The Perfect Royal Mistress (8 page)

“I’d ’ave got a laugh.”

“And just how would
you
say the line?”

“All right then. The line Lady Wealthy ’as is ‘Go ’ang yourself.’ And Mr. Wellbred
should
say, ‘Thank you for the advice.’”

He scratched his chin. “You say I’ll get a laugh like that?”

“I’ve no doubt.”

His charming smile returned. “Allow me to take you to dinner, Nell. I would like to hear more of your views on my untapped comedic potential. I know a lovely little place very near here where we can dine quietly, and talk.”

“You want to take the likes of
me
out in public?”

“I asked you, did I not?”

“True enough, Mr. ’Art.”

“You’re a cautious girl. And quick for your age.”

“Do you not mean quick for a girl from modest means?”

“Nell Gwynne,” he laughed out loud. “You
are
a charmer.”

She let him lead her down the street to Long’s, in the Haymarket. It was a delightful establishment, all brightly candlelit, with draperies around the back tables, and linen on some of them. Charles Hart was ushered in with great ceremony, and Nell followed him, unnoticed in her secondhand olive-colored dress. They went to a small alcove, paneled in rich oak, and hung with long swags of vermilion velvet. He sat down at a table, and two women came over to speak with him. Charles Hart did not notice that they blocked the only other chair at the table so that Nell was forced to continue standing.

“If you please!” Nell finally said. She might not be a lady, but she knew well enough she was a guest. Her comment required the women to turn and regard her. The first one was petite, with dark hair and huge breasts peeking over her lace trim. She bit back an unkind smile as she moved just enough for Nell to reach the chair and sit. “Poor Charles, dredgin’ the depths again?”

“My dear Moll, it is the variety in life that sustains me. Nell Gwynne, may I present Moll Davies, the finest actress the Duke’s Theater has ever had the fortune to possess. And I say so even if they did steal you away from our far superior King’s Theater, and from me.”

“Superiority, Charles, is a matter of opinion.” She laughed in a way Nell thought more suited to Maypole Alley whores than a prosperous, well-dressed actress.

“Not according to our receipts! You know we outsell you every month!”

“’Tis only because you’ve Mr. Dryden. A distinctly unfair advantage.”

She
was
from Maypole Alley. Her earthy accent and bawdy manner told Nell as much.

“Word is, you’re doing well enough for yourself,” Charles said, as the second woman was distracted, then called away, by another group of patrons across the crowded dining room.

“As long as I stay in His Majesty’s good graces, I am indeed.”

“So then it
is
true.”

“Everyone knows the king’s passion for the theater. I simply made it my business to know that…and anythin’ else ’e was passionate about!”

Intimidated by the grand surroundings, and the celebrity of Charles Hart and a royal mistress, Nell tried to think of something even half as clever to say.

“So those devilish poems about our king are true?” Hart asked.

“Every bit. ’Is Majesty is a great bear of a man with the most massive—” She abruptly dropped the final word hanging on her tongue and, with jarring condescension, lowered her gaze on Nell. “Perhaps I’ve said too much.”

“Oh, this is just Nell, an orange girl in need of a meal. Your secrets are safe in this room.”

Moll looked directly at Nell. A spark of competition flared between them. “Of course. But a girl simply can’t be too careful if she fancies keepin’ ’erself in the style to which the king of England ’as made ’er accustomed. And, believe me, I
will
remain accustomed! Mark me, girl, if you’ve a mind to actually captivate this fabulous man ’ere, for more than the indiscretion ’e expects, you’d do well to find yourself a mentor like me. Not to be overly boastful, but—” She touched the large stone at the end of a chain that stopped at her ample breasts. “My success
is
one to learn from!” She embraced Charles Hart, and then was gone.

