by Diane Haeger
“Charles! Come ’ere, ye little bastard!”
A stunned silence fell hard through the collected courtiers. In spite of Nell’s flair for the theatrical, it had been such an ungracious thing to say, and she had meant it that way exactly. Full impact, and she felt the king’s eyes upon her immediately. Her heart was in her throat as her eldest son came toward her so dutifully that she felt certain her heart would break. But with a singleness of purpose, she blocked out everything else. “That’s it, you little bastard, come on to your ma!”
The king was beside her then, his hand tight on her arm. “Why the devil do you call our son something so vile? And in front of all these people?”
“Well, sire, I’ve no other title for ’im,” she calmly replied.
Nell watched him glance around uncomfortably. The children stood in a group, ringing his legs. No one beneath the canopy behind them spoke. She waited for the anger, steeled herself against it. But it did not come. Their young sons were both near now, looking up, watching silently with Jeddy between them. The king bent down to his boys, smiled, tousled their hair, then glanced back at Nell. There was not a courtier present who did not hang heavily on what either of them might say next.
“You and everyone else will call them my sons, Nell, for they both are that, and have been acknowledged as such.”
“Aimless bastard sons without title or direction. A fear for ’er offspring a certain Weeping Willow shall not need suffer.”
He lowered his voice. “Nell, I bid you—”
“They’re my life, Charlie,” she said now in the same low voice as he. “Blood is thicker than water. Don’t make me choose between blood and love, for I cannot know any longer where that choice would take me!”
Two months to the day afterward, Charles II’s eldest son by Nell Gwynne was created Baron Headington, Earl of Burford. Their second son, James, with his father’s eyes and his mother’s copper curls, became Lord Beauclerk. After seven years, Nell had learned to fight and win.
The victory had gained her more than she ever could have dreamed for two sons of a commoner from the harsh London slums. Yet, like every good thing in Nell’s life, this hard-won victory had come at a price. Just when Nell’s star at the court of Charles II seemed at its brightest, another star began to ascend beside her.
On Christmas Day 1675, another ship from Paris landed on the English shore. Emerging in a swirl of ermine and black velvet was the celebrated writer and adventuress Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin. All of London was set on its ear at the news. Particularly the king. The court, and all of London, was rife with gossip, since Hortense had been an adolescent infatuation while he was in exile, and the first woman the king had ever wanted to marry.
Chapter 34
WHY DOST THOU ABUSE THE AGE SO? METHINKS IT’S AS PRETTY AN HONEST, DRINKING, WHORING AGE AS A MAN WOULD WISH TO LIVE IN.
—The Earl of Rochester
1676 TO 1677
BUCKINGHAM, having been relegated the year before to his country estates by Lord Danby’s manipulation, was suddenly summoned back to court by the king. The two old friends spent time hunting and walking in the park with the king’s ever-growing pack of spaniels. Charles walked more slowly than once he had, and Buckingham, slightly gray now, and far less dynamic, followed. Between them was still the fact that Buckingham had spoken out of turn with Parliament. It was the incident that Danby had used most fully against him. Now the king was obliged to find an apology.
Speaking of everything but that, they found themselves together in the king’s privy hall, where a throne was positioned against the wall beside the fire, and a leather chair sat opposite for conversation. Both of them sank back gratefully and gulped mulled wine, laughing at old jokes, private moments only the two of them could recall. Then the king interrupted the banter to receive one of his spies. The man presented his report, bowed deeply, and backed out of the room. Charles glanced through the contents, then tossed the leather folio onto the tile floor. “A pox on her! She is bedding with him!” It was one thing to have suspected. It was another thing entirely to know. A new addition to King Charles’s court, one no one had counted on, was a tall French nobleman who had arrived from Paris. Philippe de Vendôme was as handsome as he was depraved, and he had taken an immediate interest in Louise de Kéroualle.
Buckingham’s twisted grin was hidden as he turned and casually fingered a glass globe that sat on a long sideboard. Like everyone else, he had long known about Louise’s dalliance with Danby; everyone had, it seemed, but the king. This new liaison, however, was delicious beyond measure, and Buckingham hoped it would pave the way for his return to power over the ruthless Lord High Treasurer. He had one final chance at glory now that was back. “I could say I warned you about Carwell.”
“You could,” Charles grumbled. “But displeasing your king is well known to be dangerous.”
“You know the wildly angry sentiment here for the French since the end of the war. Carwell is chief among their targets. Does your dear Danby not tell you the truth about that?”
“Danby is not you.”
A small victory, and Buckingham reveled in it. “Aye, he tells you what you wish to hear, something I always refused to do.”
“For a time, I actually believed I preferred that to your incessant manipulations.”
“You knew about those?”
“And your infernal gloating.”
“The grass so often does look greener.”
“Very well, then. If you were back here with me daily, what would you have me do with things as they are now?”
“Send Carwell back to Paris and be done with her. You’ve enough on your plate now with Mazarin and Nelly, do you not?”
The king stiffened. “I shall decide when I have had enough.”
