“ ‘I’ll lay my head,’ ” she began, “ ‘ne’er a girl in Christendom of my age can say what I can. I’m now but five years i’ the teens, and I have fooled five several men. My humor is to love no man, but to have as many love me as they please, come cut or long tail!’ ”
After her first scene, Nell saw Dicky One-Shank and several of the scenekeepers gathered in the wings.
“’Fore the devil, I doubt I’ve ever laughed so hard,” Dicky said, giving her a slap on the back. “Keep it up, Nell, and I’ll go to my grave with a smile on my face.”
“He’s right,” Richard Baxter agreed, grinning. “This one’ll play for a while, and no mistaking.”
“That’s our girl!” Matt Kempton laughed. “Our own Nell!”
The laughter built with each successive scene. Nell and Hart were on fire, and Nell knew it.
At the end of the play, Nell came offstage elated, the applause still echoing in the house. Hart kissed her as soon as they were in the wings, his eyes shining with love and pride. Lacy stood there, beaming, but seeming on the verge of tears. He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head.
“What a show you gave today!” he cried. “Wat would be right proud of you. There is not one thing I’d tell you to do different, sweetheart. You’ve taken all we’ve taught you to heart and put it to work with the gifts God gave you and what no one could teach you.”
Rose rushed toward them, nearly dropping her basket in her haste to crush Nell in a hug. “Oh, Nell, I’m that proud of you!” she cried. “You were born for the stage, wasn’t she, Mr. Lacy?”
“Indeed,” Lacy agreed. “Our girl’s done right by us, hasn’t she, Charlie?”
“She has,” Hart said. “I knew all the world would be in love with her, and so they are.” His smile was affectionate and proud, but there was a shadow of sadness behind his eyes. Nell put her hand in his, and he raised it to his lips and kissed it. “Our own Nell, with the world at her feet.”
The next day, Dorset, Sir Charles Sedley, and Harry Killigrew ambled into the tiring room before the performance.
“Need any help dressing?” Harry leered.
“Shoo,” Nell laughed, flicking a powder puff at him. “How can I be expected to concentrate with the likes of you running about underfoot?”
“I could concentrate your mind wonderfully,” Dorset drawled, leaning against the dressing table, where he had a view down Nell’s bosom.
“I could do it better,” Sedley argued, coming to her other side.
“Mayhap we should all have a go, and see who succeeds best,” Harry said, moving close behind her and sliding his hands over her shoulders.
Nell looked from one to the other. “I think the three of you are mighty full of talk,” she laughed up at them.
“Nelly—” Hart’s voice broke off as he took in the scene, Harry’s hands on Nell’s bosom, Dorset and Sedley lounging on either side of her. Nell slapped Harry’s hands away and jumped to her feet. Harry chuckled and Nell rounded on him.
“Get out, the three of you,” she snapped. “Could you not have heeded me before?”
The three men exchanged glances and made for the door where Hart stood, thunder in his face.
“Hart,” said Harry, smirking as he passed. “Always a pleasure.”
“IT’S COMING, NELL,” SAID HART, LATER THAT NIGHT. “YOU WON’T admit it even to yourself yet, but one day not long from now you’ll find you’ve come to hate me because of what I cannot be and what I cannot give you, when you’re offered such temptation as daily parades itself before you.”
“My Hart, my heart, I could never hate you,” Nell whispered. “Harry’s a fool.”
“It’s not just Harry,” Hart said. “It’s all of them. With their money and power and youth. I’ve loved you so, Nell. It would be more than I could bear to see contempt for me in those bright eyes of yours.”
“But I love you!” Nell cried.
“Do you? Then do this for me. Take your freedom. Move to your own rooms. And if at the end of three months you still want me, I’ll be here.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAY DAY. NELL HAD HEARD THE FIDDLE FROM HER ROOM upstairs at the Cock and Pie and run down half dressed, in her skirt and smock, to see the milkmaids dancing. Their pails were decked with little nosegays of flowers and their sleeves were adorned with ribbon garters.
“Mistress Nelly!” Sam Pepys was waving his hat as he made his way grinning across the road toward her. “A splendid day, is it not?”
