“I’m waiting for my gown to be mended,” I explained. I decided I’d had enough inconvenience from the silly, heavy crown, and set it aside for now on a nearby table. “There was a tear to the back of the skirts where one of your wicked soldiers poked his sword yesterday.”
Charles stood, adjusting his own costume’s short cloak. To play the noble Spanish Captain Cortez, he had a wrought-tin helmet and breastplate over a bright blue doublet and hose, and I thought he looked most rakish and fine. Of course, Charles was already dressed. He was never late, not for anything, and it was a rubbing trial between us that I wasn’t the same.
“Make yourself ready, Nell,” he warned, “else I’ll—”
“Mr. Hart, sir!” One of the serving boys bounced in the doorway, hopping up and down as he searched for Charles. “Mr. Hart, sir, Master Killigrew says to tell you that His Majesty’s here!”
“Here?” I asked with surprise, and then, suddenly, His Majesty was here, here, standing a head above everyone else in the tiring-room, with Lady Castlemaine and his followers and everyone else jumbled together around him. We players bowed and curtseyed as best we could in the narrow space as the king made his way among us. Short as I was, and bent lower still in obeisance, I could see nothing of him but a very large black polished shoe with a black silk ribbon bow and black thread stockings on a manly calf. But knowing those shoes and calves belonged to the king, as did that pleasingly deep voice now conversing with Charles somewhere over my head—ahh, that was more than enough to send a prickle of excited anticipation down my spine. The king would see me perform, watch me in my beautiful bejeweled costume, hear me speak my first—
“Sir,” Charles was saying. “Permit me to present Mrs. Gwyn, who is taking the part of Cydaira. This is Mrs. Gwyn’s first speaking part with the King’s Company.”
“But hardly the first time she’s spoken in my company,” the king said. “Rise, Nell, and let me have a look at you. I’ve missed your oranges, my dear.”
I popped upright, with more eagerness than grace. “That’s because I’ve risen from the pit like Lazarus from the grave, Y’Majesty. You can’t keep either of us buried below for long.”
The king laughed, pure amusement lighting his dark, sad eyes. There was a careworn cast to his handsome features, doubtless born of the old sorrows of his youth and the new challenges of his constant tussles with the Dutch and the French. He looked far younger when he laughed like this, and I resolved to do my best to make him laugh more often. Having waited for his response, the others around him laughed, too, but clearly my Charles wasn’t as certain. Swiftly he moved to my side, allying himself with me and standing ready to protect me if I misspoke, the dear man.
“Mrs. Gwyn will be playing the majestic Emperor Montezuma’s daughter today, sir,” he said, striving to haul the conversation to safer ground. “The role has been written especially for her by Mr. Dryden.”
The king smiled warmly at me, the ends of his mustache turning up over the corners of his lips. It was strange to realize that I’d never been in his direct presence like this, so close that, if I wished it, I could reach out and touch the silk ribbons that trimmed his doublet. He stood as tall among most men as I was short among most everyone, and when he smiled down, I felt the heat of it stretching down to me like the beams of the summer sun, high in the sky.
“You’ve been raised high indeed, Mrs. Gwyn, all the way to royalty,” he said, his deep voice rich with amusement. “I wonder if we’re now distant kin?”
“Oh, I’m certain of it, sir.” I grinned wickedly, always ready for banter of this sort. “Cousins, I vow, and without a doubt, too.”
He looked me up and down, skeptically, as part of the jest, but approving, too, of my small, rounded form so lightly covered. “Blood will tell, Mrs. Gwyn, for I fear I see precious little resemblance between us. We Stuarts are a race known for our height.”
“Ahh, sir, I’d not noticed,” I murmured solemnly, shading my eyes with the flat of my hand to gaze up at his face, the way sailors in the rigging do to the stars above them. “How good of you to advise me, sir, considering how we Gwyns are short as stumps.”
He laughed again, and held his hand over my head, as if to measure exactly my lowly height. “Short, yes, but I see little else that resembles an ungainly stump.”
