. Against more cheering, I pretended to drink, then passed the cup to Charles. Clearly he’d guessed my game but didn’t give me away, and instead drank the rest down himself. With a flourish he returned the empty cup to Lady Sunderland; then he held his hands out to stop the applause, and the room fell eagerly quiet.

“Now that you’ve done your duty by me and my sweet bride, I must do mine by her,” he said. “Leave us now, and you may count on a son in nine months’ time.”

A son, a child, another royal bastard by Old Rowley himself. Oh, Mother of God preserve me, I was not prepared for that so soon!
I shivered and hugged my arms over my chest as they roared their approval, yet made no move to leave us.

“You don’t mean to send us away, sir, do you?” called another gentleman. “We want to watch to make sure you fuck her proper.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” shouted another. “It’s not as if she’s a true bride. She’s only another whore, and a French one at that.”

“No,” said the king. “Leave us.”

Three words, and yet that was sufficient to remind every last drunken lord that Charles was their master. Three words, and the crowd of ravening jackals turned as meek as lambs, stumbling over one another in their haste to back from the chamber and leave as he’d ordered. A solemn-faced manservant drew the bed’s curtains shut around us, and from within I heard him close the bedchamber door and latch it shut.

Finally, miraculously, I was alone in bed with His Majesty the King of England.

Chapter Eighteen

EUSTON HALL, SUFFOLK
October 1671