The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  Had got the length of her Great Stallion’s Foot.

  She knew so well to wield the Royal Tool

  That none had such a Knack to please the Fool.

  When he was Dumpish, she would still be Jocund

  And Chuck the Royal Chin of Charles ye Second.

  “Come, Dear,” quoth she, “I hate this Melancholy”—

  Then out She lug’d the Handle of his Belly—

  And with her Heels lock’d in the Amorous Cully,

  Thrice happy Nell that hads’t a King so gracious

  To poke for Princes in thy Dust and Ashes.

  And well done Charles, when thou can’st get no Heirs

  To stock thy Peerage with St. Martin’s Peers

  And stain the Lines of all thy old Nobility

  With Scoundrel Whores, and Cinder-dram’s Fertility.

  I swallowed back the bile that rose in my throat and made myself smile. “ ’Od’s blood, is that all? ”

  Poll stared at me, bewildered. “Aye, madam.”

  “Then I’ve naught to worry, do I?” I sipped at my morning tea, as passing genteel as any lady. “This Marvell’s a damned poor poet, Poll, but he doesn’t say a word of me that’s not true. I am a whore. I do cheer His Majesty when he’s sorrowful, and I do please him, too.”

  “But, madam, what’s said of His Majesty!”

  “Is likewise true, Polly,” I said firmly. “He hasn’t gotten an heir with the queen, whilst I, the Cinder-dam, have given him a fine son. The words were writ to hurt, aye, but so long as I hold my head high and pay them no heed, they’ll have no power.”

  “Yes, madam,” she said, but with more obedience than conviction.

  “I’ll tell you the same that Master Killigrew told me at the playhouse,” I said fiercely, “that once you set to live your life before the world, then you must let them judge you as they please, but know that it signifies nothing more than a pile of dung. Nothing, mind?”

  I grabbed the paper from her hand and crumpled it into a tight ball, then threw it as hard as I could into the grate. It nested against a burning log, glowed, then burst into bright flame.

  “There, Poll, you can see their short life for yourself,” I said. “Now that is all.”

  She curtseyed and left me. I stood before the fireplace for a long while afterward, watching the paper burn to wisps of gray ash and finally fall to bits. The hateful words had vanished, but what I felt for Charles, and he for me, would surely last forever.

  And that was all.

  “So there’s the French girl, Nell, the great prize,” Rochester said, standing beside me. “What do you make of her, eh? ”

  “Hah.” I held on to his arm for support, craning upward and balancing on my toes for a better look across the room. A small group of us were gathered at the palace tonight, ostensibly to hear some overwrought singer from Paris trill and flutter her way through a pack of nonsensical songs. That was what the invitation had been, but for most of us, the real reason was to witness the first official appearance of Louise de Kéroualle at Charles’s court.

  By now everyone knew her story (except, perhaps, the queen). The chit had first come to notice as one of the maids of honor in attendance to Charles’s sister Henriette last spring, when the brother and sister had met for the last time in Dover. Charles gave Madame a casket of rare jewels as a gift in parting, and in return he’d slyly asked for her maid. Knowing her brother’s inclinations, Madame had refused, saying the girl was too young (no more than a year younger than I!) and too gently, too delicately raised to leave France for the bawdy wilderness of her brother’s court.

  King Louis had had no such qualms, and Madame was scarce laid in her grave before he’d offered Louise and her virginity to Charles, just the sort of gift royal cousins exchanged, I suppose. For propriety’s sake, she would be given a place in the queen’s household, but no one with half a wit (least of all me) was fooled.

  In early September, then, Charles had sent Buckingham, ready as always to play the royal pimp, to collect the chit as well as Madame’s Stuart jewels. I never could learn exactly what happened next, though it seemed that, even for him, the duke grossly bumbled his errand. Rochester had sworn to me that his notorious mistress Lady Shrewsbury, now hugely great with Buckingham’s bastard, had summoned him rushing back to England by claiming the child was imminent; though I cannot countenance that story, or that the duke would ever care so much for another, even his lover. Whatever his reason, he abandoned Louise in Dieppe, sailing home to England as if he’d quite forgotten her (and, apparently, his head, too, to so foolishly tax Charles’s goodwill). Lord Arlington had instead rescued the girl, fetching her from France in his private yacht, and now, at last, here she was.

