The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  Lady Castlemaine had been born a Villiers, the same as Buckingham, and there was no more perverse noble family in Britain. She could have seduced Charles Hart as a sly kind of revenge on me, for mimicking her so publicly that night of Clarendon’s resignation. She was a proud lady, and proud folk never do see the humor in themselves.

  But most likely Her Ladyship realized that the king was growing increasingly interested in me, and as her own influence over his court waned, she’d decided to prove to me that she could instead rule the leading gentleman in my world of the playhouse. If the king wanted me, the queen of the company, then she’d want the king of the players: tip for tap, and tit for tat.

  It was bitterest irony, of course, that the mad lovers’ games that Charles and I continued to play on the stage were in reality long done between us. I didn’t once think this little scene had been Charles’s idea. He hadn’t the courage to seduce a countess, though I didn’t doubt he’d accepted quickly once she’d offered herself to him. It had pained me far more to hear her speak my lines, wearing my costume crown, and impinging on me as an actress, than to discover her with Charles Hart.

  Worst of all to me was seeing how unabashedly Lady Castlemaine toyed with two men who each deserved better, with me left to squirm in the middle of this ugly stew. It was not a place I cared to be, nor had I sought it out, either.

  Yet as luck (or perhaps design, for I’d never underestimate Lady Castlemaine’s cunning) would have it, I was that very day called with several others to perform for the king at Whitehall. With the Christmas season and Twelfth Night so recent, there’d be no grand ball or masque tonight, only a few catches and songs from us and perhaps a jig or two to help the court pass the long winter evening. We left the theatre directly after the play, climbing into the coach sent by the palace with our costumes beneath scarlet livery cloaks.

  Like all hired performers, we weren’t sure if we’d be fed or not, and so were still finishing our makeshift supper of bread and cheese as we rolled beneath the palace gates. I was last to hop out, brushing the crumbs from my skirts as I followed the others up the steps.

  “Good eve to you, Sam Powell!” I said cheerfully, greeting the palace guard by name. I knew most of them from the playhouse or tavern, or even from the alleys around Covent Garden, and I’d never been too proud to acknowledge them, either. I reached up and tugged the guard’s red coat more closely over his broad chest, with a little pat for good measure. “You keep warm, now, you hear? It’s a cold night, surely, and we can’t have you catching ague.”

  “Not at all, Nelly, not at all,” he said, beaming at me as his partner likewise grinned at being acknowledged. “Dancing for His Majesty, are you?”

  “I am,” I said, and took a few small steps by way of demonstration, twitching up my petticoats in the process. “Though now you can boast to your cronies that I danced for you first.”

  They guffawed with delight, elbowing one another in the ribs, when the porter from within came bustling outside, shivering with his shoulders raised so high to his ears I wondered he could hear.

  “Mrs. Gwyn, Mrs. Gwyn, you’re come at last,” he said, scolding and picking at me. “His Majesty has been asking and asking after you, and you cannot keep him waiting. Make haste, if you please, make haste and follow me.”

  He turned on his heel, grandly swirling the skirts of his coat without deigning to notice if I followed, borne off on a fresh current of self-importance. I winked at the guards, and at once raised my shoulders and my nose in an exact replica of the porter, even to taking the same small busy steps toward the door. The guards doubled over with their laughter, so hard that any skulking French spy could have had his way with the palace and they’d not have noticed.

  For all that Whitehall was the London home of the King of England and by rights should have been the grandest palace in the land, in truth it was a shambling, rambling place, with odd little chambers tucked in every which way and scattered doors that led who knew where, with more wandering halls than a coney’s warren. Some parts were very old, with dark, low ceilings, and floors that seemed to roll up and down gently like waves beneath the feet, while others were new and bright and handsome, the way they should have been. As pompous as this porter was, I was glad to have him as my guide in navigation, for I still often lost my way within the palace.

  “I hope the king’s not perishing for my company,” I said, breathless from trotting my shorter legs to keep pace with him. “Else he’ll be shriven, forgiven, dead, and buried by the time we reach whatever distant shore he’s waiting upon.”