“Have Danby and Vendôme not decided that for you?”
“George, if you were anyone else!”
“But I am not, am I? What I am, first and foremost, is your oldest friend. And, admit it, you have missed me around here.”
There was silence for a moment. “Very well then, perhaps they have decided things for me. I have made rather a pathetic mess of it, haven’t I? Bestowing title after title on Louise, hoping to make her love me. And leaving Nelly to love me as she has for so long, with no acknowledgment of that. Time and time again, I let Danby talk me out of naming her Countess of Greenwich. I let everyone tell me she was not worthy. Worst of all, I let myself believe it.”
“I warned you about Danby, as well.”
“Gloating really is your greatest character flaw, George.”
“You can still change that. You can still change a great many things.”
Charles looked at the man who had been like a brother to him. “Danby was right about one thing, George. You must make your apologies for what you so publicly said. It is the reason I summoned you back. To settle this once and for all.”
“For how I spoke against Parliament? I cannot, Charles. Parliament has held you, bound and gagged, since you took the throne. I loaned you money, by my troth, because of how they manipulated you. Their entire function is to thwart your will, and I said so! Unlike women, the acts of that body are not the worse for growing old!”
“My father supported his Parliament, and I shall rule as my father meant to.”
“Then you are a live fool instead of a dead one, but a fool nonetheless!”
Mention of the king’s father crossed a line. “Perhaps Danby was right. It was a mistake to bring you back here.”
“Not everyone has the ability to see the truth when it is staring them in the face, but I would have thought better of not only my king but my friend!”
“Guard!”
“You cannot do it to me again, Charles! You won’t send me to the Tower for telling you what you know to be true!”
“Guard!”
“I love Your Majesty with every part of my being! I always have!”
“Before you insult me, my father, or Parliament, tell
that to the devil, George Villiers, for I sure in Hades do not care!”
Later that afternoon, as sun streamed in the wall of paned windows that faced the Thames, Louise strolled through the grand gallery. She moved toward an open chamber where Nell, Rochester, Buckhurst, Sedley, and Hyde were playing cards. Louise was wearing the same mourning gown of black silk and lace she had worn the previous day. Her expression, as she passed, was properly sober, her chin was lifted with courtly dignity. A group of her lady attendants followed.
“Don’t look now,” said Rochester beneath his breath, as he fanned out his cards and lay them on the table. “But here comes the one actress to actually better you with her theatrics.”
“She would have you believe she actually knew the deceased,” chuckled Lawrence Hyde.
“Great God, who died?” Buckhurst asked.
“The esteemed chevalier de Rohan,” said Charles Sedley in a gossipy tone.
“The what of what?” Rochester muffled a snicker, exchanging a glance with Nell.
“One of her countrymen,” Buckhurst explained in a low voice. “The chevalier, it seems, lost his head for treason; the duchess tells me that their families had ancient and indelible ties.”
“Oh, where is Lord Buck when a great retort wants saying by clever lips?” asked Hyde.
Buckhurst tossed his cards onto the table and leaned back in his chair. “Considering the error of his ways at this very moment, I suspect.”
“Lord Buck is back at court?” Nell asked him in surprise.
“He has been these past two days. But, as Danby and Carwell have so thoroughly muddied the king’s mind over him, I hear our old friend is settling in to his former apartments in a certain nearby tower.”
Nell’s face went pale. “You cannot be serious!”
“Would I ever joke about something so inconvenient as a prison cell?” Rochester asked.
“Poor old Buck, the great manipulator was outmanipulated,” Sedley replied with a deep sigh.
“Well, we’ve got to do somethin’ for him.”
They all looked at Nell, their glances sliding from one another to her. “Sorry, love. None of us would consider attempting something so dangerous as that,” said Rochester. “No, Nelly, I’m afraid you are the only one to go toe-to-toe with the king, and keep your head off a pike in the end.”
At the king’s request, Nell came to court for dinner the next afternoon. Sweeping into the grand dining hall with a particular flourish, she was followed by Rochester, Buckhurst, Hyde, and Sedley, a whirl of clicking shoe heels and curled periwigs. Her entourage gave her courage, she had told them with a giggle as they made their way together up the stairs. And Nell was glad they were with her. She came through the doors a quarter of an hour late, draped from head to toe in layers of deep-black silk. To her eyes, she held a black lace handkerchief, and she was wiping away tears, weeping softly as she moved, her black-lace hem trailing along the inlaid parquet.
The king, Louise, who was still in her own mourning black, and the ever-present Earl of Danby sat together. Around them, the French ambassador and a collection of Louise’s patched and perfumed ladies paused and glanced up at her—precisely the effect Nell desired.
“Mrs. Gwynne,” asked Danby with disdain, “for whom are you mourning?”
“’Ave you not ’eard of my loss?” Nell replied in a tone worthy of her best stage heroine. “The Cham of Tartary?”
