The Darling Strumpet

by Gillian Bagwell

  She heard the rumble of carriage wheels in the street below and checked her reflection in the mirror. She had taken special care over her hair and the application of color on her cheeks and lips. The candlelight gave her skin a warm glow, and she was satisfied that she looked her best.

  Charles smiled down at her as he embraced her. “You’re looking very handsome tonight, Mrs. Nelly.” He pulled a small flat package from inside his coat.

  “A little something in honor of your birthday. But you may not open it until after supper. And before anything else, I wish to see this son of mine.”

  Little Charlie wore a fresh white gown and had fortunately managed not to soil it while waiting to make his appearance. Charles took him from Bridget’s arms, and the baby reached up a small fat hand and tried to grasp Charles’s mustache.

  “Pluck thy father by the beard, wilt thou?” he laughed. He hefted the child in his arms. “He’s growing fast.”

  AS THEY LINGERED OVER WINE, CHARLES WAS IN A GOOD HUMOR. Nell felt that the time had come to make her request, but she was afraid to ask of him so bluntly what she wanted. She found her opening when he picked up the packet he had brought and placed it before her. She hesitated, and then looked him in the face.

  “I am most grateful,” she began.

  “You haven’t seen what it is yet,” Charles laughed.

  “You’re always generous and thoughtful in your gifts, Your Majesty.”

  He glanced at her, surprised at her unaccustomed formality.

  “You give me beautiful things, and you provide for me this house to live in, and all that it contains.”

  “But?” Charles prompted.

  “But I never know when your presents will come. I cannot live on silks and jewels, without I pawn them. Your son must be fed and clothed, and I am in constant doubt and anxiety about money.”

  Charles was idly turning his wineglass back and forth, watching the play of the firelight upon it. He looked stern, but he frequently looked so when he was merely thoughtful. Go like the bear to the stake or hang an arse, Nell thought.

  “This house is cold and drafty. I’m always in fear that your son will take cold. I do not mean to complain. I am most grateful for your protection and kindness. But I cannot go on as I am.”

  A sharp gust of wind rattled the shutters and a cold breath of winter made the fire and candles gutter. Nell lifted her head to look at Charles, and his eyes met hers.

  “I am your whore, Your Majesty. And whores must be paid.”

  Charles looked at her in astonishment for a second, and then broke into hearty laughter.

  “’Od’s fish! And so you shall be paid, sweetheart. You’re right. My son must be well cared for, and you must live in comfort. You don’t ask for much, God knows. You shall have a regular allowance. Four thousand pounds a year, let us say. And a better house.”

  Nell hardly dared ask, but, flush with her success so far, ventured on.

  “Oh, Charles, I know the perfect house. Just down Pall Mall, with a great garden at the back, that abuts the park.”

  Charles laughed again and came around the table to take Nell into his arms.

  “Very well,” he said. “It shall be so. And now, won’t you open your birthday present?”

  Nell did, and it took her breath away-a heavy rope of shimmering pearls. She was even more stunned when Buckingham told her the next day that Charles had paid four thousand pounds for them, and she knew she would never have had the courage to ask for a house if she had known what an extravagant treasure lay in the little packet.

  THE HOUSE WAS A WONDER. ALL THE MORNING NELL HAD KEPT WALKING from one room to another, scarcely able to believe that it was hers for life, as Charles had said. It sat smugly on the west end of Pall Mall, its brick façade rising tall and proud three stories above the street. And seventeen fireplaces! She would no longer have to worry about little Charlie catching cold or bundle herself against the winter drafts.

  She went again to the window of her bedroom and marveled at the view-St. James’s Park, the palace, the river. The garden was filled with fruit trees, barren now, but before long they would be laden with blossoms, sweetening the house with their scent.

  “WHY,” CHARLES RAGED, “MUST MY BROTHER BE THE GREATEST blockhead in England?” Nell, weary of the tirade, which had broken out at intervals throughout the week, varied only by the pitch of the king’s irritation, could only shake her head.