  “ ‘Hah’ is not a judgment, Nell,” Rochester said beside me. “Not the sort I expect from you, anyway. Come, pet, silence has never been your suit. Tell me what you think of the lady.”

  I glanced up at him sideways. “She looks very—very French, my lord.”

  He laughed. “I trust you don’t mean that as a compliment.”

  “I’m English,” I said, and shrugged to show how careless I was of all things French. This Louise’s looks did not please me, regardless of whether she’d been born French, English, or Hottentots. Her eyes were small and dark as raisins, her hair black, her lips set in a babyish pout. She was dressed in the French fashion, too, stiff and unyielding, with far too much gold lace for a maid of honor. To watch her beside the queen, sitting so straight-backed on her tabouret, she might have been the queen rather than the attendant.

  “You’re English, and she is French,” he said, teasing me, I know. “What of it?”

  “Because you are English, too, my lord,” I said, appealing to logic. “Mark her for yourself. Even from here, you can see that her face’s as round and white as a bowl of rising dough, and with as much spark as that, too.”

  “That is to the French taste, yes,” he conceded, sipping at his ever-present wine. “But you must grant that she has a certain grace.”

  “Grace!” I exclaimed. “ ’Od’s blood, how can you tell? I’ve seen kindling sticks that show more life than that! Look how she moves, my lord. Is that what the French mistake for breeding? Stopping and posing and freezing her gestures for admiration, as if she’d been carved from white stone? ”

  “The king doesn’t think so,” Rochester said softly, and unnecessarily, too. As we watched, Charles made his way to where the queen was sitting. He bowed and smiled to her: a sorry thing to see how that poor, plain lady still blushed with pleasure at her faithless husband’s attentions. Yet as grateful as she was, he squandered only a handful of minutes on her before moving on to the new mademoiselle, who in turn puffed and preened as he greeted her.

  “I cannot abide a jade who simpers like that!” I said, fuming. “Does she believe this king has never smiled upon another woman before? ”

  Not that my friend had anything of comfort to add to that. “They say that both Arlington and the French ambassadors have tutored her well in what pleases the king. Recall how long Frances Stuart was able to keep him nibbling from her palm, by the simple art of refusal.”

  “Virgins,” I said with disgust. “Faith, but I do hate them.”

  “As do I,” Rochester agreed, resting his arm over my shoulders in his familiar manner. “A nuisance, all around. But the creatures are such a rarity at this court, and the king has such a taste for the hunt, that surely he’s tempted.”

  I watched them together, desperately trying to convince myself that the king’s attentions were only him playing the genial host.

  “I’ve already contrived a small epigram to be pinned to the lady’s door,” the earl said. “When the time is ripe, of course.”

  I raised my brows with expectation. Rochester’s poetry was famously barbed, and I thought him the best wit of the lot.

  He smiled, as always pleased to recite. “ ‘Within this place a bed’s appointed/For a French bitch and God’s anointed.
’ ”

  “Hah, that’s most fine!” I laughed, and clapped my hands together. “You must post it on her door at once.”

  “In time, in time,” he said with a languid turn of his hand. “The king will be amused. The lady will not.”

  “Hang the lady,” I said tartly. “Or as you say, the bitch.”

  “Indeed,” he said. “But if I were you, Mrs. Gwyn, I’d take care to look after myself.”

  “What have I to fear from this pasty-faced Carwell?” I blustered, purposefully turning her name to English. “What does that scrap of French maidenhead have do with me? ”

  “Oh, there’s no fault with you, Nelly,” he said, not unkindly. “She reminds him of Minette.”

  And as I watched Charles smiling down on the French girl, the interest and desire was so clear in his dark eyes, even here across the room, that I felt my heart drop through my belly. I’d never expected him to keep constant to me, nor had I any right to. Nor, to be truthful, had he; it wasn’t in his nature.

  But I’d no wish to stand witness to such a scene as this one, either, and in those few moments I realized I’d grown lazy and complacent where the king was concerned. With my new house and my curly-haired son, I’d let myself trust too far. I’d never been afraid to work for what I’d wanted in my life, and if I wished to keep my place in the king’s heart and ensure a good life for our little Charles, I’d do well to set myself to doing so again.