“That, sir, is because I’m yet the merest sprig.” I stretched up on my toes to gain every inch I could, holding my arms outstretched for balance, and laughed merrily with him as if we two were the only ones in the room. “Princess Sprig, the emperor’s greenling daughter.”
I set my hands at my waist, and contrived another curtsey that was more of a jig, spinning the purple cloak about my bare feet and legs to the delight of the king and the other gentlemen in his party.
But by pleasing the king like this, I’d irritated Lady Castlemaine. She curled her hand into his arm, her jewel-laden fingers as determined as the flukes of an anchor to stop his drifting toward me.
“If you believe this little chit’s a greenling, sir,” she said, not bothering to hide the unpleasant edge to her voice, “then you’re no better than the greenest of greenhorns yourself, and deserving of whatever you get.”
“Oh, I think not,” the king said easily, his gaze still so tangled with mine that it was as if we shared a secret jest between us. “You forget, Barbara, that the marvel of the playhouse is that nothing here is what it seems. But we’ve tarried among these excellent people long enough. We should take our seats, and let them go about their trade. Mrs. Gwyn, much luck to you in your performance this day.”
“Thank’ee, sir,” I said, and gave him one last smile for him to recall me by.
But he wasn’t done. He leaned down (leaning down a great distance for him) and kissed me lightly on the cheek, a brush of his lips and mustache over my skin. “A favor, too, Princess. If you can beg your father the Indian emperor to stand hard by my side against the Dutch, I’d be considerably obliged to you.”
Then he winked, something I’d never expected to see from a king. He tucked Her Ladyship’s hand back into the crook of his arm (doubtless where she felt by rights it belonged) and led his courtiers from our tiring-room.
Dazzled, I stood rooted where I was, verily like the sprig I’d claimed to be. To be sought out by His Majesty like this, to have the favor of his special regard, to—
“Here’s your gown at last, Nell,” Charles said sharply, urging me onward. Beside him stood the tiring woman, my mended costume draped over her arms. “Hurry now; dress yourself as fast as you can. We’ve kept the rest of the house waiting long enough. We’ll send out the prologue as soon as His Majesty’s been seated.”
I nodded, still too besotted to make sense of what he’d just bid me do. I could still see the nodding, curled plume of the king’s hat above all others in the hall outside.
“Enough of this, Nell!” He gave me an impatient clout between my shoulders, the kind that’s often employed to waken a too-sound sleeper. “We’ll speak of this later. Now dress yourself at once, and no more dallying.”
He bustled off, no doubt intent on imposing his promptness on some other hapless actor. He’d take a good deal of coaxing and jollying that night to settle, and with a sigh I beckoned to the tiring woman with the gown to follow me to my corner of the room. I felt a touch on my shoulder and I turned swiftly about, armed with sharp words of defense for Charles for harping after me.
“By my soul, you are a sprig,” exclaimed the young gentleman, “and ready to flail the very flesh from my bones with your branches. You’ve become a beauty, Nell.”
“Lord Rochester!” I gasped with amazement, and instead of curtseying, as was proper for our mutual stations, flung my arms about him in welcoming embrace, as was instead proper for the old friends that we were. “How long since I’ve seen you!”
Laughing happily, he drew me close in return—perhaps too close, truth to tell, for as I disengaged myself from him, I likewise had to remove one of his hands from c
overing my breast.
“Ah, there you go, fondling what don’t belong to you,” I said, laughing, too, and more entertained than upset by this stolen familiarity. “But look at you, m’lord! You’ve grown so tall and fine, I wonder what they fed you on the Continent.”
“Brandy and oysters, day and night.” He turned his head to look at me sideways beneath half-closed eyes, with that old familiar look of charming bemusement. That hadn’t changed, not a bit of it. We’d been little more than children when we’d met at Mrs. Ross’s—roguish, worldly children, to be sure, and far too young to frequent such a place. But in the three years since he’d been sent away, His Lordship had grown into a fine gentleman of eighteen, tall and well-made, with a man’s beard and jaw. “Paris, Rome, Venice—you’d not believe the tales I can tell you, Nelly.”
