The King’s Mistress

He looked off into the deepening shadows, silent. For God’s sake, give him something, Jane thought miserably.

“That in itself is a world, which any woman should be overjoyed to accept. I shall think on your offer most seriously. May I answer you at Michaelmas?”

“At Michaelmas, then,” he smiled. “And I will possess myself in patience during those two months as best I may.”

“YOU WHAT?” WITHY CRIED.

“Asked him to wait?” Jane’s mother breathed. “Sir Clement Fisher, and you asked him to wait?”

“Jane!” Athalia looked as shocked as though Jane had said she’d stuck a fork into Sir Clement’s hand. “Has John not told you of the house? And the miles of parkland in which it sits?”

“Here are two of your nieces, younger than you, and betrothed!” Jane’s mother scolded. “He does you such honour, and you fling it away!”

“I know!” Jane cried, throwing up her hands. Their words echoed the fears ringing in her head. “I know. He is all that I should want, and yet I cannot make myself love him.”

“Love the deer park,” Withy snorted. “Love for the man may come hereafter.”

LATER THAT NIGHT, WHEN MOST OF THE HOUSEHOLD HAD GONE TO bed, Jane found her father reading in his little study, peering over the rims of his glasses in the flickering candlelight. He looked up as she came in and reached out a hand to her. She took it and sank onto the fat little hassock next to his chair, on which she had spent so many happy hours as a child keeping him company as he worked. During his years as a justice of the peace she had observed in silent admiration as he counselled friends and neighbours and resolved complaints and disputes, most frequently with all parties happy at the outcome.

“You look troubled, sweetheart,” he said, kissing her hand. “What’s amiss? Or do you care to discuss it?”

“Mother and the others are vexed that I asked Sir Clement to wait.”

“Ah, that,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

“And have you not lost patience with me, too, Father? Are you not afraid I’ll end a sad old maid?”

“Never in life.” The love and comfort in his voice soothed her agitation. “And come to that, I’d rather you were happy and unwed than a miserable wife.”

“I wish I’d been born a man.” Jane sighed. “Or at least that I had the choices a man does. Look at Richard—only a year older than me, yet he can set the course of his own life, go where he wills. While I must keep at home and wait, though for what, I know not.”

“I’d not have you other than as you are. Sir Clement is a good man, and if you can be happy with him, he’ll make you a good husband, I have no doubt. But whether you wed or no, you’ll never want for a comfortable home here with us, or with John and Athalia once your mother and I are gone.”

“I know.” Jane squeezed her father’s hand. “What are you reading?” she asked, standing to look over his shoulder.

“Virgil. Something about these times puts me in need of the classics.”

“Nothing but bad in the newsbooks,” Jane agreed. “And though the ancient folk had their share of woes, they somehow seem less dire in rhyming couplets.”

Thomas laughed, his eyes disappearing into the wrinkles around his eyes. “Well put, honey lamb. Now, never fret. We’ll find something to distract your mother with, and let you think in peace.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_631f59c8-b98b-5fe2-93d2-59d67d23b572)

THE DAY AFTER JANE’S BIRTHDAY, SHE FELT AT A LOSS. THE celebration was over and Clement was put off a few weeks. It was what she had asked for, and yet she felt discontent, with herself and the world. What on earth did she want? she wondered, looking at her reflection as she brushed her hair.

“You have a letter, Mistress Jane.” Abigail appeared at the bedroom door, letter in outstretched hand, and Jane took it from her eagerly.

“It’s from Ellen!” Jane cried. “Mrs Norton. Ellen Owen as was.”

“Oh, I hope she’s well,” Abigail smiled, her dark curls bobbing. “I always did like that lady.”

Jane sat on the window seat and broke the seal on the letter. It was not often she received mail, and it made the day seem special. Her dearest friend Ellen had married the previous year and gone to live at her husband’s grand home, Abbots Leigh, near Bristol, a hundred miles away. When Ellen lived nearby, she and Jane had visited each other frequently, sharing their hopes and dreams, and it seemed that Ellen’s dreams had come true. George Norton was everything she had wanted in a husband—handsome, rich, earnest, and above all, passionately in love with her. In November her happiness was to be crowned with the birth of a baby and her letter was full of her joy at impending motherhood.

