The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  I chuckled, a sated gurgle deep in my throat. “Nothing poor, sir, not by half. I’d say your purse may be empty, but mine’s now full to spilling over.”

  He was laughing still as the carriage rolled beneath the arch and into the palace yard. Our ride from Lincoln’s Inn Fields had not been far, yet enough for a fine first course to our evening, and we both knew the true repast lay before us. The driver had stopped before one of the palace’s lesser doors, and the footmen, likewise also familiar with His Majesty’s habits, took their time attending to the door, to let us order ourselves and our dress.

  But I’d never cared a fig for discretion, and I didn’t see the point to it now. Whatever I did would be spoken of tomorrow all over London; I might as well give the scandalized meat for their tattle. With a final kiss, I slipped from his lap, shook down my skirts, and tugged my bodice back into place, and then grandly swung the carriage door open myself.

  “Good evening, my brave fellows,” I said, saluting the startled footmen. “Make way, if you please. Nelly has come, and means to come again.”

  “That you will, you impertinent little scamp,” the king said behind me, laughing as he reached out to grab me.

  But I was a slippery creature when I wished to be, and before he could catch me, I’d hopped from the carriage and raced up the steps, holding my skirts high so I could run freely. The strip of my tattered petticoat trailed out behind me, and my unpinned hair flopped inelegantly over my shoulders, but I did not stop, not until Charles caught me. Just as I’d always believed I would, I entered his bedchamber not by way of the secret backstairs, with Chiffinch as my guide, but proudly through the hall, with Charles beside me.

  I know in the telling this sounds tawdry and low, but I swear that it was not. Perhaps it was because Charles and I had known each other as friends for so long before this night, or perhaps it came from my first having a life of my own as an actress, apart from his, yet also in the eye of the public. Perhaps it came from my being eighteen, and he thirty-eight. Or perhaps, and most likely of all, it came from us being able to laugh, together and at ourselves.

  “Come to the park with me, Nelly,” Charles said early the next morning as we lay together in his bed. He was famous for not lingering abed much past dawn, no matter how late or vigorous he’d been the night before. This pleased me, for I’d always been an early riser, too, another small way we matched so well. “The day promises fine, and the dogs need to run.”

  “Why bother with the park, when they could run about this bed?” I asked, snugged comfortably against his side. I’d no idea exactly how many of his dogs were at present lying beneath Charles’s bed—I’d heard them snuffling and yipping sleepily in the night—for now they seemed to be showing no more inclination to move than were we. “God knows your bedstead’s as big as the park. Maybe bigger.”

  He chuckled, drawing me closer. “You’d begrudge me my bed? It seems to me we put it to good enough use last night.”

  “We did that, didn’t we? ” I rolled onto my belly, resting my cheek on his chest. The bed was enormous, bigger than most chambers itself, and of a size, I suppose, with Charles: a massive bedstead of carved black oak, so long and broad that even he could not touch the sides if he lay in the center. “But I must go soon, back to the playhouse. I’ve rehearsal.”

  “I’ll speak to Killigrew,” he said. “It’s my company, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not the reason.” With a sigh, I sat upright, my legs dangling over the side of the great bed. “We’ve a new play, and we all must learn our parts.”

  He took my hand, lifting it to his lips to kiss my palm. “I don’t want you to go yet, Nelly.”

  I shook my head. “I know, sir, but I can’t—”

  “You can,” he said easily. “I’m the king.”

  “And I’m an actress.” With a sigh of genuine regret, I slipped from the bed to begin collecting my clothes, scattered about the room where I’d shed them last night. “A leading actress in your company of players.”

  “You’re Nelly,” he said. “My Nelly, now.”

  I dropped my smock over my nakedness and grinned, liking the sound of that. I’d never belonged to anyone, not like this. “But your Nelly’s an actress, sir, and unless I rehearse, I won’t be any longer. Then you’ll want me the less if I became less of what you wanted.”

  “Stay,” he said softly. “Don’t go. Stay with me.”

