B009RYSCAU EBOK

by Gillian Bagwell

  “Very good. Now you are entering into the proper spirit of the thing,” Frances said, writing. “Item: he is a Knight of the Garter.”

  “And Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire, Chief Justice in Eyre, and Chamberlain of the Receipt of the Exchequer.”

  “Yes, and sundry other offices, too, I believe.” Frances looked up from her list. “Now, as to his person. He is tall and well made, with a handsome set of whiskers that has just the merest hint of silver. He has hair.”

  Bess laughed in delight. “So he does. And he is just my age—in fact a year or so younger, I believe.”

  “And he has children, Bess. Are you not most determined on making the finest matches for your children that may be? Is this not an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone?”

  Bess caught her breath, for this consideration perhaps more than any other exerted a powerful tug on her mind and heart.

  “Perhaps. Some of his children are already married. His oldest boy, Francis, is wedded to Anne Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke’s girl. And his daughter Catherine is the wife of Pembroke’s heir, Henry Herbert.”

  “Excellent, so we know he has a mind to good matches, as you have.”

  “His son Gilbert is fifteen, I believe, and Edward a little younger,” Bess mused.

  “Gilbert is just the age for Bessie then, and perhaps Edward would do for May.”

  Bess swallowed. Could it really work? Now that the idea was in her mind, she wanted it very much.

  “And he has two girls,” she said. “Mary and Grace, I believe.”

  “Excellent. How old is your Harry now?”

  “Sixteen. He’ll be finished at Cambridge very soon.”

  “He’s a fine boy, Bess, and he’ll eventually inherit Chatsworth and your other properties. Any father would think him a good match for his daughter.”

  “Do you really think it’s a good idea?” Bess asked. “All of it, I mean?”

  “I do. I feel it in my bones. So when the earl puts his proposal to you—yes, he will, don’t argue with me—do yourself the kindness of accepting him.”

  Fourth of October, 1567—London

  Bess draped the ropes of pearls around her neck, careful not to disarrange her hair, and then turned to her mirror. She had feared this day, when she had allowed herself to think of it, for today she was forty years old. But the reflection that gazed back at her was not displeasing to her. She was sound and healthy in body, thank God, and stood straight and slender. Her skin was still smooth and white, little marred by wrinkles, and glowed alabaster against the black velvet of her gown. Her hair, its curls restrained beneath the gold and pearl of her cap, retained its copper vibrancy.

  Yes, she had weathered her life well thus far, she thought, and today she had reason to expect that her future would be even brighter. For George Talbot, the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, was coming to supper, and she believed he was going to ask her to marry him.

  “He’s here, Bess.” Bess turned to see Jenny, smiling in the door of her bedchamber.

  “How do I look?” Bess asked, suddenly anxious for the opinion of a pair of eyes other than her own.

  “You have never looked more beautiful.” Jenny came to Bess’s side. “Truly.”

  “Thank you, dear heart. Then I had better not keep his lordship waiting.”

  EPILOGUE

  Twenty-fifth of March, 1603—Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire

  BESS RAISED HER EYES FROM THE LITTLE RED SHOE IN HER HAND to find Crossman gazing at her.

  “Well, it’s late,” she said. “If I’m to make you work, I suppose I’d best get on with it.”

  She pulled each of the items from the box before her and ranged them on the table. The delicate handkerchief that Robbie Barlow had given her on the morning of her first wedding day. A little cap, worn so few times before poor baby Temperance had let go of her little life with a gentle sigh, and the tiny gown in which Lucres had been christened. A little book, a spelling primer, that had belonged to her son Harry, when she had still had such hopes for him. A heavy gold ring, far too large for her fingers, that had adorned the hand of William Cavendish. A rose, pressed and flat but still redolent of summer, that Will St. Loe had given her during that summer progress when they had been so happy together. A lock of red-gold hair, tied with a bit of blue ribbon—Jane Grey’s hair, enclosed in that last letter. The gloves she had worn at her fourth wedding, to George Talbot, the soft ivory kid still giving off a faint scent of perfume.