“It is indeed,” Nell answered, smiling at his good humor.
“I’m seeing the play this afternoon, but I believe you are not in it, alas?”
“No,” Nell said. “A rare day off for me.”
“Indeed.” Pepys seemed not to want to leave. “A well-earned rest, I make no doubt. Though my pleasure in any play is always less when it lacks your talents. I hope you have no thought of quitting the stage?” He’d heard, Nell thought. Damnation. Did all London know that she and Hart had split?
“You’re too kind, Mr. Pepys. But no, I assure you, you’ll find me back on the boards tomorrow.”
She watched Pepys hurry off down Drury Lane, and sadness gripped her. It would be a wonderful day for a walk out to Islington or by the river, and many such a day she had enjoyed with Hart, needing only his company to make her happy. His lodging was within sight, just across Catherine Street. But she feared he would not welcome her knock at his door. Another lonely day to face.
IT WAS IRONIC, NELL THOUGHT, SWABBING THE MAKEUP OFF HER face after another uproarious performance, that at the very time that she and Hart were no longer lovers in real life, they were a resounding success as a couple onstage. London could not get enough of them. The playhouse was doing so well with Secret Love that Killigrew had revived Dryden’s earlier comedy The Wild Gallants and an addition had been written into The Knight of the Burning Pestle parodying Secret Love, and Nell was also to give a specially written new prologue. The Duke’s house, in an effort to ride on the coattails of Nell and Hart’s success, had hastily put up a play in which Moll Davis dressed as a boy and danced, but it faltered in the face of the new sensation produced by Nell and Hart in All Mistaken.
Nell smiled to remember how she had burned with jealousy when Dicky One-Shank had told her about Moll’s first appearance on the stage. Five years ago that had been. A lifetime, it seemed.
A movement at the door caught her eye. The Earl of Rochester stood there. He moved forward until he stood directly behind her, his tigerlike eyes holding hers in their reflection. She found that she could hardly breathe. Without having spoken a word, he grasped her around the waist with both hands and pulled her close against him. He pulled aside the curls at the back of her head, and softly bit the nape of her neck. Nell gasped and found herself arching against him.
Finally, he spoke.
“Come.”
Nell only nodded. He took her by the elbow and led her out the stage door, then handed her into the carriage that waited there. As the carriage started forward, he regarded her with a languid smile.
“Are you hungry?”
The question was so incongruous that Nell laughed.
“I am, but damned if this is not the most abrupt invitation I’ve ever had, my lord.”
“Call me Johnny.”
The carriage was moving through Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and in a few moments it drew up before an imposing house next to the Duke’s Playhouse in Portugal Street. The door was opened by a liveried servant, and as Rochester led Nell upstairs, he called over his shoulder, “Bring up supper and leave it in the outer room.”
Upstairs, he pulled Nell into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him.
“Undress yourself,” he commanded, and watched while she obeyed. His eyes on her lit fires deep within her belly. He threw off his coat and waistcoat as she knelt and opened the flies of his breeches. She took him into her mouth hungrily, devouring him. His gasps told her that he was as inflamed a
s she, but after a few moments he withdrew, positioned her on hands and knees on the bed, and took her from behind, pulling her to him as he thrust deep inside her. He spent quickly, then let go and lay beside her, panting.
“Supper,” he said. “And then we’ll do it again properly.”
“MAYBE IT’S GOOD,” ROSE SAID. “THINK OF IT—YOU’V E BEEN WITH men for money, and then only with Robbie and Hart. You’re under obligation to no one. He has a wife, but that’s his lookout. As long as you keep your eyes open and your wits about you, what’s the harm? Does he please you?”
“Yes,” Nell said with a shiver. “I can scarce keep from laying my hands on his tackle the moment I see him.”
“I feel the same about my Johnny,” said Rose. “He’s a rogue, but I can’t help myself.” Ever since the night of the fire, she had been keeping company with John Cassells, the handsome stranger who had stumbled into the playhouse, and had lately moved into his lodgings.