Nell wanted to learn nothing from a woman like Moll Davies, no matter where she had come from. But as they dined on courses of oysters and roast leg of pork served on gleaming pewter dishes, Charles Hart was charming. He overwhelmed her with his attentions, and his clever tongue, and she found she rather liked it and him. After dinner, they walked in silence back toward Drury Lane and the theater, linkboys running back and forth around them lighting the path of others for a small fee.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said as they passed through a shadowy little cobblestone courtyard.

“I speak when I’ve somethin’ to say.”

“Did you not enjoy your dinner?”

“The meal was fine. ’Twas the performance before it that set my teeth on edge.”

“Mrs. Davies, was it? Now, you mustn’t take a woman like that too seriously, Nell. She’s a cock-if-you-please sort of girl, just bedded the king of England, and is enjoying her status as royal tart of the moment.”

Nell stopped abruptly beside the dirty windows of a closed tailor’s shop and looked at him. “I may be
just
an orange girl, Mr. ’Art, but I’ve a sight more pride than to go boastin’ about like a tart on Sunday.”

“People do a lot of things to get ahead in this world, Nell.”

“Maybe so. But there’s a limit to what
I
would do.”

“Is that a fact? Until you’ve been offered the brass ring like Moll has, or something close to it, you may want to reserve judgment. There are men who can make a working girl’s life far more comfortable, so long as she is open to the possibilities.”

“I may be common, as well, but I’ve my priorities.”

“Priorities rarely keep one warm at night, Nell. And there truly is not a common thing about you.”

They went up the pathway to Drury Lane and into the main door of the theater with his last words still echoing in her head. Standing inside, with the vacant pit and the rows of benches stretched before them, there was a great hollow grandness to the space. As they paused, Charles Hart turned and softly kissed her.

The only other man Nell had been kissed by had been one of her mother’s drunken lovers. The taste of his hot, wet mouth, dirty teeth, and breath stinking of ale had been with her since. Hart’s kiss was not repulsive; his breath smelled like the fine wine they had drunk at dinner. With his hand on the small of her back, he led her to his tiring-room. He began to kiss her again, more deeply this time, then roughly. Nell’s knees went weak. Her response turned to fear. She tried to protest, but he was stronger than she could have imagined, and when she struggled it only encouraged him.

Charles Hart pressed her forcefully against the closed door and was struggling with her dress. There was a tearing, then the sound of buttons clinking onto the floorboards. She tried to turn her head so that her mouth could break free from his, but he lifted his hand to her face and held her chin. Another childhood memory surfaced then. She could have been no more than seven or eight. She had hidden behind a divan on the first floor of the brothel. There had been a man doing this very thing, pressing one of the women up against the wall. His trousers were shoved around his thighs, the pink flesh of his buttocks pushing against her with a frenzied rhythm. Nell had felt curiosity then. She felt shame now. She had kept herself all those years. She had avoided them all. And now, with no more ceremony or care than the woman in the brothel that day, she was to become one of them.

“Pray, let’s not dally longer!” Hart said as he pushed her toward the velvet-covered daybed. “I do fancy a challenge,” he panted into her ear as he tossed her skirts and petticoat up onto her bosom, and into her face. “But too much of the coquette can surely sour any moment!”

She beat at his chest, hitting him with her fists. In an odd dance of pull and push, he had fumbled with his codpiece, lifted himself back onto her, then lunged forward. From then on, it was all tearing and thrusting, pushing into her, until suddenly he collapsed, an unbearable weight, and it was over. “God’s blood, but you had me wild for you,” he said to her then, kissing her forehead. “But I promise you, ’twill be better between us next time.” Arranging his shirt, waistcoat, and trousers, Charles looked back down at her, and saw something that stopped him. There were streaks of blood on her thighs. “Great God above! Tell me you were not still a maiden!”

“I tell you nothin’ now when you wouldn’t listen to anythin’ a moment ago.”

“A pox on it!” He gripped his head with both hands. “You should have told me! I’m not in the habit—” Charles Hart’s words fell away. He looked at Nell for another moment, his expression pained. It twisted his handsome face. He was shaking his head as he walked out of the room. “Damn orange sellers! Damn the lot of you!”

