The King's Mistress (37 page)

“Oh, Jane,” he murmured into her ear. “Thank God you are well and with me once more. Can you forgive me for abandoning you?”

“Quite easily,” Jane murmured, amazed that it was true. “What fools we all would have looked to have taken such pains to bring you safe out of England only to have you die of the plague.”

“I
MUST HAVE ANOTHER LADY TO REPLACE POOR
K
ATE
,” M
ARY FRETTED
that evening. “But who am I to get?”

Jane suddenly thought of the Hyde family in Breda, and the look of admiration and longing on young Anne’s face as she listened to Mary talk about the doings at her court.

“What about Nan Hyde?” Jane asked, and was relieved to see Mary’s face brighten.

“An excellent idea! She is a good girl, most pleasant company, and surely would welcome a change from being cooped at home with her mother and the young ones. I’ll write to Lady Hyde now.”

B
Y THE TIME
N
AN
H
YDE AND HER MOTHER ARRIVED AT
A
IX
-
LA
-C
HAPELLE
in the first week of September, Charles’s merry band had swollen to near eighty. It seemed to Jane that every young Englishman within two days’ fast riding had come to join the king and his sister in their holiday making. There were excited rumours that Queen Christina of Sweden, who had abdicated her throne three months earlier, had fled her country on horseback wearing man’s apparel and might appear to join the royal siblings.

As they sat on a blanket spread on a green hillside sprinkled with little white flowers, Nan looked with keen interest at the tall young man laughing with Charles and Mary, his head thrown back and his long curls blowing in the breeze.

“Who is that?” she whispered. “I haven’t seen him before.”

“Prince Rupert,” Jane said. “His Majesty’s cousin. A fine-looking man, is he not?”

“Most handsomely made, indeed,” Nan smiled. “And not so fierce as I would have thought, for such a celebrated warrior.”

“He is not all fire and ice,” Jane laughed. “Indeed, there are rumours that our mistress might marry him.”

She looked again at Mary, who seemed happier and lighter of spirit than Jane had ever seen her, looking up at Rupert.

The days passed in a golden haze of pleasure. Charles and Mary, happy in each other’s company, threw off their cares, and their attendants caught their happy mood. Mary spent blithely on merrymaking and entertainments for everyone, and there was nothing for Jane to do but enjoy herself. During the days they wandered the pretty streets of the city, visited the shrine to Charlemagne in the cathedral, bathed in the healing waters, and took long jaunts into the sun-drenched countryside. The evenings were filled with suppers, dancing, and card games.

Mary had either not detected the fact that Jane did not always sleep in the room she shared with Nan Hyde, or she was turning a blind eye, and Jane passed blissful nights in Charles’s arms. He spent so much time with her that she knew there were no other women competing for his company. He was hers alone, and he had assured her that if she should get with child, he would find a way to care for them. This was the joyful time to which she had looked forward since their parting.

One afternoon they stole away from the others and walked arm in arm through the marketplace, admiring the medieval stone halls nearby. Charles was relaxed, hopeful about the possibility of his restoration, and in buoyant spirits. He bought a wreath of flowers and placed it on Jane’s head after unpinning her hair so that it cascaded over her shoulders.

“There.” He smiled down at her. “Now you look like a proper Queen of the May.”

She laughed. “But it’s September!”

He kissed her, his hand warm on her cheek, his fingers tangling in her hair. “My September Queen.”

He bought bread, cheese, grapes, and a stone bottle of wine, and they sat on the edge of a fountain to eat and watch the passersby. Charles fed Jane the deep red grapes, bursting with juice, kissing her between bites.

“What do you think, my love?” he asked. “Is Aix-la-Chapelle to your liking?”

“Anywhere that you are is heaven to me,” she murmured, resting her head against his shoulder.

Now that Charles had money from King Louis, Jane thought, perhaps he would keep her with him when Mary returned to The Hague. Her heart sang at the prospect.

After three weeks in Aix-la-Chapelle, the royal party travelled the forty miles to Cologne, where Mary took a sunny house with gardens for her and Charles and their closest attendants. Lord Taaffe arrived with a dancing master from Paris to teach the latest dances, and at Charles’s entreaty, Mary hired a company of musicians to play every night. The royal party was honoured at receptions at the Jesuit College, and the city magistrates welcomed Charles and showered him with gifts. The king’s retinue continued to swell. Among the more lively new additions was a handsome young man named Henry Manning, only recently come from England, who was soon seldom apart from Charles, Wilmot, and Taaffe.

