Royal Harlot (15 page)

“His Majesty the King!” the equerry announced breathlessly, only an instant before the king himself came striding into the room, his long legs easily outpacing both the equerry and the dogs.

At once I, too, sank down, dropping into another curtsey, though this for the sole benefit of His Majesty. This might be only a ragtag excuse for a court, but still I knew that reverence must receive its due. The kiss we’d shared earlier in private meant nothing before that. My heart was racing with anticipation and delight to be again in His Majesty’s presence, and only with the greatest effort could I keep my gaze suitably averted, I longed so much to look upon his handsome royal face again.

“No ceremony, no ceremony,” the king said with the easy cordiality that I would come to recognize was his by nature. I began to rise as he’d permitted, and as I did I realized he’d stopped directly before me, his little dogs panting at his feet.

“Why, Mistress Palmer,” he said. “Our newest friend. How happy we are to see you’ve returned to us so soon.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said, more starry-eyed than I wished to admit. “But how could I ever think to keep away?”

He chuckled and held his hand out to help me rise. He was dressed in a plain black doublet, breeches, and stockings that made the white of his linen all the more stark. Scattered with dog hair, the black cloth was worn and shiny at the seaming, the hems frayed and feathered in a sorry way that no monarch should be forced to suffer. Even here among his courtiers, there was nothing in his dress—no special ribbons, or medals, or other signs—to mark him as their king; I’d learn later this was from necessity, not choice, for he’d had to pawn every one of his orders and ornaments to support himself and the royal cause.

“You’re kind, madam,” he said wryly. “I assure you, there’s been plenty who have thought far worse than that of me.”

I took his hand, relishing the strength and size of his fingers around my own, and stood. I still had to bend my neck to meet his eyes, he was that much larger, and I tall for a woman, too.

“Then far worse are those who’d dare think such thoughts, sir,” I said, making my smile as warm as I could for him. He was much darker than any other English gentleman I’d known, not only in complexion but in the blackness of his eyes and hair. Doubtless he was vain about the luxuriance of his hair—a weakness for so many gentlemen above youth—for he wore it long and curling over his shoulders, and he wore a mustache, too, after the style of his cousin the French king. Though his hair was touched with silver here and there before his years—he was twenty-nine, hardly a graybeard—it only served to add distinction and a touch of gravity to his face. “In fact, sir, I should call it disloyal to the point of treason.”

He laughed, not so much at what I said as with pleasure in my company. “How thankful I am not to be forced to plead my innocence before such a righteous judge!”

“Only righteous, sir?” I asked, tipping my head to one side so my eyes were veiled by my lashes. “Am I so stern as that?”

“Righteous, stern, just, and beautiful, Mistress Palmer,” he said without hesitation, and raised my hand briefly to his lips. The whiskers of his mustache tickled the backs of my fingers, making me imagine how that mustache could taste and torment me in other, more intimate places upon my body.

“Now you are the kind one, sir,” I said, chuckling at my bawdy thoughts. “And you’ve quite convinced me of your boundless innocence as well.”

He laughed again, both understanding and appreciating the jest I’d dared to make. In perfect honesty, I doubted he’d ever been innocent of anything, not with those worldly black eyes. None of us who’d been born at that time were ever truly innocent, I think, innocence being the rarest luxury in childhoods torn by war, death, and loss.

“I thank the merciful wisdom of the bench, madam.” He nodded to the fiddler to resume his tune, and as if likewise prompted, the others once again returned to their conversations. I’d almost forgotten they’d been there, a silent audience watching me with the king, and I blushed, shamed by my own foolishness.

But the king misread my pink’d cheeks, and leaned closer.

“There now, madam, you’re innocent, too,” he whispered as he led me away from the others to stand beside the chamber’s lone window. I could feel the cold evening air through the single pane of glass, and glimpse the wavering light from the fires and candles from the house close next door. “We can pardon you of any sin or crime, you know.”

“You have such power, sir?”

His dark eyes seemed to darken further with cynicism or bitterness—likely both—and too late I realized I’d misstepped.

