Mistress of Lies

by Holly West

  “The king loves me,” I said. “But more than that, he trusts that I won’t fail him. ’Tis a great honor he’s bestowed upon the Barbers by asking me to go. Why can’t you see that?”

  “You belong here with your family.”

  “D’ye think I’d stay here at Bingley House, cooped up in the country for the rest of my life? Or worse, playing chambermaid to you and Lucian?”

  “’Tis a better fate than being the king’s whore, I’ll warrant.”

  He’d given me a ruby ring just a few days before and now I tore it off of my finger. “You’re cruel to say such a thing, Adam Barber,” I said, throwing it at him. It struck him on the shoulder, then fell to the floor. “If that’s what you think, then I’m happy to get away from you!”

  Adam had stormed out then, leaving me to pack up the rest of my things alone. As soon as he was gone, I scrambled on the floor, trying to find the ring. For a brief moment I panicked, thinking it was lost, but I finally found it under a chair.

  The next morning, only Lucian accompanied me to the wharf. Adam hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye.

  When Elijah eased the carriage to a stop in front of the City pesthouse, I was thankful for the reprieve from these memories. We’d traveled to the outskirts of the city and fields lay all around us. It was nearing four o’clock and the sun sat low in the sky, adding to the sense of foreboding. But at first glance, the pesthouse wasn’t as terrible as I’d thought it would be. It was a rather large building by London standards, set off from the street by a crumbling stone wall. There was a cemetery beside it.

  Then I saw the plague pit and I shivered.

  The large burial pit lay in the field just beyond the cemetery. Long out of use, it was covered over with plantings, rocks and rubble. When the plague first struck, its victims were buried in the cemetery, but soon there were so many deaths—in some weeks, more than five thousand—that it became impossible to dig individual graves for all of them. I shuddered to think that Adam’s corpse might’ve been thrown into that pit, his bones all a-tangle with the other anonymous souls.

  Elijah opened the carriage door. “M’lady, surely you don’t intend on going inside? ’Tisn’t safe.”

  I appreciated his concern. “I’ll take precautions, Elijah,” I said, though I wasn’t certain precisely what they were. “This is something I should’ve done a long time ago.”

  “I’ll come with you, then.”

  I shrugged and allowed him this small bit of chivalry. He was tall and thin and stooped, a gentle sort of man who rarely raised his voice and didn’t engage in any of the more raucous pastimes that men usually favored. But he and Sam had been good friends and he no doubt felt some responsibility for my safety now that Sam was gone, even if I didn’t expect it.

  The exterior doors of the pesthouse doors opened into a long, quiet hallway, lined on either side with several closed doors. The air was rather stale and Elijah said, “You’d do well to cover your mouth, my lady.” I pulled out Adam’s handkerchief and held it to my face.

  We started down the corridor, intent on finding someone to whom I could speak. We’d not gone five feet before one of the doors opened and a woman appeared, neatly dressed in a gray linen frock and a white apron.

  She was perhaps twenty-one or two, too young to have worked here for very long, and certainly not when Adam would’ve stayed here. “Pardon me,” I said. “Is there somebody I could speak to about a former patient?”

  “Former?” she asked. “How long ago?”

  “July or August of 1665.”

  She looked worried. “Oh dear, I don’t know who you could ask about that.”

  “Has anyone been employed here since then?”

  “Mrs. Lawrence has been here many years. I’ll see if I can find her.”

  She rushed off down the hall, opening up a few doors and peeking inside before finally entering one of the rooms. She was gone for quite a while before returning with a short, round woman in tow.

  “Here she is,” the younger woman said. “Mrs. Lawrence has been here for near twenty years. If anyone can help you, she can.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Mrs. Lawrence said, “but you’d best hurry. I’ve got sick ones to tend to.” There was no trace of impatience in her voice, only the crisp manner of a competent and busy woman.

