“Mmm. And that’s quite enough from you, my pet. Leave us now. I will see you later.” The king gave his pouting mistress a pat on the rump that she returned with an angry hiss, and sent her on her way. “She has a point, though, Captain,” he said returning his attention to Robert. “You are very well dressed for a fellow who has just been stripped of his possessions.” He gestured toward the sword. “You came ready to do battle?”
“I came because you summoned me.”
“Yes?”
“And I was curious.”
Charles nodded. “Naturally. That’s a wicked weapon, Captain, if not terribly practical. Worth a good deal of money, I expect. Most prefer something lighter, with more flexibility. A rapier or cutlass perhaps.”
Robert shrugged. “It is not meant for dueling or to impress the ladies, Your Majesty. You might call it…a personal possession of sentimental value. It was left me by my father.”
“Ah!” The king looked at him with a grin. “Call me Charles. May I see it?”
The moment he drew the sword four men at arms stepped from the shadows, along with two gentlemen who’d been playing cards in an alcove across the room. Robert didn’t know if it was a display meant to warn him, but as an officer he was impressed. Charles motioned them back with a negligent wave and, after Robert laid his sword on the table, gestured for him to sit.
“Germanic perhaps. They do like their wolves.” He examined the blade with interest. “But I’ll wager this is a Spanish steel.” He turned it over. “Lex Talionis. Tell me, Captain—” he leaned forward, and there was hint of playful challenge in his voice “—on whom do you seek revenge?”
Robert leaned forward, too. “If it were some fellow seated in this room, Majesty, he’d already be dead.”
“God’s blood but you’re a bold and impudent fellow!” Charles’s laughter rang through the room. “You’re not exactly what I expected, but damn me if I don’t think you’ll do. Here. Take it back.” He slid the sword to Robert. “It’s bound to be an accursed nuisance when dancing. Have a care not to trip up the ladies tonight.”
Is our interview over? Why in God’s name did he summon me to court? “Your Majesty. I came here at your summons. I’ve been waiting all day. Might I enquire as to—”
“All in good time, Captain. Come. Hurry now or we shall be late.”
Robert knew the king was notoriously informal. It was said he attended private parties, taverns, even brothels, and played the country gentleman at New-market every fall. It was unheard of in any other court in Europe, yet he and his brother James could be seen frequently at dinner and supper, dispensing with formality for the sake of entertainment. It took remarkable courage and confidence in the love of his people to allow them to see and interact with him as simply a man. He felt a grudging respect. But it was a shock nonetheless to be bundled into a carriage and told they were off to a party that his other mistress and he were hosting in their town house on Pall Mall.
It was almost May, a beautiful night, and though dusk had already settled it wasn’t yet full dark when they rolled to a stop in front of a grand three-story house on the desirable western end of the street. Shaded by elms, with a garden adjoining the king’s garden at St. James’s Palace, it backed onto the park. Several carriages were arrayed on the street out front, and it looked as if the gathering was already well under way.
There were occasions in battle when despite training, planning and good intelligence, one found oneself cut off and lost in a situation one couldn’t foresee or control. When that happened, one trusted to one’s instincts and waited, going with the flow of things, watching for that moment when direction and momentum could be wrested back again. Robert Nichols still had no idea why the king who’d stripped him of his lands had summoned him to court and made him his boon companion, so with no answers forthcoming, he prepared to observe.
CHAPTER SIX
HOPE MATHEWS HAD NEVER felt happier. Hosting this evening with Charles and his friends made up for a thousand tiny hurts.
For the past year and half, just like Cinderella, she would appear at Whitehall, set tongues to wagging, then hurry home at midnight with nothing but the remnants of a dream. But tonight it was she who was hosting the ball! Well…dinner party. Tomorrow would be May Day, and tonight was an informal private celebration for only his closest friends. To hold it at her lodgings was to acknowledge her importance to him in front of those whose opinion he valued most. She knew she wouldn’t have him much longer, but while she did, she couldn’t help but love him for letting her enjoy the fantasy, and pretend for one night that she was his queen.
He had left her to manage it, telling her to spare no expense, and she was almost bouncing with excitement, waiting for him to see what she had done. She had worked day and night for two weeks to prepare, turning the house into a feast for the senses. A place to celebrate the summer to come, in luxury, comfort and ease. She surveyed it all with a wide smile, confident it was a night everyone would remember. A night that would make Charles proud.
The air was fragrant with scented beeswax candles, baskets of fruits and masses of flowers, many of which she had grown in her own beloved gardens under the tutelage of Charles’s gardener, her mentor in all things floral, John Rose. Boughs of greenery decked the banisters, mantels and arches, and flower-covered arbors and miniature maypoles marked private grottos both inside and out.
The servant girls wore floral garlands and the footmen were painted as jack-in-the-green and dressed in leaf-green linen. Music drifted through the salon from hidden alcoves, cheerful and unobtrusive, weaving into the happy hum of laughter and conversation as people flirted and gossiped and played at cards. A crystal chandelier blazed overhead and side tables sparkled with decanters of malmsey, Rhenish, sack and canary, and beautifully wrought glasses trimmed in silver and gold.
In the dining room opening off the salon, a long table stood ready, draped in white linen, piled high with platters of chicken, mutton, lobster and tarts from which people could serve themselves. A silver dinner service with the initials H.M. shone splendid in the candlelight, and there was a large silver bowl filled with rosewater for guests to dip napkins and wash their hands.
They had invited about fifty guests in all. The king’s brother James and his son—the Duke of Monmouth—had already arrived. Buckingham was busy at cards in the corner with Elizabeth de Veres, Lord Rivers’s pretty wife. Hope regarded her curiously. She liked the poet. He’d been kind to her, despite her lowly background, treating her as well as any court lady, though it was clear he found her faithfulness to Charles amusing. How curious now to find him in love with his own wife. Charles admired her, too. What is it such men crave from these virtuous seductresses? Virtue is something no man will look for in me.
All that was missing was Charles. A cheer made her look to the entrance. A tall and ruddy dark-haired man, wearing an ostrich-plumed hat tilted at a rakish angle and a gold-braided crimson coat, came sweeping through the door, dwarfing most of those around him both in presence and in size. Charles at last! Her face broke into a happy grin and her heart raced a few beats faster. No doubt he had the same effect on every woman in the room. But tonight he is mine.
Her gaze sharpened and she looked with interest at the man who walked beside him. She’d never seen him at court before or she would have remembered. Lean-waisted, broad-shouldered, with a powerful frame, he topped Charles by a good two inches. He seemed solid in a way one seldom saw among men living the soft life at court. He moved like a swordsman: lithe, graceful, yet there was something almost wolfish about him. It was easy to imagine him strapped in armor atop a war horse like some vengeful knight of old. He was familiar somehow, as if he might have walked into her home straight from one of her dreams.
She watched him, mesmerized, as she wove though her guests to greet Charles. He wore a rich black suit with a white-plumed slouched hat. A matching officer’s sash served as a