NELL LAY WITH ROCHESTER BESIDE HER IN THE TANGLED BED LINEN. She was utterly spent, yet felt more alive than she had ever been. Her nether regions were still humming from Rochester’s attentions. She had not known it was possible to experience a sensation quite like that his tongue had produced in her. “Tipping the velvet,” he had called it. Certainly she had never imagined anything like that inexorable build to the shattering release that had had her gasping, bucking, pulling his head to her, never wanting it to end.
Rochester brought her back to the present with a squeeze of her right breast.
“Fetch the wine.”
Nell turned her head. The wine lay on the table several feet away.
“Why me fetch it?”
“Because I told you to.”
She padded naked across to the table, returned with the bottle, and filled the glasses they had abandoned. Propped against the enormous down-filled pillows, she surveyed the bed and its trappings.
“I love this bed. It’s so . . .”
“This bed is your stage,” Rochester said. “From such a stage you could do anything.”
Nell set the glass down and moved on her knees closer to him. He kissed her deeply, his tongue probing her mouth. He seized first one breast and then both of them, his fingers playing on her nipples, teasing and then pinching until she gasped.
He looked intently into her eyes, and pinched harder.
“Give me drink.” She held the glass to his lips and then to her own.
“You’ve spilled.” He used a finger to wipe a drop from her breast, touched it to her lips, and then thrust it into her mouth.
“Suck. Now use your tongue, too.” He watched her. “Good. Now stop.”
He withdrew his finger slowly from her mouth and pulled her head back so that she had to look at him, then released her and gestured for his wine. Nell felt a curious excitement and anticipation.
“You look pleased with yourself,” he said.
“Should I not?” she replied. “You liked it. See, I’ve made you hard again.” She reached for his cock, but he stayed her hand.
“Yes. But I can make you better. So good that you can leave the feel of your tongue and throat on a man’s tarse for days.”
Nell smiled at him, catlike. “Very well, my lord. What would you?”
She knelt between his thighs, her hand still moving lightly, her eyes looking up at him.
Rochester shook his head, impatient. “Do you not understand? What power there is in that mouth, these sumptuous tits, that tight cunny of yours?”
“Power to do what?”
“Almost anything. Now you can give a man a quick ride that leaves him happy or a night of play that tires him. But there is more to learn. You can give a man such pleasure, not just in his body but in his mind, his soul, that you become a drug. So that he will crave you. So that his bollocks will ache and give him no peace until his prick is once more master of that smooth warmth. And I can train you, pretty pet. Do you want that?”
Nell found that her heart was beating and her loins were on fire. She looked up at Rochester and found that she could hardly breathe.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good. On your knees. No, off the bed. For this is your god, and you must worship it.”
He moved to the edge of the bed and stood, and she knelt at his feet. She took his cock in her hands and kissed it, then took him into her mouth slowly.
“Look at me.” Nell didn’t lift her eyes but took him further into her mouth. Rochester grasped a handful of her hair and yanked her head back.
“Look at me. So that I know that my pleasure is all your world.” Nell, breathless now, nodded, and kept her eyes on his.
“Now a little harder. Good. Use your tongue. Delicately. Ah, yes, so good. The desperate softness of your tongue, and the insistent sucking of your mouth. Now a hand on the cods. Gently, gently. They are spun of pure silk, of cloud.”
For all the times that Nell had performed this act, she felt as if she had never before truly noticed the feel of a prick in her mouth, of bollocks in her hand. Her tongue slid voluptuously around him, feeling the velvet softness.
“Now,” said Rochester, his breath faster, “the other hand on the shaft. First lightly, then a firmer grip. Up and down. Meeting your mouth on its downward journey. Good. A little harder now. Now think of your tongue again. Look at me. Yes, and use your hand to keep the foreskin pulled back. Don’t forget the bollocks.”
His head was thrown back, his breathing heavy. Nell marveled how she could be giving him pleasure in so many ways at once and sought to feel each individual sensation at the same time. He looked down at her again and slowed his movements.
