The Darling Strumpet (27 page)

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Authors: Gillian Bagwell

Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Romance, #General

BOOK: The Darling Strumpet
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THREE OR FOUR WEEKS INTO THEIR STAY IN EPSOM, NELL AND THE Charlies received a visit from Sam Pepys, who was staying next door at the King’s Head with his wife.
“The greatest news,” Pepys said, “is that a peace has been reached with the Dutch.” Nell thought with a pang that that meant the theaters were likely to open again soon.
“The worser news,” Pepys reported, “is that my Lord Buckingham is in great peril. He’s been accused of having the king’s horoscope cast.”
“Why, what’s the harm in a horoscope?” Nell asked.
“It could be construed as predicting or wishing for the king’s death,” Sedley explained.
“And it’s a capital offense,” Dorset said.
“Aye,” said Pepys. “His Majesty has not only turned him out of the Privy Council and his place as groom of the bedchamber, but Buckingham is sent to the Tower.”
“A gentleman of three inns,” Sedley commented, and then, seeing Nell’s blank look, “In jail, indicted, and in danger of being hanged.”
“But surely the king cannot think Buckingham wishes him dead?” Nell cried.
“Likely not,” Pepys said. “Buckingham turned himself in, though not until he’d stopped to sup with Rochester and other friends at the Sun, making a triumphant appearance on the balcony and waving to the cheering crowds below. Just like a celebrated highwayman on his way to Tyburn. And my Lady Castlemaine is working to have him freed. He’s her cousin, you know.”
“Yes, and it’s to her advantage to have him at liberty,” Dorset said, “as they’ve long been plotting the downfall of Clarendon.”
“Who?” Nell asked.
“Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon,” Sedley said. “He’s been the king’s closest adviser since he was in exile. He and Buckingham hate each other like poison.”
“With Clarendon out,” Dorset said, “there would be no limit to Buckingham’s power.”
 
 
 
THE NEXT DAY A MESSENGER CAME FROM KILLIGREW, AND DORSET read the note aloud to Nell. The theaters were to be opened again. Nell must return to London or return her parts to the playhouse. Somehow, she had not anticipated such an explicit moment of reckoning. She had thought that perhaps she and Dorset would have returned to London by the time the summons came, and that she could return to the stage and continue as his mistress. Or—what? That he would be content to drop his plans and take her back to town? She had not thought it through clearly. And now Dorset was watching her, and the messenger stood waiting for her answer. And she knew she must choose.
“You had not considered returning to town soon, had you, Charlie?” she ventured. He shook his head. She imagined the company reassembling without her, and her parts being handed out to others. Her prized parts, which she had worked so hard to get, and which had brought her such joy. But if she left Dorset to go back to London, she would lose the security his money would bring her. He might keep her for years. Who knew when the theaters could be closed again or for how long?
She climbed the stairs to the bedroom and retrieved the precious bundle of her parts. Florimel, Mirida, Celia, Cydaria, and the rest. They were all here. She held on to the packet for a moment before handing it over to the messenger.
 
 
 
IN THE FOLLOWING WEEKS, NELL TRIED NOT TO THINK ABOUT THE playhouse, and there was much to distract her. Epsom was crowded with London holidaymakers. Between them, Dorset and Sedley knew almost everyone, and evenings were filled with suppers, cards, music, talking, and drinking. Dorset and Sedley were both prodigious drinkers, and Nell found that in their company she was drinking more than she ever had in her life; she frequently rose with the ill effects of the previous night or did not rise at all, but slept until late, only to begin it all again.
 
 
 
