The King's Mistress (38 page)

The young dukes galloped towards Mary’s carriage on two fine dark geldings, and Mary leaped out to embrace them.

“Harry!” she cried, holding the Duke of Gloucester at arm’s length. “Look at you—standing head and shoulders above me now!”

It was true; the boy Jane had met more than two years ago was now fifteen and had turned into a young man, who greeted Jane with grown-up gravity.

The Duke of York had arranged a lavish supper for his sister and her attendants, and the castle in which they were to lodge was far more grand than any place they had stopped since leaving The Hague. As Jane followed Mary into the great hall, she surveyed the room happily. She was much more comfortable than she had been in days, having had a bath and put on clean clothes, and she was looking forward to the meal that promised to be delicious, judging by the smells wafting on the air.

“Mistress Lane!”

Jane turned at the sound of the familiar voice to see the Duke of York approaching her, followed closely by two elegantly dressed gentlemen.

“Mistress Lane, I didn’t greet you properly before. What a great pleasure to see you again,” the duke said, raising Jane from her curtsy.

“I thank you, Your Highness,” she smiled. “What a lovely welcome.”

The duke’s looks had much improved in the three years since she had seen him, Jane thought. At nineteen he had been almost as tall as Charles, but slender and gawky, looking hardly more than a boy. Now he had fleshed out. His shoulders were broader, and Jane thought it was more than just the elegant blue officer’s coat he wore that gave him an air of self-assurance and command. He wore his own hair, which lightened from a golden brown at the top of his head to a rich honey in the curls that fell over his shoulders.

“Lord Gerard and Sir Charles Berkeley,” the duke said, indicating the men who stood at either side of him.

“Of course.” Jane smiled at the duke’s companions, handsome men both. Perhaps the remainder of the journey to Paris would be quite pleasant, if they were along. Jane felt rather than saw a presence just behind her right elbow, and turned to see that Nan Hyde was standing there, her eyes shining with excitement as she gazed at the three young men before her.

“Your Highness,” Jane said. “May I present Mistress Anne Hyde, the eldest daughter of Sir Edward, who has lately joined me in service of Her Royal Highness.”

Nan sank in a graceful bow, the cloud-blue silk of her gown pooling on the floor around her, and as she raised her eyes to meet the duke’s, Jane noted the look of thunderstruck enchantment that passed over his face, and the blush that spread over Nan’s roselike cheeks as he kissed her hand.

“Mistress Anne,” the duke murmured. “The next time I see your father I shall have to chide him for denying us your acquaintance until now.”

Nan giggled, almost wriggling like a puppy, Jane thought, and Gerard and Berkeley exchanged a knowing look behind the duke’s back.

The evening’s supper and dancing were merry, and Jane’s enjoyment was heightened by the knowledge that they were now within a few days’ journey of Paris. She was struck by the image of golden rays, like those of the sun, reaching from Paris to warm the reaches of the French countryside.

L
ATER THAT NIGHT, AS
J
ANE UNDRESSED FOR BED, SHE NOTED
N
AN
staring dreamily at her own reflection in the mirror as she brushed her hair.

“You look as though you’ve got a bit of moonbeam caught in your eye,” she murmured. Nan did not respond at first, and when she realised Jane had spoken to her, laughed self-consciously.

“Oh! I was only thinking that I hope the Duke of York shall remain in Paris once we get there.”

“I expect he shall,” Jane said, looking closely at Nan’s face. “You like him, do you?”

Nan flushed to the roots of her hair but nodded emphatically. “I think he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

Jane smiled. So there was a man who could pique Nan’s interest. Too bad that aside from Charles himself, the Duke of York was about the only man in the world that Anne Hyde could not hope to marry.

T
HE COUNTRYSIDE THROUGH WHICH THE CONVOY PASSED NOW WAS
close to the way that Jane and John had travelled from Dieppe to Paris after their long walk to Yarmouth, and Jane reflected what a difference, from that last exhausted leg of their terrifying journey, to this luxurious jaunt.

Queen Mary and Minette, now eleven years old, met Mary’s retinue at Bourget.

“Oh, what a beautiful thing you are,” Mary cried, taking Minette into her arms. “What a treasure!”

