The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  But though I dipped low, my head stayed unbowed, for I’d no wish to squander so much as a second of my sight of the king. He’d been away from London in the country since his wedding. I’d not seen him for myself since the spring, and to my love-struck eyes, he’d grown even more handsome, if such a thing were possible—not only a king, but a man supremely in his prime.

  He was dressed in a black doublet and breeches, as was his wont, with a white curling plume in his broad-brimmed black hat. He sat in his own armchair throne with perfect ease, his long legs stretched before him as he smiled and chatted with the noblemen around him. The breeze from the water ruffled the deep lace cuffs at his wrists and knees and tossed his manly black curls over his broad shoulders. Even from a distance his expression was one of happiness and delight in the day, and my girlish heart fair broke to consider so much splendid humor wasted on the timid foreign queen.

  Some special jest made him laugh aloud, his teeth white beneath his black mustache as the royal barge passed directly before me. In perfect sympathy I laughed, too, as if there were no river nor crowd to separate us. He turned to gaze up to where I stood, as if drawn to look upon this spot by my own yearning alone, and my cheeks grew so hot and my breath so tight in my breast that if he’d stood directly before me, I could not have felt his power more.

  Surely this was the moment for some rare signal from the Fates, a motion or sign that he and I were intended to be twined together in this life. Surely there could be some way for me to know that his charmless queen meant nothing to him, and that I was right to keep my heart constant for him.

  Earlier in the morn I’d tucked a single primrose (filched in honor of the day from the garden of a great house we’d passed) into the front of my bodice. Now without a thought I plucked this blossom free, still warm from its place between my nascent breasts, and with all my youthful force I threw the flower to the king. If he caught it, as I was nigh certain he would, then that would be my sign.

  Time seemed to slow, slipping one tiny grain of sand at a time through the glass’s narrow waist. The primrose soared into the air in a glorious arc from my little fingers toward the king, the petals bright in the sunshine. The pink petals seemed to spin against the blue sky, the green leaves twirling round the stem as it flew. The king smiled and laughed again, so close that I could see the blue-black underside of his new-shaved jaw. I held my breath, certain now that I—I, Nelly Gwyn!—would be singled out from the scores of others around me for the glorious future that was my destiny.

  The flower flew and fell. The king looked away. The barge glided past. My flower dropped into the water, pink petals tossing unnoticed in the churning white wake.

  Disappointment rose in my throat, more bitter than bile. There was my destiny. There lay my future. Then I wept, not caring who saw my tears, and forced myself to think of Mr. Duncan.

  I woke to the sound of breaking crockery later that night. That and my mother’s oaths as she swore at the bowl she’d knocked from the table to the floor.

  “Hush, Mam, hush,” I whispered sleepily, though there was no one else left to wake. We had only the single room for the three of us, up beneath the eaves of the oldest house in our alley, and though it must have been close to dawn, Rose had yet to come home.

  “I’ll hush you, Nell,” my mother muttered, the little tallow light in her hand casting wavering shadows against the walls. “Where’s the coin you earned this night, eh? ”

  “Here, Mam.” I rolled from the pallet on the floor that was my bed, kneeling as I emptied my pocket. The coins had scarcely touched my palm before my mother snatched them away, squinting at them by the wavering tallow light.

  “That’s piss-poor for a night’s work, Nell.” She scowled at the coins, her eyes unfocused with drink and weariness. “Do you believe this enough to cover your keep? ”

  “I’m sorry, Mam,” I said, the same as I did every night. “I’m sorry that it’s not—”

  “Not what?” she demanded hoarsely. “Not what a dutiful girl owes to her mother? Not what a girl who weren’t so nice as you could earn by honest labor? ”

  “No, Mam,” I said, the sole answer she’d accept when she was like this. My mother claimed to be only thirty-three, just as she claimed to have been a beauty in the old days in Oxford, before my father had been killed in the war. She could have lived double those years, her flesh slack and her smile full of rot, and whatever beauty she’d once possessed long tattered by care and woe. Now as she stood swaying over me, I could smell the reek of the men she’d served that night, their sweat and their ale and the leavings of their pricks still ripe on her person.