  The porter only sniffed and led me down one final hall before he stopped at a door with another pair of guards before. These two were stern, serious fellows that I didn’t know, though they admitted me on sight, holding the door open just widely enough for me to slip within.

  I blinked and looked around me. Instead of the usual hall or parlor where we players would usually perform, I was in a smallish, well-appointed chamber with a large bedstead and a cheery fire in the hearth. There was no sign of my fellows, nor the musicians we’d been told to meet, nor any of the courtiers or attendants that I’d expected to see.

  Instead, to my considerable surprise, the sum of the persons in this chamber was the king, standing beside the bed in his shirtsleeves.

  “Nelly,” he said, grinning at me as if for us to be alone in this room were the most natural and the most proper thing imaginable. “You’re here. You do like pups, don’t you? ”

  “Of course I do,” I said, belatedly remembering to curtsey. I’d not expected any of this, but if the stage had taught me anything, it was how to improvise with whatever was tossed into my path. If this meant a companionable king in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves in some distant bedchamber in the palace with nary another around us, then so be it. His Majesty was always ripe with surprises. “That is, yes, Your Majesty. Most everyone likes a pup, sir.”

  “I knew you would,” he said with great satisfaction, pushing aside the bed’s cut velvet curtains to bend over the bed. “Come, have a peek. Be quiet now, so they don’t startle.”

  I tiptoed across the room to join him, standing close to peep inside the curtains. There in the center of the coverlet, nestled in the valley of the feather bed, lay one of the king’s black-and-white spaniels, surrounded by a wriggling new litter of puppies.

  “That’s L’Orange,” the king said proudly. “Five sons and only one daughter, the sweet creature. I knew she was near to whelp, but when she’d vanished two days ago, I’d every footman in the palace hunting for her. Here she was all the time, only wanting a bit of quiet and peace for the birth.”

  “They’re lovely, sir,” I whispered, enchanted. The tiny dogs’ faces were so perfect, their eyes still squeezed shut and their toothless mouths yipping and yapping. “Might I touch one, or will the bitch bite me?”

  “Oh, not L’Orange.” With exquisite gentleness, he slipped his hand beneath the nearest of the pups and passed him to me. His hand was so large and strong, the dog so small and vulnerable, and I thought how we English were much the same, resting our confidence in the king’s hands like that. “Here you are, for a moment.”

  I caught my breath at such trust, instinctively cradling the little animal against my chest. He was warm and silky, and as he nuzzled against me I could feel the beat of his heart against my palm.

  “What a handsome small rascal,” I breathed, nigh overwhelmed by the fragility of the life in my hands. “Oh, sir, he’s such a lamb!”

  “He’s more of a spaniel,” the king said, teasing me. “Best to put him back now with his fellows, so he’ll keep warm.”

  Reluctantly, I tucked the pup back among the others, and at once L’Orange nosed him protectively back into his rightful place.

  “A new litter of pups is one of the finest sights a man can see,” he said, as proud as the bitch. He was famous for his dogs, and foreign visitors were always struck by the English king striding through the morning mists of St. James�
��s Park, a dozen flop-eared dogs trotting along with him across the grass. “I’ve never tired of it, not since I was a boy.”

  “We never kept animals for pets when I was young,” I said softly, still enraptured. “I know most folk do, but we’d never enough for ourselves to eat, let alone a stray.”

  “Why, Nelly,” he said, “I believe those are the saddest words I’ve ever heard from you.”

  I flushed and glanced at him quickly, afraid I’d unwittingly betrayed too much of myself. Among the courtiers and gallants, such signs of weakness were too often pounced upon and made fodder for the cruelest wit, and I should have known better.

  But though he was their master, the king wasn’t typical of his court. Instead of pouncing on that morsel I’d let slip, the way that both Buckhurst and Sedley would have done to great, cruel, witty affect, the king only smiled sadly and nodded.