  By the time Charles finally came to me (for no matter in how much favor I was, nor how daring I wished to be, I couldn’t approach him with such familiarity before the queen here at court), I’d already made my plan.

  “How handsomely you are dressed this night, Nelly,” he said as he kissed my hand, his smile so warm that I could almost forget how he’d just granted the same beneficence to the French chit. “But then, you know my tastes, don’t you?”

  “Aye, sir, I do.” I smiled sweetly. I was dressed well, though, in truth, to my own tastes, which had, I suppose, become his as well. I’d chosen a gown of bronze lutestring which turned my hair more gold than copper, and emerald green petticoats, all trimmed with the same ribbon rosettes and scalloped pinking that I’d always preferred in my costumes.

  In the way we’d often done before, he raised my hand to spin me about as if in a dance. I turned on my toes, my skirts fluttering outward. This was, of course, the usual goal of this exercise: to display my legs in their bright yellow stockings and my tiny feet in green-and-gold lace shoes for Charles to admire. But this time, when I finally came to stop before him, I’d puffed out my cheeks and narrowed my eyes to imitate Louise de Kéroualle.

  “Oooh, oooh, monsieur le king, monsieur le king, you are kind to petite me, oui?” I said in the foolish, high-pitched accent that we always used on the stage to mock the French. I pouted outrageously, and simpered exactly as she had. “Oooh, oui, oui, bonjour, bonjour.”

  The king’s expression froze, and for one horrible moment I feared I’d misjudged. Then beside him Rochester guffawed, and at once Charles relaxed and laughed, too, and more: I could almost vow that he blushed, to be so caught.

  “You’re a wicked little creature, Nelly,” he said fondly. “You shouldn’t jest about that poor lady when she’s only just arrived among us. My sister held her most dear, you know.”

  With my palms turned outward, I shrugged with Gallic extravagance. “Me no understand-ez, oui? ”

  “Oh, you understand, sweet, and so do I.” Charles curled his arm around my waist to pull me close to his side. “Come, walk with me a bit. I’ve had enough of this singer’s antic warbling for one night.”

  He led me outside toward the nearest gallery, where we could see the full autumn moon rising orange over the city’s steeples and rooftops. The evening was warm, and I was snug, anyway, tucked against his side with his arm around me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he soon pressed me into the shadows and against the wall, for we both enjoyed a sudden, impulsive coupling like that. But before his thoughts sank to his breeches, I’d things I’d wished to say, and I stepped free, turning to face him.

  “I’ve decided to be in Dryden’s new play, sir,” I said. “Considering how he wrote the best part and the prologue specific for me, I could hardly refuse him.”

  “So soon? ” he asked, surprised. “Little Charles is only a month or so old, isn’t he?”

  “He’s nearly five months, sir,” I said, wondering how as attentive a father as Charles could still be so unaware of his son’s age. “It’s time.”

  He sighed unhappily, answer enough.

  “I’d always planned to return to the playhouse,” I said, coaxing him. “And I gave Killigrew my word I’d be back as soon as I could.”

  “Killigrew would let you go.”

  “If I wished to be freed, aye,” I said delicately. “But I don’t. You knew I’d go back, sir.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, heaving another great sigh. “I knew. But I’d thought with the new house and the boy—our boy—that you’d be content enough.”

  “It’s not a matter of contentment, sir, but of who and what I am.” I came back to stand close before him, resting my hands on his chest as I gazed up at his face. “I’ve always wished to amuse you and to make you laugh. What better place for me to do so than your playhouse? ”

  “But you’ll be rehearsing.” He slid his hand from my waist to beneath one of my breasts, holding it there. “You’ll be with Killigrew and the others. I’ll miss you.”

  “I won’t be far, sir.” I placed my hand over his, urging him to caress the soft flesh he’d captured there, and I sighed my pleasure. “You’ll always be able to find me.”