  “Mind me, Nell,” she said, giving my shoulder a shake. “Mrs. Ross says she’s a half-dozen men bidding for you. For you, you lazy little scrap! She’ll play them proper against one another to drive your price high, and likely she’ll get them to pay a half-dozen times over, she’s that sharp.”

  I didn’t need for her to explain more. I was a clever, practical lass, and I’d seen enough of Mrs. Ross’s trade to figure it for myself. Because I was so small for my age, and men such willing cullies over virgins, I could sell my innocence several times over with none of the purchasers the wiser. Whether a bilious lord or a foreign-bred sailor or even Mr. Duncan, if he’d the coin, then I was bound to spread my legs and play my part. The role was simple enough. If I daubed a bit of vinegar to tighten my passage again, and remembered both to weep piteously before the act and praise the mighty conqueror’s prowess afterward, then I’d earn the extra price reserved for the greenest country virgins. Not that I’d see much of it, of course. The lion’s share would go to Mrs. Ross, and the rest to my mother. That part of the game, too, was simple enough.

  “Do you mind me, Nell?” my mother demanded. “Speak up, girl, and stop staring like a simpleton!”

  “Yes, Mam,” I said again, more softly this time, and not without a certain sadness, as well. “Yes, Mam.”

  “ ‘Yes, Mam, yes, Mam,’ ” she mimicked with scorn, thrusting the light before my face. “You’re quick enough to speak when you’re dawdling with the young bucks in the front room. Or have you already give away for free what’s mine by rights as your mother to sell? Is that why you’re dumb now? ”

  “No, Mam, I haven’t!” I stumbled backward, fearful of being splashed and burned by the hot tallow in the light’s open dish. “I swear by all what’s holy that no man has ever—”

  “The truth, Nell. I want the truth from you!”

  “I vow that is the truth, Mam!”

  “I hate when you lie to me!” She cuffed me so fast I’d no chance to dodge her hand, and so hard she knocked me clean from my feet and to the floor. It wasn’t the first time she’d struck me, of course. But the suddenness of it wounded not only my cheek but my heart, as well, to be used this ill by she who’d given me life. I whimpered, clutching my face where her palm had left its mark, and scuttled backward like a crab across the floor away from her.

  Whether from true remorse at what she’d done or from the liquor that still coursed through her blood, my mother’s temper now changed in an instant. She dropped the tin light clattering upon the table and threw both her hands over her face. She wailed most grievously, then struck those same hands against her breast, as if to hurt herself as she’d hurt me.

  “Oh, Nelly, Nelly, my poor innocent babe,” she cried as the tears ran in crooked rivulets down the lines of her face. “That I should treat you so! What a hateful mother I am, to my own dear daughter!”

  She flung herself down on her pallet and buried her face against the musty linen, her sobs muffled by the stale rushes within.

  “Mam, please, I beg you, don’t.” I scrambled across the floor to where she lay, crouching beside her. “Please don’t cry.”

  Still she wept, her face turned away from me, and the sharp, tense bones of her spine and shoulders jutting through her worn woolen gown. With the gentlest of touches, I began to smooth the unkempt tangle of her hair away from her
face, stroking her forehead to soothe her the best I could.

  “There’s no harm, Mam, no harm,” I whispered, crooning softly in the mother’s role instead of the child’s. “Be easy and rest.”

  Gradually her sobs did cease and her shudders, too, and beneath my fingers I could feel the moment when at last my mother slipped into slumber. Still I stroked her hair, now as much to order my own thoughts as to calm her troubles.

  My sister might be content to be a pretty butterfly, flitting merrily through her days without a thought of what would come next, but it wasn’t my nature to be so careless. I’d only to look down at my mother to see the sorrow that came from that path.

  Better to be shrewd in my merriment and thoughtful in my choices. I could sing and dance better than most, I was passing fair of face, and my wit was quick. I would be thirteen in March, past time for me to make the most of these graces and talents I’d been granted by a merciful heaven. Now I must take them and act for myself, and not wait for Mrs. Ross or my mother to set my course for me.