  Astonishing that these few little items held such a weight of memory and meaning. She took up each again, memorizing their contours, their colors, the feel of each in her hands, for she would never see them again.

  A log on the fire gave a sharp crack and shifted, sending a shower of sparks upward. Bess glanced at the westward-facing windows, black now in the wintry darkness. And yet—surely not blank, for something caught her eye, a flash of color, of movement. It seemed to Bess that it was her mother she had glimpsed there. And there, in another window, another fleeting image—William, and beside him Will. There was a ripple of light in the diamond panes of the next window over, and Bess saw the face of Jane Grey. The firelight must be playing tricks on her eyes. She glanced sharply to the windows on the northern wall and drew in her breath, for from the expanse of glass a crowd of faces gazed out at her—Robbie Barlow, George Talbot, Lizzie Brooke, Frances Grey, the angelic countenances of Temperance and Lucres, Cat Howard, Doll Fitzherbert. And Elizabeth, eyes like jet sparkling in the crystal panes.

  Bess turned back to Crossman. He must think she was mad. But his eyes were warm and grave and there was a half smile on his face as he gave a minute nod.

  “Have you changed your mind, my lady? I can return in the morning.”

  Crossman shifted his cap in his hands and Bess was tempted to send him away.

  “No, let us not wait,” she said. She let her fingers caress Temperance’s tiny cap. “Let us do it now, for otherwise I might change my mind. We brought nothing into this world, neither may we carry anything out of this world, we are told, and I have carried these things long enough. Let the walls of Hardwick hold them now, for it will still be here when I am no more. And that is really what we crave, is it not, Rob? To know that we are not truly gone.”

  Crossman nodded gravely, as if weighing her words.

  “It is. But you of all folks should have no fear, your ladyship. It would take a bigger world than this to forget such a lady as you.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are many to people to thank for their help in making this book come into the world:

  My agents, Kevan Lyon, Arabella Stein, and Taryn Fagerness.

  My editor, Kate Seaver.

  Pat Bracewell and Melanie Spiller, my wonderful writing group mates, who provided thoughtful and supportive criticism week after week, and encouragement when I thought it couldn’t be done. Pat deserves special thanks for a reading and critique of new scenes added at the last minute.

  Diana Gabaldon, Bernard Cornwell, Margaret George, Leslie Carroll, and Patricia Bracewell took time to read the not-quite-final draft of the book on tight deadline and provided me with lovely quotes for the cover.

  Helen Hollick, Elizabeth Chadwick, Linda Collinson, Susan Keogh, Jenny Quinlan, Richard Spillman, and Joan Szechtman responded to my query on the Facebook page of the Historical Novel Society about the use of curry combs. With her permission, I have used a couple of sentences that Helen Hollick wrote describing how Bess might have felt herself grow calmer as she groomed her colt.

  My father, Dick Bagwell, came up with a great selection of songs for me to choose from to give Bess something to sing to Moth as she groomed him, and provided information about music at court.

  Noel Gieleghem and Elspeth Golden provided advice about clothes and fashions of the period.

  Alice Northgreaves provided useful information about the Letters of Bess of Hardwick project under Dr. Alison Wiggins, which is digitizing Bess’s letters—th
ough, alas, not in time for me to have made use of them. Alice also put me in touch with Polly Schomberg of the National Trust, who arranged for me to visit Hardwick Hall out of season, although I wasn’t ultimately able to make that visit.

  J. D. Davies kindly took many pictures of Hardwick Hall and Old Hardwick Hall for me, as I was unable to go, and gave me words I could quote to convince my editor that I couldn’t write a novel about Bess of Hardwick and not have Hardwick Hall make an appearance.