  He’d now grasped my bum, needing no further encouragement. “What part will you play, sweet? ”

  “Almahide,” I whispered, my voice turning husky. I’d make him forget that French Louise. I’d make him forget everything but me. “Queen of the Moors, a paganess torn between twin passions for her husband and the man who can save their country. I’ve already seen my costume, spangled and sewn from the spotted skins of leopards, with a plumed crown for my head. My arms and legs will be bare, save for bracelets that twine like snakes around my limbs.”

  “I like a good paganess.” He kissed me, hard and demanding, and pushed me back against the wall. “They are great sport to tame, and to master.”

  I laughed, breathless, helping him shove my skirts aside. “I should like to see you tame me, sir.”

  “Wear your costume for me,” he said, “and I will.”

  I gasped as he entered me, my eyes closed with delight. “I will,” I whispered. “Oh, sir, I will.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  BUCKINGHAM HOUSE, LONDON November 1670

  For all that the king’s devotion and ardor toward me seemed only to increase in the last months of 1670, he still showed a most distressing inclination toward the new French maid of honor. Perhaps if I’d lost a sister as dear to me as Henriette had been to Charles, then I would understand the complicated attraction that Louise de Kéroualle seemed to hold for him.

  As it was, I could not fathom it, not at all. She was placid as a sheep, demonstrating no wit whatsoever, and her beauty (such as it was, for I was blind to that, as well) was without animation. She treated the queen not as a mistress, but scandalously as an equal, yet was not rebuffed or chided for it. She put on more airs than an entire legion of peeresses combined, and just as she praised everything that was French, she likewise faulted everything English. She was petty and demanding, given to hysterical bouts of weeping and tantrums that I’d not tolerate in my infant son, let alone in a grown woman purporting to be a lady. She was most likely a spy for Louis. With blatant calculation, she mentioned Madame’s name and memory in conversation as often as she could, always reducing poor Charles to the gravest melancholy with her.

  She was French. She was a Papist. I never could pronounce her name. She should have been an enemy of the Crown and the state, and yet my darling Charles behaved like a
simpleminded, besotted mooncalf in her presence.

  Sweet merciful heaven, she made me want to retch and puke.

  Hatred can make just as peculiar a bedfellow as love. For me, though I’d never have thought it possible, this meant that I became tenuous allies with the Duke of Buckingham. Louise loathed His Grace for having abandoned her at Dieppe, like any other waterside whore. I loathed Louise, simply for being Louise. Yet, in turn, both the duke and I loved the king. Therefore, that autumn His Grace and I put aside our past differences and forged a bond of tenuous friendship between us.

  All of which explains how one night in November, I came to be in Buckingham House, sitting in a tall-backed, old-fashioned chair across from the duke, who sat in an identical chair. Before us was our audience of friends and acquaintances, a makeshift pit of gallants, nobles, and sparks, with only a sprinkling of women, and no ladies, save the duke’s wanton lover, Lady Shrewsbury.

  Sir Charles Sedley, Sir Henry Savile, and Lord Buckhurst, my old cronies from Epsom; Tom Killigrew from the playhouse; and Sir George Etherege from the Duke’s Company: all of those whom that sour face Andrew Marvell had branded as the Merry Gang, and a good many others besides, were there. Lord Rochester had come late, during supper, trailing a sloe-eyed young man of exceptional beauty after him. His Lordship had confessed to me that, after Paris, he’d begun experimenting with more libertine ways and the Turkish manner of love, and this languid puppy on his arm was, I suppose, the proof.

  The hour was late, very late, and the entire company had drunk so much wine that there was not much we wouldn’t do. Yet I cannot lay the blame upon that. The sting of Charles’s attentions to Louise goaded me onward, making me turn toward jesting as I always did, and besides, I liked an audience too well to resist any chance to perform, even as unwisely as this.

  I’d dusted my face all over with flour (fetched from the kitchen for the purpose) to resemble Louise’s deathly pallor. Someone had thoughtfully produced an oversized Romish crucifix, which I clutched to my breast with Louise’s French fervor, keeping my other hand free to hold one of the napkins from dinner as an enormous handkerchief. Opposite me, Buckingham had shifted his usual ginger-colored wig for a black one, much like Charles’s, and he, too, held a napkin stretched between both hands. Simplicity itself, as far as our costumes and properties, but our audience never doubted for an instant who we meant to portray.