“He was educated in the household of the Marquess of Worcester,” Wilmot told Jane one evening, “and not only did he lose both his father and brother in the wars, he was himself seriously wounded at Alresford.”

“He’s most likeable,” Henry Lascelles put in, refilling his wineglass, “and that, coupled with the fact that unlike most of us he seems to have plenty of ready money and he delights in treating his companions, makes him a most welcome addition to our little band.”

Jane smiled at her cousin. He was still affectionate, but seemed to have thrown off his air of hurt at her involvement with Charles, and all was well between them once more.

“Moreover,” Wilmot said, lowering his voice and glancing around to be sure he was not overheard, “Manning brings news of men, horses, arms, and gold, ready to be put to use in the king’s service in England when the moment should be right. A most valuable friend he may prove to the king.”

Philip William, who had recently succeeded his father as Count of Neuberg, invited Charles and Mary to his court at Düsseldorf, and the English party floated down the Rhine through golden fields. Jane was astonished at the banquet that night, when roasted swans dressed in their own feathers were succeeded by suckling pigs and then by so many dishes that she lost count. There was music and dancing, and as she watched Charles, fine in new clothes purchased in Cologne, she wished she could always see him so free of cares.

In October, Jane reflected that she had never been so happy. She had been in Charles’s company almost every day and most nights for three months. On this night, he lay next to her in the dark, his eyes closed. His breathing was slow and she had thought him asleep, but he rolled towards her and pulled her against him, nuzzling the back of her neck, and she felt the hardness of him rise against her. One of his hands closed on her breast, the other slid between her legs, his fingers slipping in her slick warmth, teasing and caressing.

“We ‘fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the Golden World’,” he quoted, his lips nibbling at her earlobe, and she laughed, and then gasped as his fingers caressed more insistently. She wanted to stay in his company forever, never to be parted again.

“I’ve been thinking,” he murmured. Jane’s heart leaped.

“Yes, my darling?” She moved herself against him, tremors of pleasure shivering through her.

“I think I will settle in Cologne.” He traced a finger around her nipple, and she felt his prick give a little jump against her buttocks. “The burghers here offer a most welcome sanctuary, and to tell you truly, I need a refuge now more than ever, after Aix-la-Chapelle. A most expenseful place.”

Jane waited. Surely he was about to tell her that she would stay with him, that her company was all he needed to complete his happiness. But he said nothing.

“And I?” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

His hands were busy on her breasts, and he rolled her onto her back and slid down to fasten his mouth on one of her nipples, his tongue moving teasingly over her flesh.

“Will I stay with you?” she asked, pulling his head up so that she could look into his eyes.

“In Cologne? Oh, Jane, the money from Louis is not all that much, really only enough to keep myself. And my time will be much taken up with the business of raising money and men. When things are more settled perhaps.”

“But …”

No words came that could adequately express Jane’s dismay and disappointment at the prospect of being parted from him again.

Charles rolled himself on top of her, nudging her thighs apart with his knee, but Jane put a hand to his chest, stopping him.

“But when will I see you again?”

“Why, I don’t know, Jane, but surely before long. I shall come to visit you.”

He was kissing her throat now, his mouth leaving tongues of flame on her skin. He thrust his fingers inside her, opening her to him, and she felt her resolve slip away at his touch.

“Will you?” she asked, her breath coming in short gasps. “Will you come to see me?”

“Of course,” he said, easing himself inside her. “You’re my Jane.”

M
ARY AND HER TRAIN LEFT
C
HARLES IN
D
üSSELDORF TO
return to The Hague while he made his way back to Cologne. Mary wept and clung to her brother, declaring she would not live until she was in his company again. Jane commanded herself not to weep at their parting, and succeeded in holding back her tears until he was out of sight only by the thought that she would see him again in several months, as he and Mary had already made plans to spend the next summer together.

Shortly after her return to The Hague, Jane was happy to receive a letter from Charles, delivered by Colonel O’Neill.

“My dear Jane: As the cold settles across the land here, so, too, it seems to settle into my bones and heart. You and my dear sister did more than you can imagine to lighten my spirits over these past months, and now that you are gone and I am left to my own company, the shadows seem to creep towards me.

