The Perfect Royal Mistress (16 page)

“I know ’ow it’s been for you, I do, and I am sorry. But this is different.” Nell shook her head; Rose’s life could not have been more different. Rose wanted to have work of her own, too, but Patrick downstairs could show her none, because of the cough Rose could not seem to quiet, and the look of illness etched deeply into her face that he said would remind customers too much of the plague. So Rose could only content herself in the shadow of Nell’s bright star. “I don’t fancy ’er, but Moll Davies was right, Rose. The theater ’as given me a chance, but only just that. Girls like me can’t grace the stage forever. Soon, I’ll be gone like all of the other pretty faces, replaced by someone new. So I’ve got to use it while I can, find some sort of proper life where we’ll never ’ave to worry about a roof above our ’eads again, you and me. I mean to see to that!”

“So you’re goin’ then?”

“I’ve no reason not to.”

“What about Mr. ’Art?”

She turned onto her side and propped her head with an elbow. “’E doesn’t love me, Rose. The only thing ’e loves is the stage. There’s no future for me with ’im, and the theater’ll never pay me as much as I plan to ’ave for the two of us. You know the money is not anywhere near what people think.”

“God above, Nell, what I wouldn’t give for the life you ’ave! And you’re sayin’ you’ll give up everythin’? The stage and the public who wait in line for a chance just to see you?”

Nell drew in a deep breath, then sighed. “For a chance at a proper life for us both. ’Tis precisely what I’m sayin’.”

“Oh, Nelly, I
’ope
you know what you’re doin’.”

The words of caution were nearly Richard Bell’s. “So do I,” she said, trying not to think what would happen to her life at this very crucial crossroads if she was wrong.

Chapter 11

A
ND VIRGINS SMILED AT WHAT THEY BLUSHED BEFORE.

—Alexander Pope

J
UNE 1667

N
ELL
tipped up her head, feeling the sun and the wind together as the coach turned off High Street and moved down a twisted little lane shaded by evergreen boughs. She leaned back against Buckhurst’s elegant leather coach seat, aware of the string of other coaches ahead of them, and one behind, feeling as if she were a part of something, and as if she were leaving Lewkenor Lane and the Cock & Pye very far behind.

An image of Charles Hart flared like a candle flame before her.
Whore,
he had called her, and bid her never to come back to the King’s Theater if she meant to abandon him now. It was only his pride that was wounded, she knew. Still, he had cursed at Nell so furiously that it had drawn a crowd of actors who collected near the door of his private tiring-room as he warned her it would never last with Lord Buckhurst, that she would return to London a laughingstock.

“Penny for your thoughts. You do look awfully pleased with yourself,” Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, noted as the coach clattered and swayed. He took a small silver flask from his pocket.

“Just pleased, in general. No particular thoughts worth sharin’.”

“It’s the company, I hope.”

“Oh, undoubtedly.” Nell smiled at him.

Buckhurst took her hand then and brought it to his lips. “I’m not Charles Hart, you know. It won’t be like it was with him.”

“I’m certainly glad to hear that!”

He opened the flask and took a long swallow of the contents. He then offered some to her, but Nell declined. She did not need spirits to make her any more giddy. This trip was a girl’s fantasy, and Lord Buckhurst was Nell’s grand knight, she felt absolutely certain of it.

They arrived in Newmarket, a charming village of thatched cottages and clean streets, nestled amid the lush heath land of Suffolkshire, at half past seven that evening. Outside, it was still as light as day. Buckhurst stepped from the coach amid a porte cochere ringed by neatly trimmed emerald hedgerows, and held out his perfumed hand. Before them was a vast brick estate nestled into greening woods.

“
This
is yours?”

“My family’s, actually. But they do take pity on their dissolute son in springtime and allow me the use of it.”

He held her hand as Nell was presented to the staff that stood in a starched straight line on the outside stone stairway.

“’Tis very grand,” Nell said as she looked up at the entrance hall, with its gleaming black marble floors, soaring ceiling, and portraits lining the walls in heavy gilded frames.

“Designed to impress, like everything about the Sackville family.”

“Well,
I
am rightly impressed.”

“Good,” he smiled, still holding her hand. “Now. Do you wish the staff to show you to our rooms, or would you be more comfortable in having me show you privately?” He ran a seductive finger along the line of her jaw. “I hope that I made the nature of my proposal clear.”

“You did.”

Buckhurst smiled as though he were indulging a favored child. “I’ve no intention of making a wayward woman of you, Nell.”

“Some would likely say I already am one.”

“A wayward angel, perhaps, but only just that. I do care deeply for you.”

He kissed her at the top of the landing, and she realized only then how powerful was the taste of liquor on his lips. “Might I lie down alone, just for a little while?”

