The Darling Strumpet. Gillian Bagwell

the hell her days and nights had become.

      As it happened, an escape presented itself that Nell could not have anticipated. Robbie Duncan noticed the bruises on her arms and throat and the livid blue-yellow patches on the insides of her thighs.

      “What happened there?” he asked, his face darkening. “Come, tell me,” he said gently when she didn’t answer.

      “It’s Jack,” she whispered, clutching the sheet around her. “Madam’s man. He—he comes to me sometimes, and …” She could not finish the sentence, and could not bring herself to look at him. He squatted on his haunches before her.

      “He hurts you? He means to hurt you?”

      She nodded.

      “He cannot do this to you. I will not allow it,” Robbie exclaimed, springing to his feet, but Nell knew that his slender frame was no match for Jack’s sinewy muscularity.

      She shrugged. “But he can. There is nought I can do to stop him.”

      Robbie paced and seethed, and finally stood before Nell.

      “Come and live with me. He cannot come to you there. I will take care of you.”

      Nell was astonished at the proposal, but Robbie was likeable enough and, given the choice, she would rather bed one man than many.

      So, with a payment from Robbie to Madam Ross for the loss of one of her stable, Nell became his. She packed her few belongings in a sack and moved to Robbie’s room at the Cock and Pie Tavern, at the top of Maypole Alley, only a few streets from the only homes she had known.

      CHAPTER SIX

      LIVING WITH ROBBIE, NELL FELT AS IF SHE WERE PLAYING AT BEING a wife. While he was at work at his father’s business in the City during the day, she tidied their room and fetched food from a cookhouse so that she had supper ready for him when he came home, and Robbie told her of his day and any news.

      “The king is to have bearbaiting at Hampton Court for Whitsuntide, as he did last year. Savagery. That’s one old custom that would have been better left in the past. The playhouses are bad enough. Oh, and Lady Castlemaine is brought to bed of a boy. He’s to be called Charles Palmer and Lord Limerick, as though he were the son of her husband, but no one believes that.”

      “Barbara Palmer’s husband had her son christened in the Popish church,” Robbie told Nell a week later over dinner. “But today the king took the child and had him rechristened in the Church of England. He’ll not have his son raised a Papist, bastard or no.”

      “And how did Palmer take that?” Nell wondered.

      “Not well,” said Robbie, chewing on a beef bone. “He’s broken from his wife at last and gone to France.”

      That night, to Nell’s surprise, Robbie went to sleep without touching her. She scarcely knew what to think and lay worrying. Was he tiring of her? Would he cast her out? But in the morning he seemed as usual, and she grew used to the novel idea that a man might not always want to couple.

      Being free from Jack’s attentions and serving the needs of many men was a welcome change. Nell’s body healed, and Robbie was gentle with her in bed. But before long, she found that the sameness of her days grew tedious. She missed the companionship of Rose and the other girls, but because she wanted to keep out of Jack’s way and because Robbie did not like her going there, she stayed away from Lewkenor’s Lane.

      Rose joined her sometimes for little outings, to watch the river traffic from the bridge, or to walk as far abroad as the countryside of Moorfields or Islington. There was usually something of interest to be seen at Covent Garden—rope dancers, jugglers, or occasionally a display of prize fighting.

      One brilliant summer day Nell and Rose set out on a pilgrimage to St. James’s Park, near the palace.

      “I hope we’ll see the king,” Nell said.

      “Perhaps we will,” Rose said. “Harry says the king has laid out a mint of money making the park fine again and walks out most days.” Harry Killigrew had recently become groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York.

      The park, with its blooming flowers and trees, seemed a paradise to Nell, and a world away from the dark land of nightmare where she had last been with Nick and the other boys on the night of the king’s return.

      “Look!” cried Rose, clutching Nell’s arm.

      Not fifty paces from where they stood, King Charles strode along in earnest conversation with some puffing minister who struggled to match his pace, the royal retinue straggling along behind. Nell watched, entranced.

      “He’s even more handsome than I remembered him.”

      “He is that,” Rose agreed. A bevy of ladies strolled in the king’s wake, decked in summer finery. The breeze caught their gowns and made Nell think of ships in full sail.

      “Look, it’s Lady Castlemaine!” cried Nell. “I wonder where’s her baby?”

      “Why, ladies like that don’t care for their own kinchins, but leave them to nurses. That’s why she can look so fine so soon after birthing.”

      “Look at that blue gown,” Nell sighed. “Why, now it appears gold!”

      “Changeable silk,” Rose said. “You’d have to lay out a month’s earnings to pay for that. But look at the patches now—those are cunning and would be easy enough to fashion.” Many of the ladies’ faces were adorned with small black patches in the shapes of stars, moons, suns, and animals.

      “That’s the high kick, that is,” Rose said.

      “I think it looks silly,” said Nell. “Besides, they’re like to itch most fearsome. I’d scratch them off in a minute.” She looked with longing at the pretty gloves, though, in a rainbow of shades of soft leather, and at the ladies’ full-brimmed hats with ribbons rippling from them.

      The weather was so fine and Nell’s spirits so high, she didn’t want the rare day of pleasure to end.

      “Let’s not go back yet,” she pleaded. “I’ve heard tell there’s an Italian puppet show at Covent Garden that would make a dog laugh. And I’ve a month’s mind for some cherries.”

      So it was evening before she climbed the stairs to Robbie’s room, with the guilty recollection that the tuppence he had given her to buy candles had been spent during the day’s outing.

      “You spent it!” Robbie cried. “And what are we to use for light?”

      “It’s not so dark,” Nell pleaded. “I’ll get candles tomorrow.”

      “I’ll get the candles myself,” he fumed, yanking the door open. “Since I cannot trust you to do as you’re told.”

      Nell lay awake that night, chafing with resentment. It was only tuppence, after all, and the first money she had spent on herself since moving in with Robbie.

      In the morning she strode into the taproom of the Cock and Pie downstairs. Cath, the barmaid, looked up from the jug she was washing and took in Nell’s stormy face.

      “You’ve a bee in your bonnet, I see.”

      “Are you hiring?” Nell demanded. Cath laughed.

      “Unhappy with Robbie, are you?”

      “I’ve no money to spend but what he gives me and I cannot do anything but what he tells me,” Nell fretted. “I spend my days alone and I’m so bored I don’t know what to do with myself.”

      “Best think twice afore you leave,” Cath cautioned. “Bored and fed is better than free and hungry.”

      Nell slumped onto the stool opposite Cath.

      “You’re