I feel so peculiar and yet so wonderful that I don’t think I can describe the sensation with any justice. My belly has begun to swell, and with marvel I run my hands over it and know that within lies a copy of my dear George (for I am sure it is a son, and my mother writes that carrying a baby low as I do is a sure sign that the child is a boy). My bosom, too, has grown, though surely it is too early for milk to be there, and though perhaps it is indecent of me to put it to paper, George seems to take even more delight in my body thus than he did when we were first wed.

An image of the grinning Gypsy flashed into Jane’s mind. She wondered what it would be like to lie with a man, and then wondered whether she would ever find out.

Oh, Jane, I wish that you were sitting next to me so that I could whisper to you these thoughts and feelings that I blush to write. Nothing would give me more joy than were you to come to visit when I am brought to bed and remain for some time after the baby is born. Though in name I am mistress here, in truth I feel as if I am still the guest of George’s mother. I have no real friends and long for your company.

I will go, Jane thought. Perhaps Ellen can tell me what I’m waiting for, and whether I’m a fool to wait. There must be some sign she can point to, something that will tell whether I should marry Clement or no.

She ran to find John and discovered him in shirtsleeves in the stables among a crowd of grooms and stable hands. The big stallion Thunder was out of his box, and the gate was open into the stall where the pretty new dappled mare stood, whinnying and jerking nervously at her halter. The men looked embarrassed to see Jane, and she realised they must be about to put the stallion in to cover the mare, but she was so excited at the prospect of the trip that she couldn’t wait.

“Ellen wants me to visit her when she has her baby! I so much want to go.”

The scent of the mare in his nostrils, Thunder blew out a great whuffling breath and reared, and the boy holding his bridle narrowly avoided the slashing hooves.

“Have a care there, Tom.” John turned briefly to Jane, but his attention was on the horses. “You’ll need a pass to travel, you know.”

“Oh.” She had not thought of that. “But surely you can arrange it?”

“I daresay.” He laid a calming hand on the shying mare. “But let’s speak of this later, when I’m at leisure.”

He sounded impatient, and as Jane made her way back to the house, she realised that perhaps it was because the arrangements for her travel would have to be made with the governor of Stafford. John had been governor of that town, as well as nearby Lichfield and Rushall. But Stafford had fallen to the enemy and the Parliamentary colonel Geoffrey Stone, once John’s friend, was now governor, though even the rebel officers regarded John with respect.

She had her own reasons for feeling uneasy about a meeting with Colonel Stone. Just before the war had begun, when she was fifteen, young Geoff Stone, then twenty-three, had begun paying court to her. The matter had not gone so far as an engagement, but Jane had liked him very much, as had her family, and it had been painful and embarrassing for everyone when it became apparent they were on opposite sides of a disagreement that would be settled on the battlefield.

THE NEXT MORNING JOHN POPPED HIS HEAD IN JANE’S BEDROOM door, booted and his coat over his arm.

“I’ll ride to Stafford today and see Geoff Stone. I don’t think he’ll give us any trouble about letting you visit Ellen. Someone must travel with you, though. I’ll ask him to make the pass for you and a serving man, and we’ll settle later who is to go.”

“Thank you,” Jane said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “It means so much to me to see Ellen. And I’m just as glad not to have to see Geoff myself.”

John was so much older than she that it was almost like having a second father, Jane thought. And while she revered Thomas Lane for his gentle wisdom, John was a big bluff soldier in his prime, and with him she always felt that nothing could hurt her.

“It’s little enough I can do,” John said. “The wars brought trouble in so many ways, we must find our way back to as many ordinary pleasures as we can.”

That evening he returned with the precious pass, authorising Mistress Jane Lane to travel the hundred miles from Bentley to Abbots Leigh, accompanied by a serving man.

“Colonel Stone asked me to send you his compliments and best wishes for a safe journey,” he said. “He’s a good man, for all that I disagree with him about the governance of the country.”

ON AN AFTERNOON A WEEK LATER, JANE HEARD THE WAGON RUMBLE up the drive and then excited voices in the stable yard. John and her father had set out for Wolverhampton for the weekly market, but they had hardly been gone long enough to accomplish their business. She peered out the window and saw Richard and her cousin Henry listening intently to John, though she couldn’t catch the words.

She ran downstairs and out the door on the heels of her mother and Athalia.

“What is it, Thomas, what’s happened?” her mother cried. Her father turned to them, his eyes burning with emotion.

“King Charles has crossed the border at Carlisle with his army and was proclaimed king at Penrith and Rokeby.”