“You must tell them first, before I can believe them or not.” I laid my hand gently upon his sleeve, for the sake of old times. To see him again put me to mind of how young I’d been, before Mr. Duncan and Mr. Hart, and a thousand other things, as well. “But what became of that sober old tutor what was to keep you from mischief on your journeys?”
“Another tale.” He turned his arm so my hand fell into his, as if by cunning accident. “Come sup with me, Nell, and I’ll tell you all.”
“Mrs. Gwyn, your costume,” the tiring woman said sternly, still holding the gown out to me. “Mr. Hart said that you must—”
“I know well enough what Mr. Hart said.” I sighed, and dutifully unhooked the purple cloak and raised my arms for her to slip the costume over my head. It was not that I was reluctant to perform before the king. Nor had I tired so soon of acting, or of Charles, either. Far, far from it. But to have His Lordship so unexpectedly return to my life was, I fear (and most sadly confess now), almost too much exciting temptation for my fifteen-year-old self.
“You will not come with me, Nell?” he asked again, more coaxing this time. “How much will you be missed?”
“Hugely,” I said, as the tiring woman jerked me to and fro as she laced me tight. “I’ve a speaking part, writ for me by Mr. Dryden. I’m the emperor’s daughter.”
“I’d no notion.” He raised his brows and nodded with appreciation. “Clever Nelly! I’ll not carry you off just yet. But if you can slip away afterward—”
“I will, m’lord,” I said without hesitation as I settled my plumed crown back on my head. “Have your carriage come round the Drury Lane door, and I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
I waited as the potboy poured more wine into Lord Rochester’s goblet, then bowed and backed from the private dining room. I’d never dined here at Chatelin’s, in Covent Garden; Charles had little interest in the food of French eating houses, nor would he be inclined to spend eight shillings apiece on a single meal.
But that was same as nothing to the Earl of Rochester. We’d a private dining room, with a small round table before a fireplace that was only for us. His Lordship called for wine, and bespoke our meals, requesting French dishes I didn’t recognize, with names I couldn’t pronounce. I could hear the voices and laughter of other guests in other dining rooms, but we saw no one, and no one saw us. I suspected that privacy was much of what M’sieur Chatelin sold, the discretion that titled folk required for their intrigues and assignations.
For the earl, our solitary meal let him be most frank in recounting his journeys to me. I was the perfect audience, having been brought to London as a babe, and not leaving since. He told me of rare people and wonders, of rich palaces and Papist churches that put those same palaces to shame, of pagan ruined places that had been old when Christ Jesus and His disciples walked among them, and of an entire city built to float upon the water. I listened to every word in awe, longing one day to see it all for myself. And if, as the potboy refilled his glass, the earl spoke more of his amatory exploits and other such bawdry, then I willingly forgave it as the usual male braggery, in a new setting.
“And now, dear Nell, I return to the dullness of Whitehall.” He heaved the mightiest of sighs, his expression as gloomy as if he’d never left England at all. With the last chargers from our supper removed, he dipped his napkin into the beaker of water set before him and daintily began to wipe the grease from the roast pigeons from his fingers and chin. “What choice have I, Nell, truly, than to come to court to make my fortune?”
“What further fortune could you hope to make, m’lord?” I asked. This being a French eating house, we’d been given charming small, silver, twin-tined forks for holding our food in place whilst we cut it with our knives, and for the additional use, too, of carrying the food to our mouths. I’d not seen the like before, and I’d kept my fork from the footman, simply to toy with. Now I used it to accentuate my words, pointing the fork toward him and making idle circles in the air.
“You’ve already been born a gentlemen, m’lord,” I continued, “and a peer. Because your father’s dead, you’re already come into your estate, and your lands, and your seat in the House o’ Lords, and whatever else it is that you peers have.”
He sighed again, wadded the damp napkin into a ball, and tossed it to one side. “But I’m a poor peer, Nell, most pitifully poor.”
I looked down at the gold rings on his fingers and the Holland linen of his embroidered shirt, the soft golden fur that lined his cloak, and the silk ribbons that dressed his doublet, the glass that he’d emptied of smuggled French wines more times than I’d counted, and I snorted with disgust. “There’s poor, m’lord, and there’s poor.”