  “My brother’s name was Adam Barber,” I said. “I have reason to believe he came here during the summer of 1665 after he developed symptoms of the plague. Is the name at all familiar to you?”

  I realized it was a lot to ask of this woman, to recall one person who might’ve been in her care so long ago, when clearly she’d encountered so many over the years. But as soon as I said Adam’s name, her eyes lit up.

  “Indeed, I do remember Adam Barber. He was an unusual case, that one. Hard to forget.”

  Excitement rippled through me. Uncovering these little bits of Adam’s past felt a bit like treasure hunting. “Please tell me what you remember.”

  “He came here that summer, very ill, like most of ‘em. It’s a wonder I didn’t get it myself, Lady Wilde, but I’ve always believed the Lord watches over me. Who else would he find to do such filthy work?”

  “I’m sure your patients are very grateful.”

  She gave me a modest smile. “Adam hadn’t been here long when he asked me to pen a letter for him. Said it was very important. But where I’m good with ministering to the sick, I’ve no talent for reading and writing. I found him a quill, paper and ink, and weak as he was, he wrote the letter himself. Near killed him, it did, though he was close enough to death by that stage that just blinking his eyes was as likely to do him in as anything else. Whatever that letter said, it was very dear to him. He asked me to send it for him and I did.”

  “Do you know what it said, or remember who it was to?”

  She frowned. “It wouldn’t have been proper for me to read a letter not meant for me, even if I could’ve.”

  “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  “But that’s not the only reason I remember him, my lady. Sure as I was that he was near his last breath, he didn’t die, not here at least. He disappeared in the middle of the night and I never saw him again.”

  “What do you mean, he ‘disappeared’?” I asked.

  I didn’t see how that was possible, considering Adam’s weakened state. Plus, from what I knew, pesthouses, like the private homes that were quarantined, were under heavy guard during that time. Once a person showed up with plague symptoms, they either died of it, or were forced to stay for a period of at least thirty days. I said as much to Mrs. Lawrence.

  “I can’t say it plainer than that, my lady. One day he was here and the next morning, he wasn’t.”

  A thought occurred to me. “Do you remember if a nurse named Ann Sutton worked here during that time?”

  Mrs. Lawrence shook her head. “That, I can’t say. The place was madder than Bedlam back then. There weren’t enough nurses so near anybody could work here, and a good many of ’em were drunken slatterns or whores, often both. Patients died by the hundreds each week. Couldn’t keep track of ’em all. Like I said, I only remember Adam because he disappeared. ‘Twasn’t an easy thing, and none of us could figure out how he’d managed it.”

  I wondered if it was possible that Ann Sutton had helped him. If she’d been a nurse here and the two of them had taken a liking to each other, they might’ve escaped together.

  “Were there any nurses who disappeared around the same time?” I asked.

  “Who’s to say?” Mrs. Lawrence replied. “Soon as one left or died, another came in.”

  “Isn’t it feasible that Adam died during the night and was buried?”

  “The ones that died at night stayed where they were until daylight, when someone could see to ‘em. Sometimes they were there for a day or
two.”

  The thought of all those corpses lying around, waiting for burial, made me cringe. The plague had made the unthinkable commonplace, the horrific, an everyday occurrence. It had made savages of us all.

  When it became clear that Mrs. Lawrence could offer me no more pertinent information, I thanked her and left. She’d given me plenty to ponder on the long ride home, particularly, who had Adam written the letter to? And where had he ended up after he left the pesthouse?

  I held on to my theory that it had been Ann Sutton who’d helped him get out. Little as I knew about what might’ve really happened to my brother, this fit in with the details that Susanna had given me.

  This, however, left me with some worrisome questions. If Adam had indeed managed to leave the pesthouse, why had he not returned to Mrs. Downey’s house when he was able to? Had he been resentful that she’d turned him out and vowed never to go back? Her guilt-ridden reaction to my visit today made me think that harsh words might’ve been spoken between them. Perhaps Adam didn’t feel she would welcome him if he came back.