The queen embraced Jane like a long-lost daughter.

“Mistress Jane, how happy I am that you are here with us. You must come and visit with me when you are settled and tell me all your news.”

The royal family, all together except for Charles, were feted by the French court. Suppers, dancing, music, theatre, every day some new excitement. Nan Hyde and the Duke of York were frequently near each other, and one night at supper Jane noted the sour look on Queen Mary’s face as she watched the duke lean close to Nan to whisper something to her, and Nan blush and giggle in delight.

“He told me he loves me!” Nan told Jane that night as they undressed for bed. “Oh, Jane, I have never been so happy in my life.”

“I’m glad for you, sweetheart,” Jane said, taking in the glow that suffused Nan’s face. “But have a care.”

“What do you mean?” Nan demanded, her forehead puckered with sudden worry.

Tread carefully,
Jane told herself. She recalled her pain when Mademoiselle d’Épernon had warned her against giving her whole heart to Charles.

“I mean that though no doubt he loves you, if he says so, it does not mean that he can marry you. Should something happen to the king, the duke would succeed him. The choice of his bride will not be his alone.”

“Oh, pooh,” Nan scoffed. “I’ll not worry about that now. It scarce seems likely that His Majesty will ever sit on the throne, let alone that his brother will, does it?”

Jane thought of her last letter from Charles, and his hopes for the risings at home.

“Perhaps it doesn’t seem likely now. But we cannot tell what may come.”

Her heart ached to see Nan looking sad now, and she went to the girl and stroked her cheek and smiled. “Take pleasure in his company, by all means. But keep your mind open to other possibilities if you can.”

The following week, Nan fell ill, and the doctors gave the dreaded news that it was smallpox. Jane sat with Nan in the evening, reading to her and coaxing her to drink some broth to keep up her strength. When Nan had at length fallen asleep, Jane left the room to find the Duke of York lurking outside the door.

“How is she?” he asked anxiously. “Can I see her?”

“She’s sleeping now, Your Highness,” Jane said, looking up into his grey eyes, clouded with worry. “I’ll tell her in the morning that you were here. But surely it would be more wise not to endanger yourself by visiting her until she’s better?”

She was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

“I don’t care what happens to me,” he whispered. “If she should—if she should not recover, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’ll come to you in the morning,” Jane promised, “and tell you how she does. But I pray you have a care for yourself, Your Highness. Sleep, and hope for the best.”

Against all odds, Nan’s condition improved over the next few days, and soon the doctors pronounced her out of danger.

“Thank God,” Nan said, examining her reflection anxiously in a hand mirror as she lay in bed. “My face is not scarred. I don’t think I could have borne that. How could I have faced His Highness with a pockmarked face?”

“You are most fortunate indeed,” Jane agreed. “But if he loves you, surely it would not have made any difference in his feelings.”

T
HE SPIRITS OF THE
E
NGLISH IN
P
ARIS WERE DOWNCAST BY THE
news that the uprisings at home had been found out and put down, and that Charles had returned to Cologne, seemingly further than ever from being restored to his throne. Jane received a letter from him, and hurried to read it in private.

“My dearest Jane: As you will hear by others, my great hopes were disappointed. Of course many lay the failure at my door, and I am sure the talk is even more blameful where you are, but I pray do not give credit to those people who take upon them to censure whatever I do, and have no way to appear wise but to find fault with whatever is done. They who will not believe anything to be reasonably designed except it be successfully executed had need of a less difficult game to play than mine is. I hope we shall shortly see a turn, and (though it be deferred longer than I expected), I shall live to bid you welcome to Whitehall. Your most affectionate friend, Charles R.”

Hard on the heels of the discouraging news from England, a mud-spattered messenger arrived from The Hague with word that Mary’s little son William was ill with the measles, and within hours, Mary’s carriage was clattering away from Paris and towards home as Jane and Lady Stanhope tried to comfort the weeping Princess Royal. Nan was tearful, too, and Jane knew it was because she had been parted from the Duke of York.

Little William was out of danger by the time his mother reached him, but the hurried trip had been wearing, and Jane sank exhausted into bed, glad to be done with travelling.