  There are others, I know, whose indulgence I crave in advance for their omission.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This novel covers only the first half of the very long and very eventful life of Bess of Hardwick. All of the major characters and most of the minor ones are real people. The further Bess rose in prominence and power, the more documentation there was of her life, but much less is known about her early years. David N. Durant’s biography, Bess of Hardwick, begins with her second marriage, when she was nineteen. Maud Stepney Rawson’s Bess of Hardwick and Her Circle dispenses with her first two marriages and the first thirty years of her life in ten pages. Another twelve pages takes Bess to the age of thirty-seven and the death of her third husband. Even Mary Lovell’s Bess of Hardwick: Empire Builder, the most recent biography, takes only two hundred pages of almost five hundred to bring Bess to the age of forty in the autumn of 1567, where my book ends.

  So I have used what facts are known about her younger years, but of necessity have had to make some suppositions and also to invent, based on what seems possible or likely. I have chosen to put Bess in places and situations in which she could have been when it made the story better. For instance, she was in the household of Lady Zouche from about 1539, and since Lady Zouche’s husband became one of Henry VIII’s gentlemen pensioners around that time, Bess could easily have been at court to observe the king’s last three marriages, and so I have put her there, though I don’t know if she was.

  I’ve taken some small liberties with other real people. Bess certainly knew Elisabeth Brooke, who was eventually the wife of William Parr and the Marchioness of Northampton, but I don’t know when they met. Elizabeth Brooke was just Bess’s age and was first noted at court at the age of fourteen when she became a maid of honor to Catherine Howard. I have placed her in the household of Lady Zouche with Bess a couple of years earlier, rather than writing a fictional character who drops out of sight. Her presence also creates a plausible bridge to Bess’s acquaintance with Catherine Howard and with Catherine Parr, who Elisabeth Brooke also served. Similarly, one of Bess’s friends in London was Dorothy Fitzherbert, later Lady Port, who also grew up in Derbyshire, so it didn’t seem too much of a stretch to also place her in Lady Zouche’s service.

  I didn’t need to invent Bess’s close connection to the Greys. Bess did serve in the household of Henry Grey and Frances Brandon, and her second wedding, to their friend Sir William Cavendish, took place at their home, Bradgate Park. Bess was very close to Jane Grey, and kept Jane’s portrait near her all her life. The scenes in which Katherine Grey discloses to Bess her secret marriage and her pregnancy really did take place, as well as all that happened as a result, including Bess’s questioning in the Tower. And when Mary, the youngest of the Grey girls, died, she was buried at St. Botolph without Aldersgate, next to Bess’s second husband Sir William Cavendish.

  I’ve used bits of real letters and quotations from people, woven into fictional letters and dialogue.

  Read on for a special preview of Gillian Bagwell’s novel

  THE DARLING STRUMPET

  A novel of Nell Gwynn, who captured the heart of England and King Charless II

  CHAPTER ONE

  London—Twenty-ninth of May, 1660

  THE SUN SHONE HOT AND BRIGHT IN THE GLORIOUS MAY SKY, and the streets of London were rivers of joyous activity. Merchants and laborers, gentlemen and ladies, apprentices and servants, whores, thieves, and grimy urchins—all were out in their thousands. And all with the same thought shining in their minds and hearts and the same words on their tongues—the king comes back this day.

  After ten years—nay, it was more—of England without a king. Ten years of the bleak and gray existence that life had been under the Protector—an odd title for one who had thrown the country into strife, had arrested and then beheaded King Charles. What a groan had gone up from the crowd that day at the final, fatal sound of the executioner’s axe; what horror and black despair had filled their hearts as the bleeding head of the king was held aloft in triumph. And all upon the order of the Protector, who had savaged life as it had been, and then, after all, had thought to take the throne for himself.

  But now he was gone. Oliver Cromwell was dead, his son had fled after a halfhearted attempt at governing, his partisans were scattered, and the king’s son, Charles II, who had barely escaped with his life to years of impoverished exile, was approaching London to claim his crown, on this, his thirtieth birthday. And after so long a wait, such suffering and loss, what wrongs could there be that the return of the king could not put right?

