Royal Harlot by Susan Holloway Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

for having Anne banished to Windsor made her as remote and unapproachable to me as if she’d been sent to a prison in Rome. Moreover, I’d much anticipated our dalliance with Philip, now never to occur, and the praise I’d receive from him for the novelty. It seemed most unkind to me that Anne should be made to suffer so grievously for the simple misfortune of being my friend and Philip’s acquaintance.
    But while I’d been happy to avoid Her Grace’s walking stick, my welcome at home was no less menacing. I’d but stepped into the hall when my own lady mother confronted me with a poker from the hearth in her hand, brandishing it over her head while sparks fair flew from her eyes at the sight of me.
    “You shame me, daughter, how you shame me!” She shoved me into the parlor, closing the door after us so the servants would not hear. “I’ve just this hour had word from the Duchess of Hamilton of the filthy tricks you tried to play with her daughter.”
    “The letter was meant as a jest, madam,” I said, trying my tactic with a different foe. “It was never intended for other eyes than our own.”
    “Surely you take me for a pretty fool, Barbara, if you think I should believe that rubbish.” She tossed the poker clattering beside the hearth with obvious disgust. “I have tried to look away, and hoped that your untrammeled behavior would in time settle itself. I prayed that some decent gentleman would offer for your hand, and make you his wife, and guide you safely through these troubled times of ours. But now you have openly ruined yourself and your prospects with a wastrel like Chesterfield, and I can neither hope nor pray any longer. And with Chesterfield , Barbara! Chesterfield, bah.”
    “He’s the Earl of Chesterfield!”
    “He’s a libertine, a drunkard, a gambler, and a duelist,” she continued in relentless litany. “He’ll never marry you.”
    “He loves me!”
    “Chesterfield loves no one but his own pleasures,” she said scornfully. “One day His Majesty will return to claim his throne, and where will you be when he does? Will you be ready to take your place as a jewel in his court, a respected lady, or will you be no more than a pox-riddled slattern, of use to no one?”
    “Her Grace cursed me as a whore, too,” I said, my voice rising to match hers. “Yet you would bid me do the same, to barter my body to a man for the sake of a fortune. At least I have pleased myself with His Lordship’s company, which is far more than I could ever do with the sorry males you would thrust upon me!”
    She regarded me so coldly that, even in my temper, I feared she might turn me out-of-doors forever. “You’re not a whore, Barbara, for a good whore would demand fair payment for what you give for free.”
    I tried to answer her heartlessness with a stony look of my own, my hands squared upon my hips. “Do you speak from experience, madam? Is that why you settled upon my uncle, that he gave fair payment for what little comfort you could offer him?”
    She struck me hard across my cheek with the flat of her hand, so hard that I saw wheeling stars before my eyes, and her furious face did seem to spin before me. But I didn’t stumble, or cry out, no matter that the tears smarted behind my lids. I would not give her that satisfaction.
    “Because you are my daughter, I’ll not treat you as you deserve,” she said, her breath coming in rapid puffs of rage. “Because you are your father’s dear child, I will give you another chance to save yourself, and your Christian soul. But, Barbara, I vow by all that’s sacred, if you continue in this manner your life will be marked with nothing but wildness and infamy.”
    I knew better than to answer her and have my ears boxed for my trouble, but in my heart I countered her boldly. Somehow, I vowed, I would find my place on the world’s bright stage. I would have love, and pleasure, and have all the pretty baubles of wealth and position: a house grander than