  And even more troubling, why had he never contacted Sir Richard?

  It was as though Adam hadn’t just disappeared from the pesthouse that night—he’d disappeared entirely.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time I arrived home that evening, I was starving and I ate far more of the roasted chicken Alice had prepared than was proper. After supper, I sat in the drawing room, reviewing the documents in Adam’s valise one more time to make sure I’d not missed anything important. I must’ve dozed off because the next thing I knew, Charlotte was shaking my shoulder gently.

  “Have you forgotten that you’re to see the king tonight, Lady Wilde?”

  In fact, I had.

  Charles had been summoning me more frequently of late, a fact that both delighted and unsettled me. Though our affair had been long, it had been intermittent, filled with altercations and betrayals, the sort of overwrought drama that my brother Lucian celebrated in his plays. Nevertheless, our dalliances of the past few months were filled with excitement, the likes of which I hadn’t felt since the earliest days of our courtship. The genuine affection that had developed between us was heartening and terrifying at the same time, for I didn’t know how long it could last.

  Charlotte accompanied me upstairs. I glanced in the mirror and saw dark half-moons under my eyes. “God’s blood, I’m a fright,” I said.

  She laughed and gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. I painted my face whilst she arranged my hair, leaving me much improved. She pinned the last tendril and went to the wardrobe. “What gown will you wear?”

  “The green one, I think. It’s not my best, but I’m loathe to ruin another in this wet weather.”

  She held up the dress and I stepped into it, sucking my stomach in so that she could fasten it. I returned to my mirror and assessed my appearance, adding one black patch, a silk heart, to the corner of my mouth. Satisfied with the result, I took up my fur-lined cloak and descended the stairs to find Elijah waiting in the entry to take me to Whitehall.

  The palace was ablaze with the light contributed by torches that hung in hooks around its perimeter. Raindrops glistened on its white stone walls and, as usual, a thrill passed through me, for I’d always found this view of it to be beautiful. Whitehall’s interior was somewhat haphazard; it was a bewildering maze of rooms, corridors and secret passageways. But its magnificent exterior promised excitement, extravagance and above all, indulgence. A heady combination.

  William Chiffinch, Page of His Majesty’s Bedchamber and Keeper of the King’s Private Closet, escorted me to Charles’s private apartments. It was his job to manage His Majesty’s personal affairs, including the procuring of women, collecting of bribes and, when necessary, acting as a spy. Chiffinch and I had an amicable relationship, but nevertheless, I knew his loyalty lay firmly with the king. In this, he was Charles’s best ally.

  The royal spaniels yipped joyfully when Chiffinch opened the door to His Majesty’s apartments. Upon seeing me, one of them bounded over pawed at my skirts, begging to be picked up.

  “Hello there, Bessie,” I said, bending to pet to top of her small round head. “I’m happy to see you too!”

  Charles greeted me with an enthusiastic smile. “So good of you to come, Isabel.” Tonight he wore his usual green silk dressing gown, its thin fabric emphasizing his tall, muscular frame. At age forty-eight, he’d lost much of his hair, which he kept shorn close to his head, both to understate his natural baldness and to accommodate the grand wigs he often wore.

  There was no denying that Charles had aged in the eighteen years since his coronation. The years he’d sat on the throne were etched into his flesh, creating permanent jowls and puffy pockets beneath his eyes. His bearing, however, remained untouched. I had never before met a man more confident in his skin than he was and it made him that much more compelling. He was as handsome as ever to me.

  “Can I bring you anything, Your Majesty?” Chiffinch asked.

  “Are you hungry, Isabel?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “That’s all, then, Chiffinch. Thank you.”

  When we were alone he kissed me tenderly, but instead of taking me immediately to bed, he invited me to sit on the couch next to him. He poured us each a cup of red wine, which we sipped in front of the fire.