He glanced up at me, his lovely, heavy-lidded eyes doleful. “Very well, then, I’m peer-poor. It’s rather like piss-poor, except that I lament my empty pockets instead of an empty pot. Thus I’m reduced to coming to court to find a rich woman.”
I laughed. I could not help it, to hear him speak so glumly of a situation that was so similar to what my own had been with Mr. Duncan.
“A pretty young whelp like you, m’lord, what can prattle on in French and Italian and Latin and Greek? Fah, you’ll have no trouble at all going into keeping.”
“Nell, you impudent small creature,” he said, laughing with me like old times. “Would that I could go into keeping! But no, I must have a more lasting income than that. I must wed.”
In my world, few people bothered with marriage, and it seemed hugely strange to hear a man so young speak of it. Not that marrying for money seemed any different from what I’d done; only the price was set higher.
“So that’s how it is, m’lord?” I asked. “You’ll bind yourself before God to any toothless, withered widow or crook-backed spinster so long as she sleeps with a bag of gold beneath her feather bed?”
“Neither,” he said. “The lady that Cupid’s set before me is worth more than twenty-five hundred a year—five times my own sad income, Nell—yet my fair Elizabeth is young and beautiful and half in love with me already. From Enmore, in Somerset, with that creaminess that the women there have in their very blood. Of course, every male in her family loathes me as a penniless wastrel.”
“Oh, aye.” I wasn’t being merely flippant; the earl was a wastrel. He was charming and witty and handsome and nobly born, to be sure, but any gentleman who’d begun frequenting brothels as young as he had, and drank and spent as much as he did, was likely not the sort of model bridegroom any respectable grandfather would wish to add to his family.
Nor did His Lordship take offense. “There’s plenty of others in the pack, as well. Fitzhardinge, Butler, Fielding, Hinchingbrooke—they’re all sniffing after the girl, too.”
I recognized that gaudy string of highborn names, most sons of peers, and I could appreciate the caliber of His Lordship’s rivals, exactly as I was supposed to. Nothing with His Lordship was ever done without an eye to its effect, and wryly I appreciated that as well.
Now he took another sip of his wine, staring into the goblet as if seeing his future. “But that’s why I’ve come to court, Nell. Having the king favor my suit would make all the difference. For now, he’
s smiling my way, but I must make sure he continues to do so, to pressure the old man into accepting me. It’s all a matter of politics, of influence and garnish and playing the game for favor and gain. Ambition takes risk, don’t it? ”
I listened, as round-eyed with wonder as I’d been during his earlier tales. This was the world that Charles was so determined to warn me against, and the world that I craved to join.
“Do you see the king often, m’lord?” I asked eagerly. “Does he receive you at Whitehall?”
“Receive me?” He looked at me with disbelief. “Nell, Nell! The man believes my father saved his life during the old wars. I’m as good as another son to him, and most welcome to his company. That’s why I was with his party at the playhouse, and found you.”
“What is he like when at ease among his closest friends? ”
He glanced at me slyly. “His cock is fashioned on a majestic scale. I vow, it’s as large as a donkey’s. As large as your arm.”
“Go on!” I gasped, then laughed uproariously. “However do you know that?”
The earl shrugged. “Even a king must make water.”
“You’re wicked,” I said, more approving than scolding. “Yet the king seems to be so kind, so full of goodwill and charm.”
“He is all of that,” he said. “He is clever, and watchful of everything he does and says. But the price of his cleverness is that he’s always restless and easily bored. The one sure way for anyone—man, women, or dog—to keep in his favor is to amuse him.”
I nodded, though that was nothing new to me. The king’s constant need for variety was widely known; I never would have seen him first at Mrs. Ross’s otherwise.
“Thus I must make myself of use to him,” he continued. “If I don’t, the king’ll weary of me, and all the best rewards will fall to others who can better keep away the royal tedium. That’s why he made such a fuss over you earlier in the tiring-room. Is it true you’re the queen of Hart’s little harem at the playhouse?”
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