  I sat back on my heels to look out from our single window. Over the jumbled rooftops and chimneys I spied the glimmer of the morning star, and the first gray of the coming dawn. True, the Fates might not carry me to a place at the side of the king, as childishly I’d dreamed—I’d had that fancy dashed from me that day by the river—but I could yet fashion my life into something more glorious, more grand, than to be a common trull against the stalls in Covent Garden.

  And I would begin that night with Mr. Samuel Duncan.

  Chapter Three

  MAYPOLE LANE, LONDON August 1662

  “Do you like the room, Nell?” asked Mr. Duncan. “Will it suit you? ”

  The room seemed enormous to me, and surpassing tidy and neat. Mind, I’d never been above stairs in so fine a tavern before, here in Maypole Lane, and I’d no notion of what to expect. The walls were whitewashed plaster, the windows glazed with leaded panes, the wide-planked floors swept and clean. Prints of the kings, both the martyred first Charles and the second, his son, were pinned to the walls, and a Dutch-ware bowl of flowers sat on the window’s sill. Two worn armchairs of dark wood with sagging woven seats faced one another in a hospitable fashion, with a dish of biscuits, two glasses, and a bottle to share waiting for us on the table between. There was a cheery fire in the hearth (for all that it was August), and candles lit on the shelf above, their flames reflected in the looking-glass over top. The walls and door were stout, too, so that I could only faintly hear the voices and laughter from the tavern’s front room below us.

  But what drew my eye first was the bedstead, the most magnificent bedstead my young eyes had ever seen, with four square posts and a canopy, and feather bed and bolsters and pillows and a coverlet over sheets, as plump as a floured pasty waiting for the oven. For one such as I, who was content to take my rest each night upon the floor, the prospect of such lofty comfort was giddy indeed. I couldn’t help but step closer and press my hands onto the downy-soft coverlet, and marvel at how deeply my palms sank into the feather bed.

  “What are your thoughts, Nelly?” Mr. Duncan stood so close behind me that I could feel his breath on the back of my shoulders, reminding me (as if I would forget!) that the ultimate purpose of this bed was not sweet rest, but my own well-bartered deflowering. “Tell me, sweet. If you’re displeased in any way, I’ll summon the keep at once to make it right.”

  Everything pleased me more than I could ever say, but my sister had cautioned me against the folly of admitting my satisfaction. If a man believes he has once pleased a woman, Rose said, then he will sit back and cross his hands over his chest and consider his labors forever done. But if he worries that he’s yet to fully delight his sweetheart, then he will continue to be the model lover and lavish more gifts and attentions on her. Rose had assured me that this, too, was part of the game, and had pointed to the great ladies of the court who played His Majesty himself for titles and jewels. Because in my innocence I knew no better, I trusted her advice, and vowed to be as bold and mercenary a whore as Lady Castlemaine herself.

  What else, really, could I do?

  “It’s well enough, dear sir,” I said with a show of breezy disdain to mask my fears. “For the present, that is.”

  “It’s yours so long as you wish it,” he said grandly, pleased by his own magnanimity. “If you are to be mine, I wish you to be kept in good style.”

  I smiled, my palms damp and my anxious heart thumping like a frightened hare within my ribs. I’d insisted on the terms myself, an income fit for a lavish keeping with these lodgings full of more luxury than I’d ever known. I’d bargained well, too, without the meddling of either Mrs. Ross or my mother. By coming here, I was already far beyond Coal Yard Alley, and I didn’t plan on going back.

  But now that Mr. Duncan had made good on his side, it was my turn to do the same with mine. There was no help for it, either. My Judgment Day was nigh, and my bold show of confidence shriveled and shrank to nothingness.

  “I—I thank you, sir,” I stammered, an oddity for I, who was usually so glib with words. “You are most kind, and—and I—”

  “Nell.” His voice was curt and so full of urgency that it startled me. Of a sudden, my kindly Mr. Duncan had vanished, and in his place, it seemed, had risen a demon driven by desire. His rounded cheeks had flushed to mottled scarlet, and unconsciously he worked his jaw back and forth as if he meant to devour me in a single bite. From instinct I stepped backward, away from him, only to bump against the bedstead. Now when my hands touched the coverlet, it was to clutch it tight in my quivering fingers as I tried to calm myself.