  The Duke of York’s wife, Anne, the daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, had died suddenly. Though outwardly the court was hushed in seemly mourning, behind closed doors there was urgent whispered speculation about who the duke would marry.

  “It’s the perfect chance to counter the people’s fear of his being a Papist,” Charles continued. “Every Protestant lady in England is making sheep’s eyes at him, and he has no thought beyond that squinting, pale-faced trollop Catherine Sedley!”

  Nell winced at the cruelty of the comment. The duke’s mistress, Charles Sedley’s sixteen-year-old daughter, was not a beauty, but Nell could not help remembering her as the shy little girl who had visited the house in Epsom one afternoon during her riotous summer there with the two Charlies.

  “I swear by my soul,” Charles ranted, “his mistresses are so plain, I vow his confessors must give them to him as penance.”

  “He could not marry Catherine Sedley, I suppose?” Nell asked.

  “No!” Charles shouted. “He must marry well. A lady of unquestionable virtue and most certainly not a Roman Catholic. Someone who could be queen if-” He faltered to a stop, his face red, and Nell saw the despair and sadness behind the anger. “Someone who could be queen if he is king. For it may come to that in the end.”

  SHORTLY AFTER THE DEATH OF THE DUCHESS OF YORK, BUCKINGHAM’S mistress Anna Maria gave birth to his child, and the king stood as godfather as the baby was christened in Westminster Abbey. Despite the child’s bastardy, Buckingham bestowed on him one of his own hereditary titles, Earl of Coventry. Nell wondered if Monmouth believed a precedent had been set.

  At the reception following the christening, Nell thought she had never seen Buckingham so happy, and Anna Maria glowed as she hovered over the tiny earl in his gilded cradle. Nell congratulated them sincerely, and resolved that if Anna Maria could accept that Buckingham had a wife, and yet live contentedly with him, she would make her mind up to be as happy with Charles and to put away her fears and discontents.

  BY MAY NELL’S GARDEN WAS ADRIFT IN CLOUDS OF WHITE AND PINK blossoms, and from her bedroom windows she could see signs of spring-nesting sparrows, flowers sprouting in the green grass of the park, the bright flash of butterflies’ wings. She felt a quickening of life within her, too, and knew that she was with child again.

  Charles was jubilant at the news. Nell felt a twinge of sadness that as much as he adored his children, it was becoming apparent that the next king would be no son of his. It had been a year and a half since the queen had miscarried for the fourth time. She was now thirty-two, and there had been no word or even rumor of another pregnancy. Nell’s new baby would be Charles’s eleventh child, but none were legitimate, and Nell sensed his growing worry that his brother might succeed him, and what it would mean to the country.

  THE TERRACE AT THE BACK OF NELL’S GARDEN OVERLOOKED ST. JAMES’S Park, and she could see Charles approaching, in conversation with a dour figure in black. John Evelyn, Charles’s fellow enthusiast in scientific inquiry, always radiated disapproval, no matter how pleasant Nell tried to be to him. He bowed stiffly as the king stopped at the foot of the garden wall.

  “Will you come to supper tonight?” Nell asked.

  “I will,” Charles said. “Kiss Charlie for me and tell him his da will see him soon. It’s been too many days since I’ve held my bonny boy.”

  “And too many days since you’ve held his bonny mother,” Nell teased.

  “I’ll soon put that right.” Nell leaned over the wall to receive a kiss from Charles. Evelyn looked pained.


  “’Fore God, you’re positively glowing,” Charles said, stepping back to look at her. “I think I’ll have Lely paint you, so I can admire you even when you’re not with me.”

  Nell watched Charles and Evelyn walk on and realized that they were headed for Barbara Palmer’s house. But that put no fear into her now. Charles had told her, almost with relief, she thought, that Barbara was now Dryden’s mistress. Bound perhaps by their long history or their children, Charles and Barbara had settled into an amicable truce, but the fire of passion had burned out.

  NELL LOUNGED AGAINST A PILE OF PILLOWS, NAKED BUT FOR A GOSSAMER piece of white silk draped across her lap and her hair flowing over her shoulders. She had been sitting so for an hour, and could not stop herself from moving her head to release the tension. Sir Peter Lely looked up from his canvas.