“I know it would seem that I’m a ruler without a country, madam,” he said, “but God willing, that will not always be so. Are you hungry? Will you have wine? It’s the gold you brought with you that’s paid for this small collation.”

I shook my head. “Forgive me, sir,” I said, resting my hand upon his forearm. “I spoke without thought, a grievous error.”

“And I should not have taken offense where none was offered.” He glanced at my hand on his sleeve, and with an obvious effort smiled. “With such supporters as you to cheer me, Mistress Palmer, I should find only comfort, not fault.”

“Then pray let me cheer you more properly.” I spread my fan again, and fluttered it before my face. He was the King of England, true, but beneath his crown he was only a mortal man, and how fortunate for me! “What amusements does your court enjoy here in Brussels, sir? What diversions?”

“Amusements?” He raised his brows, as if pondering a difficult question. “We are much as you see us, Mistress Palmer. We compose letters to those dear to us. We read new books from Paris or Rome. We listen to music and converse with friends. We walk, we ride, we hunt. And if a suitable partner of beauty and grace can be found for us, why, then . . .”

He paused, his dark eyes hinting at such great lascivious promise that I couldn’t help but smile knowingly in return.

“And if such a partner is found, sir?” I asked. “How then will you amuse yourself, and her?”

“Why, with a game of whist, madam,” he said with studied bland-ness. “Why else would one wish such a rare partner?”

I tipped back my head and laughed aloud. He laughed with me, his teeth white and even beneath his black mustache. I do not know if it was the shared strain between his Stuart blood and my Villiers, but there was a rare understanding between us two already. I can explain it no better than that, except to venture that whatever their station in life, whether by moonlight or sun, true rogues will always know one another.

I walked to the small table that had been set for card play and took my place beside the farther chair. I reached down and with one hand fanned the deck of cards into a neat half circle across the cloth.

“Will it please you to play now, sir?” I asked, still leaning forward to offer him a splendid view of my breasts, if he so chose to take it. “That is, if I am suitable to serve as your partner.”

“Oh, most suitable,” he said, coming to take the other chair. “But I prefer piquet to whist for its quickness and suitability for wagers. Piquet being a game best played by two hands, I’ll choose to be your opponent, not your partner.”

“Piquet it shall be.” I sat gracefully, sweeping my skirts to one side, while he took the other chair, his long-eared dogs settling around his feet. Although gaming with cards had long been outlawed by Parliament as an idle, wasteful pastime, it had proved an impossible prohibition to enforce, and my friends and I were all devoted gamesters. I was blessed with an apt head for ciphering points and stakes, and I loved the whim of fate, the heady joy that came when the cards fell right. I, too, liked piquet best, for it pitted one player against the other directly, without the tedium of waiting for a turn.

I gathered up the cards—already sorted and prepared for piquet, with only the sixes through aces and the other cards drawn—shuffled them into a stack and set them in the center of the table. “Shall you deal, sir, or shall I?”

“I’ll be the younger,” he said, using the name for a dealer in piquet. He claimed the stack of cards, shuffled them again, and began counting out our separate hands.

“Then I shall be the elder, to your younger,” I said playfully, for of course I was nineteen years to his twenty-nine.

“I will master you regardless, Madame Elder,” he said, studying his own cards. “Shall we set a wager?”

I looked at him over the cards in my hand, wondering if he’d set my honor at stake. Even now I could feel his knee pressing against mine as if by accident beneath the shield of the table.

I ran my fingertip lightly over the edge of the cards, the flat-faced queens and jacks staring up at me like doleful flounders. “But I’ve no money for wagering, sir.”

“Neither do I,” he said. “But there are other sorts of wagers.”

“A wager for the sake of amusement?”

“Amusement, yes, and sport,” he said, resting his elbows on the table to lean closer to me. “A stake gives urgency to the game. A purpose.”

Oh, I’d already guessed his purpose, just as I’d already decided I’d not grant it tonight. Even kings would do better to show a modicum of patience and realize how anticipation only served to heighten pleasure.

“A purpose, sir?” I asked, feigning innocence. “I thought that winning was purpose enough.”