After he had gone, Nell slid from the daybed and onto the floor. She reached up to cover her breasts, where he had torn away the bodice, and only then realized how violently she was trembling. She smoothed out her dress and tried vainly to catch her breath. She tried to tell herself she was all right, that her mother and sister did
that
as a matter of course. She was not certain she could ever learn to actually enjoy it. For all of his reputation as a smooth and confident actor, Charles Hart had been a moaning, sweating pig. She wished she had at least been paid a few shillings if she was going to be forced to live the indignity of her mother and sister’s world after all. But that was her defenses talking, certainly not her heart. She felt a complete fool that her usual judgment had been so impaired by an outwardly charming and famous man. She really should have known better, she thought.

“Are you all right, mistress?”

A tentative voice shocked her and she turned, grasping the torn fabric tighter to her chest in response. “Who the devil are you?”

“Richard Bell, mistress.”

“Why are you ’ere?”

“I’m one of Charles Hart’s actors,” he replied. Then, in the awkward silence, he shrugged. “Actually, I’m more of a cleaning boy, one who gets onstage from time to time when Mr. Hart needs a larger crowd scene. But I have hope, anyway. It’s my foot in the door.” He waited a moment. “But you, you’re different from the others. I’ve seen you. You’ve a way with words.”

“’Tis only what I’m supposed to do to sell oranges.”

“But if you’ll pardon me for being bold, Mrs. Gwynne, you’ve got a spark.”

“And didn’t
that
just start a flame I didn’t want.”

They both knew what she meant. He ran a hand behind his neck. She looked away, aching to be somewhere else, even to be someone else.

“I have an idea how you can best him
and
better your own situation in the bargain.”

She truly looked at him then and saw a thin young man with limp hair and a wide, flat nose covered with a smattering of freckles. He had remarkably gentle brown eyes. He was everything Charles Hart was not. That registered with her, especially now. “No one goes up against a powerful man without his own reasons. What’s in it for you, Mr. Bell?”

“I don’t like Charles Hart. And I
do
like you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know I’d fancy getting the better of that rapscallion. And, I don’t know it for certain, but I believe you are the one to help me do it. If I’m right, we both win.”

“And if you’re wrong, we’ll both be out of the King’s Theater on our very common arses.”

“That you can be so witty after…” He took a breath. “Well. It tells me all I need to know.”

Richard Bell pushed past a collection of stage props and painted pictorial scenery after Nell had gone, pausing at the empty stage upon which Charles Hart was sitting, hunched over, head in his hands. “Something wrong, sir?”

“Foolish, foolish!” He was murmuring the word. He did not look up.

“The girl, sir?”

“She was still a maid. Blast! How was I to know?”

The obvious response was that a woman’s virtue should not be made an easy target of conjecture. But a confrontation with someone so much more powerful did not now suit his plan. His was a grander game of resourcefulness and opportunity. “She
is
but an orange seller, Mr. Hart.”

“And Mary Meggs’ll have my hide for knowing it! She’s lost three girls this past fortnight, and you will never convince her they weren’t all my fault!”

Richard Bell stepped closer. “Why not give Mrs. Gwynne a small part, as an apology. Nothing grand, mind you, just something in the background. A crowd scene along with me, perhaps.”

Charles Hart looked up. “The girl is no actress!”

“She has agreed to work on my lines with me for the performance tomorrow morning herself, playing Morgana. Mrs. Knepp once again wants my head on a platter for, she says, trying to upstage her in the second act, and she won’t rehearse with me. Why not watch from the side, and make up your mind about Nell then?”

“A more colossal waste of both our mornings could not likely be had.”

“And yet you might appease your conscience.”

“I’ve little conscience left about me, Bell. In this life, my concern has become self-preservation only.”

And a good dose of self-aggrandizement,
thought Richard Bell. But he wisely chose not to say it. Something told him from the beginning that Nell Gwynne was worth holding his tongue.