  Afterward I realized he could have ordered me to obey, or even sent me to the Tower for refusing. He was the king, and kings could order heads lopped off for less reason than I was offering. In the confidence of the moment together, I’d been thinking of Charles only as the man whose bed I’d shared for the night, and forgotten my place and rank. Far worse, I’d forgotten his—a most grievous error for anyone who aspired to a more lasting place at court.

  Instead, that morning I was seeing Charles as he was: a large, handsome, well-made man with cropped, peppered hair, lying quite beguilingly naked before me, my scent still ripe upon him and his seed warm within me, a man whose company had just made me vastly happy and content—a man who, in some fashion, I’d loved most of my life.

  “Oh, sir,” I said, wavering in my resolve.

  “Please, Nelly.” He smiled almost wistfully.

  It was the smile that undid me. How could it not? I whipped the smock back over my head and hopped into the bed and into his waiting embrace.

  He chuckled, drawing me close. “I’ll come to the theatre with you, and stay for the play.”

  “I’d like that,” I said, liking his arms around me, too.

  “Then afterward,” he said, “you’ll come with me.”

  “I will, sir.” I knew I should be honored to have so much attention from him, but instead I felt oddly uneasy. It felt strange, this belonging to another, especially when that other must by law be obeyed. Hadn’t I found trouble enough with Hart and Buckhurst, upon exactly that same score?

  Yet when I twisted around to look back at him, his jaw darkened with his morning’s beard, his dark eyes watching me with open, unfeigned affection, my heart swelled within my breast. This was Charles, my Charles, just as I was his Nelly, and king or not, I’d follow him anywhere in creation.

  I kissed him lightly, running my fingertip over his mustache to tickle him. He laughed and kissed me back, and happily I gave myself over to him again.

  “I must be sure to thank Buckingham for this,” he said as he rolled me beneath him.

  “Buckingham?” I repeated with surprise, and wariness, too. “ ’Od’s faith, what has His Grace to do with us?”

  “Why, for that country cousin of his,” he said, surprised I wasn’t sharing this latest amusement, the way I had everything else. “It was Buckingham’s idea, but Rochester and Killigrew were party to it, as well. As clever as you are, Nell, I cannot believe you didn’t see the jest at once.”

  “Curse me for a blind idiot, sir,” I said slowly, “but I don’t see it still.”

  “That fellow he hired to come with you to the playhouse for us to meet as if by Fate,” he explained. “I should make Killigrew take him on in the company, he was that fine an actor. From his first introduction, you must have guessed. His name’s an anagram. Rearrange the letters, and it’s clear as the dawn.”

  It would be, aye, if I’d ever learned to make sense of letters and words. “I’m not good at puzzles such as that, sir.”

  “Sillveri, Villiers. They’re one in the same,” he said, more interested now in kissing me than in the cursed anagram. “I asked him about being Italian only to play along, and to see how fast he’d think as his character should. Hah, how Buckingham must have enjoyed inventing such a ruse!”

  Indeed he must, I thought bitterly. So much for His Grace being too bound in his own troubles to remember me! Buckingham could not be content with merely meddling in my life, contriving this entire foolish evening to see me finally end it in the king’s bed. But no, the duke must mock me and my lack of learning in the
process, too, and make confederates of those like Rochester and Killigrew, whom I’d always believed my friends.

  “Sweet Nelly,” said Charles, his deep voice resonating with early-morning seduction. “How glad I am to have you here with me.”

  In spite of my dark thoughts for Buckingham, I could not help but smile, arching myself beneath him to show my own willingness. I closed my eyes and offered my parted lips to him again. In the end, it didn’t matter what trickery might have brought me here. I’d still hold fast and not become Buckingham’s pawn. It would be by my own affection that I’d return to share this great bed with Charles, not just for the single night, but many more to come.

  With a pleasurable groan, he settled deeper between my thighs, and I curled my legs higher around him in nimble welcome. This was what mattered, I reminded myself fiercely. Charles and me, together.

  I might have lost this skirmish with Buckingham, but, ah, I’d won the king.