M
ARY WAS STILL PLANNING TO SPEND THE SUMMER WITH
C
HARLES
in Cologne, and Jane was eagerly counting the days until she would see him again. In June, less than a week before they were to leave, she received a letter from her mother. She opened it eagerly, always glad of news from home. But her face fell as she read, and Nan looked up in alarm at Jane’s little cry of dismay.

“What is it?”

“My brother and my father have been arrested,” Jane said, the blood draining from her face. “And my uncle. They were not told the cause, my mother writes, but she is in great fear that it is to do with our helping the king.”

Her mind raced with helpless anxiety. Her poor father was sixty-five years old, and his health would surely suffer if he were imprisoned for long. And if it were proved that John had helped the king to escape, and had then helped her, it would mean his death, and his large family would be left to struggle without him. The thought that her father, brother, and uncle could already be dead overwhelmed her.

She could not go to see Charles now, she realised with a pang. She must stay and wait for further news, for she would not be able to live with herself if she had gone gadding to Cologne, losing herself in carnal ecstasy in Charles’s arms, while her brave old father and uncle and John met their deaths.

Jane retreated to her room and wept. Waves of homesickness washed over her. Particulars of Bentley and the family sprang to her mind in vivid detail. Nurse’s faint fragrance of the lavender in which she kept her clothes, the clouds of blossoms when the orchard was in bloom, the old mark in the dark panelling of the great hall to record the height of Walter Parsons, the Staffordshire giant. The raven with the crooked beak that lurked near the banqueting house. And her cat, Jack. She could see his tranquil pale green eyes and stumping gait, and wished desperately she could clasp him to her and feel the rumble of his purr against her. The thought of him was more than she could bear, and she clung to her pillow and sobbed.

The terrifying news from home reawakened Jane’s anxiety about her place in Charles’s heart. She wrote to tell him that she would not be able to accompany Mary on the summer’s visit, and added, striving to keep her tone light, that he must surely forget her after such a long absence. Charles’s letter was reassuring in its promptness and bluntness.

“My dear Jane: I did not think I should ever have begun a letter to you with chiding, but you give so just cause by telling me you fear you are wearing out of my memory, that I cannot choose but tell you I take it very unkindly, after the obligations I have to you, that ’tis possible for you to suspect that I can ever be so wanting to myself as not to remember them on all occasions to your advantage. Which I assure you I shall, and hope before it be long I shall have it in power to give you those testimonies of my kindness to you which I desire.

“I am very sorry to hear that your father and brother are in prison, but I hope it is upon no other score than the general clapping up of all persons who wish me well. And I am the more sorry for it since it hath hindered you from coming along with my sister, that I might have assured you myself how truly I am your most affectionate friend, Charles R.”

Jane read the letter over again, smiling at the thought of how he would have assured her how truly he was her most affectionate friend if they were together. So he did miss her.

M
ARY DEPARTED FOR
C
OLOGNE IN
J
ULY, AND
J
ANE CONSOLED HERSELF
with the company of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Louise, and awaited further news from home.

Clement Fisher wrote, assuring Jane that he had been to Bentley to offer any assistance that her mother and family might need while John and Thomas Lane were in prison.

“It is a troubling time,” he wrote. “There are rumours that Cromwell might be crowned king, a sad and ironic thing, if it should come to pass. There are even wild whispers that the king might marry one of Cromwell’s daughters, and so find his way back to some kind of rule, though it seems to me that such a beast, half monarchy and half republic, would not live long, and from what I have heard of the king it scarcely seems a thing to be believed.”

No, Jane thought. She couldn’t imagine Charles meekly accepting joint rule with Cromwell, and sitting down at a council table with the men who had been responsible for his father’s murder.

She received a letter from Charles a few weeks later. “My sister and I have made a jolly journey to Frankfurt. We have come incognito, but ’tis so great a secret that not above half the town knows it. There is a company of English players here, and I thought of you, Jane, and how you would have enjoyed their show, perhaps especially because there were women among the players—actresses! What a novel idea it is—it improves the playing, I think, to have real women. And not only for the reason you may suppose I think of!