  “Not much longer today. It’s coming splendidly.”

  “I should hope so. Why, Charles!”

  Lely stood and bowed as the king entered and advanced, grinning, to examine the canvas and then the original posed before him.

  “Gorgeous. Both of them.”

  Nell laughed. She didn’t know whether Charles meant both her and the portrait, or both of her breasts, grown fuller and rounder in her pregnancy, but she was happy all the same. Charles tossed his hat onto a table, helped himself to a glass of wine, and straddled a stool.

  “Where’s the little one?” he wanted to know. Charlie was to be in the painting, as a little cherub.

  “We do not need him today, Your Majesty,” said Lely. “When I have Mrs. Nelly well set, then I will paint him in. Too tiring for a baby to sit still for so long.”

  “And for me!” Nell said.

  “Here,” said Charles. “Revive your flagging spirits.” He squatted and tilted his wineglass to her lips. A drop splashed onto her nipple, and he put his mouth to her breast and sucked it clean.

  “I think I’ll hang the picture in the Banqueting House,” he said. “So it will be the first thing that foreign ambassadors see when they present themselves.”

  Nell giggled. “So you’d share me with them, then?”

  “Share, no. Let them have a peek, so they can envy what I’ve got, yes.”

  IN AUGUST, BUCKINGHAM AND ANNA MARIA’S LITTLE SON DIED SUDDENLY. Under her veil, Anna Maria’s face was a mask of devastation, and Buckingham’s pallor stood out from his clothes of solid black. The little earl was laid to rest in the Villiers family vault in the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey, as the stones echoed with Anna Maria’s sobs. Nell ached for her and longed to get home to hold little Charlie in her arms and know that he was safe. She would not survive such a loss, she thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHARLES LOVED HIS SOJOURNS TO NEWMARKET, WHICH HAD become regular excursions each spring and fall, and Nell loved to be with him there. He was so much more relaxed than in town. He lived for the races, and went early each morning to consult with his trainers and jockeys about how his beloved horses were coming on and to be sure that the great sleek animals were being fed their particular mix of soaked bread and eggs. During the day he delighted in strolling the town, chatting to whoever approached him, jesting with blacksmiths and dairymaids as easily as he did with dukes and earls.

  So pleased had Charles been by his first visit to Newmarket that he had commissioned Christopher Wren to build him a house in town. It was finally finished, and Nell and Charles had retreated there after a glorious day, summer’s warmth just beginning to hint at the fade to autumn. It was pleasant to have had a quiet supper alone, and now Nell lay in bed with her swelling belly and breasts pressed against Charles’s back. Their breathing was quiet and slow, in time with each other. Outside, rain pattered on the trees. Nell thought that there was no place in the world she would rather be.

  Through the window, the moon was just coming into view. The stars were banked with clouds, the twinkle of their fire only intermittently visible.

  Nell had thought Charles was asleep, but he stirred, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing her fingers. He sighed deeply and Nell kissed his shoulder.

  “What, my love?”

  “Nothing. Just-memories.”

  “Of what?”

  Charles was silent for a moment before answering. “It was on this day twenty years ago that we lost the battle at Worcester.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Have I not told you the story?”

  “No.”

  He rolled to face her, stroking the curls tumbled about her face. His eyes were sad and tired. She took his hand and kissed it, then pressed it to her cheek. He pulled her to him so that her head was cradled on his chest.

  “I was in Scotland. In Perth, godforsaken Perth, reduced to depending on the Scots. Cromwell and his army were to the north and began to advance on us, and the time seemed right to push into England. The people would rally to us, it was said, send Oliver’s troops scurrying like rats. So we set forth, and I was proclaimed king in Penrith and Rokeby. But as we drew farther south, it was the Scots soldiers who scurried from our ranks, and none came to take their place.”

  As though a dam had broken, the words now poured from Charles, and Nell saw written on his face long-banished memories.