  In the summer of 1668, there were many things for Londoners to discuss over their ale or their chocolate. The queen had traveled to Tunbridge Wells for yet another course of the waters there, in the empty hope (as empty as her barren womb) that she’d yet conceive. Gentlemen in Parliament as well as common folk were beginning to speak more openly of Charles divorcing his Portuguese princess in favor of a fertile new wife. Giving fresh impetus to this were the disturbing rumors that the current heir to the throne, James, Duke of York, had secretly followed the lead of his fat wife toward Rome and converted to the Papists. Across the Channel, the Dutch were said to be rattling their swords afresh, despite the last peace treaty, and in return Parliament had finally voted for the rebuilding of the great ships lost in the last war.

  But for many Londoners, by far the most interesting subject was that the king had taken their favorite actress, Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn, from the stage at the Theatre Royal and into his bed.

  It was widely acknowledged that the theatre was, for most actresses, only a public setting to display a pretty woman to the fashionable world, a mere stepping-stone until she would be borne off into the keeping of a rich man. I’d been unusual in returning to the company after my summer with Lord Buckhurst. The other women who’d left to become mistresses never came back, either gaily shifting from one protector to another, or slipping backward into brothel work, or, rarest of all, accepting an honorable offer of marriage.

  I liked my place in the theatre. I liked the excitement and the variety, and I liked the special pleasure of making a houseful of people laugh with a sly gesture or witty line. I couldn’t conceive of abandoning that for the tedium of a mistress’s life, of waiting all the day in my little house on the whim of my protector and praying he’d have a cockstand for me after his wife had claimed her share. Besides, I’d worked far too hard to become the favorite of the playhouse to put it casually aside.

  But for me to continue to take my roles by day and then give my nights to His Majesty was something that had never been done. I was cheered by some for my audacity, denounced by others for my selfishness, and envied by many more; while there in the royal box, Charles himself smiled like the grandest stag of the pack, well accustomed to being the center of so much bawdy speculation. He knew what they could only guess: that I saved my best performances for him each night.

  Scandal was always good for trade, and every play that featured me was sure to earn a full house. Killigrew could not be happier by how our audiences devoured this play within a play. Every line I spoke was studied for an underlying reference to my new position with the king, and each gesture was interpreted for what it might reveal.

  Of course I played shamelessly to Charles, sending my brightest, fondest smiles over the pit toward him, and directing my most wicked, witty asides toward him. He loved it most when I played the impudent wanton, the mad, bold wench, and would be so inflamed that he’d claim me, still in my costume and paint, in his coach or even in my tiring-room. It seemed I scarce slept, yet my beauty glowed, and I’d never been happier in all my life.

  Even quiet Mr. Dryden became party to our merriment. When he first presented his new play to the company in the end of May, I saw the worried glances among my fellows, the fear that perhaps we’d be pushing the king too hard. Killigrew looked to me to decide; I nodded, sensing so brazen a play was bound to become one of Charles’s favorites.

  An Evening’s Love, or The Mock Astrologer wasn’t one of Mr. Dryden’s better plays, and later, it was seldom revived at all. But for that summer, there was not a more popular play to be seen in London, and all London wished to see it.

  The role that Mr. Dryden had written for me was another wild, outspoken Spanish jade named Jacinta, who sported and danced about the attentions of a faithless gallant named Wildblood. There was the usual banter and wit and bawdry that made the crowds roar with laughter, but it was one bold declaration by me as Jacinta that made them gasp.

  “ ‘I can love no where but above me,’ ” I said to Wildblood, my hands proudly akimbo at my waist. “ ‘Methinks the rattling of a coach and six sounds more eloquently than the best harangue a Wit could make me.’ ”

  The reaction from the pit and boxes could have been mistaken for a great gust of sea wind, so many did catch their breath with titillated surprise. But Mr. Dryden and I had more for them. When Wildblood asked what could be the best a gentleman could hope from me, I smiled.

  I looked first to where Lord Buckhurst sat with his fellow wits, holding my gaze there long enough so no one would mistake me, or him, either. It would be a small but delicious revenge for the unkind tales he allowed spoken of me, or had even put into currency himself. Then I looked up to Charles, to signal him as my most perfect lover.