ONE WARM AUGUST NIGHT, ANOTHER FAMILIAR FACE APPEARED—Rochester. Dorset and Sedley welcomed him like a long-lost brother, and they chewed over the latest news from court.
“Yes, of course Buckingham’s freed,” Rochester said. “Though he cannot seem to go a day without some new scrape. Harry Killigrew picked a fight with him at the Duke’s Theatre, whither Buckingham had repaired with both wife and mistress. It ended with Buckingham giving Killigrew a kicking and taking away his sword, and Killigrew running like a dog. The king declares he’ll clap him in the Tower if he’s found.”
“That Harry’s become nothing but a roaring damme boy,” Dorset sneered.
“Then the playhouses are open again?” Nell asked. She wondered with a stab to her heart whether her shows were soon to be presented and who had been given her parts.
“Yes, both houses are open again for the first time in some month or six weeks,” Rochester said. “Though most no one is in town. And here’s more news,” he grinned. “Lady Castlemaine is with child again. By Henry Jermyn, they say.”
“Jermyn!” cried Sedley. “The ugliest man in London.”
“But with a prick like a cudgel, the rumor goes,” Rochester smiled. “The king swore the brat could not be his, as he’d not lain with Barbara these six months and more, and that set her in a rage. ‘God damn me, but you shall own it!’ she shrieked, for all the court to hear. But the king will none, and Jermyn’s hightailed it for some safer country.”
“And if His Majesty’s not making feet for children’s stockings with Barbara, where is he planting the royal scepter?” Dorset mused.
“Twixt the nimble legs of Moll Davis,” said Rochester. “You know the king’s taken the queen to Tunbridge Wells in hopes the waters will help her conceive, and of course to refute the usual rumors of divorce. And both the King’s and Duke’s players are there to add to the sport.”
As the evening wore on, the party moved from the dining room to the more comfortable confines of the bedroom. Rochester and Sedley lounged in chairs near the table, and Dorset propped himself against the pillows on the bed, with Nell at his side. He had given no indication that he knew of her past relations with Rochester, and Nell was grateful that Rochester had said nothing to give them away. It was unusually restrained behavior for him, she thought.
Suddenly she realized that Dorset was speaking of her. “The best,” he repeated to Rochester. “And obedient, with it.” Nell didn’t like the note of triumph and challenge in his voice. She knew Rochester too well.
“Indeed?” Rochester said, raising his eyebrows. Nell’s heart sank. Nothing good could come of this discussion. “‘The best’ is quite a claim, Charlie. Perhaps you’d let me judge for myself?”
Dorset held Rochester’s gaze for some seconds without responding.
“No,” he said at length, smiling complacently. “I don’t think so.”
Nell inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. But then Dorset spoke again.
“But I’ve no objection to letting you watch.”
Rochester smiled back at him, a wicked glint in his green eyes.
“I’d relish that, Charlie,” he said, taking a swallow of his wine.
“Nell.” Dorset didn’t even look at her. Eyes still meeting Rochester’s, he simply beckoned her to him as he sat up on the edge of the bed. Nell felt that she would be wading into a disaster, but to refuse him seemed the worse option.
She knelt before Dorset and opened his flies. She had never felt him so hard. She knew that Rochester and Sedley must be able to see all, and knew that Dorset knew it, too, and was enjoying his mastery over her.
She worked for some minutes. There was no sound but that made by her mouth, and Dorset’s occasional exhalation of pleasure. He was holding back, she could tell, prolonging his triumph. Finally he spoke.
“As I said, Johnny. And as you can see. She gives the best.”
“She ought to,” said Rochester lazily. “I taught her.”
Nell felt Dorset’s cock wilt in her mouth.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
 
 
K
ILLIGREW, LACY, AND MOHUN REGARDED NELL SILENTLY. HART sat next to them but would not even meet her eyes. Finally Killigrew spoke.
“And why should I take you back, pray?”
“Because I have nowhere else to go. Because I never should have left. Because I promise you that I will work hard and be no trouble.” None of them said anything and Nell knew that there was only one real reason they would give her a second chance.
“Because I brought in crowds before, and you know I’ll do it again.”
 
 
 
HOW COULD SHE HAVE FALLEN SO FAST? NELL ASKED HERSELF AS SHE left Killigrew’s little office. Six weeks earlier she had been the darling of the playhouses, with a dozen parts that were hers alone, and the knowledge that whenever she put foot onstage there would be a crowd clamoring to see her. Now she was back to where she had been so long ago, hoping she might be given a part, and she felt keenly that when the chance did come, she must do very well to regain her place in the good graces of Killigrew, Mohun, Lacy, and Hart.
Hart. He had stalked out of the meeting without a word to her. His love and approval had shone on her as steadily as the sun, and she had turned her back on him. For what? For foolish visions of grandeur that had crumbled to dust. To be sent packing by Dorset with the insulting sum of five pounds and have to come crawling back to the theater. The other actresses—she had thought them her friends—had not been happy to see her walk in the door that day, were no doubt loath to relinquish the parts they’d inherited from her.
Nell went to the women’s tiring room to retrieve some shoes she had forgotten that summer. Anne Marshall had the one private dressing room, with its fireplace. The door stood ajar, and Nell could hear Anne and Beck giggling inside.
“Lord Dorset’s whore.” It was Beck’s voice. Nell didn’t hear the rest of the sentence, but that was enough. She flung the door open.
“I was but one man’s mistress,” she bellowed, resisting the urge to slap Beck, “though I was brought up in a brothel. You,” she sneered, her outrage at Beck’s hypocrisy overwhelming her, “are mistress to three or four, though a Presbyter’s praying daughter.”
“One man’s mistress?” Beck’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s not what I heard. Three to a bed is the story round the town. Was his lordship paying you by the hour or by the yard?” Anne broke into giggles at the play on words.
Nell felt her face burning in humiliation. Her frolics with Dorset and Sedley in Epsom had seemed the natural course of events in the trio’s holidaymaking, merely an extension of their rambles in the countryside, their merry meals alone or with other company. But the thought of the two Charlies recounting their sport to leering cronies cast it all in another light. She felt dirty, and foolish to have thought that they regarded her as anything but a whore, bought and paid for.
And for such treatment she had cast off all that she had worked so hard to gain at the theater. Had she valued it so little? Her soul ached with such despair that she had not the heart to find any retort to Beck’s taunts. Suppressing her tears, she retreated without a word and fled the theater.
 
 
 
SUMMER WAS GONE. EACH AFTERNOON THE SUN SANK EARLIER AND rose later, and Nell felt enveloped by the chilly darkness. Rose tried to coax her into going walking or to see the plays at the Duke’s, but she wished to do nothing but stay abed and keep warm. After two weeks when she had barely left her room at the Cock and Pie, John Lacy came to see her.

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