The Perfect Royal Mistress (38 page)

“He’s killed Lord Shrewsbury!”

That was the whispered refrain around them as Nell clutched the king’s arm. They stood together that evening on the balcony to watch a glorious nighttime display of candlelit boats and barges, their banners flapping in the cool breeze as they paraded along the river. The lantern light hit the snaking water, turning it to silver before them. Around Nell and the king stood his friend John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, Thomas Clifford, the Earl of Arlington, and their wives, watching the magnificent spectacle in the king’s honor. But everyone’s mind was on the gossip of the day.

“Is ’e dead then?” Nell quietly asked Charles.

“Not yet. But the wound is very bad.”

He was still unaware that Nell had been present at the duel, and she had no intention of telling him. She thought of it now, hours later, as the most horrendous thing she had ever seen, including all of the seamy elements of the darker world that her mother had exposed her to.

“’Tis dreadful,” Nell said, pretending to watch the magnificent display of boats and barges before them, as the warm breeze up off the water ruffled her sleeves and the curled ends of her hair.

“Fool should never have challenged Buckingham. He’s a talented swordsman.”

“Perhaps ’e thought ’e must. For ’is wife’s ’onor, I mean.”

“Lady Shrewsbury has no honor,” Charles scoffed. “None worth trying to save, anyway. She’s a court whore, here to gain what she can at any expense. Everyone here knows women like that for what they are. And losing sight of that now will likely cost him his life.”

The offhand comment wounded Nell in a way she had not expected. It reminded her pointedly that she was not so different from Lady Shrewsbury. She, too, was a mistress, a court whore. Expendable. As much as she loved Charles, and he cared for her, she must never lose sight of that, and she must work every day to keep her place, unlike a wife—or a real lady.

It was late when the festivities finally ended, so, instead of returning to her Lincoln’s Inn Fields house, Nell remained at Whitehall. But she slept little. As she lay alone in the king’s grand bed, with long swags of tapestry fabric wrapped around heavy turned posts, her stomach was sour and roiling. Nell could deny it to herself no longer. She felt certain she was pregnant. The signs had been there for weeks, in spite of how she tried to reason them away. The reality filled her with both a sense of joy and a deep dread. Another royal bastard. The butt of more jests. More cruel poems written for a laugh by Rochester. Nell thought how a child between them would likely hasten their end. As it had with Moll Davies. How would a bulbous tottering mass go on enticing a king? William Chiffinch was standing over her holding a large cup of steaming chocolate when she woke.

“I thought perhaps you could use this,” he said kindly, as she fought a new surge of nausea and moved to the edge of the bed, which was still covered by a spray of the king’s spaniels.

“Where is ’e?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

“Gone for one of his walks, ma’am.”

“Alone?”

“His Grace, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Rochester are with him.”

Chiffinch covered her with one of the king’s own dressing gowns. “My wife is in the next room. She will see to something suitable for you to wear today should you wish to wait for His Majesty’s return.”

Nell looked up at him, tall and stoic, his face giving nothing away; his voice, however, held an uncommon tenderness. “’Tis all so complicated.” She sank back onto the bed, wrapped in silk and tassels. “There seems so much still to learn. So many traps around nearly every corner.”

“I can easily arrange a coach if—”

“But what’s the right thing to do, Mr. Chiffinch? I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance. But I shouldn’t like to end up like Moll Davies.”

“Pardon me for saying, Mrs. Nelly, but you are not at all like Mrs. Davies.”

She smiled at that, grateful. “Thank you, sir.”

“I would be honored if you would call me William.”

Nell studied him for a moment. “Why are you so nice to me?”

He leaned in very close, pausing before he replied. “I shouldn’t say, Mrs. Nelly. But Mrs. Chiffinch and I had a daughter once. You are very like her. Same fire and spirit. My wife noticed it straightaway.”

“And tell me, William, what would you both have thought of your very spirited daughter in bed with the king like this?”

“She was once. She died in childbirth because of it.”

Nell covered her mouth with a hand. “Pray, forgive me. I’d no idea.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“And the baby? Your grandchild?”

“Gone to memory as well, I’m afraid. Now we’ve got only our duty to him. It keeps us both tied to this life, connecting us back to her in a way.” He turned away from her then. “If you will excuse me, I shall call Mrs. Chiffinch to find you something extraordinary to wear.” He was moving toward the door when she called to him:

“William, thank you.”

“Your servant,” he said with a courtly nod as he left the chamber.

Nell went to the window. She leaned against the casement and looked down onto the formal gardens in the courtyard before the river. In the distance, she saw Charles, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Rochester, just where William had said they would be. But, between them, walked a woman, cloaked in blue velvet and ermine. At first, for the ermine-covered hat she wore, Nell could not make out who it was. Then, as the woman tipped her head back and laughed at something the king said, Nell could see who Chiffinch had forgotten to mention. It was Lady Castlemaine, the woman supposedly well out of the king’s life.

Nell watched her link her arm with the king’s, then lay her head on his shoulder as they strolled a pace ahead of Buckingham and Rochester.

Nell felt as if something pierced through her, going straight to her heart. She felt the press of tears at the back of her eyes. It was the suddenness of it. But she was determined not to cry, or to feel the disappointment that was almost overwhelming her. Instead, with utter determination, she forced a smile. She would not be pitied, like the queen, nor avoided like any of the others, when his eye wandered. If Nell was to outlast them all—and by God, she now meant to—she must learn to happily coexist with anyone King Charles put in her path, no matter how her heart was secretly pained because of it.

Two months later, in March of 1669, Lord Shrewsbury died of wounds suffered in the duel with the Duke of Buckingham. As a consequence, Lady Shrewsbury was invited to live openly with His Grace. When the duchess protested so startling an arrangement, the duke asked his own wife to find other accommodations. The court was rocked by the scandal.

Nell continued on in a revival of
Catiline His Conspiracy,
at the King’s Theater. Her own scandal was bitterly brewing. It was one that would not only eclipse the Shrewsbury affair, but would engulf the entire gossip-hungry court. She was pregnant with the king’s child, and when she was forced to refuse a new role written for her once again by John Dryden, scandalmongers spread the news like wildfire, saying that for the duration of her pregnancy, her influence would be diminished. The question endlessly debated in coffeehouses and taverns along the busy Strand was who was likely to challenge Nell Gwynne’s place with the king.

Chapter 22

A
Y, NOW THE PLOT THICKENS VERY MUCH UPON US.

—George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

R
ELATIONS
between England and France had become sound enough by the following spring that Louis XIV’s brother granted his wife a visit home. It was to be a great state occasion: Charles, James, and Minette, the three surviving children of the murdered Charles I, would see one another for the first time in over nine years. But the true reason for the visit was that after years of hard and complex negotiations, with their sister as the envoy, the two sides had finally agreed to a secret alliance. In exchange for substantial monetary aid, Charles had privately agreed to announce, at the time of his choosing, his conversion to Catholicism.

Minette had been dispatched to see the highly secret document signed on behalf of France. Only Arlington and Clifford of the English king’s Privy Council (privately both Catholic) had read and signed the actual treaty. Charles was so afraid of their attempts to dissuade him that the bulk of his privy councillors—including the Duke of Buckingham—knew nothing about the real elements that had been agreed to. Instead, the others were presented a second manufactured treaty to keep them unaware. And none of them were invited to join the king and the Duke of York for the reunion in Dover. Charles was playing a high-stakes game, intent on gaining money and power. Charles I would be proud of what he had been clever enough to achieve. And that was reason enough to attempt it.