  “ ‘To be admitted to pass my time with, while a better comes to be the lowest step in my Stair-case,’ ” I said, climbing upon a pile of boxes set there for the purpose of giving true meaning to my words. “ ‘Then for a Knight to mount upon him, and a Lord upon him, and a Marquess upon him, and a Duke upon him, till I get as high as I can climb.’ ”

  By now I stood on the highest box, and there I took a handful of pretty, neat steps. Then with my skirts raised over my ankles, I made a curtsey to Charles, and blew him a kiss from my fingertips.

  Though many were shocked by such a speech, Charles found it the wittiest thing imaginable, and later made me climb again in private, to my favorite perch atop the royal scepter.

  Oh, aye, as high as I could climb.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BAGNIGGE WELLS September 1668

  “I vow you can’t catch me, sir,” I taunted, raising my head from the water’s surface only enough so my lips would clear it. “Hey-ho, can’t catch me!”

  I gulped as big a breath as I could and plunged deep into the river, swimming low so Charles wouldn’t spy me. Finally my lungs were burning and I could keep under no longer, and I popped up with a splatter, gasping. Swiftly I looked about me for Charles, shoving aside the tangled hair that clung to my face and breasts like duckweed.

  All around me was still: the green riverbed, the willows trailing their feathery branches into the water, the few ducks already nesting for the night in the tall grass, their heads tucked demurely beneath their wings. The days were shorter now, making the sky that velvety blue that comes before true dusk, with stars just beginning to spark. The evening mist floated low over the fields beyond the river, softening the horizon. I could hear the first nightingale’s song over the rush of the water, and louder still the racing of my own heart. Our clothes lay remained where we’d left them on the grass, untidy piles of pale linen. On top of Charles’s lay two of his piebald spaniels, curled contentedly, I suppose, in his scent. Not far beyond lay the shadowy shape of my house.

  But there was no sign at all of Charles. I turned about in the water, and turned again, not caring any longer if I splashed to keep afloat.

  What if somehow he’d suffered some misadventure in the water? From my little hired house we’d come here alone, the two of us; there’d be no
servant or attendant to summon for help. What if Charles had drowned, and in my giddy focus on our game, I’d not realized it? What if I were responsible for the loss of the king?

  “Sir?” I called, my voice rising with my growing panic. “Sir, where are you? ”

  A duck called in sleepy response, a quacking mockery of the voice I wanted to hear.

  “Sir, please!” I shouted. “Damn your impertinence, where are you?”

  I heard a splashing behind me, and eagerly twisted about to the sound. One of Charles’s dogs was paddling toward me, his sleek black-and-white head like a seal’s in the water, his long ears drifting behind.

  “Hey, pup, hey,” I crooned softly, holding my hand out to the little dog. “Where’s Charles, eh? Where’s the king? ”

  I felt his hands grasp around my bare ankles, far below the water’s surface. Before I could pull my legs free, he’d picked me up from my feet and tossed me backward and headfirst into the river. Charles was laughing still when I finally came up, sputtering and flailing and snuffling water from my nose.

  “You black rogue!” I shouted furiously. “To think that I feared for you. You foul, sneaking rascal!”

  “What was there to fear?” he asked through his laughter. “It was you who proposed the game, not I.”

  “You wicked cheat!” I tried to lunge toward him, but he deftly backed away from my reach. He’d the natural advantage, for he could stand here with ease, whilst I, being so much shorter, must keep my hands and feet fluttering to stay afloat. “I should have let you drown!”

  “You let me, Nelly?” he asked, laughing so hard he could barely stand himself. “I’d like to see you do that.”

  “Oh, aye, I should have!” I shouted, now forced to fend off his blasted dog, as well, who’d decided to clamber onto my floating back as if I were some convenient island. “Down, Tiger, down, I say. Off, off! I should have let you drown, and let your sorry brother take your crown, and carry us all to Rome and damnation!”