  “Is anything wrong?” he said. “You appear to be troubled.”

  I wasn’t ready to discuss Susanna Barber’s visit. For one thing, I had no evidence that what she’d said was true, and for another, I didn’t want to bring up Adam’s death. Doing so would inevitably lead to an argument about the reason I’d been in Amsterdam during that time. Charles had enlisted my service as a spy for the crown, which I accepted willingly, convinced that he needed me. But in the end, Adam had been right. I found out later that one of Charles’s other mistresses had manipulated him into sending me because of her jealousy. The circumstances of the trip still angered me, but the last thing I needed now was a quarrel.

  “I suppose I’m a bit tired.” I smiled. “And if you’ve anything to say about it, I shan’t get much sleep tonight, either.”

  He inched closer and touched my face. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually. I don’t like you leaving me at all hours of the night. It’s not safe for you travel abroad so late.”

  “You know it’s impossible for me to stay until morning. It wouldn’t do for anyone, even Chiffinch, to find me in your bed.” It was one thing for the king to engage in numerous conspicuous affairs, but to lord it over the court—and worse, his wife, Catherine—in such a way would be unacceptable, even for him.

  “Aha,” he said, his expression unexpectedly shy. “I have the solution. I’d like it very much if you’d move to apartments at Whitehall. Then you wouldn’t have to steal off in the middle of the night—you’d have only to tiptoe down the hall.”

  I had sudden difficulty swallowing the sip of wine I’d just taken. I brought my hand to my chest and patted it, as though doing so would ease the liquid down my throat.

  He chuckled. “I can see that I’ve surprised you,” he said, taking me into his arms. “You probably want to think about it.”

  “Yes,” I said, hoping my smile didn’t appear false. “There are things I need to consider.”

  “Just don’t take too long, my dear.”

  He took me by the hand and led me to the bed, where we passed a pleasurable half an hour. The troubles between Charles and I had never extended to our activities here. In fact, they probably enhanced them—anger was just another form of passion, was it not?

  Afterward, I observed the crimson draperies that adorned Charles’s bed, thinking about his request. A woman could suffer a worse fate than being a mistress to the king of England. But not much worse.

  The curtains were held back by a pair o
f flying boys enveloped in gilt, but from this angle I could only see the curves of their chubby little knees poised midair. How many times had I lain in this very position, gazing upon these golden lads, in the past fifteen years? One hundred? Two hundred? At least that many. For that matter, how many other women had done the same? I’d once conceived a child here, but mine was only one of many.

  Indeed, this bed had been a battleground as often as it had been a refuge. I’d conceded to myself long ago that it wasn’t a place I’d ever feel truly at ease, and yet here I was, content.

  Charles lay dozing beside me, his arm casually draped over my naked hip. Its familiar weight anchored me to the bed, keeping me safe from the tumultuous London streets that lay just outside the palace walls. The events of the previous few months—a customer’s murder, Sam’s absconding, and now, possible financial ruin—had cast me adrift. For the first time in years I realized that I didn’t just love him, I needed him. Furthermore, I knew Charles loved me in his own way, befuddled as it was by the lure of other women and the demands of being king.

  Still, I had to guard myself. I’d loved Charles since I was fourteen years old, but I’d promised myself I’d never again depend upon for him for my welfare. I’d lived at Whitehall before and I’d learned the hard way that the petty workings of court were not for me. I’d served the crown in more ways than one during the time we’d known each other, and hard experience had taught me that though he might actually mean well, he was ultimately powerless over the combined forces that governed him: Parliament, public opinion, and his own capacity for lust. I’d endured too much at the hands of all three to allow myself to be lured into the menacing clutches of court life again.

  And what of my business? I wasn’t earning as much as I had in the past, but I was still receiving customers. If I lived at Whitehall it would be difficult—perhaps impossible—to continue my work as Mistress Ruby. I’d worked too hard and sacrificed too much in the past six years to abandon it now.