Delighted by her utterly brazen mockery, Rochester, Buckhurst, and Lawrence Hyde all muffled laughter. Surveying each of them in turn, and realizing that their muted laughter was at her expense, Louise’s face darkened to crimson. In her defense, the ambassador spoke again. “And what relation, pray, was the Cham of Tartary to you?”
“Oh,” Nell smiled innocently, her timing absolutely perfect. “Exactly the same relation that the chevalier de Rohan was to Carwell.”
Louise bolted to her feet with an audible huff and said something indecipherable to the king. Then she spun on her heel, a whirl of black mourning silk, and left the room. Once Louise was gone, the king himself began to laugh, leaning back in his chair and slapping the table. Amid the crescendo of laughter and applause, Nell stood and took a deep and triumphant curtsy. A moment later, she went to the king, sank onto his lap, and linked her arms behind his neck. As chatter and music rose up around them, she said what she meant to say. “I want to go to him, Charlie. Please let me try to mend things for you.”
It was a moment before the king realized that she meant Buckingham. “Out of the question.”
“But ’e’s my friend.”
“And he is my enemy!”
“Oh, dear, dear Charlie.” She ran a teasing finger along the line of his jaw as she smiled and spoke to him in a low, coaxing tone. “Now, you know perfectly well ’tis no truth in that.”
“His insolence, and blatant refusal to do as I command, is dangerous here, and that makes him my enemy. I should never have allowed him to come sniveling and scraping back—”
“Sounds like Danby’s words, not yours.”
“Whoever spoke them, they are accurate.”
This was her chance to repay Buckingham for his help with the incident in the pond, and for having become her friend, and Nell meant to have her way. “In all the years, I’ve never asked you for much, ’ave I, Charlie? I mean, really, ’ave I?”
“Actually, you are the only one who hasn’t.”
She leaned in closer and twirled a curl of his long periwig onto her finger. “Well, I’m askin’ you now. Let me go to Lord Buck. Let me speak with ’im.”
“You believe you can help that cunning old dog see the error of his ways, do you?”
“If anyone can, ’tis likely me.”
“True enough,” he laughed, pressing a kiss onto her cheek.
Chapter 35
METHINKS, I SEE THE WANTON HOURS FLEE, AND, AS THEY PASS, TURN BACK AND LAUGH AT ME.
—The Duke of Buckingham
CLOAKED in folds of black velvet, her hair covered with a wide black hat, Nell moved past the guard and into the apartments set aside for the great Duke of Buckingham in the Tower of London. What she found was a man she would not have known. In the time since she had seen him at court, the proud man so full of confidence had disappeared. In his place was a fragile, slightly stooped man, his blue eyes faded, with deep shadows ringing beneath them. He was old. Wrinkled. The skin once smooth and shiny, now was lined like parchment, and his armpits were wet with stains. The days of duels and clever mistresses were well behind him. His days out of favor had not been kind to the duke.
“My Lord Buck,” she curtsied deeply, theatrically. The little private joke between them made him smile, remembering how far their friendship had come.
“So the mountain has come to Muhammad in the form of a beautiful red-haired angel.”
She moved toward him. He stood, and they embraced.
“’Ow exactly do you find yourself in the Tower so often?”
“A tongue too clever for my own good, apparently.”
“That only works well when you’ve masses of red ’air and a neatly turned ankle.”
“So I have seen.”
She kissed his cheek, then helped him sit.
“So, then, has His Majesty sent you?”
“In a manner of speakin’. But you must read the letter I ’ave brought you.”
“You asked if you could come?”
“But ’e did not deny me. ’E misses you.”
“I miss how we once were. How we all were.”
“The Tower makes men sentimental, does it?”
“Only old men, I’m afraid. Ones who now see mortality more clearly than their ambitions.”
She patted his knee and smiled. “You’re not old, Lord Buck. Just more realistic.”
He looked away for a moment, then back at her before he was seized by a fit of coughing. Nell poured him a glass of ruby wine from a pitcher on a table near the window and brought it to him. Then they sat together as
he drank it.
“Do you remember our first encounter?” he asked, his voice tired and full of nostalgia.
“’Ow could I forget? You called me a jade.”
“And you called me a coxcomb. I didn’t even believe you knew what that was.”
“I was right to do it. And you were right. I didn’t.”
“You changed his life, you know.”
“’E changed mine.”
“But to alter the path of a king, my dear. No other woman ever has endured what you have from Charlie, nor remained so entirely by his side.”
“No other woman ever loved ’im as I do, nor ever will.”
“I suspect you’re right about that.” He suddenly sighed. “I’ve nowhere to go, even if I do get out of here. Alas, Anna Maria has thrown me out of my own house.”
“Snakebites, they say, are lethal,” Nell smiled.
“I suppose I deserve what I get after the fate I sealed for my own poor wife.”
“You really were full of the devil back then.”
“Certainly full of my own sense of power and glory. Such a fleeting thing; I had no idea there could ever be anyone more powerful or clever with the king than I.”
Nell reached over to cover his hand with her own. “You know you can stay with me for as long as you like. So long as you buy yourself a new periwig and some shoes so you don’t stink up the place as you’re doing now.”