  “Nell,” he said again. “My own Nell.”

  “Aye, sir.” I raised my chin, the better to meet his eye with my own gaze, and forced myself to smile. “Yours for this night.”

  “Long beyond that, Nell.” He set his hands possessively on either side of my waist, his fingers tightening into my flesh. “If you please me.”

  “As you wish, dear sir,” I whispered, dread clogging my throat. I couldn’t be afraid; I couldn’t. It was my duty to please Mr. Duncan, as it was for every whore—nay, every woman, whether lowly drab or princess royal—to please her man. If I didn’t, he would cast me off, and my glorious future would be done before it had fair begun. I struggled to recall more of my sister’s advice, of which part of his person I should begin to pet and fondle, and what I should say to beguile him the more.

  But before I could act, Mr. Duncan seized the role of master, and me with it. He lifted me in his arms and dropped me on my back onto the coverlet. He was stronger than I’d guessed, and far larger than I. He shoved my skirts to my waist, exposing my trembling limbs to his gaze. Then he clambered atop me as the feather bed sank deep and the rope springs groaned with the added burden of his weight. He kissed me hard, or more truthfully, he put his mouth upon mine in a slobbering show of ardor. Pinned thus to the coverlet, I panicked, and tried to wriggle free, my bare feet scrambling for purchase on the coverlet and my whimpers of unease lost in his mouth.

  I was no fool. I knew what would come next. In my short life, I’d witnessed too many women entertaining too many men to be innocent that way. Even so, I’d no need to pretend the quaking virgin, for that was exactly what I was. I bunched knots of the coverlet tightly into my hands, and squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could, as if by not watching this sorry show, I’d somehow cease to be a part of it. I felt him fumble between my legs, pushing clumsily where I’d never permitted a man before, and then without further prelude or ceremony, he shoved his way deep within me, and thus possessed the jewel he’d bought.

  It didn’t take long. He grunted and shuddered, and then lay still, as winded as if he’d run up the Westminster steps two at a time, and with a bucket of water in his hands at that. I was trapped beneath him, crushed flat and splayed open with the buttons of his doublet pressing into my belly and his long hair tickling my nose.

  “Sir,” I whispered raggedly, placing my palms on hi
s chest to try to ease some of his weight from my lungs. “Sir, if you please. I cannot breathe, sir.”

  “Ah, f’give me.” He flopped onto his back, his arms over his head and his eyes closed with evident bliss. His now-flaccid member lay softly from his unbuttoned breeches, with both it and the tails of his shirt sullied with the blood of my vanquished maidenhood. More showed on my shift, and though I knew the sight was part of what he’d paid for, gory proof of his vigor, I couldn’t help but push my skirts back down to cover myself once again. Such modesty might seem false to one bred as I to whoring, but I was still young, and more shamed than I should have been.

  I sat upright, curling my legs beneath me, and peered down at the man beside me. His breathing had slowed to a steady blow from his parted lips, and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. Had I exhausted him that much? For my part, I felt sore and stretched, but that was all. I’d not suffered the agonies that some women claimed, nor had I enjoyed the great pleasure in the act that my sister had promised, either. If anything, I was relieved the deed was finally done, and I none the lasting worse for it.

  And for now my thoughts were of a baser nature. Hoping to lessen my suffering, I suppose, Mr. Duncan had made me drink a can of ale in the tavern’s front room below before he’d brought me upstairs, and I’d an urgent need to relieve myself. I slipped from the bed as gently as I could, hoping to find a pot beneath the bedstead, the way Rose said was done in fine houses such as this. Indeed, I found one, too, a pot of such a fine white-glazed crockery that I almost hated to use it.

  “Nell?” Roused at last by the sound of my piss rattling in the pot, Mr. Duncan sleepily rolled to his side to watch me. “You’re not leaving me, are you, lass? ”

  “Oh, no, sir.” I stayed where I was, for I knew from Mrs. Ross’s house that many men were entertained by seeing women take their ease. “Unless you wish me to leave, that is.”