  * * *

  NELL GWYNN AWOKE, THE WARMTH OF THE SUN ON HER BACK IN contrast to the dank coolness of the straw on which she lay under the shelter of a rickety staircase. She rolled over, and the movement hurt. Her body ached from the beating her mother had given her the night before. Legs and backside remembered the blows of the broomstick, and her face was bruised and tender from the slaps. Tears had mingled on her cheeks with dust. She tried to wipe the dirt away, but her hands were just as bad, grimy and still smelling of oysters.

  Oysters. That was the cause of all this pain. Yesterday evening, she’d stopped on her way home to watch as garlands of flowers were strung on one of the triumphal arches that had been erected in anticipation of the king’s arrival. Caught up in the excitement, she had forgotten to be vigilant, and her oyster barrow had been stolen. She’d crept home unwillingly, hoped that the night would be one of the many when her mother had been drinking so heavily that she was already unconscious, or one of the few when the drink made her buoyant and forgiving. But no. Not even the festive mood taking hold of London had leavened her reaction to the loss of the barrow. Replacing it would cost five shillings, as much as Nell earned in a week. And her mother had seemed determined to beat into Nell’s hide the understanding of that cost.

  Nell had no tears today. She was only angry, and determined that she would not be beaten again. She sat up and brushed the straw out of her skirt, clawed it out of the curls of her hair. And thought about what to do next. She wanted to find Rose, her dear older sister, with whom she’d planned so long for this day. And she was hungry. With no money and no prospect of getting any.

  At home there would be food, but home would mean facing her mother again. Another beating, or at least more shouting and recriminations, and then more of what she had done for the past two years—up at dawn, the long walk to Billingsgate fish market to buy her daily stock, and an endless day pushing the barrow, heavy with the buckets of live oysters in their brine. Aching feet, aching arms, aching back, throat hoarse with her continual cry of “Oysters, alive-o!” Hands raw and red from plunging into the salt water, and the fishy, salty smell always on her hands, pervading her hair and clothes.

  It was better than the work she had done before that, almost since she was old enough to walk—going from door to door to collect the cinders and fragments of wood left from the previous day’s fires, and then taking her pickings to the soap makers, who bought the charred bits for fuel and the ashes to make lye. Her skin and clothes had been always gray and gritty, a film of stinking ash ground into her pores. And not even a barrow to wheel, but heavy canvas sacks carried slung over her shoulders, their weight biting into her flesh.

  Nell considered. What else could she do? What would buy freedom from her mother and keep food in her belly and a roof over her head? She could try to get work in some house, but that, too, would mean endless hours of hard and dirty work as a kitchen drudge or scouring floors and chamber po
ts, under the thumb of cook or steward as well as at the mercy of the uncertain temper of the master and mistress. No.

  And that left only the choice that Rose had made, and their mother, too. Whoredom. Rose, who was four years older than Nell, had gone a year earlier to Madam Ross’s nearby establishment at the top of Drury Lane. It was not so bad, Rose said. A little room of her own, except of course when she’d a man there. And they were none of the tag, rag, and bobtail—it was gentlemen who were Madam Ross’s trade, and Rose earned enough to get an occasional treat for Nell, and good clothes for herself.

  What awe and craving Nell had felt upon seeing the first clothes Rose had bought—a pair of silk stays, a chemise of fine lawn, and a skirt and body in a vivid blue, almost the color of Rose’s eyes, with ribbons to match. Secondhand, to be sure, but still beautiful. Nell had touched the stuff of the gown with a tentative finger—so smooth and clean. Best of all were the shoes—soft blue leather with an elegant high heel. She had wanted them so desperately. But you couldn’t wear shoes like that carting ashes or oysters through the mud of London’s streets.

  Could she go to Madam Ross’s? She was no longer a child, really. She had small buds of breasts, and already the lads at the Golden Fleece, where her mother kept bar, watched her with appreciation, and asked with coarse jests when she would join Mrs. Gwynn’s gaggle of girls, who kept rooms upstairs or could be sent for from the nearby streets.

  But before she could do anything about the future, she had to find Rose. Today, along with everyone else in London, they would watch and rejoice as the king returned to take his throne.