“Now put a finger in my arse. Look at me. Let me see the promise of what is to come. Yes, gently, slowly. Now, take all of it in, show me you’re hungry for it. Your mouth moving, sucking hard, tongue caressing, hand on the cods. Yes. Good. Remember—I am your god. Take me as far down your throat as you can.”
He guided her with a hand grasped in her hair, the other hand rolling and squeezing one of her nipples, which were hard as pebbles.
“Do you love my cock?”
Nell found that she did.
“Do you worship it, my arbor vitae, my tree of life?”
Yes, that, too.
“And do you now wish for holy communion?”
Here it was, the culminating inevitability, and Nell did wish for it.
“Then you shall have it.” Rochester came deep in her throat, holding her head fast with one hand, the other hand pinching her nipple hard.
“Swallow. Waste not a precious drop. Now look at me. Let me see it in your eyes. It’s the nectar of life. Sweeter than honey, more potent than brandywine. And what you crave above all else. Yes. Now, a kiss to finish. Obeisance to your lord.”
Nell did as he told her, her lips and nose grazing the damp and delicate flesh.
“Eyes on mine.” She looked up at him, mouth still nuzzling. He stroked her hair, smoothing the tangled curls from her flushed forehead, and nodded.
“Do that, and there is nothing that you cannot do.”
Nell felt overwhelmed by physical sensations—a tingling mixture of pleasure and pain, the feel of him in her mouth, and the caustic warmth of his spend still at the back of her throat—and a tumult of feelings—joyful submission, exultation, astonishment at the newness of it all. She stared up at Rochester and shook her head in amazement.
“How ever did you learn all this?”
Rochester gave a lazy smile as he sat on the edge of the bed and leaned back against the pillows. “That’s what Europe is for.”
NELL WAS BOTH ELATED AND EXHAUSTED. SHE WAS PLAYING MOST days, in All Mistaken, Secret Love, The Surprisal, The Committee, The Knight of the Burning Pestle. And most nights were fevered bouts in Rochester’s bed.
Whether anyone knew of the affair or no, Rochester’s rough and implacable wooing seemed to have sounded an inaudible chime, an alarum of desire that drew men to her as never before.
Dorset h
ad been several times to see All Mistaken, and each time he visited her backstage. Today, his eyes were hot as he gazed down at her, and she felt a tremor of excitement as he took her hand. Rochester had awakened in her an intense and bestial desire that would now not be quieted.
But she forcefully thrust these sensations away. Rochester’s words had opened her eyes. Dorset, and all like him, could be her making or her ruin. All depended on how she played her hand. So she coolly accepted Dorset’s compliments. She was cordial, but no more. She gave him no special mark of favor among the other sparks who pressed around her, though inwardly she was comparing him and found that he far exceeded anyone she had ever met, except Rochester, in every quality that shouted his wealth, power, advantages, and the nobility of his birth and upbringing. All the features, she realized, that made every instinct in her incline to be intimidated by him, to want to please him, to fear the loss of his favor.
But she resisted these impulses and refused his invitation to dine. She was still standing by herself, shaking with the effort of the part she had just played, and resolutely pushing thoughts of Charles Hart from her mind, when Betsy Knepp popped her head in at the tiring room door.
“What’s amiss?” Betsy asked. “You look as though you’ve seen the ghost of Hamlet’s father.”
“No. Only the Earl of Dorset.”
“Oh, aye?” Betsy raised her eyebrows. “And?”
“And nothing.” Nell shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. “I think he’s—interested.”
“Good on you,” Betsy breathed.
“I must consider what to do. I’ve sent him away.”
“You sent him away?” Betsy giggled incredulously.
“Yes.”
“Well played, Nell. Excellently well played.”
NELL WAS PREOCCUPIED WITH THE WORLD OF THE THEATER AND TOOK little notice of talk about troubles abroad. There was always some difficulty, it seemed, with France or Holland or someone else, and it had little to do with the here and now. But on the twelfth day of June, she arrived at the playhouse to find the greenroom packed with a chattering and nervous crowd, as it had been during the days of the fire.
The Darling Strumpet: A Novel of Nell Gwynn, Who Captured the Heart of England and King Charles II Page 17