“To pass the time I read—I am become most industrious in my studies of French and Italian—and hunt when I am invited. When I can read no more and must be active, I walk, as I have the means to do no more. My lord Wilmot chides me like a mother hen not to go bareheaded as I do lest I take cold, but upon my soul sometimes I think it cannot make much difference whether I live or die.

“My friends remind me that a wealthy bride is like to help me to my throne, and propose first one and then the other, but the prospect raises nothing in my heart but despair. I hate these princesses of cold northern climates.

“Were this not bad enough, scarcely had you left but I received a flock of letters from Paris with the alarming news that the queen my mother is most earnest in her efforts to change my brother Harry to a Papist, directly contrary to the last words of my dead father, and what is more, like to have grave effect upon my efforts to return into England. I have writ to her, to my brothers both, to Jermyn, to all who have a hand in it, that she must desist, and that if I have not my desire granted, it will be such a breach between the queen and me as can never be made up again.”

Q
UEEN
E
LIZABETH OF
B
OHEMIA WAS PLEASED TO HAVE HER NIECE
back home, and welcomed Nan Hyde and her mother to Mary’s household as she had welcomed Jane. Jane was coming to like Nan very much. The girl was smart and forthright, vivacious and good-humoured, and regarded Jane, twelve years older than she, with a gratifying awe.

The Christmas season seemed brighter to Jane than any she had celebrated in years. At the palace at Teyling, the court presented a masque, with Mary dressed as a Gypsy, and Jane and Nan as shepherdesses. Jane delighted in the dancing and music, and observed with amusement how Sir Spencer Compton, the youngest son of the Earl of Northampton, followed Nan with calflike eyes wherever she went.

“He would be quite a catch,” Jane whispered as Sir Spencer glanced at Nan anxiously from across the room.

“Oh, I suppose,” Nan shrugged. “But somehow he doesn’t appeal to me. I’ve never been in love. Have you?”

Jane was taken aback at the sudden blunt question and found herself stammering.

“I—yes.”

“Really? With whom? Is he here? Or where is he?” Nan’s brown eyes danced with excitement.

Of course Jane couldn’t admit her feelings for the king. The image of Geoff Stone rose to her mind.

“He’s in England. We knew each other before the war, but then his family fought against the king.”

“Oh.” The merriment faded from Nan’s eyes. “So many possibilities ruined by the arch rogue, as Her Majesty calls Cromwell.”

T
HE
P
RINCESS
R
OYAL ANNOUNCED THAT SHE WOULD VISIT HER
mother in Paris, and as Jane packed for the journey, she recalled Princess Louise’s comment that Mary hated the Netherlands. Perhaps it was true, for Mary certainly spent much time away from there, though it meant leaving her little son William, now four and a half years old, in the company of his nurses. Child though he was, he was a prince of Orange, and must remain in his lands.

Jane had thought that perhaps Charles would join them in France, but as she was packing for the journey, she received a letter from him that disappointed her hopes of seeing him, but raised bright prospects for his future.

“March 15, 1655. My dear Jane: I write to you in haste from Middleburg, whither I have come to be ready to embark for England, for though I scarce dare write it, there are risings afoot at home that promise much. I have thought much of you these last days, as I rode hither from Cologne with only my lord Ormonde and a groom, using once more the name of Jackson. I would you had been with me; it would have lightened my heart and my spirits much. I will write to you when I can. Your most affectionate friend, Charles R.”

The hopeful news from Charles added to the holiday spirit as Mary’s entourage set out on their journey. Jane, Nan, and Lady Stanhope rode with Mary in her carriage, followed by a string of carriages and wagons bearing servants and the clothes and household items without which the Princess Royal could not travel, and guards to watch over them. The party made its way from The Hague to Antwerp and then to Brussels. At Mons they were greeted by the celebratory firing of cannon and the city magistrates accorded to Mary the customary honour of setting the watchword for the night. On the train went through Flanders, finally crossing into France. Smiling country folk waved from the side of the road, awed by the royal cavalcade, and when they reached Peronne, Mary cried out in delight to learn that her brothers, the Duke of York and the Duke of Gloucester, had come to meet her and accompany her the rest of the way to Paris.