  “One of the most painful parts of my time in France and in Brussels was being too poor to keep my dogs.” He sighed, still touched by the memory nearly a decade old. “It was either my tattered companions and I ate, or the dogs did. There wasn’t enough to keep us all. I’d only a few left with me by then, but I had to give them away.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I said, and I was. How could I be otherwise when I’d never seen such melancholy on a man’s face? I understood entirely: a young king banished from his own country, alone, unloved, and unwanted, and unable to offer sustenance to the only creatures who loved him still. Could there be anything more poignant than that? “I’m sorry.”

  “And I, my dear, am sorry for you to have been denied the pleasure of a tame dog or cat as a child.” He gave one last fond look at the bitch and her pups, then let the curtain drop around them. “What Fate offers isn’t always of our chosen devising, but we make do as best we can. I did, and so did you. The world would be a dull place if everything in it were as we expected.”

  I smiled, determined to lighten his spirits. I didn’t believe he’d had me brought here to seduce me. I’d a keen sense for such likelihoods, and this didn’t have the proper feel, not with the bed already occupied by a nest of puppies that he’d clearly no intention of displacing. But having him treat me as if we were but ordinary folk, with friendship and good humor—ahh, to me that was worth a thousand artful seductions.

  “Such as finding you here, sir,” I said. “I’d not expected that surprise.”

  He chuckled, pouring two goblets of sillery from the decanter on the table. “I hope you weren’t disappointed to be brought here, Nelly.”

  “Oh, I’m never disappointed in affairs that involve you, sir,” I assured him as he handed me the wine. “The day you returned to London after wedding Her Majesty, I waited seven hours by the river, from night until noon, just to be able to toss a flower at you.”

  “You did?” The deep-carved lines on either side of his mouth softened, and his dark eyes filled with delight as I nodded. “Did I catch it?”

  “It fell short and into the water near your feet.”

  “Now, that is tragic,” he said, the gentle teasing once again in his voice that I liked so well. “You must have been gravely disappointed.”

  “Never,” I declared, only part of the truth. What could be gained in confessing how distraught I’d been that he’d married a foreign princess and her rich dowry instead of a barefoot girl from Covent Garden? “I was surprised by your magnificence, aye, and all the splendor on the water around you. I’d not seen anything to rival it, sir, nor have I to this day.”

  “A good surprise, then.” He sipped the wine, watching me over the rim of his goblet. “Not like the unpleasant one this afternoon at the playhouse arranged for you by Lady Castlemaine.”

  Sputtering, I sprayed my wine down the front of my bodice. “How did you know, sir? I thought I was the only one to see!”

  “You were the only one meant to see, and the only one who did,” he said, kindly offering me his own handkerchief to blot the damage. “Lady Castlemaine was so pleased with herself that she described it all to me in excruciating detail.”

  “She did, sir?” What else could I say to that?

  “She did,” he said, and sighed. “I’m sorry for that, too, Nelly. I’m well past feeling her attacks, but for her to seek to wound you as well—that was most foully done.”

  “But she didn’t, sir,” I said quickly. “Wound me, that is. Not on account of her swiving Mr. Hart before me, anyways. I may be small, sir, but I’m strongly made, and it takes far worse than that to leave a mark.”

  Skeptical, he turned his face sideways as he regarded me. “You are certain? The lady can be most barbarous cruel.”

  “I’d know if I were suffering, sir, and I’m not.” I tapped my fingers on the sides of the goblet. “It’s more about Her Ladyship.”

  He sighed irritably. “I’ll not let her tax you again. She can be the most vengeful woman, and if it were not for the children she has born me, I would see her gone from London entirely.”

  “That’s not my meaning, sir,” I said quickly. I wouldn’t make the error of so brazenly faulting Lady Castlemaine. Only a fool would dare do that. The lady had been a favorite of the king’s for so long that he was bound to harbor feelings for her still, no matter her current behavior, and no matter what he now said, either. “What pains me, sir, is how Her Ladyship’s twisting you and Mr. Hart about, as if you were no more than puppets to dance to her tune.”