  “There were spies among us who betrayed our positions and plans, and hundreds-nay, thousands-were arrested. And seeing this, those who might have come lost heart and stayed away. We pressed on, and limped into Worcester.”

  He paused, staring intently into the darkness, as if planning again his strategy.

  “Cromwell soon came with a vast army. And seasoned men, not the weakened rabble that we were. I was glad of the chance to fight instead of waiting and running, and we charged upon them with the fury of despair and rage. But they captured Fort Royal and turned our own guns upon us; our losses were heavy, and we had no choice but to retreat. Many of my men threw down their arms, aweary of the fight. I urged them on, cajoled, threatened, wept. But it was no use.”

  He covered his eyes with his hand, as if to block out the sights in his mind’s eye. Nell stroked his cheek.

  “I would that I had been there,” she said. “I would gladly have died with you a hundred times before I would have left you to fight alone.”

  “I know you would. You’ve a stouter heart than many a soldier.”

  Nell poured him wine, and he drank absently, his mind still in the past.

  “What then?” Nell prompted.

  “Dark was coming on. The city was surrounded, and Cromwell’s men were searching for me. Although I had no great wish to live, I could not let myself be taken captive, and so become the pawn of the enemy. And so I flew, and not a moment before time. As I was leaving by the back door of the house where I had been staying, the troops were at the front.”

  “And so you went to France?” Nell asked.

  “Aye, after six weeks of hiding and terror and hunger, my feet bloody with walking. But that’s a story for another time. Truly I do not know how or why I was preserved, except by the hand of providence. And I live every day with the thought of the thousands who were lost.”

  He gave a choking sound. Nell stroked the stubble of his cropped head.

  “Oh, my love. You did all you could, and no man could have done more. And your salvation has meant the salvation of so many.” She pulled him close to her breast as she did their son, murmuring consolation and love, until his sobs ceased.

  IN THE MORNING, NELL WOKE FEELING WRETCHED. HER BURGEONING belly, aching back, and swelling feet made her constantly uncomfortable, and she craved the comfort of her own house.

  “You will not mind if I go back to London a few days early, will you?” she asked Charles. “I’m not fit to be seen in public, and I had rather be at home with Rose’s company than sit here while you spend your days at the races and your nights dancing.”

  “No, lambkin,” he assured her. “You go, and I’ll be back in town by the end of the week.”

  So Nell went home, but a fortnight passed, and still
Charles remained at Newmarket.

  LAUGHTER POURED FROM THE OPEN WINDOWS OF EUSTON HALL, breaking the calm of the warm autumn evening and the steady chirp of crickets. The light from hundreds of candles spilled forth, too, making the grand house a beacon in the warm darkness of the surrounding grounds.

  The musicians struck up a dance tune, and rhythmic clapping accompanied the clatter of heels on the wooden floor of the great hall and the swish and rustle of silks as the dancing couples paraded.

  On the terrace outside, Lady Arlington and the French ambassador Colbert de Croissy watched the merrymaking through one of the tall windows. Lady Arlington smiled. The king headed the dancers, leading Louise de Keroualle down the length of the room, a crowd of revelers flanking them. Louise was flushed with wine, the heat of the dance, and, unmistakably, erotic excitement tinged with pride at her public triumph in capturing the king’s attentions so wholly. For there was no doubt about the intensity of his gaze at Louise’s dimpled smirk and heaving décolletage.

  Lady Arlington turned to Croissy, who was also watching the king and Louise with a knowing smile.

  “It will be tonight,” she purred. “At last.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “And she does not need a throne to rule. Only a bed.”

  NELL COULD NOT SEEM TO SIT STILL. SHE STARTED AS THE BELL OF A nearby church struck ten, and Rose looked at her sharply.

  “You’re not yourself tonight.”

  They had sat for some time in silence in front of the hearth. Nell’s thoughts had been racing, anxiety clawing at her mind.

  “Oh, Rose. I’m afraid. Charles is still at Newmarket, and so is that little French wagtail. I’ve left him a clear path to her bed.”