He fingered a coil of her coppery hair, then he smiled his charming smile. “I’m a bit spoiled, so do not take too long.”

“Oh, it’ll be worth the wait, I can promise you that,” she smiled.

The lovely collection of rooms to which she was shown in Lord Buckhurst’s grand country house looked down into the little town. From the windows, she could see people strolling before the open shops. She could see the horses in the street, the coaches and carts, hurrying past it all. Inside, there was a large, pale oak bed with thick turned posts, a bedcover of intricate ivory crewelwork, a dressing table with a mirror framed in silver, and velvet draperies ornamented with fringe. She unhooked the latch and drew back the windows, letting in the cool country air, mixed with honeysuckle and roses. This was nothing at all like the air in soot-choked London. Here, she could almost breathe in the possibilities. Nell felt herself smile again.

Buckhurst had agreed to let her rest before dinner, but rest was the last thing she wanted just now. What she had needed was a moment to calm herself, to drink it all in, and convince herself that something this grand was actually happening to her.

After a while, she crept down the stairs, holding on to the polished mahogany banister, and followed the sound of his voice, and the laughter of others, coming from a room tucked behind the entrance hall. The oil-painted faces in the row of portraits along the wall drew her eye. They were dour, serious faces, nothing like Buckhurst himself. Nell paused for a moment, then went on until she was surprised by a small, black face gazing out at her from beneath the staircase. It was a little girl wearing a pretty dove-gray dress, lace at the sleeves. Her ebony hair was shaved close to her small head so that all Nell saw was the sweet face and the most enormously expressive coal-black eyes. She had never seen anyone like her in all the world. “And who might you be?” she asked, but the child disappeared almost before the words left her lips. Nell was so struck by the almost-encounter that she nearly forgot where she had meant to go. She moved through an arch and went to the open doorway, where she could still hear Buckhurst. Lingering there unseen for a moment, she watched. The room was a paneled library, stuffed with leather-bound books. There were two other men with him, and they were all standing against a wall of windows, with a view of the rolling green lawns behind, all of them holding full glasses of wine.

“Certainly you cannot mean that,” one said. “It’ll be so frightfully dull.”

“I mean it, entirely. You are both to be on your absolute best behavior,” Buckhurst warned. “Give me at least a chance to appear redeeming.”

“Appear, if not quite become, I hope?” the other man quipped.

Buckhurst looked up, seeing her then. He smiled and held out a hand to her. “Ah, Nell. Do join us. Gentleman, this beautiful lady is the famous Nell Gwynne, about whom you have heard so much in London. I don’t suppose my father shall ever quite believe that I have won so fair a prize, but at least you two will be forced now to declare how clever I am when next we are with him.”

Nell moved forward and took his hand. The other two men were slim and elegantly dressed, like Buckhurst, but not nearly so attractive. The tallest had thinning sandy blond hair, which gave him a high forehead not hidden, at the moment, beneath a periwig. His eyes were a bland shade of blue, and his front teeth were noticeably crooked.

“Nell, may I present my dearest friend in all the world, Sir Charles Sedley. And this other old rake here is Sir Thomas Ogle.”

Ogle was clearly younger, with straight dark hair that fell into his eyes, and could not hide large protruding ears. Both of the men smiled at her and then nodded deferentially. “Right charmed I am, gents,” she said smiling in return.

“Do join us for a glass of wine, Mrs. Gwynne,” Sedley said affably.

She moved forward and took a large, etched crystal goblet, then Sedley refilled each of their own. “I do believe it is going to be a grand springtime here in Newmarket,” he said, drinking his newly filled glass in one long swallow, as Ogle and Buckhurst did the same.

“To grand adventures!” Buckhurst toasted.

As a warm breeze ruffled his elegant slashed sleeves and blew back his hair, King Charles stood at the front of his royal barge. It was lacquered in crimson red, gilded, and proudly flying the Royal Standard as it floated down the Thames toward Newmarket. He was anxious to arrive. The wonderful little town his father had so enjoyed for the peace it had brought him was his grounding place. He could breathe the air there.

To that thought, he drew in a sweet breath and gazed out ahead at the lush, green landscape, the trees and shrubbery softening the banks.
Freedom
…This was the first trip to Newmarket in three years unaccompanied by a lover. Even with Buckingham, his courtiers, privy councillors, pages, cooks, and dressers, and a large group of friends for companionship, he felt the faint chill of disquiet. Both Barbara and the queen had remained in London. Moll, who was too newly delivered of her child, was mercifully not yet fit to travel. He watched the charming little town known for horse racing and revelry come slowly into view as the barge was prepared for docking along the mossy banks.

“Shall we proceed with the banquet tonight, Your Majesty?” asked Buckingham.

Charles turned. “It
is
what we do here, is it not?”