  He cocked one dark brow. “Now, you surprise me, Nelly. To worry over us pitiful gentlemen before yourself?”

  “If it’s necessary, aye.” That was as plain as I’d dare to speak. If I’d more courage (or fewer brains), I might ask him why any man, especially a king, might keep a lady of pleasure that offered so little pleasure in return as Lady Castlemaine seemed to. But I’d no wish to go from this chamber to the Tower for vexing the king, and so held my tongue. “To show my loyalty to the Crown, sir, I would.”

  “Hart’s not the Crown.”

  “But he is the leading player of the King’s Company,” I reasoned, “which makes him a servant of yours and the Crown’s, so if I worry over him, I’m likewise worrying over you as well.”

  He laughed at that. “Well said, Nell, well said. I should have you as one of my ministers instead of that usual pack of rogues who clamor and dissemble about me.”

  “You should, sir,” I said, adding several steps of a jig for emphasis. Match that, Buckingham, I thought. “I’d deal with those Dutchmen for you, and the French bastards, too!”

  He raised his goblet to me, as much for the jig as for my diplomacy. “God knows you’re clever enough, Nell. What I’d give to see their faces if I sent you to them on my behalf!”

  “I’d make them see your way, sir,” I promised. “Not just because it would be the best course for England, but because I stand by my friends.”

  His laughter faded at that, his expression turning oddly guarded, almost quizzical. “You consider yourself my friend?”

  “I do, sir,” I said, stopping my dancing so I stood directly before him. “I fear it can’t be helped.”

  “Believe me, Nelly, a king cannot have too many friends,” he said softly, “especially if they’re like you.”

  He kissed me then, as I’d been expecting him to do since I’d first entered, or maybe all the way back to the day when I’d tossed him the flower as he’d floated by me on his wedding barge on the river. He kissed me hard, so there was no doubt (as if I’d had any) that he wanted me, and I kissed him greedily in return, my little hands reaching up to rest on his shoulders.

  Now, kings are not meant to be denied, not in their passions nor in anything else, and if he’d chosen to take me then, I wouldn’t have, nor could have, refused him, even if it meant sharing the bed with the pups. Yet without a word spoken between us on the matter, we each of us realized that this was not the time, and at last separated.

  “There now, sir,” I said, giving his chest a fond little pat with my palm as I looked up at him from under my l
ashes. “You see how it can be between friends, eh?”

  He smiled and raised my hand to his lips to kiss it lightly, a small gallant’s gesture. “I’d like to see any of my other ministers try it.”

  “Or any of your dogs, either.” I winked sly, and pulled free of him, flipping my skirts as I turned. “Though I’d vow that plenty of bitches have tried, eh, sir? ”

  “More than you ever can guess,” he said, clearly pleased by my wit and laughing at last, the way I’d hoped to see him do. “Now come, we’ll join the others.”

  “Bow-wow-wow, sir,” I said, as pleased as he, “and whatever, whatever, you wish.”

  With Clarendon gone from the government, Buckingham and others of his friends began to jockey in earnest for more power. To their consternation, the king decided not to replace the chancellor, but to absorb his many responsibilities into his own definitions of the Crown. It was his expressed desire to rule with Parliament and his ministers beside him, or even slightly behind the throne, and despite his seemingly constant good humor, there was never any doubt as to who had the final power.

  As can be guessed, none of this was to Buckingham’s liking, and his intriguing became even more frenzied and complex. Just as he had collected about him a circle of wits led by Sedley, Rochester, and Buckhurst for company in his amusements and debaucheries, so, too, he had another ring of more political gentlemen to feed those ambitions. Lords Lauderdale, Arlington, and Ashley, and Sir William Coventry were all ready to follow the Duke’s lead, often meeting at Lady Castlemaine’s house to plot and plan over lengthy suppers. Everyone at court and beyond knew of these “secret” meetings, to the point that the French ambassadors would call at Her Ladyship’s house before they presented themselves at Whitehall.