He shrugged, but his knee against mine was more insistent. “For some, perhaps.”

“But not for you?”

“Oh, Mistress Palmer,” he said softly, “how can I say otherwise, when my entire life is a gamble?”

As he spoke, his smile turned charmingly rapacious, like a great dark wolf. I knew then he would indeed play to win, just as I realized in that moment that he
would
return to his throne and rule England as he’d been born to do. No one would keep him from seizing what was his by right and by blood. Nothing would stop him, except for his own death.

A great dark Stuart wolf, then, to my small fair Villiers vixen. I could sense the power that came not only from his royal title but from the man himself. Was it any wonder, then, that as he pressed his knee into mine under the table, I did not move away, but let my legs slip suggestively apart for him beneath my skirts?

“Very well, sir,” I said, making my voice low and velvety. “Then let us play not for points or money, but for a kiss.”

He glanced up, newly intrigued. “Your kiss, freely given?”

“Your kiss against mine, sir,” I said. “With such stakes, we both win.”

He laughed. “Then play away, madam, play away.”

Play we did, through blanks and discards, ruffs, and sequences, sets and tricks, pique and repique—all the pretty steps of the game, over and over. The king was as quick at the tallies as I, and I had to concentrate to keep my pace ahead of his, anticipating his next plays so I could plot my own.

The footmen came to stoke the fire with a fresh log, and when the candles burned low and guttered in the twin-armed sconces, other servants came to replace those as well. I’d lost any sense of time, or of how long the king and I sat there at our play, and I was nigh feverish from the heat of the play and the proximity of the king, with the flush of competition and excitement in his company upon my cheeks and bosom. So intent was I that I scarce noticed when the others gathered around the table to watch, praising a particular trick or groaning in unison when the cards fell amiss.

I did glance up once to see Sir Edward standing behind the king’s broad shoulder, his droopy-cheeked face glowering with disapproval for the sake of his royal charge. Likely what old Hyde saw he judged wicked enough, but if he’d only known what was happening beneath the table’s cloth, why, he might have perished from an apoplexy on the spot, and spared me much trouble later.

For while our hands were occupied with our cards above the table, below we blindly pursued another kind of sport. Before the king as the younger could deal the hands a second time, I’d already slipped my foot from my shoe, and dared to trail it across the king’s foot. He’d smiled at me, letting the others believe it was the cards that pleased him, though I’d known otherwise. As the evening progressed, my foot in its scarlet stocking had grown bolder, teasing against his shin, his calf, his knee, and thigh.

Yet unlike most men, the king believed that sauce for the goose served the gander as well, and before long his own stocking’d foot had worked its way beneath my skirts and smock, high above my garters to the bare, blushing skin atop my legs. Over our cards, we laughed and chuckled merrily, sharing the extent of our secret dallying between ourselves.

“There,” the king said as at last he tossed his final cards to the center of the table. “I’ve over a thousand points by now. If that doesn’t mark me as the winner, then by God, I don’t know what else will.”

“You are clearly the winner, sir,” a tall, ginger-haired gentleman beside me said with annoying eagerness. “I’ve counted every point myself, and yours far outnumber the lady’s.”

“Now, now, Conwell, you know better than to shame a lady like that,” the king scolded mildly, his gaze never leaving me. “Especially a lady as fair and generous as Mistress Palmer.”

Nodding my acknowledgment of his compliment, I sat back in my chair, taking surreptitious care to tuck my errant toes back into my shoe. By my own reckoning, I was certain I’d won the game, but I’d freely concede that to claim the far greater prize.

But the king, being a king, wished for more from me. He thumped the table with his open palm to claim my attention—as though he’d lost it, even for a moment.

“Come, madam,” he said. “You know a gamester’s duty. Surrender your forfeit.”

Around us the other gentlemen whooped and hooted like wild savages in a forest. The other two women had long ago vanished, doubtless from either boredom or indignant propriety. True, if I’d been the proper Mistress Palmer my husband wished, I would have been offended as well, even scandalized. But because I was my own self, I only smiled, and stood, shaking down my skirts so none would be the wiser.